Chapter Fifty-One

Countdown

“Paren, damn it! I need to know what you have before we launch the attack!” Nellie was shouting through the door, but Paren completely ignored it.

She was busy.

And also pissed off in the extreme. How dare she take Lucy back so quickly? Just because she had some sob story. Thank whatever gods there were that she was straight. If fancying a nice pair of boobs made you that soft, then you deserved what you got.

Her implant comm blinked, but Paren just smiled to herself and got on with her work. Besides, she really didn’t have time to talk if she was going to get everything ready in time for the attack.

Or, in her case, the defense.

A couple of the cameras repaired themselves, but the patrolling smilers took care of them before even a second had passed.

The door boomed as someone hit it with nanite-infused strength, and Paren laughed.

As if she hadn’t reinforced the door on her own lab!

It was completely secure, just like the rest of the place. It would take an XL Beam to get in here, and even then… maybe two. The security procedures were top-notch, the doors and walls were self-repairing, and the glass was actually a reinforced crystalline structure based on stone folding.

Add in a set of shields powered by a separate cruiser core on top of the station ones, and… her defenses were perfect.

“Paren, open the door!” Nellie yelled again.

Paren just shook her head.

“Edwards, please let me in,” Nellie called sweetly.

Paren’s eyes widened a second before the door clicked open.

“Cheat!” Paren protested, spinning to glare at… it was the click of a side door.

Edwards looked up in confusion from the storage room door.

“You didn’t open the door?” Paren asked.

“You said no,” Edwards shrugged.

“But she said please, and is the Queen, and stuff!” Paren said suspiciously. “You’re mister ‘nice to everyone.’ I was sure that would have worked on you.”

“This is between the two of you,” Edwards said calmly. “But, for the record, I will always choose what you want over anyone else.”

Paren just blinked, “You will?”

Edwards just smiled at her.

Is this… is this normal? Did she break something in him when she made him a drone? The others all seemed normal.

“I would admit I think you should talk to her, though,” Edwards said carefully.

“Why?” Paren asked.

“Because you don’t want to regret it later if something happens,” Edwards said. “Also, isn’t ignoring Nellie when she needs you the exact… thing… Lucy… I’m going to stop that sentence right there!” Edwards sweated as she glared. “Do not know what I was even going to say next. Hah! Love you.”

Paren huffed and unlocked the door.

He might, possibly, have a tiny little point. Intellectually, she could admit that. Emotionally, he was going to be paying for that comment in some not-so-subtle way later.

“Sorry,” Paren glared at Nellie. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“Are you okay?” Nellie asked her, frowning. “You look a little…”

“Edwards said something INCREDIBLY stupid,” Paren shouted over her shoulder. “Nothing important, so what do you need?”

“It’s a Smiler?” Nellie asked in a sort of fascinated tone.

“No, it’s a ship,” Paren grinned. “A capital ship, to be precise. A big, big, BIG one.” She sniffed. “I mean, yes, it is alive-ish.”

“Alive-ish?” Nellie asked, frowning.

“Told you she wouldn’t like that word!” Edwards called.

“Hush!” Paren yelled back.

“The black armor plates are designed based on the crawler’s natural defenses, so that makes it look a bit like an extra-long crawler, but that is all,” Paren said quickly. “I just used a design I knew well to streamline the process.”

“And the mandibles?” Nellie asked. “Those really look like mandibles.”

“They are!” Paren grinned. “It has a self-repair and harvesting option based on the one you used for the Harbinger. That was a really clever idea, by the way.”

“Thanks.” Nellie grinned. “These look more… direct.”

“Imagine this!” Paren chuckled darkly. “You are fighting that in space, and it gets damaged. You’re all like yay, and we are going to win! Then it literally eats one of the other ships.”

Nellie paled a little.

“Right?” Paren looked at her creation fondly. “They’ll never stop running!”

“How many crew do you need?” Nellie asked, sighing heavily. “To run this?”

“None,” Paren admitted. “Except me and Edwards. Robot and Leah can come too if they want?”

“You made a capital ship that runs itself!” Nellie gasped. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

“Noooo!” Paren sighed. “I mean, it runs a lot itself, with lots of living parts, but it still needs a crew of fifty at least. But Edwards made them.”

“Edwards made crew?” Nellie asked.

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

Carl fretted as the Queen strode back and forth in front of the sheet he had put over his creation. She seemed more than a little anxious.

“Paren taught you a lot, didn’t she?” The Queen stopped and stared at him. It was funny, but she had seemed so normal in the coffee shop. Now… now she was very much looking like his future mother-in-law.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Edwards nodded politely. “She has been very kind.”

“And you turned out to have a gift for, what was it?”

“Reconstituted organic matter conversion using nanite control and molding subroutines, with a secondary specialty in behavioral engineering,” Edwards said proudly.

“In simple terms?” Nellie asked.

“Flesh shaping and monster programming,” Paren chuckled. “So hot.”

Edwards blushed as Nellie looked at the sheet again.

“Edwards, am I going to have nightmares if I see this?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“No?” Carl said hesitantly. I mean, she was Paren’s mother. Right?

“See, that note of hesitation worries me.” Nellie sighed. “Give me a clue here: What is it called?”

“The Smiler Walker,” Paren said proudly. “Mark 5”

“Mark 5?” Nellie asked.

“There were some problems with the first four,” Edwards sighed. “Controlling aggression levels at first, and then the fours all kept eating their control panels.”

“Right, right,” Nellie winced and pulled back the sheet.

“Ta-da!” It rasped.

Not everyone gets to see a queen scream.

The walker screamed in shock, and everyone froze.

Edwards nudged his creation, and it hopefully held out a cup of HyperDrive.

The Smilers were great creatures; they really were. It was one of the things that Edwards had realized early on. Sure, they looked horrifying, and they would eat anything, people included, but that was just their nature. It wasn’t their personality.

People eat meat from other species, right?

Due to their swarm-like origins, they were hard-working, loyal, and selfless. They were natural choices for him to work with. Of course, he never experimented on a living creature and never would. Still, he had access to the design, and that was what mattered.

Enlarge the thorax, change the leg number to six, and make the upper two pairs develop into arms while thickening, lengthening, and reinforcing the legs. Orientation of the connections was a little challenging. The first few attempts ended up looking in danger of walking on six legs, but he persevered.

He added curved plates of carapace, shaping the rear into a short tail and bending the top forward to orient the head to face forward properly—and… ta-da!

He had a body with two strong back legs—he adjusted the jointed legs to resemble a creature with reversed knees. It really was a better design. Humanoids had missed a trick there—two powerful upper arms with smaller lower arms, thin fingers for delicate work, and a face not even a mother could love. Edwards had done the best he could, however. He reduced the size of its mouth while enlarging the eyes significantly.

In the end, he was very happy with the body.

Once that was done, he needed to fine-tune their instincts, boost their intelligence level, and finally install an implant with memory download capability.

In short, if you downloaded a job module into them, they would know how to do it with complete competency. The basic speech they had learned themselves—which Paren had assured him was a sign he had done a very good job and not something to be worried about at all.

“Are they going to eat people?” Nellie asked with a sigh. “I mean, people we like?”

“No!” Edwards said, shocked. “They don’t eat meat.”

“WHAT?” Both Paren and Nellie yelled at once.

“I thought they could use a healthier diet, is all,” Carl said defensively.

“That’s why they kept eating the consoles!” Paren accused. “They had an iron deficiency!”

“I fixed that!” Edwards argued back. “They eat metals now, too.”

“My boyfriend made vegetarian monsters,” Paren sighed. “I can’t decide if I’m horrified or proud.”

“So they aren’t aggressive at all?” Nellie asked suspiciously.

“Not if you are recognized as friendly,” Edwards insisted.

“And if you are an enemy?” Paren asked.

“Uh, I think the term wildly aggressive might apply there,” Carl said nervously. “I’m working on that, but yeah.”

“Define wildly aggressive?” Nellie asked.

“Some of the last target dummies are still lodged in the roof gratings,” Edwards smiled weakly.

“So if they decide we are enemies?” Nellie took a step back.

“They can’t,” Edwards shrugged. “It is not up to them.”

“Then who is it up to?”

“Me, or if I am not around, the nanite network,” Edwards said with a shrug. “It takes the friend/foe marking from the satellite network.”

“Oh,” Nellie relaxed. “That is actually quite a good idea.”

“Thank you,” Carl smiled.

“One last question,” Nellie added. “Why is it wearing glasses?”

“Goggles,” Edwards corrected. “Their enlarged eyes make them sensitive to light, and the goggles auto-correct for that.”

“Fine,” Nellie sighed. “I suppose fifty of these will be fine.”

“Uh,” Edwards tried not to fidget.

“How many did you make?” Paren asked with a wide grin, as if she had not already known.

“More than fifty?” Edwards swallowed nervously. He had gotten a little carried away.

“How many?” Nellie asked.

“Five hundred?” Edwards winced as Paren cackled.

“Do they have nanites?” Nellie asked.

“All of them,” Paren grinned. “He made me an army.”

“Well, you didn’t like the flowers,” Edwards shrugged.

“But I love my army!” Paren winked.

“Do I want to know where they are?” Nellie asked.

“Everywhere!” Paren said in a whispery little voice.

“I’ll let people know,” Nellie sighed. “Good, if alarming work, both of you.”

“I thought we could act as a defense during the attack,” Edwards volunteered.

“What?” Paren growled.

“If everyone attacks, what remains to defend?” Edwards said. “A few automated cruisers? I thought a defense force would ease that worry a little.”

Nellie smiled at the idea. She had been worried about that, it seemed.

“An excellent idea,” Nellie nodded. “Thank you.”

Edwards watched her walk out of the lab, turning to see Paren glaring at him.

“Brown-nosing little bastard!” She complained. “I wanted to attack the line!”

“Oh, please,” Carl laughed. “We both know ships are going to get in here, where they will be trapped. In our space, all alone, with nowhere to run.”

Paren looked thoughtful.

“And everyone who could tell you what to do will be a jump point away and busy,” Edwards prompted.

Paren started to smile.

“Still a kiss ass,” Paren said, but she was smiling now.

“Well, I have to get in her good books, right? She’s important to you.”

“Ta-da!” The walker rasped.

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

“Right,” Nellie said, shuffling markers around. “So if we have the Harbinger lead the attack on the fleet command with the Bly and the Vey’s Charge, that frees up the Emissary to engage whatever is covering where the ninth was. The Taking Liberties and the Bird Song Wing can assist.”

“Once the enemy there is dealt with, we can move to support as needed,” Boone nodded.

“Exactly.” Nellie nodded.

“Lucy, that leaves you and the automated cruisers to engage the Ten Suns. Are you sure that is possible?” Salem asked. “I mean no offense, but that is a lot to control.”

“It is within the capabilities of this new body,” Lucy nodded. “Plus, I expect either the Ten Suns will break or I will be reinforced before too long.”

“Just make sure you fall back if you need to,” Nellie reminded her. “Paren and her ship will be waiting to support.”

The last thing that she wanted was for Lucy to end up dying or losing her ship because she was trying to prove something. Their talk had changed a lot, but they were both aware that there was a long way to go.

“Have you got a name for the ship yet?” Baz asked.

“I have,” Lucy said with a smile. “Ascendancy.”

“Nice,” Paren snorted. “Subtle.”

“Says the woman who built a giant nightmare to strike terror into her enemies and called it the HiveShip.” Salem grinned at Salem.

The two of them were getting along a lot better these days, which Nellie found a little worrying. Salem was kind of a safety valve for Paren. If Paren wasn’t rebelling against Salem and her rules… oh, right. Edwards.

“A giant nightmare that eats other ships,” Paren laughed. “I just hope I get to use it.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Nellie admitted. “They have a lot of ships.”

Nellie wanted to ensure that supplying the fleet would not actually kill their Logistics Officer, so she headed down after the meeting to check how Cheape was doing.

To her surprise, the office was empty.

“Salem, where is Cheape?” Nellie asked.

“She has taken over one of the bays in light of her new staff,” Salem said sourly. “For the record, they were not my idea.”

Nellie hurried over to see what was happening, finding Leah in the doorway.

“Hi,” Nellie gave her a quick hug. “How’s the department going?”

“Well,” Leah nodded. “But I think we need to build a boarding craft. We will not be able to bring much to this battle.”

“We can’t guarantee that,” Nellie said. “I wish it were certain that they wouldn’t end up boarding the station, but it just isn’t.”

“Even if they do,” Leah smiled sadly. “I do not think they will survive the Logistics Department.”

Frowning, Nellie looked into the bay.

Cheape and her four cent units were working behind a long line of desks, calling out orders as what must have been nearly a hundred Walker Smilers, and who knew how many heavy crawlers fitted with cargo haulers ran to and fro, moving crates in a constant stream.

“She got some of the Walkers?” Nellie asked, surprised. “Does Paren know?”

“Paren knows how to share,” Leah laughed. “I have fifty myself. They are making great trainees.”

“So, uh, how are you doing?” Nellie asked. “Everything has been so busy we haven’t had much time to talk… about everything.”

“You mean Edwards?” Leah smiled wickedly. “Worried about jealous knives flashing in the dark?”

“Well, I was more worried about you feeling alone or sad,” Nellie admitted. “Although now you mention it…”

“I am fine,” Leah laughed, “But it is nice that people ask. Paren asked as well, you know? That was sweet. She even promised to make me a clone if I wanted one. I decided to wait for my own match. He is hers, but mine is out there.” She looked out towards the docks. “Somewhere.”

Nellie immediately ignored the concept of Paren cloning people. She had enough problems.

“Do you want your own ship?” Nellie asked out of nowhere, really. It just seemed like everyone else had one.

“I will think about it,” Leah nodded.

“Okay.” Nellie looked around, saw the station buzzing, and realized she should be on the Harbinger by then. “Well, I better get going. Just… let’s all have a meal or something together when this is over.”

Leah nodded, and Nellie gave her an awkward hug and hurried away.

Even now, that girl never seemed to quite understand physical contact that didn’t involve hitting someone.

Family. They made fighting a war seem simple.