Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 63: Quick Goodbyes

There was a moment of silence as the green glow disappeared from the visible parts of the mech's skeleton. Then it appeared again, "Okay I can turn it off just fine. What do you need me to do?"

"Umm… I am just going to have you do the basic stuff. So move around a bit and we will look for any problems." Jace answered as he began sending a document full of his observations to the chief engineer. This mystery would be the engineer's problem now.

Jace frowned in disappointment at not being able to investigate this more. It will bother him that he does not know exactly what is going on. But he had to let it go for now as he had only a few more hours until he had to leave.

The mecha began moving clearly being restrained but still testing the limits of its arms and legs. "It moves a lot easier than the normal mode. Actually it is a bit disorientating with how easy this is, I am used to immersion systems causing some pain in my cybernetic components. But for some reason I feel fine a bit tingly but that is it." She told him over the comms.

Jace contemplated what was going on and had already developed a theory. But he needed to test it. So he walked over to an open tool box and picked up a wrench and then threw it at the mech. As soon as it collided the mech flinched, "what the hell?"

"Let me guess. You could feel it?" Jace asked.

"Umm… yeah why can I feel that?"

"Because the immersion system is too responsive. You likely jumped straight from fifty to a hundred percent. I am putting in a heads up the chief engineer so he can put in more limiters inside. Seems like the original mech used something similar to immersion systems." Jace began writing up another note as the mech slowly backed up and kneeled in the position it started in. Then it began powering down.

Romav was worried about side effects of going over fifty percent immersion. So as she exited the mech she gave her goodbyes to Jace before racing off intent on getting checked at the military hospital. She felt fine but there could always be something going on inside she was not aware of. After she left he finished his notes and then decided it was time to leave.

As they were walking back to the landing pad he was handed an envelope by Elena, "Just read it when you can. I know you have my contact information but I included it just in case." She told him before pulling him in for a kiss on the ramp and then she walked away quickly without a word. But he could faintly hear her crying once she was far enough.

He walked on board to see his friends glaring at him. But he moved over and sat on a seat. Salem frowned and then sighed, "you could read it now." She pointed out.

"I could but you know I will not." Jace responded as he placed the envelope in a pocket. The ship began starting up and the ramp started closing. "Why did you guys come to the station?"

"Honestly?" Taylor was the one who spoke up, "we were hoping you might know where we are going for our special operations training. We have been looking into it and found next to nothing. So we are worried something shady is going on."

"Not shady, just classified," Jace answered. "As far as I can tell everything from the moment we leave the system in that ship will be kept out of official records." Jace began thinking about Elena intimately to keep Salem out of his mind.

"You know more but you don't want to tell us." Salem frowned as she saw the images. "Message received, do not poke around in your mind about it anymore."

"Sorry," Jace chuckled at knowing a weakness to her telepathy. "But I feel it would be more natural this way. As it is, I know enough to know I should probably know less." He was worried about what cost he would pay for getting that information. Whether it was him owing someone or literally costing him his piece of mind.

"If you say so." Salem pouted as she leaned back in her uncomfortable chair.

The Vulture slowly lifted off the ground before flying forward at a steady pace. It flew toward the circular metal gate that sat in the center of the dockyards.

The circular metal gate that was in the ground was the entrance and exit for spacecraft. It had multiple shields both metal and energy based that kept the air inside the station and the vacuum of space out. Around it were control points and stations that operated as control towers. Usually the military could go in and out quickly since it had its own dedicated towers instead of sharing with the rest of the spacecraft that are coming in and out of the station.

Most of the time if there was anything cruiser size or larger it had to go through the larger full entrance while anything smaller could go through one of the four smaller gates that were inside of the main gate. Those were controlled by the control towers with one of them being dedicated specifically to military use. Usually it was easy for the military craft to fly in and out with just a specific code. But with the recent traffic they had to adopt a two-step approach.

The first of which is them getting the appropriate military code and then a visual inspection from the control tower as they flew by. Then they would open the first set of gates. Which is what they were doing as the vulture slightly spun and flipped, only barely registering because of the feeling of their stomachs flipping. Gravity generators kept everything near the gate entrance suspended in the air, which generated some turbulence as spacecraft passed through the area. Once they were through the first set of gates they would close behind the spacecraft while the ones in front of the spacecraft would open up.

In a way it was a trust exercise between the control tower and the spacecraft. The control tower would open the way and the spacecraft would maintain speed. After a minute they were out of the station and in space. The transport's gravity generator powering on was the signal for the occupants that they were in space.

"That was smoother than our entrance into the base." Ulin pointed out as she climbed out of her seat getting ready to disembark.

"That is likely because you entered during a time with a lot of traffic. The gravity inside the gate gets funky if there are multiple ships going in and out." Jace explained honestly, he had not experienced it himself but he heard about it from Mister Romav. Apparently it got bad enough at one point that they intentionally capped the amount of ships that could go through at one time in order to cut down on the shifting gravity wells.

"Having multiple gravity devices in near proximity? That actually seems like something we could test to make a weapon. Maybe a field of gravity devices acting as mines so it pulls apart ships when it comes near?" Taylor began contemplating aloud causing the others to frown while Jace raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Her inspiration caused his own. "Or a handheld gravity device to for a tactical advantage in a fight or to use for maintenance on a ship." Jace suggested aloud getting a glare from the others.

"Or-oooo…. I have so many ideas. I need to write them down." She voiced her thoughts very naturally as she pulled out a datapad and began typing out her ideas. Even including Jace's idea as well.

Salem sighed as she pulled herself out of her seat. "Look what you did. Now we will never get her out of the lab."

Jace shrugged, "nothing wrong with the lab. I have been doing my best work in my lab." Jace pointed out getting another glare from Salem as she understood his double speak.

"Actually that is making me curious, what have you been up to since we last saw you? By that I mean what have you made?" Taylor asked absentmindedly as she typed. "Personally, I have been heavily interested in making heavy machinery that can combat enemy mechs."

Jace stood up from his seat, "well I suppose with so much combat in rural areas it makes sense that you find a need to take the mechs down." He shrugged, "I got the current scanners to work better with a simple rewiring. But for a while now I have been making a fast mobility bike that can be fashioned for civilian use as well."

"Well that is a surprise, I figured you would be making more weapons or something violent. But that is pretty tame." Taylor complained, "how boring."

"Oh, I have been working on weapons as well. But for me it is boring to make weapons so I have been trying fields that would challenge me. Such as working on the mech." Jace pointed out.

"The mech? What was going on with that by the way? It looked like there was a problem." Taylor asked, still focusing on her datapad but standing up to get off the transport as there was a sudden jostling as they landed inside of the Wing of Pegasus.

"Sort of, it was nothing I had any control of or could do anything about. So I just told the Red Sanix's Chief engineer and that is all I could do." Jace answered honestly as the ramp lowered and they departed the transport.