"Their cores."
Kelvin's entire body went still, like someone had hit pause on his manic energy. Then his face split into a grin so wide it looked physically painful.
"YES!" He spun back to his displays, pulling up data with frantic movements. "Dragon cores! Noah, that's it! That's the missing piece!"
"I don't follow," Noah admitted, moving closer to examine the holographic projections Kelvin was throwing up faster than he could track.
"Okay okay okay, let me back up." Kelvin took a breath that did absolutely nothing to calm him down. "Beast cores are batteries, right? Organic tissue that stores massive amounts of energy. A Category Two core might hold enough power to run a combat exoskeleton for an hour. Category Three, maybe two hours. Category Five—the absolute best we can acquire—gives you sustained output for thirty, maybe forty-five minutes before it's completely depleted."
He pulled up power consumption graphs, curves that dropped toward zero with depressing inevitability.
