Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.34

Chapter 34

Expedition

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do that,” Duke said firmly. “My people are relying on me to get them past that blockade. If I give you the method, what is to stop you from leaving as soon as you can and leaving me and my people stuck here?”

“Yeah, I figured you would say something like that,” Nellie said with a shrug. “Was still worth asking.” She leaned over the desk, “So, can I get some maps of the area instead?”

“What?” Duke seemed thrown by the sudden change in subject. “It’s not based on geography; I have another method.”

“I know; I just want to go get some of the really good loot from the ships that crashed further out.” Nellie smiled politely. She would not say she still didn’t have a way off the planet, but he would probably figure it out anyway. She trusted Duke, at least in most things, but bitter experience had taught her to hedge her bets when she could. “They haven’t been scavenged at all, so there is prime tech just sat out there.”

“Bea,” Duke looked horrified. “With everything going on out there… that is insane.”

“No,” Nellie said firmly, “That’s why now is the best time. No one else is going out in all this.”

“Because it is insane,” Duke nodded. “What could possibly be worth that kind of risk?”

“Well, that is something we will discover when we find it,” Nellie grinned. “There could be anything out there. Military-grade gear and who knows what else.”

“So you need maps to cut down the risk?” Duke asked hesitantly.

“Exactly,” Nellie nodded. “Also to help orient when we are out there. It’s not like the Global Positioning satellites are all working. Those maps will be life savers if we hit a dead zone.”

Duke kept arguing with her for quite a while. His initial reaction was no chance. As far as he saw it, he would be helping Nellie commit suicide… which was touching if a little condescending. Still, Nellie was insistent on going with or without the maps, so in the end Duke sent her some digi-maps of the area in case it helped. He still wasn’t happy but was willing to at least do that much to increase her chance of surviving.

“So, any choice bits you are after?” Nellie asked once she had the maps. “We can keep an eye out for it while we are out there.”

“How about you just be careful instead,” Duke said, shaking his head. “Get whatever it is you want, then high-tail it back here as soon as you can, okay?”

“That’s the plan,” Nellie said, “I’m not going sightseeing while we are out there or anything.”

“Good.” He held out one massive hand. “I really hope we meet again, Bea.”

“Me too, Duke.” She shook his hand and headed back to the ship, where Lucy and the Centrum units were waiting.

“The maps look good; I think we are as ready as we will ever be,” Lucy said as she hopped into the pilot’s seat.

“How come you get to fly?” Nellie asked.

“We’ll take turns,” Lucy said. “You take over when I get tired.”

“Okay,” Nellie sat back as they lifted smoothly into the air and headed out past Duke’s place for the first time. She spent the next ten minutes studying the maps, only to have a persistent thought breakthrough. “Hey, wait a minute! You’re never tired!”

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

Crush stood and gaped as his eyes ran over the massive ship. Brix was standing next to him, bent over with his hands on his thighs as he seemed ready to faint.

“So, do we have a deal?” Duke asked with a wide smile.

“How did you ever…” Crush said for about the fifteenth time. “I mean, it’s just not…”

“And that is exactly how,” Duke said with a chuckle. “No one is looking for a colony ship being built under a farm.”

“And it is functional?” Crush asked. “I mean, it is actually fully functional?”

“Has been for the last week,” Duke said. “We are still running tests, of course. Then we will provision and leave as soon as we are full.” He held out a hand to Brix, “Do we have a deal, gents?”

“You are really planning to leave the sectors?” Crush knew he sounded dense, but to be fair, he had just discovered a massive colony ship the size of a –his brain failed to find any analogy for the size– under a fucking farm!

“The sectors are all about control and influence,” Duke said grimly. “It stopped being about the people in those sectors long ago.”

Crush couldn’t argue with that, even if it was more a generalization than an actual fact. Governments require power to operate, and that naturally attracts the power-hungry. Those most likely to win an election are rarely the ones most likely to lead fairly or even well. Over time, any government tends toward control rather than service. It is just how it works.

Brix tapped Crush on the shoulder and pointed. “Ship?”

“Yeah, big guy,” Crush said, gently patting the big guy on the shoulder. “Big ship.”

“I’ll give you two a minute or two,” Duke said, calling out as he went over to talk to those working on the ship.

“This is actually happening, right?” Brix asked. He had turned his back on the sight of the colony ship but was still pale and shaking. “I’m not insane?”

“Oh, it’s happening,” Crush said grimly. “We have a bit of a choice to make here, Brix.”

“We can’t just leave everyone behind,” Brix said instantly. “We owe it to them to get rid of the Feds, take our planet back.” He was almost mumbling at the end. Crush could see he knew trying was pointless at this point.

“The last thing this planet needs at the moment is a war, Brix,” Crush said gently. “It would finish this place permanently,” His eyes turned up as if looking through the layers and up into the darkness and the black clouds. “If it isn’t already.”

“Still, we just leave?” Brix asked. “Run away?”

“We save our people,” Crush said firmly. “The men and women who signed on to follow us. We get them out safe and sound.”

Brix still looked hesitant.

“What?” Crush asked, “What more can we do?”

“Will they want to come?” Brix asked. “Leave the sectors and all?”

Crush thought about it. He had wondered the same about his own team. In the end, there was only one answer. “We can only ask them.”

“Can we trust him,” Brix asked quietly. “Duke, I mean?”

“Do we have a choice?” Crush said. “Really?”

“No,” Brix said, finally starting to look more in control of himself again. “You’re right; this is the option we have. So we take it.”

There was more than a hint of the salesman about Duke; Crush decided once they called him back over. He was clearly a true believer in this plan of his, but he could not quite give up on the hard sell. Whenever they could have used some time to think, Duke pressed instead. It was more than a little annoying, but there were worse things than a pushy boss.

And that was what Duke would be. He was very clear he would not be sharing command of the ship, although they were free to leave at any time. He repeatedly stressed that point as if it proved his good intentions. Not that Crush didn’t think it was true… he was sure that Duke would let them leave at any time. Of course, that would either be here, on a planet in the middle of a hellish apocalypse, or on some alien world with no way home.

If they chose to go, they would follow the rules like any of the other crew. Crew, not colonists. It seemed there would be two types of people on board. A good third would be the crew. That was Duke, his people, and now Brix, Crush, and their people. The other two-thirds would be the colonists; he had apparently been gathering them for years. Scientists to field hands, ditch diggers to engineers, he had them all.

It was all a little too ‘perfect society’ for Crush, but he kept that to himself. One thing that Duke had not had, until today anyway, was anything in the way of a security force. That was both a good and bad thing. It was good, as Crush and the others didn’t have to worry about Duke trying something, but bad in terms of a man who plans a colony ship without worrying about security has missed something pretty damn major.

Crush was just trying to learn everything he could now. If he was lucky, they could figure out what else he had missed before it killed them all.

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

Nellie gasped as they pulled up sharply, the grasping mouth closing on empty air as the shuttle pulled clear of the creature. It was mammoth in size but strangely unsettling to look at. As they approached the thing, it had looked like a weird clustering of trees in the swampy landscape. The salty sea water, having resisted turning completely to ice, deluged the land and left behind large areas of brackish swamp land with rare outcroppings where some trees had survived. It was one of those rare surviving clumps of trees that they had assumed they were flying past when a shape rose out of the center. The ‘trees’ they had thought stripped of leaves by the water were actually the legs of some colossal creature.

A bulbous body in the center of the nested legs terminated in a tube-like neck that opened at the end as the four mandibles opened wide, revealing rows of sharp teeth. It was terrifying enough in the memory that Nellie kept them rising until they were more than twice the height they had been.

Even so, she half expected to feel the shuttle shudder as it was grabbed from behind.

Her HUD had helpfully labeled the creature as a ‘Coral Strider’ and noted it was exclusive to shallow waters near the shoreline. Which begged the question of where exactly the shoreline was now. Was it another refugee pushed inland by the waves they had seen so much evidence for, or had the continent changed more than they ever could have expected?

“This is problematic,” Lucy sighed as she once more updated the maps. “We might as well not have a map at this point. All they do is confirm how much the landscape has changed.”

“Can we still even find the crash sites?” Nellie asked.

“Of course,” Lucy said promptly, “If the crashed ships are still there is another matter. Or worse, they could be underwater.”

“If that thing is what is in the shallows, I am sure as hell not going swimming,” Nellie insisted.

Two hours and a couple more surprises later, Nellie and Lucy approached the first suspected crash site. It had been an unlikely place to begin with, but given the state of things, neither of them was expecting much left to find.

“Well, that is certainly unusual,” Lucy said as the shuttle descended -Nellie had refused to fly low after the Coral Strider- before coming to hover low over a shifting pool of water. The drive end of a large Corvette was in the center of the pool. The rest of the ship had been buried, nose first, into the center of a crater that was now full of half-frozen brackish water. That was surprising enough; it was what was making the water move that was the most surprising… the engines were still running.

“Someone has to be inside, right?” Nellie asked.

“Scans aren’t able to penetrate the military-grade hull plating,” Lucy said. “But it is possible.”

“Scout drone?” Nellie asked.

“Scout drone,” Lucy confirmed and slapped a large button on the control panel.

“I’ve got it!” Nellie said as she connected to the drone and opened a view window in her HUD. “Keep an eye out for Coral Striders, okay?”

“I will,” Lucy said, smiling as the scout drone bounced off the wing.

“I saw that,” Nellie said. “I’m new at this; give me a break.”

“I never said a thing,” Lucy said with a laugh.

Nellie did a few quick control checks on the drone, getting used to how it handled. They were a lot more responsive than the shuttles she was used to piloting. Once she was happy with it, she had it fly toward the rear emergency hatch on the Corvette. It was clearly marked, so she had no trouble finding it despite the carbon scoring on the outer hull.

“Popping emergency hatch now,” Nellie said, sending the command to the drone. A pair of small claws popped off the safety plates and pulled the handles, the hatch popping free and dropping to the water as she did so.

“Drop a signal relay in the hatchway,” Lucy advised.

“Done,” Nellie said, moving the drone into the dark interior and activating an infrared emitter on the top. “Okay, gross.” The hatchway was not empty. There were two bodies in it, and with the power running, the heat must have been as well. They were in very advanced decay, and there were puddles… “Moving on,” Nellie said quickly.

“One second,” Lucy said, “Let’s scan the bodies and see how they died.”

“Waiting and nauseous,” Nellie said with a grimace. “Well?”

“They were both killed in the crash,” Lucy said after a moment. “Extensive crush damage to the necks and spines, but that is all I can tell without internal scans.”

“Do we need to do that?” Nellie asked. “Check for soft tissue or organ damage?” She was really hoping not to linger much longer.

“No need,” Lucy said. “Besides, I think their soft tissues are those puddles underneath them.”

“Moving!”

The rest of the ship was a mess of blast damage, and everything below the water line was flooded. The scout could go under the water, but they decided not to. Lucy was only interested in the drives, and Nellie dearly hoped never to discover what might lurk under there.

“Why are the drives still running?” Nellie asked. “I can’t believe the control room or bridge are still intact.”

“Probably got stuck on the last issued command,” Lucy said. “We can track the control lines and get the drone to cut the command.”

So that was what they did: moving the drone through the ship to the drive room and finding the control interface. A figure was plastered against the bulkhead, a massive splatter of blood and bits of bone smeared around it.

“What the hell?” Nellie frowned. “What happened to them?”

“Impact at speed,” Lucy shrugged. “I’ll see if we can get into the logs.”

From there, it was a simple process. The scout drone cut into a wall section and got the control cables from the front of the corvette cut. The drives stopped instantly. Some short in the lines must have been sending the engage command constantly. Once the drives died, it suddenly felt too quiet.

Nellie missed the roar of the drives as soon as it was replaced with the quiet blackness that pressed in around them. The darkness that rushed in as soon as the light from the drive died was accompanied by a biting cold, which caused the hull to creak slightly as it cooled.

“Creepy,” Nellie said. “Shall we get these drives and go?”

“Not big enough,” Lucy said with clear irritation, “But I can scale up the design.”

“Any sign of an Exo-Drive?” Nellie asked.

“None,” Lucy said, “I’m hoping they might have a design in their databases, assuming they are still intact.”

“We have to go in there,” Lucy said with terrible certainty.

“Seriously?” Nellie groaned.

“I’m sorry, but there is no other way.” Lucy started to pull their gear out into the upper cargo bay for the two of them. “It’s not exactly clean in there, but we have to physically cut the drives free from the inside. The scout drone just can’t do that.”

“Ugh, fine,” Nellie said. “But the moment we are off this planet, I want those drones upgraded.” She knew she sounded sulky, but the thought of the dead bodies in the hatchway was making her sick. The idea of pushing past them into the ship…

“I’ll take care of the bodies before we go in,” Lucy said with a smile. “Don’t worry.”

“How?” Nellie asked, “And please don’t say by hand because I like those hands…”

“With nanites, of course,” Lucy laughed. “Short life span nanites to break the bodies down.”

“Oh, nice idea,” Nellie said. “But I don’t want to watch.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy asked. “The process is quite fascinating.”

“I’ll throw up in my suit,” Nellie insisted as she clicked her helmet into place. “And this is the last set of armor I have.”

Lucy flew the shuttle to the entry hatch while waiting on the cargo ramp. The moment the ramp nudged against the corvette’s hull, Nellie switched to internal air.  Lucy formed a pair of small clear cubes and threw them through the opening and into the hatch.

“Sure you don’t want to watch?” Lucy teased her.

“I will seriously take this helmet off and throw up on you,” Nellie warned.

A couple of minutes later, Lucy declared the hatchway clear and leaped into it without any hesitation.

Nellie followed a few seconds later, feeling her stomach tighten as she jumped, only to grimace as her boots splashed down into what appeared to be a layer of clear water with some small cubes floating in it.

“What am I standing in?” She asked, eyes closed.

“Clean water, with a few bits,” Lucy said with an eye roll that Nellie could hear in her voice.

“This was people?” Nellie asked, gingerly stepping out of the hatchway.

“This was mostly corpses that used to be people,” Lucy laughed at Nellie’s stricken expression. “Let’s get this done before something tries to eat us.”

“See, there was no need to add that last bit,” Nellie grumbled.

“Not a joke,” Lucy said. “There should have been way more bodies in this ship.”

“Ostie!” Nellie growled and pulled her pistol, “I really, really, really hate this fucking planet!”