Lt. Solari Rath's Arc

Chapter 8 of 12

Solari stood at her workbench before dawn, assembling new equipment with steady hands. She'd spent the night sketching improved designs for her focusing strips. The burns on her fingertips had scabbed over, but they didn't slow her down. She layered triple-reinforced shielding into the new gloves and tested each seam twice. The metal clips fastened tight. The energy sphere formed between her palms, blue and crackling. She held it for fifteen seconds before releasing it safely into the containment field. The sphere dissolved without explosion. Her hands didn't shake. She built another sphere and held it for seventeen seconds. Then twenty. The equipment held. Her body responded. She'd found the breakthrough she needed, and tomorrow she'd push even further. At sunrise, she carried her crystal-lens scanner to the colony's outer edge. The device hummed in her grip as she pointed it at the ground where energy pulses were strongest. The readings jumped on the small screen, showing patterns she hadn't seen before. She walked to three more sites, taking readings at each location. The scanner beeped and recorded the data. Back at her lab, she compared the numbers. The energy behaved differently in different places, which explained why some experiments failed while others succeeded. She marked the safest zones on her map and circled the testing area she'd use next. The control panel stood near her lab entrance, its red emergency button reflecting the morning light. She ran three drills, timing how fast she could reach it from different positions in the testing zone. Eight seconds from the workbench. Twelve from the containment field. She adjusted the panel's settings so one button press would cut all power instantly. During her last explosion, the shutdown had taken too long because she'd fumbled with multiple switches. This new setup eliminated that risk. She tested it twice more, then reset the system. Before her next test, she stepped into the decontamination pod outside the lab. Silver liquid poured down from above, washing over her suit and gloves. The scanner had shown trace energy particles on her equipment from yesterday's work. The liquid stripped them away and drained through the floor grate. She emerged clean and checked her gloves one final time. The focusing strips sat perfect against the reinforced material. The emergency panel waited within reach. Her testing zone was mapped and measured. Everything was ready. She'd pushed to twenty seconds this morning, and now she had the tools to push further without the mistakes that had stopped her before.