Boris nodded acknowledgment, and a small smile showed his agreement with her solution. He felt that if someone betrayed you, it was best to deal with them personally. It could only add to the team’s reputation under the somewhat ruthless code established in the area. It would also be seen as justice by his own people. Which meant her solution had no downside.
“Final casualties on our side? “Boris asked.
“We have forty severely wounded still waiting for their time on the treatment table, “Lilith stated. She had taken over the role as senior medic due to her control of said treatment table. “I have complied with your request to make no modifications to critically wounded who couldn’t be told what the potential changes would be. I am in negotiations with the remaining wounded. Several of them want to become Weres and will be talking to you about that shortly, Boris. At least one was disappointed by the ruling that there be no more Pricolici. I’m not sure I understand your reasoning behind this, but I will accept it for now.”
Boris sighed, “What is there to understand? The vast majority of people who achieve that form end up dangerously unstable. They inevitably have to be put down for the safety of the population around them. That I have found a way to avoid the problem is an anomaly. I don’t want to put more people at risk, not until we find a more permanent solution than my methods of controlling that form, capisce? Any new Pricolici from our injured will result in you being in the Faraday cage for some time.”
“Continuing on, “Lilith said, somewhat chastened, if a little defiantly, “Seventy-two people were too injured to save. All of them had died at least half an hour before they reached my care. There are still fourteen missing in action. That makes a total of seventy-two KIA, fourteen MIA, three hundred and seventy-three with various states of injury.”
“All of that is important and I grieve for your losses. Unfortunately, my time is very tight and I don’t wish to seem disrespectful for the dead. However, one of the Pods provided is missing and I need answers. So, what do you know?”
Bethany Anne was upset by their losses. She hadn’t known the people personally, but they had been serving her indirectly. Considering the force that had been arrayed against them and the government restrictions on the support that Boris had been pushed to accept, the losses were actually very low. By complying with the Government’s request, it allowed them to maintain a presence in Russia more easily.
A hologram of the hemispherical hole in the hangar floor appeared on the projector. “It appears that the device took a spherical volume of space, and transported whatever was in it, “Janna stated, “The residual heat on the remaining pieces of the Pod meant they could not be handled for nearly a day afterward. Although the Clan managed to take most of the fuselage including the Etheric generator, they cut through the railguns on the roof of the pod. ADAM predicted a ninety-seven percent chance that any remaining railgun equipment on the Pod will be damaged beyond the point that it would be useful for reverse engineering.
“However, the Etheric tracker was in the nose of the pod, as were the control systems. So we have no means of finding where they transported it to if it is deep enough underground. Considering TOM’s lack of success in pinpointing it, we have no choice but to assume that it is somewhere underground in China. Those were definitely Sacred Clan that attacked us. We can only assume that the NVG became involved in the meeting between the corrupt agent, Bohai, and Brogonovich. We were incredibly fortunate that our agents lucked into overhearing that meeting.”
Continuing, Janna said, “The Russian government is currently pushing back at the Chinese over what seems to them to be a sanctioned attack by Chinese forces on Russian soil. The Chinese have made it clear that they have no interest in poking the Russian bear at this time. They even moved troops back from the Russian border to emphasize that they want no trouble.”
Janna finished her section of the report, “We have no idea if the extreme heat similarly affected both organic and metallic components at the edge of the transportation sphere. The cauterized, but the otherwise intact, arm and leg that fell outside the sphere’s radius would indicate not. How much heat did the transport inflict on the people transported? We simply have no way of knowing.”
“I have run simulations of potential methods for achieving this effect. It is beyond any technology I have dealt with before, “Lilith added. “ADAM? TOM?”
TOM spoke for both of them, “The event that caused ripples in the Etheric extended all the way to the South China Sea. There are two possibilities as to what occurred to the objects inside the transportation sphere. The first is that the effect only took place at the edge of the device’s control. In this case, the organic matter transported by the device will have survived relatively unharmed. The Weretiger will probably have burnt paws, but the large surface of the Pod will have reduced the amount of heat, acting as a heat sink.
“The second postulates that the heat is an encompassing effect. In that scenario, the only useful technology they will be able to retrieve will be the Etheric generator housed in the pod itself, due to extreme heat damage.
“Any organic matter in the radius will have been incinerated in this scenario. Every simulation we have run makes it clear that they did not truly understand the technology they were using. It is recovered technology, not something they created themselves. Nor is it something they, or we, can likely recreate. The amount of energy it used is beyond what I have records of the Kurtherians being capable of producing in such a small device. It almost certainly has to have been a single use tool.”
“It should serve as a warning to all of us, there are some things out there that we simply cannot predict. Technology beyond anything we’ve encountered. While it is unlikely there is another similar device on Earth, it is possible that others may have this technology elsewhere. You need to be wary of this Boris, “TOM finished
Boris agreed and added, “And you all need to be wary of this, also. In conclusion, there was no sign that something like this existed. That it didn’t come into the cave system can only be considered a boon. If it had… “Boris‘ face took on a grim cast.
His people were frantically working on reinforcing the unstable sections of the caves. It went hand in hand with expanding the emergency bunker areas. It was a work in progress, still far from complete even now. The combination of loss of structure and the vacuum effect could have been disastrous down there.
Bethany Anne glanced around, seeing the chastened expressions on the faces around her. With TOM and ADAM’s guidance, they had thought they knew everything and had been wrong. It was a lesson for her as well. If they could be surprised by something like this on Earth, she could be surprised out there in the vastness of space.
As she rose, Gyada glanced at Boris, who slowly nodded. “If I may, my Queen, I would like to discuss something with you?”
Bethany Anne was somewhat surprised. She had an idea of what Gyada was going to ask, though she had been sure that the Were would want to stay and protect what had been her home for centuries after the battle.
Still, with the education and knowledge that Lilith had imparted to her, Bethany Anne couldn’t be happier with the idea of Gyada joining her space force.
Epilogue
It was now nine months since Bethany Anne had left through the Gate and nearly two years since Gyada had joined the space borne section of the mission to protect Earth. Gyada considered how the bickering between the governments for scraps of added knowledge had escalated. She was perfectly happy to be working and training on the ship with Bethany Anne’s forces while Boris remained in New Romanovka.