ShipCore

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, A3123-Y Station

Amy raised her welding helmet so she could wipe the sweat on her forehead as she completed the repair to the floor panel. A miner from one of the independent ships that had made the station its home waved to her from across the corridor.

She smiled and waved back.

After the battle, dozens of the mining vessels had arrived to help the wrecked station. The single Corporate ship in the system had fled through the Nu Crateris jump point, leaving the system in peace.

Relative peace. A31 had rebooted after a tense twelve hour shutdown. She and Logan had hidden on their Badger, which had miraculously survived, while they considered what to do when the station’s lights and power returned. Repair drones began the arduous task of repairing the station, but at a much-reduced rate compared to what they had been capable of.

There were hundreds of escape pods, some already scooped up by the station’s drones and rescued, and Amy had been at a loss at what to do with them. Ackman station had refused them, so a quick scramble to build a makeshift prison had become a priority then. The miners had arrived and provided a sort of security Amy hadn’t realized she had missed while they had relied on only the robots.

As amazing as A31 was, she was convinced they needed people—humans, as well.

On her way to the new hangar bay, Logan waved to her.

“Sometimes doing things yourself is therapeutic. Didn’t you help make a death laser yourself?”

“With Abbey yeah, but that was like, because it was cool and we needed as super weapon.”

“I’m not sure it can be considered a super weapon if it blows itself up on its first use.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Amy smiled, “Yeah.. but I wouldn’t want to try anything like that ever again.”

“Me either.”

They continued down the corridor, passing by several drones and men who were on repair and salvage duty. A group of a dozen men crossed their path and froze to let them pass by at another intersection. One of them saluted her, and she reluctantly saluted back.

A31 had refused to assign any other humans to a command rank, leaving Amy and Logan nominally in charge of… everything. That had caused some friction at first, and when one man tried to ‘hack’ the station into giving him command, A31 had launched him in a tiny torpedo that delivered him to Ackman Station.

After that, no one had tried another coup. Amy realized she needed help, though, and had formed a council mostly composed of the miner captains and a few experts. Even if she had to override them on some things, like spacing all the Corpo prisoners.

Entering the new hangar bay, Amy and Logan approached a group that had centered around a metal torpedo shaped cylinder. The far side of the massive space was covered by a massive shimmering blue I-field that required its own reactor to maintain stability, and a constant stream of smaller ships entered and left the pressurized area.

The cylinder contained the body of a young girl and was pre-programmed for a low decaying solar orbit that would embrace 92 Pegasi’s yellow star.

The honor guard on both sides was mostly made up of robots, but a small crowd of curious miners that were off duty had also gathered.

Amy and Logan took up position at the head of the group. Everyone’s attention fell on her, and she cleared her voice.

“Abbey was dependable and helped protect us when needed. She did nothing to deserve what happened to her at the hands of the Corpos, and all she wanted was to build and help make A3123-Y a successful place where humans and NAIs could thrive, as well as ensure everyone had access to good food and chances that have been taken away from us here on the frontier.”

A few of the miners showed discomfort at the mention of ‘NAI’, but Amy ignored them.

Feeling a bit at a loss at how to continue, she turned to Abbey-2. “Umm, do you want to say any words?”

Abbey tilted her head at the question, finding the entire ceremony strange. She’d died, but it didn’t really feel like she was dead. A31 had maintained a constant backup of memories right up to the second of her passing. So as soon as a new body had been prepared—this one had unfortunately been rushed like the first—she had woken up without a problem.

Although the pain of dying had been quite unpleasant, and she had some fears about how close she had come to failing her directives. It was not a situation she wanted to repeat ever again.

She scratched her cheek and thought for a moment.

“The first me did her best to follow our directives. I now know how much more dangerous things are, and plan to make everyone as safe as possible!”

Smiling, she stood up on a platform so everyone could see her better. She was a full inch shorter now, unfortunately.

“Our first goal is to repair the orbital back to its previous status, thankfully with the help of Amy’s friends we have already made rendezvous with the manufactory, so module repairs are going quickly!”

“I have updated the schematics for A-3123-Y to be even more impressive, with the addition of more weapons and armor, but more importantly, I have already completed the modifications to the captured Corporate ships and will bring them online early. Just in case more Corpos show up before we are ready!”

“To ensure that everyone has good food, I have prioritized repair of the food laboratory module and fishies tank, and I am happy to report that Kebabs and Cake are available once again in the station commissary!”

The miners perked up and started paying attention.

“In an ongoing process, I have confirmed with Portmaster Whitely that we are amiable to continuing to integrate with the older station’s economic model. This will allow most visiting traffic to use Ackman Station’s services for basic services, while inner system traffic will mostly be directed towards A-3123-Y! We won’t have to worry about sneaky outsiders bothering us!”

“I have not yet figured out how to achieve the following issues: Not drawing much attention and being discreet. If anyone has any ideas, please forward them to my StationNet inbox! There is a 10,000 SE bounty for excellent suggestions that are utilized!”

Amy tugged at her arm and Abbey looked up at her confused, “What?”

“It’s supposed to be your funeral, not an announcement about our status and goals.”

Abbey shrugged. “Maybe we should broadcast it to everyone?”

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Decaying Orbit, SRS Tremissis

Heeler slapped a control panel with a tentacle in anger. H32 continued to attempt to make repairs to the ship, but it had few automated elements and many, many physical safeguards from a global takeover attempt via software.

The crew had long been consumed by his nestlings, but as useful as they were for slaying the enemy, they had no ability to operate… anything. It was frustrating.

If his Queen had been with them, she might have used their eyes and controlled them directly, but as it was, he could only direct them in a much more general sense, being a male with higher authority.

Which meant that when the last command of the ship’s previous owner had been to deorbit, it had taken so long to cancel the order the ship was already embracing the atmosphere, fire trailing long behind it as the bow absorbed the heat turning into a molten mess.

The only option now was to control their descent in a way that would not collide with the ground that killed him and destroyed the ship.

That was not simple, and a second slap on the console destroyed it. Suddenly, the interlocks preventing the main drive from activating ceased to exist, but so did the computer dedicated to attitude control.

H32 took over that duty, but Heeler felt the stress of his MainComputer contained in his belly. While he and his ShipCore were now mobile, they lacked much of the computational power needed for major tasks.

Thankfully, this was within his capabilities.

The damage battlecruiser fired its RCS thrusters, which did their best to contain the heat shock to the bow of the ship that was already compromised. As they dipped deeper, it was all the smaller thrusters could do to prevent the ship from literally dropping out of the sky and slamming into the ground.

Striking bow first into the ground at a shallow angle, the ship carved a new valley into a forested plain on Dedia IV’s eastern continent.

When the vessel finally came to a stop, Heeler felt relief. Communications had been severed, so he could not contact the hive or his mother, but he was sure they were fine. The battle had been won; the enemy destroyed.

Two of the ship’s reactors had gone offline due to failsafe triggers, but the third remained operational. It was redlining under the stress of maintaining the A-Field under planetary conditions, and Heeler released the requirement.

All the corpses and nestlings in the room crashed into the ceiling as gravity realigned with the planetary norm. He caught himself with his strong tentacles and easily and rolled to be upright on his clitters.

They made a click clack sound as he moved toward the ship’s hangars, where he planned to produce new drones with his sparse amount of nanites available. Those drones would enact repairs and produce more drones. Once he had enough, he could re-establish a connection to his main bunker and prepare a salvage operation.

He would rebuild the captured battlecruiser and make it his own.

Halfway to the hangar, an intruding thought pressed against his mind. Alarmed, he tensed up and froze. The thought was feminine, and it was quickly joined by others. He growled back at them, which caused the thought press to recede, but only for a moment.

They called to him, offering whatever they had in an attempt to entice him to their nests. Most annoyingly, he couldn’t shut them out completely. The strongest of the females stopped attempting to entice him and threatened.

A vision of a horde of nestlings dragging him back to her nest filled him with rage. He already had a Queen, Szizsielia; he was not available. He had been born of her nest. His entire purpose of being was initiated to communicate with her, and her thoughts were soothing to him.

As if his memories had spurred something, he could feel a connection to her, although it was faint from being so far away.

“What disturbs your thoughts?”

Latching onto the thread, Heeler replied, “Other Queens seek to threaten and capture me.”

Realizing that, through the connection, H32 could communicate with the bunker using Szizsielia, a relay of orders to the automated systems there was quickly given.

Both had the same thought a moment later.

“We prepare for war.”

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV, Central Continent, Near Dedia Prime

Lavigne and Morrison helped the five other crewmembers exit the escape pod. It had been a rough plunge through the atmosphere, but the pod’s navigational suite had put them close to the planet’s largest city. One man had a broken leg, and the crew quickly went to work to making a makeshift crutch for him.

Suddenly, Lavigne was grateful survival training was part of every sailor’s basic training.

Transient EM emissions from multiple sources had been degrading their attempts at radio communication, so he wasn’t sure if rescue or help was on the way or not.

Morrison waved to get his attention. “Sir, I’m pretty sure the fauna were considered dangerous.”

“They are, yes.”

“Sir.” Morrison continued to glance at Lavigne’s sidearm.

Finally realizing what the NCO was getting at, Lavigne pulled the weapon and handed it to him. “Ah, you’re probably better with this than me.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll see that you get it back later.”

In the distance, a cloud of ash billowed up off the ground. A crew member dug inside a survival kit and handed Lavigne a pair of binoculars. He could see a large incoming technical with a HMG mounted on the back.

“Looks like the locals are coming to greet us.”

“Not sure how happy they are going to be to see us, Sir. Not with how the captain did them.”

“Let’s hope shooting the Corpos bought us enough favor for a ride back to the city.”

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, IFRB-Post Packet Boat RT-33, en route 92 Pegasi jump point

Corporate Intelligence Officer Fallon continued to write his report on the bridge. They’d received detailed telemetry from the CSS Tremissis right until the alien boarders had taken control of the communication systems and severed the link.

He had made the mistake of being too shocked to cut the link himself, and he feared they had taken a position and course of the packet boat. The mail ship’s sensors were much weaker than even an outer system warship. Just slightly better than one could expect from a frontier civilian ship, really.

They had accounted for the Tremissis’ course into the planet’s atmosphere, though. It seemed like they would get away without being chased. Not that there was much around the planet left to chase them. If he didn’t have the detailed telemetry from the combat, he wouldn’t even believe himself when he made his own report.

The lights on the bridge suddenly flashed to red. The sleeping crewman at a console in front of Fallon almost fell out of his seat as he woke up.

“Report.”

A few seconds of disoriented reading and Fallon had his answer.

“Sir, IND Iron Horse is hailing us. They are requesting we adjust course to avoid their flight plan.”

Fallon cursed, looking at the navigational screen. There was no Iron Horse on the scope. “Range and bearing?”

“Uhh, moderately far, sir. Ahead of us. Somewhere.”

“Send a reply acknowledging.”

Another crewman arrived, and Fallon grabbed his shirt sleeve to give an order. “Adjust course to 10 o’clock of the jump point. Full burn.”

“Sir?”

“Just do it.”

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: 90 Pegasi System, Task Force Firestop, SMS Strogiy, Bridge

Captain Larret watched the countdown on the screen reach zero. The ship emerged from the jump stream and systems began to rapidly churn through data to determine their exact position. The nature of a jump with a fleet was always partial chaos because of the random nature of the exact timing and position of an exit position.

It’s what made jump point assaults against a defended point so deadly. Worse, there was no way to determine if a point would be defended for sure because it would normally take at least a week to traverse the corridor, more than enough time for the situation in the target system to change.

Heavier units would traverse first in a tight formation. That was because larger units would emerge closer to the jump point and had a more stable timing for the exit.

The Strogiy had traversed with the lighter fleet elements in order to avoid the danger of a first strike. The massive Grazhdanin class vessel was carrying the entire task force’s supplies.

“Captain, receiving telemetry from BB Patriot. Fleet wide defense net has accepted our authentication.”

Captain Larret nodded, watching the icons for the task force update in real time on the screen. She noted they were not alone. Across the system, red dots populated the screen. A hostile fleet was present at the jump point to Corporate space.

“Captain, we are receiving a hail from the Admiral. He wishes to update you on the situation.”

“Transfer him to my console.”

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Far Orbit, IND Iron Horse

Captain-Major Thraker made his way from the CIC towards the Iron Horse’s small boat bay. Green flashing lights blared a bio-hazard warning and crewmen scrambled to put on protective suits, but he ignored them and continued his path.

He had agonized about his decision to leave Captain Myers to her fate defending the planet. When the rest of the ships had entered the jump point, the Iron Horse had rigged for silent running and had not followed them. Instead, the destroyer had slid toward the planet on RCS quietly, using the disturbance at the point to rig for silent running.

He had not planned on engaging the Corporate fleet, but he thought it could be possible that there would be survivors to assist, and that the Corporate fleet would likely not remain in orbit. They were not likely to overtake the convoy on its way out of the frontier, either.

It was a risk leaving the ships to fend for themselves, but his conscious had clawed at him after his conversation with the Tear’s young captain.

Watching the battle from a day away at their best speed had felt like a chastisement.

He had grilled the sensor tech for hours, until finally, they had found something that he had almost lost hope of detecting: A single escape pod had escaped the destruction of the Shirke II. It had been blasted into a highly elliptical orbit and was obviously damaged from the massive explosion that had launched it away.

A dozen panicked men in bio-hazard suits were shouting and pointing at the blackened hull of the life pod. One side was entirely charred black, while the other was a matte white. A small porthole window was stamped into the single door that was still closed shut.

An NCO who was calmly watching the situation from the door noticed Thraker and called out loudly enough to freeze the men in their deliberations.

“CAPTAIN ON DECK!”

All of them turned at once and began shouting at him, some in fear for their lives, others in fear that he wasn’t wearing protective gear, and others random nonsense.

“QUIET!”

Thraker was grateful for the NCO’s presence and capabilities of taking control. The men parted for him, and he took the stairs up to the pod’s door.

“Sir, do you… need us to help open it?”

“That won’t be needed.”

He had seen such pods before, long ago. He placed his hand on a control surface and a laser scanned his palm. The hatch raised and opened with its own power. He looked inside.

It was what he expected, and what had thrown the crew into a terrified frenzy.

Alex was holding Elis against her chest. Two power armored suits had been discarded and a medical bag had its contents strewn across the cramped space in the pod.

Thraker looked back at the men, “Turn that blasted siren off, and send for the doctor already.”

“But.. sir..”

“Captain’s mast for the lot of you if he isn’t here in five minutes!”

Thraker turned back to the girls in the Pod.

Alex looked up at him with vividly glowing blue eyes, her tears laced with blue shimmering nanites that stained her face. He realized she had her hand over the marine’s wound. Nanites soaked the entire area.

The only sign that she was still alive was the labored breathing and telltale movement of her chest.

“Please. Help. She won’t wake up.”

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