Research Base New New South Wales.

The storm front had already reached the base and, as they had been worried about, the mana-infused raindrops sheeting down were having a rather negative effect on the shield. It was draining the shield capacitors nearly as fast as the reactor could charge them. But that much, they could handle.

Then the lightning began striking and the fusion reactor could no longer keep up with the draining capacitor banks. And to make things worse, there was no way of increasing the output of the reactor any more than what it already was; in fact, it had already been increased to 110% of its max-rated output, and after the storm passed, they would need to tear it down and completely rebuild it.

But even that much wouldnt be an issue. The reactor could be run at the red line for thirty-six hours before they began running the risk of a containment breach. The biggest problem they were facing was one they hadnt anticipated at all: mana.

As the water built up on the ground, forming a complex network of rivulets and puddles, the lightning strikes overcharged it with mana, each bolt that struck the ground sending out shockwaves like ripples in space. And those shockwaves had effectively blinded the Henrys Eyes sensors in the base, as well as those in the satellite network and ships overhead.

The Proxima herself could potentially push enough power through theirs that they would be able to function through the masking effect of the storm fronts mana surges, but by the time she could arrive at Proxima Centauri b, the storm would long have passed by the research base.

Thus, Admiral Bianchi, acting with an overabundance of caution, had ordered the Farsight and her escort ships to begin a full-scale evacuation of Research Base New New South Wales and a steady stream of landers was flowing to and fro, ferrying passengers from the surface to the ships in orbit above the base.

Here and there on the ground, marines could be seen with lab-coated researchers thrown over their shoulders and being carried like wailing sacks of potatoes. In the marines minds, any researcher who wasnt willing to abandon their work to save their lives wasnt worth being handled with kid gloves, so some of them were even going so far as to bodily throw them into the landers, both with and without someone in the loading hatch prepared to catch them.

Injuries, after all, could be cured in a matter of minutes or hours in a medical pod. Lightning stricken bits of vaguely human-shaped charcoal, on the other hand, could not.

The only place that was still a reasonably calm island of efficiency was the main monitoring room in the central tower of the base. Ayaka was inside with Captain Petrovich and a few other technicians that would be in the last evacuation group. They were coordinating and directing the hundreds of landers coming down, acting as air traffic control to prevent collisions and keep things moving.

Sure, the bases AI could technically do that, but it was in power-saving mode and most of its remaining processing power was being taken up by running backups on all of the information in the local copy of the Akashic Record. Thus, nobody really trusted it to handle critical tasks like ensuring a smooth emergency evacuation.

The small rivulets of water ran into each other, forming streams. The streams gathered until they became rivers, and puddles expanded into broad, shallow lakes. Soon, the landers could no longer reach the ground and the evacuating people were directed to the rooftops of their buildings to meet their assigned landers. Over time, the water rose until each building of the research base looked like an island rising from the water, and the sealed passages were completely under it like submerged sandbars, directing the flow of water from high to low and out toward the shore, where it would eventually meet the ocean.

Not much longer after that, a lander was headed to pick up its assigned evacuation group when an alarm blared in the cockpit informing the pilot of an incoming object that had been picked up on radar. And soon, more information came from the TFS Khopesh, the drone tender that the lander was from.

Warrant Choudhury, were picking up some movement on the drones monitoring the coast. Their ground-penetrating radar pinged on many moving objects. Looks like the roots are coming for the base. We dont know exactly how theyre doing it yet, but youve got about 37 seconds before they intercept your flight path. Divert on new heading, Im throwing it to you now.

Copy that, Khopesh control. Heading received and correcting course in three... two... one... mark, Chief Warrant Officer Choudhury replied.

Warrant Choudhury, godspeed. Youll probably be dodging roots coming back up, we estimate theyll reach the outer shield perimeter within the next fifteen minutes. So get down, get loaded, and get gone. Khopesh control out.

The same notification had obviously reached the control center at Research Base New New South Wales as the base AI halted the backup procedure and assumed direct control of the environment suits those waiting for evacuation were wearing. It was an odd feeling to the scientists, having their body moved like a marionette by an invisible puppeteer as they rushed to the nearest windows and leapt out.

Screams of fright resounded amidst the background noise of explosive bolts blowing out window frames all over the base as researcher after researcher defenestrated themselves, spending a stomach-lurching moment in freefall before their suits jump jets took over and sent them rocketing into the atmosphere at a barely survivable thirty gees of acceleration.

In a stunning display of aerial coordination, choreography, and aerobatics, cluster after cluster of suits formed in staggered formation. They only waited in place for a few seconds, though, as landers came screaming through the atmosphere toward each group, slewing sideways at the last moment to scoop them into the transport bays in catch maneuvers that would have made the pilots instructors proud.

One by one, groups were loaded into landers, which then immediately shot toward orbit in random, jerky corkscrews that would minimize the risk of being hit by the roots that were already rising from the floodwaters to introduce themselves to the fleeing small craft in a most violent, brutal fashion.

Ayaka was the last person to be scooped into a lander and she had the niggling sensation in the back of her mind that she was forgetting something. Something important. She thought about it for a moment, bracing herself against the crash harness of her acceleration seat, then gasped.

She frantically toggled her comms channel open and attempted to connect to Lee Joon-ho, but there was no response.

Yui, check the last known of Warrant Officer Lee Joon-ho, she ordered her personal AI assistant.

[Last known position of Warrant Officer Lee Joon-ho is here, Commander.]

A topographical map of the area was projected in Ayakas vision, on which were two labels. One for the rover that had broken down earlier, and another where the Terrible Teenager had been struggling just moments before.

And neither of the labeled dots were moving.

Check biometrics on Warrant Officer Lee, Yui, Ayaka ordered.

[Yes, Commander. Checking.... No biometric data stream found. Searching for backup.... No backup biometric data stream found. Checking for suit data recorder signal.... No suit data recorder signal found. Checking for backup....] The checks continued as Yui read them in her calm soprano voice, each failed check hitting Ayaka with an almost physical impact that she felt in her gut.

[File found, Commander. Fragmented data stream available. Recompile and display?] Yui asked.

Ayakas heart rose into her throat and her jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before she could utter a hoarse command to play the video. It loaded shortly after and her gorge completely rose as she watched a giant root come whipping toward Joon-ho from his suits perspective.

Joon-ho... she whispered as the video abruptly cut off.

[Playback complete, Commander,] Yui announced.