Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.42

Chapter Forty-Two

Cry of the Banjo

Nellie and the others moved carefully through the darkness, their bodies low to the ground. Their armor colors constantly shifted to match the color of the terrain, making them even more difficult to see in the dark. It wasn’t exactly camouflage, but close enough in this light.

“Coming into range of their sensors soon,” Lucy sent over comms. Everyone had their suits sealed, allowing them to talk without alerting anyone. “Tell me when to begin.”

“Go for it,” Nellie answered.

On the far side of the crash site, the lights of the Resurgence lit up, causing every eye to turn that way. A second later, Lucy’s voice echoed from it.

“Attention! Attention! We do not wish to fight. We have only come for salvage!”

The comm line blinked, relayed by Lucy from the shuttle.

“Hello, Molly,” Nellie said as she stopped and dropped into a crouch, the others getting a copy of the signal so they could hear what was going on. “Not your kind of thing this.”

“Captain Bea,” Molly said, her accent different, her tones clipped and precise with no trace of that slight drawl she had always used. “I was really hoping you were dead.”

“Aww, don’t be like that, Molly.” Nellie laughed. “Here, I thought we had a good thing going on. You act like a spoiled child… I put you in your place and embarrass you in front of all your people. It was really working for us.”

“This time, I am going to have to insist on taking that shuttle of yours,” Molly said. “This new one looks even better than the old one; I promise to at least make it quick.”

“Why not just let us take some salvage, maybe even do a little trading,” Nellie waved the others on, and they continued to approach Molly’s defensive lines. “I can even trade you a shuttle! Not a nice one, but serviceable certainly.”

“Fuck you,” Molly said bitterly. “You made a simple job very difficult because you couldn’t take a hint!”

“I didn’t plan to let people starve just because you were a weirdly massive bitch,” Nellie grinned in her helmet as her people finished getting into position. “So, that’s a no-go on the sharing plan then?”

“Let me put it this way: give me your ship, and I’ll let you walk home. Refuse, and I will blow it out of the sky.” Molly snapped.

“You want my ship?” Nellie laughed. “Come and get it!” She cut the line and gave Lucy the go order at the same moment.

The lights on the Resurgence dowsed instantly, the turrets springing up and starting to fire as the Fed beam weapons sparkled against its shields. As the shuttle strafed towards the cover of the crashed ship, even the troops came out of cover to fire. Nellie quickly moved into position with the others.

“Now!” Nellie yelled over the comm line. She and the others immediately leaped over the crater's rim, nanite-boosted and synthetic muscles working to send them well over the first line of defenses. The moment the group cleared the crater's edge, they opened fire. They had landed before anyone even knew they were there, the firefight keeping all attention on the far side and the Resurgence.

None of them held back to appear human or even Brackta. Nellie and Lucy moved between targets, firing and ducking away faster than even the best power armor could have accounted for or matched. Baz and Salem moved as a pair, covering each other as they fired in opposite directions, spinning to keep an eye on every enemy at once.

A second later, the Centrum units cleared the rim, opening fire from above them as they moved to push to either side of the four fighters, decimating Molly’s troops.

A stray shot hit a supply of power packs, causing a loud explosion, and the troops rapidly realized they were being hit from both sides.

“Into the ship!” Molly’s voice came from somewhere to Nellie’s left. “They can’t use the shuttle there!”

As Molly’s people retreated, firing as they went, first one, then another of the Centrum stood on the rim were taken out. It was a small price, given the over twenty bodies littering the crater around Nellie and her crew.

Nellie was about to cheer her victory when Lucy slammed into her, bearing her to the ground as the remaining arrays on the crashed ship started to come online.

“Shit!” Nellie swore as thick beams of hissing and sizzling light played over the place where she had been standing a moment before.

Molly and her people weren’t looting.

They had been moving in, bringing ship systems back online.

“Everybody stay down!” Nellie yelled over comms.

“Lucy already told us, but thanks,” Baz said tartly.

“The Centrum are gone,” Salem added a moment later. “We’re pinned.”

“Can the shields on the Resurgence stand up to these?” Nellie asked Lucy.

“Not a chance.” She shook her head. “And they will burn through this cover in minutes, maybe seconds.”

“Fuck!” Nellie swore. “Can we retreat?”

“If we try…” Lucy shrugged. “Maybe some of us.”

“Ostie!” Nellie sighed. “At least we left the kids behind.”

===<<<>>>===

Paren watched the readouts on the sensors, her stomach twisting as the guns came online. She winced as the Centrum Models were cut apart in a single sweep, unable to put up any resistance against powerful shipboard weapons.

“What do we do?” JoJo asked anxiously. He had repeated the question twice already.

“I don’t know. Stop asking!” She snapped. “They’re trapped, but the shuttle can’t fight those guns.”

“What can?” JoJo was grinding his teeth again; she hated that.

“Maybe their gun emplacements? I don’t know.” Paren felt powerless. “We just…” A sense of panic was rising in her as she watched the situation for Nellie and the others go from bad to worse. JoJo squeezed her shoulder gently. It weirdly made her feel better.

“Hey,” JoJo gave her one of those insane grins. “You’re the badass Prime Drone; you just be you!”

“Oh, and what are you going to do?” She said sarcastically. “Be you?”

“That’s the plan,” He laughed, that manic gleam she hated to find so cute in his eyes. “I got all this cyborg shit now; I have to be able to do something, right?”

“Just stop for a second and think, okay?” Paren said soothingly.

“Yeah, no time for that!” He laughed. “We got to ACT!”

“I don’t have any drones to command!” Paren yelled as he ran out the door.

“Then make some!” He yelled back.

“Yeah, from what?” She muttered before remembering the smorgasbord of animals surrounding the crash site. “Well, I mean, I guess I could.”

She saw the indicator for the bay door open and swore. At least he could have waited for her to swing lower to the ground. Paren checked the sensors, and he was moving pretty fast. She shrugged, he was fine.

Paren skimmed the Resurgence a few feet above the ground, scanning the creatures on offer. She didn’t exactly have the most nanites in the world, so she wanted to choose something that was at least powerful enough to make a difference.

The controls lurched suddenly, and she looked around in confusion.

“I need to keep you two away from the site until this is over,” Lucy’s voice played over the bridge. “Wait, where is JoJo?”

“Stop,” Paren tried to move the controls, finding them locked. “Lucy, I want to help.”

“Sorry, Paren,” Lucy said sadly. “This is too dangerous. If we don’t make it, I want to be able to tell Nellie you are okay.”

“Fuck Off!” Paren snarled and sprinted for the bridge doors, slipping through just before they closed. She had activated her latest creation and left it behind on the bridge.

“This is for the best,” Lucy’s voice was just audible from the bridge as Paren slid down the rails to the cargo bay and into the maintenance hatch.

Lucy and Nellie were great; they really were. Even if they were a little heavy on the public displays of affection for her tastes, it was just that they insisted on treating her like a teenager. And she was, she was well aware, technically a teenager. But she was also the Prime Drone. The conversion had done more than remake her body. She was different now; she was more.

There was no way they were going to send her away on her own while they died. She would rather die with them than run away, and that wasn’t just her drone programming talking. It was her, too. Paren had many things growing up, most of which she didn’t even miss. What she never had was someone on her side, no matter what. Everyone in her family loved her, sure. But only if. If she did what they wanted. If she was good, or their version of good, then she was loved. The moment Paren had stepped outside of that, made mistakes and bad choices? That love evaporated like water in the sun. Every mistake, every fuck-up in her life had been categorized and memorized by her family. It was only when she met Nellie that things changed. There was something about Nell and Lucy that was different. Nellie had decided Paren was her family, and no matter what she did, Paren could feel deep inside that would never change.

This way, she could maybe help them or, at the very least, die with them. JoJo got that. It was why he jumped and why it never even occurred to him to run away.

Crawling through the small gap left by a half-destroyed turret, she was able to get out onto the wing.

“This is so stupid,” She told herself before she activated all her boosts and jumped off, dropping into the night.

The decoy she had left on the bridge should keep Lucy fooled for a while.

Now, she just had to find some way to help and not get eaten in the process.

===<<<>>>===

“The shuttle is clear of attack range and programmed to return to the yard if we don’t come back in two hours,” Lucy said, pulling Nellie lower as the top of their cover failed.

“Damnit!” Nellie swore. “There has to be some way to get out of this!”

“If we had the time, I might be able to hack the turrets, but they are shielded, so…” Lucy said. “Just try not to let your head get hit, okay?”

“Do my best,” Nellie laughed. “Salem, Baz, how are you guys doing?”

“Looking great,” Baz called back. “I’m down to an inch of cover here, but at least it will be quick.”

“We almost made it!” Salem hissed. “I hate a half-finished job.”

“Oh, look, things just got worse!” Baz cut in. “The emplacements just spun to face inward.”

Nellie grabbed Lucy’s hand and watched the barrel of the large emplacement swing toward her… and pass by.

A few degrees past their shelter, it fired. The beam didn’t penetrate the array shielding, but it just kept going. A moment later, another started and kept firing. Then, the third started.

The array fired, the first emplacement exploding at the same time the array did, and Nellie gasped as a shock of colored hair was visible at the far edge of the explosion, just for a flash.

“JoJo?” She muttered. “What the hell is he doing here?”

The emplacements died, one after another, but they took three arrays down with them, leaving just one for the ship to defend itself with. Nellie and the others didn’t waste the opportunity, moving to a new cover. It was close, but with only one array, it was impossible for it to aim at more than one of them at a time.

It wasn’t a victory, but it was a chance.

Nellie started to scope out a possible way into the ship while Lucy coordinated their movements to confuse the single array. While she was dashing to a new cover, Nellie saw JoJo scuttling under the antigrav sleds. His arms and legs were kept low to the ground, and his knees were popped the wrong way to let him move over the ground like a spider. The most disturbing thing, however, was the wide, manic grin on his face.

“Lucy, how is JoJo here?” She called.

“Remind me to remove Paren’s access to ship systems!” She snapped. “They might both be here.”

“How?” Nellie asked, grinning despite the situation. “Did they trick you again?”

She spun at a sound, seeing the various antigrav sleds moving toward the ship, each one now loaded with large power cells. She frowned, seeing no point in it. They wouldn’t explode, so why bother?

The gunner controlling the array obviously agreed as they ignored the sleds.

Nellie hissed in frustration; she had been on the move constantly but could not make her way any closer to the ship, no matter what they tried.

“It’s no use, Nellie,” Molly’s gloating voice rang out, thin sounding thanks to damaged speakers. “This is all just a matter of time, now.”

“Hey! Is that Molly?” A voice called loudly. “Want to hear a joke?”

“What?” Molly sounded confused. “Who is that?”

“Why did Molly never get asked to come out from behind the bar when she was serving?” JoJo called, his voice amplified loud enough to hurt.

“Who is that?” Molly snapped.

“Because no one ever wanted her stinking breath any nearer to them!” JoJo laughed, “Seriously, woman, buy a toothbrush!” He appeared from behind a cover and fired two pistols before diving away before the array could target him.

“Hey, I got another one!” He called again, “How does Molly change her knickers?”

“Shut him up!” Molly snapped as the array fired at JoJo’s cover.

Nellie took the opportunity to sprint to another, closer cover.

“With a gas mask! Phew! What a whiff!” JoJo cackled as he rolled out of cover the moment the array stopped firing. His pistols fired again.

Nellie slid into a new cover and finally saw what he was doing. The array was too shielded, but the sensor nubs weren't. Each one had an antigrav sled near it, and his shots had the first one’s cargo of power cells smoking already.

JoJo was trying to blind the array.

“Everyone fire on those power cells if you get a chance.” She called over comms.

“Got another one for ya!” JoJo yelled as he launched himself through the air at insane speeds.

“Kill him!” Molly snapped, the array missing JoJo by millimeters.

“Oh, don’t be like that!” JoJo laughed. “There is love out there for everyone, Molly! You just need to break tradition and try breeding with someone OUTSIDE your immediate family. Don’t take that too personally now; even inbreeders have standards!”

The array fired again, and Nellie and others all fired on the batteries.

Explosions rocked the side of the ship, sensor nubs popping like corn.

“How’s that!” JoJo called with a whoop, “Now you're blind AND smelly!”

“Fuck you!” Molly snapped. “Fuck you, you disgusting little shit!”

“Touchy!” JoJo cackled back. “Oh, and by the way? You really shouldn’t have been worried about me!”

Nellie screamed despite herself. The swarm of centipedes rolled over the lip of the crater and poured into the center like a flood. It was the largest group they had seen, easily ten times the number of the other swarms they had flown over.

The creatures ran straight for the ship, their legs clicking obscenely as they moved onto the metal walkways and hull before vanishing inside through every gap they could find.

Her skin felt like it was crawling as Nellie spun in circles, waiting for them to attack.

None even came near her; they seemed to avoid her and the crew completely.

“What the fuck?” Baz asked. “We got a Coral Strider incoming!”

“Damnit!” Nellie swore. Out in the open, they would be easy prey. “We are going to have to go into the ship!”

“With those things?” Baz asked. “Are you sure?”

“Better than out here!” She called back. “Trust me; those things are nightmares.”

“The fuck do you think those things in the ship are? They look cuddly to you?”

Nellie clicked her suit mic open. “JoJo, get over here!”

“Coming!” He said, scuttling over the crater in a way that turned her stomach.

“Stop that!” She scolded, “Fuck, that’s creepy.”

The teen just grinned, fire in his eyes.

“Strider is here! Let’s go!” Nellie called, only to turn and duck as laser fire burst from the ship. Molly’s people spilled out, firing madly as they fled the ship.

The problem was they were now between her team and safety.

Nellie turned as the first giant leg stabbed into the crater and felt her mouth go dry.

It was too late to run.

===<<<>>>===

Paren was already figuring out how to explain that this was not entirely her fault, even as the Coral Strider stepped over the lip of the crater ahead of her.

After all, she had done fine with the crawlers that tried to eat her. The reaction of the Coral Strider was not something she could have expected. I mean, a creature was just a creature, right? Nanites go in, and they become drones. Simple.

Of course, she had been a little low on nanites when she injected the Coral Strider, but still…

The crawlers she was crouching on cleared the crater's edge just as the giant mouth snapped toward her again.

“Oh, shit,” She gasped. “Bad timing!” There was a full firefight going on.

She could see Nellie and the others firing on a group that was forcing their way out of the ship while she sensed her drones hunting inside.

Nellie’s face was pale as Paren leaped from the crawlers and sprinted toward her.

“I can explain!” She yelled as Nellie ripped her aside and dragged them both away from the Coral Strider’s snapping mouth.

She waited for Nellie to scold her and was instead enveloped in a crushing hug, and she was reminded immediately that no one gave a crushing hug like someone with a nanite boost.

“Are you okay?” Nellie asked.

“Fine,” Paren said shyly. “Uh, sorry about that thing,” She winced as it screeched, forgetting its pursuit of her in a target-rich environment.

“Lucy will handle it,” Nellie said firmly. “Stay down, and don’t move!” She sprinted away.

Paren sighed and slumped against the wall she was hiding behind, focusing on controlling her drones and ensuring they operated efficiently. It was kind of fun as the world turned into a neon-painted nightmare.

Molly was still on the ship; at least for now, she and others were in a room sealed against her drones. These weren’t simple crawlers, after all. She had one smash itself against the control panel, the nanite-rich blood soaking into the controls as she started to work on a bypass.

She wasn’t exactly paying attention, which was why she didn’t notice as the shadow fell over her.

“Paren!” She heard Nellie’s frantic yell and looked up to see the Coral Strider’s mouth streaking toward her. She tried to escape, but the wall behind her left her nowhere to go.

A second later, she was looking up into JoJo’s burning eyes as he stood over her, arms and legs spread to the side. He was still smiling when the mandibles closed around him, pulling him down into the gullet as the head moved away.

She gasped, eyes blank as one hand reached out to him uselessly.

===<<<>>>>===

If he had been a drone, he could have survived that. The thought went around and around in Nellie’s head as she stumbled to a stop. It was too late now.

Too late.

Rage ripped through her. Something had taken something from her. She was…

Lucy bore her to the ground again, shots flying past them.

“Look at your HUD!” Lucy screamed at her.

Nellie did and felt like she had been slapped.

JoJo’s vitals were still there, the heart racing and O2 dropping fast, but he was there.

The Coral Strider let out a series of screeches as it tottered, shaking its long neck frantically. Flashes came from in the mouth each second.

“The crazy fuck is trying to kill it from the inside!” Baz laughed. “Go, JoJo!”

“We have to end this quickly,” Nellie said bitterly. “All units–”

The Coral Strider screeched again and started to fall, a bloody and malled form flying from the head and splattering to the floor.

“-get to JoJo,” Nellie amended.

JoJo was laughing when they got there, gashes spurting blood all over the place, both legs mangled, and only one arm working as he laughed in the night.

“Tried to eat me, cheeky fucker!” He laughed. “I got the bastard, though!”

“Yeah, you did,” Nellie said, crouching down and scanning him. He had minutes left at most. “So, you want to be a drone?”

“Yes,” He rolled his eyes, “I swear people never listen to me-” Nellie put her hand over his mouth.

“Listen, Jo. This is serious; it can never be undone. I can’t even promise I will never get it wrong. I will. Do you understand?” She looked into his eyes. Making sure he understood before removing her hand.

“I choose this,” He said with a sad smile. “I never had much. So…”

Nellie shook her head in resignation and forced the tendrils out of her hand and then the suit. “Welcome to the family, Ban-Jo.” She jabbed the tendrils into his neck and started the process.

“Banjo?” Lucy asked, “His name is Jo-Ban.”

“Shit,” Nellie said. “I already input the name on the drone list.”