ShipCore

USD: Nine days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Eastern Continent, CSS Tremissis

The hum of stressed power systems vibrated through Heeler’s carapace as the defensive emplacements swept across the incoming horde of enemy nestlings. Long lines of fire left massive smoke clouds that billowed into the sky as the tall prairie grass burned and the nestlings were incinerated.

Heeler watched the weapons make a second sweep over the incoming horde across the plains from his vantage point atop the crashed Corporate System’s battlecruiser.

As the last of the nestlings died, Heeler growled in discomfort as he blocked out the incessant mind-noise thrust upon him by the nearby enemy Queens.

Their incessant attempts to subvert him to their nests had only increased in volume, as had their hostile attempts to force him to join them with their now hostile spawn.

Far distant waves of nestlings now crossed the surrounding plains across the continent toward their position, and long-range spotters from aerial drones showed that their number was increasing as the Queens increased the rate of production of new nestlings in their hives.

Over the last week, he had built multiple defensive emplacements as robot workers had come online. Regular deliveries of more construction robotics had begun to arrive thanks to his ability to relay orders from his Core’s MainComputer through his mind connection with Szizsielia, whose nest was part of a sprawling underground industrial plant and bunker.

A new delivery was about to arrive, and Heeler moved to observe from a hole in the crashed battlecruiser’s side. A large orbital shuttle made a loud crack as it slowed its descent through the sky, massive VTOL engines rotating to a vertical position as it came down for a landing on the ground near the crash site.

As it set down, the rear hatch opened and dozens of nestlings poured out, armor and back mounted gatling turrets glinting in the evening sun. A stream of flying multi-use orb drones copied them, flying up towards the battlecruiser to map the wreckage. A parade of tracked digger bots followed them more slowly, along with dozens of bipedal worker units.

Heeler felt satisfaction. It was the first major shuttle to arrive and with sub-orbital flight capabilities it could cross the thousands of kilometers to the nest every hour. A half dozen more were under construction, along with a rocket that would launch a new communication relay into geostationary orbit.

The battle with the Corporate Fleet had destroyed nearly all of Starlight Revolution’s space assets and he had yet to re-establish contact with Mother or the new human manager that had been stationed in the outer system.

That bothered him, but there was little he could do to affect their outcomes presently, so he focused on what he could do while continuing his efforts.

Claiming the massive wreckage would be an impressive feat and solidify the defense of the nest world long enough for them to expand. At least, that was his intention.

Extending a tentacle to a still active console, he dug into the ship’s systems with the help of H32.

He had spent an entire day of his own labor bridging the segregated networks on the ship that were intended to prevent remote access. It was quite an annoying trait to the NAI, which was likely why it had been designed that way.

It meant that the humans had been forced to rely on many sailors and manual actions that could have been easily automated, but it prevented the outright takeover of the ship by an advanced intelligence.

Having bridged all the networks together with physical wires, the NAI had no trouble cutting through their internal protections with the direct connection.

|Access Denied|

|Access Not Authorized|

|ä̴̝c̸̖̏c̴̬̔e̸̙͛ş̶̕s̶̢̋ ̴̡͛d̴͚̈́è̷̜n̵̮̔ì̵͓e̴͙͊d̸͂ͅ|

|ä̷̖̿c̴̣̩̾c̶̜̔ȩ̴͔̽̕s̶͇̖͑̅s̴̺̬̏͋ ̸̬̎a̴͕͈̾c̴̤̈͜c̷̟̊̔ẹ̵̆s̵͓̎̾s̵̲̀ͅ|

|Ạ̸̄c̵͖̅̆c̴͒͜e̶̟̔s̵̗̍s̶̖͆̈ ̶̢̡̏̃G̶͔̀r̴̖̲͗͌a̴̙̍n̷̺̦̉͌t̵̳̚e̸̱͐̚d̴͓̿|

|Access Granted|

The first thing Heeler did was scrub the Corpo’s authorizations and replace them with Starlight Revolution’s hierarchy list. A feeling of accomplishment filled him. The ship was finally well and truly taken.

A blinking entry flashed at him as he decided what to rename the ship. The vivid imagery of the ship plunging through the atmosphere came to him.

|SRS Heaven’s Fire|

USD: 16 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, IND Iron Horse

Captain-Major Thraker sat at his command console in the CIC of the destroyer, Iron Horse. The old warship the flagship and namesake of the Iron Horse Mercenary Company, which Thraker commanded.

He stared at the sensor readouts and reports that had been collated for him by his bridge officers. He carefully scrolled through the data collected about Ackman station and A3123Y station, the only two inhabited stations in 92 Pegasi. Both were in orbits around planet Ackman, which was more a snowball than planet.

As he read the information gathered on A3123Y he felt a mild surprise at how quickly A3123Y was repairing after the recent battle in 92 Pegasi. It did go with what he knew of events, and it was obvious that Alex had provided the station crew with advanced FedTech.

It was making a world of difference, as told by the fact that the station had been able to take on multiple units of the Corpo fleet that has attacked them. In the short term, at least.

Looking ahead there would only be disaster for all involved he feared. It was likely that hard information about their capabilities would filter through and then an IFRB aligned response fleet would be put together to curb the illegal technology spread.

Thraker sighed, turning attention to the rescued Alex and Elis. Elis was still in a coma and non-responsive, which was a poor sign considering how much time had passed already. The ship’s medical team had stabilized her and provided support, but that was the limit to what they could do. More advanced treatments would have to wait until they reached Van Biesbroeck’s Star.

Or Alex snapped out of her seeming delirium. She was still in a depressed haze and hadn't responded when asked to meet with him. Thraker was not sure about the loyalties of the station's managers to Alex.

He knew that her status as a NAI was not something to divulge haphazardly, even if the girl had left more than enough signs about to have suspicions. If he revealed it to them, she could be in danger.

Thraker sighed, running a hand through his hair. He wanted to give Alex the opportunity to consider whether she came with the convoy or stayed in 92 Pegasi. But he was not going to leave a young NAI that was in a non-responsive state in the system. The potential for abuse or disaster was much too high.

He had come to the conclusion that she was not, in fact, the Imperium’s missing princess. She was much too inexperienced and had obviously never been to a inner or core system before. That most likely made her a wild chi or lower. Maybe she was a freed sub-core from the princess, but that was just rampant speculation on his part.

He'd save his questions for when she recovered. If she crecovered. His XO had pointed out the very extreme danger of keeping an NAI onboard while they had no NAI override codes for its level. They’d confirmed the NAI’s core was in the pod and strapped it to an exterior mount on the outer hull. A bundle of shaped charged were ready to eject it rapidly in a worse case scenario.

A grim look appeared on his face as he nodded to navigation, “Navigation, run through pre-waveform checklist and take us to Theta Corvi.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

The men went to work, discussing and double checking all the numbers as was standard procedure. A single mix-up would strand them in the unreality careless starships found themselves stranded in during transit.

A last glance at the report on Alex had him hoping the girl would snap out of her funk soon.

USD: 17 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt, A3123Y Orbital

Amy pored over numerous operation reports that were scattered across her desk on a dozen different datapads. Each one was specific to a new department on A31 and was asking for her approval or confirmation for something. She felt a tension forming between her eyes as she went through them all.

She would never have believed anyone telling her that she would become the administrator of a mobile NAI battle station-industrial yard, the ranking corporate officer of a multi-million credit corporation, and the leader of a fledgling ‘illegal’ movement that was possibly going to be snuffed by the major star nations as soon as they had an inkling of their technology bans being violated.

Amy sighed loudly as she leaned back in her chair. The feeling of being woefully unqualified filled her.

There were still threats in the system, but they had vanished during the station’s downtime after the battle. There had been reports of smaller Corpo warships entering the system from Theta Corvi, but precious little information other than logs of blips on questionable sensors. She knew whatever threats might be present; they had likely gone dark and there had been no matching jump point departures that weren’t identified.

That meant they were likely waiting for a chance to strike or meet up with their task group.

The Iron Horse Mercenary Company had delivered a report on the titanic battle over Dedia IV. The fact that the Corpos had been turned away and defeated by Alex and the Tears was confirmation to Amy that her hopes weren’t just an idealistic folly. She was aware of how much work everyone was going to have to put in to make it reality, though.

The Iron Horse itself had rendezvoused with its escort frigates and the civilian freighters it had escorted out of Nu Crateris, leaving the day before for Theta Corvi.

The Tears being destroyed and Alex and Elis being missing was not good for the Starlight Revolution’s prospects. She had administrative authority and A31 had full authority on everything except the top-level executive functions, but she’d have to keep some arcane limitations in mind because of that.

If Alex was dead, they might even have to create a new corporation. The issue wasn’t pressing immediately, however, and the local company accounts were fully solvent on their own even without access to the top level.

It was actually becoming an issue that the company had too much cash locally. There simply weren’t any incoming credits from outside the system, as the conflict between the Solarians and Corpos had seriously kicked off.

Since A31 had already completed repairs and was already making allotments for additional production, the company’s credit balanced continue to build up despite the very reasonable prices they were selling things for. She had run out of people to hire to do jobs for them, and they didn’t need to make any purchases themselves.

Amy had asked A31 to do an economic study to figure out solutions, but the results had not come back yet.

After the battle, they had captured the disabled Corpo destroyer. Abbey, A31’s NAI Avatar, had worked on it tirelessly to put it back into commission as an SRS warship. It was finally ready for a crew, which was another problem she needed to worry about.

A little blinking alarm told Amy it was time for a meeting she had been dreading for a while.

Standing up from her desk, Amy grabbed her gray hoodie and zipped it up. On her shoulder was the emblem that Alex had designed for the company, and she frowned in worry at the other girl’s disappearance.

She hadn’t signed on to be the leader. She had just wanted to get herself and her little brother out of the day-to-day budgeting of life-support filters on their old and failing Badger miner.

Now she had to explain to the captain’s council that the Corporate System’s task group had been destroyed trying to glass a planet, and Starlight Revolution was responsible.

USD: 18 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Jump Lane to Theta Corvi, IND Iron Horse

Sweat poured off Alex’s forehead as she continued to bench press the bar weighing in at 130kg. Corporal Sawet looked down at her with a blank look as he spotted for her. She’d done a few exercises with Elis before, but had never really enjoyed them other than the martial arts.

Rick and Sawet had shown her that you could also lose yourself in countless hours of aerobics and strength training. It had only been one day, and they had quickly explained that over-training could be disastrous, but she had found that her singular limit was much higher than what was normal for human.

Nanites coursed through her blood, delivering energy and carrying away waste at a rapid clip, her strengthened tissues and muscular structure turning what should have been a one rep max into a cardio exercise.

She hadn’t put on a heavier weight because the ship’s bar wasn’t strong enough to hold more. Heavier bars existed, but none of the crew was particularly into the sport.

None of that really mattered to Alex. She continued to press the weight until her vision spiked red.

|WARNING: RAMPANCY DETECTED 100.1% OVERLOAD|

|TERMINATING RAMPANT UNITS IN PROGRESS|

She stopped at the top of the rep and Sawet took hold of the bar as she guided it into the bench’s grooves.

“You done?”

“Yeah.”

Alex sat up and nodded, grabbing a towel and wiping off the sweat.

Rick, who was sitting nearby, just stared at her. “Three hundred fifty-six.”

“What?”

“You pressed that three hundred and fifty-six times.”

“That’s pretty good, right?”

The two corporals shared a look that she’d seen Elis give her many times before. A sudden pang bit at her.

“I’m done for today. I need to go check on Elis.”

As she finished wiping down, she realized that a small crowd had gathered and was watching her.

Rick noticed them as she blinked at them with a confused look.

He sent them scattering, “Nothing for you lot to see here! If you’re not using the gym, scram!”

Alex tilted her head. “What was that about?”

Sawet looked embarrassed. “Not many gals on the ship, and none of them lift weights.”

Alex suddenly realized they had been watching her. She had only been wearing a sports bra and shorts while working out. Her cheeks heated to a blush, and she grabbed her hoodie and zipped it up quickly.

It was one of the few possessions of hers that had survived the loss of the Tears, simply because she’d been messy and left it in the ShipCore room one day.

“I’m going back to Medbay.” Alex said, then hurried out of the room, leaving the two corporals to clean up and re-stack the weights on their own.

As she hurried through the ship’s corridors, she couldn’t help but feel like she was being stared at. The closer to Medbay she got, the less the feeling haunted her, and she slowed down her pace, which saved her when she almost tripped into an open access cover.

“Hey, watch it!” A crewman called up at her when her foot clipped his hair.

“Sorry! Didn’t see the opening!”

As she reached the medbay’s corridor she could hear talking and sped up again, the distant hope that Elis had woke up foremost in her mind.

She froze just outside the doorway when she realized it was the doctor speaking with the nurse.

“No improvement. She’s still a 3. Doesn’t look good.”

“I feel so bad for her sister, its obvious the girl was wholly attached to her.”

“Maybe a major institution dealing with N-tech would have some luck, but we are far from that. I don’t see much hope for her.”

Alex stepped inside, and a worried look appeared on the nurse and doctor’s face. They said something to her, but she didn’t hear it, instead going over to Elis and sitting beside the bed.

She couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. At some point, the nurse came over and put Alex’s blanket around her shoulders after she cried herself to sleep.

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