Evolve (23)
The bridge, which had briefly fallen silent, soon filled with murmurs as one by one people regained their senses. Among those creating this buzz was myself. No—everyone was the same.
"... Is this really fog?"
I furrowed my brow as I watched the external camera feed. There were too many suspicious points for it to be a natural fog formed by climate or other environmental factors. It wasn't simply because of its sheer scale.
This level of fog, while not common, had on occasion covered Titan as a natural phenomenon. There were even research results showing that the energy waves emanating from the Blue Crystal underground had a significant impact on the climate.
It was much like when ice stalactites grew into huge ice mountain ranges. In such special situations, because the Blue Crystal deposits existed, a dense fog accompanied by ice storms would sometimes sweep over the residential area.
On such days, shuttle operations would be suspended for a while, and ground vehicles—rail cars in particular—would be used to get to the Heaven mining base. I knew this well, having experienced it several times myself.
If the terraforming devices had been working properly, ice storms like that would not have occurred. But for years, those devices had only maintained the status quo, so stopping the ice storms was impossible.
Like the saying, "If you can't avoid it, enjoy it," people in the residential area treated the arrival of an ice storm almost like a localized event.
'It was like that back then.'
But now, it had become a matter of survival, not an event. Returning to the matter at hand, I was convinced the fog shrouding the Valem Spaceport and all nearby surface was not a natural phenomenon.
What kind of fog grows outward, gradually engulfing the surrounding area? And as its area spreads, the fog doesn't get thinner—instead, the core grows thicker and denser.
If I weren't looking through a zoomed-in camera feed but just saw it from a distance, it might have just looked like a thick blanket of snow.
"This isn't fog. Looks more like chaff."
Licorice hummed and crossed her arms. She had previously mentioned that the ECM chaff dispersed at the spaceport was highly toxic and that the release devices were currently going haywire.
At first, she hadn't expected the situation to be quite so out of control, so she'd been a bit flustered, but that didn't last long. Having regained her composure, Licorice asked Eric,
"How many exploration drones are available right now? We've already recovered those left after deploying decoys, so there should be a good number left."
"Drone production has been halted as a lower priority, so we have 56 remaining."
"Fifty-six... I wish we had more, but it can't be helped. Transfer all control to me, for now. I'll focus on pinpointing the spaceport's location in the meantime."
"Understood."
Eric worked the console and handed over drone controls to Licorice, who immediately deployed every drone without hesitation. Views from the drones filled the big holographic screen, partitioned and shared.
Once we realized something strange was happening at Valem Spaceport, both Albatross and Griffin stopped advancing. They immediately veered away, careful not to enter the fog's domain. That meant it would take a little time for our drones to reach the fogged area.
While the murmurs in the bridge still hadn't died down, I questioned how Licorice was planning to find the spaceport's location.
Earlier, I'd seen a silhouette briefly revealed by strong winds—now, even that was gone. I was curious but didn't ask aloud.
Nadia slid over and spoke quietly.
"Finding the spaceport's location itself isn't hard. Our geographic data may be outdated, but unless that abnormal fog has engulfed all of Titan—which it hasn't—we can estimate the spaceport's coordinates using still-clear areas as reference. She's already prepared those coordinates."
"... I didn't even ask."
"I just figured you were wondering!"
Nadia giggled, her fluffy tail swishing. I almost denied it, but it was true—I was curious. So I just coughed awkwardly. As I nodded in acknowledgment, Nadia's laugh grew.
That didn't last long; we quickly composed ourselves at the news that the lead drone had reached the boundary of the fog.
"The leading drone has reached the fog's edge. I'll analyze its composition now."
Licorice started tapping at the hologram keyboard—or at least, she would have, had the feed not suddenly gotten noisy.
No sooner did our previously reliable drone's feed touch the fog than it began to shudder violently, and shortly after, crashed in a way that looked almost as if it were sucked straight down. If Licorice hadn't quickly cut manual controls and switched it to auto-exploration mode, it would have nose-dived right away.
Switching to footage from another drone, we watched as the disabled drone disappeared into—no, was devoured by—the fog. Its signal cut out instantly. The room went silent.
"It's definitely ECM chaff. And a very potent one at that."
"Is it really possible for it to be this strong?"
"In this day and age? Completely possible. Something's gone wrong with the dispersal system at the spaceport. Looks like the circuits were damaged by energy rushing in from the reactor, but the device's durability made it last this long and caused this."
Normally, such chaff dispensers would break down before getting to this point, Licorice explained. She said the only reason it was lasting was because the spaceport was full of expensive ships and shuttles—assets too high in value to be easily destroyed.
"There's probably nothing more we can find by sending in additional drones anyway."
"Are we scrapping the mission, then?"
"The mission... My opinion is that we should go ahead as planned."
Licorice said this after a moment's hesitation. Celestia spoke up.
"Could you tell us your reasoning?"
"It's simple."
Licorice brought up terrain data on the main hologram.
"We've pinpointed the spaceport's location. If we go into the fog, circuits will malfunction and we could get lost, but with the remaining drones, we can set up a solution; so that's not a critical problem."
"With the drones?"
"We'll purposely send drones into the fog, at fixed intervals, one by one. We'll follow the signal emitted by each exploration drone and move forward. That way, we can reach the spaceport safely."
In other words, she would preset the drones so that, even if the signal cut out, they'd still head to pre-designated coordinates and hover at a set height with extremely bright lights attached—acting as beacons. Even though the fog reduced light transmission, we could still perceive them close-up.
Originally, we'd planned to take Roxy's shuttle to the spaceport. But with the current abnormal ECM chaff fog, the shuttle was no longer a viable option.
Not only could the chaff cause the shuttle to malfunction, but, more importantly, there was no way of knowing what was hidden in that fog—fog that didn't dissipate even in powerful winds.
'Even knowing its location, dropping straight down from above is too dangerous.'
That's why we'd send in the drones ahead. By observing what happened to them, we could get a rough idea of any potential dangers.
Even if the signal cut out, with instructions for the drone to hover at specified coordinates, we could still detect their light or presence by other means.
Of course, the drones could end up somewhere completely unintended, or get stuck on protrusions, or even be destroyed by something hidden within the fog.
But that was still okay. Even if it took some time, by recovering each drone one by one, safety could be managed—well, relatively speaking. "Safe" was a stretch, but it was safer than the alternatives.
Licorice flipped to another screen. Before we knew it, the drones were scattered all around, gathering sounds from the fog's edge, not too far away for the signals to hold.
"I know the ground situation is more important than just getting inside. So, I'm collecting data now, and so far, all evidence suggests there are no survivors at Valem Spaceport."
"There could still be mutants, though."
"There's no relevant audio data yet, but I can't imagine there wouldn't be. With how densely populated the spaceport was, odds are high. That's why we're not dropping in directly from above."
She was right. It was a trait of mutants to remain dormant until they sensed something. Weren't there even mimic-type mutants?
"There's a possibility the pureblood supremacists might not know the details of this situation, but I doubt it. Titan is already under their control."
The reason the pureblood supremacists were quiet for now was thanks to the nuclear blast we'd triggered earlier. Their forces had taken a big hit, and they were still busy containing the chaos.
But now that things had somewhat settled, we were seeing small-armed shuttles in patrol formations.
"With them mobilizing, we can assume other areas are now well-defended."
In other words, attacking anywhere else was impossible with our current strength. Unlike in the chaff fog, the rest of the sector still had full, open communication.
Even if we tried a lightning strike for a quick operation, reinforcements would arrive to block us faster than we could break through.
Licorice had maintained from the beginning that targeting this reactor was the easiest route. That hadn't changed, even with the addition of the ECM chaff fog.
Giving her argument more weight, Licorice pressed on:
"We can't guarantee there are no pureblood supremacists inside. Given how insane they are, they might be hiding somewhere protected from the toxic chaff. They might be waiting for us—or other survivors, hoping to pick them off."
Everyone understood the implication: the reason for waiting was to kill. The supremacists never intended to spare anyone but their own.
They preached grace but simply killed or turned others into monsters. Their obsession with pure blood meant they would never tolerate any other impurities. More people had died in recent months than had in the previous hundred years.
"But inside this fog, at least, we can have something close to a fair fight. The robots should be completely disabled, and even with power loaders, they'll be no different. And even if they manage to get them moving, Woof-woof has them covered, so we don't really need to worry."
Nadia scratched her cheek but didn't deny it. When Licorice said "the robots are completely disabled," she usually meant no external control—like with the Beta series she managed.
That meant they could only operate on their internal programs—significantly reducing their power. With sensors scrambled, robots couldn't perform at their full potential.
"Last thing: whatever may be inside, to attempt external communication, they'll have to come out."
Licorice punctuated her point by jabbing a finger at the close-up hologram. Those were the sections around the rim still not yet covered in fog.
"We'll surround the perimeter before going in, using signal beacons with detection functions. If we spot any movement out, albatross and Griffin can intercept everything. That should be sufficient."
With that, Licorice concluded: despite the abnormal fog, the reactor at Valem Spaceport was still our target. The operation would proceed.
Even though everyone recognized how dangerous it would be to breach the fog, no one voiced opposition. More accurately, no one could.
Our first requirement to escape Titan was to activate the Purification Protocol. To do that, we first had to overload the specialized generator—the reactor—and shoot energy into orbit.
And since these reactors weren't common generators, there were only a few on Titan, all of them heavily secured and not easy to infiltrate.
The pureblood supremacists had raided the military bases for all their war matériel, calling it their own. Even if we'd managed to produce some weapons and build up our strength, we were still at an overall disadvantage.
"You said you were gathering data. Couldn't you collect information by sending the drones into the fog for a set time and then retrieving them? If you preset them to return after a while..."
"I told you, this isn't ordinary chaff. Actually, I'm not even sure if I should call it chaff. The interference affects not just cameras. The moment a drone touches the fog, every circuit gets scrambled—motors might last, but for how long is anyone's guess."
Licorice scoffed at someone's question and pulled up another screen. The drone that had entered the fog simply drifted down and didn't come back up.
'So that's why she only set it to hover.'
That must have been the best option. Licorice was planning to just let the drones drop if necessary. At least that way, they wouldn't wander off while hovering.
Celestia approached and asked,
"Hyun-woo, what do you want to do?"
"... Me?"
"Yes, Hyun-woo."
Celestia looked at me straight on, as if there were no one else to decide but me.
Licorice was the same. In reality, with the ECM fog, Licorice couldn't offer as much help this time—her oft-emphasized real-time decision-making was crucial now.
I scratched my cheek this time. Though the situation had changed, I couldn't help but think this was still the best option. The other routes more or less guaranteed both mutants and pureblood supremacists as our enemies, while at Valem Spaceport, the enemies were mainly mutants and robots whose power had been greatly diminished.
'If we have to fight anyway, better the latter.'
My deliberation was short—almost unnecessary. I'd already made up my mind, so I could speak calmly and without hesitation.
"Let's get ready to go down."
With our direction set, everyone nodded in agreement.