Chapter 7: Dancing on a Razor’s Edge Part 2

Just as we broke communications Vakkaidu staggered over his embarrassment and spoke up. "Several enemy boats making corrections; presumably firing their coilguns."

"Evade as necessary, Shishi," Velteragni ordered, "Charge all of your short range cannons." I did so. However...

With my prime avatar I stared at the empty bulkhead as if I hadn't heard what she had said. Perplexed, all the officers—including Velteragni—followed my gaze. "What's wrong with Pylon eleven?"

At the same time my avatar at Contract Drive deck two was looking in the same relative direction, the pylon in question directly in the center of my field of view there. "Ship?" Lennaivu, the Contract Writer, asked in a tone as respectful as it was quizzical.

"It's starting to overheat," I said just as its temperature reached beyond acceptable levels and kept climbing.

Lennaivu received the readings via his implants but ultimately he consulted a panel of gauges for confirmation. "Gremlins mundane and Fair," he muttered. "Can you shut it down, Ship?"

I squinted my eyes. "It's going to get too many bumps and the flow will turn grey in all the pylons."

He took a moment to parse my cryptic message. "Understood. Protuberances forming on the inner sheath causing faulty liquidity that will infect the others." With exaggerated movements he pointed at pylon eleven and raised his voice. "I want an extinguisher on that pylon now!" It wasn't going to be enough and we all knew it.

Soft spoken Nirumagne pointed at the piping on the ceiling. "That connects to the head, right?"

Immediately I caught her intent. "Go go go!"

Lennaivu let out a gasp. "You're really going to–" He stopped his sentence midway as Nirumagne flew up the access ladder. He closed his eyes. A sigh. "Alright," he said, broadcasting his voice over the announcement system, "The head in Contract Drive deck one is inaccessible until further notice. I repeat, the head in Contract Drive deck one is inaccessible until further notice."

At the same time, while proving the accuracy of my predictive maneuvering, Melusum had noticed the goings-on at Contract Drive deck 2. "Captain, shielding and possibly translation will operate at reduced efficiency if pylon eleven fails."

Velteragni raised an eyebrow. "And the failsafes?"

"Ship is keeping them from deploying."

A single look from my dear Captain was sent to my prime avatar.

"We're working on it!" I hissed, "I will not run at less than full efficiency!"

There was a subtle raise at the corners of her mouth. "All right. You're not alone down there after all."

So I wasn't. 'Down there' Nirumagne had already disconnected the section of piping closest to the pylon, spraying water that was clean enough on the mantle. Lennaivu's eyes studied the temperature gauge intently, dialing it to a smaller range and back to compare. "Temp hasn't stopped rising but we have won some time." His mind started to wonder and his mouth betrayed the secrets in there. "If we could raise the upper mantle–"

"On it!" With a short skip and a dash I was at pylon eleven, reaching out my arms with talismans jingling through a heat that would burn human skin, my tiny hands finding purchase on the huge brass-looking cylinder.

Lennaivu cried out, but I had no plans for backing down. In this one avatar I collected enough strength to raise the weight of a profitable goat herd. Not a single infinitesimal amount of movement. This single part of my Greater Self dared defy me! Of course, I had not used all my strength. "NOT OVER YET!" The yell traveled through the compartment with another avatar rushing in. One more set of my hands pressed against the scorching metal, effectively doubling my strength. There was movement now; tiny enough to be measured in molecules, but movement nonetheless. Knowing it was possible spurred me on to ignore the nagging warnings from my tiny avatar bodies about supposed limitations and put in just a bit more effort, extending even the spurs from my wrists, their tips clanking against the sheath. It was all enough enough for a visible separation. Water seeped in, immediately evaporating to create a layer of insulation between the upper and lower mantle. The temperature had stopped rising and even started going down. Warnings still kept nagging me, red flashing through my arms. If I kept this up there would be lasting damage to these avatars. Not that it bothered me—I had sixty of them.

"Ship Shissurna," Lennaivu said sternly as he placed a piece of folded aluminum between the gap, careful not to touch the hot metal, "You can let go now."

I eased my two avatars and lowered the upper mantle, the folded sheet of aluminum flattened against the terrible weight but left enough of a gap to deal with the heat issue. None of the passive failsafes would kick in and my Sphere of Influence would continue to operate at full capacity. "Problem sorted," I shouted as I slapped the upper mantle with a loud reverberating bang, leaving a handprint of half molten polymers and alloys. The engineering crew seized up and looked at me in silent horror.

"Problem sorted," I repeated through my prime avatar.

"Melusum," Velteragni inquired.

"Temperature readings are back within safe range," the rookie officer informed, "The Contract Drive can maintain normal operations."

Velteragni smiled. "Shishi, my treat. Eliminate the targets as you see fit."

"Yes, my captain!" I ignited my mundane drive to an acceleration profile that was slow enough to not be immediately noticed by the preoccupied crews of the vessels but would ramp up quickly. If these future humans still had the instinctive fear of approaching predators I would make them feel it. As I dodged and weaved I picked one husk, then another, and another, and then two simultaneously. My cannons fired and I waited with my hands tightly gripping Hekkamuk. I thrust it through the holographic projection at the exact moment the first husk was hit on its stem, right on a missile rack where the explosive loads cooked off in rapid succession. With another thrust the next one suffered the same fate. A sharp jab and the one after that was hit in its mundane drive, incandescent fuel streaking out as it disintegrated. With a slice the last two had their lesser contract drives breached to destroy them into bubbles of gravitational disturbance, shaking the lesser spheres of influence of the two vessels. They fired more coilgun slugs and finally began deploying missiles and mines. Two of their husks broke off from the group and maneuvered their bows toward me. Sending in dumb beasts to distract the predator, huh? Ignoring these I sent some coilgun slugs of my own through one of their fellows accompanied by some playful stabs at its holographic representation.

"Enemy boats approaching," Vakkaidu said. Velteragni didn't bother to respond to this information and neither did I.

I playfully fired at the targets, alternating between my cannons and coilguns to see how weakened their shields were. No tactical considerations at all. As the swarm of missiles started to get close I turned the attention of my defense turrets there, picking them off before they got into my Sphere of Influence. One husk trailing the vessels bloomed into debris, then another. Moments later one of the vessels intensified their firing. The other one instead began to change its course. Had it run out of munitions? A massive systems failure perhaps? No. Points of light started pulsing at its bow, lesser contract drive and mundane drive. My Knowledge Tree did its job and solidified the meaning of the pulsing: they were laying down their arms and abandoning their duty. To prove it they expelled what munitions they had. Coilgun slugs and cannon pellets meandered out of the vessel's lesser sphere of influence into naked space at velocities that were a far cry from the near light speed they would usually go. Likewise the missiles and mines did not leave their usual trails of reaction mass. They could still be remotely detonated but a few careful coilgun shots showed me they weren't even primed. I casually fired my own coilguns to disintegrate them while I turned my attention to the other vessel.

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It was too close to the deserter vessel, but I wanted nothing more than to make its lesser contract drive go into full bloom. I could solve that. A particle beam lit up the base of its mundane drive. On of its exhausts bent and stuttered. Another shot sent it into a spin along its axis. With a few more rapid shots I teased it into a satisfying change of vector away from its erstwhile companion. I had unleashed so many particle beams into its lesser sphere of influence that they left faint glittering trails, and yet they kept firing while I dodged their attacks.

The two husks, almost forgotten, changed their vectors and accelerated towards me in a ramming course. At these distances the simplest move would've been to orient one's vector away from the oncoming enemies. It would disrupt one's pursuit, giving the fleeing party a slightly better chance at escape. All in all, it was a fairly smart move when you were up against any vessel or husk from pretty much any navy.

But I was a Ship. And this was the Mezhained Navy.

"You thought you could get away from me?" I said with a toothy grin, "How cute!" Against their plans and expectations I accelerated further. Moments later they responded in kind. To all the world it looked like I would collide with the two husks. All the world was wrong when one of us fought. When I fought.

I accelerated further and launched two groups of missiles. For a moment I was between the two husks. The missiles danced their way into their lesser spheres and ignited their outer shells in directed blasts at their hulls, including the shrouded coils of their lesser contract drives. Twin shimmers signaled the end for the two abominations.

At once I was sandwiched between the two sphere-within-sphere-within-sphere explosions. The distortions slammed into my Sphere of Influence, sending shockwaves of color and light throughout. But the song of my coils did not waver. It was about as offensive to me as having my hair tossed around in the wind.

"Oho, I forgot to warn you of that maneuver, didn't I?" I said through my Prime Avatar and some secondaries, all with the same grin of those who are relentless. "My bad."

Word spread about what happened. Many of the newly enlisted looked horrified while the veterans who had served my sister Warships seemed unfazed. "The passion of a young Vugni may seem reckless at times," one of them explained to two midshipmen, both fresh-faced and trembling. "But you know not to doubt a Ship's judgment. Has the Vuzhezhmagnan ever tried to pass though a greater mass bead? No? Then why believe her younger sister would?"

"That's right," I said kicking my legs on my taboret there. "I know we'll win." I pointed with one finger as if to crush a fly. "That last vessel will go out with one shot of a gravitational beam emitter."

"Permission denied."

I craned my Prime Avatar's neck to lock eyes with Velteragni. Had I said that last part out loud in front of her? The perils of having many bodies.

"You know full well we cannot deploy those at this time," she continued. "You have plenty weapons to choose from."

"It would be a good test."

"Leave that for another day." She turned her eyes away. "And stop begging Lennaivu for it, or any of the other Illustrious Siblings for that matter."

I silently aquiesced, the heads of certain secondaries drooping.

The last few husks began to vector toward me, with the vessel staying its course and continuing to fire at me. Its crew's obvious plan being to get its mindless companions to become its shield. "You honestly believe you stand a chance?" My voice dripped with malice. "Little toys like that should break!" I jabbed and swiped Hekkamuk through the holographic representations of three husks. A fraction of a second later they did break into concentric spheres of debris. A fourth one was still turning toward me, but I had intentionally left that one alone until the right time.

Perhaps its crew thought the ripples of the lesser drive explosions would shield their vessel from my violence. Regardless of that notion, they kept sending the last husk my way. I saw its cannons glow with a charge up. "Do not bother me with this junk!" Before it could even fire I let loose a particle beam of my own. It passed through the ripples, its trajectory altered. Of course, all completely foreseen before my mind's eye. It hit the lesser drive at an oblique angle but still had enough power to let it bloom. The resulting explosion expanded into the vessel's lesser sphere of influence and shattered the exhausts of its mundane drive. A plume of reaction mass flared wildly, sending my foe tumbling. With its lesser sphere so severely weakened it had to resort to its maneuvering thrusters to regain stability. It spun around on all its axes, but even while performing these mad acrobatics it tried to fire at me. Sudden jerks showed desperate coil gun fire while missiles and mines bounced around, a couple even colliding with it super structure.

"Oho? You're still willing to fight? I like that!" I let out a few coilgun firings of my own. "Let me help you with that!" The near light speed of the slugs strained the remaining whispers of its lesser sphere, but wherever they hit they countered its erratic spinning, slowing it down to a manageable tumble. Cannons were being charged on both sides and I lurched into the unobservability of the superluminal.

The universe smeared back into existence after this little hop and a skip. To the vessel's crew I must've loomed large; a mad mechanical monstrum that had to be destroyed if they wanted to live. They had my sincerest condolences.

Charging cannons on the lazily rotating stem had me in their sights. Likewise the cannons on my petals were ready to put an end to this mad dance. They fired first. That was fine. I was in no rush to fire first. My Sphere of Influence lit up, the particle beams harmlessly spreading out in glittering glow at the outer layers. I readied Hekkamuk and my cannons.

"Make no mistake." A jab and a shot exploded a grouping of missiles.

"For the sake of the Mezhained." Another jab signaled the end of some mines.

"For the sake of my crew." Jab. An array of coilguns obliterated.

"I." Missile racks shattered.

"Will." Cannons undone.

"KILL!"

With a lamenting wail the lesser contract drive collapsed. In the back drop of Erlkandr's lapis lazuli sun and the ochre crescent of the gas giant a new star was born. A star of shimmering concentric spheres with the glittering glow of debris. I raised up six arms at this magnificent sight, Hekkamuk held aloft. I was alive. So alive. It was for all this beauty I had come to be.

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