Bridgebuilder

Carbon was pleased at how the Corvin was coming together. The entire fuselage had been completed on the first day, the wings the only things remaining on their delivery grav sled. Those and the sled with the two Falcata had been carefully parked in the hangar before it was put up for the evening. Everything else had already been sent back through the portal.

Word about Alex's choice of name had gotten back to her, too. It put a smile on her face, and still made her feel sad at the same time. It sent Carbon back to her crisis of faith in her own people back in the Exploration Museum, how Humanity had exalted their first meeting while the Empire had quietly shuffled it into the history books. With any luck, they could change that sometime in the future. Share in that enthusiasm.

It also reminded Carbon that she needed to send Emily an email when they were done here. It had been too long already, and she had truly enjoyed meeting the older Human. She would be remiss to let such an earnest person fall to the wayside. It was unlikely that they would meet again, which was genuinely unfortunate, but she would not be forgotten.

Her and Zheng were the last to leave the hangar. Alex was off doing... who knows what. Theoretically he could have been doing some testing on the Corvin once they had the main systems spun up, but with large portions of the shuttle still not attached, it would have been only the mostly general checks. Carbon had absolute faith that he was at least doing something productive.

Probably.

She waved Zheng off as they approached the main segment of the base. "Go have dinner. I just want to double check my reports regarding the progress being made on the Corvin. Something in the autotranslate between my suit and the local Human logging systems keeps putting extra punctuation marks in."

"You sure?" She asked, stopping at the turnout from the main road.

"Yes, it shouldn't take more than twenty to thirty minutes." Carbon paused as well, eyes scanning the sky as she did the math. "Perhaps fifteen minutes in Human."

"I'll hold you to that. If you're not there in fifteen I'll get on the comm and bother you." Zhen had gotten on her about working late last night, even though she had been in the depot the entire time as well... apparently because Carbon had been there and she did not want to leave a coworker alone. It was sweet, if not a little misguided. Carbon was her superior officer, of course she would take up the extra slack.

Carbon made a big show about rolling her eyes and sighed, exasperated. Another thing she had picked up from Zenshen that Humans responded positively to in the right situation. She was not nearly so put upon as that made it seem, which was why it was effective. "So be it. I'll see you shortly."

Zheng smirked and gave her a little bow, then turned and headed towards the mess.

Carbon continued down the road - yes, it was just packed snow, but it was the main path the grav sleds took, so it fulfilled the role. The sun overhead was dimming and the lights on the depot kept the entire perimeter around it illuminated. Her suit had interfaced with the secure lock on the door as she approached, the marker light by the handle turning green and granting access.

She stopped just inside, her suit's shields popping as she turned them off, and scuffed her boots on the self-cleaning rug just inside. The floor was... Somebody had been walking through here without cleaning their boots. Human shaped. She sighed, annoyed. There was a little cleaning robot that would take care of it overnight. It was fine. Probably whoever had moved the crates the depot had received today into the security cage for sorting later. Everyone got busy sometimes.

It was fine. And annoying.

Carbon was actually here to work on her logs, so she grabbed a full sized laptop out of the charger, and took the spot she had set aside for herself at the far end of the workbench. She fished the secure key out of the little storage compartment under her chestpiece and went to work. So many exclamation points that had no reason to be there. Still no response for either of the emails she had sent about this oddity to both the Empire and Confed Navy, either.

The semicolons were the worst, though. The word felt bad in her mouth, sort of revolting. It sounded like the term for 'feeling a parasite move under your skin' in Tsla, and she thought the word and imagined what that must feel like each time she saw one of those gross little things on the screen.

The door buzzed and unlocked again. Carbon glanced back just in time to see Lieutenant Williams step through and carefully close the door behind her. She also scuffed her boots on self-cleaning carpeted entry to get the packed snow out, and not track water all over Carbon's nice, previously uncontaminated floor, and then walked over to the segment of the workbench that Carbon had claimed as her 'office' for the time being. Williams, like Sergeant Zenshen, had started wearing regular clothing as the weather had stabilized.

She pulled the green knit cap off her head, hair still tightly shaved against her skull. "Lan, do you have a moment? There's something I need to talk to you about."

"Certainly, Lieutenant. What do you wish to discuss?" Carbon was starting to feel overdressed wearing her suit. It had proven useful working on the Corvin all day, and there was still yet more to do in the depot as several pallets of materials had arrived and been placed into the security cage but not been put away, which fell within her purview and was another thing she found annoying. Both her and Linda Zheng had been at the hangar all day, so it was likely Williams that had put them in there. She was the only other person with access.

"It's about the delivery we got here today, actually." The Lieutenant pulled her parka off and set it down on the back of the next stool over, turning the glowing screen of her comm unit to face Carbon in a very conspicuous manner before stepping away towards the cage. "I don't know where we're going to fit all this stuff."

Taken alone, the comment about not knowing where everything would fit would be strange. There was ample space on the racks for everything they were supposed to receive. Williams taking her comms off and deliberately leaving them behind was... alarming. "Well then, let us see what has arrived."

They logged into the secure cage in an orderly fashion, no antenna biting - 'piggy backing' as the Humans called it - allowed. Three pallets of crates, sitting ready to be distributed and clearly picked through a little bit already.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"So this was delivered today, obviously. Apologies for the rough job of checking it in - I didn't want to pull you or Zheng off the Corvin to run the inventory." She leaned on the first crate, elbow resting atop the stack of containers as she checked the security camera - aside from one on the cage access panel, only facing outward, there was one more obvious camera inside that covered the foot and roll-up door. She lowered her voice before continuing. "Found some items that weren't on the manifest for today, or any of the later shipments, actually. Crosschecked it with requisition forms filed by the Tsla'o Empire and those came up empty as well. I can't place why they bother me, but they do."

Ah, that was unnerving and a valid reason why Wililams was avoiding saying this in front of what was effectively an always-on listening device. Carbon's suit wasn't made by Humans, and thus wouldn't be as easy to compromise for such purposes - by the Confederation, at least. Since the Confederation was handling all the material transfer, they would be the ones loading and sending the supplies. Thus far the Confederation had not behaved in a way that told her they would load pallets with the incorrect items on accident.

Perhaps she would switch over to winter clothes as well should further discussions like this happen and require more subtly. The patches of fur on her hips that were going bald would be agreeable to that.

Carbon lowered her voice to match. "I admit that your concern is worrying. What did you find?"

The Lieutenant handed her a folded up sheet of paper. Crisp white, creased horizontally and then vertically, over a dozen items listed on it in plain black ink. "I sent an email to Logistics about it, and they said to just keep it and it'll go back into stores when we pull out. Which, I admit, is usually what happens when an extra item or two gets shipped out. This is a substantial amount of material and it doesn't feel like the usual box that got stacked in the wrong spot. These were spread out among the three pallets."

Carbon perused the list. Several liters of Beryllium colloid, two boxes of high energy supercapacitors. A bunch of high-temp resistant electronics, including autonomous logic boards and a variety of sensor clusters. Powered joints for robotics systems, 180 degree and three-axis. "I agree that this feels specific, but I am not sure what they could be put into. I am not familiar with Human made processor families, unfortunately, I cannot guess as to what these logic boards would be capable of. Manufacturing arms for something, perhaps. There are no fine motors, but we could fabricate those here without using much material. Some sort of upgrade for the drones?"

"Interesting. Those are possibilities, at least." The Lieutenant did not sound convinced those were good possibilities, just that they were possibilities. "For now, let's keep this between us. If you could make a list of anything you could build with these items, including other parts we're supposed to have or even extra parts that would be easy to fabricate, please do so."

Carbon gave her a quick nod. "I will. Though, for the moment, I am not sure what I will be able to find."

"That's fine. I just want extra eyes I can trust on this." Williams sighed and rubbed her eyes, shoulders slumped. "If you've got a way to quarantine these items further, that would be great. Maybe weld some doors on a shelving unit to make it a locker. Shit, just put it in there and weld a metal plate over it. This stuff is supposed to be going back, after all."

Carbon was delighted that Williams trusted her, and alarmed to see another Human rub their eyes like Alex did. It was not an unusual thing to her, she had seen Tsla'o do so her entire life... But when Alex did this, he involved his entire body as Williams just did. He appeared to be perpetually tired as well. Carbon attributed this to the stress level of adapting to alien life and royal life at the same time, which Carbon could only do so much about. Williams, by her estimation, did not have that same problem. There was one thing she had on hand to perhaps alleviate some of that stress. "If I may make a suggestion?"

"Of course, Lan." Williams instantly straightened back up, her attention focused solely on Carbon now.

Carbon was unaccustomed to seeing Humans snap to like that. "I believe I know a place to secure these items where they will never be found. It will require a bit of slight of hand, and perhaps bringing another party into the loop."

"It does depend on who you have in mind." She gave Carbon a nod to proceed.

"Pilot Sorenson. I trust him explicitly. He has proven himself to have an honorable attitude - he seeks to do what is right, and his actions thus far have proven him as an ally to the Empire." She had other reasons to think that as well, but those were not important to the conversation. "I cannot imagine him involved in whatever is going on here."

"I don't know him well enough to corroborate that, but I will trust your judgement here." Williams pulled a box out of the stack and popped it open, five logic boards supported by protective foam inside. Each was half the size of her palm and encased in shock proof resin. She shook her head and closed it. "Did he bring a safe with him?"

Carbon smirked at that and shook her head. "No, but he is about to be spending a lot of time working on a shuttle with a nearly unlimited number of nooks in its spaceframe. Once tucked away, these things will never be found until the Corvin is being taken apart again. Perhaps not even then if we are careful."

"Once those wings are on the traffic up there is going to be reduced quite a bit." Williams seemed to approve of this. "Is he handy with tools?"

"Well enough. I am sure I can find a reason to be doing more work on it, too. If you search deeply enough, you will find things that need repair on even the most carefully built machines."

"Alright. Just keep me apprised of what's going on, and don't forget where you put anything if we do end up needing it." The Lieutenant stuck her hand out. "Thank you, Lan."

Carbon was getting better at shaking hands, even if it still felt odd. "Of course, Lieutenant."

"I'm going to head back out, don't spend too much time out here."

"Do not worry, Zheng is going to start bothering me about that in... just about a minute." She shook her head again, unlocking the door on the cage. They filed out one at a time, still following the protocol. Carbon's comm received a message, a chime playing through her machine interface. It was from Zheng. "There she is now."

The Lieutenant laughed, a smile on her face. "Zheng really strikes me as a stickler for maintaining a good work and life balance."

"Yes, I believe-" Carbon was interrupted by another text message from Zheng. Before she could continue another one came in, from Specialist Amalu. Then one from Crenshaw, and another from Sergeant Karras. She silenced the system for five minutes. "Are you heading by the mess, Lieutenant? I could use a message delivered."