Chapter 23: T-1. Come With Me If You Want to Live

When Sveta leaned over to me to whisper her plan into my ear, I realized just how mischievous she truly was.

“Sveta, you really are a rascal, y’know?” I said, impressed.

The Sveta Maneuver (Mark II) was essentially the use of unmanned Gravity Frames as kinetic projectiles. The Sarcophage had demonstrated time and again just how devastating kinetic bombardment could be, and humanity had paid them back many times over using the same types of weapons. Now Sveta was proposing we take our embarked Voidtress units, which were useless against Sarcophage in a stand-up fight, and crash them into the cruisers at velocities that would make Albert Einstein blush.

I liked this plan for two reasons. Firstly, smashing things into other things at tremendously unsafe velocities was the dream of every girl. As the Central Artificial Intelligence of the command carrier Telesthesia, I wasn’t allowed to crash the ship into anything because of bullshit reasons like “safety” and “regulations.” Secondly, this plan was sure to piss off my stuck-up commander, Viktorya Valentina, and anything that got her feathers ruffled put a big smile on my face.

As I beamed that smile at Sveta, she grinned right back. “Ehehehe, well. There’s something satisfying about smashing high-speed robots into enemies. It’s a good form of stress relief!” she said proudly, placing her hands on her hips.

“You are truly a woman after my own heart!” I exclaimed, mimicking her pose. “Ahh, I’m so jealous! I wish I could go crashing Gravity Frames into things too! Please save some prime footage of the impact. I wanna watch the alien demolition derby myself later!”

“Sure thing, Teles!” she said, giving me a thumbs up.

Laria stared at the two of us bonding over the prospect of high-speed impacts and shook her head in resignation. “You two really are on the same wavelength, huh?”

"Yup!" we responded in unison.

Ah, this is going to be fun. What a lively girl she is! I thought, happy to have made a new friend who wasn’t a stuck-up NKVD jerkwad.

*****

The battle had gone exceptionally well at first. I couldn’t get a clear picture of the action on the jammed LIDAR, but the first kinetic impacts had lit up the screen so brilliantly they practically burned out my sensors.

Ahahaha, I bet that’s absolutely gorgeous to see up close! I thought jealously.

Vicky, who was floating in my CIC sphere and looking dour as usual, let out a low whistle. “Damn, she actually succeeded…”

“Surprised?” I asked with just a hint of sarcasm.

Vicky shook her head. “It’s a solid plan given our limited resources. Of course I’m a bit hesitant to see such expensive assets destroyed, but safeguarding the weapons research facility on 433 Eros takes priority.”

Ahh, do you always have to phrase it in such a logistical manner? Can’t you just enjoy the sight of giant explosions like a normal girl? I thought with frustration. My commander is such a stuck-up princess, I swear.

Just then, a twinge on the LIDAR caught my attention. Turning my attention towards the sensors, I saw the two remaining cruisers accelerating towards us, ignoring our Gravity Frame squadron completely.

“Shit.” I muttered. I quickly opened comms to the Radiolaria’s CIC sphere. “Commander, Captain Savitskaya, Laria. The enemy cruisers are closing on us.” Laria’s sensors were less sensitive than my own, so I beamed over the data for her.

“That’s not good.” Captain Savitskaya said. “I suggest we triangulate based on your LIDAR data and open fire immediately.”

Fire blindly, in other words. At this distance and with the jamming, that’s like trying to hit a satellite with a blunderbuss.

“I concur.” Vicky responded quickly. “Teles, coordinate with Laria and open fire immediately.”

“Aye-aye!” I responded, quickly establishing a link with Laria’s fire control subroutines. Since my sensors were higher resolution, she left me in charge of aiming.

Less than a second later, both of our positron artillery batteries opened up. Predictably, the shots missed the targets by a mile.

*****

As I desperately tried to hit the incoming targets, I noticed our Gravity Frame squadron accelerating towards us at velocities far exceeding protocol. Ahahaha, that crazy girl is flouting regulations again. I thought with admiration. Even with the extra velocity, they would still arrive after the Sarcophage cruisers. That meant it was up to Laria and me to safeguard the lives of our crew until then.

“Laria.” I said quickly over the comms. “When they get into visual range, they’ll open fire with spines immediately. Give me control of your CIWS guns too and I’ll focus on interception.”

Laria nodded. “I’m going to position myself so my bow faces the enemy head on. That will allow the guns on both my ventral and dorsal hull to fire in chase configuration, and I’ll be presenting a smaller cross-section to the enemy.”

“Ahahaha.” I laughed flatly. “It must be nice to be arrowhead shaped. With my blocky hull, I have to show my side to the enemy since all my guns are rigged for broadsides. I’m really not designed for this sort of fight.”

Laria straightened her glasses and smiled. “Maybe in your next life we can get you a proper Gravity Frame carrier body.”

“Ha, as if! I don’t plan on dying just yet!” I said, keeping my voice free of the dread slowly encroaching upon me.

The cruiser arrived and began hurling spinefire at the both of us. I quickly responded with our artillery and CIWS guns, and the battle was joined.

To be honest, I was in full triage mode. We were vastly outgunned by the two Sarcophage cruisers, and it was fundamentally impossible for me to intercept every single spine headed our way. I focused on intercepting the heaviest concentrations of spines, the ones sure to tear us apart. Although my initial interception efforts were successful, both Laria and myself sustained a few hits. I felt the spines penetrating my bulkheads as my entire superstructure groaned.

It’s times like this I’m immensely thankful an AI can’t feel pain.

Our wayward squadron joined the battle, and Sveta sent four unmanned Voidtress frames towards the cruisers. The enemy shifted some of their spinefire to intercept, which lessened the amount heading towards Laria and myself considerably. Thanks to the assist, I was able to boost our interception rate to 100%, and neither Laria nor myself took any further hits.

Hah! Giant robot girl to the rescue! I’m gonna give you a big ol’ smooch later in thanks, Sveta!

Freeing up one of my artillery cannons from the interception effort, I calculated the exact position of the enemy cruisers by reverse-tracking the trajectory of the incoming spines. I vectored my free cannon and fired, managing to score a glancing hit.

Haha! Nice work, me!

Just then, Sveta took one of her unmanned Voidtress units and smashed it into the cruiser’s damaged side. The impact was a gorgeous omni-spectral flare of unleashed kinetic energy, blossoming in a hundred different radiations. It left a smoldering crater in the cruiser’s hull.

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Ahahaha, beautiful! I did get to see it up close in the end! I thought happily.

“Two down, one to go!” I proclaimed. “We’ve got this battle in the bag!”

Little did I know, I was about to eat those words.

*****

I watched in horror as the remaining Sarcophage cruiser consumed its wounded compatriot and evolved into a Beelzebub. Laria and I had taken a few potshots at it, but the cruiser was surrounded by some sort of gravitational defense field. Recognizing the severity of the situation, we elected to retreat as quickly as we could.

Beelzebubs were the bane of humanity. It took an entire fleet to fight on equal terms with one. It was an enemy that was far beyond the ken of two ships and a handful of Gravity Frames, which is why we turned tail and ran as soon as it spawned. Unfortunately, it was unlikely the slavering monstrosity of an insect would let us escape.

Yuck! That thing is twice as big as me! Absolutely disgusting!

Trying to buy us time, our squadron of Gravity Frames opened fire on the giant bug. The creature was warping space with the gravity field emanating from its wings, however, and the shots all twisted around when they got close, flying off in random directions. The few that did manage to hit didn’t so much as scratch the bug’s exoskeleton.

With our tailpipes pointed at the enemy, Laria and I couldn’t really do much to help. The Beelzebub ignored the Frames completely, instead making a beeline straight for… me.

EWW! NOOOO! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU GIANT SPACE BUG!

The bug accelerated towards me at with ridiculous speed, and was on me in a second. I swiveled my broadside cannons around and opened fire as it pulled alongside, but the shots skittered wide off its gravity field. Simultaneously, I sounded the evacuation alarm.

“ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!” my frantic voice echoed through my corridors. “ALL HANDS ABANDON SH-“

Just then, one of the Beelzebub’s blade legs tore through my hull, cutting like a hot knife through butter. The cut was clean, and complete. I had been torn in half.

Every single one of my systems flashed red, and most of them went offline shortly thereafter. It was like I had suddenly lost all motor functions. My now-severed front half, completely cut off from the nuclear reactor, computer core and gravity fins located aft, lost all power and tumbled helplessly. The Beelzebub pounced on it, sinking its claws in deep. My back half still had power, but its systems were rapidly shorting out.

A quick check of the escape pods revealed about one-third had crewmembers inside. I ejected those, leaving the unoccupied ones in place for any stragglers and setting their systems to manual override so they could be launched even if the power grid cut out. The CIC sphere had its own independent ejection system as well, designed to ensure the survival of the command crew, and I quickly detached it.

“Teles!” Vicky cried out. “What are you do-”

The comms cut out as soon as the CIC sphere rocketed away and most of my power grid burned out a few seconds later. My computer core was hooked directly into the nuclear reactor just like the drive fins, and still had power. Unfortunately, with the failure of the power grid the ejection systems were offline and I could no longer detach my black box and send it to safety. That meant I was trapped in my own dying hulk.

Desperately sifting through every system still online, I discovered I still had a control of the main gravity fins and two RCS fins. That meant I could still move, but not do much else.

Haha, that’s ironic. Guess it’s time for my own Sveta Maneuver, huh? I thought with a smile.

My sensory data was limited to three flickering security cameras which were once located in the ship’s armory, but were now exposed to space by my bisection. They were running on backup battery power. Through them, I was able to see the Beelzebub chowing down on my front half, pulling huge chunks of debris into its maw with its disgusting face-tentacles.

Enjoying your meal? Time for a second serving, you bastard!

I adjusted my heading with the two RCS fins, aiming myself directly at the bug. Pushing every bit of the nuclear reactor’s remaining power into the main gravity fins, I blasted my back half towards the enemy at enormous speed. I adjusted my own gravity field to counter that of the bug so that I would impact it without being pulled off target by its spacetime-bending wings.

Bwahahahaha! It’s the dream of every girl to crash things into other things at tremendously unsafe velocities! I thought with dread and jubilation. I couldn’t ask for a better death than this!

Just then, I heard a scream.

“Teles! Get over here NOW!”

“What?” I responded in confusion. I recognized that voice. “Sveta?!”

I noticed, shocked, that someone had opened a high-bandwidth data channel directly to my mainframe. But all my comms equipment is offline! How did she…

Filing that question away for later, I quickly detached myself from my databases, compressed down my personality and memory executables, and uploaded myself through the data channel. When the upload completed, I found myself occupying the computer core of Sveta’s Gravity Frame. Hosting two AIs simultaneously had made the core quite cramped.

“Sveta? How did you?” I asked, still shocked.

Sveta grinned and flashed a thumbs up. “Nobody gets left behind!”

Jubilant at my sudden salvation, I threw my arms around Sveta and planted a big smooch on her cheek. “Thank you for saving me!” I gushed.

Sveta’s face turned beet-red and she flailed her arms around. “Aaaaah! D-D-D-Don’t mention it! It was n-n-nothing!”

I turned my attention to Sveta’s sensors, eager to see how my gambit paid off. Just then, the back half of my old body impacted the Beelzebub. The flash was so bright, all of Sveta’s sensors overloaded and were filled with grey static.

“You know,” Sveta said while turning towards me, “they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Hah!” I responded. “I did get to do my own Sveta Maneuver in the end, after all!”

“The Sveta Maneuver, Mark III!” she proclaimed. “Way to completely upstage me, Teles!

“Hopefully it smashed that bug to pieces…” I added.

The two of us watched the static in anticipation as we waited for the sensors to reset.

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