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Rear Fusor One had his pods full, even with the stern fusors in semi-autonomous mode. He controlled half of the available weapons, with Two controlling a third and the less dependable Three with one sixth. Frantically he coordinated the flow of fuel to the fusion plenums, ensuring the gouts of hydrogen were pushed peristaltically through the supply arteries.
Forcing the new and rather stupid Destroyer to function at maximum combat efficiency took pods-on control at all times for the Meme crew. It consumed many cycles for the training to take hold, even though it had the benefit of molecular memories from before its mitosis. There was a known, strange and mystical effect of consciousness that meant that only one of the two great ships truly carried forward its full experiences. The other, lesser being started sluggish, an animal that had to be goaded and taught.
No matter, thought One. We have enough crew to closely manage its functions.
He had less confidence in the overall combat situation. No one would ever call One a coward, but the tens of thousands of missiles bearing down on the two young Destroyers did not bode well. They would cause a number of casualties, and he began to regret that he had influenced Commander One to divide the original, stronger ship.
More and more Human missiles died, but still more came on. There was simply no way his rear weapons would be able to intercept them all, even with the drive at full power with its aperture widened, like a giant fusor itself.
Then, on the ship-wide network he tasted, “Prepare to spin the ship. All rear fusors to continuous fixed fire.”
For a moment One did not comprehend the order, though his well-trained pods input the molecular control sequences automatically. Spin the ship? Fixed fire? The only reason to spin the ship that he knew was to reverse and unblock certain flows within the body of the great beast, and fusors could hardly be expected to destroy missiles without aiming.
He followed orders, though; as clever as he thought himself to be, he knew that both the Command and the Tactical tria had far more experience, and he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself by asking why.
A moment later he praised the wisdom of his leaders as Destroyer 6223-2 began to rotate around its long axis and his fusors turned from intermittent blasting to continuous hoses of flame sweeping the surrounds with hot plasma. Combined with opening the main drive’s nozzle wide and inducing a certain deliberate wobble, they achieved near continuous coverage of the stern hemisphere, slaughtering the enemy missiles by the thousands, the tens of thousands.
One exulted in his natural Meme superiority, until he noticed the rate of his fuel expenditure. Gluttons at the best of times, now the weapons gulped fuel like ravenous slave-beasts.
