Tinker-General Brekky

Brekky inherited the rank from her grandmother, a Tinker-General and one of the Confederacy's respected automaton engineers. Three generations of the family have built mechanical drones. The current one turned the Automaton into a carrier.

The drones are brass-shelled machines: pistons, pressure, steam. They are not alive, and they are not a mind in a metal body. They look absurd until they close a gap, flank, or ram. They cost almost nothing to replace, because Confederacy space is full of scrap. Brekky stays on the bridge and sends them. The houses that laughed at the first generation stopped laughing around the second.