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- Down, down, slightly left, slightly forward, down, down... - motor-mouthed Levi into comm, dubbing his vocal commands with gestures with handheld signal beacons. Above his head, Cherie, controlling Alva’s personal airship “Kamiya”, slowly descended, trying to place the huge pile of cargo, which was now hanging on external mount, right into designated zone.
- Down, down, half’o’sec’o’thrust right... Perfect! - screamed Levi. - Disengage electromagnet, drop Raleigh and take our baby back home.
- “Our” baby? - sounded the cabinet minister’s voice in the comm. - Well, it’s not that I’m that against you two using my airship when I don’t need her, but, if the costs for flight, not counting energy for engines, exceed two million, you will be the ones paiyng them. However, if you want to take her for a private flight for your honeymoon...
- Boss? - sounded confused Cherie in the channel. - What do you mean - “honeymoon”?
- Ah, I suppose, I’m rushing the events, - replied Alva in somewhat sarcastic voice.
- How did you know? - asked Levi, already knowing the boss’s answer.
- I know you two much more than you think. Me, being a cabinet minister, arcane researcher and pretty much a father replacement for prince, does not mean I do not monitor condition of my two most important henchmen.
- Well, thank you for putting us in such a high regard! - happily said Cherie, repositioning the airship. - Raleigh and “package” on cargo platform. Levi - he’s under your responsibilty now.
- Acknowledged! - replied her colleague, walking to the lowered platform, on which young prince stood near the heavy metallic briefcase, obviously designed for transporting hazardous materials.
- Monsieur Levi? - wondered boy. - And where’s the minister Alva?
- Cabinet minister is very busy now, - said henchman. - He plans to perform a test today, and I need to deliver this cargo to him now.
- What kind of test? - asked him curious prince.
- New power source. Let’s go, no need to hold boss and Cherie waiting, - finished this conversation Levi, taking the briefcase and walking inside the Flying Fortress. Curious Raleigh followed him, and Cherie, after retracting the platform and closing the ramp, took the airship back to the port.
- -
- Here, boss! - said Levi, giving a heavy metallic briefcase to the Alva and leaving the room at once, closing the blast door in process. The cabinet minister carefully placed it on the table, grabbed tongs, dressed himself in a full hazmat suit and only after that opened the briefcase. In it, there lied several strange crystals, glowing faint blue.
- Unown shards, power source of the Kingdom’s future, - whispered Alva, carefully picking them with tongs one by one and loading into special holders in a strange-looking device. After he was finished, he installed the safety cover on the device and placed the tongs aside, but remained in the hazmat suit. Shortly after, he placed the device on small cart, opened the blast door and rolled it into the main engine room, which was loaded with terrifying amounts of equipment, installed on the new platforms near the central catwalk, above which the main power distribution core was suspended.
- Preliminary ignition cascade... operable. Secondary ignition system... operable. Secondary distributors... operable. Emergency power-bleeding system... operable, - mumbled arcane researcher, checking the machinery. - Looks like I can install the power source now.
- Minister Alva? - suddenly sounded child’s voice. Alva turned around and saw Raleigh, coming to him from the side of the steam condensers and coolant storage.
- Prince Raleigh, I strongly advise you to leave at once, - replied man, looking at the young prince. - The power source is very dangerous to handle without sufficient protection.
- Understood, understood, leaving... - muttered Raleigh, turning around and backtracking. Arcane researcher nodded to no one in particular, then opened a heavy reinforced hatch on one of the bigger machines, took the device, placed it in the connection port inside, closed the hatch and only after it exhaled quietly, being proud of himself. According to the data, showed on the nearby sensors, the power source was installed correctly, so, the second stage of the test was about to begin...
- -
- Please, Raleigh, be careful, - said Alva, guiding the young prince through the mess of cables and tubes, which covered floor of this corridor of the Flying Fortress in a thick layer.
- Boss, we’re ready! - screamed Cherie from the control room. No one was quite sure, how she has managed to get here from the dock so quickly. Apparently, it was one of her “girly secrets”.
- Understood, we’re almost there! - replied cabinet minister, right before he and Raleigh entered the room itself.
Even if Nikola supposed this room to be elegant in some way, it was anything but this now. Entirety of the floor was covered in tubes, cables and wires of nearly all kinds, the bridge was perma-raised and fixed in this position now, with an aluminum ladder placed to provide access, everything was cramped with a new machinery...
- Boss - need any help? - asked Levi, bending over the safety rails.
- Yeah, help me to get prince up there, - mumbled Alva before, along with Levi, getting Raleigh on the bridge, then getting on it himself.
The bridge - originally, pretty spacious - was even more cramped, than the rest of the control room. The layer of cables and tubes here was so thick, it worked as a floor by itself, the secondary consoles and equipment racks obstructed most of the view on the main screen, the original singular seat was removed in favor of modified office chair... Well, at least, now, before both of the primary control consoles, there were normal seats. Though the right one was so surrounded by additional control panels and indicators, it looked like it was in some kind of a strange cockpit.
- Raleigh - stay there. Cherie - on standby, - started to give orders Alva, trying to get into the “cockpit”, while his henchgirl sat before the left primary control console and, unbeknownst to him, invited Raleigh to sat on her knees, to get the better view. - Levi - activate the preliminary ignition cascade!
- Acknowledged, preliminary ignition warming up, - replied the henchman, sat on the central seat and started to flick switches and turn knobs on the nearby panels in order, which would seem somewhat chaotic to the uninformed observer. After roughly a minute, he said, - Preliminary ignition cascade ready!
- Commence the preliminary ignition!
- Acknowledged, preliminary ignition commencing, - lazily said Levi, flicking open the safety cover and pressing the button.
Deep inside the Flying Fortress, in the main engine room, one of the machines finally hummed to life. Unown crystal shards, stimulated by arcanotechnological devices, glowed, trying to open the breach between dimensions and never succeeding in it, but giving away lots of energy in process, which was instanly harvested by the human creation.
- Preliminary ignition successful, crystal reactor is now at two percent, - reported Levi. - Commence primary engine ignition?
- Wait, power distribution normal, power-bleeding normal... - mumbled Alva, then replied, - Yes, commence primary engine ignition!
- Primary engine ignition commencing... - Levi tried to raise the power of the crystal reactor and route it into the Fortress’ main power distribution core. - So far, so goo...
At that moment, siren sounded, while the power monitoring display showed, that core, instead of activating and routing energy through the entirety of structure, remained locked and just accumulated energy, which could’ve meant explosion in this situation.
- Emergency shutdown and power-bleeding! - screamed Alva and Levi at the same time, each doing their own part in preventing a solid chunk of the wall, surrounding Azoth Kingdom, getting into the sky the wrong way. Thankfully, well thought-out contingency protocols and machinery helped to do it quickly, putting this crisis to end.
- Well, boss, I think your tech-paranoia has a very good basis, - mumbled Levi, trying to recover from this. - What do we do now?
- For now - let us just finish the second external power transfer line, then re-activate the reactor and share some of the energy with Kingdom - as much as safely possible, anyway. For later - we need to find and get the Soul-Heart, or this Fortress will stay locked on the ground forever, - replied the minister.
- And what do I do? - asked Cheri, helping Raleigh to get back to the floor.
- Go relax somewhere, I guess. Or you can try to help us to finish this power line. What’s your Pokemon today?
- Alakazam.
- Great. Your majesty?
- I think I want to see it.
- No problems. Just please, use the protective clothes, - finished his talk Alva, powering down most of the control equipment.
“Sometimes, I hate Nikola. He was genius, but a crazy one. Even with a new power source, we still need a Magearna to unlock the Fortress.” - thought the cabinet minister, crawling out of the “cockpit” and walking through the bridge, before getting down by a ladder. - “Well, I still need to make Azoth Kingdom a better place. For now, the better power source will do fine.”