Chapter 22

Making a bad situation worse.

“All of you fuck off; I want to speak to my brother,” Brenda said as she strode into the Council chambers.

“We are members of this Council, too,” Hadrian protested.

“Do you want to stay?” Brenda shrugged. “That's fine, but open your mouth, and I’ll shut it for you.”

“It’s good to see you,” Duke smiled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Brenda laughed. “From what I can tell, you need me.”

“Now—” Nancy started, only to shriek as Brenda reached out and casually slapped her across the face.

“I don’t like to repeat myself,” Brenda smiled nastily. “Next time, I break a finger.”

Nancy paled.

“Brenda, if you please,” Duke said, not quite sincere in his chastisement. A fact that was not lost on the council.

“Alright,” Brenda sighed. “But. just for the record, I’d shoot them all.” The captain turned and grinned at Nancy. “Except her. Her, I would play with for a bit before I let her die.”

“Enough with the theatrics, please,” Duke sighed. “We have serious problems here.”

“And that is my problem; why?” Brenda asked sweetly.

“Your officer was involved in the start of this whole affair,” Duke frowned. “Are you saying, on our family, that she was completely innocent?”

“How the fuck would I know?” Brenda laughed. “I just got back.”

Warrick raised his hand like a child, asking permission to talk. Brenda cackled, but Duke nodded to the clearly terrified man.

“Would it not save time to update your sister on the recent events quickly?” Warrick said carefully.

So, that was what they did.

“Well, fuck,” Brenda shook her head. “This is complete bullshit.”

“I always believed that your officer was innocent,” Nancy protested.

“Fucking why?” Brenda sneered. She was not a woman to respect fawning. She liked strong people, willful ones that she could beat and not quite break.

So much more fun that way.

“This is the most ham-fisted load of shit that I’ve ever seen,” Brenda threw the report contemptuously across the desk.

“The cover-up was not my idea,” Duke said tiredly.

“Yeah, that sucked, too,” Brenda huffed. “But I was referring to my officer’s incompetence.”

“Pardon?” Duke sputtered.

“What? This is the most incompetent operation I have ever seen,” Brenda shook her head. “I had such hopes for her.”

“I see,” Duke said, slightly purple in the face. “Nevertheless, we are going to need a plan to move forward.”

“Hey, I can only take responsibility for my crew,” Brenda shrugged. “The rest of this shit is on your lot.”

“True,” Duke frowned again, shoulders hunched. But it is difficult to know how to proceed.”

“I have absolute faith in you, bro.” Brenda gave him a thumbs-up. “Now, in the meantime, we need a lot of people to work on some changes to both the ships I brought back.”

“I have many skilled workers on contract,” Nancy offered.

“Oh, good, you are useful after all,” Brenda replied sarcastically.

“Of course, the price will have to be negotiated fairly,” Hadrian said, his tone firm but respectful. Brenda decided he might be worth keeping around after the inevitable culling.

It shouldn’t surprise her; Duke always attracted skilled individuals. Unfortunately, Brenda thought as her eyes scanned the other two; he also attracted the locusts.

“Not staying for the rest of the meeting?” First Barrata asked as she exited the council chambers.

“No, we have a little housework to do regarding our former third officer,” Brenda said sourly.

“Former?” Baratta nodded. “I assume we are going to inform her of the demotion now.”

“No,” Brenda smiled. “We are going to terminate her employment.”

“Any severance package?” Baratta put a hand to his pistol.

“Oh, yes,” Brenda nodded. “An extensive one. She has embarrassed me.”

“Understood,” Baratta moved his hand from his pistol, instead placing it on the handle of the knife at his leg.

Brenda smiled.

It was so nice to have someone who didn’t need to be told every little detail to get the point.

===<<<>>>===

“Explain it to me again,” Nellie told Paren, “Slowly.”

“Will it help?” Paren smirked.

“Probably not,” Nellie admitted.

“What you need to know is that it will work,” Paren said after a minute. “The network design is just a much simpler way of doing the whole thing.”

“How much of the gathered resources do you need?” Nellie gave up. Paren was smarter than her, which was not a surprise. The kid had shown nothing short of genius since the day Nellie had met her. Of course, that genius came bundled with a complete lack of social niceties and a shaky grasp of the concept of other people being able to actually own things she wanted, but no one was perfect.

They were working on it.

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The evidence of that was that Paren was actually asking this time instead of the materials simply vanishing. Baby steps, Nellie reminded herself.

“Almost forty percent to get the satellites built. At least enough to cover the planet, moon, and nearby space,” Paren said thoughtfully. “I’d need all of it to cover even a third of the system, so that will have to wait.”

“And this will allow for better locating of resources and other facilities?” Nellie checked.

“Almost real-time communication of information?” Paren said with a smile, “Oh, yes.”

“Wait!” Nellie said with sudden suspicion. “I know that smile. What is the little extra that you aren’t mentioning?”

“Can it be a surprise?” Paren asked hopefully.

Nellie drummed her fingers on the table, thinking. General common sense would be to say no and then double-check everything, in the vague hope that Lucy or Remy could figure it out.

The problem was that it didn’t exactly build or show trust.

“Okay,” Nellie said after a few seconds. “A surprise it is.”

“Yes!” Paren punched the air with her gauntletted hand. “Thanks, Nell!”

Paren clattered off before Nellie could get another word in.

“So, do we think that was wise?” Lucy asked suspiciously.

“Probably not,” Nellie admitted. “But if we want her to trust us, we have to trust her, right?”

“Very true,” Lucy admitted, “But that generally applies to people who might not try and take over a star system.”

“You make a good point,” Nellie grinned. “But, after all, aren’t we already kind of doing that?”

“At least we will have second-to-second data on the egg,” Lucy sighed, her voice only coming from Nellie’s inner ear.

“Are you coming back up from the planet soon?” Nellie asked. “I miss you.”

“You remember I literally live in your head, right?” Lucy laughed.

“Not all of you,” Nellie smirked. “I miss those bits.”

“Naughty,” Lucy giggled. “Come on, you have work to do.”

“Stop dodging the question,” Nellie said with a smile. “Are you coming back?”

“Soon,” Lucy said seriously. “Promise.”

Remy was waiting for her on the bridge. She was staying on the Bly rather than the station. It simply felt better to be there, for some reason. Nell knew it was bugging Salem that she was ignoring the very stately apartments that were built on the Bly’s Rest, but she was not some pampered noble or CEO. She was a working Captain.

She just happened to also own a station. And a few ships. And a shuttle or three. Oh, and a mining base. Shit, and an embassy.

“Fuck me, am I rich?” Nellie asked suddenly.

“No,” Remy said with absolute certainty. “Every rare metal we have found has been consumed by the four-legged demon who keeps waltzing through my security setups.”

Nellie laughed at his obvious irritation.

There was, to her certain knowledge, a running ship’s pool on how long each new set of security measures would last. The numbers started in the milliseconds.

“So, the pirates,” Nellie said as she slid into her captain’s chair, the screens springing to life as her implant connected to them and the ship directly. “I take it the surveillance worked?”

“It certainly did,” Remy grinned. “The nanites coating the umbilical deployed into the ship systems as they were designed to. We have complete listings of their abilities, cargo, and crew. I took the liberty of assessing their travel logs as well.”

“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Nellie asked.

“Most definitely not, Captain,” Remy said with a grim little smile. “They are every bit the pirates you suspected, and worse besides.”

“Start at the top and run it down for me,” Nellie nodded to her screens.

“Certainly,” Remy flicked the raw data to her screens and the holographic display in front of them. The reconfigured Last Chances was… a mess.

“This can’t be right?” Nellie asked.

“Oh, it is,” Remy said in a slightly hurt tone. “I did check multiple times.”

“But if they fire this cannon and that one at the same time…” Nellie mentally checked her math, “They would rip this section of the ship off entirely.” That structural analysis knowledge from her new ‘Class’ was really coming in handy.

“And the same is true here, here, and here,” Remy noted. “However, the ship does not have the power to run even half of the weapons at the same time.”

“Redundancy?” Nellie asked.

“Versatility,” Remy countered. “They have a weapon type for each hull material, a physical projectile type to counter energy shields and repulsion fields, or at least several of them.”

“It’s a pure raider,” Nellie marveled. “Designed to take ships and cargo.”

“Moving on from their rather patchwork ship,” Remy said after a while spent going over the details of its maneuvering and shield systems, “Their crew complement is twice what a ship that size needs, which suggests extra for boarding operations. They also carry extensive personal armor and weapons. More than even the average military ship on deployment.”

“Definitely set up for piracy,” Nellie shook her head. It wasn’t like she was responsible for the Last Chances or its actions. They were an entirely separate entity. The problem was that others didn’t necessarily know that. Piracy attracted attention. Attention brought problems and nosy fuckers trying to tell her what to do.

“In addition, their own logs detail two recent piratical operations,” Remy smiled, clearly pleased with the word ‘piratical’ and the chance to use it, “One resulted in the attention of something called the ‘Imperial Line,’ and the other is likely worse.”

“Ostie, just what we need.” Nellie ground her teeth.

“Quite,” Remy noted. “As such, I would like permission to allocate ten percent of found resources to the creation of a fighter craft of some form.”

“Can’t we make more of the Indomitable? Use them?” Nellie asked.

“In time, yes,” Remy nodded.

“And you don’t think we will have that time?” Nellie asked, just to confirm her own suspicions.

“I’d be astonished if we did, Captain,” Remy replied honestly, “We never have before.”

Nellie smiled despite her rising anger.

“Okay, talk to Paren,” Nellie sighed. “Get her on the design work. Top priority.”

“I am quite capable of the design, in concert with Dar or Vey, of course,” Remy noted.

“She’s already done a lot of the work for the other craft,” Nellie said, “Let’s not reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to.”

“Yes, Captain,” Remy nodded and headed off.

“Hey, Lucy, how come people are arguing with me less these days?” Nellie wondered aloud.

===<<<>>>===

“So, we have a decision?” Hadrian asked carefully.

“I suppose so,” Duke sighed. “But I still think this is taking things too far.”

“We offered other options,” Warrick said with a condescending smile.

“Imposing martial law is difficult to do without the force of arms,” Duke snapped. “How do you not get that?”

“Most of them owe their loyalty to us through contract,” Nancy insisted.

“And I remind you that the contract won’t hold up when they can simply kill you instead.” Duke rubbed his eyes.

“I do think this will allow us to cut off the problem,” Hadrian said, leaning over the council table and folding his arms like a professor. “Yes, the loss will be difficult, but a damaged wound must sometimes be severed to prevent any further hemorrhaging. The longer we allow this state of affairs to continue, the more people we will lose.”

“The only real question is how we manage that severing,” Warrick said.

“I am certainly willing to offer to remove contracts from at least some of them,” Nancy said as if she was making a great sacrifice. “If they leave quietly.”

“Someone explain it to her using little words!” Duke snapped his patience well and truly frayed at this point.

“Well, really,” Nancy huffed.

“If we do this,” Duke said quietly. “Anyone who goes does so of their own free will and free of ALL contracts. We don’t get to pick and choose.”

“There are some we would do better to keep,” Hadrian hedged.

“No,” Duke stood, and the violence so openly displayed by his sister was suddenly clearly visible in his extremely large frame. “I have decided.” The normally placid and friendly face was twisted in rage, and just for a moment, everyone in that room was very aware of the fact that the two came from the same gene pool. “You idiots have pushed us to this, but things are going to be different going forward. Am I understood?”

All three nodded silently.

“Then, we shall announce it tonight,” Hadrian said.

“We will,” Duke stalked towards the door. “I’m going to see the Marshall. Hopefully, he will see reason.”

“Well, then,” Nancy said after the big man had left.

“Yes,” Hadrian nodded. “Things will stabilize.”

“We need some of those people,” Warrick protested.

“Out in the wilds? With nothing to offer shelter or build a colony?” Hadrian grinned. “They will come back, and this time, they will be grateful to be under our benevolent rule.”

“Now that is more like it,” Nancy said with a smile.

“What about Duke?” Warrick asked.

“He has a purpose,” Hadrian noted. “As does that feral sister of his. At least until we can organize a change of command and our own hands on the tiller.”

“At that point?” Nancy asked.

“We kill them both, of course,” Hadrian said mildly. “What else would we do?”