“I am not happy with this. This is all very… invasive. You can understand that with my history I’m troubled by this.”
“Again, apologies. We can always not do this but then we can’t manoeuvre with the alacrity we might need to keep both you and me alive. Potentially, this means death or discomfort. Death or trauma. Or I ditch you in the module and—”
“Do it!” she said, almost shouting. “I can always get counselling,” she muttered.
Warm foam slid into her mouth. She felt it — or something, somewhere — numbing her mouth and throat; she didn’t gag, didn’t feel exactly where the foam went.
“Well done,” the ship sent. “Now, bite down, Lededje. No rush. Our pursuers are giving us a countdown to compliance but there’s ample time. Hmm. Finally some ident. GFCF. There’s a surprise.”
She bit down, into the warm foam. Something started to tickle her nose, then that sensation faded too.
~Right! the ship announced breezily, its voice inside her head.
~That’s you as ready as you’re ever going be. Try sending instead of saying?
~Howowow ig diss? Oh, fshuck.
~“How is this?” You’re overdoing the sub-vocalising. Just do it, don’t think about doing it.
~Okay, how’s this?
~Perfect. See? Easy. Now we can start behaving like a proper warship!
~Oh, great.
~It’ll be fine.
~What’s happening?
She was watching the screen-like images change; the black snowflake had flicked to one side, then swung slowly back to centre-rear. Then it had flicked in the other direction, before swinging back again. So far she hadn’t felt anything; if the ship was manoeuvring hard it was preventing any trace of the accelerations affecting her physically. It all felt perfectly smooth so far. She suspected this was a deceptive sensation.
~I’m shaking my humble-Torturer-class-pretending behind at them, the ship told her. ~Bit more energetically than an original-spec ship could, but that’s still plausible; most of those old ships have upgraded significantly. Looking like I’m trying to shake them off. Spooling up burst units for a series of break-angle turns.
Lededje felt herself clenching, without being entirely aware what she was clenching. The image of the black snowflake disappeared. Then she saw it, way off to one side. It started to slide slowly back towards where it had been. It flickered, disappeared to another part of her field of view. She still couldn’t feel anything. Another flick/suddenly-somewhere-else motion, then another. She was losing the black snowflake for seconds at a time between flicks.
~How we doing? she asked.
~Successfully giving the appearance of getting desperate, the ship told her. ~Really trying everything to get them off our tail, apparently. Without result, of course. Spooling bursters for a single max-to-zero draining event and preparing to execute a whip flare with main traction; means a little engine degradation but it’s allowable if it might get you out of a tight spot and at the moment it looks like our best shot. Or at least it looks like it looks like our best shot. Haw, haw.
~Should I be reassured that you seem to be enjoying this so much?
~Abso-fucking-lutely. Watch this.
The black snowflake with too many limbs disappeared entirely. She cast her gaze about, trying to find it.
~Where’d the fucker go? she found herself muttering.
~It’s here, the ship’s voice told her. A portion of space which she was aware was almost directly behind her and yet somehow just at the periphery of her oddly lensed vision lit up with a green circle and zoomed in to show the snowflake again, much smaller and getting smaller still.
~Sorry, she sent. ~Didn’t mean to distract you.
~You won’t, the ship sent. ~I’m talking through the suit at the moment. All ship’s own main processing power’s going to manoeuvrage, tactical simming and field management. Not to mention keeping up appearances, of course. Sub-routine here. Distraction impossible. Ask whatever you want.
The green circle faded as the black snowflake started to get bigger again and slide across the visual field, still heading for centre-rear.
~That doesn’t look so good.
~Got the fucker, the ship said.
~Got it? You’ve been firing at it?
~Ha! No. Got it identified. It’s a Deepest Regrets class. Probably the
~Can you beat it? she asked. The black snowflake was still enlarging, sliding round to centre. Back to backwards, she supposed.
~Oh, yes. The ship sounded blase. ~I most severely outgun, out-armour and can outrun the fucker. Does raise the question though: how many of its little friends has it brought? Deepest Regretsers are pride-of-the-fleet, Ultimate Asset, not-many-of-those-to-the-handful grade craft for the GFCF. Won’t be here by itself. Kind of hints at a maternally fornicating war fleet. What’re these shit-kickers up to? What did they know?
~About what?
~About the smatter outbreak and this new ship-building enthusiasm some bits of the disk have discovered, the ship replied. ~Main local news recently, wouldn’t you say?
~I suppose.
~Ah! Torturer-class-plausible track scanner on seemingly random search finds other ship shock, the ship announced. ~Bugger me, there’s a screen of the little fuckers. They keep peeling off war-craft like this, I’m going to have a fair fight on my hands. Last thing we fucking want.
~Are we in danger?
~Mhm, marginally, I won’t pretend, the ship told her. ~There’s a multiplicatory implication about the presence of a serious capital ship like a Deepest Regretser, and about the way they’ve been able to contain even something as venerable as a Torturer class. Ancient tub, but still a serious piece of ordnance for the GFCF to go up against, in the normal course of events. Whatever the fuck is going on here, this ain’t day-to-day behaviour. This sims as peaking, fulcruming stuff.
~Are those swear words I don’t know about?
~Sort of. Means somebody here might be on a risking-everything approach. That would alter the rules a bit.
~In a good way?
~What do you think?
~I suspect in a bad way.
~Well done.
~What now?
~Time to stop fucking about.
~You’re going to attack?
~Eh? No! You really are bloodthirsty, aren’t you? No; we get you out of danger by letting slip part of the humble-Torturer-class disguise and just powering away from them until they can’t see what I’m doing. Then I can set you off in the shuttle… actually, maybe not in the shuttle; maybe in one of my component shiplets, given the trashing potential that seems to be floating around here at the moment. You head for Sichult to have words with Mr. Veppers, I stick around here to knock some sense into the GFCF — hopefully only metaphorically — and then get stuck into the smatter outbreak, on whatever fucking scale that particular complication happens to be manifesting lately.
~Sure you can afford this “shiplet”?
~Yes, I — oh, hello; they’re hailing again, saying heave-to or blah-blah-blah. Anyway.
She watched the image around her flick-swivel, then all the stars seemed to change colour, blazing blue ahead, red behind.
