Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.16

Chapter 16

Tipping Point.

“Aww, Bea, don’t say you’ve replaced me already!” Leo clutched his chest as if mortally wounded. Staggering to lean on the wall, he hid his face and let out half-hearted sobs of grief. Nellie chuckled at the display and was about to answer when Baz beat her to it.

“Alas, it is so!” Baz said, standing taller and leaping forward like some dashing hero out of the worst kind of romance novel. “The fickle woman has turned her burning eyes to me. I shall treasure my time as her passing fancy, for those same eyes will surely move to another soon!”

“Oh, fuck,” One of the others muttered. “Now there’s two of them.”

Nellie just opened and closed her mouth, trying desperately to think of a thing to say.

“Treasure her!” Leo said, grabbing at Baz’s clothes. “Treasure her while it lasts.”

“I shall, dear friend! I swear it on my beating heart!” Baz said with the intonation of a born soap opera hero.

“I told you we should have shot him,” Salem said with a scathing look at the pair.

“Yeah, can you handle this while I try to find Duke?” Nellie asked and fled, leaving Salem to try and separate the two men who were at that point swearing a duel to the death with the sharpest stuffed animals in the land.

“Where did you find that one?” Duke asked as she saw him wiping his hands on his trousers before waving a greeting. He looked tired, more so than she had ever seen him. “And can you take him back?”

“Everything okay?” Nellie asked. “You look shattered.”

“Not enough people to run this place; we are all working double shifts,” Duke said.

“Well, I might be able to help with people, but can I ask a huge favor first?” She gave him her best smile, which at least got a laugh.

“Didn’t think we had much left to offer you, to be honest,” Duke said. “I was starting to worry you would stop coming by.”

“I don’t forget my friends, Duke,” Nellie said seriously. “Even when I should… which is what I meant about that favor.”

“I’m listening,” Duke said as he settled himself on the corner of a desk that creaked ominously under his considerable weight.

Of course, Nellie wasn’t going to tell the whole story, so she fudged the details a bit. She claimed that Crush-Cha was a friend from a while ago that she had fallen out with and added a suitably boring meeting for the pair at the Hub. Nellie went on to explain that she had been forced to fake her death to get away from a debt, and that was why she needed a middleman to help Crush-Cha out.

She implied, without saying it outright, that she had expected help from Crush, but he was too angry to give it until after she was forced to fake her death.

Lucy helped out by adding a few details here and there before she could fumble or hesitate.

In the end, she was pretty proud of the story. It had all the factual elements without the risk of the planet getting annihilated.

“There is more than you’re sayin’ to that story,” Duke said thoughtfully. “That Crush-Cha fellow pissed you off some. I can tell, much as you try to hide it.”

“Maybe a little,” Nellie tried to keep the remanent anger out of her voice. “His initial reaction to something I did was not great.”

“Okay, so we help out this rebellion of his,” Duke said, “That might bring attention to us, don’t you think?”

“No reason why it should,” Nellie said. “The Feds don’t exactly come out this way often.”

“And if they start?” Duke asked.

“Then cut Crush-Cha off,” Nellie said. “If that happens, I’ll run the stuff to them myself.”

“As long as that is understood,” Duke nodded. “I have a lot to protect here.”

“You do,” Nellie nodded. “And if push comes to shove, it won’t hurt to have a lot of armed people owe you a favor or three, will it?”

Duke grinned hugely.

From there, it was just a matter of negotiating how much they would get. There was no way that Nellie or Duke was going to send supplies for a thousand, but about six hundred they could do. Nellie would ferry out a few weeks worth in the first run, and she sent Baz back to the yard to get the other shuttle while they got everything ready. It was a colossal amount of stuff, the most she had ever carried in one go. Once they had sorted everything and it was being loaded Duke reminded her about his people shortage.

She was just finishing up telling him about all the refugees in the village when Baz returned with Lucy flying the second shuttle. It was strange seeing Lucy in anything other than her regular outfit. In fact, it had been a very long time since Nellie had seen Lucy in a shipsuit. It reminded her of their time together building the Bly, and she found herself reliving the tenseness, excitement, and amazing closeness of those first few weeks. It left her half in a daze as they finished up with Duke and climbed into the shuttles to head for the coordinates Crush-Cha had given them.

Lucy was drumming her hands on the arms of her chair; feet popped up on the console in front of them as Nellie flew the shuttle. She was even wearing sunglasses in complete defiance of what gloomy light managed to pierce the dust clouds above. Without realizing it, Nellie found her eyes roving over Lucy and admiring her shapely figure.

A deep breath from Lucy drew her eyes as a hand toyed with the zip on the ship suit, pulling it down slowly as Lucy arched her back to shift further back in the chair. For the first time in her life, Nellie found herself enjoying watching another woman slowly revealing… She guiltily glanced at Lucy’s face to find Lucy grinning lasciviously as she watched Nellie ogle her.

“See anything you fancy?” Lucy asked, pulling her sunglasses down and winking.

“Uh,” Nellie stammered as she felt her cheeks flushing with a powerful blush. “Sorry,” She stammered and pulled her eyes back to the controls.

“Don’t be,” Lucy said earnestly. “I like you looking, besides,” She laughed. “I snatched a kiss once, so I guess I kind of owe you one.”

“Uh, I guess,” Nellie wanted to die. She was being as awkward as a teenager with her first crush. Not that Lucy was her crush… right?

“Feel free to collect right now if you like,” Lucy said, leaning over toward Nellie.

“I’m flying,” Nellie swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry as she took refuge in the controls again.

“I can fly us, don’t worry.” Lucy said, “No pressure if you don’t want to. I just want you to know you can.”

Lucy was so close, and she smelled really good. Like, really good. She flicked her eyes over to Lucy, seeing the eyes sparkling so close to her. Without really thinking about it, Nellie leaned over a little until their lips were nearly touching, her eyes lost in Lucy’s. She swallowed nervously and closed that last little bit of space, feeling Lucy’s warm lips against hers.

An unknown time later, she pulled away from another kiss, trying to remember when Lucy had moved to sit astride her. The last –who knew how long– she had been lost in the feel of Lucy’s lips and body pressed against hers.

“Wow,” Nellie said, breathing fast for a reason she didn’t want to consider.

“Yeah,” Lucy said happily. “We should do that more often.”

“I, uh, I better get ready to land,” Nellie said quickly. “But,” she hesitated, “I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”

“Oh, we landed about five minutes ago,” Lucy laughed. “We were busy, so I didn’t say anything.”

“Shit!” Nellie said, struggling to get up and realizing her shirt was pulled up. When had that happened? “We better get out there.”

“Relax, no one’s here yet, and Baz and Salem are still arguing over who should open the loading bay in their shuttle.” Lucy laughed as she pulled her zipper up. It had somehow gotten a lot lower. A memory of her hand on Lucy’s breast flashed vividly through Nellie’s mind. Wow, okay. That had escalated fast. She double-checked herself in the shuttle window, just in case she had come unfastened anywhere else. Everything looked right, and she took a couple of deep breaths.

“I’ll go open up,” Lucy chuckled, “Give you a moment to calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm!” Nellie protested.

“Oh, please.” Lucy called back, “You’re drooling, Nell.”

“I am not!” Nellie quickly checked that the area around her mouth was dry.

“I didn’t mean there!” Lucy laughed.

“Lucy!” Nellie gasped.

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

Commandant Ahern stared at the map of the Hub and ground his teeth. A hard man, in his own estimation, Ahern had risen through the ranks slowly but with determination. This mission was to have been the crowning glory of his career. Instead, it was likely to bury it.

Pacing back and forth in his office at the very apex of the Hub should have made him feel powerful. Instead, he felt exposed. Exposed to the horror show of a world below him. Exposed to the empty space above him. Most of all, he felt exposed to his superiors' watching and judgemental eyes back in Federation space. They were not understanding with those who failed in their duties…

A knock on the door made him turn back to his desk.

“Come in!” His voice was firm, controlled, and practiced.

“Sir!” Security Chief Danforth stepped into the office, nodding before taking a position in front of the desk.

“Danforth, every time you enter my office, it is with bad news; I trust you are here to break that streak?” Ahern said with a scowl. “For both our sakes.”

“I’m afraid not, Sir,” Danforth said. The man was a recruiting poster come to life. Brave, loyal, always spotless in his gleaming white armor, and irritatingly handsome. Ahern had seen more of him in the last few weeks than he ever wanted to again. It was not Danforth’s fault, really. It was just a case of starting to really despise the messenger.

“Very well, let’s hear it then,” Ahern fixed a confident smile on his face, “What fresh nightmare have you for me today?”

“Sir. The beam weapons may have caused more damage than we anticipated,” Danforth said, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall. “It appears to have caused a degree of seismic instability we had not anticipated.”

Ahern nodded and tried for a thoughtful expression. It was too much to hope this disturbing little ball in the middle of nowhere was unstable enough to destroy itself. It would give Ahern great pleasure to watch the planet tear apart. It would also give him a perfect excuse for his failure here.

“How bad?” Ahern asked eventually.

“Severe disturbances due to the resonant damage,” Danforth said, placing a small holoprojector on the desk between them. “Resonance waives from the points of impact traveled through the mantle and clashed on the far side of the planet.”

Ahern watched the little holographic planet as the rippling waves clashed; the mostly barren continent on the far side of the planet was torn apart. It scarcely seemed to matter, given it was entirely unpopulated. The holo continued, and the far side of the planet was rocked by severe earthquakes and explosive eruptions.

“These large waves are headed our way, Sir.” Danforth highlighted a series of massive tidal waves. “They are feeding into each other and are expected to merge before striking the shore on this continent with devastating effects.”

“Dammit!” Ahern picked up the projector and smashed it against the desk.

“Quite,” Danforth said mildly.

“Projected loss?” Ahern growled.

“Total loss of the areas near the shoreline to the north, near total to the east,” Danforth said. “Severe flooding of the outer continent and the volcanic disturbances are adding tonnes more matter to the clouds, meaning the temperatures are going to drop soon.”

“Cataclysmic?” Ahern asked while keeping strict control over his voice. He wanted the answer to be yes. Needed it to be yes.

“No, Sir,” Danforth said. “But close.”

“Anything else?” Ahern asked, ashen-faced,

“Not at this time, Sir,” Danforth said with a small shake of his head. Of course, the exasperating man went on to give updates on the latest series of uprisings and problems anyway. Danforth needed to learn when to take a hint. It was that, or he was risking Ahern making the term ‘shoot the messenger’ a very real possibility.

Long after Danforth had left, Ahern sat at his desk with his fingers steepled before him. Every problem had a solution, and this one had to have one as well. When he was first tasked with making this sector a publicity win, Ahern had been excited.

Nervous, sure. But excited more than anything. It was a common tactic that the Federation had used often in its storied history. Taking a small, out-of-the-way sector and making it into a beacon that shone in the darkness of space. Everyone saw the success of the place, and resistance lessened across the war front. More than that, it inspired loyalty. A true win-win for both sides. Of course, for it to work, they had to expend a large amount of resources somewhere worthless, but the benefits always outweighed the costs. At least until now. Even when he first examined their information on this system, Ahern could see the extra risk involved. The usual target for this kind of operation was either a failed colony program or an ignored mining world.

Simple targets.

This place was anything but. On paper, it fits, but Ahern knew something the higher-ups didn’t. He was born in a world like this. A world where people were still pushing out, exploring, and setting up their own little settlements. Independent worlds attracted independent people. If the Hub had not been here, no one would have come to this place in a thousand years. But the Hub had settled on the only habitable world in this system. And the frontiers people had come along with it. Controlling people like this was a nightmare. They were too independent. Too fiercely proud of doing things themselves. Their personality profiles would read –to the smallest child– as simply ‘unfavorable, anti-social, resistant to authority’ rather than just listing them as the biggest collection assholes in fifteen sectors.

So Ahern knew the usual target of a negligible death toll and minimal disruption was going to fail before he even arrived in the system. He had known better than to argue the choice of world and made plans to counter the inevitable. It should have worked.

The plan itself was brilliant. Take a backup supply of synthetics along with him, off the books, and set them up in the middle of nowhere. Any losses could be replaced with synthetics and there was no chance of being discovered as he was set to control the planet for at least ten years. Plenty of time to attract colonists and reduce the number of synthetics to negligible before he left. It should have worked, would have worked.

He tried his comm unit again, carefully punching in the hidden contact numbers, just as he had for days. The line simply beeped and cut off. Again. His agent had been chosen carefully for their ability to adapt. Now, with no contact for over a fortnight, Ahern had to admit he was dead.

They had come into the system, which was supposed to be abandoned, to find some idiot sheriff blasting away at their ships with a damnable flotilla of civilian craft. There was no record of why he had assembled it, but it turned the easy subjugation of the planet into a pitched battle that caused the destruction of several of his ships before they brought the massive sector security ship down.

Ahern knew at least half of the synthetics company supplies had survived planetfall and were set up somewhere; his agent had found them and gotten things started, only to go quiet with no warning. That was a problem.

His whole strategy since arrival had been predicated on the number of dead not mattering. Now, he couldn’t replace them with synthetics, and he was looking at a death toll of at minimum thirty-five percent. His failure mark was ten.

Some of this he could lay at the feet of the sheriff that had blasted the planet, but how much?

While he thought, Ahern flicked idly through the news feeds on his desk comp. A story caught his eye. It told of a desperate struggle to survive on a far-flung colony in Fed space. It was a grim story, with failure as the outcome, but it gave him an idea.

“Danforth!” He yelled over the Federation comms.

“Sir!” Danforth answered immediately.

“My office, now.” Ahern allowed himself to smile as he sat back in his chair.

When Danforth reported a few minutes later, Ahern had his plan fixed in his mind.

“You called, Sir?” Danforth nodded and stood at attention.

“I think things are worse than you realized,” Ahern said in his best stern and fatherly tone.

“Sir?” Danforth asked, eyes once more fixed on a spot on the wall.

“These waves will undoubtedly cause a surge in wildlife from the affected areas. Not to mention the worsening situation in the skies will make temperatures plummet.” Ahern held up a hand to forestall any objections. “Not your fault, Danforth. I have the advantage of experience in these matters.”

“Sir,” Danforth said.

“We have no choice but to fall back to the cities. Order all our forces to abandon their outer positions.” Ahern said. “It is unfortunate, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“The outlying villages and towns?” Danforth asked.

“Must be sacrificed to save the cities. A sad reality of what that Sherrif has done.” Ahern said, careful to begin to shift the blame onto the Sherrif right from the start.

“Our mission is to–” Danforth began.

“And I have failed,” Ahern said sadly. “I have failed, Danforth. It is with a heavy heart I must accept the mission is impossible, given the conditions we encountered here. It always was. The Sherrif just did too much damage.”

“Do we evacuate then?” Danforth asked, his voice trembling. Failure would cost him almost as much as Ahern.

“No!” Ahern said, shaking his head. “We are men of conscience, after all. The Federation of Peoples will not abandon these people as their own government did. We will save them, as many as we can.”

“Sir?” Danforth seemed to be catching on.

“Against the fallout of their own Sherrif’s attack, they have no one to save them from certain destruction. No one but the brave troopers of the Federation.” Ahern said in his best noble tones.

“Yes, Sir!” Danforth said with a proud look. “I shall begin immediately, Sir!”

“Dismissed!” Ahern said and watched Danforth as the man marched out of the office with conviction. He sighed. It was a workable story. A colony saved from certain destruction by the timely intervention of brave Fed troops.

More than that, it was a public relations winner. If they let enough of the outer areas die, it would be just big enough to cover everything else up.

He reached out to the map with its display of the projected death toll and erased the number. Thirty-five percent just wouldn’t do. He wrote in seventy percent in its place. After a moment, he opened his private files and amended the figure showing his own troops' losses from three percent to twenty-three.

He would have to let one city fall.

It would look better to the press if the Feds took a heavy loss at least once.

Noble Fed troops dying in a desperate attempt to save the city.

That was a story that sold itself.