From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 205
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
It would never have a chance to become routine, however—certainly not with her traveling companions.
"Is that… is that a whale?" Vita exclaimed as she sat on the floor of the lounge hand-in-hand with Elise.
"Eight of them!" her Coven-mate answered. "Oh! I never thought I could feel things so far as this!"
"What? You can't feel a whale from h-," Millie began, then her mouth snapped shut as her eyes briefly lost focus. "I'll be damned."
"They are coming up!"
The feeling of being left out never got the chance to fully form as Vita grabbed Katya's hand and all but yanked her away from her journal and towards the windows. "Come, Kiska! Whales!"
Together, Vita and Elise used their magical connection to point out exactly where to look. Right on cue, the water began to foam as several long, black bodies broke the surface, great geysers spouting from their heads as they took their first breaths in God-knew how long.
"Astonishing. Have you ever seen the like?" Vita asked Katya with tangible awe, bouncing their clasped hands atop the railing.
"I've seen dolphins before, but never whales. They're beautiful."
And soon, gone; vanishing back into the inky depths as quickly as they had emerged.
It was the only bit of unexpected excitement the entire crossing, and once the coast of Nova Scotia came into view, the mood amongst the witches shifted from one of optimistic adventure to the more sober consideration of the work ahead.
Their first stop was Halifax, where they were greeted warmly despite the cold, after which came Montreal, where the locals spoke a variety of French that even Elise could barely decipher. It was a lovely historical (by North American standards) city, but like most of their destinations, one they barely got to enjoy due to the demands of their schedule.
The aerodrome outside Toronto put on quite the to-do, a quarter of the Canadian Parliament making the trip from Ottawa to the country's largest city in order to greet EVE amongst the people. They were told quite a few Americans had made the journey as well, but Katya couldn't have picked them out for the life of her. What was impossible to miss was that no matter the nationality, most of those awaiting them were women, and more than a few of those were witches.
The speech Katya regaled them with was mostly an impassioned plea for the Canadian people to throw their support behind what was now officially known as the European Framework for a Permanent Peace, a nod to its main drivers and overall instigators. Canada had suffered great losses during the war, and though it was far from Europe, could still stand to benefit greatly from the Framework's success. The EFPP was meant to lift all boats, and as the last few years had shown, Britain's prosperity was Canada's prosperity; the rights of one were the rights of all. Adoption of the Framework meant not only continuing financial stability, but the knowledge that never again would brave Canadian lads have to die on a distant shore for Europe's failures.
Of all the speeches given, Katya's was received the best, but as per usual for such events, the only immediate effect it had was wringing out the participants.
"This country is entirely too large," Vita moaned when they were back aboard the ship and she had safely tossed off her shoes. "I cannot recall the last time I walked so much."
Hailing from the only country Canada could fit inside, Katya wanted to disagree, but she was also British now and her sense of scale had shrunk accordingly. "It's a long way to Vancouver. You'll recover."
Hopefully, so would Katya's voice. Giving a speech into the freezing wind on a wide-open aerodrome had done neither it nor her lungs any favours. It made her once again grateful Vita had pushed her to give up smoking.
Katya took another sip of honey-laced tea. "How do you think we did?"
"As well as could have been reasonably expected, I think. This is a goodwill tour, not a diplomatic mission. Our role is not to get them to sign on any dotted lines, merely to see the light, as it were."
"Yes, I suppose I just wish we had a way to know we made a difference by coming here," Katya said.
Vita began gently stroking Katya's back with her hands and pulling pins from her hair with magic. "We'll know in Geneva, my light. For now, you've done all you can. Your part is finished."
"I can't be done until yours is as well, my shadow. Don't expect otherwise," Katya said more snippily than she'd intended. Setting her hand on Vita's knee, she sighed. The Saskatchewan uranium deposits were halfway across Canada, and that was entirely too far. "I'm sorry. This took more out of me than I thought."
Pins removed, Vita ran her fingers through Katya's loosened hair in long, therapeutic strokes. "It's all right. This was the first leg, it's understandable we would overexert ourselves."
Katya kissed the first of Vita's hands that came within range. "Which is what worries me. Promise me you'll pace yourself."
"I was already planning to. I haven't had a proper run at this yet, I don't know what I'll be feeling or capable of." Vita settled her chin on Katya's shoulder. "I love you, my light. I will not disappoint you."
Victoria had boarded Juno as a much younger version of herself, the one who had idolised the Longs and all but memorised the technical specifications of their earliest lighter-than-air ships via every book and magazine she could get her hands on. The prospect of spending three weeks aboard their most celebrated iteration to travel the world had tapped into an ancient flavour of romanticism she had had little contact with since the day she'd first met the Longs in person.
As they flew over the Canadian interior in December, the reality of where she found herself and just how dependent she was on such a vast, complicated machine set in. She'd essentially dismantled the prototype with her mind, and though IV was a significant improvement over the lead ship, Captain Barrett was a living reminder that what Victoria had experienced that day was very real, and had lingering consequences that extended far beyond herself.
In this case, however, they weren't over home soil. If anything went wrong, they were dead, full stop. There was survival equipment scattered around the passenger and crew compartments, but employing any of it successfully seemed optimistic. The middle of Canada was sparsely populated, so if the side of a mountain didn't get them the cold would, and barring that, the bears would be fighting the wolves for the honour.
Or so it seemed. The closest Victoria had ever been to the kind of nature they were crossing was the Lake District.
Such thoughts added another layer of gratitude she felt for her true purpose on EVE's global tour as she sat with Elise in the cargo hold awaiting their arrival over the first uranium deposit. Around them were tonnes of postcards and letters nestled amongst stacks of crates bound from one side of Canada to the other.
Outside it was night, when the winds were weakest, which left the unheated cargo hold frigid. A black leather jacket trimmed in black wool kept her torso warm, while several blankets prevented the floor from leaching it away. The flying cap on her head was effective both at keeping her head from freezing and making Kiska swoon with the word 'dashing' on her lips.
Scattered on a wooden tray before Victoria were several diamonds she had fashioned out of carbon siphoned from soot, pencils and other random objects that wouldn't miss it. As jewellery they would have topped out the scale as they were a flawless, 100 percent carbon lattice, but that would have been an inexcusable waste of their potential.
At the Flying Circus, she had unconsciously converted the metallic pigments in the ink of her tattoos directly into energy to boost her power when trying to keep the original Juno from falling on herself, Katya and hundreds of spectators. It had taken years to work out the mechanics of just what had happened, but now she intended to exploit what she and Elise had learned. The diamonds would act as a kind of battery—the greatest ever created. Or could ever be created, since her efficiency in converting matter to energy was 100 percent.
Diamonds were the ideal balance of weight, portability and energy. An element as light as helium would have likely been more than sufficient for her purposes, but she couldn't risk unconsciously siphoning it from the ship. Carbon was distinct, dense enough to hold a shape she could manipulate, safe to the touch and stable at all but the highest of temperatures, especially in diamond form. She hoped she wouldn't need it, but she had every intention of keeping her promise to Katya. She would not suffer for Victoria's ambition. Or hubris.
No-one would.
"Thank you for agreeing to assist me," Victoria said as she fiddled with the snaps on her leather gloves, the only sign of what little agitation remained within her.
"I would be nowhere else. This is what all of our health research together has been leading to." Elise found a sliver of a smile in their circumstances. "That is the doctor speaking. As your friend and sister, I would never leave you alone in this."
Victoria could only answer with a grim nod. The cargo hold was aft of the passenger gondola within the envelope of the ship, the most isolated section she had access to. It lacked both heat and windows, which combined with the increased noise to enhance the feeling. Other than her notes and a flask of water, she required little else to begin other than proximity. Elise's witchlight burning overhead, Victoria's gloves squeaked in anticipation as the ship began to slow. While she was outside of herself, it had to remain stationary so she could find her way back, and a stationary airship was a vulnerable airship no matter the location, as Captain Barrett had pointed out more than once.
"You are ready. I know you, and what you have been doing to prepare. I would tell you 'no' if I thought otherwise." Elise set a hand on Victoria's leather-clad forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Do not lose faith in yourself."
"How could I, in the face of such encouragement?" Victoria said just as all motion ceased.
The private PA chirruped. "We're here, Doctors. The ship is in stationkeeping, but the winds could pick up at any time, so you might want to be quick about it. Good luck," said the captain, who only knew she was assisting in a 'science experiment'.
As it wasn't untrue, Victoria furthered that end by opening her magical senses to the mineralogical makeup of the ground 1,500 feet below. The moment she felt the presence of uranium, it confirmed they were directly over the point she'd designated.
With a final nod of approval from Elise, she got to work.
The altitude was little more than an irritant as she bore her magical senses into the earth, seeking out her uranium quarry by 'taste' and 'feel' much like a viper would a mouse in the dark.
Underground, it was very dark.
And dense.
In the Red Zone, she had burrowed tens of feet, doing it through hundreds was more taxing than she had expected, but nothing she couldn't handle. There was just so much of it! Organic compounds, minerals, other ores she had no interest in (silver didn't exactly sparkle in its primordial form), she waded through the skin of the world in search of the element she had spent the past few months honing her familiarity with.
When she came upon her quarry, she didn't pause for a moment, following the veins of uranium threaded deep underground, tasting and feeling every iota of information they could give her. It was her first opportunity to feel it in its natural state, complete with impurities.
And differences!
What she found would have made her sigh with relief had she still been connected to her lungs.
Over 99 percent of what she found matched the isotope found in uranium glass. Knowing already that it was useless for weapons and energy, she rejoiced at having such a narrow constraint placed on her task. As she felt and explored, she thought, crossing off variables and constraining her outlook even further until she finally found what she had come looking for.
Sure enough, within the range her maths had predicted, was a single isotope of uranium that was fissile. Hopes of an easy victory dashed, she continued her exploration to get a handle on the scale of the task she had put upon herself.
What she discovered could hardly be believed at first: the isotope she so feared, that had led her to such apocalyptic prognoses, accounted for less than one percent of all the uranium she found! If that percentage held universally, the overwhelming amount of the work ahead of her had already been done by nature!
The chain reactions she predicted could only be sustained due to the absurd number of neutrons within the isotope she labelled U-235, so with an almost manic glee, she flit near and far, following veins that had solidified billions of years earlier to pluck neutrons from nuclei like bad grapes.
When she was convinced her task was complete, she surfaced into a body that was all over sweat, her leathers having acted more like a sauna than insulation. Even the black wool of her collar was beaded with perspiration.
"Welcome back," Elise said, immediately touching her fingers to Victoria's wrist. The tingle of the healing probe was nothing compared with the excitement crawling over her skin like arcs of electricity.
She had learned everything she had set out to learn, and every ounce of diamond was accounted for, to boot.
"You overexerted yourself," Elise pronounced.
"Am I in any danger?"
"Not for the moment, but—"
"Then if you'll excuse me." Victoria's hand flew like it was possessed, furiously scribbling down every scrap of information she could recall, leaving copious notes to double-check her maths later. The more she knew, the better she would get, the more efficient, the further she could foray…
By the time she finished, her fingers had cramped into a claw. She flexed them painfully as she downed half of her flask in between heaving breaths.
"Slow down, you are too excited," Elise pleaded, but Victoria couldn't hear her over the truth of it roaring in her ears.
"Of course I'm excited! I know what I have to do now! I know, Elise! It's so simple! Thank you!" Gathering her notes to her chest like precious treasure, Victoria kissed Elise on the forehead and didn't bother with the stairs (or the hatch) on her way back into the passenger gondola. Flying on a wind of willpower, she ghosted through the door of her cabin.
Kiska was sat at the desk in her nightclothes, a witchlight burning obediently over her head.
"Kiska! Kiska, I did it!" Victoria cried, setting down her notes and stripping off her heavy coat, letting it plop wetly onto the floor.
Turning at the sudden commotion, Kiska watched Victoria tug off her boots and start on her trousers with a critical eye. "Why are you sweating so much?"
"Because I dressed for the wait and not the exercise. I'm just as hale as when I started; the diamonds are all there, don't worry. The point is that I did it! I neutered all of it! It's so… it's so much easier than I thought it would be! I only have to— the neutron count, it's so much less stable, and there's barely any of it! Less than one percent! I can do this!"
"That's wonderful!" Kiska exclaimed, shooting to her feet to embrace Victoria. She spun them around fast enough Kiska's hair became like a blowing scarf, settling on both of their shoulders. "Truly?"
Victoria had to remember to breathe. "Yes. My notes, it's all there. My darling Kiska, I… I've never felt anything like this before. I— I don't know how to properly describe it." Her hand was no longer a claw, but no less disobedient for how much it was trembling.
"You're shaking!" Kiska said, taking Victoria's hands in her own.
"My adrenaline levels must—"
The world swam, and Victoria collapsed onto the bed before she realised she was falling. With her exertions finished, her sweat was quickly cooling, and as she was clad in little more than her underthings, she began to shiver uncontrollably, quickly amplifying into outright spasms.
"Get under the covers with me, you're freezing," Kiska said, brooking no argument as she yanked them aside and all but pushed Victoria down. Holding her close, Kiska rubbed furiously at Victoria's twitching limbs until they were adequately warm again and began to still. As Victoria's breathing and heart rate steadied, only the omnipresent hum of the engines intruded into the silence that marked the both of them reaching the same conclusion at the same time. "You pushed yourself too far."
"Elise said as much," Victoria said.
"And as usual you only heard what you wanted to, did you?" Kiska shot back.
Victoria shrank in her beloved's arms. She had been so careful, training for years for just such an eventuality. But with distance, even of only a few minutes, it became obvious that her emotions had gotten the best of her and that she owed Elise an apology.
"I was too excited, and got lost in discovery and realisation. In so doing I failed to monitor myself as well as I should have. But with the insights gained today, I know what I'm looking for and what I have to do. The next time will consist only of the work." Victoria tightened her hold on Kiska, shaking her head against her neck. "That doesn't excuse anything, however. I scared you with my behaviour, and for that I apologise, my light."
Kiska stroked the back of Victoria's head as she held her, almost possessively. "Elise is doing a complete exam and you're going to listen to what she tells you this time. You said this was just going to be a test—that you wanted focus and no distractions. But she was there for a reason. I trusted you."
"Do you not trust me anymore?" Victoria asked into Kiska's shoulder.
"Do you?"
Victoria's instinct was to take umbrage and lash out, restating the efforts she had gone to prepare for this trip. But as she totted up the experience and what it had cost Kiska, the resulting silence spoke for itself.
From the very depths of sleep, Katya was awoken so violently she thought the ship was crashing. Heart hammering, it took a moment to realise the only thing moving was Vita. She was thrashing in the sheets, her head snapping back and forth in what intrinsically felt like denial.
