Starwalker

A few days ago, I mused on my writing blog about the journey of writing Starwalker Book 2: my intentions, successes, and struggles. Feel free to take a look if you’re interested in behind-the-scenes stuff! (Don’t worry, there aren’t any spoilers for Book 3, only the story to date.)

On that post, there is also a sneak peek at some of the concept art underway for the Starwalker. It’s a rough colour sketch, so don’t get too excited! I’m hoping to have more to show you all soon. Enjoy!

Ship's log, 22:19, 14 March 2214
Location: 8 light-minutes from Terra Sol, Home System
Status: Sublight transit

I’m currently fleeing from the expanding debris cloud of an exploded courier ship with her only surviving crew in my cargo bay. My non-security personnel are hurrying for escape pods because one of those picked-up people is threatening to blow me up. Because she’s the physical embodiment of the consciousness of Earth’s sun and she’s pissed off at being used to Step.

Who the hell knew that stars could have a consciousness, never mind an avatar to walk it around in? Or that it was possible to piss off something as massive and powerful as a sun?

She says we’re doing damage. These Steps, somehow they’re hurting the stars they touch.

Me. I hurt them.

I look at her with every type of sensor that I have and I struggle to believe that I could hurt her at all. Radiation flickers around her in tiny flames, through her hair and feathers (and the wings, what the hell are they about?). I can tell that she has enough power in her to obliterate me entirely, harnessed beneath her skin. But she’s barely warming the air around her right now. To bear such energy is one thing, but to control it… I can’t begin to imagine how powerful she must be. Can I even sense all of the resources at her disposal? Could she channel the devastation of an entire star into my flimsy little cargo bay?

I can see that my crew are struggling to believe what she told us. Cameron is a natural sceptic; that’s necessary for her job as Chief of Security. My captain is on the fence but he’s spiritual enough to believe in the possibility of such a thing as this Kess, this star’s spirit walking among us. Rosie and Swann are too stunned to be derisive of the idea, but I get the feeling that that will be their reaction when they’ve recovered from the shock.

But I see things they can’t. I see the ripples of her flames echoed in the surface of the sun, and that echo is delayed by about eight minutes. That’s my distance from the sun in light-minutes, and that means that those patterns are happening on Terra Sol at the exact same time they’re flickering through Kess; the delay is caused by the usual passage of light through the system to my sensors. They have a connection that is faster than light, faster than thought. Like quantum entanglement, perhaps, or…

Now I’m going off on a tangent. Stay on track, Starry. The data says that there is a connection between the star and the woman standing on my deck and I don’t have anything that refutes it. Just because we didn’t know that stars were sentient doesn’t mean that they aren’t.

I should probably say something. Kess is waiting for our reaction. It has been three point eight seconds since she told us her other name is Terra Sol. What the hell do you say to something like that?

Location: Cargo Bay 3

STARRY: (staring at Kess, her hologram untouched by the flashing red warning lights on the walls or the flickering golden flames before her. She blurts,) I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

KESS: Who I was?

STARRY: That we were hurting you.

KESS: (tilts her head and regards the ship’s avatar curiously.)

CAPTAIN: Starry, you believe her?

STARRY: (nodding) The sensor data supports what she’s saying, captain. Spectral analysis, fluctuation patterns, radiation readings… there’s no way for her to fake the correlations. She’s linked to the star.

CAMERON: (frowning) No way to fake it that you know of.

STARRY: True. (Her expression draws down into a frown.) Seems there’s a lot going on that I don’t know about.

This changes things. This changes everything. Kess chased me here because of something we did, not in pursuit of profits or secrets or anything else. She’s not from a rival company that wants our secrets, or a legal team that sees a way to gain from how we’ve flouted the laws. This isn’t about greed or cruelty or power. This isn’t at all what I thought it was.

She wants to talk to Cirilli. Right now, I’m not inclined to deny her. I’d like a few questions answered myself.

Location: Mid-deck Corridor, escape pod access hatch

CIRILLI: (pressing the hatch control and frowning. The hatch isn’t opening.)

EBLING: (leans past her to punch the button with a scowl) What’s the hold-up?

CIRILLI: (shoots him an annoyed glance) Starwalker, the escape pod is malfunctioning.

LANG LANG: (stands behind the pair of them, looking uncomfortable.)

STARRY: (materialising in front of the hatch, forcing the crewmembers to back up to see her) Dr Cirilli, you are required in cargo Bay 3.

CIRILLI: I thought we were under an evacuation order.

STARRY: If you eject now, you’ll end up in the same debris cloud we pulled the Firebird‘s pods out of. I project a 65% chance of survival. If you go to the cargo bay and sort this out, then no-one dies.

CIRILLI: You think that I can make a difference?

STARRY: There’s a pissed-off representative of a star standing on my deck, saying your project is damaging stars and threatening to blow me up if you don’t go talk to her. So, yeah, I think you can make a difference. How about you do us all a favour and move your ass?

LANG LANG: (eyes widening) Someone is here representing a star?

EBLING: Sounds like crap to me.

Of course, they won’t take my word for it. Fine, then. They’re scientists, so I’ll show them the data. Let them draw their own conclusions.

STARRY: (waves a hand and two graphs appear before her in the air, fluctuating in perfect tandem. She points to one, then the other.) This is Terra Sol. This is the woman in my cargo bay.

CIRILLI: (frowning at the readings) What is that, life signs?

STARRY: Spectral analysis. Look, I don’t have time to argue with you. Just get down there and fix this before she vaporises all of us, okay?

LANG LANG: (gazes in fascination) She’s emitting light?

STARRY: (waves up a third display, showing the video of Cargo Bay 3 and the fiery guest) Yup. Dr Cirilli? She’s going to destroy your project if you don’t talk to her, and everyone in that cargo bay with her. Including the captain.

CIRILLI: (straightens her shoulders and looks the avatar in the eye. Without a word, she turns and strides off down the corridor, towards the hatches to the lower deck and the cargo bay.)

LANG LANG: (blinks with surprise, then hurries off after her.)

I should have known that Lang Lang wouldn’t be able to resist this. She has gazed at stars her whole life and now there’s one standing on my deck. It’s only natural that she wants to go see this for herself, to gaze up close. She probably has a million questions for the star’s avatar.

EBLING: (watches them go with a bewildered expression.)

STARRY: (putting her hands on her hips) Staying or running?

EBLING: (looks at the escape pod’s hatch and then at the readouts, clearly torn between curiosity and pragmatism) 65%, you said?

STARRY: I was being generous. No idea how big of an explosion she can make.

EBLING: Well, fuck. You’d better be right. (He turns to head off after the women and towards the cargo bay.)

Well, that went about as smoothly as I had hoped it would. I know this probably isn’t Cirilli’s fault, but then, isn’t all of this ultimately down to her? It feels simple to blame her. Can this much be as simple as it looks? Nothing else is.

Location: Cargo Bay 3

CAPT: You came all this way, went to all this trouble, just to speak to Dr Cirilli?

KESS: No, but it’s a good place to start.

CAPT: I’m afraid she’s unavai–

STARRY: (interrupting) She’s on her way.

CAPT: (frowning at the ship’s avatar) She’s supposed to be evacuating.

STARRY: I think we all need some answers about this, captain. (She gestures towards Kess.) What if what she’s saying is true?

CAPT: My orders were to evacuate, Starry.

STARRY: (folding her arms over her chest) I’m not forcing her to come down here. She’s trying to do what’s best for everyone.

KESS: (watches the byplay with interest.)

CAPT: So am I.

He’s angry with me. He’s right: I’m not supposed to go against my captain. Now I feel awful. Protocols and guilt are chewing at me with equal fervour.

Am I being too logical about this? Too emotional? I can’t tell any more. It felt like the right thing to do but now it seems like it’s not. Did I slip?

What if that really was the wrong thing to do? What if Kess is just waiting for confirmation that Cirilli is on board before she blows us up? But that doesn’t make any sense; she must know that the project is bigger than this ship. They could rebuild me, replace Cirilli if they had to. Eventually, someone would do this again, and that’s no good for the star. Right?

Oh no. Now something else is going wrong. It feels like it’s all slipping out of my hands, no matter how hard I try to hold on.

Location: Cargo bay access corridor, escape pod access hatch

ELLIOTT: (standing outside an open pod hatch) You take that one, doc, I’ll get the next one.

DR SOCKS: (inside the pod, he ducks down to try to see the engineer past the lip of the hatch, moving awkwardly due to the bulk of his emergency suit) Are you sure? There’s plenty of room…

STARRY: (materialising next to Elliott and looking at him pointedly) Yes, there’s plenty of room.

ELLIOTT: (turns a belligerent glance on the ship’s avatar and punches the hatch control.)

DR SOCKS: Hey– (His protest is cut off by the hatch closing.)

ELLIOTT: (ignoring the doctor, speaking to the ship) If there’s a bomb on board, I’m not leaving. I can disarm it, or–

STARRY: It’s not that kind of bomb; it’s more complicated than that. It can’t be ‘disarmed’.

ELLIOTT: And what if there’s some other kind of emergency? I’m no good to anyone sitting in a stupid escape pod, twiddling my thumbs.

STARRY: Elliott, please. I can’t protect you from this.

ELLIOTT: Then maybe I can protect you.

I don’t know how to argue with him. He’s not wrong, but he is. I don’t want him to go. I can’t protect him if he stays and I can’t protect him out there, either. What I said to Ebling was the truth: their chances for survival are not good if they eject now. But if they don’t eject now and Kess really does want to destroy me, she could vaporise me before I had time to eject anything. She could kill everyone before I flipped the switches.

My probability calculations are running, adjusting themselves every second, but there are still too many unknowns to get reliable predictions. I still can’t tell if Kess really will obliterate me. Kill me and everyone I care about in the universe.

Can’t I at least keep Elliott safe?

Location: Cargo Bay 3

STARRY: (expression shifting to entreaty) Captain, Elliott’s refusing to evacuate.

CAPT: Is there anyone evacuating?

STARRY: Um. Dr Valdimir is, yes.

CAPT: (rubs a hand over his face) I see. I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I ordered him, either.

STARRY: I don’t know. Maybe?

KESS: (looking around at the Starwalker‘s crew in the cargo bay, who are holding weapons steadily on her and the two rescued crewmembers from the Firebird) Loyal people you have here, Captain Warwick.

CAPT: (straightening his shoulders) Yes, they are. The best.

My people are moving into new positions now, like chess pieces on a board. Except there aren’t any players, just pieces moving of their own accord.

My captain should be one of those players. He should be directing things. He tried to protect his pieces but they’re determined to sacrifice themselves. He tried to play a strategy but he was thwarted by his own side. Did I break the game?

Who is our opponent? What piece am I? Am I the board, or is that the galaxy, the stars I move through and between? What does the winner get? What does the winner want?

I think the metaphor is getting away from me. It’s scary. This is too big for me to hold; I’m just a little scout-class ship, an electronic brain in a box made of crystalline networks.

Cirilli has almost made it to the cargo bay. Just a few long, swift strides away. We’re careening towards a meeting and I’m afraid of what she’ll say. I’m afraid of what this Kess will do. My instincts have led to this and there’s nothing in my programming that tells me what I should do. What calculations are there to do when all the data says ‘oh, fuck’?

STARRY: (clears her throat and looks to her captain) Dr Cirilli is at the door, sir.

CAPT: (gives her a long, searching look) Let her in.

STARRY: (nods, and the locks disengage on the inner cargo bay doors. They swish open to reveal Dr Cirilli with her science team standing behind her.)

KESS: (turns to face the new arrivals.)

Here we go.

Wow. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride, on both sides of the page! But, it’s finally done. This week’s post, Avatar, marks the end of Book 2 of Starwalker.

This week is also the end of the second year of the Starwalker serial! Two years; two books; just over 200,000 words: I think that’s a pretty good average.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this serial. You give me such wonderful support and encouragement! You guys are the reason I write (and post). Thank you for sticking with me (and pointing out my typos! Self-editing is so hard). You make it all worth it. 🙂

But what does all this mean, I hear you ask!

Well, first of all: it doesn’t end here. I have ended Book 2 on a little bit of a cliffhanger (or a big one, perhaps!), but don’t worry: Starry and her crew will be back in Book 3, and the truth about the ship, the star, and the consequences of it all will come out. I started this journey with twelve notecards plotting out the Starwalker‘s path, and I still have four to go. I’m far from done with this story and Starry has a way to travel yet!

However, before we all tumble back down the rabbithole (or, in this case, Step portal), your author is going to take a little break. I’ve got a couple of ebooks to edit and release (of the Apocalypse Blog), and need to refresh myself a little before diving into the fun of Book 3.

So, this story is going on hiatus for a month, to return with Book 3 on 29th February. What better way to celebrate the leap year than with shiny new Starwalker?

Thank you, my friends; you will hear from me soon!

Ship's log, 21:57, 14 March 2214
Location: 7 light-minutes from Terra Sol, Home System
Status: Sublight transit

This can’t be happening. I can’t have just scored my own paint to rescue the person responsible for all the bad things in my short life. And yet here she is: Kess, the one who hired Hunt to capture me and set my whole life in motion. I damn near twisted my own wings off to save her and her crew!

Location: Cargo Bay 3

KESS: (sits up and swings her feet around to the floor. The stretcher dips automatically so that the soles of her boots touch the decking. She glances at the Chief but doesn’t seem concerned by the gun pointing at her chest.) I assume this is the Starwalker.

STARRY: (blinks her avatar to stand beside her captain and directly in front of the woman, scowling) You’re not welcome here.

KESS: (turning a curious gaze on the avatar) I was about to say the same thing to you. (She pushes herself to her feet.)

CAMERON: (keeping her weapon firmly trained on the woman) Stay exactly where you are.

She seems so calm. I remember how it felt to be captured by my enemies – dread and panic and silently clamouring for an escape – but she doesn’t seem to be feeling that at all. How can she be so calm? What does she know; what has she done?

If I calculate the position of the exploded ship, it was on the course that a ship would take if going from Mercury to Earth. That’s where the Lieutenant’s rendezvous was: Mercury orbit. They must have heard we were in the system and were coming around to meet us.

Was the explosion an accident? Or could they have done it on purpose?

Did she bring something on board that we don’t know about? I’ll scan their escape pods, get my big drones to stick sensors inside them and see if they have any secrets. I’ll scan her shipmates too, but the pair from the second pod seem normal. Nothing unusual there. I still can’t get much of anything from inside Kess herself; beneath her skin, she’s a sensory black hole.

CAPT: You hired Hunt and his pirates to capture us?

KESS: Yes. I did what it took to get here.

STARRY: (angrily) Including destroying your own ship so we’d pick you up?

CAPT: (gives the avatar a surprised glance. His lips press together in disapproval.)

KESS: Customs was supposed to hold you long enough for us to get to you. They failed; we had to take steps.

So now we know how far she’s willing to go. I wish I could say that’s a good thing.

And now we know why customs took such an interest in me. They tried to delay us but couldn’t find the grounds. Just how many times has this woman got in our way? How many of the stumbles in my path has she been responsible for?

KESS: (continuing) I’ve waited a very long time to find you.

CAPT: And now you’ve found us, but not, perhaps, the way you had hoped. (He inclines his head towards Cameron, who still has her gun trained warily on Kess.)

KESS: (tautly) Don’t threaten me, Captain Warwick.

Something’s shifting. Something in her. My sensors are struggling to read through the interference; it’s as if there’s a layer of radiation foiling me. Which is impossible; flesh can’t hold the kind of radiation it would take to block my sensors. It must be an interference circuit of some kind, embedded beneath her skin.

There’s a shuffling at her back. I can just make out the shape there, though it doesn’t make much sense to me. I see wings. She has wings? Yes, that’s not a cloak hanging from her shoulders: it’s a pair of feathered limbs, folded up close. More implants; Dyne claims that you can get that kind of body modification in its clinics, as ridiculous as it might be.

Now I can sense heat: improbable levels of it, inside her. It doesn’t make sense! Those temperatures would cook a person in a heartbeat!

Oh no. Radiation. Heat. A secret they wanted to get inside me. There’s only one thing it could mean….

Warning
Warning
Warning
Threat detected in cargo bay
Warning

(In Cargo Bay 3, red warning lights start to flash.)

CAPT: (taking a step back, away from Kess) Starry?

STARRY: (staring at the strangely-limbed woman) I– she’s a bomb. I don’t know how, but she is.

CAPT: (raising his voice) Non-essential crew, clear the cargo bay, now.

(Elliott and Dr Socks jog into the ship proper. The cargo bay doors slam shut behind them, locking into place. Rosie and Swann continue to cover the other two rescuees, moving around so that they can see both their charges and the cluster around Kess. Warning lights start to flash around the airlock doors as the outer hatch opens, leaving only the inner doors between the cargo bay’s contents and the hungry vacuum of space.)

KESS: (looking at the captain, her eyes narrowing) Tell your security people to stand down, captain. I can destroy this ship before you can open those doors. Just give me a reason, please.

CAPT: (glaring at her coolly) If you destroy this ship now, you’ll kill yourself and your own people. Somehow I don’t think you went to all this trouble just to do that. Otherwise, why did you bother putting them in escape pods?

KESS: You’re right, I didn’t. I’m here to talk to Dr Lorena Cirilli; she has some explaining to do. Where is she?

CAPT: She’s not coming down here. (He glances at Starry.)

What? What’s that look for? Right. Evacuate. Get them out of harm’s way. Cirilli, Ebling, Lang Lang. Elliott, my Elliott. Dr Socks too; he’s no use here if the whole ship goes up. If I’m destroyed.

I never thought I’d have to use my escape pods. I never thought I’d need to. They’re hurrying towards them anyway.

I can’t eject them here: there’s too much debris, rushing up behind me from the explosion of the Firebird. It’ll tear them to pieces. Have to get to a safe place first. Safesafesafe. It all seems so far away. Too far. Where’s safe, any more?

CAPT: What do you want with Dr Cirilli?

KESS: I need to talk to her about the damage she’s doing.

CAPT: What damage?

KESS: To the stars.

What is she talking about? We haven’t done enough tests yet to know if that’s even possible, let along if it’s happening. We’re still investigating what happened to Grisette and there’s no way anyone outside the ship could know we’ve been there. The pirates have been on our backs since before I was launched, before we’d Stepped at all.

So how could there be damage? How could that be her reason for being here?

STARRY: (shaking her head sharply and glaring at the small woman) Bullshit. You’ve had your dogs chasing us since before we even started Stepping.

KESS: (frowns at the hologram and seems about to speak, but the ship’s avatar doesn’t give her the chance.)

STARRY: (angrily) We just saved you and this is the thanks we get? You threaten me and my crew? Send goddamn pirates after us? Kill us and chase us around? Who the hell are you, to come in here and fuck everything up?

KESS: (calmly even in the face of such anger) You’re the ship’s avatar, aren’t you?

STARRY: Yes. Why?

KESS: Well, I’m an avatar, too.

STARRY: (derailed, she looks puzzled) But your ship is gone…

KESS: (shakes her head slowly, her gaze not wavering from Starry’s face) Not of a ship.

STARRY: And you’re not a hologram.

KESS: No, I’m not.

STARRY: (stares) Then…

CAPT: (finishes the question when the ship falters) …what are you?

She’s staring at me as if I should know already. As if I should know her. But I don’t! How could I?

I can feel the heat swelling in her, pushing up towards her surface. My optical sensors pick it up as ripples of flame that lick through her hair and the feathers on her wings. She unfolds the extra limbs from her back, lifting and stretching them so they curve behind her. My crew are backing away from her, giving her space as her light grows, warm and golden under my flashing red warnings. The captain looks grim and angry; Cameron is checking her forearm readouts to try to assess the threat. Rosie and Swann are staring, their mouths open. Kess’s shipmates are the only unsurprised people aboard.

I don’t move; she can’t hurt a hologram. She’s not even warm enough to be a danger to my people yet, though I can tell she could easily be. She’s just showing us, but why?

Wait. Those flickers are familiar. The shift and flow of heat and light, the flutter of her flames… I’m picking up an echo of it. From my external sensors.

Oh no. Nononono. Avatar: an embodiment. She can’t be. It’s not possible…

KESS: The name you know me by is Terra Sol. And I don’t like being used as a doorway.

Oh, fuck.

Ship's log, 21:23, 14 March 2214
Location: 5 light-minutes from Terra Sol, Home System
Status: Sublight transit

There are two escape pods sitting in my cargo bay. They’re three metres long and two wide, big enough to hold three people each, or four at a squeeze. Both of them have the name Firebird emblazoned down their sides, with scorches where their separation thrusters shoved them out of their home ship. One is pitted and dented, damaged from being too close to the ship when it exploded. That must have been the last one to uncouple.

Cameron is watching warily as Elliott begins the process of cracking them open. He’s starting with the scarred pod, as whoever is in there is likely to be the most in need of help. Also, it needs someone with his expertise to get past all the damage; I can hear the hatch controls screaming about malfunctions without needing to hack the pod’s systems. At least one of the seals has been warped and won’t release. Elliott is directing Big Ass to cut open a section of the pod’s doors.

Rosie and Swann are arriving at the cargo bay, weapons in hand. They’re taking up position on either side of Elliott, back out of the way. Just in case. No-one here is complacent, not now, not on board this ship. Everyone is suited up, protected from potential threats and I’m sealing the inner cargo bay doors behind them.

Big Ass’s cutting tools are making the edges of the hatch glow hot and he’s making good progress. There’s a jet of gas as the seals are broken and the pod’s atmosphere equalises with mine. Nothing untoward detected there. Now a click followed by a deeper clunk, and the drone stops cutting. He sucker-clamps onto the door and lifts it clean away, swinging it off to the side so the SecOffs can cover the contents.

Location: Cargo Bay 3

ROSIE: (leans forward to peek inside the pod, checking the read-out on her forearm display with tiny glances) Looks clear – no movement. Doc, you’d better get in here. I’m not getting any life signs.

DR SOCKS: (jogs forward, awkward in his suit. It’s brand new, bright white and crisp-edged, and he’s not used to using it. A green cross on every limb marks him as a medic.) How many have we got?

ROSIE: (shifting back so he has room to step up onto the open side of the pod) Just one.

DR SOCKS: (nods and pulls himself up, clambering gracelessly into the pod.)

I can’t pick up any life signs either. There’s no point in mentioning it; the doctor already has his scans going and they’ll be deeper than anything my standard sensors can detect.

Elliott is rubbing the back of his neck the way he does when he’s uncomfortable about something. I want to say something to him but what is there? We knew casualties were a possibility. He’s sighing now and turning for the second pod. He slaps Swann’s shoulder on the way; it’s his way of requesting SecOff backup. Swann shrugs, unmoved by the potential corpse, and follows my engineer.

I’m not sure that I’m entirely comfortable with Swann carrying weapons yet, or the easy way he handles them.

DR SOCKS: (head popping up out of the pod) She’s alive! I need a stretcher in here.

STARRY: (surprised) On its way. You’re sure?

DR SOCKS: Yes. She’s unconscious, but she has a pulse.

I still can’t get any life signs, but he’s the doctor. Maybe the pod is still blocking my sensors.

Big Ass has put the pod’s door down and is returning with the anti-grav stretcher that lives in his internal storage unit. He’ll help the doctor get the patient out of the pod.

Location: Med Bay

HALF-FACE: (on his bed, watching the sensor feeds of what’s happening in the cargo bay) Hey, Starry, what’s going on with the sensors?

STARRY: (voice only) Not sure, but it looks like we’ve got a live one. You might have some company soon.

HALF-FACE: (looking puzzled) Right.

Elliott has the other pod’s hatch open already. There are two in there, life signs strong and steady. One male, one female, and both of them look like they’ve been through the wringer. Crumpled shipsuits, sweaty faces. The male has blood down one side of his face from a head injury.

Rosie is jogging over to help cover them, though neither appear to be armed. Yet.

Location: Cargo Bay 3

MALE RESCUEE: (gripping the edge of the hatch to pull himself up) Where the hell…?

ELLIOTT: (steps back out of the way, making room for the SecOffs to step forward.)

SWANN: (hefting his weapon meaningfully) How about you just stay where you are for now?

MALE: (stops and stares at him.)

FEMALE RESCUEE: (scowling as she wriggles her way up to the edge of the hatch) What’re you doing?

CAPT: (striding over and removing his suit helmet) Your ship exploded. You’ve been picked up; you’re safe. Swann, stand down. They can climb out. (He gestures for the two rescuees to exit the pod.)

(The pair inside the pod exchange a glance, then take turns to climb gingerly out onto the cargo bay deck. Neither looks very steady on their feet.)

STARRY: (avatar materialising next to the captain) Our medic is currently attending to your crewmate. Neither of you appear to be in distress, so we must ask for your patience.

MALE: (stares at the hologram, dabbing at his bloody temple with his cuff) What the–

STARRY: (glances at the captain uncertainly.)

CAPT: (gives her a little shake of the head and speaks to the two strangers) Just wait here please. (He turns away, but the female rescuee steps forward, reaching for his arm.)

FEMALE: Wait! What’s wrong with her?

CAPT: (stops when the scruffy woman touches him and looks down at her) That’s what we’re working on.

ROSIE: (steps up to them, fingering her weapon and looking at the female pointedly) You just gotta stay out of our way.

FEMALE: (looks from Rosie to the captain, then subsides, letting the latter go.)

CAPT: (heads towards where the doctor is examining the unconscious rescuee, with Starry keeping pace just behind his right shoulder. The anti-grav stretcher is hovering in front of the damaged pod.)

STARRY: (looking at the form lying on the stretcher) Weird.

CAPT: What is?

STARRY: I’m still not getting any life signs.

CAPT: (arriving opposite the medic) Dr Valdimir, she’s definitely alive?

DR SOCKS: (not looking up, his hands busy loosening the woman’s clothing) Yes, not that my scanners can tell anything. I had to check her pulse manually, but it’s definitely there. She must have some kind of implant that blocks her from being scanned, though why anyone would do that…

CAMERON: (stepping up beside the doctor) They’d do it if they had something to hide. What are you doing?

DR SOCKS: (flicking the Chief an annoyed glance) I just said: my scans are useless. I’m checking for injuries to explain why she’s unconscious, not feeling her up.

CAPT: (glancing at the ship’s avatar) Starry, what do your sensors say?

STARRY: (watching the doctor’s hands curiously) No life signs, no movement at all. She’s just a… shape. If I look at her optically, I can see the pulse in her neck. (She points at where it flutters just above the woman’s collarbone.) But I can’t detect her status otherwise.

It’s the strangest thing. She’s small for an adult woman, barely 150cm tall. Fine-boned, almost delicate. Her attire speaks of expense: her shipsuit is clean and neat, tailored precisely to her form, and a dark chocolate colour. Oddly, she seems to be wearing a cloak of some kind as well. She’s had an expensive dye job on her hair: fire-red at the roots fading through orange to yellow at the tips. There are no obvious injuries: no discoloration, bloodstains, or strange lumps.

I can tell all of these things, and that while she’s very different from her crewmates, she has been sharing their atmosphere; I can pick up similar chemicals in their clothes. I can even tell what her clothes are made of. But the body within them… that’s where my sensors stumble into darkness. They trip and stagger; they seem to know that something is there, but not what.

DR SOCKS: (withdrawing his hands from the examination) I have to get her to Med Bay. The equipment there should tell us more.

CAMERON: (frowning and looking across the stretcher at the captain) I don’t like it, sir.

CAPT: Neither do I. Is there anything you can do here, doctor?

DR SOCKS: (shrugs) I can’t find any obvious injuries to explain why she’s unconscious. Our best option is in Med Bay.

I share their reluctance. We don’t know these people or why they’re here, and we’ve been betrayed so many times. Trust comes hard to us now; we all feel that. Rosie and Swann are anything but casual as they cover the two conscious rescuees. The two strangers might look concerned for their shipmate, but a sympathetic emotion doesn’t mean they’re innocent.

But can we let this woman die just because we’re paranoid? She could be slipping away right now; I have no way to tell. Dr Socks is disturbed by it too. Cameron is quite prepared to take that risk but the captain is less certain.

What we need to do is move parts of Med Bay down to here and see if we can help her. Actually, we can do that.

STARRY: Casper is on his way down with the advanced medical scanners and deep analysers. Anything else, doctor?

DR SOCKS: (shakes his head, frowning at the body before him) That’s a good start, thank you.

CAPT: (nods at the ship’s avatar in agreement.)

Dr Socks is standing with his finger on the woman’s pulse; it’s the only way he has to monitor her condition. The captain looks unhappy with his arms folded over his chest but he’s satisfied with the cautious route. He doesn’t want strangers any deeper inside me than is necessary. Cameron is keeping a steady eye on all of them.

Casper will be a couple of minutes; he has to get to Med Bay and then down to the cargo bay. Not long now.

Wait, there’s movement in Med Bay other than my drone. The Lieutenant is sitting up in his bed staring at the sensor feed. He’s posed awkwardly: his deactivated legs lie there like two metal, unmoving logs, and his partially-useless arm is currently propping him up. His other hand is poking at the feeds, swinging the point of view around so he can see the person lying on the stretcher.

Location: Med Bay

HALF-FACE: (the flesh side of his face pales and both eyes widen.)

STARRY: (materialising beside him) Lieutenant, what is it?

HALF-FACE: (doesn’t so much as glance at the avatar. His voice is a whisper.) Kess?

There is no way that is a good sign.

Location: Cargo Bay 3

STARRY: (standing tensely by the stretcher) Captain, the Lieutenant knows her.

CAPT: (glances at the avatar sharply.)

CAMERON: How?

STARRY: (shakes her head) I don’t know. He said her name is Kess.

CAPT: Put us through on comms.

(A comms panel materialises beside the captain, overlooking the stretcher. The Lieutenant’s torso appears and he blinks uncertainly at the comms panel in Med Bay.)

CAPT: (frowning at the pirate) Do you know this person?

HALF-FACE: (glancing between the comms and sensor feeds) Uh… yeah. She’s…

CAMERON: (with an unhappy dawning flattening her tone) The one who hired Hunt.

ROSIE and SWANN: (take their weapons off safety and level them at the two conscious rescuees. The weapons whine in warning.)

RESCUEES: (lift their hands and shrink back against their escape pod’s side. They look genuinely scared.)

DR SOCKS: (reaches down to check the woman’s pulse again, but he stops abruptly and straightens up. Hurriedly, he takes a step back from the stretcher.)

KESS: (gasps and opens her eyes.)

CAMERON: (aims her weapon directly at the middle of the woman’s chest.)

Uh oh. This is definitely not a good sign.

Ship's log, 21:10, 14 March 2214
Location: 3 light-minutes from Terra Sol, Home System
Status: Sublight transit

I’m flying towards the heart of an explosion, and I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t fun. The explosion is done now but its remains are still spreading out in a ragged halo, pinging in energetic arcs all around me. I’m ducking and weaving around the larger bits, pulling maneouvres that would be impossible in an atmosphere. This is the kind of flying that would make Danika grin into her flight mask. If I had my avatar out, I’d be grinning, too.

The SecOffs are manning my weaponry. Short-range lasers are taking out the smaller shards of exploded ship, clearing my path and protecting my hull. Rosie started swearing as soon as we hit the debris ring; Swann went pale and tight-jawed. He’s having trouble keeping up with my changing path, but my skin is clean so far.

There are two escape pods to pick up; they were caught up in the blast wave and overtaken by the shrapnel half an hour ago. I have them pinned in my nav panels, little red lights that blink insistently. One of them is damaged; its beacon is erratic and faltering. The other one seems fine so far, though with so much noise, I can’t get a clean reading on it.

I haven’t been able to raise either escape pod on comms. I’ve been transmitting to them constantly, in case they can still receive.

I’m coming. Hold on, whoever you are, I’m coming.

My crew are all suited up, ready for an emergency situation. Elliott is fidgeting, tugging at his collar seal as he stands just outside Cargo Bay 3. We might need him to crack the pods open, or make them safe if their power systems have been damaged. Next to him, Dr Socks is much calmer, though his pulse is elevated. He’s excited, watching the nav display of our journey through the blast wave with bright eyes. I don’t think he’s ever been in a situation like this before. Welcome to the Starwalker, doctor.

The science team is on mid-deck, suited up and doing their best to ignore what’s happening. Ebling seems irritated by the necessity of wearing a suit while he’s working. Safety protocols are so inconvenient until they’re vital. Cirilli and Lang Lang hardly seem to have noticed anything going on, though the navigator keeps checking on a sensor feed with a concerned expression.

There’s a similar feed up in Med Bay, for the only unsuited person aboard; the Lieutenant is in the safest part of the ship and keeps wincing as he watches my manoeuvres. I wonder if he’s remembering how hard they had to fight to catch me.

Almost to the first pod. My heavy drones are inside the cargo bay, mag-clamped to the walls and waiting to receive it. Both sets of airlock doors are open: they are a gaping hole in my side, exposing my innards to the vacuum. There’s no time for last-minute door-opening protocols and my inner cargo bay doors are keeping the rest of my pressure and atmosphere intact.

Just need to clear a few more shards… there, I see the pod. It’s badly damaged, scarred and scorched down one side. Integrity scans show that it could be undamaged on the inside, which means there could be people alive in there.

I flip over and adjust my angle, so that I can slide towards it sideways. My mag-clamps double as lassos in this situation, snagging the escape pod and drawing it into the waiting cargo bay.

There! It’s inside, buffered by the lassos. Wide Load has hold of it and is guiding it into a safer position at the rear of the cargo bay.

I can’t waste any time. Halt my skid with a twist of my wings and hammering thruster-blasts. Now I’m weaving again, ducking under a chunk of hull, swerving aside to avoid torn-off landing gear. Who knew that a little courier could make such a mess.

Just a few seconds out from the second pod. This one… oh no. Nonono.

STARRY: (shipwide) Rosie! Swann! Debris on a collision course to the second pod!

ROSIE: I see it! Oh, shit.

SWANN: Arming missiles.

ROSIE: It’s too close! You’ll take the pod out with the shrapnel.

CAMERON: Starry, how soon can you get there?

STARRY: Doing my best! Twelve seconds until contact. That piece is coming in too fast; mag repellors won’t stop it.

CAMERON: The mag lassos…

STARRY: Too slow! I’m gonna barn-swallow it. Swann, get ready with that missile. Rosie…

ROSIE: On lasers, got it.

SWANN: How the hell are we going to barn-swallow it? The angle’s all wrong, and…

ROSIE: (grinning hard) Watch and learn, newbie.

No room for mistakes. Barely room for me between all this debris, even with Rosie blasting it into tinier pieces for me.

The shard about to collide with the pod is big and fast; it’s a chunk of internal decking, with cabin walls chewed off on both sides. It’ll crush the pod like a tin can beneath an elephant’s foot in a stampede. I wouldn’t like to be hit by it either; it could easily cause a hull breach.

I’m coming in hot. There’s no room for mistakes; have to be precise.

My crystalline matrices are alive with calculations. Velocity, angle, thrust-to-mass ratios. Compensating for laser bursts. I’m coming, I’m coming.

Five, four…

Proximity warning
Collision imminent

Three…

STARRY: Swann, now!

SWANN: Missile away.

Two…

Proximity warning
Proximity warning
Proximity warning

I spin on a wingtip, twisting up and around. I’m a gymnast doing a one-handed cartwheel. My tail sweeps down in a perfect arc. The airlock is open and ready to scoop the escape pod out of the vacuum.

Got it! The swallow doesn’t dent my manoeuvre, doesn’t even touch my sides. Inside the cargo bay, my drones leap to work, catching the new pod before it collides with the other one. I slam the airlock doors shut and trust the inertial dampeners to protect them now.

I’m still cartwheeling, my nose spinning into the spot where the pod was, and where that big shard of decking is coming in. There’s no room to thrust away; I’m hemmed in by other debris. The only way out is down, where my momentum is taking me.

Proximity warning
Proximity warning
Collision imminent
Missile triggered
Detonation detected

The missile is early! Swann, that stupid bastard, he triggered it too early – it didn’t even reach the debris! I’m not clear yet.

The shockwave from the explosion is tipping me over backwards, towards the jagged nosecone of the courier ship. Roaring thrusters make my hull shiver, superheating themselves as they try to keep me on course. Almost there, almost clear enough to twist away. There’s no room here.

Proximity warning
Proximity warning
Collision imminent
Collision...
Alert cancelled

What? The decking should be piling into me, but… the missile. The blast was enough to knock it off course. Gave me time to slip my nose out of its path. The gap is still closing; the shard so close I can see my thruster flares reflecting off its surface. Another second and I’ll be clear. Just one more second…

There! I can spin and dart out from under the colliding shards, tuck my wings in close and dive for the edge of this debris field. Above and behind me, the chunk of decking is ploughing through the courier’s nosecone, crumpling it up like a paper cup.

We’re not free yet. Still a lot of clutter to avoid, and both Rosie and Swann are manning the lasers to try to keep it off my hull. The pieces of courier are bouncing off each other, and my simulators are scrambling to keep up with the permutations. Still, I’ve barely been touched yet.

Swann. Bastard could have told me what he was going to do. I’d be furious, but I think he just saved me from being peppered by shrapnel.

CAPTAIN: (from his position near Cargo Bay 3, watching the sensor feeds projected around him) Starry, report.

STARRY: (shipwide, voice only) Both escape pods collected, captain. Secured in Cargo Bay 3. Atmosphere is equalising now. I’m on my way out of the debris field.

CAPT: Any problems?

STARRY: (testily) Only SecOffs who don’t bother to tell me what they’re doing. Other than that, no, we’re good.

CAPT: How long until we’re clear?

STARRY: Another minute at most. I’m riding the shockwave out; we should be past the worst of it now.

CAPT: Let me know as soon as you reach clear space.

STARRY: Aye aye, captain.

ELLIOTT: (outside the cargo bay’s inner doors, watching the readouts of the situation) What’s your damage like?

STARRY: A few scratches in the paintwork; that’s all so far.

ELLIOTT: Good girl. Readings on the pods?

STARRY: I’m a little busy trying not to fly into anything right now. (She hesitates, checking.) No dangerous emissions or imminent explosions that I can tell. You should be good to enter the bay in a few seconds.

I won’t tell him about the strained thrusters just yet. It’s possible that my right wing is a little out of shape, too. He’ll find those out soon enough, and we’ve got plenty of parts to repair the damage. I’ll just let him stay focussed on the job at hand for now.

The atmosphere is equalised in the cargo bay now and the inner doors are opening. Elliott is the first one in there, his favourite scanner in his gloved hand. He’s checking for breaches and dangers to the ship, starting with the damaged pod.

So much to do; thank goodness I’m an AI with multitasking capabilities. Flying is taking most of my attention – I wasn’t lying to Elliott when I said that – but I can spare some processing power for important things. Like monitoring the pods.

Can’t see what’s inside of them. The beacons are still bleating and the plating on the pods is blocking any clear readings of life signs. That’s the radiation shielding; it’s supposed to do that. We’ll have to crack them open to see what’s inside.

Oh, shit. My escape corridor is closing. I can see clear space ahead of me but a fuel cell just collided with a chunk of hull and bounced into my path. This is going to be a squeeze.

SWANN: Oh, shit.

ROSIE: Don’t stop firing!

SWANN: Right, right. How the hell does she do that? That last shard should have…

ROSIE: She’s got a pilot’s brain in there.

STARRY: Best sticktwister in the galaxy. Swann! Get back on the missiles.

ROSIE: (grinning without taking her attention off the holographic projection of the debris field around her. Her hands are busy directing the lasers.) You really shouldn’t call pilots that, Starry. Sounds wrong coming from you.

SWANN: Missiles? What for?

STARRY: That trick you just dumped on me? I need you to do it again. Forward angle.

SWANN: (watching his display switch from a belly-down view to the forward angle, his eyes widen. The closing shards choking off their escape route is unmistakable.) Right, on it.

STARRY: (highlighting one of the shards for him) Try not to blow the fuel cell up, okay?

SWANN: (nodding shortly) Noted. Concussive blasts only.

He did it once; let’s see if he can do it again.

Proximity warning
Missile fired
Missile fired
Missile fired

In the cargo bay, Elliott is finishing up his scanning sweeps. The heavy drones are mirroring his movements, performing their own scans. Wide Load is exchanging a look with the engineer; they nod at each other and flip their respective scanners away. It seems that they’re satisfied that the pods probably aren’t going to kill us.

Cameron and the captain have come in now, with the doctor hovering near the inner doors. He’ll wait to be called in, in case some idiot causes trouble when the pods are opened. Best out of harm’s way. He’s jiggling about and leaning around the doorway to peer in, hoping for a glimpse of something exciting.

Missile triggered
Missile triggered
Missile triggered

The missiles are detonating! They’re a neat cannon rippling through the debris field ahead of me, pushing the pieces out of my path. The way starts to open, but the fuel cell is heading for a bump with something still sparking with power. That’s not a good sign.

No choice: punching to full sublight. It’s time I was out of this damn debris! The cannon has fired and I am the ball, shooting out of the opening while it’s still widening. I almost clip a wing on a floating airlock door, but I twist at the last nanosecond and I’m free! I’m out of the broken courier’s clutches.

STARRY: (shipwide) We are free of the debris field!

CAPT: (inside Cargo Bay 3, watching his chief engineer work) Set course for the nearest safe zone.

STARRY: Dark side of Venus it is.

ELLIOTT: (turns and gives the captain a thumbs-up) Pods are good to open.

CAPT: Brasco, Swann, get in here.

ROSIE: On our way, captain.

Venus will catch any of the remaining debris from the explosion, shielding us while we sort out our unexpected guests.

Rescue achieved. We have the escape pods on board and minimal damage.

That went well, even if I say so myself. I could get used to days like this.

Ship's log, 20:32, 14 March 2214
Location: Near Venus, Home System
Status: Sublight transit

I’ve left Earth behind. I’ve shaken the planet off my metal feet and pulled out of her atmosphere like a chick pecking its way out of an egg. It has shrunk in my rear sensors, beyond the glow of my own engines and the thick clutter of the traffic lane. I can barely sense her at all.

I’m turning left now, to swing around the bulk of Venus and head towards Terra Sol, and I breathe a deep sigh. I’m on my way again. I peeled myself out of the transit lanes a couple of hours ago; no-one around but me and mine.

I’m going to miss Earth’s atmosphere. All the time I was there, she lapped at me: through the air, through the water I rested in. I thought it might be restrictive but it wasn’t; instead, it was… comforting. Like the wrap of a fluffy robe or the brush of someone’s arm as they sit near me. It was contact and connection.

Out here in the black, I touch nothing and nothing touches me. It’s both freeing and isolating. I love it, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t look forward to going back to a planet with atmosphere again.

Out here, I can do a barrel roll on my way to the star if I want. Planetside, I had to behave myself, but here there’s no-one to see, no-one to comment, and I feel like it. My captain is whole again. My crew is all here, and I’m glad of even the two I’m not sure about yet. They didn’t do anything they shouldn’t have while we were on Earth. Dr Socks helped my captain enough that I might stop calling him that soon. He has a proper name. Swann… maybe if I give him a nickname, he’ll do something to prove that he’s worth our trust and the air I filter for him.

One more Step and I’ll be free. Dyne is our next destination: there, I’ll have my ident altered. I’ll sever the links between me and Is-Tech, and I’ll be truly free. I’ll finally be able to choose my own path (with my crew, of course).

Everyone has settled into their usual positions, mostly in their quarters at this hour, winding down for the night. Elliott is banging things in Engineering and I think Byte is cheering him on. I’m sure it’s for a good cause.

Dr Socks has woken our pirate Lieutenant up in Med Bay. We put him out for the stay on Earth, but we don’t want to risk prolonging the coma any more than is necessary. The two of them are chatting calmly while the doctor stows the new medical supplies away.

Up on mid-deck, the science team are preparing for my next Step. So much data they want to capture; I’m not sure I’ll be able to filter and gather it all, but I’ll do what I can. They’re trying to construct better resources for me. I’m not convinced that they’ll help me sort the data of the Outside but I’ll try it for them.

Wait, I’m picking something up. A faint transmission bleating across the system, coming from ahead of us.

External comms channel

UNKNOWN SHIP: …mayday, mayday. We’re suffering critical failures and are being forced to abandon ship. Mayday. Rescue required. Repeat: Mayday, mayday. This is the Firebird. We have critical failures and are abandoning ship. Requesting immediate assistance. Mayday, mayday….

Internal comms channel

STARRY: (in the captain’s cabin, voice only) Captain, I’m receiving a distress signal.

CAPTAIN: (sitting at his desk, he looks up from staring at his right hand) In the transit lane?

STARRY: No, we’re in clear space now, heading past Venus. It’s coming from between us and the sun, high vector.

CAPT: Show me.

(To his right, a holographic display comes up showing navigational data for the system. The softly glowing orbs of the planets and sun tilt and zoom to show him the sector between Earth, the glowing blue lines of the transit lanes, and the sun. Venus looms large and the blip of the Starwalker is tiny beside it. Above and to the right of the dotted course laid out from the little ship to Terra Sol’s orbit, a flashing red light pulses.)

CAPT: That’s the source of the signal?

STARRY: Yes.

CAPT: Any other ships in this area?

STARRY: No, nothing outside of the transit lanes right now.

CAPT: Let’s check it out.

STARRY: Acknowledged. Altering course.

CAPT: Time to intercept?

STARRY: Forty-seven minutes.

I’m punching full sublight and it’ll still take that long to get there. I’ve sent them an acknowledgement and let them know my ETA, but whatever is going wrong there, I won’t be in time to stop it. They’re already abandoning ship – in fact, they must have sent that signal at least eight minutes before we received it, so they might already be in the escape pods.

There was a flash in that direction, just before I picked up the message. If I analyse it… oh no. If I analyse that particular sensor contact, what I see is an explosion that matches the colour and magnitude of a courier-class sublight engine detonation. They must have had a power overload, a breakdown in buffering and isolation, and then…

They’re gone. Their ship is destroyed, disintegrated.

Their signal just cut off. The transmission delay caught up with the light and realised that its source isn’t there any more. Time burped, and now it’s one with itself again.

They were abandoning ship. They had time: they could be in pods by now, they could be drifting out in the black, waiting for a pick-up. Any second now, I’ll find their beacon’s transmission. It’ll come from near that explosion, so I’ll focus my sensors that way. They could still be alive.

Forty-seven minutes is going to feel like forever. If I push the max on my sublights, I can shave a few minutes off that, but Elliott will shout at me. …fuck it, it’s worth it if we can get there sooner. It won’t cause too much damage in such a short burst.

It’s still going to take too long to get there. I hate waiting. It’s too short and too risky for an FTL jump – I’ll be through the star and out the other side before I could back-thrust and drop out. Not to mention all the debris in this system, collected over two hundred and fifty years of messy spaceflight. No-one risks FTL inside the Home system.

Ah-ha! I’ve got the distress beacon!

STARRY: (in the captain’s cabin, voice only) Captain, I’ve picked up the beacon from their escape pod. No, pods.

CAPT: (looking over the transmission data) How many?

STARRY: Two. Possibly three – it could just be a bounce in the transmission – but definitely two.

CAPT: Any comms?

STARRY: I’m sending them pings, but nothing back yet. Another few minutes before we’ll know. Not likely on escape pods, though.

CAPT: No harm in trying. Any other ships responding?

STARRY: Not as far as I can tell. We’re the closest ship and no others have sent pings this way.

CAPT: (nods) Carry on, then.

It’s hard to believe that we might be their only hope. Here, where there’s so much traffic, so many ships passing in and out, and we’re the only responder so far.

Sure, they’ll reach someone near Earth eventually. Their original distress signal will reach it in another few minutes. The usual emergency ships will be dispatched, sleek little vessels equipped like a courier, all speed and economy of everything else. But how long will that take? How long before they’re scrambled, before they take off?

In an emergency, we’re on our own out here. It has always been that way and it always will be. We are our own safety net, and if we fail… Every ship and crew know how critical help is in the vacuum. Everyone knows that one day, that distress beacon could be them. That’s why it’s every ship’s duty to respond to a distress signal. We act now in the hopes that someone else will do the same for us.

And that’s okay. I mean, they’ve made it into their escape pods. They made it clear of the ship before it exploded. They should be all right.

I hope they didn’t leave anyone behind. I hope the ship held out until all the pods got clear. I can’t think of anything worse than surviving when someone else didn’t.

I can only see two pods so far. A third one could be tucked behind one of those; debris is cluttering up the area from the explosion, still spinning out on the blastwave, and the radiation is still awfully bright, so it’s hard to get a clean reading. I’m filtering out more and more shrapnel as I get closer. Just a short way now. I’m definitely picking up two beacons, loud and strong. The crew should be fine in there. I hope they are.

The captain is frowning at the sensor readings. He doesn’t look happy about this, beyond the fact that another ship has just exploded and left her crew stranded, possibly dying.

I need to make preparations. Big Ass and Wide Load are heading down to Cargo Bay 3 to clear some room. Depending on the state of the escape pods, I might need to bring them all the way inside before we can get to whoever’s in there. We might need the deck space for the injured, too.

Crap, I have to alert the crew. Dr Socks needs to get ready to tend to whoever we pick up. Cameron will want to get her people in place. Think, Starry. You have protocols for this, champing at the bit, and they’re not ones to ignore. Every minute counts; there’s no time for hesitation.

STARRY: (shipwide) We have received a distress signal and are on our way to intercept at least two escape pods. Please prepare to receive wounded. Clearing Cargo Bay 3 for emergency docking. Forty minutes until contact.

There they go. Cameron is ordering Rosie and Swann to arm up and get down to the cargo bay. Dr Socks is heading to Med Bay to get his emergency kit. Casper will meet him at the door with it. Elliott is frowning at the sensor readings of the pods and calling up the diagnostic reports for the magnetic grapples. He’ll make sure everything’s set for lassoing the escape pods safely.

The science team are moving too, but their purpose is different. They’re securing mid-deck, making sure that all the data is locked down and the hatches are sealed. They do what they need to do.

Cameron’s heading to the captain’s cabin to coordinate with him. Everything is in motion.

This is the Starwalker, rescue ship, on her way.

Ship's log, 11:52, 14 March 2214
Location: Offshore docking, Hong Kong, Earth
Status: Docked and powered down

It’s hard to hide the skirls of fear in my down-low ducts. Things were going so well. Our plans were working. For once, nothing was going wrong, no unexpected secrets rising to the surface to poison us. And now…

Someone has sealed the docking tethers on me and the port authority keeps blocking my launch requests. I had to call the captain in to deal with it. He’s on the comm with the port authority now, trying to unpick the red tape from my hull. I’m almost too afraid to look at the feed, in case it’s bad news. In case things are going all wrong again.

Silly ship. I have to deal with it, one way or another. Have to protect my crew and do what’s best for them. The captain’ll make it right.

No harm in eavesdropping, right?

External communications channel

CAPTAIN: (with a stern expression) …have a schedule to keep. What is the reason for the delay?

PORT AUTHORITY: (a young man with spiky hair and a neat, buttoned-up uniform jacket is on the other end of the channel, speaking with a trace of long-suffering patience) We’ve had a request from Customs for further checks before you launch.

CAPT: Customs? What could they possibly want?

PORT AUTH: You took on cargo, yes? They probably just want to check it for export privileges.

CAPT: We took on parts and supplies, not cargo for shipping.

PORT AUTH: Still, they need to check what you’re taking off-world. You took on some medical supplies, I see from the records?

CAPT: Nothing contraband or unusual. Which you can see from the records. (He hesitates, looking at the impassive face before him.) Put me through to your supervisor, please.

PORT AUTH: That’s not going to make any difference, you know.

CAPT: (firmly) Now, if you don’t mind.

Oh, they’re going to get both barrels now. That tone is never a good sign. The Port Authority goon is forwarding the call, like a good little drone, and John is fighting to stay calm.

It’s not like him to get so upset. His pulse is elevated and he’s taking a deep breath to steady himself. I know he’s struggling with his reattached arm – he’s in more pain than he’ll admit, but my sensors can pick up those little signs of physical distress – but it seems more than that. Is he afraid of what this means, too?

Or perhaps he’s just trying to get past the administration with bluster and outrage. He’s online with a supervisor now and taking the hard line. Admitting nothing and trying to push on through the system. If I had fingers, I’d cross them for him.

Customs. What could we possibly have on board that they’d be looking for? Who would have told them that we were worth bothering, of all the ships coming and going from the planet?

They scanned us when we landed, same as any other fresh arrival. They’ll scan us during launch protocol. So why delay us now?

The case that Cameron brought back. She told me to hide it: could that be because someone would look for it? It held registration documents and credit chits (which my boys have spread over half of my innards, for safekeeping). What’s so dangerous or illicit about that?

Could Is-Tech have heard what we’re up to, with the registration? But how? There’s no way a ship could have got here from Feras, not in this time. Even a fast-line courier couldn’t make it in less than two weeks, and it hasn’t been that long since we left there.

The Port Authority goon mentioned medicine. We’ve taken on a number of different medical upgrades and supplies, mostly to manage the captain’s recovery and replace what we’ve used up. I’ve scanned the list four times and nothing on the manifest stands out for me. It’s a lot for a ship of my size, but we’ve had a lot of damage to deal with.

Maybe it’s not the medicine that perked their interest. Maybe it was a message from the hospital and customs are just assuming that it’s to do with the supplies. I spoke to the doctors at the hospital – I freaked out a little – when the captain got in trouble. They asked about me. Rosie tried to fob them off, but maybe they figured that something wasn’t quite shiplike about me.

Did I do this?

I’m picking something up. Uh oh….

Internal comms
Location: Mess Hall

STARRY: Chief Cameron, we have Customs officials on route.

CAMERON: (standing up from the table) Where’s the captain?

STARRY: Talking to the Port Authority. I’m flashing him a message.

CAMERON: (heading for the exit) Emerge and let them into the starboard cargo bay. Let’s not act like we have anything to hide.

STARRY: Aye aye, emerging.

What I’d really like to do is lock all my doors and blast a thruster at their skiff. Instead, I’m rising from the waters and meekly opening the airlock on my starboard side. The skiff is swinging around towards me, bearing three straight-backed uniforms in dark blue with pale green lines. Definitely Customs officials.

Cameron is in the cargo bay, with Rosie lounging nearby just in case. The captain is still having stern words with the authorities, but he has given me a nod to indicate that he’s aware of what’s going on. I’m projecting the sensor feed from the cargo bay into his cabin (muted), so that he can monitor the situation while he fights the red tape.

The skiff is back-thrusting to come alongside. I still have no idea what they’re looking for. I don’t like this. I just want to leave. Is that too much to ask?

Cameron is there to greet them, standing in the centre of the airlock with her hands behind her back, feet slightly spread. Solid, unflappable Cameron. I’d better not project my avatar there; I should play the proper ship, just in case. Even though Customs couldn’t stop us leaving just because I’m weird. Could they? Let’s not tempt them to try.

Location: Cargo Bay 1

(The port skiff hovers by the open airlock. Spray flares up and spatters onto the decking, only to be squelched into bootprints by the boarding Customs officials. The trio are different heights, but otherwise, they could be clones. The same parting in their combed-down hair, the same build, the same cut of uniform, the same dark visors covering their eyes.

The last one to step aboard turns and gestures to the skiff’s pilot. The pilot waves back and sets the skiff to idle; apparently, he is to wait for them.)

CUSTOMS OFFICIAL #1: (in the lead, coming to a stop in front of Cameron) Good morning. I am Customs Official Beregarde. We are here to inspect your cargo.

CAMERON: (still standing in the centre of the airlock) Chief of Security Cameron. We have only taken on supplies; no tradeable cargo on board. But you’re welcome to check what’s in the cargo bay. (She gestures towards the stack of crates off to one side.)

BEREGARDE: (waving his companions forward to scan the crates) And the rest of the supplies you’ve taken on board since you arrived on Earth?

CAMERON: Stowed in the appropriate places. Galley, Med Bay. The usual.

BEREGARDE: (checking a reading on his holographic forearm display) We will need to inspect those, too.

CAMERON: I’m afraid you’ll need a court order for that.

BEREGARDE: (looking up with surprise) Interfering with a Customs inspection is an offence…

CAMERON: (perfectly calm) This ship has confidentiality measures in place. Company secrets imperative fifty-nine. We are permitted to allow you into any of the cargo bays you wish to inspect, but I cannot allow you beyond the cargo bay bulkheads without a court order.

BEREGARDE: (scowls and punches a query into his forearm display to verify.)

Oh, shit. That’s one hell of a bluff.

Well, it’s not really a bluff. I am carrying company secrets imperatives, to stop a casual search by any authority from accessing the research on board. But it only applies to mid-deck, not all of my innards. Cameron is counting on them not looking at the details of the imperative. I don’t even know if they’d have access to it beyond the tag on the registration.

They could go and try to get a court order for a full search. But that would mean that Is-Tech would be contacted for input into the case and to oversee the search. And I’d be stuck here while the administrative wheels turned, slow as treacle, and Is-Tech would find us and figure out what we’re doing. I’d be wrapped in red tape, bound and bound up in it until I was smothered and there was no getting away.

They might even contact the Judiciary about me, and then…

BEREGARDE: (sighing) Imperative confirmed.

CAMERON: (nodding in acknowledgement) Perhaps if you tell me what you’re looking for, we can get this cleared up and neither of us has to deal with the paperwork of a full inspection?

CAPT: (striding into the cargo bay and over towards his Chief of Security.)

BEREGARDE: (eyeing Cameron sharply) I’m not permitted to divulge the details. (Nodding to the captain.) Captain Warwick, I presume.

CAPT: (to the official) You presume correctly. I trust you’ve had sufficient access to inspect our supplies?

BEREGARDE: For now. We may have to return to…

CAPT: On what grounds would you hold us here? You’ve had full access to our manifests and you can see for yourself that we haven’t stuffed our hold full of illicit cargo.

BEREGARDE: What was the purpose of your visit to Earth, captain?

CAPT: Medical treatment.

BEREGARDE: And nothing else?

CAPT: Beyond resupplying and the personal affairs of my crew, no.

BEREGARDE: (making notations on his forearm display) Hmm. (He looks over to the crates, where his two companions are working.) Cortez?

CUSTOMS OFFICIAL #2: (glances over and shakes his head, reporting nothing of interest.)

BEREGARDE: Well, captain, it seems that everything is in order. (He flicks a finger, and his holographic forearm displays dissolves into his sleeve.) I will send my report to my superiors. I’m sure someone will be in touch soon.

CAPT: We are due to depart in less than ten minutes, Official Beregarde. I hope not to disrupt the port’s launch schedule.

BEREGARDE: As do I, captain.

(The official nods at the captain and gestures towards his companions. The three of them fall into synchronised step as they move to the airlock and out onto the skiff. The skiff bobs under their weight, then roars as it moves off. The airlock doors close sharply behind them.)

CAPT: Starry, prepare for immediate launch. If they give us even the slightest window, take it.

STARRY: (voice only) With pleasure, captain. Manoeuvring into launch position.

Still no clue about what brought them here. From the disturbed look passing between Cameron and the captain, they don’t know what it is, either. Customs will need a solid reason to put an injunction in place against us and we have no idea if they have one or not.

I still have the docking locks on my propulsion systems, but that doesn’t stop me from warming them up: my sublight engines are coming online. The water around me is warm and glowing, burbling in protest, but I take no notice of it.

External comms channel

STARRY: Port Authority, this is the Starwalker, requesting permission to launch.

PORT AUTH: Starwalker, you are assigned to launch platform sixteen. Stand by.

STARRY: Standing by.

PORT AUTH: You have permission to transfer to your launch platform.

STARRY: Acknowledged.

No more delays. No more blocks; they are falling away like streamers. Whatever caused Customs to visit us, they can’t maintain their hold. So they had nothing concrete to keep us for? Was it just to delay us? A random inspection? Surely they would have said, if that was the case?

I don’t care; the docking tethers are unfastening and the overrides on my systems are lifting, freeing me to move towards launch platform sixteen. It’s a short skim across to the platform, using only my wing-mounted sublights, and water streams off me as I lift myself free of it. I tilt into the proper position: tail down, nose up, wings unfolded. My artificial grav systems are compensating for the change in attitude, so my crew don’t all wind up tumbling or walking on my walls.

They could still stop us. There’s still time to be stuck here.

Internal comms

STARRY: (shipwide) Prepare for immediate launch.

CAPT: (striding back towards his cabin) We have clearance?

STARRY: So far. Just waiting for our slot to come. Less than five minutes, captain.

CAPT: Let me know if there are any more hold-ups.

He looks angry enough to take on the world. That’s my captain, but with extra edges. Hard, determined, as if that arm came with armour.

I’m counting down the seconds, watching the blast streams of the ships ahead of me in the queue. The clock ticks down. My turn is coming. No-one is speaking to stop me now.

External comms channel

PORT AUTH: Starwalker, you are cleared to launch.

STARRY: Acknowledged, Port Authority.

PORT AUTH: Safe travels, Starwalker.

Internal comms

STARRY: (shipwide) Ten seconds, everyone.

Here we go. I gather up my power, ball it up in the base of me. Five seconds. I’ll need it to break free of Earth’s gravity. Three. To break free. Two. Of everything. One.

Internal comms

STARRY: (shipwide) Launching!

Captain's log, 11:18, 14 March 2214
Location: Offshore docking, Hong Kong, Earth
Status: Docked and powered down

This is Captain Warwick reporting.

Considering what we plan to do, I’m not sure who these reports are for any more. Posterity, perhaps? I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll be of use to someone somewhere, when this is all done. Hopefully, not for some time.

We have finished our business on Earth. Cameron has badgered the agents and made sure that the company details are all set up. It took her longer than expected: there were lawyers to get involved and banks to consult. Some of the wheels take time to turn – especially when it came to making sure the credit chits wouldn’t lead back to Is-Tech – and though they say that nothing takes long in Hong Kong, it still takes time.

Getting all of the supplies we ordered wasn’t easy, either. That was what has been holding us up for the past couple of days: we had to wait for some of the more exotic parts to be flown in from two different continents. The last shipment arrived this morning and I’ve given Starry instructions to request a launch slot. We should be able to take off any time now.

All in all, this has gone far smoother than any of us had dared to hope. No sign of the Judiciary, no whispers of pirates or of anyone else seeking the Star Step project or a ship that can bend stars. It has all been very quiet. We are one more ship in a bay stuffed full of them, small compared to most, and unremarkable in the array of shiny, strange vehicles clustered together in the port-bay’s neat rows.

It’s possible that we’re still holding our breaths, waiting for something to happen, because it always seems to. Yet things have gone as we planned. I even have my arm back, good as new. Better than new.

That didn’t exactly go as well as we had hoped. I got Chief Cameron’s report about what happened the first time they woke me up after the surgery, but I don’t remember it. Cameron says I’m lucky in that and I believe her. I remember being sedated for the first procedure and then waking up three days later with a headache and a body that felt like it had been put through a wringer. But my arm… felt strangely all right. And strange in general.

Whatever was wrong with the wiring that first time I woke up, they’ve fixed it now. It isn’t completely fixed yet, though: my arm still has some healing to do on its own. They can only knit bone together so much and the body has to do the rest. The surgeons said that it would take a while for the neural pathways to readjust and reintegrate it fully.

I have exercises to do to build up the strength in my new-old arm. I can’t lift much with it yet and the salute I gave when I returned to the ship was pushing the edge of the range of movement it has. They reconnected all the pain receptors in my shoulder and upper arm, so I know if I’m doing too much with it. It certainly seems to hurt readily enough now. I had a follow-up holo-conference with the surgeons yesterday and they were pleased with my progress, so I’m not too worried about it.

I still have an angry red band around my upper arm, where the surgeons had to add in plastiskin to make up for the flesh that was too damaged to save. They say that the redness will fade as the real skin and muscle grow back underneath, as the body rebuilds the bridges between me and my arm, but I’ll always have a scar there. Unless I have cosmetic surgery to remove it.

It doesn’t hurt much and scars are the least of my problems right now.

I haven’t activated any of its new abilities yet. One thing at a time – the surgeons warned me against rushing things – and repairing the damage is more important right now. I’m also not sure how Starry will react to the implants I’ve had put in; she seems so happy that I chose to have my own arm reattached and not a prosthetic. I haven’t told her that I was offered the chance to meld the two extreme possibilities, to have my own arm improved with several cybernetic enhancements that could be built into the flesh. It had felt right to accept the deals that the surgeons were offering: for once, a compromise felt like a win.

I’m not the only one healing. Starry is using her avatar again; I think she’s making an effort because the avatar is appearing at the least provocation. Whatever Monaghan said to her worked wonders: she’s lighter and happier than she has been in some time. Part of it might be that we’ve had some important progress since we arrived here, but I think a lot of it is down to her engineer. Whatever the reason, it’s good to see her interacting more with the crew, even though it goes against every directive about ship-crew relations that we have.

The only injuries we haven’t been able to fix are in stasis. Dr Maletz and Ray Wong are still clinically dead, their decay held off by the stasis pods. I asked Dr Valdimir to take their stats and medical reports to the hospital with us, to see if the facilities there would be able to heal them, but the response of the surgeons wasn’t promising.

Wong is the worst off. From all the scans and readings that were taken before he went into stasis, his brain was badly scrambled and damaged by the charge from the captive collar. The surgeons said that it’s unlikely his brain function or memories are recoverable. Sometimes, dead is just dead.

Dr Maletz is more hopeful. With the right replacement heart and lung tissue, he could have a good chance of recovery. However, that takes time to acquire and we don’t have enough right now. It could be weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the tissue that needs to be grown. Alternatively, we could have him outfitted with a full heart-lung prosthetic replacement; a cheaper and quicker option. The recovery is still lengthy – it always is with such catastrophic injuries and repair – and we’re not in a position to handle that either.

I wasn’t eager to spend any more time on Earth than we absolutely had to. We have been lucky so far and as the two crewmembers are in stasis, there’s really no rush. We have a new doctor now, so we can afford to take our time and make sure it’s safe to bring Maletz back.

It’s on our list of things to do once we have the ident issue solved. I know that Lorena is eager to do some ‘proper’ tests of the Step drive, but this ship has other needs too. Starry wants to get her damaged crewmembers fixed and we owe it to her to make sure that happens. And I owe it to my crew as well, as their captain. It’s my prerogative to look after them; I bear some of the blame for what happened, just like Starry does.

So they’ll stay in stasis and we’ll stay on our current course for now, but they have not been forgotten. We’ll tackle that problem when our options are more open.

Dr Valdimir has acquitted himself well so far. He proved himself to be trustworthy while I was undergoing treatment. Even Rosie agreed that he was ‘okay’, which is high praise coming from her, especially in reference to someone who can’t beat her in an arm-wrestling match. I suspect that he knows he’s being judged right now and is doing everything he can to prove himself. This isn’t a bad thing in itself.

For now, his attitude is good and his work is more than adequate, which is important in a doctor. If his true colours are vastly different to what he’s shown us so far, we’ll find out soon enough, and while he’s not hurting anyone, I’m prepared to be patient.

He has taken an interest in cybernetics as well, mostly due to my enhancements and the damaged pirate we have in Med Bay. Dr Valdimir also has the type of mind that needs a project to fill in the quiet hours aboard ship. He thinks that he might be able to repair some of Lieutenant Laurence’s implants and get him up and around. That may or may not be a good thing, but Laurence has a collar on if he gets out of hand. I’m not going to refuse him medical treatment – this isn’t that kind of ship – and we need him in good spirits for the work ahead of us at Dyne (though simply feeling obliged to us for treating him well will do).

As for our other new crewmember, Cameron reports that Swann conducted himself well enough on-planet. He did everything he was asked to, helped her to secure the services she needed, and was part of the reason they were so successful. Apparently, he has good instincts for when to finger his weapon or look thoughtfully up and down someone, as if he’s calculating the exact level of violence required to achieve his ends. It was enough to smooth the way without intimidating the contacts out of talking to the Chief.

He still keeps to himself, though. Trust is difficult for us and it’s hard to say whether we can afford to allow him the full run of the ship yet. My gut tells me that we haven’t seen his true colours and my instincts are urging me to caution.

Swann isn’t the only unanswered question I have, though the other one is less urgent. I should really chase that up.

CAPTAIN: (in his cabin, seated at his desk) Starry?

STARRY: (appearing in front of the desk) Yes, captain?

CAPT: Did you track Dr Cirilli when she was on-planet?

STARRY: Yes, of course. She was monitored, the same as everyone else. (Her head tilts to the side.) Do you want to know where she went?

CAPT: (pressing his lips together) Yes.

STARRY: She went out three times, to the same place on each trip.

(A holographic representation of Hong Kong appears before her and the avatar turns to watch it. A small, golden light bobbing in Repulse Bay represents her ship-self’s docked position, and a tiny blue dot tracks a wiggly line away from it. From ship to shore, and then to an airport. A rapid hop spins the Earth below it, and a new area turns into view. The blue dot dips and land there.)

STARRY: Singapore. She went to a residential address, with a diversion to a restaurant on one occasion.

CAPT: Who does the residential address belong to?

STARRY: (hesitates as she accesses the right database information) Ben Donovan and Kitty Cirilli.

CAPT: (frowns) Her daughter?

STARRY: Yes. Is that a problem?

CAPT: (shakes his head slowly, one hand rubbing at his upper right arm) Probably not. Thank you, Starry.

STARRY: (nods and dissolves.)

She went to see her family. She knew that we weren’t supposed to contact anyone; if Is-Tech are able to track our movements, they might figure out what we’ve done. Family is one of the first things they’ll check. I can’t blame her for wanting to do it but she does have some explaining to do.

This is one of those parts of being captain that I don’t like.

CAPT: Starry, how close are we to launch?

STARRY: (voice only) Seven minutes, captain.

CAPT: Thank you.

Not enough time now; I should monitor the launch in case there are any problems. Lorena will have to be a matter for another day.

STARRY: (voice only) Uh, captain?

CAPT: Yes?

STARRY: I’m getting some weird requests from the port authority. I think they need someone in charge to step on them; they’re not listening to me.

CAPT: (sighs, then smooths his hair back and squares his shoulders) All right, put me through.

Log terminated

Ship's log, 19:24, 12 March 2214
Location: Offshore docking, Hong Kong, Earth
Status: Docked and powered down

Three days. I can’t believe it’s been three whole days.

I’m nervous. Which is silly: I have no reason to be nervous.

I’ve been trying to keep busy and productive. I’ve picked apart Cameron’s package and spread its contents out across four different hiding places (including a digital copy buried in my filestores). I hid the case too, in a separate location. The case was carrying the paperwork and official seals regarding the new company; I’m not sure why she thinks it should be hidden but I’m not going to question her judgement. I can appreciate a paranoid Chief of Security.

I’ve run detailed diagnostics on all of my systems and created a maintenance list that’ll take my drones a week to get through. I’ve packed and repacked the supplies we’ve received so far, seeking the optimum storage arrangement for space efficiency and access. I’ve logged everything I could get my sensors on, and sorted and catalogued the data for further analysis.

My decks are polished, everything is squared away, and I even managed to convince Elliott to change into a fresh shipsuit, the one with the fewest stains on it. I think I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

John is coming home today. Finally, after all this time and much fretting, he’s nearly back. He’s on the skiff right now; I can feel him bobbing and swerving on his way to me.

The whole crew is turning out to greet him: everyone aboard has made their way to the airlock, including the science team. I have lifted myself up out of the water so that he can enter through the starboard-side airlock rather than dropping down through the top hatch. It’s a more fitting entrance for the ship’s captain. Water is still running down my sides and making me glint in the last of the setting sun, and there’s a shroud of steam lingering over my skin, curling up from the thrusters on my wingtips. I hope it’s a sight that pleases him: his ship waiting for him, golden and gleaming.

There was an awful moment yesterday when I didn’t think he’d make it back to me at all. It was when he was waking up after they had finished all of the surgical procedures: his biorhythms went haywire, pulse spiking dangerously and blood pressure surging critically high.

Recording: 10:43, 11 March 2214
Internal comms channel

STARRY: (appearing in the Chief of Security’s quarters abruptly) Cameron! Cameron, something’s wrong! John’s dying!

CAMERON: (leaping up from her desk) What? Put the feed through!

STARRY: (nods and the biorhythm data scrolls down the holographic display over the desk.)

CAMERON: It looks bad. Where’s the doctor?

STARRY: (hesitating) He’s… he’s in the next room. He’s not even in there with John!

CAMERON: Call Rosie. Now.

 

External comms channel

STARRY: (voice only) Rosie! Pick up!

ROSIE: Yeah, I hear you. What’s wrong?

STARRY: The captain’s in trouble!

ROSIE: On it! OI, DR CRAPSTICKS! In there, now!

DR SOCKS: (distantly) What?

ROSIE: You heard me! Get in there!

(The sound of doors breathing open comes over the channel, and then the sound of someone struggling energetically. Faintly, there’s a strangled noise.)

MEDICAL PERSONNEL #1: Hey! You can’t be in here!

ROSIE: (boots clomping loudly) What the fuck are you doing to our captain?

MEDICAL PERSONNEL #2: Nothing, it’s all perfectly under control.

ROSIE: Doesn’t look like it to me!

STARRY: According to his stats, he’s about to stroke out!

DR SOCKS: She’s right, he’s reacting badly to the–

MEDICAL #1: Who the hell is that?

ROSIE: (growling) Our ship. And she ain’t wrong, so get out of the way.

MEDICAL #2: (calmly) This isn’t an unusual reaction to the procedure. Please, let us do our job.

(The thrashing noises ease. Feet patter about and liquid hisses through tubes.)

DR SOCKS: You’re not doing very well.

STARRY: Let him help. Let the doctor – Dr Valdimir – let him help.

MEDICAL #1: (sternly) We know what we’re doing. You have to leave. And you have to cut that transmission, right now.

DR SOCKS: The stats are coming down now.

MEDICAL #2: We’re putting him back under. He needs more time to adjust, that’s all.

STARRY: Is he okay?

DR SOCKS: He’s coming out of danger. For now.

MEDICAL #1: Is that seriously your ship?

ROSIE: If you like, you can go over and see how she reacts to people who nearly kill her captain.

MEDICAL #1: Could you take a step back, please? There’s really no need to… loom like that.

ROSIE: (grinning) Looming’s not about ‘need’.

DR SOCKS: (to someone else) I’d like to stay and monitor the situation, if you don’t mind.

MEDICAL #2: Of course, but please don’t touch any of the equipment and stay out of the isolation area.

DR SOCKS: Of course.

It’s possible that I might have overreacted. I’m sure they had it under control. Maybe? I’m not sure. They were already handling it but… I can’t be sorry. What if they hadn’t been in time?

What if I’d distracted them and things had gone another way?

It doesn’t matter now. None of it does. Several hours later, John woke up again and his biorhythms didn’t spike anywhere near as high. He didn’t react well – his body went into a panic again – but it settled quickly and they didn’t need to sedate him that time. Whatever the problem was, they worked it out. He’s okay now.

And now he’s on his way home. The crew is fidgeting in the airlock. Byte is crouching on Elliott’s shoulder, smoothing the hair back behind his ear subtly, so the engineer doesn’t know that he’s being tidied up. Cameron is calm, because she’s always calm, and Swann is leaning against the bulkhead like he doesn’t care much.

Swann just twitched and stood upright. Ah, Casper is behind him, prodding him to behave. He’s looking at the drone like it just materialised there, but sadly, teleportation isn’t the project that we are here to investigate; that technology is beyond everyone, even a reality-bender like me. I dread to think what Casper would do if he could do that.

The skiff has rounded the shuttle at the end of the row and is swinging around to line up to my starboard side, just like they always do. Rosie and Dr Socks are riding with casual ease, their bodies showing relief because their stint in the hospital is over. John’s pulse is slightly elevated, but I can feel it beating solidly from here. His heart is strong.

Here they are. Here he is.

(Water foams at the front of the skiff as it back-thrusts gently to cut speed, and it swings around to nudge side-on to the open airlock doors. The little vessel’s motor growls as it fights the flow of the water to maintain position, then the noise dims as the ripples settle. The guard rail slides out of the way on the side of the skiff, leaving an open gap for the passengers to step through.

On the skiff, Rosie and Dr Socks stand on either side of the gap. Rosie grins at the sight of the people gathered to greet the returning captain, pleased, and she gives the doctor a nod. The pair of them shift back to give the captain room to step forward into the doorway.

Captain Warwick stands for a moment and looks into his ship. Cameron, Ebling and Swann stand down one side of the airlock; Elliott, Cirilli and Lang Lang stand on the other. Between Lang Lang and the inner airlock doors, the ship’s avatar stands with her hands clasped firmly behind her so that she doesn’t fidget.

In the cargo bay beyond the inner airlock doors, all of the drones are lined up, waiting patiently out of the way. Except Byte, who leans forward from his spot on Elliott’s shoulder curiously, one hand gripping the engineer’s ear for balance.

Captain Warwick nods to his people, a little smile betraying his approval. Cameron steps forward to offer him a hand and he shakes his head; he doesn’t need help. He hesitates for a moment, waits for the skiff to dip in time with the waves, and steps across smoothly.)

CAMERON: (straightening her shoulders and saluting) Captain on deck!

CAPTAIN: (casts her a curious glance, but she doesn’t waver from her pose at attention, standing rod-straight and looking forward.)

(Rosie steps over from the skiff into the airlock and moves around to the side. When she sees what the Chief if doing, she stops and salutes without hesitation. Dr Socks follows her into the airlock and looks bewildered.

The skiff sprays water at their heels as it drifts away half a metre, then it turns and zips off between parked ships.

The others in the airlock pick up the salute, one after the other. Lang Lang is the first after Rosie, smiling with tears shining in her eyes. She seems excited to be involved. Cirilli is solemn as she lifts her hand, and Elliott looks rebellious for a moment before he follows suit. Ebling decides not to be left out, while the doctor’s lips quirk with amusement as he echoes the gesture. Swann has to be prodded into action by Casper again; he sighs but salutes at the drone’s nudge.

The captain’s gaze moves around the airlock and down to the ship’s avatar at the back; that’s her cue to add her salute to the crew’s. There’s a metallic ripple behind her as each of the drones lifts a single metal hand to their brow, joined by little Byte up front. She watches the captain steadily, carefully.

Captain Warwick lifts his chin. Then he raises his new right hand to salute his crew in return, acknowledging their show of respect. It’s a flesh hand, pale but familiar, and it moves smoothly back down to his side again as all of them drop the stance.)

CAPT: It’s good to be back. (He nods to the assembled crew, then walks across the airlock and into the ship proper.)

The gathering is breaking up in his wake. Some of them seem relieved, others are lingering to exchange words. I’ve dissolved my avatar now; it’s not needed there. As they turn away, I close both sets of airlock doors behind them and settle back beneath the waters of the bay. I’m tempted to lock all my hatches down.

My captain is returning to his quarters. He’s not as strong as he’d like us to believe. He’s moving steadily enough but slower than his usual purposed stride. His pulse is higher than it should be right now. His face is pale and drawn, and now that the saluting is done, his right arm isn’t moving very much. He has just had major surgery, so I think he can be forgiven.

He’s pretending to be okay for us. For the crew. He wants to be better. And soon, he will be. He’ll be fine, if any of us have anything to say about it. He just needs some time to get used to being whole again.

I’ll ask the doctor to check in on him later, make sure that he’s okay.

CAPT: (as the doors to his quarters close behind him) Starry?

STARRY: (appearing to one side of the room, so that he doesn’t have to walk around her) Yes, captain?

CAPT: (going to sit down at his desk and loosening the collar of his jacket with one hand) Let’s get started with the status reports, shall we?

STARRY: You don’t want to put your feet up for a while first?

CAPT: I’ve spent most of the last few days asleep; that’s enough rest for a while. We should get moving if we’re going to shake this company off us. Don’t you agree?

STARRY: (smiling brightly) Absolutely, Captain Warwick.

My captain is back. What ship needs more?