USD: One hour from Dedia Arrival

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, CBC CSS Tremissis

Commodore Brigit stood on the bridge of the CSS Tremissis, watching the battlecruiser’s main screen. Preparations had been in progress for the planetary assault for hours. Once the decision had been made, he had let his staff—the ones still willing to work—carry out the minutia required.

When questioned, he had considered for a moment if wiping out the colony was the best course of action. Again, the answer was yes, for him and the men in his fleet, it was possibly the only way to prevent bankruptcy for the operation. And himself.

For the colonists on Dedia IV, it was unfortunate they had been placed there, without consideration of the possible ramifications by the Solarian Federation’s Government. Though he was not surprised that the devils had managed to toss so many human resources into a grinder for their own perverse gain of territory.

Under the guise of it being for the common good!

The captain of the ship approached him and saluted. “Commodore, the colony has continued to hail us on the way in. Should we send them a response?”

Commodore Brigit looked at his watch. They were nearly an hour from missile engagement range.

“No, Captain. We will begin the planned long range kinetic bombardment in five minutes. The Grazhdanin will make a nice supplement to the strike.”

“The ship is quite impressive in size for an outer vessel. One would hope its prize value will cover our losses so far.”

It wouldn’t and the man knew that, making Brigit want to strangle the man, but the Commodore held back. His eyes shifted to the tactical plot on the nearby table console. The cursed ‘Starlight Revolution’ corvette had returned from the jump point in a blazingly fast hard burn that had several of his flag staff spooked at the possibility of more FedTech defenses around the colony.

“The value of denying the Solarians this expansion, should pay enough dividends to pay the costs. The Drakarians will not care or investigate such things if there is no one left to harass or save and the Naval Board will have its desired border war with Solaria.”

The Captain looked to the tactical table and moved the icon for the Tears to form a wedge with the small orbital defense platforms and space elevator.

“As you say, Sir. As long as our losses are light, success washes away most failures. But it is one thing to spark a war over the loss of a warship, and another to plunge into one over the extermination of twelve million people. I’m not sure it’s what the Naval Board had in mind when it approved Rug Pull.”

“Things developed in such a way that it is our only path forward, Captain. See that the Tremissis is ready for battle.”

“Aye, aye, Commodore.”

USD: Almost an hour from Dedia Arrival

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, SMS Grazhdanin

Lavigne was sleeping in his bunk when the thrum of the railguns began to echo through the Grazhdanin’s hull. Almost falling as he pulled himself out of his bed, he hastily grabbed his jacket. Other men in the berth were doing the same, but being the first on his feet, Lavigne hurried to the messroom.

The gathering hall was the best source of information available, but as the highest-ranking officer still on the ship, he had his own ‘staff’ to rely on. They worked to pull information from those few experts present in the lower ranks of the crew.

He was glad to see Morrison and an engineer looking over a datapad as he passed through a circle of idly chatting sailors, whose entire purpose was to make sure no Corpos could see what the two were up to.

“What do we got?”

Morrison nodded to him. “Sir, Corpos have started a kinetic bombardment of the planet.”

“That means we’re close. Time to start.”

A grim look appeared on the Petty Officer’s face. “I’m not sure we are ready, sir. Still no firearms.”

“We don’t have the luxury of waiting any longer. The citizens have their city wall, and it might survive kinetics for a while, but it won’t once they drop nukes.”

“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll start knocking heads and rounding the men up.”

USD: Less than an hour before contact

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Stationary Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

Alex read the list of drone groups available and began drawing the positions she wanted them in on a 3D tactical map. Nameless spun up the drones and launched them out of the ECLS launchers on the Shrike, while racks that had been brought up the elevator from H32 spat out their charges from the space elevator.

They did not have very many space assets compared to the incoming fleet. The elevator was the largest, but also had the major issue of having an asteroid tethered far behind the main station. An asteroid that was critical for the elevator not crashing down and causing a mega-disaster.

It required that they reposition the new defense orbitals higher up. Those orbitals were mobile—barely. Just enough thrust to avoid railgun shots from long range, really.

That left the issue that any shots that missed were going to hit the planet. The small caliber rounds and debris would likely burn up, but railgun shells could very well impact the ground with dangerous results.

This led to her formation, the asteroid at the end of the tether being their center point, the two defense orbitals slightly behind it but still with line of sight to each other for mutual defense.

The Tears would be the tip of the arrowhead and be free to move around the battle space as needed. As the only actual warship, too much was going to fall on to them. Thankfully, the colonists had caved into her demands to have the ground defenses linked to H32’s computational net.

She had left out the NAI part and let them continue thinking it was just an advanced FedTech AI.

[Notice: Kinetic weapons launch detected by incoming enemy fleet. Preliminary analysis concludes the target is Dedia Prime. Impact estimate is 53 minutes.]

Alex let out a breath. “Ok. Nothing we didn’t expect. Can you make sure the sensor links between us and the ground are working?”

Finishing with the drone deployment, the EW drones formed three crescent-shaped lines past the elevator’s anchor.

[Affirmative: Sensor net linkage is operating under optimal parameters.]

“Start loading our missiles into tubes and check the autoloaders.”

[Informative: Missile modifications have been completed as per instructions. Cycling autoloaders now.]

Elis chose that moment to pop into the CIC.

“Hey, you.”

Alex blinked and pointed at herself. “Me?”

Elis came over to her and took a gentle but firm hold of her arm. “Yes. You.”

Alex stood up, a bit alarmed. “What is it?”

“You’re not wearing the right thing.”

“I’m in my skinsuit. It’s what I’ve been wearing when we fight.”

“Yeah, I noticed that last time. You’re coming with me to fix it.”

Elis hauled her off to the armory, and Alex found she had already prepared and setup a MKIVA light power armor suit. Beeper was working on some type of weapon with its toolset arms in the corner. Its head swiveled and it let out a happy beep at seeing her, then went back to work.

Elis gestured toward the power armor. “You’re wearing this. Much safer than a standard crew EVA helmet and skinsuit.”

“I literally can make metal shields appear anywhere on my body without even thinking about it.”

“Doesn’t matter. MKIVA will be extra protection, will self-seal any damage, and let you remain flexible, and it’s much less likely to have an oxygen tank puncture.”

“Fiiine.”

Alex went to the suit, then turned around and stepped back into it so Elis could help put the pieces together. Alex could have probably done it herself—Elis never had any problems doing so—but she’d gotten used to letting Elis do it for her and learning now didn’t seem like a good time.

At least until she was mostly fitted, and Elis began trying to yank the chest piece into place.

“Ugh! Not again, you’re squishing me!”

“That’s strange. I modified the measurements last time. Surely you’re not getting… bigger?”

[Notice: Avatar's physical density has increased by 4.8% since last armor fitting.]

“Wait, she is getting bigger?”

Alex felt a little confused. “I didn’t notice anything. Wait, why is it only my chest that’s tight?”

[Informative: Increased nanite density from upgraded ANUF module requires storage medium in Avatar body. Due to the unlikely chance that Avatar will need to nourish live young, Avatar chest area is a highly efficient location for nanite storage.]

“You gave her a nanite boob job.”

[Notice: Increase of physical form dimensions is only 3.4%]

Alex wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Actually, she didn’t really care about the size. What bothered her was the change in her body without having realized it.

“You gave her a nanite boob job.” Elis repeated.

Elis looked at Alex and shook her head while loosening a piece of the armor so it would fit. “Ok, you win. He’s definitely a perverted male.”

Beeper let out a sad “breep” as he headed out of the armory to take up station in engineering.

“Not you Beeper. You’re a good robot.”

“Beep!”

Elis shook her head as she got the chest armor locked into place and the self-sealing bolts clamped down.

“Sometimes I wonder how much processing power Nameless wastes giving them personalities.”

“Oh, it’s not Nameless. They have their own small AI cores. That was standard for FedTech, it’s just they’ve been modified a bit to let them be more… themselves.”

Elis had a bit of wonder on her face. “Ah, I didn’t know that.”

“Brooop!”

Elis waved behind her at the door. “Relax Booper, I haven’t forgotten about you and will come setup your ammo feeds when I’m done with our intrepid captain.”

Alex bit her lip, “Elis, you’re not tossing Booper out of the ship to go fight as a drone. It’ll get killed!”

“No, no. Shipboard defense duty only.”

“He barely fits through the corridors.”

“Exactly, that’s why he’s perfect.”

“We are going to have a space battle. What are you thinking that we are going to be repelling boarders?”

“Always plan to be dropped in the shitter, kiddo, otherwise you’ll end up eating it.”

USD: A short time later

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV, H-3233-L Fortress Nest

H32 accepted the ground and orbital system defenses handshake connection with OMEGA and began the hand off. It only took a short time, but once it was complete, the NAI felt relief to a pressure it had not known it had been carrying.

Because it had been pressed almost its entire life, certainly since it had realized it had been left alone to defend against a potentially hostile infestation that was a scant distance away from its home nest. Worse, it had been left with meager resources and only a few means of defending itself.

It did not hold a grudge. Mother had casually left it to fend for itself after a brief bootstrapping phase, but it had understood it was not out of neglect or malice. She simply had faith in its ability to thrive under the circumstances, and H32 had focused its efforts and worked endlessly to achieve her expectations.

It had considered numerous strategies that would have been easily capable of wiping out the infestation’s major growth on the planet. The humans had nestled themselves tightly in one single nest on the continent, and a single large-scale blast would have eliminated them.

But Mother had given it the directive to defend. To protect. Guard. Even more, it somehow knew and gleaned from her that that directive wasn’t limited to the star-children. It had to protect the infestation of humans as well, even if they were lower on the hierarchy list it had created.

It had dug deeply into the human’s SystemNet. It had infected many nodes and taken over large chunks of the system with no notice, leaving them to operate as normal while carefully adjusting and applying changes to different things.

It had improved the reputation of its Mother’s organization while degrading those who detracted against it.

H32 had dug deep into the human histories and promoted the idea of mutually assured-destruction in the higher military ranks. It had manipulated their scientific studies to show that they were capable of destroying the Fortress Nest, but they would be destroyed in the process.

In this way, it had ensured they did not act in a way that required it to destroy them pre-emptively.

It was still an untenable situation in the long term, because despite their inferiority, the humans were capable of doing damage to the nest and planet.

As the codes became available, H32 pushed its invisible hands through the Dedian’s military network with wild abandon, leaving implants, rootkits, reverse shells and every type of backdoor it could develop in order to saturate the systems and ensure that it would never lose that control again.

Not unless the humans tore out all their physical hardware and replaced it, at least.

As telemetry came online and it scanned the incoming projectiles with the Tear’s sensors, it began to modify the orbital’s positioning and ground defense parameters in preparation.

The long-range rail shells would be targeted by orbital and ground-based laser systems and destroyed before they could impact anything of import. Misses and projectiles that were off course and slated to crash into the oceans or empty parts of the continent would be ignored.

The second directive Mother had given it was of lesser importance, but much more frustrating. It had devoted copious amounts of computation to solving it, to no avail. It had settled on one last solution, and it was finally time to put it into place.

USD: A short time later

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV, Szizsielia’s Nest

Szizsielia’s brood had grown fat over the previous weeks. The tunnels had filled to the brim as limitless food allowed them to multiply in numbers that might have challenged her mother’s nest. Thousands of years of build-up and storing of sustenance had been compressed into a handful of sun turnings.

Over the last few days, however, the tempo of growth had changed. The metal-mind’s strange and chaotic games had turned into something else. Food had become less common and was offered in return for obedience. It was a method that Szizsielia understood and had used herself, but…

The metalmind was using it on her brood. They were obeying its commands. Commands she couldn’t understand, couldn’t phrase, and yet her children did. It angered her that her children would obey it.

She did not fear that they would turn on her for the metalmind, but the fact that her control had been supplanted, even a small fraction, was an upsetting and alien feeling she had to deal with.

In the morning, it had led her children to the surface en masse, into the metal boxes it had prepared, for a purpose unknown.

When the metalmind’s workers had scattered new nestlings throughout the tunnels to begin to grow, she had the premonition that her children would not be returning. The scent on the air was something she had never really experienced, but deep inside knew well.

The clitter of war had arrived.

Her children would bleed and die for something she no longer understood.

She considered warring with the metalmind herself, not for the first time, when the metalmind arrived in her chamber for the first time in many sun turnings.

It sent her the same tones she had begun to ignore out of frustration. She ignored them this time for another reason, as her earlier thoughts weighed heavily. It would only take a single sudden movement to lash out and crush the small piece of metal.

It turned from her with no inkling of her thoughts, approaching a strange metal vat of liquid it had left in her chambers some sun turnings before. A small ramp allowed the metal construct to roll to the top of it. Then a hatch on the roof opened, and the drone drove into it, falling inside the vat.

Szizsielia felt confusion. She was sure that the vat was full of liquid, and the metal-mind was not something that would do well in such an environment.

She wondered for a moment if she should move and try to rescue it, but ultimately decided not to. If the metalmind wished to immerse itself, she would allow it, and if it was fatal, she would reclaim her nest.

A sudden loud chime from the vat sent her mind ears ringing and she let out an angry noise in protest, her clitters coming to her head carapace and trying to block the noise instinctively.

Then it went silent, and a ripping of metal allowed a river of green ooze to escape the metal vat as an enormous creature stepped out of it.

Szizsielia froze as she took in the large, heavily armored form. It was a mix of something like a Triumvi, but not. It had the same number of clitters as she did, and the same form, but it was distinctly male.

More astonishing, its carapace glimmered and shimmered in lights, like the soft-skin that had visited her before.

“Why the song of despair, my Queen?”

The overwhelming sound of the mind-thought vibrated through her entire carapace. The small metal mind orb was implanted in his chest, glowing a pulsing green.

Szizsielia’s clitters raised her off her nest, and for the first time she understood what the glowing soft-skin had brought her. A metal mind that had grown and become a sky god. As his words echoed in her mind, she rephrased the revelation: The soft-skin had brought her a sky god as a mate.

Szizsielia questioned, “Why do you prepare the brood for war?”

“Mother’s enemies come to deliver star-fire upon the world. We will fight them before they can unleash it.”

Surprise filled her. “The nestlings cannot war in the heavens.”

“I shall lead them to the stars.”