c9 gem cover

She turned to face the rack with the pistols. One of the drawers underneath slid forward automatically. It contained what appeared to be a large set of identically shaped pieces of plastic, except that they contained the barely visible traces of electronics. One was colored slightly red. All were shaped like five‐pointed stars.

Ryouko then realized the drawer had her name displayed on the front, in the little electronic screen. How had she missed that?

"Custom‐made," Asaka explained. "These are too complicated to crawl anywhere, so we'll have to put them on manually, just this once."

Stepping forward, she started picking up the devices and placing them roughly onto the location of the fake soul gems. They flowed slightly, settling onto the gems and sticking to her body and clothing.

Ryouko held up her right hand, the one still grasping the pistol, looking at the false gem pulsating, green light distorted by the electronic traces running over it.

"What are they?" she asked, placing the pistol back on the rack. She had forgotten she was carrying it.

"Personal protection devices," Asaka said. "Really, the goal is to protect the soul gem, but if we're going to be wearing a bunch of fakes, they've at least got to be convincing fakes, so they get some protection too."

Asaka reached for the last piece, the one tinged slightly red.

"And this is the main piece," she said, holding it up. "The one for your actual soul gem. It's not obvious, but it's much more powerful than the other ones. It can withstand most small‐arms fire, and even sacrifice itself to stop the main gun of alien armor from damaging the gem. Which is not to say you should just let them keep shooting it."

"Do we get an explanation of everything later?" Ryouko asked, starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

"Yes," Asaka said, leaning down to apply the main piece. "And you even get a cortex infodump. But I might as well let you hear it now. I'm sorry to talk your ears off, but it really is important for you to know."

Ryouko nodded.

"Anyway," Asaka continued. "It's considered very important to get soul gem protection as soon as possible. The soul gem is you, after all. I assume you know that, by now. Kyouko said you were very knowledgeable."

"Yes," Ryouko agreed.

Asaka stood back up, as the main soul gem piece lost its red color. Then, suddenly, all the gems, authentic soul gem included, disappeared from sight.

"Wow," Ryouko said, startled.

"Okay, so, all these pieces together are actually designed to work together as a personal protective system," Asaka lectured. "They cloak and protect the fake gems to fool the aliens, but if push comes to shove they'll focus on defending the main gem. They deflect projectiles and beam weaponry and have little lasers to try and deflect small projectiles away. They're self‐sufficient as long as there's a little sun, but if you operate in darkness for too long they'll run low on power. We have special chargers for that."

(To The Stars, Chapter 9)