1:4:6 Johned (Part 3)

“We can’t wait.” Lore’s tone was flatter than usual. “If we do, that is what we’ll be waiting for.”
The clones were still paralysed by the event that had just transpired. “What just happened?” Ace’s eyes grew wider.
“That was the future.” Char lowered her voice to match Lore’s “That was the future if we send in all of the clones at once.”
“But we know about… Whatever that was now. Surely we can stop it.” Ace looked to their siblings. “We can stop it?”
“I don’t think it was the lack of fore-knowledge.” Lore rubbed their eye. “I think the device was likely activated as soon as they detected your presence. Maybe as a small strike force you’d stand a chance but not as an army like that.”
“Makes sense.” Aloe had returned to her senses. “Eight of us, that’s what, a dozen kills each, not including the towers or vehicles.”
“A bakers dozen!” Magpie corrected.
“Question is, how do we get there? They aren’t going to just let us swan over to Johned by ourselves.” Blindside was right.
“They’re watching my Breacher so we’re as good as stuck here too.” Lore waved their wrist.
Char slowly raised her wrist. “They never mentioned mine.”
“Can they trace it?” Lore had completely forgotten that she had a teleporter. “We’ll probably still need a way to get the clones down there unless we do several trips.”
“Each trip would bring us closer to detection so we can’t do it that way.” Char started tapping at her teleporter. “Even with the rotating frequency module, there would be the tell-tale energy signature that we’d time travelled.”
Magpie raised his hand as if to ask a question but instead of stopping just shy of the ceiling, he forced his fist through the panel and yanked at the wiring behind it. A shower of sparks cascaded over his head, cleansing heat soaked him. He tapped his comm unit and whispered. From the sparks came smoke and then the sirens. The lighting across The Destiny went from the usual dim cream to a violent red. The whole ship started to shake. Lore looked at Magpie then ran for the bridge. There was a call waiting for them.
“We’ve detected a spike in your ship’s drive core. It’s going to detonate in just under two minutes. Please disembark from the hangar bay and get your ship as far from The Razor as you can. We will Breach over to you to evacuate once you’re a sufficient distance away.” As the Lore finished, the hangar bay door opened.
Taking the controls, Lore took a deep breath then negotiated The Destiny out and back into the nebula. Once free, they picked a direction and set the thrusters to their maximum. They travelled for just over a minute then came to a stop.
The channel from The Razor reopened. “Remain calm and still where possible, we are about to deploy a rescue team.”
Whirring. Grating. Buckling. The Destiny’s hull sounded as though it was coming apart and, in a way it was. The entire front end of the ship was rotating. Then two of the drive conduits got the same idea. The once horizontal bridge and front end now stood vertical, the drive conduits pointed forwards. The ship’s outline had gone from wide and protective to slim and piercing; its formally shield like face stood on end like a sword. The two conduits, once used to power them forward through space now stood ready as weapons to blast whatever they may be preparing to face back. The sound of metal bouncing on metal was one Lore was unprepared for but from either side of them, both conduits seemed to have been filled with giant ball bearings. There was a deafening blast and then they were clear of the nebula. Destiny returned itself back to its original state. The sirens ceased, the lights returned to normal and the smoke and sparks dissipated.
“What the hel is going on?” Char staggered onto the bridge.
Destiny appeared from the viewscreen. “Got you! They think you’re dead.”
“What?” Lore and Char were confused in unison.
“Sorry, I suppose I should have told you but it was partially Magpie’s idea.” Destiny pointed at Magpie in the doorway. “He told me to play along.”
“I never said play dead!” He shouted back.
“What was that with the drive conduits though?” Lore looked between Magpie and Destiny.
“I know we’ve not really had a chance to use them but I could have sworn I told you about the Lightspeed Accelerators.” The technical specifications for The Destiny appeared on the viewscreen. “Our primary propulsion systems can be used as weapons when we’re not travelling. I filled them with metal matching my hull and fired them.”
“And how did we end up here?” Char scanned the sensor data. “Wherever here is? We had no propulsion system.”
“We have the KADS and the recoil from the Accelerators being forced to fire at such a low velocity was enough to get us going.” Destiny couldn’t have looked prouder of herself. Lore and Char remained unimpressed. “The calculations I had to complete just to make sure we didn’t end up actually exploding and the time span I had to do it in… Come on! I deserve at least a pat on the back.”
“Next time clue us in and maybe we’ll be more supportive.” Lore started.
“We aren’t mugs like the others.” Char continued. “But well played.”
Lore and Char helped Destiny out of the viewscreen before Magpie led them back down to the cargo bay. The other clones were talking between themselves, occasionally gesturing to the hole Magpie had created and the wires that were still sparking out of it. They fell silent as soon as they saw Lore and Char.
“What the hel is going on?” They all started talking at once. Overlapping voices, all asking the same questions. “Are we alive?” Lore was asking for silence to answer them but they continued asking. “Where are we?”
“Quiet!” Char shouted almost loud enough to change the definition of the word. The clones quickly shut up, most of them nursing damaged ears. Aloe and Ace grimaced but were unaffected. “Thank you. Lore?”
“Okay. First things first, we’re still alive, we are somewhere just outside of the nebula and we are exactly where we need to be.” Lore was shaking a little from Char’s shouting. “That shouldn’t be a problem I don’t think.” Lore pointed to the sparking ceiling then looked to Destiny.
She shook her head. “That’s just the… Sparking wire… It’s just for sparking…” She poked it, confused. “See, it’s working.” Destiny gave the wire a tug. “I have no idea what you’re for.” She whispered to herself.

The Destiny lingered in space as its crew prepared themselves for their missions. The clones fabricated themselves replacement armour pieces, weaponry and medical supplies while Lore and Char combed through the available data on Johned both past and present; Destiny just sat and watched.
“Who’s going to do what?” Aloe tossed a replacement shin pad to Edge.
Ace fabricated two small first aid kits. “Magpie, you alright to medic?”
Magpie nodded and strapped the kits to his belt. “Is it just me or have you guys got someone?”
Aloe shook her head. “Nope.” She didn’t elaborate. “Lethal or non-lethal?”
“We’re usually non-lethal when we can.” Ace pulled two charged magazines from the fabricator and threw them to Midpoint who passed them on to Aloe. She loaded them into her two pistols.
“I think we can work with that.” Aloe racked her slide, a faint blue light grew along the barrel.
Magpie sidled close to Ace. “Who do you think they’re going to put in charge.” His whispering was deliberately unsubtle. “You or…” He pointed very obviously at Aloe. “Her?”
Ace just shook their head. “It doesn’t really matter does it? Whoever’s in charge will probably do a good job of it so either way, we all win.”
The awkwardness of the interaction caused a wave of silence to wash over them. They continued their preparations without a word, each clone somehow knowing exactly what to do and when. They moved in a well oiled routine, dancing like synchronised machines. The two units combining to form something greater than the sum of their parts. At their centre, Destiny.
“Are you going to actually do anything Destiny?” Curve prodded her.
She shook her head then vanished.

Johned filled the viewscreen. Lore and Char danced around the bridge, independently studying the planet. Lore had their attention set on the present, scouring the data they had skimmed from The Council’s databases along with their own scans for any information they could get. There were several warnings in place, most prominent being the lack of breathable atmosphere; the other that caught Lore’s eye was the structural integrity of The Slingshot itself. The building was not dissimilar to a dry cake, filled with holes and crumbling without provocation; they focussed their attention on The Slingshot itself.
“I don’t think it’s going to work.” Lore called Char over.
“What’s up?” Char rolled her chair over to them.
Lore pointed to the screen. “The nebula’s decayed the structure. As soon as any power goes through it, it’s going to crumble. Why wouldn’t they mention it?”
“Maybe they were going to fix it when they got there.” Char shrugged.
“Unless something’s recently changed in the past and they’ve not taken any new scans.” Lore turned to look over at Char’s screens. “Find anything?”
Char pushed herself back to her panel. “It would seem we appear a few hours before the other ‘us’ but I can’t tell you much more than that.”
Lore nodded. “Then that’s when we’ll arrive.” They turned back to their terminal only to be greeted by Destiny’s face. “Piss off!”
“Sorry, but the clones are nearly ready.” She paused. “I was also wondering if I could come with you…”
“What?” Lore tried to slow their breathing after the jump scare. “Why would you want to come with us?”
“You’re going to need an extra pair of eyes, the clones have already got too many.” She didn’t sound too convinced by her reasoning.
“Actually, I was thinking you could stay with the clones. They’re going to need a leader and I don’t want to be accused of favouritism.” Lore smiled. “You know both units, their strengths and weaknesses. Help them work together as well as they can.”
Destiny exhaled with all of the angst of a teenager being asked to clean their room. “Fine.” She managed but not after several grumbles and grunts. “They’re waiting for you.” She shook her head then vanished.

Lore and Char stood together in the corridor. There was not a sound save for the hum of the engines and their own breathing. They looked to each other as if time had frozen but the continued flicker of the light at the end of the hall told them it hadn’t; it was just that quiet. There was a sense between them that this was nothing more than the calm at the eye of the storm. They slowly walked down the steps to the cargo bay and stole a final breath as they opened the doors. They all stood, eight clones in near factory fresh armour; cleaned, repaired and repainted, with the exception of Curve, they looked perfect. Aloe took off her helmet, cradled it under her arm then started tapping at her wrist. When she was finished, she returned the helmet and tapped the side twice. The transition was slow at first as the mint green petals that adorned her face darkened, moving from green to blue until it matched Lore’s and their clone’s armour. Aloe turned to face the rest of her troop, she nodded and they followed suit until the eight of them were uniform.
“We hope you don’t mind sir?” Aloe dipped her head.
Lore didn’t quite know what to say. “I’m honoured to have your support but I worry about how your commanding officer would react.”
“Our commanding officer just said they were honoured.” Blindside gave Magpie a high five.
Lore cleared the last of the calm and peace from their lungs with a deep breath of uncertainty. “You know your mission. Retake The Slingshot and ensure any traps we miss are cleaned up while we go back in time and find out what the hel is going on with the twenty seven Lores.” Lore scanned the room. “Where’s Destiny?”
“Just getting changed.” Her voice came over the speakers.
“Destiny will be your commanding officer but I expect she’ll be deferring to you and Aloe.” Lore whispered to Ace.
Destiny fell from the ceiling. “I will most definitely be a hands on commander.” She shouted up to them, her Macrocomps pooled on the floor before they began to reform. She did appear to be making good on her statement as instead of her usual attire, she was dressed in a hybrid uniform, somewhere between Lore’s and the clone’s. Her skin flickered between the colour she had used on Illia and her usual grey before she settled on her natural silvery grey. “Although, I will take into account the expertise of my sub-commanders.” She shared a cheeky smile with both Ace and Aloe. “Wouldn’t be much of a commander if I didn’t.”
“We all set?” Char turned to Lore.
“I think so.” Lore patted Destiny’s shoulder. “Make sure you bring them all back with you.”
Destiny nodded. “Oh, I will. No-one’s dying on my watch.”
Char took Lore’s hand and tapped at her wrist. “Right then, see you in a bit.” Then they were gone.
Destiny clapped her hands together. “Let’s get a move on.” Solutions.