Chapter Twenty-Two

Being Realistic

“Cheape, as of now, your only focus is the Imperium Fleet ships,” Nellie told the young officer. “All other ships will make do with whatever they have on board for now.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Cheape said, looking relieved.

“Salem, ask Crush to join us at the shop and bring Brix along with him.” Nellie pushed away from the table. “Everyone else, we are going to be making changes soon, so keep an eye on the situation as best you can for now.”

With that, she was out the door and on her way to the transport tube. She saw the new kid, Cheape, hurrying off toward the emergency ladders.

Weird, Nellie thought to herself, and followed along behind.

The woman carefully opened the emergency access and seemed to be psyching herself up for something…

“What are you doing?” Nellie challenged, stepping up behind the young officer quickly.

Cheape screamed and almost fell into the open shaft, but Nellie caught her easily.

“Queen Bonne Chance! Nothing! I-I just—” Cheape was wide-eyed, her whole body shaking as adrenaline flooded her system.

“Explain. Now,” Nellie tried not to shout, but this looked extremely suspicious.

“I don’t like the transit tubes!” Cheape squeaked. “I’m sorry! I just get scared!”

“Wait. What?” Nellie pulled her back onto solid ground.

“It’s the nanites,” Cheape said, slumping back against the wall. “I mean no offense, and I know they are completely safe, but…”

“You can’t stop imagining them turning you into a puddle before you can so much as scream?” Nellie asked with a smile.

“Yes!” Cheape looked astonished. “But how did—”

“Cheape, I didn’t always have these nanites.” Nellie could clearly remember those first few terrifying days and nights, even now. “Someday, I’ll tell you all about it, but for now, just trust that I know exactly how you feel.”

“You do?” Cheape asked.

“Of course,” Nellie sighed and rubbed her forehead. She was always so tired these days, and there was just never enough time to do the smaller stuff, like get to know a young officer. “Look, this station was designed for people who were used to nanites, and we frankly never assumed anyone else would use the tubes.”

“I know it seems silly,” Cheape flushed. “I mean, of course, they are safe.”

“They are,” Nellie chuckled. “But they are also programmed to do exactly what you are afraid of to anyone attacking the station, so don’t feel silly.”

“Would it be okay if I kept using the emergency access for now?” Cheape asked, casting terrified glances toward the lift tubes. Nellie realized she had just accidentally confirmed a lot of the kid’s fears.

“I’d like to say yes,” Nellie sighed. “But when we are in a hurry…”

“I have a quick method!” Cheape said quickly, “Look!”

Nellie looked inside the emergency access, seeing a heavy crawler with its legs firmly stuck into the wall.

“Uh, what am I missing?” Nellie asked.

“Can I show you?” Cheape asked.

“Go ahead.” Nellie stood back.

“Hey, boy,” Cheape patted the heavy crawler. “Ready?”

The bottom third of the crawler detached from the wall and folded out, forming a step. Cheape swung onto the ladder, stepped down a few rungs, and onto the crawler. “With your permission, Ma’am?” She wrapped an arm around the heavy crawler’s segmented belly.

“Sure,” Nellie said.

“Go!” Cheape called, and the crawler shot off down the shaft, the deep scars of its passing fixing themselves as soon as it was gone.

Far below, Nellie saw Cheape jump off and onto another level and give the crawler a small chunk of metal, which it ate.

“You trained a crawler?” Nellie sent her voice through the speakers on Cheape’s datapad.

“Not really, Ma’am,” Cheape replied. “I slipped the first time, and the smiler saved me; from then on, one always turns up… I just started to bring them treats, and one thing led to another.”

“You have no problem with the crawlers then?” Nellie asked, unused to the young officer's comfort around the creatures.

“They are actually kind of cute once you get to know them,” Cheape responded brightly. “And they are always trying to help out.”

“Good. Good.” Nellie felt strangely off balance. “In that case, carry on, Cheape. The emergency tubes are fine for now.”

“Thank you, Ma’am!” Cheape said with audible relief. “I appreciate it, Ma’am.”

With that, Nellie saw her give the crawler a little pat on the head, and she was off.

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“Strange kid,” Nellie shrugged and headed to the lift tube. She had a new type of ship to design.

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

Everyone was already gathered in the coffee shop when Nellie arrived. Crush was nursing a bit hand and glaring at Weasel, who looked very pleased with himself.

“Baz is right,” Crush said as she came in. “That thing needs a muzzle.”

“It only bites men,” Salem added with a curious look. “Weird.”

“I think it’s my fault,” Nellie admitted. “Me, Paren, Lucy, and you, Salem, are the people he got used to. We need to get more men in command positions so everyone gets used to them. Weasel will adjust.”

“So, to turn to the business at hand?” Crush asked. “Sorry, but I have to take the Talon back out in an hour.”

“Any news from Paren?” Nellie asked him.

“Nothing since she said they were going to ‘deal with things,’ whatever that means.” Crush sighed. “I still say we should land what troops we have.”

“Paren is my Prime Drone,” Nellie said firmly. “If she calls for help, we’ll be there. Until then, we have our own work to do.”

“Realistically speaking, Queen Bonne Chance, do we have any time for a new project?” Brix asked. He was the only one not seated, insisting on standing at parade rest next to the table.

“We don’t even have time for our current patrol schedule,” Nellie replied. “Which is the problem. The Cent cores are at maximum capacity, and our people are all working double shifts, sometimes more. Our Logistics Officer has plainly stated we can not even supply what we have, let alone fix them up.”

“We could upgrade the Centrum units to full synthetics,” Salem said quietly. “I have the blueprints for it; we can do it even without Lucy.”

“How many will that give us?” Nellie asked.

“Another five hundred units,” Salem said. “That is all that we can upgrade. The newer ones programs are not old enough to accept the upgrades, at least not yet.”

“That will help,” Nellie nodded. “We should do it as soon as possible, but it won’t solve the problem.”

“I take it you have a solution,” Crush was wearing his lazy smile. “Shall we get to it?”

“My solution, Crush, is to break the rules of the game,” Nellie said simply. “We can not get enough people to run a proper fleet, and even if we could, there is no way to supply it.”

“Right, we need to fight smarter, not harder,” Crush nodded. “Makes sense.”

“And if we can’t have lots of ships,” Nellie prompted.

“We need larger ships,” Crush finished for her. “But that won’t work because even a carrier has limits to how many ships it can fight.”

“Which is why most fleets carry more cruisers than anything else,” Nellie said. “They use numbers to overwhelm a large ship.”

“But…” Crush’s smile morphed into that wide, lazy grin that meant he was seeing more than everyone around him. “That is based on established ship types. No one builds bigger than a carrier because it is simply too expensive.”

“Which is something we don’t have to worry about, thanks to all the ships donated to us by our attackers,” Nellie smiled back.

“And it would be too expensive to crew and difficult to control,” Crush said, getting excited.

“Which is not a problem for us, thanks to the nanites and the automation processes. Not to mention, our people are loyal.” Nellie grinned.

“How big are we talking?” Salem asked.

“Think of the arc ship,” Nellie said carefully, “And then double it. So, about six times the size of the carrier Sparklight.”

“That’s….”

“We can’t….”

“Railgun turrets,” Crush said. “We could have railgun turrets!”

“Yes!” Nellie said, grabbing a stylus and starting to make notes on the wall.”

“The Talon has laser arrays on tracks, but we couldn’t do that here,” Crush said. “It would be better to have dedicated arrays. More power that way.”

“True, but what about laser arrays paired with the railgun turrets?” Nellie asked. “They could sit in rows, one under the other, so they don’t hit each other,” Crush grinned and added a couple of marks. “Separate fire crews for each, so they can fire independent of command.”

“Which means we need multiple targeting arrays and computers,” Nellie nodded.

“No chance we could move a beast this big with a viewscreen,” Crush said firmly. “It needs dedicated command staff, somewhere secure.”

“Put them in the center,” Nellie said with a shrug. “We called them Command Information Centers,” Nellie explained the idea, with map tables and consoles.

“How would you even power something that large?” Salem asked, coming over to join them.

“We would need to copy the nano forge from the station for a start,” Nellie said.

“We have the generators and engines from over a dozen cruisers out there,” Crush said thoughtfully.

“Also, the Capital ships,” Salem added excitedly. “They could be used to power separate systems.”

“Like Lucy did on the Bly?” Nellie asked.

“Why not”? Salem asked.

“I would suggest a second Nanoforge as well,” Brix added, joining the huddle. “One dedicated to powering a repair system exclusively.”

“Regenerative armor plating,” Nellie grinned. “Make it even harder to do lasting damage.”

“Especially since this will not be an agile ship,” Nellie looked over the design. “A sit and kick number.”

“Which is the problem, right?” Crush offered. “We will be vulnerable to close attacks.”

“So we make close defense ships,” Brix offered. “Like soldiers defending a base.”

“Fighters?” Nellie asked.

“I was thinking something the size of an escort destroyer,” Crush said with a chuckle. “If we are breaking the rules, we might as well break them all the way.”

“Salem, can you build something like the thrones from the station on one of these?” Nellie asked. “So that a synth could act as an AI?”

“I can,” Salem nodded with a smile. “I definitely can.”

“Missing the feeling?” Nellie asked.

“I wouldn’t say that…” Salem blushed.

“I thought Baz was looking tired,” Crush added innocently.

“Crush!” Salem gasped as she blushed crimson.

In the end, Nellie chose to return to the throne to finish the design. It was just the most efficient use of their most precious resource—time.

The only real surprises of the day were Brix and Cheape. The two had a lot more to offer to the design process than she had imagined. Brix knew just about everything about designing the areas for the crew and the training areas, while Cheape had dozens of ideas a minute for everything from dedicated areas for cargo loading and unloading to the layout of an efficient galley.

More and more, Cheape seemed like the organic counterpart to Salem, if a bit younger.

The entire time she worked on the design, the station nano forge was pumping out nanite cubes, draining the station's reserves to the point where even Cheape’s five-person crew was able to manage it.

As for the nanite cubes? They were all loaded onto the carrier Sparklight for delivery to the mess of cruisers and capital ships that were too damaged to be used as automated patrol craft.

The rather sizable ship graveyard would be the birthplace of their first mega-ship. It would need a name, not just for it but for the class itself, but Nellie was drawing a blank on that. Everything good had already been taken. While she would get a kick out of naming it something from the movies or T.V., she resisted the urge.

Whatever it ended up being called, Nellie knew that the next few days—which would feel like a month to her in this state—would be spent doing nothing but controlling nanites and building.

For the moment, the war against the Imperium was in the hands of her friends. She just had to hope that she had enough time to complete her project.

And that she wasn’t making a huge mistake.