FTL-21...Faster Than Life.

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FTL-21... Faster Than Life.

*Before…

My watch commander stops talking as the mines I’m passing more too and then we see them change…mechanical bug like legs slip out of the body and so does a head with a semi-human face only with a mouth like a shark would have and it pops out pincer like arms but with some kind of weapons instead of claws and there’s these beetle shell like bug casings that pop open to free up better thrusters.
There’s a burst of blue weapons fire and my drone goes white and I switch to others and I can see the mines all shifting and all changing and turning around and coming at our drones and we’re losing them fast.
My last drone the last thing I seen on the cameras was one of these shark-beetle things eating the camera…looked like it was coming to take a bite out of me.
“Sir!?”
I’m answered by our main bridge instead as the alert for battle stations goes off.

*And Now…

The claxons are ringing and the auto-voice keeps going off. “This is not a drill, this is not a drill all hands to battle designated areas.”

It’s calmer than I am.

Part of me is remembering the escape pod drill.

Only if things go badly then we’ll be doing that for real with an enemy possibly still out there.

I look to the watch commander. “Sir, orders?”

He nods and he’s walking to the main screens. But in his head with his O.B.C he’s releasing commands for more drones. “I want to know how many that each of you can take, we’ll need eyes on more than just sensors from their sizes.”

I think for a minute, three’s my working usual…it’s the working usual for three points of Nav in a space. There’s others calling out Three’s and fours and even fives.

“Nine sir.”

He actually turns to me. “Nine Stone are you sure?”

“Yessir, I work with three so if I can bundle three of three than I should be able to do it.”

“Bundle you say?”

“Yessir.”

“Show me.”

I swallow and he grants me the links to nine of the remotes and I assign codes to each to bundle them into three groups of three. I tag the sensors on each one into radiant energy sensors, proximity and a geometric plotting in their Nav routine.

We scan see properly in a three point way just like most things that we have to do in space. I’m actually tethering each of the three together by their beacons to make a triad shape on my screens and I can do the control for each point by tagging a corner point that is a remote and moving that point moves that assigned drone.

The other sensors should give me indication of attacks by these beetle things on my drones and I can then tap into that specific remote to do more serious flying.

I launch and I use the information we still have coming in to get to the bulk of the swarm and I try at treat it like the greater cloud of it is a sphere and that I am trying to circle my three triangles to watch the sphere.

It moves and I move and adjust and I’m not the only one using remotes so that helps as the watch second is condensing all of the data and information we’re getting and sending it to High Command and into Tactical as well.

The first wave is still em hitting us and the other ships in the area. I breathe through it as we’re hit and there’s shield wash…it’s a form of turbulence when shields take impacts.

Impacts, beam weapons are soaked up so that means that they’re.

Rad sensors are going off registering micro-fusion explosions.

They’re doing Kamikaze attacks on our shields.

My mouth is dry.

I check the watch commander with a flicker of my eye. He seems good.

Then it’s our turn as battle stations come online and out turrets turn our local patch of sky into a very hostile place.

I won’t lie I cheer with the rest of us as we see blips that are patches of the swarm wink out.

Then they all wink out?

“This is it people they’ve broken up and gone single flyer, give us as much info and visuals as we can.”

I’ve already got a bad idea of things even as Kelsey Watkins a fellow cadet asks. “Single flyer sir, who has A.I. to spare like this?”

He’s grim sounding as he answers her. “They’re not A.I.’s Watkins they’re brain cases.”

“Brain cases sir?”

“Tekkers Watkins, they lost they’re human bodies and forms to become one of those…things…to become a living operating system.”

She’s frowning but trying to still do her remote job but still asks. “Who’d give that up to become one of those?”

He says. “They don’t, they harvest brains and people, torture them until they’re so insane their humanity isn’t even part of their cognitive thinking any more and then they transplant then into their tekker bodies.”

Two of our team throw up.

The faces on these things…I was half expecting it.

The encounter in the hangar with the skiff…I’ve seen their intent.

I don’t really want to know how he knows this.

But them here in this system?

They’re trying to start a war.

No…I think we’re at war but they’ve been attacking smaller things, places…ships even.

“Lost” in space happens.

Not all are accidents or pirates…not now.

Things get busy, there’s some of these tekker beetles after our remotes trying to blind us.

I take a deep breath and try to close everything else out to keep my remotes in the sky as long as possible.

I see them though, I can see those faces on my camera’s and the mouths moving as if they’re saying things. I can’t read lips since they don’t have them but I swear the hatred is there and palatable enough to feel.

But it’s not hate, it’s feralness, brainwashing, torture and… Identity death.

All in the name of some twisted biological hatred, of some twisted fundamentalist infection.

Like happened with my sister when they fixed her brain, rewired her not to be a lesbian anymore…just a thousand times worse but still the same thing.

I can see some of the few non-military ships here in the system burning…there’s some wrecks already and escape pods out there only making that drill more there in my head and making me more determined to not have that become a reality.

Our side sends up combat drones. It’d the first serious step in a defense situation like this and they go up before our fighters do.

Unfortunately as good as A.I.’s can be they don’t stack up enough against real live pilot of any kind when it comes to the chaos factors. Living things, even tekkers can and choose things that sometimes don’t make sense to machines.

I lose two remotes, they’re really getting aggressive on the remotes, they can tell our fighters are going to be launched soon.

I swear… a streak as I lose a third and a whole triumvirate.

“Stone…” The watch commander.

“Sorry sir.”

“See that it doesn’t, save the salt for rec time.”

Salt?

But yeah, regs and all.

Actually Patrick told me once swearing takes up too much time and it infects people on mission. Others will do it if too many others are doing it and that can also carry your emotional state to others around you or on com lines.

That cool calm voice on the other end can save your life.

“Yessir.”

Our launch alert goes off as our fighters take to the skies and while not very faithful after my past and home I cross myself, kiss two fingers and touch the bottom of my screens.

“Godspeed everyone.”

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Comments

It will definitely get hot out there.

Now I'm going to have to maybe figure out the fighters and such.
*Hugs and Howls*

Bailey Summers

Well that was good timing for the posting of this new chapter

For the past couple of days I've been reading FTL starting from the first chapter. I had just finished reading chapter 20, when much to my surprise find that you had just posted this latest chapter. I've enjoyed reading FTL, as well as all your other stories Bailey and of course look forward to reading new chapters as you post them. Keep up the excellent writing Bailey.

Hugs,
Tamara Jeanne

"Godspeed everyone"

wow. fighting a foe willing to do THAT to a person ...

DogSig.png

Just a little intense

Attacking a major system like this is war. This is the real thing.
Crazed cyborg cylons! Eek!
hugs
Grover

Visceral cringe time

A race of Dialeks almost! >|<

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Ugh, those flippin' tekkers

Ugh, those flippin' tekkers are even more heinous than I thought! It's too bad the fleet can't somehow broadcast some sort of modulated frequency pulse matching a brain's theta waves, sorta trick the biological component into thinking it's asleep or something.

Scary chapter, Bailey! I'm going to hide under my pillows out those things make it through the hull. I'll peek to see if our heroine manages to skewer a few on her sword though lol

Thanks for sharing, Hon, I missed this story =)

*hugs*
Jenna

Machines vs piloted machine

Jamie Lee's picture

Just how sick do people have to become to drive captives insane enough that humanity would no longer recognize them? Then remove their brains and put them into those machines.

A living mind has an advantage over a machine in that it can think illogical. And do things which are illogical.

The best way to beat the Tekker beetles with military drones is to put the drones in the hands of groups like Nav. That way a mind is fighting a mind. For some thinking like this, Erin would be perfect for the job. But would she take it?

Others have feelings too.