“That’s it?” He probably should have sounded more impressed.
“Expected something bigger?” she teased.
“Yeah. I mean, how did something so small pack such a powerful punch?”
“Theluughal.” She pointed to the gemstones. “Within that cylinder, we simply needed to build a small frequency generator, which, when activated, spread the signal to the stones, which then amplified it, creating the wave of energy that blasted the Kukakk’s opposing force apart.”
He circled the device and, upon trying to count, shook his head. “There’s hundreds of those gemstones.”
“One thousand and ninety-three to be exact.”
His brows lifted. “Damn. And you said Earth doesn’t have these stones?”
“No. As I said, I stole the piece that was discovered.”
“To do what?”
“Power my ship.” Her shoulders rolled. “The newest iteration needed an energy source powerful enough to reach Mars in a reasonable time frame.”
“Hold on, wasn’t that gemstone less than two karats?”
“As I mentioned, they are an excellent energy source.”
No shit. It made lithium look like an obese distant cousin. “Wonder what we have that might be comparable.”
“I’ve yet to find anything on Earth that comes close.” She canted her head. “You haven’t yet asked if you can take the bomb.”
“Honestly, I’m going to look at other options first. As you said, no point in destroying the alien if there’s no one to appreciate it after.”
“While I’m sure your AI is very smart, we had our own systems capable of analysis, and we never found another way to disrupt the Kukakk’s energy signature other than an opposing, blunt-force blast.”
“Your systems may have been smart for your time, but they also didn’t predict what it would do your magnetic field,” he tried pointing out gently.
“Because the resulting backlash was unprecedented.”
“But now we have that data. Perhaps it will provide the answer.”
“I hope so,” a positive statement belied by her doubtful expression.
He spent that day taking pictures of the device, even though she transferred all the schematics for it to his computer in Tower. Aquarius tended to be a more visual kind of guy when it came to spotting solutions. For example, with coding, he studied the many lines of commands, filtering them, and somehow coming up with answers—AKA ways to get around firewalls and other such security features.
By the end of the day, he was as tired as if he’d spent hours in the gym. Mental exercise could be exhausting.
He noticed, as they ate, Ishtar kept glancing his way. Did she wonder if he’d try to seduce? Should he make his intentions known? She’d seemed receptive, but before he could even think of broaching it—or simply leaning in for a kiss—something chimed.
“What’s that?” he asked, glancing around.
“Communication system. Hold on.” She rose and went to a blank metallic panel on the wall, maybe a foot wide and half as high. Writing suddenly appeared on its surface.
“It would seem we’ve been summoned back to the tower,” she announced.
“Why? Has something happened?”
“I don’t know. Nimrod tends to be basic when relaying messages.”
Wait, Tower contacted her? That didn’t bode well.
“Good thing I collected most of what I wanted.” It helped she’d relented and agreed to give him all the data she’d accumulated. It saved him a lot of time. Now he could let Little Star do its thing. He had to wonder at her change of heart, though. Pisces would likely claim it was because he’d given her a very nice O. He had hoped to gift her many more before they had to return. Would their abrupt return change what burgeoned between them? Guess he’d soon see.
