Adventures of an Ancient Space Battleship

Kiru stepped off the ramp and looked around. She’d checked everywhere she could think of on the ship, but hadn’t found Megumi. Not yet, but she did notice that they apparently docked with a station at some point. The idea of the Constellation being docked as big as it was felt a little weird.

All around her she could see young women moving back and forth. Mostly biomechs, she even spotted May walking down a different ramp and carrying a large crate. The girl was weirdly only wearing a bra and nothing else. Leaving her with a few questions, but then again biomechs tended to be more free with how they dress.

Looking the other way she finally found Megumi crouched by an open access panel, a box of tools and parts lying next to her. The only reason Kiru even knew it was her, was because she had just crawled out to pull a part from the box.

As she crawled back in, Kiru made her way over and settled down next to her, “So, um, Megumi? When did we dock?”

“Oh? Are you and your sisters done bonding? Did you have fun?”

She nodded her head, but then realizing that Megumi likely couldn’t see her she responded, “I did.”

“Glad to hear it. I docked while you were having fun and didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I take it this is that shipyard you wanted to visit first.”

“One of them, I sent a probe to check out the other one while I get to work on this one. We have our work cut out for us.”

“How bad?”

“Structure and power are both intact, but the machinery is not only out of date its half shot. The mines below have collapsed, I should be able to reopen the core taps, but the processing plants need to be completely replaced. I’m going to have to use my own manufactories to supply parts and equipment for a while too. I think I can have the yard partially operational in three months, and fully online in six.”

“Ouch, and time is critical here isn’t it?”

“The longer we take, the stronger these rogue assimilators will be.  Yes, but if we move too fast the mission will fail. At the very least we will need this yard. Ava was very clear that this is a containment mission, it’s why she shared the location of two shipyards. We are going to need additional ships.”

“And that is why you reactivated that outpost?”

“Between the one I built and the one I reactivated, we should have plenty of personnel to carry out missions and raw materials to build ships. Once a proper gate is established here that is. The minerals down there would help too, so we need to bring that outpost online too. It’s a lot of work, but the sooner we get it done the sooner we can get to containing these rogue machines.”

“Agreed, so how soon before we can do that?”

“Well, intel is important, so in three months I’ll start building scout ships, that way we can move in eight. If things go to plan.”

“That is a fair amount of time.”

“Agreed, but I don’t want to risk moving too soon. On the other hand if I move too late it could prove problematic. Now, since you are there, can you get me the molecular fuser?”

She nodded and picked up a small ovoid tool. Placing it firmly into Megumi’s outstretched hand she said, “I just hope things don’t get too bad for the people living here in Tem before we are ready to move.”

Megumi responded, “So do I.”

---

Anai stepped onto her bridge and was almost instantly greeted by one of her engineers, “Morning Ma’am, I have last night's repair reports.”

She took them, “anything of note?”

“We have restored shields and internal forcefields. There was a minor failure in the backup life support systems for deck four, but it’s been corrected.”

“What about the hyperspace compensators?” she asked, hoping someone had finally gotten to fixing them. Unfortunately, the section of the ship they were mounted in was badly damaged, with multiple ruptured power conduits, toxic fumes leaking into the cabin from fuel line ruptures and fire damage in some areas as well.

“Well someone finally managed to take a look, the entire subsystem is a mess. If we had the parts we could fix it, but we don’t.”

“So we are stuck without a compensator?”

Her helmsman spoke up, “Worse, we are flying blind. We hit some turbulence an hour ago and it knocked out what is left of the main sensor array. An enemy vessel could fly up right next to us and we wouldn’t even know it.”

She let out a breath, “So no compensators and blind? Lovely.”

Anai didn’t much relish the idea of a full trip without compensators and being blind just made things worse. Far worse, as now they wouldn’t be able to avoid the more dangerous phenomenon in hyperspace. There was a reason why old-style hyperdrives were restricted to around eight hundred times the speed of light. The compensators not only allowed for faster drives but served to protect from hyperspace anomalies like the temporal field they were flying through. Being blind however, would force them to travel even slower than they already were.

“How long before the sensors are back?”

“A day maybe two.”

The ship rocked at that moment, as a thud sounded. Someone commented, “It seems we hit something.”

“Or something hit us,” countered someone else.

Anai sighed before taking her seat, “Make the sensors top priority. I don’t like flying blind.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

As her crew started moving to get things done, she stared at her screens. Reflected on them were optical images of hyperspace. A distorted stormy region that looked like a kaleidoscope of blue. Every shade of blue you could imagine, plus a thousand more that couldn’t exist impossibly blended together in an ever changing landscape. Dotted by the occasional object that existed down here, including rocks that made their way into hyperspace. Usually from weak points between normal space and hyperspace. In other words from jump points, which were by far the best way in or out of hyperspace. Although the more powerful hyperdrives were able to punch through from just about anywhere, even near a gravity well.

Of course what worried her most was how different hyperspace was. Even at this relatively shallow depth they were subject to laws of physics that didn’t quite match the norm. She knew in the past people were able to safely navigate without any compensators at this depth, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. The devices were invented for a reason.

For the next couple of hours her shift was mostly the boring normal stuff that occurred during transit. Maybe with a little extra thanks to the damage, but nothing she was too worried about. She was just starting to think about lunch when an officer came up to her, “Excuse me, Ma’am, I have a request from the Medical Bay, Chief Larissa wants to conduct a full medical check up for the staff on a more regular basis. She says a few crewmen have been complaining of minor symptoms related to prolonged hyperspace exposure and would like to monitor the crew more closely so she can stay ahead of it.”

Anai took the pad she was offered, looked it over then looked at the young officer, “Hmm, yes she does have a point. Tell her she can go ahead and start.”

“Thank you captain. I’ll inform her right away.”

The officer ducked out, and she took the moment to give the pad a more thorough read. It detailed mostly minor symptoms, headaches, and dizziness were most common. Nothing life threatening, but enough that it did make sense to more closely monitor the crew. Placing it aside, she turned back to her bridge duties. 

---

Ruyi stepped into the nursery with Medical Drone R23-G. She had been doing some rounds and learning a bit more about her role as a princess. Rushing over to the twins, she looked them over, happy to see how healthy they were looking. If perhaps a little fussy. Looking at R23-G she asked, “So how long since they were last fed?”

“According to records, they were last fed just over three hours ago. They should be fine for another couple of hours. A drone will be by to feed them again in an hour.”

“That long? I’d really like them to be fed a little more often than that.”

“Certainly Princess. Would you prefer to reduce the amount the others are getting or increase the time between their feedings?”

She frowned, “Which would be better for them?”

“I’ll cut their feed slightly to compensate for the more frequent intervals for the twins and reduce what the twins get with each feeding. That sound good?”

“I think,” then her gaze turned to the empty bed where sixteen used to be. “Oh, right, you mentioned that sixteen had genetic issues? How bad were they? Was there any way she could have been saved?”

“The poor girl would have required extensive corrections and medical investments. Her quality of life would have been very poor, we determined she would have likely died long before maturity. She may have been healthy now, but under the surface the poor girl already had multiple organ defects. All major organs were affected.”

“Would she have been in pain?”

“A lot of it.”

“Poor girl, but next time might I suggest simply anesthetizing such an infant?” 

Ruyi blinked as she processed the big word she had just used. She even understood it, that was so cool.

“Hmm? That would only knock her out.”

“If given at proper doses yes, but a lethal dose would have been far quicker than cutting her off.”

“True. We will consider it with any future defectives we come across.”

 Ruyi played with the twins a bit before turning back to R23-G, “I guess I should go down to the lower floors and supervise the processing of females?”

“That is not required, but you may if you desire.”

“In that case, I would like to see it.”

“Certainly, this way then.”

Ruyi followed the drone, who led her down to the first floor. It had changed a bit from what she remembered, near the center of the floor was now a large waiting area with a number of young women waiting in it. Many of them looked rather docile as they stood naked in a line.

Ruyi walked up to one of them, a smaller woman whose belly had a modest swell to it. Reaching up she lifted and fingered the woman’s bare breast. Before running a hand over her belly. The woman didn’t respond to the touch, “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

R23-G walked up, “Yes, it’s still quite early in the process. Infant looks to be stable, no defects or corrections appear to be needed. It will be transferred into a gestation unit during processing.”

“You mean like with you?”

“Yes, it will be like this unit’s processing.”

She nodded, that made sense. Ruyi checked the next female in the line, finding her just as accepting of her appraising touches, “Is this one pregnant as well?”

“No, most females aren’t. Females typically spend only a small portion of their life pregnant and the rest caring for their children. Her processing won’t be too different, only we can skip the birth part and go straight to processing.”

Nodding she looked ahead, “I presume further down this path are the processing chambers?”

“Naturally, we can process a hundred females at once right now. Additional chambers are being worked on to allow for additional females to be processed.”

Ruyi smiled, “That sounds good. Show me the chambers. I would like to inspect them.”

“Of course,” replied R23-G as she led the way to the chambers so that she could inspect them.