Existential Threat: Chapter 4 Part 2 of 4 (Patreon)

“Yeah, well the nanite vats are doing most of the work. Got those going in first and they start the full conversion. Mitch’s work with the miners made it easier to understand them. Code them up like worker colonies, bees, ants and the like. We upload the blueprint, Sally figures out what we’ve got and what we need, then the nanites get to work, eating the unneeded and making the needed. They learn along the way so each upgrade they get faster. Much better than having to build a whole new system and slap it into place,” Minnie rolled her eyes.

“And using the nanite vats to build,” Dana pressed.

“Slower than the factories, but adding them in as a repairing and re-arming layer to the ship was brilliant. They’re great at making small changes over time in small areas, but on the scale of the Carriers and Dreadnoughts, give them material, give them time and we’re using them as factory lines to push our production even higher. In battle the repairbots are going to be essential to move built components from storage to where they’re required, but if a carrier had only passive power left, a nanite node and materials, it could rebuild itself with time.”

“Also keeps the old ships out of the yard if they need an upgrade,” Dana said.

“And it means an update to a new system can spread throughout our current ones with an update.”

“How long?”

“Slave driver,” Minnie muttered. “Three days for the Armadas to be outfitted. Two months for another Armada with the changes in priorities to build more infrastructure.”

“Three days?” Dana shook her head.

“Told you those nanite vats are a dream, what you saw in your simulation was them at seventy percent of our expected rate,” Minnie smirked.

Dana looked at the miner floating in the midst of space. “How can it only be a few months?” Her question hung in the air between them.

“We’re not looking at the boundaries, we’re just looking at the possibilities. Every idea that people come up with, if they can show it, prove it and test it out in the simulations then we can try it. There were entire games built around blowing shit up, messing around with mechanics and physics, stuff that no one wanted to test out in the real world. We’re just combining the two. That and our allies are nearly as crazy as us.”

Dana quirked an eyebrow.

“Should’ve seen their research people as soon as we introduced them to the testing systems. You know how they advanced their tech in leaps with just a few weeks right?”

“Yeah, Weskarth can’t help but bring it up and his ships are showing the results.”

“Well they had to have some of the more level-headed designers come in. They created a design with the systems that were proven one hundred percent at that moment in time. That was a few weeks ago. They’ve kept on running past that. Before they needed to gather materials secretly, do testing in some remote place, secure funding, yada yada,” Minnie flopped her hand around. “Now they just jump into the testing space, and they’re away, just like us, months in days. With the sharing of tech back and forth, we’ve come up with some really damn terrifying things.”

“As terrifying as Damocles?” Dana lowered her voice.

“Few things are as terrifying or simple as Damocles,” Minnie lost some of her bubbling excitement.

“How are the new defensive measures coming along?”

“We’ve got forges on several high gravity worlds forging the new armor and superstructures to handle the greater acceleration of the ships. The Small missile launchers are ready to be built. Vee-three rounds are being changed out with the regular CIWS ammunition on the Cold Fleets as well as rocket assisted mutli-payload railgun rounds. We’re not outfitting the old defense systems with the nano-packets, but we are adding it to the new ones. They can update faster and use their own asteroid housing to repair themselves and replenish weaponry.”

“With Seventeen forge systems to build more,” Dana sighed.

“Everything okay?”

Dana opened her mouth and chewed on her words.

“Luke asked me if I wanted to have a meal with his family.”

“You ate a bunch of meals with them on your way to the Orion system,” Minnie pressed lightly.

“I know,” Dana crossed her arms, looking at space that lay under her feet even as she felt the floor. “It’s just, like.” She threw her arms up with an exhale.

“Like?” Minnie held on firmly, gently. At odds with the crazed war-machine maker just moments ago. Dana’s shoulder’s eased, matching the two together.

“We talked about my family before,” She looked at Minnie with resignation.

“Yes,” There was a tightly controlled and protective anger in Minnie’s voice.

“I just, I, don’t know how to deal with something like this.”

“Deal with what?”

“Getting into a relationship, getting to know his family, what if I mess it all up? I have to work with his mom!”

“You’ve worked on a bridge filled with people that were so far up their own asses they were inverted. I think you can deal with anyone, and do you think that Adeline is the type of person to hold that over you?” Minnie’s sardonic word cut through Dana’s maudlin.

“Well no, but, like.”

Minnie waited for her, letting it all settle.

“What do you think of Luke’s family?”

“They’re nice?”

“Like do you think them friendly, people you’d like to know?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that is all it needs to be, sure you’re going there as Luke’s girlfriend, but like with all relationships it starts with friendship. Have they done anything bad towards you?”

“No,” Dana’s guts still twisted.

“Then what are you worried about?”

“That they will turn on me,” Dana’s eyes drifted lower. “That I’ll leave or he’ll leave and it’ll turn to a mess.”

“This isn’t about his family is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you scared with how fast things are moving?”

“I.” Dana frowned, fiddling with her hands. “Well I want to be with him, I like where we are, and I’m not sure where its going. I know his family and I see them, but a family dinner with them. I feel like that’s a huge step.”

“I might be short but I ain’t that short!” Minnie jumped, rising to her full true height only a bit shorter than Dana, grabbing her shoulder and walking. “Look, fear is an insidious mother fucker. It can stop us taking a step forward, make us second guess a truth we held the day before. It can worm into our minds and defeat us.” She stopped and turned Dana towards her. “Would you let fear stop you from being an Admiral?”

Dana waited, but Minnie only looked at her harder.

“No.”

“Are you the type of person to run away from a task because it might be difficult?”

“No.”

“Then why are you going to let fear decide any part of your life? Why would you let the fear of what happened in the past affect your future? Everytime that you overcame that fear, did you feel you should have given into that fear, or did you feel that bone tingling relief, that sense of achievement standing on a new stage of your life?” Minnie kept walking, Dana moving beside her.

Being accepted into a clan when she was a young teenager, becoming an admiral so nervous she had to hide her real expression, joining a guild, fighting against those she had studied. Rising higher and higher. Then taking a chance with Mitch, creating the Legion. Was that not all pushing the fear, the anxiety to the back, acknowledging and overpowering it with logic to take one more step forward.

“Gah, I wish my brain was logical.”

“Sure you do, but I don’t helps us win battles,” Minnie elbowed her and looked back at the Cruiser and Hell-bore. “You still like him?”

Dana pushed her hair back behind her ear, turning away blushing. “Yeah.”

“Good! Was going to suck if I needed to break his kneecaps.” Minnie looked over and winked, returning back to her cartoon avatar. “Though I guess he’s about the right size?” She mimicked swinging a bat.

“How about you and Mitch?”

“Phew,” Minnie fanned herself with one hand. “Spicy.”

“Mitch, spicy?”

“Trust me girl, the things that man does,” Minnie waggled her eyebrows. “He’s not just good with numbers. He also leaves me alone, its rather…comforting.” He voice softened somewhat.

“Do you get much time together?”

“Here and there, I’m staying at his most of the time, we got the same station. He’ll leave me to sleep in and then I’ll find a note and a meal waiting for me to have before I go. We can just sit there on the couch, lying with one another and doing our reports, or our reading, or just chat, talk about science, about space, about mining and efficiencies. We’ve got this puzzle we’re working on, an old steam engine room.” Her voice had taken on a song-like timber, calming. “There’s something about seeing that small smile on his face when I catch him watching me, makes me all embarrassed inside and want to tell him to stop, but I don’t mean it and he doesn’t.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It is nice,” Minnie nodded, trailing off.

“I wish that all the fighting and the destruction could remain in the games we played and we wouldn’t ever have to use it in the real,” Dana said.

“You and me both,” Minnie looked over her shoulder and up.

“Though I am happy that you’re the one making these weapons, I’m thankful that you’re not constrained as others are. While I hope we don’t need them, reality is sometimes not what we want it to be.” Dana put her hand on Minnie’s shoulder.