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[piecewise]

The explosion is distant enough that all the men in their nice little test chambers and personal labs feel is a slight vibration, like a datapad was vibrating on the floor next to them. When the creature, separated its dead and dying mass of flesh and hurled it up the hole with enough force to embed the burning, ashen stuff in a section of exposed infrastructure several hundred feet wide, they felt nothing at all. But when it coil itself up, pulling miles of tendrils from where they had snaked through the underground mining sectors, and began heading for the surface, taking a large swath of the complex around with it, then they felt something.

>Oh dear.

ARESTEVE brings up a video feed for Anton, a shaking camera view of a near formless mass of writhing flesh ascending the shaft,Tendrils whipping out in front of it, anchoring themselves and hauling the bulk of the creature up.  The camera drone is rapidly flying in the opposite direction.

>It appears we've angered it. It's heading for the surface and will breach in just under 10 minutes at this pace. Judging from the seismic readings, it is larger then first anticipated. It is still uncoiling itself from the tunnels.

[PyroDesu]

Anton, please tell me you did not just do what I think you did. Did you detonate one of those drones, without even saying that you were doing so?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anton Chernozorov

Anton, please tell me you did not just do what I think you did. Did you detonate one of those drones, without even saying that you were doing so?

Anton replies in an exaggerated calm tone, even as he is giving his drones new orders and analyzing the creature's reaction.

"The technical term is "initiate", XO, and I had been left with the impression that the initiative for the creature's destruction was left at my discretion. The plan, at my latest approximation of it, was to destroy the creature via application of neutron bombs. The plan has been initiated, and is being adjusted as new information regarding the creature is making itself available. I suggest we all take active steps to prevent an escalating disaster now, and sort out the violations of chain of command when we can afford to."

Losing the calm tone, Anton addresses the base's AI.

"Aresteve, evacuate all personnel we have anywhere near the path the creature may take to the surface. Sound general alert if we have it. Give me a detailed map of the tunnels, update it with the creature's progress as soon as any new information is available.  There are still four N-bombs left, let's make them count. Analyze the creature's path and shape, and highlight for me the areas where another N-bomb blast will maximize the damage dealt. If it keeps coming up through the same shaft, we'll repeat the previous blast to cut it off and buy us more time.

Next, the Party Wagon is still up in Dock Three. Have it prepped and ready to fly. We should have some conventional blasting charges in stock - find two biggest ones we have and have them mounted on the missile pylons, primed to act as remote-detonation bombs. If that thing manages to breach the surface, I want to make sure it has a warm welcome.

And relay all information to Overseer Simus and Steve Saint. Keep the rest of the administration in the loop."

Basically, do the above. If the fleshhorror keeps coming up through the same spot we (I) blasted, repeat the blasting periodically to curb its progress. If we have relay drones and scout eyes to spare, waste no time pulling them out before blasting, minimize the risk of the bomb drone being disabled and command-detonate it. Have the Party Wagon (the atmosphere-only dropship with a gaggle of cutting laser turrets and two missile pylons we had - it couldn't participate in the fleet battle, so must have survived) refitted into a bomber/gunship with the largest conventional bombs we have in store, and position it (far) above the creature's predicted emergence point, with orders to blast away at it indiscriminately as soon as it surfaces.

Have the affected areas of the facility evacuated, and the rest of the facility alerted so people know to seek evacuation if something happens.

And check how fast can the production lines manufacture more drones and bombs.

Keep Simus and the rest of the crew in the loop as to what's being done. Any orders they have, assume Anton will follow them as long as they're reasonable orders.

[Empiricist]

What, was that?

Charles evacuates according to whatever orders he receives (if no order are applicable, he just runs out the shortest route that does not expose him to the fleshhorror risk). He concentrates, ignoring the bolded text to charge WILLPOWER.

[syvarris]

Spoiler: Power crystal calculations (click to show/hide)

Well, I believe someone made a needle rifle and I gave some numbers there. Assume the smallest crystal he's firing is able to kill a man, or at least kill them 50% of the time and the rest of the time make them very close to dead. Electricity is weird. It has an odd habit of not killing people when it should and killing them when it shouldn't. Hm.
Gauss rifle, normal shot...eh...Not grapefruit fat, but a bit unwieldy, like 8 inches long or so, but thin.

Assuming that 'eight inch but thin' shard that he said contains 2 TPU uses the same dimensions as a PSL shard, which is the default shape it forms when in a uniform tube, it's an inch wide.  Which means it would form a sphere with a radius of ~1.25 inches, and of course would use a much smaller volume of fluid.

But what's interesting is that it's exactly 64 times the volume of a single Testament shard.  Which means a standard magazine, which (I think) is about the size of a drum magazine, holds 27 potential TPU.  Compare to the laser rifle battery, which holds 120 TPU in a smaller battery, this isn't size efficient.

Since that magazine holds a thirtieth of a full PSL mag, that means a single full-size PSL shard has twenty seven TPU coursing through it- equivalent to firing a tesla arc for 2.7 seconds.  And here I thought most of the damage came from the explosion.

Further, you get those shards at a rate of 7.5 per token.  That's potentially 202 TPU worth of fuel, for a single token.  Compare to the cutting laser, which has our best token:TPU ratio (1 token per 240 TPU), that's... well, it's not particularly bad, but we have better.

So, in closure, PSL fluid functions as a way better power source than I thought it would.  But it isn't more size or power efficient than what we already have, under ideal situations where you get all the energy out of it.  It's not a good choice for a power source, especially when you consider that it's an armor piercing frag grenade.

Oh, and that revised FEL's proportions are weird.  I was basing the stock's length on how large the trigger hole was, but the grip you added is about as long as the trigger hole itself.  If the grip is the proper size, and the trigger hole is just absurdly massive, then the stock's original size was good.

_{This spoiler originally ended by complimenting Sean greatly, due to my original calculations having an error somehow resulting in a token:TPU ratio of 1:~1600.  I wish that hadn't been a mistake. ._.}

((FYI, all speech in this post is on the Hephaestus staff channel, so everyone can hear it.))

"What the... oh, fuck!  Anton, you- gah, uh, did you ever make a version of that drone OS thingy that works with MK.IIIs?  If so, send it to me now.

Charles... the fleshorror got pissed off.  It's coming back up, and it's enormous.  If you know where the robosods are, go follow them, they should keep you safe.

1.First, switch back to my actual body.

2.This thing is directly underneath us, right? 

3.Ask ARESTEVE where the two quantum entanglement backpacks I ordered a month ago are stored, and if they're in the path of the fleshorror.

"ARESTEVE!  We've got fifty robosods stored away somewhere.  Tell them to just start sprinting out of the facility, away from the fleshorror, in a single group.  Make sure three of them are carried by the others rather than running themselves, and use my remote control program to connect them to the three auxiliary robobodies I've been using.  They've got Mk.IIIs, so have those bodies run with the robosod group until I give further orders!"

4.Give ARESTEVE the orders stated above.

5.If the quantum entanglement backpacks are not in the way of the fleshorror, or I could get to them, and then get back to the surface without being caught by the fleshorror, go get them.

6.If I get the backpacks, fly to the sod group.  Give one of the auxiliary bodies a backpack, and wear the other myself.  Have a sod remote-control my body, and use it to carry his own.  Failing that, just have sods carry me.

7.Connect to the body with a QEB, and tell the sod that was controlling it to not send any commands unless I tell it to (failing that, just disconnect him).

8. (Only if 5&7 work, and fleshorror hasn't breached) Fly with the other two Auxiliary bodies back to wherever the fleshorror is going to breach, and try to rescue anyone important who's still there and can't get away themselves. (read: Anton, Charles, the guy we have in prison, random civvies for PR, in that order).  If there's nobody to rescue, or I can finish and still have actions left, do nine.

9. (Only if 5&7 work) Ask ARESTEVE if we have any manips stored anywhere that isn't near the fleshorror.  If so, lead my squadron to said manipulator stash, and collect armfulls of the things.  We will kill it, even if it becomes half the planet.  Failing manips, go get nukes or some form of weapon which would be dangerous to the monster.  DO NOT DETONATE ANY OF IT.  Only collect.

[PyroDesu]

((At this point, I'm assuming that even parts given in action text rather than speech are being relayed to me anyway.))

I don't think we're going to stop that thing surfacing. Verflucht - Anton, scratch that idea for the party wagon, we have orbital assets that'll serve us better than self-destructing one ship with demolitions charges. We'll discuss your conduct and plan later. Saint, just get everything you can away from that area before that thing surfaces - you are not to attempt manipulator overloads, am I clear?

Aresteve, the remains of the original defence fleet, we should still have some operational ships in orbit. Get them in position so that when that thing makes it to the surface, they can fire on it when I give the order. Same with all remaining artillery assets from the defence. And get another few neutron bomb drones, or at least one, out - with 10 kiloton bombs, as quickly as possible. Send them, or it, to the lower levels when complete - if multiple, then spread them out around the area where the thing was.

Orders.

[Radio Controlled]

((Already told this to Pyro in dj chat, but just so the others also know: you can try to use the assets remaining from the defense. Mortars on rails and big gauss cannons, as well as laser battery defenses. I probably won't kill it, but it might help to keep it in one place for a while, or just chip away at it.))

[syvarris]

((My intention was kind of 'if everything is going to hell, and even the warship isn't working, go get manips.'  Doubt it'll get that, but I don't really have anything better to do, and it might be needed.  This is PW, after all, and we don't have the Sword.))

"I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to detonate manipulators unless it's literally our last option!  If nukes and artillery don't work, manipulators are a better option than dying!"

[PyroDesu]

((I would rather deorbit a ship on top of it than use manipulator overloads on it. Fortunately for us, Epsilon survived the space battle.))

Saint, calm yourself. We should be in no personal danger either way, unless you go out and confront it yourself, as we are using purely remote platforms and are quite entrenched regardless. And there are further options beyond manipulator overloads if conventional weapons fail. Besides, consider what created this thing in the first place.

[Sean Mirrsen]

"XO, if I wanted the Party Wagon to kamikaze itself into the creature, then I'd be stuffing its hold with the explosives, not suspending them under its wingtips. The ship is going to make bombing and strafing runs at the creature, not blow itself up. Hopefully."

[syvarris]

((Yeah, and I'm saying if that doesn't work.  I'm not sure how large the spaceships we have are, but I believe most of the craft we have are too small to create a significant enough explosion to entirely kill it, if nukes aren't enough.  Beyond that, I believe dropping a single microwave manip would be better than a spaceship.  They'd do similar damage infrastucture wise, but the manip would kill more completely.  Note the 'even if it becomes half the planet' bit.  I don't want to use one unless it's needed.

I'd rather a fission instigator, but I don't think we have any lying around))

"Oh, Simus, are you sure we're in no danger?  I was under the impression that that thing is directly below us, and judging by the fact that it reversing direction and had a much larger shockwave than a nuke, it's big.  I'm not sure how close to the altered this thing is, but it doesn't have to be very close to be practically immune to traditonal force.  Nukes work against them, but I don't know how much nuclear power we even have available.  I don't even know if we have manips.

And that thing was created by a flesh manipulator, I'd drop a heat one.  Besides, I'm not even planning on dropping one.  It's a contingency, that is all."

((Come to think of it, a manip might not even work because I'm remote piloting a body, so my brain isn't near.  But I would still be doing the calculations.  I know somebody tested this stuff in VR before, but I don't remember well enough.  Oh well, if it gets to that, I guess we can consider it a field test. ))

[PyroDesu]

Very well Anton, but be aware - as soon as that thing breaks the surface, it's going to be subject to orbital bombardment and whatever's left of the artillery we had - your ship will have to contend with that.

And Saint - it's not under the command centre. It's coming back up the tunnel that it dug previously, so it's some distance away. And it's more than likely nowhere near immune to force - not even the Altered were. That's one way the UWM destroyed them, as I recall. I can see resistance to chemical or thermal attack, and even radiation, but pure kinetic force is something that is nigh impossible to resist completely, especially for anything limited to organic form. And a microwave manipulator overload would be equally if not more dangerous to us than to it.

((Me and PW are actually discussing how effective deorbiting Epsilon onto it would be right now.

EDIT - The results are somewhat scaring me. Minimum 6 kiloton, and that's for a completely unpowered drop. Powered, the word relativistic has been mentioned by PW, and I think you guys know enough physics to know the consequences of that.))

[syvarris]

"That hole is not very far from us.  Considering this thing, going directly up from the deepest mining levels, is going to reach the surface in only ten minutes, I doubt it will be slow on land.

And yes, the UWM fought the altered by application of raw force.  They fought the altered by practically destroying whole planets.  Massive amounts of force.  Stabbing Altered with a knife does almost nothing.  Shooting it with anything that one wouldn't consider artillery, does almost nothing.  Nukes, relativistic weapons, hitting it with things that utterly destroy biomass, those work.

And again, I'm not going to detonate a manip if any of us are anywhere nearby.  Not as in 'over at the other side of this complex', as in 'miles away on an MK.III at full burn'.  And I doubt that will happen.  I think we'll probably have enough nukes to take it out.  But if we don't, then I'd rather have a plan B.  Is the option itself such a bad thing?  Is there no situation that would justify a manipulator's use?  Actually, ignore that question. 


ARESTEVE!  Assuming the facility is lost, and all of us are distant, how dangerous or risky would dropping an overloaded manipulator on the fleshorror be, as compared to our other emergency, last chance options?"

Ask ARESTEVE that last bit above

((I forgot about the fact that our craft can go at relativistic speeds.  Yeah, I'll accept that deorbiting something would be sufficient.  Although, wouldn't we be able to go lower than six by firing the propulsion in the opposite direction?  I thought all of our ships could land on the planet.))

[PyroDesu]

You're underground, Saint. The whole command centre is underground. The only way to get in here is to drill in or come in through other facilities, like the shipyards. And besides, do you not think the thing will be more concerned with what's hurting it than a command centre that it cannot reasonably find, almost certainly doesn't know even exists, and would take significant effort to breach even if it did?

((PW has said, I quote, "It's just trying to get away from the thing hurting it, so unless you give it reason to flee in your direction, it probably won't". Considering it can't even run in our direction, I think that unless anyone does anything exceedingly stupid, we're safe.

And I did say unpowered for the six-kiloton impact. Of course it could be lowered by firing retrograde. It could also be lowered by dropping it from lower up - that's assuming it falls from the edge of Hephaestus' sphere of influence, pretty much.))

[Empiricist]

((I'm not sure whether to be relieved that Charles isn't in danger, or disappointed that he has no reason to panic and try summoning The Sheep ))