Shipping Part 3

"Any word yet?"

"The response Please Stand By has been replaced with... well. It seems progress has been made."

"Really? Report."

"We are getting many official logs from the Dreadnought Elysium. Within the logs is the Captain's Precis. It gives a truncated record of events, their updates. Turns out it is as we feared, their ship was overrun and almost taken. But the Captain got most of her people sealed away from the enemy, and they are preparing for a final sortie on the last large holdouts. Records of injured and dead to this moment. And... hunh."

"Yes? Continue."

"Um. It seems, Captain, that they had the time to patent some new circuitry. Basically, the same surgery you yourself have had, but with recovery time reduced to hours, not months. Detailed instructions on how to create fusible earplugs that bond you with the ship you're serving, to varying levels. Hefty price tag on making a set, but considerably less than the surgeries. Affordable for most, if not all. It seems to be a... side effect of making ear plugs that drown out the harmonics of a verbal attack on unsuspecting humans."

"Wow." The Captain thought for a moment. "They'll get to retire - oh, tomorrow, with that kind of tech jump."

"If they live. The invaders brought old style weaponry aboard, mostly guns. They'll fight tomorrow for control of the ship. They could have taken back the bridge, but they are keeping collateral damage to a minimum. The images from bullet wounds are graphic and demoralizing, and they do not wish that on their crew. Orders to the rest of the dreadnoughts are to fire on any shuttle that flees."

"Very well. We have our orders, let's spread the word. I'll take a copy of the precis in my office. My second in command will take the bridge." He walked off to his office to read the report in comfort, and the ramifications of the new tech sunk in.

An entire ship. Tied into the dreadnought. Which was already semi-alive, and seemed more and more aware every day.

He breathed into the room, which only he and his ship could hear: "Godspeed, Athena. May you and your ship survive this."

He could feel his own ship's vehement support of his statement. He couldn't hear the artificial intelligence, or talk with it, like apparently Athena could. With this new tech, perhaps he could. Hope tickled in his chest, like a wonderful dream on the edge of coming true.

*********************

Sleep was elusive.

Athena had not told the rest, but the main reason they were stuck in a closet when they could safely move to better quarters was Ely itself. It was so - upset? grief stricken? - at not being able to prevent the takeover that it overcompensated when trying to rectify. Athena had sympathy, even though the quarters were stinky and confining. Athena was amazed it had allowed Jabari to shift to sick bay.

Athena's rest cycle was erratic on the best of days, since Ely could artificially enhance or remove chemicals to bring or relieve sleep in an emergency. But this time, she was quite wired - it was her own ship under attack! - and Ely agreed to let her sort this one herself. If it came to fatigue when shooting or attacking, Ely could assist and augment her reflexes and responses in real time.

They'd gotten their strategy out to the crew, holed up in attack groups. When the battles would start, attack patterns, which exact organics to aim at. Wang Jing was a most excellent strategist, and Athena was so pleased with herself that she'd taken a step back and let the expert do their job.

Wang Jing, Inaya, Carlos, and Alex were all sleeping, the fatigue of the implants helping the computer keep them in restful cycles. Jabari was on their own time, snug in one of the sickbays with their teams and charges. Dang it, Ely! Sigh.

I'm sorry. I panicked.

We'll go over better strategies later, okay?

Affirmative.

That left Darien. And herself.

And Darien was awake too. He was still sitting aside of her, after finishing his rather plain plugs and fitting them in. He kept glancing at her, and her nearest eyeball finally clicked open. "What's on your mind, Chief?"

"I never got to engineering, you know."

"Neither did I. We'll both have to live with it." She sighed, and wearily turned her head to look at him. "What's wrong, Chief?"

Whatever he was going to say stopped as a new thought hit him. "You call all the other high officers by their names. Usually you're a stickler for protocol. Why not me?"

"Because, darling, if I call you anything else, you bristle something fierce." One corner of her mouth was twisted in what her crew called the Captain Wry Smile. "Respect, Darien. I know you're touchy about it."

"Then why don't you listen to me when I make suggestions?"

"Because many of your suggestions, while good, only benefit the ship. Just the ship. Not the people, not the cargo, not the passengers. Make the ship fly faster? Sure, at the cost of some radiation leakage that would cumulatively poison the crew of decks five through ten. Use a different route? Our payload's too sensitive to run through a mineral-heavy zone, it would destroy some of the delicate instruments. Use a different fuel? It makes us faster, but the emissions lay down a toxic trail in a space lane heavily used by the rich private cargo ships, and they'd eventually figure out where it's coming from. New stasis fields, or interior supports? Throws off the weight calibration that Ely performs every time we move through space and time. That sort of thing." She tapped her temple. "Remember, I'm a committee. Ely herself would throw a fit if you implemented some of your ideas. When you pitch them, it's easier for me to shoot you down, then make sure Ely puts some schematics and diagrams within your reach or in your research files, so you can go back and rethink your plans. You could be beyond fucking brilliant, Chief, if you could apply your ideas to practical implementation. Like you did today, under extreme stress."

"Oh." He thought about that, as Athena rested her head against the wall and gave him time to process. "So, a personal question then. I thought you hired me because of my dashing good looks. I thought we'd become lovers. You know, me the amazing engineer, you the ship's captain? Perfect marriage. What went wrong?"

She smiled again, wryly. "Your arrogance. You were so sure it should happen, that you assumed. You didn't do your research. Handsome? Sure. But you didn't take the time to get to know me, to woo me, to find out what makes me tick. You know the ship better than you know its people, me included. Your second, on the other hand, has taken the time to get to know me as both an individual who happens to be a compatible female, and a Captain with her ship always in the back of her mind. He woos both of us, you know. That careful attention to detail will make him a fine Chief someday. At which point I may lose him to another ship, I don't know. We haven't discussed the permanence of our relationship. But under your guidance, he's really shaping up. And for all your worry that he'll replace you, you sure look to be training him right."

"I... I didn't know you cared that much, Captain."

"I want the best. Always. So does Ely. But I'm here to care for my people as well as the ship. Ely cares for herself, bio components included, though she doesn't understand all their needs some days. I'm here to provide a living balance point. You care for the ship's body, and do it excellently. Now you need to work on the mind."

"I'll remember that. Thank you." He was staring at his fellow crew mates, sleeping. A sudden though hit him, he nodded at Alex. "Um, if I may ask, what about her? I will not use the derogatory terms, though, I remember the thrashing you gave the last one who tried. But my home planet uses them all the time. She's not the best, if you don't mind me asking."

"And normally I'd tell you to stuff it, but these are extraordinary circumstances." She sighed quietly. "I'm also a sucker for a hard luck case, though I do my research so as not to get bamboozled by a con artist. She's a good therapist and counselor normally. When her talent kicks in, she's phenomenal with her insight. But unfortunately, stress and self-doubt can lock her in a negative spiral and it doesn't work at all. If you knew her background, you'd understand better, though it's not my story to tell. But it's repeated for almost every person that has a mental talent. Here in space, Ely and I thought she might find her feet, get the confidence that comes with being a fully functional telepath. Well, now she's got it, thanks to the implants which she never could have afforded privately. So we'll see if my hunch was proven right."

"You don't avoid the people with mental abilities, do you?"

"Why should I? I probably have one too, might have even gotten me this job. I know I'm not evil, so why should I believe it of any other just because of a genetic anomaly?"

He simply nodded towards the bridge and its current occupants.

"One, out of how many? Most are gutter scum, poor things. Can't hold a job as soon as the talent manifests. Either people find out and kick 'em out, or they go mad, or they're abused. Sickening waste of talent. Some of the money I'll get from this patent will go to a school to help train them, even if I have to buy a dreadnought-sized AI for myself for them to integrate into and use the plugs for good." She smiled at his look of surprise. "What, I can't have dreams for my retirement? Come on, Chief, you're about to have a shitpile of money. What are you going to do with it?"

Darien snorted quietly. "First, I have to get married and father a kid or three."

That caught the captain by surprise. "What?"

"I'm from Theta-Bee Thirteen. Ring a bell?"

"No, but give me a moment, Ely can pull the file-"

"Don't bother. I ran away from home, because it's a farming world. Most of the high-end gourmet products, come from us. Even the ones on board, the stuff in stasis shields for freshness. Farming. Me. Bad, bad fit. Any suggestion I made about machines to help production... well, you can imagine."

Athena winced. She knew what he was like in officer meetings.

"Yeah. Problem is, I'm the first born. It's in our charter - first born gets the land. Been going on for millennia. Founded by a splinter religious group. Luckily they didn't try for direct-line male inheritance, because some of the female owners I know would have deionized them and no one would be the wiser."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"It does cut down on inheritance battles. Family works together, most times. But since I left, I've completely avoided any and all communication from back home. They even try occasionally to hire private investigators or professional kidnappers to get me back. The ship's warned me a few times about passengers who are looking for me. Being military I have some protection, but only a little. So, I'd better find a mate sometime soon, and start breeding, because the farm will explode into a million angry relatives if I don't produce a legitimate heir. Yeah, it has to be by marriage, not even a girlfriend or twenty."

"Sounds restrictive."

"That's why I left. I was tired of it all. Dirt, organics! Give me physics and circuits any day."

"Just remember, the organics are part of the system. You have to factor them into your calculations."

He nodded soberly, after a short silence. "Food for thought, Captain."

"Get some sleep, Chief. Tomorrow's going to be hard on us all." And Ely, sensing an opening, increased the oxygen levels a tiny bit to facilitate their slipping into sleep.

It succeeded.

************************

Even with implants and vid replay, what always stuck out in Athena's mind afterward was the utter chaos.

A trained team against a ragtag army with no training should have been a no-brainer. But they had guns, and though they had no accuracy, her crew's armor was designed to deflect lasers. High tech didn't work well against people who were so deranged as to use metal projectiles slung at living flesh on purpose. Many had stuffed their armor with materials to prevent penetration – scrounged from their hideouts, or rummaged from storage closets Ely would direct them to.

Some crew had hand-to-hand training, but against guns? Each of the large groups had at least one rabid fanatic keeping them in line, and all of them had made a graphic “demonstration” of power to keep the rest compliant. Fear kept the rest in line, with bright-red blood soaking into the carpets driving the point home.

Crew members had seen footage while training with Wang Jing. They were angry. Doors were blown open and smoke grenades were tossed in to confuse line of sight, and attack teams with improvised gas masks and laser sighting picked off more of them than invaders could return in kind.

Hostages hit the deck, as they were trained to do. Which was good, since some of her followers tried to use them as human shields.

Athena had assigned each major officer to a different attack team, to take out some of the largest hostage units. They were located in cafeteria and relaxation rooms mostly. Once a room was neutralized, bodies were separated from still-living invaders, and from hostages and crews. They were split and sent to prepared recovery rooms to rest, injured crew to sickbays, dead were left together in the room and it was sealed. They would be dealt with later when they had the time.

Floor by floor, they gathered the small teams together into bigger and bigger units to take on the larger holdouts. It took time; it was a big ship.

Jabari's medic teams went with them, floor by floor, to triage. Once everyone was stable, they would leave the team that was already stationed to those floors and sections to do their work, and move on to the next battle.

The only exceptions were those crew members that they knew had let the invaders on board. The vids were clear on exactly which ones did it. Brigs were also stationed floor by floor, and traitors were escorted to them.

Things didn't go swimmingly, but they weren't total disasters either, till-

"Jabari! Jabari! Get up here, NOW!!"

They probably broke speed records to get to Athena's side, but it was too late for Darien. The stray bullet had taken him in the chest. There was no saving him.

Alex was crying, so was Carlos, but they still covered their captain while she held her Chief Engineer in her arms. Laser fire and gunpowder shots echoed up the corridor, as the invaders had punched into the hallway behind crew members used as human shields.

Jabari didn't know what to say. Athena did. "Get out your extraction kit. I need large needles and syringes. Alex, Carlos, you are to ignore what is about to happen and never mention it again under any circumstances. Here, take this-"

*************

They fed her selected vids. They mocked her helplessness. They goaded her to take the easy way out.

And she took the bait.

Her select bridge crew actually had more training, because they made a strategic retreat from their holdout to the nearest shuttle bay.

She looked bewildered. And furious. A dangerous combination amongst a disordered cult mob looking for any target to obliterate.

The crew even made it look as if the door had been damaged, so she didn't suspect why the lock was broken so easily.

But once they were on the deck of the shuttle bay, evacuating into the neat row of transports, the large vid on the side wall flared to life. Usually it was used to welcome passengers and tourists to the ship, give them directions, demonstrate the check-in process. Now, it was floor-to ceiling with an angry, angry captain.

"Aw, leaving so soon, bitch? Not so cocky now, that your power doesn't work. Fucking coward! Come on to my ship, kill my people, and leave without so much as a sorry or goodbye?"

She stopped to reply, but her followers pushed her onto the shuttle, prepared for evacuation.

It didn't help. The vids inside all the shuttles lit up too. "What's the matter, bitch? So used to getting your way, that you have nothing to say? Well, I do! See, running away wasn't one of your options. I told you to surrender or fight. You are doing neither. So, I'm choosing your next option for you."

The shuttles were in the air, and one by one they arrowed toward the exit, and the clean serenity of space. She flipped the finger to the closest vid screen.

The vids stayed on. Continued, with an image of a smirking captain. Overlaid on that picture was scrolling type, showing the names of each and every crew member killed by her and her followers.

Darien's was the last one.

And they were clear of the dreadnaught's blast shields.

Her face changed to one with no emotion. "Captains of the Dreadnoughts, those shuttles have cleared our shields. Shuttle bay is closed. You may fire at will."

The explosions made for a pretty fireworks show.

Part 1: https://vocal.media/futurism/shipping-part-1

Part 2: https://vocal.media/futurism/shipping-part-2

Part 4: https://vocal.media/futurism/shipping-part-4