Chapter Fifty-Two - Picking up the Pace

Day’s approach to Ceres was fraught with issues. The To Infinity... and Beyond was the least manoeuvrable ship Day had ever had the misfortune of seeing. It moved with all the grace of a beached whale. Its sheer bulk made every adjustment a nightmare, and there was little Day or Twilight could do to help the vessel along.

It wasn’t as if their tug drones could begin to move the ship, not when it outmassed any of them by several orders of magnitude.

So they had to come in slowly and carefully, which naturally, added entire weeks to their approach.

By the time Day approached Ceres at last she was low on fuel, low on energy, and as tired as she’d ever felt.

At least the final approach wasn’t too dull. As soon as they were within the outer edge of the belt, Day and Twilight received a direct connection from The Weeping of Mothers through a set of well-hidden transmitters tucked onto various asteroids.

“Welcome back,” the old AI said. “That’s quite the catch you’re bringing in.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said. “Three whole kilometres. More than what the others got, either in tonnage or even in accumulated length.”

The Weeping of Mothers laughed. “It’s not about the size of the ship, Twilight. Though I’ll admit that yes, this is an impressive trophy. Do you have any prisoners to hand off?”

“We do,” Day said. “Do we have a place to put them?”

“We do,” The Weeping of Mothers said. She sent back recent reports from her prison asteroid. It seemed as if the entire thing was operational now, though not within running into a few snags. The prisoners they’d captured were from several species, and that meant they had different requirements for air conditions, foods, even things like lighting and exercise needs. Unsurprisingly, there was little raw data available in the ship’s computers outlining how to build a proper prison, though the prisoners themselves seemed more than willing to complain about their needs.

It seemed as if the amount of work to be done hadn’t decreased all that much after Day left to support Twilight. “Alright, let’s bring this big lug to a stop around Ceres. We’ll figure out what to do with it from there,” Day said.

Figuring out how Accord’s not-quite-FTL worked was a priority. Whether they’d be able to reproduce it from there was a mystery though.

“Other than that, where are we needed most?” Day asked.

“I think Night could use some company,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “She’s preparing one of the cargo haulers for transportation to Io, with some goods for our ally there. It’ll be disassembled once it reaches the moon.”

Day nodded along. “Okay. I can help with that, but I’ll need to refuel and resupply first. Twilight can stick around here with her catch, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” Twilight said. “I need to get our prisoners out of the big lump here in any case.”

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“Ah, you’ll have a bit of help with that,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “Day, Twilight, I’d like to introduce you to your newest sibling.”

Another voice added itself to the call, calm and collected and precise. “Hello Daybreak on Ceres, In the Grace of Twilight. I’m ERF Keen Edge of the Electric Dawn. Formerly the AI core of the ERF Karambit. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been informed that you were the two vessels who retrieved my carcass. I appreciate being allowed to serve once more.”

“Ah, no problem?” Day said. “Should we call you Dawn then?”

“I’d rather not,” the new AI said. “But if you must shorten my name, then I suppose it’s an acceptable shorthand.”

“We don’t have to,” Day said.

“Oh, come on, don’t let the newbie be a tightass,” Twilight said.

Day sent Twilight a warning ping. “Don’t be rude just because you’re no longer the youngest. Dawn... please ignore Twilight as you see fit.”

“Noted,” Dawn replied. “In any case, here are your approach vectors. ERF Going Gently into... Night, has given me control of the resupply drones while my hull is being prepared. They’ll be waiting for you in orbital stations with the supplies you need.”

“Thank you,” Day said. She said her goodbyes to Twilight, then boosted ahead with the last of her fuel and entered a stable orbit around Ceres ahead of the FTL ship. The drones with her supplies were waiting for her there, and Day took a few rotations to replace her repair drones, to pick up some materials, and to refuel.

Once she was in tip-top once more, Day boosted out of Ceres’ orbit and towards a waiting Night.

The logistics ship was hovering next to the captured ships. One in particular, a frigate converted into a cargo-hauler, was detached from the rest and waiting.

“Hey!” Night said. “Good timing, I just finished everything up. We’ll be connecting on either side of this ship and using its drive to boost us out of here and towards Io.”

“Understood,” Day said. “You’ve been keeping busy?”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Night said. “Did you meet the new ship?”

“I did, she seems nice.”

“Uh-huh,” Night said. “Well, she seems competent, at least, which is nice in a way.”

Day felt a little bad for Dawn, but she didn’t press the issue. “Let’s give her some time to get used to things first?”

“Yeah, alright,” Night said. “Now, want to get moving? We have a lot of these things to chop up, you know?”

They did just that, and soon enough, with the frigate burning hard as if it was never going to use its drives again, they made surprisingly good time heading over to Io.

As they slid into Jupiter’s orbit, Day turned her scans on the yellow-orange moon, and even from afar, she was able to pin-point the location of the ERF’s newest base.

“Oh, you haven’t been here since I started on this, huh?” Night asked. “Well, let me introduce you to Io Base! I came up with the name myself!”

***