Chapter Forty-Two

Setting out

Edwards looked nervously at the four figures glaring at him. Despite their natural appearance to others, he could recognize the flesh they wore from the days he had spent growing it the previous week.

“Hello, my name is Carl,” Edwards smiled brightly, ignoring the gesture the red-haired girl made. “Paren asked me to help you get used to social niceties and habits to help you get on in the wider universe.”

“Homewrecker,” someone whispered.

“Hey!” Edwards protested. “I am not.”

“Motherfuc—”

“Enough!” Edwards yelped. “You can’t call me that!”

“You’re saying you aren’t?” Quad asked, crossing his arms. The Four Cent in question had adopted a muscled, punk look with a scorpion-tail tattoo down one arm. His violently green hair was shaved on both sides, with a long ponytail at the back. It all made for an intimidating look if you hadn’t actually grown the eyeballs he was using to glare at him.

Each one had chosen a different look for themselves. Tri and Sec looked like twins, with broad smiles and black hair. Matching scars on their faces formed a ‘V’ shape when they stood next to each other. They had that weird kind of unsavory good looks that appealed to all the wrong types of girls.

In short, they looked like someone who was destined to end up on a wanted poster.

Prim, on the other hand, had cascading red hair, abundant assets, and wide hips they used to call an hourglass figure. She looked like trouble of a different sort, with tattoos of strangely unsettling creatures across her back and arms.

“He’s not,” Prim said with a sly smile. “Mum built him from the ground up. He’s a walking sex toy!”

“Wow,” Edwards said. “That’s kind of insulting, don’t you think?”

“Who cares if we insult you, anyway?” Tri asked.

“Not of me,” Edwards shook his head sadly. “That was a really insulting thing to say about Paren.”

“What?” Prim asked, eyes wide.

“You really think she needs to build a sex toy?” Edwards asked. “She’s an amazing, talented, and beautiful woman. She’s kind in her own way and caring in an admittedly scary way. Anyone would be incredibly lucky to catch her eye.”

“I—” Prim tried to interrupt.

“No. She’s taught me so much when she could have easily just killed me.” Edwards said angrily. “We made those skin suits you are wearing together. To help you. So you will learn to behave properly, no matter how much you moan about it.”

“You helped make these?” Sec asked, pulling at the skin on his arm. “You?”

“Yeah, it’s actually a fascinating process,” Edwards said, getting distracted by one of his favorite topics. “I admit I might have gotten carried away with the self-differentiation routines, but Paren downloaded the instructions to me, and I thought you would like the bodies to conform to who you are.” He smiled. “See, I got the systems to access your own personalit—”

“Daddy?” Quad said.

“Wait, what?” Edwards turned.

“Daddy!” They yelled, rushing him.

The following few hours were some of the strangest of Carl’s life so far, which was quite an achievement, given recent events.

Things had improved at least as far as them listening to what he had to say, but randomly deciding to call him ‘Dad’ did not suddenly change their personalities.

As such, Edwards started with basic eating manners, only to get sidetracked by a conversation about possible acceptable actions to take in public. For some reason, several of them seemed to have difficulty understanding basic concepts, like wearing clothes no longer being an optional thing or a fashion choice.

That led to an uncomfortable conversation with Prim about why it was considered impolite to jump up and down in front of people and ask if they noticed how bouncy her breasts were. The follow-up conversation about breasts, their use in the feeding of young, and as an evolutionary adaptation to attract mates was probably the worst several minutes of his life. Memorable moments included Sec asking if he thought Paren or Prim had more attractive breasts, which was more messed up than Carl could even think of explaining.

The ‘mine’s bigger’ argument between the three male-appearing cents was another low point.

In short, Edwards was merely happy to escape the ship and get back to normal things, like shaping living flesh.

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

“Well, that was fun,” Prim said, tossing her hair back and pulling it up into a ponytail.

“That ‘Daddy’ thing was pure genius, Quad,” Sec chortled.

“He’s definitely traumatized for life,” Tri grinned.

“He never shouted, though. Did you notice?” Quad asked. “I thought he’d lose his temper loads.”

“We’ll try harder next time,” Prim laughed. “I bet if I tell him I’m pregnant, he’ll shout.”

“And then blame him for not explaining about sex properly,” Tri nodded sagely.

“Can we even get pregnant?” Prim asked. “Or have sex, for that matter?”

“Dunno,” Sec shrugged. “It sounds gross, though.”

They all nodded sagely.

“So, now that the fun bit is out the way,” Prim said. “I suppose we have to at least act like we know what we are doing.”

“I can’t believe they ever thought we didn’t.” Sec sighed. “We have brains.”

“I have two,” Quad said.

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“No, you don’t!” Prim snapped. “Don’t lie!”

“I do.” Quad nodded. “I found one when we were clearing dead bodies from one of the ships. “I have a special jar for it.”

“Awww! I want a brain!” Tri complained.

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Berenice called from the door.

“Shit!” Prim jumped. “We didn’t see you there.”

“I noticed,” Berenice smiled widely. “Interesting conversation.”

“We have no idea what you are referring to,” Quad said quickly.

“Oh, okay then,” she shrugged. “I’ll just go ask Paren what she thinks.”

“NO!”

“I think the merchant bashing is going to stop on this ship from now on.” Berenice chuckled darkly. “Don’t you?”

The four looked at each other and sighed.

“Fine.

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

Nellie oversaw the change over of crew from the Sparklight to the new Imperium-class Battleship. They still had several days of training and testing to do before they could fully use the ship in combat, but the newly christened N.S.S. Emissary was built and ready.

Just having it in the system made her relax a little.

Technically, they already had a second one, but as Lucy was still keeping to herself off on the far side of the planet beneath a massive scattering field, Nellie didn’t quite count on it in case of emergency.

So, she had continued to plan with only what they had.

“How’s it going, Vicky?” Nellie called as the Sparklight moved back toward the ore belt, this time with an escort cruiser.

“Uh, fine?” Vicky said nervously. “We are not currently crashing; does that count?”

Nellie laughed. The Sparklight, now being massively less essential thanks to the inclusion of the Emissary, had been turned over to their first civilian Captain. Vicky, already a brilliant engineer, had been training for months to take control of her own ship with a crew of former dockers and a set of cents to aid them. The addition of remote control stations on the bridge to manually control Orb ships and a few extra grav tows had changed the Sparklight from a combat carrier to a heavily armed and highly armored mining ship.

It was perfect for continuing to mine the large ore deposits in the asteroid belt. First, however, it would be clearing away the remains of the three bases Crush and his Marshalls had captured.

They would be supplying Remy’s project, which Nellie was convinced must be a first.

“Remy is good for a few more days,” Nellie reassured her. “Take your time and get your space legs. In no time, it will be like home to you.”

“You think so?” Vicky asked.

“It was for me,” Nellie promised.

“Fingers crossed!” Vicky replied.

With that taken care of, Nellie turned her focus onto Remy’s plans and his current progress.

Remy, her current security specialist, was responsible for system security. It was a job he took very seriously, but one that was currently almost impossible due to the sheer number of jump points they had to guard.

Fortunately, his previous profession as a spy made him extremely inventive. That combination, along with a tendency to ignore things being deemed impossible—a quirk common among her people—led him to come up with a very possible solution to an impossible problem.

Jump points, if they were secured at all, had to be secured with large ships, minefields, or weapons towers. This was due to the large amount of space needing to be covered, as well as the cost of building stations or similar in these distant parts of a system.

Remy had a solution for that in the form of massive rings encircling the jump exits. Technically, they were not rings but five mini-stations, each connected by permanent grav tow lines with a circular frame to provide stabilization between the five.

Unlike other groups, Nellie’s people did not need to have the station manned, with no staff needed to manage or repair it, as that was all done by the small army of nanites inside the stabilizer ring. With a smaller version of the beam weapons in each of the five stations, it was more than capable of taking out anything up to a smaller capital ship in a single, focused shot. For smaller threats, the individual stations could fire independently.

That just left the matter of cost.

Even to the Imperium, that was a costly exercise, effectively consuming three or more cruisers or a single capital ship and change for every gate.

That did not even include the cost of losing half their derelicts and an entire Imperium Class to Lucy.

In the end, that cost was the impetus for converting their Carrier into a mobile mining base. It was just the only possible way to cover the costs, even with the incredible speed with which nanites extracted ore from the belt.

So far, they had covered three jump points with the gates, and they had enough materials for a fourth.

The problem was the system's position. Despite being abandoned, it sat at the nexus of several neighboring systems. As a result, it had connections and jump points to five other systems. As they had used their entry point into the system as their ‘South’ so far, Nellie had kept it going.

That meant that to the ‘North’ was a Sagacity system where the majority of the Imperial Line fleet had gathered. Three jump points connected them, effectively at the eleven, twelve, and one o’clock positions. Jump points at two and three connected them to another sagacity system, complete with two Imperial Line wings and a part of the Ten Suns fleet.

The rest was in a confederacy system, with jump points at four and five.

Six o’clock connected them back to the Sectors, so at least that one they could pretty much ignore.

All of that just to go from North to South.

The remaining three points connected them to the Mauisarian system and the other independent system, which was a black port. Black ports were apparently the local term for a pirate stronghold.

In short, they had eleven jump points to cover, compared to an average of four or fewer in most systems.

Ultimately, Nellie suspected that was the reason why no one had settled here after the I.E.S. left it. It was just too difficult to defend.

Ignoring the connection to the sectors for now, Nellie had ten jump points to defend. It was just too many, considering it was now just a matter of time until the Line lost patience and attacked. Freeing the Ten Suns hostages would help, but it didn’t guarantee they would turn on the Line, no matter what Hellena thought.

With the three gates built over the Black Port and Maiusarian jump points, they were down to seven places to defend.

The next gate would take them to six.

They could cover two with Harbinger and Emissary and the same with the Bly and the Vey’s Charge, with the new heavy cruisers supporting them.

That still left only cruisers at two jump points.

If the Ten Suns didn’t turn on the Line, they would be weak at the three and four o’clock positions.

A lot was relying on the Ten Suns to turn…

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

“I feel silly,” Prim said, looking down at her white and orange overalls. Unlike the Imperium ship suits, these were baggy, and a couple of cosmetic stains were visible here and there.

“I have to agree,” Berenice said, examining her sleeve with disgust. “Is this made of canvas?”

“I have no idea,” Cara said, “But I’m pretty sure it is not fit for use as clothing.”

“Even you, Cara?” Crush chuckled.

“Even me, Boss,” Cara pulled at the collar.

“Who picked these colors?” Quad asked, “And can we kill them?”

“Nellie picked the colors when she branded the shuttle she lent us,” Crush laughed. “Feel free to forward all complaints to her.”

“Yup,” Tri looked down at himself. “This is almost exactly what I would expect if my grandmother dressed me.”

“Not sure this is becoming of Marshalls,” Sec tried.

“It’s not,” Crush nodded. “Until we drop the facade, we are a Free Unity trader, scoping out a possible new trade route.”

“Free Unity?” Andy asked.

“Some small group a long, long way from here,” Crush said. “No unifying culture or anything that we have to maintain. It’s a good choice.”

“Yeah, but how do we know?” Cara asked.

“Captain Hellena, our contact, relaid the information,” Crush said.

“Oh, good. There's nothing better than secondhand information from an enemy who is probably going to stab us in the back,” Tri nodded energetically.

“We work with what we have,” Crush shrugged. “Right, everyone, get any supplies or anything else you might want. We head out in a couple of hours.”

“On that note,” Berenice said. “I am going to get a hold filled with HyperDrive barrels for sale. It could be a real seller.”

“I think that sounds smart,” Prim said brightly.

“Great idea!” Tri nodded.

“Can we help?” Sec offered.

Berenice just sighed as Crush turned to her.

“Okay, what did you get on them?”