I had a safe-ish idea that I wanted to share.
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Untitled ship story
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Lisa woke up in an unfamiliar place. She was laying on a pad sticking out of the wall and hanging in the air. The pad was not shaped with a human body in mind and wasn't the most comfortable thing. She was still in her Tattletale costume and there was nothing to indicate that she was restrained by anything.
There was an older man laying on another pad across the small room. The room itself was a little off for some reason. {Room was designed for humanoids by a nonhuman mind.}
Shaking the thought off she focused on the screen above the bed that the man was sleeping on. {Screen is showing vital signs of bed occupants. Is not calibrated to human norms. Language on screen is not a known Earth language or alphabet.}
Yeah, she's was not touching that at the moment and focused her attention onto the man. He was wearing business casual clothes and was pretty fit. More than likely he was a LEO that was working a desk job but kept himself in shape for some reason. He was also slowly awakening.
She saw him surreptitiously case the room like she had earlier and was just as unfamiliar with it as she was. She felt that she might as well greet him and slowly sat up dangling her legs toward the floor.
"Hi there," Lisa said with her friendliest smile. The man blinked at her and sat up as well. Interestingly enough, he was familiar with her appearance but didn't have much contact with her.
"Hello, I don't suppose you know where we are?" The man asked looking around the room.
"You're in the infirmary of my ship," an unknown woman's voice startled them. They turned to face a lanky teenager who was dirty and had greasy brown stringy hair standing in a doorway that they had not spotted before it opened.
"Who are you?" he asked before Lisa could do the same, "why did you bring us here?"
"Ah, Taylor," Taylor answered absently, "you were hurt and I brought you here to heal." Lisa had a flash of memory. They were being chased by Lung and she had been thrown off her ride and impacted a wall.
"Thanks for the save," Tattletale said, "by the way you can call me Tattletale."
"Colin Wallis, did you build this ship?" Colin asked as he looked around, "why?"
"I wanted to be a hero but Sophia caused my trigger and the Protectorate knows about it and have me listed as a villain," Taylor answered.
"What?" Colin asked shocked. This was something that he felt that he would have known if it was true.
"If I said anything, then they would say that I was a villain trying to unmask a Ward," Taylor answered sadly, "so I decided to hunker down and build up so that I would be powerful enough that the villain label won't have any affect on me and the gangs will be too afraid of me to try something but, Coil found out about me somehow and has been trying to flush me out before I'm ready. So I have to move my timeline up a little faster than I'd like." Taylor kept rambling on as she walked down the hallway unnoticing that her two guests had stopped and stared at each other. Mr. Wallis didn't look happy at what she had said.
"Do you know what she's talking about?" Tattletale asked the man who she was certain was part of the PRT now.
"No I don't and it doesn't make sense to me," Collin replied, "if she's a good a tinker as this ship implies, nothing short of murder would get her labeled as a villain."
"And if she's good enough? They might look the other way if they could cover it up right?" Tattletale smirked. Colin grimaced but she could see his unspoken agreement with her statement.
"Hey guys, you should really stick close to me," Taylor said as she returned to where they had stopped, "this ship is still not finished yet and it could be dangerous to wonder about without me."
"Sorry, we were discussing something and lost track of you," Tattletale answered, "where are we going now?"
"I've only got the captain's quarters finished enough that someone can stay there," Taylor answered her, "so the three of us will have to hot bunk it unless Mr. Wallis wants to stay in the infirmary to sleep."
"I'll take that in consideration," Colin said, "how long before the ship is ready to get underway?"
"I've finally got enough mass in matter containment to get her air worthy and have the stealth systems working. So I set the auto repair systems to fabricate and install everything. Now I have time to get a shower before we sneak out and start mining the ocean for all of the trash that matter storage can hold. I want a few ships built before I make my first appearance. Dad always said that you needed to negotiate from a position of strength."
"Or at least give the illusion of one," Tattletale added, "but what about us?"
"I don't have the time to drop you off and get out of town before it's too late," Taylor answered honestly, "but once I get things started I can get something done to take you back home."
Her two guests were stunned by her answers as they arrived at the Captain's quarters and she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
"Did she just Shanghai us?" Tattletale wondered outloud, "you don't happen to have anything that we can use to get out of here do you?" She asked him looking at him expectantly.
"I've got an emergency transponder that might broadcast our location to anyone who can listen in on the PRT and Protectorate frequencies," Colin said, "but it's range and other limitations would mean that they could only get our rough area and depending on how well hidden this thing is; they might not even find us even if they were right on top of us. That's if it could get a signal through the walls of this thing. Besides I can't help but be curious about what she is doing."
"Damn and there's nothing I could do to get help either," Tattletale sighed, "I don't think that she's malicious and I admit that I'm a little curious too."
"Curious about what?" Taylor asked as she toweled her hair. She looked worlds better than she did when she had entered the bathroom. Her hair was shiny and curly with any split ends eliminated. She was wearing a new pair of gray coveralls and her face and hands were cleaned of all stains.
"Curious about where we're going next," Tattletale answered not missing a beat.
"Oh we're going out to sea and my mining beams will be extracting all of the trash from the ocean water." Taylor responded.
"Mining beams? What would that do to a person caught in them?" Tattletale asked shocked. Mr. Wallis looked on curiously at her statement.
"Don't worry, they're Manton limited," Taylor reassured them, "you can stand in the beam and it won't remove any of the trace metals in your bodies or any metal that is covered by flesh. You might lose any metal fillings if you keep your mouth open very long though."
Taylor had led them to the bridge during their talk and walked to the pilot's chair.
"So how high a level tinker do you think she is?" Tattletale asked the thoughtful man.
"Probably atomic disassembly and assembly and no knowing what she can make," he muttered, "at this point, assuming that Taylor only needs raw materials to work with."
"And even with her mining beams being Manton limited, any tinker, troopers or gang members would be stripped of their gear and be vulnerable to what ever she has cooked up," Tattletale concluded.
"Guys you're going to miss it," Taylor called out from the bridge. The two joined her in the cramped room and stared out of a tiny window as the ship lifted off and seemed to fly away unnoticed by the people milling around the area it had been hidden.
The ship moved smoothly to the sea. It's speed not felt by the occupants. Taylor focused more on the instruments she was flying by than the small amount that could be seen through the window. Her hands danced across the controls as the ship slowed down and the beams engaged.
"I've programmed the computer to avoid anything that could potentially be a shipwreck. Those are considered maritime graves right?"
"There are a lot of factors that go into whether a wreck is considered a grave or not but better to be safe than sorry," Colin answered. Suddenly a discordant tone sounded from the ship. Taylor's hands began to frantically move across the controls.
"What's going on?" Colin asked tightly.
"The beams hit something with a lot of matter in it," Taylor answered, "I'm having trouble getting the assemblers to work through the materials before they fill up the matter storage space."
"How much material are we talking about?" Colin asked curiously looking over her shoulder trying to discern anything he could from the display in front of Taylor.
"A massive amount," Taylor responded, "I've already used all that I needed to complete the first phase of construction of this ship and I have started working on the tier one upgrades that I had planned for the ship."
"Guys, the Simurgh is heading this way," Tattletale's voice disturbed the beginning of the conversation between Taylor and Colin.
"Do you have anything to fire at her?" Colin asked jumping to the question he felt was the most important.
"This is a mining ship," Taylor answered shaking her head, "it doesn't have any weapons."
"We better start running then," Tattletale said, "she's gaining on us." Taylor responded by turning the ship around and flooring it. The Simurgh increased its own speed and began to eat the miles between them.
"Is there anything that you can do?" Colin asked Taylor as a piece of debris from a cloud of them orbiting the Simurgh nearly hit the ship as it flung the debris at the retreating ship. Tattletale had a moment of inspiration at that point.
"Can you get rid of some of her ammunition with the beams?" Tattletale asked.
"Give me a moment." Taylor answered, "I need to widen the beams parameters and hope that there's nothing alive in the cloud."
When Taylor fired the beams again something very striking happened. A large chunk of the pursuing false angel disappeared along with the cloud of debris circling it.
"I thought that you said that it would not harm living things," Colin said in surprise.
"It shouldn't have," Taylor answered mesmerized by the damage done even as an even louder alarm started to blare.
"The Simurgh is not alive and not human," Tattletale had an epiphany, "that's why the beams did a number on it."
"What?" Colin exclaimed at that revelation as Taylor was typing away furiously.
"The beams are Manton limited and yet they have an effect on an Endbringer. QED the Endbringers can not be alive," Tattletale concluded. Colin didn't look convinced but he had more pressing problems at the moment.
"Taylor what is that alarm about?" Colin asked Taylor.
"Matter storage is overloaded," Taylor answered stressed, "I'm going to have to vent it as plasma."
Suddenly a stream of plasma shot out of the rear of the ship catching the startled Endbringer by surprise and slicing off a few of its wings before it gathered its wits and fled back into orbit a shadow of what it once was.
"I thought that you said that there was no weapons on this ship?" Colin said tersely.
"It wasn't a weapon," Taylor said contritely, "it was just emergency matter venting."
"We need to work on your definition of weapons," Tattletale sighed.
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That's what I've got so far in this one. I'm worried that Taylor is too OP in the idea and I don't know how to make it an interesting story if I was going to make it into a full story.