Seeing Stars
Ashway Ren was beginning to re-think her career choices. From her position on the bridge of the battleship Daisy, she could see thousands upon thousands of warships floating in aggressive formations through space. On the monitors she was assigned to watch, hundreds of smaller ships and fighter craft filled in the gaps between the larger capital vessels. Behind her, the Daisy's captain seemed outright giddy at the situation.
"How many total contacts?" Captain Coxwell asked in a voice brimming with confidence.
"T-two million." Ashway responded in the polar opposite.
"Any response from the negotiation team?" Richard asked. Their purpose here was to lend weight to the negotiating power of the martially weak race that had hired them.
"I'm tracking their ship now... they're making evasive maneuvers! They're under fire Dick!" Daisy said. The shortening of her captain's name indicated she had just entered combat mode. "They just took a hit. They're gone. No pods."
Ashway turned to look at Richard and saw something dark filter through his unflinching confidence. As a veteran space fighter, Richard had consistently shown extreme distaste for those who failed to follow the universally accepted rules of warfare. As Ashway began to wonder how captain Coxwell was going to react to this egregious breach of parley protocol a transmission was broadcast from the enemy fleet.
"Attention, mewling cowards!" The bloated alien with a thinning, patchy, coat of hair blurted to any ship within range of the transmission.
"Daisy, trace this idiot. I want to know which ship he's on." Dick said.
"I thought you might. Already have him isolated." Daisy and Dick always seemed to sync up where martial matters were concerned.
"Your pathetic attempt to forestall slavery and death at our worthy hands was an amusing entertainment. Abandon all thoughts of resistance and accept your fate as livestock for our larders. Those of you in the pitiful defense fleet before us shall have the honor of surrendering your vessels to swell our ranks. Failure to comply will be met with obliteration! Compliance shall earn you a spot in the menu for our victory feast, a worthy end for such inferior beings." Ashway felt butterflies in her stomach at the open threat, Richard and Daisy looked bored. "Our fleet is the work of generations! All shall crumble before it's grandeur. The holy writ makes clear that we shall subjugate and devour all before us! Submit now and embrace your..."
"Fire the humbler." Dick said casually. The grotesque alien on the screen stopped mid sentence as a panicked look of confusion crossed its face. Immediately afterwards, the ugly face contorted in easily recognizable torment. The pompous speech disintegrated into an awful chorus of pained moans interspersed with screeches of agony. An amused smile played out on Dick's face as the microwave cannons built for crowd control gave the aliens a sensation of boiling alive. "Hijack his signal, please. I have my own speech to give."
"The mic's yours, Dick." Daisy said with a polite curtsy.
"Attention, wastes of perfectly good evolution!" Dick said confidently to the enemy fleet. "Your grand fleet will be good target practice for me. If you don't want to waste the work of generations, leave now and I may be inclined to only shoot half of you for sport. Otherwise, well, consider this a preview of coming attractions..." Richard reached out and turned up the power on the microwave cannons. With a simple pop, the alien crew disappeared from the transmission as their ship was melted like an ice cube in a crucible. Richard flipped the switch on the mic and secured himself to the command seat.
"Battle stations! Threat level 2!" Dick said, all business now.
"Threat level 2, aye. Power, weapons, shields and sensors now in combat profile." Daisy said as the lights dimmed to red. Ashway balked.
"Level two out of what?" Ashway asked as Daisy automatically secured her body to the chair.
"Ten." Daisy responded casually from her small holographic podium at Ashway's station.
"Oh good..." Ashway sighed with audible relief. On her screen several thousand hostile dots swarmed towards her current location in space. A thought she could have done without popped into her brain. "Wait! Which end is the dangerous end? One or Ten?"
The captain and AI paid her no heed as they went to work. Dick, picked targets, assigned weapon systems and gave directives for maneuvering the ship. Daisy efficiently changed his decisions into actions. Rolling the ship to keep the shielding from becoming overtaxed and plotting targeting solutions for Dick as he continuously pushed buttons that spelled the end for his enemies. Ashway kept Dick and Daisy appraised of the enemy and friendly movement around them. For the first time, Ashway realized what a harsh and unforgiving environment the galaxy was. These aliens fought with no intent to give quarter, they were committed to eating every species they found. Meanwhile, Richard and Daisy were busy annihilating something that had taken centuries to complete as easily as a maid directed cleaning robots to sanitize a room. Those performing an act of heroic charity (Dick had accepted the job at a loss) were slaughtering thousands. While those attempting to commit evil were worthy of pity as they impotently charged the most dangerous creation humanity had ever achieved.
The only reason the battle lasted as long as it did, was because Richard made a point to preserve the other mercenaries in the defense fleet. He could have charged ahead and demolished the enemy single-handedly, but there would have been casualties aplenty if the Daisy moved away from the other vulnerable ships that had stayed to defend their helpless employers. In the end the outcome was obvious, the remains of the hostile fleet began to flee. The Daisy kept firing at any ship that dared stay in the combat zone, thinning the fleet to a tenth of its original size before the last ship disappeared in a plasma fueled pop.
"All hostile contacts... destroyed or gone." Ashway said as if the words coming from her throat were a scientific impossibility.
"Well done everybody." Dick said as he stood and stretched. "Can you two handle the cleanup? I need to take a piss."
"Make it quick. The client wants to thank you in person. Their shuttle's on the way." Daisy appraised the captain as he left for the restroom.
"I can't believe we made it through that without a scratch!" Ashway said, sagging into her seat as if a lifetime's worth of stress was seeping out along with the breath.
"No we took a beating. I should be able to make up for all the lost nano-armor with our share of the scrap, so it's no big deal." Daisy said as her hologram looked over a diagnostic of the ship's armor. Daisy quickly closed the window before the alien girl got a look at all the damage. As she had said there was not going to be any problem replacing the nano-plating. There hadn't been a danger anyway. She hadn't even touched the reserves she had set out for the battle. Richard's battle strategy had started causing the enemy gunners to panic and miss almost immediately. Daisy once again considered herself lucky to have a captain who didn't entirely rely on her raw power.
As the nano-salvage drones returned with the last of their share of the wreckage, Daisy started up one of her subroutines again. Her experiment with the sensual simulator (she hated the name but it accurately described her latest creation) had given her an idea that may help their mission. She would need some time alone with the alien girl to make headway on the project though. The problem was, how did she ask the alien girl to allow Daisy to analyze her masturbation? She needed to know the exact conditions required for the alien girl to become fertile. It would take some doing, but maybe Daisy could rig an apparatus and project enough holographic distractions to allow both of her crew members to bust a nut and save humanity. As she thought this over her captain went running past the bridge with an excited smile on his face.
"DaisyI'llbeinmyroomdon'tbugmeunlesstheshipisabouttoexplode!" He said rapidly as he hefted a strange looking object and pushed a small wheeled box along. Ashway and Daisy traded a curious look with each other. While Daisy could technically just view what was going on, her captain had just asked for some privacy. Considering how poorly he tended to react when it was illustrated that he had no such thing, Daisy thought it poor form to rub it in his face. He had said nothing about Ashway bugging him, though. Daisy gestured with her eyes and the alien girl took the hint. Daisy followed the Ashway with her cameras, using the flimsy excuse that she was observing her actions to spy on Dick. AIs were not above petty justifications, apparently.
