34
The universe did not, as some ancient, Caucasoid humans maintained abhor a vacuum. The universe loved multiplicity. On the countless worlds with high chemical complexity life flourished. Billions of complex reactions occurring in billions of discrete organisms across billions of planets. Yet, for all it's myriad myriads, life had been found, by the species with the perspective to see it play out across the cosmos, to follow patterns. Sapience followed ambulation and generalization of physiology, predator-prey relationships were known on every planet, and the simplest forms of life were often the real victors by most measures of special success. The Star's repair organisms were not the victors in simplicity or sapience. They were the prey, the Dust played the predator. What remained of the bots floated listlessly into space or clung, empty, insectile husks to the hide of the Lone Star.
32
Hundred basked in the still quiet. The plasma fire had stopped long before the fight. The Syndari had slithered into the airlock before the shuttle had connected. The lack of cohesion was noted. Hundred frowned. Something struck the hull a couple of meters from where she stood. She looked at the little cloud of dust that burst from the impact. The Dust tasted it. Iron. Nickel. A meteorite, dissolved by the force of it's impact. Hundred looked back up at the stars. The storm was here.
31
She was still keeping count. Her numbers never lied and were infrequently incorrect. She had downloaded the telemetry data from the shuttles scanners, they were already within the edge of the MAC zone. If the shuttle did not leave immediately it's chance of clearing the cloud dropped geometrically.
28
"Pilot, your ship has a 67% chance of catastrophic failure before leaving the operation zone if you have not disengaged connection to the Star and made an optimal exit trajectory in the next...27 seconds. You know this. You should disengage. Seal the airlock. Crew lose to exposure is collateral." She spoke across the same wide beam as he had transmitted from, her fellow contractors should know that their negligence could well cost them their lives.
24
Hundred focused back upon the hull of the Star. By the time the shuttle could clear the airlock there would be too little time to enter and seal the bulkhead. She could not enter through the shuttles passenger airlock in time. One option would trap her on the shuttle. The other would leave the airlock bay potentially exposed to debris impact from the field. The shuttle was essential for extraction. The crew in the airlock...growing less essential in her estimation, but she still estimated needing them to complete her objectives. Hundred's options narrowed. So did her eyes.
23
The remaining dust blades flooded back towards her, her hands danced through the air, nano-carbons fragmented and spun into ribbons around her, orienting themselves around her, plunging her efforts into the hull, the ribbons conformed to the hull plate beneath her, spinning and slicing into the seams, much as the Star's bots had done less efficiently before.
22
She would not complete her intent before the MAC saturation point hit. She did not have the data to know her chances at that point. She did really know her chances now. The thermal radiation around her increased precipitously from the smoldering fragments of plasteel sparking from the grooves she had cut in the plating, joining the detritus from the bots above. She never had enough data. Nothing was ever completely certain. Her numbers could be off. There inlay hope, and the phantom of choice and will. That angered Hundred even more than her compatriots. Incomplete data. Imperfect measurements. Sloppy. Fucking. Methodology. Hundred snarled, the glow the from molten metal dribbling from her furrows glinting off her teeth. The universe was a mess and it was about to crush her with that fact. In spite of the flurry of motion distracting her peripheral senses she noticed another burst of iron and nickel rebound off the plate she was working on. No the universe did not abhor a vacuum. But it loved filling it with shit.
20.
