Radiance Ch. 116

Chapter 116: Knights of the Sky.

Eve circled Varrel taking notes and measurements as she did all while under the watchful eyes of both Seven and Varrel's sister Vizzy.

She kept having to resist the urge to reach out and run her hands over his segmented and flexible carapace, he was just such a magnificent specimen of both his species and of masculinity.

His rich red and black carapace just looked so strokable smooth and shiny, it was like looking at moulded plastic that had been wrapped around his body which despite its insectoid nature still displayed all the wonderful traits of masculinity that a heterosexual woman such as herself looked for.

A broad and strong-looking chest, wide shoulders, strong arms despite there being four of them, strong-looking stout legs as well as surprisingly handsome facial features.

"Hmm to armour them both effectively we are going to need some lightweight materials otherwise we risk compromising their ability to fly altogether," Eve said moving from Varrel to Vizzy and taking the same measurements from her while recording them.

"Pity Malakai isn't here, he'd whip something up as soon as look at them and that silk-based armour of his is as light as it comes," Tim said leaning back against his workbench as he reclined on his stool.

"Yeah well if push comes to shove I can always go and fetch him, I mean sure it would be a bit of a flight but I'm sure given the speeds I can reach these days I could make the flight there and back with ease," Seven said.

"Actually I might have an idea, while it's not as light or as easy to shape as spider silk it is very light and very strong," Eve said thoughtfully.

All of the team turned their attention to her and she quickly moved over to the board and began to sketch out her design with a couple of coloured chalks and they all looked on in curiosity.

Soon there was a crude representation of Varrel on the board and she outlined each of the pieces that made it up.

"Ok the first thing we would need is a substance known as kevlar, this stuff is a fibre material that acts kinda like spider silk and while not as light or as strong we do have easy access to it here and the means to produce it," Eve said.

"Oh, how so?" Seven asked.

"The bottling facilities used to use it in their belts and in the pullies because of its strength, they used to keep the raw materials on site to produce more parts as needed as it was cheaper than getting an outside vendor to manufacture them and before you ask why I know that I've had a lot of time to read through a lot of the old world emails and documents here, so not only do I know where the production facilities where they made the stuff is but I also know where they kept the raw materials so if it's still there we can produce more, now while kevlar itself has a shelf life the ingredients used to make it do not, so we should be good on that front as long as it's still there," she said.

"Ok, that's a start what's this next piece?" Seven asked.

"Titanium," Eve said and Seven looked at her in surprise.

"Thought the point was to make it light?" he said and Eve nodded.

"It is and that's why I chose titanium, its incredibly light, strong and heat resistant, now while kevlar is great on its own it will struggle when it comes to higher calibres and will all out lose when it comes to any flame-based weapons, so w need an edge and that's where the titanium comes in, so just like power armour my idea is to make a kevlar under a suit with titanium plating over the top in vital areas which can be shaped and angled just like vehicle armour to deflect higher calibres away from them upon impact, while the kevlar catches any that do manage to punch through the plates which thanks to them having been robbed of most of their velocity will be caught," Eve said.

Seven glanced at Timothy and Shauna who were both scratching their chins, this was more Timothy's area of expertise being an engineer and he seemed to be totally engrossed in what Seven guessed were mental calculations.

"Yeah that could work, titanium itself is pretty damn light, like aluminium levels of light but stronger than steel, an absolute bitch to shape but not impossible by any means though it might need some raw mutant or Claw power to beat it into the right shapes when heated up," Timothy said scratching his chin thoughtfully while nodding.

"Alright then, any idea where we would get some as I can't imagine they just have piles of that stuff laid about," Seven said.

"Now you say that....." Eve said with a grin while leaving her sentence hanging in the air while they all looked at her curiously.

"Well fuck me sideways," Seven said looking down into the absolutely massive scrapyard which was filled with old rides and ruined bots of all shapes and sizes to name but a few of the things lurking here.

"Most of the old rides and bots have the stuff in them, they couldn't use steel for the most part as the bots were designed to be out in all weathers and some of them were designed to carry and dispense beverages, so they couldn't use materials that would corrode or rust or they'd have had more lawsuits than they could count, so they used to contain a lot of both aluminium and titanium which while it made them expensive to produce made them last a hell of a lot longer according to what I read," Eve said sweeping her hand over the huge junkyard.

"Is like graveyard for metal peoples," Thundertail said looking around at the lifeless bots as she nudged what had once been one of the walking fridge bots with the tip of her long thick tail.

"Pretty much yeah," Timothy said leaning down to inspect one of the ruined droids.

Suddenly he made an exclamation and he quickly began to attempt to pry off one of the bot's covering plates which as soon as she saw he was struggling Shauna leaned down to help him with.

No sooner than she'd grabbed hold of them with her massive hands she managed to yank it clear and handed it to Timothy who nodded in thanks as he took it.

"This here is exactly what we're looking for as he held up the silvery metal that had a golden sheen to it," he said holding it up to show the others.

"That's it! Medical grade titanium," Eve said nodding,

"Medical grade?" Seven asked curiously and Eve nodded.

"It not only doesn't corrode it could be used in internal replacement joints and bones due to its neutrality meaning a body wouldn't reject it like a lot of other metals, it was also completely sterile which made it great for working with food or beverages," she said.

"Alright people spilt up and grab as much of this stuff as we can carry, I'll start making runs with what you grab back to the base, also keep an eye out for anything we can use to make a forge, like ceramic, graphite and old gas canisters, I get the feeling we're gonna need to rig up a propane or plasma forge to melt this shit down to shape it properly," he said and with that, the team split up and all vanished into the silent chaos of the junkyard.

They'd only been at it twenty minutes when Seven heard a loud yell and what sounded like a thunderous boom from somewhere close by.

Immediately he took to the air and circled around until he located the source of the noise and dropped out of the air ready to fight only to find Thundertail smashing her long armoured tail into the ground repeatedly.

'What is it!? What going on!?" he exclaimed as the others came bursting out of other locations equally ready for a fight.

"Nasty roaches bite Thundertail's tail!!" Thundertail yelled angrily as she smashed the ground one last time and that's when Seven noticed the pile of green paste that had once been a giant rad roach and he sighed as he stepped forwards an patted Thundertail's thigh.

"You never cease to keep us on our toes Thundertail, I'll give you that," he said before he waved the all-clear to the rest of the team who simply slinked back off into the junk again.

After a few short hours of sifting through the piles of scrap and a few runs by Seven to transport their findings back to base, the team believed they had what they needed to make a start.

So while Seven, Visa and Thundertail set about building an arc furnace that was powered by one of the spare fusion cores because they couldn't find any extra propane, Vizzy, Varrel and team nerd set about finalizing the designs for their armour.

As they worked a couple of curious Gatorclaws came over to see what they were building and pretty soon Seven had himself a little workforce of Claws all eager to join in on the project which thanks to the many hands now helping took shape rather quickly.

Pretty soon Seven was filling the hollowed-out container space in the large empty gas cylinder with a mixture of crushed ceramic and clay which created a crude but effective protective layer inside the forge and would prevent the outer metal of the cylinder from heating up enough to melt while also reflecting the heat inwards to melt the metal added to it.

Once it was complete Seven used some large graphite rods that had been salvaged from some industrial dry batteries to create the anode and cathode of the forge and once the power was connected it melted steel in the ceramic and graphite crucible they'd made in less than a minute.

"Alright guys forge is done and ready and I gotta say I am very impressed with the result here, turns out our friendly Gatorclaws here have a real knack for this kind of thing," Seven said giving a thumbs up to his Gatorclaw work team who all fixed him with large toothy smiles.

"Excellent timing we've just finished the designs for the armour, now all we need to do is make the moulds and melt the titanium then we can make the plates, though we will have to do some touch-ups," Eve said.

"Alright, if you can tell me where to go to get the Kevlar stuff and what we need I'll take Visa and Thundertail out to collect it while you guys keep working here," Seven said.

Eve drew up a map for Seven and then wrote down a detailed description of the raw materials and chemicals required for them to get the kevlar as well as the location of the loom that would be required to weave it.

Once he had those details Seven took to the air with the two female Claws leaving Eve with the rest of the team to work on producing the titanium panels.

"I think we'll have more than enough titanium here to forge these plates, Eve, it might be an idea to knock up some plans for upgrades to the Claw armour, so far we've been using pretty basic steel plates and ceramic tiles that could be slotted into pockets Malakai sewed into the silk armour, but if we can replace those plates with titanium it would be far lighter and stronger for them," Timothy said thoughtfully while he stared at the armour designs.

"Good idea, if you can take care of that I'll finish up here," she replied pulling a glowing white-hot crucible out of the forge with a pair of large steel tongs that Seven had recovered from the scrap yard and fixed using telekinesis to bind them together harder than before.

Suddenly she felt a presence near her as she was pouring the white-hot metal into the mould they had prepared from the clay that had been baked after making some wooden droogs to get the shapes they needed.

After she had finished pouring she placed the crucible down on the safe space they had barriers off to cool down and placed the large tongs down before turning to see who was watching her, it was Varrel.

"Umm hi, sorry to disturb you I just wanted to say umm, thank you for all that you are doing for us, not since the hive has anyone been this nice to us or taken this kind of care to help us, it really means a lot to my sister and me, so umm yeah thank you, Eve it really means a lot to me err us," Varrel said rubbing his head and absent-mindedly twiddling his long antenne in a rather cute display of embarrassment.

Eve gave him a warm smile and instantly felt a bit of a pang of embarrassment herself as she thought about how much of a shocking state she must be in right now with her hair all messed up and her skin all covered in soot from the forge.

"That's quite alright Varrel and most kind of you to say so I must say, honestly I'm rather enjoying the challenge, it's kinda outside of my area of expertise but I find the work gratifying, doubly so knowing that it is going to be helping to keep the pair of you safe from further harm, it makes it more than worth it," she said.

Varrel seemed surprised by this response and twitched his little mandibles like he was trying to think of the right thing to say in response.

"Truly? Our safety means that much to you?" he finally said and Eve nodded.

"Of course it does, I value life no matter what shape and form it comes in and since I have met Seven and his people I have realised that the stance I took all those years ago was the correct one, these good people have truly opened my eyes to what is truly possible if only we try to make it so and do not shy from the possibilities for fear of failure," she said sweeping her heavily gloved hand over the year where Gatorclaws were hard at work separating out metal scrap into piles of different metals, or forging new moulds to replace the ones that were broken while other baked them with a charcoal powered oven.

"Yeah I gotta say this group is truly amazing, a long time ago our hive queen told us that somewhere out there would be good humans who would not see us as a threat or even as different from them really, that they'd simply see us as people the same as they were and would accept us, then we could finally find our true place in this world and our hive would then be allowed to grow but not in size but more in diversity," Varrel said sounding quite sad as remembered his obviously beloved mother and queen.

Eve took one of her heavy leather blacksmith's gloves off and placed a hand on his solid shoulder, rather liking the feeling of the smoothness of his carapace as well as the almost liquid muscle underneath it.

He glanced up at her with his multifaceted compound eyes that despite being all black were surprisingly expressive.

"I know your hive queen would be proud of you Varrel, both of you, you had the chance to run far away from humanity when you escaped the clutches of the vile people who imprisoned you and enslaved you, but you didn't, you dug down deep and called on your bravery, a bravery that she obviously taught you and you saught us out, you took a massive risk on tracking down Seven in order to seek his help, it was a truly brave thing to do in the face of things, for all you knew he could have been yet another slaver just out stealing the slaves of other raider gangs, but you took a chance on him helping you and now you are one of us and free and we will make sure you stay that way," Eve said with a warm smile.

Suddenly out of know where varral shot forwards and wrapped all four of his arms around the rather startled Eve pulling her into a rather heartfelt hug.

"Thank you, Eve, thank you so much," he said softly buzzing his wings out of obvious emotion.

Eve literally felt like her insides had turned into liquid mush, her knees felt like jelly and her head felt giddy, but it didn't stop her arms from acting on their own as they moved up and embraced the emotional young hybrid male and in the dark corner of her mind, she couldn't help but relish the feel of his smooth carapace and hard masculine muscles under her hands as she embraced him.

"Y-Your welcome," she stammered in a voice that was barely above a whisper as she tried desperately not to burst into a giddy schoolgirl-like giggle.

As quickly as he had initiated Varrel released her and stepped back from her, "Oh I err umm am sorry, I'd umm better get back to err work," he said nervously and before she could say a word he buzzed his wings and quickly flitted across the yard to where the Gatorclaws were still hard at work at the kiln.

As she watched him go Eve found her eyes drawn to both his abdomen and his humanoid rear end, both of which were highly pleasing to her for a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on though she would very much like to put all of her fingers on.

Suddenly another shape appeared next to her and Eve turned to see Vizzy step out of the shadows of the tree lab and turn her head from watching her brother leave to focus her attention on to Eve.

"Oh err hi Vizzy," Eve said placing her welding gloves back on as she waved to the hybrid girl as she walked towards her.

"What are your intentions towards my brother?" Vizzy asked in a very matter-of-fact voice that kinda took Eve aback a little.

"Well I err don't have any intentions towards him really," Eve stammered in embarrassment at having her secret so openly called out like that.

Vizzy's mandibles twitched and she leaned forwards so that her antennae waved over her a bit, "I can smell it on you," she said and Eve looked at her curiously.

"Smell what on me?" she asked.

"The attraction pheromones, they are really strong, you are attracted to my brother," Vizzy said in that matter-of-fact voice again.

"Well I umm err well yes I guess, your brother is a very handsome male and very exotic, I have not seen another like him plus he is a very gentle and kind person, there's a lot to like to be fair," Eve stammered nervously, she really didn't do well with matters of the heart.

Vizzy nodded her head causing her antenna to bob and swish while she buzzed her wings which was obviously a form of non-verbal communication for their kind.

"If I hadn't smelled the same pheromones coming from him towards you I'd be telling you to stay away from him, but as it happens I did so I'll simply say this, Varrel is the kindest, goofiest and most gentle man you are ever likely to meet, if you hurt him or if you break his heart, you will answer to me," she said and with that, she simply walked off to join her brother at the kiln while Eve watched her go with her mouth hanging open.

"V-Varrel finds me attractive?" Eve stammered to herself her mind swirling as the words left her lips and Vizzy's stabbed her brain like a little stinger.

After Vizzy's rather impromptu confession and revelation to Eve, she found it somewhat hard to concentrate on her work, she really had to force herself to focus which considering she was working with molten metal was not a great thing, she was just lucky not to burn herself.

In that time Seven and his team finally returned with the Kevlar-making equipment and chemicals and some of the Gatorclaws as well as Shauna and Timothy aided them in setting everything up.

Seven seemed to notice her distraction and came wandering over to help her which was a relief as thanks to his telekinesis he didn't need any of the protective gear to work at the forge so she could sit and take a break.

"So you want to tell me what's got you all distracted or do I have to get Thundertail to sit on you until you tell me?" Seven said suddenly making Eve baulk and shoot him an involuntary worried glance despite knowing he was joking, he was painfully observant at times this man.

"Wow I'm just joking Eve but by that face, something genuinely is worrying you, whats up?" he asked as he made a crucible filled with molten titanium float over to a heated mould and start pouring.

Eve took a deep breath, it was embarrassing as all hell to put a voice to these words and feelings swirling in her head but maybe Seven was the right person to ask about them, he was human like her after all.

"Umm Seven how did you deal with it?" she said and he cocked his head curiously causing his white hair to slide over one of his eyes.

"Deal with what?" he asked.

"Finding out you were attracted to another species," she said in a low whisper that she was sure he wouldn't even hear but by the smile that broke out on his face he'd heard every word.