"We've all seen the analysis from the Ministry for Security for the sort of beating the orbitals here are going to need to take. The War Office is shipping out armour plates, point defence installations and shield generators, but even with everything that we're being given it won't be enough without our help." You are Stephen Marques, a Restorer of the Second Awakening and leader of the group of Potentials sent to turn the orbitals into nothing less than fortresses. You've been given a fine team, and all the resources you could ask for, but it's hard to look at the mammoth task before you and avoid the taste of despair.
There are less than a hundred orbitals, that's true. But the vast majority of them were civilian construction. Only a handful have anything approaching true defences, and of that handful only Prometheus could withstand Shiplord weaponry for any length of time.
"So we need to do what we know. Make things stronger, make things heal. Between us all we have the gifts, but I want us to do this carefully. The people out here will be the first to face the Shiplords if they break through the Fleet. We need to give them everything we can, but without destroying what makes these places homes." A quick look shows that your team is still listening intently.
"I know I'm asking a lot in that, and that only a few of us have worked on a project like this. But this is our home, these our people. We have a duty to them." You turn to Candice, the only Knower that you were able to pull away from Project Insight as they geared up. "We're going to need your help a lot here, in bringing everything together. Work with Thomas, between you -"
"We'll get what you need." She said, nodding to the Harmonial with a wry grin. "I almost worried that this would be boring."
"Alright then. The rest of you will be with me until Candice and Thomas work out assignment profiles. We're starting from the furthest out platform, Icarus, then we'll work inwards. Given the current state of affairs," being involved in a cyberwar was not something you'd ever expected, "we've been seconded Task Force Two of the First Fleet to escort us. Any questions?"
None came, and you nodded thankfully. "Alright then, we'll be docking with Icarus tomorrow morning. Get some rest."
***
Icarus took over a month, but it was time well spent. It let you and your team get to know each other properly, break down the barriers of formality that let you work together better. You weren't exactly sure what to think of some of them, but they did their jobs well and all seemed to be good enough folk beneath that. That was enough.
You didn't do much of the grunt work in the end, although Thomas oversaw the installation process of everything that was getting bolted onto the orbital with a feverish intensity. It was his Focus, after all, making sure everything was in the right place. Some of the engineering staff got a little frustrated with him, but he also proved his worth. Then it was your job; making the defensive systems as powerful and hardy as they could be. It wasn't so much a complex process as it was time consuming. A single fault in the protections on the place and it would shatter.
It wasn't until you were on your way in-system, with your team split up across the next four orbitals that needed work that the first inklings of something more than that crossed your desk. There was a way to do this better, at least according to Candice and Thomas, the analysis core of your team. You weren't really sure where they were going with it, the idea of spreading you all out and focusing on all of the outer ring orbitals once their basics had been installed at once. It was working off the principles that Vega had started publishing after the Miracle of Skylark, so there was some basis for it, but that had been over small planetary distances. This was asking so much more.
You considered calling the Ministry for Practice for guidance, but in the end the decision would rest with you either way. You'd seen how your team had grown closer over the time working together, how the presence of a Harmonial had helped them become much more. But was what he and Candice were proposing even possible?
In the end, the possibility of what success could bring was too much to ignore.
***
"Confirm for me, we have everything locked in?" Thomas asked again, and you had to spare a smile for the kid.
"Everything is set. We're all in position and ready to go. It's all on you and Candice now." He swallowed hard, then nodded.
"Alright. I need you all to start with focusing on the station around you. You've done this before, but you need to spread that concentration out. Find the pieces of it that resonate, and then work out."
It was harder than anything you'd ever done, but there was more to come.
"Now I need you to…to reach to me."
"What?"
"Use my voice, the link, whatever you have to. But push towards me. This is the hardest part of bringing this together, but you can do it."
"Alright. You heard him people." You filtered out the murmured affirmatives, and did as you were told. Finding the pieces of what was around you that you could fit with was a problem of scale more than anything else. This was a problem of precision, finding a single link among many and then following it all the way to its source.
"You're almost there, I can feel it. You need to make the final step, but you can't force that." You stop as Candice's voice sounds over the link. "Reach, but don't take." What was that even meant to mean? But the words touched something, buried deep inside. Light seemed to fill you from within, lifting your soul away from its physical shell. You saw for a moment in perfect clarity the links between you and the other Potentials, all reaching for each other.
There, that was the link you needed to follow. Candice was right, you were almost there. Power flowed down the connection, into the Harmonial at the centre of it, and you felt the others follow your lead. Energy swirled between you all, untapped potential at your fingertips. And the presence you somehow knew was Thomas reached out at last. A shape formed at his touch, a pattern that you somehow knew you'd never be able to remember properly.
"Let us begin." You spoke as one, and the world faded into unasked splendour.
(Walls of Steel and The Maw actions merged, 1 Dice and 1 Practice Dice locked. Success on Practice roll continues Trance, high roll has a chance of opening into a Miracle. Locked for 2 years)
