22 - A Foothold

“Tender!” the small robot screamed out in… joy?

George turned his head to see the small robotic creature suddenly tearing through the modules toward the Pris airlock.

“It can speak?” Hanna asked in surprise.

“I think it knows who that is at our door,” George said. “Tender? Strange name.”

“What’s with that Maya Emporium thing?” Inez asked.

“Perhaps we should have asked the robot,” Izumi replied, he looked down the semi dark pathway toward the Pris module, glancing around at the American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.

“It could be dangerous,” Yuri Volkov said, one of the cosmonauts.

“The robot saved us, no?” Zoya Sokolova responded.

“Our orbit is still decaying,” George replied. “It seems this field that it is creating allows our electronics to function, but only for half an hour, then the mana returns.”

“We only have two and a half hours before it gets to the point of no return,” Hanna said. They all looked at the screen before them.

“I think the robot is opening the airlock,” Inez said.

“Oh, shit.”

***

George Hazel was a thirty year veteran in the United States Army, he had commanded men and women into battle, he had organized large scale combat missions, and he had risen to the rank of Colonel, then had become an astronaut before his fiftieth birthday. He had seen a lot, he had experienced a lot, but the last three hours had left him spinning and trying to keep up with what was happening.

It did not help that there was a massive deadly looking robot that was partially within the Pris module, it seemed the rest of the creature could not fit into the airlock. The fact that it gave him a brochure to read did not sooth any of his confused emotions.

“Do you want more from your life?” Hanna read the pamphlet she had received. “Join the Sullivan Survival Society Team.”

“Great benefits. Work from home. Make your own hours.” Inez continued. “Help save mankind. Competitive wages…”

“What the hell is this?” George asked the robot, looking down at the piece of folded paper. The art was horrible and the writing was almost childlike.

“Boss told me to say this,” the robot spoke in a curiously rich and powerful voice. “If ya’ll don’t wanna burn up in the atmosphere, then follow Tender because we have an offer to make and hopefully all will be sorted out. Be quick, because we got less than forty minutes.”

***

“If you had a room, I’d tell you to stay in there!” Maya said sternly as Roci stood before her. “You don’t just go running off riding a badly designed drone and killing slimes without telling anyone what you’re doing. Hear me!”

Roci nodded and looked at Maya with large purple eyes.

“Looking at me with those big baby purples ain’t gonna sway my feelings,” Maya said. “You are grounded, not to leave Nan’s presence for the next standard week, understood?”

Roci looked to Bell.

“Don’t look at him. Look at me, kid.” Maya growled. “What you did was stupid and-“

“Ow!” a voice cried out.

Maya turned to see a man laying upon the floor, he groaned and looked up to see Maya with her hands on her hips glaring at Roci.

“Hello?” he said.

“Scram, kiddo. You stay with Nan. No more space adventures for you.”

George watched as the small robot slithered away, its head hung and it stood beside a dark skinned woman with blue eyes. His eyes drifted to another figure and he felt himself go still with shock.

A giant blue skinned figure stood by the blue eyed woman, his head was covered in golden stubble and he wore a pair of coveralls that clearly displayed his four arms.

“I should’ve told Tender to tell ya’ll that the first step was a doozy,” Maya said, grinning at the man. She extended a helping hand and assisted in him getting to his wobbly feet.

“Gravity?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know where it comes from but its here. Kinda like the air. Maybe Void Space is just accommodating like that.”

The man blinked.

“Maya. Maya Sullivan.” Maya grinned, extending a hand to shake.

“American?” the man asked.

“See, Bell, told you these astronaut folks were smart ones.” Maya said, glancing at Bell who remained stationary by Nan. Roci sat at his feet, watching them, while Nan had changed to her human hologram to ease the nerves of their guests. Not that they hadn’t already been graced by Roci’s presence or Tender’s or even Bell’s, but Nan was still on her empathy kick.

There was a series of thumps and a group of five men and women stumbled into the room. There were a series of curses and cries of astonishment.

“Well, now that everyone is here. It’s time for the sales pitch.” Maya grinned at the blinking astronauts.

***

“You can’t send us home?” Yuri asked, he was half out of his seat, angry and confused.

“I don’t know,” Maya said honestly. “This whole thing is still a mystery to me and I’m not ready to turn people into guinea pigs just yet. Plus we don’t got the juice to go traveling everywhere.”

“But what is it?” Izumi asked. He was a mechanical engineer and the technology being displayed was more than he had ever imagined.

Maya shrugged. “High-grade, Tier 2 system technology.”

“Excuse me,” George said, clearing his throat. They were getting off topic, it had been a constant occurrence in the last hour. “Have you been in contact with any of the governments down below?”

“Nope. I’ve just been back to Earth itself twice, once in Bierut and the other in Thailand, Ko Samui Island. Both had been overrun by mana mutations. Things were looking real bad for them out there, so I did what I could.”

“By selling them weapons and tools from a trash dimension?” Inez asked incredulously.

“But you’re not positive that any of our governments have survived?” George continued, barreling over what was going to be another distracting question.

“No idea. Time in the trash dimension I come from moves at twelve times the speed as it does here in the Integrated Multiverse. I spent two months in there and finally arrived here five days after Integration. It’s been nearly two days since I first arrived here, nearly a month ago for me. I only get to stay here for less than two hours, but this trip was special because someone decided to go on a joy ride!” Maya cleared her throat. “For all I know the US of A could be back in business, selling burgers and exporting war. But from what I’ve read and what I’ve been told, by twenty thousand year old AIs and SIL, is that when Integration comes, everything collapses. The mana saturating this universe screws up electronics as we know it. Our world was turned into a Tier 2 world, which is pretty damn dangerous for everyone on that planet. It’s only going to get worse and worse, eventually we might have to bail from ole Terra Firma.”

George nudged the pamphlet. “Therefore the job offer?’ he snorted.

Maya grinned. “Yup.”

“You want us to become glorified light bulb changers?” Zoya asked.

“I demand to be returned to my country.” Yuri butted in.

“Look, I know the job sounds like shit and it probably is pretty damn boring, but I need it. The ambient mana in orbit around earth is about 8000p, which will allow one of these mana cores to churn out 350Mg a standard day, or over 11Mg an hour. I’ve got half a dozen batteries that need to be charged and it’s getting dangerous in my neck of the woods.”

“We would recommend you try and contact Earth and see if any of our governments still exist,” George said.

“Eventually, yeah,” Maya said, annoyed.

“Are you holding our rescue hostage on the condition of us entering some kind of servitude to you?” George asked.

“No, that’s dumb. Look, there’s nothing to lose on your end. It’s all gain. I need someone to keep an eye on the mana cores when they’re in orbit, change out the batteries, and all the while you’ll be safe in your station. Most of the threats are biological, like that slime.”

“We understand what you are asking, but we cannot enter any kind of formal arrangement with you until we know the state of our respective governments. We are not… mercenaries, selling our service to the highest bidder,” George stated. “We served our respective countries. We are scientists and engineers and many of us come from military backgrounds.”

Maya sighed and nodded. “Alright, then. I’m not going to just bail on you guys. I need the station and I need your help, but I’m not going to force you.” Maya looked up at Tender and sighed. “Alright, we’re going to have to go with Plan B.”

“Plan B?” George asked.

“I get you’re leery of me and what I’m asking, but it still needs to be done. Therefore I’m going to have to ask if Tender and Vesky can be your guests for a little while,” Maya said. There was a murmur of conversation around the table as she spoke.

“Who’s Vesky?” George asked.

“Can we make a verbal agreement?” Maya said. “The Sullivan Survival Society will tow your station back into its correct orbit, we’ll add on some mana powered thrusters to keep its orbit stable, we’ll also give you environmental equipment, power, and some of our communications gear, but they’re not electronics, they’re all system tech, mana powered. In return, you allow us to bring one of our main mana cores out and allow us to dock and possibly create a module for our own usage.”

“I think I can agree with that,” George said. “How do you plan to tow our station? From what you’ve said, this Cage doesn’t exist in our space at all.”

“Yeah, we got a solution for that.” Maya waved her hand and the wall of the room they had been meeting within fell away.

George and the others turned and gasped at the sight of the assault craft. It did look pretty sci-fi, Maya had to admit. She hadn’t really taken much interest in the craft, it existed, it shot up the Hangy, and since killing Shen it had been ignored until Veskari managed to remote pilot it.

The astronauts were murmuring to themselves in excited tones at the sight of the ship, but that stopped cold when a pair of brightly colored individuals came out from the cargo hold of the craft.

Veskari and Yosi walked toward them. Yosi looked a little skittish, but Veskari walked with the confidence of a SIL ten times his size. He had been strutting around a lot since he got his new suit, but Maya didn’t fault him for it. She would have been running around if she were freed from being only a telepathic ball.

“I’d like to introduce you to Yosi Sullivan and Veskari,” Maya said. “Yosi is a part of my House and Veskari is Veskari. He's cool though, he’ll be piloting the craft and with Tender’s help, setting up the cores and all that other good stuff.”

Everyone continued staring as the duo walked up to the table and sat down.

“Hello,” Yosi said. “I am glad to meet you, Maya has told me much about your planet’s spacefarers.”

“Uh… nice to meet you,” George stumbled. “Uh… Yosi? Uh.. Ms. Sullivan?”

“No need to be formal, Georgie-boy,” Maya said, smiling. “Do we have that agreement? I provide you with what you need to survive, you allow us to use a part of your station to do our own thing, maybe if we get a line on what’s happening on Earth, we can expand our arrangement.”

“I think that… I think that is fine,” George looked around the table at the other men and women. They all nodded, even Yuri.

“You have all of this and can do magical things with this technology, why do you even need our help?” Zoya asked. The Russian woman looked at the robots and the ship and at Bell who hadn’t bothered to interact with them.

“The multiverse is full of assholes,” Maya said. “Assholes with more power grab everything they can, they crush resistance, they stymie innovation and creativity, for power and wealth. I’ve got power and I’ve got the resources to do stuff, but I don’t want to be an asshole.

“Right now, it’s all about survival. My survival, your survival, the survival of mankind, but relatively soon I hope that things will stabilize. I’m trying to do my best to give people a hand, to survive all of this, but eventually we’re all going to have to stand on our own.

“I’m not going to be forcing my own wishes on people. I’m not looking to be some kind of extra-dimensional dictator. When things stabilize, it will be because people made it so. The way that other SIL, or aliens, have changed the System over the last billion years forces everyone to take a path, to make Houses, to create corporations, to allow the powerful to command, but I don’t want that. I don’t want some high level dickhead being in charge solely because he’s high leveled, that’s how it is in the rest of the multiverse.”

“That’s a big dream,” Inez said. “You think you can go against the System?”

“The System doesn’t care,” Maya said. “All the System wants out of us is to use up mana. We’re all nothing but a great filter for it, living beings, machines, they all use mana and they all filter it out for the System. Although the alternative is our universe being ripped apart by essence mana, so I guess this is the better deal. All this other stuff, all these titles and awards, and whathaveyous, they’ve all been added on by other species. Trillions and trillions of species over a billion years have been adding onto it to turn it into what we see today.”

That brought silence to the table.

“Look, you guys here, you’re the best that Earth produced,” Maya said. “You’re all engineers, scientists, former military, you know how to survive in space, you know how to handle pressure and you are currently the only people who are in a position to create a foothold in space.”

“A foothold?” Hanna asked. “What are you planning?”

“Everything,” Maya said. “Relaunching satellites, rebuilding the communications network, creating defenses in orbit, creating a giant mana farm to power this Cage, eventually creating spaceships and opening trade with other star systems, and if it comes to it, getting everyone off of this planet.”

“That’s a big dream you have there,” George said.

“Why dream small? I have the resources, but I don’t have the knowledge or the time, that’s why I need your help. I’ll give you knowledge cubes that’ll teach you how to use system tech. I’ll give you all the resources you need to rebuild the space station, to make it self sufficient, to make it Earth’s foothold in space, because it’s going to be a long time before anyone is going to be shooting rockets up here.”

“We can make a tentative agreement to allow your… people access to our station, to deploy your core, and to lend us aid and assistance. Beyond that, we’ll need to verify if our nations still exist.”

“Alright, that sounds fine,” Maya said. She yawned and blinked. “We’ve got about six hours left, if you want, take a break, rest, relax, or whatever. Yosi, Tender, and Veskari will show you around the craft, they’ll also show you the equipment we’re giving you and how to use it. After that, you’ll all have to leave because we can’t take you back where we come from.”

The astronauts got up and hurried over to look at the assault craft. They began tentatively talking to the others, the first time seeing a different species.

George Hazel didn’t leave, he continued to sit in his seat, thinking. He looked at Maya.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Huh?” Maya looked at him in surprise. “What’s that mean?”

“How are you doing? You look… tired.”

“That’s a kind way of putting it. I haven’t slept in like three days, I think. Maybe four?”

“How are you even still up?”

Maya shrugged. “Stimulants and emergencies,” she said.

“I don’t disagree with what you’re trying to do,” George said. “It’s just that…”

“I know. I get it. We all have our loyalties. My dad was former military too, a sergeant in the Army. I have no idea if he’s alive or not, but if he is, he’s probably doing the best he can for the rest of my family.” Maya yawned again. “But I need help. I need people who are actual trained engineers to study some of the stuff I have. I was just a business manager major before all this happened. Science and engineering was not my thing.”

“I understand.”

Maya summoned the stack of knowledge cubes. Yosi had sorted them, the engineering knowledge cubes Maya had already begun downloading. The first of the cubes had already filled her brain with basic knowledge about system tech and the second cube would be done in a few hours. After that there was only eighteen more to go. She would have the entire twenty cubes downloaded in a grand total of three months. The equivalent of a bachelor degree’s worth of knowledge.

“This is… a lot,” George said.

“Knowledge is useless if someone doesn’t use it,” Maya said. “The more knowledge is strangled, held back, meted out only to the deserving, the more we stagnate. We fall into the trap that all the other SIL have fallen into. I don’t want the descendants of House Sullivan fighting with House Hazel over some bit of resources. Hell, I don’t even want there to be a House Sullivan or House Hazel, that’s the kind of shit that turns every species into feudalistic warlords.”

Maya sighed and looked up at George. “Take the cubes. Take the resources. Talk with Veskari and Tender if you want. They’ll hold nothing back. The more people that understand system tech, the better. I’m not going to abandon you guys and I’m not going to threaten you. If you want to help, then help. If you prefer to wait for your governments to respond, then wait. We’ll be here, we’ll help, and we’ll do our best to help everyone we can.”

***

Maya watched as the assault craft launched and with it Veskari and Tender. The view screen showed two of the astronauts, Yuri and George, along for the ride, testing out the new spacesuits. The others had taken the gear and returned to the station, where the knowledge cubes were already being downloaded.

Veskari would tow the station out of its decaying orbit, the new thrusters would keep it stable, and the mana core from Big Snake would provide more than enough power to the station. The other core, the shielded core, was crammed into the hold of the assault craft, along with all the building material they would need to create a module, habitat, or even a whole new station of their own.

That was a long term plan, though. For now Veskari and Tender would set up the core, they would help the astronauts renovate their station, and that would take several days.

Three standard days was the estimate that Veskari had given them. That would be thirty six standard days in the RSH. Maya felt Yosi standing by her side.

“Sorry about this,” Maya said. “I know you and Veskari had only a few days together. Now I’m making him leave for over a month.”

“I do not fault you or hold anything against you,” Yosi said. “It needs to be done and it will secure our future growth.”

Maya nodded.

“But I wish I had more time with him.”

Maya nodded.

“The sex was good.”

Maya laughed.