"The what now?" The envoy asked.
"We managed to perfect a basic cloaking device, using all human technology, and we fit it onto a new class of shuttle. You should see this thing. It's so human it's ridiculous." The Tech Nomads informed her.
"I understand all those words, and I'm still afraid to find out what they mean in this particular context." The envoy sighed, looking around the room to find the shuttle.
"It's in the next bay. This one doesn't have an exterior door for security reasons. Follow us, and we will have lead researcher Nico get it ready for you.
It's so cool that even you Alliance Government sorts might want one." The technician giggled.
They walked into the next bay and found a large, teardrop-shaped shuttle floating in the middle of the room, suspended by a gravity field while Nico put the finishing touches on it.
"You are just in time, Envoy. Meet our newest experimental shuttle. Well, we haven't actually named it yet, and beta prototype three point five doesn't have a great ring to it, but we will come up with a name for this series of shuttles soon enough.
Please, step inside, and you can see the wonder of our newest personnel transport." Nico informed her.
There was no obvious way to get into the thirty-meter-long teardrop, but when Nico waved her hand, the exterior reshaped itself and a long, narrow ramp extended for them to enter.
"Is that a polymorphic shell?" The Envoy asked, marvelling at how the ship reshaped itself to allow them to enter.
"Very good. Yes, it is. We thought that this might be the most unique way to optimize hull shape for various warp field frequencies and speeds, as well as eliminate the interference from our more traditional hulls with our limited stealth technology.
We haven't run a live test on it yet, but in the simulator, it is the single most capable vessel in the human fleet to this point." Nico explained, then led the envoy to a luxurious leather recliner, one of a dozen lined up near the wide end of the ship, with the rear seemingly reserved for cargo space.
"Where did you even mount the Warp Drive? The interior seems to be the same size as the exterior, and the rear is much narrower than what would be necessary to fit any sort of warp nacelle." The Envoy asked.
"The nacelles are built into the hull and disguised so that they can't be easily targeted. But the drive is under your feet right now. We rearranged it into a low-profile design so that we could maximize interior volume. We can rearrange the vessel into an oval or a disc as well, but according to our data, the water drop shape should be most efficient for both stealth and high warp factor travel, so that is how it is configured by default."
"How far is it from complete?" The envoy asked hopefully.
"We can test everything today, but we won't know the answer to how far it is from production until we get the results."
Both bodyguards gave the Envoy a dubious look, knowing full well how excited she got about new technologies, especially things like this which would shake up the order of things within the Alliance.
Humans had no sense of exclusivity, as far as she could tell. They just sold their stuff to anybody that they got along with as soon as it got one generation behind what their own forces were using. It was a growing nightmare for the Alliance government, as it violated the unspoken agreements about what was and was not to be made available to civilians.
That was the next task she had been allotted, along with the legal team starting their investigation into various human technologies, to make sure they weren't violating any of the hidden patents.
The hope was that their designs were completely unique so that the Alliance wouldn't have to show the secret designs to the Reavers to prove that there was a violation, but headquarters had never been here to meet the humans, see what they could do, or understand just how insane their development methods were.
"Should we take a flight? I can power us up now, and we have enough suits to ensure everyone is safe in the event of a breach in the morphable hull. Even you two, big guys. We have suits sized for our Hunter and Canis guests as well as Giants, so there is no problem getting you two into an augmentic armour." Nico suggested.
"I wouldn't say no to personally testing out that new helmet. It looks incredible. The envoy agreed without hesitation while her bodyguards sighed and prepared to go on an experimental space flight.
That was definitely not on their precleared safety protocol lists, but the envoy had the final say in all matters of interspecies negotiations and investigations, so if she wanted to research the ship firsthand, they didn't have the authority to override her.
Plus, they were a little intrigued by what that strange-shaped vessel could do.
"If you just step into this tube here, we will get you properly measured for a custom-fit suit, and then we can be on our way." The technicians informed their guests, leading them to the containment tubes for the Materials Printers.
"If you want the best fit, you will need to wear form-fitting outfits or strip to your undergarments. The tubes are opaque. If you wish to change, nobody can see inside." She reminded them once all three were in place.
"If we are going to do this, we might as well do this right. Give me a few minutes to get ready." The envoy decided, then began changing her clothes in preparation for the armour fitting.
The bodyguards were more reluctant, but they could always put their storage devices and body armour on over the suit since they were designed with enough adjustability to fit almost anyone. A small perk of state-of-the-art Alliance clothing.
Gravity control lifted them all off the ground once they indicated that they were ready and fitted them with an augmentic suit in the navy blue and gold of an Alliance Envoy, complete with some added bling that they hadn't expected, in the form of engraved nameplates, and decorated hard armour that wasn't part of the standard models that the technicians were wearing.
"It's the Officers Edition. I thought you might appreciate it. The smartwatch has a flat space storage, so you can put your own clothing in there for the trip.
Take all the time you need to get used to the human version of a heads-up display. You're Innu, so you can control it with your mind, or if you prefer, you can use voice controls or even activate the three-dimensional menu in your helmet that you can interact with using your hands.
I will warn you, though, the last option makes you look like a drunken weirdo since nobody else can see the menus that you are interacting with."
The three guests took a few minutes to get everything just the way they wanted, including the helmet adjustment, which took a few tries to get just right. As the technician had warned them, it liked to try to bundle nearby tentacles together, and that just felt weird. But once they had learned the trick of how to hold their head and spread them apart, it became much easier to get the helmet perfectly fitted.
"Alright, we are ready to fly. Let's see what this teardrop shuttle can do."
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