Chapter 39
A deep breath
“When was this recorded?” Nellie asked as she watched the woman she hated being throttled. The scene was rendered in a visual spectrum that most would find impossible to understand. To Nellie and her enhanced senses, the complex overlapping images were what she always saw. It provided excellent detail, not only telling her that three figures in their expensive camo suits were on all three open sides of the bed while the thrashing figure in the center of it suffered a slow and painful death via the little machine fitted to her neck, but what the suits were made of, where the circuitry was, what kind of power it used and so much more.
Of course, it went deeper than that. It let Nellie know the three people were human, not brackta, that she had seen two of the three before, and that the one in the middle was aroused.
Brenda was one sick bitch.
“About ten minutes ago,” Remy told her. His face was grim, way too grim for just this one murder.
“How many?” Nellie asked.
“Thirty in all, all members of Nancy’s inner circle. All in the same manner.” Remy clenched one fist for a fraction of a second and then forced it to relax. For a spy, the man had a curiously strong sense of justice. This kind of backroom work seemed to get under his skin for some reason, and Nellie suspected that she didn’t want to know why.
“Brenda’s people only?” Nellie asked with a sigh. She needed to know if this was another move by the little pirate or if Duke had signed off on it.
“No. Duke’s new trainees attended at least a dozen of the killings. They carried out many of the others,” Remy noted, turning away from the image.
Remy had senses as good as her own, Nellie knew. Like her, he could see the waves of pain and panic coming off the dying woman.
When she finally stilled, dead after almost fifteen minutes of pain and slow strangulation, Nellie caught the breathy little sigh from Brenda just as the recording ended.
Not for the first time in her life, Nellie reflected that anyone who thought women were the ‘gentler sex’ simply wasn’t paying close enough attention.
Nellie dispatched a copy of the recordings to Crush via a secure runner. Semi-secure, considering it was Banjo. He needed to know what was going on, just in case this was the start of something more than the strange changes to the man she used to think of as a friend.
Duke, it seemed, had been playing a little game. The wolf had climbed into a lambskin and pretended, even to himself, that he was a lamb. Leo’s death seemed to have shaken off the last of the remains of that coat, and she was once more dealing with a Fed who thought they knew best.
Where was Prit-Mal when you needed her?
That thought made Nellie smile, remembering the security officer glaring at her across an interrogation table. Now, they both ran something much bigger than themselves. Perhaps, if things went well enough, she could send someone back to check on the situation in the HUB.
First things first, however. Somehow, the list of ‘first things’ never seemed to get any shorter.
The ship bay was working overtime, as usual. Nellie leaned against the hatchway and watched as two more copies of the improved Bly were being made while the third slot showed the start of another combat shuttle. These were the last ones that they would make, at least for a while. From here on out, it would be only the Paren designed ‘Omni-Drone’ models.
The design itself was strange, even to Lucy. It looked like nothing so much as a Rubik’s cube but spherical. Each part of it could be shifted into one of a dozen different positions to become anything from thrust to a weapon to a sensor, depending on what other parts were nearby. They could only be crewed by the Cents. Lacking any form of life support or supplies. Still, they were scalable as well. Make it small, and it was an autonomous drone. A little larger, and it could be a personal vehicle. Make it large enough, and it was any damn thing you wanted.
“Fal-Tar, how are we doing for supplies?” Nellie asked when she found the exhausted-looking brackta working on a folding desk in the far corner of the production bay. Cans of empty HyperDrive littered the floor around the desk.
The Production Manager leaped out of his seat like a scalded cat.
“Captain! I’m so sorry; I just fell asleep for a second!” He blinked bleary eyes at Nellie, making her feel sorry for having disturbed him. How tired did you need to be to fall asleep, sat upright, holding a tablet, and stay that way?
“When was the last time you slept in a bunk, Fal-Tar?” Nellie asked.
“Uh, what day is it?” Fal grinned sheepishly.
“You need to sleep, man,” Nellie sighed.
“I will; I just need to get the last of these reports to Paren,” He shuddered. “She sends a crawler to get them if I’m late.”
“Did you happen to be sleeping one of these times?” Nellie asked.
“Only once,” Fal-Tar paled. “It came into the bunk to wake me.”
“Paren?” Nellie called over the comm.
“Busy!” Paren called back happily.
“No more crawlers sent to go get late reports!” Nellie said quickly.
“Why not?” Paren asked hotly. “It makes people deliver them on time!”
“Because I said so,” Nellie replied, shamelessly pulling the most unfair of trump cards. “Have Paren assign you a runner to get them for you instead.”
“Staff?” Paren laughed, “Like anyone would come and deliver them.”
“Dammit,” Nellie sighed. “People really need to get over being scared of the crawlers.”
“Thank you!” Paren had real feeling in her voice. “They are little darlings, aren’t they?”
“They might, possibly, in the right light, be sort of cute,” Nellie was aghast to say it but even more horrified that she meant it. That heavy crawler had really grown on her back on the volcanic planet.
“Fal-Tar needs sleep; give him a break, okay?” Nellie asked.
“Fal-Tar needs to read his damn messages,” Paren countered. “I canceled those report requests twelve HOURS ago.”
“Okay, then. Thanks, Paren. Hey, are you okay? Are you having fun?” Nellie asked.
“Loads, stop being weird.” Paren cut the line.
They were yet again running low on supplies. Nellie knew they were getting a bunch from the farm on the moon—Crush the farmer, who would have seen that coming—and their mining operation on the volcanic planet had been moved to a new location. The supplies were flowing, and Salem even had Baz and a few Cent crews running around collecting whatever they found from the remaining debris around the moon.
It wasn’t nearly enough. They still had to make an entire second ship based on the Bly’s Revenge that was even now docked at the station. That was after making a minimum of twenty of the new Omni-Drones.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
No wonder everyone was always fighting over resources. They seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye. It had been so much easier when she was just scraping together parts from the scrap yards. Even a decent-sized asteroid belt would do.
Arriving back at her apartment, Nellie was delighted to see that her AI's physical body was fully healed and up and around at long last.
Finally, something to be happy about.
“Welcome home,” Lucy grinned. The smile was all she was wearing.
“Hey—” Nellie growled as the room lights flashed the red warning lights.
===<<<>>>===
“Report,” Nellie snapped as she strode into the control room of the Bly’s Rest. The station was under Salem's control, but Salem still reported to Nellie, and right now, Nellie was in no mood to be polite.
“Unidentified large ship, weapons hot. It jumped into the system a few seconds ago and is proceeding this way with its scanners going and shields raised.” Salem replied calmly. “I have the Revenge’s crew on their way to the ship, and she will be ready to launch when you are, Captain.”
“Did they come from the sectors?” Nellie asked. Technically, they could have come from anywhere; this was space, after all, but in reality, people usually didn’t try to hide their approach vectors. What would be the point?
“No, ma’am. They came from the same direction the Last Chances did on their return with the other ship,” Salem nodded to Dar, who flicked his fingers. A holo image of the ship appeared in the empty space in front of Salem’s command station.
It was a warship that much was clear from the blunted front bristling with weapons arrays. Squat, thick, and intimidating were all the design choices they had allowed for. A single docking bay on each side showed against the otherwise smooth, heavily armored hull. The thrust at the rear was three large engines fighting for space.
“It’s a destroyer class,” Dar reported. “Similar size to the Revenge, two custom bays that I assume hold attack shuttles. Thick armor, strong shields, four forward-mounted laser arrays, and a single rear.”
“Threat assessment?” Nellie asked.
“Negligible,” Lucy replied with clear smugness. “Our defense satellites could hole it in under a minute.”
“I concur,” Salem smiled. “If they are looking for a fight, they should have brought friends.”
“Very well,” Nellie relaxed a little. “Then let’s see if they would like to talk.”
“Give them a minute to scan us, then they’ll get chatty in a hurry,” Salem predicted.
Accurately, as it turned out.
“I.L.S. Destroyer Trader’s Gift to Station, do you read?” The voice was crisp, the consonants clipped, while the vowels were hard and sharp.
“This is Commander Dar, Bly’s Rest. We read you Trader’s Gift. State intent.” Dar replied calmly and firmly.
“Captain Tonbal, here. We are pursuing a stolen ship, tracked to this system, Bly’s Rest. We intend no harm to any other than our quarry.” The Captain’s voice shared the same sharp accent but was much deeper, almost a rumble.
“Understood, Captain,” Dar replied. “We may be able to help with that.”
“How fortunate,” Tonbal laughed. “What will it cost me?”
“Nothing,” Dar looked over at Nellie, who nodded. “We have the coordinates of your ship, recordings of the person who took it, sensor records, anything you need.”
“I see,” Tonbal was silent for a while. “We shall dock to speak of this in person.”
“Is that a request to dock, Captain?” Dar put an edge in his voice. “You will find us resistant to forced boarding in the extreme.”
Salem pressed a button, lighting the defense satellites’ shields and weapons systems.
“It was a request, Bly’s Rest. No offense intended.” Tonbal sounded confused like the threat was a misunderstanding, but no one was buying that. At least, not on the station.
“Very well, I.L.S. Trader’s Gift. You are cleared to dock on the nearest large berth. Do not attempt to approach with weapons hot, or we will open fire.” Dar said smoothly.
“I suppose we must drop our shields as well?” Tonbal growled.
“No, you can keep those,” Dar replied in a polite tone.
Nellie and Salem waited outside the airlock for their visitors to arrive. They were flanked by a pair of the original Centrum models, who made for a suitably intimidating sight. The simple ship suits Nellie and Salem wore hid the nanite armor underneath.
If their new guests decided to try to storm the station, they would be unpleasantly surprised to find the docking umbilical was a lot less stable than it appeared to sensors. More than that, their ship would last less than a minute of sustained fire, a lot less.
All in all, Nellie was comfortable enough to be feeling relaxed as the doors rolled back and a trio of pompously dressed peacocks stepped out to meet her.
Each of the men wore a skintight shipsuit and high boots that crested at the knee with a strip of shifting colors. The upper half was hidden by an ornate waistcoat, complete with tails and enough braid and symbols on the shoulders to keep a dresser busy for a weak. Each.
The feathers on the peacock, as it were, were the hats.
One wore what looked a little like a minimalist tricorn with a long, arcing bone decorated with glittering crystals. Another wore what would have been a wig, except it was made of tumbles of cloth and gemstones.
The man in the center and a little behind the others was by far the worst of the lot. He wore what could only be described as a scale model building, complete with tiny plants all kept beneath a small force bubble.
Nellie pressed her nails into her palms to keep a laugh from escaping her mouth as the two swept the ludicrous creations from their heads and bowed with many a flourish and gestures that seemed to convey a meaning she missed.
“Greetings from the Imperial Line,” the man in the center nodded, the force bubble not moving at all as he did so. “I am Under Manager Lionel Carter, lesser shareholder and leader of this asset recovery. I am assisted in this endeavor by Captain Tonbal, minor shareholder of the first level, and Assessor Franzal, shareholder and trusted source of the line.”
“Welcome aboard the Bly’s Rest,” Salem answered smoothly, not a trace of amusement in her voice or eyes. “I am Administrator Salem Du’Lesprit, a trusted aide to the Chief Officer and Owner of the Nanite Space Service. Allow me to introduce Captain Nellie Bonne-Chance, Chief Officer, the Beacon of Hope in the Endless Dark, Commander of the Fleet, and Emissary of the People. One of the Twin Queens of the Sentient Spark.”
Nellie did NOT blink, gasp, or anything of the sort. At least not outwardly. Where the hell had all of that come from?
“Welcome aboard, gentleman,” Nellie said smoothly, the social senses that she had inherited from Wasta Brill doing a lot of heavy lifting at the moment. That damn class was saving her ass again, it seemed. One day, somehow, she would have to find a way to thank that old smuggler. “Shall we adjourn for refreshments and discuss this matter?”
“Honored, your Highness,” Carter beamed. “I was unaware that this system had been settled, or we would never have entered so rudely. The Imperial Line is nothing if not courteous to our friends.”
“Are we friends?” Nellie asked drily, taking an instant dislike to the man.
“I shall endeavor to make us so,” Carter half bowed. “Everyone is happy to see the Imperial Line in their system.” He laughed. “Everyone that matters anyway.”
Nellie smiled back while fighting back the bile she felt trying to creep up her throat. If there was ever anyone she detested on sight, it was someone who thought only some of the people mattered. It was such a short step from there to only some of the people being counted as actual people.
And if they weren’t people, what did it matter what you did to them?
For a second, Robot’s story flashed through her mind, and fury ignited in her veins, but she pushed it away.
“Your ship was taken by the ‘Last Chances,’ commanded by one Brenda DaVore,” Nellie explained as the recordings and logs played on the screen around the conference room. “She brought it back to a Colony on the surface of the nearby moon, where she traded it for land and a position on the council.”
“I see,” Carter sippled from an ornate cup, the steaming liquid inside having come from a small machine mounted inside the strange hat. “I must congratulate you on the detail of those scans; I dare say they exceed even our own.”
“Thank you,” Nellie replied blandly. So far, the man had hinted at acquiring the technology behind the lift tubes, the datapads, and now the sensors. It seemed they liked to buy anything that wasn’t nailed down. Franzal, the Assessor, had not stopped examining the fixtures since the moment they entered the room.
“I think now would be a good time to explain a little more about the Imperial Line Trading Company. We are a multi-system enterprise with many advantages to offer to a new settlement or an established concern. We offer not only reliability but safety. A ship of the line has never gone unrecovered, or we pay the replacement cost ourselves. We specialize in the emergent markets, able to resettle native populations, or even to encourage them toward a more servile stance, should that be to your tastes.” Carter took a sip of his drink, “Loans, secured against assets of our choice, are available to those we think may strive to repay them. I dare say we could offer good terms against this station, not to mention the materials required to expand. Mining is, after all, something the lower classes are so much more suited for than a refined lady such as yourself.”
He sat back as if thinking of what to say next, but Nellie could tell the speech was a practiced one, given to each new possible client. “I’m sure that you are aware of the dangers of interstellar travel, and we can offer a security against that. Our ships can patrol your space, offering protection against pirate forces, not to mention preventing any accidents from occurring. For a reasonable stipend, of course.”
“Of course,” Nellie felt like her smile was cracking, but she did her best not to let her rising loathing show. She knew this Imperial Line, even if she had never met them before. There was always an Imperial Line wherever you went. They went by different names, of course, and levels of legality. In her world, there were plenty throughout history, but the East India Company was the closest example from what she could see. They were pirates, conmen, and extortionists, all dressed in pretty words and official documents.
“Now, perhaps you would be good enough to arrange a little chat with the involved parties?” Carter smiled again; he was good at it. Warm, inviting, and ever so trustworthy. At least, assuming you couldn’t see clearly through the mask.
“Happy to,” Nellie nodded.