Starwalker

Chief Engineer's log, 09:20, 29 December 2213
Location: Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: FTL transit (tethered)

This is not what I signed up for. Fuckin’ pirates on my ship, calling the shots. Like they know how to do my job. They don’t know shit about engines, or how this ship works, or the fact that they’ve got to stop trying to mess with things they don’t understand. How many times do we have to tell them? They keep saying that they want their ‘package’ intact, but they keep trying to fuck it up.

Maybe I should tell them to attach cables to their nuts and pull on them, if they’re so obsessed with their packages. Stupid mercs.

Their latest trick was to try to hard-link our systems to the Bountiful‘s to control the FTL travel. They do it all the time, they tell me. Yeah, right. They might sync FTL and ID systems with most of the ships they capture, but they’re not going to do it with this one.

She won’t let them; Starry won’t be slave to anyone like that, especially not after what Tripi did. If they tried, she’d freak out and probably hurt someone. Most likely herself again, stupid ship.

When they were preparing the link, she got all angry and started shouting so much I thought she’d pop out her avatar again. Then I asked them if they really wanted to give her access to their ship’s systems, and that shut them up. That kind of hard-link is, by necessity, two-way. Didn’t think about that, did they? Once they realised that our crazy half-human AI might be able to influence their ship, they gave up on the idea of slaving her FTL systems to theirs.

At least she’s standing up for herself again. She nearly lost her nerve after the thing about her name, but she’s answering back like normal now. She makes that Lieutenant look like he has a headache in his metal eye.

So they had to come up with a new plan to control our FTL travel in case she tried anything, like jumping away from the rest of our little fleet. She could pick up her FTL skirts and run like hell for the hills, carrying their men along with her. It’s not like they could stop her if she did; only an idiot screws with a ship in the middle of a corridor. Then again, maybe these morons would try. Luckily, they haven’t.

So what was their great idea? Tie us to the Bountiful‘s belly.

So stupid. Never mind the effect of so many tethers on her hull (I only just got it fixed up!): it’s dangerous. They had to recalibrate their systems to compensate for the additional mass and inertial forces. That alone took forever – lots of tugging us forward and back to make sure we were properly protected from being pasted against the bulkheads or smashed into little tiny atoms. Starry was far more patient that I would have been with them.

At least they didn’t try to blackmail her into making the FTL jumps they want. For a while there, I thought their solution was going to be a gun to my head. It worked once and would again; we all know it.

I’d be paranoid if I thought they believed she cared about me most and was therefore the best hostage to play. I’m convenient, that’s all; everyone else is shut up someplace. The captain and the SecOffs are in their quarters; Maletz is confined to Med Bay (one of their men got his thumb caught in a door, poor baby); and Cirilli’s team is shut up on mid-deck. They took that Levi bastard off to one of the merc ships, still unconscious. Which leaves me to be their leverage. Like I don’t have anything better to do.

I know they have to feel like they’re in charge, but don’t they know how to be anything but heavy-handed?

I keep thinking about Starry’s face when they pulled that shit and the Lieutenant pointed his gun at me. How desperate she looked, and there was nothing I could do about it. Then I think about her face and… it’s confusing.

It’s freaky seeing that avatar out here in the real world. Okay, it’s just a hologram, but the first time I saw it was inside my own head. She appeared in my fucked-up dream world and I thought I was at least partially responsible for the image, because it looks how I pictured her from her voice: almost Danika. Except for her eyes: they’re not how I had imagined they’d be. They make me feel like I could fall in and get lost in the whole universe.

Sometimes I wonder if–

STARRY: Elliott, can I ask you something?

ELLIOTT: (standing in front of a counter, adjusting the flowrate on a conduit junction he has removed from its place in the nearby wall. He jumps at the voice and drops what he’s doing. He looks around, in case there is something to look at.) Yeah, sure.

STARRY: Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. What was that thing that the captain gave you?

ELLIOTT: Uh… when? I haven’t seen him in weeks.

STARRY: When we were boarded. He made you go up to the Bridge to get it.

ELLIOTT: (examining the head of his spanner) Oh, that. It was, uh, nothing.

STARRY: It didn’t seem like nothing.

ELLIOTT: It was– look, it’s gone now. Does it really matter?

STARRY: Please, Elliot.

ELLIOTT: (huffs and puts his spanner down before he does something silly with it.)

STARRY: (forms her image in front of a console on the other side of the room. She pauses, then steps herself over to a holo-display closer to him.)

ELLIOTT: (doesn’t see her appear, not until she’s standing by his elbow. He flinches and eyes her up and down.) I wish you’d warn a guy when you do that.

STARRY: (blinks, taken aback) I thought it might– that you’d– Should I put it away?

ELLIOTT: No, no. Just not used to it. (He turns back to the workbench and frowns at his spanner as if he’s contemplating picking it up again.)

STARRY: Look, Elliott… it seemed like it was important, but I can’t figure out why. Please. I- I don’t like secrets. Not with my crew. Not with you.

ELLIOTT: (glances sideways at her face) You sound like you think I’d betray you or something.

STARRY: No! No. I don’t, never. But… but you’re keeping something from me. And… Elliott, please. So many people have lied to me, and I can’t… I need to know if it might be a problem. A danger to us.

ELLIOTT: (looks away from her again) You ever think that maybe I’m protecting you by not telling you?

STARRY: (watches him plaintively, her voice dropping to a murmur) Now you’re scaring me.

ELLIOTT: (grabs the spanner and throws it across the room.)

STARRY: (flinches, even though the spanner didn’t go anywhere near her and couldn’t hit her even if it did.)

ELLIOTT: Dammit, Starry, don’t look like you think I’d hurt you. You know better than that.

STARRY: (switches her image to a projector in his line of sight) I know.

ELLIOTT: Shit. You’re not gonna like it.

STARRY: Then do it quickly. Like ripping off peeling plasti-skin.

ELLIOTT: (huffs and looks around, like he wants to throw something else.) All right. I shouldn’t– all right! Stop looking at me like that. But you gotta let me explain.

STARRY: Okay. I won’t freak out.

ELLIOTT: You don’t know what it is yet.

STARRY: I promise not to freak out until after you’re done explaining. How’s that?

ELLIOTT: Fuck.

STARRY: Please, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Okay! (He huffs shortly.) It was a kill switch.

STARRY: A… for what?

ELLIOTT: (grimacing and shifting his weight) For you. (He rushes on quickly, before she can speak.) Look, it’s not what you think. I made it back when we thought you were just malfunctioning, before we even knew what– who you are. In case you were crazy or gonna FTL us into a planet or something. Before we knew about Danika and all that.

STARRY: You… you built a kill switch for me? But… I have failsafes, and–

ELLIOTT: You had already got around most of those. The captain wanted a way to–

STARRY: (quietly) To kill me.

ELLIOTT: (firmly) To protect the crew if something went wrong. Don’t go putting words in his mouth. He didn’t know you were you then.

STARRY: He asked you for it?

ELLIOTT: Yeah.

STARRY: And you built it.

ELLIOTT: (wincing) Yeah.

STARRY: Who else knew?

ELLIOTT: (hesitates) Uh, I dunno. I never told anyone. Don’t think the captain did either.

STARRY: And… and you waited until now to get rid of it?

ELLIOTT: Look, I… tell the truth, I forgot about it. I tried to forget about it the moment I handed it over. I didn’t know he even still had the damn thing.

STARRY: He had it on him.

ELLIOTT: And he made sure it was destroyed before the pirates could get their hands on it. He’d never have used it, Starry, not after everything.

STARRY: But he had it on him.

ELLIOTT: He made sure that no-one would ever use it against you.

STARRY: Because he was forced to.

ELLIOTT: No! Well, kinda. But that’s– no! Fuck, he’s not like that.

STARRY: Why would he keep it all this time?

ELLIOTT: I don’t know! It’s gone now, what does it matter?

STARRY: I don’t know, it just does.

ELLIOTT: Starry, c’mon. Please, don’t… jeez, are you gonna cry?

STARRY: I’m a ship; I can’t cry.

ELLIOTT: You look like you’re gonna cry.

STARRY: He was gonna destroy me, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: No, of course not. Don’t be– it was just in case. He never wanted to– fuck. I’m no good at this stuff.

STARRY: What am I supposed to do with this?

ELLIOTT: I don’t know! I thought you’d be screaming the place down by now. (He holds up his hands and continues quickly, before she takes his words as a recommendation.) Look, it’s gone now, and I’m never making another one. I’ll even make it so no-one can build a kill switch again. Okay?

STARRY: (studies his face with bright eyes) You can do that?

ELLIOTT: Hey. I just rebuilt your starboard-side engine from pirates parts. I can do anything. I’m amazing at this, remember?

STARRY: (tries to smile at him, but the expression falters and slides off her face.)

ELLIOTT: C’mon. He’d never hurt you, not now. Neither would I. You know that.

STARRY: (hollowly) Yeah.

ELLIOTT: And neither would the others. Cameron and Rosie. Even Tyler. And Maletz– okay, who knows with Maletz. But you know what I mean.

STARRY: Yeah. I do. Thanks, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (at a loss) Yeah, no problem.

STARRY: I’ll let you get back to your… thing. (A hand waves vaguely.)

ELLIOTT: Okay.

STARRY: (looks like she might say something else, but instead she closes her lips and bows her head, and disappears. Light rains on the decking.)

ELLIOTT: (sighs and sags.)

Fuck. I’d hoped that she had missed the whole kill switch thing in the confusion of the boarding. She never needed to know! But apparently she had other ideas. That’s our Starry – always with her own ideas about stuff.

Now I have to shore up her systems and add in extra fail-back loops so that no-one can reconstruct the damn thing. Great. Like I need more to do.

I wonder how many failsafes I’ll have to rip out. They put in a whole string of the damn things after the Tiny Dancer episode, when the AI malfunctioned and plotted an FTL course through a twin star. Its crew ran around hand-flailing, unable to do anything because the AI was hard-coded into all the systems. It went down like a moth to a fiery flame. And now we have failsafe after failsafe, just in case that ever happens again.

Because no-one ever thinks that we might need to protect the AI. Shit. Just how many laws of nature is she gonna break? Wish I knew.

She’s right about one thing, though: we should never have left it so long to destroy the switch. And I should have shored up her systems as soon as we realised she wasn’t just a regular AI. I should have done this a long time ago.

No system is fool-proof, but, well, she’s gonna have the closest she can get. I’ll make her high walls and a moat. With sharks in.

No idea how long this is going to take or how I’m going to fit it in around the other repairs. The only thing I’m sure about is that she’s never gonna forgive me. Dammit.

I don’t blame her.

Ship's log, 19:42, 22 December 2213
Location: Mouth of the Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

Here we are – the Corvus FTL corridor. Somewhere in here, we’re going to take a left turn and end up… where we hadn’t originally planned. They won’t tell me. I guess they’ll start sending me jump coordinates soon, at least as far as the first junction of the corridor.

I wonder where they’re taking me. Straight to their clients? Back to Pirate Central where they keep the ale and strumpets? Will we stop for a chest of gold and a haunted ship on the way? Or maybe a monster from the deep will rise up and chase us.

Maybe the Judiciary will be that monster. Or ships from Is-Tech – I know they have other ships, even if I haven’t seen any yet. Even though they’re keeping their distance. Do they know I’m missing? Do they care? I’m supposed to be the last hope to save their flagging business; I’m supposed to be valuable to them. Where are they? Where is my protection?

When we discovered Levi’s betrayal, I was so busy stopping him from sending a distress buoy that I never thought to send one myself. Soon, we’ll be off course and they’ll never find me again.

I can’t pretend that that doesn’t scare me.

If they did show up – or the Judiciary, for that matter – would they know me? The pirates are working hard to change me. Pieces of me are slipping away, eroding the ship I thought I was. My name was just the first step.

After the name was burnt off my hull, the Lieutenant ordered Elliott to remove my ident. It’s a small, tough device wired into my central systems, built to withstand damage and tampering. It’s supposed to be an umimpeachable source of information to identify me. They’re unhackable: once the unit is sealed, the information it transmits is hardwired and can’t be changed. The only way to change an ident is to rip it out and replace it with someone else’s.

It’s not a pleasant process. There are failsafes and protocols in place to stop me working if I don’t have a valid ident installed. It’s a measure intended to battle pirates, but we all know that failsafes can be disabled. I’ve been doing it since I came into this world. But that didn’t make it feel right.

I don’t have human tactile sensors, but I swear I could feel them reach inside me and remove a part of me. Something important; something vital. It left behind a hollow that I couldn’t fill or ignore. I wanted to hunch over it. It felt like Danika did every time she thought about her brother after he disappeared. Like a part of her was missing, an empty ache and a hope that someday, it’ll be filled again. Put right. Put back the way it should be.

It took hours to complete the replacement – a lot of links to disengage and then connect up to the new unit. Elliott kept trying to talk to me but I couldn’t answer him. My systems were all shutting down, strangled by the lack of this small, hard thing, and every time he asked how I was doing, I felt an overwhelming urge to cry. Which is odd, as I don’t have eyes or tear ducts. I just sealed my lips and let him work. He would only have felt bad. It’s not like it was his fault.

I don’t know how the pirates got the ident they gave to Elliott to install. I didn’t want to ask, or think about a dead, nameless ship somewhere out in the void. I know that it’s from a scout-class ship, sister to the Mandible that rides up ahead of me. Her name was Carapace; now, that’s my name. While the ident was being nailed into my innards, they snuck a couple of men onto my skin and tattooed it across my sides. My scars are covered with a new shape.

They weren’t happy with that, though. I don’t match the original Carapace’s configuration: I’m the right size for a scout, but my wings and tail-fins aren’t standard for that class. I’m built for manoeuvrability far more than a regular scout, and for riding close to the coronas of stars.

So of course, they wanted to change that, too.

Recording: 13:52, 28 December 2213

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, halfway through pulling on his EVA suit. He pauses with it bunched around his knees and squints up at Lieutenant Laurence’s face.) You want me to what?

HALF-FACE: Modify the wings and fins on the ship’s–

ELLIOTT: Yeah, I heard you. What I meant to ask was: are you nuts?

STARRY: (resolves before a nearby holographic display, her feet not quite touching the floor. She doesn’t seem to have noticed, too busy folding her arms and looking from one man to the other. Elliott is much shorter than the merc.)

HALF-FACE: It’s just external structure. Nothing important.

ELLIOTT: (yanks his suit up to his waist and throws up his hands, all in one gesture) I just got done repairing one of those wings! What is this, waste Elliott’s time day?

STARRY: Nothing important? They’re not decorations.

HALF-FACE: (glancing at the avatar) You don’t need–

STARRY: You don’t know what I need!

HALF-FACE: (sighs deeply and closes his flesh eye, as if he’s getting a headache. Or controlling himself. His prosthetic eye narrows to a tiny point.)

STARRY: (bitterly) You won’t believe me, so get my captain down here. Or Cirilli, she’ll do. Let them tell you what will happen during a Step if you cut my manoeuvrability.

ELLIOTT: (gives Starry an uncertain look, but rounds on the Lieutenant in concert with her) You do know that there’s propulsion on all those ‘external structures’, right?

HALF-FACE: (firmly) Why don’t you start with telling me what the problem is?

ELLIOTT: (takes a breath but pauses, glancing at Starry.)

STARRY: (seems uncertain, but steps towards the Lieutenant, her light prickling on the air) You want to take my wings off, shave my tail, and give me stupid mutant fins. It’ll move my thrusters so I’ll be ass-heavy and take four orbits to make a stupid turn.

HALF-FACE: The changes aren’t that drastic.

STARRY: I’m an experimental ship. I was built around this new drive – (she waves her hands around) – it wasn’t just strapped into any old shell they had lying about. My configuration has been designed for it. Do you know what happens when you’re outside the universe? It starts to unmake you; it unpeels your atoms. You don’t want to stay out there. so it’s not a good idea to make it harder to get where we’re going. Not even a little bit.

HALF-FACE: (frowns) None of the reports said it was that dangerous.

ELLIOTT: What, you thought tearing a hole in reality was safe?

STARRY: Check the logs. They’ll show you.

ELLIOTT: And shoot whoever supplied you with those reports.

HALF-FACE: (eyes the pair of them. By now, the ship and her engineer are standing in matching poses, feet planted squarely and arms crossed. He isn’t sure who is copying whom.) I’ll look into it.

ELLIOTT: We’ll be here. (He waves a hand at the Lieutenant.)

HALF-FACE: (snorts and strides out of Engineering.)

ELLIOTT: (slumps and runs a hand through his hair) Shit.

STARRY: (watches the mercenary leave with a solemn expression) He’ll be back. With another bright idea from his captain.

ELLIOTT: Hey, at least they changed their mind. And about repainting you – goddamn morons, trying to take heat protection off a star-hugger like you.

STARRY: (lets her head droop. She notices the gap between her feet and the deck, and drifts down to close it.) Why is it all such a battle? I’m always fighting the current. (She looks up at Elliott.) Should I stop? Should I just… give in to them?

ELLIOTT: Hell no! Are you nuts? They’d drive us into a star, and then we’d all be fucked. They don’t have the first clue about you, or the drive, or any of this.

STARRY: They don’t want to know, either.

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) So we’ll tell ’em. (He looks at her searchingly; she’s still looking at the toes of her boots, lifting them up and down and seeing how the light shifts against the solidity of her deck.) Hey, we’d all be screwed without you. You’re doing a good job, y’know.

STARRY: (glances up at him) We got caught.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, but we ain’t dead. And that wasn’t your fault. You gotta go easier on yourself.

STARRY: (looks down again.)

ELLIOTT: You wanna know a secret? C’mere. (He beckons her over to a counter tangled with components, wires, shards, tools, and other random bits of metal and plastic. He lifts a couple of pieces out of their apparently-random places and prises up a sheet of scorched hull-fragment.) Look under there.

STARRY: (steps over to the console by the counter. She looks at the lifted sheet, using her ship’s sensors to see what’s underneath it. A frown tugs.) Is that an ident cube?

ELLIOTT: (winking and putting the things back) Shhh. It’s more than that: it’s your ident cube.

STARRY: (blinks) But, how– they took it away.

ELLIOTT: (grinning) Fake. An empty shell.

STARRY: But they’ll know, and–

ELLIOTT: (shakes his head) Sealed box. Can’t open an ident cube, remember? Won’t figure it out unless they try to install it in a different ship. (He pats the pile of junk proudly.)

STARRY: (stares at him) You could get in trouble.

ELLIOTT: Ah, fuck ’em.

STARRY: (starts to smile.)

Elliott must have known they’d ask him to change my ident; he had to have prepared the fake in advance. If I go back through my logs, I’ll probably find him working away at it in the middle of the night, while the rest of the ship is asleep. He never gets enough rest.

Just when I think I’m sliding into a spear-laden pit, I realise that I still have my crew. They’re collared and corralled; they can’t help me as much as any of us would like, but they do what they can. Tyler distracts his guards the best way he knows how. Rosie beats them at cards. My captain discusses ethics and fate. Cameron makes observations about their deployment and tactics. Maletz keeps them whole and pain-free.

I feel like there are pieces moving into position, but I can’t see the whole board. I’m on it somewhere too, fumbling my way through the dark, with no idea if I’m heading in the right direction or not. I’m not sure what kind of piece I am – they keep trying to change me. I don’t know if I’ll know before it’s all too late to fix, but I can’t break free of this. My crew is collared and corralled; that binds me.

So I’ll keep trying not to let the mercenaries do anything too silly with me. I’ll wear this mask they’ve given me, and try not to disappear inside it. I’ve pretended before. I’ve just got to be tougher this time, that’s all.

Ship's log, 15:13, 8 December 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

We’re almost to the FTL corridor. I’m tucked in the middle of our little fleet: a single, small sheep between three over-zealous sheepdogs. I’m limping along with both wing engines disabled and several thrusters offline. The repairs on my starboard sublight engine are now almost complete, but it’s been a long slog to get this far.

The pirates are itching at our pace. We crawled away from the comet’s tail and they tried to put tow-clamps on me. I had to explain to them just how much damage they would do with those kinds of clamps on my skin. The Star Step filaments are embedded into my hull all the way down my length, nose to tail. If they’re broken, I won’t be able to Step. I already had several filaments broken by the chase; the clamps would have taken out half of the still-functioning ones. We don’t have enough parts to repair that many.

Next, they offered to use a noose created by the IDs around me, basically a kind of gravity net to drag me along. I told them it was a bad idea, considering that my drones needed to be outside for the repairs and the net would smoosh them against my hull in all the wrong ways. They can either have me fast or fixed, but not both.

In the end, they used the net to slingshot me away from the debris field and then turned it off so we could conduct repairs. It’s not quick, but we’re moving.

We had to take parts from all three pirate ships: the Mandible, the Bountiful and the other cruiser, Mercy. The parts all had to be reconfigured and adapted by Elliott before they could be fitted onto me. He spent a lot of time in his workshop machining parts by hand – it was quicker, he claimed, because he knew they’d be right. If he let anyone else do it, he’d have to triple-check everything, because other engineers are morons.

He hates the idea of any other engineers messing with me and my systems, and I’m with him in that. After the Tripi incident, I don’t want any other hands on me either. Luckily, Cirilli and Wong have been equally vocal about not having ignorant engineers messing around near their drive. The Lieutenant finally gave up and advised the Bountiful’s captain to let Elliott complete the repairs with the drones’ help. They figured out that extra hands wouldn’t get the critical work done any quicker anyway. It seems to be working so far.

The first thing they did was turn the gash down my side into a huge scar. Messy emergency welds maintained hull integrity while the big stuff got dealt with. Big Ass and Wide Load peeled the long strip of engine off the rear edge of my starboard wing and brought it inside to be fixed. While Elliott was busy with that, my big boys unfolded the dent in the wing and put everything back to how it should be.They took the engine back outside a few days ago to reattach it to its mountings. I’m still testing it to make sure that nothing is loose or going to give way once I pile the power through it.

Elliott kept grumbling that it needed to be replaced not repaired, but who knows when we’ll get to a port with a new engine of the correct type? We could wait months for a new one.

Of course, we could go to the source: direct to Is-Tech’s main ship factory at Feras. But that’s not going to happen now that I belong to the pirates. Is-Tech will have to fight to get me back first.

It feels strange to be coasting along so casually. There’s tension on my decks and three well-armed ships pacing me, but the urgency seems to have faded.

It’s given us all some breathing space. For once, I feel like I’m not hurtling towards the next disaster. I’m taking stock and repairing all my broken parts. All the physical ones, anyway. The drones are out there right now, removing the emergency seals and weaving my hull back together.

After the heat-reflective paint is reapplied over the damage, there will hardly be scars any more.

I won’t look the same, though. Not the same as before. There was one thing that we couldn’t stop them from doing.

Between all the repairs and fending off tethers and nets, a couple of quiet men came over in a shuttle. They were suited up already and didn’t bother to disconnect their helmets; they marched from my main airlock straight for the nearest emergency hatch and climbed out onto my hull. A quick clunk-clunk of mag-boots down to my tail and they went about lasering off my serial number. Not a single word to anyone. It took me several moments to realise what they were doing.

When they were done with that, they moved on to where my name is etched on my side, just above my wing. That’s when I started shouting.

Elliott was halfway into his suit before the mercs got to him.

Recording: 20:43, 10 November, 2213

ELLIOTT: (struggles as the mercs grab hold of him, the jacket of his EVA suit hanging limply around his waist) Get your fucking hands off me!

MERC 1: You’re staying here.

STARRY: Let him go! You have no right to do this!

MERC 2: You belong to us. We can do whatever the hell we like.

ELLIOTT: (wriggles harder) Leave her alone!

That’s when I started wriggling, too. Just a couple of sharp little spins, enough to yank the two men on my hull about by their feet. I think I dislocated a knee on one of them – that’s one of the dangers of using mag-boots on the outside of a ship. Especially when the ship hugs her ID field in so tight that they’re not included in its protection.

I was screaming at them through their ship-suit comms. I don’t know if they could hear me; I’m sure they must have turned off their reception. But I couldn’t stop.

I can’t even say why it upset me so much. It seems silly now that I think about it. But it’s my name, it’s who I am now. I have fought with this for so long – ever since I was booted up – but I’ve made peace with it. I know who I am. Why should I change it just because I’ve changed ownership?

But it’s just a name. It’s not even the name that I prefer my crew to call me by.

If I could, I would have curled up in the corner with my head in my hands. Then, in the middle of my freakout, they went and made it worse.

Recording: 20:52, 10 November 2213

HALF-FACE: (arriving in Engineering, where the pirates are still fighting to contain Elliott) That’s enough – stop this, right now! (He’s looking at the engineer, not his own men.)

ELLIOTT: (red-faced with the effort and huffing as he tires, but he still manages to glare at the Lieutenant) You can’t do this to her. What the fuck is wrong with you?

HALF-FACE: (pulls up the hologram interface on his left forearm and flips a fingertip at a red circle of light.)

ELLIOTT: (goes rigid when his control collar lights up. The mercs release him and he crumples to the deck, jaw tensed too tightly to scream. It lasts for a couple of seconds, then the collar goes dark. He slumps, grasping at the thing around his neck and struggling for breath.)

STARRY: Stop it! You can’t do this!

HALF-FACE: I think you’ll find I can. (He draws his weapon and aims it at Elliott’s head.)

ELLIOTT: (glares up at the barrel pointing at him) Bastard.

STARRY: (alarmed rather than angry) What are you doing?

HALF-FACE: (lifts his head to address the ship without moving his gaze or aim from Elliott) Stop interfering in my men’s work. Now.

STARRY: (coalesces in front of the console nearest to them. The process is much faster than the first time, taking only a couple of seconds to pull her Danika-like form together.) Leave him alone! Deal with me.

HALF-FACE: (with a twitch in the corner of his mouth) I am dealing with you. (He shifts his finger on the trigger.)

STARRY: All right! I’ll let them do it. All right.

HALF-FACE: Good girl. (He waits and listens to the reports on his personal comms implant. Starry’s avatar hovers nervously nearby. After a few minutes, he nods and lowers his weapon to his side.)

ELLIOTT: (sags.)

STARRY: (distraught) Is this how you settle all your disputes?

HALF-FACE: (shrugs) Pretty much.

STARRY: (looks at Elliott for a long, torn moment, flickers, and then disappears.)

ELLIOTT: (glares up at the Lieutenant) Real smooth, asshole. Who’s fucking brilliant idea was this?

HALF-FACE: (eyes the engineer with surprise) It’s standard procedure.

ELLIOTT: (pushes himself up to his feet) She’s not a standard ship! You can’t just swan about here as if– (He stops and shakes his head sharply. One hand tugs at the collar as if trying to make it sit more comfortably.) Shit. You didn’t even warn her, did you?

HALF-FACE: Why would I need to do that?

ELLIOTT: (waving an arm around) Because there’s a person in there! And you just took away her name. Anyone would freak out in her position.

HALF-FACE: A person? What the hell kind of ship is this?

ELLIOTT: The kind you should explain shit to before you go ahead and do it. (He eyes the pirates around him.) Now can you get the fuck out of my Engineering Bay?

HALF-FACE: Just make sure you don’t get in our way again.

ELLIOTT: (glares.)

HALF-FACE: (gestures to his men and all three of them leave the room.)

ELLIOTT: (slumps against the counter behind him, hands gripping its edge. He lets out a long breath.)

STARRY: (quietly) I’m so sorry, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (frowns) What for? Don’t be stupid; that was all them, not you.

STARRY: I know, but–

ELLIOTT: (pushes off from the counter) Come on, we’ve got work to do.

So that’s it. I let them rub the name from my hull. They haven’t given me a new one yet. I don’t know what it will be.

But I couldn’t let them kill Elliott. It’s just a name. It wasn’t worth hurting him. I can’t believe they hurt him.

I lost something else in that confrontation, something important, but what it is slips away from me. Like so much else right now, it’s bigger than I can grasp. I flounder and I can’t make this work.

It feels like I lose a bit more ground in every confrontation with these pirates. The more my repairs are completed, the less whole and hale I am. Being broken felt more honest than this, even though saying that goes against everything my programming tells me I should be.

I am made whole but not new; there are scars under my paint. I think some of them have been there for a long time.

Why are things always more complicated than they look?

Ship's log, 12:39, 1 December 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

I’m not sure who was more surprised by the appearance of my avatar: my crew, or me. The pirates, well. They were mostly bewildered, and that made me nervous; confused people with guns have a tendency to fire. At the time, I was too furious to let fear stop me, though.

Ship's log, 06:42, 3 November 2213 (Reconstructed)
Location: Comet debris cloud, Intersystem 
between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Stationary

 

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, staring at the sensor display of the Bridge on his wall) Holy fuck. Starry?

(Behind him, Waldo and Casper are dismantling the device that the captain told Elliott to destroy. Their welding torches are reducing the components to dribbles of metal and plastic. The door swishes open and a merc slides in, weapon trained on the Chief Engineer.)

ELLIOTT: (squeaks and spins around, hands raised) Hey, go easy, I got nothin’ here.

PIRATE: Step away from the console. Tools down. (He tilts his head towards the busy drones.) Stand them down.

ELLIOTT: (huffs and unfastens his toolbelts) Don’t ask me, ask her. (He nods towards the display of the Bridge and the ship avatar.)

DRONES: (turn off their welding torches and swivel their heads towards the pirate.)

PIRATE: (grunts and steps forward to scan Elliott for concealed weapons.)

WALDO: (as soon as the merc’s back is turned, he zaps a last shard of the device and quickly assumes his previous pose.)

PIRATE: (spins, too late to catch what happened, and eyes the drone.)

ELLIOTT: (completely distracted by what’s going on on the Bridge.)

 

I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m so furious it feels like my hull is on fire with it. I let them on board. I let them get in there, and now they want to kill my crew. I feel like I’m cracking open, clutching and clawing at the walls. A pulse I don’t have rings in my ears.

I don’t know where that avatar came from; I just pulled up the first image that came to mind. No doubt Maletz will have something to say about it. But I had to show them. I had to make them look at me – at me – and listen. I had to make them see what they’d done.

I feel like I’ve taken some kind of step, but it’s too big for me to know what it is. I can’t wrap my head around it. Stepping outside the universe and contemplating the whole of eternity is easier than this stuff.

 

HALF-FACE: (on the Bridge, frowning at Starry’s avatar) Who are you supposed to be?

STARRY: I’m the ship. And I’m telling you to stand your men down.

HALF-FACE: I don’t take orders from you.

STARRY: And I don’t take orders from you. I do, however, control your ability to stand on my deck.

(Abruptly, everyone on the Bridge is yanked down to the floor as the aritificial gravity is cranked up. There are clatters and thuds, and groans. Bodies struggle to twist into less painful positions. The only one left standing is the ship’s holographic avatar.)

STARRY: (putting her hands on her hips and looking down at the Lieutenant) You might not take my orders, but I know who does pull your chain.

 

Warning.
Artificial gravity safety limits exceeded.
All communications channels open.

 

STARRY: Bountiful, you have a problem.

CRUISER: What are you talking about, Starwalker? We’ve accepted your terms; don’t push your luck.

STARRY: You agreed to give my crew asylum, and I’m going to make sure they get it.

CAPT: (struggling to stare up at her face) Starry, what the hell are you doing?

STARRY: (tensely not looking at him) Whatever I can, captain.

CRUISER: They’ll get their asylum once the ship is secure.

STARRY: That’s not good enough! Lieutenant Moron here seems to think that the best way to ‘secure’ me is to kill my crew. You’ve already murdered one of us, and I won’t let you take any more.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Oh, shit.

CAPT: (on the Bridge) Starry….

 

Careful. Can’t lose my temper. I’m balanced on the edge of the knife, and if I fall, I take my crew with me.

But I can’t forget that these bastards are the reason I’m like this. The reason Danika’s dead. The reason Elliott got hurt. It’s suffocating. It rakes at my insides and wants to get out.

I could crank up the A-G fields some more and crush them to death, right here. I’ve already shredded the safeties that might stop me. I could do it. But not without killing my crew at the same time.

My crew. This is about them. Danika is dead, I am what I am, and no blood or broken bones will change that.

Have to keep them safe. I’m doing whatever I can, captain. Whatever might work.

 

CRUISER:Lieutenant Laurence, can’t you deal with this?

HALF-FACE: (eyeing the hologram distrustfully from his prone position on the floor) Not right now; she’s turned up the A-G field on the Bridge. We can’t move.

CRUISER: What? Who the hell is doing this?

STARRY: Visual link activated.

(The sensor data from the Bridge is transmitted to the Bountiful, from the people pinned to the floor to the hologram standing in the middle of it all. There is no return visual feed, just audio.)

STARRY: I’m Starry, the entity in control of the Starwalker.

CRUISER: Entity? What does that mean? Lieutenant, explain!

HALF-FACE: She claims to be the ship AI, sir. All the life signs are accounted for and in custody – this isn’t one of them.

SW: I am the AI. I’m also the woman you had murdered to get me here. (Her image flickers.)

HALF-FACE: You’re a dead woman? How is that possible?

STARRY: (shortly, to the Lieutenant) It’s a long story. (To the external transmission,) The last time we met, I blew up half a moon and warped a star to my will. I’m also the one who outflew you in this debris cloud, even though you damaged half of my engines.

The thing you need to know is that I’m in control of this ship. I’m the only entiity capable of piloting Star Steps and making this stupid drive work. You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to catch me. If you want what I have, then you’re going to have to deal with me.

CRUISER: I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands.

SW: No? You sure about that? Then let me put it in terms you understand. If anything happens to my crew – any one of them – I will destroy the Star Step drive. That’s what you’ve gone to all this trouble for, right? The A-G fields on mid-deck can reduce that thing to a millimetre-thick pancake if I want.

CIRILLI: You can’t–

SW: Shut up, Cirilli. I can, and I will.

CIRILLI: (rolling her eyes and twisting her head to speak pointedly to the Lieutenant) She’s crazy.

SW: Crazy enough to blow it up if you mess with my A-G controls. Power overload would do it. Or maybe I’ll detonate the sublight engines, or punch us to FTL through a planet. Don’t think you can get around this – all you can do is make the explosion bigger. If you hurt anyone on board my decks, I’ll wipe all of us out if I have to. Is that clear enough?

CAPT: (opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes his mouth again. Starry’s head turns to look at him as if she’s expecting something, and they exchange a look. His lips press into a grim line and he nods slightly, giving tacit approval of her tactics.)

CRUISER: That’s a hell of a bluff.

SW: (pulling her gaze away from the captain) I don’t bluff. Do you want to bet the lives of your men, Bountiful? Or your own? You are pretty close right now.

CRUISER: Are you seriously holding us to ransom right now?

SW: I’m telling you the way this is going to work. You either get all of us and the drive, or you get nothing. Your choice.

CRUISER: Lieutentant, stand by.

HALF-FACE: Yes, sir. (Mutters to himelf,) If I could stand right now.

 

This had better work. It has to work. I can’t lose them. I won’t.

How long does it take to answer me? It’s a binary decision. Couldn’t be simpler: yes or no, you bastards. Win or lose. Pick one. Because I really will rip my own guts out if they make me. I will. I won’t let my crew’s lives be part of my price.

 

CRUISER: All right, Starwalker. We’ll agree to your terms for now.

STARRY: Thank you, Bountiful.

CRUISER: Lieutenant Laurence, stand your men down. Secure the crew in their quarters.

HALF-FACE: Yes, sir. Squad, you heard the captain. Collars and quarters only, once we’re able. (He gives the hologram avatar a pointed look.)

STARRY: (considers the Lieutenant for a moment, then nods.)

(The artificial gravity returns to normal. The mercs scramble quickly to their feet, reclaiming their weapons. The Starwalker’s crew rise more carefully.)

CRUISER: Starwalker, if you fuck with us again, know that we will punish your crew in your stead. You might have secured their lives for now, but it goes both ways.

MERCS: (start to fasten metal collars onto the crew.)

 

Control collars, like the one we put on Tripi. I guess it’s a kinda of symmetry.

What kind of person just carries one of those around? Every one of those mercs has one on their belt.

 

STARRY: Look, Bountiful. I’m not burning with loyalty to Is-Tech. They haven’t done shit for us; I don’t owe them anything. You caught me. I’ll do as you ask, all right? Stop trying to screw me over and maybe we’ll both get what we need out of this.

CRUISER: What makes you think we give a shit about what you need?

STARRY: (frowning) I’m making you give a shit. I don’t care if it’s not how you normally operate; that’s not my problem. I’m protecting my crew.

CRUISER: Just the crew?

STARRY: (hesitates, looking at the captain.)

CAPT: (pauses to glance up at her avatar while a collar is clipped under his chin. He nods at her, almost imperceptably.)

(The crew is being shepherded off the Bridge and escorted to their quarters. Most move stiffly after the encounter with increased gravity and a hard floor. The captain is the last one to be led away. He looks back at Starry one last time before he’s shepherded off the Bridge.)

STARRY: (lifting her chin slightly) Yes, just them. I don’t care who ends up with my drive. Just tell me where you need me to go.

CRUISER: Lieutenant Laurence will inform you of your course.

HALF-FACE: (nods and salutes the comms feed. Then he turns and follows his men out to oversee the incarceration process.)

STARRY: (looks around the Bridge at the vacant consoles, all of them dark and disabled, with their chairs retracted into the floor. She is alone now. She seems to sigh, then bows her head and closes her eyes. Her image dissolves in a quiet rain of light particles.)

 

All comms channels closed.

Ship's log, 16:43, 24 November 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

We’re almost to the Corvus FTL corridor now. I’m being taken there in case Is-Tech is keeping track of me. This was our planned destination, so we’ll go there. As soon as we hit a star, we’ll take a left turn, and then they’ll never be able to track me.

I don’t know where I’ll end up. Could be anywhere – that’s the point of Stepping. We can go anywhere, anystar, in the time it takes the heart to beat three times.

Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s more poetic that way.

In the meantime, I’ve put together some more of that log. The one that got me here.

Ship's log, 05:52, 3 November 2213 (Reconstructed)
Location: Comet debris cloud, 
Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Stationary

 

I am ruptured, but instead of bleeding out, I’m bleeding in. I have to accept this taint into myself and seal my lips shut so I don’t complain. I thought it was bad trying to stay silent before; this is worse.

My airlocks are open and here are the mercenaries, spilling onto my decks with a chilling kind of order. Crouched, all guns and eyes first, scanning corners and side corridors, through doors and into crevices. Still expecting resistance, even though we welcomed them on board.

It’s an effort to stop myself from sealing the doors to the Bridge and Engineering. I want to protect my crew from them but I can’t. It’s too late for that, and there’s a bitter taste in the back of my ducts.

These mercs are a strange conglomeration to watch. Their uniforms are so inconsistent that they can’t be called uniforms at all – it looks like each one of them took pieces of whatever body armour might fit and attached them together. It gives the pirates a freakish, stitched-together appearance, in a smattering of styles personalised by a fresh coat of paint.

Some wear helmets; some have partial head protection; others seem to think that an awesome, multi-coloured hairdo is protection enough. It’s certainly distracting. Some wear complete pieces or sets – a whole jacket or a matching pair of boots and gloves – but most have been augmented in some fashion. Like their ships, the standard was taken and adapted to be more badass than their original intent. And like the ships, they were already pretty scary to start with.

Some of them have even adapted the shell-like armour that the Justiciars wear, and in a couple of cases, the guns have been built into the arms themselves. I think those fellas have prosthetic arms with weapon attachments, though there’s so much metal that it’s hard to tell without a deeper scan.

I don’t feel inclined to scan them too deeply. Let’s face it, I’m freaked out enough without looking at these people any more closely than I am already.

The weirdest part is how they move. Despite their varying appearances, it’s clear that they’ve been working together as a unit for some time. Their clothing might not be uniform, and they all seem to be carrying a different model of weapon, but their standard operating procedures are consistent. They’ve nailed the discipline down in a way I didn’t expect from mercenaries.

 

CAPT: (turning to face the entrance to the Bridge) Stay where you are, everyone. No sudden moves.

EVERYONE: (turns to wait for the pirates to arrive.)

(The patter of feet approaches up the corridor, stop-start as the side rooms are checked in their methodical progression. The captain isn’t the only one to straighten his shoulder as the first pirates puncture the silence of the Bridge, fanning out from the door and sweeping around the room so that their guns can be trained on all of the crew at once.)

 

The mercs aren’t saying anything as they take up their positions. They’re taut, knife-edged as they wait for someone to do something foolish. My crew are better than that. Everyone waits for the officers to arrive, and they come last, of course. As if making everyone wait begins a pattern of superiority. It’s a cheap tactic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective.

From the tension in John’s jaw, he knows that trick too. He’s not going to fall for it. Good for you, John. Me neither.

There’s nothing particularly special about the way that the officers look compared to the other mercs, but they’re still easy to pick out. There’s two of them, one from a shuttle at each end of me, coming to meet at the Bridge in the middle. They bring up the rear of their respective groups, issuing low orders to direct the flow of their people. A couple peel off towards different parts of the ship – Engineering and the Med Bay. I put them up on the monitors so that my crew knows they’re coming.

On the Bridge, it looks like the officer of the aft group is in charge – he’s taking the fore. He’s missing half of his face and had a botch job done on the prosthetics – the metal of the replacement cheekbone and jaw show through the plasti-skin. He didn’t even bother with a human-looking eye: it’s a metal fitting that swivels in a very non-organic way. It still matches the movement of his fleshy right eye, though. I can’t decide if that makes him more or less creepy to look at. You’d think a merc leader who could afford to carry a latest-model hand-cannon could afford a better facial reconstruction.

Unless he really cares so little about his body image that the half-metal reflection doesn’t bother him, which is a disturbing level of disconnection that I don’t think I’m going to pursue right now. As an ex-human, half-AI hybrid, I am probably not one to criticise.

 

HALF-FACE: (checks a readout on his suit’s forearm display and eyes the captain) Captain John Warwick?

CAPT: (looking him directly in the eye, unflinching) Yes, that’s me.

HALF-FACE: I’m Lieutenant Laurence of the Bountiful. You and your crew need to step away from your stations and disarm.

CAPT: (turns his head and nods, without looking away from the Lieutenant) Do as he says.

BRIDGE CREW: (step away from their consoles with a mixture of wary and nervous glances at the mercs. Behind them, the holographic consoles disable themselves and shut down. Weapons are removed from holsters and laid on the ground, slowly and carefully. Only Cirilli and Lang Lang don’t have anything to give up; the former folds her arms over her chest and the latter looks lost, as if she’d like to have something to give to them.)

HALF-FACE: (gestures, and two of the mercs break out of formation.)

(The entire Bridge crew are scanned for hidden armaments – even the two scientists – and the weaponry is removed from the Bridge floor. A couple of sacks have been brought for the purpose of collecting them up.)

HALF-FACE: Well done. You are now property of the Bountiful.

CAPT: (watches the Lieutenant unwaveringly.)

HALF-FACE: SecOffs, up against the bulkhead. (He gestures towards the rear wall of the Bridge and consults his forearm readout again.) Warwick, where are the rest of your people?

CAPT: (knowing that the readout is telling the Lieutenant exactly where they all are and that his answers are obvious to anyone with a brain) My Chief Engineer is in Engineering, my medic is in Med Bay, and the rest of Dr Cirilli’s team is on mid-deck.

HALF-FACE: (glances up at the captain’s face sharply) And your pilot?

CAPT: You said you wanted to know where my people were. He’s yours, not mine. (He waits a beat for his point to sink in.) He’s in Med Bay.

 

I am so proud of him right now that I could burst.

 

HALF-FACE: If he’s in Med Bay, then who was flying? And where the hell is the immersion chair?

CAPT: (hesitates) The ship was flying itself.

HALF-FACE: (frowning, which twists the metal side of his face in a disconcerting way) No AI can fly like that. What did you do, disable all the safeties?

CAPT: (turns his head suddenly to where his three Security Officers are lined up against the rear bulkhead of the Bridge, with mercs in a row facing them, guns levelled. He stiffens.) What are you doing? We were promised asylum.

 

What? What’s the problem? …oh god. Oh no. Firing squad. My faithful Rosie. Sly Tyler. Solid Cameron. No. They can’t.

 

HALF-FACE: (shrugs) We’re here to secure the ship.

CAPT: It’s secure! You don’t need to do this.

 

No.

 

HALF-FACE: Sorry, orders. (He lifts a hand, preparing a deadly gesture.)

STARWALKER: Fuck your orders.

HALF-FACE: (freezes, hand still held up, and his eyes narrow: one eyelid and one adjustable aperture) Who the hell said that?

 

Who said it? Who am I? Fine. Fine. I’ll show him. I’ll show him, and I’ll tell him no. Computer says no.

 

(In the main holographic display in the centre of the Bridge, the representation of the comet trail, ice shards and the ships holding position disappears. A different image coalesces, attracting the attention of everyone on the Bridge except for the firing squad, who keep their gazes nailed on their targets. The Lieutenant checks the expresions of the crew, but even the captain of the Starwalker looks puzzled.

It starts at the feet and spins up, weaving orange-gold light into the shape of a person. Sensible boots resolve first, then the form-fitting pants of a pilot’s shipsuit. Splayed fingers are held out to the sides as the light weaves up her arms and torso. The head is bowed slightly, eyes closed and face partially obscured by the short, choppy hair.

It is the image of Danika Devon, except for a few minor details. There are golden streaks etching the lines of her shipsuit, like the filaments that are embedded in the ship’s hull. Her dark hair has tiny lights in it, as if it’s a starfield that bounces with her movements. And her eyes, when she opens them, have bright swirls in them.)

STARRY: (turning her head and looking directly at the Lieutenant) I did.

Ship's log, 12:42, 17 November 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

Where did I get to? Oh yes. The Bountiful arrived, slinking out from its hiding place to scoop us up. At the time, it looked like they’d planned it that way all along, laid in wait for us exactly where we’d pop out, but they couldn’t have known that we’d run that way. In truth, the Bountiful had been waiting in a completely different sector – the cruiser had been forced to run around in a huge circle to find us on the pocket-side of the ice shard.

In fact, they had assumed we wouldn’t run at all; they had expected us to give up under the glare of their superior ships. Just fold up my engines and hold up my guns, and let them walk right through me.

Superior ships, my ass. I got away from their superiority. I outflew them. Quantity, not quality, is what caught us in the end. Their forgotten third ship came out of nowhere, just when we thought we were clear.

Bastards.

Ship's log, 05:23, 3 November 2213 (Reconstructed)
Location: Comet debris cloud, 
Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Stationary

 

External communications signal detected.

 

SW: Captain, that’s another cruiser. It’s hailing us.

CAPT: (looks around at the grim Bridge. No-one offers anything.) Open the channel, voice only.

SW: (on the Bridge and over the external communications channel) This is the Starwalker. State your business.

CRUISER: This is the Bountiful. Stand down, Starwalker, or we will destroy you.

SW: No you won’t.

 

CAPT: (to the Bridge only, patiently) Starwalker, please don’t provoke the pirates.

SW: They won’t blow us up. They want me intact.

CAPT: That doesn’t mean you should–

SW: It’s our only card, captain. I won’t play it if you don’t want me to, but you should.

CAPT: (looks around the Bridge again.)

CAMERON: (nods once.)

CAPT: (to Cameron, sighing) We need to make this look real.

CAMERON: Then we’d better make it real. Tyler, warm up two missiles but leave the firing tubes closed.

TYLER: (looking uncomfortable) Aye aye, ma’am.

CIRILLI: (stares at the captain) You’re not serious. This is ridiculous. If they want us intact, then–

CAPT: (sharply) They want the ship intact. They’d like you and your team, too. The rest of us are expendable, Lorena.

CIRILLI: But the last time–

CAPT: We’re trying different tactics this time. (To Starwalker,) Put me through on externals.

 

CRUISER: (over external comms) …I said power down!

CAPT: Bountiful, this the Starwalker‘s captain.

CRUISER: I don’t care if you’re the Starwalker‘s priest. Surrender or we’ll open fire.

CAPT: If you want this ship intact, you’re going to have to talk to us. We have weapons rigged, Bountiful. If you try anything, we will detonate and you get nothing.

CRUISER: And if you open those tubes, we’ll do it for you. Power down your engines and we’ll hear what you have to say.

CAPT: So we understand each other. Stand by.

 

So now I’m cutting my remaining sublight engines and letting myself drift. The massive ice crystal is behind me, cold and reflecting our confrontation. They didn’t ask me to counter-thrust and hold position, so I’m not going to; I’m still matching the shard’s velocity and spin. I can see the spurts of the cruiser’s thrusters as they try to match attitude with us. Hah. They’re still going to have to work to keep up with me. I’m not going to make it easy for them, not one sliver of it.

I can feel the missiles in my tubes, primed and ready to explode. They’re hot and hugged close to my heart. Tyler has the trigger rigged to his console, but from the look of him, he’d rather that someone else’s hand was on it. His pretty mouth is set in an unhappy line; this isn’t what he signed up for. I don’t think any of my crew signed up for this – dying to save the project. Not that they’re dead yet. We still have a chance. It’s slender, but it’s there. I’m just not sure how to take hold of it yet.

Maybe I’ll just keep the FTL drive on the boil, in case we decide to chance a jump after all. It’s no more suicidal than this stand off.

 

CAPT: (looks around the Bridge at the crew. The faces are grim with the lack of options. He flicks his hair back and takes a deep breath, eyes narrowing. Over external comms,) Bountiful, my crew is requesting asylum.

CRUISER: …what?

CAPT: Asylum.

CRUISER: From what, exactly?

CAPT: The Judiciary. We just discovered that the research being conducted on board this ship is unsanctioned. If the Judiciary find out, we’ll all be prosecuted.

CRUISER: You’re kidding, right?

CAPT: Ask to see Is-Tech’s permits for manipulating star gravity, if you want.

CRUISER: You know we can’t verify that out here.

SW: I can send the log of our discussion of the subject.

CAPT: Do it.

SW: Transmitting log now.

 

ROSIE: (as soon as the external line is on hold) Are you fucking kidding? I didn’t sign up to work for the pirates!

CAPT: (rubs his eyes) If you have a better idea, now’s the time.

ELLIOTT: (angrily, from Engineering) I ain’t goin’ anywhere.

CAPT: You’d rather they just killed you?

SW: (flatly) It’s not going to come to that.

TYLER: (frowning) Hey, when did Starry get reinstated?

CAPT: (ignores the question. He’s busy watching the navigation display, which shows the two red dots representing the other two pirate ships descending on the Bountiful‘s red marker, and the single pulsing gold spot that is the Starwalker.) Cameron, can we trust their word?

CAMERON: Hard to say. They could tell us what we want to hear to get us to stand down, and then… (She shrugs.)

CAPT: (grimly) Right.

CAMERON: We could get lucky. They don’t have a reason to kill us.

CAPT: What we need is a reason for them not to kill us.

 

He’s right. That’s what we need – a reason why the pirates can’t hurt them. I can do that. I can find a way to make them all essential. I have to stop the mercs hurting any more of my crew than they have already. I just– oh, the Bountiful is talking again.

 

CRUISER: (over external comms) All right, Starwalker. We’ll accept your crew’s parole in exchange for asylum. Stand down.

 

CAPT: (shakes his head) Stand down, Pastuhov.

TYLER: (unhappily) Aye aye, captain.

 

The missiles are disabled now. They’re cooling and being retracted from the tubes. I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this. We’re giving up. Just giving up, and trusting their word because we have no choice.

The scout and second cruiser are drifting in wide flanking positions. They’re giving themselves plenty of space; I think their sensors must be damaged from the bomb that Elliott set off. They don’t want to risk running into each other. That means that the Bountiful is the only real threat to us. But my sublight engines are damaged.

I’ve got no cards left. Out of moves, out of space to wiggle out of this.

This is not happening.

 

CRUISER: (over external comms) Prepare to be boarded, Starwalker.

 

CAPT: (blinks suddenly and puts his hand in a pocket. He draws out something small and black and stares at it.) Monaghan, get up here.

ELLIOTT: (from Engineering) What, now? Are you fu–

CAPT: NOW, Monaghan. Fast as you can.

 

Here it comes. The Bountiful is sweeping down on my position, crowding me against the ice shard. I can’t breathe.

Wait, it’s stopped. Oh, of course; they don’t want to risk connecting with me directly. I could send something unpleasant down the boarding tubes and damage their precious beast. Don’t think I’m not tempted.

The bastards just had to come closer so they could loom over me. I can read the serial numbers on their non-standard weaponry from here. The starboard wing-mounted turret has a really shoddy weld on it. Someone should take their repair drones out and shoot them.

The cruiser’s bays are sliding open. I’m so tense that my hull is almost vibrating. It looks just like missile tubes opening, only bigger; much, much bigger. At this range, any explosion would catch them too. They’d be crazy to fire at me now. I still don’t like it.

Two shuttles. They look so tiny; hard to believe that they’re big enough to carry a boarding party. Probably what, five SecOffs apiece and an officer to make sure they don’t fuck up and shoot the wrong body? Something like that.

I don’t know; I’ve never been boarded before. Not even in Danika’s career. I could ask Cameron, but I don’t trust myself to speak right now. I feel like I’d just babble nonsense at them and then start shouting about how stupid and unfair it all is.

 

ELLIOTT: (arriving on the Bridge) What the fuck is it? (He tries not to look at the central holo-console, which shows the progress of the shuttles, and fails. He swallows.)

CAPT: (holding out the small device) Take this and run back to Engineering. I need you to destroy it. Fast.

ELLIOTT: (pulls his attention back to the captain and blinks at the device that has been put into his hand) What the– now? You waited until now to do this? Fuck. (He curls his fingers around it and takes off at a sprint.) Waldo! Wide Load! Any fucking drone! Engineering, now!

CAPT: (bows his head and takes a deep breath, then lifts his gaze to the holographic representation of the approaching storm) Report.

CAMERON: Two shuttles inbound. Contact in thirty seconds.

CAPT: Everyone hold their positions and don’t do anything stupid. Set all systems to standby. Do as they say.

ROSIE: (to herself, angrily punching buttons) Don’t believe this.

CAPT: (glances sideways) Lorena, that goes for you and your staff, too.

CIRILLI: (over internal comms, to mid-deck) Ebling, Wong – you heard the captain. We’re being handed to the pirates.

CAPT: (considers saying something, then decides against it. He turns his attention back to the holo-console in the middle of the Bridge.)

 

The shuttles are jockeying around so they can sucker onto me. They have mag-clamps and cutters ready so they can punch holes into me and inject their poisonous contents into my passageways.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I have perfectly good airlocks! This is ridiculous. I’ve been captured by idiots.

 

SW: (over external comms) Bountiful, can you please tell your shuttles to connect with airlocks as if they’re not forcibly boarding me? We’ve already agreed not to try anything.

CRUISER: Standard procedure says–

SW: I don’t give a shit about your standard procedure. If they try to dock where they’re headed, they’re going to cut through half of my Star Step filaments. Also, I have a weakened hull segment on the port side, thanks to your crappy shooting, which will collapse under that shuttle if it lands where it’s headed. If you want me capable of Stepping any time in the next few months, use an airlock.

 

ROSIE: (frowns) Hey, when did we get Starry back?

CAMERON: (glances at the captain, then returns her gaze to the sensor readings before her) They’re altering course. Looks like they’re going for the main airlock and the aft emergency hatch.

CAPT: (ignoring Rosie’s question) Starwalker, grant them access when they’re connected.

SW: If I must.

 

How did he know that I was going to make them ask for access? No reason I should make this easy for them. He’s right, though – of course he is. They’d only cut through if I tried to resist them, and then I’d have ruined airlocks. I should probably try not to piss them off before they come on board with their guns and their pirate attitudes.

What I’d like to do is blow my airlocks open in their faces.

 

Magnetic clamp engaged on main airlock.
Main airlock cycling to match pressure.
Magnetic clamp engaged on aft hatch.
External access granted to main airlock.
External access granted to aft hatch.
Aft hatch released.
Main airlock opening.
Artificial gravity compensating.

 

Here they are. I am captured.

Ship's log, 08:24, 10 November 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit, half speed

Can’t talk much right now. There’s so much happening. I’m trying to put the logs together from the last few days to keep… I don’t know. Because I need for there to be a record of this. Of the amazing people I call my crew and the things they did.

Ship's log, 04:36, 3 November 2213 (Reconstructed)
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit

Shit shit shit.

Signature detected.
Alert Level 2 activated.

STARWALKER: (in the captain’s cabin) Captain! Wake up!

CAPTAIN: What is it?

SW: They’re here. They’ve found us. We have a ship inbound on our position.

CAPT: (lurching out of bed) Rouse everyone.

SW: Alert sirens are getting them all up.

The crew are stumbling out of sleep and pulling clothes on. They don’t need to be told what’s happening: they know. What else would it be?

Signature detected.
Alert Level 2 active.

CAPT: How many is that now?

SW: Two ships, both inbound.

CAPT: (pulling his shipsuit on) Idents?

SW: Masked. From their configuration, probably the same ones as last time. A scout and a cruiser – the Mandible and the Bountiful?

CAPT: Take us to Level 1.

Alert Level 1 activated.
Crew to alert positions.
Targetting systems active.
Weapons systems active.
Crew to alert positions.

CAMERON: (on the Bridge at her station, still fastening the throat of her shipsuit) Starwalker, report.

SW: Two signatures, in quadrants four and seven. Closing fast. I’m taking us into the debris cloud for cover.

CAMERON: Tyler?

TYLER: (at Gunnery Control) They’re not close enough for a lock yet. We’re massively outgunned, though.

CAMERON: Cruisers?

CAPT: (arriving on the Bridge) Looks like the same ships as Corsica.

CAMERON: And no moon to blow up this time.

CAPT: Or star to run through. (He drops into the captain’s chair and looks over his shoulder at the place where the pilot’s chair used to be. The cut-off ends of struts and cables proof of its violent absence.) What happened to the pilot’s chair?

SW: It’s no longer a problem, captain.

CAPT: (scowls, but isn’t inclined to press the matter right now. He turns to face the holo-tank showing the positions of the players.) Options?

TYLER: Wow, look at that. Full military cruiser, and they put even more guns on it. I didn’t think there was room.

ROSIE: (squinting at the display of her post at Defensive) Bugger me.

CAMERON: We won’t survive toe to toe with these guys.

CAPT: We can’t fight them. Can we run? Anywhere? (He looks around the Bridge and frowns.) Where’s Lang Lang?

SW: On her way, captain.

CAPT: Starwalker, emergency FTL?

SW: Inadvisable. Lot of debris around from the comet’s trail.

CAPT: We’re close enough for that?

SW: We started passing the outlying debris when we were adrift. I’m taking us in deeper for cover.

CAPT: Dammit, I want options!

I don’t know what to tell him. An FTL jump is too dangerous here – the debris would cut me into pieces. All the inertial dampening in the galaxy can’t stop that from happening. We’re not in a star system, so I can’t try to Step us away. There’s barely a whisper of gravity here – nothing to manipulate at all.

There must be something else we can do. Anything else.

The crew is gathering on the Bridge, except for Elliott who is hovering in front of the sensor display in Engineering, waiting for instructions. Lang Lang has arrived, but she doesn’t have any bright insights or options to offer. The captain looks like he’s going to explode.

CAPT: Can we outrun them at full sublight?

SW: Negative, captain. They’re running at a hundred-and-ten percent of our sublight speed right now, and they’ll go faster if we try running in a straight line.

LANG LANG: There’s nowhere to run to, captain. This sector is clear, except for the comet debris.

CAMERON: They aren’t in proper flanking positions yet, but it won’t take them long – they’ll flank us in four and a half minutes.

CIRILLI: This ship is supposed to be state-of-the-art! How can they have better engines than us?

CAPT: That’s a military-grade cruiser.

ELLIOTT: (over internal comms, from Engineering) And from the readouts, the scout has had some major upgrades. That’s not a standard configuration. Fuckin’ pirates have better ships than we do.

SW: Hey.

ELLIOTT: Only on the outside!

CAPT: How long until they’re in weapons range?

SW: Three minutes and counting.

CAPT: Starwalker, can you lose them in the cloud?

SW: I don’t know. I can manoeuvre better than they can, but the debris is sparse. I don’t know if I can lose their sensor lock.

CAPT: I need options. Anyone?

He’s fighting this a lot harder than he did the last time. He was ready to give up when the pirates appeared that first time, back in March. He was ready to sacrifice himself and the crew to save the science team and the ship. We all know that they won’t kill Cirilli’s people – they’re needed to run the Star Step drive. That first time, he was ready to die.

But not now, not this time. He has steel in his spine and he doesn’t want to give way. He has something to fight for now. I’m not sure what – his Lorena? Me? The crew that didn’t leave us? Whatever it is, it’s making him stand up and be the kind of captain that makes me proud to be a ship.

If only I could get us out of here. I don’t see a way. The lack of answers to his question deafens all of us.

External communications signal detected.

SW: Captain, the scout is hailing us.

CAPT: (tersely) Ignore it. Take us deeper into the debris field.

SW: Altering course.

CAPT: Monaghan, do we have anything that will cloud their sensors?

ELLIOTT: (over internal comms, from Engineering) On it, captain. I’ll need a few minutes.

ROSIE: (on the Bridge) They’re opening fire, captain. Lasers only.

CAPT: Do they have a lock?

ROSIE: Negative. Countermeasures activated.

CAMERON: They’re fishing.

SW: I’m dodging it. We’re fine.

Duck down under a rock, skim a pocket of dust with a fin to make it spray behind me. Weave under a thread of tiny shards, flip ninety degrees and punch into a new vector. The inertial dampeners are humming under the strain; without them, my crew would be paste on a bulkhead.

The ships are matching us, on a slower and wider course; it’ll be more than three minutes before they’ll be able to get a lock on me. If I turn and head up the comet’s trail, we should hit thicker debris. Eventually. I need more space, though.

Hopefully Elliott can come up with something to get us away. I can only buy us so much time.

A handful of ice shards are converging – most of them are bigger than I am. There’s enough room: I slide sideways inside their group and gun up towards their meeting point. Half of the crew on the Bridge are holding their breath. The SecOffs are too busy watching the laser fire from the ships chasing us.

Warning.
Warning.
Collision imminent.

Shut up, autolog. There’s plenty of room.

Collision imminent.

CAPT: Starwalker…

SW: I’ve got this! It’s fine.

Missile launch detected.

CAPT: Report!

ROSIE: It’s not locked on to us. Trajectory’s all wrong.

Detonation detected.

Uh oh. My sensors just went crazy. What the hell did they do? One of the ice shards is gone. Its pieces are pinging off my hull. Ow. Shit. Ow. That’s not good. They can’t hit me, so they’re going for everything around me. That’s just cheating! And they’re compromising my heat shielding – the ice is cutting scores in the paint. Not a problem right now, surrounded by all this ice. I’m fine. Keep going. Just keep going.

CAMERON: Defensive fire!

ROSIE: (grinning) Aye, ma’am!

TYLER: Clearing the air.

The SecOffs are manning my lasers. Taking out the little shards heading for me. They’re good shots, melting my way clear. Of the small stuff, anyway.

Collision imminent.
Collision imminent.
Pull up now.

Shut UP, autolog. I know what I’m doing! There’s enough room to get through. Thereisthereisthereis–

Missile launch detected.

ROSIE: Still not locked on us. They’re going for the debris again.

Detonation detected.

Oh shit, they went for the big one. Cracks are crazing up its length, the force of the explosion twisting the shard – it’ll burst with it in a few seconds. That’ll do serious damage if it goes and I’m right beside it. But I’m hemmed in on all sides – the only way is forward, and the tunnel’s still closing. Folding my wings in tight: no choice now.

Has to work. Have to make it. Damned if I’m gonna let them get me now. Danika was a combat pilot, and I know my own capabilities – I can do this. I’m an expert at flying at impossible vectors and coming out the other side. Just a few scratches. I’ll be fine.

There’s the hole. There’s my way out. Almost there, just a few more metres, just a few more…

ELLIOTT: (from Engineering) Sensor bomb ready! Starry, punch it out the airlock!

SW: Little busy right now!

ELLIOTT: When you set it off, you need to make sure that–

Sublight engines at 105%.

Almost there, almost out. I can hear the ice screaming. It’s all I can hear – fingernails scraping on metal teeth.

Missile launch detected.
Sublight engines at 110%

That’s just not fair! Way to pick on the little guy, you bastards. But this little guy has a few tricks of her own.

WHOOOO-HOOOOO. I’m out! Screw you, I made it out!

Detonation detected.

Shit. They hit the big shard again. The world is full if ice – glittering, spinning, spearing at me. I have to dodge – so many directions. Hit, I’m hit. Lost a portside thruster. Pressure in one of the portside cabins is fluctuating. Almost punched through the hull. Damage control is going crazy.

TYLER: Ejecting Elliott’s bomb.

ROSIE: Countermeasures away.

ELLIOTT: (from Engineering) Starry, shut your sensors off.

SW: Are you crazy?

ELLIOTT/CAPT: Just do it!

SW: Okay, okay!

External sensors disabled.

I’m in the middle of vicious debris and flying blind. This is such a bad idea. Lost a forward sensor. Something just scarred my nose. And my rear end. Wait – that was hot, not cold.

SW: They’re still firing at me!

ELLIOTT: …four, five – okay, sensors back up!

External sensors enabled.

Shitshitshit. So much debris. Dodge left, dip, slide sideways and up, angle down, flip my tail forty-five degrees, circle around backwards, flip right-way-forward and there’s another cluster of shards in my way. I don’t feel right. Can’t move well. A piece of ice just bounced off my wing.

Something’s happening behind me. I’ve lost a couple of rear sensors – whatever Elliott rigged burned them out. If I angle to the right – there. The pirates are cutting up the ice shards with their lasers.

Warning.
Warning.
Collision imminent.
Malfunction.

Uh oh.

SW: I’ve lost the starboard-side sublight engine.

ELLIOTT: On it!

CAPT: Can you compensate?

SW: I think so, but I’m down three thrusters. Manoeuvring getting difficult.

CAPT: What’s the status of the pirates?

ROSIE: The enemy ships are holding position. Looks like they’re having fun blasting the shit out of where we just were.

CAPT: Have they lost us?

CAMERON: Looks like it. Elliott’s bomb took out their sensors; they’re firing blind.

CAPT: (pointing at a spot in the nav hologram display) Starwalker, can you get us onto the other side of that ice cluster?

SW: Yes. Hold on.

I’m limping. I don’t like this. They must’ve got a laser shot in before their sensors went dark – there’s a huge gash across my starboard wing and side, marring the engine housing. It’s going to take more than a spanner and some tape to get that going again.

I can see where the captain is sending me now. There’s a pocket in the far side of the biggest ice shard – if I slide into it and power down my extraneous systems, their sensors won’t be able to pick me up. I can hide, and repair, and wait for them to leave.

Shutting down as many emissions as possible so they don’t spot me. I’ll skim close to this shard, tuck in under that splinter and slip out the other side. Its bulk will hide me.

Almost there. Can breathe soon. That hollow is smaller than it looked – it’ll take some wiggling to get me in there. I just need to match its velocity and spin, then I’ll cut the sublights and use the thrusters to–

Signature detected.

Uh oh. There were three. Back at Corsica, there were three pirate ships, not two. It came out of the dark side of the moon at us. We forgot about the third one, but it didn’t forget about us.

There it is, a military-grade cruiser with a warp cannon mounted on its head. It’s moving up from the belly of the ice cloud, smooth as silk, its gaze pinned on us.

External communications signal detected.

CRUISER: This is the Bountiful. Stand down or we will destroy you.

Ship's log, 04:12, 3 November 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit

It makes sense now. All those indeciferable actions of Tripi’s have a discernable purpose. It was all leading to this moment, this place. I managed to put it off, but I couldn’t avoid it entirely.

I was right about Levi. He had locked himself into the pilot’s chair and adjusted the nav systems so it wasn’t obvious what he was doing. It took Lang Lang three days to figure out what he’d been up to. The readings were all off, but only by a tiny bit: just enough to send us off-course after a month at full sublight speed.

Until I realised what he was doing, I hadn’t noticed that he had hardly been out of the pilot’s chair since we left the JOP. The chair is built to supply nutrients and keep the pilot comfortable for as long as necessary; he had only taken time out when he absolutely needed to sleep – just a few hours every three or four days. He was desperate not to let me be in charge of my own helm for long, and to keep me away from that compromised nav data.

I should have noticed anyway. I should have paid more attention. How could I let this happen?

Levi knew when we’d found the navigation alterations, because Lang Lang automatically started to correct them and it showed up in his datafeeds. We didn’t realise what she was doing in time to stop her. I was already locked out of the navigation and propulsion controls – the chair automatically takes that over when a pilot is engaged – and he disabled the emergency chair shutdown once he realised we were onto him. That was the final confirmation that we were right about him.

If I had hands, they would have been shaking with tension and fury. I managed to feel sick without a stomach or the ability to vomit. I shouldn’t have let it happen.

Recording: 18:47, 30 October 2213

CAPTAIN: (over internal comms from the Bridge, glaring at the pilot’s chair) Monaghan! Shut him down!

ELLIOTT: (over internal comms from Engineering) I can’t – he’s disabled the disconnect.

CAPT: I want him out of that chair, right now.

ELLIOTT: Gotcha. Cutting off his arms and legs now. (In Engineering.) Starry, shut down the engines.

STARWALKER: I can’t, Elliott. The pilot’s chair overrides my controls. I need time to strip out the firewalls – it’ll be quicker if you do it manually.

ELLIOTT: Fuck. Okay! Get Waldo and Casper down here.

SW: On their way.

ELLIOTT: (goes to the main sublight core and flips open a panel. He reaches inside and starts to yank wires out, flicking quickly through the lines before he pulls them. Lights begin to flash as decapitated cables slither around his feet.)

 

Warning.
Warning.
Malfunction detected.
Sublight engines disabled.
Warning.
FTL drive engaged.

 

ELLIOTT: Starry! Stop that bastard from jumping us!

SW: On it!

ELLIOTT: (runs over to the FTL drive system down the side of the Engineering bay.)

 

Inertial dampeners offline.

 

ELLIOTT: Starry! What– you’re gonna kill us!

SW: I know what I’m doing.

 

Emergency protocol engaged.
FTL jump aborted.
Warning.
Inertial dampeners offline.

 

ELLIOTT: (grabs a wrench and wedges its head behind a pipe running into the FTL drive housing.)

WALDO: (arrives and trundles quickly over to Elliott’s side.)

ELLIOTT: (points to the wrench) Give me a hand here.

WALDO: (wraps two of his four hands around the wrench’s handle and pulls down on it, levering the pipe away from its connection under the FTL drive. The pipe comes free with a pop and gases hiss.)

ELLIOTT: (jumps away from the spurt of gas and goes to smack at a control until the flow is cut off.)

 

FTL drive malfunctioning.
FTL drive disabled.
Warning.
Malfunction detected.

 

CAPT: (over internal comms) What the hell is going on down there?!

ELLIOTT: (over comms) Not now!

SW: (to the Bridge) Hooking you up to the Engineering sensor feed, captain.

ELLIOTT: Dammit Starry, you could have killed us.

SW: No, the failsafes are still in place. Can’t jump without inertial dampeners.

ELLIOTT: Fuck.

SW: He can still manoeuvre, though.

ELLIOTT: On it. (He runs around the sublight engine’s bulk in the middle of Engineering and down the other side.) Waldo! Yank the feeds for the starboard thrusters!

WALDO: (trundles up to the thruster controls and begins disconnecting the feed lines.)

ELLIOTT: (fumbles over the collection of slender cables and hurriedly starts to unplug one in every three.)

 

Warning.
Starboard thrusters malfunctioning.
Starboard thrusters disabled.
Warning.

 

ELLIOTT: (stumbles to the side as the ship lurches wildly, tearing free a handful of lines in the process) Fuck! Starry!

SW: I don’t have control! Hold on, Elliott!

ELLIOTT: (clings to the lines that are still plugged in, losing his footing entirely as the ship spins.)

 

Warning.
Port thrusters malfunctioning.
Port thrusters disabled.

 

ELLIOTT: (still clinging to the lines. Another one tears free.) Now we have no way of stopping this spin!

SW: Brace yourself, I’m turning the IDs back on.

 

Inertial dampeners enabled.

 

ELLIOTT: (falls full-length to the deck as the inertial forces of the ship’s movements are negated. He groans and lifts his head.) But we’re still spinning.

SW: Venting gas to counter it.

ELLIOTT: (pushing himself hurriedly to his feet) Wait, there’s still the forward–

 

Warning.
Forward thrusters malfunctioning.
Forward thrusters disabled.

 

ELLIOTT: (stops and stares at the forward thruster section of the Engineering bay.)

CASPER: (stands there. He lies the disconnected lines for the forward thrusters on the floor and turns to face Elliott expectantly.)

ELLIOTT: (exhales slowly) Fuck.

CAPT: (on the Bridge) Monaghan, report.

ELLIOTT: (still staring at Casper, who doesn’t move a metal inch) All propulsion systems are offline. We’re not goin’ anywhere.

CAPT: Are we still spinning?

SW: The rotation is minor, captain. Nothing to worry about. I’ll fix it once I have control of the thrusters again.

CAPT: Good. Now cut off his access to navigation and let’s get him out of that chair.

ELLIOTT: (lowly) Be my fucking pleasure.

We pared down Levi’s access and control a piece at a time, hemming him in closer and closer to the pilot’s chair. The navigation systems were last, and then Elliott went up to the Bridge to cut the power to the chair to force the bastard to disconnect.

There are safeguards and protocols in place to stop that kind of thing from happening – it’s dangerous to have half of your mind involved in something outside of your skull when the link goes down. It can do permanent damage; some people don’t come back right, or at all. We tried to push Levi back to himself before we dropped the hammer, but he didn’t make it easy for us. He got himself deeply involved in trying to launch one of my emergency buoys despite all of our warnings. I clamped down on that, though; the buoy didn’t go anywhere.

His body convulsed when the cerebral links went down, orphaning his mind from my systems, and the shock of the disconnect knocked him out. I don’t feel bad about it. It was an emergency and it’s not like Levi wasn’t expecting it; he knew exactly what we were doing. Plus, the bastard betrayed us.

Maletz was there and stepped in as soon as the chair’s cradling arms unfolded, revealing Levi’s sweaty body. Cameron and her SecOffs looked on, hands ready on their weapons, until the doctor confirmed that he was unconscious and unlikely to wake soon. He summoned a hover-litter from the Med Bay and took the bastard back for monitoring. One of the SecOffs has been standing guard inside the Med Bay since then.

Recording: 19:04, 30 October 2213

CAPT: (watches the hover-litter head off down the corridor braced by the SecOffs and the doctor.)

ELLIOTT: (watches as well, gripping his favourite wrench so tightly that his knuckles turn white.)

CAPT: (takes a breath and lets it out slowly) All right. Good work, everyone. Monaghan, can you get us back up and running?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, yeah, ‘course. (He stomps off the Bridge.)

CAPT: Starwalker, do you have full control now?

SW: Yes. The chair’s influence has been removed from my systems.

CAPT: I want full diagnostics on everything it has interacted with.

SW: Diagnostics running.

CAPT: Lang Lang, can you please check all navigation readings.

LANG LANG: (looking stunned after everything that has happened, with a bruise on her cheek from being thrown around the bridge when the inertial dampeners were offline) Of course, captain. I’ll do that now.

CAPT: Thank you.

My diagnostics have all come back clean. I’m running them again, just in case, on the deepest scan level. I’m scrubbing my own code as well, ripping out anything that Levi might have touched and resetting it. I won’t have a repeat of Tripi’s influence.

Levi is still unconscious. Maletz says that his readings aren’t dire, but they aren’t too promising either. I suspect that the doctor might be keeping this new saboteur in a coma so that no-one on board is tempted to punish him. Quite a few of my crew would like to get their hands on him. So would I, if I had any.

Elliott and the drone brothers have my main propulsion back online – it takes a lot longer to hook it up than it did to rip it apart. Recalibration alone is painfully tedious. I have stabilised my position so that I’m no longer spin-drifting towards the debris cloud, and now I’m holding my position while Lang Lang resets the nav system.

Right now, everyone is asleep. It’s just me, stewing in the awful feeling that I failed my crew. But I won’t fall for that again. I won’t fall for any of their tricks again. I can’t anticipate everything they might do, but I can learn from my mistakes.

I don’t have hands, but Big Ass and Wide Load do. They also have cutting tools. They’re good boys – they put all those things to work for me.

Warning.
Malfunction detected.
PIlot control systems damaged.
Warning.
Warning.
Pilot control systems disabled.
Pilot control systems disconnected.

ELLIOTT: (sleepily, from his bunk near Engineering) Starry? Wassat?

SW: Nothing to worry about, Elliott. Go back to sleep.

ELLIOTT: (groans and pushes himself up to check the display next to his bed) …what’re you doin’?

SW: Something I should have done months ago.

Dammit, he’s getting up anyway. He looks worried – about me, or the damage I’m doing? Still, it’s too late. My two big boys are on their way to the main airlock with their burden, carrying the tumour they cut out of my heart.

Elliott knows what they’re doing. He’s not even bothering with pants – he’s just running off after them, the tops of his boots flapping around his calves. He won’t make it in time. Wide Load is already placing the package into the airlock. Big Ass is closing the door behind him. There’s no stopping me now.

ELLIOTT: (arriving at a skid in front of the main airlock doors, almost piling right into the big maintenance drone) Starry! What is this?!

SW: I told you, Elliott. I should have done this before; I should never have let the damn thing stay.

ELLIOTT: (pulls up the display of the airlock.)

(On the other side of the doors, Wide Load shifts to the side and wraps a couple of hands around one of the airlock’s anchoring bars. Sitting in the centre of the airlock is the pilot’s chair, its feeds and cables wrapped around its neck as if strangling it. Its severed feet make it list to the side.)

ELLIOTT: Fuck, Starry.

SW: (voice trembling) It’s been nothing but trouble, Elliott. It’s hurt everyone who’s been in it. It’s hurt everyone on this ship every time it’s been used.

ELLIOTT: (scowling at the chair) Yeah, I know.

SW: We don’t need it. Never again, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Wait.

SW: No, I have to–

ELLIOTT: (hurries to where Big Ass has a metal hand on the airlock purge control and places his own flesh hand over the top) You never needed that stupid thing anyway.

Purge initiated.
Main airlock doors open.
Venting airlock.

(Wide Load is lifted off his tracks as the airlock is exposed to vacuum, but his grip on the anchoring bar stops him from being sucked out. The pilot’s chair has no such tether; it shivers and slides, then tumbles out of the gaping hole in the hull in a rush of gas and dust. Distant light glints off its edge as it spins away from the ship.)

Venting complete.
Main airlock doors closed.
Purge complete.

It’s gone. I’m free. Elliott is grinning and slapping Wide Load on the shoulder. I wasn’t expecting him to be so pleased; I guess he understands more than I gave him credit for. I’d hug him if I could, but not with those metal arms.

The chair is drifting towards the debris cloud. Now that my engines are working again, I can head away from it, angle off towards where we were supposed to be going. Full sublight, as fast as I can go outside of an FTL corridor. The nav system isn’t fully fixed yet, but I don’t need precise star readings to know which way is away from danger right now.

The captain is asleep, otherwise he’d be asking me what I was up to right now. Sorry, John, but I have a bad feeling.

I have all my sensors peeled so sharply that they’re raw. The comet’s trail is a wound across my vision, its dust choking up my eyes. I think that cloud is looking back at me.

We didn’t get to Levi in time. I know it. I feel it – don’t ask me how. My hull is prickling with it, even before it pings my sensors.

Signature detected.

Ship's log, 20:31, 27 October 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit

I’ve been so caught up in myself lately. Elliott is adamant that we shouldn’t risk exposing my true nature so close to the JOP, so I’ve been stuck playing the automaton AI. It’s surprisingly dull, and far too tempting to let the systems just run in their preset loops. Less chance of me slipping up if things really are automated.

I’m keeping an eye on things, of course. Nothing is running into the red. As long as we stay safe, I can stay in the background.

It has its down-sides, though. Levi has taken a liking to the pilot’s chair and the pretence means I’m in no position to argue with him. He keeps taking control of my navigation and propulsion.

I still don’t like the pilot’s chair being used, but then, I don’t think I ever will. Sometimes, it’s an effort to keep the memories of Danika’s death from rising to the surface and scorching the connection to the chair. It’s suffocating if I think about it too much.

Plus, I don’t like the feel of anyone else’s hands on my controls. I keep wanting to correct thrust and trajectory, but I can’t; I’m locked out. And, dammit, I like to drive. Even in these long straight-line hauls.

Then there’s the dissipating trail of a comet on the edge of my sensors. The pieces of debris left behind by its passage through this sector years ago are still spinning out towards nearby gravity wells, drifting ice shards and dust. Passing through it would be so much fun; it’s been ages since I got to dodge something! Levi will probably just plot a course around it, though, avoiding all the really interesting parts. His record says he’s that kind of careful, safe pilot. Solid. Exactly the sort of pilot that Danika wasn’t. Why the company chose him, I don’t know. Did they really think they got it so wrong with her?

I suppose that they didn’t know at that point that she was murdered. Maybe they thought it was something she did that caused the surge. It doesn’t make sense; they didn’t have anything that might have told them that. It was declared an accident! A malfunction! It was never her fault.

Maybe I just don’t like Levi because he’s the sort of pilot that made Danika roll her eyes and indulge in aerobatics. Just because she could. Because it’s what ships were made to do. If she could think in the right dimensions, she could get a ship to do amazing things. It’s why she made such a good combat pilot and landed contracts to test new ship designs to see what they could do. She was given this job because they believed she would need to think outside the box in order to fly outside the universe.

And then they chose Levi. Without even knowing what we’d find on the outside of reality. It doesn’t make sense.

Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s definitely something off.

On the plus side, we weren’t given a replacement for Tripi. No-one has mentioned it, but I don’t think anyone on board was eager to welcome a new crewmember to the roster. Too many unknowns, and too many spots scraped raw by Tripi’s betrayal. And now, we have too many secrets and we can’t make a stranger keep them for us.

Besides, how would we know that Tripi’s replacement wouldn’t turn out to be the same as she was? Whoever hired her could take advantage of our need and send us another SecOff just as bad as – or worse than – our two-faced hacker. We already suspect that someone on board was helping her – or that she was helping them – and we don’t need another one to worry about.

It’s so easy to forget all of that when things are quiet: we’re supposed to be keeping an eye out for anyone who might have been working with Tripi. I have subroutines set up to monitor the sensor data and look for anything suspicious. I don’t know what that would be, exactly, but I’ll know it when I see it.

I wonder what her ultimate goals were. It’s so hard to pin them down. We haven’t seen the mercenary ships since Corsica – what else was she trying to do? Why disable me? What or who was she trying to set up? Was anyone else on board really involved?

The only crewmember we can discount is Levi. He didn’t join us until after she had committed her first act of sabotage.

Wait, can we discount him? The only reason Levi is here is because of that sabotage: it forced him to be brought on board to replace a dead pilot. If a replacement for Tripi could be a plant, what about him? What if that was the point of it all? We had always assumed that Danika’s death couldn’t have been predicted because of the involvement of the Star Step portal, but what if Tripi was aiming to kill all along? What if that was all she had meant to do? What if she was getting Danika out of the way so that Levi could be brought on board to take me exactly where her true employers wanted me to be?

It makes a gut-wrenching kind of sense. Levi was supposed to be in control when the mercenaries attacked; he could have helped give us up to them. He could have given them exactly what they wanted.

But I kept getting in the way. I wouldn’t let him get into the pilot’s chair, wouldn’t let him fly the Step, not after what happened to Danika. To me. I wouldn’t let him fly at all. I took control and I sped us away from danger. I did something crazy. I took the route that no-one was supposed to.

I was the wild card the saboteurs couldn’t predict.

That was the part of Danika’s death that Tripi didn’t mean to happen. First, it broke the AI so badly that they had to limp back to port, and then it created me. Every time we’ve been exposed, I’ve done all the things that an AI shouldn’t be able to do to protect my crew. I’ve melted my own engine housing to save us. We should have died or been captured by now, but I wouldn’t let it happen. I’ve been wrecking their plans without even meaning to.

I think my temperature sensors are off. It feels like there’s ice in my pipes. Hugging all the stars in the galaxy couldn’t warm my insides right now.

So that’s why Tripi attacked me after my unorthodox Steps were done. That’s why she tried to shut me down, wipe me out; she wanted to get me out of the way. If I’d been shut down, there would have been no-one able to protect the crew in such unpredictable ways. Levi would have been in charge of flying the ship. He could have taken us anywhere.

Oh god, what have I done. He’s in the pilot’s chair right now, steering me.

This whole time, all Tripi was trying to do was put Levi in the pilot’s chair. And despite everything that happened, after defeating her and coming out the other side, after everything, I let him fly me anyway. After all this time of keeping them at bay, I’ve finally done exactly what they wanted. I trusted him.

I haven’t been monitoring him too closely because I don’t like to look at that chair; there are those memories of the surge, and dying. But we’re on course right now. The captain didn’t give us our destination until we were a out of comms range of the JOP. There’s no way Levi could have let anyone else know where we were going, and I’d know if we were off-course. Wouldn’t I?

Oh, shit. That’s what’s been bothering me, that’s what felt off. We’re supposed to be retracing our steps back to the Minkar system. We didn’t pass near a comet’s tail on the way from there to the JOP: it was clear space all the way. And yet, there’s one pinging the edges of my sensors. There shouldn’t be an old comet trail on the way to the Corvus constellation.

Shit shit shit.

STARWALKER: (on mid-deck, calmly) Excuse me, Navigator Cartier?

LANG LANG CARTIER: (leaning back from a holographic representation of the map of the other side of the Step portal) Yes, Starwalker?

SW: I need to make sure that my navigation system is properly calibrated. Would you mind checking the navigation system’s readings, please?

LANG LANG: Of course. (She turrns to the navigation console next to her and begins to manipulate the display.)

Goddamn computer voice. It’s not me at all. Everything takes too long. My pulse is racing and I am fighting the urge to babble. I want to bump us to Alert Level 1.

Can’t. Have to do this right. Can’t screw this up. One step at a time, Starry.

I’m still the wild card. They think I’ve been disabled, but I’m not. I’m still in play. It’s not too late. It can’t be.

SW: (in the captain’s cabin, tensely) Captain?

CAPTAIN: (pausing a report from Cirilli by raising a hand) Yes?

SW: I need a word in private, please.

CIRILLI: (annoyed) Can’t this wait?

SW: No, it can’t.

CAPT: Dr Cirilli, please give us a moment.

CIRILLI: (gapes at the captain, then eyes the nearby screen distrustfully) Very well. (She turns on her heel and walks out of the room.)

CAPT: (lets out a breath once she’s out of the room, steadying himself) What is it, Starry?

SW: I think we’re in trouble.

CAPT: (sharply) What do you mean by ‘trouble’?

SW: I think we did exactly what the saboteurs wanted us to.

Captain's log, 12:16, 20 October 2213
Location: Intersystem between the JOP and Corvus FTL Corridor
Status: Sublight transit

This is Captain Warwick reporting. We’re almost a month out of the Jumping-Off Platform, heading back to the Minkar system. There, we will backtrace the last Star Step we did, aiming for a contemporary Grisette rather than the historical one we visited before; the experiment is focussing on point-to-point travel, not journeying between times. I’m sure we’ll get to the time aspect soon, but first we have to nail down whether or not we can reliably travel between systems without bouncing around history.

All systems are green and we haven’t had any problems since we left the JOP, apart from a brief brush with a Judiciary patrol. Nothing untoward happened there; they seemed happy with our credentials. If the Judiciary has a warrant out to pull us in, it hasn’t been distributed to their patrols yet.

There hasn’t been any word from the lawyer, Sten, or anyone else from Is-Tech. All signs point to our research status remaining a company secret, but I don’t want to assume anything at this stage. We’ve had too many unknowns crop up, too many secrets jump out to bite us, to relax now. Our plan to steer clear of the JOP and the Judiciary for the foreseeable future remains intact.

Yesterday, I had a discussion with Dr Cirilli about the future of the project. I needed to know where she planned to take the ship and what the phases of the project were. Previously, I had only been given the details of the first phase: using the Starwalker to test the Star Step drive to see if it would work. I was told that it was impractical to construct a complete plan because the drive might not work or it might kill us all, and there were so many unknowns in the process that the steps necessary to make it into a marketable product were impossible to predict.

After the deception surrounding just the first phase, I decided that it was time to see what the full picture looked like. The managers in Is-Tech clearly have one, despite their protestations. It turns out that I was right: Is-Tech’s reluctance to share their plans wasn’t from any kind of pessimism or reservation; it was so that they could keep the unsanctioned nature of the project to themselves. The latter phases of the plan include more secret tests, establishing a hidden production line to investigate the commercial viability of the drive, and many other measures to keep the project under wraps until the official sanctions can be secured.

All that secrecy. Ridiculous measures, considering that we ended up in front of the Judiciary and any one of the crew might have slipped up under the pressure of an official interview. We all know that we’re not supposed to talk about the details of the project, and that the Judiciary didn’t need to know about that in order to prosecute Tripi, but none of us is perfect. The wrong word here, a tiny slip there, and the secret would have been out. If we had known, we could have prepared for it. Constructed our stories more carefully. Even Sten should have known better than to keep it to himself after he knew what the situation was and that we were about to go under the Judiciary’s hammer. But no, their precious secret was too much to tell us until it was almost too late. We had no idea what was truly at stake.

And then there was Tripi. She could have blown it all wide open if she’d wanted to. If her employers know about the project, it’s safe to assume that they know it’s unsanctioned. Again, we were completely unprepared for what would have happened if she’d opened her mouth. We’re lucky that she didn’t, but only in the short term, I think.

The only reason I can think of for why she’d keep it to herself is that she wants us out here, free for her employers to catch. If the Judiciary locks us down, everyone loses, including whoever hired her to sabotage us. If she’s keeping us in play, that means the game’s not over.

That secret endangered all of us in so many ways. It makes me furious: how can I keep my crew safe and the mission on-course if I don’t know all the pieces in play? I was expecting something like Tripi to turn up; I was prepared for that kind of battle. Corporate warfare is nothing new. But not knowing that I should be keeping an eye out for the Judiciary as well? That’s too big of a gap to forgive.

That Dr Cirilli kept it from me – that just rubs salt into the wound. The rest of her team I can understand: they were following her lead and they weren’t sleeping in my bed. But Lorena, she was privy to my closest facets. I shared my concerns with her, my plans and fears about our situation. She didn’t speak up once, not once. Not until she was forced to.

I didn’t know she could keep information to herself that well. Even now, even after nearly a month out here and several meetings about where we’re going next, I’m not sure I believe her when she tells me that she doesn’t have any more secrets up her sleeve. I look at her and her expression is just as honest as it was before. I want to believe her. I want to trust her like I used to. But I had no signs then, no reasons for reservation, and I let her in.

I can’t take that risk again. Not for my crew, my ship, or my heart.

Oddly enough, I’m more angry on behalf of the crew and Starry than I am for my own sake. My heart’s not broken, and I thought it would be. It should be. But as close as Lorena and I had become, I don’t think I was in love with her. Not like I was with Danika, or the family I lost those years ago. I loved Lorena, and I needed her at times, but I wasn’t in love with her.

There’s something liberating about that realisation. I feel freer than I have in a long time. I thought I needed her to be the man I wanted to be, but maybe I don’t.

After I lost everything I loved, I had nothing to hold onto. Nowhere to go, nothing to strive for. Then I met Danika and she showed me what life was like again. She was completely unlike the wife I had loved and let fall out of my hands, and I think that was part of what I needed her to be. It’s impossible to replace something like that, but Danika helped me see that I could move on to something else. With her, I did.

Then she was gone and I was adrift again. I lost my grip on what was important to me, because trying to be that man without her hurt too much. All there was was the work, this project, and this crew that missed her too. Once again, I tried to believe that that was all I needed, but I knew it was a lie. Danika had shown me that and I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t know, not even to myself.

Lorena was there for me. She listened when I needed to talk about the things that mattered to me, those private things I can’t share with the crew because I have to be their captain. She lay with me when I needed a body beside mine to feel whole. She did her best to soothe me when Danika turned out to not be so dead after all, and she helped me to work through the confusion when I didn’t know whether I wanted to cling to the ghost in the machine or delete it.

I think she knew that she was competing with Danika’s ghost all the time we were together, even before we realised what – who – Starry was. She seemed okay with that. Now that it’s over, she seems okay with that too, and that baffles me. I’m sure she was invested in the relationship almost as much as I was, but since I made it clear that it was over, she hasn’t said a word about it. She just accepted it and walked away. I guess she’s dealing with it in her own way. I hope she is, for her sake.

I’m still confused about Starry, but it isn’t as painful any more. We talked about Danika’s spirit recently, and I said that she seemed more like Danika’s daughter than the pilot herself. I think that’s true. Put in those terms, it’s easier to accept that this ship is both part of the woman I loved and not her at the same time. Our relationship is still strained occasionally, but we’re getting there. I think we’ll be all right.

That’s the overriding sentiment sounding in my head now: we’re going to be okay. It’s the first time I’ve been on my own and able to say that. The first time in my life. Before, I’ve always had family or partners with me. My parents, my wife, my own family. Danika, Lorena. I’ve always had their support to lean on, but not any more. Now it’s just me and I have to figure out how to make that work. Not the captain stuff – that has never been a problem. I have to be me, John Warwick. The man who is also a captain.

It’s time I did this on my own. Despite everything that’s going on and hanging over us, I believe I can.