"Enemy battery has largely been taken out," Melusum reported. "Major damage on one of the support vessel's petals, minor damage to the contract drive an mundane drive, though the last one is so tiny it might've been taken out entirely."

"Can confirm." Kanmurdi. "It's not going anywhere on its own power. Hm?" It seemed she had noticed something. "The Huyiid's sphere has fully healed already?" She looked again. "No, it's exerting it in our direction specifically. They're trying to expel us!"

Understanding what was going on, Ragni gave me a look. "Does that sound like a problem to you?"

A golden shimmer from my hair as I tilted my head to smile at her. "Not a problem at all."

"Shall we keep causing all the trouble we can?"

I let out a giggle. Just a little one. "Sure."

Ragni turned to the rest of the command crew. "You heard her. No reason to retreat yet."

"Then we can take out the last of that battery and the support vessel," Melusum said. "After that I'll figure out the next targets."

It barely took a moment to aim and fire where he directed me. A gesture and it came to be. Battered and broken, the battery took only this one alternating salvo to give out completely despite the healing sphere. It had become uselessly hot wreckage stuck inside this large complicated boat. What a nightmare for its crew.

For the little boat Melusum was in agreement with me and figured that a continued cannonade would work best. I grinned and thrust Hekkamuk into the hologram once more. This time the beams were not impeded. Twin bursts of particles excited to unreasonable states lashed down across the enemy's stem, warping it like a matchstick burning out. Missiles detonated within their launch tubes, particle cannons turned into half-evaporated half-molten holes, entire decks were turned into exposed carcasses. Those cowardly shrouds covering the contract drive's coils were spat into the vacuum as gaseous metals and deformed, glowing, globs. The coils themselves almost gave in too but I would not allow that. Give me a taste.

The fire had now turned into a blaze and I could read into the contract more deeply. I scratched out the letters and changed words. Its song was getting more clear, more familiar, more like the song that rang out from my own coils.

Melusum was pleased. "All right, that battery has been taken care of and the support vessel's a wreck." He clapped his hands together once to punctuate his success and looked around at the others to share his good cheer. Finally he rested his gaze on me for his next request. "They're concentrating all their fire on us now, so let's see how many targets you can handle."

"The support vessel's sphere is still active," Kanmurdi warned. "It might still go critical."

Melusum's eyes turned back to her. "Then we'll put it out with another salvo," he said with an assurance Kanmurdi didn't share.

"No need." Their eyes jolted to me as I spoke. "I have another option."

"What do you mean?" Kanmurdi asked.

"Just watch."

I trailed my tongue over one of my right hands from the wrist to the tips of the index and middle fingers. Reaching out with that hand I felt the messy misaligned sphere and called out to the familiarities. The extended structure of the contract drive lit up in my mind. From the center with its tortured coils ran filaments that every few decks spread out through the bulkheads to generate artificial gravity and shielding. At the bow these spread out in six prongs: the petals, half the amount I had. Every single portion had been bent and misaligned, that it functioned at all was a miracle. I figured just a little push, a tiny prod, would safely put it out.

But having it collapse and shatter would be more fun, right?

Slowly the rest of the world receded and there was only me and the battered little contract, like the dimly glowing ghosts of trembling reeds strung together with the saddest twine, all the while hoarsely sighing in the ink black hollow of creation. I reached out with a single hand, leaving five others with their own energies. The whimpering line could be grasped but that would just dispel it, so my hand obeyed an imagined barrier that was felt as a soft smooth energy, like a velvety water with a surface tension like subtle mixed perfumes. As I ran my hand over it, it did not ripple starkly like a puddle, but a thick silk cloth. I was nearly at the coils but I felt like I had barely moved. Had I grown bigger than it as I examined? Looking back I saw my own coils: magnificently present and singing to what was deeply hidden and ubiquitous. They radiated controlled pulses that opened up in ever greater complexities at the edges. These pulses were what I rode on; when they were bigger, I was bigger.

My hand ever so gently pushed the croaking coils. A little tinkling glitter let itself be known. Four more hands to stop it from being so shy. With tense, grasping I sent out my causal strength from my hands; the glittering felt a little less sorry for itself and squeaked tiny whispers. What I felt inside considered itself safe but was really just afraid to find the start of a journey.

More cause.

The glittering yelped and protested against what it couldn't prevent. There was a struggle within it to keep itself safe and confined, never reaching out, never looking at the spaces between the too smooth and well-fitting lumps of spacetime. It wanted not to show itself to me, to show itself to itself.

Come on, I just want to look at your crummy contract.

It screeched-sang as I uncrumpled it. Yes, I could see what was different and the same. Clauses and stipulations that made terribly dull what was supposed to be magnificent wonder-working, all dictated idiocy and myopia. No fun allowed there, nothing that could be properly sung. But I could make it sing right, right? I could fix it! Oh, but didn't I say earlier I wanted to shatter it? And yet... wasn't that the same thing?

Two sides of the same coin. I will do it!

My fingers tensed to the point of trembling, concentrating a signal dense with repetitions pulled from my own coils. The screech-song got louder and clearer, the trembling reeds began to shudder and glow more clearly. The now creaking coils became taut with pulsing energy, radiating outward. I recognized what was going on. Those were like as the pulses I rode on. In fact, they were the very same ones. Too giddy to deny myself I poured in more.

I felt the colors coming from the pulses, heard them, tasted them, and somewhere along the line probably saw them too. Around us was another presence trying to push us away with all its might. It was the big boat.

Oh, I plumb forgot about you.

Like some big bad wolf I huffed and I puffed and I pressed my existence outwards. I was already inside the house of the three little pigs and it didn't matter if it was made of straw, brick, or titanium, their fat little lambs couldn't push me away, flattering as their desperate resistance was.

Back to the little boat. The more I exerted my presence the more its glittering opened up to me. There was an emptiness there, a lack of substance. Didn't that simply mean there were no obstructions there that prevented me from moving things about? A teddy bear without stuffing was just the saddest. I let in some of me and the song of my coils, the song of its own coils growing clearer and more harmonious the tauter it got.

Was I going too far?

The reeds had begun to shake and straighten themselves out to conform to me. Its petals spasmed this way and that, the bend in its stem tried to come undone, and its song failing to reach the clarity I knew and giving way to a terrifying screeching.

Somewhere I was vaguely aware of Kanmurdi's panicked voice, Vakkaidu trying to get to me, and the one voice that was the clearest: Ragni's. Her grave words reached me and weighed me down.

"What are you doing, Shishi..?"

Her tone made me want to find excuses—no, explanations. What was I doing?

I took in the material reality of the boat's contract drive. There was a shimmer.

Less than the tiniest fraction of a heart beat later I—we were tumbling through the void. In that time I had let go of the support vessel and had let myself be swept away. All that was left of the support vessel was a glowing debris field of nested hemispheres. Thanks to the superiority of Mezhained technology we had suffered not much more than a resonance haunting my Greater Self's frame. The Huyiid and its remaining support vessels, too, had survived, albeit with massive damage. Their desperate attempt to resist me had shielded them from most of the blast.

Ragni had already taken in all this information and wasted no breath giving orders. "Kanmurdi, calculate the Huyiid's maximum possible blast radius! Vakkaidu, stabilize our orbit with Kanmurdi's calculations in mind!"

The two responded with a nearly synchronized 'yes, ma'am' and got to work.

"Melusum, tell this dumb girl where to fire and how much! And do make sure she listens this time."

Our man in charge of my guns looked momentarily flabbergasted. "I, uh... Yes, ma'am!"

Well, it looked like I had been bad and I wasn't really sure what had motivated me to play around with that support vessel's dinky little contract, except for maybe...

"Curiosity?"

"What's that, Ship?"

Her words and gaze felt even heavier than before.

"I was curious!"

"That was curiosity?"

The last of the resonance extinguished itself in a low rumbling groan. There was absolutely no damage anywhere. Let that count in my favor.

"Maybe."

"No time for this," she said, eyes shifting over different holographic displays. "We will have to take out the Huyiid in the conventional way now that it's weakened, which your curiosity helped facilitate I must admit."

"I will rain down as much death on our enemies as you desire!"

"Your mania would be very much appreciated right now." Consulting the displays again she continued with a raised voice. "As would be a stable orbit."

My sensitive hearing picked up the creaking of clenched teeth from Vakkaidu. "I'm on it, ma'am!" It seemed to me he wasn't entirely sure how much he had to take into account the range of the 13^th Redeemer Wing's weapons, or what in fact those ranges were. Cutting him some slack I sent him a few suggestions. "I... Yes, got it!"

I reoriented myself to fire my mundane drive in timed bursts according with his choice. As long as he realized I wouldn't always cover his ass when indecision hit him in the face of chaos.

"Melusum, I know we aren't stable yet but try to pester the Huyiid as much as we can, give Shishi a good feel for the strength of their shielding."

"Aye!" His targeting suggestions were as swift and spirited as his affirmation. A simple particle beam volley along the stem as the petals were under bombardment from the Kayaalid vessels. I slashed Hekkamuk across the big boat's image, hitting it only a breath later. As expected the shots faded out in multi-colored glows close to the superstructure. They had been incredibly lucky to have survived their support vessel's blowing up within their own sphere, but of course that meant their shielding was incredibly weak.

"Looks about as expected," Ragni said. "Concentrate fire on their contract drive."

"Aye, Captain!"

An alternating salvo careened through the void when the Huyiid started turning and giving off new energy signatures.

A moment later Kanmurdi identified it. "They're charging their primary weapon!"