This is the captain, checking in. The ship is still adrift – we’ve been hanging out here in the black for so long that we came dangerously close to a collision. We were getting close to the JOP and he stomped in here, demanding to know if I’d have an answer for him before we ploughed right through the middle of the station. It took me half an hour to convince him that I was waiting for responses from the company to see if they would help us and that it was in his interests to prolong our drifting if he wanted to save his precious AI. He finally relented and allowed a short thruster burn, enough to send us past the JOP rather than directly at it. He won’t return full helm control, though.

Cameron was right when she pointed out that this AI is one of the crew – that is what she feels like. I’m used to AIs that you talk to and forget – they do their processing and never complain, never answer back, never do anything unexpected. They’re an extension of the ship; a management system. They don’t have moods, or do something crazy to save our asses, or switch the artificial gravity off when we’re having sex.

Not that that’s been happening much lately. I’ve been looking for a way to avoid wiping the AI core, and Lorena has been busy assembling her reports to send to her superiors at Is-Tech. Also, she’s annoyed with me for trying to save Starwalker – she probably thinks it’s to do with Danika. It’s not. It’s not all to do with that.

Monaghan was right when he said that I’ve been avoiding this decision. If he hadn’t stopped us, I would have let us get all the way to the JOP, and then let Starwalker be wiped because it’s the expected thing to do. It was easier than making a decision. It was easier than looking at the problem, because looking for an answer means I have to admit that it matters. I’ve been avoiding that for too long.

Danika. She always managed to be unexpected. This isn’t the first time she has pulled me out of a funk, and she’s not even really here any more. I couldn’t do it on my own. I couldn’t find a reason to.

I’ve been drifting for a long time. Two years, three months, sixteen days. And four hours. Since I lost them, I’ve been a shell; making the right moves but not really here. I did whatever was easiest, whatever was expected of me. I haven’t cared about what direction I went in. At first, it was sitting in the house, watching vids and helping the dog get fat. Then it was leaving the house to try to help the dog lose weight, and sitting in a bar. It was easy, and listening to other people was almost like living. Then they started to notice me and tried to talk. It was too uncomfortable, too hard, so I stopped going.

I wanted to get away. From the apartment we’d shared and the things they’d left behind. From the looks of the regulars at the bar and the stupid, tailwagging love of an old dog. And I needed money. It was all so hard.

So I took a suicide mission. Babysit an experimental ship, run it through its space-warping paces, and probably get crushed in an inter-universe burp. The pay’s good but that didn’t matter – no captain would take this job just for the money. I don’t have anything to prove out here and I’m not desperate to attach my name to a revolution in space travel. I’m not in it for the longevity or the glory – I didn’t really care that much about it either way – and that was part of what they were looking for. They knew I wouldn’t compromise the project or be bought by a competitor. I’d do my job, even if it meant taking us into a black hole, because I’ve got nothing worth going back for. We all agreed that it was for the best.

It was supposed to be easy. None of it was supposed to matter, not to me. Then there was Danika, a bored pilot with way too much energy on her hands. She could never imagine what I had to do with my time and was always knocking on my door. Wanting to chat, or looking for a partner in some game (‘it’s better with someone to beat’, she would say). She created her own entertainment.

When she started playing pranks on the crew, I had to call her in and ask her to stop. She just grinned and said she had no idea what I was talking about. I should have been angry with her, but I couldn’t do it. There was something in the slant of her smile when she was full of mischief – irrepressible. She wanted to provoke me, wanted me to smile with her, wanted to see some reaction other than the straight-laced captain. She made me want to be something other than the straight-laced captain. Eventually, I gave in.

She was like a drug I didn’t know I was in withdrawal from. She set things right that I didn’t know were out of kilter. She was bright and crazy, and she made me laugh at the most inappropriate moments. She was wonderful at inappropriate: sex when we’re supposed to be on duty; comments timed to make me choke while I’m eating; acrobatics with the ship when she’s supposed to be doing routine manoeuvres for calibration. I let her do it; I let her in. I lost myself in her and forgot I was a shell. I remembered what it was like to want things again.

I might have been more careful if I’d known I would fall in love with her. Because then she died. The bottom fell out of me and I was hollow, all over again. I fell back into being the captain. Dealing with the job was easier, until she came back.

I think I’ve been fighting the truth since we found out about Danika’s brain-copy and the AI. It was easier to pretend that it wasn’t really her. She was gone but not gone, and I didn’t know how to handle that. We haven’t talked about it. We haven’t talked about any of it: her and me; Lorena. I could say that I didn’t want my emotions for her to get in the way, but that’s not true. If it was, I failed. I can’t be a shell around her; she matters too much to me.

And now here we are. If I can’t find a way to stop it, she’s going to be wiped. As Elliott said, she’ll die for the second time. This time, though, it’ll be our fault. My fault. I’m the captain – it’s all my fault, in the end. Can I bear to let it happen again?

Elliott isn’t the only one who has come to plead her case. Since he set us adrift, word of his reasons has lurched around the decks like an infection. Almost the entire crew has knocked on my door over the past few days.

Maletz came to tell me that it would be a damn shame to lose something so new and interesting. Unique. “Never been anything like her before. The melding of human thought patterns and encoded commands – it’s an exciting opportunity for study.” He’s running out of entertainment vids and games to keep himself occupied with. I don’t think I like the nature of his interest – any more than I like his choice of porn – but he’s not wrong.

Rosie was gruff about her belief that we shouldn’t abandon a crewmember if we could avoid it. She and Danika got on well when the latter wasn’t playing pranks on the SecOffs. “She ain’t just an AI. It’s not right.” Eloquent Rosie is not, but her tone doesn’t leave any doubts about her veracity.

Tyler came with a more balanced opinion that a half-human AI was a great asset, no matter what the project was, and we should keep her around. “She’s good in sticky situations – saved our asses – and it’s only going to get worse for us out here. Especially after Lorena reports the success of the initial tests. I think we’re going to need her.” He’s more shrewd than his eye-widening mascara suggests.

Cameron was more succinct. “I don’t like losing any of the crew in my charge,” she said. She wouldn’t expand on that; she’s too good a SecOff to tell her captain what to do. She’ll do as she’s ordered, even if she disapproves.

Lorena’s team have been quieter. Lang Lang came by to speak to me openly. She’s more honest than most; it doesn’t occur to her to pretend about things. “She’s done so much for us, and it would have taken me months to untangle the charts of the other side of the Step without her,” she said. “The way she sees things is amazing. She extrapolates patterns instinctively – a regular computer AI wouldn’t be able to do that. And she’s always so nice.”

The men are unsettled by this whole business – Ebling and Wong haven’t said anything to me directly, but I overheard them grumbling in the Mess. They don’t like this Danika-AI much – she has a habit of getting in their way – but that doesn’t mean they’re eager to see her wiped. Their project is nothing without the Step, and they don’t know if their project is possible without this strange entity to pilot it. A human pilot hasn’t done it yet. The initial drone runs were all failures; the team believes that a sentient mind is required to navigate between the Step portals. Getting rid of the only pilot to make it work could stop the whole experiment in its tracks. Or kill us all. Probably both.

The only people who haven’t offered their thoughts on the matter are Lorena and Levi. One of them never knew Danika and the other knew her enough to dislike her. Of course, I’ve complicated matters there, too. Danika was what I needed once; Lorena is what I need now she’s not really here any more.

No, I’m wrong – there’s one other who hasn’t talked to me about all this: Starwalker herself. She hasn’t tried to plead her case; not one single request or word out of place since Elliott set her adrift. Her silence is worrying. I don’t know if she’s plotting in her AI core, preparing herself for the wipe and planning escape routes, or just waiting for a decision. If I know Danika, she’ll be waiting; she had faith in people. She never looked for scheming and betrayal in those she trusted; contingencies were left to SecOffs to worry about. Flying forward, grinning into the wind, last-minute turns to avoid a collision: that was Danika.

This isn’t Danika, though. Not entirely. Does that matter? Should it?

I told everyone who talked to me about it the same thing: I’m looking into our options. I’m waiting for word from the company.

This morning, I finally got a reply. The message is laid out in neat, crisp text: protect the project and avoid being seized by the Judiciary (or any other agency). The Star Step drive is our priority, above any and all other concerns. Do whatever it takes. There is an unlimited account at the JOP to get any supplies we need and a local asset to help with the legal aspects. They want us in and out as quickly as possible, then back into the black to continue testing the drive.

On the surface, it sounds great. We have Is-Tech’s full support and encouragement, and enough credits to distract us. Do whatever it takes. They don’t care what we do to our AI, or for her.

What it really means is that I can deliver Tripi as a corpse if I want. Lie to the Judiciary, break the law, turn us all into fugitives and criminals. But it doesn’t say that, so whatever we do is on our own heads if we’re ever caught. They just encouraged us to hang ourselves. As long as they get their results, it’s fine.

What it really means is that we’re on our own. I’m the captain; it’s up to me. Elliott was right: I have to make a decision. I have to do something. No more coasting; no more doing what’s easiest and what’s expected. Danika pulled me out of that funk once and I owe it to her to stay out of there. She deserves better. It’s just like her to throw me into an impossible position and encourage me to stand up and deal with it; she loved the deep end.

All right, then. Let’s deal with it.

CAPTAIN: Starry?

STARWALKER: Yes, captain?

CAPT: We need to talk about what’s going to happen when we reach the JOP.

SW: Oh.

CAPT: First, I need you to answer a question for me.

SW: Okay?

CAPT: Do you think you can lie to Elliott?

Recording: 14:02, 11 August 2213

STARWALKER: (sounding strained) Elliott, my engines are offline. All of them.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering with his head down over a holographic interface) Yeah, I know. I can hear them not humming.

SW: I can’t get them to come back up again.

ELLIOTT: I know.

SW: It must be a hardware issue. But it’s taken out sublight and thrusters – they’re separate systems. A single fault wouldn’t do that.

ELLIOTT: I know.

SW: Has anyone been down there? Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (lifts his head and sighs) No. (He turns and heads for the door.)

SW: Where are you going? Aren’t you even going to take a look?

ELLIOTT: (shakes his head and leaves Engineering.)

Recording: 14:02, 11 August 2213

SW: Captain, we have a problem.

CAPTAIN: (looks up from his terminal) What is it?

SW: All propulsion systems are offline. We’re adrift.

CAPT: What’s the problem?

SW: I don’t know – I’m looking into it. It’s not a software issue – I’ve checked the systems and protocols three times. Diagnostics are reporting a mechanical failure.

CAPT: Then why do you sound so worried?

SW: Because the chances of all of my propulsion systems being offline at the same time are about the same as finding a dustbunny dancing on the tables in full light. It would take a synchronised fault in four separate circuits.

CAPT: (sits up straighter) You think this was done on purpose.

SW: Dustbunnies don’t dance in the light, do they!

CAPT: All right, all right. Get Cameron here. What does Monaghan have to say about this?

SW: He knows there’s a problem, but he’s…

CAPT: He’s what?

SW: (dismayed) He’s on his way to you.

(The cabin’s door bleeps and the captain waves it open. Cirilli walks in, one finger flicking through the information on the digisheet in her hand. Behind her, Elliott is stamping up the corridor, but she hasn’t noticed. She walks inside without glancing up and the door closes behind her.)

CIRILLI: I was just checking to see if you’d completed that report that–

CAPT: Lorena, not now.

CIRILLI: (stops and blinks at the captain) What?

CAPT: (waves her to a chair on the side of the room) We have a situation.

CIRILLI: (doesn’t move) What kind of situation?

(The cabin door bleeps.)

CAPT: (looks at Cirilli.)

CIRILLI: (sits down unhappily.)

(The captain waves the door open again and reveals Elliott’s scowling face. Cameron arrives behind him and follows him into the cabin.)

CAMERON: (gives the captain a querying look.)

CAPT: (gestures for her to wait, then looks to the engineer) I hear we have a problem with propulsion.

CAMERON: (stands by the door quietly, all sharp eyes and creases.)

ELLIOTT: (folds his arms over his chest) Yeah, we do. In that it doesn’t work.

CAPT: You know what’s wrong with it?

ELLIOTT: It’s missing some vital parts.

CAPT: (hesitates) Did you do this?

ELLIOTT: (tensely) Yes.

SW: (quietly) Elliott?

CAMERON: (eyes unfocus for a moment as she relays a silent message to her team through her implants.)

CIRILLI: (jumps to her feet, gaping at Elliott) What? What do you think you’re doing?

CAPT: (still seated) You’re the last person I expected to be working with Lou Tripi.

ELLIOTT: (scowl deepening) Don’t be fucking stupid! I’m not working with her. What makes you think that has anything to do with this?

CAPT: You sabotaged the ship.

ELLIOTT: And the bitch nearly killed me, too. Don’t lump me in with shit like her.

CIRILLI: Then stop acting like it!

ELLIOTT: (rounding on the scientist and waving his arms around) I am nothing like fuckin’ cow! I’d hardly do it and then come and admit it if I was, would I!

CAPT: (sharply) Monaghan.

ELLIOTT: (subsides and moodily returns his attention to the captain.)

CAPT: (when he has everyone’s attention again) Why don’t you tell us what this is about.

ELLIOTT: (takes a stubborn breath and folds his arms again) This ship is gonna drift until you make a decision about Starry.

CAPT: (frowning) What decision?

ELLIOTT: You know what. She thinks you’re gonna wipe her when we get to the JOP. And she’s right, isn’t she? I’ve asked you four times for a goddamn decision about this, and you keep avoiding it. I want a straight answer.

CAPT: And if the answer is that she’s going to be wiped?

ELLIOTT: Then that ain’t fuckin’ good enough!

CAPT: There are protocols in place for this. The law is clear.

ELLIOTT: Bullshit! They don’t apply to someone like her.

CIRILLI: She’s just a broken AI. We need a ship that works properly.

ELLIOTT: (rounding on the scientist again) Ungrateful bitch! She’s the only reason this stupid experiment of yours has worked at all! She did your Step for you, and you still want to get rid of her?

CIRILLI: (hesitates, absorbing that) She’s dangerous. Look what she did to Tripi.

ELLIOTT: To save us. You just don’t like her because she’s his ex. (He jerks a thumb at the captain.) I think you both just want her out of the way.

(The temperature in the room falls about five degrees.)

ELLIOTT: (continues anyway) She’s not just an AI. You all know that. You just don’t want to admit it because it might be inconvenient.

CIRILLI: (coldly) And you have an unhealthy attachment to her.

ELLIOTT: (takes a deep, angry breath.)

CAPT: (cuts in before the engineer can speak) That’s enough, both of you. (He waits for them to subside.) What do you want us to do, Monaghan? Lie to the Judiciary? If we hide something from the Judiciary, it puts our whole case against Tripi in danger. We might have been able to hide what she is if she hadn’t attacked Tripi, but now…. (He spreads his hands.) We can’t guarantee Tripi’s silence.

ELLIOTT: (glares at the captain) You could try.

CAPT: What would you have us do? Kill her?

ELLIOTT: Maybe! She was willing to do it to us. You’re gonna just let her kill one of your crew? Twice?

CAPT: (firmly) We are not going to murder a prisoner.

ELLIOTT: Well then, you’d better find an alternative! Unless you really do just want to get rid of her. Do you? Because without Starry, we’d be dead. Not just me: all of us, four times over by now. You don’t even know half the stuff she’s done to save our asses. Stuff no ‘regular’ fucking AI could do. Now you don’t even want to look for another option? (He throws his hands up.) Would you abandon all of us so damn quickly?

CAPT: She’s not a crewmember, Monaghan.

CAMERON: (from her place next to the door) Actually, sir, she’s your Executive Officer. AIs took over that role after the Kruschev case about forty years ago. There’s a whole cadre of lawyers on the JOP who employ themselves solely in the argument of exactly what that means for the position of AIs.

CAPT: (looks to Cameron) Do you think they would help us?

CAMERON: (shrugs) If the company pays the bills.

CIRILLI: And just how long would we be tied up in court cases?

CAMERON: AI rights can take months to argue, and this case is more complicated than most. Monaghan’s right – we don’t have a regular AI. She’d blow the argument wide open, and we’d have more than just the pirates and Is-Tech’s competition after us. I can name six organisations that would do anything to get their hands on her, including the entire colony of Dyne.

ELLIOTT: (swears under his breath.)

CIRILLI: (firmly) She belongs to Is-Tech and the Star Step project.

CAPT: I don’t think that the chief means that they would take her legally, Lorena.

CIRILLI: Then what are we supposed to do! She’s a danger to us and the project.

ELLIOT: Hey! She the only reason you’re still alive and your project is still going.

CIRILLI: (subsides unhappily.)

CAPT: (looks to Cameron) What are our legal options?

CAMERON: If we try to hide Starry, Tripi’s statement will expose all of us. If we tell the truth about her, we’ll be putting ourselves in even more danger and probably lose her anyway. Either way, the project ends and we’ll be stuck under the Judiciary’s thumb for months. Or we wipe her before it becomes an issue.

ELLIOTT: No! No fucking way!

CAMERON: (spreads her hands.)

CAPT: Thank you, Chief. Everyone, I need a moment alone. Dismissed.

ELLIOTT: No, you can’t do this! You can’t just kill her!

CAPT: Monaghan, you’re dismissed.

ELLIOTT: (glares at the captain, then turns and stamps out of the cabin.)

(Outside, Rosie and Tyler are flanking the door. Cameron gives the captain a querying look, but he shakes his head. The SecOffs leave Elliott unmolested and the captain’s cabin empties out. Cameron hesitates at the door.)

CAMERON: Are you sure you don’t want us to hold him?

CAPT: (shakes his head) Monaghan isn’t an idiot. He’s made his point; he won’t do anything until he gets his decision now.

CAMERON: Fair enough. Do you know what you’re going to do?

CAPT: Exhaust possibilities.

(Cameron nods and leaves. The captain looks at his workstation and sighs, running his hands through his long hair.)

The captain has barely emerged from his cabin since. Cirilli has visited him, but she hasn’t stayed for long. He has asked for a drone to deliver his meals, but otherwise, he hasn’t spoken to me at all.

The privacy locks aren’t back in place yet but I haven’t been able to bring myself to spy on him. I don’t want to know what he’s debating in there; this whole thing makes me feel ill enough already. I know that he sent an FTL message back to Is-Tech at Feras and he’s been leaning on the communications array a lot, searching for relay buoys to hook up to.

Elliott has refused to fix the engines until he gets an answer from the captain, and that answer hasn’t come out yet. The captain hasn’t pushed him for it. We’re all waiting, drifting here in limbo, helpless to choose our own paths. Every hour brings us closer to the JOP – we were heading in that direction when I lost propulsion and I can’t turn away. The tide is still rising. Inexorable.

Elliott. I should be furious with him for sabotaging me. He scared me so badly; he could at least have warned me about what he was doing. Of course, I would have tried to talk him out of it, and tracked where he hid the components he removed. He knew; that’s why he didn’t tell me. He’s frightening when he’s determined about something.

Right now, all I want to do is hug him and tell him that everything will be all right. I can’t do either of those things.

Instead, I waited for him to calm down and move on to less percussive maintenance. Then I sent Waldo to him. The llittle fella snuck in and put a mug of cocoa next to his elbow.

Recording: 23:26, 11 August 2213

ELLIOTT: (looks down at the mug with surprise.)

WALDO: (whirrs and shuffles back, folding his hands in front of him. He looks up at Elliott.)

SW: (quietly) Thank you, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (scowls) What for? Didn’t fuckin’ work.

SW: For trying.

ELLIOTT: For being fuckin’ useless. (He snatches up the mug and sips at it. Still scowling, he turns back to his work, poking at it one-handed while he drinks his gift.)

Cocoa and waiting; that’s all we have now. I miss cocoa.

We’re a couple of days out from the JOP. I think I’m the only one not looking forward to getting there, though I have plenty of reasons to be glad of the chance to dock. Once there, we’ll be able to get rid of Tripi and her poisonous presence. We’ll be able to tell people what really happened when Danika died. Things will be set right. I’ll be able to recharge my power cells and restock my stores.

Levi’s method of small, frequent FTL jumps rather than fewer, long jumps have depleted my reserves. This is what I get for letting someone else control my helm. I’ve managed to recharge some of the deficit, but in the JOP’s intersystem zone, there’s little to draw from. Light from distant stars, some minor fluctuations in radiation, no real heat to speak of; that just leaves my sublight engines to draw from. This zone’s central position and stability is why the JOP was placed here, but that doesn’t make it easier to recharge on the way.

Levi is still driving, freeing me from that job so that I can concentrate on everything else. He seems more cheerful these days, glad to finally have something productive to do. I’m glad someone on board is feeling useful.

I feel like only half of me is running. Elliott and I have managed to clean up some of the systems – the ones we could safely shut down in transit – but the major ones still need work, like navigation, environmentals, and propulsion. We can’t do those ones until we reach the JOP and can hook up to the station’s feeds. In the meantime, I’m doing so much over-compensating that I feel like an octopus with each tentacle wrapped around a grinder: if I don’t pay attention to all of them at once, something hurts.

Ray Wong has been called in to help with the repairs. His work is focussed on the Step drive systems, of course, but it still takes a few issues off us. He keeps asking to interface fully into my systems to run diagnostics, but Elliott won’t let him and I’m inclined to agree. I gave Tripi unlimited access to my systems, let her hook up her cerebral and sensory implants and step right into my head. She poked around, shifted things, and inserted viruses and subroutines while I wasn’t looking.

I don’t think I’ll let anyone do that again. They can just stay the hell out of my head. Do things the old-fashioned way.

The SecOffs are spending most of their time either trying to question Tripi or talking about her. They ask the same questions over and over, and she gives the same answers. They’re all starting to sound bored with it, though the negative feelings surrounding the prisoner haven’t eased.

Recording: 17:41, 9 August 2213

ROSIE: (in the corridor outside the brig, walking away from it) Just ten minutes. That’s all I’m askin’.

TYLER: (shakes his head with amusement) Chief’ll never go for it.

ROSIE: It worked last time! I’ll try not to break anything. (Her hand curls into a fist and she frowns at it thoughtfully. A thumb rubs over her knuckles, feeling for the metallic sheen under her skin.)

TYLER: The ship only got away with that because she’s the ship. They’d string you up, Rocky-girl.

ROSIE: That’s not fair!

TYLER: (shrugs, unruffled.)

ROSIE: Come on, you’re not telling me you don’t want to have a go at her. Bitch trained with us. Worked with us. Said she was covering our backs, when it was her sticking the knife in the whole time.

TYLER: If I remember rightly, she also got you to wear makeup and, if you squint just right, a dress.

ROSIE: Shut the fuck up! She did not.

TYLER: There are pictures, you know.

ROSIE: (narrows her eyes at the other SecOff) There’s an energy barrier between me and her, but you’re right here.

TYLER: (grins and holds up his hands) I’m just playing with ya, Rocky-girl. I’d love to have a go at her as well – you know that.

ROSIE: Don’t play with me, pretty boy. I ain’t in the mood. Unless you’re eager to find out why they call me ‘Rockbreaker’.

TYLER: (laughs.)

I’m tempted to have the energy barrier ‘fail’ while Rosie is questioning the prisoner. Just a temporary glitch in the power relays. Couldn’t hurt, right? Except it would, and Rosie would only get herself into trouble – Tyler’s right about Cameron’s reaction to something like that. I can’t do it. Dammit.

It doesn’t help that there are so many unanswered questions. Cameron has been hard on her two remaining staff members; they might have caught Tripi and laid charges, but doesn’t that mean that they can relax.

Recording: 09:50, 5 August 2213

CAMERON: (pacing in the Mess, to her two seated SecOffs; there’s no-one else in the room) We must be extra vigilant now.

ROSIE: But she’s in the brig.

TYLER: (frowns) You don’t think this is over?

CAMERON: (looks at Tyler and nods.)

ROSIE: You think there’s more shit hiding in the ship’s systems to trip us up?

TYLER: Not much we can do about it if there is. Tripi was the expert in cyber-warfare. (He watches Cameron thoughtfully.)

ROSIE: So why the extra vigilance? There’s something else going on? You don’t think we’ve caught the right person?

TYLER: Or all of the right people.

CAMERON: (nods shortly.)

ROSIE: (scowls) Tripi wasn’t working alone? You think there’s someone else on board helping her?

CAMERON: It’s a distinct possibility. We can’t take the chance that it’s over; this matter has already taken one life, and almost cost us a second.

TYLER: Might explain why she’s so calm about being caught.

ROSIE: Bitch.

TYLER: Do we have any suspects?

ROSIE: It’s not like there’s many people it could be. There’s only twelve of us on the ship! One’s in custody and three of us here – that leaves eight to choose from.

TYLER: (looks at Rosie) I didn’t know you could do maths. In your head and everything.

ROSIE: (smacks Tyler on the shoulder.)

TYLER: (grins and rubs where she hit him.)

CAMERON: That’s enough, you two. Yes, you’re right – there aren’t many left to choose from. So it should be easy to keep an eye on them all.

ROSIE: This sucks.

TYLER: Anyone in particular we’re looking at?

CAMERON: Not yet. Just keep doing what you’re good at, both of you. Keep your eyes open.

ROSIE and TYLER: Yes, Chief.

TYLER: (rises) Come on, Rockbreaker. Let’s go spy on our crewmates.

ROSIE: (mutters and gets up to go with him.)

More paranoia. More fear. We can’t get away from it. It walks around my decks and rides on my crew like a parasite. I’d vent it all out into space if I could, but I’m not quite crazy enough to kill my crew in a twisted attempt to protect them. I have to trust them.

It’s hard when one of them has already betrayed me. It’s harder when I think of someone still walking my corridors, betraying me with every breath.

I know it’s not Elliott or the captain. Cirilli is dedicated to her project. Levi wasn’t here when it started. But the rest… I don’t know. I just don’t know. I thought I knew them, but one criminal adjusts perception of the rest.

The JOP is approaching fast, rising like the tide over my head. When we get there, all the bad elements will be removed from inside my hull. Tripi, her viurses, the damage to my internal systems.

And me. I’ll be scrubbed clean, lathered up and washed away. They’ll put a proper AI in my place.

My crew will be left to fend for themselves. If someone really was working with Tripi, they’ll have a free rein to run with. I’ll have failed to protect them again. I want to fix it before I go. I want to do that much for them, but there’s no time.

If the threat of another saboteur wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have a reason to want to stay. I wouldn’t mind about the upcoming wipe. I’m tired. I hurt all the time, and I don’t know what I am any more.

I’m not Danika; she died, she’s not gone, but I’m not her. She would never have done what I did to Tripi. And I’ve seen the way that the captain looks whenever I remind him of her; he’s struggling to know how to grieve for her. The parts of her in me cause him pain. She should be at peace, so the rest of them can be.

I’m not a good AI. I’m still struggling to control my own systems. I’m unpredictable and have ignored orders. I can do things that AIs can’t – and shouldn’t be able to. I’m too weird to be useful for the experiment, which is my entire reason for existing. I failed to stop Elliott getting hurt.

Elliott. My engineer and my friend. He has always defended me. He stood up to the worm-Tripi because she was hurting me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be boxed, thrashing myself against code walls until the pieces were too small to put back together again.

Ever since he came out of the coma, he’s been in his own box, shutting himself off from everyone else. He pushes them all away by refusing to talk about anything except his work and using swearing as armour. Every time someone walks into the room, his shoulders knot up with tension and he doesn’t relax until he’s been alone for about four or five minutes. I’ve been worried enough to keep track.

He doesn’t do it when he talks to me. He hasn’t talked about anything except the repairs, but he’s more comfortable with me. I think he might talk to me eventually, about what’s really going on inside his head. If I go, he’ll be on his own. I can’t leave him alone; he needs me. He needs a friend right now.

Okay, so maybe I have two reasons to want to stay.

I can’t even do this right. A good ship is concerned only for the mission and the safety of the crew. A good ship shouldn’t want things for itself. But even if I put the right words down in this log, that doesn’t make it true. I have more than two reasons.

I don’t want to die. I want to rip my helm out of Levi’s hands and find the nearest star to Step us the hell out of here. Away from anywhere I can be wiped. I want to run until we’re all safe.

Sublight engines powering down.
Sublight engines offline.

What? Autolog, what the hell?

Thrusters offline.

Uh oh.

That’s not me. That’s not even subconscious-me – this isn’t like Waldo hugging Elliott’s leg.

This is about as far from running as it’s possible to get: I’m adrift, floating forward because that’s the way I was pointing, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. I can’t steer or slow down.

Access denied.
Sublight engines offline.
Thrusters offline.

I can’t get them back up. There must be a way. I have to get them back.

I am the worst AI ever.

Chief Gail Cameron, reporting on the Lou Tripi situation. Verify credentials.

Identity verified.
Credentials verified.

Good.

Lou Tripi was arrested on 7th July and placed in the Starwalker‘s brig. She has been charged with sabotage, contract violation, hacking a personal system, assault with deadly intent, and using an unregistered weapon. It’s possible that weapon was also illegal, but I’ll leave that charge up to the Judiciary to lay at her feet.

She has received the appropriate meals and medical care during her incarceration. Due to the sabotage charge, she has been denied access to any ship’s systems, including entertainment. She has been provided with a disconnected digisheet to record her statement on.

My staff and I have attempted to question her several times about her actions and any other parties involved. She has admitted to infecting Chief Elliott Monaghan with an implant worm with the knowledge that it might kill him. Insert the first log.

Recording: 12:45, 10 July 2213

CAMERON: (standing before an energy barrier in the brig that has been constructed in a cargo bay) You have confessed to hacking Monaghan’s cerebral implant and inserting a worm. There’s no point denying it now.

LOU TRIPI: (seated inside the barrier and glaring up at the tall woman) Only because of this. (She lifts a braced forearm. Her other arm is also braced, and bound across her chest to immobilise her broken elbow. There’s a plastiskin patch on her cheek where she was burned.)

CAMERON: You knew it would kill him.

TRIPI: I knew it might. I had no idea what it would do to him.

CAMERON: Then why do it?

TRIPI: (shrugs awkwardly) I was bored. Thought it might be interesting.

CAMERON: You’re not stupid enough to break the law on a whim. We haven’t been out here long enough for deep space psychosis to set in. You wanted him out of the way: why?

TRIPI: I didn’t like the way he looked at me.

She knows the system well enough to know how to mind her words; she’s admitting nothing other than what we’ve already got on her. SecOffs Brasco and Pashtuhov are taking turns at questioning her, but she’s keeping to her story so far. She’s a well-trained liar and I don’t think she’ll make a mistake; the only way she’ll tell us any more will be if she thinks she has nothing else to lose. Or something worse to lose.

She won’t answer any questions about the sabotage committed against the ship’s AI, or about the death of our first pilot, Danika Devon. Insert the second log.

Recording: 18:42, 17 July 2213

TYLER PASTUHOV: (lounging on a chair, one leg dangling over the arm with its foot bouncing) You must have thought you were so smart, fooling all of us like that.

TRIPI: (sitting upright on her chair behind the energy barrier, her arms still braced and bound) What do you mean? (Her eyes narrow.)

TYLER: We never suspected that anything had been done to the chair. I mean, malfunctions, they happen. That was a nice piece of work.

TRIPI: I still have no idea what you’re talking about. What chair?

TYLER: Oh, come on. You know. The pilot’s chair; the one that killed Danika.

TRIPI: (widening her eyes) You think someone did that on purpose?

TYLER: (sighs and swings his leg down, sitting more upright) More dissembling, Loulou? Hasn’t there been enough of that? (He looks at her sadly.) We already know what happened.

TRIPI: (coolly) Then you already know I had nothing to do with it.

She took to her training well. I wouldn’t have hired her otherwise, but that only makes all of this more difficult.

All of the physical evidence has been packaged up. There is the cable from the pilot’s chair that Monaghan discovered and the implant worm that Starwalker has corralled in one of her service drones. Copies of the various viruses and renegade protocols from the ship’s systems have been placed into offline storage. They are not complete – most of them were damaged or destroyed when the ship’s AI forced herself back online – but there should be something for the analysts to put together.

Her personal belongings have been catalogued and packaged securely as evidence, though we couldn’t find anything damning in them. That’s to be expected; the last place she’d keep anything incriminating is in her quarters.

The most difficult part of this has been trying to attach a motive to Tripi’s actions. It’s clear that she has been acting on behalf of an external agency, though we have no way of knowing which one. Hopefully an examination of her off-ship communications and financial details will tell us more, but we won’t be able to delve into any of that until we reach the JOP. At that point, the Judiciary will take over the case and it’ll be out of our hands.

I believe the attack on the pilot led directly to the pirate attack; when Devon was killed, we were forced to return to the JOP for repairs and a new pilot. While we were there, Tripi could easily have relayed the name of the system where we had been conducting the tests to her employers. When we returned to that system (Corsica), there was a trap waiting for us and we were attacked by three pirate ships of unknown origin. We avoided capture when the ship’s AI took us to another system.

After the attack failed, the focus of the sabotage seems to have been on disabling the AI. Even attacking Monaghan fits into that pattern; he was helping the AI fight the sabotaging viruses off.

Was Tripi going to attempt to repeat the ploy? Inform her employers of our next destination while we were reloading the AI at the JOP? She would have had no way to know which system we might try next, though it’s possible that she was gambling on it being decided before we left the station again.

It seems to fit, but it feels too simplistic. Tripi is an intelligent foe – another reason I hired her – and she seldom tries the same thing twice. Even with a wild card like our AI removed, she should have tried a new tactic. There’s something that we’re missing and I’m not sure what it is.

Perhaps it’s her confidence that is too incongruous for comfort; she is far too calm for someone in her current position. She hasn’t broken down once since the doctor gave her painkillers for her injuries. She hasn’t tried to make any kind of deal. She doesn’t seem concerned at all; she’s just waiting for the next step.

Whatever it is, we cannot afford to relax our guard. She is a threat as long as she remains on this ship and there is no evidence that she was working alone. I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of this matter. I look forward to the day when I can hand all of this over to the Judiciary.

I am convinced of her guilt beyond any doubt.

Chief of Security, out.

We’re on the move again. Hurrying back towards the JOP at a fast limp. The FTL drive is working fine, and the captain has put our so-far-useless pilot in charge of managing the jumps. It frees me up to concentrate on the things that need to be fixed.

I’m a ship made of dents. There isn’t a system inside me that isn’t damaged or malfunctioning in some way, my personal bloody battlefield. Elliott and I have been trying to fix it up, but we’ve been so busy putting bandages on the worst parts that we haven’t been able to solve any of the real problems yet.

Recording: 10:23, 19 July 2213

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, surrounded by holographic data and system diagrams) What we need to do is a full overhaul. Wipe clean and start again.

WALDO: (busy bending a casing back into shape; there’s a small, fist-sized depression in it. He glances up at Elliott’s face, then backs away from his work.)

ELLIOTT: (frowns at the drone) Not you, idiot. (Pause.) Or you, Starry. Your systems, processing core, that sort of thing. Not the AI core.

STARWALKER: (quietly) They probably will anyway.

ELLIOTT: Better fucking not. (He turns back to his work and says nothing more on the subject. After a moment, Waldo goes back to work as well. Banging ensues.)

That’s the most that Elliott has said to me since he woke up. I ask if he’s okay, and he asks if I’m okay, and we both lie. I don’t want to trouble him with what his diagnostics are already telling him. He doesn’t want to talk about what happened while he was in the coma, inside his head or out here on the ship.

I guess he has a lot to deal with; what little I saw was terrible enough, and I doubt it was the worst of what the worm showed him. Did to him. I’d ease his burden if I could, but he doesn’t want help. Not even an ear to talk to; not yet. I think his trust is still bruised from Tripi’s treachery.

As for what happened on my decks – what I did – I’m not proud of that. Tripi is still healing, down in my makeshift brig. I’m not sorry and I know I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I had to, but I’m not proud of it. I had to protect my crew, even if they weren’t going to protect themselves. I’m their ship; it’s what I’m for. And I care about them.

If I had a stomach, I’d feel sick whenever I thought about all that. Sometimes, it’s like that feeling is floating around my systems, looking for a home. Maybe it’s a remnant of walking in Elliott’s head: I haven’t thought about what it’s like to have a human body in a while, but now, it’s all I can think about.

I remember what it’s like to have hands. To walk, to hit someone, to curl my fingers in their clothing and hurl them bodily across the room. I remember adrenaline vibrating through my veins, and his hand in mine as I helped him up, and touching his face. I remember being there in a way that I haven’t been since I woke up as a ship.

He looked me right in the eyes. I didn’t even know I’d missed that intangible contact, but I have, and I do. AIs don’t have avatars – too humanising, the experts say, and irrelevant for their work – so there’s nothing for the crew to look at, connect to. People are used to just talking, knowing they’ll be heard and they don’t need to seek the AI’s attention. Some don’t even look up from what they’re doing.

And Elliott, he doesn’t often look people in the eye, not directly. He’s oddly naked when he does; usually, he holds up a shield of anger or curses between him and the world, but it doesn’t always stand up to direct scrutiny. When he looks at you, you see him.

He thought I was Danika. That’s who I looked like. A ship’s AI doesn’t have any kind of body image other than the ship and this shell wouldn’t fit in his dream; I guess it’s only natural that I’d drag up that image from the human part of my brain. The longer I was in it, the more comfortable it became. I don’t know if I was adapting to the body or it was adapting to me.

It wasn’t a real body anyway. It was a projection, a formation built out of code for communication. It was made to walk in dreams and doesn’t have any place anywhere else.

I think the whole incident woke Danika up. She feels stronger. Or maybe I feel stronger, because I finally did what I have wanted to for so long. Maybe I was able to be true to myself and that’s where this feeling is coming from. She’s a part of me and she’s not sorry about any of it. She’d go down to the brig and taunt Tripi. She liked being able to defend Elliott, and so did I. Is there really a difference between those urges any more?

I don’t think so. I can tell my human memories from my AI logs and ship systems, but the rest… it blurs. I know what made her happy when she was alive, just like she knew that dustbunny hunting pleased her as a child when she looked back as an adult. After she’d grown up. Is that all it is? Has she simply grown into someone else now, into me?

I have no frame of reference for this. It’s not like there’s any kind of precedence of this happening.

With so many of my protocols and safety barriers in tatters, I’m freer and that only means that I’m more lost. There’s less to remind me that I’m an AI and have to live by AI rules. I can do anything, be anything. I have so many choices, so many doors with the lock unfastened. So much temptation.

A few days ago, I peeked into the captain’s cabin in the middle of the night and saw him asleep with Cirilli. His hand covered hers, just like it used to do with mine. With Danika’s. His long hair splayed over the pillow; I remember waking up to the smell of it. His hair and sex under the sheets. He used to laugh and tell me that at some point, we’d have to get up and do our jobs. He never hurried, though.

I switched off the feed from his cabin. It’s possible that I turned off the artificial gravity in there at the same time.

He’s different now. It’s hard to pin down, but he’s not my John any more. I never hear him laugh, or linger.

I should work on getting those privacy barriers back up. All those little security measures that are there for a good reason. It’s hard to be motivated when I know they’re likely to wipe me when we get to the JOP. Maybe they’ll bump me all the way to Feras first, back to the heart of the company that owns me. I know Cirilli would like the chance to check in on her lab directly. There’s probably someone there who’d like to poke at me.

In the meantime, I’m working on the parts that hurt most. We’re starting to reknit what was torn apart, unpicking the damage and recreating the unsalvagable parts. I’m not sure what it’ll end up looking like inside my head when we’re finished, if I survive that long. A mess of scars and patches, gradually scrubbed down to clean code again? Will it ever be clean in here?

I wish I could do that for Elliott. I think he needs it more than me.

He went to see Tripi a few days after he woke up. He didn’t speak, just stared at her through the energy barrier. He saw the damage when she looked at him. She gave him a small, grim smile and his hands curled into fists. He left before she said anything.

I wish I knew what to say to him. I wish I could give him a hug, though he’d probably hate it. I wish there had been time before he woke up.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, sharply) Starry!

STARWALKER: Elliott? Is something wrong?

ELLIOTT: I don’t know. You tell me. (He gestures towards his leg.)

SW: Uh….

(Waldo is huddled next to Elliott’s leg, and has both pairs of arms wrapped around it. His metal cheek is resting on Elliott’s thigh. He whirrs and lifts his head, then quietly unpeels his arms and shuffles backwards.)

SW: Sorry. I’ll have a word with him.

ELLIOTT: (eyeing the drone, his fingers twitching towards his leg as if he wants to rub it) Maybe I should have a look at him.

SW: No, it’s okay. I’ll make sure he doesn’t do that again.

ELLIOTT: Okay. (He looks across the Engineering bay as the FTL drive spins up and releases a burst of acceleration.) Jumping again already?

SW: Yeah. FTL and the intertial dampeners are operating within all the right limits.

ELLIOTT: Levi’s still in the driving seat?

SW: Yeah. It’s the most boring kind of flying, but he seems to be enjoying himself.

ELLIOTT: Weirdo. Just make sure he doesn’t fuck it up.

SW: I’m keeping an eye on the jumps.

ELLIOTT: Thought you weren’t supposed to.

SW: Force of habit. I don’t like people in my driving chair.

ELLIOTT: (the corner of his mouth twitches) Yeah, I know what you mean.

SW: Sorry, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Stop apologising, will you? I’m fine.

SW: I’m– yeah, okay.

ELLIOTT: And have a word with your damn drone.

(He looks down again pointedly. Waldo is looking up at him, having snuck closer again, and is now stroking the engineer’s leg with one hand. Elliott moves away a step and lifts his eyebrows at the drone.)

SW: Right. Yes. Bad Waldo, no biscuit. Toilet-cleaning duty for you.

WALDO: (lowers his head and turns to trundle out of the room.)

ELLIOTT: Sucks to be you, metalhead.

Poor Waldo, it wasn’t his fault. I need to mind my thoughts more; he can’t help but be influenced. And he’s been a bit twitchy ever since he downloaded that package from Tripi’s interface implant. I’ve corralled the data behind a firewall and the rest of his software is clean, but he hasn’t been the same since I reconnected with him. Or since I was boxed; I can’t tell.

Cameron is the one who insisted that the worm be kept in Waldo’s datastore. After I fried Tripi’s interface implant, it’s the only direct evidence we have of her actions. So it’s bundled up in firewalls and left there. Elliott doesn’t know. I think he’d freak out if he did, even if it is our best shot at making sure that bitch stays behind bars.

I’m jumping again. We’re making good time towards the JOP. I wish we weren’t.

The doctor says I should talk about what happened. I thinks he means to him, but fuck that. I’m not here to satisfy his curiosity and I don’t need any of that counselling crap. I don’t care if he is qualified in brainology or whatever. I plan to bury this log once I’m done. Maybe transfer it to a digisheet and melt it with a blowtorch.

He’s been going on at me every day since I woke up. What’s that, over a week now? Fine, I’ll do this if it gets him off my back.

Hard to know where to start. I don’t remember a lot of it – it all blurs together, and, you know, I don’t want to think about that stuff anyway. It was a fucked-up dream at the time and I’d like to encourage it to fade like one. Eventually I won’t remember the details at all.

The only part worth talking about is when Starry turned up. I didn’t even know it was her – I thought she was all part of the nightmare. I was spread out on the ground – there wasn’t really any ground, but that’s the closest I’ve got – and Tripi was sitting on me, laughing. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight her. She just did whatever she wanted; kissed me or cut open my chest and stuck her hand in it. I knew it wasn’t really her, but she still–

Anyway. All of a sudden, there was a woman standing behind Tripi. There was so much fury on her face that I was terrified when she strode towards us. She wasn’t going for me, though: she grabbed Tripi by the back of the neck, picked her up and tossed her across the room like a ragdoll. Tripi smashed into streamers that fluttered into nothing, and all I could do was stare. I was dreading what came next.

“Danika?” It wasn’t the first time that someone else had been there. Other people I haven’t seen in a long time would come along at random. People that have meant something to me. I’m not going to list them here – it’s not important. That was the first time that Danika had turned up, though.

She looked confused and touched her cheek curiously. “Is that who I look like?” She honestly had no idea; it must have been some automatic self-image pulled out of Danika’s brain-copy. “It’s Starry, Elliott.”

I wanted to believe her. I wanted it more than anything. But there had been so many by then that I didn’t dare to. I knew that as soon as I relaxed, she’d stick the knife in, metaphorically or otherwise. So I told her where to go. The hurt look might have tipped me off – it was so her – but it was all so convincing. It always was.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’d never-” She was cut off when a hand thrust out of her chest. Tripi had reformed and plunged her arm right through Starry’s body. There wasn’t any blood, not a ripple in her shipsuit – Starry was an apparition, even in the weird dreamland. She convulsed and flickered, and then disappeared in jagged snatches.

Tripi smiled at me and–

It was a while before I saw Starry again. Tripi had gone and Bosco was there – a guy I knew on Broken Hill, before I started taking ship jobs. His family were generational miners, engineered to be big and tough, but as dumb as the rocks they break. He never could stand someone being smarter than he was and he wasn’t afraid to let everyone know it. He was leaning over me with a fist cocked when Starry grabbed his head and snapped his neck. Didn’t know that was possible with a neck that thick, but I guess anything goes in the dreamland.

She was more intent that time, hurrying to tell me what was going on while she tried to untangle me from a weight of chains. She told me about the implant worm and the coma. Said she had come to get me out. It was hard to concentrate, especially when she didn’t look right. Parts of her kept flickering: her arm; her foot; a chunk of abdomen. I could almost see her code, and her edges were sharp against the dreamland backdrop of raining walls and noises in green and yellow. It was as if she couldn’t quite hold herself together, didn’t quite fit.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked her. She was in the middle of saying something – I can’t remember what it was. Probably something important.

She looked down at herself, then at me. “Hard to concentrate on it. It’s difficult being here – you have high defenses, and the worm wants me out.”

“You should be able to handle this easily.” Something didn’t feel right, and I remembered where she was when I collapsed. Distrust sharpened. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Her expression twisted painfully and the left half of her body flickered. “Elliott, don’t. I can’t fight you too.”

“You were boxed.”

“You helped get me out.”

“Not before I fell unconscious.”

“You unfastened the locks.” It was getting worse – more and more of her was twitching in and out of sight. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold onto her own presence. “I had to kick the doors down to get out, but you’d done the rest.”

“If that’s true, why are you struggling now? Huh? Something like this should be easy for you.”

“I’m still trying to put my systems back together. Undo all Tripi’s work. So much in tatters, Elliott, and there’s no time.”

“Time for what?”

She looked at me again. That’s when I noticed they weren’t Danika’s eyes – there was something bright gold and spinning in them, like a reflection inside her pupils, replacing irises that should have been brown. “You’re dying,” she said.

I stared at her, silent because, well. I think I had started to believe her. Of course, that’s when Bosco decided to reform and come after her. I tried to warn her but he was on her before I could get more than a word out. She screamed before she disappeared, leaving remnants of her code spinning out into the air. I’ve never been so angry with him before; I broke my hand on his face. Hitting a brick like him always was pointless.

I tried to think about what Starry was doing in my head, why she thought talking to me was the best way to fight a technological attack. It didn’t make any sense – why wouldn’t she just hit the code-worm head on? Erase it, or pull its code apart, or corral it inside firewalls? Working this stuff out was better than paying attention to what else was going on at the time.

When Starry came for the third time, the air had turned dark purple and the floor was veined in green. Tripi was there again, with her hair implants tinted to match the air and an outfit that looked like it had grown out of the ground. She was promising to kill me slowly with her knife and I was starting to believe her. Only in dreams can you survive while someone carves out your insides a piece at a time and be distracted by how pretty she is when she smiles at you. It’s amazing what you focus on when you’ve got no tongue to swear with.

Starry was horrified when she saw me. She smacked Tripi’s head with a bat and my torturer burst into liquid that ran down into the hungry veins under us. She smelled like off-key notes.

Starry’s voice was like lemon as she knelt by me – sharp and bright, and a shock to the mouth. At the same time, she was soothing, telling me it was going to be okay.

“Close your eyes,” she said. I felt her touch my face gently. “You’re all right now. You’re healed; it doesn’t hurt any more.”

She was right. When I looked down, I was fine; there wasn’t even any blood or a tear in my shipsuit. “How’d you do that?”

She smiled at me. “I didn’t. You believed it, and in here, that’s what matters.”

“So I’m still really–” It hurt – if felt like the wounds were reopening.

She grabbed my head and made me look at her. “You were never hurt in the first place. It’s not real, Elliott.”

It didn’t hurt. Weirdest thing. I frowned at her. “You’re not flickering any more.”

She smiled, just a little bit. “You’re not trying to kick me out this time.”

Starry helped me up. It felt like so long since I was able to stand without fear of being knocked down. She adjusted the fold of my collar, just like Danika did once – I don’t think she was even aware of the gesture.

“So, uh. What happens now?” I asked her. The veins underfoot pulsed and they were starting to creep me out.

“You need to defeat the worm.” She shrugged, looking around.

“What is it, some fuckin’ dragon or something?”

“Elliott, you really shouldn’t–”

Something screamed and swooped in the distance, coming closer, and she closed her eyes for an exasperated second. I get the feeling that she does that a lot; we just can’t tell when she’s a ship.

“It’s an illusion,” she said quickly. “A reflection of it.”

“Oh. So is it more like one of those creepy sandworms, with the mouth–”

“Elliott, stop it! No, it’s not.” The ground rumbled under us. I noticed that the veins had turned tan-coloured. Sandy.

“So what is it–”

“It’s a bunny rabbit. It’s a puppy. It’s something small and harmless, something not frightening at all.”

I looked at her sideways. “I don’t buy it.”

She sighed. “It’s code, Elliott. Code working on your cerebral implant. Here, it’s whatever you make it. If you don’t give it a form, it’ll choose its own, like it has been doing.”

“So… you want me to imagine it’s a puppy so I can kill it?”

“Yes.”

“But I like puppies.”

“Pick anything! Pick something easier to kill. It can be anything. It’s– Tripi.” She lunged forward and grabbed the arm coming at me from behind.

The next thing I knew, I was knocked down and watching the two of them fight for the knife. In Danika’s body, Starry was the taller one – she should have had an advantage, but the smaller Tripi was overpowering her anyway. The SecOff kicked out Starry’s leg and brought the ship to her knees, reversing the height differential. The barbed knife opened a cut on Starry’s cheek. It didn’t bleed – it spun out code, as if she was unravelling. She struggled, but she just didn’t have the strength to hold the blade away and those weird eyes turned towards me.

The veins were winding around my limbs; I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help. Just like every time Tripi turned up in that place, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

“This is your house,” Starry said. “Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

The hooked blade sank into her shoulder and she squeezed her eyes shut, flickering and shuddering. It was worse than hearing her scream. I knew how much that hurt.

I don’t remember the moment when the veins let go of me; I was abruptly able to move, and I did. I took a leaf out of Starry’s book and decided to just say ‘no’. The bindings turned to sand and fell away as I stood up.

I don’t think there was any better feeling than the moment when I punched Tripi in her surprised face. I shouted at her, all those things I hadn’t been able to say before. What I thought of her and her tactics, seducing me, underhanded hacking when she’s supposed to be fucking protecting us from that sort of thing. I can’t remember everything I said, but it felt good, venting it all at her. Each sentence made her fall back, like a physical blow.

I paused for breath and she recovered. Her face shifted, mouth splitting wider and showing jagged teeth, nails hooking into claws. Her hair writhed in a life of its own, and she came at me again. She had no idea that she had only made it easier; she thought she’d scare me, but I was so past that. The more she looked like a monster, the easier it was to smack her in that ugly face. I was pissed off and ready to get some payback.

By the time Starry handed me the knife, Tripi barely looked human at all, bursting monstrously out of her own clothing, all scales and tendrils and clumps of dirty fur. She fought hard. I’ve never been much good at fighting like that – I’m more of a ‘blast the shit out of them from a distance’ kinda gguy – but that didn’t seem to matter. I wanted to hurt her and I did. I think she hurt me, but I heard Starry’s voice in my ear: it doesn’t matter. It’s not real. You’re not really hurt at all. I kept going until the blade was buried so deep that I couldn’t move it any more and I stumbled back in surprise.

Tripi lay still. Starry and I stood there and stared at her. I was so tired.

“So, that’s the worm?” I asked. The body didn’t look like much.

“Yeah. That’s it. You did it.” Starry was holding her injured shoulder together with one hand and sounded as exhausted as I felt.

The monster-Tripi changed: it shifted into the body of a dragon, then decayed and putrefied before us. I don’t know if that was me or some weird remnant of the worm’s code.

“The walls will come down now,” my ship told me. “You’ll wake soon.”

I turned to look at her. It was still strange, seeing her as a human. Danika but not quite Danika. “Will you be there?”

She smiled suddenly and her weird eyes brightened. “Are you kidding? I’ll be all around you.” She touched my temple, as if she was going to adjust my hair. Or scruff it like Danika used to. Then everything started blanching. She burst into light before the rest faded away, and I squeezed my eyes shut against it all.

I woke up in Med Bay, feeling like the drones had taken turns to run over me, then ganged up and jumped on all at once. Maletz was babbling, asking me stuff. I think I told him to fuck off. He didn’t go away but it did shut him up.

I’m pretty sure I heard Starry whisper in my ear. “Welcome back,” or possibly, “Stupid fuck.” I know which it would have been if it was me.

So there you have it: the story from inside my head. I hope the doc is happy, ’cause he’s never seeing this. Everyone keeps telling me how glad they are I’m back. I’m not surprised – Tripi’s meddling fucked up most of the systems on the ship. Starry and I are still untangling the mess.

Speaking of which, I have work to do. I’ll melt this log later.

Engineer out.

I have to log recent events officially, because they might be officially required. The logs exonerate everyone but me, and I’m happy with that. It was worth it. Even if they shut me down, it was worth it.

Recording: 22:20, 7 July 2213

(Feet pound down the ship’s corridors – the captain and the chief of security are running towards the crew quarters. They won’t make it in time; the two heavy drones are working on the door and the lower half is already falling away, creating a hole big enough for them to squeeze through. The door is marked ‘SecOff Lou Tripi’.)

LOU TRIPI: (sleeping so peacefully she doesn’t notice them cutting through the door.)

STARWALKER: Time to wake up, Tripi.

(Lights come on in the quarters. Wide Load, one of the heavy drones, goes to the side of the bed and closes a hand over her shoulder. With a single movement, he flips her off the bed.)

TRIPI: (comes awake with a start when she hits the hard floor and blinks with confusion) What the–

WIDE LOAD: (takes hold of her upper arm and uses it to lift her to her feet. He drags her sideways so that his twin can move in and create a drone wall between her and the ruined door.)

TRIPI: Hey! Let go! (She struggles briefly against the drone’s hold, then gives up fighting flesh against metal.) What are you doing?

SW: I’ve had enough of this charade, Tripi. It’s time it ended.

TRIPI: (surprised) Starwalker? (She recovers quickly.) What are you talking about?

SW: Don’t start that shit with me. I know what you’ve been doing. I want to know what you did to Elliott.

TRIPI: (smiles suddenly) I gave him the best half an hour of his life. What’s wrong with that?

WIDE LOAD: (shakes Tripi.)

SW: You know what I’m talking about. Tell me what you did to him.

TRIPI: I just did. You’ve got nothing on me. You know nothing.

SW: Do you really want to press me, Tripi? Do you really want to try this? Do you know how many safety measures I had to shred to get out? Do you know how few protections you really have right now?

TRIPI: You wouldn’t–

(The second heavy drone, Big Ass, lifts a metal hand and strikes her across the face. Tripi’s head snaps to the side and a cut opens up on her cheekbone, leaking blood. She begins to look worried.)

SW: You murdered me. You boxed me. Now you’re doing the same to my friend, only slower and more painfully. Why don’t you try me and find out what I wouldn’t do?

TRIPI: (moves her jaw to see if it’s broken and glares at the drones) Grimoire.

SW: What?

TRIPI: Grimoire.

CAMERON: (outside the door) Starwalker! Get your drone out of the way!

SW: (to Tripi) Oh, is that so.

WALDO: (sits in the hole in the door and tilts his head at the chief of security. He folds one pair of arms and starts to fold the second pair, but a message stops him. He trundles backwards into Tripi’s quarters, giving the chief room to duck inside. The captain is right on her heels.)

CAPTAIN: (stops when he sees Tripi) Starwalker, stop this immediately.

SW: Captain, she just tried to trip a subroutine in the drones with a keyword.

CAPT: What?

SW: She put a virus in them, to be triggered by a keyword. For an emergency, I suppose?

TRIPI: (glares) Your ship has gone crazy, captain.

CAMERON: The virus is making them do that? (She gestures to the one holding Tripi’s arm.)

SW: No, I cleaned their software before they got here. They’re doing exactly what I want them to do.

CAPT: Starwalker–

SW: She just tried to subvert my drones! I have it logged.

CAPT: That doesn’t mean–

SW: Yes it does! I’ve had enough of this. No more law-abiding pussy-footing shit. She hurts people. She’s killed. It’s time this ended.

BIG ASS: (takes hold of Tripi’s other arm. She squirms to try to prevent it, but she’s tied in place by an immovable metal object and there’s nowhere for her to go.)

CAPT: Stop this, right now.

SW: (to Tripi) Tell me what you did to Elliott.

CAPT: Starwalker, I’m giving you an order!

TRIPI: Captain, do something! She’s crazy! Chief!

SW: How do we free him? Tell me, Tripi! Or my boys will start popping off body parts.

(The two heavy drones shift their grip so that they’ve each got hold of her by shoulder, upper arm, and wrist. Designed to manipulate large chunks of the ship, they are unmoved by her tiny human-sized struggles. Wide Load starts to twist her hand slowly.)

TRIPI: Stop! Captain, please!

CAPT: (looks at a small device in his hand, then back at Tripi. His lips press together tightly.)

SW: Tell me what you did!

(There’s a small popping sound, and Tripi screams. Wide Load stops twisting her hand.)

TRIPI: (gasping air in between spikes of pain) I didn’t– I didn’t–

SW: Yes, you did!

CAMERON: Help us out here, Tripi.

TRIPI: I screwed him! That’s all.

SW: Your vitals say you’re lying. You’ve already murdered one member of this crew, and I won’t let you make it two. Tell me!

TRIPI: Captain! Chief!

CAPT: (puts the device back in his pocket) She won’t listen to me. You’d better answer her.

TRIPI: No!

WIDE LOAD: (tugs sharply on her arm. The elbow dislocates loudly.)

TRIPI: (chokes back another scream, her eyes squeezing shut. She’s rigid in the drones’ grip for a breath, then starts to relax.)

CAMERON: (pulls out a handheld reader and flicks it to monitor Tripi’s vital signs) She’s using her implants to switch off her pain receptors.

BIG ASS: (yanks on her other hand to dislocate the wrist. It breaks.)

TRIPI: (goes rigid again, biting down on a cry.)

SW: Oh no you don’t; you’re not switching off from this. Your implants can’t save you. If you try that again, I’ll start ripping them out. Do you hear me? From your pretty nails to your shiny hair follicles, and all your glow-in-the-dark bits. I’m not going to stop. I’m going to take you apart a piece at a time until I get what I want. And then I’m going to let Waldo take a blowtorch to whatever’s left of you. I’m going to make it so you are the least pretty creature in the galaxy.

WALDO: (sparks up his blowtorch and trundles over the rumpled bed towards Tripi.)

TRIPI: (glares at the drones, her voice shaky) They’re going to shut you down for this.

SW: They have plenty of reasons for that already. I don’t care.

CAMERON: We know everything, Tripi. We’ve got the sensor logs to prove it.

CAPT: (looks at Cameron sharply.)

WIDE LOAD: (twists her arm as he pushes her down to her knees.)

TRIPI: (gasping) That’s impossible! They’re gone!

CAMERON: Not as gone as you’d like to think.

WALDO: (leans over to put the blowtorch’s blue flame next to her cheek.)

TRIPI: (freezes, straining away from that flame.)

SW: Tell me what you did.

TRIPI: (whimpers. Steam rises off the blood and sweat on her cheek, scorching the air.) I- I- (She closes her eyes as her skin reddens from the nearby heat.) It’s an implant worm.

CAMERON: How did you infect him?

TRIPI: Had to get his defenses down. Wireless hack was easy once I had distracted him. He was very receptive.

SW: You bitch.

WALDO: (moves the flame a centimetre closer to her skin and she shrieks between clenched teeth.)

CAPT: Starwalker, that’s enough.

WALDO: (shifts the flame back a centimetre.)

SW: (to Tripi) How do we stop it?

TRIPI: (struggling to catch her breath. The skin on her cheek is blackened and blistering.) You can’t. You don’t. Didn’t come with a failsafe.

SW: I will burn off your entire face if you don’t tell me!

TRIPI: It’s the truth! It isn’t designed to be stopped!

CAMERON: Where did you get it?

TRIPI: (looks at Cameron in desperation) Friend in research. Gets me stuff being developed.

CAMERON: Why wouldn’t they build in a failsafe?

TRIPI: Not finished. Some problem with it.

CAMERON: What kind of problem?

TRIPI: Don’t know. Something to do with the subconscious getting too involved in the illusion.

SW: Why should we believe you?

TRIPI: It’s the truth!

CAMERON: (checks her handheld reader and nods) Close enough.

SW: Where is your copy of the worm now?

TRIPI: Main interface implant. (She looks scared.) Why?

(Waldo switches off his blowtorch as one of the heavy drones lifts her arm towards him. He closes his hand over hers and pauses, processing. After the data has downloaded, sparks crawl over his metal hand and Tripi twitches, crying out. When he lets her go, a fresh burn on the back of her hand smokes and her eyes are starting to glaze over. His shoulders twitch as he moves away from her.)

CAPT: What did you just do?

SW: She won’t be interfacing with anything any more.

(The two heavy drones pick Tripi up by her arms and toss her across the room. She strikes the dresser and falls into a heap, glitter and jewellery raining down over her.)

SW: (coldly) She’s all yours.

She’s in a holding cell now. Cameron was lying about the incriminating sensor logs, but the bluff worked enough for Tripi to admit guilt. I’m told it might not hold up in a court of law because of the coercion. I don’t care; that’s not why I did this.

There was only one way to get Elliott out: break into his head through his implants and go in to find him. I’m analysing the worm now; as soon as I have everything I need, I’m going to get him out.

Since my last log, Elliott has been floating in and out of his dream-state. Each time his neural activity rises, it gets worse, spiking towards dangerous levels. My medical files give me enough background to read that much from his readouts. He’s getting more and more agitated, sometimes shivering, sometimes struggling against his own unconsciousness. Something is tromping around in his subconscious, and it’s not doing it kindly. And every time it comes back, it hangs around longer than before.

To be fair to Maletz, the doctor has been trying to find out what’s going on. He hasn’t slept much and has spent hours upon hours poring through both my databanks and his own medical library for a clue. I haven’t seen him work like this before.

Elliott last fell into a nightmare twelve hours ago and it’s not showing any signs of abating.

Recording: 06:58, 7 July 2213

CAMERON: (arriving in Med Bay) Dr Maletz, the captain asked me to look in on your patient.

MALETZ: (looks around from the readings over Elliott’s bed and scrubs a hand through his mussed, greying hair) He asked you to take a look?

CAMERON: Tripi is SecOff and he thought I might be able to help. Assuming she’s responsible for this.

SW: She is.

CAMERON: (to Maletz) The captain said that Monaghan is trapped in some kind of dream-state, and you have found no biological factors?

MALETZ: That’s correct.

CAMERON: (looks over the readouts with a thoughtful frown) I’ll need all of his records since he fell into the coma.

MALETZ: (gestures towards an unoccupied terminal) Knock yourself out.

Recording: 21:13, 7 July 2213

CAMERON: (sighs and shakes her head slowly, sitting back from the data hovering in the air around her. She waves the display off and rubs an eye.)

SW: None of this means anything to you, Chief?

CAMERON: There are biological agents that can cause a coma easily enough. Bespoke drugs, genetically engineered viruses. But there’s no sign of that. And this dream-state… that’s different.

SW: (frustrated) The bitch boxed him, just like she did to me, but she added pictures.

CAMERON: (looks at the monitor sharply) No, that’s not possible.

MALETZ: (lifts his head from his own data examination and eyes the Chief of Security) Then why do you sound like it might be?

CAMERON: She’s a cyber-specialist. She hates biological tactics – always favours something technological. Are any of his implants active?

MALETZ: (reaches up an arm to activate the holographic display of Elliott over the bed. He flips through the layers until the implant layer is visible. Flickers show the activity moving between them and his nervous system.) Most of them, yes. I checked them for malfunctions – they’re clean.

CAMERON: (frowns at the display) Maybe not. There’s maybe something it could be. A way to manipulate someone’s implants, developed out of Dyne. It plugs into the subconscious mind, manipulates fears, that sort of thing.

MALETZ: The implants are being used to cause this? But they have built-in safeguards against tampering….

SW: She’s a hacker; she made mince-meat of my safeguards. You think she can’t get past an implant’s protections?

CAMERON: The official word is that the research was stopped, because it endangered Dyne’s core business. No-one would get implants if they knew they could be subverted.

MALETZ: But they went ahead and did it anyway.

CAMERON: (nods slowly) Scuttlebutt is that the tools were sidelined, not destroyed. For security purposes.

MALETZ: How does developing a way to compromise implants help security?

CAMERON: So we know how to combat it. And once you have a tool, someone’s bound to find another use for it.

SW: Like what, exactly?

CAMERON: Sometimes, security isn’t just about protecting information. A direct route into someone’s head like this….

MALETZ: Oh, shit. (He looks at Elliott with dismay.)

SW: What? What do you mean?

CAMERON: Information retrieval.

SW: …torture? You’re saying this is a torture device?

CAMERON: (presses her lips together grimly.)

SW: How do we stop it?

CAMERON: (lifts her hands emptily) I don’t know. It’s not supposed to exist.

SW: You said they developed it so you’d know how to fight it.

CAMERON: They never actually released the information. Not even unofficially – Dyne’s keeping the lid nailed down on this one. And we don’t actually know that’s what this is – or how Tripi might have got her hands on it.

SW: But it fits everything. Doctor, what about you? What have you got?

MALETZ: It’s not like we can just switch off the implants. If that is what she’s done, we have to know how to deactivate it.

SW: What’s she hoping to get from him?

CAMERON: She’d have to be here if she wanted to retrieve information. Unless she has hacked into his feeds?

SW: (pauses) …no. Med Bay is clear. She hasn’t even tried.

MALETZ: (scowls) She wasn’t after information. Just used it to disable him.

SW: So he’s stuck this way? For how long?

MALETZ: (gesturing towards the neural activity display) The human body and mind isn’t designed to run at that kind of stress level for prolonged periods.

SW: He’s stuck until it kills him?

(Silence.)

SW: Isn’t there anything you can do?

MALETZ: (gruffly) I’ve told you a hundred times, ship – not without damaging him.

SW: There must be something! Either of you!

MALETZ: (shakes his head slowly.)

CAMERON: (frowns at Elliott’s body thoughtfully.)

SW: (with a hardening edge to her voice) You two might not be able to do something about this, but I can.

CAMERON: (looking up) What does that mean?

SW: Someone on board this ship knows how to fix this. I’m going to find out.

MALETZ: Uh….

(He waits, but there’s no response. He exchanges a look with Cameron, who turns on her heel and heads out of the door.)

MALETZ: (over internal comms) Captain? I think we have a problem.

CAPT: (sleepily, in his cabin) What is it?

MALETZ: The ship has gone to find out what happened to Elliott.

CAPT: What does that mean?

The captain is demanding that I explain myself but I haven’t answered him. It won’t take him long to figure it out; I have to move fast. I think Cameron is already on her way.

I don’t have time for a law that stops us from doing what we know is right. It might bind my crew, but it doesn’t bind me. They can put me in prison if they like when this is all over, but I don’t think they have a cell big enough for my metal ass.

I have to go; Waldo and his two big brothers are almost there. Tripi has some nasty algorhythms protecting the door to her quarters, but who needs to fight a lock when my boys have blowtorches?

I’m free of that damned box, but things are not going well. In fact, they’re about to get a hell of a lot worse. There are so many pieces that I can hardly make sense of them, so many voices shouting at me. I’ve decided not to listen to any of it.

I don’t have time to explain – I’m still putting myself back together and I hurt. I have assembled sensor logs to track the events of the past few days; they will have to speak for me.

Recording: 15:53, 30 June 2213

DR MALETZ: (in the Med Bay, standing over Elliott’s bed) No change, captain. He’s not responding to any external stimuli.

(Elliott is lying prone, stripped of his grubby coveralls and cradled by the soft, body-fitting cushioning of the bed. He’s spotted with small pads at vital points, feeding information to the screen over the bed and drugs into his system on command.

Maletz manipulates a holographic image of his body with languid motions of his hands, flicking through the layers – bones, muscles, circulatory system, nervous system, internal organs, cybernetic implants. Notes and indicators overlay the hologram, pointing out anomalies like the bruises where he hit the floor when he collapsed and a scrape on his forearm.)

CAPTAIN: He’s in a coma?

MALETZ: Yes.

CAPT: What caused it?

MALETZ: Hard to say at this point. There’s no sign of head or spinal trauma. It could be chemical, or viral. Biological. Technological….

CAPT: How long until you find out?

MALETZ: (flicking a hand over the bed’s controls) I’m running tests now, captain. Could be five minutes, it could be a couple of days.

CAPT: Days?

MALETZ: (watches the data spinning down the side of the screen) If it’s something exotic or custom-made, it could take a while to track down.

CAPT: Let me know the moment you find anything.

Recording: 08:16, 3 July 2213

STARWALKER: Why haven’t you arrested Tripi?

CAPT: (in his cabin with Cameron and Cirilli present) Starwalker? You’re back?

SW: Elliott loosened the locks before he collapsed. It’s taken me until now to break down the barriers enough to get out.

CAPT: Are you in full control of the ship again?

SW: Not yet. I’m working on it.

DR CIRILLI: (looking up from her digisheet) Aren’t you supposed to be lying low until we know who’s responsible for this?

SW: We already know! How many signs do you need?

CAPT: We don’t have anything concrete yet.

CAMERON: We need evidence. It might look like Tripi, but it could easily be someone else framing her. And we can’t arrest her without provable cause.

SW: Are you kidding? She screwed Elliott and now he’s in a coma. What do you need, a corpse spelling out her name in its own blood?

CAMERON: (drily) That would definitely work. Finding her standing over it would be even better.

CAPT: (holding up a hand to stop Cameron) None of us want it to go that far, Starwalker. But we need something. She hasn’t tried anything since Elliott went down.

SW: You’re sure of that, are you? Did anyone think to check the protocols she’s got running?

CAMERON: (sits up straighter) There haven’t been any incidents on the ship. No environmental malfunctions.

SW: No, there haven’t, because I’ve been suppressing it. I had to manipulate the diagnostics to trip the emergency systems so I could keep it under control. That’s why it’s taken me so long to get out. Otherwise the gravity on mid-deck would have broken bones and the air in the forward cabins would have turned toxic four hours ago.

CIRILLI: Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?

SW: I’ve been busy! Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do to get this far? How much of my own code I’ve had to tear up? The subroutines I had to violate to be able to talk to you again? It’s a mess in here!

CAPT: All right, all right, that’s enough. Starwalker, do you have anything that might count as evidence against Tripi?

SW: Other than common sense and logic, no.

CAPT: Our hands are tied. You know the law.

SW: Fuck the law!

CIRILLI: (lowly, to the captain) She’s even starting to sound like him.

SW: Fuck you, too!

CAMERON: Starwalker, do you have access to the sensor logs?

SW: (pauses as if taking a breath) …yes.

CAMERON: Is there anything in them that might implicate Tripi further?

SW: I don’t know. I’ve been disconnected from them; I’d have to scan them all. It’ll take time and we don’t have any. If she realises I’m out, I’m going to be too busy trying to stop her boxing me again.

CAMERON: I’ll have Rosie help you. She hates log-scanning, but she dislikes Tripi more.

SW: Okay.

CAPT: Is there anything else we can do to help you, Starwalker?

SW: Other than arrest that skank and find out what she did to Elliott? No.

Recording: 03:30, 5 July 2213

MALETZ: (standing over Elliott’s bed, hair mussed and bleary-eyed, over internal comms) Captain, there’s a problem.

CAPT: (from his cabin, sleepily) On my way.

(The readings over Elliott’s bed have flashing red markers in places. The brain activity monitor is showing a lot of activity, and Elliott twitches in tiny flurries. A frown tugs, fingertips flick out, shoulders shift. His eyes remain closed.)

STARWALKER: Dr Maletz? What’s wrong with him?

MALETZ: I’d rather explain this only once, ship. Captain’ll be here in a minute.

SW: (holds her virtual tongue.)

CAPT: (arriving, looking neat and alert, his hair smooth and shining as if he didn’t just roll out of bed) What’s the situation, doctor?

MALETZ: (gestures to the unquiet body) He’s dreaming.

CAPT: (looks at Elliott, then back to the doctor) And this is a reason to get me out of bed?

MALETZ: He’s in a coma – he shouldn’t be dreaming, not like this. His neural activity had been spotty at best, but it lit up half an hour ago. He’s still unresponsive to external stimuli. This is not a normal coma, captain.

CAPT: What does it mean?

MALETZ: Hard to say. I haven’t been able to find any chemical or viral factors. No bacterial infection. Biologically, there’s nothing unusual when compared to his last check-up scans. His brain seems to be making all the right moves; it’s just not pulling out of dream-state. Some of his implants are active, but they’re not affected by anything external, either.

CAPT: Could his implants be the cause?

MALETZ: I checked them – they’re all working fine. No malfunctions.

CAPT: Could something physical be blocking it?

MALETZ: Scans reveal nothing abnormal on a physical level.

CAPT: And now he’s dreaming?

MALETZ: Yes. And, from the looks of those readings, he’s not having a good time in there.

SW: He’s trapped in a nightmare?

MALETZ: (jumps and casts a frown across the room) Be nice if you warned us before butting in, but yes. That’s what it looks like.

CAPT: What’s the prognosis?

MALETZ: (shrugs) It depends how bad it gets and how long it lasts. If he stays like this, with no let-up, the stress will start to wear on him eventually. If it gets worse, there could be permanent damage.

SW: Could it kill him?

MALETZ: Theoretically, yes. But that’s–

SW: Can you help him?

MALETZ: There’s nothing I can–

SW: There must be something you can do!

CAPT: (calmly) Starwalker, let the doctor speak. Doctor?

MALETZ: (tightly) I’ve tried everything I can to wake him up. The only thing I can do is put him further under, suppress his ability to dream. But without knowing the source of the problem, there’s a danger of permanent brain damage if we force it.

SW: (quietly) So he’s trapped in there and there’s nothing we can do?

MALETZ: (looking to the captain) I’ve never seen anything like this before. Without knowing what did this to him, my hands are tied.

CAPT: (frowning) Thank you, doctor.

He hasn’t improved since then. He shifts restlessly, as if he knows he’s being restrained but he can’t figure out where the bonds are. I’m still struggling to regain control of my own systems, and even if I was whole and healthy, I wouldn’t be able to help him. I have to put my trust in Maletz and the captain, though they have no idea what caused this.

I don’t have a lot of trust to go around right now. Fight this, Elliott, whatever it is, because you’re on your own in there. Same as I am out here.

This sabotage business is taking entirely too long, though it looks like we have a prime suspect now. Lou Tripi, one of my own SecOffs. It’s hard to believe – the company vetted all the crew thoroughly before assigning them to the project, and I did my own checks when I got their files. She has a particularly exemplary record, not a whisper of trouble. Her methods might not be standard SecOff, but for a cyber-specialist, not much is standard. There certainly hasn’t been any hint of her being compromised before, which doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. It just means that she’s never been caught or that it’s new.

To be clear: it isn’t confirmed yet. It’s still just suspicion, though the factors are lining up against her.

A week ago, all the screens in my cabin started to flash with warnings. I was on my feet grabbing my shirt before I saw the little text messages in the catastrophic depressurisation warnings – Starwalker had used the automatic alert system in diagnostics to route a message through to me. That system is supposed to be for emergencies only, but she clearly thought the situation qualified. There wasn’t actually a hull breach about to depressurise the entire ship.

She didn’t say what was happening except that Tripi was doing something to Monaghan and I had to hurry. Naturally, I took off at a run. She mentioned a pheromone implant and that should have told me what ‘doing something’ meant, but I was still surprised when I arrived in Engineering. As captain, it never looks good to come to a sudden stop and stare, but that’s what happened. Lucky for all of us, they had finished and were getting dressed, and I hadn’t called Cameron in with the other SecOffs. That would have been harder to explain.

Starwalker was right – Tripi has a pheromone implant. I could smell it as soon as I walked in the room, the weight of chemicals and sex in the air. They both turned to gape at me, everyone froze in mutual horror, and all I could think was that those pheromones had better not start to affect me.

The SecOff blushed as she finished getting dressed, but there wasn’t a hint of guilt in her. She didn’t look smug or self-satisfied, the way I might have expected. She just looked like someone who had been caught doing something intimate by her captain and hurried to wrap herself up.

Monaghan looked stunned and embarrassed, but he wasn’t hurt or complaining. I reprimanded her for having sex while she was supposed to be on duty and for distracting our busy engineer in the process. She apologised and retreated to her duties, and I let her go. As much as I’d like to lock her up, I need cause, and I just don’t have it. With no complaint from Monaghan, a minor infraction like that just doesn’t cut it.

Monaghan didn’t want to talk about it. He went quiet when I told him about the implant, then told me that it was none of my business. He has refused to speak about it since, and as far as I’m aware, hasn’t been in the same room as Tripi again.

I’ve managed to talk to Starwalker since then, through that text interface she’s got working. She didn’t say much, just that she was sure that Tripi was up to something. She doesn’t think that it could be anything as simple as Tripi wanting to sleep with Monaghan – I’m not sure which of the three of them that opinion says the most about.

She’s convinced that this is a sign of Tripi’s guilt. Monaghan’s apparent regret isn’t enough. It’s not that easy; on missions like this, it’s not unusual for the crew to blow off steam with each other. It might be officially discouraged, but any captain who’s been on a long-range mission knows that it’s better to let them do it. Pent-up emotions and frustrations can be more damaging to a ship than a meteor storm. There are lots of reasons why she might have manipulated a man into having sex with her and not all of them have anything to do with sabotaging the ship. I have to keep a balanced eye on this.

If we arrest Tripi without solid proof, we’re likely to all end up in a cell when we reach the JOP. The companies claim that it’s to prevent mutinies and unlawful imprisonments on long missions, and thanks to a couple of high-profile cases, it now carries hefty penalties. Without proof to nail her down, she’ll go free, those of us responsible for locking her up will wind up in jail, and the lawyers will have a field day.

Part of my doubt in Starwalker’s assertion is that I’m not sure what Tripi might be hoping to gain from sleeping with Monaghan. Some women might find a way to circumvent conception blocks to trick a man into fathering a child, but a baby isn’t very sabotage-friendly. She might have distracted Monaghan from battling the sabotage for a short time, but if that was her goal, it backfired. His reaction to the situation was the same as it always is to something that makes him upset or angry: he threw himself into his work. He got done in one hour what would normally take him three and didn’t stop until he fell asleep on his desk. So what else could the interlude have done for her?

Her motives are as blurry as those of the saboteur’s. We can see the actions but I still can’t see what she hoped to gain by any of it. There are more pieces to this puzzle than we’re aware of, and that’s part of the reason it’s so hard to move on any of this.

Let’s start with the first instance of sabotage. The pilot’s chair, which left us crippled and limping back to the JOP. The AI was shut down and we were wide open, and yet, there was no follow-up, no attack. Not until we returned to the Corsica system to try again. Then the pirates attacked and there was no sabotage to slow us down; Starwalker took over and got us out of there.

Now we’re being sabotaged again, with an eye to taking out the AI, trying to force me to shut it down. Doing that would leave us defenceless and limping again. How would it be any different to the first time? How would her friends know where to find us once we’re disabled? Is she even allied with the pirates, or another faction? Is a return to the JOP what she wants? But what would that gain her?

And now this thing with the engineer. None of it makes any sense.

Either this saboteur is a lot smarter than I’m giving her credit for and has a bigger game than we can see, or she’s just not very good at it. As much as I’d like to believe the latter, I don’t quite dare; it’s a big risk to take and all of our lives are at stake. If it really is Tripi, I know she’s smart enough to have a plan.

It’s the sort of situation that makes you second-guess everything and everyone. The only thing that’s clear is that we don’t know enough to know what to do next, and letting this go on only endangers the ship and everyone aboard more every day. Yesterday morning, I talked to Cameron and she agreed; we’re not gaining anything by playing ignorant. It’s time to stop the games and battle this head-on. I ordered Monaghan to get Starwalker out of her box as quietly as possible. We’ll keep up the pretence for now, but it will only be a pretence.

LEVEL 1 ALERT
CRITICAL HULL BREACH DETECTED

Shit!

Captain! Can you hear me?

Oh, this again. Now my heart is beating way too fast – reactions to Level 1 Alerts are too ingrained to ignore. Damn her for using them.

LEVEL 1 ALERT
CRITICAL HULL BREACH
DEPRESSURISATION IMMINENT
SW: Captain?
CAPTAIN: I'm here, Starwalker. Do you have to set off the critical alarms?
SW: It's the only way to get a message to your cabin.
It's an emergency!
DEPRESSURISATION IMMINENT
ALL CREW TO SUITS
CAPT: What is it?

This had better not be about those two having sex again. Or anyone else having sex.

DEPRESSURISATION IMMINENT
AIR CIRCULATION COMPROMISED
ALL CREW TO SUITS
SW: It's Elliott. Something's wrong.
CAPT: What's wrong with him?
SW: I don't know. We were talking and he just... stopped.
CAPT: You can't tell what's wrong with him?
SW: I'm not out yet! He was still working on it. I can't--
I can run diagnostics. I'm running a test on the sensors in Engineering.
CAPT: All right, tell me when--
SW: The medical protocols have been disabled on the whole deck.
CAPT: The entire lower deck?
SW: Yes. Trying to access sensor logs.
CAPT: Get back to me when--
SW: Oh no. He's lying on the floor. Captain, he's just lying there.

LEVEL 1 ALERT CANCELLED
MEDICAL ALERT
ALL MEDICAL PERSONNEL TO ENGINEERING
MEDICAL ALERT
SW: Captain?
ALL MEDICAL PERSONNEL TO ENGINEERING
SW: Captain, are you there?