Converse (part 5)
- Location
- Hampden Park
14th September
20:48 GMT
"Yeah, that's more like what I was expecting."
Near-Krypton space is green. The large pieces of kryptonite aren't particularly close to here, but there are so many tiny grains of the stuff around here that they're the dominant light source. Even though it's still not that radioactive, it's more than a little disturbing.
"Want me to clear a path through it?"
"What do you think would happen if I heat-visioned it?"
"If you-? Um…" Kryptonite tends to.. break down at extreme temperatures explosively, and you get a blast of radiation before it denatures… "It might clear it out a bit, but there's so much around here that I doubt the effect would be all that significant."
He-. I think that's a nod, then accelerates in the direction of Xenon. I can see the dull flicker of his environmental shield as it increases its power in order to cope with the all-surrounding radiation sources. Perfectly within its tolerances, but the faint grey/purple does rather stand out against the all-encompassing green of our environment. As does the dust-free wake Kon leaves behind him.
Xenon itself doesn't have the pleasantly round shape of Earth's bizarrely large moon. It's more in the 'misshapen lump of rock' mould, with clearly visible impact craters along one side where lumps of its former neighbour struck it. Not going to be much there…
"Were there any mining operations on Xenon?"
"I don't know for certain, but I doubt it. Wegthor was closer, Koron was larger and.. then they had faster than light travel. It's perfectly possible that we're not going to see anything at all."
He reduces his rate of acceleration. "Shouldn't we go there instead?"
"Wegthor's… Kind of… All around us now. After the Kryptonian Stellar Navy got wound up, the Self Defence Force kept using their old command centre on Wegthor as a deep space monitoring station. That was probably why Jax-Ur decided to blow it up… Enthusiastically blow it up. So while there probably was plenty of interesting stuff there…"
"There isn't any more."
"Right. And the resulting debris did quite a bit of damage to Koron, and that's far enough inside the radiation zone that I'd rather not go there if we can manage it. And Mithen's classified as a moon rather than an asteroid due to history rather than size."
We both accelerate, Xenon's surface growing beneath us. My rings are showing me artificial structures, but further scans are being distorted. That suggests Science Council era; the Military Council didn't bother with covert installations this close to Krypton. Security against foreign invaders was what the fleet was for. Kryptonian science was certainly advanced enough that a Lantern would have to be at least a little careful in how he treated their kit, and if kryptonite existed back then its existence wasn't widely known about.
"Something down there. Think it's Kryptonian?"
"Most likely. Piracy might have gone up a great deal after Krypton went into isolation mode, but things are much more stable now. Erm, though.. in a couple of cases that was because the pirates either moved on or legitimised themselves. But legitimate traders avoid this system because there's nothing here, so there isn't much reason for pirates to be here either."
"Unless they wanted a secret base no one would ever find."
"Unless they've got very advanced stealth FTL, hiding in a system no one else flies to doesn't work. There's nothing to disguise the trail. And even if they couldn't just follow them, all someone hunting them would have to do is drop in a few monitor drones and wait. Whatever ships they were hiding would have to come out eventually, then they've got them. And secret bases are a pain to resupply, and-."
"Okay, I get it. So how do pirates really work?"
"Safe harbours like Vega, where the authorities tolerate or accept them and provide a degree of protection. Captured harbours like Dryanna that would probably prefer to get rid of them, but don't have the power to enforce their decision. Or they do what the Black Circle do in our own Sector, and pretend to be honest merchants themselves and hide amongst the real merchants." I point at one of the artificial objects on the surface. "That one?"
Kon changes his angle of approach and I follow him. I don't want to scan it too aggressively in case it has automated defences of some kind and treats it as an attack. Plus, letting someone who should read as… Actually, I don't know what automated Kryptonian sensors would make of Kon. Hopefully the 'S' on his chest will at least give them pause. On the other hand, the Zods were often in charge of military projects like this, so it might just provoke them.
"How are we going to get in?"
"Depends. If it's unpowered, brute force, ignorance and a construct airlock. If it's powered, you're Kon-El of House El and you're here to do an inspection."
"Inspection? What am I going to-? Wait, you think there could be people in there?"
"Possible, but unlikely. But Krypton had advanced AI technology. A facility of any size would have an intelligent management system to assist the crew."
"Okay, so what do I tell it I'm inspecting?"
"Everything. That way we'll know where the best salvage is. And hopefully where the computer core and main power are."
"So we can turn off the automated defences, right. Why wouldn't the AI know that Krypton has been destroyed?"
"It might well know, but if it wasn't programmed to do anything about that, then it wouldn't. Heck, it might just be waiting for a living Kryptonian to tell it what to do about Kryptonian civilisation ending."
"I don't think Red Tornado would wait like that if the Earth ended."
"Red Tornado was built-" Kon touches down and 'walks' over to the structure. "-to be a person, not a smart management system. He's got far more initiative than most civilisations allow their synthetic intelligences."
Kon and I study the structure which attracted our attention. Sticking out from the grey-white dust of the moon's surface, five fingers of dust-covered crystal stand out like sore thumbs. They're about three metres tall each and shaped a little like pinecones, fat lower ends coming to an angular point towards the top. The crystal goes under the dust built up between them-. Ah, yes.
"Artificial gravity."
"Strange that they've left it on. Low gravity wouldn't bother an AI."
Kon steps up to the closest finger, then holds out his right hand. "I suppose I just-."
There's a ripple of purple-tinted energy as the fingers shimmer, dust exploding off both them and the crystal on the ground between them. The curiously localised artificial gravity causes the dust to blow away like it would on Earth and then suddenly billow upwards and the force pulling it towards the moon's surface suddenly vanishes. The result is that we're left standing in the middle of a dust storm with the gleaming crystal of the… What is it, an outpost? The outpost, while the rest of the universe is whited out.
"Huh."
Ring scan… "There's a weak environmental shield keeping the dust away. Don't think I'll need to make an airlock."
Kon nods, and moves his hand towards the crystal ag-.
The centre of the circle of crystal between the fingers retracts back into the sides in fits and starts, creating an opening into the outpost. Ring, scan-.
A humanoid in black and red floats up out of the hole.
20:48 GMT
"Yeah, that's more like what I was expecting."
Near-Krypton space is green. The large pieces of kryptonite aren't particularly close to here, but there are so many tiny grains of the stuff around here that they're the dominant light source. Even though it's still not that radioactive, it's more than a little disturbing.
"Want me to clear a path through it?"
"What do you think would happen if I heat-visioned it?"
"If you-? Um…" Kryptonite tends to.. break down at extreme temperatures explosively, and you get a blast of radiation before it denatures… "It might clear it out a bit, but there's so much around here that I doubt the effect would be all that significant."
He-. I think that's a nod, then accelerates in the direction of Xenon. I can see the dull flicker of his environmental shield as it increases its power in order to cope with the all-surrounding radiation sources. Perfectly within its tolerances, but the faint grey/purple does rather stand out against the all-encompassing green of our environment. As does the dust-free wake Kon leaves behind him.
Xenon itself doesn't have the pleasantly round shape of Earth's bizarrely large moon. It's more in the 'misshapen lump of rock' mould, with clearly visible impact craters along one side where lumps of its former neighbour struck it. Not going to be much there…
"Were there any mining operations on Xenon?"
"I don't know for certain, but I doubt it. Wegthor was closer, Koron was larger and.. then they had faster than light travel. It's perfectly possible that we're not going to see anything at all."
He reduces his rate of acceleration. "Shouldn't we go there instead?"
"Wegthor's… Kind of… All around us now. After the Kryptonian Stellar Navy got wound up, the Self Defence Force kept using their old command centre on Wegthor as a deep space monitoring station. That was probably why Jax-Ur decided to blow it up… Enthusiastically blow it up. So while there probably was plenty of interesting stuff there…"
"There isn't any more."
"Right. And the resulting debris did quite a bit of damage to Koron, and that's far enough inside the radiation zone that I'd rather not go there if we can manage it. And Mithen's classified as a moon rather than an asteroid due to history rather than size."
We both accelerate, Xenon's surface growing beneath us. My rings are showing me artificial structures, but further scans are being distorted. That suggests Science Council era; the Military Council didn't bother with covert installations this close to Krypton. Security against foreign invaders was what the fleet was for. Kryptonian science was certainly advanced enough that a Lantern would have to be at least a little careful in how he treated their kit, and if kryptonite existed back then its existence wasn't widely known about.
"Something down there. Think it's Kryptonian?"
"Most likely. Piracy might have gone up a great deal after Krypton went into isolation mode, but things are much more stable now. Erm, though.. in a couple of cases that was because the pirates either moved on or legitimised themselves. But legitimate traders avoid this system because there's nothing here, so there isn't much reason for pirates to be here either."
"Unless they wanted a secret base no one would ever find."
"Unless they've got very advanced stealth FTL, hiding in a system no one else flies to doesn't work. There's nothing to disguise the trail. And even if they couldn't just follow them, all someone hunting them would have to do is drop in a few monitor drones and wait. Whatever ships they were hiding would have to come out eventually, then they've got them. And secret bases are a pain to resupply, and-."
"Okay, I get it. So how do pirates really work?"
"Safe harbours like Vega, where the authorities tolerate or accept them and provide a degree of protection. Captured harbours like Dryanna that would probably prefer to get rid of them, but don't have the power to enforce their decision. Or they do what the Black Circle do in our own Sector, and pretend to be honest merchants themselves and hide amongst the real merchants." I point at one of the artificial objects on the surface. "That one?"
Kon changes his angle of approach and I follow him. I don't want to scan it too aggressively in case it has automated defences of some kind and treats it as an attack. Plus, letting someone who should read as… Actually, I don't know what automated Kryptonian sensors would make of Kon. Hopefully the 'S' on his chest will at least give them pause. On the other hand, the Zods were often in charge of military projects like this, so it might just provoke them.
"How are we going to get in?"
"Depends. If it's unpowered, brute force, ignorance and a construct airlock. If it's powered, you're Kon-El of House El and you're here to do an inspection."
"Inspection? What am I going to-? Wait, you think there could be people in there?"
"Possible, but unlikely. But Krypton had advanced AI technology. A facility of any size would have an intelligent management system to assist the crew."
"Okay, so what do I tell it I'm inspecting?"
"Everything. That way we'll know where the best salvage is. And hopefully where the computer core and main power are."
"So we can turn off the automated defences, right. Why wouldn't the AI know that Krypton has been destroyed?"
"It might well know, but if it wasn't programmed to do anything about that, then it wouldn't. Heck, it might just be waiting for a living Kryptonian to tell it what to do about Kryptonian civilisation ending."
"I don't think Red Tornado would wait like that if the Earth ended."
"Red Tornado was built-" Kon touches down and 'walks' over to the structure. "-to be a person, not a smart management system. He's got far more initiative than most civilisations allow their synthetic intelligences."
Kon and I study the structure which attracted our attention. Sticking out from the grey-white dust of the moon's surface, five fingers of dust-covered crystal stand out like sore thumbs. They're about three metres tall each and shaped a little like pinecones, fat lower ends coming to an angular point towards the top. The crystal goes under the dust built up between them-. Ah, yes.
"Artificial gravity."
"Strange that they've left it on. Low gravity wouldn't bother an AI."
Kon steps up to the closest finger, then holds out his right hand. "I suppose I just-."
There's a ripple of purple-tinted energy as the fingers shimmer, dust exploding off both them and the crystal on the ground between them. The curiously localised artificial gravity causes the dust to blow away like it would on Earth and then suddenly billow upwards and the force pulling it towards the moon's surface suddenly vanishes. The result is that we're left standing in the middle of a dust storm with the gleaming crystal of the… What is it, an outpost? The outpost, while the rest of the universe is whited out.
"Huh."
Ring scan… "There's a weak environmental shield keeping the dust away. Don't think I'll need to make an airlock."
Kon nods, and moves his hand towards the crystal ag-.
The centre of the circle of crystal between the fingers retracts back into the sides in fits and starts, creating an opening into the outpost. Ring, scan-.
A humanoid in black and red floats up out of the hole.
Last edited:
