USD: 1 Day after Cadre-S Graduation

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A Elevator, Main Transit Hub 36

Relief flooded through her as Admiral Anderson accepted her request, but it was short-lived as a map flashed onto her HUD. Some of the rampancy was already getting close to the edges shown! She was going to need to act fast.

The Admiral stared back at her seriously. “I’ve tasked a frigate to move in to CQB range. You will need to coordinate with it for fire support. I doubt either of the ships can target the AGAI accurately enough from range without you acting as a range finder for it. The FF should be able to move in considerably closer.”

A black bar with the listing for a comms channel appeared on her HUD, and Alex nodded. “Thank you, Admiral, I’ll see to it! Ah… one more thing. There were two emergency pods that were ejected from the hub, one has Cadet Rachel who is injured and the other has the unconscious Corpo NAI. She’s offline until we have time to deal with her, but she’s not hostile anymore.”

The man stared at her silently for a moment before looking over to one of the bridge officers and nodding. The man turned and moved with a purpose.

“I’m having a priority shuttle sent to collect them. Was there anything else?”

Alex shook her head. “No. Thank you, admiral.”

A serious expression filled the man’s face. “Men I respect might have been right while I was wrong. If the spread reaches the cable, we will almost certainly be forced to sever it to prevent it from reaching the surface, and that would cause an inconceivable amount of destruction to the people living there. It is imperative you succeed, cadet.”

Alex gave him a determined nod. “Understood, sir. I need to hurry to get ahead of this.”

The Admiral nodded and then his link disconnected, giving Alex back her regular vision with just the sensor map showing the Rampancy on her HUD. It was going to take a while for her to get used to accepting video calls in her head.

Tia was still going at it with the AGAI, the two combatants acting like ping-pong balls inside the hub’s space. Alex’s eyes narrowed as she spotted the nanite-laced dust and debris they were spreading everywhere. There was a clear path wherever Tia traveled, her nanites clearing the rampant ones.

Unfortunately, those sections often collapsed under their own weight from the ordeal.

“Nameless, we need to stop the spread at these three junctions. Can we expand my field to cover them?”

[Informative: Proposed area exceeds Avatar Nanite field range and density. An extra two computronic modules would be required.]

“Patch me into Tia’s comms.” Alex ordered.

There wasn’t a reply, but the sudden loud crashing sound indicated that he had done so. Tia’s heavy breathing and frequent curses carried over the channel, telling Alex that the other girl had little time to talk.

“Tia, I am sorry, but I need to take back two modules. Just do your best to delay that thing. A FF is en route and I will be targeting the AGAI for them to blast with PDC-Ls.”

There wasn’t an immediate response other than a flurry of curses. When Tia did finally reply, she wasn’t happy. “You’re… taking… my modules… NOW? You’re NOT helping!”

“I have to stop the spread of the rampancy! Just hang in there!” Alex shouted back. Hanging up to forestall any argument, Alex confirmed to Nameless to yank the modules, and then she focused on expanding the field.

It was more mental work than she expected, but she had a solution.

“Nameless, take over the field control.”

The weight pressing down on her brain was lifted, but it came at a cost.

[Notice: This unit postulates once again that it is the superior of Avatar in execution, computation, and planning.]

[Recommendation: Place MainComputer as highest ShipCore authority.]

“Now is not the time!” Alex hissed.

Her defense field stretched rapidly across the station with the help of Nameless’ expertise at manipulating the nanites and the extra two modules. Her nanites hunted down and killed the rabid black ones that didn’t fight back or put up much of a fight. Only the ones near the AGAI itself were a danger, and Tia had maneuvered without being told to keep the thing near the center of the module.

With the exit routes for the nanite infection covered, she moved to a better vantage point on top of a group of crates. The station looked like some type of insect had gnawed hundreds of blue holes in it.

[Informative: Transit Hub 36 I-field failure, imminent.]

It was the second time Nameless had warned her, but this time the power flittered and then failed a few seconds later. Alex had to seal her boots to the heavy metal crate as the sudden flush of air threatened to yank her out of the station. On her face, a nanite mask formed that melded into her skinsuit seamlessly.

A sudden fear gripped her as debris and dust were blown out all the breaches, but it was forestalled as she saw a lightshow outside the ship.

A dozen vessels had moved in close to the station, and the spew of material impacted a massive field that had formed around the station. Somehow, the ships and the station had linked their D-fields and inverted them to prevent anything from escaping from the infected section of the station.

Everything inside had gone dark except for the dull white and red emergency lights that were self-powered.

[Informative: Main power relays throughout the module have been degraded.]

Alex’s comm crackled with Tia’s voice in her ear. “Whatever you’re doing, do it now. I’m running out of energy!”

Switching her vision to thermal, Alex tracked the fight. Sure enough, Tia’s energy bar was dropping rapidly now that she couldn’t tap into any of the power relays. It seemed like the same would be true for the AGAI, but since the whirling mass of angry nanites was larger, it probably had a bigger store of power.

The thing needed to be put down.

“Nameless, can you patch me into the comm channel Anderson gave us?”

The bar labeled FF-Turnpike blinked green twice, then a new video call was added to her view. A captain she didn’t know sat on the bridge of his warship.

“Captain, Cadet Tia is engaged with the enemy. Are you in range to provide fire support? I will relay targeting coordinates.”

The man didn’t waste time. “We are in position. We’ve been tracking movement within Hub 36, but we’ve not been able to lock on anything specific.” He launched into a flurry of technical questions, complete with incomprehensible acronyms she had no understanding of.

“Captain, I’m just a Cadet. I haven’t had a forward fire designation course and I have no idea what any of that means. My MainComputer will relay the targeting data in real time. ”

Before the man could respond, the ship’s tactical officer made an announcement. “Captain, targeting data channel opened. It’s FWDOLRFFC Standard.”

Alex nodded to herself, “Thanks Nameless. Uh, Captain, I need to coordinate with Cadet Tia so she doesn’t get caught in the beam.”

The captain nodded. “Understood, Cadet Myers. We’ll be ready to fire on your mark.”

Alex patched into Tia’s comms again.