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POV: Lyra Denith, Dendredan surveyor.
In the short time that the Asgard were helping to move the population of Dendred to the new homeworld of Kaelastrum, they noticed several unidentified structures all over the planet. Before the world was to be completely abandoned, these facilities were to be surveyed for any valuable technology.
Half a dozen facilities had already been surveyed, and there had been several significant discoveries. Most notable had been an abandoned bunker complex, which contained seven separate Dendredan SSTO spacecraft, all in pristine condition. Now, the rest of the so-called Surveyor Corps was raring to find the next great treasure of the Dendredan people.
I watched the Colonial Raptor take off behind me, traveling to the next site with another group of surveyors. Once it was out of sight, I tightened the straps on my backpack and began the trek into the nearby forest. This facility had been hidden on a part of the world that was uninhabited even before Ares' arrival.
The entire facility was effectively a small town. Most of the buildings were clearly production facilities; there were even what appeared to be some sort of smokestack near the end of the production line. There were also hangars, an airfield, several apartment complexes, and even recreational facilities. My job here was to find out what was being produced.
I started with the living facilities, which comprised a dozen massive apartment complexes, just on the edge of the primary facility. I had no doubt that they could hold ten or twenty thousand people in total. It really made you wonder what sort of production required this many people.
Then I started going through the factory. Apparently, this facility did everything, because the first set of facilities were for refining raw materials. As I reached the fourth building and began examining the basement complex, I noted down the existence of a liquid naquadah refinery. We knew the pre-invasion Dendredans could produce the material, but we didn't have examples of the technology. That would definitely be in my report.
The refinery was already a huge find; whatever else I discovered from here would just be extra. With that in mind, I continued my search. It wasn't long before I found the next big thing. To say it was a 'thing' would be a gross understatement; the seventh building was something I only recognized after spending nearly two hours trying to determine its purpose. It was believed that all examples of the technology had been destroyed during the invasion.
I immediately pulled my radio out of my bag and turned it on. With a shaky voice, I spoke. "This is Surveyor Lyra Denith. I have a code 14."
It took a few moments before I got a reply. "Understood. Can you tell us what you've found?"
Almost with a stutter, I replied as quickly as I could. "I think I have a crystal grower."
The entire machine covered an area of almost 26,000 square meters and was two stories tall, though I knew there were likely to be basement levels I couldn't access. The entire machine was completely isolated from the outside except through specific maintenance hatches and the resource feeders.
The crystal computers used by the Goa'uld were incredible. The hardened ones could survive hundreds or thousands of Gs of acceleration, work in the most extreme of environments, all while being completely unmatched in sheer computing power. To make such devices required dozens, sometimes even hundreds of individual stages.
The silence was longer this time. "Understood. We'll be dispatching a few teams to examine the device. They'll be there in an hour."
I nodded and placed my radio in my pocket so that I'd be able to reach it easily. Then I stood up and continued my search. The facility was odd from the get-go, but it was becoming even stranger. What could they possibly have been producing here to need an entire crystal grower, something that was rare even in the days before the invasion?
The next few buildings were mostly just assembly lines. I found what looked to be some sort of piping. When a flight of three raptors came in, each filled with researchers, I showed them the location of the crystal grower and then continued my search of the facility.
I finally seemed to get an understanding of what was being assembled here as I walked through the last of the buildings. Each of them was full of absolutely massive, sixty meter long barrels. There were dozens of them, each wider than a bus.
Then, at the very end of the facility, just lying in the open were the strange smokestacks. Except I could tell now that they weren't smokestacks; they were a set of three absolutely massive turreted guns, each of them over a hundred and fifty meters long, made from three separate pipe segments.
I gulped once and pulled out my radio. I didn't even know where to begin with explaining this one.
- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair.
The moment I had heard about the newly discovered crystal grower, Ma'chello and I had nearly rushed to the facility. It was only because I had other things to work on that I hadn't jumped into the first raptor I could find.
Dendred had been a highly advanced civilization, and unfortunately, Ares had done everything in his power to obliterate all records of Dendredan technology from beforeto his arrival. All he had left intact was the metalworks that were used to produce basic mining tools.
Now, this discovery could be a massive breakthrough. So, I stepped out of the Colonial Raptor and made my way over to the massive structure.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Οργηφόρος 25 Crystal Grower.
Crystal Seeder
I smiled as the first bit of information about the structure was thrown into my head. During the growth process, the crystals had to be kept at low temperatures and at very specific pressures to ensure that the correct quantum effects were produced.
It was a fascinating find. I took a step back just in time to hear my radio go off. "This is Surveyor Lyra… I think someone should see this. I'm by the big tower things."
I raised an eyebrow but grabbed my radio. "Understood, we'll be over in a moment."
I turned to Ma'chello, who shrugged, and we both walked the quarter mile to the massive towers. Waiting there was a young woman between 20 and 25 years of age. She seemed incredibly nervous as she nodded to us. I raised an eyebrow and smiled. "So, what have you found?"
She gulped once and turned to the tower. "I… I think this is a weapon."
I raised an eyebrow and walked over to the first of the massive towers. The moment the information flooded my mind, I immediately turned to the next few of the massive towers. Once I had examined the three completed structures, I started walking around the incomplete ones.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Dendredan Ground to Orbit Cannon (Οργηφόρος 25)
Naquadah Reactor, Particle Enrichment Chamber, Barrel Field Generator, Turret Ring, Prototype Crystal Targeting Computer
While the barrel itself was only a hundred and fifty meters, the Dendredans had used the same mechanism as on the much smaller thunderbolt pistol to produce an energy field that worked to lengthen the barrel by nearly 500 meters. When fired, the ball of plasma would reach a frightening 2% of the speed of light as it exited the end of the barrel.
This weapons system should have been capable of destroying a Ha'tak with just three shots. I pursed my lips and turned to Ma'chello. "We need to transport all of this to Kaelastrum. Make sure everything is well accounted for."
- - -
Three days later.
I sat in the back of the temporary senate room, just beside Slightly Overweight as the final signature on what was being called the Huragok Citizenship Bill was being written.
The bill had passed unanimously. I didn't doubt that it would, but it was nice to see everyone in agreement. Arriston shook Slightly Overweight's tentacle once as we left the room, and he whistled once in thanks.
As we left the facility, we made our way to the quarters that had been assigned to Slightly Overweight, where I prepared to leave, but he whistled once. "No. Come in, please."
The inside of the room was sparsely decorated, since Slightly Overweight rarely spent time here. At the end of the room, was a collection of several crates of material.
I raised an eyebrow. "So you're ready to produce a new Huragok?" He whistled in affirmative. "Then why am I here?"
Slightly Overweight whistled in response. "You're here to help."
I stared blankly at him as I waited for him to continue. "Under most circumstances, a Huragok is incapable of reproducing; your psionic abilities will alleviate the process. It might even be possible for you to transfer some of your own memories. If nothing else, you will gain a greater understanding of how this is done."
I tried to speak, but almost caught myself choking in disbelief. "Alright, what do I need to do?"
Slightly Overweight began unpacking and dissolving the various materials, replying as he did so. "Watch. When you can help, then help."
With a sigh, I sat down and waited. Finally, Slightly Overweight deconstructed the last of the materials. Then he began. For the briefest of moments, I thought I had gone blind. It was only after blinking a few times and realizing that I could still see that I understood what had happened. It wasn't my eyes that were having trouble seeing, but my psionic ability.
The whispers around me had all disappeared, and in their place was a single searing light coming from where Slightly Overweight floated. The longer I stared/listened at the light, the better I saw what was going on. At the center of the light was an orb of energy; looking at it vaguely gave me the feeling of looking at Slightly Overweight, but it felt strange, not unnatural, but as if I wasn't supposed to be looking at it.
The light came from a small, almost microscopic crack in the orb, and the crack was growing. Ever so slowly, I watched as the crack grew.
I didn't know what this was, but my memories of being a Bonesinger told me; this orb was Slightly Overweight's soul. To create a new huragok, he would have to shatter off a piece of himself.
With a look of understanding, I approached and began singing. Wraithbone is created by forcing the energy of the Sea of Souls — the realm where souls exist — into physical reality. In a sense, wraithbone is literally the energy of the soul manifested in reality. To create wraithbone, you had to control that energy and then command it to form a shape.
The light was the energy of Slightly Overweight's soul leaking out; I formed a light film over the crack to prevent the leaking; the light decreased by several orders of magnitude immediately. Then I continued watching. For the next ten minutes, the crack continued to lengthen, forming a circle around one particular portion of the soul.
As ten minutes passed to twenty minutes, the crack entirely encircled a small portion of itself, which drifted away from the primary orb. I covered the newly created hole, but the energy being released was decreasing, and the hole was closing on its own, though it would still be a couple of hours before it was truly sealed.
In a matter of seconds, the removed segment of soul formed into a small sphere, an opening on one side, and Slightly Overweight began transferring a strange form of energy into the opening.
I had done nothing like this before, not even in my memories of being a Bonesinger, but I had an idea. I started another song and, while maintaining the film over Slightly Overweight's soul, rather than imprinting emotions into the energy, I imprinted my knowledge and experience before funneling it into the new sphere.
My memories as a Bonesinger told me that the energy of the Sea of Souls would not hold such information for longer than a few scant hours. I wasn't sure whether the soul of the new Huragok could hold the memories, but as I examined the energy coming from Slightly Overweight, I felt even more sure of my idea, since the two forms of energy appeared very similar.
In the real world, the huragok was slowly coming into shape, but as I pushed my own memories into the ball, Slightly Overweight seemed to have changed his mind about what he was doing.
Certain parts of the new huragok were slowly dissolved and rebuilt, just much smaller and more compact. As he was working, Slightly Overweight whistled at me. "I need wraithbone dust."
I didn't waste any time and immediately got to work, producing dust on top of everything else. This was the single most strained I had been while singing, but I could manage it; even an apprentice Bonesinger could handle a dozen individual tasks at once. That I could only handle three at once was almost disappointing.
As the last parts of the now much smaller Huragok came into place, the small, ball-like energy-structure that had once been part of Slightly Overweights soul finally closed up and stopped accepting more energy. Then it lit up and condensed; for a moment I thought it would fall apart, but it just shrunk until it was the size of a marble.
In the real world, the new mini-huragok lightly floated off the ground and looked around. When its head focused on myself and Slightly Overweight, it spoke with a cheery and childlike voice, in plain English. "Hello!"