Nellie and the Nanites - Bk3 - Ch.1

Chapter One

Arrival Time

Nellie sat back in the Captain’s chair and tried not to guess what they would find when they came out of Transit Space and arrived in a completely unknown area of space. It was a much more familiar concept to her than to most of the people on her ship or even the others traveling with them.

She had been stuck in an unknown area of space since a few months ago when some massive alien corporation decided to replace her with a copy. The horrific moment when she watched a shapeless, gelatinous creature become an exact copy of her was etched forever in her mind, as were the first few anxious days marooned on a piece of wreckage in deep space. It all seemed as surreal as the kaleidoscope of colors that swirled around her new ship as it approached the exit point for her latest excursion into the unknown.

The most significant difference this time was she was now completely and utterly beyond the reach of the Sectors and their rules against her AI companion and the nanites they both now controlled. For the first time, Nellie and Lucy were free to be themselves.

What that actually meant, well, they would find out.

“One minute to down-jump,” Baz called out from the flight chair. Nellie really, really wished she was flying the Bly’s Revenge herself, but her nanite-upgraded synthetic pilot was better than her by far. At least for now. Nellie was determined to surpass him in skill just so that she had an excuse to take the helm herself.

“I want full shields the second we arrive,” Nellie warned Dar, another synthetic crew member. The Synthetics were basically AI with advanced robotic bodies capable of passing as whatever race they were designed to mimic. Her lot was mostly Brackta, which meant tails, claws, and lots and lots of scales. Much like AIs of all kinds, the Sectors used and disposed of them or just plain outlawed them. She and Lucy had come across the group by accident, but now? She wouldn’t trade them for anything or anyone in the galaxy.

“Ten seconds,” Lucy called from the sensor station.

Nellie stole a quick glance, got caught, and blushed slightly. Her AI girlfriend had certainly designed herself a hell of a body. Not just tough, but damn cute at the same time.

“Captain to all Crew,” Nellie spoke calmly over the ship-wide comm channel. “We are about to down-jump; report to any duty stations you may have. Remember, people, we could find anything out here, so be ready.”

“3…2…1….” Baz called it out.

There was a flash and a slight feeling of vertigo, and they were out!

“Emergency Jump!” Lucy called before the screens even cleared. There were two short, sharp jolts as the Bly slipped into and out of Transit Space in less than two seconds. “Clear.”

“Bringing us around,” Baz called.

“What the hell happened to that ship?” Nellie gasped as they saw the Duke’s Hope tumbling through space.

“Major hull breaches in several places,” Lucy called.

“Salem, any response to hails?” Nellie asked.

“I’m just getting an emergency code, nothing else,”  Salem flicked the message onto the bridge speakers.

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! SHIP IN DISTRESS! SHIP IN DISTRESS!

The message repeated in between blasts from a klaxon.

“Fuck,” Nellie snarled. She had friends on that ship. “Lucy, are you getting anything from the Last Chances?”

“Just a fading jump trail,” Lucy said.

“I got it,” Baz called. “Looks like they had to jump again, but they haven’t returned yet.”

“The fuck? Where are they heading to?” Nellie wondered.

“Their ship systems might have a minimum safe transit threshold,” Lucy said. “Could be five minutes, could be an hour.”

“What’s that?” Nellie pointed out a scan anomaly drifting near the spinning Hope.

“Ah, shit,” Dar said. “I think they swiped it.”

“Explain?” Nellie asked.

“Basically, they hit the Hope as they transitioned out,” Baz added. “If they survived at all, they will have to repair before jumping back here.”

“So, it’s just us,” Nellie grimaced. “Fine. Shit.” She punched the ship-wide comm channel open. “All crew. All crew. Prepare for rescue operations.”

They closed on the out-of-control Duke’s Hope with care. Inertia alone could send a section hurtling off at any moment. Lucy had picked up plenty of life signs, but the power system and almost everything else were offline.

“We are going to need another Gravity Tow,” Remy had been running calculations on how best to stop the spin without tearing the ship apart completely. “Better launch the Resurgence.”

“Captain?” Baz asked.

“Go, I have the helm,” Nellie transferred the controls to her station as he ran out of the room. This was not how she had wanted her first time to happen, but didn’t everyone feel like that at the time? “Vey,” She used her implant’s HUD to connect to the synthetic, “Report to the Resurgence. We got a tow to aim.”

“On my way!” Vey called back.

Their heavily custom shuttle launched less than a minute later, shields flashing as it encountered small bits of debris. It got into position and waited.

“Matching speed and rotation,” Nellie called, manually firing the necessary thrusters to start the Bly moving until it matched the Hope's spin. They had to find a fixed position to lock their gravity tow onto so they could not have even a slight difference in velocity or angle of movement. If they did, it would simply tear the other ship apart.

“We have a match,” Lucy called.

“Targeting gravity tow now,” Dar’s hand moved in a blur over the controls. “Locked. Permission to power the tow?”

“Do it,” Nellie said, mentally crossing her fingers. The lines of pale light snaked across, and the Bly barely shivered. She checked the readings from the other ship, allowing her HUD to merge the sensor data with the image on the screen until it felt real to her. Nellie wanted to see any signs of hull stress before they became a problem, and for that, she needed to see it in the full spectrum of her vastly improved senses. “Move the third grapple point a meter to the fore or aft,” Nellie called to Dar, “That section is already under torsion.”

“Got it,” Dar said, and The grapple point gently shifted to more secure ground. “And we are locked on.”

“Baz, your turn,” Salem called to the Resurgence, and everyone had a tense couple of minutes while the small shuttle matched the spin and locked on.

“Begin counterburns now,” Nellie called, barely putting any power into the thrusters.

The Hope slowly slowed its spin as they brought her back under control. The entire time, Nellie was watching the structural stresses for any sign of imminent failure. While she was busy with that, Lucy was scanning and assessing the life signs they had found inside the ship. The problem was they had no idea how many the ship had launched with, so estimating how many had been lost was tough.

About twenty minutes before the spin finally stopped completely, the lights on the Hope started to flicker on, one section at a time.

“Life support is being restored,” Lucy said, “And their drives are starting the warm-up procedure, but it looks like one is… yup, there it goes.” A bright flash came from the far end of the Hope, and a bunch of debris shot off.

“Baz, did you get hit?” Salem called immediately to the Resurgence.

“What am I? New?” Baz sounded offended.

“Pardon me for caring, I’m sure,” Salem grumbled as she stabbed the comm line closed. It lit twice with incoming hails, but Salem studiously ignored it until Baz got the hint.

Nellie got a ping to her HUD from Baz.

She’s cute when she’s angry.

Nellie carefully ignored the message and fought off a smile.

“They have communications,” Salem said a minute later. The Hope was barely moving now. After another few seconds, they would cut thrust. “I have Duke for you.”

“Put him up,” Nellie said quickly. She really wanted to know what had happened to the mighty ship.

“PUT THAT OUT!” Duke’s sweaty and pale face appeared on her screen. Behind him, they could see people spraying down fires and someone’s legs hanging from the ceiling as they fished in a mass of cabling. “Sorry, things are still pretty bad over here.”

“That’s an understatement, Duke,” Nellie replied. “That ship is trashed. What the hell happened?”

“Shitty, shitty, shitty fucking jump shielding,” someone called from behind Duke. He frowned at them but didn’t say anything.

“We suffered damage when we went into jump transition. After that? We had one section fail after another.” Duke shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. The ship was within tolerances.” He looked to one side of the screen for a moment. “I can’t even tell you how bad it is yet; our systems are a mess.”

“Lucy?” Nellie asked. “Got anything?”

“Certainly, Captain.” Lucy stepped up next to Nellie and flicked an information packet to Nellie and Salem. “You should have it now, Duke.”

“This can’t be right,” Duke frowned.

“Let me see,” A man with electrical burns on his head pushed in next to Duke. “Well, we’re all fucked, aren’t we?”

“If I may?” Lucy asked Nellie.

“Go ahead,” Nellie said, and Lucy stepped in closer and put a schematic of Duke’s ship up on the secondary screen.

“Scans indicate you have about thirty percent of the ship open to vacuum, with another fifteen percent likely to fail within about two days if stationary, a day under drive.” She ticked off points on her fingers as she spoke. “The biggest problem is this spot here,” A set of compartments just below the massive growing stacks was highlighted, “Only a single compartment is still intact, and it will fail soon. There is every possibility you will lose the remaining drive control at that time.” She nodded to Duke’s strained expression and went on. “Three of the growing stacks are complete write-offs, with a fourth showing strain and likely to fail during any atmospheric entry. I can detect no working backup systems, and the shielding on your ship is so compromised you might as well not have any. I don’t have access to the original crew complement of your ship, but we have detected a little over three hundred separate life signs, of which fifty-six are in critical condition.”

“Wait, wait,” Duke stopped her. “We don’t have to go far, see,” He sent over some scan data and Nellie frowned. The scan data was well over seven years old, but it showed a habitable world in the area. “If we get that far, we can set up there.”

“Lucy?” Nellie asked.

“The planet is there, or rather,” She changed the data, showing the planet in a different relative position, “Here. Habitable from what we can tell with long-range scans, but those leave a lot of room for error.”

“Any better options?” Nellie asked.

“This moon is better,” Lucy pointed out, a small moon orbiting the only other planet in the system. “It is in the habitable range, and our scans are clearer.”

“What about the planet itself?” Nellie asked.

“Volcanic mess of a place,” Lucy shook her head. “Poisonous gasses in the air… give it a few hundred thousand years… then, maybe.”

“The planet was what I planned for,” Duke countered. “Is there no way?”

“We can get the ship there,” Lucy nodded. “But you will all be dead three days before we arrive.”

“Moon it is,” The bald man said. “We lost enough people already.”

“This is my ship,” Duke reminded the man.

“And this is my knife,” The bald man said pointedly. “And I ain’t the only one with people left to lose.”

“Fine,” Duke sighed. “We will get underway to the moon as soon as we have stabilized the drives.”

“Drive,” Lucy added helpfully. “Your second drive exploded a few minutes ago. Also, you will be better off if we tow you there. Can you get the power re-routed from your system drives to a structural integrity field?”

“We can do that, yeah,” Baldie nodded. Are we okay with moving people through that compartment you mentioned just in case we lose the back end?”

“That would be wise,” Lucy nodded. “If there is nothing else, Captain?”

“Thanks, Luce,” Nellie nodded to Lucy, and she returned to the sensors to monitor the ship while they towed it toward the moon.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Duke sighed.

“So say we all,” Nellie nodded and cut the comm line. “Okay, everybody. This is going to be a busy day. Let’s get to it.”

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

“What do you think of this as an entry trajectory?” Baz asked as he and Lucy compared notes. The bridge crew was gathered around a table in Nellie and Lucy’s quarters while Paren lay on the bed and drank another can of HyperDrive. They had all been working non-stop for the last eighteen hours, but none of them were feeling it yet. The advantage of their unique physiologies.

“That drops them in the right place, but their landing speed is too fast,” Lucy pointed out the impact velocity. “Try and find a way to leech more speed in the upper atmosphere.”

“Better a hard landing than burning up,” Baz countered.

“Just do it,” Salem sighed. “Do you always have-”

“Comm line closed,” Baz said and turned away. He had been doing that for hours, every time she spoke to him.

“You fucking infant!” Salem growled and threw an empty can at him. He ducked, and Paren lazily reached up and flicked it toward the trash bin as it passed.

“Focus, people,” Nellie called. “We only have another half hour. Lucy, how are the close scans?”

“Near perfect,” Lucy said with a grin, “Like I predicted. We are aiming for a highland region of the larger landmass on the moon. It has plentiful water, and the temperature ranges will be pleasant enough.”

“Life forms?” Nellie asked.

“Some larger mammals, reptiles, and avians, mostly small to medium creatures,” Lucy replied. “There is no sign of anything like the Coral Striders or Earth Movers we saw back on the Hub-world. There is a higher oxygen concentration, suggesting the possibility of larger insects, but other than that….”

“Great, instead of Abomi-Toads, we get giant spiders,” Nellie grunted.

“Giant-Spi-” Paren sat up.

“No!” Nellie and Lucy said at the same time.

“Spoilsports,” Paren sighed and lay back down.

“Remy to Captain,” Her HUD pinged with the internal comm system she shared with her synthetics and drones. “We are approaching the moon. There is a complication.”

“On our way,” Nellie called and pinged the others to head to the bridge as well.

“That can’t be a great sign,” Baz sighed as he slid into the pilot seat and started tracking the debris.

“I think the source is on the far side of the planet,” Remy said. It is stationary, not in orbit with the moon but rather the planet itself.”

“Projected size?” Nellie asked.

“Anything from the size of the Bly to a massive space station,” Remy replied, “I would guess it is a small to medium station as we aren’t seeing a large gravity well around it.”

“Do we abort the Hope’s landing?” Baz asked. “Because if not, we can use some of this scrap to slow it before atmospheric entry.”

“We abort; they all die in space,” Lucy countered. “Organics like to do things like breathe, Baz.”

“It seems like a waste of time, but each to their own,” Baz said with a lopsided grin. They can give it up anytime they want; it’s just laziness.”

“You remember I am organic, right?” Nellie checked.

“Organic-ish,” Baz countered with a laugh.

“Okay, new plan,” Nellie clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “We get the Hope down in one peace, then we head for whatever it is.”

“And if it is a problem?” Remy asked.

“Then we make it go away,” Nellie said coldly. “Permanently.”

“Understood; I’ll start weapon system tests, just in case.” Remy nodded and hurried off.

“He knows my systems work perfectly,” Lucy huffed. “Testing is superfluous.”

“It’ll keep Banjo busy anyway,” Paren said, “Speaking of which, I’m going to head back to my lab.”

“Sure,” Nellie said. “What are you doing in there, anyway?”

“Upgrading the Smilers,” Paren said as she darted away.

“Wait, what?” Nellie growled. “You leave them alone! They are terrifying enough!”

“You said she should have her own lab,” Lucy pointed out.

“Yeah, but… Ostie, I’ve doomed us all.” Nellie shook it off and turned back to the task at hand.

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

“There she goes,” Lucy said as they watched the fire trail wink out as the Hope lost enough speed and altitude to finally stop imitating a comet. “They are on target for impact at the selected point.”

“Sure, you don’t want to follow them down?” Lucy asked.

“Not yet,” Nellie frowned. “If whatever that is on the far side of the moon is some kind of threat, we need to be up here and ready to respond.”

The bridge crew watched the screen nervously as they tracked the rapidly falling arc of the Hope. It had managed to survive re-entry in one piece, but the final burn was the most important part. Everything could still go to shit.

“They are rotating to put the damaged growing bays to the floor,” Baz called.

“Impact in ten seconds,” Lucy called. “They should be countering the drop by now.”

“It’s coming apart!” Nellie leaped out of her chair. As they watched, sections separated from the main ship, whole compartments and sections dropping away.

“Shit, wait,” Lucy growled. “This looks intentional.”

“You are fucking kidding,” Nellie said flatly. “They warn any of you about this?”

No one answered.

“The sections are all slowing and moving toward the landing spot,” Baz highlighted the area. “One problem.”

“What?” Nellie had her head in her hands, trying not to lose her temper.

“Well, the vector was planned with the ship’s full weight in place. The remaining ship parts are going to overshoot and hit much further inland,” Baz noted blandly. So if they need anything from that… they better like a long walk—a long, long walk.”

“A problem they wouldn’t have if they told us it would do that,” Nellie said through gritted teeth. “Lucy, are they safe for now?”

“As safe as they can be,” Lucy said angrily. “Idiots.”

“Fine, fuck it,” Nellie ran her hands through her hair. “Let’s go see the other thing. I feel like shooting something now anyway.”

“Me too,” Lucy grumbled. “Me too.”