Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.5 (Patreon)

Chapter Five

Heavy Cargo

Nellie sat on top of the passenger shuttle and looked around the yard. A lot had changed since she bought the place, but so much still needed to be done.

About a third of the space was now occupied by the two prefab hangars and the large scrap pile hiding the entrance to Lucy’s workshop. Not to mention Paren’s little shack. In front of all that was the landing zone, another third of the space. That was kept clear to allow entry and exit from the hangars, loading and unloading of cargo, and that kind of thing.

Which left their three ships, a bit of space for a couple more, and the rusted hulk that Nellie was using as office and living space in one. Around the whole thing was a high wall of packed earth. They were made from the stuff displaced by Lucy’s underground workshop, but as security, it was only slightly better than nothing.

And that was starting to worry Nellie. They were going to be here a while, so it made sense for them to have somewhere nice. That meant she needed to gather materials and maybe even hire some people to build it all.

That was the problem, of course. How could she trust anyone around here?

It was so much simpler on the Bly.

In short, she missed her ship and the simplicity of being in space. The looters had really shaken her. More than just what happened with Paren, it was the risk they posed.

That broken wall. The attack on a small village. This yard had so much more to take, so it was only a matter of time until someone attacked. When they did, would they have to let everything be taken rather than risk being discovered?

On the other hand, could they risk having guards and things around here?

There was a risk on either side of this.

“Lucy, I’ve made a decision,” Nellie said quietly. “I’m going to head into town.”

“Okay, I’ll let Paren know.”

The flight into town was the first outing for their new large cargo shuttle. It had been completely stripped and rebuilt in the safety of the hangar. Gone were the heavy ram on the front, the added weaponry, and the awful paint job.

It now looked relatively normal with a few weld marks here and there, plus a couple of cosmetic patches to make it look more scrapyard.

They were definitely starting to have a certain vibe, and the initial worry she saw in the town as she slowly came into land in the bays quickly passed when they saw the repairs. It was almost as good as a logo.

“More supplies?” Molly asked as soon as Nellie’s boots hit the landing bay.

“Yeah, but this time, I need something for them,” Nellie smiled politely at the town’s new Mayor.

“I told you last time. We can’t pay.” Molly grimaced. “I don’t think we have anything to trade, either.”

“I’m actually hoping you might have some people who know about putting up these walls and maybe some who want some simple labor work?” Nellie said.

“Why?” Molly asked suspiciously.

“The yard is not exactly secure.” Nellie shrugged. “I want to change that.”

“No, sorry.” Molly crossed her arms.

“What?” Nellie gaped at Molly. She had assumed the Mayor would be only too happy to have some people going out and earning for the town.

“I still don’t trust you,” Molly said, putting her hands on her hips. “And I’m not letting these people work in unknown conditions.” She smiled nastily. “Want my people? I want more supplies, AND I get to look around the yard. Top to bottom. Then you get my people.”

Nellie blinked a few times and even tried clearing her ears a few times, but apparently, that had actually just happened.

“No,” Nellie said once she found her voice again over the wave of anger. “No chance.”

“Well then,” Molly got a smug look on her face. “I guess you are out of luck.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “There is one other option.”

“Which is?” Nellie ground her teeth.

“Give us a shuttle.” Molly smiled. “We will trade the work for one of your shuttles. You don’t need more than one, and this is the third one I have seen you in.”

“That’s your offer?” Nellie was dumbfounded.

“Unless you can think of any other way of getting what you want?” Molly said with a wide smile.

“Actually, I can,” Nellie said with a smile. “Oy!” She called to the people around the bay. “Come and unload this stuff, will you?”

“You can’t just kidnap people!” Molly snapped.

“I’m not,” Nellie said, her voice coming out harsh as she tried not to lose her temper completely. “I’m delivering this stuff, then leaving. Keep your people. I’ll find others.”

Nellie was careful as she lifted off, her hands trembling in rage. She couldn’t let it make her sloppy. It was packed down there, and people could get hurt.

A massive argument was breaking out as she left. It turned out that a lot of the people nearby had heard Molly’s demands of Nellie.

Guess they didn’t love the idea of the Mayor trying to blackmail the person bringing supplies. She could still hear the last thing shouted at Molly as she was getting in the shuttle…

“What if she stops giving us supplies?” A man had yelled in near panic.

As if she would let a whole town starve just because Molly tried to pull something. The thing was, Nellie was not naive. She knew that was just what some people would do.

“Next plan?” Lucy asked brightly in her ear.

“Suppose so,” Nellie sighed.

“I’ll have everything ready for pickup when you get back,” Lucy said. “And well done not smacking that bitch in the face. Proud of you, Nell.”

Nellie smiled, feeling the rage starting to wash away. Hearing Lucy say that was really nice, and she was not blushing.

Nope.

Not at all.

After picking up a load of spares and some more of their scavenged supplies, Nellie flew off to the only other people she thought might offer to help her out. They were not first on her list for one very good reason.

They were always busy.

Still, you couldn’t argue they had the experience. The massive walls around Duke’s fields were works of art, not to mention the towers, a sprawling production complex for processing crops and meat, and the massive silos for storage.

There was also the fact that, unlike with the town, she could not exactly claim to have done them any favors. Sure, she supplied what they needed, but not for free. Nellie really hadn’t anticipated the reaction from Molly.

Just went to show that sometimes first impressions were pretty damn accurate.

Catching herself chewing her lip nervously as she landed in one of the visitor bays of Duke’s compound, Nellie shook herself out of her anxiety.

Duke and his people were good people, even if they didn’t fit the usual image of good guys. She was not here to beg anyway, just negotiate a job.

Right.

Everything would be fine.

The visitor bays were empty this early in the morning, and she had a quiet walk over to the gateway to the main compound. It was not her usual way of approaching the place, but she didn’t have a cargo slot booked this morning, and other than to get supplies, she had never been here.

Her nervousness vanished when she saw the guard booth. A pair of stuffed kittens were placed proudly on the little ledge, with leather-booted feet perched next to them.

“Morning, Leo,” she called as she drew level with the opening. “Any chance I could get a word with Duke when he has a minute?”

“Bea?” Leo looked shocked to see her, “You land in the wrong spot?”

“No,” Nellie laughed. “I’m here for something different today.”

“Anything I can help with?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and winked.

“And here I thought you only wanted stuffed animals?” She smirked back at him.

“Oh, stuffed anything is good for me!” He said with a twinkle in his eye.

Nellie laughed again, feeling the last of the anger leave her. She needed this. Leo may have looked dangerous, but he was completely harmless. Even his flirting was always carefully pitched to ensure there was no threat or pressure behind it.

“Fancy a little stuffed Duke then?” Nellie teased.

“Madam!” Leo acted offended, “He’d snap me in half, a big lad like him!” He cackled as Nellie felt a slight blush. “I think that’s a win for me,” Leo smiled. “Go on in, Cap. Duke’s out at the cargo bays, as always.”

“Thanks!” She waved and headed on through the metal gate as Leo put his head back again. He was snoring before she even got the gate shut behind her.

Duke’s place was even more impressive from the ground than the air. The visitor landing bays were in their own small enclosure nestled up against the larger walls of the main compound. Inside those walls, the area was divided into several ‘fields’ arranged in a grid. Each field was, in fact, a collection of towers. Vertical farming on a scale no one had even imagined back on Earth.

As Nellie walked along, she looked up to see some kind of cattle sticking their head over the walls of one level and eyeballing her as she walked past.

She waved up at it only to yelp as the horned and feathered head let out a caw like a raven, and it spread through the whole level.

It was a cacophony that she hurried away from, trying to look innocent as the air filled with the sound. Nellie was almost running by the time she got out of the field and into the next one.

This one’s towers were walled entirely in a transparent alloy. Inside, she could see giant mushrooms growing. Each was taller than her, and little fringes of something hung from the bottom of the caps. They grew in some kind of green moss that looked quite nice. She got a clear look as all the lights were on in the towers, as daylight these days wasn’t what it used to be.

Things got even weirder the closer she got to the cargo and loading docks. Some of the things growing in those towers played tricks with the light, or so it seemed. One seemed full of some greenish liquid with large bugs darting to and fro on top.

She was glad to finally find her way into the loading bays and see a familiar figure bent over a desk, a massive cigar in the corner of his mouth as he hammered away at the keyboard in front of him.

“Knock, knock!” Nellie shouted, as there was no actual door to knock on. “Got a minute. Duke?”

“Bea?” Duke looked up and started to frantically wave away the smoke from the cigar. “Sure, let me just get rid of this thing.” He looked around, almost frantic to find somewhere to put the cigar.

“I’m fine with it,” Nellie said quickly. “Smoke doesn’t bother me.” It was true. Her new lungs could breathe pure toxins and still find something useful in it. A little cigar smoke wasn’t going to worry her.

“No, I’ll not be smoking around a lady, let alone a customer.” Duke quickly stubbed it out on the floor of the bay and threw it in a drawer. “Just a sec!” He called, going over and rolling open the bay door to clear the air. “You know what? Can we talk outside?” He asked, blushing slightly.

“Sure,” Nellie said and followed him out.

“Didn’t know you were here, or I would have met you meself,” Duke said, giving her hand a crushing shake she hardly felt. “Did you land at one of the other bays?”

“The visitor bays, actually,” Nellie said, suddenly feeling nervous again. “I need a bit of help and was hoping for some advice.”

“How can I help?” Duke asked with his usual smile back on his face.

“My yard is a bit vulnerable with everything going on. I don’t even have decent walls. Just earth ones.” She saw Duke wince at that. “I was hoping you could advise me on how to get some decent ones.” She gestured to his own impressive walls. “You seem to know what you are doing.”

“How big a place have you got?” Duke asked, looking into the distance as he thought.

“The Yard itself is a half mile long, about a third of a mile wide,” Nellie said quickly. “And we have some clear ground around it. About a half mile out on each side.”

“So that would be two sides a mile and two about three-quarters of a mile,” Duke muttered to himself. “Better to square it, make it a mile on each side, for expansion.” He rubbed his chin, “Four towers minimum; got to plan for six if not eight.” Duke’s eyes focused back on her. “That isn’t too much; They are mostly stone and instacrete, plus metal reinforcing if you’re serious about security.”

“I am,” Nellie confirmed.

Duke stared at her for a while. His eyes were sharper than they usually were, and Nellie felt herself start to fidget and forced herself to still. After a few long moments where she wondered what he was thinking, he nodded.

“Can I trust you, Bea?” He asked.

“About what?” She asked bluntly.

“Good answer,” Duke laughed. “I always liked you, Bea. I don’t ask too many questions of people I like who seem to have a lot more supplies than they should.”

Nellie simply waited for him to go on.

“What I need to know, Bea,” Duke went on, “Is if you are connected to anyone I might need to worry about. Feds, Sector Security, anyone who might not like some of my side projects.”

“The less I have to do with any of them, the better,” Nellie admitted. “I like to keep to myself when I can.”

“Sure, sure,” Duke grinned. “That’s why they call you the Beacon, 'cause you’re so shy about coming forward.”

“Helping people is different,” Nellie shrugged. “If you can help, why wouldn’t you?”

“Good answer,” Duke said, brushing one of his huge hands over his face. “Sod it, why not? Okay, Bea, follow me.”

Duke led her through the production complex, past rows of heavy production machinery and steam-filled rooms. The sheer scale was staggering. The man was even bigger than he looked.

Nellie idly wondered exactly how much he produced in a single day, then discarded the thought. The numbers were staggering. No wonder she could always get supplies here. Duke was probably responsible for half the food production for miles in every direction.

Which made it strange that she had never seen any of the Feds around here. Only black market people and locals. There also seemed to be way more production than could be accounted for with just the fields she had seen.

Did he have others?

Her answer came as he led her to a large ramp hidden behind a false wall.

Following him down the ramp, she rounded the corner and stopped, locked in place by shock.

The entire farm was duplicated here, a whole vast second level full of vertical farms. Massive steel and stone pillars held the vast weight above, and the roof was a series of domes. Nellie vaguely remembered they were one of the strongest shapes for distributing loads, but the sheer scale was staggering.

Duke laughed and patted her on the back.

“Come on,” He grinned. “We got a bit further to go yet.”

She followed him deeper into the structure. All the way to yet another stairway, again hidden behind a false wall.

“If you have another farm down there, I’m going to faint,” Nellie warned Duke.

He just laughed and waved her down the stairs.

These ones were narrower by far.

“What the actual fuck?” Nellie gasped.

“Welcome to the other side of my business,” Duke said proudly.

They stood in a vast underground hangar. A massive ship was being built in the center of the space. It looked incredible, even if it was still only half finished.

“What the hell kind of ship is that thing?” Nellie asked.

The ship in question was long, almost half the length of the farms above. The front parts looked like a manta ray made of metal, while the rest seemed to be constructed of massive silos around a strong central core. The sheer size beggared belief. It was bigger than Bartlett’s flying saucer.

“This here will be a colony ship if we ever get her finished,” Duke said with a fond smile. “Farms included. It’s my own design.” He blushed. “What do you think?”

“Where are you planning to go?” Nellie asked.

“Out,” Duke smiled. “Out of the sectors, out of the battles, all the way out.”

“Unexplored space?” Nellie asked.

“That’s the plan,” Duke confirmed. “We would have been gone already, but the damn Feds invaded, and our supply lines got cut.”

“You need materials,” Nellie nodded to herself.

“We do,” Duke agreed, “So how about we build you some walls, and you get us some materials to help finish this big beast of a ship.”

“I think I can do that,” Nellie smiled and shook his hand.