The Unseen War

Chapter 14

Earth Year 3010, December 1st

Thirty-Four Months after the Attack

They had been on Ulara for what felt like months. They had found a decent place in the woods near a town called Orfeen. It was small but had a small space port that allowed for trade. Siasana was glad that where they were in Ulara had snow, it gave the planet a very nice feeling. Mitsu hadn't seen snow before and took every chance he had to go out and play in it. Qhil seemed to enjoy it a lot less, but seeing Mitsu happy had put everyone in a better mood. Or at least a good enough mood to tolerate the cold.

The Ordeerians were much more like lizards and their homes were warm and humid. Solidly built so as to not let the cold air in. Siasana would have hated it if they were here in the hot season.

The Ordeerians were very secluded and aside from the shopkeeper Siasana didn't see any of them. There had been one or two when they landed, brought out of their homes by curiosity. They had seen a human, Taggon and Whist and then had disappeared. Qhil had said they were probably too cold to care about their group and had just been curious if it was distant friends or family coming back. Qhil had studied a bit about Ordeerians because of the need to know about their physiology for the Guardians. So he had also taken some time to learn about their culture as well.

The only place that seemed to be open was a supplies store, and its temperature was set so high that Siasana would spend as little time as possible inside. Qhil would often go over there to order supplies for his 'lab' but it was really just the bedroom that he used. In exchange for different items, Qhil would do work for the Ordeerian shopkeeper so between working at the shop and working in his 'lab' Siasana rarely ever saw him.

The place they were staying was small but not quite compact. Mitsu and Siasana would spend a lot of the time cooking and simply waiting. Qhil was the one in charge from here. Every once in a while, Qhil would come out and sit with Siasana, talking through different plans for saving McMillan and proving that the East had bombed themselves to start the war. Both were problems that needed solving, but no answer seemed to be possible.

If they found a way to save McMillan, they would need a way to escape as well. The Sibylline Blast was something that had been designed to disable a Guardian Spirit but because of the similarities to the Sibylline Core, it affected both. It was only able to disable Sibylline within a certain distance. Qhil said that he had to create a countermeasure for it. The Guardians powered back up faster than the ships simply because of size difference, but with the use of Totallers, they were going to be able to capture a Guardian before it could do damage. Which is what had happened with McMillan and Mitsu. He simply needed a way to disrupt the blast before it hit.

December 12th

Siasana knew that when things finally got moving they were going to be moving quickly, but she felt useless in the moment. She had tried helping Qhil every once in a while but she wasn't able to help very much there. There was contact with a different Taggon that Siasana found out later was Qhil's brother, Qhuten. The two brothers were often working through various different issues over radio calls. Qhuten was managing the development of a shield for the Sibylline Blast while Qhil would give information on it.

Siasana already knew that Qhil had helped develop the Sibylline Blast, but she doubted that Qhuten and Mitsu knew yet. They hadn't had any other Taggons aside from Qhil and she had heard talks of the guards torturing the Taggon until he had helped Faucheur. But it wasn't her place to tell anyone else.

All of her free time was spent with Mitsu. She had begun to teach him how to pickpocket, picking old locks, hacking new locks, rewiring and plenty of other Tracer tricks. She didn't know what else she could do for him, so she gave him what she had.