1:4:6 Johned (Part 2)

Lore waited until it was just them and Char in the War room. They didn’t speak as they turned the holo-projector back on.
“Lore, why are we still here, we should be meeting back up with the clones.” Char gave their jacket a light pull at the elbow.
Lore ignored it, too focussed on finding the image again. “Look at this.” They brought back the picture of the Lores stood outside of The Slingshot. “Really look at it. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“There are twenty six of you smiling?” She shook her head. “It’s kind of off putting when you’re all smiling like that.”
“That’s exactly what’s wrong. There are twenty six Lores in this picture. There should only be twenty five.” Lore zoomed in. “That’s us. And I don’t know about you but I’ve never been to this place before.”
Char let out a significant gasp. “Oh my gods.” She sounded almost sarcastic but Lore knew she was genuine. “How could they have missed that?”
“Either they know about it and assume we come in later or they just never really looked because they would have seen these two as well.” Lore shifted the focus from themselves to two figures in the background.
“Ah.” Char really wasn’t sure what else to say. “So what do we do?”
“I say we look into this planet and go from there.” Lore got up. An ember of blue flickered then faded across their scarred eye.
“Can we pick up my body before we do anything? Not that I’m not enjoying being in your ear but I miss my body.” Destiny chuckled awkwardly.
“Fine…” Lore tapped at their Breacher. “I haven’t a clue where our bungalow is.”
“I’ll sort that.” Their Breacher vibrated as Destiny moved about in its circuitry and interfaced with the navigational matrix. “There we go. It should be programmed to take you to my body and I’ve saved the co-ordinates for here too so we can zip back nice and quick.”
“See you in a moment then.” Lore smiled then vanished in a flash of white.
There was something soft underfoot. It wasn’t the carpet and it wasn’t until their eyes had re-adjusted that they realised what it was. “Sorry.” Lore jumped across the room and off of Destiny’s lifeless body.
Destiny threw herself from Lore’s wrist then entered her body. The contorted pretzel she had fallen into tensed and pulsed as she turned herself on. Slowly she unfolded herself and stretched before rising.
“Oh my.” She slowly started wind milling her arms. There was a slight grinding noise which ceased after a few rotations. “There we go. That’s got the lubricant flowing again.” She groaned then smiled. “Right, ready when you are.”
Lore extended their hand and grabbed Destiny’s before activating the recall on their Breacher and returning them to the War Room. “We need somewhere private we can talk? Where are the clones?” A second blue ember sparked. It lasted a moment longer but was extinguished with a blink.
“They took The First’s group to The Destiny.” Destiny rotated her ankle. “Should I tell them to meet us somewhere or are we going to them?”
“We’ll go to them. Seems as good of a place as any.” Char looked to Lore and Destiny who both agreed. “Can either of you remember the way back to the hangar?”
“It’s this way, I think.” Lore started walking back towards the foyer. They slowed their pace and allowed Char to catch up with them. “I’ve been thinking…”
“Slow down there!” Char joked. “Sorry, about what?”
“The Tether Project.” Lore paused. “The tethers should work but I’m worried about actually presenting our modifications to the others. We’re basically kids here and they’ve been at this for years. Plus there’s the slight issue of how we’re going to power the bloody thing.” Lore hadn’t realised they had grabbed Char’s hand and had started to squeeze it with a strength foreign to them. For a fraction of a moment, their iris was aflame with blue light.
Char stopped and turned Lore to face her. She took a deep and steady breath in through her nose, held it and exhaled from her mouth. She repeated the action until Lore started doing it themselves. “There we go, calm down. Let’s sort out whatever’s going on on Johned first then we can start worrying about everything else.” She pulled them in for a hug, smiled and then continued walking. Lore lagged behind her for a moment but she rectified that by pulling them forward to walk level with her. “Right, what do we need to be doing when we get to The Destiny?”
Lore took another breath. “We’ll need a full scan of the planet as it is now and as it was when they abandoned it, or at least whenever there were twenty six of us there.”
“Won’t that mean we’ll already be there?” Char pressed the button to open the door to the hangar.
“There were twenty seven of us in the picture so if we detect twenty six Lores and we aren’t there, that’s when we need to go.” Lore thought for a moment. “Actually, we should just check whenever the photo was taken. Easier that way.”
They crossed the hangar; the gravity that had felt so heavy when they first arrived was the least of their worries. Lore could feel something coming, an omen of some kind but they knew they had to press onwards. The Destiny’s ramp was down, the clones were sat waiting for them. Ace stood as soon as they saw Destiny. The rest joined them once Lore and Char boarded the ship. Curve embraced Destiny.
“It’s so good to see you.” Magpie wrapped himself around Lore. Lore went as stiff as a board with their hands nailed against their sides.
“I don’t know what you think about your other selves but I’m not their biggest fan.” Ace pulled their sibling off Lore. “Poor hosts not to greet their guests.”
“I think that’s the way they do things.” Aloe shrugged. “They didn’t tell us about the other clones until they threw us all in that room together.”
“What’s next for us then?” Ace’s face hardened.

Lore sat the clones down and activated the cargo bay’s holo-projector. They displayed a model of Johned and highlighted The Slingshot site. “This is Johned. It’s where we’re heading next. While The First was telling us part of the plan, I noticed a picture they took on the last day of the project.” Lore nodded to Destiny who changed the planetary model for the picture. “It would seem none of the other Lores or Chars noticed that there were too many Lores and Chars. While the next official mission for you clones is to secure the site, I think we need to find out what’s actually waiting for us on Johned. No point going in without a tactical advantage.”
“I’m going to patch myself into the secondary sensor array. Hopefully they’re not monitoring it.” Destiny dissolved into the floor and the model of Johned reappeared. It zoomed in and focussed on The Slingshot’s site. Slowly, new information was printed over the map. Near to a hundred dots adorned the area; a dozen squares joined them. A pair of large ovals signified the end of the scan. “Okay. It’s a bit rough but I think, each dot is a person, each square is either a land vehicle or mechanised infantry unit and the oval is likely the ship they arrived in. The ship shouldn’t be anything to worry about because, with the nebula, they aren’t going anywhere.”
“How many life signs are there?” Magpie looked worried.
“A hundred and four.” Destiny poked out of the wall. “Maybe, life sign is subjective. Could be a person could be a low energy generator like a light or air filter.”
“And there are only ten of us.” Ace looked around the room. “Even best case, without the hundred and four, those dozen mechs…”
“I don’t like those odds.” Edge and Midpoint spoke in unison.
Lore just stared at the map. It flickered a deeper shade of blue for a moment.
“Why don’t we just wait until The First deploys us?” Blindside looked around as if each of them was idiotic for even entertaining the notion.

Char took Lore’s hand. Sparks flew as the blue fire grew from their eye and caught the ship. The entire cargo bay burned in neon blue flames; the metal panelling crumbled away revealing The Slingshot. Gunfire raged around them, purple plasma lit up the sky. A hundred and four clone warriors ran towards the base, vanquishing the foes that guarded it. Ace watched as a vision of themselves passed by and removed their helmet.
“Lore, we’ve done it. Area secure.” The future Ace nodded to their fellow clones.
Ant and Pepp joined them on the surface and began a sweeping scan. There was a moment of calm before a siren started blaring.
“Retreat!” Ace screamed.
It was too little too late. A blazing purple light started to gather between the prongs of The Slingshot. It grew as Ant and Pepp scrambled to try and shut it down. The beam of energy formed an orb between the two towers then started drawing them in. Creaking became crying became cracking became crumbling. Collision. The anomaly swallowed the towers. Silence. There was nothing and then everything. Blue flames swallowed the facade, returning them to The Destiny.