We stood there for a few minutes, until the king and his court had returned to the throne room. Finally, we followed them.
This time they didn’t take our weapons from us, and we reclaimed our swords on the way in.
Nineteen
The afternoon was a mix of monitoring the fit out of Chaos, and monitoring what the plants were doing.
Both were about as interesting as watching grass grow. Well, actually no. The plants were mixing things up, but our defenses continued to hold. Bob kept me occupied with questions, and several times had me try out simulations of how Chaos would fly and fight with different configurations, using holographic controls from my lounge room on Haven.
Nut kept trying to get my attention, so some of the simulations had to be redone after being cat interrupted. The main issue was the maneuvering thrusters, which without the titan turret, and with the addition of the extra weapon pods, had to be substantially changed. And for once, Bob had the actual captain for the new ship captive for getting things right. Which was odd when I thought about it because every ship I’d flown so far had been absolutely perfect for flying, and I knew damn well Jon had never done any of this testing simulation stuff before he took delivery.
In any case, Bob and the plants kept me occupied well into the evening, and after agreeing to meet the rest of the girls on the shipyard after breakfast, Nut and I went to bed. Once again I found myself missing Chris, cuddling Nut and not really finding him a substitute for a boyfriend, but all the same, better than sleeping alone. I slept well all the same.
Morning came with a wakeup call from Jane, and I checked out the goings on across our space on a popped up hollo screen while I showered. A row of comnavsats was now in place leading into Keerah space from Crossroad, I assumed placed by Jane in a Lightning, and six jump points in was a major Keerah fleet doing battle with a similar sized Trixone one. As I soaped, Keerah reinforcements appeared suddenly not far from the battle, so I assumed Jon was still moving fleets around.
Six jumps into Keerah space was too damned close to our space, and if the Keerah lost this area, we’d have an extra block point to worry about ourselves, and nothing to plug it with. But this was Jon’s worry, not mine. I knew Bob was still building battlestations, but they were taking too long for us to suddenly need them to plug another hole.
By the time I was toweling off, the Trixone had been beaten back, and the Keerah were licking their wounds. But elsewhere, the plants were still missile spamming, and sending fleets and fighters through. It seemed like they didn’t care how many losses they took, and had infinite reinforcements to replace them with. For now, we didn’t have any real clue, and unless we could get comnavsats into their back areas, we never would.
I honestly don’t know how Jon keeps all of this in his head. Point me at a target, and I’m good. But the nav map was way beyond my ability to take it all in. And in terms of what the old human spine was, we currently could see very little. Even when we were fighting the Darkness, I never paid much attention to what was going on elsewhere. But Jon knew what was happening everywhere.
Probably why he was the Imperator, and I was a pilot. And to think, if I’d played my cards differently, I could have been Mrs. Imperator right now. I snorted at the thought, and chuckled a bit as I pulled undies on. And no, that wasn’t where I thought I’d ever be, and I had no hankering to be any more than Dreamwalker’s Chaos. Anyone who called me Mrs. Dreamwalker was going to eat my foot.
Out in the living room I found a butler droid trying to coax Nut into a carry cage, and not having much luck with it. He meowed at me plaintively, giving me the cat version of a hangdog look, and I took pity on him, telling the butler it was fine, and to leave the cage. I didn’t know whose butler it was, as I didn’t have any myself, using a service butler offered by Catworld to care for Nut when he was here and I wasn’t. This one could have been sent by Bob, but I didn’t really need one.
I finished dressing by shifting suit armbands into slinky tank top and shorts, socks, and a cap, shifted my belt into uniform, and added the remainder of the armbands, wishing the damn things were not so obvious. Still, if something went wrong today, I’d be fully protected.
I’d repacked the night before, so when I was ready to leave, I picked up Nut and put him in the carry cage, this time with him going in meekly, and put the cage on top of my grav chest. His extra weight made no difference, and I left my suite with the chest following along behind me.
Down on the main level, I stopped for breakfast at a café I frequented when here on the station. Cats in cages weren’t unusual here, and Nut attracted a fair amount of attention from patrons and passersby. He gave them all his adorable cat look, and they all tickled him through the gaps, and told him just how adorable he was. He lapped it up.
Breakfast done, I took a travel car to the military side of the station, and walked through the doorway rift to the shipyard. Another travel car, and I found myself at a window looking out at Chaos.
At which point I completely lost it, and stormed off to where Janine told me Bob was. He looked up in surprise as I stormed in.
“Who the fuck painted my ship PINK?”
Twenty
A pink ship wasn’t the only surprise for the morning.
Instead of the normal grin I’d expected from Bob, he was totally shocked by my reaction. He assured me he’d thought I’d requested the colour, and if he was going to play jokes with ship colours, his choice would have been canary yellow.
I suspected a rat. Maybe Jane, or even Janine, who was a Jane clone originally. I’d often wondered how much of Jane’s sense of humour was Jon’s imprinted on her, and how much was her own. I had no doubt at all Jon would paint my ship pink, knowing just how infuriated it would make me, and how much he’d enjoy watching me explode. And let’s face it, I dumped him, and he had never retaliated in any way, but ship paint would be one way of doing it.
Although truth to tell, that was probably the old Jon. He’d changed over the course of the last three months. And not necessarily for the good. But even the new Jon still seemed to be doing his meditations and releases, and given his kill score these days, I could understand it. Old or new, it most likely wasn’t him, though. He just wasn’t like that. In fact, he’d taken the whole me running away from him thing really well, all things considered.
Jane on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying some aspects of humour just a little too much these days. But given what she was seeing constantly, maybe she needed the humour to stay sane. I certainly couldn’t begrudge her that, and I had no doubt at some point I’d be laughing over the whole pink ship thing.
Bob promised to change the colour if I really wanted it, but it would put off the acceptance testing if he did it immediately. Which was something I didn’t want to do.
Instead of pressing the issue, I stalked out, trunk following me still, with a bemused looking Nut on top, and found the nearest connection to one of Chaos’ airlocks. It led me onto my ship for the first time, where I was relieved to find the outside colour scheme hadn’t been continued inside. The airlock opened into deck one, and I had to walk half the width of the deck down a long corridor to reach the stairwell and access shafts, before continuing down the spiral staircase to deck two and my captain’s suite.
The whole ship had that new paint smell, and my suite was no exception. The living area had the same sort of furniture as Chris’s did, except for the large cat tree in one corner. I let Nut out of his cage, and he leapt up each level to the top, and hung off it looking at me upside down, purring loudly. The bedroom had a king sized bed and little else. The wardrobes were also still smelling of newness, so I left my trunk on the floor for unpacking later when environmental finally removed all the smells.
The kitchen was fully stocked, including food and water facilities for Nut, already filled and waiting for him. Off the kitchen was a small alcove set up with his litter tray, which was the same as Jon’s Angel had everywhere she went, with its own cleaning
bot. The alcove even had a refuse slot, so the little bot didn’t have to go far to deposit Nut’s deposits.
Back in the living room, I pulled Nut off the tree, and showed him where his litter, food and water were. He gave me an ‘alright, I can see that, now put me back on my tree’ look, so I did so.
My bathroom was all set up with the sort of towels I preferred, the exact soap I used, and everything I’d brought with me from my suite. I sighed. Jane saw all, and had duplicated it perfectly. Even the deodorant I used with my few real civvies was sitting there waiting for me. Suit wear had the benefit of not needing such things, but occasionally it was damn good to get out of the suit, and wear real clothes.
On a whim, I triggered the underwear dispenser, and it delivered the exact undies I preferred. While I knew the rest of the girls tended to go for briefs and tank tops, mine were fuller sized and more lacy, and the top was looser and also lacy. Chris seemed to like what I wore. I left them there for after my first shower.
Nut had gone to sleep on the top of his tree, so I left him there. I did however finally notice the cat door in the door to my suite, so he could come and go however he liked. A nice thought, but Nut wasn’t much of an explorer, so he’d probably never use it.
I headed up to the bridge, which was where the next surprise awaited me. I lurched to a stop just inside the door.
There was a cat tree growing out of the middle of the main console.
I slowly walked to the command chair, thinking I was seeing things and it would vanish shortly. Only it didn’t. I continued on to the console, and reached out a hand to touch it. It was real. I shook my head, and backed up to my chair, not quite knowing how to react.
“Ah, captain,” said a voice from behind me, and I almost missed the chair sitting abruptly.
I pushed myself back into it fully, and turned towards the voice. A woman was standing in the door to the ready room. My ready room. She was shaped much like I was, but her hair and eyes were different shades to mine.
“I’m Chaos,” she said, coming forward.
I watched her move to where Jane usually sat, waited until she was seated, and swiveled to face me.
“Hi. I was expecting Jane.”
And I had been. But I should have known this class of ship always had its own AI avatar.
“Jane sends her regards. How should I address you?”
“Well I’m not a ma’am, so don’t call me that. Call me captain if others are with us, and Grace if we’re alone.”
“Will do, Grace. The Imperator would like to talk to you.”
“Put him on.”
Much to my surprise, the main HUD came on in front of the cat tree, almost as if it was overlaid on top of it. It was visible behind, but not overly so. Jon appeared in the middle, and this blocked out even more of the tree.
“How’s the new ship, Grace?”
“New. I’ve just come aboard and met the AI. One crack about the paint colour on the hull, and next time I see you I’ll knock your block off.”
He looked confused for a moment, looked sideways as someone said something to him, and then his grin lit up. Jane I bet, showing him. He looked back at me, and his grin faded. Joke over, back to business. It was good to see he could still grin spontaneously.
“Lieutenant Commander. You are officially appointed captain of the ISNS Chaos.”
ISNS? Imperium Space Navy Starship? I’d have to look it up. Next thing would be we’d be getting hull numbers as well.
“Your orders are to begin acceptance testing at once, to ensure the new gun clusters and power generators perform as required, and to work with Bob to correct any problems which may arise. You will then submit a report on how the ship performs to Jane, and await further orders.”
“Aye sir.”
“Grace, I’ve followed the design process, but given the huge change in armament and especially how much more you added, I’d be very surprised if something major isn’t wrong somewhere. So take the time to find it, and prove the ship configuration works. You have a lot of eyes watching you on this one. If Chaos proves to be a viable weapon, some of the older ships can be phased out into secondary roles in favour of this new dreadnaught design, moving fighter pilots in the old designs to something more like a fighter. I know Miriam and Greer are going to be watching you closely. So don’t fast track the testing. We need the ship to be proved to work, before you get to see action.”
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.
“I know you and the team want to go search for George, but you won’t do him or anyone else a favour if you swan off in a half tested ship which then dies on you unexpectedly. Once we have some idea of where he is, I promise I’ll let you go look for him, but for now, you have a new untested design, and the testing needs your undivided attention. Understand me?”
“I do.”
“Good luck then. I look forward to seeing Chaos in action.”
The screen vanished, not letting me get in the last word. Chaos grinned at me.
“Ship systems are open for you, captain. The ship accepts you as its captain, and is waiting for you to take command.”
“Does the Imperium have a ‘take command’ spiel I need to adhere to?”
“Not yet. But for the record, you should accept the command formally.”
“Fine. I, Lieutenant Commander Grace Tapping, do take command of this ship, as ordered by the Imperator. Append date and time to the record.”
“Done.”
“Now that’s over with,” said Amanda, from the doorway behind me, “let’s get this show on the road.”
Twenty One
First things first.
I confirmed we had an Excalibur four, a Lightning, dropship, and captain’s gig in the hanger. They were all pink. No surprise there, but I rolled my eyes anyway.
I sub-vocally confirmed with Chaos the girls had all brought stuff with them, and had claimed suites. Also no surprise, given the way Amanda was behaving. At the same time I found out Tanith was also aboard, and was in a suite at the moment. With more than me and Nut on board, I also checked there was more than enough food and drink laid in for the lot of us.
Chaos confirmed there was also a half dozen butler droids on board, and one of them was assigned to looking after Nut and my suite, and the rest for crew support. In addition, a full company of combat droids were awaiting activation in a storage area, and all types of weapons were in a dedicated armoury for them. The normal compliment of repair, salvage, and search and rescue droids were also aboard.
And no surprise at all, there were combat suits for all of us, with spares for Chaos. The crew armoury was also fully outfitted for any marine type need. Likewise we had a full stock of ordnance for all the missile launchers.
By the time I’d checked the command menu structure, and made sure all my default settings had been transferred over, Tanith had made it to the bridge and taken his normal place. I had a momentary eye contact with Chaos, and found out her sense of humour was much the same as Janes.
“Rooster in the hen house,” came through my PC, and I kept my face straight with a little effort.
I was the only one in uniform. Tanith was wearing his basic black outfit, with armbands, and the girls were wearing ‘slinky red’ without insignia, but also with armbands. I looked over at Tanith.
“Any chance you can move my cat to the top of the tree there?”
He looked at where I was pointing, and did a double take. Chuckles suggested the girls either hadn't seen the tree, or had waited for it being pointed out before letting their mirth loose.
“Where is your cat?”
Not what is a cat, just where he was. Obviously he knew what a cat was, of course, from seeing Angel on Jon’s bridge.
“Last time I saw him he was on top of the tree in my living room.”
He closed his eyes, and Nut appeared on the top of the tree, still fast asleep. Or not so asleep. An eye opened, seemed to look around to find me, and closed again. He started purr
ing.
“Now the cat is settled,” said Amanda, “can we get started?”
This started more chuckles, but I ignored them. This was my ship. It was my cat. And they were passengers. While Amanda thought she might be able to order me around, she really couldn’t. On the dropship, yes she could. If a marine action was to begin, yes she could.
But on my ship, I ruled.
In theory.
And in practice, I hoped she didn’t try it. She was a marine, I was navy. I wasn’t in her chain of command. She could appeal to Jon to give me orders, but in this case, Jon wasn’t going to let her do what she obviously was trying to hurry me up to do. I can’t say I blamed her, and I felt the pull myself. But first things first. Jon was right, and we did need to test this ship before anything else.
“Where to?” asked Chaos.
“Push us out of the bay nice and slow, and then a course to something we can shoot at without anyone caring. Ramp the speed up steadily, so we can see what the cruising speed and top speeds are.”
“Are you going to say Engage or something to have orders executed?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
She grinned at me, and I waved a hand to get us moving forward. I monitored as the boarding tubes retracted, and the docking clamps released and moved away, and finally we started moving.
Chaos took us well out from the bay, twirled us in the direction of the nearest asteroids, and fired off the main engines. Over the next ten minutes, we sat there as the speed built, indicators for engines, power, and shields showing on the HUD, the shields building from nothing to full, and the engines showing purring along nowhere near the red lines.
Cruising speed turned out to be a good twenty percent above fleet speed, and I told Chaos to have a repair droid put another notch in the speed sliders when the bridge was free, so the slower fleet speed was the first stop position when the slider was pushed all the way forward. Instead of two, there’d now be three, or two notches and all the way.
Imperium Knight Chaos Rising (The Hunter Imperium Book 6) Page 9
