A new chapter of Descent is here; a snippet down below, full chapter at the link. Enjoy!
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In one instant of insight, the issues, both present and future, created by her Ally’s actions had trebled. Her recent admissions had given away more than the young Naiad thought. Command believed that Bathory’s intentions were sincere, but the more Eight discovered, the more the AI began to understand how conflicted the young Naiad’s loyalties were… and how much more unpredictable and dangerous that made an already dangerous and mercurial predator.
Once more Cerulean Eight checked on the cargo Nemesis had transferred to its ship-self prior to the mission. Naiads had been Hostile far longer than they had been Allies, and only Zenobia’s pack and its own allies recognized the detente with the Fleet. Theoretically, a strike cruiser should be able to successfully engage an adolescent Naiad one to one with conventional weaponry, but Naiads were a decidedly unconventional problem. In larger engagements, effective solutions were limited to Nemesis’s displacement engine and its Ukonvasara along with the hope that what would otherwise be considered overwhelming firepower from Hekate and the rest of the fleet would be enough. As the recent standoff in Zerzura attested, the latter was a bluff that could not be backed up.
If and when conflict between the Fleet and the Naiads – or units of similar capability, such as mature Parasite vessels – broke out, they needed workable solutions. The weapon inside IKaggen, an untested prototype designated Coda, was one such possibility. It was supposed to be nothing but an insurance policy, but Cerulean Eight was re-evaluating the odds that it would have to use the weapon.
+will there be an issue with the recovered vessel?+ Cerulean Eight asked. The question was as pointed as the junction of an acute angle. Have you lied about anything else?
For a simple construct, the Mute Intent was eerily perceptive at times.
But that’s one of the things you see in it, don’t you? Lichesword was once like this, too and she became.
<i don’t think so> the Naiad replied, yet again trying to avoid those thoughts. The confrontation had unsettled her. The Spears were never supposed to find out that the Shrikes had eaten some of the Spearmakers’ Herd. They were never supposed to know as much as Mute Intent did about the Speakers. A decision was coming, one that she couldn’t delay forever. Loyalty to her race, her family and her pack, or loyalty to the strangest of allies – loyalty she had sought out. One would have to win, and she didn’t know which it should be. No one was here to tell her.
At least for now she could pretend she wasn’t thinking about it, pretend that she hadn’t created test cases and run attack simulations of her companion. At least for now she could answer one more with full honesty and leave the repercussions to others. Bathory re-ran calculations as the construct showed her its safety precautions. Based on what Bathory had been told by her sisters, they were more than adequate to subdue a single damaged drone.
<but instead of it harming you,> she concluded, <you’ll probably have to watch it die>
~
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