Chapter Thirteen (Nakteti)

Nakteti sighed as she sat down in the chair that had been bolted to the floor. The room had previously been an ammunition locker for plasma cannons but one of the lances of energy fired by that terrible behemoth had sliced right through it. Now it was a meeting room and a place to eat and drink, to be outside a vac-suit and breathe air without the hissing of a suit's atmo-gen.

Lektat lifted a cup of warm water to her in a silent salute. The pilot slash navigator was looking much better now that he was not in his vac-suit watching over the mysterious 'Fido.' Fido, who had not only boarded their ship during a terrible battle, turned out to be friendly, and gotten them away from the battle, but was now busily repairing the ship with the help of the Sweet's surviving crew.

"What do you think of our guest?" Nakteti asked the only other Tnvaru in what Fido had named 'The Mess Hall' when he had finished making it. Why it was called a hall when it was a chamber and why it was for messes when the little robot Fido left behind kept it so clean was a mystery to Nakteti.

One of a million mysteries surrounding their guest.

"I'm grateful to it for saving us, but it scares me to my core," Lektat said, sipping his warm water. He sighed in pleasure.

"Why?" Nakteti asked.

Lektat waved his hand at the 'Mess Hall' and smiled. "This. Fido is a robot, as far as we can tell anyway since to any handheld scanner he's a solid mass with no moving parts, just a lump of some kind of alloy. He is overly careful of our feelings, constantly reassuring us that he's a good young male, but a couple of times he's mentioned not being a 'warboi' which makes me worried."

Nakteti nodded. "That's what bothers you, isn't it?"

Lektat made his race's equivalent of a shrug. "We have an alien robot onboard our already damaged ship, it's making repairs everywhere. Did you know it had three smaller robots that it calls furbois? He says they're 'kittykitty' and they help him do repairs."

"You think they're a problem?" Nakteti asked. "I've seen the kittykitty furbois," she made a noise of contemplation, squeezing two of her hands together while she drummed her fingers of another hand and held the cup of warm water in the fourth. "Have you noticed how the furbois react to us?"

"You mean how they rub on you and make that purring sound? How they want you to stroke them even though they're robots?" Lektat said. Nakteti nodded and Lektat nodded and smiled. "Strangely enough, stroking them seems to really calm me. Whenever I'm really agitated one seems to show up to rub on my legs until I stroke its robotic chassis. That purring is pleasing, it uses a subharmonic that soothes me."

Nakteti sipped at her warm water then spoke again. "So, what else bothers you?"

Lektat pointed aft, toward the jumpdrive. "I ran a diagnostic on the jump drive system. Core, tubes, engines, compression chamber, all of it."

"And?"

"We were outfitted with the best that is available to non-military, no expense spared, correct?" Lektat asked. When Nakteti nodded he continued. "Then why is everything operating way outside of specifications? When we jumped we severely damaged the entire system but not only has Fido repaired it he has it working at levels that are outrageous. Either there's a serious error somewhere in the diagnostic software or our new friend is more familiar with jumpdrives than even scientists on the Unified Science Council."

Hlenkut stepped in, slowly moving over to the food and water dispenser. Lektat and Nakteti politely stopped their conversation, waiting for their crew-mate to join them. She was the last of the medical personnel, surviving only because she had been asleep in her bunk. Laughing chance had trapped her in her bunk in a room with air slowly getting more and more stale.

Fido had rescued her. The 'kittykitty' finding her before her air ran out.

"Discussing our new guests?" Hlenkut asked, sitting down with a tray of food and a glass of warm water. Both nodded and she snorted. "I'm thankful for him and his furbois but I wonder slightly just what's going to happen to us."

"He is insistent that we do not return home yet, that we go to whatever CONFED is," Nakteti said.

One of the furbois came through the door. Literally through the door, like the alloy panel was somehow just extruding it somehow. It pulled free with a little 'pop' and wandered through the 'Mess Hall' making a noise that sounded like 'me-ow' and was somehow plaintive, slightly whining, and demanding, all at the same time.

The door was unmarred.

"There one is," Nakteti said. "Three or more of us relaxing and it wanders in."

All three of the Tnvaru's wrist communicator/datapads buzzed at the same time. A glance showed the same message on all three.

--kittykitty, pet me-me--

The 'furboi', a cat's brain in a tank of nutrigel augmented with high end firmware, checked the crew's pulse, respiration, blood oxy, and everything else their wristbands tracked in order to see who was the most stressed of the three.

--Naki-Naki pet kittykitty?-- appeared on Nakteti's wristband as the furboi jumped up on the table. It was used for damage control, rescues, and emergency services. Its natural tendencies were enhanced, upgraded, and put to use. Daxin kept at least three with him at all times.

He'd loaded them into Fido's disaster frame almost out of habit.

Stress calming and medical diagnostic were part of kittykitty001A's biological makeup.

As soon as Nakteti started petting the alloy frame of the small robot it began giving out a rumbling purr full of subsonics that relaxed Nakteti's muscles and made her feel more calm. It was pleasingly warm to the touch, the alloy surface of the little robot almost like a touchstone to stroke and caress and ease one's emotions.

The kittykitty flashed a symbol on the datadisplay at the front of its head.

:-)

Nakteti pulled her attention back to the conversation. "So Fido is fixing and reprogramming everything on the ship, these little guys help him and monitor us," She nodded at Lektat. "I can see your concerns but our choices were this or that giant ship killing us with the rest of our crew and our families."

"I understand that, Captain, but you're not an engineer or a pilot. You don't understand just how big these changes are," He fluffed in agitation and the kittykitty looked at him and meowed. He smiled, reaching forward and scratching the kittykitty's face-display. "How fast could our drives carry us?"

She thought for a moment, still petting the kittykitty's alloy chassis. "If I'm correct, just over 500C in normal jumpspace," She answered.

"Guess what the diagnostics and astrogation programs say we can reach now," Lektat said.

Nakteti made the equivalent of a shrug. "600C?"

Lektat made a noise of amusement. "Try just over twenty thousand C."

Hlenkut almost dropped her water in shock. Nakteti choked on her sip.

That was nearly 2.4 light years per hour in jumpspace.

"And Fido says he's sorry, the jumpdrive is too old to make it go faster," Lektat said.

The kittykitty moved over to Hlenkut, rubbing around her ankles before jumping up in her lap. Hlenkut didn't even look down, just started rubbing the robot's alloy chassis with her two gripping hands.

Nakteti inhaled deeply then exhaled sharply to get her two companion's attention. "I think we need to have a bridge crew meeting," She said. She tapped a few icons to summon her reformed bridge crew. "Hlenkut, you are welcome to stay and join the meeting."

Hlenkut nodded, still petting the kittykitty.

They sat in silence for a few moments as one by one the rest joined the trio in the Mess Hall. The kittykitty went to each person, spending additional time on Chakuva as the maimed Damage Control Officer came into the Mess Hall and sat down.

Hlenkut clenched her gripping hands together to stay calm when she saw that the kittykitty had again recommended metal implants or vat-grown clone tissue to replace Chakuva's missing arms, as if the ship had that kind of capacity. The ability to do that was limited to larger, more expensive hospitals but the kittykitty seemed to expect for Hlenkut to just wave her catching-arms and summon up the replacement limbs out of thin air.

Once everyone was seated Nakteti looked at everyone. Chakuva with his two missing arms, Ulamanti with her missing leg, Selkamin with most of the fur on his left side replaced by artificial skin grafts. Lektat with his fur silver around his eyes. Vekan with his haunted expression. Laminati, who had been trapped inside one of the point defense stations, only his hand crushed into the console keeping him from being sucked out into the void or into jumpspace, watching his suit slowly evaporate every jump.

Nakteti wanted to close her eyes, wish really hard, and have the world be back to normal when she opened them.

She rapped her two catching hands on the table, bringing everyone's attention to her. The kittykitty was still winding around everyone's feet, purring as it rubbed against their ankles and shins.

"Our guest has informed us that the jumpdrive is ready to go and head toward the coordinates he has locked in," Nakteti said. "Our destination point is," she consulted her datapad. "Eleven hundred and six light years away."

That got groans. At the speed of the old jump drive it would take just over two years to reach the destination.

"Our guest stripped most of the recreational facilities we had left for scrap so he could perform repairs," Laminati said. He held up a catching hand. "Not that I'm complaining. I'm grateful to our guest."

The kittykitty jumped up onto his lap and he laughed, petting it. "And to you too, kittykitty."

It was a kittykitty who had found him, hanging in the void, the tips of his boots kissed and licked by the jumpshield.

"It won't take that long," Lektat said. He tapped the bottom of his half-full plastic glass on the table. "Our new friend 'tuned and repaired' our drive, to use his words."

"How long will it take us?" Hlenkut asked, thinking over how she'd help everyone mitigate their stress. She suddenly remembered what Lektat had said. "Oh. The drive."

Lektat nodded. "Grasp the table, friends," he warned. Everyone present grabbed the edge of the table with their gripping hands, Chakuva lifting his severed arm then lowering it with a grimace.

He looked at them all. "According to our drive diagnostics and astrogation software, it will take us 19.7 days without using what Fido has labeled as 'jumpstreams' and if we use those it will take us six point three days."

That got exclamations of shock and disbelief.

"Once you hit those speeds in jumpspace the ship just dissolves away!" was one protest.

"We'll all be smeared across jumpspace, screaming for eternity!" was another.

"How do you know we'll go that fast?" was the biggest third.

Nakteti rapped on the table with her catching hands, getting attention. She had to admit, she was still holding tight to the table.

"And you can't chase another ship in jumpspace, and flames can't exist in space, and sound doeesn't carry in vacuum," Nakteti said. "However, does anyone really find something as simple as jumpspace mechanics that shocking compared to what our pilot has just revealed."

Half of them turned to Ulamanti with questions in their eyes. The young Tnvaru had been the top of her class in astrogation and navigation. Nakteti had moved Lektat to pilot after his impressive showing during the 'battle' and promoted Ulamanti to navigator.

Ulamanti shook her head. "The math checks out. I ran the formulae Fido provided, did all the math, once even doing it by hand on strips of plas, and it all checks out. That second shift formulae that he called highjump is..." she trailed off for a second, then shook her head, "It's blindingly obvious once you see it. I mean, I saw it, and I instantly wondered why I had never seen it or even thought about it. It's such a basic, such a simple formula."

"If the formula an alien robot gave you is real," Selkamin said. "I want it to be real," he gave a wry movement with his ears. "But our luck hasn't been good lately."

"We're still alive," Nakteti argued. "I had every crewmember familiar with jumpspace mathematics look at the two critical formula and every one of them repeated what Ulamanti said. How did we not see this before."

"Even I myself, someone who is known to have missed a branch or two I have jumped for, couldn't believe how obvious it was," Hlenkut said, smiling.

That got nods. So much of the formulas, from alloy creation to circuit design to energy flow was so simple, so glaringly obvious once they had seen it, it had been almost humiliating. The jumpdrive tuning was so basic and simple that Taltek, a jumpdrive tech with decades of experience, had screeched with rage for nearly a full minute. He had ranted against idiot instructors who said such formula were wrong, ranted against years of his life wasted in jumpspace. After that he had not only stopped protesting against modifications to the hardware and software of the jumpdrive, he had actively helped Fido make modifications.

"So we can head home?" Ulamanti asked, looking down at her severed leg. "I would, so much, like to visit a medical center."

Nakteti shook her head. "That thing might still be out there. Fido didn't think his friend, Daxin, would be able to stop that monster. Which means it's still out there."

"But you can't follow someone..." Selkamin started and then looked down, flattening his ears in embarrassment.

"In jumpspace," Lektat finished. "I agree with the Captain. We can't go back," He gave a laugh. "Fido says he's taking us to his home, to meet others like that Daxin. They said that they can help."

"We need help. I need help," Hlenkut said. "My medical bay consists of what Fido could help me rig up and what I could scavenge from various medical kits that survived the battle."

"Are we sure we..." Selkamin started, then looked down again. "If he was going to kill us, he would have done it days ago."

"Exactly. We don't really have a choice," Nakteti said.

"I'm worried, to be honest," Selkamin said, looking up. He tapped the synthskin grafts with his catching hands. "What kind of people are Fido's people? How do we know they will help us? Look at what we saw from this 'Daxin's' ship. We could barely see the battle, we couldn't track his missiles, we could barely keep a hold on him. If he's typical of his people, what does that mean for us? We're weaker than they are."

"Yet he not only came to our aid," Lektat said softly. He reached out and touched the kittykitty, running one finger up and down what it called its tummitummi. "This Daxin sent us four of his friends to help us escape a battle we had no chance of winning."

"Selflessness and charity are one of the cardinal civilized virtues," Hlenkut said. "I say we do it."

The vote was taken and to Nakteti's surprise it was passed without a single dissenting vote.

Not even on the catching hands.

"It's agreed," Nakteti. "Let Fido know we want to leave as soon as possible."

----------------

Two Mid Cycles, ten of Fido's "days" each, and the ship smelled of stale body odor, stressed alloys, and strangely, of fresh cut green things, a side effect of what Fido called 'highjump' when the It Tastes Sweet went from normal jumpspace speeds to ludicrous speeds. They couldn't use the "jumpstreams" since the ship's structure picked up a grinding shuddering harmonic within an hour of hitting that high energy stream of space that the Unified Science Council had always insisted would make ship that so much as grazed it explode.

Fido was sitting on the bridge, his strong legs locked into the bulkhead, the kittykittys hidden within his robotic body. Fido had whined when he realized that Nakteti planned on dropping from jumpspace to realspace without everyone in their vac-suits.

Remembering last time, she'd ordered everyone aboard into their armored versions and overridden any objections with loud vocalizations high pitched enough to hurt the ear.

The bridge looked like they were going to war. The ship's weapons ready but not loaded or fully energized, simply ready to bring into action at a moment's notice. Shields, what few they still had left beyond the debris shields, were ready to snap up to replace the jumpshields the minute they entered realspace.

To the crew it felt like battle-stations going into a war.

It, surprisingly, made them feel less anxious.

The swirling colors vanished, replaced with a gut wrenching crack with realspace. Again Nakteti noticed the difference in dropping down using Fido's computations. To her it only proved that Fido had formula for the computations that her own people did not and was able to account for some energy or movement or something that Nakteti's people didn't even know of.

The main view screen, cobbled together out of a dozen entertainment screens from empty berths, came back to life, showing not only stars but a burning yellow star in the distance.

//home home home//

--cuddle cuddle cuddle--

"Scans coming back in three, two, one," Vekan said.

"Drive nominal, realspace controls steady," Lektat said. The grav-generator had been repaired, bringing back artificial gravity, but Nakteti could swear she felt the ship shift slightly

"We're getting a com request and a computer link request," Selkamin said.

//FIDO-FREEBORN goodboi 437KL6365F1D0//

appeared on Selkamin's monitor.

"Let it through. Let the omnitranslator handle anything," Nakteti said. "Let's see if Fido's linguistics pack and lexicons are good."

"Coming through now," Selkamin said softly.

"Can you see the broadcaster?" Nakteti asked. Vekan shook his head.

"Just a jumpspace buoy," Vekan said.

The screens flickered for a moment then all got on the same page, the image clearing up, as strong and as clear as if the broadcaster was within grasping arm distance of the It Tastes Sweet instead of an unknown distance away.

It was a large room with a table in the middle and three chairs on each side, all swiveled so that the beings in the chair could face the recorder. There was a single chair at the far end and the recorder was positioned in such a way that it felt that they were sitting at one end of the table.

It was the figures in the chairs that caught everyone's attention.

Primates. Short, stocky, some of them with hair on the top of their head, others without. Primate sexual dimorphism was on display, two of the seven primates being obvious females. Nakteti noticed that all of them were keeping their faces carefully expressionless, hands flat on the table. The one at the far end looked down at a hidden terminal for a moment, obviously looking at the customs lexicon that Selkamin had sent over.

According to Fido's lexicon a simple statement would ease any tension when dealing with Terrans.

"May we enter?" Nakteti asked.

The six primates on the side all looked at one another, then nodded to the one at the far end of the table.

"You may enter. Come in, friends," The primate said. He glanced down at the lexicon again, obviously using it to guide him during a First Contact.

Tnvaru were very informal over communications. Formality was reserved for business dealings, military officers, and relationships. Formality would worry the Tnvaru, make them concerned that a simple meeting had military or business matters weighing on it.

"Well now, it looks like you've had a brush with someone unfriendly," the one at the far end stated. "Welcome to Terran Confederacy space."

He paused for a moment.

"Are you in need of assistance?"

Fido gave three sharp barking sounds. The primate on the middle right looked down then up at the one at the end.

"They've been rescued by a Fido, an old one," She said.

"Yes, please help us," Nakteti said. "It's killing us."

--------------------------

TO: CONINT

CC: ALLINT, ALLGOV

SUBJECT: PRECURSOR

Guardian 442 Station reports that a First Contact xenosapient craft entered the system and requested assistance. They were attacked by a Precursor Harvester Class Goliath, which attempted to drive them toward their home system. From what scan data remained in their computers after a bad case of jumpscorch it looks like it was in the outer-system spaces approximately three lightyears out from their colony, which explains why their colony made it three years before it attacked.

Onboard they had one of the older FIDO models. Older doesn't really cut it. We think this one is from the First Biological Sapient War, about 150 Post-Human-Diaspora. It's owner/partner, Daxin Freeborn, ID number is even older. You know that old joke where the old guy gives a System Identification Number and it's like a 3. Yeah, this guy's number is only 12 digits, which is pre-diaspora.

The FIDO and Freeborn's scans and data confirm beyond any doubt this is a Harvester Class.

Everyone, we need to get on this. If this thing gets the time, it'll be a scourge.

These new guys, they don't stand a chance. They'll get slaughtered by the billions if we don't help.

--Fleet Admiral Carter Inxita'alkik, Confederate Navy, 16th Fleet

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TRAENA'AD HIVE WORLDS INTERNAL MEMO

Seed the birthing chambers with warriors genes and pack the warrior gel deep.

A Harvester has been sighted.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE INTERNAL MEMO

Search the geneseed. Convert birthing chambers to military output.

Activate ship-yard cloning bays, we're going to need workers.

A Harvester Class Goliath Precursor war machine in optimum condition has been spotted.

This will be a years long one, my brothers and sisters.

Gird your loins for war.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

ARTIFICIAL BIOLOGICAL STATES INTERNAL MEMO

Harvester Class Goliath has been found. Alert the Warformed.

We go to war, my gene-brethren

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INFONET INTERNAL MEMO

One of the Great Old Ones has been spotted, full of wrath and hatred.

Start creating the hashes.

It must be put down, for the good of us all.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TERRASOL.GOV INTERNAL MEMO

Daxin Freeborn is one of the oldest clinical immortals on record. We're talking before even the Federation. He's the only survivor of the Ladinston 194 massacre and has fought in every war since. His FIDO is the oldest in service, same with his CATZ. A clinical misanthrope, this guy has been there and done it all. His current ship is a FACEY-MCFACEPUNCH Class Frigate he purchased from the Pluto Scrapyard auctions, uparmed and uparmored from his contacts throughout CONFED space.

As such, we estimate a 32% chance that he's still alive and harrying it.

He wouldn't have sent his FIDO with a Precursor alert unless he was certain, and this old bastard has been part of every single Precursor War we've fought.

Go to military budget, fire up the cold-sleep fleets before those things swarm us under.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CYBORG COOPERATIVE INTERNAL MEMO

DAXIN FREEBORN CALLS TO YOU! A HARVESTER GOLIATH IS AWOKEN! AN ATTACK ON ONE OF US IS AN ATTACK UPON US ALL! THE HARVESTER SEEKS TO ELIMINATE YOUR INDIVIDUALITY! RISE UP RISE UP!

IN FIRE AND CHROME WE GO TO WAR, BROTHERS!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLD INTERNAL MEMO

oh shit

The Terrans are riled up.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------