Dry, No Lube Ch. 03: Disrupted

"Oh." The engineer rolled sideways, just slightly, grudging every movement. "I thought I felt something under there."

"You've always done that," Pixy complained, ripping her arm free. "It's a gift you have. You're very good at putting my arm to sleep with your jaw."

"So. That's why you like me." The engineer watched as Pixy rose naked, stretching her back left, right, and down, the older woman grimacing. "Prox alarm?"

"Mm." The staytab was sliding Pixy's pants on, simple working utilities; there was no point in standing on ceremony out here. She added a simple tanktop, leaving her bra draped over the crew seat. "I set it for twenty klicks. We're not really in a hurry to get up to the flight deck, so feel free to lounge around back here for a few more minutes." She nudged Klonmyre's ass. "It might improve your attitude, sublieutenant," she mocked.

The alarm was bathing the flight deck in an annoying red glow, so the first thing Pixy did was burrow into the light-control panel and disconnect that "feature;" she was expecting a great many prox alarms over the next few hours, and living in a dramatic red environment was not her thing. The jitters were back, flurrying in her stomach, and she knew they would be staying there right up until the time the Hive caught up with them; Captain Reye's last order to her had rattled her.

The detectors indicated nineteen kilometers now, with rapid closure despite her counterthrusts; soon she'd swing the shuttle around and begin to match speeds, aiming for a controlled approach with zero velocity delta. The Hive could obviously accelerate and leave the shuttle in the dust, so that would be Pixy's first data point: could these things detect anything as small as the shuttle, and try to evade it?

The next question, would these things attack anything as small as the shuttle, didn't bear thinking about quite yet. But it was the reason for her queasy belly.

She nodded to herself once they passed fifteen kilometers, then thumbed the maneuver alarm. "Swinging around," she transmitted over the intercom. "Might want to get your happy ass up here, Ms Klonmyre."

"Fuck you," came the distant reply from down in the crew bay, but her boots were on the ladder anyway. The frizzy red hair popped through the hatch. "Like I'm missing anything. What do you need me to do, ma'am?"

"You're copiloting." Pixy shrugged. "So sit in the copilot's seat."

"That, I can do." She slipped lithely into the acceleration seat, Pixy arching an eyebrow at her choice of uniform.

"Um." She glanced over. "That'll be uncomfortable once you have to put your harness on."

Klonmyre glanced down at herself. She was in her bra and a pair of what were probably Falgada's boxer shorts. "Isn't there a good chance we're going to die out here?"

"Isn't there always?"

"Well then," Klonmyre sniffed. "Might as well be comfortable."

"I guess." Pixy sighed. The Hive would be in visual range any time. "So. Pretty soon we're going to see those things out there, thousands of them. Probably in formation, probably holding a steady course. Almost certainly unmanned. I think they're controlled from some sort of mothership somewhere, so they should all be maneuvering simultaneously." She hesitated. "There's some disagreement between the captain and I about whether these things can detect a ship as small as this shuttle."

Klonmyre nodded. "How do we find that out?"

Pixy turned to look at her. "If they react to us, they can detect us. If not?"

"Ah." The younger woman yawned and leaned back. "This is what a 'survey mission' is?"

Pixy smiled with no warmth. "Not usually, no." She applied herself to the controls, her mind keeping track of the shuttle's slew rate, its heading, its velocity, all subconscious. She loved precision flying. "My plan is to close with this Hive. Isolate one of the ships."

"Drones," Klonmyre corrected distantly. "If they're unmanned, they're drones."

"Fine, drones," Pixy snapped, trying not to sound too testy. Fucking engineers, always insisting on proper terminology. "We isolate a drone, on the edge of the group. Fly close, to see what it will do. If it shoots at us, we kill it. If not, we scan it. Image every centimeter of the thing. Highest resolution." She jerked her chin at the scanner controls. "That's on your side of the console."

"Aye aye, ma'am," Klonmyre said automatically.

"After that, we back off, target it, and shoot a torpedo at it." She smiled tightly in response to Klonmyre's wide eyes. "It's called recon by fire. We shoot at it, just to see what its response is."

"Wow." Klonmyre rubbed at her nose, the dry shuttle air already taking its toll on her sinuses. "Okay. And then?"

"Well, after that we just sort of... react accordingly." Pixy had no idea what the rest of the plan was, not really. She expected she'd die around then, as the rest of the Hive reacted, but there was no way to know. "We bend over. Dry, no lube," she muttered.

"As per usual."

"As per usual," Pixy agreed. "You'll be in charge of downloading and packaging all the data. Near-constant transmission back to the ship. So I'll need you to be continually angling the antenna. We need to be ready to transmit toward Pulver at all times." They both frowned at the scope, where their home ship was now just a distant blob. "Know what the last order the captain gave me was? Before we headed off?"

"No. What?"

Pixy looked grimly over. "'Transmit anything and everything that happens, the moment it happens.' He didn't need to explain." She waited while the words sank in, watching Klonmyre's face fall. "Yup. We know absolutely nothing about these things, Janelle, other than Fleet's worthless estimates, my own worthless guesses, and the evidence of our own eyes. Who knows? They could be rigged with prox fuses, time fuses, no fuses, torpedos, or some godawful defensive system you and I can't even imagine. And that shit could strike at any time." She got back to work, stilling her gut, tweaking the throttle. "So. It's our job to send back everything, pronto."

"Before we very possibly get incinerated without warning." Klonmyre shrugged bleakly. "If I may be frank? I wish you'd stop volunteering for this kind of shit."

Pixy thought about it, then bit out the only possible reply. "Someone has to." They were around now, on the same course as the Disruptor Hive, her gloved hands edging the shuttle toward the enemy in smooth, controlled thrusts. Precision maneuvering is like sex, her spaceflight instructor had told her once, years ago. Just the right amount of force applied in just the right direction, and everything synchs up just fine.

Until it gets messy, she added sourly in her mind.

Nudge, nudge, nudge, she chanted to herself. Easy does it. The near-range scope was a mass of contacts, far too many to count. "You should be able to see a few of them now." She frowned at the plotter. "Starboard rear, about five o'clock level." She glanced over as Klonmyre curled out across the console to peer out the viewscreen, her body lithe and sleek in the underwear, and Pixy wondered once again why she'd booted her out of her bed.

"Oh! There they are." Given the situation, Pixy thought, she sounded awfully matter-of-fact. "Holy motherfucker. They're everywhere."

"What do they look like?" It was nervousness that made her ask the question; she'd be right in next to one of them in a matter of minutes. The enormity of that! Spitting distance from a Cathos Vremein ship!

"They look sort of like penises," Klonmyre decided, biting her lip. "But with the balls at the wrong end. Maybe a receiver in one of the balls and whatever produces the lightspace disruption in the other?"

"Yeah," Pixy replied slowly, still eyeing her legs. "Get the imager and start filming. Captain wants footage in near-real-time." Because they could destroy us at any moment now, she left unsaid. "Fleet desperately needs what only you can see."

"Right, right." She was climbing onto the actual console now, twisting to get the camera to where she needed it. "It's getting easier as you thrust closer."

"Mm-hmm." The alarms were chirping every three or four seconds now. The plotter showed nothing behind them, which was her main worry. "Should have brought a third person along. To be a lookout."

"To be bait with us?" Klonmyre laughed bitterly. "No ma'am." It occurred to Pixy, briefly, that if things went south here, now, Klonmyre's husband would never even know what happened. "You'll be able to see it soon," she promised, tickling the mid-beam transmitter at her elbow; she was already sending her images to the Pulver.

Good girl.

"Once I can see them, I'll be able to cruise right in," Pixy muttered, concentrating on her controls, and then she glanced over and there it was. "Good. I'll get it centered in the reticle and then you start scanning right away."

"Okay."

"I'm serious," she barked; her nerves had disappeared at her first sight of the enemy, now that there was no more uncertainty. "Fucking immediate scan."

"Ma'am." Klonmyre snapped to the automatic response, the military response, her fingers flying over the controls, and Pixy had a moment to just stare over for her first real glimpse of a Cathos Vremein Disruptor Hive drone, only to find that Janelle Klonmyre had lost none of her analytical powers.

It did look almost exactly like a penis. With the balls at the wrong end.

"Max res," she reminded the Klonmyre. "Fuck the bandwidth. We're not conserving anything when we transmit."

"Ma'am." The drone swept majestically through space, paying their shuttle absolutely no mind at all, looking like any other probe. There was an organic roughness to the surface that Pixy hadn't expected to see there, but if she'd been held down and forced to guess what the object was, she'd probably have been able to figure it out. "Looks like any other drone, seems to me," Klonmyre added.

"You're reading my mind again, Ms Klonmyre. Stop that."

"Ma'am."

The scanner was busy, whining within its housing by the targeter. At this resolution, it was undoubtedly getting more of a workout than it had in years. Pixy made a mental note to make sure Falgada prioritized scanner maintenance, then reminded herself it probably didn't matter; the shuttle, its scanner, she, and all her mental notes stood an excellent chance of imminent vaporization.

But not so far.

"Second pass," she rasped to Klonmyre, keeping a sharp eye on the range indicator; she was just ten meters away from the drone. "Add spectrometry. Tell the scanner to tag anything explosive." There appeared to be no projectile weapons on the drone, but she was very afraid that they had some sort of self-destruct. "I don't want it to explode and take us with it."

"I'm not into that either," Klonmyre agreed, biting her lip as she messed with the programming. Her other hand was sending an update to the Pulver, which Pixy was pleased to see. "Ready."

"Good." A touch at the throttles, a lick or two of thrust, and Pixy was sending the shuttle along to do its second scan. "Clue me in, if you don't find anything explosive," she added. "Peace of mind."

"Nothing so far, other than the fuel itself." Klonmyre had her eyes pressed tightly to the scanner cups. "Looks like betakerosene, standard weight. Traces of tritium for the lightspace generator. Nothing else." She straightened from the scanner and gave Pixy a tight smile. "So far, so good."

"Okay." Pixy thought a moment. "Last pass. We'll push our luck again. Scan for mid-beam signals. That should confirm it's getting its directions from some other ship nearby."

"I'll find a signal," Klonmyre said confidently, tapping at her console. She had her legs drawn up underneath her, looking like a little kid at preschool. "There's no indication of AI or independent guidance. And..." she trailed off, wary.

"What?"

"I'm, uh, thinking that if I can get an azimuth for the mid-beam signal, and then maybe find the same thing for a few more of these fucking things..."

"Holy shit." Pixy felt her eyes widen. "We can back-plot them to get the source of the signal."

Klonmyre smiled. "Maybe program that location for a torpedo search, launch a few as a parting shot? While we fly away?" She giggled nervously. "It's just an idea. We won't be able to tell if it hits anything, but Pulver might."

"Fuck yes," Pixy breathed. "That's the plan. Compose a message telling them that's what we're going to do, then make absolutely positive you update all the transmissions and tell me when you're done." She tipped the craft, redirecting the scanner to one of the other drones. "Scan all you can see; the more mid-beam fixes you get, the more accurate our target location."

"Aye aye, ma'am." Pixy could hear her excitement, but still felt uneasy; this was going entirely too smoothly, tripping through space at just below lightspace, trading scans with an enemy craft of completely unknown capability. "And, also... I mean, I was thinking, if these things are as harmless as they look, and have no explosives..."

"Say it," she snapped. "I'm not in the mood to guess." The shuttle wavered as it passed through a magnetic anomaly, her hands tight on the controls.

"I'm pretty good at EVA," Klonmyre told her softly, and Pixy stared over in total shock. "Just saying."

"Sublieutenant Klonmyre," she sputtered into the pause, "you're suggesting you go out and steal one of those things?"

"It's only a meter in diameter. It'll fit in the hatch," she pointed out, shrugging.

Pixy felt the grin starting, uncontrollable, the fierce hard shove of reckless achievement pushing her along, just as it had those other times... "Absolutely fucking not," she said flatly.

"Why not?"

"It exceeds our orders, Klonmyre, that's why not."

And Klonmyre simply cocked her head. "You're saying that because it's me."

"What?"

"Me going out to get it." She nodded. "I'll be fine, Pixy. I'll be sure to put on more clothes before I suit up."

"Fuck," Pixy bit out, looking away into the stars, the shuttle riding easily. The scanner beeped, its attitude switching, picking other signals to detect. "You have no idea what you're suggesting, Klonmyre."

"I know." The younger woman was nodding, dead serious. "That's why I have to do it, ma'am. We're here to find out." She leaned over, seeking Pixy's purple eyes. "Isn't that right?"

She tore her gaze back across, seeing nothing in Klonmyre's face but competence, determination, even logic. "You'd better not fucking die," she said softly, the grin finally appearing. "Better not." She slapped at the controls; another drone, another mid-beam signal, another azimuth. "I... you'd better fucking not."

"Hey." She smiled back, her orange hair a bright fuzzy halo. "I know, Pixy." Pixy felt herself swallowing hard, then looked back out into space without trusting herself to speak. "I'm going to go get ready."

Pixy cleared her throat harshly. "Once we get the mid-beams triangulated, I'm going to back off and shoot at one of these suckers."

"Recon by fire." Klonmyre was diving down the hatch. "I can't wait. Don't shoot until I get back up here."

"Fine, you reckless fucking slut," Pixy fired back over her shoulder.

"Takes one to know one." Pixy shook her head, grinning openly now, and focused back on the console. The computer was sorting through the azimuths and coming up with whatever point in space the Hive's main ship just might be occupying, and meanwhile she had a torpedo to launch. She was pretty certain, by now, what would happen: local space was absolutely packed with these drones, meaning the Cathos Vremein probably expected some wastage. Asteroid impacts, gravitational anomalies, space junk, anything could take out one or two or dozens of the drones, and there were plenty more to take up the slack. She was almost certain there'd be no response whatsoever if she blasted one, but she had to be sure.

The shuttle swept away from the Hive in a gently swooping arc, her fingers on the targeter, her brain trying to remember the codes for the range settings. She needed a low-effect explosion from a short-range shot, and it had been awhile since she fired a torpedo even in a simulation. The shuttle came back around for its target run around the same time Klonmyre returned, her EVA suit still fastening itself. "I found one that fits," she announced, grimacing. "Almost. A little tight in the crotch, frankly."

"You're not going out there to pick up men on the beach, Ms Klonmyre," Pixy growled, focused on her bearings. "And you might not be going out at all. If this shot provokes any kind of reaction, we're turning away and bugging out."

"Aww." Klonmyre strapped herself in. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Come to bed with me afterward and I'll show you," Pixy replied absently, twisting a last dial as Klonmyre snorted.

"Don't have to tell me twice," she muttered as the shuttle settled on its attack run. Space beyond the viewport was packed with the placid drones, all drifting along in complete unconcern, looking almost majestic. "They really do look like dicks," Klonmyre added thoughtfully. She was skimming the scan results. "I was right. One of the... well, the testicles? One of them has the disruptor generator, the other receives signals."

"Stress that in your report." Pixy was tweaking the shuttle now, seeking the perfect shot, fussing more than she needed to. "Arm torpedo one."

"One armed," Klonmyre echoed, staring into the targeting globe.

Pixy stared at her target, the drone they'd just probed, her hands and mind ready for a hard turn and a uselessly quick acceleration on an escape azimuth; not that it would help, probably. If these things had crashed the Jeremiad and come within a fly's asshair of doing the same to the Pulver, what hope did two excited officers in a shuttle have? She shook her head, the question answering itself. "Fire one." The shuttle twitched lightly as the torpedo accelerated clear, a bright blue blur in the starfield to their front. "Impact in three... two... one..."

The death of the drone was a flashing globe, blooming and then dissipating in an instant, then gone forever in the vastness of the universe. Both women held their breaths, staring out at the rest of the Hive, wondering whether they were about to die.

Nothing.

"Well," Klonmyre said after a full minute.

"Yes." Pixy frowned, confirming with a wide-field scan; "No aspect change in any of the contacts. None at all." Indeed, the Hive just kept flowing along in its patient pursuit of the Pulver, calmly obeying its orders. Another minute passed. "I guess we'd know by now."

"Scope's clear." Klonmyre reached over and slapped Pixy's shoulder. "Come on. I can reload the torpedo while I'm out there. I want to get out and wrestle one of those things."

"You just haven't had enough cock lately," Pixy spat back, winking to remove the sting. "Go on back and depressurize, then. I'll leak your gravity and give you the green light when you're good to go. Oh, and double your tether." She watched as the younger woman sprang up, the EVA suit like a second skin, and on impulse reached out and grabbed her arm. When Klonmyre spun around, Pixy was leaning up, ready, smashing her lips into Klonmyre's with all the passion she could summon, a mind full of stress and tension draining out into the other woman's mouth. And when they parted, both of them red-faced and shiny-lipped, Pixy looked away. "Don't die, Janelle."

"I won't, Pix." A final sweep of a shy finger along Pixy's cheek, and then Klonmyre was bounding through the hatch, leaving Pixy to wonder why her eyes were so moist.

* * *

They stood there, both of them exhausted and disheveled, Klonmyre soaked with the kind of gunpowder-smelling sweat you only got from hard work in deep space. Her hair bounced in lank, darkened coils as she shook her head. "Well." She sniffed hard. "That sucked."