Chapter Twenty-Eight

Name Day

“All crew, all crew, report to muster stations immediately.”

The call went out throughout the Bly’s Rest as the clock ticked down to the launch of their new ship.

“We really don’t have to have a name for it just yet,” Salem hedged.

“You can’t launch a ship with no name; it would be bad luck,” Nellie insisted. “Right?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Salem admitted. “Until recently, it wasn’t something I ever considered would be necessary information.”

“It feels like it would be bad luck,” Nellie fretted as she dressed herself in a formal-ish shipsuit. There was going to be a ceremony, and she was going to have to stand up there and launch her big plan to save them all as the nameless ship with no class designation.

Woo!

“We don’t need any more bad luck,” Nellie insisted. “Ever.”

“Right, so we need a name; it can’t be that tough.” Salem insisted.

“I just spent the equivalent of a month or more thinking about it, and I have nothing!” Nellie said, slightly panicking. “Not a single name!”

“So we just need to choose some now,” Salem said decisively.

“Sure, just that easy,” Nellie said, fiddling with her lapels. “I suppose you have a ship class suggestion in your pack pocket?”

“I was thinking of ‘Imperium Class’ because we are the first to build it.” Salem offered.

“Ostie,” Nellie laughed. “That should have been obvious, right?”

“You have been very busy,” Salem said tactfully, which meant yes.

“Great,” Nellie said. “So we have a brand new Imperium Class Battleship; now, what the hell do we call it?”

“On that note,” Salem brought out a small list and handed it to her. “I prepared a few suggestions.”

Nanite’s Grasp

Queen’s Wrath

Harbinger

The Death of Worlds

Limit Breaker

Innovation

Heart’s Desire

“Okay, please tell me you did not come up with all of these,” Nellie said, staring in horror at the ‘Death of Worlds’ and ‘Heart’s Desire’ ones. “Otherwise, we really need to talk.

“No,” Salem smiled. “Those are suggestions curated from the ones submitted by the crew.”

“Do I want to know who offered ‘Death of Worlds?’” Nellie asked.

“No, you don’t,” Salem said brightly. “On an unrelated note, our new hire, Logistics Officer Cheape, might need some time off after this is all done.”

“Unrelated?” Nellie asked.

“She could do with spending less time around the cents,” Salem said. “Or maybe getting more than an hour’s sleep every two days.”

“Harbinger has a nice ring to it,” Nellie said, ignoring the worrying state of their new recruit’s mental health until she had a moment to deal with her own.

“It does, doesn’t it,” Salem said, clearly smug enough that it must have been her choice as well.

The actual ceremony was kind of fun. Everyone had been putting in long hours and operating under tremendous stress since this all started. It was good to have something to celebrate, and the ship itself was certainly impressive enough.

The newly upgraded Centrum units were in attendance. Their exact level of awareness was up for debate, given that they did not start out having a synthetic core. Their programs were running on the best they could do for the moment, and Lucy herself had designed the upgrade.

That was the best option they had at the moment.

The entire five-hundred-strong group was formed into units behind a very proud-looking Brix while three groups of cents stood at their closest approximation of attention next to them.

Lined up behind was the organic crew. It wasn’t more than a handful, but they were all that could be spared without crippling the rest of the fleet.

People, as always, were the only thing they were as short on as time.

That would change as they managed to build more of the new Imperium Class Battleships.

Boone and Wilkes were already drooling at the chance to serve on one, but they were still needed for the Carrier Sparklight for now. Boone had moved up to Captain, while Wilkes had become the new Executive Officer.

They were the first Imperium Captains that started out their lives as organics, other than herself, obviously.

Speeches were made, and toasts were offered to the new ship, to the crew, and to the future of the Imperium.

It was the culmination of a lot of work, not just for Nellie but for all of them. It was not a ship taken from elsewhere or one that already existed before they joined her, like the Bly.

This one was built right here at the Rest and was an Imperium original. Unlike the Orb craft designed by Paren, it was also one they could understand.

It was a big, powerful ship, and that was it.

Mostly.

Nellie smiled at the thought of the extras she had included.

They were the NANITE Imperium, after all. It would be silly not to use that fact to their advantage.

Everyone gathered to watch as the Talon ferried the crew out to the Harbinger, Nellie leading the way.

The bridge was new and took some getting to. A few lift tubes were installed, but they mostly used ladders. This was a warship, after all.

That fact was reflected in the internal layout's compartmented nature. The individual compartments were small, and no space was wasted. Automatically sealing doors would slam down if there was a loss of pressure, but everyone was expected to be in full armor, with helmets ready to put on in seconds at all times.

The crew quarters were the one exception; with their own air supply and reinforcing, it would take something massive to breach that far into the ship.

In short, it was a flying fortress, and as of this moment, it was fully crewed.

Nellie and the rest would stay on board from now on, making the Harbinger her flagship and control center all at the same time.

As for the bridge—or Command Information Center as it should be called—it was a thing of beauty.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

A ring of consoles surrounded a large central table with built-in holographic emitters to display real-time information from the sensors and a raised platform with a single chair on it. The Captain’s chair was an improved version of the Throne from the Rest, allowing the user to act as both AI and Captain at the same time, if they were capable of it, of course.

Just sitting in the chair activated a series of displays that shimmered into place around her. They showed information from every ship and satellite they had, as well as near and far scan data.

It was, in a word, perfect.

“Ma’am.” Her new X.O. came over to introduce themselves. “Commander Morton, at your service!”

“Nice to meet you in person,” Nellie told him. She had spoken with everyone through holograms while finalizing the building work, but it was different in person, at least for them.

Less and less of that virtual world felt virtual anymore.

What difference did it really make at the end of the day?

Next came the navigator, a twitchy woman called Maya Erikson, and so it continued.

The entire next hour was just meeting and getting comfortable with her command crew. It was not the worst use of time, and it would pay dividends in battle, Nellie knew.

Once that was done, Nellie told Erikson to start testing maneuvers and went to walk the ship, meeting everyone she could. Brix was running drills with his troops while the rest did a manual inventory of the ammo stocks and supplies, which was handy because none of the Centrum units had yet chosen a name. For the moment, Brix assigned them ranks and seemed to use numbers instead of names.

It was… strange.

Still, it was their choice, and there was no time to sort it out now.

Just like everything else, Nellie thought wryly.

Walking the halls and passageways of the Harbinger, Nellie could not help but feel her connection to the ship. There was the nanite connection, of course. This whole place hummed with the power of the nano forges that even now pumped out more and more of HER nanites. It had been the best way to speed up the building process. They were a part of every inch of this ship, and it felt like a part of herself. She might not have even needed the command chair to interface with it. It would just respond to her will, she suspected.

From the smallest bolt to the largest armor plates, she had made it all, and as she exchanged a few words with the crew, something else struck her.

They called her Admiral, or Queen, or Ma’am, and she…didn’t feel strange about it.

So much had changed since that prick Carter first arrived in the system, but the last few weeks had done even more.

Until now, she had always had a safety net. A get-out-of-trouble-free card in the person of Lucy. If Nellie didn’t think of something, Lucy would. As a result, she had always felt like she was being given respect that she hadn’t really earned.

Anything she could do, Lucy could do better, so who was really deserving of being Queen?

That had been the problem. That, and the fact that Nellie had the fact she was ‘less than’ drummed into her for her entire life. It was just the lesson life taught her over and over again.

These last few weeks, however, she had been alone. Operating independently and with the hopes and lives of everyone she cared about in her hands.

She had fought off an attack by the Imperial Line, defending the system and her people. With enough help from her people, they took massive numbers of the ships down. She had a tentative agreement with a Captain on the other side that might further injure the enemies, and now she had built a completely new class of ship.

Something no one had built before.

Thinking of Lucy still brought a pang of betrayal and a rush of anger, but it was cooling.

Her absence had forced Nellie to confront the fact that she had changed and still was changing. It was more than just being more or less human. It was about accepting who she really was.

A ship captain? Yes.

An Admiral? Yes.

A Queen? Well, she was still working on that one, but she’d put up with it for now.

A leader for the people she cared about? Definitely.

Her steps rang through the ship as her stride lengthened, and the weight she had not even been aware she was carrying lifted at last.

Look out, Imperial Line, the Imperium had a real leader at last.

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

“I will only choose a name when I am ready,” The Girl scowled at Edwards as he lay bleeding on the floor. “Is that understood?”

“I’m just saying you deserve one,” Carl said, coughing as he got back to his feet. Both the sisters seemed to have taken his answer to their questions as something of a personal challenge. In Paren, that showed as a near-endless series of things he needed to learn, most of them involving ‘hands-on’ experience that he really, really wished he did not have.

In the case of her sister, it was combat training.

The Line had included some basic training, but it was NOTHING compared to what The Girl considered the basics.

“Again,” The Girl said and came at him.

He blocked and dodged before striking out with a punch at her face.

“Good!” She said, having dodged it effortlessly. “Now,” She kicked him hard enough to shatter his ribs. “What do you mean deserve a name?”

Edwards coughed up some blood as the dent in his chest fixed itself, a few warnings on his HUD slowly fading away.

“Everyone deserves a name,” Edwards insisted.

“Names are earned or given,” The Girl insisted. “I have no one to give me one.”

“It shows,” Edwards joked and immediately regretted it when she narrowed her eyes. “Why not ask Paren or Robot? I’m sure they have names to suggest?”

“I will make you a deal,” The Girl smiled. “If you can still speak in one minute, I will let you make a suggestion.”

“Uh,” Carl didn’t even get time to agree.

After twenty seconds his HUD was flashing yellow warnings.

After forty, they were red.

By fifty seconds, he was merely trying to stay conscious.

“Time!” The Girl said, smiling down at him. “Well?”

Edwards carefully pushed his dislocated jaw back into place and groaned. “Leah?”

“Leah?” The Girl asked. “Why?”

“It comes from ‘Li’ a character in an ancient language that means Sharp,” Edwards said in between spitting out bits of his teeth.

“Sharp?” The Girl thought about it. “I think I like it.” She turned to the side and called into the air, which Edwards now knew meant she was using the internal comms all implants came with. “Paren, what about Leah for my name?”

“Leah Bonne Chance,” Paren’s voice came from the speakers in the room. “I love it.”

“Settled then,” Leah said. “It means sharp.”

“Very fitting,” Paren called back. “Now, can I have my Edwards back yet?”

“One moment,” Leah said, jabbing two tendrils into his neck and injecting a flood of nanites.

Edwards shuddered as the influx boosted his healing. Feeling your own teeth regrow was a particularly unsettling experience to add to his collection, but at least the pain stopped.

“All done!” Leah said. “Off you go, shoo.”

“Still not a pet,” Edwards grumbled as he rolled his neck and hurried off toward the lab.

“Yes, you are,” Leah laughed. “You so are.”

Edwards studiously ignored the comment and waved to a couple of the grey skins as he hurried past. The strange, quiet people were actually really peaceful to be around, at least when they weren’t holding nanoblades.

Over half of them had been converted now, becoming Drones like him.

Almost like him.

Slash-Dot, one of the asteroid people fell into step beside him, giving him an assessing look.

“What’s up, Slash?” Edwards asked.

“You are doing better,” Slash-Dot said. “Each day, you get better.”

“Thank you,” Edwards grinned. “So, did you ask her?”

Slash turned and fled, which meant no.

The poor bugger had a severe crush on Two-Dot but seemed terrified to even talk to her, which was understandable. Look at the examples around here. Paren ripped things apart and then put them back together for fun, and the newly named Leah had just finished beating him nearly to death. The women around here were scary.

A sharp whistle made him turn, seeing Paren beckoning impatiently.

“Here, boy!”

“Oh, come on!” Edwards grumbled. “That is a bit much!”

“Did she break anything permanent?” Paren asked as she ushered him back into the lab. “Anything that needs replacing?”

“No!” Edwards insisted. “All good, thank you!”

“Damn!” Paren swore, “Leah needs to push you a little harder, I think.”

“Please, by all that is Holy in the universe, no!” Edwards was not above begging.

“Okay,” Paren said with a smile. “But how am I supposed to give you your gift if you have both limbs?”

“Wait, what?” Edwards asked.

“Ta-dah!” Paren said, whipping the cover off something on her desk.

A gleaming silver and black gauntlet lay on the desk, a slightly different style to her own but clearly based on the same design.

He had seen her use it, seen the fingers split and other stranger things. It was, in a lot of ways, her own version of a toolkit. More than that, it was something of a signature.

That and the four legs.

“You have been doing so well in your training that I thought you had earned an upgrade!” Paren said, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Do you like it?”

“I really do,” Edwards said, surprising himself.

It was not like he couldn’t see the fact this would replace his own hand, but it was something that was unique to her, as far as Carl could tell. None of the other Drones had one, and Robot said none of the ones off the planet did either.

So, this was really something.

Something made just for him by a mad genius. A violent one who saw him as a pet, admittedly, but still…

“Do we have to cut my arm off?” Edwards asked with a wince.

“We can,” Paren nodded excitedly, “Or, and this is what I did; I open it, and you put your arm inside. Then it kind of dissolves and stuff.”

She opened the gauntlet and stepped back.

“I totally understand if that is too much for you,” Paren said.

Edwards took a deep breath and put his hand inside, figuring it couldn’t be worse than putting his own jaw back in place or feeling his teeth regrow.

He was so, so, so, so wrong.

When the process was completed, and he lay half collapsed on the table, Paren cheered.

“That felt awful,” Edwards grimaced. “Is it supposed to feel like that?”

“No idea,” Paren shrugged. “I turned of sensation when I did mine; what am I stupid?”