The Secrets' Crusade

Looking down at the valley that held your objective was an experience in bittersweet solemnity. You'd all seen the dates, knew how long it had been since the Consolat had vanished from the galaxy. Actually seeing what time had done with all their works, though, that made it real in a way a number on a page simply couldn't. There'd been buildings of brick here once, you could see where the trees and vines had swallowed and tore them apart.

For most, that would have been sobering. You were a little distracted by the other half of your expedition's organic viewpoint. She, meanwhile, was doing a passable impression of a seventy year old kid in a candy store. And you hadn't even gotten to any of the buildings yet!

"Look, Mandy! Look!" Mary hopped from foot to foot in sheer excitement, green eyes sparkling above a smile of flashing white teeth. The two of you had the infiltration nanoshells active but retracted today, set to activate in a heartbeat if you detected any lifesigns. For now, though, it was nice to actually feel sunlight on your skin, even if it was a very distant sun to the one you knew.

"After what the team at the Archive found, I was certain there would be some structures that still were intact," Mary went on, every word radiating sheer delight. Following her pointing finger down, you could understand why.

Because yes, there were still buildings left. None of them were pristine, but the metal shells and reinforced structures of the lab complexes had weathered the passing of time with surprising aplomb. Not all their own work, you could tell, but it was another example of the Consolat's boundless mastery of the material universe.

Not that that had been where they'd stopped, it seemed, but that was neither here nor there for the moment. This specific moment, at least.

"So you were, and so there are," you agreed, smiling at your friend's antics. It had been too long since you'd seen this spark of brilliant curiosity, unshadowed by the subject matter. The possibilities of what could be here was more exciting than any reminder of the Shiplord presence far above the clouds could touch.

"Shall we head down?" you asked. You didn't want to rush any part of this survey, but time was still a factor here. It couldn't not be.

"Yes." Mary nodded, then took a few quick steps to the edge of the ridge you'd landed on. You could have landed closer, but she'd wanted a vantage point. Given that you'd been carrying her along with you in Unison flight, there'd been little reason to deny the request. It wasn't like you needed a shuttle's landing zone. "Just give me a moment."

Whilst you thought, your friend tapped a quick sequence into a virtual panel that extended into being along her forearm. The nanomass of her backpack shifted, a tendril extending to drop half a dozen silvery beads into her waiting hand. She lifted them up, tapped a final two buttons, and watched with a smile as the survey drones hummed to life.

They were each no more than an inch across, designed to be deployed in small swarms in low- contact-risk environments like this one. A tiny gravity manipulator and power source took up most of the space, crammed in with an omnidirectional visual sensor suite and a short range transceiver. As you watched, all six rose into the air then flitted down into the valley.

"There we go," Mary said. "Now we can go. They should be able to categorise everything by the time we get down to the valley floor." Her smile widened, and she nodded down and to the right, where a bed of brilliant flowers seemed to blur the air with intense pollen. "That way?"

"How many sample containers did you bring?" you asked warily, your own blue eyes flicking to properly look at the backpack she'd brought. It was….not exactly small.

She smiled brilliantly back at you. "Enough. Come on, faster we start, sooner we're there!"

Petals, pollen, and even two small insects were collected at your first stop, along with a small soil sample. And it was only the first of many, many stopping points for you both. And you had to be fair, it was both. Back when you'd been kids, it had been you who'd gone searching for strange, new or exciting things in the grounds of the Institute you'd shared. Now the paradigm was reversed, if only a little.

And here for the examination was a sliver of an entirely different planet's ecosystem. Mary even had a justification for the time spent on your way down. Two, in fact. One to let the drones do their work, the other to get geographically distinct sampling of the local ecosystem. And neither were wrong. Sure, you might have been able to do the survey faster with Sidra's help, but your Unison was a person too, and you hated to reduce their contribution to grunt work. Especially when doing so probably wouldn't have been faster than the drones.

The sun had risen well towards noon by the time you reached the first buildings of the ancient university. Or, more precisely, the shells of plant life around what had once been buildings. The drones had reported that they still held artefacts of Consolat civilization, but nothing immediately active. That didn't mean investigating was useless, but there were probably better initial targets.

There were the expected labs and other academic buildings, leading to you stopping for a few minutes to consider your options in the remains of what might have been an ancient auditorium. Whatever it had been before, it was now a blend of natural and artificial. The rows of benches, eerily similar in proportion to human seating, were scattered with patches of grass and small flowering plants that had taken root in the cracks.

"It's kinda beautiful," Mary sighed, wiping her mouth after a long sip from her flask. It was a Trailblazer piece, like almost everything else she was carrying. Inside was a mix of water and supporting nutrition designed to maintain energy levels in the field. Not coffee, your friend had noted severely, but it would suffice.

Above, the sky was visible through gaps in the canopy of enormous, ancient trees. Their leaves were a mix of familiar greens and more exotic hues of teal and lavender, filtering the sunlight into a diffuse glow. The branches of these trees intertwined high above, creating a natural roof that offered protection from the elements while allowing beams of sunlight to penetrate and illuminate the space below.

"It is," you murmured. The building was just one piece of a vast planetary graveyard. And yet, it was peaceful. You'd had a few sips from your own flask, but that had just been water. One advantage of your altered existence as a Unisonbound.

At the bottom of the half-ring of seating was a stage, surrounded by the crumbled remains of podiums or lecterns. A pool of clear water had formed at the centre of the stage, reflecting the dappled sunlight and lush greenery surrounding it. The air was filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and the soft hum of alien insects.

Mary shook her head. "Alas, we still have work to do." She tapped at the forearm panel again, calling up results. Then she closed her hand around the data files and cast them into the air around you with a flick of her wrist. Dozens of images flickered around you as Sidra sorted through the data faster than either of you could think, even with perception boosters.

There were flashes of more viridian once-buildings, broken ceramic and metal pierced by the advance of unceasing time. Then specifics rose from the chaos, cleanly filtered for your convenience. A lab tower hidden within a stand of young trees, its metal weathered by age but seemingly intact. Several low blocks of reinforced structures, a few that seemed to still have active power. The drones had seen a handful of similar-sized constructs scrubbing away flora from one of the more intact examples.

And finally, the shattered ruin of what the data files told you had once been the largest structure in the entire complex. Much of the damage had been worn away by the millennia, but one thing was clear. Whatever had ripped the circular building apart had done so from inside. This, then, was the damage that had drawn attention to the place.

"What do you think?" you asked, looking between the options. Sidra had already weighed in as they sorted, having no firm opinion for now. Visual data could only take you so far. Mary tapped at her chin with a finger, humming in thought.

"I think…they're all good options, but for the time limitations we're working under for this survey, I'd want to focus on one or two of these at most." She pointed, light flaring around the imagery of maintenance constructs. "If you weren't here, I'd consider them the only real option. Those lab sections are the only places that we know still have power, and we didn't have space for generators."

"Alas, a backpack can only be so large," you agreed mournfully. And immediately ducked the playful swing the comment brought your way.

"Oh hush," Mary told you.

"If they have power, then they'll probably have some level of security." you pointed out, returning to topic.

"That's true," your friend agreed, "but this is a civilian installation, and I'm confident in my ability to crack their locks if I have to. Or we can just have you crack the locks more directly. That would also work."

You laughed, the sudden louder sound startling a small group of furred fliers in the nearby trees into flight. "And given that I'm here, I could also help with any power issues in the other immediate interest points. Which makes…what. All worthy options?"

"I won't deny I'd love to know what happened to make that building explode." She wasn't the only one. Especially with how there were several examples in the imagery that definitely looked like the server towers Iris and her team had found at the Archive. "But it would probably take all of our time here to scratch the surface, given we have to keep things quieter."

"Good thing I've been practising what Vega worked out about Miracles, then." Mary made an affirming sound, nodding. It wasn't a perfect solution; nothing was. But it was far better than the nothing you'd had before. "Too bad it makes the choice even harder."

"What can you do?" Mary said with a shrug. "I'm sure Sidra already said, but there's only so much we can get from footage. And we've only got so much time. Best that we make the most of it."

You've made an initial survey sweep, but still have some time available, and no potentially wandering Shiplords to dodge. Where would you like to investigate?
[] The unpowered lab blocks. Easier to get in and the power systems shouldn't be too difficult.
Mary: A bit of a lottery, but it should give us higher level data assuming we can get everything online. Might even get us into some powered sections?
[] The powered lab blocks. No need for repairs, but you'll need to crack the security to get inside.
Amanda: Mary is an excellent hacker, and Sidra is an amazing support. I'm confident they can get in.
[] The lab tower. It doesn't appear to have power, but the shell appears intact despite that. Any internal damage should be minimal, and once you get the power back up, there should be a wealth of collected data.
Mary: It's not a reinforced location like the lab blocks, so I doubt we'll get high level data. But even a map would help!
[] The ruin, destroyed from within. Wrecked server infrastructure. Will need to fix power and at least some of the internals to get anything.
Amanda: Look, we're both super curious about what caused this to happen. But getting actionable data without risking a Trance or worse? That's going to be a struggle.