Phantom Star

This was the most difficult moment of my life. Line after line was typed in, questions that I just had to get right answered one after another, and then finally it popped up a message.

“Exam done.” I said and looked at the tester. Uncle Milbert. A very exacting man that always frowned.

He nodded and in seconds my results were posted.

I slumped in relief.

“That’s close, but a pass. Work on your policy knowledge.” He said and I nodded, rising up and running out of the room before he could say anything more. My desire to escape from that room was too great to wait any longer.

I was finally free. Taking the Exam a year early had been a surprise to everyone, but by taking it now, I’d still have a few years before anyone expected much from me, and I could continue to do my work with Aunt Sheila even if Ops wanted to put me with another work segment.

I had a few years before everyone would be expecting me to lock my job in, and start working full time.

So let’s say two years to get everything ready… That would be cutting it close.

I hurried away. Running through corridors and bouncing off the walls in the low gravity segments. Finally I made it. A shuttle was waiting for me.

“You’re early.” Aunt Sheila said from just outside as she was loading up a few tools. I quickly rushed and started helping.

“Finished early. Passed.” I confirmed breathlessly, as I wiped my messy hair out of my eyes quickly throwing it back into a messy bun that it had escaped from as I ran.

“You did?” She asked, shocked. “What’d you score?”

“Passed with a green mark in everything, except for Policy. Got a yellow.”

“Heh.” She chuckled at that. “I scored a yellow in Policy too.” She admitted and I smiled, but I was also lifting her equipment and practically hauling it into the shuttle. “Okay what has got into you?”

“I have a project that I put on the back burner until the Exam is done. It’s why I took it early. Now I have all the time I need to finish it!”

“Hmm.” She muttered but in the end my exuberance, and perfect acquiescence to her orders while working meant she just shrugged me off. Once more, me being a bit odd came in clutch!

We set off, and I pulled out my Tab contacting the Crabbit Collective on my space base to start preparing for my arrival. It had been over a month since I’d been able to come do some work longer than a short stop here and there to make sure the Crabbits weren’t starting a Cargonia cult or something.

I split off from Aunt Sheila with a happy wave as I jumped out of the shuttle and into space. For a moment I was floating peacefully, then my shoulder Crabbit maneuvered me to the freighter I had taken over.

*Crazy brat!* Aunt Sheila called after me over the radio, but it wasn’t the first time I had done so, or the first time she had done it.

Entering into the freighter's cargo space I pulled off my helmet with a gasp and looked around.

There was a lot of scrap gathered inside. Pieces of valuable bits that I would need that would save me time trying to make them when it came to putting together a ship. Of course the most important part was still hanging in zero gravity.

I walked over to the Diamond Drive, noticing the slots for the Iris Drives were still empty. Today.

Today was the time. Aunt Sheila would be working on a new cargo ship that had been dropped off, and it would be on the other side of the Scrap Field.

“Impossible.” A voice denied, and then dozens more joined in chanting the same thing.

“It’ll work.” I told them. The song hitting a rising crescendo as I said it.

“Impossible! Simulation shows a 100% chance for complex deconstruction!” The Crabbits argued, and I turned because that voice was different from normal, she had sounded intelligent, a lot of them must be synced up for that level of sentience.

“That’s because your simulations can only simulate what it already knows. We’ll gather data today proving it’ll work and you can update your simulations.” I told the one that was arguing with me.

“Impossible!” It denied waving its arms at me.

“Impossible!” All the rest then chanted at me, and I laughed. They weren’t wrong. And their tugging at my pants to pull me away from the empty drive was cute. They were protective of me.

“Don’t worry. We’ll take it out past the other side of the moon, and activate it.” I told them. Mostly because I didn’t want anyone to see the explosion if it did go up. “I’ll be behind the edge of the planetoid.”

“Impossible! Resource loss! Catastrophic! More Crabbit instead!” They argued with me, and I laughed. Sure, having seven more Crabbit would be useful…

I looked around the bay. I was up to what? Twenty? Or more. Sometimes new ones popped up randomly. The only reason I knew that, was the random blue paint most of them now had. I had started giving them a little blue to offset the metallic chrome, but then they started trying to paint each other.

It was messy but cute. And I kept seeing new paint jobs.

Sneaky buggers were definitely making more of themselves. But this wasn’t something I was going to put off anymore. “This is it, girls. This engine works and so everything we’ve done has a purpose, or it fails, and my life as a scrapper on this station is locked in forever. I won’t fail. I can’t.” I told them firmly. Trying to Impress how serious this was.

They drooped around me which was cute, but eventually I had my crew on my side.

I took a deep breath. “Let’s get it moving girls.” And I went and grabbed my helmet. We had gotten the Hangar doors working, including the force field that kept the oxygen in. I did a quick double check, everything was still working, and then started the doors. The massive cargo bay doors slowly opened up, and I stood there looking out over the light of the sun glinting off the ship hulls and took in the impossible sight.

This life had been all about impossible things. What was one more?

The Crabbit worked together picking up the Diamond Drive. The Iris Drives, and the console and scanner systems. We were doing this right.

Getting a full reading on the diamond drive as it first activated would be important.

I didn’t need a shuttle with so many Crabbits. My little group all jumped off into space along with our equipment and started flying. They already knew where to go and carried me along with them.

I was dropped off on the nose of an old Freighter on the edge of the Scrap Field. I took a moment to adjust my boots on the cold hull plates and looked out away from the scrap field into the distant space that would be where we finally tested something that would change my life, one way or another.

“Not on. Not on.” I turned and noticed the Crabbit were poking at the monitoring equipment we had brought and I smiled. They must not have much hardware space themselves right now. I walked over and started setting up what used to be a ship station, and started turning it all on.

Slowly my little cloud of Crabbits and equipment flew off into space. Farther and farther. The Crabbit were using their gravity Panels at their maximum, synced together to get some serious distance.

Once everything was stable, I connected and was looking through one of the Crabbit’s eyes as they reached an acceptable safe distance.

*Impossible!* They argued once again and I laughed.

*Only if we don’t do it. Everything is impossible until someone does it. Finish preparations.* I said and the Crabbit jumped into action. Twenty minutes later I was looking at the Diamond Drive with seven Iris Drives floating around it.

*Insert Core.* I called out, and the Crabbit maneuvered the first Small Iris Drive into position. The Diamond Drive was in two halves, and as the core was put into position the two halves were maneuvered closed with the gravity control. Slowly it sort of twisted shut.

*Insert Secondary Array Drives.* I called out, and Six more Iris Drives were gently brought closer, each with a Crabbit moving it so there would be no bumping anything.

The measurements for the Diamond Drive were… Exact. Incredibly so and I didn’t want to fail because an Iris Drive was shoved in a bit too roughly and set the measurements off.

Each one was brought into the square insert at the corner of the Octahedron and Inserted. Clamps securing the drives into perfect position and slowly the gravity controls of the Crabbit were released until it was floating safely.

Everything was still locked down. So as far as the Iris Drives were concerned they weren’t connected to anything…

Yet.

*Achieve safe distance.* I demanded and they all buzzed away leaving a single device behind that would be our close up eyes.

Every scanner I had was then pointed right at the Diamond Drive. I waited impatiently, but I wouldn’t risk my Crabbit for nothing. Especially since I would already be down a lot of Iris Drives, and time if this blew up.

Only when I got confirmation from every drone that they were at a safe distance did I start.

*Be-* I nearly choked on my spit. My hands felt wet in my gloves. I swallowed and started again. *Begin preliminary activation.* I called, and despite whispers of *Impossible!* Still coming through my comms which did make me want to laugh. My crew did their job. I watched as the Diamond Drive began glowing as power was drawn from the Iris Drives warp rift.

It was still blocked though… I took a breath. Felt the fear and anxiety, and exhaled it all. It was useless, I didn’t need it.

*Begin array activation!* I called out confidently, and the song around me reached an almost overwhelming Crescendo!

I winced as suddenly that beautiful blue light of the Iris Drives shifted, as the Iris drives all started taking in power, something they weren’t supposed to! Yet, instead of exploding, as the rifts overloaded, they sent the power through the shunts into another and another, and then back into the Core.

Then instead of exploding like what should have happened. Instead of causing a Warp Rift that would grow beyond containment, and then fail, somehow the energy flowing back into the Core pushed back the rifts expansion. I watched it almost in slow motion as the sensors registered what happened, and I watched as subspace interacted negatively with real space.

As the rift began eating matter, destroying everything before the rift bounced against the power the array rifts were shunting through, and it sort of wobbled as the rift expanded. It turned from a stable blueish white, to an angry red light as it rumbled and exploded.

I exhaled.

I hadn’t created a stabilized consecutive Iris Drive. That’s what I thought I was making, but now I realized that was foolish, that had been tried before so of course this was something else.

I had created a drive that drew power from a constantly expanding and collapsing Warp Rift. It was like drawing power from antimatter reactions. As the matter broke down, as the warp rift ate at reality, it released far more power than a warp rift of that size would normally release.

“That’s the most metal thing I could ever imagine.” I whispered to the stars. Explosions made the best engines. Humanity had discovered that a long time ago. I was just… Keeping to tradition.

*Error.*

*Error!*

*Error?*

*Eeeeeeeerrrroooooorrrrr!* The Crabbits started chattering and screaming over the comm, and I winced at the sound of a hysteric AI.

They just weren’t ready to have their understanding of reality shattered.

—--

It took a long time to get the Crabbit calmed down and refocused. I had had them quickly go and grab the Diamond Drive, and throw a tarp of all things over it, as I quickly tried to get back to the lab without anyone noticing.

When I landed I did a quick check on Aunt Sheila and relaxed when she was still just working without issue.

Then I sat on the hangar floor and just stared at the angrily glowing rift that was feeding off the destruction of material space that passed through it, and the constant reflection of six other rifts.

Can I turn it off? The Song didn’t even hitch and I relaxed. I could do that. I hadn’t just made a big bomb the first time something happened to it. But I was doing every scan I could on it, before I tried to turn it off, as I wanted to understand exactly what I had just done…

“No cults.” I told the Crabbits as I shooed away another of them that had floated over to try and touch it.

“Awww.”

“I never should have let you access the station's media collection.” I grumbled at them. My own pop culture was pretty weak, but my Crabbit enjoyed some of the silly stuff. Including a movie about a cult leader that kept screwing up and saving the planet he was on despite trying to destroy it…

I didn’t really get it, but it was rated well.

I shook it off and once more glanced at the readings on my Tab.

This thing was…

It was exponential. The power a normal small Iris Drive gave off was basically… Increased to the power of 6? Each of the Iris Drives in the set up was exponentially multiplying the power of the core.

I… I had more than enough power for a good sized ship. It was putting out a bit more than a medium drive would normally put out by itself… What would happen if I got seven medium Drives. Could I make another Diamond Drive of that size?

I shook off the idea. That was something I would think about later. Although I’m pretty sure I could… No, first I needed a ship, and now I had the numbers for how big I could actually make it.

It was absolutely doable. I slipped over to my tab and started working. I of course already had ideas for designs and styles. The first thing any starship needed was a sexy silhouette after all, but now I had some numbers about how big I could make it, and the answer was…

Big.

—--

I got home late. Aunt Sheila long since having returned with her shuttle I had to take the Crabbit back and I got a bunch of looks from everyone as I came in through the airlock without a ship.

It wasn’t against the rules but it was frowned on to not have some sort of ship just in case.

But I also didn’t have a private shuttle that the Station Master let me use like Aunt Sheila. So I ignored the mix of irritated and concerned looks as I left the docking bay and hurried to the elevators.

I was so tired. My brain felt melty considering everything that had happened today.

I floated limply down the hall towards home, being super lazy and just sort of shifting my foot to let me bounce along. I must have looked like a ghost with how hunched over I was. Then I opened the door, and jumped back as it wasn’t just my parents inside.

I swallowed stickily.

“Sir.” I greeted him. Mom was bouncing nervously, but Dad was sitting across the kitchen table from Great Uncle Kyle.

“Katherine.” I winced a bit, the only time someone used my full name was when I was in trouble. But that wasn’t the case here. It was just a lack of knowledge. “Come sit.”

“Yes Sir.” I agreed quickly and took a seat beside Dad. He gave me a comforting smile and patted my shoulder.

“You took your Scrapper Exam early.”

“Yes Sir.”

“It’s an interesting choice, but you passed well enough. I’ve had Sheila telling me for a long time now that you’d better be placed with her as your little drones are too valuable to ignore. Did you know that?”

“Ah. No sir. Well… Sorta.” I admitted, and he smiled kindly.

“Well I do tend to agree. But your drones don’t need to just be yours alone. Their performance is impressive.”

“Thank you.” I said quietly, but I wasn’t really happy about what he was inferring.

The Crabbit were my crew, but also my friends…

“I’d like a set constructed for the station.” He said and I winced at the reveal. I didn’t want that… But that was being selfish. I could easily create a different personality kernel, and have a whole array of drones that the crew could use and keep my Crabbit personality…

“I can do that.” I admitted and he smiled looking pleased at my words.

“I’ll set up a space in the foundry for you to work.” He said and I realized I had a chance here.

“I don’t… Umm I already have a workspace out in the Scrap Field… C1H-243.” I said using the numerals of the Super Freighter that I had set up in.

He blinked and I could see him going over his memory before nodding. “Sheila has it registered as a scrap drop off.”

“Yeah… For me.” I admitted, that wasn’t going to get us in trouble, but Sheila might get a word from him about it in the future.

But this was my chance.

“Hmm. If you think you work better there, that’s fine.”

“Um... Uncle Kyle? There is something that I’ve been tinkering with… I was wondering if in exchange I could claim one of the hulls?”

He registered my question and seemed to mull on it for a bit before he spoke. “The Super Freighter is already registered to you.” He said and I realized he hadn’t understood.

“Not like that. I mean… Permanently? I want to repair it.” This got a reaction as even Dad looked at me in surprise.

“You want a ship?”

“Yes. I want to see the stars. I can… I can repair the ship myself.”

“I can’t give you a Drive.”

“Oh! I know. That’s fine. I’ll figure something out! Maybe sell some drones off station? Or offer the completed ship to a captain with an extra drive! I just… I like fixing things, and I want to fix up a ship… I can do it. Safely! And it won’t really cost anything-”

“Hmm.” He spoke not an acceptance, but a noise to indicate he was thinking and I went silent.

I had known one way or another I was going to do this. Even if I had to steal a hull, but if I could earn a scrap hull to use, I wouldn’t struggle to figure out the super structure of designing a ship.

“You’ll have an actual workload. I expect a certain amount of drones. And I was here to also task you with your job. Repair and maintenance. Although Sheila has as I said demanded your time as well. So that will be a half shift.”

“I accept.” I said instantly. And that was that. He smiled and nodded, and after a few more moments of congratulations I barely heard he got up and left.

A ship.

An engine.

And a Dream.

Everything a girl needed.

—--

“Yes I have to go make some drones… I’m behind schedule… So it might take a while.” I said keeping my face straight and honest and definitely not lying… Like a lot.

“Uh-huh. Whatever Brat. Just don’t be late on that. Uncle Kyle might be gentle with kids, but you made a deal, and you’ll pay if you miss it.” Aunt Sheila offered as she hefted the last box out of her shuttle.

“I won’t!” I assured her and then I was off. Taking the shuttle back out. I had to use the shuttle because I was moving a lot of stuff to the hangar, and more importantly I was bringing the Babbit back with me when I was done.

Heh. Babbit. I had needed a new name for the versions of my drones that would be running on a new AI kernel. These ones didn’t have the synchronization tech of my Crabbits, so they were solo drones. They were a bit less childish on average than my Crabbit, but they also couldn’t reach the same highs.

So I had chosen the new name like that. Babbit. Basic-Crabbit.

I hadn’t been sure the best way to build them, but eventually I had decided to use a bunch of the older parts. Honestly they were basically just the older Crabbit builds, from before I had the ability to use nanopaste to print whatever I wanted with nanomachines. So each of them would be unique looking, which was actually a benefit since no one would mistake them for my own Crabbits.

And unlike what I just said, they were already long done. Setting the Crabbits to the task meant they all got completed while I slept.

Thirty drones was a lot, but not for a group of fabrication drones.

No, the big reason I was heading out to my lab was because of what was inside.

The old super freighter was more than large enough for me to stick at least most of the hull I had chosen inside so I could work on it undercover.

Because the hull I had been given was an extra large freighter ship. The sort of rust bucket that was made to just blow through anything in its path and as such had way more material than a normal ship.

I would need every piece of it too. I had slowly come to a decision on the ship size I wanted, and the fact was I was going a bit over what I probably should.

When I started designing the ship adding in everything I would want including my creature comforts, it had been… A bit too big.

It was frustrating to have solved the problem but still ended up lacking that perfect system.

So I had taken my completed ship design, and started cutting. It hurt every time, but what I could do was make the ship capable of reattaching the missing pieces.

I cut most of the crew's comforts. My own living space was still there, but no crew space. The weapons were mostly cut. Then because I simply had to remove mass and size, I had to cut two of the four engine nacelles. Instead of a quad engine design it would be a dual engine, and…

It would work, until I could get a bigger Drive.

I left all the connections in the design, and with my Nanopaste I’d be capable of connecting the completed modules later without any issue.

But it left me with some issues because my dream boat wasn’t going to be as heavily armed as I had planned.

The plan was to have a cannon at the front, but nearly everything else? Side Repeaters for point defense, and fighter screening? Gone. Expanding missile racks? Gone. Laser broadsides? Gone. It hurt my soul to have so few weapons, but I would just have to make up for it in other ways.

Armor? A composite ablative mix that I had tinkered with, that would be completely unusable without Nanopaste repairs. It would have been astronomically expensive for a normal ship to deal with, as the armor ablates in a way that repair would have to be done with fully repairing the entire section of armor.

Since I could produce my own nanopaste, which could simply repair the ablated sections of plates, repairs were easy. I would be much tougher than an equally armored ship.

Then there was the superstructure itself. I was literally using the nanomachines to break down the materials of the freighter and then remake the material from the atomic level to what I needed.

I took scrap Klint Metal, already a future alloy and reprocessed it, Altering it into as strong a variation of the metal that I could make.

Honestly material science was pretty crazy already so I wasn’t even doing anything out of the ordinary with the material itself, but taking the time to configure it from an atomic level through the entire superstructure was definitely a high end manufacturing method. Luckily I had been creating nanopaste continuously, so I had a lot of gray goo already prepared, more than enough to keep the process going quickly as the nanopaste was able to make more of itself faster than I was using it.

Then of course like the armor. I’d be able to replace damage incredibly fast by just throwing nanopaste onto the damaged sections.

But if my ship only had armor then what was the point?

By this point I had arrived, and I flew the shuttle right under the massive freighter that I already had sticking nose first into the even larger freighter.

Within a few moments I touched down, and then stepped out. “Go ahead and grab everything inside!” I yelled to the Crabbits, who cheered at my words and floated over to start grabbing the extra parts I had gotten from Aunt Sheila.

There were just… Too many issues.

I really needed a pretty solid shield emitter system to make use of the extra energy I’d have from my Diamond Drive, and a few back up emitters in case the mains went down was pretty standard ship design, but if I had medium Iris Drive’s in a Diamond Drive… I’d be able to support double, or triple full shields arrays.

Which I didn’t have, nor did I even really have the emitters. Those were valuable and quickly stripped off the hulls as soon as they arrived. I’d only found a few hidden in storage rooms on some of the old ships from time to time.

But then came the biggest issue. I needed a stick. Something that would truly turn my somewhat anemic ship into a danger that shouldn’t be poked.

It couldn’t be weapons. I didn’t have the power for anything crazy.

It couldn’t be shields. Those had the same issues. Couldn’t be speed. With only two nacelles the ship would be sluggish, even with all the cutting for a modular ship design, it wouldn’t be good. I needed something else.

The sensors would be solid but unremarkable. Unfortunately to get up to a Type 5 sensor system I’d need parts I just didn’t have the time to make, even with nanite forging.

If a ship couldn’t hit hard. Or endure, or go fast what could it do?

The question taunted me as I kicked my feet. I was hanging my feet out of the force field just staring into the vastness of space letting my legs feel zero G while the rest of me still stayed in the atmosphere of the hangar. I liked doing this. The weird dichotomy of gravity and not gravity. Of being in space.

God I loved space. I ran my gloved hands through my messy hair and played with the small ponytail I had been growing. Mom hated it, as it wasn’t a popular style. I mostly just didn’t care and kept forgetting to get it cut since I was so busy.

What could I do?

I’d have my Crabbits. Which could be useful boarding troops, but I’d have to weaponize them a bit more first, and that still asked me to be able to board an enemy ship.

The Crabbit working around me reminded me I had a time limit. The moment they started forming the superstructure any hope I’d have of changing things would extend any timeframe out obscenely.

I needed to figure something out.

If you can’t hit hard. If you can’t take a hit. If you can’t outrun them… “Missiles?” I wondered. I could do a missile massacre… But no, that was stupid. That would be a one time thing and then I’d be out of material, and that was assuming I even had missiles in the first place. I already said I didn’t have materials for extra weapons.

I’d already likely need to secretly gobble up any extra scrap I could get my hands on without anyone noticing to finish the-

I rose up, nearly stumbled at the mix of Gravity and not as I got my feet under me.

Could I? The Diamond Drive was already something different. I probably could.

I walked slowly back towards all my equipment, hearing the sound of everything singing pleasantly around me.

“What about-”