Page 178 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

became obvious when the Veklaar approached the remote drive section.

“They seem to have suffered from some kind of massive explosion in their engine bay and one of the
drive units. Probably a Polaron generator overloaded. That would be consistent with the radiation
readings I’m seeing” Trok announced “Too high for most Biologicals; permission to take a Mechanoid
crew over there Ma’am” he added

“Take some of those that have been retrofitted with the “Skin Armour”; Hubris do you want to go
over in your Exo-suit?” Krysta replied asking a fascinated Hubris.

“I’d rather take a back seat on this, though with a slight modification the suit could accommodate a
Human occupant” he said with a wry smile and looked at Michael Faraday who had just entered the
Bridge from Coms. Krysta smiled and nodded. A bemused Michael was ordered to go to Engineering
with Hubris and make the necessary adjustments.

“I’ve never even worn a Unat shield generator let alone an Exo-suit before sir!” Michael announced
as they approached the Hangar Bay where Hubris had the suit stored.

“Then you are in for a real treat young man. It takes a moment or two to get used to the AI feedback
loop; but once you’re in sync, “it’s a breeze”, as Tom would say.” Hubris said reassuringly. They
entered the Hangar Bay and Michael stood in awe in front of the hanging Exo-suit.

“As you can see… Michael; the suit was modified to accommodate the Vahamat vestigial wings in
the upper thorax section. It’s going to be rather roomy in that area, though the restraints adjust
automatically to take up any slack. You’re about equal height as me; unusual in most Humans,
though you are of African heritage so I suppose that accounts for it. Here’s how you operate the
entrance and exit release …” Hubris said and demonstrated the mechanism to Michael.

The suit was more like an armoured exoskeleton than a
suit; at some point two pairs of the tentacle limbs had been
removed, and the two upper limbs that remained had been
replaced with jointed arms, for interchangeable tools, weapons
and attachments.

“It looks more like a Mechanoid body than the original ones the
Krall came up with; those were huge” Michael exclaimed “This is
more human sized how...” Hubris interrupted him.

“We took the basic design and heavily modified it. It’s far lighter
and more easily manoeuvred than the Krall ones, though it still
uses the Krall technology in the interface.” Hubris explained. He
added that the “Skin Armour” was a later discovery on an
outpost world of the Krall Dominion. “They were attempting to
make the suits lighter for some reason; but abandoned the idea
when they found the means to evolve to an energy form.
Apparently they had intended to augment a distant relative species to be occupants of the suits.”
Hubris said as T’luha came in. She looked at Michael as he made his ungainly entrance into the suit
and burst into a fit of giggles. He felt like one of those Holo-Vid characters from the Archives of the
riots during the Economy Wars, a Law Enforcer. The inside of the helmet visor had very detailed
head-up display. Information was imaged virtually over the occupant’s field of vision. He made an
effort to move and was surprised how the inductive neural interface interpreted his commands.

“It’s easier than I thought it would be. What attachments are you going to fit?” Michael asked.