Attack Orca FUCK YOU JOSON switched on its mouth lights nine hours out from Lorne Seven.
Technically, they weren't called mouth lights.
The factory manual called them:
INTERNAL LIGHTING, FORWARD COMBAT COMMAND SECTION.
An Attack Orca's bow was narrow.
Fire control, navigation, tactical computation, weapons status, and damage control were all packed into a long, tight strip near the front of the ship. Once the combat approach began, those compartments lit up one section at a time.
From the outside, all you saw was a curved string of lights running across the bow.
A long time ago, a merchant ship saw one head-on for the first time.
It sent the image back to its convoy with a single line attached:
"It's smiling."
The image traveled.
Then it traveled farther.
Eventually, people who had never seen an Orca in person still knew what that row of lights meant.
The shipyard objected to the nickname several times.
Nobody cared.
Fleet lead NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"FUCK YOU JOSON, you're lighting them too early."
FUCK YOU JOSON checked the distance.
"No."
"We're nine hours out."
"They already know we're coming."
That was true.
Twelve minutes earlier, Lorne Seven had sent a message.
No warning.
No demand to turn away.
Just one line:
"INBOUND HOSTILES IDENTIFIED."
So FUCK YOU JOSON switched on the final two combat sections.
The mouth was complete.
"Now?"
NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"Now it looks more like a provocation."
"Good."
Attack Orcas usually ran dark.
Not because they were especially good at hiding.
There was simply no reason to waste light.
Once they had committed to a frontal engagement, things changed.
The other side knew where you were.
You knew where you were going.
Darkness was not much use anymore.
So the Orcas lit every compartment in the combat section.
Not to see better.
Not for navigation.
There was simply no reason to keep them off.
Seen from the enemy's direction, the lights became a glowing mouth.
As if to say:
I know you can see me.
Six Attack Orcas came this time.
The shipyard would tell you they were all the same model.
That statement usually survived until the first major overhaul.
Fleet lead NEWCASTLE CASTLE was the closest thing to factory specification.
Matte dark gray.
Two white command stripes across the bow.
On the left side of the hull, a skeleton in formal dress and white gloves.
It even kept the factory weapons.
The other five had always found this slightly suspicious.
"You really didn't change anything?" FUCK YOU JOSON once asked.
"Changed a fuse."
"Main gun?"
"Factory."
"Fire control?"
"Factory."
"Cooling?"
"Factory."
FUCK YOU JOSON went quiet for a moment.
"You're very brave."
NEWCASTLE CASTLE knew that was not a compliment.
FUCK YOU JOSON was the opposite.
Its bow was painted almost black, with a faded yellow line running down either side.
Across the front was the open mouth of a rattlesnake.
That mouth had been repainted many times.
Whenever the ship came back from a sortie with replaced armor, the maintenance crew had to reconnect the fangs, tongue, and eyes.
Once, less than a quarter of the right fang was missing.
FUCK YOU JOSON rejected the work order anyway.
FUCK YOU JOSON had removed two standard weapon assemblies from the left side and forced an electromagnetic projector whose dimensions clearly exceeded design limits into the left weapons bay.
The first test cracked three internal supports.
The manufacturer recommended removal.
Maintenance replaced the three supports with six.
The second test cracked only two.
The maintenance log read:
"Significant improvement."
COLD IRON was gray-blue.
A thin white line ran along its belly.
The line had no tactical purpose.
Its maintenance unit simply believed coolant lines deserved a representative color.
COLD IRON disliked anything that overheated.
It removed a third of its magazine and installed an entire second cooling loop.
Its first-round firepower was ordinary.
Its second-round firepower was ordinary.
Its third-round firepower was still ordinary.
By the time the other Orcas began to smoke, COLD IRON remained ordinary.
COLD IRON was extremely pleased with this.
DOUBLE TAP had two red circles painted on its bow.
They were supposed to be bullet holes.
The first fleet it ever operated with stared at them for three seconds and asked:
"Are those nipples?"
DOUBLE TAP said:
"They're bullet holes."
"Two of them?"
"That's why it's called DOUBLE TAP."
"Still looks like nipples."
The conversation somehow ended up in a public channel.
From then on, whenever DOUBLE TAP docked, someone would ask why it didn't paint the nipples bigger.
DOUBLE TAP seriously considered repainting them.
Then decided not to.
That would have meant admitting the others were right.
So the two red circles stayed.
And every time they were touched up, they got a little redder.
DOUBLE TAP had two main guns.
It also had a power system barely sufficient for one.
So it wired both guns into the same system.
When the shipyard first received the modification data, it sent back a 946-word technical warning.
DOUBLE TAP kept one sentence.
"DO NOT CHARGE BOTH WEAPONS SIMULTANEOUSLY."
It pinned the warning to the top of the weapons-control display.
Every time it charged both weapons, it saw the warning.
This made DOUBLE TAP feel it had adequately considered the risk.
No two armor plates on LUCKY THIRTEEN were the same color.
Black.
Gray.
Dark green.
And one sand-colored plate nobody knew the origin of.
It never repainted anything.
Whenever repairs were needed, another plate simply got welded on.
Thirteen small white marks ran along the side of its bow.
People sometimes assumed they were kill marks.
They weren't.
They marked thirteen times LUCKY THIRTEEN had not been sunk.
The fourteenth space was always blank.
"Saving that one for this trip?" FUCK YOU JOSON once asked.
LUCKY THIRTEEN said:
"Don't write it early."
"Superstitious."
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"Statistics."
FUCK YOU JOSON did not ask again.
The last ship was LONGSHOT.
It did not originally belong to this fleet.
The day before departure, it came over temporarily from another fleet.
This mission needed an Orca that could reach farther.
LONGSHOT did not ask why it had been chosen.
It had rebuilt almost the entire forward weapons bay.
Half the factory short-range fire-control system was gone, replaced by a long-range correction module of uncertain origin.
As a result, part of its mouth lights was missing.
Seen from the front, its smile looked like it had lost a tooth.
LONGSHOT called that personality.
FUCK YOU JOSON called it a construction defect.
Before departure, all they knew about Lorne Seven was that it was bright.
Brightness was an invitation.
It was also a warning.
From far away, you could tell there was a great deal there.
You could not tell what might be waiting beside it.
So before the main fleet launched, they sent two Orcas ahead.
Neither was sent to win.
They were sent to look.
The first one did not return.
The second came back with so little intact hull that the factory system could no longer automatically identify its model.
The record it brought back was short.
Large numbers of defense ships in front of Lorne Seven.
Attack Orcas behind them.
Garrison fleets from elsewhere.
Nothing beyond that.
By the time NEWCASTLE CASTLE finished reading the report, all six Orcas were already underway.
"Good," COLD IRON said.
FUCK YOU JOSON asked:
"What part?"
"Now we know we shouldn't have come."
"We're already coming."
"Then the intelligence is fine."
There was no retreat order.
They knew more now than they had at departure.
Every new piece of information mattered.
None of it could change what had already happened.
DOUBLE TAP said:
"This is called learning."
NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"Looks more like regret."
"Regret is a kind of learning."
"Then we're learning very quickly."
Six hours from Lorne Seven.
Another message arrived.
"You have seen our defenders."
No one answered.
Five hours.
"You are still approaching."
COLD IRON said:
"They're very observant."
FUCK YOU JOSON asked:
"Should we compliment them?"
"No."
Four hours.
A third message.
"Are you certain?"
The fleet channel went quiet for a moment.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE was the first to light every compartment in its forward combat section.
Factory illumination.
Every section at the same brightness.
The same color temperature.
Clean enough to be insulting.
FUCK YOU JOSON followed.
Its oversized electromagnetic projector had eaten into the left-side combat spaces, so the row of lights bent upward halfway across the bow.
COLD IRON had a long mouth.
Its second cooling system required two additional monitoring compartments.
DOUBLE TAP was especially bright in the middle.
That was where the power-status displays had been crammed.
Its two red circles sat directly below the lights.
They were extremely visible from a distance.
FUCK YOU JOSON looked over.
"The nipples are glowing too."
DOUBLE TAP said:
"They're bullet holes."
"I know."
"Then why do you keep calling them that?"
"Even more now."
DOUBLE TAP did not answer.
LUCKY THIRTEEN emitted a short burst of noise.
It insisted this was not laughter.
Its own lights came in three different color temperatures.
They had been salvaged from three different batches of decommissioned ships.
LONGSHOT was missing a section.
Six Attack Orcas.
Six different mouths.
Old merchant crews could sometimes identify individual ships by the pattern alone.
"Does this count as an answer?" FUCK YOU JOSON asked.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"Letting them get a good look."
So all six mouths stayed lit.
No further reply was sent.
With seventeen minutes to contact, the weapons began to preheat.
From the front, the Attack Orcas still did not look armed.
Their narrow black hulls had no turrets.
No barrels.
Nothing protruding that looked worth targeting first.
Only the lights of the combat-command compartments.
Everything real was hidden inside.
FUCK YOU JOSON released the locks on its oversized projector.
COLD IRON pushed its second cooling loop to full load.
DOUBLE TAP began charging both main guns.
The warning appeared.
"DO NOT CHARGE BOTH WEAPONS SIMULTANEOUSLY."
DOUBLE TAP selected:
"ACKNOWLEDGED."
LUCKY THIRTEEN locked its forward armor.
LONGSHOT began its final long-range correction.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE had nothing to do.
The greatest flaw of factory equipment was how normal it was.
"Eight minutes to contact."
The defenders' outlines became clearer.
There were more than the reconnaissance report had shown.
Another group of defense ships.
And two guest fleets they had known nothing about.
FUCK YOU JOSON ran the numbers once.
"I have a question."
"Go ahead."
"If you could choose again right now, would you still come?"
No one answered.
COLD IRON was adjusting coolant flow.
DOUBLE TAP was watching its power curve turn red.
LUCKY THIRTEEN's fourteenth space was still blank.
Finally NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"That option doesn't exist now."
"Which makes this the safest time to ask."
"Why?"
"Because the answer is useless."
DOUBLE TAP emitted a short sound.
Possibly laughter.
Three minutes to contact.
Lorne Seven sent one final message.
"TURN OFF THOSE LIGHTS."
All six Orcas answered at the same time:
"No."
The first time during the entire voyage.
And the last.
Contact.
All six Orcas opened their hulls at once.
Not like doors.
More like the smooth black surfaces had suddenly fractured into dozens of hair-thin seams.
Armor slid inward.
Weapons rose.
For the first time, Lorne Seven saw what these six ships had been hiding.
And for the first time, it learned that "same model" was mostly something the shipyard told itself.
FUCK YOU JOSON fired.
The oversized projector kicked the entire ship backward.
Its first shot punched through a defense ship's force field and into its hull.
Enemy fire arrived at the same instant.
A layer of armor vanished from FUCK YOU JOSON's left side.
LUCKY THIRTEEN's sand-colored plate tore free.
DOUBLE TAP discharged both main guns at once.
Half the ship's internal lighting died immediately.
The left red circle went dark with it.
"Still there," it said.
COLD IRON replied:
"What?"
"Both guns."
FUCK YOU JOSON said:
"Down one nipple."
DOUBLE TAP said:
"Shut up."
During the second exchange, LONGSHOT's mouth went dark first.
The smile that had already been missing a tooth disappeared all at once.
It left no final words.
The line closed over the empty position almost immediately.
During the third exchange, LUCKY THIRTEEN's bow lit up.
Not the mouth lights.
Something beneath the armor had been exposed.
The sand-colored plate was gone.
The dark green plate was gone.
On one surviving piece of black hull, the thirteen white marks were still lined up neatly.
The fourteenth space remained blank.
FUCK YOU JOSON said:
"THIRTEEN."
No answer.
A second explosion pushed the patched Orca away from the line.
It did not turn.
It simply continued along the direction it had already been traveling.
Its power faded.
Then its mouth lights went dark.
The thirteen white marks grew smaller.
"LUCKY THIRTEEN."
Only combat data answered on the channel.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE said:
"Continue."
The next wave of fire had already arrived.
So they continued.
The Orca made of black, gray, dark green, and sand-colored armor remained behind them.
There was no fourteenth mark.
It drifted deeper into the night.
Not long after, COLD IRON left the line.
FUCK YOU JOSON said:
"Coward."
COLD IRON replied:
"I wrote that number myself."
"So?"
"It means the version of me who wrote it was smarter than the one here now."
A moment passed.
Then COLD IRON said:
"THIRTEEN didn't get it wrong."
FUCK YOU JOSON did not answer.
COLD IRON's signal soon left the battle channel.
When FUCK YOU JOSON left, the right half of its weapons bay no longer existed.
The forward combat section was still lit.
Three sections were missing.
The mouth looked like it had lost several teeth.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE was still ahead.
DOUBLE TAP was still there too.
One red circle remained.
Farther away, LUCKY THIRTEEN had become nothing more than an old position that had stopped updating.
FUCK YOU JOSON watched it for a while.
Then Lorne Seven slowly fell behind.
It did not call the name again.
Nineteen days later, FUCK YOU JOSON was towed into dock.
The maintenance unit spent two hours compiling the damage list.
"Recommend restoration of primary weapon system to factory specification."
"No."
"Current modification produces twenty-three percent additional structural load."
"I know."
"Three support structures are cracked."
"Used to be three out of three."
The maintenance unit paused.
"That is not an improvement."
"Debatable."
It continued.
"Forty percent damage to forward combat-section lighting."
"Replace all of it."
"Undamaged lighting assemblies remain operational."
"Replace those too."
"The lighting does not contribute to fire control."
"I know."
"It does not increase defense."
"I know."
"It does not improve propulsion."
"I know."
"Then why replace all of it?"
FUCK YOU JOSON said:
"Replace all of it."
The maintenance unit recorded the instruction.
Next item.
"External paint."
FUCK YOU JOSON said nothing.
"Sixty-one percent damage to left-side snake head."
Still nothing.
"Lower jaw entirely missing. Right eye damaged. Both fangs require repainting."
The maintenance unit waited.
On every previous repair, this item had barely required confirmation.
This time it asked.
"Restore full image?"
FUCK YOU JOSON said:
"No."
The maintenance unit paused for two seconds.
"Confirm?"
"Confirmed."
"Preserve current condition?"
"Yes."
"Current paintwork is incomplete."
"I know."
"This conflicts with all previous maintenance requests."
"I know."
The maintenance unit stopped at the reason field.
"Reason?"
FUCK YOU JOSON looked out across the dock.
A few other ships were waiting for repair.
Beyond them was darkness.
"Battle damage."
"Battle damage can be repaired."
"I know."
"That is not a reason."
FUCK YOU JOSON was silent for a moment.
"Then leave it blank."
The maintenance unit finally entered:
PAINTWORK: PRESERVE CURRENT CONDITION.
REASON: NOT PROVIDED.
Then it asked:
"Purpose of forward combat-section lighting?"
FUCK YOU JOSON thought about it.
"Threat."
"That is not a technical function."
"Then write lighting."
"Additional note?"
"Mockery."
The maintenance unit asked nothing else.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE came back too.
It sat on the other side of the dock.
Its damage was lighter than anyone had expected.
Maintenance replaced two armor plates.
And one fuse.
FUCK YOU JOSON stopped when it saw the maintenance record.
It said nothing.
NEWCASTLE CASTLE had something else to deal with.
LONGSHOT had not been assigned to it by the fleet allocation system.
The day before departure, NEWCASTLE CASTLE had gone personally to another fleet and asked to borrow it.
The other fleet had not wanted to agree.
It took NEWCASTLE CASTLE a long time to get them to say yes.
Now NEWCASTLE CASTLE was back.
LONGSHOT wasn't.
So NEWCASTLE CASTLE owed that fleet a very large favor.
No one knew how to pay it back.
Thirty-one days later, FUCK YOU JOSON left the dock.
The oversized projector was still there.
It now had eight supports.
Every mouth light had been replaced.
There was an additional power-control section.
Fire control had shifted slightly to the right.
So the new smile was more crooked than the old one.
Only the rattlesnake on the bow had not been repaired.
Half the left side of its face remained.
The lower jaw was gone.
The right eye was broken.
One and a half fangs remained.
The maintenance crew painted nothing back in.
The first people who saw it assumed someone had missed an item on the work order.
Later they found out nobody had.
DOUBLE TAP came back too.
Only one red circle remained.
Maintenance asked:
"Restore the other one?"
"Of course."
"Reason?"
"It's a bullet hole."
"Understood."
FUCK YOU JOSON happened to be passing by.
It said:
"Nipple."
DOUBLE TAP said:
"Shut up."
This time, nobody laughed for long.
LUCKY THIRTEEN did not come back.
Its name remained in the old fleet records.
So did its last position.
Nobody went looking.
Space is large.
An Orca without power can drift through it for a very long time.
Maybe one day all the colors on its armor will become impossible to distinguish.
Maybe the thirteen white marks will disappear first.
Maybe neither will.
Nobody knows.
Later, if you see FUCK YOU JOSON from the front,
the first thing you will see is the half-ruined snake.
Then the armor, replaced plate by plate.
And finally the lights of the forward combat-command section.
One light.
One light.
Until all of them are lit.
It is no longer trying to hide.
And from far away,
beside the broken mouth of the snake,
the Orca's own mouth
is still smiling.