Fortuna Verto

40-Beyond Estimates

The early hours of night left Velvet's outpost in a flurry of activity as everyone prepared for the threat that awaited them. Velvet herself was in her own sense of a flurry, blurring over holos in an attempt to organize better defenses.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything." "Shit! Rosa, don't do that!" ".. and everyone blames me for being easy to panic, look at you here. I mean, in this situation, I think you would have to be crazy if you weren't panicking. Even Kori was a bit on edge when she got the news. Oh, and Holi says hi, but she's right now holding a presence with Kori." "Please tell me you came here to give up, that maybe we wouldn't have to worry about this threat quite as much." "Oh come on, we're going to have to deal with this problem whether you escape to another timeline or not." "Oh, nice, so that secret's out of the bag, at least there is some good news around here. Wait, where is Kori anyway?" "Well, we got the news while over at our own little headquarters. Kori at least had the idea that we should shift over to the other world and use a rift to make travel much easier. She didn't take the rift though, so right now she's still with the others." Rosa managed to look smug while talking to Velvet, taking pride in not being the most panicked one in the room. Sure though, they were still in for a bad time, but she still really needed this opportunity.

"Well, when lightspeed transit becomes a bigger deal, that won't be as much of a big deal anymore." "Oh, a future thing huh? Lightspeed, that's OSIDF stuff. Travelling at the speed of light.. I guess that would compare. Light is supposed to be pretty fast around here, closer to lightning." "I know that even now, you know enough about science to know why what you said is ridiculous. Please stop wasting my time, I have more than enough to worry about already." "Holi says they decided to not give you any more backup. Need some help then?" "I can read perfectly fine, unlike some people.. I think. I'm not sure if that changed yet." "So that's a no? I'll let Holi know." "Yes, damn it, you know that at the very least we're going to need Holi there to hack aerospace infrastructure again and start the pretty light show. By the way, they amped up security, it's going to be a lot harder now." Velvet jumped as a notification came in on her holo, Rosa already trying to stifle a giggle. The holo was a report from an unnamed aerospace system administrator saying.. Hello World? Right, this should not have been surprising, holi's skill with system security is how she had originally managed to get her own way into the system when she got to this timeline. Having complete network access thanks to archives uncovered of this time several sidera in the future had been plenty to secure a quick root to upper command. More than likely, Holi wouldn't ever lose that touch either.

"Kori says we should meet up in the middle grounds like last time. Hypertech doesn't exactly have combat forces, but they've done a lot to make sure that the weapon grid we have handy there is fully operational and waiting for action. Her plan is to hit these things hard, before they have an opportunity to react. If any of them survive though, they'll be pretty mad." "Great, so she expects a plan B. Obviously DMAs will want to charge the sources of their threats, so they will direct all of their wrath towards any of the heavy weapons. Slowing them down is then quite a tall order. Reloading on this side isn't even anything close to quick." "Yes, your HITS hits slowly, I know. We do actually have a secret weapon, but Kori told me to desperately avoid using it unless there was no other option." Rosa paused at Velvet's sudden silent glare, a look of pure seriousness coming from Velvet. That intensity suddenly took Rosa completely off guard, Velvet looking like a sudden internal strife had overwhelmed her. After a moment of seeking composure, Velvet took an uneasy deep breath before trying once more.

"No matter what, do NOT be so quick to throw your life away. You've even got Kori there who can undo most mistakes, but not that one. I don't care what you think you might be gaining in the process, I don't care what you think you might be protecting, you couldn't even hope to grasp just how much is lost if you fall. In these battles, there isn't a single thing here worth dying for." "You mean, because you don't care about this timeline anyway." "Even to this timeline, we're talking about a worst-case scenario. You die, the whole timeline is screwed." "Why me? Isn't Kori more important anyway, the whole time jumper and all?" "Kori... Okay, maybe that would be pretty bad too, but that girl at least doesn't risk her life in her greatest attacks. Even so, the two of you are sort of bound, and your loss would..." Velvet was almost shaking as she spoke, a fact Rosa certainly did not miss. Rosa wasn't nearly the analyst Kori was.. but something was telling her that...