Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 39

"We should have used an antigravity unit," Prototype complained as she tried to get the remote controlled glider to turn in something approaching a reasonable fashion so she could get a better look at something that looked suspiciously unnatural.

Leet glanced up from the go-kart schematic he was working and looked at his shard's puppet who was sitting in a chair with a cobbled together remote on her lap. "You're the one that didn't want to wait for Dragon to finish machining all of the specialty parts we need."

"That doesn't change the fact that the controls suck," Prototype replied as she sent the glider into a dive so she could use the forward facing camera to get a better look at the structure she wanted to look at. "I think we found a base."

"More like a used car lot," Uber said as he studied the image on the laptop the remote was connected to, fairly sure the random collection of metal blobs were vehicles of some variety.

"Do you want a portal or do you want to wait to see if the base has automated defenses and shoots the glider out of the air?" Taylor asked, fairly sure some of the long narrow bits she could see on the building were weapons of some sort.

Leet glanced between Skitter and Prototype. "Why does everyone have it in for my glider?"

"It's ugly and the controls suck?" Uber asked thoughtfully.

"Fair enough," Leet admitted, knowing the paint job needed work and the design wasn't particularly elegant, mostly because it was an off the shelf piece of crap he'd stolen from a group of ABB goons. "You might as well land and see if something blasts it."

Prototype adjusted the controls and pulled the glider out of its dive in an attempt to land the device, if only because she didn't want to listen to Leet whine about his toy being destroyed.

"Are you thinking hover…" Taylor trailed off when she saw a flash of green on the screen and the connection died. "You know, I was mostly joking about automated defenses."

Leet summoned his plasma rifle. "Let's have a chat with the locals."

Taylor turned to look at Leet. "Do you have a plan beyond jumping out of a portal and getting shot?"

"We should be able to use one of the vehicles for cover and I doubt they can hit us while we're phased," Leet suggested.

"Let's call that plan B or C," Taylor suggested as she pulled a puppet out of her inventory and activated it. She conjured a cellphone with a camera then typed the number on the phone into the laptop's chat program and dialed it.

"I think I like her plan better," Uber said with a grin.

Leet sighed dramatically. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"In my other pants," Uber replied without hesitation.

Taylor opened a portal and sent the puppet through after handing it the cell. "No wheels, they're definitely vehicles of some sort."

"Get a little closer, I want to see if they're using thrusters or some type of antigravity," Prototype ordered.

Taylor had her puppet glance around to make sure she wasn't missing something dangerous then walked over to the nearest ship and looked at the underside, making sure to move the camera around to give everyone a decent look.

"We're going to have to take some of these apart to be sure but it looks like they're using antigravity rather than thrusters," Prototype mused as she studied the image on the screen.

"It's certainly worth a look," Uber agreed, wondering if they could find some text books or engineering manuals.

Taylor shook her head. "We're not stealing anything, we're just exploring."

"Can we loot the place to the ground if they're criminals?" Prototype asked hopefully.

"That depends on why they're criminals," Taylor replied as her puppet headed towards the building. She frowned slightly when the doors to the base opened and half a dozen robots ran out of the building holding some type of firearms or energy weapons. "Do you think they're sentient?"

"No clue," Leet admitted, looking forward to taking them apart if they weren't.

"This planet is controlled by Master Boorka of the Hutt Cartel. State your business or die!" one of the robots announced, sounding oddly cheerful.

"Hutt Cartel?" Uber asked warily, reminded of the old Star Wars movies.

Taylor had the puppet hold its hands up. "I'm a peaceful explorer, take me to your leader."

"Follow," the droid ordered as it turned and walked back into the building.

"Understood," Taylor replied through her puppet as she had it walk towards the building.

Leet glanced at Uber. "Ten says they're criminals."

Uber shook his head. "I'm not taking that bet."

Taylor glanced between Leet and Uber. "What makes you think they're criminals?"

"The fact that they're working for a cartel and the fact that they were willing to kill your puppet if they didn't like the answer they got," Uber replied as Skitter's puppet walked closer to the robots and they got a better picture.

"We should send this to Armsmaster," Leet suggested thoughtfully.

Taylor shook her head. "That would mean admitting that we have the portal device."

"It's not technically illegal, it's just illegal to open a portal to Earth Aleph," Leet pointed out.

"Let's wait until we have a better idea of what we're dealing with, we don't need him stealing, I mean 'confiscating' the best parts," Uber said as Skitter's puppet walked into the building and they got a decent look at the lobby. "It looks like a cross between a bar and a private airport lobby."

Taylor turned her attention to a droid that looked suspiciously like a newer and shinier C3PO as it walked over. "Are you in charge?"

"Until Master Boorka returns," the protocol droid replied as it looked at the small alien. "What species are you?"

"I'm a puppet," Taylor replied as she glanced around the lobby, surprised that she didn't see anyone organic around.

"Unknown species," the protocol droid said. "What is your business with Master Boorka?"

"That depends, what types of products do you sell?" Taylor asked, trying to get a better idea of what they were dealing with.

"Hunting trips, drugs, spaceships, personal armor, various parts and weapons that are illegal in the core," the droid replied. "We are currently out of slaves."

"You sold slaves?" Taylor asked warily.

"Of course, they're quite profitable," the droid replied cheerfully.

"At least this means we can loot everything without feeling guilty," Leet said cheerfully.

'Like that would have stopped you,' Uber thought as he watched the protocol droid.

"When is Master Boorka returning?" Taylor asked the droid.

"Master Boorka is deceased and won't be returning," the droid replied.

"But he's still in charge?" Taylor asked.

"Yes," the droid replied. "I will maintain everything until he returns and terminate anyone or anything that tries to steal his planet or shipyard."

"You can make ships here?" Taylor asked in surprise.

"No, the shipyard is in orbit," the droid replied. "Which service do you want to take advantage of and what do you have to trade? We don't take republic credits."

"Ask about spaceships," Prototype suggested.

"Illegal weapons," Uber added.

"I have gold and gems, what types of spaceships and weapons do you have?" Taylor asked.

"You're wasting my time, shoot it," the protocol droid ordered.

"Wait…" Taylor trailed off as the security droids blasted her puppet to pieces. "Okay, that was rude."

Leet glanced at the portal. "Time for plan B?"

"Do you have any power armor?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

Leet glanced at Prototype. "Nothing I feel safe wearing without taking it apart and putting it back together."

"Probably for the best," Prototype admitted, knowing that some of the systems in his last suit of armor were glitchy as hell.

"I bet they have decent armor stashed away," Uber suggested.

"Your EMP blaster should do the trick if you want them intact," Prototype suggested.

"How many shots do you think I have before it explodes?" Leet asked Prototype.

"At least three," Prototype replied as she pulled up the schematic. "Give me five minutes, some wire and wire cutters and I can push that to sixty or seventy."

Leet pulled a spool of wire and his EMP blaster out of his inventory and set them on the table they were using as a workbench. "Can you grab one of the hovercraft with a portal?" he asked Skitter.

"It depends on how heavy and durable the vehicles are," Taylor mused. "If they're durable enough, I could probably just pick them up and walk through the portal. If not, I'll have to figure out how to move them without breaking everything."

"They're advanced hover cars and they're not in a garage, that means they're probably durable enough to survive a couple of bumps and the weather. They should have some type of landing gear that you can pick up," Uber pointed out.

"I'll take a look," Taylor replied as she pulled another expendable puppet out of her inventory and activated it.

Leet turned and fired his plasma rifle at a droid when it stepped out of the portal with a blaster pointed in their general direction, destroying the droid's chest. "So much for keeping them intact."

Taylor scowled and closed the portal when one of the droids jumped out of the portal and shot her, the bolt of super hot plasma hitting her force field and deforming before vanishing as the energy dissipated. She quickly cast earth shock on the droid, causing it to seize up and topple to the ground. "Sorry, I forgot about the portal."

Uber stepped forward and grabbed the blaster out of the robot's hands on the off chance that it recovered from getting zapped. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I've got a force field and a force field belt," Taylor replied as she walked over and picked up the droid that Leet had burned a hole through. "Do you think we could use the droids for mining?"

"It shouldn't be too hard to reprogram them," Prototype replied as she scanned the droids and the blaster, looking forward to taking the droids apart. "The droids should be useful, the blasters are nearly useless as the gas doesn't occur naturally and would be problematic to synthesize."

"Is it going to explode?" Uber asked warily.

Prototype ran some simulations on the gas. "It shouldn't, provided you don't ignite the gas in the blaster and assuming it stays stable."

Taylor walked over and grabbed the second blaster and stuck it in her inventory. "Let's get the EMP weapon fixed then I'll slip in while invisible and shoot the droids."

"I'll call Dragon and see if she wants to help, she can probably repurpose some of the droids to help her manufacture the power generators," Leet explained as he selected Dragon's number and waited for her to answer.

"Just a second," Dragon told Colin as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and answered it. "What's wrong?"

Leet laughed. "Nothing, we found a smuggler's base in another world. I was hoping you could help me toss their computers to see if we could get the command codes for the orbital shipyard."

Colin rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Please tell me you didn't open a portal to Earth Aleph."

"I'm crazy, not stupid," Leet replied with amusement, recognizing Armsmaster's voice. "We found a smuggler's base with droids and energy weapons, I figured Dragon would want a crack at their security."

"I'd love to," Dragon replied as she turned to look at the monitor the other Dragon was using to help. "Can you continue running the simulations?"

"Analysis and I should be fine," Dragon assured her alternate. "Bring me back something interesting, like droid schematics."

"And ship plans," Analysis added, looking forward to taking the droids and ships apart to see if she could learn anything.

"Are you at the docks?" Colin asked.

"The north ferry terminal, Skitter purchased it," Leet replied.

"We'll be there in seven minutes," Colin told them, a bit surprised that the city had sold the ferry terminal but fairly sure Leet wouldn't lie about it considering it would be easy to check.

"Cool," Leet replied, then ended the call before they could ask any inconvenient questions, like where the portal went or who the smuggler's were working for. He wasn't going to mention anything about Hutts or possible Star Wars connections until they were already through the portal because he was fairly sure Armsmaster wouldn't believe him. "They should be here in ten minutes."

"Sounds good," Taylor replied, looking forward to seeing what types of ships she could liberate.

"I'll have the EMP weapon fixed," Prototype assured him as she got to work.

{Do you want to storm an alien spaceyard?} Taylor asked Admin.

[When do you need me?] Admin asked as she worked on teaching Egwene some of the basic weaves she'd picked up from the Forsaken.

{Armsmaster and Dragon should be at the ferry station in ten minutes, it's probably going to take at least twenty minutes to clear the base of hostile droids and I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get the location of the shipyard and access codes from the computer}, Taylor admitted.

[I doubt she'll take more than five minutes to get the codes or the location. Thirty five to forty minutes should give me enough time to finish teaching Egwene and the rest of the girls the basics so they can work on practicing.]

{Thanks for making sure they get the best version of the weaves. I'll let you know when we're heading up to the station}, Taylor promised.

[You're welcome], Admin replied, looking forward to looking through the new technology for useful bits.

0o0o0

Snips stared at the image that R2D2 had tossed up on the screen of a small humanoid alien stepping out of what looked like a black and blue hole in space. "Shouldn't we have felt something if someone was teleporting?"

"Only if it was connected to the force," Anakin replied as he reached his senses out towards the planet with the abandoned hutt base that R2D2 had found. He relaxed when he didn't find anything particularly noteworthy. "Do you feel anything?"

"Nothing or at least nothing unusual," Snips admitted after a couple of seconds of reflection.

"Good work R2, keep an eye on the cameras," Anakin ordered as he started checking the ship's various systems in case they had to make a quick exit while keeping part of his attention on the recording until the humanoid vanished from view.

"What should I do?" Snips asked.

"Try to relax or finish your report for the last mission," Anakin suggested. "I have a feeling this is going to be interesting."

Snips glanced at Anakin. "The force?"

"Experience," Anakin replied as R2 pulled up an interior camera that showed a protocol droid talking to the small, almost doll-like humanoid. "Can you recover the sound?"

R2 whistled, indicating that he couldn't get sound because it wasn't set up to record sound.

"Not surprising," Snips agreed, knowing the smugglers would kill the people in charge if they thought their conversations were being recorded. "How…" she trailed off when the droids opened fire and the humanoid was shredded and consumed by fire. "Good to know the protocol droid can't be trusted ahead of time."

R2 beeped in agreement.

"I don't see any heavy combat droids, can you get eyes on the rest of the base?" Anakin asked, wanting to make sure there wouldn't be any nasty surprises.

R2 beeped a few times.

Anakin shook his head. "Let me rephrase, bring up the rest of the base."

R2 beeped, sounding almost smug then started cycling through the rest of the base on the monitor.

0o0o0

"What makes you think this is going to work?" Rand asked as he studied the floating crystal sword hovering above the stone floor in the massive stone chamber, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that they'd stepped through a portal and into an empty version of the Stone of Tear in an instant.

Taylor glanced away from the description of the ward that her inspection ability was showing her and looked at Rand. "Beyond the fact that I can see how the ward works, common sense. Wards are like a puzzle or a game, if you do certain things, certain other things happen or don't happen based on fairly rigid rules. Are you following me so far?"

Mat pulled his attention away from the floating sword and looked at Skitter. "That's reasonable enough."

Perrin nodded. "They're like blacksmith puzzles, you can only solve them a certain way and there is usually a trick."

Taylor glanced between the three boys. "Close enough. Now let's assume you're part of the group that needs to keep every insane male Aes Sedai from using Callandor to level cities. You can't just toss it in the ocean because your friends that can predict the future have told you that the sword will eventually be needed to save the world. You're still hoping that someone will find a cure or a way to cleanse the source, so you do the best you can, you build a massive keep that will stand the test of time and you ward the sword so that no one else can take it from the stone."

"Which is where the prophecies come in, right?" Rand asked warily.

Taylor shrugged. "In theory, you're trying to predict something three thousand years in the future. Maybe foretelling is just straight up better than anything I've seen but cultures change over time and you're talking three thousand years, assuming they even knew when Lews Therin would be reborn. Maybe you get hints or maybe you can see the future as clear as day, I'd certainly want to hedge my bets if I was in charge of things. If you need to have a certain artifact or a certain tattoo in order to pull the sword from the stone, you're risking a lot by recording it and you're risking more by not recording it. Personally, I'd set things up so that it checks for the Dragon's soul and maybe checks to make sure he's not already tainted and insane."

"Are you saying the prophecies don't matter?" Perrin asked.

Mat turned to look at Rand. "You might as well take it."

"What makes you think it's me?" Rand asked warily.

Mat glanced at Perrin. "Because I can't channel saidin and I think the legends would have mentioned it if the Dragon had the ability to talk to wolves."

Taylor got a brief precog flash of Rand denying his destiny for weeks if he grabbed it without someone else trying first. "Just grab it and pull Perrin," she suggested before Rand could grab the sword.

Perrin reached out and grabbed the sword, trying not to think of what he was going to do if he was stuck trying to save the world. He pulled on the sword and sighed in relief when it didn't budge. "It's not moving."

"That's because you're not the Dragon Reborn," Taylor said as she turned to look at Rand. "I just want to make sure that Rand can't claim that the wards were broken."

"Let me try," Mat said as he reached out and grabbed the handle and pulled then leaned on the sword to show that it wasn't going anywhere.

"Might as well try, maybe she's wrong," Perrin suggested as Mat stood up and backed away from the sword.

"It's not going to work…" Rand trailed off as he reached out and grabbed the sword, almost dropping it when it fell out of the air. "Ashes."

Taylor held out her hand for the sword. "You should probably avoid holding the sword until we can make sure you can control your powers, we don't need you leveling cities."

Rand quickly handed her the sword. "Take it."

Taylor stuck the sa'angreal in her inventory. "Thanks."

"Now what?" Perrin asked warily, not sure what the next step was.

"I suggest heading back to Emond's Field and practicing with weapons and magic until you're ready to start your adventures. Moiraine and one of my puppets picked up a girl from Baerlon that can catch glimpses of the future that might be able to give you a place to start. If nothing else, it gives us a chance to make some decent protective gear before you leave," Taylor suggested, figuring Min might give them a place to start.

"We're going to need an army to fight the trollocs," Mat pointed out, thinking of his dreams filled with battles he'd never even heard of and details he shouldn't remember.

"I've got a couple of ideas," Taylor replied, thinking about her mech designs and the corrupted aiel her other puppet was summoning and cleansing. She opened a portal to Emond's Field and gestured for them to step through.

0o0o0