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“New orders...” Two’s communication trailed off in a way odd for his normally reliable and precise manner. “Emergency recombination.”
“What?” One trusted Two, but he had to taste this missive for himself.
What he said was correct. Emergency recombination was ordered, in the middle of a battle. It was insane. It was unprecedented.
It was brilliant.
If it could be done. “Initiate fragmentation protocol,” One snapped. “Full emergency mode. Prepare transfer tubes and sphincters.” He watched the automatic process for a moment, seeing the living modules of the complex fusor system unhook from each other and extend their mobility cilia. Tubes formed leading to the largest fusor nozzles, which would soften and become connection ports to the other ship.
One spared an eye to look at the ship-wide information feed, and saw that the two Destroyers flew, for a brief period, through empty space. Human missiles trailed behind them with no chance to catch up, while many more bored in from a forward angle in an attempt to cut them off.
Command had taken the respite to press the two ships together again, but instead of merely transferring fuel, this time 6223-2 split open along one lengthwise seam like a sliced fruit, widening until it partly enveloped the larger, healthier original Destroyer 6223. Then it split again like a four-armed starfish and began transferring all of its guts to its fellow.
Through ports all over the skin of the ship, and sometimes directly between their raw unshielded interiors, subsystems of the enormous living ships crawled, propelling themselves on millions of cilia, tentacles and legs. Ranks of sub-creatures looking something like millipedes, beetles, anemones or octopi poured along tunnels and tubes, racing to the other ship.
Among them came dozens of surviving Meme. Confusion reigned for a short time, but here the superiority of their biochemical communication system showed. Like swarming ants, the connected hive of creatures seemed disorganized but quickly sorted itself out.
Rear Fusor One lost track of the big picture as 6223-2’s ship-wide net dissolved, but he could imagine what was happening. The living skin of the cannibalized ship would spread to cover as much of its fellow as possible before cementing itself into place, while the extra internal systems would augment and replace damaged parts of the remaining Destroyer.
In essence, they would be roughly back to where they were before One’s subtle manipulations had convinced Command to divide into two ships.
One could think of worse situations to be in.
