The Admiral and the Assistant

Herin Kasra rolled in his egg, reflecting. His body was already well into its transformation: elongating, bending, growing hundreds of tiny new arms. He could already flail them around a bit.

Herin was in constant communication with his new family. The Feeders had some kind of mental connection-- something like telepathy. But his thoughts were no longer distinctly his when he was connected to the others. They became a soup of... not quite discussion, but not quite reflection, either. Like a lone diner deciding where to eat in a city full of amazing restaurants.

Herin had already divulged his population map of the galaxy, and worked with them to select their next target, which garden to harvest next. The Feeders' instinct was to rush to the nearest, fattest system and begin eating, but Herin's communication was of caution, of careful strategy.

Think through it. Be safe. Eat well.

As Herin's body transformed, he understood a little better why the Feeders operated as they did. Along with the changes to his body was a strange sensation, an overriding need. The closest thing he could liken it to was a deep, abiding hunger. He wanted to taste the energy of sentience flowing into him. He writhed, his new body desperate for this sustenance.

But his mind was clear.

Trying to feed off of Ceon 12 again this soon would be pointless. The planet would be mostly empty by now, and if there was anyone left, they'd be extra watchful.

But that was fine. There were plenty of planets in the Imperium.

He went over his map of the galaxy, looking at jumpholes. They'd start somewhere remote, somewhere that wasn't the highest priority. Someplace with no defensive support for the Imperial fleets. That would give them extra time to feed before what was left of the Imperial Navy showed up.

If they showed up. He'd tried to keep up with the few bits of news and information that trickled out to the boneship. He found it harder and harder to care about the dealings within the Imperium, but he knew that any information he could glean would be invaluable to their feeding. The few reports that he had gotten suggested that the Imperial Navy had been critically crippled, perhaps destroyed entirely.

It was entirely possible that the galaxy was simply their smorgasbord now, available for their consumption at their leisure.

Herin's body could no longer smile. His round glasses had gone, along with all his clothes and possessions. But his eyes gleamed as he considered the defenseless galaxy splayed before him.

"Where are Flander?" Minius asked.

"Don't know," Brutus said. He was focused on his little console, navigating the ship. "I've been working on this all day. I haven't seen him since lunch."

Minius peered over Brutus's shoulder.

"How are the Ocher Dawn doing?"

"It's fine," Brutus said distractedly. "I'm just getting used to the new flight characteristics. The Dawn is much more responsive now."

Brutus's brow was wrinkled with concentration. He'd spent years developing a deft touch with the controls of the Ocher Dawn, and had learned to adjust for the slow response of the ship. Now, after the Naval refit, the controls were stiffer, tighter, and less forgiving. Before, the sluggishness had acted as a buffer, giving him plenty of time to make adjustments and course corrections. Now the ship responded to his inputs immediately and with more power, in spite of their increased weight.

The Navy had fully enclosed the hull of the Ocher Dawn and replaced all her engines over Captain Minius' strenuous objections. Now, rather than having shielding that protected them from the blankness of space, the shielding protected a hull made of good Naval metal.

It was still a patchwork. The hull was a mishmash of new and old panels. The chief engineer in charge of repairs had kept their reactor, but selected smaller engines with an eye toward what the reactor could actually drive. The comms system had been replaced wholesale, to match with Navy frequencies.

The Admiral had signed off on the work reluctantly, realizing that what he really wanted was to replace the Ocher Dawn entirely. Captain Minius had reluctantly signed off on the work just to get his ship back. The chief engineer had been at the end of his patience dealing with the both of them, and threatened to simply shove the whole mess into a star to shut them up if they didn't get out of his shipyard.

In spite of Minius' concerns, Brutus had to admit that the Ocher Dawn operated much more fluidly. He was working on unlearning some of the habits he'd developed over the years of carrying the Dawn through their scrapping operations: babying the cracked inertial dampers, setting up navigational turns well ahead of where they were needed, watching the reactor's output before activating another system. Now he could just do what they needed to do.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It was liberating, but also a bit terrifying.

On top of that, he had to try to keep up with the fleet. The Admiral had picked up some more ships, something he called the 'Wraithfleet,' and they all flew in a rigid, disciplined formation. Brutus simply couldn't keep up. Mostly he kept the Ocher Dawn tagging along at the end of the fleet and hoped that they weren't getting in anybody's way.

"Have you found any problems with the new engines?" Minius fretted, speaking over Brutus's shoulder.

"It's fine, I said," Brutus replied, a little roughly.

"What about the new weapon? That are not affecting any of our other systems, are it?"

Brutus gave a sharp sigh. "Look, Minius, I'm trying to keep us close to the formation. Flander is the one that's been messing with the weapon. Maybe that's where is now. You need to ask him about it."

"Sure, sure, it are fine," Minius said, a little hurt. "I'll ask him. You let me know if you find anything that they did mess up with my ship."

"I will, Minius."

Captain Minius found his way back to the cargo section that now housed the Ocher Dawn's Naval weapon. He paneled in.

He walked in slowly, frowning. This was a torpedo room now, much as he didn't care for it. This had once been an cramped cargo space, filled with plenty of scrap, but now it was filled with incomprehensible Naval technology.A long tube jutted into the area, capped by a heavy block of machinery. A rack of blank, sinister torpedo pods sat nearby. Thick robotic arms jutted from the machinery, ready to load torpedoes into the tube and fire them.

He felt a bit nervous around the torpedoes. To his understanding, each one carried a tiny reactor that would activate in flight, then go critical once it hit a target.

He didn't care for the idea of having a dozen active reactors just laying around on his ship. But the Admiral had been quite firm about the Dawn having some kind of armament. Their ship's reactor simply didn't have the energy to power even a small surface blaster, according to the chief engineer in charge of repairs. To say nothing of a blaster cannon or any heavy gunnery equipment. That limited them to launcher-style weapons: mass drivers, ion cannons, and torpedoes.

Mass drivers required a great deal of training and skill to use effectively, so they'd been out, and ion cannons were complicated to maintain. Torpedoes, as a system, were the simplest weapons in the Navy. Importantly, they could be operated completely from the bridge, which was especially important for the Ocher Dawn's limited crew.

"Flander, what are you doing?"

The robot squatted in the midst of disassembled equipment. His many pincers were busily sorting and disassembling, sifting through a mass of parts.

Minius took in the entirety of the room. One of the torpedoes had been opened. The end of its pod shape had been removed. Minius' breath caught.

"Flander, did you take this torpedo apart?"

One tap on the deck.

"Where are the reactor?" he said tightly.

Flander pointed to a nearby workbench with a half-dozen arms. A basketball-sized cluster of equipment laid on its side. Minius' lips tightened at the sight of a bare reactor.

Are you-- should you be doing that?" he said. "I do not think the Admiral would approve."

One tap again.

"Flander... what are you doing?"

The robot scraped and scratched on the deck with one arm while the others stayed busy on the dismantled torpedo.

"Flander, what are this?" Minius tilted his head. "Magnum... propositum? I don't know old Imperial. What do it mean?"

More scraping and tapping.

"'What 'great purpose?' Flander, you are a scrapper. Where are you getting these wild ideas?"

Flander stopped what it was doing. Its central sphere didn't really have a "front," as such, but Minius got the distinct impression that Flander was staring levelly at him.

A dozen arms came up suddenly, pointing at Minius. The move was so sudden that the Captain took two involuntary steps backward.

Then Flander squatted back down and began working on the torpedo again.

Minius watched him for a long, uneasy moment.

"Well, be careful with that reactor," he said lamely and walked out of the torpedo room.

Kinnit and Grimthorn were in their office. The quiet bustle of work dutifully done filled the air.

The ceiling began flashing, bright red. Kinnit sprang to her feet, but Grimthorn merely tensed.

"Sir?" she said. "It's the alert!" She scanned the details on her console. "The Velonia System. They're a Subject-- they used to be a Subject Species." She ran some quick nav calculation. "That's clear at the other end of the galaxy! We need to move fast!"

Grimthorn didn't move.

"Sir?" Kinnit stared at him, worry written across her face. "The alert? For the Feeders?" Grimthorn kept his eyes fixed on his desk. "They've been spotted again," Kinnit said, every fiber of her being humming to dash to the bridge.

"I know," he said. He stood slowly, not meeting her eyes. "I know."

"We need to get the fleet going, sir! We have to save the Imperium!"

Grimthorn finally raised his eyes to hers. In them she saw something she'd never before seen on his face. An expression she almost didn't recognize.

Fear.

Kinnit froze, her mouth locked open.

"Grimthorn?" she managed finally. "Are you... okay?"

Grimthorn looked at her longingly for a minute.

"Kinnit, if this is our last... if this is the end, then I want you know... I'm glad to have known you. I'm glad you're my wife. I'm glad we eliminated the designation of SSes. There's so much I would have never known if we hadn't met." He stumbled to a stop. All his words seemed so insufficient. "I love you," he said.

She smiled at him, but her body was still turned toward the door. She turned back and hugged him.

"I love you too, Grimthorn," she said. "But there are people that need us right now."

Grimthorn's face stiffened. He screwed his brows back down and set his jaw.

"I'm ready," he lied. "Let's go save the Imperium."