"So warm….""Yeah.. How are you still functioning?"
"... Functioning? I stopped doing that a few hours ago.."
A few more days had pa.s.sed after Terra"s group had learned of Abel"s circ.u.mstances and Dax had rescued his older sister. With nothing to do Iris and Lilly decided to just laze around, and so they did. In minimal clothing they laid side by side in the shade of a AEHWP and looked out into the endless sky that seemed to be constantly cloudless and made the horizon completely disappear creating a strange sort of limbo.
"Isn"t today the last day?"
"I have no idea…. How long were we supposed to stay here anyway?"
"No clue."
"We find it illogical to think about."
"It seems illogical to even think."
"Yeah I understand completely… I"m going to nap again."
"Sure…"
Coming to a greater mutual understanding as they both felt their brains melt away in the tropic heat both Iris and Lilly felt they understood each other way better. At the same time Abel was busy playing around on the beach, ever since he had opened up to Lux and the others and his older sister had been rescued he had finally started acting his age as the last warryness completely disappeared. After getting tired of building sandcastles he got a strange gleam in his eyes as he had decided what to do next and ran over towards Lux that stood nearby.
"Big sister Lux can I go swim?"
"Sure, just make sure to stay where I can see you."
Giving a smile and instant approval Lux watched the child run off with a happy smile on his face as he jumped into the ocean and started swimming around at a speed that would put even enhanced professional swimmers to shame.
"Amazing….. He really is amazing, that"s an aquatic species huh?"
Lux recalled the first time she witnessed what Abel later insisted only amounted to "playing around in the water", were he did stunts like a dolphin while launching out of the serval meters up in the sky. While Lux was lost in thought the beastkin teen silently waked up next to her and sat down in the sand as she looked towards a lone cloud she had spotted in the distance.
"He is a merkin after all."
"Ah Mare, I didn"t notice you there."
In the few days after the beastkin had decided to follow Lux the 2 had gotten a bit closer, for once she finally told Lux her name while also talking to her from time to time, even striking up a conversation occasionally.
"But you did notice master, as soon as I started walking over right?"
Mare had proved to have incredibly sharp senses, with her sharp instincts that might even rival Lux"s own.
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"You saw through me again.. Sorry I lied to you, it was just a habit."
".... It"s fine."
Wearing a completely blank expression Mare just continued to stare at the sky as her large fox like ears on the top of her head twitched and moved around. Of the limited things Lux knew about Mare she had already figured out that even if it didn"t look like it this was one of her favorite pastimes, often in complete silence she would follow Lux as she seemed to observe her and take mental notes while being wary of potential threats surrounding them both.
".. What are you doing?"
"Looking for the chariot, it should be here shortly."
Lux could count the times Mare asked her questions of her own volicion on a single hand, so in an attempt to build trust with her she always answered honestly.
"Chariot?"
"Yeah it- Oh, wait there it is."
Noticing something in the sky Lux picked up a pair of high powered binoculars and looked towards a small red dot that had appeared in the sky.
"Initial guidance looks good… ICI check descend profile and lock on IR strobe."
Having established visual contact with the chariot Lux took a magazine sized polymer grenade out of her pocket and clicked a b.u.t.ton on it.
[IR STROBE ACTIVE, GUIDANCE BEACON CONFIRMED. TERMINAL ASCEND IS COMMENCING, PRIMARY LANDING SITE CONFIRMED FIVE BY FIVE, BACKUP IS SITE #2.]
Slowly the red dot got larger, and as Mare spotted a burning trail after it she started getting really worried.
"Is that a starfall!? Master we need to hide!"
"Don"t worry Mare, it"s the chariot."
Visually confirming trough her binoculars that the chariot had no visual damage from atmospheric reentry, Lux turned around and tossed the IR strobe beacon into the dead lagoon that made up the inside of the atoll.
"Chariot visual inspection confirmed, comence full aerobrake and guide to landing zone. Look closely Mare, this is a normal sight where I"m from."
[DIRECTIVES CONFIRMED. GUIDING TO TARGET, COMMENCING GLIDE, PROFILE #3.]
Quickly relaying verbal commands to ICI Lux rea.s.sured Mare that there was nothing to fear.
"Where master is from? I will engrain it into my soul!"
Taking Lux"s rea.s.surance way too seriously Mare stood up and clenched her fists as her eyes and ears focused on the chariot and she put on a focused expression. Just as Lux had said it was indeed no starfall, soon the red dot turned white as it seemed to slow down and started moving towards them as it still fell to the ground and a sonic boom sounded out over the ocean. As the chariot closed within a kilometer drogue parachute was deployed and slowed the craft even more.
[KILLING VERTICAL.. ON TARGET: 700 METERS OUT.]
as the chariot glided in over Lux and Mare retrograde thrusters fired in a orchester of sequences and canceled out the horizontal speed and it free fell until it was a few meters above the ground, and the retrograde thrusters once more fired and it performed a maneuver professionally called hover slam, but was more popularly referred to as a "suicide burn".
[LITHOBRAKING COMPLETE. TOUCHDOWN CONFIRMED, CHARIOT #12 ON TARGET, MARGIN OF ERROR:0.4 METERS.]
"That"s normal where master is from?"
Struck with great confusion and awe Mare tried and failed to imagine a world were large metal containers fell from the sky and landed where one pointed to them.
AVE standard type 4 freight container terminal guidance descend package "Chariot"
Considered one of the largest logistical achievements of the iron containment war, the chariot addon for the standardized type 4 freight container marked a turning point with the ability for the Galactic Empire to land, operate and command small and cheap covert drone operations deep into enemy territory. The chariot system is basically a orbital descend package that contains heat s.h.i.+elding, air brake and landing equipment that neatly fits around a AVE type 4 freight container, the most common goods transport container in the universe, the system could even be hidden inside another type 4 container and made it incredibly easy to smuggle inside hostile territory trough civilian routes.
"What exactly is it?"
Still unable to figure out the strange metal square"s purpose Mare could simply not stand not knowing and turned to Lux for additional information.
"It"s supplies, for waging war. Come help me get the contents out."
Still not understanding what exactly they were doing Mare followed Lux and helped her along with some Reaper drones to unload the contents.
"So it really is a kind of carriage…"
And in the end she was able to grasp the chariots purpose, but it still remained incredibly strange and she felt a urge to understand.
"So this is used instead of a carriage where you"re from master?"
Glad to see Mare taking interest in talking more, even if there were a clear interest hidden behind it Lux taught for a moment as she tried to explain it as simple as she could.
"Not exactly.. These are more like a box."
"A box?"
"Yeah, a box like this can be filled with a bunch of things, like fur or meat or books or whatever needed to be transported from one place to another. These boxes are all the exact same size so harbors only need one kind of crane to transport them, and so they fit together and are easy to stack on top of one another. These boxes are therefore easily taken from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, or even load onto a carriage for further transport."
".... I see…. That indeed seems like a brilliant idea."
Not exactly a subject expert in the matter Mare still realized how smart the idea was, as she had first hand seen the straight up chaos of s.h.i.+ps being manually unloaded. With no standard people just made their boxes for goods however they needed, therefore it was othern hard to stack and fit different goods onto s.h.i.+ps, and a straight up nightmare to more different goods at the same time.
"It is indeed, it saves both time and money. More importantly we have everything we need now..."
Looking at the black metal crate simply marked "Kālikā" Lux bloomed a ferocious smile.