Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Im out of grade two groundstriker rounds.

This isnt exactly a huge problem; theyre not hard to fabricate, and it was one of the things Ive leaned on a lot over the centuries. One of the first things I figured out how to make the station produce, one of the first things I learned how to make use of, and one of the primary tools for stopping problems.

That last part is a euphemism. It means I shot a lot of things.

Ive been low before, but never actually *out* since the first time that happened. Back during a three month period when there was a cluster of emergence events one after another, all of them springing up in a line leading from the asteroid belt, through the primary moon, and on toward Earth. Like some kind of aligned chain reaction, jumping from mining station to ruined battleship to colony dome, they just kept coming until one day they stopped. And I took them all out, one after another, until I had gotten so much artillery experience that I technically qualified as a Bombardier Third Class in the Geradstown Militia.

That was back when I used a railgun that had a lot more personality. That railgun is gone now, along with a few other bit of the station that were near it when a counterstrike hit.

The point is, I dont run out of ammo that often. Technically, I still havent. But a lot of my bullets and shells and bolts and capsules and rounds? Rounds sounds right, sure. A lot of them are built for one gun, and only one gun. It turns out a lot of people dont like the idea of their guns being used by their enemies, or their allies without permission, or their business associates without payment. So, proprietary ammo.

It never works, as evidenced by the existence of the groundstriker railgun shell becoming standard issue over time. Ive found the blueprint for that thing in fifty different ruined ships and stations. Because who wouldnt want a self-adapting bullet? Especially as the slow apocalypse burns around you and civilization collapses, the appeal of being able to swap out scavenged railguns is pretty obvious.

And now Im out of them.

Im not gonna lie, theres a moment of vulnerability, which I express in perfectly mature yowling at the stations ceiling as I maturely compose myself. Before I remember that I actually have a dozen other different styles and modes of ammunition for this one specific gun model that I have bristling from the station like barrowbat quills, and its not that big of a deal.

But I still decide to put in the effort to fix the stockpile issue before another alarm sounds. I decide to stop wasting time sulking, and start moving, bounding off the walls in the hallway with the most strategic failing grav plates back and forth as I rocket toward the drone bay.

Its an alarm day, in general. Its frustrating. That frustration is compounded by some interpersonal issues. And Im taking out that frustration on anything that looks like a bug monster, with railguns.

Ennos is mad at me. Kind of. Theyre not *not* talking to me, exactly, but basically all Ive heard from the AI for the last few days since we got back is cold status reports and technical updates.

I think okay, I shouldnt play dumb. I *know* why. Ennos didnt like for a microsecond the implication that they should *run*. That the station, and our weird place in its convoluted and sometimes hostile systems, was something we should abandon. Even if it was altering their memories, even if evacuating would be safer, it didnt matter.

Because Ennos caught on quick that Dyn and I had built a liferaft for an *AI*, and not for a cat, a human, or a dog. No matter how modified any of those last three things might be.

I had a lot of reasons, obviously. Like how the station is armed, outfitted, secure, and a whole bunch of other things that have to do with the sheer accretion of technology and equipment on it. And how I need all those things to keep doing what I do, saving people and killing problems. My reasons for not leaving arent really that Im afraid to go, to be somewhere other than the home Ive known my whole waking life. Or that Im incapable of the engineering expertise to start over somewhere else.

But I cant really deny that those reasons might exist.

And if theres one thing Ennos doesnt want, its to be left alone. Even if the alternative is sticking around in a place that keeps actively gaslighting them. And at the end of the orbit, I cant really say that I can dish out any blame for that. Its not like Im bounding off the walls to leave, after all.

I just wish I could have explained before Dyn and I spent a few days working on the ship. I hadnt wanted to say anything within the stations range of hearing, just because its *still* unclear to me what vector it uses to move its protocols and restrictions into new hardware.

Dyn is also mad at me. Though not because we just wasted a few days on a ship. We were talking - actually talking! - about what to do with it now, and I suggested keeping it on standby. She countered by saying that therere a lot of people living in Sols orbit that could use that space for something. And shes right. I didnt even disagree! I got halfway through going over a list of extra supplies we could stock it with before sending it to someones dock when Dyn started getting mad at me!

Again, Im gonna go against my personal instincts and not be dumb here. She got mad when I mentioned the vivification pods, and the idea of adding one to the ship.

I find myself wandering, wondering if maybe I should just let it go. Just give up, and go back to how thing were, to what Im obviously being pushed toward. Or maybe just allowed to do. But that doesnt sit right with me. The thought bothers me continually though, as I catch up on some chores Ive left undone. Recalibrating targeting systems on point defense guns and doing some basic spot welding on emergency air seals. Its almost calming, easy work that I could do in my sleep if I needed to. I think I actually have done some of this in my sleep before, back when I was trying to see if hypnotic ideation worked on me. It didnt really.

Its easy, when Im doing this, using my paws in ways they werent designed for, on tools that werent designed for paws in turn, to get lost in the work. To just fall into a cycle of frustration and triumph as I keep going down an eternal checklist. To think that it might not be so bad, to just let this be my life forever.

But I cant do that, and I know it. I have to start searching somewhere. And I have some ideas. I decide to try setting up my own sensor network, and start looking through manufacturing plans for small energy beacons I can scatter around. Maybe get Jom to deploy some long range depth sweepers outside the stations range of influence, to give me independent reports on our deck contents. Beyond that, if Dyn and I can actually set up a safe command structure, the Last Ship will be coming back in a week or so; maybe I can hire some people off it who will be less restricted than the rest of us to help out. I might have to offer hazard pay though.

And, as if summoned by me even thinking of trying to look for something, an alarm sounds.

And for a moment, I wonder if maybe I should just ignore it. Let the station try to stall me; I wont play this game forever.

Of course, Im too curious to not check. Because of course I am. Is this surprising? No. No, the surprising thing is that this isnt a random incoming communication or a strange internal error. Its Jom, sending a request for assistance, juking incoming beam weapon fire from a quartet of hunter killer drones as he rockets back toward the station.

I am *pretty* sure the station cannot trigger hidden ancient drone traps, just to distract me. Pretty sure.

Pretty sure?

It doesnt really matter, I suppose. Because if it can, then the level of resistance Im up against is more than I expected. And I cannot, *will not*, ignore this one.

Of course, when Im already in one of the point defense gun targeting pods because I decided here was as good a place as any to curl up and start flipping through scanner schematics, the problem is a little lesser than it could be otherwise.

The pursuit drones do not have good tracking, which usually means they dont have good scanners of their own, or bad processing time. Which makes it almost trivial to unleash a spread pattern suppression salvo that whips past Jom and takes out three of his assailants before the drones even register that something is firing at them. Sometimes, *sometimes*, the station feels safe to me, and when the overlapped stealth fields that roughly half our total power expenditure goes into make stuff like this easy, its certainly one of those times.

Jom pivots on an invisible axis, and shreds the remaining drone, letting the maser beam melt off some of his radiation ablative paint as he positions himself for the kill.

The alarm doesnt shut off, it just changes tone. This time one to an air leak on a lower deck.

I set a repair routine for it; a task that would have used to take me an hour to do, but I can now just use acknowledged words to do in a minute. The repair bot sets off, and I get back to my search for an external scanner source. Twenty minutes later, when I start looking into using reactive code to search for security discrepancies, a dozen new alerts show up in my AR display, of mechanical failures across the station.

Alright. Enough of this.

Hey Dyn. I call across internal comms. It takes a minute, but she does eventually answer through the physical speak that she carries around with a terse word of acknowledgement. I need your help with something big.

Im so tired. Physically, emotionally, and on a more philosophical level, Im tired of letting the station get away with this. I dont know if changing the command protocols will make the difference, and I dont know if trusting Dyn is the right call. But Im so, so, so tired of

Of doing nothing. Of being afraid of changing anything.

My friends deserve a safe home. My sister deserves a safe home. *I* deserve a safe home.

I dont want to be tired anymore.