Starwalker

Ship's log, 13:14, 30 June 2214
Location: Feras orbit, Lambda 1 system
Status: Sublight transit

I can’t believe we left them behind. Lang Lang and Cirilli, and my Wide Load. Members of my crew. The drone who is piece of me. They’re missing and I feel it, but I power on through the orbital lanes anyway. Because I’m a good ship and I have to do what’s best for all of us.

It’s almost like when Bit was blown up; one of my parts is missing. But every now and then I get an electronic bleat as if Wide Load is reaching out to me. Since I transmitted the updated orders, I’ve been too far away to pick him up properly. I can only hope that he’s able to carry out the new orders, even though I’m not there to guide him.

It’s hard not to strain my comms antennae to listen for him. It’s harder not to send a transmission burst back, just in case.

I’d swoop closer to the metal planet if I could, but we’re trying not to attract any attention right now. The captain has me weaving lazily through the orbital parking, quarter speed. Take my time, he says.

Don’t run from the wolf. It has teeth and eyes that home in on movement.

Cameron disappeared off the Bridge just after we broke away from the docking clamps. She dragged Elliott into Cargo Bay 4 with a couple of my drones, and they’ve been fiddling with my spare ordinance. She’s having Elliott adapt some of the missiles; from what I can tell, he’s recalibrating the targetting mechanisms.

I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, whistling in the dark.

But I don’t think it’s working any more.

Location: Bridge

(It’s quiet; everyone present is intently watching the read-outs on their respective consoles. Three of the crew are at stations: Rosie, the ex-pirate Laurence, and the captain.)

STARRY: (appears by the captain’s right hand, facing him and looking tense) We’re being hailed by Feras Port Authority.

CAPTAIN: (looks up at her) What do they want?

STARRY: They’re saying we forgot something. We have a delivery waiting at our dock.

CAPT: (frowns) Don’t change course.

STARRY: Not a chance in hell.

ROSIE: I thought they couldn’t want to get rid of us.

HALF-FACE: It’s our chance to come quietly.

STARRY: (stares at the captain.)

CAPT: (gazes at her grimly) Tell them no. Be evasive if you can. And let the Chief know what’s going on.

STARRY: (nods.)

The game is on. The players are all on the board and the moves have begun. We’re shuffling, angling ourselves, and so is Is-Tech. Testing each other. Probing defenses. Testing resolve.

It’s time to put our readiness to use.

Location: Cargo Bay 4

(Big Ass and his two mid-sized brothers are moving missiles around with patient whirring. Elliott is leaning over an open crate and sliding open the casing on a missile, while Cameron looks on.)

STARRY: (voice only) Chief, Feras are asking us to go back.

CAMERON: They made up some red tape to tangle us up?

STARRY: Yup.

CAMERON: They’re onto us. (She looks to Elliott.) You can handle this?

ELLIOTT: (without looking up) Yeah, because you were being so much help anyway. Go on, I’ll finish this up.

CAMERON: (nods and heads out of the cargo bay.)

External Comms

STARRY: Port Authority, your message was scrambled. Please repeat.

FERAS PORT AUTHORITY: Please return to your assigned dock, Starwalker. You have an urgent delivery waiting.

STARRY: Urgent delivery? We received all our orders before we left.

F.P.A.: You must have missed one.

STARRY: There must be some mistake. Please return the package to sender.

F.P.A.: We didn’t say it was a package…

STARRY: What else are you delivering? A baby? We’re definitely not expecting one of those.

F.P.A.: No, it’s not a baby.

STARRY: Oh, good. That would be a horrible mix-up. Babies really don’t belong in docking ports.

F.P.A.: Yes, but that’s not the point…

STARRY: Very true! You should be calling medical personnel for a delivery like that, not a starship. I don’t have facilities for child birth on board. Or children. I’m not child-proofed.

F.P.A.: There’s no child, Starwalker.

STARRY: Oh. So why are we talking about babies?

F.P.A.: We have a delivery waiting.

STARRY: Oh, a package?

F.P.A.: Yes. A package.

STARRY: We’re not expecting any packages. Sorry, Port Authority. This isn’t the ship you’re looking for.

F.P.A.: You must return to the dock immediately to sort out…

STARRY: We’re on a tight schedule here. Sorry, we simply don’t have the fuel to double-back and fix your clerical errors. Please return to sender and ask them to message us with the full details.

F.P.A.: That is not good enough. You must…

STARRY: What was that? Sorry, Port Auth–. Too mu– –terference, yo– should g– –cked, bec– we don- –ive a –it.

F.P.A.: Starwalker, what’s going on? Your message is breaking up. Starwalker? Please respond.

Let’s see how long the ‘lalala, we can’t hear you’ defense lasts.

Meanwhile, Cameron is heading back to the Bridge and Elliott is continuing his work in the cargo bay. Big Ass, Waldo and Casper are lining up the recalibrated missiles inside the airlock. I’m not sure I like where this is going.

Location: Bridge

CAMERON: (strides in, her bootheels clipping sharply against the decking) Captain, we have a new tactic to try.

CAPT: What is it?

CAMERON: We didn’t count on there being so much traffic in the system, but we can use it to our advantage.

CAPT: (frowns tensely, not liking the sound of that, but he nods at her to continue.)

CAMERON: I’ve got Monaghan recalibrating some of our spare ordinance. We can lay them in the parking zones and set them off to cover our movements. No-one will be able to follow us through that kind of chaos.

STARRY: (stares at the Chief of Security) Those are civilian vessels! Full of refugees!

CAPT: (holds a hand up to silence the ship’s avatar) Chief, she’s right.

CAMERON: (shakes her head and settles into her security station’s chair, one hand automatically gesturing to pull up the security reports) No, not targetting the vessels. Monaghan is setting the missiles to avoid any targets; they will only detonate with enough space around them to explode safely. It’s the chaos of the ships we want; not actual destruction.

CAPT: (relaxes slightly) That could work; they’ll react to the explosions even if there’s no immediate damage. Starry, what’s the status of Feras? Are they still talking to us?

STARRY: Yes, though they think we can’t hear them. I think they’re getting the idea that we don’t want to talk to them.

CAMERON: (paying more attention to her console’s readouts now) Where’s the Judiciary ship?

STARRY: No sign of it since we undocked. Its semi-regular pattern should have it on the other side of the planet right now.

CAMERON: We’re not going to have a lot of time before it comes back around. If we’re going to do this, captain, we’ll need to do it now.

HALF-FACE: (frowning at his console and tapping to focus his scan) I’ve got some ships coming this way from the planet’s polar docking ring. Starry, can you identify them?

STARRY: Adjusting sensors. They’re small, fighter-class. Too far to tell more yet.

CAPT: Coming this way?

STARRY: (frowning) Yes.

CAPT: (exchanges a look with Cameron) Then we’d better lay these charges before they get here.

Fighters. They’re tiny machines, all engines and explosives, with a pilot wedged in the middle. They’re the most manoeuvrable kind of ship there is. I count five: an entire squad, just for me.

I haven’t had to go up against one of those yet, let alone five. This should be interesting. Time to extend my wings to their fullest span.

Location: Cargo Bay 4

STARRY: (appearing beside Elliott) Captain wants to know how much longer you need.

ELLIOTT: (jumps, glancing up at her) Fuck, Starry. (He scrubs at his hair.) Uh. Couple of minutes on this one. Six ready to go. How many more d’you need?

STARRY: (pauses, looking off into space) Chief says that that should be enough. No time for more.

ELLIOTT: (blinks) Things about to get interesting?

STARRY: We’ve got fighters incoming.

ELLIOTT: (turns back to his work) Lucky we’ve got a crazy ship, then.

STARRY: (grins) Oh, they have no idea. (She disappears.)

ELLIOTT: Just try not to break yourse– (He glances up, realises that she’s not there, and shakes his head. With a sigh, he turns back to his work.)

Location: Bridge

STARRY: Chief, what kind of pattern do you want for these charges?

CAMERON: Random. As spread out as you can make them.

HALF-FACE: We don’t have a lot of time before those fighters are on us. They’re entering the far side of the parking zone.

STARRY: They’re slowing for the traffic. Not on combat approach. But he’s right.

CAPT: Then we should step it up and make the most of the time we have. Starry?

STARRY: (saluting) Laying eggs at top speed, aye aye sir.

Enough of playing nice. Enough of pretending like nothing is wrong. My boys have seven adapted missiles in the airlock on Cargo Bay 4 and the inner doors have sealed Elliott safely inside. I open the outer airlock doors and nudge myself sideways. Big Ass places a bomb in the void and it hovers in place as I move away from it. I flip over and around a freighter, dive for the lower portion of the parking zone. Another bomb tumbles out into weightlessness. Tiny spurts of its thrusters place it squarely between the closest ships. I swoop around and start working away from the fighters.

They’re still taking their time. With so many civilian vessels around, they won’t risk anything in this area. If they fire at me, they’re likely to hit someone else. They’ll try to angle me out into the open or pressure me with threats. Right now, they’re pretending to be a standard patrol squad.

They look new, like their paint is still wet, and I’m not picking up any particular markings. Not Judiciary, then; possibly fresh off the assembly line and being run in before delivery. Can’t quite tell what model they are from here; too much interference on sensors.

Cameron is looking antsy about this. We knew it might be a possibility.

Four bombs laid in place. No-one seems to care about the things I’m leaving behind; they probably think I’m just littering. It’s not like other ships don’t eject waste, even though there are edicts against it because it’s a hazard. There’ll be a cleanup drone through here soon.

But not soon enough.

CAPT: (tensely watching the hologram in the centre of the Bridge, which shows a portion of Feras’s curving side and the layout of the parking area.)

(The bulk of the projection shows regimented layers of ships, stacked neatly atop each other. Orange arrows trace the weave of the incoming fighters and little red dots pulse where the adapted missiles have been placed. The Starwalker is a bobbing green light, like a playful fairy dancing through trees.)

CAPT: Chief, has there been any sign of that backup ship yet?

CAMERON: No obvious candidates yet, sir. In this traffic, it’s going to be hard to spot. However, we might be able to identify it once we set off the charges.

CAPT: You think they’ll move to protect it?

CAMERON: (tilts her head to the side in a moderating gesture) Perhaps. If they don’t, it’ll move to protect itself. My guess is that it’ll stand out from the crowd.

CAPT: (nods) Makes sense. Starry?

STARRY: I’ll be tracking the movement on all sensors, but I’m gonna be a little busy flying once the proverbial hits the fan. Unless you can give me some parameters other than ‘weird’, I’ll need help.

CAMERON: Brasco, Laurence.

HALF-FACE: Keeping an eye out for weirdness, yes ma’am.

ROSIE: (nods.)

The captain is already thinking about the next step in our plan: locate and destroy the ship that houses Is-Tech’s off-planet backups. It must be in this system, because it docks every day or so to take the latest uploads. But its identity is a closely-guarded secret. It could be any ship from the Judiciary cruiser we’re hoping will stay out of the fight as long as possible to the old junker dragging space debris out of the parking area. If it was up to me, I’d pick the junker; being part of the scenery would be an advantage for a ship housing a secret.

If it was up to me. I’m already moving on in our plans, right along with my captain and the SecOffs who have their eyes on the next threats, as if we haven’t left people behind on the artificial planet. We have crew lost somewhere in its corridors, in its layers upon onion layers of labs, offices, workshops, storerooms, accommodations, shops, factories, testing yards, construction sites, cranes, and docks….

I’m a ship. I can’t forget; I keep them in my calculations, just in case. I might have to come back for them. I might have someone to come back for. I’m too far away to hear Wide Load but I know he’s in there somewhere, trying to carry out my orders. I’d feel if he had been deactivated. Wouldn’t I?

In the meantime, we do what we must.

STARRY: That’s the last of the charges laid, captain.

CAPT: All right, bring us around to the far side of the zone.

STARRY: Gotcha.

Off I go, as fast as I dare without alarming the ships parked around me. Putting space between me and the fighter squad. Leaving a line of red globs between us, like a trail of poisoned breadcrumbs. Follow me, I dare you. Gobble up my leavings.

They’re sliding through the traffic like tiny, toothy sharks. But it’s okay.

I’m ready for them.

Captain's log, 11:21, 30 June 2214
Location: Dock Alpha 62, Feras, Lambda 1 system
Status: Docked and powered down
Log location: Captain's cabin

Every time I open this log these days, I wonder if it’s for the last time. Things will start to happen soon and then there won’t be any time for logging, no time for reflection or consideration; just reflex and adrenaline.

I suppose it’s good to take this time while we have it. So here I am, recording yet another log, without truly knowing whether or not posterity wants it. But that is not the only reason we do it. This is our story, I suppose. The journey of our spirits through this tale, the perspective of the hearts and minds who made this path possible. As we inch towards the precipice, I hope that this log offers some indication of our true intentions, in case they lead us to hell.

We are waiting here at Feras’s dock, patiently trying not to count the time that has passed since Dr Lorena Cirilli and Lang Lang Cartier left for the project lab, deep within the metal planet. One of the ship’s drones went with them, to help hide the explosives they take with them and maybe offer some protection. So far from Starry’s influence, he might not be able to do much on his own cognizance. At the very least, the regular update bursts we get from him have helped us to track their position and progress.

It has been painfully slow. We had hoped that they would be back by now, but they’ve been gone more than a day.

It’s hard not to remember Lang Lang’s face before she left and the fear she was trying not to show. This mission isn’t at all the kind of project she signed up for and it isn’t well suited to her spirit. But she is trying anyway, because she believes in what we’re trying to achieve.

Sometimes, I think the same about Starry. She wasn’t built for battle and the things we ask of her are changing her. At the same time, I don’t think she’d have it any other way, knowing what she knows. She has evolved, and I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of her transformations. This week, she sounds different to the last, and I suspect that, given another few days, she’ll be altered again.

We are all changing now. Hardening in preparation for battle. I can only hope that our preparations have been enough.

It has been a long time since I have won a battle as a captain. Since I lost my family, I have run and I have failed in battle. Have I learned enough to bring us through this? Will I get it right this time? These are the things I ask myself when there’s no-one else to hear me. This is what I demand of myself when I look in the mirror, before I pull on the captain’s mask for the day.

Is it ever enough? We have planned and planned, run through so many scenarios, but even as unused to campaigns as I am, I know that plans evaporate as soon as the fight engages.

A part of me wishes that it would happen already, that this endless waiting would end. The rest of me knows that I’ll hate it when it arrives.

We are on track. For now, that is what matters. It took longer than anticipated for Lorena and Lang Lang to get to the lab, but they went inside the shielding of the R&D levels earlier this morning. Communications have been difficult – the R&D levels are locked down for the security of the projects they hold – but they should be at work now, placing devices and uploading the doctor’s virus into the data systems. Their last transmission was promising. We should hear from them again at any time now.

In the meantime, Feras’s Port Authority has been chewing at us to undock and clear the way for another ship. We can’t risk being delayed by docking queues when our crew need to be picked up, though, so we’ve been dancing around, making excuses for not leaving. To account for the time we need to stay here, we’ve rush-ordered some parts; Monaghan was only too happy to provide me with a list of requests. Starry was reluctant to open her cargo bays to Is-Tech’s staff, even to accept deliveries, but she obeyed when I asked her to.

As her captain, I have to wonder if–

Location: Captain's cabin

STARRY: (appears abruptly in front of the captain’s desk.)

CAPTAIN: (starts and stares at her, sitting back in his chair with surprise) Starry? How did you…

STARRY: Sorry! Wide Load just piped me an update. There’s a problem.

CAPT: (surges to his feet) What happened?

STARRY: Not sure; he didn’t have time to send many details. But I think that Cirilli and Lang Lang have been made.

CAPT: (swears softly and jogs for the door) Get them out of there.

STARRY: (drily, turning to follow him) Sure, I’ll just beam them up, shall I?

CAPT: (sends her a flat glance) What did the drone send, exactly?

STARRY: A message from Cirilli. She said that we shouldn’t wait; we should head on with our task and come back later.

CAPT: (scowls, rounding the corner and arrowing for the Bridge) That lab won’t be there later.

STARRY: Yeah, I know.

Location: Bridge

CAPT: (entering) Can you raise them on comms?

STARRY: They’re still in R&D; it’s too protected. Security filters are killing my ability to get them. I’m working to see if I can get Wide Load again, but every time we open a channel, we only have a few seconds before the watchdogs close it down.

CAPT: (swinging into his seat) How long between channel openings?

STARRY: Minutes, potentially. Elliott’s bringing up a shifting algorithm, see if we can slip away from their grip, but I can’t guarantee we’ll have more than twenty seconds once I get a connection.

(Cameron and Rosie jog in from either door at the rear of the Bridge, making for their usual stations. SecOff Laurence is only a few steps behind them, his metal legs hissing as he hurries to a console.)

CAPT: And it’s the same as all of our comms so far? Assume someone’s listening?

STARRY: (shrugs, taking up her usual position near the captain’s right side) I think we have to.

CAPT: Delivery status?

STARRY: Latest batch completed delivery in Cargo Bay 3 a few minutes ago. Big Ass is stacking it away.

CAPT: Close up the–

STARRY: –airlocks? Yes, already on it. Closed up, ready to seal when we’ve got clearance.

CAPT: Good work.

STARRY: (smiles abruptly at the praise. Then she blinks and gestures to the hologram forming in the centre of the room.) Comms coming up. I have Cirilli. Twenty seconds only, captain.

CAPT: (nods as Dr Cirilli’s heads and shoulders resolves before him) Doctor?

CIRILLI: (over comms) I won’t make it back like we had planned, John. I have to stay to make sure the project comes to its rightful end.

CAPT: (sitting up straight) Lorena, you can’t–

CIRILLI: There’s no choice. If I don’t stay, we can’t be sure it’ll go the way we need it to.

CAPT: You’ve been compromised?

CIRILLI: Yes, and–

CAPT: So get out of there.

CIRILLI: I can’t, John, you know that. We have to make sure this ends. I can finish what we set out to do here, but I have to seal the lab.

CAPT: Lorena, don’t do this.

CIRILLI: I have to. And you have to go. You have to disengage before they put a lock on the ship. They haven’t made a move yet, you still have time.

CAPT: Leaving people behind was not the plan. I’m ordering you to get back here.

CIRILLI: (looks at him sadly) I was always the head of this project before I was a part of your crew. I’m sorry, John, but no. There’s no other way. They’ve done more work here than we knew. It’s the only way to be su–

(The hologram flickers and disappears.)

CAPT: (shooting to his feet) Get her back!

STARRY: Searching for a channel. They’re going to trace us if I keep doing this.

CAPT: How the hell did this happened? Chief?

CAMERON: (looks up at him and shakes her head) They could have figured it out a number of ways, captain. We knew this was a risk.

CAPT: (scowls at his Chief of Security, though he doesn’t seem to be blaming her) Starry, get them back on comms. I don’t care what you have to do. (He hesitates, then sinks into his seat grimly.) At the same time, request clearance to undock.

STARRY: (eyes widening) But how are they going to get back to us?

CAPT: (darkly) We have to assume they can’t, whether we’re here or not.

STARRY: (nods numbly) Requesting clearance.

CAPT: Cancel the comms line. Connect only with the drone.

STARRY: Data only? Okay, adjusting the channel search.

CAPT: Then adjust the parameters of his mission. Tell him to get Lang Lang out of there and back to us.

STARRY: But Cirilli…

CAPT: (looks at the ship’s avatar and her voice trails off, as if the answer to her question is right there between them) Just do it, Starry.

STARRY: (nods) Yes, sir. We’re cleared for undocking; they’re quite happy to rush us out of here. Do you still want us to disconnect?

CAPT: Yes. Get us out of here.

STARRY: Going through exit protocols now. I’ll take us back to standard orbit.

CAPT: Chief, get the next part of the plan lined up.

CAMERON: On it, sir.

CAPT: And someone figure out what she meant by them having done more work here. If there are more parts to this project than we’ve accounted for, we’d better find them, and fast.

CAMERON: Brasco, Laurence, get on the data feeds. I want to know everything about the comms traffic on the colony since our crewmembers went into R&D.

ROSIE: (punches at her console controls tensely) Yes, ma’am.

HALF-FACE: (nods.)

STARRY: We’re clear, sir. Coming around to standard exit vectors.

CAPT: Any problems yet?

STARRY: Nothing from Feras. They’re busy aligning the next ship for our docking space. If Cirilli really was compromised, they haven’t been able to track her back to us.

CAPT: (muttering) Too busy with the refugees.

CAMERON: (without looking up from her console) Red tape has its uses. It could buy our people enough time to get out.

CAPT: One of our people, yes.

CAMERON: (glances up at the captain, but opts to say nothing.)

CAPT: Starry, did you contact the drone yet?

STARRY: Still searching for an unblocked channel. I’m slowing to half-speed; if we get much further away, I won’t be able to reach him.

CAPT: Get it done.

STARRY: As fast as I can, sir.

CAPT: (scowls at the floor for a moment, then pushes himself out of the captain’s chair) Good. Send the doctor the log of the conversation with Lorena and tell him I’m on my way.

STARRY: Done.

CAPT: (turns on his heel and stalks off the Bridge. Long strides carry him down the starboard access corridor, and he drops down to where Med Bay nestles in the centre of the ship.)

Location: Med Bay

DR SOCKS: (looks up from his desk, where a small version of the comms discussion is playing. At the sight of the oncoming captain, he waves the recording into a pause, leaving Dr Cirilli’s calm, determined face hovering in the air.)

CAPT: (stops in front of the desk and leans over it towards the smaller man, bracing his hands on the surface. Cirilli’s face almost bumps his chest.) Tell me you didn’t know she was going to do this.

DR SOCKS: (meets the captain’s angry gaze levelly) Do you want the truth, or should I lie?

CAPT: I’m not kidding around here, doctor. Did you know?

DR SOCKS: The truth, then. I think we all knew. (He raises an eyebrow.) Didn’t we?

CAPT: (glares at the young doctor, then lets his head drop. His long hair sifts forward over his shoulders, creating a curtain around the little projection.)

DR SOCKS: (opens his mouth to say something, but the image of Cirilli’s face catches his eye and he closes his lips again.)

CAPT: (lifts his head enough to see the doctor’s face) You’re supposed to inform me of anything like this.

DR SOCKS: I’m supposed to inform you of anything I notice that might impede our mission or the future well-being of the ship.

CAPT: (stares at him, briefly stunned into speechlessness.)

DR SOCKS: (meets that stare without flinching, showing neither guilt nor remorse.)

CAPT: (pushes himself up off the doctor’s desk, ice sliding into his voice) Don’t ever withhold something like this from me again.

DR SOCKS: (inclines his head in acknowledgement. His gaze flickers to the captain’s hands and back up again.)

CAPT: (turns his back on the doctor and strides out of Med Bay. He pauses at the corner of the corridor and pinches the bridge of his nose, struggling to control his breathing. His chest rises and falls carefully, then he shakes his hair back and straightens his shoulders. He glances at his hands, as if wondering what the doctor had noticed, and frowns at the little green light pulsing above his left wrist. Turning for the Bridge again, he flicks a finger over it.)

End log.

Ship's log, 20:16, 28 June 2214
Location: Feras orbit, Lambda 1 system
Status: Docking approach

On the outside, I move serenely, sweeping around to docking bay Alpha 62. They’re squeezing me in between a freighter and another scout-class, the clamps extending at an awkward angle to account for the bigger ship’s bulk.

I should be enjoying this. Manoeuvering myself around to slip into the scout-sized gap, lining myself up to the open mouths with just a little flare, and sliding in for the softest kiss because I’m just that good at what I do.

Today, there’s no flare. There’s no jaunty little wiggle of my tail-fins. There’s no last-minute decelleration to taunt those who are monitoring me and fearing that I’ll miss the mark. Today’s not a day for games or fun. I’m behaving. I’m running the numbers and landing with AI precision.

Not only because I have to: I’m just not in the mood to take this lightly. In this position, Danika might have grinned hard and played her games anyway, too proud to compromise who she was for the circumstances, but I’m not her. I’m responsible for my crew and my mission, and I’m too proud to let myself compromise that. I report my progress to the Port Authority with rote precision. I mix in with the morass of landing ships. I lift my chin but I don’t stand out from the crowd.

Inside, I am not so calm. My scenario predictors are scrambling over the numbers as fast as I can stuff them in. Calculations and re-calculations. Checks and double-checks. If I had a need to breathe, I’d be breathless right now, pulse hammering at me like my power couplings were threatening to overload.

Smile. Calm. Try not to be infected by the tension skittering deep in my ducts on dustbunny claws, or hurrying around on my decks on heavy boots, metal tracks, and light ship-shoes. I track them all without effort – I’m built to track multiple targets both inside and outside my hull – but it’s still hard to keep up. Focus, Starry. Fold wings in tight and come around 180 degrees to present the correct side to the docking bay. Cut engines, thrusters only. Five minutes.

Location: Docking bay 3

(Three crewmembers are gathered near the inner airlock doors. Wide Load squats before them, holding a large briefcase on two of his hands. Dr Cirilli is looking over the contents while Lang Lang stands by, looking worried. The navigator is generally trying to avoid looking into the briefcase at the neat rows of explosives. She swallows and smoothes her already-neat hair back into her ponytail.

Cameron is speaking to Cirilli, gesturing to the devices in the briefcase.)

CAMERON: …and then you’ll have time to get back to the docking bay to meet us. Just stay in contact so we can coordinate.

CIRILLI: (touches a device thoughtfully and looks over the row as if she’s counting them, possibly calculating where they’ll go. Ten in total.) I understand. It may take some time to get to where we need to be.

CAMERON: (nods her understanding) We don’t know what red tape you’ll need to get through first.

CIRILLI: Exactly. They’ll have questions.

CAMERON: You know what you’ll tell them? (She looks meaningfully at Lang Lang.)

LANG LANG: (feels the Chief’s gaze on her and glances up) Yes, ma’am. We know the line to take.

CIRILLI: (confidently) They’ll want to see the data. They’ll let us in to where we tell them.

CAMERON: Good. And their own security protocols will stop them from peeking inside that case until you’re where you need to be.

CAPTAIN: (striding into the cargo bay) Chief, everything in order here?

CAMERON: (turning to face him) Yes, captain.

CAPT: Are you both ready to go?

CIRILLI: (nods crisply and closes the case with calm, deliberate motions. The fastenings engage with a snick.)

LANG LANG: (doesn’t look anywhere near as cool and collected as Cirilli when she nods.)

CAPT: (to the navigator) It’s not too late to back out, if you don’t feel you can do this.

LANG LANG: (looks up at him with wide eyes) I know, but I am going. You and Chief Cameron are right: there will be less suspicion if there is two of us from the project in attendance. I am… not well practised at this sort of work. (She swallows, then makes a visible effort to pull her shoulders straight.) I’ll do my best. For the stars.

CAPT: (squeezes her shoulder) Thank you, Lang Lang. (He looks to Cirilli.) Lorena, a moment, if you please?

CIRILLI: (hesitates, then nods and steps aside with the captain.)

CAMERON: (to Lang Lang) You’ll do just fine. Remember that the precision we require is for their good, not ours. If you can get to the labs, there will be minimal casualties.

LANG LANG: I know. I was raised not to lie, Chief Cameron. My family believes in honour.

CAMERON: Right now, honour dictates a higher calling than any contracts we signed.

LANG LANG: (glancing at the case and murmuring) For the stars. I believe in that, too.

CAMERON: (nods.)

Sometimes, I think that Lang Lang is the most moral of all of us. She struggles with this more deeply than the rest. But she still didn’t hesitate to volunteer to go along with Cirilli to the central labs. She knows that it will be more legitimate if there’s two of them, less suspicious, and they are the only two left of the original science team.

I worry about her, but strangely, not about her strength. She’s showing her nerves but her biometrics don’t suggest that she’s panicking inside. She’s not walking a knife edge; she just doesn’t like this and she’s not confident of being able to pull it off. She’s like a new recruit before her first battle, except… I get the feeling that she’s had a battle like this before. On the inside, in a different realm, but a battle just the same. That mantra of hers – ‘for the stars’ – is not new to her tongue; I just hadn’t heard it before this endeavour of ours began.

It’s too late to ask. It’s too late for life stories. But it’s not too late to wonder about the people I have under my charge and be grateful for them.

And then there’s Cirilli. I wonder about her, too. The quiet, calm determination of hers looks like the professional demeanour she had when she was conducting the experiments with me. But now there’s a sheen of ice underneath it: there’s no glimmer of excitement within, no spark of hope. It’s just cold inevitability holding her up and I can’t tell what’s beyond that.

The captain senses it, too. He’s having a quiet word with her, trying to reach her. She looks at him but she doesn’t let him see her. Even his warmth doesn’t thaw her, though they matter to each other. He’s trying to ground her, to let out the thread of his affection in the hope that it gives her something to hold onto.

She’s kissing him on the cheek. For a moment, it seems that he has managed to touch her. There’s a glimmer of orange in her icy blue. That slender, glimmering thread between them shimmers on the air.

Then she steps back and lets him go. Suddenly, it feels like goodbye.

It shouldn’t be. That’s not the plan. They’re supposed to go in there, do what they need to do to destroy the project, and get out. There’s a plan to get them out again. No-one should even suspect them until they’re back and we’re gone.

I can’t tell if she’s protecting herself or my captain. But I guess… I guess there’s a chance that this really is goodbye. I just don’t want to admit it.

CIRILLI: (moving back to where Wide Load still holds the case.)

STARRY: (materialising beside the captain, quietly) Two minutes until we’re docked, captain.

CAPT: (lifts his head and takes a breath, gathering himself. He nods.) Thank you, Starry.

For a moment there, he was a man. Now he’s my captain again. He’s what we all need him to be. I wish I could touch his hand and let him know that it’s okay for him to be a man, too.

CIRILLI: (frowning at the heavy drone) I said, let it go.

WIDE LOAD: (hands clamped around the briefcase, he is unmoved by the scientist tugging on the handle. His head tilts and he rises on his leg-struts until he’s towering over the woman before him. His free arms reach out and around the case, hands spinning to reveal the new tasers built into them. Panels flick open on his neck and the muzzles of laser emitters snick out. His hands spark warningly.)

CIRILLI: (lets go of the case and takes a hurried step back) John!

CAPT: (striding over) Starry! What–

WIDE LOAD: (retracts his weapons and lowers his bulk down, looking like a regular maintenance drone again. He locks the briefcase’s lid, then holds it against his chest.)

CAPT: –the hell is he doing?

STARRY: (half a pace behind the captain, she’s gazing curious at her drone) I… I think he…

WIDE LOAD: (turns his head to look at the ship’s avatar. A panel in his lower storage section opens and he puts the case inside, locking it within his own body. He folds a pair of arms over the panel, adding another layer of protection.)

CIRILLI: We need that case.

WIDE LOAD: (nods at the scientist. He moves forward and his free hands reach out, one to Lang Lang’s shoulder and one to Cirilli’s. Both women stare at him, nonplussed, as he clamps metal fingers lightly onto them. Then he lets them go, turns his bulk around, and trundles to the airlock. He stops a centimetre away from the doors and settles there, staring at the panel.)

CAPT: Starry?

STARRY: (with a faint smile) He’s going with you.

CIRILLI: What?

CAPT: (to the avatar) That’s not the plan.

STARRY: (shrugging, still staring at the drone) He wants to help. He wants to protect you.

CIRILLI: He just threatened me!

STARRY: It was a demonstration, not a threat. He would never hurt you. He’s armed now; he was showing you that he can protect you and the package.

CAMERON: (calmly) Can he even do that, without his connection to you?

STARRY: (moving over to the drone’s side) I can lock in the protocols. And I can communicate with him over a limited distance; he’s built to be my hands on the ground, for loading and external repairs. He could be useful to stay in touch, in case local comms are compromised.

WIDE LOAD: (turns his head to look at the avatar and nods solemnly. He nudges a centimetre forward and his front tracks touch the airlock doors.)

STARRY: (glancing towards her crew) He really wants to do this.

CAPT: (frowns in thought.)

CIRILLI: But how would I explain him?

CAMERON: Security measure. For the project data.

LANG LANG: (walks up to the drone’s side, next to the ship’s avatar) And for us. With all the refugees around.

WIDE LOAD: (puts a hand on her shoulder again.)

CIRILLI: (looks unhappy) You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier? (It’s not clear who she’s addressing.)

STARRY: My drones aren’t supposed to leave me for extended periods of time. Or… as security measures.

CAMERON: We armed them for a reason.

(A tense silence falls.)

STARRY: Captain, we’re docking. Clamps are engaging. Thirty seconds until the seal is locked.

CAPT: You’re sure this will work?

STARRY: (nods.)

No, I’m not sure. And I don’t want to let one of my boys off my decks. But I don’t want to let Cirilli and Lang Lang go, either. I wish I could go with them. I want to keep them safe.

I can’t tell if Wide Load is doing this on his own or for me. He’s my hands, my strongest arms. He’s my solid reliability. This is one way I can go with them. He doesn’t ask for much, but he’s asking for this. His calculations show that he can be an asset here and I can’t fault his maths.

My boy. My people.

Docking clamps engaged
Sublight engines offline
FTL drive offline
Thrusters offline
Weapons offline

I can’t protect them now. It’s up to them.

CAPT: All right, he goes. Starry, keep an eye on them.

STARRY: Yes, sir.

CIRILLI: (steps up on the other side of the drone, nodding coolly.)

WIDE LOAD: (releases Lang Lang again and faces the airlock doors.)

Docking seal engaged
Artificial gravity equalising
Pressure equalising
Atmosphere balancing
Docking seal locked

STARRY: (looking at all of them) Come back to us. (The avatar dissolves, light motes shattering in the air.)

(Both sets of airlock doors swish open.)

CIRILLI: (gives the captain one last look, then forges forward through the airlock and into the docking tube.)

LANG LANG: (follows hurriedly.)

WIDE LOAD: (brings up the rear with metal patience and a reliable trundling.)

Come back to me.

Ship's log, 19:45, 28 June 2214
Location: Approaching Feras orbit, Lambda 1 system
Status: Sublight transit

This system is thick with ships. I thought there were a lot the last time I was here, but that was nothing compared to this. The beacons are bleating constantly, trying to guide ships into the correct orbital parking zones so the colony’s Port Authority can coordinate dockings. The refugee ships are clogging up most of the area, but regular deliveries have their own dedicated zones. On Feras, brand new ships are rolling off the line and sailing serenely away from the morass, hulls gleaming and engines burning a bright, fresh blue-white. Empty refugee carriers limp away, less shiny but with a note of relief all the same. A Judiciary ship patrols around the outer reaches of the orbits, its steady gaze waiting for something to happen.

Cameron was pleased by the traffic in the system. She says it’ll help give us cover; they won’t be looking too closely at any one ship with so many to worry about. We’ll just be part of the group, unremarkable. My new ident will see to that.

Sure, I’ve still got the filaments threading over my hull, and anyone who looks out of a window at me might notice that it’s non-standard for a scout class. But who does that these days? And there’s no way they can tell what weapons I’ve got hiding under my skin, not without a deep scan and why would anyone bother? With so many ships and people to process?

I feel like a barracuda in a school of minnows, and no-one has noticed my teeth yet.

On the inside, I’m walking around with a secret, too. I keep expecting someone to look at me and know. It feels like it must be painted all over my avatar, but I guess it’s not as obvious as it seems it should be. Or maybe my crew is like everyone else in this system: too distracted by the business at hand to notice little old me. I can understand that and, if I’m honest, I’m relieved.

I’m still figuring out what last night means. What it should mean. What it could mean. Every time I think about it, I get all giddy inside and it takes a stern conscious effort to stop my avatar smiling.

Elliott. Twining with me in our dark little room, shut away from everyone and everything else. I have to keep checking my personal logs to make sure it really happened. But it did; it happened, we happened.

Recording: 0:15, 28 June 2214
Log location: Internal ship's systems, Node 1294-ZZ8 (shielded)

ELLIOTT: (lying on his back on the bed, he gazes up at the shadowy ceiling. One wrist rests on his forehead as he catches his breath.)

STARRY: (lies beside him, also looking up, one hand holding onto the dark burgundy sheet that covers them.)

ELLIOTT: (scrubs at his hair and turns his head to look at the girl next to him) You all right?

STARRY: (glances over and a smile spreads across her face) Yeah. You?

ELLIOTT: (with a shy smile) Yeah.

STARRY: (rolls onto her side and slides her arm across Elliott, snuggling into his side.)

ELLIOTT: (wraps an arm around her and rests his cheek against the top of her head.)

STARRY: (sighs softly and is content to rest there for a couple of minutes. When the silence stretches beyond that, she shifts so she can see his face.)

ELLIOTT: (has his eyes closed.)

STARRY: (gently) Elliott, you can’t sleep in here.

ELLIOTT: (without opening his eyes) I know. Shhh.

STARRY: (reaching up to touch his cheek) But…

ELLIOTT: (grumbles unintelligibly and hugs her tighter.)

STARRY: (whispering) All right. Just until you fall asleep.

I probably shouldn’t have let him do it. The unconscious requires delicate handling when jacked into an external system and sometimes the results are unpredictable. After what Tripi did to him, I’m surprised he would risk it, but he didn’t want to leave and I couldn’t bring myself to make him. So I stayed with him until he went all heavy and quiet, wrapped in our secret. When he was asleep, I let the walls down and carried him to the access point, and slid him back into his body as gently as I could. He barely murmured in his sleep and he slept six hours straight; the longest stretch he’s had for a while.

I don’t have the luxury of sleep or dreaming. Returned to my systems, I had scenarios to calculate and possibilities to predict. It was an effort not to put our data into the calculations to see what logic says about us. I don’t want to know. We’re not about logic; this part of me defies AI strictures. And I’m not ready to spoil it yet. I want to hold onto the bright, stolen time of ours and not think too much about what might come next for us.

I had enough time and wondering to get nervous, though. To wonder what perspective the morning might bring. The threshold of Lambda 1’s system was fast approaching, the binary star’s twinned light growing brighter in my sensors and bringing with it the morning I was starting to dread.

Recording: 07:35, 28 June 2214
Log location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (wandering in from his quarters, he stretches into a fresh (if randomly stained) shipsuit, yawns, and shakes his head. Shower-wet hair flops onto his forehead.) Latest diagnostics? (A holographic display ripples into life above the counter to his left and he turns to frown at it.)

STARRY: (coalescing a pace to his right) Everything’s green. Nothing to report.

ELLIOTT: (fastening his shipsuit up halfway, he nods, still looking over the data. He reaches for his toolbelt and slings it around his hips, where it settles with familiarity.) Good, good. (He glances at the avatar and a smile tugs at his mouth.)

STARRY: (smiles back at him shyly) Hi.

ELLIOTT: Hi.

STARRY: (jerks a thumb over her shoulder) Breakfast’s on its way.

(Behind her, the soft noise of Waldo’s tracks can be heard in the corridor leading to Engineering.)

ELLIOTT: Oh, good, thanks. I was just thinking I was kinda hungry.

STARRY: (shrugs) I’m a full-service ship.

ELLIOTT: (glances at her again, looking as if he’s about to say something. He changes his mind, though, and grins at the buckle of his toolbelt instead.)

STARRY: (smile kindling) Stop it. That’s not what I meant.

ELLIOTT: Uh-huh.

STARRY: I’ll make Waldo turn around and take your food away.

ELLIOTT: No you won’t.

STARRY: No. But you’d deserve it if I did.

ELLIOTT: Probably.

STARRY: (sighs as Waldo trundles into the room behind her) The things I do to make sure you eat.

ELLIOTT: Oh, is that what it was, huh?

STARRY: Absolutely.

WALDO: (pauses when he reaches them, looking from ship to engineer and back again. He shakes his head and reaches past them to put down the tray of hot food: bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, and some reconstituted red beans that used to resemble ‘baked’, along with a glass of what might be loosely called orange juice. The tray clangs on the counter with just a little more force than is necessary. Then the drone turns and whisks himself away again.)

ELLIOTT: (glances at the drone, then rubs the back of his neck, grinning at Starry.)

STARRY: (smiles back, blushing, and disappears.)

Shortly after that, we passed into Lamba 1’s system and it was time to get down to serious business. We’ve been crossing the system all day, caught up in this stream of traffic. Taking our time so we don’t stand out. I’ve been ticking through the routine stuff as calmly as I can, trying not to betray any of the nerves that pluck at me. Will someone notice something off about me? Will the captain pick up on what happened last night? Will the Judiciary ship recognise me despite my shiny new ident? Will someone ask me a question I don’t know how to answer?

Secrets, so many secrets. But I have to keep them all, for all of our sakes. I can’t betray my purpose here until the last possible moment. We’re not even going to fix the star until the rest of it’s done, because that would only give away what I can do and who I really am.

I don’t want the crew to know about last night. Not yet. It’s ours: mine and Elliott’s. We’re still figuring this thing out. He’s very private and I’d like it to stay that way, too. I guess we’re alike that way.

Besides, it would be a distraction right now, and we don’t need any more of those. My crew needs to focus on the task at hand and so do I. It’s not going to happen again soon; we can’t afford to do it here. We had our chance and we took it.

I was afraid I might regret it. But I don’t. If it never happens again, I won’t regret it.

From my nose to my tailfins, my crew are working to make this plan of ours work. They have been at their posts all day, tensely watching the sensor feeds, waiting for an alarm to go up. The alarm hasn’t come. I slide innocuously into the queue for the delivery docks.

I know what I need to do now. Even if I fall with the rest of this project, I’ll know it was worth it. I’ll know I was loved, even if it was just for one night, and I’ll do my best to live up to it.

I have to be smart, sneaky, and strong. I have to protect my crew. I have to be the best ship that I can be.

External communications line

FERAS PORT AUTHORITY: Starwalker, you are cleared to dock. Please proceed to docking bay Alpha 62.

STARWALKER: Acknowledged, Port Authority. Proceeding.

Location: Bridge

STARRY: (standing on the right side of the captain’s chair) Captain, we are coming around to dock.

CAPTAIN: (sits up straighter and waves away the display hovering in front of him) Lorena, Lang Lang, Chief, are you ready?

CIRILLI: (rising from her seat on the Bridge) Yes. (She turns on her heel and strides off the Bridge.)

LANG LANG: (nods and hurries after Cirlli.)

CAMERON: (rises as well and watches the scientist go) Starry, how long have we got?

STARRY: Traffic’s pretty heavy and they had us parked some distance back. Half an hour to get in and docked, I think.

CAMERON: (nods and follows Cirilli’s footsteps.)

Half an hour until we’re docked. Then our secrets won’t matter any more.

I know what I need to do. I’ll fight and I’ll win, and I’ll keep them all safe. If a ship can feel love, she can do anything.

(Cross-posted from my writing blog.)

It’s no secret that I adore my readers. It is in part because of how much time they spend on my work, and today I’m delighted to share some of their effort with you.

Thanks to one of my lovely readers, Francisco, Starwalker has joined the illustrious maze of information on TV Tropes. Starwalker has its own page and a bunch of links to the tropes that it features (and lots of spoilers, but it’s okay, they’re hidden behind spoiler filters).

It’s so exciting! It’s like seeing my story on someone’s bookshelf, like it is becoming a legitimate piece of (webby) literature. It feels like a step towards Making It.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Starwalker also has its own wiki! The wonderful Lianamir set this up and seeded it with information. (I meant to share this aaaaaages ago when Lianamir first shared it with me – and I thought I had – but apparently it slipped past my mental radar. Sorry, Lianamir! I’m late but I get there eventually.)

Everyone now needs to go check these things out and update them with all the fun info and links that you think are relevant. Enjoy!

Big thanks to Francisco and Lianamir.

I shall now return to my corner and squee quietly to myself, while petting the internet. It loves me too.

Ship's log, 22:19, 27 June 2214
Location: JOP to Feras FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

I feel like I’ve been out of the universe for an age, as if I’m disconnected from the bigger issues driving the world around me. Normally, it would be rare to be within sensor range of another ship in an FTL corridor but these aren’t normal times. Right now, I can see four ships without even trying, and another dozen on my longer-range sensors. Space is alive with chatter as ships exchange gossip and coordinate jumps so no-one runs into anyone else.

They’re all refugee ships. Some have come all the way from Earth; others are ferrying people out of the JOP’s processing centres. Tankers and couriers and repurposed cargo pods, crammed full of souls who need a new home.

We’re one jump away from Feras now. A few hours, half a day at most. Perhaps it’s fitting to have such a reminder around us, considering what lies ahead. These people are why we’re doing this. This kind of disaster is why we’re doing this.

This is one of those things we must atone for.

I’ve kept quiet in all the talk going on around me. When we left the JOP’s region, I said I was carrying refugees too and they accepted it without question. Since then, they haven’t noticed that I’m not jumping in on the conversations except to report the timing of my jumps.

There’s enough going on inside my hull to keep me busy anyway. The Lieutenant has been familiarising himself with my weapons systems. The captain and my SecOffs have been running through plans and scenarios, often with Cirilli and the doctor looking on. Elliott has run more tests and diagnostics than I can keep in active memory at the same time.

Lang Lang has been writing letters. I don’t know who they’re addressed to; I’ll only see when she asks me to transmit them for her. Yesterday, one of them made her cry. There was no-one else around, so Waldo took her a tissue and patted her shoulder. She seemed to appreciate it.

Just a few hours until we reach Feras and our work begins. My crew should be getting what rest they can. But they’re not; they feel the approaching threshold too much. No-one is likely to sleep soon, so the captain and I decided to divert them instead. This afternoon, I had my big fellas move all the tables out of the way in the Mess Hall and set up a bunch of holographic games. The dancing one got most of the crew on their feet – even the Lieutenant had a stomp in time.

I hadn’t realised how little laughter there has been on my decks until tonight. Now there they are, poking fun at each other, making comments and jokes. A couple of them are leaning on my alcohol supplies but that’s all right; Rosie seems more inclined to play the games than start a fight. It’s possible that I shouldn’t suggest karaoke, though, just in case.

The doctor is looking restless, like he’s thinking about dragging the Lieutenant away for a quick fuck. As if earlier in the Galley wasn’t enough; I had to put on sound dampeners so the rest of the crew didn’t hear them. He’s not usually so obvious about it; I guess he’s feeling the tension more than he would like us to believe.

The others are getting quieter. Energy waning, drugs weighing heavier. I’ll put on an entertainment vid soon, let them settle down in comfy chairs. They can spend some time together: relaxing, being, breathing. It’s nice to see them like that, like a crew should be.

Elliott still isn’t back at the party. He should be enjoying himself with the others. He went to the head a little while ago; I wonder where he got to… huh. He’s in Engineering, climbing into the immersion couch, clumsy with drink.

Location: Internal ship's systems, Node 1294-HR2

ELLIOTT: (appears and blinks at the system-scape around him, swaying just a tiny bit.)

(As he watches, it forms itself into shapes he can comprehend: buildings rise out of the ground on either side of him, housing processing nodes; rivers of light flow under the surface, as if the world is made of molten glass. Above, the sky is a burnt pink hue that swirls in wide, sweeping motions.)

ELLIOTT: Starry?

STARRY: (coalesces beside him, looking nonplussed) I’m here, Elliott. Is everything all right?

ELLIOTT: (turns to face her with a relieved smile) There you are! Sure, sure, everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be? (His eyes narrow before she can answer.) Is something broken?

STARRY: (laughs and shakes her head) No, nothing’s broken. What brings you in here? You should be at the party.

ELLIOTT: (shrugs and loops an arm around the ship’s avatar, tugging her closer) So should you.

STARRY: (sliding an arm around his shoulders) I’m there.

ELLIOTT: Not properly. (His free hand brushes her cheek.) Should have had it in here. Then you could join in with the rest of us.

STARRY: (blushing) I don’t have enough immersion couches for that.

ELLIOTT: (grins crookedly) Their loss. (He leans in to kiss her.)

STARRY: (melts into it without hesitation.)

He was laughing and joining in with the games, and he gave that up to come in to see me. He wanted to be with me, too. I don’t know why this still surprises me, but it does. It makes me want to catch the breath I don’t have. He came in to see me.

ELLIOTT: (sighs softly as the kiss parts, then gives the ship a curious look. He brushes hair away from her face.) What does this feel like to you?

STARRY: (blinks) I… it’s hard to describe.

His kisses make me feel like my pulse is racing, even though I don’t have one. Dustbunnies shuffling in my ducts; flutters in my electrical signals; a flurry in my possibility calculations: I feel all of these. And yet that’s only a part of it.

He’s waiting for me to continue. I don’t know how to put this into words for him.

STARRY: I use the avatar simulation algorithms. The one that creates the sensations from your avatar and sends them back to you in the couch. (She splays a hand on his chest by way of demonstration.) So I feel… I have the same data that you do, that anyone does.

ELLIOTT: (looks down at her hand then back to her face) But?

STARRY: It doesn’t always map to my senses the same way it does for you.

ELLIOTT: Because you don’t have a human body.

STARRY: Yes. I remember having one. I remember what it feels like, what it means, so… (She shakes her head slowly.) How do you know if it feels the way it’s supposed to?

ELLIOTT: (frowns at her thoughtfully, watching the rub of his thumb down the line of her jaw) Do you wish you had a human body?

STARRY: No. I’m a ship.

ELLIOTT: (falls quiet.)

Did I give him the wrong answer? I can’t lie to him. What is it he’s looking for?

I’m a ship. I’m hull and air ducts and the decks under his feet. I’m the air he breathes and the weapons that protect him. I’m the drones that hand him his tools and the engines that punch us through light years of empty space. I’m the light that falls on him every day and the gravity that keeps his feet pointing down. It’s what I am and I’m happy with that.

I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t be a real girl.

But in here, are we so different?

What is he looking for? He’s drunk and he kissed me.

Somewhere in me, there’s a processor that already knows the answer. But the rest of my logic denies it, pushes it aside. Junk data, flush it away.

I feel it, though. Can I deny what I feel?

STARRY: (touches Elliott’s cheek gently, shifting a little closer) You should rest. While we can.

ELLIOTT: (hand tightening in the small of her back, bunching her shipsuit in his fist) Before the shit hits the fan again.

STARRY: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: (looking her directly in the eye) Don’t feel much like resting.

Oh god. It feels like someone’s fiddling with the artificial gravity on mid-deck. Stomach flipping over.

I don’t know what to do. He’s looking at me and I know I should do something or say something or… what? All I can manage is to stare at him like a stunned guppy.

Kiss him, you stupid ship. Before the shit hits the fan. Before we go into battle. While we have this chance. We might not get another one; I might lose him this time, really lose him, along with everyone else I’m carrying, though I’ll be trying to keep them safe even while we fly at so many other ships with guns and I won’t be able to save them all, but Elliott, my Elliott, he might never be able to hold me like this again and he has no idea how much stronger he makes me feel, because he hugs me and lets me lean on him, he makes me so much more than just a ship and yet that’s all I am, and I don’t make sense but he doesn’t seem to mind that, and he’s looking at me like none of it matters, there’s just us here and this time before our lives go crazy and someone tries to kill us again, and… he’s still waiting for me to do something.

I close my eyes. I breathe without breath and put my ship-self on automatic. Flying straight, all systems ticking over. FTL drive on recharge. Comm traffic being recorded. Entertainment vid will play until it’s done. An emergency will still reach me – I haven’t disabled the failsafes – but I’m not needed right now. I can take a little time to myself. I can have this much. I can hold him, here, now.

I pull walls up around our avatars and roll a ceiling across the top. I shut out the light from the sky and the shifting colours of the data streams below us. Dark walls, soft glows in the corners, and it’s just us here.

I look at him and he seems to understand. I can feel his heart thundering through his shipsuit; his avatar betrays all of his body’s reactions. He seems nervous but he’s pulling me towards him anyway. He’s drunk enough to be brave. I wish I was drunk.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like my heart is racing and the rest of me is struggling to keep up. He’s leaning close but he looks so defensive, as if he’s afraid I might hurt him. I’m afraid I might, too. But he’s right here and all I want to do is hold onto him.

So I kiss him.

It’s different this time. My processors are trying to quantify the change but I don’t care what or why; it’s good and he’s folding me in close where it’s warm, and I’m not often warm. Not with the icy press of space on my hull or the burn of a star too close; I’m never just warm like this. Heating on the inside.

His hand is on the fastening on my shipsuit jacket. I have no idea if the fastening even works on my avatar self, but… yes, apparently it does. It comes undone, and there’s a little vest underneath, and skin under that. I never gave it much thought before, but now it’s all I can think about: skin and Elliott, and the way he’s kissing me.

Hungry. I’m never hungry. I have fuel cells that’ll keep going for years, giving me all the power and energy I need. But I’m craving: the more he kisses me, the more I want. It scares me, this feeling, this need, because I don’t want to mess it up. I’d do anything to not ruin this.

Because I don’t want it to stop.

Elliott.

Privacy on.

Ship's log, 16:32, 15 June 2214
Location: Beta Apodis to Alpha Centauri FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

Tick another fixed star off my list: Alpha Apodis is healed and settled down again. We only Stepped in and out of it once, fairly recently, so it was much easier to soothe her patterns than the other stars. I’m running short on heat-reflective paint again but I’m all patched up and running fine.

The only one we have left now is the primary star of Lambda 1: the star that shines on Feras. Our goal, our enemy. The last point in this journey of ours.

It won’t be the end of our journey, though, not if I have anything to say about it.

Things have been quiet over the past couple of weeks. I’m geared up and powering on, and my crew are doing the same. We’re almost back to Alpha Centauri; to the place where a colony lived and died and fell from our memories. The crossroads of old, forgotten FTL corridors. From there, Lang Lang has plotted a course through the back corridors to the JOP, and then we’ll take the usual FTL route to Lambda 1. We’ll sneak into Feras’s orbit in the midst of all the other ships heading that way; Is-Tech will never know we’re there.

But first, the captain has called the crew together onto the Bridge. I think he wants to talk to them all, check their resolve in this endeavour of ours. Make them sign a contract in blood. Something like that.

Everyone is gathered on the Bridge and, for once, my central holographic display is inactive. The crew sits in a ring of chairs with the consoles disabled. They’re like the Knights of the Round Table, with my captain as their king.

If he’s Arthur, does that make Cirilli his Guinevere? Then who’s Lancelot?

Interestingly, the ‘everyone’ we have gathered today includes the Lieutenant. Rosie escorted him from his cell-quarters with a scowl and a shove, and he walked placidly enough. He still wears the captive collar, in case he decides to get uppity.

He’s looking shiny today. The doctor repaired his prosthetics and the metal is dark and bright at the same time. Both legs, one whole arm, half of the other arm, and half of his face. It’s hard to know whether he’s more metal than flesh; under his shipsuit, part of his torso is also metal. He stands a few centimetres taller than Rosie, who is currently my bulkiest crewmember, and he’s as broad as she is across the shoulders, but she’s still the most aggressive presence on my decks.

This is ship business: I’m not sure why the captain ordered him to attend. The crew was surprised to see him when they arrived; even the doctor raised an eyebrow as he took his seat. The only one who didn’t blink was Cameron, but she seldom flinches anyway. I’m sure the captain discussed this with her, though. He must have.

Location: Bridge

CAPTAIN: (clears his throat and rises from his chair. Apart from the ship’s avatar, who is standing behind the captain’s right shoulder, everyone else is seated. Around the room, the murmurs die away and heads turn towards him, giving him wordless attention. He inclines his head towards his people in acknowledgement.) Crew of the Starwalker, we are approaching the next phase of our plan. Our next destination is Feras and we all know what that means.

(An uncomfortable silence gives tacit agreement to that phrase. The crew knows and is grimly determined. If there were smiles around the room before he started to speak, they’re gone now.)

CAPT: (nods slowly, pleased that they’re all on the same page. He looks around but finds no ripples of reluctance in the faces gathered here.) Monaghan, the refit is complete?

ELLIOTT: (shifting in his seat and frowning) Yeah, captain. All done now. We’re armed and ready to go. (He looks like he wants to say something else, but a glance around the room at the rest of the crew makes him subside.)

CAPT: (smoothly, as if he hasn’t noticed) Good, thank you. (To the Bridge as a whole,) We’ve lost people on our way to this point. We’ve missed them, and I’m sure that we’ll continue to miss them in the work ahead. This endeavour of ours is going to take every hand we’ve got, and that’s why I called you all here today.

ROSIE: But we’re all on board with this already. You need us to sign up again?

CAPT: Not you, Brasco. (His gaze settles on the Lieutenant, who is sitting quietly and watching the proceedings.) Chief, over to you. (He sits down.)

I’m with Rosie: puzzled and starting to suspect the captain’s intentions. He’s right: we need all the help we can get right now. And he has been asking a lot of questions lately about our captured pirate. What I think of him, how he has been behaving. I had no idea he was leading up to something…

CAMERON: (still seated, she inclines her head towards the captain and gives the Lieutenant a direct look) Yes, thank you. Mr Laurence, you’ve been of value to us recently. You’ve proven that you can be here without acting against the good of the ship. You could have sabotaged us by giving us bad information about the contacts at Dyne, but you didn’t.

(Her eyes sweep the circle.) We’re currently short of a SecOff or two. Therefore, my first question is for the crew. Would you accept him as a crewmember?

(Several people begin talking at once: mostly Cirilli, Rosie, Elliott, and, surprising to most, Lang Lang. The doctor stays quiet, smiling to himself and folding his arms over his chest. The Lieutenant shoots him a querying look but the doctor shakes his head, denying any knowledge or responsibility.

The vocal response is mostly surprise and outrage, and much questioning of how the pirate could be trusted. He was, after all, their captor once upon a time, before the crew forcibly freed themselves.)

I’m quiet on the Bridge but on the inside I’m asking all the same things. But saying that… even as I’m stunned, my calculations run through the reasons and permutations. It makes sense. We need a SecOff and he’s got skills in security. Hell, he’s got implants and prosthetics built for it. And he’s not a bastard. Even when he was in charge of me, he wasn’t a bastard about it.

That has to count for something. But is it enough to take off that collar? I don’t have calculations for that: there are no reliable algorithms for trust.

CAPT: (allows the discussion to roll on for half a minute, then lifts his hands for silence. It takes a few seconds to take hold but eventually the voices fall quiet enough for him to speak.) We’ve had many betrayals in the past couple of years. Most of them from people we’ve trusted because they were a member of this crew. Can taking a chance on an outsider be much worse for us?

ROSIE: (grumbling and crossing her arms) Guess we already know we’d need to keep an eye on him.

CAMERON: (leans forward and props an elbow on her knee) I am curious, Mr Laurence: why didn’t you try to free yourself or hurt us since you’ve been under our control?

HALF-FACE: (looking nonplussed but answering anyway) The mission was to get you to Kess. You got to her, so there was no need for me to do anything; the mission I was sent on was over. And while I was injured, there wasn’t much point in trying to escape. Wouldn’t exactly have got far.

CAPT: And after your injuries were healed?

HALF-FACE: Not many captors would bother healing a prisoner.

That’s all he seems inclined to say, as if that should explain everything. This kindness seems to surprise him, even now, and yet, he wasn’t cruel to us when he was the captor. I suppose it makes a kind of sense, now I think about it.

Now I have to wonder where he has been imprisoned before. When in his life was he touched by such unkindness that he would accept incarceration without complaint because the captors are nice?

Not that I’m complaining. Actually, I’m pleased that he finds it a reason to like us. I never wanted to be a prison ship. I want a crew I can take care of, who will take care of me. That’s all.

CAPT: (considers the Lieutenant for a moment, then nods and accepts that answer.)

ELLIOTT: (eyeing the pirate) Are we really this desperate?

CAMERON: We’ve got gaps we should fill if we can. A pair of experienced hands on our weapons won’t go to waste in what lies ahead.

(There’s a brief murmur of discomfort in the room at the mention of the upcoming violence.)

LANG LANG: What other gaps do we have?

CAMERON: The only one we haven’t been able to fill yet is a way to destroy the project’s archived data. The best way would be to poison the data itself, but we’d need an electronic infiltration expert for that.

Like Tripi was. I don’t want another one like her on my decks. Not anywhere within sensor range of my Elliott. Never again.

DOC: I’ve been reading some of the recent studies in organic viruses and electronic security. There’s some interesting work being done in that area.

CAMERON: Are you saying you can build a virus for this?

DOC: (shrugs) I can look into it; one of my doctorates is in virology.

ROSIE: One of your doctorates? Aren’t you twelve years old?

DOC: (to Rosie, drily) I’m an over-achiever. (To the Chief,) I’d need help with the coding side of things.

CAMERON: (nods) We’ll talk later about this.

Elliott is looking uncomfortable at this idea. I’m not surprised: the mention of organic viruses and electronics has probably put him in mind of what Tripi did to him. I dislike the whole notion already, even though I know that it’s probably necessary.

I’m really starting to hate the term ‘necessary evil’. It keeps cropping up lately.

CAPT: (returning to the original topic) Are there any objections to the Lieutenant here joining the crew?

(There’s a general air of disgruntlement but no-one speaks up.)

CAPT: (turning to the ship’s avatar) Starry? You haven’t said anything yet. He’d be your crew, too.

What? He’s asking me? Uh…

STARRY: (blinking at the captain) I don’t know. I know we need the help. We just… lost a SecOff, and we were short to start with. (She shifts her weight and glances at the Lieutenant.) I don’t like the idea of him carrying weapons around my– around the rest of you.

CAPT: If he’s a SecOff, he’ll need to.

STARRY: (frowning) I know. (She strides across the circle to stand in front of the pirate and looks at him searchingly.) Can I trust you?

HALF-FACE: (meeting her gaze without flinching) I’m loyal to my captain and my mission.

STARRY: Isn’t signing up with us being disloyal to both?

HALF-FACE: My mission finished the moment Kess stepped onto this ship. I’m free to sign up with another ship if I choose to.

STARRY: If you do anything to hurt my crew, you know that I’ll vent you out of the nearest airlock. Maybe have my drones pull some bits off you first.

HALF-FACE: (nodding without taking his eyes off hers) I understand.

STARRY: Okay then. (She glances around.) Same goes for the rest of you. I’m sick of all that shit. If you’re with us, be with us. (She stalks to the edge of the circle, to stand next to Elliott this time, tugging her shipsuit straighter. She mutters so only he can hear,) Marshmallow, huh.

ELLIOTT: (smothers a smile.)

CAPT: All right. Thank you, Starry.

CAMERON: (taking her cue from the captain, she turns to the pirate again) So the next question is: what’s your choice, Mr Laurence? Will you be a member of this crew, reporting to me?

HALF-FACE: (gives the floor before him a thoughtful look, before turning to the Chief) Yes. I’d rather be of use than not, and I’m no stranger to piracy.

LANG LANG: (frowning) Piracy?

HALF-FACE: Yes. You’re outlaws. Isn’t that why you had to change your ident? Even if you weren’t already, what you’re setting out to do will make you pirates.

LANG LANG: (blinks and looks uncomfortable.)

CAPT: Mr Laurence is right. We’ve been outside of the law for a while now and that’s not looking likely to change.

That explains the Lieutenant’s comfort with us. I guess none of us thought of it as piracy before. I mean, we’re not doing regular pirate things: we’re not attacking ships for our own benefit; we’re not stealing or killing out of hand. I like to think we have higher motives than that.

But we are outlaws. We’re moving further and further away from the accepted way of living. Will we ever be able to find our way back? We’ve just left the centre of the pirate world, but did we really? Is it literal or metaphorical?

(There is silence on the Bridge as the crew mull over the captain’s words. Some look around, checking the expressions of the others, while a few consider the decking in front of their feet for inspiration.)

ROSIE: (scowling, she itches at the silence and is the first to break it) So, metal-face over here’s part of the crew now?

CAPT: (exchanges a look with Cameron) Yes. Starry?

STARRY: (walks over to the Lieutenant again.)

I should say something. This feels like a moment where things change irrevocably. But what is there to say?

Trust. It always comes back to that and I feel scarred and old. I’m scared and it still hurts. My filestores keep those betrayals fresh, preserved in pristine rows of code. It hurts.

But he’s not the only one here with secrets and motives I don’t know about. I can’t blame him for those who damaged me, any more than I can blame Lang Lang or Rosie.

There is no algorithm for trust. You just have to give it and hope. I have to trust the captain and the Chief in this, too.

STARRY: You know what we’re doing: we’re trying to save the stars. We’re preserving the universe. We’re trying to set things right.

HALF-FACE: (nods) I understand.

STARRY: (watches him closely, then tilts her head.)

(The little red light on the Lieutenant’s collar blinks, then shifts to green. There’s a soft snicking sound and the pirate removes the band from around his neck.)

HALF-FACE: (cradles the collar in one metal hand thoughtfully.)

STARRY: (frowning at him) Don’t fuck this up.

HALF-FACE: (smiles with the flesh side of his mouth; a trace of relief that shows just for a second. Then he’s all seriousness: he rises slowly to his feet. His joints whirr in the silent Bridge and he draws his shoulders straight to give the ship’s avatar a crisp salute.) I’ll do my best not to, ma’am.

He’s not supposed to salute me; that’s the captain’s prerogative. But maybe it works in this strange situation of ours. I can see the captain smiling to himself out of the corner of my eye.

STARRY: (hesitates, then lifts a hand in a salute in return, releasing the Lieutenant from the pose) You can call me Starry.

Hello, lovely readers! This week’s post is fighting me, and I’m not quite well enough to beat it into shape just yet. Instead, here’s the next short in the series, about our beloved captain. It follows on from the last short a little.

Sit back and enjoy the ride as I crank up the way-back machine again.

++++

The first time they met, they shook hands over the pilot’s chair and Danika completely failed to salute her captain. Later, John would come to realise that both of those facts should have tipped him off.

The company had promised him that the job would be a quiet one. Take the scientists out to the testing area, let them run their tests, try to keep the ship in one piece, and come back. Simple. Easy.

Of course it wasn’t any of those things. Danika was trouble from the moment she stepped aboard.

And now, a month after she first grinned at him over the pilot’s chair, she was sprawled face-down on his bed, with her short hair sprayed across his pillow and one naked leg tangled over his.

John looked at her, at the curve of her waist and the planes of her shoulder blades, and the falcon tattoo that he hadn’t seen until tonight splayed in tandem sleep across her back. He brushed a lock of hair off her cheekbone and thought how peaceful her face was now. It was so unlike her and he couldn’t look away.

A couple of hours ago, the corners of her mouth were quirking with repressed humour, and he had trouble looking away from it then, too. But Dr Maletz had been standing in the middle of the captain’s cabin, nearly purple with outrage as he struggled to articulate his problem, and John had had to maintain a serious demeanour as befits the captain of a ship.

“Let me get this straight: your interactive entertainment library has been tampered with?” John’s tone was patient in the face of Maletz’s bluster.

“Yes! Not just tampered with. Replaced!” The doctor shot a sideways glare at Danika, who was leaning a shoulder against the wall casually. “With gardening tutorials!”

Danika lifted her eyebrows and continued to restrain the smile that plucked at her mouth. John kept his attention firmly on the doctor.

“And you don’t have any interest in gardening.” John almost made it a question, but everyone on the ship knew how the doctor amused himself: he jacked into one of the entertainment couches for interactive porn. It wasn’t like there was much else for a doctor to do when the ship was quiet and everyone was healthy.

“No!” Maletz threw his hands up and glared at the captain this time.

John turned his head slightly to speak to the air above his desk. “Ship, can you please reinstate Dr Maletz’s entertainment access?”

“Searching for the appropriate library, captain,” the cool, female voice of this ship’s AI said. “Please stand by.”

Danika’s eyebrow twitched at the word ‘appropriate’. John ignored her.

“If it was that easy, I–” Maletz started, but the ship cut him off.

“Library located. Authorisation required.”

“Use my authorisation,” John said.

“Authorisation for Captain John Warwick accepted. Access restored. Would you like to retain the gardening library, doctor?”

“No, I would not!”

“Gardening library returned to the central store. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, thank you, ship,” John said, before the doctor could say anything snarky.

It only took half a second for Maletz to snap onto the next topic. “And what about her?” He jabbed a thumb at Danika.

“You think she was involved?”

“Who else do you think did it?”

John restrained a sigh; it wasn’t the first time Danika had been suspected of a prank like this. And while he was sure she was the culprit, he couldn’t come out and say it. There was no proof and he had to maintain peace on the ship. Keeping order meant not allowing the crew to have a scapegoat they could blame for every little thing. Even if she deserved it.

“Danika?”

“No idea who might have done it, captain.” She shrugged without disrupting her pose against the wall. “I’m just here because the doc was babbling and wanted me to come along.” That damned smile was lurking; John looked away.

“Can you prove Danika was responsible?” he asked Maletz.

“…No. But you have to do something,” the doctor insisted.

“I’ll look into it. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ll make sure it’s dealt with, doctor. You’re dismissed. Danika, stay a moment, please.”

The suggestion of a reprimand and the blatant dismissal was enough to make Maletz huff and stomp out of the cabin. As the door whispered closed behind him, the pilot grinned at her toes.

John stood up and came around his desk. “You have to stop doing things like this.”

Danika pushed away from the wall, shrugging cheerfully. “Doing what?” There wasn’t anything innocent about her; she wasn’t even trying to deny it in anything except words.

John gave her a long look. There was no point, was there? She wasn’t sorry. “Gardening tutorials?” he asked instead.

Her grin blossomed. “It’s all about sticking things in holes and planting seeds, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t help it: he felt a smile tug at his lips. It wasn’t captainly and it wasn’t like him, but he couldn’t deny that the ridiculous tickled him. He tried to swallow it back. “I’m serious, Danika. You have to stop. You might need the doctor to take care of you sometime.”

Her head tilted as she looked up at him. “He’ll be fine. And it was totally worth it.”

“How was it worth it?”

“I had a bet on that you were actually capable of smiling.”

It took John a moment to process her words: her fingers were toying with the fastening of his uniform jacket and they were distracting. He gave her a puzzled look.

“With whom?”

“Myself.”

He couldn’t stop gazing at her mouth, at the expressiveness of the corners of her lips, as if they were about to betray secrets. He caught her hand to stop its motions, feeling himself about to lean towards her. He frowned to clamp his feelings down. “Danika, you have to stop.” Firmly, he separated her hand from his jacket. She didn’t fight him.

“Are you sure?” She had been laughing silently when Maletz was in the room but she wasn’t doing that now. There was a challenge in her, daring him, and a thread of seriousness that lured him almost as much as her levity. Why had she gone to such lengths just to see him smile? What did it matter?

John released her and stepped back. “I’m sure.”

Danika gave him a long look, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Okay. Good night, captain.” She didn’t seem upset or disappointed: her mouth still smiled as if this was far from over. As if she was content to bide her time and try again.

When she turned and walked away, John realised that he had lied: he wasn’t sure. He didn’t want her to leave. Before he could stop himself, he had closed the gap between them, spun her around and kissed her. He slid a hand into her hair and pulled her against him, and he could feel her smile against his mouth.

He lifted his head enough to look at her. “Do you have a bet about this, too?”

“No,” she said. “But I’m getting some ideas.”

John drew the sheet up over Danika as she slept. She sighed and shifted without waking, settling her head on his arm. She was a warm weight he wasn’t used to any more.

He was torn: on one hand, she was an annoying woman who pressed all his buttons and made him want to shake her or pin her against a wall, or both; on the other, asleep, she was a delicate creature that he wanted to fold in against him and hold until she woke.

He hadn’t felt this way in a long time, not since… even thinking about it hurt, bringing back that dull, empty ache that Danika had chased away for a short time. Suddenly, he was back there, the day he lost everything that mattered to him.

****

Mariska was in their cabin when the attack happened, working on her latest painting. John noticed the smudge of paint on her chin over the comms when he checked on them.

“We’re fine, John. Rebecca and I will stay here,” she said, looking calm if a little tense under the alert lighting.

“Go get ’em, daddy!” Rebecca’s voice piped up from the background and he saw a little hand waving. She had her mother’s pale skin and blonde hair, and a bounce that resembled neither of them but amused them just the same.

“Will do. See you later.”

Mariska blew him a kiss and terminated the comms link. That was the last time he would see her face.

The attack had come out of the blind side of a moon as they were entering the system. John was captain of the Autumn Leaf, a scout ship that had been contracted to deliver a company executive to the colony at Panispila Mundi. Normally a courier would take this kind of job, but there was a lot of upset in the corporate hierarchy, whispers of a potential coup, and they had decided that a scout was the safest choice. It was slower but better equipped to get out of trouble, and anyone looking for them would be expecting a courier.

The company had assessed the threat as ‘low’. They were wrong.

While his crew fought the yaw of the ship and to get the weapons locked onto the attacker, another missile shook the Leaf’s bulkheads. Must have punched right through the countermeasures. Lights flickered on the Bridge.

“Bring us around,” John snapped at the pilot, who was linked into the ship in couch behind him. “Chief, return fire.”

His Chief of Security nodded and barked orders at his SecOffs. The display on the forward screens lit up with laserfire and two missiles arrowing back towards the source of the attack.

“Captain, that’s a full battle-cruiser!”

Readings sprang up as their attacker was identified. The Oyster Shadow, cruiser-class, armed to the teeth and powering towards them.

John blinked. “Nicholson, get us out of here. Chief, covering fire.” There was no way a small scout-class could take on something that size; running was their only viable tactic. “Use the moon for cover if you can.”

“Engines at half power, sir,” the pilot, Nicholson, said, a small voice piping up from the immersion couch. “Can’t get full speed.”

The forward display showed the ship dodging back and forth, but the lack of speed was obvious. John gestured sharply to open a comms line. “Engineering, report!”

“Engineer Corallan has been incapacitated, captain,” the ship’s cool voice answered. “He is unable to report.”

“Damage report?”

“Hull breach in aft sections imminent.”

“They’re targetting our engines, sir,” the navigator said. “Looking to cripple us.”

“Engines at half capacity and dropping,” the ship added.

There was no way they’d make it to safety; the nearest help was light months away. “Chief, cease fire. Signal our surre–”

Another missile exploded against the Leaf, tearing open its aft sections. The little ship was tossed end over end as gases vented and spurts of flames gushed into the void. Inside the hull, the inertial dampeners struggled to compensate and the crew were thrown into the bulkheads. Lights flashed and went out, leaving only the emergency alerts to illuminate the situation. John heard the sickening crunch of bone and had no idea if it was his or someone else’s. He scrabbled to pick himself up off the wall and an explosion of sparks from an overloaded terminal ruined his vision.

“Leaf, signal surrender!”

An awful sound ripped through the Bridge, forcing every crewmember to cover their ears. Metal screamed, twisted, buckled. Another terminal overloaded and fizzed. Warnings painted the walls, the projections flickering.

They had no intention of accepting a surrender, John realised.

“Abandon ship! Everyone to lifeboats!” The Leaf had been his home for five years but there was no saving it now. The mission couldn’t be salvaged, either. The lives of his people were all that mattered.

The directive pushed everyone into motion around him. The crew helped each other to the hatches that opened on the sides of the Bridge, leading directly into the lifeboats. John oversaw the process, made sure that there was no-one left behind. The navigator was dead, so they left him at his station. The port-side lifeboat was full and punched away. Nicholson held open the hatch for the starboard pod but John shook his head.

“Go. I’ll get another.”

The pilot nodded, knowing the captain was going for his family. The hatch snicked closed and the lifeboat ejected from the dying body of the ship.

John sprinted off the Bridge. His leg hurt but he didn’t have time for it right now.

“Mariska! Are you on the lifeboat yet?” he shouted, hoping that the internal comms were still working.

A fire forced him to turn aside and drop down to the lower deck, trying to find a way through. The comms line crackled and his wife’s voice struggled through to him.

“We’re on the lifeboat, John.” She didn’t sound good, like the smile had been punched out of her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t come back for us. You have to get another one.”

“What? Why?”

The distant voice of his daughter came over the line, shaky with fear. “Momma, the ship is broken.”

John came up against a door between bulkhead sections that wouldn’t budge. When he tried to override it, he got the ‘caution, opens to vacuum’ warning message. Furious, he punched up a schematic of the ship to try to locate a way around the breach.

There was no way. The schematic hovering over his forearm interface showed clearly that the ship had been cut in two, its head cleaved off by a weapons-grade laser. The rear section was drifting away from the Bridge, taking his precious cargo with it.

“Don’t worry, John, we’ll be fine,” his wife said. He could hear that she was forcing a smile. “And we’ve got Dire–

“No!”

“–ctor Richards with us.”

She didn’t hear him in time. John went cold all over; if the comms were crossing the open space between the segments of the ship, the Oyster Shadow could hear her. They’d know where their target was.

“Mariska, punch out. Do it now.” He was breathless, running down dark corridors to a lifeboat hatch.

“We’re waiting for the doctor–”

“Now!” He jumped in through the hatch and his right leg buckled on landing. Pain speared right through him but he shoved it aside. He had to get the telemetry up. He had to see what was going on.

“All right, we’re going.”

“Momma, where’s Daddy?”

“He’s joining us later, honey. Now hold on. Like we practised.”

John’s lifeboat telemetry came up, showing a holographic representation of the Autumn Leaf and the tiny, glowing dots of her lifeboats as they arrowed away from the bisected ship. A dot pulsed next to the living quarters, showing that a lifeboat was active there. It was close to the damage; one side of it was exposed to the vacuum, though the pod itself was intact.

It wasn’t moving. John couldn’t wait for the damage reports to collate.

“Mariska?”

“There’s a problem. I’m trying to fix it.”

Stuck. They were stuck and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. He couldn’t get to them. John started to hammer at the lifeboat’s controls and ejected from the ship’s nose. The lifeboats were built to link up, so he might be able to do something if he could get over there.

He thumped the external comms. “Oyster Shadow, cease fire, cease fire. There are civillians aboard the ship. Cease fire, you have our surrender.”

There was no answer, so he switched back to the internal line. “Can you get to another lifeboat?”

“We’re partway through ejecting,” his wife said, blessedly calm, the way she always was when he started to get frantic. “Seal won’t re-engage.” She’d had that exact same tone when she had been in labour with Rebecca and he had been losing his mind with worry.

He hadn’t been able to help then, either. John looked at the read-outs and knew there was too much damage. He could see it now: a twisted bulkhead had choked off the lifebobat’s exit vector.

“Mariska, you need to get the lifeboat re-coupled,” he said as calmly as he could manage. He pulled his own little raft around, its manoeuvring thrusters painfully slow. “You need to get to another pod.”

“Rebecca, time to put your suit on. Good girl.”

Even as he spoke, he saw the Oyster Shadow coming around, high above the broken Leaf. He saw the flare of firing missiles. With dread, he counted them: three, four, five. A whole barrage. No.

“Mariska,” he said, his voice breaking.

“It’s all right, John.” She knew. She had seen it, too. But it wasn’t all right.

“Mariska, you need to get out of there.” There wasn’t anything he could do. He had no weapons and no way to shield them. The lifeboat was too slow to intercept those missiles.

“Rebecca and I, we’re together, and we love you.”

“Daddy?”

“I’m here. I love you too. I’d do anything for you.” But there was nothing he could do.

“Stay strong, my love,” his wife said.

Nothing. Not a damned thing. John stared at the telemetry display, tears running down his cheeks. He shouldn’t have flown so close to that moon, should have been more careful, should have surrendered sooner, or kept them closer, or found a way to keep them safe. He should have put his helmet on and jumped out of the airlock to free them. His hand splayed against the lifeboat’s skin, as if he could touch them through it.

“Mariska, you are my life, my–”

The Leaf exploded, hammered by missile after missile. The telemetry hologram shattered as the ship broke into pieces, each one flipping and spinning into the void. He couldn’t even tell which piece they had been in.

Mariska, you are my life, my heart. The spirit who guides me, the home I return to. You are the reason I breathe. Rebecca, you are my hope, my future, my precious charge. My arms will forever be open to you.

John howled so loudly that even the stars could hear him.

****

He thought his heart was a wound that would never heal. He still heard them when he slept: Mariska’s grim acceptance of a fate she couldn’t escape; Rebecca’s plaintive question as she grasped onto the hope that her daddy would save her. For a long time, they had been all he could hear, and the sight of a child-sized suit was enough to break his heart all over again.

He had never imagined that another woman might lie by his side, that the empty ache where his love had been might be quieted. He drifted a fingertip down the line of Danika’s cheek, her jaw. She didn’t eclipse his memory of the family he lost. He didn’t like her because she reminded him of Mariska; he liked her because she didn’t remind him.

He thought he’d feel guilty, like he was betraying them. But he didn’t. Mariska wouldn’t have wanted that and four years was a long time to be alone. He felt like he could breathe again.

He slid closer to Danika, his skin craving the touch of hers, as if her warmth might thaw something deep inside him. She stirred sleepily, murmuring in her throat, and stretched. Her muscles flexed under the drift of his hand. She looked up at him and the corners of her mouth twitched, but there was no smile this time.

“Something wrong?”

His expression was giving him away. John felt raw, naked. “No, everything’s fine,” he lied, running his hand through her hair, and she let him.

“Just can’t resist me, hmm?” There it was: the curve of her mouth flashed at him and everything was easier. She kissed him and the knot inside him loosened, giving way to a different kind of tension; the kind that promised sweet release. He gripped her tight but she pushed him over onto his back, grinning against his lips. As if she was aware of his fascination with her mouth, she started to put it all over him. He closed his eyes and revelled in it.

It wasn’t love, not yet, but as they made love, joined their bodies and shared that deep pleasure, he could feel the connection between them. They had time to find out what it meant; to discover each other. And he wanted to discover every part of her.

For the first time in four years, John found he had something to look forward to.

Ship's log, 16:32, 26 May 2214
Location: Alpha Centauri to Beta Apodis FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

Coming out of another FTL jump, I feel like my hull is humming. Elliott keeps griping about stress fractures, even though we haven’t found any yet. Bit and Byte have been scouring my bulkheads and beams, just in case.

It seems unlikely now, though. We’ve done seventeen FTL jumps since we fixed Corsica Sol up and I’m still running okay. It’ll be a couple of hours before I can jump again; here’s hoping that eighteen isn’t the magic number.

We’ve got a lot of jumping ahead of us. I can’t help but itch at the route: I have to hop-skim-hop my way along the main FTL corridor into the Apus constellation: Alpha Centauri to Beta Apodis. From there, I’ll branch off to Alpha Apodis, so we can fix up that star. I have a more direct path at my disposal but that’s not an option any more: no more Stepping for us. I’m making do with plain old FTL.

Our chances of coming across the pirate fleet seem high now we’re moving into the systems bearing Apus’s brightest stars: this is their ‘home’ area, where their base is rumoured to travel between star systems, always on the move. It would be a huge coincidence to come across them: space is vast. Apus has a number of stars they could be near, or between, or travelling to. My calculations tell me the odds are very low but I still feel antsy.

No point worrying about it now; it’ll happen or it won’t and there isn’t much we can do to avoid it. My refit is almost complete, so I’m as ready for a confrontation as I’ll ever be. I have extra lasers, a few extra missile silos, the new repulsors, and now a weird pellet-gun built into my belly.

Elliott was grumpy over that last thing. He spent days building the housing for it and insisted on installing it personally. He stood out on my hull for hours, working on it with great care. I’ve never seen him handle something so precisely before.

I don’t like it either. It’s a blank, numb spot on my abdomen. The device isn’t hooked directly into my central systems: the closest I get is the hull panel that covers it when it’s not in use. I can access its systems wirelessly but it still feels weird. It’s like a part of my body that’s not quite connected.

It’s the one weapon we haven’t tested yet. We only have a handful of pellets for it and we can’t afford to waste them. It’s going to be a ‘hot test’, as my Chief SecOff calls it. Fire and hope it works. Hope it doesn’t backfire and infect me with millions of weird ship-killing nanobots.

I’m mostly trying not to think about those nanobots, or how I’m going to feel about using them on another ship. I know that other AIs aren’t like me. They’re not part human; they don’t ‘feel’ like I do. They’re not ‘people’ the way I am. That sentence doesn’t make sense, mostly because I don’t make sense. It doesn’t matter: it’s still not going to be an easy thing to use. Luckily, it’s not my call. It won’t be my hand on the button. So I guess my feelings about it will be irrelevant and that’s probably for the best.

I’m trying not to think about what this weapon’s existence means. What if I go up against one? It’s another thing I can’t do anything about, so there’s no point worrying, but I have to keep the possibility in my scenario matrices. I have to build it into my equations if we’re going to have a real chance of getting through this, just in case. I have to make sure my crew can survive even if I’m crawling with ship-brain-eating nanobots, and I can’t think about me or how scared I am.

I’m bristling with weapons inside and out. I have to take comfort from that. Even my drones are getting in on it: they’re all down in Engineering now, crowding up the place as they help Elliott to fit their enhancements. On my mid- and large-sized boys, lasers are positioned on either side of their necks, and tasers have been added to two of their hands, for distance or tactile use. My tiny boys are getting a single centre-mounted laser and needle-sized darts filled with a paralytic.

They’re surprisingly eager about it today. Before we left Alpha Centauri, they seemed reluctant to come down to Engineering and be fitted out. They were always busy with repairs and refit work, and while there was plenty to do, it wasn’t like the time couldn’t have been spared to fix them up. Even now, there’s a list of work longer than my tallest hologram console for them to do, but there they are, lined up around Elliott, waiting their turn.

I think it’s my influence. Maybe this ship-killer is weighing on my calculations enough to make a difference to my boys. Also, I’ve been feeling better about my external defenses now that they’re finished, but I still worry about my crew. Internally, I have few ways to help or protect them. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and I guess my boys picked up on it. They want to help. They want to kick ass, too.

And yet, my boys are still my boys.

Location: Engineering

(Byte has just had his dart gun installed and is examining the firing tube as if he’s never seen one before. He narrows his visual apertures and peers into the barrel, then squints over at Bit. Bit is patiently awaiting his turn. Elliott’s back is turned while he goes through the case of equipment and ordinance.

In quick succession, Byte fires three needle-darts at his brother, aiming for his feet. Bit skitters and stumbles when a needle pins his foot to the counter. A tiny laser burst back threatens to take Byte’s head off, but the dart-wielding drone ducks.)

ELLIOTT: (turning around at the flash of light, he quickly assesses the pinned drone. His mouth falls open and he swipes at Byte.) Hey, stop that!

BYTE: (skitters out of the way of Elliott’s hand and widens his visual apertures at the engineer. One hand quietly adjusts the aim of the dart-gun, as if he’s testing it innocently.)

ELLIOTT: Don’t give me that. We don’t have an unlimited supply of ordinance for that, you know.

BYTE: (droops his head and drops his hands down by his sides.)

BIT: (pulls the needle out of his foot and throws it at his brother. It bounces off Byte’s bowed head.)

ELLIOTT: (shoots a glare at Bit.)

BIT: (points at his brother.)

ELLIOTT: (sighs) Byte, go pick all those up and see if they can be salvaged. Try not to leave them everywhere, all right? The captain’ll be pissed if he finds his crew randomly paralysed.

STARRY: (materialises behind Elliott’s right shoulder with her hands on her hips) And so will I.

BYTE: (throws his hands up in the air and slouches over to pick up the spent needles.)

BIT: (sidles towards the nearest bulkhead, out of the way.)

ELLIOTT: (rubs the back of his head wearily.)

STARRY: (tilting her head so she can see his face) Everything all right here?

ELLIOTT: Your kids are a handful. I think we need to make them more stupid.

STARRY: (turning to narrow a look at Bit) You know, I’m starting to think that’s a good idea.

BIT: (is facing the wall, his back to Elliott and the avatar. His head swivels around to look at them, then he takes off across the counter, sprinting for the edge.)

ELLIOTT: (leans over the counter to squint at the spot where Bit was standing) …what does that say?

STARRY: (watches the little drone skitter away) It’s probably better if you don’t know. Bit, you can’t hide from me, you know.

ELLIOTT: (snorts and lifts his left arm so he can activate the interface implanted in it. He pulls up a magnified view of the bulkhead and the symbols Bit just lasered into the metal. It’s a little heart, and inside it there’s a carefully-scribed ‘S + EM’. The pointy half of an arrow comes out of one side of the heart, but the drone was disturbed before he could finish the feathered part.) Is that…

STARRY: Um, yeah. (She glances sideways at Elliott.) On the plus side, his aim’s pretty good with that laser.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s great that his grafitti is neat. (He meets her gaze, then can’t help but grin. A moment later, both of them start laughing.)

BYTE: (stomps his tiny feet as he stalks off to put his spent darts away in the open box on the end of the counter.)

STARRY: (laughter subsiding) I think I’m gonna have them set up a testing range in Cargo Bay 4, before we have any more weapons going off in here.

ELLIOTT: And what about Bit?

STARRY: Oh, he’s going to be on sewer-pipe duty. You might not want to let him on your pillow for a couple of days.

ELLIOTT: (puzzled) On my pillow?

STARRY: Oh. Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.

ELLIOTT: (shakes his head) I’m tellin’ ya: stupid is good.

STARRY: (laughs and disappears.)

Elliott’s usually asleep when Bit climbs onto his pillow. The better to monitor my engineer’s vital signs: that’s how the drone’s processing justifies it. Never mind that he pats Elliott’s hair before he bustles off again. Silly little thing.

Sometimes I despair about my boys. They’re so wilful! But I wouldn’t have them any other way.

That’s the first time I’ve seen Elliott laugh in a while. He’s so serious these days, intent in his work, worrying about me, about doing a good job, about making sure we can protect ourselves and be safe. It’s as if the weight of the whole ship is on him. I know how important his work is and how much we all rely on him to keep me running and in one piece, but I wish that he didn’t feel all that pressure.

The last time he came inside my systems, we barely had time to hug. He doesn’t like talking about emotional stuff, so I try not to ask if he’s all right. I hug him instead. He doesn’t lean on me so much these days, though; his hugs are tight, fierce, and short. I like to think they help anyway. His bio-rhythms were less stressed after that last time.

It’s not just Elliott; my whole crew is feeling the approach of our return to Feras. The captain is going over simulation after simulation with Cameron. Cirilli is intent and brittle, like glass. Even Rosie is starting to frown at the notion of handling all of my weaponry at once, and she usually relishes the idea of a battle.

I wish I could take the pressure off all of them. Ease their worries. But maybe this is good. Maybe this is us getting ready for war.

Maybe this is us being ready for war, ‘bots and all.

Chief Engineer's log, 14:28, 21 May 2214
Location: Corsica to Alpha Centauri FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

This is Engineer Monaghan, logging on the 21st of May, blah blah, reporting on the refit of the Starwalker. We’ve been installing a bunch of new gear: check the logs if you want to know what, but it’s basically a bunch of weapons so that we don’t get our asses kicked when we go poke Is-Tech in the eye. It’s been a bit of a challenge, because she wasn’t designed to carry this much gear or to counter the recoil of these kinds of weapons.

I think we’ve got the inertial dampening issue sorted. Firing the repulsor weapons no longer threatens to tear her into pieces, which is good for all of us. But I had to fight with stupid Chief Cameron about it. She wants a full range of fire; I want a ship in one piece. It’s not fucking rocket science (okay, actually it is, but that’s beside the point). But the captain listened to me in the end, so it’s all good.

Am I the only one who wants this ship to stay in one piece? Feels like that sometimes. If it’s not Cameron and her shiny new weapon ideas, it’s Cirilli with her awesome notion of ‘oh, let’s fly across the corona of a star and pet it until it feels better, because that’s good for a ship made of metal that’s gonna melt and kill us all’.

We’re still paying the price for that. Sure, sure, the star we’ve just been flying around is all happy and not going to implode now. Good for us. But their new plan did all kinds of damage and I’m only just getting past the repairs on the obvious stuff. There were so many impacts on the internal systems that Bit and Byte have been spending all their times crawling around Starry’s innards, chasing down the scorched bits. Yesterday, they had to put out a fire in the environmentals systems up near the Bridge where a section of cabling had overloaded and burned through.

I don’t think that’ll be the only problem that sneaks up out of this, caused by fixing that stupid star. If the stars are as sentient and smart as Kess claimed, why can’t they fix their own damn problems? Why should we have to fix it for them? And burn ourselves out doing it. It’s stupid.

Yeah, I know all the reasons. But that’s kinda not the point here. Shouldn’t ending the project be our first priority, if it’s really that dangerous to the universe? And it is: I mean, we’ve all seen that. What it did to Kess and Earth. And Grisette; we’re pretty sure it killed her. That’s not even counting the implications of giving every idiot with a shipping license access to time travel. All it takes it one moron to create a paradox and we’re all fucked. There are no take-backs on ‘whoops, sorry, I screwed the universe’.

Anyway. The state of the ship. We’re almost on top of all the obvious damage. Our next job is to look for the non-obvious stuff. Starry says she’s feeling a little off-kilter, and while she’s a girl about some stuff, she’s generally pretty reliable about that kind of thing.

Soon, I’ll be setting most of the drones on detailed physical checks of the bulkheads. What Starry really needs is a proper service in a shipyard, with a full integrity diagnostic and a re-balance of her inertial dampeners. I can only do so much while she’s in transit, or even hovering in the void. I spend half the time working around the fact that her systems all have to be active so we don’t die. And for the really big stuff, I just don’t have the equipment.

It was bad enough trying to refit her wings when there wasn’t room to bring them inside: Big Ass and Wide Load had to stay clamped to the hull, holding the wing while the work was done. I had to do everything suited up, wearing heavy mag-boots and trying not to watch the stars whipping by. The work went fine but it’s hardly ideal. I should never have agreed to do all of the refitting outside of a shipyard. Surely we could have found one we could use? Something off the beaten track? Just because they’re not supposed to exist doesn’t mean they don’t.

Hell, I even know a couple of places on Broken Hill that we could have used. Not that I ever want to go back there.

None of that matters now. We can’t use a shipyard and the captain has no intention of diverting to one even if we could. I’m gonna have to do what I can in transit, same as always. See what I can do about stress-testing Starry’s framework ourselves, so we can catch any faults that might give way at the worst moment. Like when we’ve just fired the first shot at Is-Tech, or we’re surrounded by pirate ships; something like that. That’d be just our luck.

Speaking of which, we’re on our way to the pirate sector now. I’m not convinced that it’s a smart move to go back there but the captain is determined to do the right thing about fixing the star we Stepped through. He’s so fucking high and mighty about it. But I guess that’s why he’s the captain; I know I don’t want his job.

Internal Comms

CAMERON: Monaghan, how is the fitting of the T-3-NB weapon coming?

ELLIOTT: (puts down the scanner he was fiddling with) Slowly. We’ve got repairs to do, Chief.

CAMERON: We need it in place before we get to Alpha Apodis.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, I’ll get on it soon. We still need to work out the shielding for it, though.

CAMERON: We’ve drawn up the plans. That’s not enough?

ELLIOTT: I’d like to be confident that the schematics are actually feasible before I go ahead and put something like that in. You know the dangers of a weapon like that.

CAMERON: Yes. I’ll leave it in your capable hands. Let me know if there are any problems with it.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, yeah, will do. (He makes a gesture to kill the comms line.)

Fuckin’ T-3-NB. Should just call it what it is: the ship killer.

When I first saw the specs for it, I thought it was some kind of pulse weapon. It’s supposed to disable a ship with one shot; I figured it would scramble the electronics or something. I thought someone had found a way to circumvent a ship’s defenses against that kind of thing; most ships have heavy electronic shielding to avoid radiation surges from disrupting them. It’s a common enough problem when you’re zipping about the galaxy, and because Starry has to get so close to stars, her shielding is heavier than most.

Yeah, that’s not what it does. It bypasses that kind of shielding entirely. Bypasses all kinds of shielding, though I think there could be some energy bubbles that would stop it. I wonder if anyone has come up with a protection like that yet.

What the ship-killer does is attack the electronic systems themselves. Specifically, it’s a physical attack: the nanobots are very precisely programmed. They travel along the optical cabling and target the crystalline matrices that make up the ship’s core systems. When they find it, they simply devour it, turning it into so much crystalline dust: you’ll get to see the most valuable pile of junk right before you die.

I’ve never seen anything like it before. But then, I’ve never worked a warship. I have no idea how Cameron knew about it. Rumour says she was military once and maybe she used it in the Trading Wars. You’d think there’d be stories if this kind of thing had ever been used before, though, especially in something as public as a battle campaign.

I was fucking furious when I found out what that goddamn weapon fires, though. The fact that that bitch brought those nanobots onto this ship, that they’re sitting there right now in the cargo bay, calm as you please, when they could destroy everything here. One tiny containment breach and they’ll kill Starry. Ain’t no ship can come back from that.

How fucking stupid is she? She says that she got lucky to find a trader with the nanobots in stock. She says they could mean the difference between winning and losing at this little war of ours. Well, whoopty-fucking-do. I’d still like to vent them out an airlock.

The captain won’t let me, though. No, he’s all in on this plan. Says he doesn’t like it, and he mentioned some shit about ‘necessary evils’, but I still don’t want to do this. It ain’t right. It just ain’t fucking right.

But I guess I don’t have much of a choice. They’re pretty sure it could be what decides whether we survive this or are blown into pieces. And I guess I can’t take that chance.

So now I gotta worry about shielding. It’s not just a case of ensuring that the weapon fires away from the ship: I gotta find some way to isolate that weapon so that there’s no chance of it leaking nanobots back into the ship. I can’t wire it into Starry’s systems, not even her power conduits. It’s gotta be completely sealed off. House its own power, be aimed and triggered by remote.

Sure, I have the schematics that the Chief gave me for it. But whatever monkey designed this was a fucking moron. I mean, connecting it directly into the ship’s targeting systems? Running cables right down to the firing channel? Why would anyone take those kinds of chances? The nanobots might be sealed into pellets, but it’s not like ordinance never ruptures. It would only take the tiniest leak, just a few nanobots, and it’s game over for us. For Starry. They’re nanobots, for fuck’s sake.

No, I’m gonna build something safer, if I’m gonna put this weapon into Starry’s belly at all.

Looking over these schematics again, I’m sure they must have had another way to protect their own ship. There’s a kill command on the nanobots we can trigger if there was an emergency; they must have relied on that. The Chief gave me the code. She told me that they’re dormant right now and won’t be active until the weapon is primed and ready to fire. My scans said the same thing. So they’re safe for now.

That’s something I can work with. I can build an emergency shutdown for the nanobots. Then everyone’s happy and maybe the Chief’ll get off my ass.

Location: Elliott's quarters

STARRY: (voice only) Excuse me, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (rubbing the back of his head) Yeah?

STARRY: Got a couple of anomalies in my systems I’d like you to look at. Would you mind hopping in and taking a look?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, sure. Is it urgent?

STARRY: No, there’s no emergency. Whenever you’re free is fine.

ELLIOTT: Okay. Five minutes, then.

STARRY: Thanks.

I wonder what it is now. Maybe another failure crawling out of the ducts to bite us in the butt.

Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. Besides, it might be nice to wander around in Starry’s systems again; it’s been a while. Maybe she’s feeling neglected, even though I spend all my time working on her. She’s never satisfied!

Girls. They’re so weird.

Engineer out.