Sapphire Fortune, the director of security for the Detroit factory that manufactures Origamitech fighters and a member of the Avengers initiative, is read into the Mechnar file.
Fortune saved the world from another mercenary captain, the Mandarin, who had ten rings that gave him meta powers. SHIELD has the rings in custody, and they considered that effort to be Fortune’s audition. Fortune saved 2/3 of Shanghai and prevented global domination. Fortune sold the rights, there is a licensed biography and a movie and a biopic, “Peeling the Mandarin.” Proceeds go to help rebuild Shanghai.
The Detroit Base
The top-secret base is 3 miles square in Detroit, heavily secured and armored and surrounded by a radio controlled mine field. Tanks and big guns and a small army provide security. The security is a multi-billion dollar infrastructure, the factory a multi-trillion dollar factory producing prototypes. Detroit is producing the “Crane” squad (3 so far) and a secret factory somewhere in Asia is working on the “Dragon” squad. (Each Origamitech fighter takes about 2 months to build.)
The pilots are Folkvar. Captain Black, and Captain Banks. (The best pilot is Captain Black.) Fortune got a mech that did not require a cyber jack and does not transform (he named it the “Tooth Fairy”).
Fortune has a sphere on a tower called “The Roost” with monitors and sensors connected to everywhere in the complex, he can coordinate defense from that location.
Goldfist is managing the technology of the neural interface. SHIELD assigns him brilliant and promising scientists as assistants, and he crushes them with unnerving frequency. Aspis also works on the project with dimensional folding elements. After the first month, Aspis and Goldfist were given separate laboratories and they communicate through intermediaries. They are trying to figure out how Tien Mu manages to generate and focus an energy that is almost identical to Solericite, biologically.
Goldfist was in the Swiss Alps with three women; they have to keep him relaxed.
(A bit of history: Solericite that infected space metal in a mountain in Wakanda created vibranium. Neat, right?! But can’t figure out how to make more…)
It may be a flock of birds, or a cluster of missiles with stealth shielding. What to do? Fortune instructed an Origamitech to scramble and check it out, Folkvar went to take a look, hovering in the path projected by the inconsistent blips.
The sensor shield covers incoming missiles in a sensor cloak; there are 30 seconds until they hit the factory. Folkvar squeezed off a volley of missiles and took them out, and they released an electromagnetic pulse! Folkvar countered by whipping around and firing a Solaricite burn towards the burst; it only gave him a headache instead of shutting him down. The burst would have made a mess of the Detroit factory defenses.
Fortune read multiple incoming hostiles, and paged Tien Mu and the other Origamitech pilots to back Folkvar up. Scrambled energy signatures incoming along the missile flight path.
Three THACO airframes! They release aircraft from their wings, two hold back and drop tanks in the streets, and deploy metallic troops and swarms of aerial scouts.
Fortune releases missiles from bunkers, calling for battle stations, powering up anti-aircraft weapons and so on. The Origamitech and Tien Mu move to defend the base.
Captain Banks was chased off in a dogfight with a couple Hunter Killer aircraft, Tien Mu tookon the airframe, and the other two Origamitech wipe out their two opponents after some fierce sparring with energy weapons, cannons, and missiles. From the Roost, Fortune advised Tien Mu on where to hit the airframe, and the others on how to target better and avoid incoming flak. The airframes downed, the tanks crushed, and the troops scattered. SHIELD defenses moved out to handle mop-up.
They return to the base and Captain Black buys drinks for everyone! Then Fortune logs a report with Commander Fury.
Why would THACO attack? The company that created them could not survive this, win or lose; IF the company is in command of its own products! SHIELD will definitely analyze the wreckage to see what can be learned…
Fury calls Fortune at 2 a.m. The U.S. government just shared information with SHIELD; everybody likes their secrets. They tried to check it out on their own, feeling SHIELD has not always reported everything in the past. When the U.S. lost contact with their team, they summoned SHIELD. The location is in Colorado in a national park, near a NORAD bunker that is secret. As far as they can tell, it is not connected to the bunker.
A UFO landed in the mountains. Fury sends Fortune and the Avengers on site to check it out. Initial reports indicate this was kept under wraps because it orbited more than once, and scanned, and chose a location to land. Fury urges them to get information out, not to engage and lose and preserve the mystery. Tech has been malfunctioning near the site.
Fortune calls out “Avengers, scramble!” They use a laser mike to ping Tien Mu. He leaves Banks and Black to guard the base, and the rest of them load Fortune’s mech in a cargo bay of a bomber, with Tien Mu and Fortune in the jet escorted by Folkvar in his (mostly) refurbished Origamitech.
They arrived around dawn. They did not find a crash site, but they found a Solericite related energy signature. A 30′ × 20′ hole was smashed in the mountain, and there was a weird greyish-pink putty like residue on the rocks and carpeting the hole. More Solericite energy readings come from inside the mountain, some faint reading from the mat.
Fortune radioed in that they found material with traces of Solericite. Then buried creatures dug up from the ground to attack them, and they flew up and picked off the creatures while flying. Tien Mu scouted into the mountain, and some monster inside fired spines at her and punctured her body as they traded shots. She retreated.
Fortune walked his mech in, trading fire with the defending creature. He saw its snake-like lower half curled in under the gray stuff. Fortune withdrew, and Fury contacted them and told them that satellite feed showed that four creatures were moving into ambush positions. Fortune reported that somehow the creatures were powered by Solericite, as organic creatures!
The communications glitch. A voice told them not to go into the cave, it was not safe; the cave should be sealed, and withdraw, do not let them injure you and do not leave blood at the scene! They identified themselves as the First Responders. The voice insisted they not engage; there was not time for a lengthier briefing on this relatively unprotected line.
Tien Mu flew up and saw the squirming defenders positioning themselves to attack. After a sharp battle, the Avengers destroyed their attackers—but their communications went down. They used missiles and lasers to burn the ground and remove blood traces. Folkvar fired missiles into the cave mouth and burned Tien Mu’s blood and collapsed the cave.
Debating whether to follow First Responder advice or Fury’s advice, they flew out to where they could call back to Fury. Fury sent out a team to secure the site, and the Avengers provided them with cover. SHIELD sets up and delivers their cover story to the press as other agents set up sentry guns. Folkvar turns over footage to the team and describes the foe as best they can.
The Avengers returned to base.
So… What Was That?!?
The balance has been shifted, because the Clean Sweepers violated ancient laws of the Mechnar people. The Avengers stumbled across biological weapons created by exposure to Solericite, accidentally, as part of the Sweeper forbidden experiments. When the experiments went wrong, the result could template off other forms like the Mechnar. Instead of being dimensionally flexible, they became genetically flexible. They can adapt, copy, remix, and otherwise repurpose the genetics of their victims in future generations from complex genetic matrices. They can create new weaponry based on what they fight.
They are so dangerous, they have been restricted to certain areas. They would only be here if they were following something, something led them here. The Clean Sweeper ship may have been trying to brush off pursuit, willing to destroy Earth to do it…