Of Men and Spiders

As Scott walked onto the command deck of the old ship around which Charlotte had built the asteroid, he could hear what was probably the tail end of the message Alice had been talking about. "immediate assistance!"

As he settled in, the comm repeated. "This is crewmate Cleo aboard the cargo hauler 'Lost Wages.' Pirates have boarded us, and we request immediate assistance!"

Scott stared at the com, uncertain what to do. This area wasn't exactly known for pirate activity. Hell, it was a tourist system! There was only one reason pirates would be here now. They were looking for Scott and Alice.

The intelligent thing would be to stay hidden. He didn't owe these people anything, and as Charlotte was so quick to point out, he was still just a kid. But for a moment, he saw his sister's lifeless face after his father had struck her, and he wondered how many people on that ship would have the same expression. He picked up the com in a decision based more on visceral reaction than thought. "Lost Wages, this is the...." What should he call their new home? Only one thing came to mind, and he'd already started speaking. "'Charlotte's Web.' Please respond."

Scott waited, but the message only repeated itself. He tried one more time. "'Lost Wages,' this is 'Charlotte's Web.' Please respond!"

After a moment, the message repeated. Scott sat back, analyzing the situation. Clearly, no one was operating the bridge, or at least none of the original crew. Was the original crew already dead or just held captive? What should he do?

Pulling up some scans, he could see the "Lost Wages" was a smaller freighter, currently being latched onto by an even smaller pirate ship. At that size, the pirate ship probably had an upward limit of a dozen crew members at most. Of course, depending on how well-geared they were, that could still be an issue. If these guys were decked out with powered armor like his father...like Cooper's crew had been, that could make them a real threat. But looking at the small decrepit ship, he didn't think that would be likely. He doubted the thing was space-worthy in all but the strictest sense of the word.

Looking over, he could see Charlotte staring back at him, or at least one of her hands, which was the same thing. He knew she wasn't judging him, at least not how a human might, but he couldn't help but feel like she added a heavy weight to his decisions. If he was the first human Charlotte ever got to know, he should at least show off humanity at its best, especially given some of the alternatives she'd born witness to.

Scott took a moment to steady himself, then addressed Charlotte. "If we send a shuttle over to the 'Lost Wages,' do you have enough appendages available to neutralize any pirate threats onboard?"

Charlotte took a moment to respond. "Yes, I believe I can fully neutralize any threats onboard. However, I suspect your mother would not appreciate you endangering yourself."

Scott sighed and shook his head. "Maybe not, but I just can't sit back while someone else might be going through what we went through or worse. We have to try. Though, admittedly, there's not much I can do. This would be mostly up to you. I'd just be there to speak to the freighter crew once you dealt with the pirates."

Charlotte presented another counterpoint. "This may require me to expend considerable resources. I do not know these humans. I do not believe the benefits outweigh the costs of interfering."

That stopped Scott. He hadn't considered that Charlotte wouldn't be willing to help. He thought rapidly. "Listen, part of the whole reason you've gotten to know Alice and myself is because you're hoping to work with humanity for mutual benefit to us and yourself, right? But you've also seen time and again our first instinctive reaction to you is fear or aggression. By helping out a bunch of humans like this, you can establish yourself as someone to be trusted. It could go a long way toward you establishing good relationships with humans in the future."

Charlotte was quiet for several moments while Scott waited to see if he'd been able to sway her opinion. Several tension-filled moments later, Charlotte answered. "Very well, but you will remain on the landing craft until I decide everything is safe, alright?"

-

Scott was sitting at the helm, a little nervous. He'd flown many simulations and even taken some older models out of the dock occasionally, but this was his first time trying something like this. He looked over at Charlotte. "Remember, you must disable anyone still on the pirate ship first! If they manage to disengage from the freighter, they could shoot down our little landing craft, and there's not much we could do about it. Luckily, it's an older model, so it'll take them several minutes to disengage their locks. We should be able to get into the freighter with time to spare, but move quickly once you get there!"

Charlotte looked calm as ever, though Scott wasn't exactly sure what anxiety would look like on her. Or even if she could feel anxiety, for that matter. Still, her voice was as relaxed as if they were discussing garden care. "I am aware of the plan. I believe you said the timing was of the essence, though. Should we not be moving now?"

Scott took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, we should." With that, he engaged the thrusters.

Surprisingly, this ship behaved more like the simulations than the real one he'd flown in training. Probably because that thing had been as bulky and slow as they could make it for students to fly, in the hopes that if someone screwed up, there would be as few casualties as possible. Even going slow, he could tell this ship was much more responsive as he flew through the passageway to open space.

Once in the open, Scott wiped his hands on his pants, not realizing how much he'd been sweating, then accelerated, taking a wide loop around the asteroid to hide where he'd exited from. With luck, if anyone was watching, they wouldn't even realize he'd come out of the asteroid and would think there was another ship somewhere in the field. Once he began approaching the freighter, he did his best to keep as much of the freighter between him and the pirate vessel as possible. Not that he thought he could evade detection, but he didn't want to find out the hard way they had a turret or something on top of the ship that could fire at them from some odd angle.

Typically, at about this point, he'd request any shields in effect to be lowered so he could land in a docking bay, but for better or for worse, the pirates had already taken care of that for him. So he picked the nearest bay opposite the pirate vessel and landed his craft.

Of course, without someone to close the bay or activate any shielding, there was no atmosphere there, but that was apparently only a minor inconvenience to Charlotte, who sent out a few hands designed for operation in a vacuum. Scott was directing their movement from a pad he'd hooked up to a camera he'd mounted on the hands, and they were able to get the bay closed and pressurized quickly.

That done, the rest of Charlotte's appendages shuffled out onto the ship to begin her assault.

-

Rather than march right out the doors into the ship, Charlotte tore open the vents with some of her larger appendages sent in several of her smallest hands to observe the locations of any humans waiting on the other side. As Scott had predicted, they had spotted the landing craft and sent several humans to intercept its passengers. She considered moving past them without giving away her presence, but it seemed they were attempting to breach the door into the area containing Scott's ship. That She could not allow.

Acting offensively was not something Charlotte had much experience with. She'd never initiated a conflict with another She, though She had participated in one joint action. Even against the pirates, She'd only fought defensively. Still, the basic principles were the same: neutralize the enemy before they can neutralize you. Ideally, She'd just send some smaller appendages with venom to deal with the threat, but the vents were too sturdy for her smaller hands to remove, which meant she'd have to deal with their assault head-on.

As Scott had mentioned, Charlotte was aware most humans reacted with fear upon seeing her for the first time, and she took this into account as she positioned herself and opened the door.

The sight the humans were greeted with was what Scott had dubbed "Pure nightmare fuel." It was a giant spider form covered in teeth and hundreds of blinking eyes. Of course, most of the eyes were actually non-functional decorations. In fact, the whole appendage was mostly decoration. It moved sluggishly and served only two purposes: to attract attention and take damage, and as the humans started screaming and shooting it, that's precisely what it did.

While her distraction appendage did its job, Charlotte snuck over a dozen smaller appendages, each filled with enough venom to neutralize an adult human. A few quick bites later, the humans were lying strewn about, no longer a threat.

The initial threat handled, Charlotte withdrew her distraction appendage so she could later reabsorb its material and sent several smaller hands scouting ahead, each mounted with a tiny camera Scott had given her so he could aid her in distinguishing between pirates and possible crew members.