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[Thyrzul]

The swift interceptor landed on the third pad smoothly. After the colonel got out of his fighter did he realise he was not the only one arriving to the site: the massive doors of the hangar bay were just opening up for an incoming vache-class hauler, the CLT Merlot. This place was dead silent last time Pierre been here, but that was months ago. The nearest guard greeted him as he stepped in, busy hoardsmen approached the transport quickly, to empty it as fast as possible. Scientific material, mostly equipment, liquids, alloys, stuff Pierre knew little of. Amongst the hasteful mob, a familiar face greeted him.

Ah, bonjour Pierre, nice to see you again.
Bonjour, Doc. I see the tech division wastes no time to work.
Oui, indeed. Come, let me show you what we did so far.

The two men began walking on the corridor towards the laboratories.

Where is your ship, Doc. I don't recall seeing it anywhere.
Oh, I parked the Courtois on the main starport. There is no use of flying it if I can get here with the regular shipments too.

Men moving crates on repulsor plates passed them.

So, Docteur, could you tell me a few words about what was done here in the last months?
Few words, mon ami? You don't know what you are asking for. I can't tell anything in few words.
Well, I was expecting some sort of introduction, after which we could dive into the details.
If you want, I can tell you about a few things, but showing it would be better.
I hope we will be able to have a tour around too.
Oui, I intend to escort you around. Donc, where to start. Ah, oui, as you may know, probably remember too, the K'Hara material stored here changed extremely in the dark. Of course we had to precisely determine what changes the tissues were going through. This included the examination of physical properties, density--
Docteur!

As they passed a junction, where a corridor joined their from the right side, a white coated figure rushed after them.

Oui?
Docteur, les Yeux Un et Deux ont pret pour les experiments avec les combustibles differents. Vous voulez assister á lá?
Ah, non, je crois en votre connaissance. Envoyer-moi les résultats en finir.
Bien sur. Au revoir Docteur.
Adieu Joseph.
Did I miss something? I know of nothing else than your experiments with this Nomad material, et it seems illogical for me to call a possible cloaking device "Eye". Qui est-ce que sont cette Oeil Un et Deux?

The doctor answered Pierre while they continued their way.

A new project we were working on parallel to the K'Hara experiments. As you most probably know, Docteur Simon Marseille has moved out to the Omicron systems with a small team of scientists to conduct on-field researches. - Charles got out his touchscreen notepad, and started to browse the database. - Docteur Marseille is only able to send data packages every few weeks due to the huge distance. About a month ago he sent me data and partial scans of a vessel he encountered in those distant systems. Well, in his transmission he rather described it as some sort of drone due to it's shape, size and lacking room for any sort of cockpit. Upon recieving the schematics we've decided to review them and pull something useful out of it, ending up with the idea of some sort of spy drone, capable of slipping past enemy lines and gathering intelligence without the need of risking the lives of agents out there in space. - He finally found the relevant files. The wireframe of an AI Drone appeared on screen. - Ah, here it is. Small, compact and now we are testing the engines.
Oui, so I've heard. And where are these drones at the moment?

Right upon finishing the question a convoy of technicians towing repulsor plates carrying shrouded hardware appeared in front of them, coming out from an other corridor joining in from the left side. These repulsors were a bit biggers than the ones Pierre saw earlier. The hardware slowly began to hover towards the opposite direction. Towards the main hangar. The doctor, chuckling a bit, answered: Ici, mon ami.

Smaller than I expected. - The convoy passed them.
Ah, non, these are disassembled for easier carriage throughout the facility, they will be put together again in the hangar.
I'd like to have a look at them once you showed me your advance at the Nomad subject.
Of course, Colonel.

They finally arrived to the laboratories. The large door opened.

Three months has passed since Pierre's last visit, and during this three months the place changed much. Firstly, due to the unused state before, the warehouse was weary a little bit, fixing the whole place was the very first thing to do for the people of the Division working here. The next thing was sorting out the stuff they had, also finding the place of every hardware they were working with. Refitting the facility to properly operate as a science laboratory included a little refurbishing here and there as well. Summed up, what used to be a hidden warehouse is now a hidden science facility. Every level has it's own field of research, by which the labs and storage rooms has been designed. They were on the minus second floor, top floor of the laboratories.

The top two floors are designed for theoretic and applies physics, where - explained Lavoisier while they were walking towards the cargo elevator -, due to our main profile, we are currently studying the K'Hara tissues and their optical and wave mechanicla behavior. In addition to this, quantummechanical researches are being conducted here as well, you know, mon ami, we suspect that the Slomon K'hara has alternative ways to gather energy, for example from any of the fifth to eleventh dimension, or from a parallel brane...
Doc, you are getting into gibberish for me. I'm not having a headache yet, et I'd like to keep it this way.
Ah, of course, well, let's move on then.

They got into the cargo elevator and started to descend. The doctor continued.

The next two floors are for chemistry. Mainly phisical chemistry, organic- and biochemistry, with a little analytical chemistry. Here we studied the behaviour of the tissues, their reaction to various chemicals, protochemical properties, electrochemical properties, the materials they contain. Many other things I could dive into if I would have two more hours for that. - They descended further. - These three floors were for the biologic researches, including biophysics, bionics, xenobiology, biotechnology, physiology, and I believe there are still several fields of research we could explore regarding the K'Hara. Such as genetics, morphology...
Sacre dieu, Doc, when did you get used to swear like this?
Past months, Pierre, Past months.

They were at the height of the minus ninth floor, still descending.

These two floors are for the mechanics, technicians, basically the guys making the device itself. Every piece of K'Hara tissue gets down here once they passed the tests up in the physics labs. Here we experimeneted with several alloys fitting for circuits, but against or expectations, pure gold is what gave the best results. Oh, also the drones has been made down here. And, mon ami, this is our assembly hall.

Finally they have reached their destination. The -12th floor.

Two floors have been opened into each, giving up double the height to work with. - explained Docteur Lavoisier while the door of the elevator opened. - Here we made the final assembly and the minor adjustments needed after it.

The device was in the center, surrounded by computers and robotic arms. It was not too big compared for the size of the room, but enough big for leaving only room for two people when carried in the cargo elevator. The shape of it was weird, it had an oval core with symmetric extensions towards the sides. The device posessed similar but smaller cores than the main ones, one the edge of those extensions. These cores were being covered with two layers of round, opaque, blue-ish lens, possibly of K'Hara material, the outer layer being tied to the device by tiny protrusions. The whole was covered with removable glass panels aligned to it's shape.

Et all of this on the bottom floor? - Pierre asked while they moved closer.
Non, not the bottom, there are still huit floors below our feet for storaging.
Ah, oui. Hmm, it looks weird. - he noted, while approaching the device.
The looks weren't our priority so far, but if you insist, Colonel, it could be.
Non, c'est sufficant if it works, we can care about the looks later. IF it works... it does work, n'est pas?
It does indeed. We have just finished a phase of testing yesterday, which resulted in success. We successfully produced a cloaking effect around the device for ten seconds, the amount of time it recieved energy from an outer source. But that wasn't the only success yesterday. - he chuckels at this point, resulting in Pierre frowning in lack of understanding - The following test was about increasing the size of cloak field generated around the device. We tried to adjust it to the maximum, which resulted nothing observable, at least not for us. Later I've recieved reports from our physicists that around the time of our test everything on the first floor of the physics department dissappeared downwards from belly. This also revealed a huge part of the mountain below their feet, causing some female scientists to freak out due to agoraphoby.

They both had a laugh.

That sounds like the size of a battleship. - Pierre noted after they calmed down.
Oui, it does, yet it did not last that long. Such adjustment caused a higher need of energy to maintain the field. Because of this, I had something smaller in mind. George, Quentin, allez-ici!
Alors, Docteur.
Prepare the device and put it on the repulsor plate. We will bring it to the surface.
D'accord, Docteur.
Will anybody else fit into the elevator if that thing gets in?
Just toi et moi.
Et I assume we will bring it up then, oui?

The doctor nodded. In the meanwhile the two other has managed to place the device on a repulsor plate, hovering centimeters (yes, not inches, centimeters) over the floor. They towed it into the elevator. There was barely any space left.

Et where do we stand?
Just step on the plate.
Sure?
Sure.

The repulsor plate descended five millimeters (because for science we use SI) once the two of them got on it. The doors closed and the elevator started to ascend slowly.

Sooooo... what is your current plan with the device now, Doc?
As I said, yesterday we closed a phase of research, I think it is a good day today to start the new one. I've scheduled the installment of this neat piece of hardware into one of our vessels. Once done, we will begin testing various fuel types and compositions. Because of this, I've chosen a Vache-class vessel to test on.
Good choice, however I would like to see other vessels of us cloaking too.
Oui, Pierre, we won't finish our researches here. For now, a Vache will be good. Do you want to be on board the vessel during the tests.
Sounds exciting, why not?

A small beep sound indicated the arrival of a new message to the colonel's PDA.

Ah, merde, I almost forgot this. Docteur, I fear you will have to continue without me.
How so?
I have got an invitation from Docteur Van Mojo of the TAZ for a meeting, et I don't want to make him wait for me more.
Ah, Hodge Van Mojo, I've heard of him, it's been said he is a good scientist. Sure thing, mon ami.

They arrived to the top level and said goodbye to eachother. Technicians helped the doctor to get the device out of the elevator while Pierre walked towards the outside landing pads with haste. While leaving, he glanced at the transport still waiting in the hangar bay. He knew it was the same vessel which he saw arriving, yet it's freshly painted new name indicated that it is the CLT Spectre now. He knew the reason behind the change of name. It was obvious.

Blinding beams of the Roussillon star were trying to melt the ever-snowy peaks of the Bagatelle Mountains when Pierre took off with his Gecko. Upon leaving, he saw a swift green comet cut the skies above his head - one of the experimental drones. Ah, I've got to check those too, once I'm back. The colonel set course to planetary orbit, just to head to Baffin right after getting out of the atmosphere and the gravitational pull of Toulouse. Shortly after he recieved an other message.

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