by Skyler Grant
"We are happy to run Espionage alone," Ophelia said.
"We don't eat people with good ideas. Is he right?" Anna asked.
"If we give ourselves time to build up some velocity, and I overdrive the engines and thrusters for the last stretch, we can minimize their firing time enormously even factoring in your weight," I said.
"It won't matter if we can't take out those guns quickly," Batavius said.
"Did you ever build more detonators as I ordered?" Anna asked Mechos.
"I've got three," Mechos nodded.
"Those bombs brought down airships. Can they take down those guns?"
I wished I had a proper scan of the guns. Precise targeting helped a lot when dealing with destruction like this.
"Whether they alone suffice or not, we can assist in the Graven," Ophelia said.
"Wolfson, prepare your teams for an assault. Bringing out Lotus alive is the primary mission with a secondary goal of destroying personnel and equipment in the facility. Batavius and Ratticus, have teams on all decks. They'll be especially likely to target our shield systems or the engines," Anna said.
"I also want samples," I said.
"All right, and samples of anything and everything that looks interesting for Emma. I'll be along with the ground team. Questions?" Anna asked.
"No question, but a comment. The ground team is not the place for you," Wolfson said.
Anna gave him a steely look. "Not the time or place for this argument, Baron."
Wolfson shook his head. "With respect, it is. Whether you are Queen or Captain or Leader of the Pack, your place is on this ship."
"The old Wolf has a point," Batavius said.
"The old Wolf will learn to do as he is told, but I'll listen to his advice this time. The plan does have a lot of moving pieces that could go wrong. Emma, I want a proper tactical station built for me on the bridge," Anna said.
I'd actually already been working on the plans for just such a thing. More than once now I'd lost my senses in one way or another and had to have Anna salvage the situation. Although I hated the idea of her having full command, access to my core routines and control systems was as sensible as it was intolerable.
"I suppose, if it keeps you out of the way of anything important. I'll fabricate that at once," I said.
"Very well then, people. We execute in fifteen," Anna said.
Anna hated to waste time.
20
I readied the three bombs for delivery and got us in position for our run. Doctor Batavius and her team made some tweaks to the shields so that they'd rotate their strongest section as we drew close. Given the initial limited angles they could hit us from, it should give us a little extra defense where it counts.
Ophelia took her position in the Graven and I released the clamps so she could take off. We'd be able to gain a bit more speed without dragging the other ship along.
I started with a long circuit to get our engines up to full speed before I turned towards the complex and engaged the overdrive. It was fast enough that the ship became to tremble, and when the thrusters were added we shook violently.
The cannons on the dome glowed blue and a beam struck our shields.
"Sabotage"
The words echoed inside my mind like a demand needing to be obeyed. I couldn’t disobey and I found myself angling the ship down towards the jungle. It lasted only a moment and just as I was starting to change our trajectory another blast hit us.
"Sabotage"
A Command core, it had to be a Command core. I'd encountered one with the Commander, and Lady Sylax also had some abilities granted by one. This was different, but similar. I blew out several non-vital systems when the compulsion to obey was the strongest and I had to do something, and as soon as I felt the pull weaken again, I activated a teleport.
I had been holding the remains of the Righteous in a sort of makeshift Grinder. They would reincarnate daily and need to be killed again to become "goop" that retained their power suppression abilities. Anna had used it to protect me from a Command core before by using some shielding incorporating it.
This time, I didn't have time for the subtlety, so I simply bathed myself in it.
"Sabotage"
The beams struck our shields again, but my willpower stayed intact. It was then that a large section of the Military deck blew itself apart. Candice. I'd had my drones and the bombs scattered about the ship on every deck except Engineering to minimize the risk of just such an occurrence until it was time to teleport them below. I might be protected from the compulsion, but the mind of my human drones weren't and Candice had detonated one of the devices.
I took manual control of the others and teleported them and the bombs to the guns below. Explosions shook the dome. The entire Powerhungry crew was affected by the compulsion rippling through them. The repair teams were tearing the ship apart and the strike team waiting their moment on the Espionage deck were shooting every system they could, a situation made even worse by the fact that they had Hot Stuff with them.
Shutdown procedures were initiating—Anna and her console. She was trying to neutralize me and destroy the ship. I teleported her into a containment cell on the Research deck and sealed her in.
I engaged the vacuum pumps on every deck but Espionage. The crew couldn't last long without oxygen before passing out. On Espionage I altered the pressure and opened the ramp. The compulsion had already made me angle the ship lower and I used that to my advantage. The strike teams and a repair crew were sucked out, their bodies tumbling out to crash hard against the dome’s surface.
Most of them should have survived that, and I hoped that some distance between them and the impact of the blast would weaken the effect of the compulsion. If not, they were free to sabotage the dome all they wished.
"What is happening, Powerhungry? We are reading multiple hull breaches," Ophelia said, hailing us from the Graven.
"Compulsion blasts of some sort. Your brain may be too underdeveloped to be at risk. But avoid their fire anyway and take out those guns," I said.
"On it," Ophelia said, and the Graven opened fire.
At least that was one part of the plan going right.
"Suicide"
Another blast hit us. But I was protected and the crew was unconscious. This message was different than the last. An intended finishing blow perhaps with our ship already in distress.
A woman who looked to be sculpted out of some sort of liquid metal was emerging from a hatch on the dome below. A whip of metal extended from her wrist and flicked against one of the Wolves, sending him flying off into the jungle.
Another individual with a Power core. I'd thought Lotus was the only one Powered and without the ability to scan inside, I hadn't been able to detect any others.
The Graven took a direct hit from one of the cannons. In response its attacks slowed for twenty seconds before resuming. Was Ophelia resistant as well?
"Are you still with us, Graven? Was my analysis of your tiny brain accurate?" I asked.
The Graven replied, "This is Amy. Hi sis. Ophelia is actually super-smart, but she's kind of compromised so I took over."
At first, none of that seemed to make any sense except for Ophelia being compromised. Then, this sudden stranger being my “sister” did imply some sort of relation to me—and that likely meant I was speaking to the clone of my consciousness. Why the name Amy, though? Friendly tone and incredibly helpful meant she was still influenced by the stabilizer core and probably viewed herself as my opposite.
Or maybe my backwards, if there was such a thing. So A.M.M.E.
It was good to be smart.
"So our entire offensive is now in the hands of a poorly programmed copy. We need to take out whatever they are using to jam our sensors," I said.
"Oh! So you can engage teleportation within the dome perimeter. You're so smart, sis! And we already have sensor data of the blockage from multiple ships and angles within the field to narrow a position. And... got it! I'll have i
t down in no time," Amme said.
Already I hated her.
The Graven shifted fire to a particular batch of antenna on the dome.
My sensors were started to clear.
I really hated her.
There were no less than four Powered in the dome below. One in weapons control, that must be the Command core. The woman on the roof, core type unknown. One was in what seemed to be a shipping center and the other was in an agricultural section.
That must be Lotus. I wanted all the test subjects I could get, but the plan had already gone completely awry.
I was getting new blips on my sensors. Three ships were incoming.
21
Anna was the one member of the crew aboard the ship still conscious. In the testing cell I hadn't evacuated the oxygen because the shielding there also served as a dampener against abilities. I opened a comm.
"Have you stopped drooling on the floor? Although as bodily fluids go I suppose it something of an improvement," I said.
"I'm sane. Get me out of this cage," Anna said.
Sane was probably stretching the point, but she didn't seem to be trying to kill herself any more or destroy the ship. I locked down the most dangerous bits of her console just to be safe before teleporting her back to the bridge.
"I had to render the crew unconscious to prevent them from destroying the ship. They're much more pleasant now. Most of the ground team is down and under Powered assault. There are four Powered below including our target and we've got attack ships incoming," I said.
"Shit," Anna said, displaying the eloquence I'd come to expect from her. Her fingers were already starting to fly over the keys as she pulled up my sensor data. "Start teleporting the wounded strike team members back aboard. Have the Graven play defense with those ships. Put me near Lotus with a knife and a bag of the nastiest seeds you've got."
I had to almost admire how Anna was at her best in a crisis. Almost. Perhaps if the bar were set higher the rest of the time...?
I teleported her below with a combat knife and a satchel filled with Pistonweed and Sparkseed seeds. I didn't know exactly what she had planned, but I had to trust that she could handle her part of things.
"Amme, we have three ships incoming. That ship you are in has some utility, don't get destroyed," I called.
"We are back to ourselves. We will handle the ship," Ophelia said in a near-monotone.
It was striking how different the unified personality was from either Amme or Ophelia. It made me think that neither of them was actually in control. The dominant part of both personalities had to be the stabilizer orb itself. A problem for another time.
I restored a normal supply of oxygen throughout the ship. It would take some time for the crew to begin to recover. That was fine in most cases, but I needed a few key personnel. I teleported Doctor Batavius and Mechos to the Medbay and dosed them with stimulants.
"I loathe Command cores," Batavius said, sitting up with a groan.
"They are always a problem for those too dim-witted to deal with them," I said.
The nearby bunks began to fill with wounded Wolves as I teleported them in.
"You didn't wake us up so we could bask in your personality. You don't have one. What do you want?" Batavius said.
"We have Powered threats down below. You're the only lackluster Powered I have left. Get me a prisoner or a core," I said, before teleporting them away.
I doused Mechos with Righteous goop before teleporting him to where I suspected was the Command core. Batavius, I teleported to the manufacturing center.
"You have Powered threats and you aren't sending your best fighter, you daft machine," said Baron Wolfson. He'd come up in the most recent teleport. Medical diagnostics showed multiple broken bones and he was missing his right arm.
"I see you're one of those dogs that barks loudly, but comes out the loser in any real fight it finds," I said, and shot him full of tranquilizers—he was of no use to me.
The Graven had made it to the other ships. Ophelia was fighting a brilliant battle, for every two shots she landed they were only landing one. Sadly there were three of them. That math wouldn't work out in the end.
This battle had so many moving parts it was hard to keep track of them all.
Registering a flicker in one of the Power cores below I did a fresh scan. The whip woman was down, by Hot Stuff's hand it looked like. Her crystal didn't linger, Hot Stuff's matrix soaked it up almost at once. That wasn't ideal—I wanted any crystal for myself.
Still, it could work out. I teleported Hot Stuff up to the research cell. The woman looked as bad as I'd ever seen her, her body covered in whip marks. She was a bruised and bleeding mess.
"I can't teleport you to Medbay with the others. Do try not to gobble up the power crystal in the meantime," I said.
"Couldn't help it. When you're the hottest woman alive things want to be inside you," Hot Stuff said and paused. "That came out weird, but on second thought I'm sticking with it. Did you see me? I burned."
That she did.
Research Project
"Hot Stuff"
Hot Stuff is the subject of previous research and burns with intense heat granted to her by a fire core. More recently she has absorbed a Metal core. The manifestations of this are still unknown. Testing can reveal both the nature of her new abilities as well as acquiring a lesser variant.
Research will take two weeks
It was going to take her some time to heal anyways. I began the project and manifested her several heaping plates of cookies. You had to properly reward your test subjects for providing excellent service.
I didn't have any access to camera feeds from the facility, but sensors told me Doctor Batavius' life signs were fading. I teleported her to Medbay. Her internal organs were trashed, almost nothing was where it was supposed to be. People may not be a fan of my vivisections, but at least I put people back together again properly. I moved her into surgery.
A massive electromagnetic pulse from below caused my electrical systems to flicker. Massive spikes of electricity were radiating off the dome below.
I didn't know what had happened, but that wasn't a fit environment for anyone to survive.
22
I brought Mechos and Anna back to the ship. They both looked to have had two completely different experiences. Mechos was naked, unconscious, and appeared to have recently had intercourse. Just what did people see in the man? I found him a serviceable repairman and little else. The Command core must have overpowered the Righteous dampening effect in close proximity. That was valuable knowledge.
Anna was having a heart attack. Her non-power enhanced system had been sent into convulsions by the electricity. I brought her straight into the Medbay. In the facility she wouldn't die, but she would remain in a great deal of pain.
Most of her body had abrasions of some sort and her clothes were stained dark with blood—hers, according to scans. The satchel she'd taken was over one shoulder. It was empty of seeds and instead contained a power crystal glowing with a faint green light.
Anna was in no state to answer questions, but given the missing seeds I could speculate that what happened to the complex below involved the sparkseeds. Anna must have found a way to force Lotus to accelerate their growth.
I could apply the core and get more information later. For now, we still had ships closing in.
The Graven managed to destroy one of the enemy ships but had taken heavy damage in the process. Those ships moved fast, too fast to make fleeing a possibility. In terms of Powered personnel I had only Ratticus left. That would have to do. I dosed him and the other Rats with stimulants and soon they were stirring from their slumber.
"Don't kill us most courteous and polite mechanical overlord! We did not mean to damage your glorious hull!" Ratticus said, sitting up in a panic.
"I admire how many hours must have been spent fine-tuning your squeaking to be the most irritating sound audio sensors could endure. We have two vessels incoming. The
rest of the crew are down. We either need our own guns working or those on the dome repaired. The dome will be difficult, the facility is currently under an electrical overload," I said.
"Oh shining digital champion of all that is merciful and decent! We are not bothered by electricity," Ratticus said.
Really? I suppose that made a certain amount of sense given all of the components that they had to scurry about. Still, I felt foolish for not realizing sooner—and I would have thrown Ratticus into a testing chamber too. Well, it could wait until this was done, provided he survived.
I teleported the Rats down to the guns of the complex. The electrical overload should have neutralized the owner of that Command core.
"Graven? Your inability to evade shots has damaged you quite enough. Return to the ship, you're in no shape to continue this fight," I said over the comm.
"We acknowledge options are limited. You have a plan?" Ophelia said, in that disinterested tone of hers.
"Somebody has to," I said.
The Graven focused on evasion as it returned to the Powerhungry, letting loose a burst of fire only when one of the other ships had a good firing solution on it.
I was steering the Powerhungry to make sure it and the airships following would have to pass over the dome. They wouldn't be expecting fire from a friendly target. If the Rats actually were good for something, this would catch them unawares.
When the Graven made it to the Powerhungry and docked, it was suddenly more vulnerable. I engaged the docking clamps and kicked in the thrusters to present the attackers with our least damaged stretch of hull. Beam weapons sliced the armor.
No fire was coming from below. Only seconds were left before I'd have to consider other options. I knew I could survive without my Biocore providing power, although most of the ship’s systems including engines would go down.
I was saved further thought along those lines when the cannons finally opened up. A massive spark of electricity discharged from the complex to strike one of the attacking ships and send it tumbling from the sky to crash into the jungle.