The desert was as barren as it was, mostly devoid of life and activity. The causes were entirely natural, but this time, a man and a woman were solely to blame for the emptiness in the calm dunes far north.
Julian observed the bones left behind by the creatures that were still dwelling here not long ago.
"You don't have to kill off the entire ecosystem, Tasha." He bent down and picked up the skull of a two-legged critter. "If this goes on, we'll be killing ourselves in the long run."
Julian would not hesitate to fend off any creatures that were a threat to his territory but would not dare to kill everything else in the way.
A line had to be drawn and Tasha purposefully went past it. She sighed and glanced at Julian.
"What's up with you expansionists always being two-faced?"
"It's not being two-faced. It's about conserving the environment so that I won't die by my own hands when the time in the future comes." Julian threw the bones away and ignored her teasing. "What's this? Are we treasure-seeking now?"
"Not exactly." Tasha waved her hands.
"Not exactly?!"
"You know how a psionic improve their power, right, captain?"
Julian scratched his head. "How am I supposed to know that? I'm not a psionic myself!"
"I will tell you about them then." Tasha chuckled and raised her left index finger. "Method one is to continuously apply our psionic powers until we are exhausted either in training or in battle. Method two is to learn a new technique, especially the very complex ones. Method three is to ingest food, supplements, and medical products that can augment our psionic powers. Method four is to strap ourselves with equipment that can increase the strength of our psionic powers in all forms."
She raised her thumb with a deep gaze at the wall of a dune in front. "Method five is what I am going to do now. Stealing the heavenly or psionic essence from another creature."
A powerful psionic wave blasted through the sand, revealing a cavern that led underground.
"You're going to steal someone's essence?" Julian staggered backward, distancing himself from the imminent battle.
"Stay far away, captain. This is going to get lively." Tasha knuckled her hands and stretched her neck.
The sand that idly laid at the entrance suddenly moved in a counterclockwise motion, assembling into a humanoid serpentine form wielding two arms with sharp and jagged rocks as its claws.
Julian watched through the mecha suit's visor, curiosity filling his mind. "That looks like a rock golem but in the form of sand... Are these two related?"
Meanwhile, Tasha went euphoric. "There it is, the sand elemental."
She gathered psionic waves in both her hands and formed them into a spear, flicked her hands in the air, and launched the two projectiles straight at the torso of her enemy.
The psionic waves struck the sand elemental, giving out loud thuds.
Her enemy remained unharmed, causing her to raise her eyebrows. "Eh, an adaptive barrier?"
The sand elemental moved through the sand at great speed, faster than the Phase Two dummy robot.
Tasha enveloped herself in psionic energy, moving at an even faster rate.
Sonic booms could be heard everywhere she went as she relentlessly bombarded the pursuing sand elemental with her ever-changing psionic attacks.
The sand elemental remained steadfast and pursued her at all costs.
Annoyed by her enemy's defenses, Tasha rolled out an invisible rotating sphere made by her psionic energy.
Its rapid rotation warped the space around it.
The sand elemental struck her, its sharp and jagged rock claws scraping through her psionic barrier, leaving her unharmed.
The sphere on her hand stirred and shot out like a cannonball, hitting the sand elemental's shoulders, and blasting it apart. Its left hand became lifeless, the sand and claws dropping to the ground.
She grinned after knowing the effectiveness of her attack.
The sand elemental suddenly stopped as the sand around it dropped to the ground.
Tasha moved to the right, evading a sharp clawing gesture from the sand elemental who reappeared underneath her previous position.
"You're slow, sand elemental!"
Dense psionic waves converged on the sand elemental's location, imploding it from within and blasting all the sand away, leaving a small, clear hexagonal crystal floating in the air.
Tasha grabbed it with an influx of psionic energy, landing on her smooth palms.
She could feel an intense vortex of natural essence inside the hexagonal crystal, making her happier than ever.
"Okay! We're done here, captain! Let's go back to base!"
Hearing her jovial words rendered Julian speechless. "Okay..."
Tasha flew in front with Julian behind her, his face crestfallen about the recent events.
"Is something the matter, captain?"
"Yeah. I've decided, Tasha. I'm not going to let you use your powers until I say so." Julian's eyes turned cold, increasing the amount of suppression upon Tasha.
Caught in surprise, Tasha landed on the ground face-first. She dumbfoundedly stared at Julian who remained hovering in the air.
"What's with the change of mind, captain?! Are my powers not to your liking?!"
"Your powers are truly amazing, and as much as I want your help, I think I wouldn't want that for now." His gaze fixed in the southern direction. "Me, the automatons, and my subordinates are still developing ourselves. If you intervene now, we will lose sight of our own power and form a dependency on your psionic abilities instead. You and I know better than anyone what happens if we rely on other's strength rather than ourselves."
The PMS-MD-103 landed beside her, reaching out its hands.
"I'm not forsaking you or anything, Tasha. Please don't take it that way. Now is just not a good time for you to showcase your powers in front of everyone. You can still fight with me or with that dummy robot in the training room. I want to test myself against you too, sometime."
Tasha gulped under his suppression and locked gazes for a long time. She shook her head and grabbed the mecha suit's arms, standing up with its help.
"Fine, you make a good point, and you said it, captain. Don't go breaking your promises sooner than you think."
Julian snorted and turned sideways. "I'm not that incompetent, Tasha. Let's go back now, shall we?"
"Before that, captain," Tasha interjected. "Why did you ask for my help earlier then?"
"Maybe I'm stupid, or maybe I was planning to measure your strength. Pick a guess, Tasha. You're a psionic, right?" Julian shrugged, avoiding a clear answer.
"What a jerk you are!" Tasha rolled her eyes and flew into the distance.
Julian laughed after seeing that he managed to deflect her away. Even he had no clear answer to that either.
The two continued their journey without interruption and returned to the Federation outpost.
Julian noticed the CA-102 looking over the repairs, pointing fingers here and there as Avina ordered the automaton squads on their duties and responsibilities.
"Avina!" Julian called out.
The CA-102 turned its head around and greeted him. "Successor. Avina is currently repairing this area. The successor may have to wait momentarily."
"I know, Avina. Keep up the good work."
"Avina will, successor."
"Oh?" Julian stared at the dilapidated HQ building and the airlocks around it now surrounded by the yellow proto insects. "Did Intellus crack this too?"
"Intellus has other news for the successor. He is waiting for the successor in the Medical Lab Building." Avina reported. "Avina believes that Hesab also has something to say to the successor."
Julian was surprised about Hesab's matter. What did that maniac have something to do with him now?
"Ah, my dear successor!"
"You're right on time, aren't you, Hesab?" Julian ignored Hesab's annoying portrait appearing on the VNI.
"Yes, of course! I have to thank the mighty successor for offering me a mountain of samples! I will do my best to decipher these biological creatures for our cause!"
"Yeah, yeah. You will, Hesab. I'm busy so I'm cutting the connection now." Julian waved his hands and closed the connection, establishing another for Intellus.
"Intellus, what's the good news?"
"Successor, Unducel, and I have finished decrypting the module. Please look at the details on your VNI."
Several strings of data and images popped up on Julian's vision.
His mind got dizzy with all the objects and text floating around.
"Summarize them, Intellus."
The previous set of data was replaced with cleaner and more comprehensible information.
Julian then saw the name of the product that Doctor Steve had created.
Sentinel Adjudicator, nicknamed SENA.
A device similar to Julian's virtual neural interface that can be slotted into their brain, providing full control of the Sentinel's actions, thoughts, and loyalty, with limited interaction with their memories.
It came with various models attributed to the different Sentinel Programs offered by the Federation over the years, the SENA-A and SENA-B, with two more sub models for X and Y variants of the Sentinel program.
"Which one will be used for our guest sentinel, Intellus? Is it going to be SENA-BY?" Julian asked.
"That is correct, successor. I will require Unducel and Hesab's assistance for SENA-BY. It may momentarily pause some of our operations." Intellus advised.
"Go for it. I want this sentinel up and running as soon as possible."
Julian noticed that the SENA could potentially manipulate the sentinel's memory, giving him some leeway to explain the sentinel's 'abnormality'.
"Can we fully manipulate the sentinel's memory as well?"
"The SENA is not omniscient, successor. It can only manipulate the most recent events that the sentinel has experienced. I believe that the creator of this module, Doctor Steve Baker, wanted to inhibit the module's capability to a certain extent to prevent it from being easily discovered not in the context of scanners but by the sudden changes that may happen to the sentinel over time which can be fairly observable to the sharpest of eyes."
"I believe that you already have a plan, Intellus?"
Intellus' eyes flickered. "I have, successor. However, this will only be plausible if the Hermes is fully repaired. My program has still not finished analyzing the structure of the Hermes spacecraft."
'Why does it take a lot of time to be repaired? I feel like something is missing here...' Julian rubbed his chin, contemplating something. "Can you do it yourself or will you require some assistance?"
"The analysis process will be accelerated if I have an assistant, successor. Preferably someone who understands the Hermes' overall structural composition. I believe the successor should do this as soon as possible, especially if we are to return this sentinel to its superiors as soon as possible."
Julian's face twitched in disbelief; his eyes drawn to Tasha solemnly staring at the commotion in the outpost.
'Damn it! I just said those words to her, and guess what now?! Fucking dolt!'
As if hearing his internal monologue, Tasha stares back at him with an incredulous smile on her beautiful face.
The sight of it irked Julian's hands, looking to punch someone.
"My, oh my, successor. Are you in need of my help right now?"
'Should I, or should I not?' An ominous expression befell Julian and started regretting his recent choices.
"Yeah. You up for it? My subordinate needs someone who can assist him in analyzing the Hermes spacecraft."
"It's about that sentinel, I see." Tasha chuckled, trying to tease the defeated Julian. "I can offer my help. I was the one who destroyed that spacecraft anyway, and I should be responsible one way or another."
"You have my thanks, Tasha. Intellus is in the Medical Lab, and the Hermes spacecraft is in the repair yard. I'll have my automatons guide you if you need it."
Julian quickly turned around and flew back to HQ.
"What's he embarrassed about?" Tasha shook her head as she watched him move away, wondering what was on Julian's mind.
An automaton approached her, its metallic limbs slightly disfigured.
"Hello, Miss Tasha. I am Fox 1-2. Please follow me to the Hermes spacecraft."
Tasha was amused that this automaton continued to work despite its injured form. She remained silent on the way and soon arrived underground.
Her footsteps echoed throughout the vast confines of the repair yard, divided into sections containing various equipment, automatons, and vehicles.
"So, this is where the two spaceships are transferred into. I wonder, how did you manage to do that?"
The space shuttles were massive and moving them around would have produced a lot of noise and attraction.
She could not formulate a scenario that explained the feat behind what Julian and his subordinates managed to accomplish.
Fox 1-2 did not answer and stopped ahead of a large metal gate leading to the Hermes spacecraft.
"Miss Tasha, the Hermes spacecraft is behind these doors. Our superior, Intellus, is waiting for you inside."
Fox 1-2 bowed and left after that short introduction.
The creaking sounds reverberated throughout the repair yard as the large metal gates slowly opened, revealing the streamlined black Hermes spacecraft.
Half of its left wings were obliterated to dust, coupled with the wirings exposed and rusted.
Tasha noticed another automaton in front of the Hermes spacecraft, surrounded by white flashes of light that blinked continuously around the Hermes.
"You are here, Miss Tasha." Intellus turned around. "I believe the successor may have already told your purpose here."
"He did, and he was very bashful about it." Tasha smiled.
"I understand. It must be because he has not communicated with someone like you." Intellus remarked and turned back to the Hermes.
"Julian said that you were in the Medical Lab building. What's this body of yours doing here then?"
"I have multiple bodies and can exist anywhere, Miss Tasha. You will not have to worry about the inconsistencies of my presence from here on."
Intellus raised its head and admired the view of the Hermes from below.
"The continuous blinking you have seen are the white proto insects examining the Hermes spacecraft. Unfortunately, their investigative abilities are limited, and I hope that Miss Tasha can help us on this matter."
"Heh. Leave that to me, Intellus!" Tasha released sparks of lightning around her, catching Intellus' attention.
'This woman... has a different form of psionic power? The successor's aide is mystical indeed.'