We made our way back to the facility as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon, Emmeth in tow. He hadn't really made friends with anyone so the goodbyes weren't long, awkward or drawn out. There was a moment of disbelief when I told him what I had apparently been working on. That disbelief disappeared when he saw the house sized craft sitting in the sub-basement.
"You, were working on that? How the hell did no one know about it? It's a god damn spaceship."
"Technically it's just an advanced plane at this stage. There's nothing built into it like airlocks or life support."
"Always with the caveats." Emmeth walked toward the craft and every once in a while made an exclamation to the tone of "Jesus Christ". When he was done trying to force the craft to make sense in his head he walked over to Panzer and Yora who were typing away at computer consoles. Catty and Nik were messing around with the tethered hover-boards, trying to stand on them and coax them to move, laughing when they managed to send one flying into the safety net above.
"I still don't understand, how did you not manage to say anything to anyone? Not even us?"
"Well it is a prototype, not really guaranteed to work..."
"Oh I'd say it's about 70 percent capable from what I'm seeing."
"Wait really?"
Emmeth shot Panzer a sly look as if to say, "I knew it".
"Yeah. You have access to the same data, look for yourself... wait, what have you been doing all this time?"
"I - well... I remembered what I was working on last, so I decided to just continue?"
"Come here."
Catty burst out laughing as Nik went careening into a wall on one of the untethered hover-boards. Panzer yelled across the room.
"You break anything?"
"Nothing that won't grow back!"
Nik's response made Catty fall over from laughter as she noticed some of his teeth on the ground. The Pilot didn't know how to react and just went over to see if he needed help. Panzer looked at Yora's screen as he explained.
"Yeah look, the power source is what was giving us trouble."
"I see that, but the problem isn't the instructions set, it's mechanical."
"What? No it isn't..."
"Who's the certified spaceship engineer, from space?"
Emmeth snorted then laughed out loud, making Panzer felt stupid.
"Well, what is it then?"
"The degree of alignment is off. Do you remember how the ship was reacting?"
"Well... no, but I'm sure there are video logs in the system. Panzer walked back over to his counsel and pulled them up. He sorted through them for a few minutes and played one on the main 100 inch monitor. It showed the craft lifting off its supports, shuddering, tilting off to one side then accelerating into the wall to it's left.
"That is indicative of a mechanical misalignment, like I said." Yora said pointing at the video while looking at Panzer.
"So how do we fix it?"
A wide smile stretched across Yora's face and Panzer followed him to the Anti-grav system's core and opened it up. A small aurora effect appeared around the system which made Catty and Nik go silent.
"You put the northern lights into a metal sphere?"
"In a basic sense I guess you could say that."
"You callin me stupid, Panzer?" Catty's face went serious for a few moments before Nik tapped her with his tail.
"Calm down, you remember how he talks when he's thinkin about shit."
The both of them walked over to the A.G. System, doing their best to steal a peek inside. It was large enough to swallow Yora and Panzer's upper bodies, Yora's legs were dangling and Panzers paw/toes were barely touching the floor.
"Isn't that shit dangerous? What about radiation?"
"No negative types of radiation emanate from the A.G.System."
Panzer's voice echoed from inside the sphere.
"It's more like the Earth instead of the sun in terms of gravity. There aren't solar rays coming from this, just a gravatonic density, achieved by the excitation of non toxic gases. Not on a chemical reactive level but just excitement through an initial high power input. The gases expand and exert a force on the reactionary boundary that multiplies it's effect. This Interacts with the Higgs field, which permeates everything and the end result is a gravatonic density that can be controlled by manipulating the reactionary boundary."
"You know what all that sounded like to me? Science, science, magic shit and science."
Emmeth nudged Catty before speaking.
"You went to college motherfucker don't play stupid."
"I went to college for law, not applied physics and space engineering, smart ass."
Panzer looked up and saw the two of them as they started wrestling each other to the ground.
"Uh Nik, should we do?"
"Don't worry, you can keep manipulating space over there. They used to do this all the time, it's normal and right now, comforting to be honest."
Panzer looked confused as Catty and Emmeth tumbled into a stack of parts making them sprawl across the floor, then he heard chuckles and smiled. For a moment he thought he remembered something from his past but it was a fleeting thought and he went back to realigning the system.
*****
"So how do we get all of your shit out of here?"
Catty was as blunt as ever. The adjustments Yora and Panzer had done seemed to have worked and now the main problem was as she asked.
"Well hopefully that enormous elevator we saw when we first came in still works. If not then we might have to blow a house sized hole through each floor above us until we can fly clear."
The Pilot that flew them there seemed to emerge from sleep at the mentioning of "fly clear".
"I'd advise against flying an untested craft in that manner, under those conditions."
"Well that's why we have you right?" Panzer said assuredly.
"As skilled as I am I won't put anyone's life in danger like that."
"Well what about when we do get it above ground? Can you take it for a test flight then?" Panzer asked wearing a sly grin.
"I'd rather do that than fly through blown out floors of a building."
"Deal!"
Panzer moved over to a counsel and tapped away for a few seconds then the large glass doors in the front of the facility slid apart and the enormous elevators doors groaned open.
"Up up and away."
Panzer said still wearing the grin, the Pilot felt conned and more nervous about saying he'd fly the prototype.