USD: 57 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Gamma Virginis, IND Iron Horse, nearing 63 Hydrae jump point

Despite having given several of the senior staff on the ship broken ribs, thoughts of punishment over the ‘cleaning’ had been quickly forgotten because of Sinclair’s actions. She’d been left to her own devices in the medbay over the last several days, her work shifts canceled until further notice.

Alex sat beside Elis reading an old coming of age superhero fantasy story. The protagonist was a young woman Alex could easily relate to who struggled with her powers. As she finished the last chapter and closed the book, Alex’s take was it was important to not give up.

Which would have been a lot easier if her head would stop pounding in her ears. It had been several days since the incident and her head still hated her. Uploading visual-audio memories via nanite connection to a data pad was not something she would be doing again soon unless she had no choice.

The marine had spent twelve hours in surgery on the other side of the med bay in a sterile environment, while she had been left to clean up herself and take care of Elis.

A soldier with an MP armband had come to take her statement on what had happened after the incident, but Alex had told him to buzz off. Thankfully, he’d taken the hint and not pressed further, promising to come back later. He never did.

She realized, belatedly, that Sinclair’s message had a darker undertone: it hinted that he might not have been working alone. She sent a message to Thraker and Commander Talbot, detailing her realization. They probably saw it right away when they watched and the message was superfluous, but she didn’t want to take any chances of it being ignored.

When the doctor and nurses finished with their surgery, the man came to speak with her. He explained to her in exquisite detail all the things she’d done wrong mending the man’s damaged heart. Then congratulated her on saving his life with quick thinking.

She wasn’t exactly sure what she had done exactly. There was a bit of intuitiveness as part of the process that she hadn’t quite figured out yet. The doctor’s explanation required specific insight into human anatomy that she just didn’t know.

If Nameless was awake, he would have been able to direct things better, but she realized that it would have been him doing it, not her. His absence just drilled the realization of just how reliant she had been on him for everything.

She had read about comas but had stopped when just how unhopeful and dry the text was. It was hard for her to process the clinical reading with Elis in the condition right beside her every day. There weren’t any texts on how to rebuild nanite computational units either, for obvious reasons.

Her attempt to direct them to do anything other than an immediate task had ended in rampancy alerts.

Alex let out a breath and sighed, trying to release the tension that had built up in her chest.

Looking at the last page of the novel she had finished, she thumbed the datapad from the fiction novels to something more instructional, but ended up shutting it down and checking on Elis with her usual care.

On the other side of the privacy curtain, someone coughed and then looked in on them. It was Captain Thraker.

“Alex. How is she?”

It was not normal for anyone to come check on her or Elis really, and even more rare for her to see him outside the officer’s area on the ship. The sudden appearance and question caught her off guard.

“Umm. Same as usual. No response.”

“I wanted to speak with you.”

“Well, you found me.”

“Commander Talbot has been leading an investigation to find any others that Sinclair might have been working with to… harass you. Unfortunately, there have been no results.”

“Well, he is dead, and I doubt anyone would want to jump into whatever trouble they’d be in for it.”

“Have there been any other incidents of harassment that you haven’t told us about, or maybe so minor you didn’t feel the need to bring up?”

“No, none.”

Thraker nodded. “If you’d like to return to your engineering shifts, I’ve cleared it with the department head. I will understand if you decline, however. Cleaning sludge filters isn’t the most appealing work.”

“It doesn’t bother me, and it was good for distracting myself, but I would rather not.”

She felt she had benefited from the shifts, especially from the interactions she had with the crew while working and socializing, but the incident with Sinclair had muted her desire to go back to it.

Thraker nodded, “You have been keeping up to date on the progress of our travel?”

“We are almost to 63 Hydrae.” Alex answered.

“Yes. It’s an inner system border world. There is a Theta NAI in charge of the system. It’s a fortified border system with an inhabited world. There are serious customs procedures to pass in or out of the system.”

“And I’m illegal.” Alex furrowed her brow, filling in the obvious issue.

“It is possible to detect NAI signals, although your size means it will make that very difficult unless they search the ship directly.”

“I hope you weren’t relying on our safe passage through on a percentage chance or I will really lose my respect for you, Captain.”

Thraker shook his head. “There is a smuggling compartment.”

“Because every ship has one of those.” Alex deadpanned.

Thraker scoffed, “Most likely, but ours is slightly more advanced than a smuggler’s box. It will require you to stay inside a cell in the brig during our transit, though.”

“What about the big white pod on the hull?”

“That’s what I needed to speak with you about. I need you to extract your core and bring it inside with you so we can leave it behind.”

Alex blinked, “I… I’m not sure that’s even possible. I don’t know how big it is.”

“I’ve had the pod brought into the hangar once more. We have several days in jump space to figure it out. Engineering will be at your disposal to make it happen.”

Alex furrowed her brow. “You’re putting me in charge of it?”

Thraker chuckled. “It’s your core and you are the closest thing to an NAI expert we have, so yes.”

“Are you sure the hiding space can hide me? I don’t particularly want to be taken prisoner by the Corpos. They are my last choice.”

Thraker shook his head. “You’d do worse with the Ertans, I think. Still, I am sure Alex. Unless they search it physically, they won’t find you. It has been used before.”

Alex let out a breath. “Fine, I guess now is a good as a time as any to go figure out if I can carry my brain around with me.”

USD: 59 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Hades Orbit

Daniel watched the tactical monitor as the Corpo frigate’s course continued to adjust toward the proto station. It was time for them to go. As soon as the station went over the moon’s horizon from the Corpo he activated the main drive, punching away from the doomed moon.

The Corpos had intercepted two more shuttles that Heeler had sent to relieve their supply shortages, and they had already been on their last leg, anyway. He had thought that they might scrounge enough resources to survive on their own, but the activity of their shuttle had been detected.

Now they had become a target as well.

Watching the trajectory alignments, Daniel set the station into a course that dived deep into the gas giant’s gravity well. They would nearly scrape the atmosphere and Daniel was only half convinced by H32’s promises that the construction could survive the massive forces that would be exerted on it.

There wasn’t much choice, though. The maneuver was more to hide their escape than to accelerate them. The extra delta-v from the maneuver was free, though. He’d already prepped and informed the refugees of the need to go ‘dark’ during the maneuver and on their trip back towards Dedia IV.

USD: 59 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Geostationary Orbit, Space Elevator Station

Heeler greeted the human delegation with a tentacle as he emerged from the shuttle’s airlock. The small soft-skins looked sickly for their species, but he granted them the mercy of ignoring their weakness.

Two of his most loyal nestlings followed him, their loping gait bringing them around to circle the soft-skins before returning and heeling to Heeler’s side.

Heeler wrinkled a tentacle in distaste as one soft-skin soiled itself, unable to wait to relieve itself in a proper location. The desire to make the meeting as brief as possible burned more strongly.

He formed a vibration chamber near the edge of his carapace that was suited to making human sounds with the help of his mechanical mind and spoke.

“Greetings Governor Tyler. I do not enjoy the presence of you or your underlings, so I desire to make this meeting short.”

Tyler didn’t answer for a moment, caught off-guard. When he did the reply was not the mewling weakness Heeler expected. “You’re not that handsome yourself.”

The other soft-skins made strangled noises that annoyed Heeler. Rather than inform them that they should aspire to the same composure as their leader, he curled a tentacle as a reflex, “In the future, meetings shall be conducted by remote video.”

Tyler nodded. “I think we can all agree that would be preferable unless there is a compelling reason not to.”

Satisfied with the response, Heeler continued, “Have all my orders been carried out?”

“The station is ready to transfer to your ownership and has been evacuated.”

“Good. I will release the food rations and construction bots so you do not starve to death and can begin to rebuild your nest.”

Governor Tyler swallowed and nodded, then he and his group moved to board the shuttle to return to the planet. Heeler did not watch him go.

Eager to begin orbital construction, Heeler summoned the waiting construction drones to begin repairs of the elevator and future industrial yard.

He would first begin work on small Hunter Killers to hunt the enemy. That would be the fastest solution to chasing the Corpo prey down while their ships were still wounded.

It was unfortunate that he could not move quicker. If he had, then the Hades station would not have been forced to flee.

Reaching the station’s command center, Heeler found the tactical console and took control of the screen. The sensors had not picked up the orbital’s trajectory after disappearing behind the gas giant. That was hopeful for the manager Ashburn’s survival and escape from the enemy.

Grumbling in his shell, Heeler made plans to host the soft skin on the station. If the proto station arrived, it would serve as an acceptable seed for the new space industry. But its absence would not stall the nest’s efforts to defend its world.