Chapter Nineteen

Breach and Clear, Part 2

Nellie could not quite believe she was doing this, but as she slid into place on the throne, she had no doubt in her mind that it was necessary.

Less than a minute earlier, the alarms built into the defenses of every jump point in the system had gone off. Her entire run to the throne room had been accompanied by a soundtrack of Salem’s constant reports of movement detected.

Closing her eyes, Nellie slid into the altered state of mind that had been so familiar mere days ago.

“Command Mode,” Nellie gave the verbal command to activate yet another layer of her strange new life.

The system spread out around her as she stood like a colossus in the spot where the Bly’s Rest was located. Vast areas were clear and sharp to her eyes, but the rest was a blur like it was just out of focus. It got worse the further it got from their satellites.

A bright point of clarity was located at each jump point, where ships were appearing and moving in slow motion. In that split second, Nellie thought that the Imperial Line had sent their entire fleet and that this would be the end of her people.

Then, her mind cleared as Command Mode squashed the panic and allowed her to think clearly. This was nowhere near the entire forces of the Line; even with almost fifty ships in the system, it was immediately clear they were almost entirely light cruisers and below. The only exceptions were two capital ships at one jump point and a capital ship paired with a heavy cruiser at another.

Thinking quickly, Nellie decided the Jump points needed reference names, and with no other ideas, she mentally framed the system as a clock.

The jump points sprouted labels, and she turned her attention to the enemy ships, noting heading, speed, orientation, and armaments. By comparing those to the other ships with them, she was able to project courses for each one.

Shunting that off to another runtime to keep the plots constantly updating, Nellie mentally brought up her own list of ships.

Each one appeared as a 3D model floating in front of her, complete with color coding. Green meant ready, yellow meant still activating, and red meant no assigned crew, while two were grey due to being inactive or incomplete.

Tapping on the Carrier, which was glowing green, Nellie issued commands and targeting information for the jump gate at the twelve o'clock jump point.

It blinked out, appearing on the map as it engaged the twin Capital ships.

Next, she tapped the Bly and sent it to the three o’clock position, commanding Dar to use the beam weapon immediately.

It, too, blinked away.

An area near the planet Paren was on flashed red as part of her recognized the danger from the two sets of cruisers converging on it.

Nellie sent the Talon and the cruiser Banjo’s Heart there with a full four-destroyer escort.

The further down the list she got, the more worried she became.

Sacrifices were going to have to be made if she wanted to meet any of these threats adequately.

Seeing three groups of ships converging on the asteroid belt, Nellie decided they could wait, assigning her remaining ships as needed.

Finally, there was only one ship left, while frantic crews and floods of nanites were slowly converting the two dead cruisers.

They didn’t have to be perfect, just functional.

As Nellie turned away from the Vey’s Charge in frustration at Lucy not being here and making their other Capital ship useless, her attention shifted to the various battles taking place in the system. Bubbles appeared above each battle, showing an enlarged version of each fight so she could see clearly what was happening without having to move.

Boone was putting Sparklight to the test, having taken out one of the Imperial Line capital ships already, while the shuttles and Orbs worked to keep the cruisers busy, and he focused on the remaining Capital.

To her left, as she faced the carrier, the Talon was dogfighting with two cruisers while Banjo’s Heart flickered around the other group, firing and vanishing again.

“Baz, where are you?” Nellie asked.

“On the Rest, Nellie!” Baz replied immediately. “I was off the Bly when she jumped getting an update.” The frustration and anger in his voice was palpable even here.

“Baz, take command of the Vey’s Charge.” Nellie swallowed hard. “Have Salem take the other throne to act as your AI.”

“Yes!” Baz cut the line, and two minutes of real-time later, the Charge blipped away from the station and arrived in a full sideways drift in the middle of an enemy flight coming in from two ‘o'clock.

As the fights continued, Nellie issued commands or warnings, shifting ships around as needed.

The six o’clock position was the problem. A group of cruisers from there, evidently from the Maius system, was meeting up with reinforcements from the battles at seven and nine and making directly for the moon of a gas giant.

Looking over at the two grey cruisers, Nellie was instantly aware they would not be ready in time.

What did she have left?

A few shuttles and about thirty Orbs with no one to fly any of them…

Well, accept her.

Not that she could fly that many ships…

Nellie turned her focus on the Rest, causing the Orb hangers to empty as she had a strange thought.

Maybe, just maybe, she had to think about things differently now.

What would Paren do?

Blinking slowly, Nellie began to smile as new orders were issued across the system. They had all the ships they needed.

Some just weren’t theirs yet.

Nellie pulled computer programs out of thin air.

Here was the autopilot program Baz built, and this was the shield rotation program Dar had designed. Take the targeting and aggression programs from Lucy’s Centrum designs and add a touch of connective programming…

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The programs merged, and she waved her hands, sending copies to the nanites on every ship in her fleet.

The cruiser-mounted rail guns were loaded with new ammo. The heavy metal slugs now contained a payload.

Nanites programmed to take over the ships.

The Talon was the first to catch on, which was not surprising considering it was Crush’s ship and staffed with Banjo’s Four Cents.

Their rail gun fired, not at the cruisers, but at the destroyer escorts.

All over the system, the battles began to shift in their favor. Basic defense gave way to an outright attack as damaged enemy ships began to switch sides—first the destroyers and then a couple of cruisers.

It wasn’t going to be enough.

Their problem at six o’clock was almost at their target.

“They are trying to set up shop!” Nellie growled, realizing what she would have seen earlier if there had been a moment to think.

Looking down between her feet, Nellie saw the clustered Orbs.

Exactly how changeable could they be?

Nellie quickly planned it out in her mind and then began to act.

The first three orbs lined up, elongating and merging into one as two more joined onto the back; right, she had a hull axis and two engines. Next, Nellie added weaponry, and of course, they needed shields, and this thing had them all over from all the Orbs.

Layer by layer, it came together into a massive Heavy Cruiser.

Nellie tapped the I.D. Beacon and called it Queen’s Wrath.

Now, it needed a pilot.

Spinning off more and more tasks, Nellie poured what was left into the monstrosity she had created and blinked, finding herself in the bridge of the strange craft.

A single console station, complete with a chair.

The chair held nothing but sensors and a half dozen arms.

A blink, and she was the Captain once more.

Nellie slipped into a micro-jump and emerged on the flank of the enemy formation.

After months of tension, after almost dying, after feeling abandoned, and after way too many losses, Nellie finally got to let loose.

Rage flooded her system, and for once, she let it come.

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

Hellena was focusing on the possible landing sites for the Birdsong when it happened.

They had been the lucky ones so far. Nothing waited for them on the jump point exit other than a scattering field and some mine clusters. It was what they had been briefed to expect, and while Hellena and her people monitored battle occurring all over the system, they had yet to face any opposition at all.

Meeting up with the surviving Imperial Line ships from two other jump points, ones that had not been so lucky, the Birdsong had led the group toward their assigned point, finding nothing but clear scans.

They were minutes from the final approach to the moon when the call of ‘Contact’ came.

“Form up and bring us about,” Hellena ordered her ships as the Birdsong rolled on its axis and counterburned to face the enemy.

“What the fuck is that?” Hellena felt a chill run down her spine as the hull of the large black cruiser rippled like a living creature flexing a stiff muscle.

Before they could get a solid target lock, the open broadcast played across the entire system.

“This is Nellie Bonne Chance, Queen of the Nanite Imperium. Your opportunity to surrender has passed.” The comm line hissed for a second. “We are going to kill you all.”

Hellena felt goosebumps rise on her arm at the fury dripping from every word. It was fire and ice, bound in terrible balance. A single thought echoed in her mind.

“We should not be here,” Hellena swallowed and prepared to fight.

Before the target lock could resolve, the Imperium ship leaped forward, a third engine appearing on its scan data out of nowhere.

“Evasive maneau—” Hellena stopped as the ship shot past her, only to wince as they were raked by fire from the side.

“Captain, it's firing from ALL SIDES!” her executive officer yelled.

“So it is designed to fight groups, pull yourself together!” Hellena snapped, ignoring the scan information on the ship that clearly showed it only had weapons on the front.

The Birdsong pulled around in a tight turn to hit the ship’s flank, only to see it swerve. The front appeared to shift into a wedge before it rammed through a destroyer, crushing the port side before it tore open, and the ship went dead on its scan.

“Get in behind!” Hellena ordered, “Before it can turn away!”

An Imperial Line cruiser swung wide, rolling as it unloaded every active weapon into the ship, and Hellena cheered as a chunk was blown clean off the ship.

The surface rippled, and the gap closed as if it had never been there.

“Captain?” Her Executive Officer looked at her, his face pale and his eyes wide.

Hellena once again witnessed a ship die as the black ship swelled as it turned end on end, a gap opening in the center of the vessel that lit with a pale light.

“Rail-gun!” Hellena called a warning, and their pilot shoved everything they had into a dive.

A Captain of the Line was not so quick on the uptake, as his ship lurched as something that looked like part of the enemy cruiser slammed into the side.

“Uh, that didn’t seem to do much,” Hellena said in shock. She had expected the ship to take severe damage.

“Captain,” her scan operator showed the rearview as the Birdsong moved away.

The Imperial Line cruiser was listing as the black metal seemed to grow. When it formed a ring around the hull, it contracted, and the cruiser was squeezed like a can of toothpaste before metal alloys tore and it began to vent the atmosphere.

That was enough for her.

“All songbirds! All songbirds! Take wing!” Hellena ordered, and her ships burned every drop of fuel in their engines to accelerate away from the moon and back toward the jump point.

The black cruiser appeared ahead of them a couple of minutes later, but Hellena was prepared.

“Sing!” she called, the codeword for a coordinated salvo.

Lasers, kinetics, and explosive missiles erupted from every ship, all aimed at a single target. Hellena ordered mines dropped behind as well, in case it jumped behind to avoid the salvo.

It did something else instead.

The ship flew apart before the weapons even reached it. Sections formed into balls that flew off in every direction, and their weapons were all on cooldown, or their targeting sensors were blocked by the overload of weapons signatures from the salvo.

The moment the salvo passed, it began to reassemble.

It was time for her backup plan.

It was a shitty plan, but it was all she had left, and it might save her family, if not herself.

“Contact that ship,” Hellena said quickly. “Put the following message on repeat: Queen Bonne Chance, we accept our fate. Know, we had no choice. They have our families as hostages. Free them if you can.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The black ship rebuilt itself in seconds, and then, it blinked away.

“Captain?” the pilot asked.

“Get us the fuck out of this system!” Hellena roared at him. “Now!”

“Captain?” Her X.O. pointed out a signal on the scan,

Hellena felt her blood freeze when she saw the black metal Orb flying next to her ship’s hangar.

“Open the door,” Hellena said.

“Captain?”

“DO IT!”

“Aye, Captain.”

Hellena looked at the metal Orb as it rippled and shifted into a massive satellite relay. It was one of the ones that they used to communicate through jump points.

The moment it was done, a woman appeared in front of her.

“Captain Hellena?”

“Yes,” Hellena nodded. “Queen Bonne Chance?”

“They have your families?”

“They do. The leading families of the Ten Suns system. We can not disobey.”

“Where?”

“On one of their command ships,” Hellena said quickly. “We don’t know which one.”

“If we can free them, will the Ten Suns leave?”

“We will do more than that. We will join you in attacking the Imperial Line. The Ten Suns never forget an enemy or a friend.” Hellena said seriously.

“Very well. I will do what I can. In exchange, you will use this to provide me with information.” The woman did not ask; it was more of a statement of fact.

“Agreed,” Hellena nodded. “But I can not risk telling the other Ten Suns ships.”

“Understood. Now, kindly get out of my system.”

“Yes, of course.”

The woman vanished and Hellena stared at the space for several seconds before she threw up.

“Captain?” Her X.O. hovered as she returned to the bridge.

“Operation Fledgling is a go; we have an agreement with the Imperium,” Hellena confirmed. “How long until jump range?”

“Two hours,” the X.O. said, some color returning to his face.”

“Good,” Hellena nodded. “I will not be happy until we are out of her space.”

“What was she like?”

“Like a woman and a queen, and the things you never wish to know, all at once,” Hellena shivered. “We should never have come here.”