Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter Three

Branching Out

Nellie brought the cargo shuttle in to land near the breach in the wall. The town inside looked abandoned from the air, but you never knew. When they first started doing these runs, Nellie and Paren had always landed inside the towns and villages, only to learn the hard way how aggressive desperate people could be.

They had barely managed to get away without having to kill someone on more than one occasion.

A hard-learned lesson that would not soon be forgotten. So they landed outside the town and geared up before moving in to search.

The high, grey walls looked impressive but were much less secure than people imagined. The truth of this was obvious as they stepped over the rubble and walked through the gap. The breach clearly showed the large empty void within the walls.

Another town who had scrimped on the cost of their defenses only to be caught alone and ill-prepared when everything went to hell. It was fast becoming a familiar story.

“Sending in the scouts!” Paren said brightly, her smart gauntlet flashing as she rattled off commands through the link.

Nellie knew that right now, Paren was seeing the world through three sets of eyes at the same time. Her own, and the sensor arrays on the two scouts. It was kind of creepy, but it was Nellie who converted Paren, so could she really complain?

Like a pair of robotic jellyfish, the two scouts deployed from the shuttle and rose into the air. They moved forward slowly, a few feet above Nellie’s head, and started to scan.

“Not picking up anything at the moment,” Paren frowned and tapped a few buttons on her gauntlet. “Well, almost nothing.”

“What?” Nellie asked, pulling her new rifle over her shoulder and checking its charge.

“I can’t really tell,” Paren frowned, “It keeps stopping and starting.”

“Movement?” Nellie asked.

“None, I think,” Paren pointed at a small shop on their left, just inside the wall. “Or maybe?”

“Pull your pistol.” Nellie moved forward, bringing the rifle up to her shoulder and crouching slightly as she crossed to the left side of the street.

“Wait, I’ll figure it out,” Paren sighed, punching buttons. “It’s probably just another glitch…”

Whatever else she was going to say was cut off as the store's front window exploded outward in a shower of glass. Nellie started to fire without bothering to check what it was. Nothing coming out like that was friendly anyway.

The first glowing bolts hit nothing but air, and Nellie was starting to hope it was a gas build-up or something like that until one of the energy bolts hit a patch of air, and it rippled. Nellie kept firing and saw the shimmers spread out more.

What the hell was that?

“Paren, get to cover!” Nellie shouted as she tried to drive whatever it was back. Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she saw the teenager frozen, eyes wide.

“Paren!” Nellie yelled again.

The rippling finally broke, and the shield dropped.

A large man snarled and rushed at Nellie. He was covered in a mish-mash of Fed and Sector Security armor. None of it matched, and most of it bore signs of battle.

Several large bags were slung over his back, with a seemingly random collection of things hanging out of them. What the hell was going on here?

As the bull of a man ran at Nellie, she rolled away from the wall and leaped up, backing away as she kept firing.

The bolts hit the armor, but the man ducked and dodged, pulling a snub pistol with each hand as he ran. The whine of Feb weapons joined the battle.

Paren was still frozen in place, eyes staring.

Nellie swore and threw herself at the man, getting inside his range and slamming her rifle into his chin as they went down in a heap. His arms closed around her as she hit him, and he squeezed hard.

She could hear the sound of the servos in his cobbled-together power armor as they worked to crush her. Out of options, Nellie slammed her forehead into the man’s nose.

He yelled but didn’t let go, just squeezing harder.

She would have been done for right there if Nellie had been anyone else. Luckily for her, she was nanite-powered, and her muscles were a LOT stronger than they had any right to be.

She flexed and strained, pushing back against the crushing arms and rocking them open enough for her to pull herself free and scramble back to her feet.

The man tried to follow her, but a full-power kick to the head with her metal foot left him dazed.

“Get ‘em!” A voice called from up the street, and Nellie saw several more people in stolen armor running at her. A couple fired as she dove away from the big man.

A quick count told her there were at least five more in this street alone. She dodged back to Paren, grabbing her and pulling her back towards the wall.

Shouts followed, and they didn’t get far.

A pair came at them from the alleys beside the wall, cutting them off from the escape. Nellie couldn’t fight and protect Paren at the same time, so she shoved Paren into a shop and slammed the door after she ducked inside.

Pushing over a set of shelves to block the door a little, she grabbed Paren by the shoulders, catching her eyes.

“Paren! Are you okay?” She asked.

“It was so quick,” Paren muttered. “I just… I’ve never had to…”

“I know,” Nellie said, “I’m sorry, but this is bad. I need you to focus, okay?” She brushed a stray hair off Paren’s face. “We need to move, okay?”

The sounds of smashing glass drove the words home, and Paren nodded, following Nellie as she tried to get to the back door.

Someone had beaten them there, and it was just opening as she got there.

Nellie fired her rifle point blank into the man in the doorway and spun back to take the stairs up.

Paren ran up ahead of her as the front door gave way below.

“What do we do?” Paren asked as they arrived on the second floor to find no windows up there, except back onto the street or the alley. Both of those options were out, so Nellie pointed at the far wall.

“Get that down; we can go next door and try to get outside the wall again.” Nellie pushed Paren towards the wall and took position at the stairs. The first head to stick around the doorway at the bottom got an energy blast to the face. “Can the scouts see where they are?” Nellie called back to Paren, who had a nanoblade in her hand and was carving out a large gap in the wall.

“Uhh, yeah!” Paren called. “Wow, there are, like, seven of them.”

“Send the scouts up high and have them scan the area,” Nellie called, “Just in case.”

“Okay,” Paren had stopped cutting, looking at the scans from the scouts.

Nellie fired as a shadow came toward the stairs.

“Well?” Nellie asked.

“I can see their ship,” The teen drone tensed up. “I think they crashed it through the wall! They have a ram thing on the front of it!”

“Anything else?” Nellie asked as she ducked away from the doors. Someone had just pushed a weapon around the corner, firing blindly.

“No, I think that’s it,” Paren said then paused in cutting again. “Uh, Nellie? I think they had the same idea; three of them just went into the building I was cutting into.”

“Get back from the wall!” Nellie yelled as someone started to charge up the stairs with what looked like a fridge door held up in front of him. She dropped back, dragging Paren behind her. The teen was shaking as someone kicked through the wall she had half cut through.

She drew her sword, standing in front of Paren.

“Got ya!” The big bastard she had kicked in the head stepped through the wall. Blood was flowing down from a large cut on his face. “No use fighting; we got this whole area jammed. No one can see ya, no one can hear ya.” He grinned.

“Really?” Nellie asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed at her, “So you be good little girls and hand over your stuff, and we’ll kill ya quick, okay?”

“No signals? Not even yours?” Nellie asked.

“What?” The man hesitated.

“Paren, I’m really sorry about this,” Nellie said. “I hope you can forgive me later.”

“Aww, isn’t that sweet?” The man laughed as a couple of others pushed up the stairs, fanning out in the small hallway.

“What?” Paren was still shaking. Nellie could feel it as the girl hid behind her.

“Drone, Combat Mode,” Nellie said.

The shaking stopped as Nellie dropped her rifle and stepped forward. She drew her nanoblade with her free hand. No one would see or hear them, which meant there was no need to hide the nanites.

She powered the sword as she slashed with her full strength, the armor barely slowing the blade as it bisected the armored man to her left.

“What the fuck!” The big man squealed as Paren launched herself into the air, her face emotionless as she kicked off the wall, the small nanoblade in her hand slicing the throat of the nearest man as she landed on the giant before her.

Her gauntleted arm moved in a blur, the metal fingers glowing as nanites covered them. The teen punched her fist into the man’s gaping mouth, and the fingers split, elongating and driving repeatedly through the delicate top of the mouth. Blood began to flow from his nose and mouth as he toppled backward, dead before he hit the floor.

Nellie kicked the woman at the top of the stairs hard enough to feel her spine snap beneath her metal foot and threw her down the stairs as Paren looked around the room and then leaped into the air.

Her gauntlet glowed as she landed, slamming it into the floor and sending Paren and a good section of the floor onto the level below.

Nellie scooped up her rifle and followed.

The fight was short but brutal. Once it was over, Nellie commanded Paren to go outside, where she activated the cleaning protocols. Blood, and worse, fell from Paren as the nanites scoured her skin and clothes.

Only once that was done did Nellie put aside her weapons and deactivate Combat Mode.

“What was that?” Paren screamed, immediately starting to shake.

“It was that, or we died, Paren,” Nellie said carefully. “I’m really sorry.”

“Do you have any idea what that is like?” Paren gasped. “It’s like all my emotions were just… gone. Poof! I felt nothing!”

“I’m really sorry,” Nellie said again. “I would never have done it if I didn’t have to. I promise.”

“Could you make me like that all the time?” Paren asked. “Could you have, I mean?”

“Yes,” Nellie admitted. She didn’t want to lie to Paren about this; it was important. “I really hoped never to have to do it at all.”

“Can I do that to myself?” Paren asked.

“Of course, why?” Nellie asked, feeling herself frown.

“I just,” Paren waved her hands about vaguely. “I just… I froze. I would have died!”

“Why don’t I handle this?” Lucy said, her voice sounding in both their ears. “I have a better understanding than Nellie.”

“Okay,” Nellie said. “If that is what you want, Paren?”

The teen nodded mutely, tears starting in the corners of her eyes.

“I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Nellie said. “If you want me, just call. Okay?”

Another mute nod.

Nellie went to start stripping the bodies. She could spare Paren that, at least.

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

“Anything new?” Crush-Cha asked Prit-Mal. They were on either side of a wire fence. She was looking better. Well-fed, and even the bruises were starting to fade.

“Nothing, really,” She sighed. “What did you expect me to find out in a day?”

“You never know what will come in handy,” He smiled at her, noticing how she looked away when he tried to make eye contact. “Any more talks with the admin people?”

“Since you mention it,” She fidgeted with the fence, “I did get to talk to them again.”

“Good news?” He asked, feeling his stomach sink at how she lit up.

“I think so,” She still refused to meet his gaze. “They seem to accept that station security officers aren’t a risk to them.” She brushed at a bit of her clothing. It looked newer than the other prisoners he could see.

There was also no sign of Brix, which was a first.

“Are you still planning to escape or join the resistance?” She asked, her voice more casual than he could ever believe of the uptight officer.

“No point,” He made himself smile, even though he felt like he was full of broken glass. “The Feds have the system. Causing trouble would just cause more suffering. What’s the point?” He let his shoulders fall all the way this time, doing his best to look relaxed. No way to tell who was watching.

“Really?” She looked at him at last. A hint of her old fire there, “Weren’t you special ops or something? I didn’t think that kind of person ever gave up.”

So she had told them that as well? It was like a knife in his guts, twisting and burning, but he kept his voice light and casual.

“Oh, I gave that up for a reason,” he smiled sadly, “I was never cut out for that stuff. Like everyone else, I just want a quiet life and a good job.”

“I’m glad, Crush. Really.” She looked at him then, and he saw pity in her gaze now. “I better go; same time tomorrow?” She asked.

“Sure,” Crush-Cha smiled back at her. “You keep your head down, okay?”

“I will,” She laughed and walked away.

Crush-Cha kept a half smile on his face all the way back across the yard and back into his sleeping area. Only once he was curled up, facing the wall and away from any cameras, did he let the anger and hurt show.

They warned him in training that people chose the safe option over the hard one, but he had really hoped Prit would be with him.

It made one thing simple, however. If Brix didn’t come by tomorrow, he had probably been killed. If that was the case, then tomorrow, he’d put his plan in motion. Somewhere out there, someone was fighting back.

Crush-Cha would join them.

Tomorrow.

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

“She will just need some time,” Lucy comforted Nellie as they headed back to the scrapyard. Paren was flying their cargo shuttle, which was loaded with supplies of all types taken from the empty stores and houses. The looters had done a lot of the work for them there.

Nellie was flying the looter shuttle back. It was loaded with gear, supplies, and weapons from the looters, as well as a good amount of prefab stuff. She nodded absently to Lucy.

“Come on, talk to me,” Lucy prompted.

“I betrayed her trust,” Nellie said flatly. “I never wanted to treat her like a drone, you know?”

“Of course I do,” Lucy smiled. “Better than you can know.”

“Really?” Nellie asked.

“I could literally feel your anguish at doing it,” Lucy pointed out. “Besides, you were right; there was no other way.”

“Still feels shitty,” Nellie said, “Think she will forgive me?”

“In time,” Lucy said. “I’m sure.”

“Thanks, Lucy,” Nellie smiled.

“I’m always here, and I’m always going to be on your side, Nell,” Lucy said softly.

Nellie decided to change the subject before she started crying.

“Think the prefab stuff will work?” She asked.

“Definitely,” Lucy said, her tone showing she knew what Nellie was doing. “We can have a hanger or two done in no time with this lot.”

“And we left the mark,” Nellie pointed out.

They had left the flower mark behind on a wall above the collected dead bodies. They had sprayed the word ‘bandit’ on each one. Lucy had wanted to go with ‘looter,’ but as they were flying off with the loot, it felt a bit hypocritical to Nellie.

The ship the looters were using was a converted long haulage shuttle. It was not designed for space flight, but it still boasted a significantly larger cargo bay than anything they had at the moment. It would take some work to get the ram and other stuff off it, but it was worth the trip on its own.

More than even the shuttle, Nellie was looking forward to seeing what Lucy could do with the various bits of power armor they had acquired. There was a question as to how helpful power armor would be, given the power of their nanite-boosted bodies, but let’s be serious here. Who didn’t want a set of incredible chunky power armor to strut around in?

If power armor was off the table, then what was living in a space age even for?

She spent the rest of the trip back dreaming of jet packs and designing her own set of armor in her head.

There was a possibility the nuns should not have let her watch THAT many episodes of Gundam, as her armor was rapidly growing to almost those kinds of proportions.

Nellie’s enthusiasm lasted until she came in to land, and Paren started to unload, all without meeting her eyes.

“Just give her time, okay?” Lucy reminded her.

Nellie trusted Lucy’s judgment, but seeing Paren hurry off her own shed, arms full of gear without her usual smile and wave, almost killed Nellie.

She felt the tears starting as she headed for the office.

Sometimes being the practical one really sucked.