A Sinner's Eden
Chapter 177 - EVO

***Tirnanog, Moonbase***

***Magnus***

I smiled like a child receiving a new toy as Jakob Lang handed me the ST349, a light machine gun which normally had to be carried by two soldiers. With three hundred armour-penetrating rounds in one magazine belt, it could turn everything in my path into Swiss cheese.

“Looks like the organisation finally brought out the good stuff!” I praised.

“Don’t waste it!” Jakob warned me. “Every shot you fire is gone for good till we get Aerie’s industry up to Earth’s standard.”

I ignored him and studied the gun instead, making sure I was remembering correctly how to handle it. The one time I got to use one was during a training course for various military gear, but that was years ago. Thankfully, there were some things a guy simply couldn't forget, like playing with guns.

It was an unwieldy weapon for anyone without strength enhancements. At best, it was intended for stationary defence, but for the new me, it was just the right size and weight.

The people in charge had hemmed and hawed for a long time over Vanya’s insane idea, but ultimately couldn’t come up with a better solution. We were learning a great deal about the alien technology. Almost every day brought new discoveries, but there was still a vast gulf between taking remote control of an unsecured device and hacking a heavily encrypted control station.

So nothing was held back to make this mission a success, like handing us military gadgets which couldn’t be restocked once they were used up. Therefore, my arsenal for this mission had grown substantially.

“And now would be a good time to hand over your deathnut oil, so it can be stored safely,” Astra commented while checking her gun, carefully listening to Jakob’s explanations on how to handle it.

“What?” I placed a protective hand on the sealed container at my belt. “There’s no way I am giving up the good stuff!”

Vanya sighed while her advisor, Tianna, and her bodyguard, Anajed, did their best to strap oversized armour onto the girl while not making her look too ridiculous. “Give them the oil for safekeeping, Magnus. There is a very good chance that we will have to allow ourselves to be searched at our destination. I have no desire to explain why you are carrying around a toxin lethal enough to depopulate entire cities. Going for diplomacy would be hard if they found it.”

I pursed my lips, giving my best to come up with a sound counterargument, but I couldn’t. Growling, I detached the container from my belt and placed it in the secure transport box, which Jakob was patiently holding out for me. They had colluded about this in advance!

Since I had to give up the oil, I took two more of the thermo-grenades from one of the nearby crates. When it came to destructive power in a fist-sized package, there was little that could top them.

“What do we do if they just blow up the entire area upon our arrival?” Tianna asked, already imagining the worst-case scenario.

“Well, since Magnus didn’t unleash hell at our destination, I hope they will choose a more moderate response,” Vanya reasoned. “Hopefully, we can survive until we get to talk with them.”

“I still would like to take more people with us,” Anajed hedged. “Preferably one of the ancients.”

“Do not worry,” Etan commented from where he was leaning against a wall, clearly bored out of his mind. “When it comes to defensive capabilities, there is little I would be unable to protect you from. Besides, Mary's abilities are unfit for protecting others. If something bad were to happen, it would be more likely for her to kill us once she goes all out instead of providing any protection.”

The elder had been decided to be the sixth on the team, making this an excursion handled exclusively by members of Aerie and Hochberg. Given the small size of the team, the other clans had abstained from joining in.

“Mary is still recovering, and Balthasar would be useless without his plants. And six people are the upper limit for the orb,” Tianna reminded the bodyguard. “We already tested that. Additionally, there is no way that I am going to let Vanya out of my sight!”

If Hochberg’s matriarch was going on this mission, there was no way she would do so without her left hand at her side and her bodyguard.

Ignoring the argument, I grabbed one of the extra-sized tower shields, which had been made from iobeetle armour. They were our best bet at surviving a stray bullet, should the other side be fond of such weapons. Then I attached the facemask to my helmet and regarded myself in one of the armoury's mirrors.

“Hell, yeah! Who would have ever thought I would go full space marine! For the Emperor! Death to the Xenos!” Raising the shield, I struck a pose, drawing everyone’s attention. All that was missing was a real Bolter!

Only then did I realise that my tongue may have been faster than my brain. They were looking at me like I was some lowlife, so I stopped fooling around. “Aw, come on! Nobody ever heard of 40k?”

Astra slowly shook her head while Jakob rolled his eyes. My father-in-law’s expression made it clear that I had just fallen several levels in his esteem.

I swept my gaze over Tianna and Anajed, but like expected, there was no understanding to be found there. My last hope was Vanya!

The matriarch gave me a blank stare before she spoke. “I am smart enough to deduce that this was yet again one of those strange references you spout from time to time, but please don’t yell that at the people we are trying to make friends with.”

She pointed at her face, her eyes flicking between me and Astra. “And you should probably do something about your helmets. The masks look intimidating.”

“Intentionally!” I clarified immediately. There was no doubt that the masks were one of Elder Gilbert’s master pieces. Not only in function, but also in artistry.

“And never! This time for real!” I added right afterwards, protectively touching my mask. “Those masks are a part of our armour! The eye-slots are especially designed so they don’t obscure our Second Sight while allowing for maximum protection! They are an integral part of our helmets!”

“Just take another helmet,” Jakob suggested.

“Have you seen many juggernaut-classed people around who need four eye-slits!?” I countered. While Second Sight was extremely useful, nightstalkers weren’t exactly a species easy to find or to catch, so it was rare to see the mutation. It was mostly restricted to a lucky few who found a carcass in the woods, likely how my sponsor came across it, or people with a lot of influence.

Stolen novel; please report.

Vanya looked at Astra, clearly searching for help.

Astra shrugged and scratched the back of her neck apologetically. “He has a point there. Without the masks, the helmets lack an essential part of their protection, and making new helmets or masks which fit with the rest of the armour-weave would take a lot of time.” She took her mask and pointed out the hooks which allowed our filaments to secure them in place.

Astra looked towards her father, who had donned his armour for the occasion. It was a slim design with many gaps, laying bare his filaments, which supported his unconventional fighting style. Any opponent who misinterpreted the armour’s design as weak points would be in for a bad awakening.

Putting on his mask, a demon’s visage with a blood-hungry grin, he had only one comment for the matriarch. “No.”

Vanya frowned, but shrugged after a few moments of consideration. “Fine. It may not be the worst of things if they recognise Magnus.” She held up her arms and allowed Tianna to pull a robe over her armour while whispering, “Maybe they will shoot him first.”

“Hey!” I pointed at her. “That’s not something you should wish to happen to your future father-in-law, little miss!”

“Gaia, please spare us!” Tianna shot a quick prayer at the ceiling. “Forget that! I don’t know what rode her, but that will never happen!”

'I don't have my hands in this, so don't blame me,' the avatar defended herself via UI.

“I will partner with who I decide to partner with, Tianna!” the girl stated imperiously. “And stop talking about things that are at least a decade down the road as if they are certain!”

“Besides, I was totally nice to them!” I added. “The aliens, I mean.”

“Injuring a security guard,” Anajed pointed out.

“After he attacked me!” I stomped my foot. “And I did nothing to that girl while I totally could have!”

“After stealing her ice cream,” Anajed added with a derogatory sniff.

“Salted ice cream!” I clarified. “Those barbarians should be glad that I was the nice alien! If the violet freak had taken a lick, he might have unleashed a bio-plague on that world, and I couldn’t even blame him for it. And why are you so talkative today? Shouldn’t you be the silent shadow who stands guard over the matriarch?”

The brain-washed bodyguard placed her hands on her hips and glared at me.

“Couldn’t it have been a female just as well?” Astra asked while frowning.

Turning, I looked at her, not getting what she meant.

“The alien,” Astra clarified.

I waved my gun and the shield around. “Who cares? If we want to be scientifically correct, as some silicon-based lifeform, I doubt it had a gender. As long as it doesn’t return from the dead to tell us its preferred identifier, I will assign it any gender I want.”

“If it did that, you would choose another one just to spite it,” Astra pointed out.

“Exactly!”

Jakob cleared his throat. “While I am sure you could go on bantering with each other for days, I don’t have that much time. So, are you doing this, or should we postpone the mission? I still think we should send something like a scout beforehand.”

“A scout would just make it look like we were checking them out,” Vanya argued. “It would make subsequent negotiations indefinitely more difficult.”

Once we confirmed that everyone was ready, we headed to the room with the transportation orb where a team of engineers and scientists had set up camp to learn everything they could about the device.

One of the scientists handed me the control disc. “We found out that you can stop the orb from doing immediate transitions if you keep touching the centre of the control disc while you dial the destination. If there are more than six people within a radius of five metres beneath the orb, it simply won’t activate. Same goes for having the control disc outside the orb’s transport range.”

“Oh, thanks! That’s neat to know, I guess.” I nodded while taking the device, vividly remembering the existential dread I felt when I started ‘playing’ with it to get home while having no clue what I was doing. Using the device was still a gamble, but it looked like we had little choice.

“Have you already checked a few of the other destinations we recorded?” Astra asked.

The guy shook his head. “Only the tundra-one for our experiments. From your description, it sounded like it had the least potential for additional things to go wrong. The leadership has yet to approve visiting any other site, and it didn’t seem wise to provoke other civilisations or groups.”

As if on an afterthought, he handed me a piece of paper. It was a short list with various destinations I had dialled during my small odyssey.

“What is this?” I scanned the list and the comments next to each destination.

The engineer gestured at the central pillar. “We logged the data stream between the pillar and the control disc once you place it there. It looks like the pillar is something like a charging dock, which also logs the sphere’s recent movements. It is a rough translation, but we got some of the classifications for the various destinations which have been visited recently.”

Impressed, I studied the list a little bit closer. It looked like the first few teleports had all been restricted to various destinations on Tirnangog, which was classified as a Class 15 deathworld (contaminated, research). It looked like dialling just the outer ring targeted various locations on the same world, while the other dialling rings brought you off-world.

Another logged location was a Class 6 gardenworld (contaminated), as well as a Class 9 desertworld (contaminated).

Our destination was labelled as a Class 12 verminworld (contaminated).

“Before you ask, as of yet, we don’t know what the classes and labels are supposed to mean.” He shrugged. “We are trying to read out more of the pillar’s data, but without being allowed to dial a few different locations, that is a bit challenging. Fair warning, direct translation between the alien language and ours is also not to be trusted completely as of yet. If you have to bail out and might bring something dangerous along, I suggest you first dial the tundra until you get rid of the threat. He meaningfully looked around the room and towards the nearby command centre.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be smart to have another fight in here if it could be avoided.

“Got it,” I assured him and stepped beneath the orb, followed by the rest of my party.

Everyone else retreated.

Taking in a deep breath, I remembered to press the control disc’s centre while I began to dial our destination. Then I let go, and the world around us warped, leaving us standing in a large room with the ancient arrival platform beneath us.

Several automated gun turrets on the ceiling swivelled and began tracking us with lasers.

“Well, looks like they changed their security since I visited. Should I get us out?” I asked while following one of the laser dots marking my chest.

“Wait till they start shooting,” Vanya said and crossed her arms patiently.

“If they damage the orb, we might be unable to return,” I pointed out while surveying the room.

“I trust that you can rig up a wormhole, given some time,” Vanya replied coolly. “Just try to be faster than those turrets.”

“I wish I had your trust in Astra and me, but there is a difference between studying theoretical wormhole physics and building the real thing,” I whispered.

So we stood there, waiting.

“I believe the platform we are standing on provides something like a jaunt point,” Astra commented after a few tense minutes of silence. “If the orb is tracking the signature, we might be able to change its destination on this world to a less ‘hostile’ spot.”

“Let’s do that if we get the chance,” Tianna commented.

I had my fingers on the dial, ready to get us out as soon as one of the guns did so much as cough. I used Second Sight, but except for some electrical wiring and what Astra already deduced, I couldn’t make out anything around us. Either we were deep underground, or the walls of this installation were thick enough to block the electromagnetic bandwidth we could see.

It took over an hour, but eventually, the wall to our left slit open, revealing a previously hidden door.

Etan took a step forward and positioned himself between the door and as many of the automated turrets as possible, and a few moments later, several uniformed people entered the room with weapons aimed at us. They were the same strange 'humans' whom I startled on my last visit. Only two of the newcomers were unarmed.

One of them, an older guy with many emblems and insignias on his chest, stepped forward. "Klex nad? Jen nad Yarrk?"

Vanya took a step forward and smiled. "I believe that is why I am here."