Chapter Five

Setting Out

Nellie felt the connection to her nanites in the Harbinger refresh as she stepped on board—one by one, the ship's sensors connected before being shunted to her subconscious mind. It was too much information for Nellie to process in real-time yet, but she was working on it. The result was a general feeling of the ship’s state and where everyone on board was. It made the place feel like home in a way.

Additional information began to filter through, giving her the occasional snapshot of anything in sensor range.

She mentally tracked the last of the supply shuttles as they departed the flagship and headed back to the Bly’s Rest.

“Admiral on deck!” Morton called as she stepped into the C.I.C.

“Nice to be back,” Nellie said, nodding for everyone to relax as she slid into the command chair. “Are we ready to get underway?”

“Almost, Ma’am,” Morton said with a frustrated smile. “We are just waiting for the final three passengers to arrive.”

Nellie checked over the list via her implant.

Berenice, Bryant, and Edwards were all not on board.

“Ask control where they are,” Nellie said.

“Contacting them now,” Eriksson replied quickly, taking to the Bly’s Rest quickly before sighing and relaying the information that the three were still on the docks.

Arguing.

Nellie connected to the Bly’s camera feeds and saw the problem immediately.

“One moment, everyone; I need to deal with this,” Nellie sighed, reclining the chair and slipping into the network. Rather than speed her brain up to A.I. speeds, Nellie simply pushed her consciousness through the connection and surfed the information across the empty space and into the Rest before riding the wires down to the dock and taking over a couple of projectors to build herself a holographic body.

With a shimmer, she appeared on the deck plates just inside the bay.

She walked over the decking, finding it weird when her steps made no noise until she realized, duh, of course, they didn’t. She marveled at the detail in the holographic body, her system synthesizing the feel of the metal grating beneath her feet, the flow of air over her body, and even the hot metal and oil smell of the docking bay. It was all created from the sensor readings in the bay, but if she didn’t know better, Nellie would have sworn she was physically here in the port small craft dock.

Ahead of her, Berenice and Bryant were arguing with one of the Centrum guards over a large crate they were trying to load onto the shuttle.

“Unauthorized items will not be allowed to depart for the Harbinger,” it said, its voice sounding echoey and computerized in a way none of the other models did. It reminded Nellie of the way robots spoke in old sci-fi movies from the fifties and sixties. Honestly, she quite liked it. Nellie had resisted the urge to teach them to shout ‘exterminate’ before firing, but only just.

“I’m authorizing it!” Berenice shouted. “I’m a Marshall and a registered Merchant!”

“Denied,” the Centrum replied.

“Why don’t we just leave it?” Bryant asked, eyeing the tall metal guard with evident anxiety.

“No! No!” Berenice snapped. “We are taking these to the Sagacity if I have to tie them to the back of the fucking Harbinger on a piece of string! Do you hear me?” She poked the Centrum unit in its metal chest with a clang.

The metal head rotated slowly to examine the furious merchant.

“Denied.” It said slowly, dragging the word out to make a point.

“Arrrghh!” Berenice growled in frustration.

“Can I make—” Edwards started.

“Not now,” Berenice held up a hand to stop him from talking. “I’m going to resolve this.”

“I was just going to say—” Edwards started again, and before Berenice could finish raising her hand, one of the tentacles on his shoulders whipped out and pushed it down. “That the Queen can simply make the decision.”

“We are not bothering the Queen over a crate!” Berenice said, rubbing her hand theatrically where the tentacle had pushed against it.

“That did not hurt,” Edwards said, “And besides, we’ve already bothered her.” He gestured to Nellie.

“Oh, are we late?” Berenice said, smiling brightly as she stepped a little forward, putting her body between Nellie and the crate. “Sorry about that.”

“What’s in the crate?” Nellie asked.

“Nothing important,” Berenice shrugged. “Something I hoped to trade with the station while we were docked.”

“Banned somethings?” Nellie guessed.

“Absolutely not!” Berenice said with convincing sincerity.

Unfortunately for the skilled merchant, her assistant Bryant was not such a skilled liar. He flushed at the comment, looking away after a guilty glance toward the crate.

“Merchant Bryant?” Nellie asked.

“She is technically correct,” Bryant offered. “There is no law or ordinance banning what we wished to take.”

“But?” Nellie prompted.

“You can not ban what you don’t know exists?” Edwards guessed, getting a glare from Berenice.

Nellie tried not to laugh. It made sense that Edwards would see that trick; it was precisely what Paren would have done. She was a big fan of technicalities and leaving out crucial details.

“Open the crate, please,” Nellie gestured Berenice aside.

“Private goods?” Berenice tried.

“Then they can stay here,” Nellie offered.

“Fine!” Berenice flipped the top of the crate; her nanite boosted strength more than a match for the locks. “There, happy?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Books?” Nellie picked one up with a tendril of nanites, pulling them directly from the dock around her. It had been an age since she had seen an actual physical book. Everyone here used data pads for everything. It was bound in something like red leather, with metal on each corner and an engraved metal plate in the center. The plate didn’t look right, and she noted the hidden mechanism before reading the title and then activating the mechanism to see the hidden one underneath.

An Ode to Knowlege:

The importance of knowing your place as an Iron Badge

That was the original title, but as the metal plates opened, they revealed the real one beneath.

The Mercantile Guide:

A complete guide to business and the pursuit of profit.

“Okay, I’m confused,” Nellie admitted as she flicked through the pages. “What exactly is this?”

“The key to a whole new world for those less valued within the Sagacity,” Berenice said fiercely. “They are just begging for a better life through higher profit!”

“Translation?” Nellie sighed.

“People like me have no chance of advancement within the Sagacity,” Bryant said with a slight tremor in his voice. “This will help people like me to find their way to a happier life.”

“So why are we hiding it?” Nellie asked.

“My last pamphlet caused a bit of a stir and sort of got Bryant and the others in trouble,” Berenice said, anger simmering in her eyes. “If they didn’t have somewhere to go, they would have been arrested.”

Now that Berenice mentioned it, Nellie vaguely remembered a ship full of Sagacity traders arriving and getting approved to join the Imperium. It had been a busy time, so she hadn’t asked many questions.

Another thing put off coming back to bite her in the ass.

“Okay, let me hear the long version.”

It turned out that it wasn’t a complicated story—more of a clash of cultures. Still, it told Nellie a lot about the kind of people in charge of the Sagacity.

“And they banned the pamphlet?” Nellie checked.

“Correct,” Berenice nodded. “And made it so that only Bronze badges could be traders.”

“So what good are these books?” Nellie asked. “If people can not trade with what they know?”

“They can at least learn a little,” Berenice said, avoiding eye contact for a moment before she fixed her gaze on Nellie. “Just in case.”

“In case of…” Nellie decided she was probably not going to get a straight answer.

“That is kind of a secret,” Bryant said awkwardly. “I will tell you if you ask, but…”

“You would much rather I didn’t.” Nellie nodded.

“Fine,” She handed the book back to Berenice. “Authorized for travel.”

“Really?” Bryant looked surprised.

“Why not,” Nellie shrugged. “It’s not illegal.”

“Thank you,” Bryant looked relieved.

“I’ll give you a hand loading it,” Edwards offered, easily picking up the large crate and loading it while the tentacles on his shoulders closed the lid and repaired the lock.

“Everyone ready to go now?” Nellie asked. “Good. Now hurry up; we don’t want to be late for our first formal meeting.”

She released the holo emitters, surfing the network back to settle into her body again.

“The shuttle is launching now,” Nellie said as the seat returned to the upright position. “Maya, get us underway as soon as they are aboard.”

/===<<<>>>===\

As they approached the twelve o’clock jump point, Nellie took a moment to drop back into the network, allowing her nanite-fused brain to accelerate to maximum speed. Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours from her point of view.

Once she was synchronized, Nellie activated her command mode, which allowed her to see the system's progress. The star system appeared around her as if she were a colossus drifting between stars. The Jumpgate system was almost complete here, with ten of the twelve jump points showing a ready signal in the form of a pair of glowing eyes hovering above their icons.

The rings themselves were quite thin, with five pods at regular points. They were the actual defenses, a set of five midsized Beam weapons that the Watchman Drone program could aim independently or as a single system for larger threats.

The real test would come when the Imperium opened its borders. So far, however, they were doing a fantastic job.

She looked back towards the Bly’s Rest, seeing the two new large pods attached to the side. They looked good, and she saw a small group of shuttles headed from there to the Shipyard she had built during the war.

Without the urgent need for more ships, it was currently working on a prototype trader designed by one of the Sec units.

Beyond the yard, she saw the moon, now unoccupied by anyone other than the Clutch. Their impervious field seemed to have grown compared to what she remembered.

She checked on the egg, which had caused so many problems for Lucy and her. The silicate base was growing quickly as the organic growth around the egg accelerated. The lush, almost jungle-like, growth stretched for miles now. Another thing they needed to sort out. Their diplomat, Aria-Seven, was due in another two weeks.

Hopefully, she would be similar to TRV-Four, who seemed just as joyful and kind as they had presented themselves.

Seeing the atmospheric readings from the formerly volcanic planet, Nellie wondered if they would be willing to share their terraforming technology. That atmosphere was getting closer and closer to breathable.

Once she was satisfied that everything looked normal in what she was starting to think of as her ‘home’ system, Nellie shifted her view to the new one.

A single Jumpgate was completed here while a station slowly built itself from the wreckage of the former black port. It looked much more boxy than the Rest, but this was Lucy’s project, and Nellie didn’t want to interfere too much.

Lucy knew what she was doing.

A quick scan of the planet showed not much had happened down there, but it was still enough to make her wince.

There were a few scattered power signatures, but they were faint, barely registering. The satellite scans popped up around the planet, and it initially looked like the English Countryside, but the illusion shattered as she looked closer. The terrain and plants were similar, but everything was run down, and almost no sign of technology showed. If it was like England, it was like England during the Dark Ages.

Nellie made a note to send more help for Cheape as soon as she could.

A ping against her consciousness showed a report from Vicky, and Nellie shifted her focus to the Sparklight, their former carrier, now a mining vessel. It was currently scanning a moon on one of the gas giants, and she seemed excited about what she had found.

Nellie spun off a part of her mind and dropped it’s speed to talk to the woman. Crush’s girlfriend and future wife were really taking to being a ship captain well.

While that talk happened in slow motion from her point of view, Nellie pinged the ball of glowing light that was her own girlfriend's consciousness as it floated around the building station.

It shimmered and shifted until Lucy formed before her, looking around at the system around them in surprise.

“Wow, babe! Great visualization system. This is really advanced stuff.” Lucy beamed, her copper hair swinging as she looked around.

“Thanks,” Nellie said, shoving away the urge to remind Lucy how she had learned to do this and whose fault it was. They would never move on if Nellie didn’t at least try to let it go. “I’m about to head out for the Sagacity, and I wanted to say goodbye before I left.”

“Need me to come with you?” Lucy asked.

She didn’t mean physically, of course. She would spin off a part of herself, much like Nellie had done to speak to Vicky.

“I’ll be fine, and I want one of us to be here fully while I am out of contact.” Nellie smiled.

They would be in contact, of a sort, but the relay system wasn’t fast enough for her to fully connect to the network. At least, not yet.

They were working on it. While she was in the Sagacity, she could communicate freely and get reports, but she would only be able to connect this fully with the Harbinger itself.

Lucy smiled at the show of trust.

“I won’t let you down,” Lucy said, hugging Nellie tightly. “Promise.”

“I know you won’t,” Nellie returned the hug, reveling in the ability to have physical sensations in a very unphysical state. “And I will try not to start a war.”

“Anything I should keep a special eye on?” Lucy asked.

Nellie considered asking Lucy to keep Paren from bugging Remy, but the two had been at loggerheads since Lucy’s return—no need to make it worse.

“See if Cheape needs something; other than that, just enjoy building this system up.” Nellie said, pulling back as the conversation with Vicky finished and the memories arrived in her mind, “Oh, Vicky found something interesting, so she’ll definitely want some help.”

“Consider it done!” Lucy waved as a part of her blurred away and landed in the Sparklight.

Nellie said goodbye and shifted back out of the network, and her brain dropped to normal speeds again.

“We are ready to jump on your order, Captain,” Monroe reported as she sat up again.

“Take us into Transit,” Nellie said. “It’s time to meet the neighbors.”