Chapter Twenty-One

Camp

“Quickly!” Paren hissed. “We don’t have much time!”

Robot nodded and started the process of collapsing the pre-fab building while she kept a wary eye on the mountains to the north.

Leaving him to it, Paren stalked outside to see how the rest of them were doing.

Figures ran back and forth as the camp they had barely set up was reduced to cubes once more. Eyes turned to her, watching as she stalked along the lines and inspected the material piles.

They were scared, and they were uncertain, and they were all looking at her…

Paren felt her stomach flutter with anxiety as she looked over the people she had been asked to look after and then off the distant mountains once more.

There were a lot of things she was good at, Paren knew. The problem was that people tended to assume that people who were smart enough to think rings around a problem were also capable of anything else they needed to do.

It wasn’t true.

Give her a creature to study, a thing to build, a problem to solve, and Paren could run rings around most anybody else. But give her a group of people to lead?

Her stomach twisted again.

People were just so… unpredictable. They needed things and did things for no apparent, predictable reason. It just made so little sense to her…

She saw them watching her, looking at her, and knew they wanted her to make it better—to make them feel safe, brave, or something.

“Hey,” The Girl walked up to Paren. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to think of what to say,” Paren said, gesturing at the busy people who all seemed to have time to sneak a look her way every other second. “I don’t really do people very well.”

“Me either,” The Girl shrugged. “I mean, I can make them let their guard down, but that seems to be it.”

“I keep trying to figure out what Nellie would do and say,” Paren admitted. “But I don’t really get it, you know?”

“She would be honest and then make everything simple,” The Girl offered. “There is a pattern to it.”

“Really?” Paren asked. “That’s it?”

The Girl just shrugged as Robot came over, carrying the last parts of the lab.

“This is the last,” Robot said. “Must we run away now?”

The two turned and looked at him.

“I like it here,” Robot offered. “I do not want to run.”

“What do you want, Robot?” The Girl asked.

“I want them to leave,” Robot looked over at the mountains. “I want them to leave and not take what is ours.” He looked down at his hands and flexed them. “And I want more rocks.”

“Well?” The Girl looked at Paren. “What do you say, sister?”

“Will dead work?” Paren asked.

“That would be fine,” Robot nodded.

“Wait here one moment,” Paren said.

First, be honest, and then make it simple.

“Everyone listen up!” Paren called, and the groups clustered around quickly. “The planet has been invaded by an enemy force,” Paren pointed. “They want the planet and the system for themselves and to kill us all.”

Panicked glances, and a couple of people huddled together.

“My family and I do not want them here, so we are going to kill them all and take everything they have. Does anyone want to help?” Paren asked.

Silence as everyone looked shocked.

The Girl started to laugh.

“You want to fight?” The speaker was one of the asteroid people. “Are there not lots of them?”

“Probably,” Paren shrugged. “But no, I do not want to fight them. Fighting is stupid when the other side is so much stronger.” Paren smiled. “I want to hunt them.”

“There are many of them,” another one said.

“I know, but—” Paren started.

“Will make it easier,” another said. “So many people means some are always alone.”

“Some will leave their camp, looking for supplies,” One of the grey-skinned people called.

“They need not return,” another nodded.

“More will come,” a third noted. “To find the missing.”

“If they become missing as well….”

“We left asteroid home when people came and ended up on station place. It was worse. We left, and some died only to have us all worse off.” Teeth showed in the evening light. “Planet Home is better. Not leave this time.”

“Planet Home?” Paren asked.

“Is not right?”

“Home,” Paren looked around and grinned. “Yes, I think that is right.”

The Girl smiled.

“What is happening?” Robot asked.

“We just named the planet,” The Girl said proudly.

“We named planet?” The lowering sun shone on the shining chitin-like skin of the speaker as its people clustered around it.

“You did,” Paren said, her eyes shining. “This is our Home, and we must defend it!”

The crowd did not cheer, or clap, or roar.

But every eye looked at Paren, and she saw no fear in them.

“Let’s get to work,” Paren said, “There is a lot to do.”

Five large silver cubes were not a lot in the grand scheme of things. Still, it was more than they started the scrapyard with.

What they could have really used was Lucy, Paren knew. That had been the crucial part of their early success back on the Hub. Nanites were terrific, but they needed something or someone to direct them.

The Girl brought over a chair and placed it down beside Paren.

“I will watch over you while you do it,” she said mildly.

“You think I can?” Paren asked.

“You are Paren; you can do anything,” The Girl said as if it were a simple statement of fact. “Sit.”

Well, that didn’t leave her much choice now, did it?

Paren sat in the chair, relaxing back and adjusting her body so it would not fall when she moved out of it and mentally flipped the switch that sent her out of her body and into the nanites…

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The silver cubes liquified, and the nanites moved into the soil as Paren started the process. With no idea what else to do, she copied what she had done back at the scrapyard when making her secret lab.

Nanites pressed and formed the soft rock and dirt into hardened bricks, forming a slope down into the rocky center of the Mesa. As she went, Paren used some of the strange folding techniques she had learned from the rock samples given to them by the Clutch. For a start, it consumed a much larger amount of raw materials, which opened a larger space beneath with less waste, and for another, it was as strong as some of the alloys they used as armor plating.

The actual Mesa itself was several stories high, which gave her an absolute abundance of space, and the folded stone lattices were more than enough to not only keep the things standing but also strengthen them. She was even able to hide toughened windows in the craggy rock, doors, and even a large bay in the overhangs and make the whole thing look natural.

Along the way, Paren found the rock stria absolutely bursting with minerals and ore veins. That helped explain why it was standing alone while the rest must have eroded away. Those materials were gathered and placed in the bottom levels, where no door or opening was made. It would make it harder for their enemy to accidentally discover this base.

Taking about twenty percent of those gathered and converting them into nanites and other useful things, Paren wired and lit the place, adding fans and venting hidden amongst the rocky surface of the Mesa.

By now, people were moving into the base, bringing everything they had collected above down into the base.

Paren started adding labels and indicators on the floors, doing the kind of things she thought Lucy would have to help people settle in and place things in the right areas.

Once the Mesa was cleared, she scooped up her own body on a silvery chair and slid it down into the base as The Girl walked alongside, keeping her safe.

Paren used six pre-fab units to make a pair of large bay doors on the top of the mesa that opened into the top floor landing bay containing the Indomitable and their Orb before camouflaging the top and sealing the ramp over with solid, folded stone.

They had a base.

Now, it was time to get to work.

After a short nap, Paren went to find Robot in his own specialized area of the base.

It was located on part of the mesa that jutted out from the rest, almost like a tower, and it had taken a lot to make it just right. A series of windows stretched from floor to ceiling, giving a clear view in almost two hundred and seventy degrees. The areas between the windows were still rock, but it was the best she could do while still keeping it hidden.

“Sorry it isn’t bett—” Paren stopped as she walked into the room, finding Robot had rearranged his collection of rocks and oddities into a new pattern that used the windows as part of the pattern.

“I have adapted, thank you. It is quite suitable,” Robot replied. “What do you think?”

Paren wanted to answer him, to tell him how beautiful it was, but her brain was currently too busy being on fire.

It had been there all along, she realized. In the old display, but it was just too subtle there. Here, juxtaposed and yet incorporating the physical world, the patterns were clear.

“Paren?” Robot asked, “Are you okay?”

“Shh,” Paren said, tears falling from her eyes in rivers as the bounds of her reality shattered around her. “Please, Robot.”

The colors and shifting light patterns seemed to glow as they flowed into and out of the ‘real’ world. It was Transit Space and reality, seen side by side. Matter and Energy are balanced in one and shifting in the other. But not chaos, not at all. It's just different.

“Two sides of a coin,” Paren repeated a phrase she had heard Nellie use about various things. Finally, she understood what it meant: opposite and yet connected, two things that made a greater whole. No wonder scientists struggled to explain the universe properly, constantly finding contradictions; they were only seeing HALF the story.

“Is it good?” Robot asked after a while of staring at her.

“Robot,” Paren laughed, feeling a manic joy she could not even hope to contain. “It is not just good! It is perfection! It is… everything.” She turned shining eyes away from it for the first time, looking directly at Robot. “Everything!”

Robot nodded happily and stood back.

Paren turned back to the sight and wondered at it once more. A lifetime of looking for answers, of struggling to find one more piece of information, to learn one more secret, and here she was… the first person to ever see the whole truth at once.

Paren stood there for hours as the sun set and the room darkened. Robot tried to turn the light on, but she fused the switch before he could.

She had to see it all.

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

Nellie put down her cup of HyperDrive, the metal ringing against the table as everyone waited for her to talk.

“Thank you for coming, everyone,” Nellie stood up and looked over them all. “We are here to discuss next steps. First, I want reports on how we are currently managing with the new ships.”

“Logistics Officer Cheape? Your report, please,” Salem nodded to the newest member of their little leadership.

“Ma’am,” Cheape stood and handed out datapads to everyone. “We have managed to resupply the previously existing ships and are currently moving as quickly as we can to process the new ones. The problem is many of their systems are incompatible with our current stocks. I am trying to inventory as quickly as possible, but it is a challenge.”

“I can assign you another set of cents,” Salem offered.

“With respect, Ma’am. That won’t be enough. We have three different fleets here, effectively. The Imperium ships, the Line ships, and the Ten Suns ships. Each uses a different type of everything. Power systems, loading bays, storage systems, ammo racks, ammo, and so on.” Cheape shot nervous looks around the room. “I do not wish to overstep my position, but this would be challenging to do with a staff of hundreds.”

“Suggestions?” Nellie asked.

“I suggest we bring them in two or three at a time, using design origin to allow us to move supplies from one to another. Not so much a re-supply as an evening out of supplies. That will allow us to focus on our own fleet while still keeping the new additions fighting.” Cheape said nervously.

“Do it,” Nellie nodded. “Well done, by the way.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Cheape returned to her seat, looking both relieved and proud.

“How are repairs going?” Nellie asked Salem.

“We will have all our original ships repaired within two days, barring any other incidents,” Salem offered. “We are primarily using the self-repair functions, merely feeding the needed materials to the nanites. We just don’t have enough people to do anything else.”

“Good,” Nellie nodded again. Once again, they were getting stuck with the shortage of people, and it was only going to get worse.

“The new ships, however,” Salem said with a note of frustration, “Are going to take a lot longer unless we get very lucky indeed.”

“The conversion problem?” Nellie asked.

“Yes,” Salem nodded.

This was a new problem, once caused by the absence of the Imerium’s trump card. In the past, Lucy was able to direct the nanites in the conversion of the ships at lightning speed. Without her, that same process would take a lot longer and give significantly worse results. Instead of installing nano-forges and rewiring everything, Nellie and her nanites were having to take over existing systems, adding automation systems and programs where they could.

“Okay, recovery ops?” Nellie asked.

“I’ve pulled about sixty percent of the dead ships back to the station,” Baz told her. “But going after the rest will leave us open to attack by any enemy ships in the area. We already found the latest target had been mined and booby-trapped by the time we got out to it.”

“Not to mention that every day we are working on other things, our enemies are building power in our own system,” Nellie growled in frustration.

“On that point,” Remy chimed in, “The safety of the system as a whole; I mean, we have to accept that any attempts to retake areas might cause another invasion by enemy forces.”

Nellie nodded mutely.

They could fight off another wave, she supposed, but they would likely lose ships, and not necessarily the automated ones currently patrolling the system. Honestly, that might not be a bad thing, at least in the short run. They were just not big enough to support a fleet this size anyway. As it was they had two and a half new Captial ships with no possible way to use or crew them.

That was where the Imperial Line, and any similar group, had the advantage. They had vast resources, but Nellie and her people could take the results of those resources, their ships. But the one resource they could not take was the people to run it all.

Okay, Nellie had to admit she could.

Conversion did not HAVE to leave the person with any free will at all. She could take the crews right along with the ships, which would handily solve the problems they faced.

Except, Nellie could not do that. Would not do that.

To take a person, even an enemy, and rob them of their free will or their ability to choose for themselves? To enslave not just their bodies but their minds as well?

That was a step too far.

One she could never take back.

It would also guarantee their destruction. Once people knew she did that, every group in the universe would unite to see her people eradicated. Lucy may have thought it was the destruction of planets people feared, but this was worse.

Much worse.

This left them with a serious problem because there was no possible way her people could run enough ships to compete with the Line, let alone whoever came along after that.

If or when Lucy came back—and despite how pissed she was, Nellie really hoped she did—that problem would be lessened hugely, but…

The fact was that Lucy had broken that blind trust Nellie had placed in her, and it was never coming back. Trust? Sure, she could get over what Lucy did in time; she loved her after all, but BLIND trust? The kind of trust that is needed to build an entire society around a single person?

No, not anymore.

In time, they could find more people, but they didn’t have that time right now.

“We can’t beat the Imperial Line this way,” Nellie said, startling everyone as they had been watching her think for the last few minutes. “We just can’t.”

“We will win,” Salem insisted. “We have to.”

“Not like this,” Nellie said simply. “Cheape is right; we can’t even manage supplying a fleet this size, let alone a bigger one. We don’t have the people or the infrastructure to keep this up.”

“So what do we do?” Remy asked.

“We change the game,” Nellie said with a smile. “We need a new kind of ship.”

“A new kind of ship?” Salem asked.

“Yeah,” Nellie said. “Tell me, what is the largest type of military ship?”

“Carrier,” Remy said instantly. “Like the sparklight.”

“Then we make something a LOT bigger.” Nellie nodded. “Ladies and Gents, it is time we built ourselves a BattleShip.”

Confused faces abounded.

“We have lots of battle ships,” Remy offered. “I don’t see—”

“Let me explain,” Nellie leaned forward over the table and activated the holo display. “In my world, we had a thing called science fiction, and we imagined ships of war so big, so devastating that they could control star systems all on their own or even destroy them.”