Chapter Eighty-Six (Cheekeet) (1/2)

Captain Cheekeet Longflight was a feathered avian, capable of flight in 1.5 standard gravity (which she had found out 1 standard gravity was .75G Earth), an Akltak considered to a be a neo-sapient UnUnified Species by the Galactic Council. She was an experienced ship pilot and colony environmental engineer.

For her, it had all started with the destruction of her colony by a Precursor war machine, a rescue by a human being who chose to live the life of a fictional character, then an invite by the Confederate Naval Forces (Fast Response) to battle the Precursor machines.

For three months she had been on the ship of Terran Admiral Yamamoto. She had learned how to use the gestalt targeting system to help the weapon targeting systems and virtual intelligences, how to wear the ship-board armored vacuum suit, how to use Terran shipboard systems, and learned a lot about Terrans themselves.

She had also taken part in nine fleet actions in ninety-three days. The speed at which they re-armed, refitted, repaired, and rejoined the action was nothing less than amazing to her. She'd seen a ship with a hole clear through it, held together by integrity fields, the crew's willpower, and wishes be repaired and rejoin the fleet in less than thirty days. She's heard ship Captains tearfully beg the Admiral not to send their ship to the breakers, that it 'just needed a little time in the repair docks' when it was everything but broken in half.

Cheekeet had been educated in the Unified Inner Worlds, learned to be a pilot, since her race naturally took to spaceflight, taught by the Unified Military Fleet to be a ship's Captain.

But she'd never imagined becoming that attached to a ship that the military had assigned to you.

But after an even one hundred days aboard the CNV Jesse L. Brown, a massive multi-role craft that even had parasite vessels it would launch to harry the enemy, she felt a longing sadness as she boarded the shuttle to take her to the surface of the planet.

She found herself turning her head around on her long neck to look behind her several times.

Before she had found it squat and ugly, two Terran 'miles' long, a half 'mile' thick, and shaped like a seed, it was covered in guns, armor, launch bays and tubes.

Now it was beautiful to her eyes, even with the craters in the armor and the damaged weapons and scanner arrays. She could see the sparkling of welders as the massive ship underwent repairs. The last battle, only a week ago, the Goliath's had targeted it as the flagship with their ”Kill the Queen” philosophy.

The massive Terran war machine had taken the beating and pounded its opponents into scrap metal despite the size disparity.

She sighed as she rolled and landed feet first in the gravity of the station.

It amused her that she'd seen the ship arrive in orbit and then suddenly start to shift around parts of its superstructure and outside until a heavy looking armed space station had taken the ship's place.

”Mission Configurable Digital Sentience War Chassis” was how it was explained to her. She'd still needed it explained further and it was basically a self-aware sentient warship that could change its body's functions to carry out missions.

It still gave her a slight tail-feather tickle of nervousness that she was now inside the body of a literal artificial intelligence.

--Welcome to the CSF Jumping Jack-- appeared on her datalink to eye linkage. --Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Longflight?--

”Can you show me the way to Shuttle 612, please, Jack?” she subvocalized. That trick had taken a little while to master.

--Of course, Captain. Welcome home.-- Jack answered. He checked her vitals, compared them against what little he knew about her species. He wasn't a medical officer and having the files and knowing exactly how to use them were two different things. She looked calm, slightly distressed but more sadness than anything.

That was fairly common with combat sailors leaving the ship they'd engaged the enemy with.

Cheekeet saw the faint glowing line appear in her vision as if it was on the floor.

”Thank you, Jack,” she said. She followed the line, which took her to a shuttle.

Unified Species shuttles were all carefully crafted to use the minimum amount of resources to allow the craft to be safe, shaped more like they were half melted, and had two sections, one for four legged and tailed species, one for two legged without tail species.

Terran craft had configurable seats of something called 'polymorphic frame and memory foam' that shifted to fit ergonomically no matter how one's limbs and torsos were arranged. The shuttles all looked like they were about to flown into combat. Heavy armor, crysteel forward window, multiple exits, rear engines, stubby wings with rotating jets. There were nullgrav and graviton systems, but something about Terran psychology made them prefer powered craft rather than the smooth feeling of counter-grav.

She sat down and waited for the seat to configure to her. It was obvious she was the first Akltak the seat or the shuttle had encountered since it took a few moments for it to adjust.

But when it did, it was almost as comfortable as her flag bridge crash couch.

In all fairness, that device had been given over a hundred days to achieve maximum comfort.

Other Akltak's boarded, all looking curiously at the shuttle. A ship from the Unified Outer Rim world the majority of her species lived on had docked, which was the whole reason she had left the CNV Jesse L. Brown while it underwent repairs.

The humans had taken the planet by force, wresting it away from the Precursors who had jumped in while Task Force Argo had been checking the system. When no claims against it were found the Admiral had offered it for sale to Cheekeet.

At first Cheekeet had been unsure she could afford it. No, she had known she couldn't afford it. But after the paperwork was filed, including volunteer service, survivor of a Precursor Extinction Attack, a Colony Destruction Survivor, and many other forms she had not only been able to afford to purchase the system from the Terran Colony Administration but had enough left in rebates to outfit the colony.

When she'd offered the Admiral permission to put Confederate Naval Stations in the system, he'd requested and gotten permission to have a Naval Forward Operations Base built.

Which was why the CNV Jesse L. Brown and over a dozen other ships were waiting for refit.

It's funny. I bought this colony nearly sixty days ago and already my people are arriving. Already buildings and support structures had been built. I bought this in the name of my species and now we're an 'allied joint defense planet' to the Confederacy, she thought.

She saw the Akltak who had just boarded look startled at how fast the seats adjusted to comfort. She felt hers adjust a slight bit more, feeling better, and knew the system was gathering data to ensure everyone was comfortable.

Soon the shuttle's seats were all full and the door closed. A hologram flickered, then looked like it solidified in front of everyone. Her fellow Akltak clacked their beaks and clicked their tongues in alarm. It looked like a Terran made of metal with the red markings of Terran medical associations on the sleeve cuffs and down one side of the front of the chrome jacket.

She barely managed to keep from snapping ”AT EASE!” like a Terran military officer.

”Greetings, Gentlebeings, I am Dulcet-55817A, your pilot and shuttle for this landing. Later I will be your medical diagnostic digital sentience for your initial colony efforts. I will be joining your colony as a full Citizen, with approval of your colony board in ninety days. I look forward to getting us all safely to the ground and then assisting you in your medical needs,” the hologram said. ”Currently I am appearing as a hard light construct as my body is in the cargo hold with all of our luggage,” the figure laughed. ”It will be approximately forty-five minutes until we land. For those of you who wish to watch the landing from the cockpit, simply let me know and I'll have streamed directly to your implant.”

Her fellow Akltak bobbed their heads and made clicking noises, somewhat surprised, when the hologram disappeared and the shuttle bumped slightly as it disconnected.

Cheekeet was tempted to watch the flight from the 'pilot view' which she knew would be eVR, but she afraid she'd try to side-seat pilot after three months of guiding VI's into enemy ships. Instead she chose to watch her fellow Akltak during the flight.

”Dulcet?” she subvocalized.

--Yes, Captain Longflight?-- the DS answered.

”Can you alert me to any of my fellow Akltaks who begin showing signs of distress?” she asked.

--Of course, Captain-- Dulcet replied.

She paid attention during the flight. Nobody got too distressed, although two chicks woke up hungry and were peeping for food. The parent was worried a few moments until Duclet offered a dropper full of food. The mother had been expecting nutripaste and was surprised that it was come kind of liquid that the chicks liked so much their peeping 'is good' woke up other chicks, all of whom wanted to try to the treat.

Dulcet informed her the mothers had asked what was in it after they had tasted it and found it very tasty. It was a synthetic nutri-gel that had been tailored specifically for the needs of Akltak chicks based on Dulcet's files.

The shuttle finally landed and everybeing got off, walking out onto the tarmac surprised by how professional and well put together it was. It used high temp plascrete for the ground, decorated at the edges to be pleasing. The concourse was comfortably open, decorated to appeal to Akltak cultural sensitivities, and was easy to move through.

The gravity was comfortable and twice Cheekeet saw the little chicks flap their wings, exercising and trying to get into the air. The air was sweet, despite the fact that Cheekeet knew that thirty days ago the planet had been completely untouched as the colony's first vehicles and machines had arrived.

”Momma! Look!” one of the younger moltlings cried out, pointing at the parking lot as Cheekeet waited for a vehicle to pick her up.

The shuttle was trembling and as she watched the shuttle suddenly bent in the middle. Around her Akltak gasped as it raised up, the engines retracted, and the shuttle walked away on two big legs.

Cheekeet could barely keep from laughing as her datalink updated from 'Dulcet - DS Shuttle' to 'Dulcet - DS Medical Clinic - In Transit' as she watched the gigantic robot walk away.

A car arrived, a Terran waving to her, pinging her implant. She put her luggage in the back storage container and got in the front next to the Terran, who here implant stated was ”Trevor Howard, Colony Construction Administration - VERIFIED” when she looked at him.

”Welcome to your new home, Captain,” the Terran said as he pulled out and headed down a ribbon of plascrete.

”Thank you, Terran,” Cheekeet answered. She looked out the window at the fields of waving grass. ”The starport looks very nice.”

”Thank you. I selected the site myself. It's as close to the tree line as I dare get. I don't want a badly tuned drive to shake everyone's windows or disturb unhatched chicks,” the Terran said.

During the drive she questioned him about the colony. How many Akltak had arrived. Nearly a quarter million in the last three weeks, most of them transferred by a Junker named Max-a-Millions who had reconfigured his ship for refugee and passenger carry. How did they handle the trip? They had found it quite comfortable. How had they reacted to the colony world? Very well. The few survivors from her old colony were having some troubles but they were responding well to psychotherapy. How long until the colony construction would be complete? Within a year.

The car pulled into the small unit that would be her house and the Terran bid her a good evening, saying that he would see her again when she was ready to assume her duties.

She went into the little dwelling, surprised at how comfortable it was. Perching stands, comfortable furniture, and she had to admit she had gotten a bit spoiled when she was glad to see that she had an eVR room and eVR with hard light projectors.

It was at least ten times the size of her berth on the CNV Jesse L. Brown and it felt strange to her. She realized only after eating her meal that she'd punched up the same thing she had eaten onboard the massive warship instead of looking at the rest of the menu. She sighed, had her implant put those recipes further down the list with a star on them, and went to bed.

She woke up, shuddering, after dreaming she was standing on the planet, a massive hammer in each winghand, pounding the colony into shards with C+ hammers.