Chapter 50

Scramble

“What are you doing here?” Salem glared at the trio as they stepped out of Paren’s lab.

“I was fixing a severed comm line,” Cix-El replied politely.

“I was accompanying Friend Cix-El,” Robot looked at the floor, avoiding her glare.

“I was bored,” the girl stared blankly up at her.

“All three of you are supposed to be in the shelter for the test!” Salem snapped. “Only Centrum units and Cent units were to remain behind.”

“If I left, no one would be here to fix things,” Cix-El shrugged. “I will not abandon my duty.”

“Robot didn’t like it, so he won’t be going,” the girl blinked once, slowly.

“What about you?” Salem challenged.

“I won’t go without Paren,” the girl said simply.

“But—”

“She’s making me a fluffy,” the girl replied with absolute finality.

“Paren!” Salem yelled through the door.

“Yes?” Paren sniggered.

“Stay out of the computer!” Salem felt herself grinding her teeth and forced herself to relax. How was she supposed to get anything done when the number of uncooperative people increased weekly?

“I have no idea what you mean,” Paren replied.

“Yes, you bloody do!” Salem huffed.

“Fine, I’ll stay out of the computer, and you stop making notes about me,” Paren called back.

“Fine!” Salem raised her finger to finally give Paren a piece of her mind, only to freeze as alarms began to sound across the station.

“Incoming ships!” Salem called out, “You three, head for a shelter zone immediately! Paren! Get to the launch bay; I’ll get someone to come and pick you up!”

“They’re busy!” Paren appeared in the doorway. “I’ll stay here.”

“I’m not explaining to the queens how you died on this station!” Salem snapped at her.

“I’m not leaving you on your own!” Paren snapped back.

“What?” Salem gaped.

“Stop gaping and get to work!” Paren shooed her away. “I’ll get my drones ready, just in case!”

Salem nodded and ran for the control room. The corridors blurred by as messages started to come in from everywhere, but it was only once she got to the control room itself that she got a clear view of events.

The fleet had arrived.

“Scan, give me a plot on positions!” Salem called to the Cents operating the control stations.

In front of her, a holographic map appeared, showing the station in the center. The moon and the volcanic planet were both there, and the planet had undergone another massive shift in temperature, but that wasn’t what made her freeze in place.

The enemy fleet had arrived, and it was huge.

The computer filled in details on the ships as they closed.

“Picking up two capital ships, four cruisers, multiple destroyers, all with weapons and shields lit!” Salem opened the comm line to their own ships.

They had been doing practice maneuvers in preparation for the battle, which meant the Bly’s Revenge, the Destiny, and the newly christened N.S.S. Talon were all out of position and had ended up behind the attacking fleet.

“Salem, did everyone get off the station?” Nellie’s voice was filled with tension, even over a comm line.

“Most are in the shelter for the test, Ma’am,” Salem replied. “We got lucky.”

“We’ll try and get b—” the line cut out as massive scattering fields from the enemy fleet cut off communications.

Salem watched as weapons fire flared on the sensors, and the enemy fleet began to turn to engage Nellie and the others.

She was cut off from all of them, and there was nothing she could do but watch as the battle started.

“Picking up a new signal!” her scan officer called.

A third capital ship appeared; the scan blurred as it arrived at high speed and dumped velocity with a series of counterburns above the volcanic planet, tearing through the planet’s atmosphere. Two destroyers appeared shortly after, one breaking formation and heading for the moon while the other joined the capital ship on an intercept course for the station.

“All stations! All stations! Report to defense stations immediately! Incoming hostiles!” Salem called as klaxons blared.

“My satellites can’t take out a capital ship, Salem,” Paren said as she strode into the command room.

“I know,” Salem nodded. “If it attacks, we—”

“Will be dead before we know it,” Paren nodded as she took over one of the stations. “I’m taking control of the defense satellites to do what we can.”

“You should try and evacuate,” Salem tried again.

“Salem, stop it,” Paren snapped.

Before Salem could argue any further, the destroyer headed for the moon opened fire as it passed. Paren’s hands flew over the controls, and the orbits of their satellites shifted as laser arrays sparked against the station’s shield.

“Firing,” Paren called, and the powerful satellites fired, one after another. Two hit the destroyer’s port shields, a constant stream of fire that drained it fast. The destroyer rolled the damaged shield away, only to find the next shot came from the other side. Their shield breached, and explosions rocked the destroyer before it passed out of range.

“They’ve lost attitude controls,” Paren reported as Salem saw the destroyer start to tumble toward the moon.

“Capital ship coming into range!”

Salem and Paren both tensed as the massive ship began to fire.

“They’re aiming for the defense batteries,” Paren growled as two of her satellites were destroyed. “Returning fire!”

“Ignore it; try and get that destroyer instead,” Salem ordered. “We might get that one.”

“Targeting the destroyer,” Paren nodded, and the remaining four batteries all shifted position and fired on the destroyer.

Another satellite was destroyed before the enemy shields failed, but with three remaining, the Imperial Line destroyer was cut apart.

Their last three defense batteries were obliterated as the capital ship rolled and began to move toward the docking bay.

“They’re boarding?” Paren looked over her shoulder at Salem.

Salem nodded.

“I need to get back to my lab,” Paren started for the door.

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“Paren!” Salem sealed the door.

“Trust me? Just this once?” Paren asked.

Salem hesitated but nodded and released the door seal.

“You control the Centrums; I’ll handle my drones,” Paren called as she dashed out the door.

“Good luck!” Salem called after her before turning back to her work.

Bringing up the tactical control board and the interior cameras, Salem began to issue orders as the sound of mechanical feet marching through the station echoed in empty compartments.

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

Crush exchanged a look with Cara as their comm units dissolved into hissing.

“That’s a bit early, right?” Cara asked.

They were sat in their camp, just south of the Clutch settlement. They were expecting to have three days to dig in before anything even approached, but the scattering field was not something Duke and his people could have done.

“Way too early,” Crush nodded, thinking quickly. Something had clearly gone wrong. Something big. The chances were that it was more than one thing.

“Does this mean we’re screwed?” Cara asked mildly.

“Probably,” Crush admitted.

“What do we do?”

“What we said we would,” Crush grabbed his rifle. “If Nellie loses up there, we’re dead anyway.”

Cara nodded and held out her hand. “Just in case, it’s been a pleasure to serve with you.”

“And you,” Crush shook her hand.

“Oh, and if you die, I’m going after Vicky.” Cara winked and turned to gather her people.

“She’d eat you alive,” Crush chuckled and then let out a whistle to let everyone know to get moving.

Each member of the squad had a team of five recruits under their command, and Crush was pleased to see his assembled quickly.

“Comms went down,” Crush told them. “We assume that means the attack has launched early. Grab your rifles and ammo, and leave everything else.”

Moving low through the small stretch of forest that would provide their cover for the ambush, Crush could already hear that they had been off on the numbers. He held up a hand for the rest of his squad to hold and crawled forward until he could see the approaching force.

They had expected about thirty of the colonists to attack; this looked like almost twice that many. He could only see two people in full armor, but still, that was a lot of people. Numbers mattered, even if there was a gear gap. Too many enemies, and they could mob you, no matter how good your armor was.

He was starting to pick targets out when he heard the thumping sound.

The war machine came around the bend, easily three times the size of the people it accompanied, even the ones in armor.

Crush felt his blood freeze when he saw it.

War walkers were more than enough to scare anyone, but if you had ever seen one in battle, you never forgot it.

Worse than that, he doubted even their nanite-supplied weapons would be able to take it.

Crush saw a flash from his right and a flash sequence for orders from Cara’s group. Crush blinked away his shock and scanned the thing again.

His first instinct was to pull back. This thing would…

Crush saw the sensor suite on the mechanized horror and knew it was too late.

It turned toward him, and Crush pushed into a crouch and shouldered his rifle.

It was too late to run.

Far too late.

“FIRE!”

He didn’t target the weapons platform, which was shielded, armored, and slow. Crush targeted the densely packed troops in front of it, which were lightly armored and much more likely to break.

Rolling to one side as a powerful laser from the walker seared through the forest above him, Crush felt like a bastard as his rifle cut into the crowd, soon joined by others.

They were people he knew and had lived next to day after day. Many of them he hadn’t liked very much, it was true. But still, he knew the faces and several of the voices that screamed in fear and pain were familiar.

Bil-Tor’s group broke cover and started hammering the Walker's side with their weapons set to explosive rounds. Crush stood to wave them back but took a laser strike to the shoulder that knocked him to the floor.

His armor held, but only just.

By the time he got to his feet, Bil-Tor and his group were running, the thick laser chasing them into the forest. At least three of them didn’t make it.

A quick scan of the field showed over a dozen lying dead on the grass and sand. The survivors were falling back, starting to group up and find cover as they returned fire.

He gave three short whistles—the signal for a fighting retreat—and started to back into the trees with a couple of parting shots at the nearest armored target. His first beam hit a personal shield, but the second caught the man in the neck, blood fountaining as the laser found the weak point in the armor.

Crush turned and sprinted to the next tree before turning and firing again as the rest of his team fell back under what cover the forest offered.

He hoped things were going better for Nellie because he had no idea how to stop that machine.

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

They had planned. It had been a good plan. A focused attack on the first out of Tranist Space, followed by a long-running battle that collapsed back to the station. They had planned to trade the lead spot back and forth between the Bly and the Talon, letting the other’s shields recharge when needed while Vey provided cover against any smaller ships.

It had been a good plan.

Nellie felt her eyes widen as a ship deployed the massive scattering array in the center of the enemy formation. Comm circuits failed between the Bly and the other ships.

They were in the wrong place, cut off from the undefended station. They were supposed to have half a week left.

They were in the wrong place.

Paren and Salem were at that station. Alone.

“Nellie!” Lucy’s voice was loud in her ear. “We need to do something. Now!”

There were too many of them, too many ships, and too much distance, and—

“Combat Mode,” Nellie gasped and felt the calm force its way into her mind.

“Lucy, can you still contact your body?”

“No, but it will act as I would,” Lucy replied quickly.

“We have to punch through to the station,” Nellie could feel everything slowing down around her as the nanites sped up all her internal processes. Panic was washed again in a flood of power and aggression.

“Baz, plot a route through the center of the formation, tight on the largest capital ship,” Nellie commanded, running projections through her implant. “We can’t have two of those things running around, or we are dead.”

“Yes, Captain,” Baz acted, and the Bly began to accelerate.

“Weapons, bring the beam online, full power.” Nellie watched the scan refresh, seeing the Talon falling into formation off the starboard side.

“Aye, Captain!” Remy called from his station. “Target?”

“The core,” Nellie replied. “Lucy, transmit a flash signal to your other self to do the same, same target.”

“Done.”

“I thought we were saving those as a surprise?” Baz asked as he juked the Bly wide of a wave of missiles from the cruiser guarding the rear.

“Surprise is over, pilot,” Nellie answered. “It’s do or die time.”

She looked over at Remy, who nodded.

“Fire.”

The last time Nellie had seen a beam weapon fire, it had been aimed at the Bly as they crashed. Even as the weapon shot from her own ship, she felt a shiver of fear. Not even Combat Mode could prevent that.

A second later, a second beam answered her own. Twin pillars of light slammed into the largest capital ship. The shields held for almost three seconds and then… fell.

The core on a capital ship could power even the largest city, even some whole planets. They were dangerous beyond measure and were shielded and armored accordingly.

It was not enough to stop something that was strong enough to break a planet’s crust.

The explosion whited out the screen for a long moment; then the blast wave hit them.

“Evasive maneauvers!” Nellie yelled as the port shield failed. “How long until the beam is recharged?”

“Ten minutes!” Remy called.

The scan cleared for a second before another colossal explosion rocked the ship.

“Full power to shields!” Nellie called. “Baz, get us steady!”

“Aye, Captain!”

“One of the cruisers was too close to the capital ship,” Dar reported. “The shields were breached by the explosion. Its core was damaged, and it detonated as well.”

Nellie checked the scan and saw the fleet splitting down the center as they moved to avoid debris.

“Talon closing on the rear guard,” Remy reported.

Nellie watched the Talon roll to attack the cruiser they had blown past, and weapons signatures lit the scan.

“Incoming!” Dar warned.

Three destroyers were streaking toward the Bly, aiming for the weakened port shield, which was still recharging.

The Destiny appeared, the dissipating Transit Energy showing a micro-jump, and it opened fire on the lead destroyer before blinking away again, leaving a spreading minefield in its wake.

“All shuttles. All shuttles, launch!” Nellie yelled into the comm.

The shuttle bay opened, and four combat shuttles shot out, blipping into micro-jump as soon as they cleared the shield.

Integration - 55%

Combat mode upgraded to Command mode.

Go get ‘em, girl!

Nellie gasped as her mind expanded. She was inside the Bly, seeing the bridge crew, but she also seemed to exist in some weird third-person view—not of herself but of the Bly, the Talon, and even the Destiny.

The blind aggression of combat mode faded as tactical certainties and probabilities flooded across her vision.

“Baz, take us into the center,” Nellie heard her voice, calm and confident. “I want us on that scrambler in less than a minute.”

“Aye, Cap!” Baz took the Bly into a spiraling course through the enemy fleet.

“Remy, focus fire on my command.” Nellie felt the ship shudder as a cluster of missiles impacted the forward shield.

Their target tried to evade, but the ship was never intended to defend itself.

“Fire,” Nellie called.

It barely survived the opening salvo, the forward laser arrays shredding it. The second reduced it to scrap.

The scattering field dropped.

“All ships! All ships!” Nellie broadcast. “You are in violation of the sovereign territory of the Nanite Imperium. Leave now, or be destroyed!”

She gave it a three count before ordering Baz to bring them to the nearest cruiser.

“Fire for effect!” Nellie yelled, and weapons lit the void.