Nellie and the Nanites - Bk3 - Ch.12

Chapter 12

Second Last Chances

Crush Joined Brix and waited for the trail of fire streaking across the skies to turn around and start to approach their colony.

“Any chance this is a good thing?” Brix asked, his hand fiddling with the icon clipped to his chest. His appointment as the new Mayor had left the man self-conscious in a way that Crush had never seen before. It wasn’t the work; he had been doing all of that already, and it wasn’t the people in the colony who respected the big man’s competence as much as they valued his natural gentleness. If Crush were a betting man, which he was these days, it would be the influence of Warrick and Nancy. Those two were pit vipers if ever he had seen them, and never missed a chance to add a back handed insult if they could get away with it.

Crush dearly wanted to just hit them, but his elevation to Colony Marshall did not reverse his banishment from the Colony Council. Weirdly enough, it kind of made it his job. Crush was in charge of keeping Crush out of council meetings, which was as elegant a trap as ever he had seen.

That would have been Nancy’s doing if he was any judge of things. Like all the best CEOs and other criminal classes, the woman thought at right angles. The day he stepped into one of those meetings she could scream to the rooftops that the supposed Marshal considered himself above the law.

He just hoped she had no idea how right she was. 

A lot had changed for Crush since Bartlett conscripted him into the attack to retake MOG-Fiver. He had gone from a Dock Master to a specialist, a soldier, a captive, a fugitive, and then to a soldier again. 

He had thought he killed a friend, thought a friend betrayed him, and even taken the names of a squad that were not much different than he was when the training destroyed him.

And in the end? Crush learned the most important lesson of his life.

The law only matters if it is also right, just and fair. If not?

Fuck it.

“Could be,” Crush said as cheerfully as he could. “Assuming that those people on board are completely fine and trustworthy people with nothing but good intentions and no problems at all with being forced to share the moon by Nellie and her people.”

“So you mean this is all going to go to shit?” Brix sighed.

“Got it in one,” Crush grinned. “But as a wise man once said, if the world is going to turn into a bucket of shit… make sure you are the one holding the handle.”

Brix grinned.

“I’m glad you’re here, Crush.” The big man cracked his neck. “Think we can handle it?”

“Little old us?” Crush laughed. “Maybe.”

“You sure seem relaxed about it,” Brix noted.

“We might not be able to handle all this,” Crush nodded to the approaching ship, “But I would bet anything you like that she can.”

“You make a good point,” Brix said, his shoulders losing a little of their tension. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Crush asked as the ship settled on the nearby plain and the first figures came striking down the ramp.

“What if she,” Brix nodded at the approaching captain, “Is just like our Captain?”

“Well, in that case,” Crush chuckled. “We would be better off back in the dark,”

The two men stood and watched as the party from the ship drew closer. They were being led by a woman with a deep scowl, and she was flanked by men and women with large guns held just low enough not to be a direct threat.

Crush took a moment to appraise the group. The Captain was obviously a powerful woman, muscled and toned under her uniform. Her balanced steps spoke of someone not just trained in violence but comfortable with it. Her hair was tied up in a complex braid that spoke to a vanity that Nellie did not have, but the look in her eyes was closer to a shark than a brackta. 

Her companions were, well, pirates. They dressed in nice neat uniforms, and their hair was all very regulation, but you can’t hide the thug with a nice uniform and a haircut.

His overall impression? 

Someone was going to die. Soon.

The only thing that made him smile was how they held those weapons. They were trying to be threatening, which was reassuring. People trying to look threatening were a lot easier to gauge than the ones who came with smiles and kind words to hide the daggers in their hands. 

“Where is my fucking brother?” Brenda snapped at the pair. 

While Brix led the party through the colony, Crush carefully watched the visitors. About half of the group were openly sneering at the makeshift town, with the other half merely looking bored. 

The only exception to this was the first officer. He gave people a friendly smile and a nod, all while his eyes roved everywhere. The man was the only one to spot Cara on the roof as well. He turned and made a point to wave at her and wink. 

Interesting. 

People don’t look up. It’s a thing. 

In your day-to-day life, no one looks up. Sure, you might if you are touring a site or looking for directions, but on an average day, how often do you actually look up? So when you see someone walking along, seeming to be minding their own business or just acting normal, but they notice things up above them? That one is casing the joint. 

There were always exceptions, like extensive military training, anxiety disorders, and combat stress issues, all of which could make you notice things that others ignore. But the relaxed and seemingly distracted First Officer was not anxious or stressed. His body was relaxed, his stance open. 

That left extensive military training, but that was simply not the case here.

A soldier knows a soldier, and this guy was no soldier. He carried himself wrong for a start. Closer to how an athlete moves than a soldier.

So, they had a captain who enjoyed violence, a career bastard as a first officer, and a crew of thugs.

Seemed like things were about to get very interesting around here.

===<<<>>>===

“There is extensive shielding on that hull,” Remy frowned as he examined the readouts. “Can you get me any more details?”

“Not at the moment,” Lucy shook her head. “The scanners are at maximum as it is. Their approach didn’t take them anywhere near this station, which is good as they probably don’t know it’s here yet, and bad because we didn’t get to use the station scanners on them.”

“What do we have from before the jump?” Nellie asked as she moved the holographic model around to get a look at it from all sides. The ship was heavily armed, but there were several modifications that were interesting. The knowledge from Structural Analysis was telling her the ship was reinforced in strange places. “Can we see a comparison?”

“Sending it now,” Lucy nodded and flicked her fingers, causing another holo model to appear alongside their latest one. 

“Here and here,” Nellie called. “Show me these side by side.”

The two sections enlarged and moved next to each other. 

“Lucy, what is this section?” She jabbed a finger at a strangely clustered set of repairs. “This is not from when they swiped the Hope, right?”

Lucy examined the sections in question before nodding. 

“Thought not,” Nellie frowned. “Anyone got any ideas?”

“Upgrades?” Baz offered. “That is about where you would cut open a hull like that to replace the main generator.”

Looking around, no one had any better ideas.

“Can we see a comparison of their drive signatures?” Nellie asked. “I know the Bly’s changed every time we made changes.”

“Bringing it up now,” Lucy frowned. “Confirmed, Captain. They changed something and did a piss poor job of it too.” She noted some spikes in the readings. “They have energy leaking from the drive, which means they wedged in a new power supply, and the engines aren’t tuned to it quite right.

They spent the next hour on the bridge of the Bly, analyzing every change they could see. It was not a pretty picture. 

“Did they jump to a space dock or something?” Nellie growled eventually. They have new weapons, upgraded shields, and even a new generator.”

“Not to mention the shielding,” Remy added. “Way too much shielding. That is purely to keep people out.”

“Where did they even get it all?” Baz asked. “I mean, seriously?”

“It might be worth analyzing their jump points and the readings we have from then. If we can find where they went…” Lucy shrugged. 

“Not a bad idea,” Nellie agreed. “Okay, so we have that as a priority, but I want the Rest to be able to defend itself as soon as possible.”

“What about the search?” Remy asked.

“I still want to do that,” Nellie admitted. “But we have to be able to keep people safe first.”

“The supplies you recovered from the installation?” Lucy asked.

“Put them all into station defense projects and see if Paren would agree to move there for the moment; get things moving a bit faster.” Nellie sighed. 

Paren would not like having to put her pet projects on the back burner for a while, but something about that ship gave Nellie a bad feeling. Perhaps there was an advantage to be had here? Something to sweeten the deal?

“Nellie to Paren,” Nellie called over the private comm line to Paren’s lab, otherwise known to the Bly crew as the ‘House of Horrors.’

“Reading,” Paren called back. “Can it wait?”

“I just thought you might like to have one of the three hydroponics levels on the Rest as a sort of outdoor lab, but we can talk about it later,” Nellie said, feeling herself trying to look innocent, which was ridiculous; Paren couldn’t see her. Although you never knew with her…

“What do you want?” Paren asked suspiciously.

“I want you to move over to the Bly’s Rest and make it a fortress,” Nellie said plainly, “Last Chances is back, and I want the station safe.”

The line hissed a little and crackled for a moment.

“I want permission to put Smilers in the vents,” Paren said after a while. “Also, I want more of them.”

“Twenty, max,” Nellie replied.

“Fifty, but they stay in the vents,” Paren countered.

“Thirty, and they can be free to roam in your garden.” As Captain, Nellie knew she should not be negotiating, but it was different with Paren. 

“Deal, what do I have to work with?” Paren asked.

“Everything we have at the moment,” Nellie said plainly. “I want it strong, fast, and reliable.”

“Can it be alive?” Paren asked thoughtfully.

“I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that,” Nellie replied with a carefully blank face. “Thanks, Paren. I appreciate it.”

“Whoa!” Paren giggled. “Are you okay?”

Nellie cut the comm line. 

She said thank you most of the time. 

Often. 

Okay, she’d work on it.

===<<<>>>===

“You’re kidding?” Brenda laughed as she put her feet up on the council table, getting a nasty look from Hadrian that she simply ignored. “She just tells you not to do it, so you don’t?”

“We do owe her a significant amount,” Duke countered with a heavy sigh. “Not to mention that we are in the process of settling here. A fight at this time would be counterproductive.”

“They bother you much?” Brenda asked. “These precious little natives?”

“Never,” Hadrian sniffed. “As of yet, we haven’t even seen them.”

“Then who fuckin’ cares?” Brenda shook her head. “Still don’t like her throwing her weight around like that. Want me to go and remind her where she stands? Namely, alone and vulnerable.”

“No!” Duke snapped. “She is hardly alone; her crew is larger than yours, and in that ship, she is not exactly vulnerable.”

“You make a good point, brother,” Brenda grinned. “Still, she has to leave that ship of hers sometime, as do her people.”

“Don’t start something,” Duke said seriously. “You won’t like how it ends.”

“Well, shit,” Brenda huffed. “What the hell am I supposed to do then?”

“Why not join the Council?” Nancy offered. “With your ship and your people, of course, the balance of power would shift.”

“Crafty little bitch, aren’t you?” Brenda said. “Sure, what the hell? I need a base to work out of while I search for juicy opportunities in the nearby systems.”

“You may, in fact, be able to help us here on the moon as well,” Hadrian offered. “Tell me, do you enjoy hunting?”

“Now you’re talking, baldy,” Brenda sat forward. “Tell me everything.”

Crush sat back from the monitor and exchanged a look with Cara. 

“This is going to be a problem,” she said with a growl, “They’ve been here five minutes and are already talking about attacking our only allies in the system.”

“It’s who she is, apparently,” Crush grimaced, “A true Fed, to the core.”

“Why are they even here?” And-Aran asked from his spot near the door. A covert tap into the Council Chambers was not strictly illegal, but it wouldn’t be covert if anyone actually knew they had done it. “They don’t seem the colonial type.”

“You always get a few of these people tagging along when a colony starts,” Crush explained. “They see opportunity, just like everyone else. They just see a different kind of opportunity.”

“What do we do?” Cara asked. “Arrange a few hunting accidents?”

“Not yet,” Crush said firmly. “We won’t start anything.”

“So we just sit back and take whatever they do?” And-Aran asked.

“No, we just don’t start things. We’re the law around here now, so we finish anything they start.” Crush replied. 

“How did we end up as the law again?” Cara smiled. 

“Because everyone here is still afraid of the dark,” Crush replied, “And we were holding the lights.”

“Seems like a recipe for disaster,” Cara teased. 

“It is what it is,” Crush smiled back.

“So, do we tell the Captain?” And-Aran asked after a moment. 

“Are you nuts?” Crush asked. “If you think anything happening down here is getting by her, you’re seriously underestimating her.”

“Wonder what she’s up to?” Cara asked as she flicked the screen off. “She’s been pretty busy somewhere that isn’t here.”

“Making plans, building stuff,” Crush laughed. “It’s what she does.”

Within a couple of hours of the council meeting breaking up, it was official. The Last Chances and her crew were now an official part of the Colony, with the dashing Captain Brenda as a full member of the council. 

More than that, they were to be given an entire section of the colony for their own use, including quarters, storage, and even a training yard. The smiling First Officer assured everyone at the impromptu welcome meeting that the colony would thrive with them; they even had a ship full of materials and supplies that they were happy to trade. 

Which was interesting, considering they had been in orbit of the Hub for most of the last few months, so their holds must have been pretty empty when they jumped. All those materials and goods had to come from somewhere, and they sure as hell weren’t telling anyone where they got it. 

Suddenly, their absence seemed a lot less innocent than it had been before, at least to those people who were paying attention to things like that. 

There were plenty of cheers and clapping during the announcement, and people even went to help with the unloading, but there were as many unhappy and worried-looking faces as happy ones.

Chief amongst the unhappy group were those being turfed out of quarters and areas of the colony they had painstakingly put together from the compartments that made it down to the moon in one piece. It was not exactly surprising to notice something about the displaced—none of them were directly connected to the council members.

The independents, the ones who signed on with no connection to the bigger players and no set loyalties, were asked to move. Crush was unsurprised to find his own place on the list, along with most of the Marshalls. It was a little power play from their new friends on the council. Making a nice subtle point about where he and the others stand in the power structure. 

Maybe they expected him to kick up a fuss, complain about a loss of face, or whatever, but Crush didn’t rise to petty shit like that. Instead, he worked with the others and got everyone moving, making sure everyone had plenty of help, with the assistance of a few of Brix’s soldiers and more than a couple of volunteers. Leo and the dockers from back on the farm all helped out, and soon, the whole section was on the move in one big, visible column. They moved through the main streets, making sure everyone had to move aside and very visibly see them being pushed out of their own places.

Crush may not rise to petty shit, but that didn’t mean he was no good at dealing with it, and a good number of the previously happy, smiling people lost their smiles and hurried over to help. 

The empty section of the colony was not even completed yet. The streets between the battered compartments were still grass-covered, while the bare necessities weren’t finished. 

Quiet fell over the crowd as they walked into the section, noting the bare walls and stacks of materials left off to one side, with some compartments not even having been emptied thoroughly and properly cleaned since they were put in place with industrial grav lifters. 

The conversation died, and the mood plummeted.

Crush took a single look around, nodded once, and then jumped onto a stack of materials, addressing the crowd. 

“Right! Let’s get started, shall we?” He looked at the dispirited and angry people. “We’ll have this place in shape in no time.”

“We just fucking did all this!” A woman shouted angrily. “I built that place I had from the bare compartment wall! We all did!”

A chorus of angry voices rose in agreement.

“We sure did!” Crush grinned at them. “Well, they took that lot, so we do it again, and we do it better!”

“Better?” A hesitant voice called.

“Why the ancestors wouldn’t we?” Crush asked. “I know I learned a lot doing it the first time; how about you?”

People began to nod along. 

“Right,” Crush opened his arms wide. “So this time, let’s do it right!”

“We should have a main square!” Someone shouted. 

“So we take apart one of the compartments and make one!” Crush called.

“What if they just make us move again?” Someone called. “What’s the point?”

“The Next time they ask you to move,” Crush smiled. “Tell them to go ask me!”

That got a few laughs. 

“We came here to build a new life, right?” Crush said once the laughter died away. “So let’s do that.”

People began to move as Vicky gave him a slow round of applause.

“What?” Crush asked as he hopped down from the materials.

“Nothing,” Vicky grinned, “Just don’t be surprised when they decide to make you mayor next.”

“No chance,” Crush laughed. “They’d have to let me in the Council room then.”