Throttle Thirty-Nine

“It is done.”

Diana blinked awake, then shifted her head around to see the screen above her. The sleeping cot in the cockpit of the Star Skimmer was pretty nice, a comfy gel bed, with integrated entertainment systems and a heated mattress and cooled pillow. It was pretty much the pinnacle of an ideal sleeping space, which was necessary when there was so little space available onboard the average ship.

“The destroyer?” Diana asked.

“Indeed,” ChaOS said.

She half turned, then rubbed at her eyes to get rid of any eye gunk. “Why’d you wake me up? I knew it would be done soon enough.”

“I’ve been monitoring your vitals, you had sufficient sleep. Any more would just be wasteful.”

“Wasteful and pleasant,” Diana muttered.

She sat up on the edge of her bed, then sighed. “Every part is done?” she asked.

“Yes. All that remains is the final assembly. We don’t have much time left between the assembly and the appointed time to gather for the race.”

Diana stood up, then stretched her back out. “Fine. Do we have time for me to take a shower, at least?”

“We should be able to accommodate that much,” ChaOS said.

Diana shook her head and finally moved over to the lavatory. “I’m going to wake up properly. Tell Ahvie that we need to get moving soon. And don’t forget to double up on sensors and such. We don’t need anyone seeing what we’re getting up to.”

After a quick shower, then an equally quick meal, Diana headed out of the Star Skimmer and navigated through the bowels of the cargo hold she was in. There was hardly any room for her to move anymore, and her ship had more or less become one with the walls as all the nanomachines that made up its internals spread around and turned into the systems and machines needed to produce more of themselves.

She met up with Ahvie, who seemed surprisingly chipper as she prepared to undock from the asteroid station.

Diana took a seat and watched Ahvie disconnect them from the station, then slowly and carefully move them out into empty space.

Most people Diana knew would have a difficult time adjusting to the mass difference in a vehicle, especially the way it toyed with spaceflight, but Ahvie seemed entirely unbothered by the added weight. It was probably something she was used to dealing with, taking on and unloading cargo of one sort or another.

Once they were out and away from the station, Ahvie flew them to their destination using a twirling, corkscrewing motion that would, hopefully, throw off any attempts to track their movement.

Once their course was set, they ran entirely silent for nearly twenty minutes, then rebooted everything and pulled a slowdown burn that had them stopping right next to a large cup-shaped asteroid way out in the midst of the system’s asteroid field.

“All up to you,” Ahvie said as she let go of the controls.

Diana chuckled. “More like it’s up to ChaOS. You got this, big guy?”

“Everything is under control. Preparing to jettison the holds now.”

Diana watched over some of the Slow and Steady’s screens as the two forward holds were disconnected. A few ports opened on the sides of the holds, and tiny jets of compressed gas pushed the holds away from the cargo ship.

Once both holds were well within the shadow of the asteroid, they began to unfold. Large connecting arms reached out, and the two became one, pulling each other closer even as they continued to unfold.

Hundreds of joints opened, panels slid apart, and pipes linked up between the two large bodies until it was impossible to tell where the mess of metal began and where it ended.

“All connections are optimal,” ChaOS said.

Diana let out a sigh of relief. That meant that every conveyor and hose had been properly connected. The ship began to assemble itself from its different parts. Large sections unfolded, forming a ring of hexagons twice as large as Ahvie’s ship, with dozens of arms reaching into the middle.

Most of those would eventually be pulled back and used within the vessel itself.

“You’re needed in the cockpit,” ChaOS said.

“Got it,” Diana said. She floated over to Ahvie, arms raised. “A hug for the road?”

“Sure!” Ahvie said.

Once the hug was over, Diana grinned at her little friend. “I’ll see you in a bit. Once we’ve won, alright?”

Ahvie nodded. “Do your best!”

Diana floated back through the ship, all the way to the hold that still held the Star Skimmer and slipped into the cockpit. It had changed significantly in the hours she’d been out of it. The room was much tighter, with all of the commands and consoles she would need placed over a recliner shaped to fit her body precisely.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She climbed onto the bed, shifting until her feet were in the stirrups on the bottom and her arms were clamped into a pair of gauntlets. A physical link up shifted through her hair, and she winced as an icepick poked into her head. The pain faded while the cockpit closed up.

“Launching final hold in three… two… one… launching,” ChaOS spoke into her ears.

Diana felt the shudder as she was untethered from the Slow and Steady. Every screen in front of her flicked on at once, and she saw a panoramic view of the larger ship sinking away above her. She was on a slow approach to the vessel assembling itself.

Some of the screens lit up with footage from different angles, including the ship she was heading towards. Her own vessel was a mess of unfinished struts and tanks and heavy energy banks, all exposed to the vacuum of space, though armoured plates were already moving into place across the whole hull, revealing hidden thrusters and gun emplacements.

The ship under construction gently turned, only stopping when Diana’s own vessel was aimed right into an opening in the grid surrounding the ship.

Her cockpit rocked as the two constructs met. Clamps locked into place, hoses connected and were pressurised with cat-like hisses, and her ship continued to sink deeper into the larger construct until, finally, she was fully locked into place.

A readout ticked up from the low nineties to one hundred.

They were done.

Grinning, Diana checked on a video feed from the cargo ship above.

Her ship looked like a stubby arrowhead. From the front, it looked like a stretched out plus sign, with the two sides being much longer, and the top and bottom sections much fatter. It had wings that swept back to cover the engines at the rear, with gun emplacements above and below, and on the main body as well. Half of those were hidden behind bulbous protrusions on the hull, temporarily armoured until they were ready to pop out and fire at anything in the vicinity.

It wasn’t a massive vessel. Maybe half the length of Ahvie’s own ship, now that it was fully assembled.

It was, according to ChaOS, a destroyer, but it was on the smaller end for those. Bigger than the average corvette, and it packed a lot of fire and engine power in as tight a package as it could manage. It would be able to punch far above its weight class. But then, going fast and hitting hard were all the design was good for.

“I wish we had time to put him through his paces,” Diana said. A pair of joysticks rose from the ground and stopped at just the right height for her hands to wrap around them.

The few struts that were unnecessary broke off, and with a few tiny directional thrusters, pulled away, folded themselves up, then flew back up to Ahvie’s ship where the bottom one of the cargo holds was still open, waiting for them to return.

“Do you wish to name the vessel?” ChaOS asked.

Diana hummed to herself. “We’ll need a name that works in threes. How about… Cerberus? Like the mythical dog.”

“A wonderful idea, Mistress,” ChaOS replied. “And the colour scheme? Do you wish to stand out?”

Diana hesitated. “Can you link me up to Ahvie’s bridge?”

“Consider it done.”

There was a faint pause before Ahvie spoke up. “Um, yes?”

“Hey, Ahvie,” Diana said. “You got any colour you’re particularly fond of?”

“Ahvie doesn’t really know? But… Ahvie’s clan often paints their important ships the same colour. I have an image somewhere, if you want to see it.”

“Send it over to ChaOS,” Diana said.

“Can’t he see it himself?” Ahvie asked. “It’s on my ship’s computer.”

“Not if it’s in a private folder. And if he did see it in there, then he’ll politely pretend he didn’t breach your privacy.”

Ahvie seemed to think that was funny. A few moments later she returned. “Ahvie sent the file.”

“Colour analysed. Reconfiguring the outer hull. Any secondary colours?” ChaOS asked.

“Gold,” Diana said. “Because that’s what we’ll be winning.”

“Why would Diana want gold?” Ahvie asked. “Do you need it to build something?”

Diana chuckled. “It’s an Earth thing. Don’t worry about it.”

The ship fluctuated, and from the tip of its prow all the way to the rear, the colour changed in a single, long cascade. It went from a dull grey to a deep navy, with golden trim along the edges and across some of the control surfaces.

Diana noted that ChaOS had exercised some creative freedom, painting a trio of snarling dog heads on the front with the ship’s name beneath in the Federation’s most common language.

“Nice work,” Diana said. She pulled back on one joystick and tapped the throttle up just a pinch. “Now, let’s go show off before we win that race.”

***