Chapter 54

Chapter 54

The hull of the Last Ship slips by the station, the mercantile dreadnaught on a close approach to Earth and giving approximately zero cares about any stealthed or disabled objects in its path.

It turned out, when you had a hull profile forty miles long, and self healing ablative armor plates, you didnt really notice if things got out of your way or not.

I dont really know when I started mentally capitalizing that title as a proper noun. I doubt the ship itself cares. Its automated, not alive, as far as I know. Not that my communication attempts were ever that refined. Maybe it is another life, floating up here with the rest of us. Maybe I could talk to it. Maybe we could work something out.

Unlike me, the Last Ship has some kind of library of merchant authorization codes, and knows how to use them. Every time it parks in orbit, I try to steal a few of them out of the transmissions, but it usually doesnt work. Im usually pretty busy.

Right now, I am also busy. I am teaching one of the new kids how to achieve a firing solution for a Cimmerian gauss bolter while under pressure. I am doing this at maximum efficiency, because I am a very good teacher. It is a known fact that cats are exceptional at training people, Im sure. And thats before you account for a cat thats technically earned a tree of life in both psychology and education.

I say technically, because I still havent gotten the remnants of the earth based educational institution to broadcast my credentials. Their servers are all constantly busy. And also I had to drop an orbital strike on the last one of their comms stations once, when it started trying to send out a memetic gene-locked sleeper agent activation code to every communication device within its range. So Im probably never getting my certificate.

It turns out the hardest thing to keep intact on Earth, or in all of Sol system really, isnt a building or a ship or even a life. Its a system. An institution, a lineage, a pattern.

Villages dont last long. Neither do independent companies. Religions basically only exist as expressions of cultural lessons on what you shouldnt touch and where you shouldnt travel. Theres a few great cities holding on, admittedly, but they have their own long term problems.

Thats the problem. Not just a problem, but the big one. The one I havent been able to do much about. No matter how many threats I kill, no matter how many wars I stop, nukes I intercept, monsters I put down, breaches I seal, or nightmares I lay to rest. It never matters. Because its not enough to build anything.

Sometimes a village will rise up that will thrive for a while. Sometimes a mercenary company will see some long term success exploring and clearing the forgotten lands. Sometimes there are heroes.

Then they die. And I dont. And I get to see what they built crumble away. Just like it always does.

The Oceanic Anarchy lasted for thousands of years. Ive lived in their shadow for centuries, learned from their records, adapted to their technology, tried to hold up a small bit of their ideals. And I still cant imagine how to put together the pieces of something that *big*. That grand; not just in terms of territory but in terms of trust. How many people trusted them, for their whole lives, and had that trust repaid by the bonds of civilization a thousandfold? Billions. Trillions.

It hurts to feel like the most of that I can ever recapture is picking off a UCAS Reaver corvette before it can latch onto the Last Ship and start trying to cut into the hull.

Im sure the big lug could deal with it. But this is good practice for the new gunner. Who is doing *excellent* under my tutelage, thank you!

Do we have a firing console that works with non-human physiology? The feathermorph boy asked me at the start of this. And then another twice throughout the process, each time staring with increasing frustration at the keratin of his talons that didnt register with the right reaction speed on the touch screen.

Not that Ive found! I answer. We can probably build one now. Now, clear the lock and establish it again. Quick! Things are at stake! I cheerfully paw the command I have up that scrambles the display.

After a few more dry runs, and checking the math, I have him hit the firing command. Somewhere about two hundred kilometers away, a pirate ship that refused to participate in the diplomatic process begins to participate in the entropic process. I congratulate him on the good shot, and learn in that moment that he was under the impression this was a training exercise in the sense that it was a simulation.

Thirty percent of one awkward conversation later, I am mercifully called away by another alarm.

_____

The Last Ship does not answer any of our hails. But, sitting in a circular conference room with Glitters increasingly elaborate attempt at a custom remote body and my more energetic sister, the three of us talk to the people that *do*.

Runner Jek Em is legally classified as human, even though hes got more replacement parts than Dyn does, the cybernetics bulging under dark tattooed skin. Hes also legally classified as property, which he feels compelled to tell us due to some powerful induced hypnotic programming. Glitter makes an attempt to figure out who, exactly, we will need to shoot to fix that, but it doesnt go anywhere right away. He greets us with a recitation of the last oath in a language I vaguely recognize as Spanglese. Im fluent in it, because Ive had a lot of time to learn a lot of things. Glitter is fluent in it because AIs cheat. I dont hold it against her.

The kid is either unsettled by the fact that I am a talking cat, which seems to be tied into an old gremlin tale his people have, or unsettled by the fact that Glitters current body has a lot of exposed wiring and looks like some kind of grim war-spider. Either way, the conversation starts off rough.Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

While were pretending politely we didnt hear that part, Lilys tone crackles with charged air, even though she doesnt need to actually use that tone when speaking with our shared projected voices, I think we should start looking for ways to fix ourselves.

I chime in sleepily. Also I resent being called normal. I say. My internal organs reform out of basically nothing every time I get shot. Thats not normal.

How often is she getting shot? NanoLily asks herself. I never get shot. But I guess I havent had a body as often. And I guess there was that one breacher missile that hit me that one time. Thats like being shot.

I get shot fairly often. I tell her. Also I dont care how many of us there are. I add, but am quick to continue with, But I agree we should get Lily a better body. And Lily too, if she wants it?

Im mostly fine. Lily says, her energy outline oscillating with the vibration of her voice. I can technically taste things better than when I was a cat, so I get to eat sweet things, and thats nice.

Three different Lilys say at the same time, We should grow more sweet things.

Can we focus? Lily sounds exasperated with us. Which is basically being exasperated with herself, which isnt good for your mental health. Id know! None of us remember being copied or anything like that. Our memories are shared up to the same moment. She *actually* trails off, and we all go silent. That has to mean something, right?

It probably does, I agree, but what are we supposed to do about it? I wouldnt even know where to start looking.

But we could start looking. Lily says, her pseudo-fur folding on itself over and over in a thoughtful set of rectangular patterns. The process tickles, where shes draped over my hind legs. We have time, now. We have help. We have each other!

Lily looks thoughtful, the triple layer of vacuum sealed membranes around her eyes twitching as her hyper-reactive pupils dart around the room, looking between each of us, and also the handful of AR panes she has open. We do. She says. And also, because of Lily, we have more comprehensive grid access. And help. That last part is said quieter, like she isnt fully prepared to trust our new friends just yet. Im not. She adds. But they are helping. And the five of us can maybe

Maybe stop burying ourselves in our work, and actually confront what we are? Lily says with a vibrational hum of electricity, the soft words coming out with a strain of self-loathing that Im intimately familiar with.

Yeah. I say quietly. That. And then also, sorry, five?

In the vent overhead. She might be stuck. The overadapted Lily says. Can you not hear that? Shes *very* loud.

We all strain. Or, well, I do. I dont think the other two exactly hear sound the same way, but they still perk up.

The moment stretches out.

One of us starts to say Are you sure when there is a definite *thunk* from overhead. Followed by a rattling around one of the ventilation ports, which is itself accompanied by an amount of concern from me. That vent isnt an open port, its a paramaterial constructed sealed panel; a remnant of this rooms time as a laboratory that studied things that absolutely *could not* be allowed to get out. I start to push myself up try to figure out how Im going to get it open, when something drops through it anyway.

Well, drips through, I suppose. A thin line of black fluid, speckled with white dots, oozing threateningly through the outline of the vent, before spilling down to land on one of my brand new couches in a messy puddle of what is obviously a *very* viscous inky liquid. The flow of it picks up, as the first few drips hit, and then it cascades down like a floodgate has been let loose, before abruptly stopping.

My couch! I hiss out.

Sorry! The puddle meows back in a stickily pronounced cat-word. And then, not content to obey the laws of physics, the puddle of oozing liquid pulls itself back together, flowing up like its melting in reverse, until it takes on a more defined shape. Which is, naturally, a very familiar one. The hints of white in the liquid even forming the right patterns on my forms feet as another sister remakes herself in front of us. I found you, though! She exclaims. I wasnt dreaming!

Well, you were. Two of us say at the same time. Just, also something else. Another one finishes.

I listen to my sisters start to go off on a tangent again, and find myself purring.

Of course Im curious. How could I not be?

But right now? Warm and together? its hard to *care*.