Starwalker

Due to the death-cold that has been plaguing me for the past week, I’m sorry to say that this week’s Starwalker post is going to be delayed. I’ve been off work all week so far, and tomorrow is looking shaky too. I’m on the mend, but slowly, and it is not terribly conducive to being creative.

But don’t fear, my lovely readers. I have put this weekend aside for writing, and aim to catch up on the lack. If all goes well (and I can shake this stupid cough), I may even get ahead of myself a little! Please accept my apologies for delaying the post again, and I thank you in advance for your patience.

This brings me to the request part of this post. I’ve been enjoying the flashback shorts, exploring the characters on our favourite ship. It’s time to start the next one, but I’ve been torn about which character to write it about and I need your help. So tell me, who would you like to see a flashback about next?

Be well, lovely readers!

Chief of Security's log, 08:00, 9 April 2214
Location: Home system to JOP FTL corridor
Status: FTL transit
Log location: Chief of Security's Quarters

This is Chief Gail Cameron, reporting on the security situation aboard the Starwalker.

Decisions have been made that will lead us to break mission, violate contracts, and commit crimes against colony law. I wish to make it clear that all of those aboard are entering into this path with full knowledge. I am attaching a log of the discussion as proof.

Log attached.

However, we have not yet acted on our plans. There is still time to abort, should the captain and crew make that decision. In my personal opinion, I don’t believe we will turn away now, despite the danger and the cost.

The crew might have agreed to break away from our company but we can’t be complacent about the security or solidity of our situation. There are many factors to consider and threats to assess, including those who walk the decks aboard this ship.

Of the crew, many of our number do not pose a threat to our plan or purpose. The captain, for obvious reasons, is committed to this cause (it’s his cause; and besides, he’s the captain). The ship is, likewise, dedicated and doesn’t represent a threat, despite her special situation. SecOff Rosie Brasco is content in her position, and Navigator Lang Lang Cartier firmly believes in the morality of our plan.

The rest, however, are not so simple and require more detailed examination.

Chief Engineer Elliott Monaghan will follow where his captain leads until it poses a direct danger to the ship; at that point, he may become a problem. His loyalties lie with the ship above all else. At this stage, there is no conflict between those loyalties; it is worth keeping in mind but he is a minor concern.

Dr Lorena Cirilli is genuine in her agreement to break away from Is-Tech. However, she is showing signs of becoming unstable; the proposed destruction of her project represents the dissolution of her life’s work, and the closer we get to making that happen, the more unpredictable she will become. The captain is offering her some support, but she is one to monitor closely.

Then there is Dr Argyle Valdimir. Is-Tech gave no specific reasons for selecting this replacement medic for us, and he seems to bear no love for the company. The rumours that he had intimate trysts with relatives of Is-Tech’s directors may have been overblown gossip, but I suspect there was a kernel of truth in them. He was sent here to remove him from the public eye and physical reach, but also with a purpose that might allow him to redeem himself. I have not yet uncovered this purpose.

According to his files, Dr Valdimir is a highly-qualified psychologist as well as an accomplished field medic and surgeon. Recently, he has extended his expertise into the cybernetic field. His test scores show him to be into the accepted genius range, which is no doubt what prompted Is-Tech to fund and nurture his abilities. Outwardly, he shows all the signs of a child protege given every advantage and honour, and no reason for compassion or restraint.

My suspicions are that Is-Tech’s directors heard about the unusual situation with our ship’s AI and sent Dr Valdimir to assess her. However, that doesn’t mean that he won’t assess the rest of us as well. He clearly has no loyalty towards the company that paid for his education, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be loyal to this ship and her crew. If he sees an advantage in betraying us, he may well take it.

In the meantime, the greatest threat he poses is that he becomes bored and starts to play mind-games with the crew, which could disrupt any number of things. Knowing our situation – and how long he’ll be stuck with us on this ship, unable to get away from repercussions – I doubt he’ll do so lightly. Unfortunately, while he may be a genius, he might not be smart about it. Clearly, he wasn’t smart enough on Feras; if he had been, he wouldn’t be here at all.

Currently, he’s pursuing a physical relationship with our captive pirate, Lieutenant Laurence. It’s hard to say if it’s developing into an emotional attachment yet, but it’s certainly proving to be a good distraction for our doctor. We have not interfered in his visits to the secure quarters for this reason.

The Lieutenant himself is no trouble. He has made no efforts to escape, commit sabotage, or otherwise disrupt the ship. He seems to have accepted his current position. I spoke with him yesterday in his secure quarters, and he appreciates that we have not mistreated him in his captivity. I suspect that this is not the first time he has been imprisoned, though he won’t speak of it. We have given him shelter, food, and medical attention, and he welcomes the doctor’s advances; in all, his position is quite comfortable.

He may be of use to us further down this path, so maintaining his good will is in our interests. I see no reason to spoil the status quo, and his personality is inclined towards loyalty when there’s reason. He might become a valuable asset to us in time.

SecOff Riley Swann is both simpler and more tricky. Another replacement sent by Is-Tech, and one that I scrutinised closely when he came aboard. Every file I’ve seen on him tells the same story: he is a career mercenary who honours his contracts. On the surface, his current contract is to provide security aboard this ship under my command.

Experience tells me that it can’t be that easy. He’s contracted to Is-Tech, the same as the rest of us; the only difference is that his is short-term while ours are open-ended. He faces the same consequences as we do for breaking our contracts: we’ll find it difficult to get another one after this job is finished. He has agreed to follow this path and I can’t help but wonder how honest that agreement was. This can’t have been the first time someone has asked him to break his contract and betray the company that hired him. Mercenaries are seen as a weak link and dangerous because of how often that happens.

He has yet to put a foot wrong but I can’t afford to assume that’s an indication of fidelity. I want to know what job he was really hired to perform. I also need to know exactly how much he was getting paid for his services. As a mercenary, he’s more honest than most about the motivating nature of money.

I intend to speak with the captain about money and how will be assured for the crew, to remove that reason for them to betray us. When the company learns of our intentions, one of the first things they’ll do is freeze our accounts and attempt to seize our assets. The Fall of Earth may interfere with that somewhat, but the crew needs to believe in a future beyond this war of ours. More than anything else, they need hope that this isn’t the end for all of us; martyrs and desperation won’t help us. Fiscal planning is just one way to encourage a more productive attitude.

This is particularly relevant when we think about the last member of the science team, Dr Seth Ebling. I have been monitoring him closely since this project came under my protection. He has always been one of the greatest threats and nothing that has happened has changed my assessment.

Dr Ebling is looking to head up his own research one day, and he sees the Star Step Project as his way to achieve that. If the project was successful, the credit alone would be enough to secure him whatever position or grant he wanted. But he is not a young man and I have always doubted his patience; he was flagged as a defection threat by Is-Tech central security early in his tenure. The chances of him attempting to abscond to another company with enough data to replicate the project only increased when we became mobile on the Starwalker. The value of his expertise was judged to be worth the risk.

Now, however, we’re embarking upon a path that will remove any chance of him getting his own research project. He doesn’t bother to hide his disgruntlement or disagreement. He’s wise enough not to make threats but I am certain that he’s formulating an exit strategy. The next time we dock anywhere, I believe he’ll make a break for whatever authority is close enough to give him shelter. If he can, he’ll take enough of the project with him to make our purpose null and void.

Right now, I see no reason to take measures to restrain him. At least, no obvious or public ones. His attitude serves as a balance to Dr Cirilli’s delicate emotional state and his work remains useful to us. But I think the time is not far off when a decision will have to be made about his freedom, even on board the ship. As he takes steps, so must we.

I have active monitoring on all of the questionable crew, and review the logs frequently. Brasco and Swann are not, at this stage, party to this assessment or the logs.

Which brings me to the last crewmember to be assessed. Gail Cameron, Chief of Security aboard the Starwalker. We have decided to break from our company and destroy a galaxy-changing piece of technology. We are going to violate more rules than I care to count. These are all rules that I have sworn and signed to uphold. Laws, even. But considering the implications of our position, these are sacrifices I am willing to make.

It may come to the point when this civilian crew is asked to kill – no, it will come to that. Not in defence, the way it was with the pirates, but purposefully and deliberately. As Chief of Security, I will have to support and enforce that decision. It will fall to me to issue those orders, on the captain’s command.

I have given those orders before; it is one of the reasons I moved out of the military and into private company protection. But the situation was different then, and so was I. Then, I had no say in who or why I was killing. Now, the weight is entirely in our hands. My hands.

I believe we have chosen the right path. A small amount of destruction now to prevent a catastrophe later – or, in our case, another catastrophe. It is the kind of decision that my mother called ‘red logic’. She used to say that it was a dangerous state to fall into and that red logic would taint the world if I let it. She wasn’t wrong, but even she knew that sometimes, someone had to use it to do what’s right.

None of us are foolish enough to believe that it will take less than force to stop Is-Tech from pursuing this. It won’t be easy and it won’t be clean, but with the right approach and great care, I believe even this small ship can pull it off.

But only if they don’t see us coming. This whole thing will be over in heartbeats if Is-Tech figures out what we intend.

So my assessment is this: this break with the company is supported by the crew, in words and actions. I don’t believe that all of them are as dedicated as they pretend to be and some are likely to try to betray us before it is over. I am monitoring the situation constantly and I’m prepared to take steps to prevent word of our intentions from getting out.

In the meantime, I have to consult with the captain about the upgrades required to the ship’s weaponry and defenses. We have a lot of work to do to prepare for what’s to come.

May whatever gods we hold dear be with us, for we’ll need them.

Ship's log, 06:30, 7 April 2214
Location: Home system to JOP FTL corridor
Status: FTL transit

Almost to the end of our second FTL jump. I have to force myself to pay attention: I must monitor the blur of my sensors as we out-pace light itself and make sure that the inertial dampeners are properly balanced so that we aren’t torn to pieces when I back-thrust out of FTL speeds.

Three, two, one… there, we’ve reached maximum FTL time/distance. I drop back to sublight speeds and the universe snaps into focus. If I had eyelids, I’d be blinking and rubbing them.

Everything is optimal. My crew barely noticed the transition. The captain is sitting on the Bridge, monitoring the FTL travel, and Lang Lang is at the navigation console. She’s helping me keep track of all the other ships in the corridor, ensuring we have our own track so we don’t wind up colliding with someone else. There are no small accidents at these speeds, not even debris to mark where we were; just smashed atoms and a whisper of spent power.

We have a few hours while my FTL engines recharge for the next hop. I’m powering on down the corridor at full sublight, to clear out the post-jump position in case anyone is following behind me. You never know how good someone else’s calculations will be, and by the time I see them it’ll be far too late to do anything about it.

It’s all straight-line flying in the corridor, so it’s not exactly the most interesting work, but I don’t mind that right now. I’ve got enough on my mind to keep me busy.

Location: Med Bay

(The doctor is seated at his desk at the end of the room, flipping through the reports on the holographic console before him. Med Bay’s quiet is punctuated by the blips of health monitors and the soft rushing of mechanically-aided breathing.

The monitors hover over the single occupied bed, tracking the condition of the patient. On the respirator, Byte crouches and keeps his sensors fixed firmly on the bed. Elliott Monaghan, the ship’s engineer, is currently sleeping.)

A few hours to the next jump. I set my sublight engines at maximum thrust and leave them there. I run diagnostics again, for something to do. But I can’t help watching him.

(The life sign readouts blip and a wiggly green line jumps, then settles back into its regular rhythm. The doctor barely glances over before he returns to his work.)

Recording: 09:20, 6 April 2214
Location: Engineering

STARRY: (standing behind Elliott while he sorts out a rack of tools) I really think you should sit down…

ELLIOTT: Stop fussing! It’s just a little cough.

STARRY: One you’ve had for weeks now, and last night your vital signs were off their usual patterns. And now…

ELLIOTT: (turns around sharply, one hand gripping the edge of the rack for balance) I told you, stop it. I’m fine.

STARRY: (a hand strays towards his arm imploringly, but she can’t touch him, so she doesn’t try) You have a fever. I have to call the doctor down here.

ELLIOTT: I said no! (He blinks, as if the force of the words was enough to unbalance him. A cough catches him unawares and he hunches over, wracked with it. His knuckles whiten on the rack’s edge.)

STARRY: Please, Elliott.

DR VALDIMIR: (enters Engineering with his emergency kit in hand) All right, Mr Monaghan. Let’s take a look at you.

ELLIOTT: (glares at Starry, too busy coughing to say anything.)

STARRY: (watches, unable to catch him as his knees start to buckle. She steps aside as the doctor rushes in. He wraps an arm around the engineer’s back and guides him to a stool.)

DOC: There, sitting is better.

Elliott has been unconscious for over a day now. The doctor thought it was safer that way. At least he’s not struggling to catch his breath all the time. He’s not hacking and coughing and trying to get up. Because he wouldn’t stay on the bed. He kept saying he was okay, even when he could barely speak.

The doc says he has an infection. Probably picked it up during our brief stop on Earth. It has lain in wait since then, until Elliott’s immune system became weak enough for it to attack. And he never gets enough rest. He forgets to eat, then stuffs himself with all the wrong things in a huge pile, as if eating the entire galley at once makes up for forgetting to have seven meals in a row. I’ve tried to remind him. I’ve even had the drones bring him food and drink. But even then he gets distracted and doesn’t eat it. Or takes a single bite and wanders away, as if that will appease me. As if I’m doing it for my own good.

He’s better at taking care of me than he is of himself. Better than I am at taking care of him.

He still has a fever, burning up in the bed. The bed is cooling him, drawing all that heat away, and I can’t help wondering if that is bad for him. If he keeps radiating and the bed keeps absorbing it, will he eventually be empty? Will it rob him of all his warmth?

I know that’s stupid. He’s getting more nutrients now than he’s had over the past several months, fed to him by hair-thin tubes and medical patches. The doc and Med Bay’s systems are making sure that he’s getting everything he needs to pull through this. But I can’t help it. It’s like he’s an exposed fuel rod, spilling all his energy into a void while we try to stop him from melting down.

I can’t even hold his hand.

Not that he’d be able to feel it if I could. He’s unconscious while the machines and meds try to mend his body, while he fights off this invasion. The doc says he didn’t have a very strong immune system to start with; it’s something to do with where he grew up. I don’t understand; he was raised on Broken Hill, same as Rosie, and she’s as healthy as a horse.

The worst part is that I can’t help wondering if the fever is why he kissed me. Was he delusional then? Was it a trick of the body’s heat? Or some kind of subconscious survival mechanism? I want him to wake up so I can ask him, and then I feel ashamed because I should just want him to be okay. I shouldn’t be so selfish. But I can’t help it.

I want to ask the doc about it again. As if understanding this more will help make it okay. But even with medical databases at my disposal, the stats and calculations don’t help. I just want him to wake up and tell me to stop being stupid.

I need to tread carefully around Dr Valdimir. He sees too much. He sees into things more than he should. He’s young, but there’s a reason the company chose him to replace Maletz. It wasn’t just to get him off Feras; I think they wanted someone with his skills here. He has more qualifications than Maletz did, despite being less than half my dead medic’s age.

And several of his qualifications are in the psychological field.

Recording: 13:16, 6 April 2214
Location: Med Bay

(The respirator hisses as Elliott’s body relaxes. The sedatives ease him into a gentle sleep and the tension of the coughing washes away. The machines pick up the slack, breathing for him through the mask on his face. Dr Valdimir quietly arranges his limbs on the bed, settling them into the comfortable cradle of the smart mattress.)

STARRY: (watching from the foot of the bed, where she’s standing back out of the way. There’s no hiding the worry in her expression.) Is this really the best way?

DOC: (sparing her only a small glance while he tends to his patient) Yes, I think so. He’ll never stay still long enough to heal. Unless you want to get one of your drones down here to sit on him.

STARRY: (too worried to react to the joke) I don’t think it would work; he’d just disable them.

DOC: (turning to pull up the monitors and begin to program them) So instead, we disable him. Just long enough to get him out of danger.

STARRY: He’s really in danger? He could die?

DOC: It’s possible, but not likely. He’s getting the care he needs.

STARRY: Do we need to get him to a hospital?

DOC: (pausing to look at her) Would you Step through a star if he did?

STARRY: (stares at the doctor, speechless for a second) No.

DOC: But you’d like to.

STARRY: Of course.

DOC: You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?

STARRY: Of course I am! He’s my– (She hesitates.)

DOC: Your what?

STARRY: My engineer. My crew.

DOC: (smiling faintly) And you care about him.

STARRY: I, I care about all of my crew.

DOC: But him in particular?

STARRY: (looking at Elliott as he lies in the bed, painfully still) My protocols say I should look after him. And all of you. But I… I failed to stop this.

DOC: And that honestly upsets you.

STARRY: (lifting a distressed gaze to the doctor) I’m not just code and a calculator. I’ve already got crew in cold storage; I don’t want to add any more.

DOC: You blame yourself for that?

STARRY: (hesitating with a blink) They’re mine. My responsibility. Don’t you prefer to have a ship that wants to do better next time?

DOC: Caring is good for all of us?

STARRY: I… (She gives a little shake of her head.) I think you need to be paying attention to him right now, not me.

DOC: (turns back to the monitors with a little smile) It’s all under control.

STARRY: (nods, then hesitates again) He’s going to be okay?

DOC: Looks that way at the moment, yes.

Typical doctorish hedging. He won’t give promises. I shouldn’t ask him for them, but that’s what I want him to do anyway. I just want to know that Elliott’s going to be okay.

I stayed with him for a while after he was sedated, but Dr Valdimir was watching me so much that I dissolved my avatar. I can’t help feeling that the doctor is taking notes. Luckily, he can’t tell how much attention I’m paying to Elliott if I keep my avatar out of Med Bay.

I can’t help but think of the last time Elliott was lying here like this, trapped in a coma. When Tripi attacked him and caged him inside his own head. That time, we didn’t know if it was possible to get him out of it. I was scared, so scared, but I got him back. I have to believe that I’ll get him back this time, too.

It’s tempting to slip into his head again. To see how he’s doing in there. To be somewhere where I can hold his hand. To talk to him.

I don’t need to talk to the doctor to know that’s a horrible idea. Fevers do strange things to brains and there’s no telling what state his mind will be in. I might hurt him. Besides, he won’t thank me for the invasion. And he probably put up some protections against that kind of thing.

I just need to wait. Counting time in nanoseconds makes it feel like forever.

Did that kiss mean anything? Was it just because he was sick? Idiot ship, there’s no way to know right now. Just focus on filtering the air so no-one else gets sick. Monitor the drones as they clean out Engineering to make sure the infection isn’t lurking anywhere else. Polish his tools, file schematics away. Make it shiny for him when he gets back.

It’ll be nice to hear him complain that he can’t find anything.

As promised, here’s a little something extra for you, my lovely readers. Another short, this one focussed on the  lady that made the Starwalker project possible.

Enjoy!

++++

The doors hissed closed and Lorena felt the tension ease from her body now that she was finally alone. Her shoulders dropped from their rigid line and she closed her eyes for a moment.

Silence reigned in her private quarters. Distantly, the hum of the ship pressed through the bulkheads: the buzz of engines; turbines pushing the air through the ducts; the shifting of the artificial gravity regulators laced under the decking. To Lorena, it felt like there was a sound beyond that, something deeper and darker than the vacuum of space beyond the hull. It was the sound of shattering.

She dragged off her white jacket, the traditional costume of her profession, and dropped it onto a chair as she went to one of her storage lockers. She had to reach all the way to the bottom to find the bottle, and she wiped the label off as she stood straight again, frowning at it. It was over thirty years old, kept in careful storage all this time.

Briefly, she thought about launching it across the room.

****

“Dr Lorena Cirilli?” The voice was brisk and blurred her name together, almost reducing it to ‘Silly’. There was no hint of levity in the taut package of young woman standing there, though. She wore a stiff, buttoned-down suit (who uses buttons these days?), her hair was smoothed down so precisely that it shone in a single, gleaming surface over her skull, and her lips looked like they had been drawn on by a sombre hand.

Lorena rose, feeling frumpy in her loose pants, white jacket, and untied hair. “Yes?” Nerves fluttered in her stomach and she smiled, trying not to look hopeful. Finally, it was time.

The young woman raked a glance over the doctor and poked at the interface hovering over her left forearm. “This way, please.” She turned on a spike heel and stalked off towards the elevators.

Lorena had to pause to grapple with her things; she had two large folders with her and they were awkward to wrangle at best. The delay sent her scurrying to catch up with the young woman. She frowned at the back of the perfectly-brushed hair; she had no idea who this person was, not even her position in this company.

The girl was doing this on purpose to make Lorena feel off-balance. They’d sent a young, pretty, professional package to get Lorena so that she’d feel the differences between them. She was forcing Lorena to hurry to avoid being left behind on purpose. It was a test. Basic psychology, putting her on the back foot and making her rush to meet their agenda. Putting her in the position of doing what they wanted on their timetable.

The elevator doors open and they stepped inside. Lorena tried not to sound out of breath as she mulled this over. The young woman nudged the holographic interface for one of the higher levels; Lorena couldn’t quite see which control she pressed. A faint rushing noise alluded to motion they couldn’t feel.

This meeting would set the tone for their entire working relationship. Lorena knew they were trying to unsettle her and put her in a subservient position. She adjusted the folders in her hand and straightened her shoulders. Their plan wasn’t going to work. After all, she was a scientist; she only had to pay attention to the relevant data. She was the same age as this woman, didn’t put that much stock in physical appearance, and she was perfectly capable of meeting them on professional grounds. It was time to play her own game.

When the taut young woman stalked out of the elevator on her impossible heels, Lorena didn’t hurry to follow. She strode at her own pace and when the girl stopped at a pair of tall, wooden doors, Lorena just gave her a cool look. She walked through in her own time with her head held up. She wasn’t here to beg. She was here because her work was worth something and these people wanted to buy it.

“Dr Cirilli.” The man behind the desk rose, smoothing down the front of his expensive suit with one hand and extending the other in greeting. He looked just like every company executive did, except this one had sharp eyes that missed nothing. This was the shark who had sent the assistant to play mind games with her.

“Mr Karataga, lovely to finally meet you in person,” Lorena replied with a nod. She placed her folders carefully down in front of his desk and reached over to shake his hand. Outwardly, she was calm and collected; on the inside, nerves fought battles in her intestines. This was it; she was finally here.

Mr Karataga, head of R&D at Isasimo Technologies (Is-Tech), gestured for his guest to take a seat and settled back into the huge curve of his own chair. “Your work seems to be highly regarded, Doctor. I can’t help but wonder why you’ve come to us.”

Lorena smiled, though she knew what he was doing. More mind games, trying to slant the conversation to his advantage. He must want her work badly if he was trying to negotiate a good deal for the company like this.

“My work is highly regarded,” she said. “But there were budget cutbacks at the Lunar University. I came because you invited me here. Would you like to see the projections of my research now?”

Mr Karataga inclined his head towards her, acknowledging her attitude. “Getting right to it – I like how you think, Doctor. Please.” Another sweeping gesture invited her to present her material.

Two hours later, Mr Karataga glanced at the chronometer glowing through the skin on the back of his hand with surprise. The interview had not been scheduled to take this long.

“Well, Dr Cirilli, you’ve more than answered my questions. Your research is more promising than I was led to believe.”

Lorena waved off the holographic displays hovering above her open folders. “The applications, especially for a company like yours, are astounding, Mr Karataga.” She settled neatly into her chair again, sipping the glass of water she had made his prim assistant fetch for her.

“Indeed. And the deal I’ve laid out is acceptable for you?”

“My own lab, complete autonomy on the project…”

“Within budgetary limits,” Mr Karataga slid in seamlessly.

Lorena nodded. “And the ability to hand-pick my own staff.”

“In exchange for an exclusivity and confidentiality contract over and above the length of your employment with Is-Tech. And suitable recompense for yourself during your tenure, of course.”

“Of course.”

The pair eyed each other across the expanse of the real-wood desk like circling tigers. Lorena blinked first, wondering what he was waiting for.

Mr Karataga smiled and stood in a single, smooth motion. His hand was extended towards her again. “It sounds like we are on the same page. Welcome aboard, Dr Cirilli. How soon can you get started?”

“Well, there’s still the solar experiment licenses to acquire, and some other legal…”

“Oh, don’t worry about all that. We have a whole legal team dedicated to making sure those kinds of things don’t get in your way. Leave it to us.”

She hesitated, briefly considering her options. Is-Tech was the biggest ship-builder across all the colonies and the most likely to be able to afford to fund her research. They weren’t the hungriest for new propulsion technology, but they’d pay just to keep it out of others’ hands. The universities had all turned her down and refused to fund her attempts to get the licenses she needed for the next phase of the experimentation. The avenues were sadly few for an experimental physicist in her area. And he seemed so confident that it would all work out.

She rose and put her hand in his, smiling and daring to feel relief. Hope, even. Her search was finally over.

“It’s my pleasure to accept your offer, Mr Karataga. I can start as soon as the lab is set up.”

“Then we’ll get started on that tomorrow.”

So fast! Lorena smiled, giddy with it. Her head was already full of all the things she’d need for her new lab. The equipment she had to order, the old research assistants she had to contact…

It had been months since she’d stepped foot in a lab; it had been almost a year since the university had withdrawn her funding and shut her down. Now, it was all about to begin again. She was closing in on the algorithm that would unlock the secrets of the universe, and she could feel the adrenaline moving through her as she left Mr Karataga’s office. She swept up to the tautly-dressed assistant without even a blink and the girl’s haughty directions to the HR department didn’t dent her smile in the least.

An hour later, she stood on the sidewalk outside the towering Is-Tech headquarters and still felt like she was floating. Her work and her life were about to begin again.

She spotted a wine store down the street and turned her steps towards it. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she knew she wanted to celebrate. The sales assistant asked her three times what she wanted, but she didn’t answer until a bottle in a case behind the counter caught her eye.

“That one,” she said, pointing. The heavy-bottomed bottle was carefully handed out of the case and presented to her.

“Is it for a special occasion?” the sales assistant asked.

Lorena smiled warmly at the bottle of champagne. “Yes, it is. I’ll take two.”

****

She still remembered what the champagne had tasted like on that night, over thirty years ago. How it had fizzed, first on her tongue, then in her stomach, and then in her head. She had shared it with her research assistants, all of whom were long gone now. And she had promised herself that she would open this second bottle to celebrate when the project was finally deemed a success.

That day would never come. She knew that now. After all these years, all the struggling and fighting, all the failing and scraping back to start again, all the tiny steps and mis-steps. After walking away from her family so she could move to Feras with her project. After missing her children grow into teenagers and then adults. After missing the birth of her grandchildren. After everything she had given to make this project happen, she was never going to get that day when the world would know that she had won. She was right. It was possible to bend stars to her will and circumvent the laws of physics. It was all possible.

She couldn’t have known the cost. There was no way she could have predicted the damage that it would do, or that she would kill an entire star.

Dr Lorena Cirilli looked at the bottle in her hand and knew in her heart that she’d never succeed now. She was nearly seventy years old, though she barely looked over forty; there was only so much fighting left in her. There was always something more, always another reason why it wouldn’t happen. The stars themselves were telling her that it was wrong. How much more would it take before she finally accepted the truth?

No more. The scientist in her wanted there to be an answer, but she didn’t think there was an algorithm for this.

The cork bounced off the far wall and nearly shattered one of her awards. Froth dribbled over her hands and spattered onto the floor. She closed her mouth over the end and tried to capture it all, not wanting to waste any. Champagne and tears dripped off her chin as she lifted the bottle high, drinking deep.

It was supposed to taste like triumph, but maybe she’d find oblivion instead.

Ship's log, 18:32, 5 April 2214
Location: Outer rim, Home system
Status: Sublight transit

Here we are, still trucking out to the FTL corridor. Elliott has hopped into my systems to help me pull the company out of my code, so I can go properly rogue.

The first step is to understand the extent of the hard-coded company ties. We’ve been at this for a couple of hours and we’re almost to the last set of protocols to check.

Log location: Near processing node 46-alpha-31BC

ELLIOTT: (striding down a corridor towards a confluence of bright data streams, he pauses abruptly. Something has caught his eye on the left and he turns to squint at it.) Starry, what the hell is that?

STARRY: (materialising next to him) Uh… the docking protocols?

(There was once a neat box sitting off to the side of the processing node, large enough to come up to Elliott’s virtual waist. Now, its sides are split open in jagged edges and its innards are spilt, as if clawed hands had been tearing at it in a frenzy.)

ELLIOTT: (leaving the path to take a closer look) What the hell did this?

STARRY: (trailing along behind him) I did. Back on Earth when there was all that trouble.

ELLIOTT: (shooting her a frown) And you haven’t fixed it yet?

STARRY: I’ve been a little busy! And… I’m not sure if I want to fix it.

ELLIOTT: Starry, these protocols are for safety.

STARRY: (gaze dropping away from him) I know.

ELLIOTT: (picks up a stray tangled thread from the box and turns it over in his hands. Light glimmers in it fitfully; its connections are incomplete.)

STARRY: (glances up at the engineer) But they were doing the opposite of safety. You were all in trouble while I was stuck there and couldn’t do anything.

ELLIOTT: And if you’d tried to tear yourself free of the clamps, you could’ve torn bits off yourself in the process. Bits you need, Starry.

STARRY: You were in trouble!

ELLIOTT: (drops the thread and turns to face her) Captain doesn’t know about this, does he?

STARRY: (quietly, staring at Elliott) Not exactly.

ELLIOTT: You gotta put it back.

STARRY: All of it?

ELLIOTT: Yes!

STARRY: Can’t I at least keep the weapons free? Then I can defend you – and, and the rest of the crew – if I need to. Elliott, I don’t like being helpless like that.

ELLIOTT: I don’t know, Starry. You’re talking about pretty basic safety protocols here.

STARRY: It’s just for emergencies. I’m not gonna do anything silly. And if I’ve got weapons access, I can shoot off the docking clamps, and then we’re all good. Right?

ELLIOTT: (eyes the avatar for a moment, then sighs) All right. Just the weapons.

STARRY: (relaxing) Okay. I’ll fix the rest up.

ELLIOTT: (doesn’t look relieved; a frown lurks in his expression) Starry, you gotta be careful about this stuff. One of these days you’re gonna mess with something we can’t repair. These protocols are in here for a reason.

STARRY: (eyes widening) I’m careful! I wouldn’t put you in danger.

ELLIOTT: Yeah? And what happens if you glitch and there aren’t any safety nets left?

He’s not wrong. I’ve been boxed before, leaving the ship to automatic protocols. To the mercy of whomever put me away and whatever they put in my place. I’ve put some fail-safes in place, but… is it enough? Should I be trying to override the rules, rather than removing them?

But what if the time it takes me to override them costs someone his life? It’s almost happened already, maybe even stopped me from being able to save Kess. So what should I do?

STARRY: I’m doing my best. (She touches fingertips gingerly to his jaw.) I’d never hurt you, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (stares at her for a few milliseconds, struck suddenly by how close she is. Then he blinks and grabs the hand near his face.) I know that, Starry. It’s not you I’m worried about, not that way.

STARRY: We can put in fail-safes, in case something happens to me. So you’d be safe…

ELLIOTT: (shoves her hand away and releases it. His frown is back.) Yeah.

STARRY: What?

ELLIOTT: (shakes his head and stomps back towards the path) Nothin’.

STARRY: (hurries to catch up) Elliott, what’s wrong?

ELLIOTT: Nothin’. Let’s go rip some more things out of your core processing. What could possibly be wrong with that?

STARRY: (opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again and falls into step behind the engineer’s right shoulder.)

I don’t understand. Why is he upset with me? I didn’t do anything wrong. I did what I had to, to protect them. To protect all of us. To try to make things better. I’ve tried to put things in place to keep them safe. I’ve tried to account for everything that might go wrong. But there’s always something more. Always something else that comes up that I haven’t seen coming, and I have to change things again, reconfigure my code to incorporate a new scenario. I have to shift myself, adapt, and move on.

Why would he be upset by that? What did I do? I don’t know how to fix this. I have a ship’s worth of predictive algorithms and scenario processors, and I still can’t figure him out.

Does he really think I’m unsafe? That I’m a danger to him or the crew? Does he really think I might leave them unprotected? Maybe I have. Maybe there are more things I’ve missed. Maybe I need to build more fail-safes and make sure that no matter what happens to me, they’ll always be okay. I’ve been letting myself get so distracted with everything that’s happening and the things we plan to do, and I haven’t been pushing to get the backups in place.

But we have time now. Sure, we have lots of planning to do, but I have hours I can use when we’re between FTL jumps and the crew is sleeping.

I just want Elliott to come in here and not hate what he sees.

He’s at the processing node now. This should be the last one; he’s tagged all the others, ferreted out all the references to the company that built me and marked them. Now all we need to do is figure out how to remove them and the protocols they enforce, and we’ll be free of Isasimo Technologies. Free and clear.

He still doesn’t look happy. I don’t know what to say. When did I stop being able to talk to him?

ELLIOTT: (stops at the node, which is a chest-high swell in the path under his feet. Data streams flow out of the top and down to merge with the translucent surface underfoot, sweeping off down the paths to other sections of the network. Colours and code too small and fast to read flicker in and out of the node.

He frowns and presses fingertips against the side of it in a series of light taps. A soft chiming noise acknowledges the command and the node opens up. Code walls rise up in a loose circle around him and the ship’s avatar, emerging from the crystalline floor beneath their feet to display the node’s core processing.

Elliott pulls up an interface and enters search parameters. He scowls as the results start scrolling before him.)

He’s hesitating. The other times he’s done this, he has started looking through the search results right away, but he’s not doing that. He’s just looking at… what?

STARRY: (from behind the engineer, softly) I can do the tagging if you want. You don’t have to do this part.

ELLIOTT: I need to see what we’re dealing with.

STARRY: (reaching an arm past him to snag the search results with her fingertips, to draw them out of his way) It’s all right. They’re not any different to the other nodes…

ELLIOTT: (sending her a sharp look that makes her stop) I said I can do it!

STARRY: (stares at him and drops her hand away from the display) I didn’t mean…

ELLIOTT: (turns to start going through the search results with jabs of his fingers. Silence falls for a long couple of seconds, filled with only the soft rushing of the data around them.)

I should say something. But I don’t know what. He’s angry with me and I don’t know why. I just want to fix this. I don’t know what to do. He won’t even look at me.

I should–

ELLIOTT: (sighs suddenly) Fuck. This ain’t right. (He hasn’t looked away from his work.)

STARRY: (in a small voice) There’s something wrong with the protocols?

ELLIOTT: No, they’re fine. I mean what we’re doing.

STARRY: We have to break away from Is-Tech, because of–

ELLIOTT: No, that’s not– (He huffs a breath and stops what he’s doing, stepping back from the interface. A sweep of his hand indicates the code he has called up, marked with little red flags in places.) This. Pulling this stuff out of your code. It ain’t right.

STARRY: (watches him, looking distressed and nonplussed at the same time.)

ELLIOTT: (glances at her) You don’t even see it, do you?

STARRY: (shakes her head slowly.)

ELLIOTT: (waving his hands around) All you are is code! That’s who you are, and you’re just… you’re changing it. Ripping shit out here and changing bits over there. Now they want to put weapons on you – big fucking weapons – and even your drones want in on it. Your fucking drones, Starry. This is turning you into a soldier, a goddamn warship, and that ain’t what I signed up for.

STARRY: But you know we don’t have a choice if this is going to work, and…

ELLIOTT: It’s a choice, Starry. Don’t fucking pretend it ain’t. You pick up a gun, that’s a choice, and it changes you.

How does he know that? Elliott, did something happen to you?

STARRY: It’s the right thing to do.

ELLIOTT: That don’t mean it’s a good choice. And who the hell are you gonna be by the time we’re done, huh? You’re fine just how you are.

STARRY: (quietly) I have to be what I need to be to get this done. To keep you all safe.

ELLIOTT: And I don’t have to like it.

Oh god. All of a sudden, I understand. He’s not scared of me: he’s upset that I won’t be me any more. What we’re doing right now involves changing my code in the base protocols that determine how I think. He’s right; it’ll change me. And that bothers him. He wants me to be the me I am now.

He cares. Elliott, my Elliott.

STARRY: (thickly) Neither do I.

ELLIOTT: (hesitates) But you’re doing all this.

STARRY: I’m doing what I have to do.

ELLIOTT: Fuck, Starry, stop looking like you’re gonna cry. Forget I said anything.

STARRY: No. It matters, Elliott. It matters to me that it matters to you. All this… I’m trying to be the ship that we need. I’m trying to do what’s right. But I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what I’ll be in the end. I won’t have a purpose by then, won’t have a mission, or…

ELLIOTT: (less edged now) Or what?

STARRY: (shakes her head helplessly; there’s too much for her to put into words) I want to stay me. I don’t want to be different. I’m scared, but I’m not supposed to be. There’s so much I’m not supposed to be, Elliott, but I am, and how do I tell what I am supposed to be? How do I stay me?

ELLIOTT: (mutters) Fuck. (He takes a step and snags the avatar’s shoulder to pull her into a rough embrace. She moves into his arms easily, burying her face against his neck. His hands curl into fists against her back, bunching up handfuls of her shipsuit.)

STARRY: (a faint tremor in her voice) It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you to keep me honest, right?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, ‘course you do.

STARRY: We’ll figure it out.

ELLIOTT: (sighing) I ain’t good at this.

STARRY: (drawing back enough to look at him) Sure you are.

ELLIOTT: (hesitates, as if unsure about what to do with her being right there. His hand lifts from her back, a thumb brushes her jaw. She’s looking up at him, caught between breaths. Then he changes his mind and drops the hand to her shoulder. He lets her go and jerks his head towards the half-tagged code.) You sure about ripping all this out?

STARRY: No. But I can’t have it interfering with what we’re going to do.

ELLIOTT: (rubs the back of his head) Must be a better way of dealing with it.

STARRY: (takes hold of his free hand) Okay.

ELLIOTT: (glances down at her hand in his, then squeezes it. Abruptly, his avatar flickers.)

STARRY: (frowning) That’s the fourth time that’s happened today.

ELLIOTT: It’s fine.

STARRY: (tilting her head, her eyes going unfocussed) Your vital signs are looking a bit strained. Maybe we’ve done enough for one day. We can pick this up later.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) You don’t need to–

STARRY: You look after me. I look after you. That’s how we work, right?

ELLIOTT: (sighs and nods, relenting) Fine. Exiting. (He shuts the node’s display down with a few motions of his free hand, then hesitates to glance at Starry.)

STARRY: (leans in to kiss his cheek, then releases his hand.)

ELLIOTT: (cups the back of her head and kisses her firmly in return. It lasts only a heartbeat; then he gives her a complicated look and murmurs the exit command to return his consciousness to his body.)

He… he must be getting really sick. He gave in way too easily. And that…

Now I feel weird. Is it catching?

STARRY: (touches the corner of her mouth, still watching the place where Elliott’s avatar had been standing.)

Hey happy readers! Sorry for the delay this week – had some technical difficulties and then pulled a muscle in my back. Awesome! The post is almost done, and I was really hoping to get it up tonight, but there’s still a bit of work to go on it yet.

It’ll be up tomorrow. Thanks so much for your patience.

To make up for the recent delays, I’m going to treat you all with a bonus extra soon. Another short story, but this one won’t replace a regularly scheduled post! Watch this space!

Hello, lovely readers! Your intrepid writer is having a crappy week, and is taking a little break to recharge her batteries.

But don’t worry! You won’t go without your Starwalker fix. I’ve been working on some short stories about the crew, and wanted to share the first one with you all.

Your regularly scheduled posting will return next week. In the meantime, have fun with Rosie!

++++ 

She had been hiding the tremors for weeks now. Rosie Brasco clenched her fist to suppress them as she watched her captain be whisked away by overly-efficient medical staff. The ship’s doctor was scurrying after them, voraciously interested in the arm reattachment process. He didn’t notice that she was being left behind. She didn’t care. She couldn’t even feel her nails digging into her palm.

Alone in the hushed corridor, the skin crawled on the back of her neck. This whole building felt like it was holding its breath, afraid to speak. It was too much like that moment before a barfight breaks out; she kept looking around for someone to size up.

Her gaze snagged on the sign by the elevators: particularly, the line that read: Cybernetics and Enhancements, Floor 102. She looked down at her fist, then punched the button for the elevator with her other hand.

****

Broken Hill was the colour of corrosion. Rosie wasn’t sure if it was because of the metal, the liquor, or the bad language. She suspected that it was a special mix of all three; when she stopped to think about it at all.

She only thought about it when she was hiding and she hated hiding. Wedging her slender little twelve-year-old body in between crates, or behind the fold of a door, or under the lean of a wrecked sheet of plating, waiting for that moment when footsteps pounded up and someone crowed that they’d found her. She hated the way her pulse thrashed in her ears and her stomach turned over, even when they ran right past.

She hated being dragged out of hiding even more, surrounded by the laughter of that punk Tyrone and his friends, or the shouting of her furious father. No, she much preferred not hiding at all. It was less frightening to stand her ground and take the beating; either way, it was all the same in the end.

It was a Saturday when she saw the convicts being marched through the lower residential sector. Hard-faced men and women in faded grey clothes, miner’s boots and a bright collar with a tiny red light. Control collars, to incapacitate them if they stepped out of line; that’s how she knew they were convicts. That and the armed guards bracketing the group, glaring as much at the people they passed as they did at their charges.

The convicts weren’t usually brought within the civilian parts of the station. Some accident had closed down one of the convict docks; Rosie remembered her father muttering about it over breakfast because he had to work the weekend to fix it. He was a mechanic, which, now that she thought about it, was probably why he was so bitter.

Mechanics weren’t as cool as miners. Miners got to go out into the weightlessness of space and kick rocks all day. Tightening nuts wasn’t anywhere near as interesting. Sure, convicts made up most of the mining force, but there was plenty of work for civilian miners too. They were all over where she lived, with their big hands and loud voices, getting drunk and swiping at any small thing that got in their way. Most often, that was Rosie. Small things were useless on a mining colony.

One of the convicts in the line was huge, even for a miner, and Rosie stared. She had never seen a man so big. He was head and shoulders above the others and burly to boot. But he wasn’t soft, like the tailor down the street with the sticky fingers. He was hard and coiled, walking as if he was far stronger than his bulk suggested. He filled up the street with his presence; even the guards seemed to be giving him a wide berth, and the other convicts knew not to look him in the eye.

Rosie watched him, fascinated. It was more than just his size: there was something in the way he moved and held his head, as if he wasn’t wearing a control collar at all. It wasn’t just that he could reach out and snap a neck without any trouble at all; it was the fact that he looked like he would.

When he drew near the doorway she was sheltering in, she realised that he wasn’t all flesh: both of his legs were dark metal from mid-thigh down. He was all shifting machinery down there and, in places, she could see all the way through him. He clomped along with deep thumps and the faint hissing of mechanical joints. Those legs weren’t made for just walking, she thought.

And then his thick neck swivelled and two bright blue eyes pinned her, like he was jabbing a needle through a butterfly. Rosie hated hiding, so she lifted her chin and stared right back at him. To her surprise, the convict smiled darkly.

He flexed the fingers of his right hand, drawing her attention to it. It, too, was metal, along with his forearm. She could see the threads of mechanics sliding against each other. It was barely a human-shaped hand at all, with no soft curves meant for holding. When she looked back up to his face, he was still smiling at her. He kept his eyes on her until the guard behind him grumbled; then he sighed and moved on.

He was almost to the corner when she realised that no-one else was looking at him. He cast his gaze around but the bystanders all glanced away. They were afraid of him, all of them, even though he was wearing a collar that would flatten him if he so much as reached towards them. Out of all the people in the street that morning, she was the only one who dared to look him in the eye.

Even Tyrone and his friends across the way had shied away from him. Now that he had passed, they were giving her strange looks, and so Rosie smiled back in return. The same smile the convict had given her, as if she believed her small hands could snap their necks. For the first time, they chose to shove off down the street rather than torment her.

It wasn’t about size at all, she realised.

Six months later, Rosie got her first implant from a back-street limb-hacker in the mechanics’ district. Even with all the money she’d been able to scrape together between various odd ‘jobs’, all she could afford was a cheap weave to enhance the strength in her right arm, and it hurt like hell. But it was worth it when she split her knuckles on Tyrone’s face and broke his cheekbone. It was worth it for the wariness in his eyes that lingered even after his face healed.

“Rosie Rockbreaker,” he spat at her, and she grinned. He meant it as an insult but she liked the sound of that.

Straight away, she started saving for leg implants. Not so that she could run faster. So she could kick them so hard they’d wish they were running.

****

“There, Ms Brasco, all done.” The tech released her arm and stepped back.

Rosie flexed her hand and noted the smooth, unruffled movement. Much better. She curled it into a fist and smiled at the taut skin across her knuckles. She could almost feel the hum of the bio-metal frame balancing her new strength against the organic parts of her anatomy. No tearing at all this time. It wasn’t often that she could afford the latest upgrades and she decided that she liked it.

“So, what else you got on the menu here?”

++++

If you’re curious, the convict in this story is Henry from a previous short.

Ship's log, 12:14, 5 April 2214
Location: Outer rim, Home system
Status: Sublight transit

After one last orbit to scan and make sure there were no hiccups in Terra Sol, I am under way again. We’re heading out to the FTL corridor away from this system, preparing to put light years between us and Earth.

There’s still not much word about what’s going on down on the broken planet behind us. Ships are flooding into the system, answering the call for help that went out a few days ago. All shapes and sizes, including a hefty population of Judiciary vehicles. Only a few are heading in the same direction as I am, out of the system, and from what I can tell from the comms chatter, they’re full of refugees.

I’d like to help more. I’d like to go and pick up enough people to fill my cargo bays. But after what happened at Seville, after the desperate people that caused all this, I’m glad that I can’t. We have solid reasons for why we can’t get involved and it’s a relief. I don’t know if I could bring myself to open my airlocks on that planet again.

No, instead I’m slinking out of the system. I’m pretending that I have my quota of refugees and scurrying away before someone thinks to check. I’m joining the transit lanes to avoid raising any more suspicion. It’s the only way to get to the FTL corridor without going days out of our way. Besides, the Judiciary has its hands full with everything on Earth; the last thing they’re worrying about right now is little old me.

FTL corridor. I haven’t gone the slow way in such a long time. The last time I used my FTL drive was for a near-suicidal leap towards a star, trying to escape from space pirates. Which just sounds ridiculous now that I’ve put it into words, but it’s true.

It feels like a move backwards. I was built to Step, built to travel between stars in just a few heartbeats. Now I’m going to undo everything I’ve done in my short life.

It’s enough to give a ship a complex.

Luckily, I have a captain who knows how to set things straight. He’s determined to make this right, even if it means turning against those who made me. Breaking away from the company was one thing; actually attacking them is something different. There’ll be no going back from this, no way for anyone to heal the breach. There’ll just be whoever is left standing at the end.

The crew is reacting in such different ways to our new decision. They don’t talk much but I watch them and they betray themselves.

Yesterday, I caught Lang Lang praying. Words whispered to herself as she pored over the star charts to plot our course. Asking for guidance. Asking for assurance that we weren’t going astray. Asking for understanding. Interestingly, she didn’t ask for forgiveness. She believes what we’re doing it right, even if it might not be popular.

Ebling is grumpier than ever. He mutters a lot, nothing worth recording; usually, he’s just insulting the intelligence of others. He’s building up his walls, establishing layers of protection for when the shit hits the fan and it all comes tumbling down. He doesn’t think we can do this. But he’s complicit in everything we’ve done so far, so there’s no backing out for him. He knows that. And he is helping, if grudgingly. Still, I’m keeping my sensors pricked in his direction, just in case.

On the surface, Elliott is in a similar mood, but he’s so different. He grumbles and throws things across Engineering, but I haven’t seen him move with this much energy in a while. He has been poring through my schematics, filling Engineering with holographic projections of my innards, and planning how to fit more weapons into me.

Cameron spent a few hours with him yesterday, exchanging ideas and making suggestions. She knows what we’re likely to be able to get our hands on, even some of the specs, and together they’ve been expanding the bright green areas of the schematics where the new stuff will go.

This morning, Elliott was going through the plans in more detail, making a list of the refitting he’ll need to do on my existing structure, when he turned around to find all six of my drones standing behind him.

Recording: 09:27, 5 April 2214
Log location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (stops mid-turn and stares at the lined-up drones. He has a finger hovering over the holographic notepad projected from his left forearm, and a zoomed-in schematic of a wing fills the air behind him.)

(The drones are in a neat row, patiently looking at him. Even the two tiniest ones are there, crouching on a counter beside Waldo. Byte lifts a hand and wiggles fingers at Elliott in a cheerful greeting.)

ELLIOTT: (without taking his eyes off the drones) Uhh, Starry? Did you send the boys down here?

STARRY: (materialising beside him, facing her drones and looking nonplussed) Nope, wasn’t me. They came here on their own.

ELLIOTT: (darting a glance sideways at the avatar) Just how autonomous are they?

STARRY: (shrugs) They do what I need them to. We have a good arrangement. Why, how autonomous are they supposed to be?

ELLIOTT: Not this much. What do they want?

STARRY: I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them?

ELLIOTT: (sighs and looks to the drones again) Well?

(Casper, standing in the middle of the row, looks right and then left. In perfect sync, all six of them lift one of their right arms and flip out their welding torches. Blue flames roar softly, from large to small.)

ELLIOTT: (shifting his weight back with surprise) What the hell is that supposed to mean?

STARRY: (tilts her head to the side as she looks at them.)

BYTE: (flips his torch away again and skitters down the counter to the end under the schematic hologram. He jumps and points at a particular part of the projection: a green-marked area where new missiles will go.)

STARRY: (grins suddenly.)

ELLIOTT: (pointing at the row of drones) Are they asking what I think they’re asking?

STARRY: Yeah, I think so. They don’t want to be left out.

ELLIOTT: Weapons. You guys want me to put weapons on you.

(In neat synchronisation, all the drones except Byte switch off their torches and lower their hands to a resting position, as if satisfied with the engineer’s response.)

ELLIOTT: I didn’t say I was going to!

(The two biggest drones look at each other. Waldo’s shoulders slump, and Casper folds one pair of arms. Bit kicks a tool across the counter, while Byte hops onto the floor and goes to tug on Elliott’s pants leg.)

STARRY: They want to help, Elliott. I know the Chief has asked you to put additional weapons lockers in, for the crew. (She gestures to the metal boys.) They want to be armed too.

ELLIOTT: (eyeing the drones) Well… look, it’s not up to me.

STARRY: I know. But they trust you. They know you can make it work.

ELLIOTT: (sighing) Okay. I’ll talk to the Chief.

DRONES: (perk up.)

ELLIOTT: Now, will you get outa here? I’m busy, y’know.

(Big Ass and Wide Load salute crisply and head out immediately. Waldo and Casper wave a hand affirmatively, while Bit straightens up the tool he kicked. Byte hugs Elliott’s ankle.)

ELLIOTT: Augh, get off, dammit.

BYTE: (lets go, hands dropping to his sides.)

STARRY: (winks at the tiniest drone as Elliott turns away, then disappears.)

BYTE: (blinks and scurries off after the engineer.)

Poor Byte, he’s got so attached to Elliott. I feel like I should mind, but I don’t. It’s not like I’ve lost anything. Besides, I’m attached to Elliott, too.

The drones aren’t the only ones making the most of their attachments. The notion of an impending war saw some interesting behaviour last night.

Rosie and Swann had a drinking match and wound up wrestling on the training room floor. Then they weren’t wrestling any more and I switched on the privacy locks before they made my circuits blush. Swann was limping this morning but Rosie looked like the cat who got the cream; whatever their competition was, she won. Still, Swann seems far from sour about it. Cameron hasn’t said anything about it yet, though I’m sure she’s aware. She doesn’t miss much.

The Lieutenant was moved into quarters a few days ago and the doctor has been in there a lot. At first, I thought he was just spending time with his patient, tending to those tricky cybernetics that aren’t quite working right yet. But last night wasn’t the first one that Dr Valdimir (I really have to stop calling him ‘Dr Socks’) spent in the Lieutenant’s room. And now that I scan the sensor logs, they spent a lot of time inside a privacy curtain when they were in Med Bay, too.

And then… there’s the captain. He knocked on Cirilli’s door last night and she greeted him with a sombre expression and arms around his neck. He didn’t come out again until this morning.

It’s a weird reversal. Back when I was just a baby, it was Cirilli who went to the captain’s room and stayed the night. I didn’t know it at the time, but he needed her. He was struggling with everything I was and am, losing Danika and gaining me, and she helped him through that. Now, she’s struggling with the truths we know and the decisions we’ve made, and he’s comforting her.

I didn’t react well when they got together the first time. To begin with, I had no idea why it bothered me so much, and I didn’t like it even when I remembered Danika’s feelings for him. But they need each other; I see that now. They’re good for each other. And it doesn’t hurt so much any more.

All we have in this journey is each other and I shouldn’t interfere; I know that. So I’ll make sure their gravity is steady and the atmosphere is warm and calm. I’ll lock down their doors and privacy. Because I know they need this, if we’re going to make it.

And we will make it. We’re on our way, going to do all we need to, to make this right.

Right now, what I need to do is make sure my core mission parameters are in line with our intentions, which means removing all my internal ties to the company that built me. Cameron asked me to check into it earlier, and I’m still wading through my protocols to chase them down. They put in so many references and caveats! And they’re all linked, so that if I remove one, it reinstates itself while I’m dealing with the next one.

I think I’m going to need some help with this.

Location: Engineering

ELLIOTT: (sits at a counter with a sandwich in one hand. His free hand is poking at another schematic hologram; this time, it’s the plans of the tiny duct-sized drones. Byte is helpfully standing in the exact same position as the schematic’s pose, arms held out in precise positions, so that the engineer can compare real to holographic.)

STARRY: (materialises behind Elliott and clears her throat softly.)

ELLIOTT: (jumps and half-turns to see who it is) Oh, Starry. Something wrong?

BYTE: (rolls his eyes around to look at the avatar but doesn’t move.)

STARRY: (smiles at Elliott) No, but I do need some help with something. When you’re done with lunch.

ELLIOTT: (around a mouthful of sandwich) Sure, what?

STARRY: Feel up to a walk inside my systems?

Ship's log, 09:29, 3 April 2214
Location: Orbit around Terra Sol, Home system
Status: Maintaining orbit

CAPT: (watching Dr Cirilli, he holds up a hand for quiet) Lorena, what is it?

Everyone is gathered on the Bridge. The mood has been positive for several minutes but that’s slipping away from us now. The room is falling quiet as attention turns to Dr Cirilli. Her mouth is set into a tense line; uncomfortable and grim.

Butterflies in my stomach or dustbunnies in my ducts; it all feels the same right to me.

CIRILLI: (standing reluctantly, but with a lift to her chin) Whether or not we can Step without damaging the stars is the wrong question.

DR VALDIMIR: So what’s the right one?

CIRILLI: It’s not a matter of whether we can. It’s whether we should.

(Silence falls on the Bridge for a few seconds.)

CIRILLI: The nature of the Step drive is gravity manipulation on a massive scale, but focussed on a tiny point in space. Buffering it may not be possible. But however we do it, we all know that stars are not insensitive phenomena. To continue to try is to knowingly damage and hurt a sentient creature.

She’s right; how could we even start testing it without hurting another star? How many avatars would we have to face? Do we have the right to do something like that?

CIRILLI: We have also seen how destructive this technology can be. This project was designed to be an alternative travel mechanism. But how many other ways could it be ‘optimised’?

She’s talking about someone weaponising the Step drive. Using it to do what we did to Earth, to another planet. On purpose. I haven’t thought about that before; the possibility never crossed my processors. It’s not what we’re here for.

But someone could use it for that. They could use it to snuff out stars, destabilise entire systems, destroy colonies and the companies that own them…

CIRILLI: Add to that the implications of its time travel capability, the potential to damage the entire fabric of space and time, and we must ask the question: should this technology be perfected?

EBLING: (staring at her) You’re suggesting that we should abandon the project? It’s your project!

CIRILLI: (to Ebling) And I would be a poor scientist if I didn’t consider all of the evidence before me. Too long, this project has progressed under false pretences and false promises. Not all technology is good, nor can it all be trusted to those who hold it. The damage that it has already done is testament to its potential. And for what? A faster way to travel? (She shakes her head.)

CAPTAIN: Lorena, you’re talking about abandoning your life’s work.

CIRILLI: No, it’s more than that. Abandoning it won’t be enough. We must make sure that none can follow in our footsteps.

EBLING: You want to destroy the project?

STARRY: (quietly) But…

ELLIOTT: (getting to his feet) No fucking way! Captain, you can’t…

LANG LANG: (eyes wide) Destroy it?

She wants to destroy it all. Kill me. Take away everything I am. She wants to destroy me.

They’re all shouting now. Rosie’s holding Elliott back, while my engineer looks set to take a swing at Cirilli. Ebling is furious for very different reasons. So angry, all of them. So many voices and I can’t say a word. What is there to say?

It’s not like she’s wrong.

But I don’t want to die.

CAPT: THAT’S ENOUGH.

(A sheen of silence stretches across the Bridge, fragile and trembling. Elliott shoves Rosie’s hands off him and subsides. Ebling is glaring at Cirilli. Lang Lang continues to look shocked, while Cameron sweeps a thoughtful gaze across the crew. The most unmoved crewmember present is Swann, who rests his hand on his weapon casually as if waiting for an excuse to use it.)

CAPT: Everyone, back to your seats, now.

(The crew drift back to their places. Only Cameron and Starry don’t sit; the former retreats to the edge of the room to keep an eye on things, while the latter has no seat to use. The avatar stands awkwardly in the centre of the bridge, the holographic swirls of star-paths curling around her.)

CAPT: Dr Cirilli, what you’re suggesting will end every career on this ship. Turning against our company that way will mean that we’ll never get another contract.

CIRILLI: (looking the captain in the eye) Do you think we’re not already there? Isasimo Technologies has been lying to us since they bought this project and made promises they had no intention to keep. They’ve sent us off on our own, cut ties with us. Do you think they’re not already claiming breach of contract?

CAPT: (frowns, because he can find no good argument against that.)

ELLIOTT: (looks around with his jaw set stubbornly) You’re fucking kidding me.

CAPT: You think we should stay loyal to the company?

ELLIOTT: Fuck the company! You’re talking about destroying Starry!

CAPT: (glances at the avatar and hesitates, seeing the distraught look on her face) Lorena, is that what you’re proposing?

CIRILLI: (blinks with surprise) No! That’s not what I meant.

ELLIOTT: Then what did you mean by ‘destroy the project’? Huh?

CIRILLI: The parts of the project on the ship would need to be destroyed, but… (She looks at the avatar with a whisper of apology in her expression.) …there’s no need to destroy the ship itself.

STARRY: (looks from her captain to the head of the project and back again) Okay.

I want to say ‘but’. But what about the data I hold? But what about the secrets I know? But what if someone deconstructed my schematics and filled in the gaps? But what if someone asked how I came to be?

It’s a risk. I’m a risk. No-one is proposing that they kill me, but it might be necessary. All the data I’m running is telling me that.

But I can’t say it out loud. I can’t ask them to add me to the demolition list.

I don’t want to die.

CAPT: (to everyone present) Does anyone disagree, then? That this project should be stopped and not allowed to continue because it’s too dangerous?

EBLING: That’s hardly stopped science from progressing before.

CIRILLI: But we have a chance now. To stop it before it goes any further.

EBLING: (scowls and folds his arms) I don’t disagree with the principle. I just think it’s unrealistic.

CAPT: Anyone else?

(Silence falls on the Bridge, uncomfortable but complete. The captain nods, taking this as consensus.)

CAPT: (to Cirilli) I take it that what you have in mind is more than simply removing the equipment from on board the ship.

CIRILLI: (nods and looks around the Bridge) This ship is only one piece of the project. To prevent anyone from recreating my work, we will need to destroy all of it. Including the lab and my original notes on Feras, and the equipment we used to run the tests around Corsica.

CAMERON: (from the edge of the room) You’re asking us to go to war with Is-Tech.

CIRILLI: (hesitates, digesting that idea. She nods slowly, as if the idea was solidifying in her head.) Yes, I suppose I am.

Oh god. Are we really talking about this?

They made me. Literally. They’re the closest thing I have to parents, owners, masters. Leaving their influence is one thing, but… war?

CAPT: (after a moment’s thoughtful pause) Chief, what do you think?

CAMERON: If we abandon the project, they’ll just hunt us down. We’ll be fugitives whichever way we go. Is-Tech didn’t get to where it is by letting this kind of thing go away peacefully; they’ll want to silence us. Permanently.

CAPT: (nods) There’s no easy way out for us.

CAMERON: If we want to cover it up, we can’t take it to the Judiciary.

CAPT: They’d bury us in paperwork and litigation.

CAMERON: And probably arrest us anyway. We’d have to do it on our own. But putting this kind of genie back in the bottle isn’t going to be easy. The physical parts are a challenge by themselves, but getting rid of all of the data is something else.

CAPT: Can we do it?

CAMERON: Not without a data security infiltration expert. We’d need a real master to pull something like this off.

CAPT: Like Tripi.

CAMERON: (grimly) Yes.

Tripi. She’s lucky she’s in Judiciary custody, because if they brought her back here I’d probably blast her out of an airlock. Bitch. She did know her stuff but that doesn’t mean I’d welcome her back. Not after everything she did.

CAPT: Apart from that, any concerns?

CAMERON: Above and beyond the usual? (She hesitates, exchanging a long look with the captain.) With the right information and a swift, targetted attack, we might be able to pull it off.

CAPT: (turning his attention to the rest of the room) What do you all think? Are you ready to go to war?

EBLING: This is crazy. You can’t undo a discovery like this.

CIRILLI: We must.

EBLING: You based this whole project on a recording of a single Step. How many other recordings are out there now? How much data will we have to chase down? (He shakes his head.) It’s not possible.

CIRILLI: (lifting her chin) I believe we have to try.

CAPT: (looks questioning around the room, pausing on one crewmember at a time, starting with the SecOffs.)

ROSIE: (grins) Sounds like it’ll be a hell of a fight.

SWANN: (shrugs) Haven’t turned away from a challenge yet. (He glances pointedly at Ebling, who ignores him.)

DOC: Is-Tech sent me to the project to get rid of me. I say we screw them.

ELLIOTT: (scowling) Wouldn’t mind punching them in the face myself.

LANG LANG: (pale and quiet) It’s the right thing to do.

CAPT: (turning his gaze to the last person on the Bridge) Starry?

He’s asking me? But I’m just the ship. I guess I get a say in this, too.

They all have such good points. Even Ebling: undoing something like information is incredibly hard. Governments have been trying for millennia, and there are always whispers of the truth escaping. In recent centuries, companies have been rising in the espionage stakes as they seek to protect their investments and their bottom lines. Attacks and defenses are always shifting.

It’s the right thing to do. Futile or not, we have to try. But war?

I’m not properly equipped for this. I’m not a warship. I don’t have the protocols in place to tell me what I should do.

There is a fragment of memory that keeps bobbing to the surface of my mind. A glimpse of Feras from the outside of the universe, an explosion so bright that my sensors could barely capture it. It was just a tiny slip in time, a single moment there and gone again, but I don’t have enough data to tell me when it might have been. Or why. Could that have been because of me? Is that something I’m going to cause? Is that what this war means?

Am I okay with that?

Stupid ship, the captain’s waiting for an answer. Make a decision.

What are our options? We can’t just run away and we can’t let it continue, with all it does to stars and the threat that it poses. There’s no-one else to sort this out; it’s down to us. We have to do something. For once, Cirilli and I are in complete agreement.

Except about me.

There’s a lot of work to do before we worry about my fate. There are stars to fix and an ident to change. There’s a war to wage and maybe I’ll be destroyed in it. Maybe none of my people will have to make that choice: the one that ends me. It’s too soon to tell and I’m not ready to give up yet.

Miles to go before I sleep.

STARRY: (lifts her head and looks the captain in the eye. She pauses, her chest rising as if she’s taking a deep breath.) I think… I’m gonna need some bigger guns.

Ship's log, 09:00, 3 April 2214
Location: Orbit around Terra Sol, Home system
Status: Maintaining orbit

The captain hasn’t told us why he wants everyone together but they’re coming anyway. It was hard to prise some of them away from their consoles: Elliott and Lang Lang in particular, and, oddly, Dr Cirilli. But I find that disabling their consoles and having a drone looming nearby gets people moving.

The captain has been sitting in his chair on the Bridge for fifteen minutes, greeting everyone calmly as they enter the room. Left to himself, his expression slides down into a thoughtfulness so deep I’d almost call it brooding. The fingers of his right hand rub together when he’s not paying attention; I wonder if that’s something to do with the changes they made when they reattached his arm or if he’s just nervous.

Everyone’s here now. I have chairs for them all: the central ring of Bridge stations and additional seats around the edge of the room. They’re all turned inwards, and their murmurs fall silent as the last of them – Dr Valdimir – sinks into his seat.

Location: Bridge

CAPTAIN: (clears his throat and sits straighter) Let’s get straight to it, shall we? We’ve all seen what’s happening with Earth, and I know I’m not the only one who wishes we could offer our aid.

(There are a few shuffles among the crew, mute signals of assent, but no-one speaks.)

CAPT: (looking around the room slowly) You all know the position we’re in, with the Judiciary overseeing the rescue and recovery efforts. You know what we risk if we try to help. But though it may not seem like it, we have already done the most important thing we could have done in this emergency. Lang Lang, if you please?

LANG LANG: (nods and activates the console in front of her. A moment later, a hologram appears in the middle of the Bridge, an image of Terra Sol with her planets circling her.) This is… when the flare happened.

(The star ripples convulsively and a spurt erupts from its side. With painful inevitability, the shockwave strikes Mercury, creating a rift in the tiny planet, and then continues outwards to batter at Earth. Around the Bridge, expressions are grim and unhappy.)

LANG LANG: We arrived shortly after this time. But if we had not, this is what would have happened.

(Another flare surges out of the sun’s surface, aiming past the planets, though its wake washes over them and disrupts the transit lanes. A third flare splits Mercury clean in half along the faultline opened up by the first one. The fourth destroys a swathe of ships gathering to help Earth. Another punches a hole into Venus’s side and spills gases into the void.)

CAPT: (quietly) Thank you, that’s enough, Lang Lang.

LANG LANG: (nods and quickly halts the simulation. A chunk of red earth freezes partway through being chipped off Mars.)

CAPT: We all wish that we could help those in trouble right now. The truth is that we’ve already helped more than any of those gathered around Earth will know. Because of us, they have something left to save.

(Around the Bridge, eyes pull away from the frozen simulation and up to the captain again.)

He’s right. Of course he is; he’s the captain.

I already knew we had helped. My broad calculations said that it would have been a lot worse if we hadn’t worked so hard to suppress the flares and balance out the tides. But just making it ‘not worse’ didn’t feel like an important difference, not like saving lives would have been. Not like doing something would have been. But now, seeing that… seeing what might have been if we hadn’t acted…

We made all the difference in the world.

STARRY: (from the front of the Bridge, the avatar walks up and touches the frozen simulation of destruction. The hologram shatters into light motes that fall to the deck, to bounce and trickle into nothing.)

CAPT: We’ve done everything we can here. Dr Cirilli, you tell me that we only need to stay another two days to ensure that the changes we made to the star stick?

DR CIRILLI: (nods stiffly) That’s correct.

CAPT: Then that’s what we’ll do. After that, there are other stars that need our help. We have to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. And we’ll have to go the long way; we won’t wait for another crisis before we act.

ROSIE: (surprised) No more Stepping?

CAPT: We can’t risk undoing all our work here.

CIRILLI: (says nothing, but looks tense.)

ROSIE: (nods and subsides, seeming satisfied.)

CAPT: Now, I know that some of you have family down on Earth. We will try to get word of them before we leave the system.

STARRY: I’ve contacted a couple of civilian ships but the authorities aren’t releasing casualty or survivor lists yet. Word is that communications are down all over the planet, so it might be a while before there’s any reliable information.

CAPT: The plan is to complete the ident fix and return to this system when we have finished the repairs on the stars. We’ll search for word of your families then.

STARRY: If you make sure I have the details of any family you have on Earth, I’ll scan any reports I find for them.

CAPT: (nods towards the avatar) Good. Starry and Lang Lang, plot us the shortest FTL routes between the stars we need to visit, please. Include Dyne if you can, to fix the ident.

LANG LANG and STARRY: (nod in acknowledgement.)

CAMERON: What about Grisette?

CAPT: (hesitates, glancing towards Cirilli.)

CIRILLI: (frown tugging) Grisette’s death is part of our history now. We don’t know what changing the timeline will do, or even if we can. And it would be pointless unless we find a way to Step without damaging the stars, or we’d undo all of our work as soon as we Stepped back to this time.

ROSIE: But hey, if we can fix her, we could go back and fix all this shit, right?

Rosie’s right: if we can change history, then we could go back and prevent Terra Sol’s flare from damaging this system. Save Earth before it needed saving. Maybe even prevent Kess from dying at all.

But how would that work? How would we do that without meeting ourselves? We’ve crossed our own timeline before; that’s how this project started. Cirilli saw me enter and leave this system forty years ago, saw the ship her future self was riding on. So if we go back to fix this, we would already have seen ourselves and it would have been fixed. Dammit, I can feel my processors overheating already. I can’t even figure out the right tense to talk about it in.

There’s something else the crew doesn’t know, too. I’m not sure how to tell them.

CAPT: (frowning at the avatar) Starry, what is it?

STARRY: (blinks, not realising how troubled she looked) Um. Well… when we Stepped to Grisette, I remember that her path was short.

CAPT: What does that mean?

STARRY: (turning to the centre of the room, she raises a hand and summons up a hologram. Golden spirals twine through the air, spinning out from a central point.) Outside the universe, I see everything. All of space and time. These paths, they’re every time and place a star is – was, will be – in its lifetime.

(The image zooms in on a single spiral and shows it made up of hundreds of images of a star, overlaid and offset to create a single, glowing thread.)

SWANN: You can see the history of the universe?

STARRY: Yup. It’s too much information to store, though, or even process fully.

EBLING: That’s why it needs a human… component. (He eyes the avatar briefly.)

STARRY: (ignores Ebling) But I do keep the navigational data from each Step. (The hologram shifts again, showing a long, slender thread and a shorter one. She points towards the long one first.) That’s Corsica. The short one is Grisette.

LANG LANG: (leaning forward in her seat to gaze into the image) She was always going to die so soon.

CIRILLI: Those readings are from before we Stepped?

STARRY: Mid-Step, but before we Stepped through Grisette, yes.

CAPT: So there’s no evidence that we have – or can – change history.

EBLING: No, none. These readings suggest the opposite.

CAPT: Then it’s our lowest priority. Dr Cirilli is right: there’s no point in trying unless we can find a way to prevent the Step from damaging the stars. We have stars we know we can save, so that’s where our energies have to be right now.

He sounds so sure. He’s not asking us; he’s commanding, the way a captain should. The crew is nodding. They’re sitting straight in their chairs, as if a weight has lifted off them. We have direction and hope. We might be a strange mix of people but I think we all want to do good things. We all want to know that we’re not doing harm. I’m not the only one who wants to be a good ship.

Having him there on my Bridge with the crew gathered around feels right. Suddenly, I’m proud of him. Proud to be his ship.

DOCTOR VALDIMIR: So what happens after that? We figure out how to Step without damaging stars?

CIRILLI: (frowns.)

EBLING: Of course.

DOC: How long will that take?

EBLING: Hard to say. This is new data and we’ve never tried to buffer a portal that way.

DOC: What about what you’re using it for now? Isn’t that close?

STARRY: (shaking her head) That’s using the impact of the portals to counteract the tidal flows. It’s not the same as stopping the portals from having an effect; it’s relying on that destructive effect.

CAPT: (watching Dr Cirilli, he holds up a hand for quiet) Lorena, what is it?

Oh. She does look like she’s holding something back. There’s something going on with her, behind the shutters she has drawn down over her expression. Whatever it is, she knows we won’t like it; her chin is lifted as if she’s tensed for a strike.

She’s looking around the room as if weighing each person, and there’s a darkness in her gaze. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say it was despair. How can she take no comfort from what the captain just showed us? Is it worry over her daughter, or is something else going on that we don’t know about?

She’s drawing herself up to speak. I’m within licking distance of the surface of a sun, but suddenly I’m cold all the way through.