ShipCore

USD: 1 Day after Cadre-S Graduation

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A Elevator, CIC

The atmosphere in MIL-1A’s CIC was thick with tension as Tia swept her gaze over the scene. The bridge officers remained pinned to the floor, each one restrained by cords of shimmering nanites.

Alex tried to suppress her unease as she looked over the results of their sudden takeover. Admiral Anderson looked at them with a fierce glare that dared them to do anything to him.

How the fuck were things going to resolve now?

[Informative: System accession process in progress. Locking NAI backdoor access units to Omega Authority… 293 trillion adjustments to AI units remaining.]

Alex listened numbly to Tia discuss the events with Fleet Admiral Wilkes, but her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt like everything was constricting around her. It felt like she was back over Dedia, the defense under her command; her desperate, failed plan to save the colonist from the Corpo Fleet, costing her friends their lives and sealing the Tears’ fate.

Only now they were facing a growing field of rampant nanites disintegrating and a failure would cost trillions of lives.

A red blinking warning in the corner of her vision alerted her that her throat had constricted and she’d stopped breathing. A feeling of vertigo assaulted her, and before she could process anything, Tia’s palms came together to slap her cheeks gently.

Tia’s face filled her vision and Alex remembered to breathe finally, swallowing as she shook her head slightly. A glance at the mainscreen showed that the calling Admirals had already signed off; she’d missed the entire conversation.

"Alex, things are going to be okay. I need your help,” Tia said, staring into her eyes. Determination boiled off of the other girl, and Alex could somehow feel the emotion pouring off of her through their digital NAI link.

That feeling sparked its own seed inside of Alex’s chest and she pushed the panic attack that had assaulted her down. “What… What do you need me to do?”

“We need to take over the management of the containment process.” Tia explained. Her hands fell from Alex’s face before turning back to Admiral Anderson’s control console and sitting down. Almost immediately, her fingers flickered across the keyboard at a rapid clip Alex could barely follow.

Tia looked at her and nodded to the men laying on the ground, “First, let them all go, then come help me with this.”

Alex wasn’t sure what ‘this’ was, but she nodded. Prevent everyone from dying first; figure things out later.

Admiral Anderson stood up and moved to block her path. He skewered both her and Tia with a hateful glare. “You will not get away with this,” he spat at them.

Tia skewered him with a glare of her own, not impressed. “Finally deciding to stand up, Admiral? I thought you were going to sit on your ass until things were resolved.”

Alex shifted her weight between her feet, unsure if she was going to let her pass by so she could release the crew or if he intended to make her restrain him, but he finally turned on a heel and strode out of the CIC, stepping over the officers still locked to the floor.

Alex waited until he was completely gone, then moved to the first officer. She was able to release the bindings with a gesture and they flowed like a blob off the man and into her feet, where they melted into her boots, leaving them with a metal sheen.

One by one, she released each man. As they massaged numb wrists and ankles, she couldn’t ignore the apprhensive glances they shot at her.

One young officer voiced what they had all been thinking. “What are you going to do with us?”

Alex blinked as every eye riveted on her. She realized they might not have heard the entire conversation; actually she hadn’t either, but what they needed to do was clear.

“We are all in this together; all of you know about the rampant nanites that are spreading. We need to prevent them from reaching Meltisar. I assume Admiral Anderson was already working on that and you all are in the know. Everyone needs to get back on it.” Alex announced clearly for everyone to hear.

There were a few shared glances, and she braced herself for protests or arguments, but instead was greeted with a few choruses of ‘Aye, Aye’ or just the men jumping back to their consoles.

Without any further hesitation, they began performing various tasks at their stations - scrutinizing readouts, typing commands into interfaces, and organizing flight plans over their voice comms. The chatter of operations returned once more to the command center’s bridge.

Alex returned to the flag bridge and sat down at the console beside Tia. Her focus was riveted on a large screen with dozens of displays showing different visualizations of the various vessels and ships around MIL-1A. Without even reaching up to draw them, path lines appeared directing various ships on different courses, their D-field representations showing a solid wall being used to shove any nano particles that might have escaped into a growing basket of magnetic fields provided by the ships.

Alex realized that Tia was far more integrated into the system than herself. Considering her own abilities, she bit her lip.

The shrike had been complex to command. This was another level, and even with the Shrike, she hadn’t even been the one controlling it. That had all been Nameless. She told him what to do, and he did it for her. Her earlier panic offered to return, but she shut it down again.

“What do you need me to do?” Alex asked.

Tia turned to look at her before eyeing the console. It flipped on and the screen was replaced with a depiction of various battle groups that were in various positions standing off from the station.

“I need you to rope these admirals into joining in the efforts.”

“What?”

“They aren’t helping.”

Alex blinked. “How?”

“Tell them everyone is going to die if they don’t move to help. If that doesn’t work threaten to blow them up.” Tia said as if the answer was obvious.

She started to turn away, but Alex felt a surge of panic. “What if they refuse, anyway?”

Tia’s eyes remained focused on the crew as she replied calmly, “They won’t. We have all the cards. FADM Wilkes already ordered them to. Weren’t you listening?”

Alex frowned. “I don’t like how we’re threatening people.”

Tia sighed softly, turning to face Alex again. “We don’t have much choice right now. They might have been able to contain it without our help, but I can tell you that we would be in a very poor position. That AGAI thing was one of us, Alex.”

[Informative: Cleanup progress has reached 25% completion. No rampant nanites have been detected leaving local area and containment has a high chance of success.]

Alex frowned. “You’re sure?”

[Notice: Resolution of nanites drifting in nearby space is severely limited, however historical analysis shows that it is unlikely any escape from the local area before being contained. The greatest difficulty lies in preventing the spread of rampancy from infected modules to the remaining sections of the station.]

Alex nodded slowly, processing this information as she glanced back at Tia. “Okay. Let’s get this done.”

“Just stop spiking your compu usage.” Tia chided.

Alex blinked in confusion. “I thought you had most of it?”

Tia frowned. “Nameless and I agreed on a computation sharing agreement that dynamically allocates processing power depending on our needs. There’s a baseline limit that should keep our ANUF needs met.”

“Haaa…” Alex mumbled, her inner turmoil coiling around her as she realized that Nameless had been making deals and talking to Tia without even consulting her. It made her feel more useless. She did not let that feeling distract her.

The first Admiral she contacted was simple enough, he immediately patched his group into Tia’s command network and several hundred more ships joined the teams plowing through space around the station. Ships’ D-fields expanded well past their standard distance, to allow each vessel to cover a wider swath of space.

The task seemed daunting, space was enormous. Some of the explosions on the stations might have hurled a rouge nanite into a decaying orbit or worse; directly towards the planet. There was really no way for them to know despite Nameless’ promise. Yet everyone was determined to scour the local space as thoroughly as possible.

The efforts to detach the infected station sections had progressed as well; lasers had chopped it off, but it was slowly disintegrating and there was no way to physically maneuver the platform. Instead, ships had to utilize their D-fields to push it and the growing rampant mass of nanites away.

One mistake would spill a growing angry mess into space; a single ship maneuvering in the wrong direction would be all it took. Tia’s commands sent ships into an interlocking dance that pushed the disaster into a higher and higher orbit.

Requests for assistance began pouring in from evacuation shelters and fleet captains coordinating cleanup and rescue efforts. Her console indicated that over a hundred thousand people were awaiting rescue.

Several Admirals resisted her requests, but Tia was right; none of them refused to join the effort. It seemed that their shared commitment to saving Meltisar outweighed any personal misgivings the fleet commanders had.

Progress was slow, but moved at a steady pace as the ships closed their nets and combed the sectors assigned to them. As the need for her to convince Admirals to join in the effort disappeared, Alex’s attention shifted towards the rescue efforts.

Her screen switched to the appropriate display and her eyes searched for Thea and Rachel in the sea of activity. She found them; but Thea’s shuttle was going the wrong way.

Alex’s brow furrowed, concern stabbing at her, and her fingers sprang into action on her keyboard. A priority override gave her access to the shuttle’s sensors, and the security surrendered immediately to her NAI authorization code. An optical camera filled a PIP display with an unconscious Thea confined inside a transparent box, her ankles and wrists restrained by two blocks of metal.

Anger flared; despite the urgency of the situation, someone had decided that trying to steal Thea was a priority. Worse, no one deserved to be locked in a box. Overcome with urgency, Alex grabbed Tia’s arm, disrupting her focus on another urgent matter.

“Look at this,” she uttered sharply, pointing to the sensor feed directed at Thea’s containment.

Tia glanced at the screen, her expression one of mild concern. “I see it, but they’re about to clear the infected section from the station. You take care of it.”

Alex nodded. She swiftly opened a comms channel with the shuttle. Her voice firm and demanding, she ordered them to divert back to MIL-1A’s medical center immediately.

The shuttle crew’s response was unexpected and unwelcome defiance. “We have orders from Admiral Anderson to proceed on our current course,” the pilot stated firmly, leaving no room for negotiation.

Alex looked to see if she could override the shuttle’s controls, but she was locked out.

Frustration mounting, Alex reached out to Fleet Admiral Wilkes directly. She contacted him quickly and explained Thea’s situation—an NAI who had been converted to their side but remained unconscious due to injuries sustained during the fight with the AGAI.

Wilkes raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Is this really our priority right now?” he asked bluntly.

Infuriated by his hesitation—and taking a cue from Tia’s assertiveness—Alex issued an ultimatum: “This is not a negotiation. You can’t have her. If that shuttle lands anywhere other than the medical facility at MIL-1A, we’ll assume we’re being betrayed… and we’ll start putting holes in your fleet.”

Fleet Admiral Wilkes was taken aback by the threat, but glanced at Tia for confirmation. Tia simply shrugged and then smirked, adding her own support: “You heard the girl.”

As Alex anxiously waited for confirmation while the FADM contacted the shuttle personally, she clenched her fists, trying to contain her mounting worry. When the vehicle finally reversed course, she felt a surge of relief.

Taking a deep breath, Alex forced herself to refocus, but she found she wasn’t needed. Tia and Nameless continued to colaborate, exchanging communications periodically. Alex felt an odd sort of… jealousy? Nameless had always worked through her, and her alone, before. Sharing him was… strange.

She kept her attention riveted on the progress of Thea’s and Rachel’s shuttles. As she observed, she felt a knot forming in her stomach, an amalgamation of concern for her sister and friend and even the Corpo NAI that had done her best to kill her.

Taking a deep breath, Alex decided she needed to go. She turned to Tia. “I’m going to check on my sister and Rachel personally. I need to make sure they’re alright.”

Tia looked at her seriously. “Go ahead,” Tia replied with a nod. “I’ll handle things here.”

Alex left the CIC but continued to grapple with her nagging feelings of inadequacy; despite her best efforts, she couldn’t fully dismiss how effortlessly Tia seemed to perform tasks. She was doing it without the equivalent of Nameless to act as an intermediary filter.

Feeling self-critical yet driven by a concern for those dear to her, Alex hurried toward the medical center where they awaited her arrival. She would see to it that they were okay. That was something she could handle and was better suited for. She felt her lack of self-confidence burn away. Everyone had something they were good at. This was hers.

A quick tram trip through the deserted sections of the station brought her to the medical center. Alex took a moment to catch her breath, her chest tightening with anticipation. Her voice wavered slightly, “Nameless, can you please tell me where Elis and Rachel are and if Thea arrived?”

The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness before Alex checked her datapad and found Rachel’s room listing on her own. She started that way when a crack in her ear stopped her.

Tia’s sharp voice cracked at her with annoyance. “Alex! Your processing usage spiked again! We nearly lost some ships because I couldn’t keep up!”

Alex’s brow furrowed in confusion. She called out to Nameless again with an edge of impatience in her voice. “Nameless? Are you there?”

[Notice: This unit apologizes for the delay. A critical function was being performed.]

Alex felt taken aback. She couldn’t remember Nameless ever apologizing to her… for anything.

“What is going on?” she asked as worry gnawed at her.

[Informative: Crewmember Elis is no longer on the station.]

Alex’s heart seemed to stop for a moment before pounding painfully in her chest. “What do you mean?”

[Informative: This unit discovered that Crewmember Elis was not located in the medical facility upon arrival. A thorough security sweep found no evidence of her on the station. A full review of relevant security logs has revealed that she has been kidnapped and removed from the station.]

A cold fury began building within Alex as she pieced together what Nameless was saying. “And where is that shuttle now? Where are they taking my sister?”

[Notice: The shuttle was tracked landing on a Corporate Systems diplomatic cutter. It is currently hard burning toward the FN Virginis jump point and has already left the defense net’s laser range.]

Alex’s emotions surged like a maelstrom within her, a mixture of livid anger and sheer terror. Desperate for immediate action, the world suddenly dissolved around her into a swirling maelstrom of chaotic blue lights. Tia suddenly popped into existence in front of her.

Tia collected herself and snapped at her, “Oh great, just take 100% and stall everything, why don’t you? Great time for—”

Alex didn’t let her finish. She grasped Tia’s shoulders, her eyes burning blue with desperation. “They took Elis! They got her on a cutter! It’s hard burning out of here! It’s already out of laser range!”

Tia’s anger shifted to concern as she placed her hands on Alex’s trembling arms. “Okay, Alex. Let us out of here and I’ll start on it. There are probably a dozen cruisers smashing into each other in the next few seconds, if you don’t.”

Alex released their virtual connection, the real world snapping back into place with an auditory pop. Tia’s voice promptly entered her ear comm with crisp clarity: “Head for ship bay 4. It’s nearby; there are some fast cruisers in drydock, but they are still good to go.”

Alex’s heart pounded relentlessly in her chest as she sprinted through the corridors toward the hangar. As she ran, the walls seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of her, the sound of her boots echoing through the empty halls like thunderclaps heralding an impending storm.

One clear thought cut through the turmoil inside of her.

Nothing would stand between her and rescuing Elis from those who dared to take her away.

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