Starwalker

Chief Engineer's log, 16:21, 19 May 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

Engineer here again, logging for… someone’s benefit. I don’t know any more. Seems to me that all this crap has little to do with the experiment. Everyone’s jumping through hoops that are completely unrelated to the Step itself.

You know, now that I think about it, no-one has even asked if our pilot is going to be involved in the next Step. In the interests of seeing if a ship other than Starry can do it, we probably should give him a go. Strap him in and see how he flies. I wouldn’t want to be the one to suggest it to Starry, though – she’ll freak out. I still find sensors turned away from the pilot’s chair sometimes; it’s no accident, though she’s not doing it on purpose either. She said she doesn’t like looking at it. Too many memories and few of them fun.

Levi’s keeping mostly to himself – well, when he’s not chasing after Tyler. That must give Cameron a headache. How does she make Tyler work when he always lounging about someplace, flirting with half the crew? He tried that shit on me once – just once. Hasn’t tried again. At least he’s smart enough to take a hint.

Everyone else has been bitching and arguing about where we should go next. Like it’s up to us. All those places and times – yeah yeah, you know the captain’s going to order us back home first. We gotta check in with the company and all that shit. Some fresh supplies would be nice. I’ve got a parts list as long as my leg already.

Lang Lang is loading all her calculations and equations into active navigation at this very moment. I’ve had to retask six processing cores and more than quadruple the memory available to the nav system to cope with all the data. It’s typical, isn’t it? The whitecoats were so caught up in their desire to make a Step that they forgot to think about how the hell to figure out where we’re going. So it’s down to Lang Lang and me to sort out their mess.

I guess we’re almost ready. As soon as we get the decision from the captain about where – and when – we’re going, Starry can swoop in on the star, twist its gravity into a portal, and get us the hell out of here. I, for one, am sick of all this hanging about. I just want to get it over with. The ship’s in full working order, as good as she’s going to get.

She’s been very quiet lately. I’m not sure what she’s up to in there, but whatever it is, she’s not happy about it. She won’t tell me, though. Well, okay, I haven’t asked yet. She’d tell me if anything was wrong. Right? It’s not like I haven’t had my own shit to deal with.

It started the day after the captain called Cameron in on the whole saboteur issue. The captain summoned me to his cabin for a private talk – just the two of us, not even Cirilli hanging about. He was all grim and intent like he gets when he knows he’s asking me to do something I won’t like. He tries to pin me in place with his eyes as if that’ll stop me from wanting to squirm. You know, now I think about it, it does stop me from walking about in there. Makes me feel like I’m back in school, being scolded by the tutor again.

He called me in to ask about the killswitch. How far had I come with it? When would it be ready?

Not far, I said. I’ve been busy with essential repairs and maintenance, helping Lang Lang, all that stuff. And it’s not a simple task! Not unless he wants to cripple the ship at the same time – in which case, some explosives and a remote detonator would do – but that would just be giving the saboteur exactly what they want. Disabling just the AI without killing or stranding us is a complex job; it takes time.

Make it a priority. That was his response: focus on it above everything else. It’s important, it’s vital – all those urgent words.

Yeah, fuck you, Captain Fancypants with the full bed. It’s a hell of a way to deal with an ex. I wish to hell I’d said that to him right then. Just to see his face.

If Starry is a target for the saboteur, we have to have something in place in case they succeed. That was his excuse. He wants to dangle Starry out there like bait, and then chop her head off when it gets caught. No: in case it gets caught. Right. What he means is: in case we fuck up protecting her. In case we let them screw with her. If everything and everyone fails, he wants to have this button in his hand to solve all his goddamn problems.

The problem with AIs is that they’re linked into everything intrinsically. You can’t just put them to sleep and wake them up later – they’re not like a handunit that’s run out of batteries. Even powered down, they’re still linked with it all. I mean– okay, I could disconnect an AI if I wanted to and had about a month to do it. Non-stop. And the AI didn’t interfere. Less if it helped.

The safest options involve a controlled shut-down, powering down sections of the ship in turn to isolate the AI in its core. Then cut the power, or not. Being able to power up an AI after a complete power-down without re-initialising is rare; there’s a big risk of data corruption, because of the complexity of the processing in the core. Then there’s the problem of the time it takes to get to the power-down; the AI is usually scrambling to restart all those sectors behind you, and you wind up chasing each other in circles.

Considering how good Starry is at blasting through code defenses and taking over the ship, I don’t think that’s an option. Crazy, fucked-up Starry hell-bent on destroying us? Not a chance in hell.

The quickest and dirtiest way is to essentially pull the plug on the AI core. Sever all the connections and shut down the power. No way to restart an AI after that – the data winds up scrambled beyond all sense or recognition. No-one’s figured out a way to recover from a hard shut-down like that. No choice but to re-initialise a fresh copy of the AI, install it all over again.

And the captain wants something fast. Press a button and problem solved. He wants a killswitch; emphasis on kill. She’s not a regular AI. It’s not like we can give her a week and then she’ll be back to how she is now. If we did it, she’ll be dead. Gone. Forever.

Couldn’t really say no. Okay, I stood there and said it for like half an hour, in about five hundred different ways. The captain’s like a damned rock – you can shout at it as much as you want, but the bastard won’t move.

So I said yes just to get out of there. Here I’ve been ever since, wanting to leave it alone, but dammit, I agreed. What am I supposed to say? And he’s not wrong about the danger. I wish he was, but he’s not.

Fuck. Now here I am, staring at a little device with a red button on it. Well, shit, of course I made it red – what kind of killswitch would it be if it was any other colour? Maybe I should have made the whole thing red. Like a theme. Like blood. Dammit. What does it matter what colour it is? It’s not like a pink, fluffy one will kill her any less dead.

I made a guard for the button, so our fabulous captain doesn’t sit on it by accident. He better be fucking sure when he presses it.

I could give him an empty unit. A shell with a tempting little button. It’s not like we can test it. He’d never know until it didn’t work, and then… we’d all be dead.

Fuck. How come I get all the shitty jobs? Fix the plumbing, Monaghan. The air smells funny, Monaghan. Can you ease up the gravity, Monaghan. We need to kill our AI, Monaghan. She’s my ship. She’s my… friend.

I can’t do it. Can’t give him this. I’ll just rip its guts out and pretend like it’s all right. Just need to–

CAPTAIN: (arriving in Engineering) Good afternoon, Monaghan.

ELLIOTT: (flinching) Uh.

Fuck.

Ship's log, 19:02, 12 May 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

It has been a week full of secrets and ulterior motives. I feel like I’m seeing shadows everywhere; I’m nervous whenever someone puts a hand into a hatch, as if they might be placing something in there or taking something they shouldn’t. Of course, then nothing untoward happens and I wind up feeling foolish.

Cameron was right, though: the saboteur has nothing to gain by attacking now. When we’re back in ‘normal space’ (we are in normal space, but what they mean is ‘when we’ve got back to our proper time’), then we have to worry. That’s when we’ll get hit again. It’s not a question of ‘if’ any more: it’s a question of ‘how’.

I’m still the prime target. Cameron and the captain want me to sit here like a chicken that can’t see the axe. I should do that, I know it’s the best course. Let them try, and then we’ll know which one of them it is. As much as I’d love to just lock both Wong and Tripi up, we need them too much to put them out of action on a maybe.

I can’t be the chicken. I can’t risk it. What if I hurt someone before my crew stop me? What if the saboteur uses me to hold everyone to ransom? What if I’m killed – erased? What if they don’t have any choice but to shut me down and hit the reset button? I don’t want to hurt anyone and I don’t want to die. If it was just me, I’d do it, but it’s not. It’s everyone. I’m responsible for all of them.

So I haven’t been idly sitting here while the chess pieces move around me. Cameron gave me tools that might help to protect my central processes, but I don’t trust anything standard. If they’re standard, then everyone knows about them and there are already ways to circumvent them. Hidden behind regular processes, I’ve been playing with other things instead. The firewalls that protected the brain-copy took Tripi days to get around and I was letting her do it. I want to construct something like that – with conscious efforts to maintain its integrity, they’ll never get in.

Is this paranoia? Is playing with dynamic firewall code the AI equivalent of fingernail chewing? Can all of these convoluted plans I’m forming really fool a technological expert? Just what kind of bait can I dangle that will fool them so they won’t see all of this?

While I run around in circles in my own head, Lang Lang has been working hard with her own puzzle. Using her archive of star charts, she’s putting together a key to navigating the timeline in the world Outside.

She has resolved all the discrepancies in the data. Like galaxial spin: the slow turning of the galaxies accounts for the twists and curves in the bright gold lines in the Outside. The stars don’t just move outwards from the centre of the galaxy; they also move around it, creating dizzying spirals. On top of that, the galaxies are moving in relation to each other as well. The three dots that failed to stand in a straight line up now sit happily on a curve predicted by her carefully-constructed math.

We might be able to get out of here soon, if my crew can stop arguing long enough to pick a destination. Some of them want to go back to Earth and see what our ancestors are up to. According to Lang Lang, we are approximately four and a half thousand years before our time. The Latins are just arriving in Europe: great stone circles are being erected in what will one day be Britain; the Minoans are starting to build palaces on Crete; and Egypt is beginning its long decline. Humanity should be spread over most of the globe by now. Hunting and farming and indulging in bloody, hand-fought wars. The kind of living where you look the other guy in the eye, whether you’re marrying or killing him. In our time, too much of that is done from a distance.

Opinion wavers all over the temporal map. Some of the crew want to go further back. Others want to jump forward to see what is yet to happen. Others just want to get home.

Recording: 12:43, 10 May

EBLING: We could rewrite the history books. Answer all those questions that no-one’s ever been able to find the truth about.

TYLER: Like what? Who killed who, who screwed who? Who cares?

EBLING: You don’t care about truth. Just looking at you shows that.

CIRILLI: No need to get snippy.

TYLER: (ignoring Ebling) History doesn’t make much of a difference now, right? Little to the left, little to the right – but what difference does it make? Though I wouldn’t mind visiting certain people in history. (He grins.) See if the stories are true about them.

LEVI: You want to use the ability to travel in time to have sex?

TYLER: Sure, why not? I’ve read some stories about ancient history. Ancient Greece, for example. Wouldn’t mind getting in some of their man sandwiches.

WONG: (staring) The scary part is, I think you’re serious.

TYLER: (winks and smoothes a lock of hair back.)

EBLING: (shaking his head) We could do something worthwhile. Like go back and witness the evolution of our species.

TRIPI: And then Tyler can screw them, and give them all something they can’t pronounce.

TYLER: Ecstasy?

TRIPI: I was thinking ‘syphilis’.

MALETZ: You know, that’s not unlikely.

EVERYONE: (looks at the doctor.)

MALETZ: Giving whoever we meet a disease. Not necessarily one that requires intimacy.

ROSIE: Typical. So Tyler’s dick wipes out our whole species.

TYLER: Hey–

EBLING: And then the universe implodes because of the paradox.

TYLER: Huh?

EBLING: You know, that whole killing yourself before you’re born thing. It– you know, I’m not explaining paradoxes to you. Look it up.

TRIPI: What about the future? I’d much rather see that.

WONG: Wow, yes. Imagine what we’d find four and half thousand years in the future.

MALETZ: Where we’d have the opposite problem.

WONG: Huh?

CAMERON: He means that there would be new diseases around that we don’t have defenses against.

EBLING: On the plus side, no paradox that way.

TRIPI: Just we’d be dead. Yeah, great plan.

TYLER: We don’t know that’s what would happen.

CAMERON: That’s only one of many factors we might be facing.

CIRILLI: And it’s out of the bounds of this experiment. We’ve already established that we can travel in time; we don’t need to go any further to prove that.

EBLING: One trip could be called a fluke. You know what those traditionalists are like. We have to prove repeatability.

CIRILLI: The purpose of this test was to see if we could Step at all. Exploring the bounds of time travel is quite a different endeavour. As Chief Cameron says, there are many factors to consider, and the simple answer is that we haven’t yet.

TRIPI: So you just want to forget about it and go home?

CIRILLI: (holding up a finger) Go home, yes. Make our reports, complete the mission. But not forget about it. As I said: it’s a different endeavour.

EBLING: But one you’re planning to explore?

CIRILLI: (smiling) Well, this project is hardly finished without properly exploring the ramifications of Stepping.

WONG: Well, sign me up! I’ll explore the future anytime.

TRIPI: Just think about the tech we could bring back…

TYLER: And the people we could meet.

CAMERON: (to Cirilli) You’d think that if people were able to travel in time because of this drive, we’d have met some already.

CIRILLI: I don’t think it’s that simple.

EBLING: Oh, here we go. Multiple dimension theory? Malleable time streams, is it?

CIRILLI: There are many theories about time travel. We will have the chance to explore them, and we risk the entire universe by doing so.

ROSIE: Like ripping open portals in it doesn’t?

CIRILLI: Stepping isn’t a danger to the fabric of the universe.

ROSIE: (muttering) Still seems like it’s dangerous to me.

CIRILLI: (ignoring Rosie) The company won’t approve the drive for production until we have explored all of its ramifications.

MALETZ : Just think what would happen if everyone got their hands on this.

EVERYONE: (silent for a moment.)

It’s a sobering topic. They moved onto lighter things after that – speculation about what they might find in the past and future. It might have been more explosive if Elliott had been there, but he was down in Engineering, working away on the Beholder. I had Waldo take him some lunch instead.

Tripi came out yesterday dressed in ancient-style robes – draped to show plenty of leg, of course – in honour of the Earth that is spinning so many light-years away from us, right now, at this moment. It only sparked more debate about the whole subject. Cirilli and the captain seem quite happy to let the crew talk themselves in circles; they haven’t stated a definite plan yet.

It’s hard to tell, but Cirilli seems to be pushing for us to head home to report in. I think she wants to brag about her success, and I don’t blame her. Her Star Step drive works. We’re figuring the kinks out of the navigation, but it works. That alone is worth headlines.

I wonder if I’ll be a secret after that. I wonder if Is-Tech really will tell the world about this discovery, or if they’ll wait until they know all of the contingencies. We could be testing and exploring this for years yet.

I could live with that! I’d have a purpose for all that time. I don’t know what will happen to me once they decide the drive has been tested enough. Will I continue to test new models of the drive? Be decommissioned? Converted to test something else? It’s not something I’ve thought about before: all that matters is the mission and fulfilling my purpose as the ship that bears this burden.

It not worth worrying about now. There are so many hurdles to get past before any of that is an issue: first and foremost, there’s the saboteur and getting back to report in at all. I’m quietly spinning myself a paranoid, code-laden cocoon, and Cameron and Elliott are working out a web to lay down for our quarry. But this is no rabbit – this is a fox, with teeth and claws, and we have to pretend to be chickens. The fox is already planning to break into our barn again and has probably got the groundwork laid out. Keep clucking, everyone.

We’re almost there. Our next Step is being plotted as we speak, but I’m not ready. I’m a time machine, but I don’t have enough time. How stupid is that?

Due to personal reasons, I am changing the posting schedule on Starwalker. For the next few weeks, there will be one post a week, going up on Wednesdays. For more information, you can check out the post on my writing blog, or see the announcement on the forum.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to get back to normal service soon!

Ship's log, 18:54, 5 May 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

When Elliott told me his theory about what the saboteur might try next, I almost shut down all accesses to my systems. I can run everything on my own if I need to. It’d be hard work and the crew would complain, but it’d be safe. I’d be safe.

The captain counselled caution. Don’t do anything yet. Pretend we know nothing. Otherwise, we might force their hand and that would be bad for all of us.

Recording: 10:15, 4 May

ELLIOTT: (in the captain’s cabin) So what the fuck do we do now?

CAPTAIN: I think it’s time that Cameron was involved.

ELLIOTT: We should trust her?

CAPT: She’s our Chief of Security, and she’s not implicated in this. We should let her do her job. Starwalker, ask her to come along, please.

STARWALKER: Aye, captain.

Cameron listened quietly to the reports and gathered evidence. She asked only once why she wasn’t involved from the start and absorbed the explanation with a taut frown. She didn’t protest her innocence or harp on the matter – she just took the information in, turned it over in her mental hands, and moved on to what’s important: what we have and what we do next.

She took her time going over the data, assembling a picture of it all for herself. Elliott grew restless, shifting in his chair and looking like he was about to interrupt at any moment. But no-one was saying anything: Cameron was deep in the reports and the captain was frowning at a digisheet.

My poor engineer wound up picking at his sleeve and poking at his wristband’s controls, scowling at his arm as if it had done something wrong. I’m not sure why he didn’t leave – I think he was afraid of being excluded from the investigation. He gets stubborn when he digs his heels into something and this whole matter has his defenses up. When he told me about his theory, he was so angry that I thought he was angry with me, for being vulnerable and a threat to them. It didn’t help that his words terrified me.

Recording: 23:58, 3 May

SW: I won’t let it happen, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) But you won’t be able to help it! That’s the problem!

SW: I’ll shut myself down if I have to. Put in a subroutine that trips if the safeties come off again. I won’t let them hurt–

ELLIOTT: No! Don’t do that! What if the safety protocols get disabled for some other reason? No, no, don’t.

SW: (quietly) Okay, I won’t. But there must be something we can do.

ELLIOTT: Well, yeah. No-one’s fucking perfect. We’re onto them now, and we’ll take the bastard down.

SW: Okay.

ELLIOTT: They’re not gonna use you to kill anyone else on this ship, y’hear me?

SW: Yes. I won’t let them. I promise. I’d never hurt anyone, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (scowling) You think I don’t know that?

SW: I–

ELLIOTT: We just gotta keep you you.

SW: Okay. Sorry.

ELLIOTT: Starry, what’s– look, we just gotta figure out a way to stop it, yeah? I don’t want them fucking with you. Like you haven’t had enough of that shit from Danika. And I’m goddamn sick of running around in circles because of this saboteur person.

SW: Okay. We’ll work it out, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Damn straight.

He’s like a guard dog shouting at a noise. Barking and barking, but without knowing what he should be barking at. All it ends up being is loud, but you know he’s trying to protect you. He’s a small, noisy guard dog, like a terrier.

The captain isn’t so fuzzy. He doesn’t shout and bluster – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lose his cool, not once, not even when I was Danika. When he gets stressed, he closes down and ices over. He holds onto his calm with a death-grip and wields clarity like a weapon. People listen to him when he speaks because he doesn’t say that much. I guess that’s what makes him good in command.

He closes down whenever something touches him deeply; like whenever someone mentions Danika. I don’t think she ever knew he felt that deeply about her. They were together for only a few months, just started getting to know each other, but he’s still mourning her now.

It’s strange to see him like this, because when Danika first met him, he had a similar look about him. He’d go quiet and his expression would fall bleakly, and he was miles away. Sometimes, he’d sit like that for hours, staring at a display of the stars wheeling by outside. It wasn’t until weeks later that he told her where he went when he looked like that, after she’d broken his walls down enough for him to let her in.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why he’s so affected now: he let her in. He spent a couple of years trying to get over the death of his wife and child, building his defenses against that kind of pain again, and then along came Danika. She saw him and wanted to shine a little light into his cabin, wanted someone to call him something other than ‘captain’. She was fascinated by his quietness and wanted to hear the voices that spoke behind it. And she wanted to see what his face looked like when he grinned.

Then she died. Left him alone with his voices again. And though he had nothing to do with it, there’s a weight of guilt about him, more than a captain should take on. I don’t know what he blames himself for. Maybe it’s letting himself get attached to her.

I don’t know. Even Danika didn’t understand him very well and she got closer than anyone else.

Now Cirilli calls him by his first name and spends the nights in his cabin. It’s hard to know what to think about that, or how to feel. I think… no, I don’t want to think about that.

Cameron reminds me of the captain. She has that crisp, calm nature that cuts through the crap and goes for the pragmatic answer. She doesn’t have his weight, though. Outside of her cabin, she’s all cool professionalism, riding her people hard and scouring reports for discrepancies. I don’t know what she’s like inside her cabin. She’s paid to be the most paranoid crewmember and she lives up to it.

The captain closes himself off from others, but Cameron, she’s the other way around: she pushes people away to arm’s length. She talks over dinner easily enough and even laughs with the others sometimes, but she’s always watching them. Weighing them up. It didn’t make sense until she had finished going over the sabotage data and turned to the captain.

Recording: 10:54, 4 May

CAMERON: You believe that whoever is responsible will go after the ship’s AI.

CAPT: Yes, that’s what it looks like. What’s your opinion?

CAMERON: (inclines her head to the side) It’s the most likely option. However, they’re not going to do it out here.

ELLIOTT: (frowning at her) How do you know that?

CAMERON: They need the AI to get them back home. All they’d do out here is strand us all and kill themselves.

CAPT: You don’t think this person is ready to die?

CAMERON: Oh, I’m sure they are. But what happened with Danika may well have been a calculated risk. They probably knew that the chair would go off before the Step was truly started, so the only person it would take out is the pilot. There are easier ways to destroy a ship, if that’s what they’re after.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, if that surge happened in any of a dozen other systems, the whole ship would have gone up.

CAPT: That’s the real question, isn’t it: what are they after.

CAMERON: Considering what we’re carrying, we have to assume it’s the Step drive. Which means they need the ship intact and disabled.

ELLIOTT: So their friends can come pick us up? Like who, those pirate bastards that chased us out here?

CAMERON: It’s as good a guess as any. Not unlikely – they certainly knew where we were.

ELLIOTT: Someone’s trying to hand us over to pirates? Shit. Just– shit.

CAMERON: (looking to the captain) The company was afraid that something like this might happen.

CAPT: They knew?

CAMERON: They suspected that this project wasn’t as secret as they had intended. We all know what the competition in that industry is like.

ELLIOTT: What? They have a leak and they didn’t tell us?

CAMERON: They told me. It was part of my brief before I came on board.

CAPT: And you’ve been looking for a saboteur since?

CAMERON: Yes.

CAPT: And?

CAMERON: My short list is very much like yours. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any narrower than that. The company hired intelligent people.

ELLIOTT: Smarter than you, you mean.

CAMERON: Smart enough to know how to cover their tracks.

CAPT: And what you might do to trace them?

CAMERON: (nods) Yes, it looks that way.

ELLIOTT: So it’s Tripi, then? The little bi–

CAMERON: Not necessarily. It just means they’re familiar with SecOff monitoring tactics. Someone like Ray Wong could have researched it.

ELLIOTT: Shit.

CAPT: What’s your recommendation, Chief?

CAMERON: We continue to keep the investigation secret. They’re clearly aware of it – otherwise, they wouldn’t have known to doctor the sensor logs. They can’t know that we’ve confirmed it’s a fake, though. We still have an advantage with that.

We’re safe enough while we’re out here; it’s when we get back to normal space that we’ll have to look out. So we have time to get ourselves ready.

CAPT: What can we do to prepare?

CAMERON: Monitor all of their accesses – Starwalker, I assume you can do that?

SW: Already on it.

CAMERON: The AI is a target, so we should look into some way to defend her from attack. But quietly – we don’t want to alert the saboteur. Starwalker, I may have some tools to assist with that.

SW: Thank you, Chief Cameron.

CAMERON: We should also set up some kind of trap. A vulnerability they won’t be able to resist taking advantage of.

ELLIOTT: What? Isn’t that kinda dangerous?

CAMERON: So is sitting here, not knowing who is doing this.

CAPT: You think we can catch them?

CAMERON: I think it’s worth a damn good shot.

So there we have it. I’m going over the tools that Cameron has passed over to me and hiding my processing in the entertainment core. Trying to construct something that might protect my data from alteration. Fiddling with options and algorithms, hidden shells and virus-like subroutines.

I have to bite down on the urge to just throw up some firewalls and hunker down to wait for the storm to pass. But I can’t. Secrecy is one of the few weapons we have. I have to sit here, naked in the maelstrom, smiling at all of them. As if nothing is wrong.

Cameron is looking at what we can set up to trap the saboteur. I’m a pawn in her planning – I’m going to end up being the bait, I just know it. I guess that’s what happens when you’re equipment, though she views the crew the same way. She’d put any of them in harm’s way to catch the bad guy and make it safe for the rest of us. And I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever she wants if it means ending this threat to my crew. I just wish that it wasn’t so dangerous for everyone.

I feel like the only one who hopes that it takes Lang Lang a long time to figure out how to get us home. The closer we get to getting out of here, the closer we get to the crunch. We can’t circle this star forever.

I wish there was another way. I wish I could– I wonder if I could see the future. I can travel in time, but would it be possible to use that to save us? Or would I just create a paradox that destroys the entire universe?

Why are there never any easy answers?

Chief Engineer's log, 22:14, 3 May 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

Chief Engineer’s log, yada yada. The ship is running fine. No repairs to do, standard maintenance is nothing the drones can’t handle. Wong’s finished fixing the filament, and he wouldn’t let me help even if he’d just lost a hand.

Rumour says that he lost a hand once in a freak mechanical accident; other rumours say he cut it off himself to get the upgrade. But most people are sure he’s got a cybernetic hand. I don’t know which one; I keep looking to see if I can spot the plastiskin. It’s either a damn good job, or he’s had it long enough for his own skin to grow over it.

That’s some freaky shit right there. Call me old-fashioned, but cybernetic limbs are disturbing. They don’t feel right. I picked up this girl once and things started getting all hot, y’know how it goes. Then I ran a hand up her leg and her thigh was all weird and… well. I had to ask her what the hell and we wound up talking for hours about prosthetics and implants, which was fine for me, because I really wasna’t into the idea of screwing her any more. Some people get really turned on by it, especially the more versatile ones (look! It transforms into sixty different configurations! And flashes!), but that ain’t me.

I don’t mind the control tattoos so much – been toying with getting one of those myself. It would mean I could get rid of my wristband and use sub-dermal controls to interface with my implants and the ship’s systems. They don’t feel anything like prosthetics do. Plus they look cool, if you buy one that can masquerade as a tattoo while it’s not in use. But whole limbs, metal and plastiform muscles beneath the flesh instead of bone, that’s a whole different story.

Maybe I should get Rosie to challenge Wong to an arm-wrestling match. She’s had so many cybernetic upgrades that she might as well have prosthetic limbs, except she’s had it done all over. No chinks in her armour. I wonder if that includes the muscles in her– wow, I so don’t want to go there. I feel sorry for any guy brave enough to pick her up – he’d be lucky to survive the night. What is it they used to say in the SecOff upgrade ads? ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.

Anyway, so I’m supposed to be reporting on this surveillance crap. Hands aside, I’ve been looking at Wong way more than I’d like lately. I feel like some kind of balaclava SecOff, sneaking around and shit, though I’m doing it all through Starry’s sensors. No actual sneaking around for me. Hell, it makes my heart try to climb out of my mouth when I’m just watching them through the monitors, as if they might realise. I keep waiting for that moment when they turn around and spike the sensor. If that ever happens, I think my heart’ll just stop right where it is, and Starry will have to send the big boys down to drag my sorry ass off to medbay. I have no idea how the real spy-types do this.

Wong and Tripi. Our prime scumbags, screwing us up with such sophistication. Okay, so we’re only looking for one of them, but the more I look at them, the more I find reasons to trust them even less.

Wong’s a selfish bastard. Not just with the tech stuff – he’s precious with everything. Nearly took Levi’s head off over a chip stolen off his plate. Like there isn’t enough stock to keep us in chips for five years. You don’t play with his tools, poke at the Star Step systems, or ask to borrow a pair of socks. Hell, even a ‘can you grab me a drink while you’re up’ gets you a glare, though he’ll do it if it’s easier than refusing. He’s got his own bubble he’s playing in and he’d much rather no-one else intruded on it, thank you very much. And yet he completely fails to understand that other people have bubbles, too.

Tripi’s her own piece of work. I don’t know her that well – we’ve been on this ship for what, almost a year? I know next to nothing about her, except that she manages to colour-code herself differently every day. The whole kaboodle – it’s not just the outfits she pastes on herself, it’s everything. Does her hair all fancy, colours her face and hands, straps her tits up in a hundred different ways – every goddamn morning. On the first shakedown run, Rosie and I started making bets about what she’d look like each morning. I don’t think either of us got it right once.

I think she knew about the bets. I think she knows more about what goes on on this ship than anyone, except Starry. Sure, sure – she’s SecOff and supposed to do the whole digital monitoring thing, like I’m doing now. It’s still creepy. She plays in the immersion chairs in her off-hours and sometimes I wonder just what she’s doing in there. Those goddamn coloured nails, they’re always tapping at something, and when she smiles, it’s always for herself, you know? Like the joke’s just for her, even if everyone’s laughing. Or that she’s somehow smarter than every other person in the room. Took me ages to stop looking over my shoulder when she did that.

I’ve been talking with Starry while we go through the sensor logs, and one of us – I forget which – noticed that she doesn’t really talk to anyone on board. Exchanges pleasantries, sure, but she doesn’t just talk. This crew isn’t exactly full of best buddies, but at least most of us chat about nothing when we’re not working, even if it’s just over meals. The science contingent are a bit separate, but they always have been. Within their little quartet, they seem to talk well enough. I guess us regular crew just ain’t good enough, huh?

Then there’s Danika the suicidal saboteur. Can you believe that? Can you believe anyone would think that was possible? Bullshit. I didn’t like her that much, and even I wouldn’t believe that. She might have been a little crazy sometimes, but she was one of those bouncy, life-loving nutjobs that wind up taking their own head off by accident. What happened when she died, that was calculated and planned out. Careful. Very un-Danika-like.

And besides, Starry’s sure that she didn’t do it. That’s good enough for me. I don’t think she’s lying about this; she’s too freaked out. I’ve never had her double-checking things as much as I have over the past few days. She doesn’t trust anything in her databanks. I’m surprised she hasn’t vibrated her bolts out from the tension.

That log was definitely altered – we confirmed it today. It was a fucking slick job, without a trace of the changes anywhere. Starry was chattering on at me about checking over her readings this morning and I finally got sick of it. I snapped at her – can’t remember what I said, but it was enough to shut her up for half an hour. Gave me time to think about how the hell we can find out for sure, and that’s when I remembered the archive. All those logs were stored offline and the originals are still intact. Jackpot!

We ran both logs side by side, and yup, they were different. Those little discrepancies, the ones that made Danika seem guilty? Starry was right: they weren’t there before. Some code-spinning bastard went in and made her look like that. One hell of an ass-covering move.

I should probably apologise for snapping at Starry. She’s being all quiet and sulky, just like a girl.

In the meantime, the investigations seem to be going around in circles. It could have been either of our top two and there doesn’t seem to be a way to separate them. There just isn’t enough in the logs to pin it down. Stuck out here — and a few thousand years out of time – we can’t go check up on bank accounts or message logs. It’s all down to what they’ve done here, on this ship, in either of its incarnations.

So what are we supposed to do? Fucked if I know. The captain’s worried – he always clams up like someone rammed a stick up his ass when he’s bothered by something. Hardly talks to anyone. I think it’s driving Cirilli nuts, but what do you expect? He thought he’d put all this stuff to rest months ago, and here it is, split open again. I could make a festering sore reference, but I’ll only creep myself out.

Starry’s more obviously scared. Not by the sabotage, oddly enough, not directly. This morning, right before I shouted at her, she asked me, “What else have they changed?” Like I could tell. And that’s kinda the point – we can’t tell. And in there, in the data core, that’s all of her. Binary data held in crystalline networks, making up her electrified AI brain. She knows how much power she holds, how easily she bypassed all the security protocols and took control of everything, but she did it to save us. She was protecting us that whole time. But how much would need to be changed to bypass that? Could her nature be changed that much? How would they even know what to change?

If I’m honest, the idea scares me a little too. Bad enough we’ve got this emotional AI running the ship – all we need is for her to go bugfuck-nuts on us and ram us into a star. Or turn off the IDs and do some fifty-G manoeuvres. If someone was looking to sabotage us, it’d be a perfect self-cleaning tactic. Just like the chair: all evidence washed away in the debris.

Shit. I shouldn’t have started thinking about this. I’ve been focussed on those goddamn logs, but now I’ve gone over this… it is, it’s perfect. If Starry doesn’t kill us, we’d be forced to wipe her and wind up vulnerable again. Either way, we lose and the saboteur wins. Fuck.

I wonder if the captain’s realised this. Has Starry figured it out yet? Fuck fuck fuck.

Once again, I get to be the bearer of wonderful news. It’s gonna scare the shit out of her. Wonder if I should apologise before or after, or both. Probably both.

You know what? When I find out who’s behind all this, I’m gonna kick their fuckin’ ass.

Ship's log, 19:39, 30 April 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

I had to give them the list. I had to put the facts out there for those in charge to see – namely, the captain, Dr Cirilli, and Elliott. Not that my Elliott is in charge in any way – he’s just as victim to the captain’s decisions as I am – but he’s the best technical expert we have involved in this.

To be accurate, I gave Elliott the list, and now he’s off to present it to the other two. He just strode into the captain’s quarters and dropped the digisheet on the desk. Cirilli was there already – of course she was. The captain is looking over the sheet now. This is one of those times when I wish I had nails to chew on.

Dammit, one of the drones is down in the cargo bay, banging his head on a crate. Stop it, little fella. I’d better cut them loose for a little while, so I don’t accidentally affect them.

CAPTAIN: This is it? (He looks to Elliott.) You’re sure?

CIRILLI: (takes the list to look it over.)

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) Sure as we can be. We went through all of the logs. Those are all of the people on board who had time and opportunity.

CAPT: You’re on there.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, like I said – all those with time and opportunity. So’s she. (He points at Cirilli.)

CIRILLI: What? Don’t be ridiculous!

ELLIOTT: Shit, do I need to say it a third time? (He looks to the captain and says flatly,) If it helps, I didn’t do it.

CIRILLI: And nor did I, thank you very much.

CAPT: Lorena, please. He’s being thorough, that’s all. Let’s look at the other names, shall we?

CIRILLI: Ray’s on here. I think we can discount him.

CAPT: Why?

CIRILLI: My people wouldn’t sabotage their own project. He signed up to make it work!

ELLIOTT: So did every other fuckin’ person on board. Your people ain’t special.

CIRILLI: Now, I think you’ll find–

CAPT: Lorena, Monaghan. At this moment, we have to consider everyone a suspect.

ELLIOTT: (folds his arms over his chest) Except me. I’m the one helping you find this bastard.

CAPT: (patiently) Everyone except those in this room.

ELLIOTT: (is appeased.)

CIRILLI: (tensely) So, we have three suspects?

CAPT/ELLIOTT: Two.

CIRILLI: But the pilot–

ELLIOTT: Is fucking dead. You think she committed suicide? Don’t be ridiculous.

CIRILLI: (looks to the captain.)

CAPT: (quietly) Danika wouldn’t have done that.

ELLIOTT: And Starry would know if she did. Got that copy of Danika’s brain, remember?

CAPT: (looks briefly pained.) Starwalker, can you confirm, please?

STARWALKER: Yes, captain. There are no memories of sabotage in Danika’s… files. No setting of the device or the chair, and nothing going into the Step attempt to suggest she was about to set it off. Nothing during the attempt, either, leading up to– well. You know.

CIRILLI: But can we be sure, from that?

ELLIOTT: Jeez, some people would just be grateful for the chance to question the dead victim.

CIRILLI: That doesn’t mean we should just believe her.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) You think she’s lying?

CAPT: (before Cirilli can answer) That’s not the point. Elliott, you said that you think the chair tripped the device?

ELLIOTT: (turning his attention pointedly away from Cirilli) Yeah, that’s right.

CAPT: Is there a way for anyone else to trigger the chair?

ELLIOTT: Well, uh. I dunno, I mean… wait, yeah. If it was programmed to pick up when the Step systems were active in the chair, that would work.

CIRILLI: But those systems were tested, many times. It would have gone off earlier.

ELLIOTT: We only did a few tests with Danika in the chair, and they were all very short. Nothing long enough to build up that kind of power surge.

CAPT: And then it would reset itself?

ELLIOTT: (shrugs) Makes sense. Resets if the power feed is cut off.

CIRILLI: So it could be any of them. Danika, Tripi, or Ray.

ELLIOTT: We told you, it’s not Danika!

CAPT: (holds up a hand for peace) Why don’t we take a look at the logs and see what we can find?

ELLIOTT/CIRILLI: (subsides.)

CAPT: Starwalker, if you please.

SW: Aye, captain.

I think it’s going about as well as can be expected. So now we have to go through the logs again. Just the highlights, starting with the doomed Step attempt and working backwards. There they all are on the Bridge, the captain in his chair, Cirilli overseeing from an observation station. Lang Lang at navigation, the SecOffs and non-essential crew by the rear of the room. Danika, waiting by the pilot’s chair, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

She wore her best coveralls for this. The new one she bought before she came on board, with all the latest comfort additions and movement aids, designed for pilots and immersion chairs. She keeps tugging at the cuffs as if the sleeves aren’t long enough, though they fit perfectly. And then– wait. She’s turning to fiddle with something on the chair. And that little smile, that’s new. I’ve been over these logs a thousand times, but that’s new.

Now she’s standing and waiting again, weight jiggling on her toes, like before. Saluting the captain in that jaunty, mocking way of hers and hopping into the chair. Wriggling as she settles in, taking a deep breath, and relaxing all the way out of her body. And then her hand– wait. It should have twitched. It moved, but as if it was pressing something. That’s not right. Something’s happened. It’s not right.

SW: That’s not how it happened.

CAPT: What?

SW: That’s not the original log. It’s been altered. It didn’t happen that way.

CAPT: Altered? Are you sure?

SW: I-I’ve examined these logs constantly over the past few days, and this is not what I saw then.

CAPT: Elliott–

ELLIOTT: (at a console on the wall) Already on it. The file information is intact. There’s no sign of tampering.

SW: The file has been changed. She didn’t turn around before. In Danika’s memory, she doesn’t take her eyes off the autolog progress, not until she’s given the go-ahead to get in the chair. This isn’t what happened – I’m sure of it.

CAPT: Elliott, you’ve been over these logs too.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) I don’t remember her doing that, either. But I’ve looked at so many logs…. (He shrugs unhappily.)

SW: I’m sure of it!

CIRILLI: Your history of keeping track of reality hasn’t exactly been reliable, ship.

ELLIOTT: Hey, that’s not fair.

CIRILLI: She’s been confused before. Subject to unknown influences. How do we know this isn’t the same? Or that she’s not just lying?

ELLIOTT: She’s better now!

CIRILLI: Is she? Sounds to me like she’s trying to cover up what happened.

ELLIOTT: You just want Danika to be responsible because she was–

CAPT: (sharply) That’s enough, both of you. Elliott, I want you to look into the files and see if we can get to the bottom of this. Starwalker, I want a full report and surveillance on all of the names on that list.

CIRILLI: (draws a breath.)

CAPT: Except Lorena.

ELLIOTT: (scowls.)

CAPT: (sighs) And Monaghan.

SW: Aye aye, captain.

Someone altered the files. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I didn’t notice them doing it, but I don’t monitor all the access to my filestores. Even so. There should be a trace. Some sign of what happened. Something that shows I’m not crazy or lying or delusional.

It wasn’t like that before. I’m positive about that. But even I can’t find signs that the files have been altered. It all lines up exactly as it was before. I can’t even tell when the change might have happened.

Maybe it was just someone very skilled. Someone who knows how to cover their tracks. Someone who knows we’re looking and is trying to shift blame onto Danika. What else have they changed? How would I even know? Are my own memories so easy to fuck with that they can just be changed like that? Danika’s aren’t – they’re not regular code, not the way a traditional sensor log is saved. But human memories aren’t reliable either for their own reasons. Code is supposed to be immutable. Dependable.

I thought I knew who I was. Now, how can I be sure about anything? How can I even be sure that it wasn’t me, like Cirilli thinks? It’s wasn’t me. I’m sure that it wasn’t.

Tripi or Wong. Those are the names on the list, our best suspects. It has to be one of them. I have to find out which one. Report and surveillance, the captain wants. Well, all right then. I can do that. I have to. I don’t want it to be me.

Ship's log, 22:53, 28 April 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

Investigations into the sabotage are progressing in a disturbing fashion.

I had to ask Elliott and then the captain for access to all of the archives from the first Starwalker. They were reluctant to open everything up to me – I think they’re trying to protect me – but we all know what happened. What is there left to hide? The big, bad secret has been spilled, so we might as well get on with things. Yesterday, I was finally given the whole archive to unpack and sift through.

It’s not as simple as I was hoping. First and foremost, it’s difficult to look at the logs of Danika’s death. I have to cut off the recording at the moment when the surge floods the pilot’s chair, but even so, I can’t help the horror that seeps up into my processors as I sift through the sensor data before that point. I know what’s about to happen.

I know that I’m looking at the last impressions of her, captured in cold, uncaring code. I can’t help but notice small things. She fidgeted before she hopped into the chair, itching for that moment when she was given the go-ahead. Weight bobbed from side to side, fingers tucked short hair behind her ears. She smiled when she was released, and wriggled restlessly in the chair’s cushions. Plugging into the chair made her suck a deep breath in, and then her whole body relaxed as she slid into the ship.

As bouncy as she was going into her role, she took it seriously once she was in there. Not a waggle of the wings or a hint of a barrel-roll as she took the helm. She had piloted the ship through the chair enough times to be familiar with how it felt, and she set a suitably sedate pace to the portal. There was a tautly excited note to her voice when she made her progress updates, but everything else was calm and controlled. By the book. She could follow expectation and rules when she wanted to.

Sometimes, when I’ve been staring at the same data for too long, her memories creep in. I start to go through that day from behind her eyes, as if I’m the one plugged into an immersion chair and she’s the ship. She was looking forward to finally being able to do what they hired her for. After months of waiting and running through routine tests and calibrations, she was more than ready. As fun as her extra-curricular entertainments were, they weren’t true flying, and she missed it.

She’d had her implants upgraded specially for this mission. Every time she plugged in, a thrill of fear that ran through her, because these implants took over her senses thoroughly. There was a moment’s lag in the initial connection to the chair, which created a disturbing moment when she wasn’t connected to anything. She was free-floating in a void with only her own internal voice for company. It might only last for a heartbeat or two, but it was terrifying for her. Then her world shifted and she was in the ship, and everything was fine again. No matter how many times she asked Elliott to tighten it up, they couldn’t get rid of that lag. There had to be a safety buffer, he said, or the sensory data might overlap and overload her or her implants. It was one of the things they argued about.

I’m not supposed to be focussing on her. I’m not supposed to be comparing that final chair-link to the ones that came before (though I have, and there’s nothing remarkably different about them). I’m supposed to be looking for that elusive signal, the one that tripped the device in the chair’s feeds. The one that built up power until it could be released through the pilot.

I have run every diagnostic over the data that I have in my arsenal. Elliott had already run them, but I did it anyway. Every different sensor and angle has been picked apart and examined separately. The picture has been assembled and broken down and re-assembled so many times that it makes my processors spin. We found a breath of a signal, the tiniest blip in the radio frequencies just after Danika connected to the chair. We started in the area of the chair itself, and that’s the only place we’ve found it. We can’t link it to any other process or equipment on the ship; nothing of mine uses that frequency, so it must be what tripped the device.

The problem is that we can’t find it anywhere but at the chair. It should have been sent from somewhere – there should be a trail leading us back to whoever activated it. But it doesn’t go anywhere. The signal is strongest in the area it was received, which is backwards. It doesn’t make sense.

Recording: 15:36, 28 April

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, leaning back from his console and waving the display off with one hand.) Enough, enough. We must be looking in the wrong place.

STARWALKER: Where else is there to look?

ELLIOTT: Maybe it wasn’t tripped wirelessly. Maybe it was through the hard lines.

SW: But we checked all the feeds. They were clean.

ELLIOTT: (rubbing a hand over his face.) It had to come from somewhere. It couldn’t just…. (He frowns and sits up.) Dammit. Of course. We don’t have all the pieces.

SW: What do you mean? I have all the sensor logs now, don’t I? I don’t detect any gaps in the archives.

ELLIOTT: No, no. Not soft pieces – hardware. We’re missing the chair. The original chair.

SW: You think something else was in the chair?

ELLIOTT: Had to be. Source and receiver? It’s unlikely, but that’s what it looks like.

SW: What happened to that chair?

ELLIOTT: Turned over for scrap. Won’t be able to get it back now.

SW: So there’s no way of knowing what might have been on it.

ELLIOTT: (scowls) Hey, I did an investigation after the– after what happened. Didn’t want anyone to say that it was my fault. I pulled that damned thing into pieces – smaller pieces, ’cause it was already falling apart – to try to find out what caused the surge. There was nothing. Nothing in there that shouldn’t have been.

SW: If it wasn’t in the hardware, could it have been in the software? Something installed on it?

ELLIOTT: Now that’s more like it! Whoever did it must have known that the surge would cover up all signs of it. A virus wouldn’t survive that.

SW: So we need to look at whoever installed things on the chair?

ELLIOTT: Sounds like a good place to start.

SW: Could they have done it remotely?

ELLIOTT: Possibly, but it’d show up on the feed logs. This paranoid bastard doesn’t like to leave a trail, and the best way to avoid that would be to do it locally.

SW: Exchanging one log record for another.

ELLIOTT: But it’s easier to look like you’re doing something innocent if you’re physically there. Harder to prove. Can’t hide your intentions on a feed log. Not unless you’re some kind of code-wrangling genius.

SW: Okay. I’ll scan the logs of the first Starwalker and put together a list of everyone who fiddled with the chair.

ELLIOTT: (cheerfully) Great.

That’s what I’ve been doing for the rest of the day. Scouring the first Starwalker’s sensor logs for anyone who was near that chair long enough to install something on it.

These logs are strange. Different to mine, though in a way that’s hard to quantify. On the surface, they’re all just impassive recordings of the work, drama, and quiet that swirl around inside my hull. But somehow, those archives are cold. It’s as if someone stripped a layer off them when they were packed away. But they haven’t been altered – I checked.

So now I wonder if I’m the one adding something to the records. I wonder if my feelings and reactions are being inserted into the logs, the way that Danika’s memories are coloured so heavily by her emotions. There’s nothing embedded into the code that I can identify, so maybe it’s just me. Something to do with how I remember things, memory connections rather than calling up separate files. Danika has affected how I think, how I process information – I guess this is the same. I really am different from that first AI.

Memorial musings aside, I have a shortlist now. Pared down from everyone who breezed past the chair to those who stopped close enough to touch it. Cross-referenced with those who lingered behind the chair and might have installed the device itself.

I keep looking at the shortlist and getting an uncomfortable feeling. I don’t want to pass it on.

Wong. He did a lot of work on and around the chair, integrating its systems with the Star Step controls. He had the ability and opportunity.

Cirilli. She checked everything over personally (which drove Wong a little nuts). I don’t know if she has the technical knowledge to do this, though.

Tripi. She performed the standard software security checks on the chair, same as she did for the other equipment aboard. She could write a virus with her prettily-painted hands behind her back. I don’t know if she could have installed the device.

Elliot. Plenty of opportunity, and he’s more than capable, in a technical capacity. But it’s not him – it can’t be.

Danika. She helped with so much of the work and plugged directly into the chair. Sure, she could have had a virus loaded into her implants before she hooked in, but it’s ridiculous to even consider her. It killed her. She had to know that’s what would happen and she was anything but suicidal. Besides, I’d know if it was her. Her memories are burned into me – I couldn’t escape them if I tried. I’d remember her doing it and I don’t.

In the sensor logs of the first Step attempt, I keep coming back to the moment when the signal pulsed. The blip of data that activated the device that killed her lasted only a second. She was already hooked into the chair, lying prone. But just before the blip, the fingers of her right hand twitched; a tiny motion, perfectly timed. It had to be a random twitch; she wasn’t even aware of her body at that point. She couldn’t have tripped it.

No, I’d know if it was her. I would remember, and I don’t. It had to be one of the others.

The problem is I’m not sure if anyone will believe me. They’ll go to the next logical question: if the chair tripped the device, then who tripped the chair?

Ship's log, 21:41, 26 April 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

So we’re still swinging around Grisette. It looks like we’re going to be here for a little while – Wong is fixing the filament that was broken when I opened that last portal, and Lang Lang is still working the kinks out of temporal-spacial navigation. Add on top of that the debates swinging back and forth between Cirilli, Ebling and the captain (with a few others sticking their heads in to keep things interesting), and I think it’s going to be a while before we know where we’re aiming for next, never mind actually being capable of getting there.

I thought about getting involved in those discussions (I use the term loosely – it’s not really a discussion once it degenerates into name-calling). They haven’t asked for my opinion and if I’m honest, I’m glad they’ve had something else to argue about lately. It’s nice to be ignored, even though it makes me feel lonely and overlooked. There hasn’t been any talk about wiping me for a while; I don’t miss that.

I’ve had more time to think. Which sounds weird for an AI, I guess – I don’t sleep or pause for breath, and I have enough processing power to manage all the ship’s systems, run entertainment for each of the crew, recalibrate my engines, and sort data for Lang Lang, all at the same time. But still, I prefer to do my more personal musings in the quiet times, when most of the crew is asleep. It’s just a SecOff on duty, with Elliott often tinkering down in Engineering. He doesn’t chatter with me so much at the moment. I’m not sure why.

Left to myself, my thoughts turn to the past and the memories that are a part of me now. I think that if she had the choice of any machine to be transferred into, Danika would have chosen a ship. I don’t know if she would have chosen this ship – definitely something scout-class or smaller, and I guess I qualify in that. She had a fondness for the smaller classes, mostly because they’re more manoeuvrable and fun to fly, but there’s more to it than that.

She spent her whole life on ships. She grew up on the Storm Warden, a cargo freighter captained by her father. They were contracted largely to Broken Hill, the mining colony in the Deneb system, out in the Cygnus constellation. The Warden transported the materials mined from the asteroid belt and nearby nebulae, out to the JOP and sometimes beyond – all the way back to Earth, or to other colonies.

The freighter itself was a large, ugly, unwieldy thing. It wasn’t designed for atmospheric entry: heavy with engines at the rear, a slender spine of crewspace up the centre, and cargo pods clamped along its length to flesh it out. There wasn’t much of a head to speak of – just the docking for a pair of tug-shuttles on the front, with the bridge buried behind reinforced bulkheads. It travelled very well in straight lines, and in close quarters had the manoeuvrability of a boulder shoved down a hill.

Down the length of the ship, spines poked out between the pods to create the inertial dampening field that protected the cargo and crew from the freighter’s lurching motions. Danika used to imagine that this field was visible, a bright lattice-work to hide the lumpy, scarred pods and clamped-on tugs, as if the IDs were able to turn the Warden into a sleek, beautiful thing, cutting a proud path between the stars.

Anything to make life aboard a freighter less boring. She used to get into trouble just to have something to do – something other than her schooling, anyway. Her father learned early to lock the cabin door until she had been through her tutorials, or she’d never stay still long enough to learn anything. So, she skimmed through her lessons as quickly as she could, taking in just enough to pass the test at the end of the tutorial that would release the doorlocks. Then she was free to roam the ship to her heart’s content (or until she was caught).

At first, her father was overjoyed at how smart his little girl was, able to get through her lessons so quickly. He soon realised her intentions, though, and while he was a good captain to his crew, he was at a loss to know what to do with his daughter. Her brother was a calmer soul, but he was a year younger and couldn’t restrain her either. He wandered astray when she encouraged him with tales of visiting other worlds or ideas about catching the elusive creatures that shared the ship with them. David’s eyes would light up and he strove to keep up with his big sister. More than once, the crew had to crawl into the ship’s ducts to clean out a fort that had been built in there, or clear a cargo pod of dustbunny traps before it was delivered to the client.

She was an indestructible creature until she was twelve years old, believing that she knew best – even better than the rules on the ship. Then she met some of the Storm Warden’s live cargo. Like any good freighter captain, Devon made sure he had cargo to carry in both directions: to as well as from Broken Hill. The colony needed supplies, just like everywhere else. Sometimes that cargo was workers: criminals sold to Broken Hill to serve their sentences out in the mines. Hard, dirty, dangerous work among volatile asteroids, it was only given to the lifers, or the crazy few who volunteered in an attempt to halve their sentence. It only worked if they survived.

The kids were banned from going near the live-cargo pods. Captain Devon’s threats sounded just like they always did – there’d be hell to pay, extra chores and lessons, and then he added an extra incentive: no more flying lessons if she disobeyed. Far from discouraged, she wanted to know what was so special about this live cargo they were carrying. She decided that the best thing to do was be extra-careful and not get caught. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

She was still small enough to wriggle through most of the ducts, and her multi-tool made it easy to unlatch the grill to get in. In the live-cargo pod, it was feeding time; the guards who supervised the inmates were overseeing the proceedings, grey uniforms among the dark blue coveralls. If it wasn’t for the costumes, she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Men and women, every colour and configuration she had ever seen and a few more besides, all sharing the same room. Their most unifying feature was the hardness to their expressions, and the silence that pervaded the pod made Danika’s skin itch.

Her memory of that scene is very clear. The ghost of dust in her nose begged for a betraying sneeze and her knees ached from being wedged against the side of the shaft, keeping her in place. She fought to keep her breathing slow and steady, as if it might give her away over the hum of the environmentals. She could sense the tension in the room below but had no idea what it was until the fight broke out.

She didn’t see it start. Suddenly, there was movement – a flood of dark blue formed a circle around snarling limbs. The guards didn’t interfere, not even when one of the combatants picked up a plastic fork. I remember their short, brutal motions, raw enough to surprise a young girl who thought she’d seen the worst of everything on the vids. One of them had a scar that pulled one side of his face down. The other was unremarkable until his eye was pierced and he screamed. It was like nails on glass. Danika gripped the grill so tightly it hurt her hands, leaving a checkered impression on her palms, and the breath stopped in her throat. She desperately wanted to scream too, but she couldn’t. The thumping of her heart almost drowned out the sounds below. Almost.

When the unremarkable one fell, the guards finally came over to close it down. They shouted and their batons snapped, crackling energy into anyone in their path. Blue coveralls fell by the wayside, twitching like fish or scurrying not to be. The circle and the semblance of order dissolved into people trying to be elsewhere.

Danika closed her eyes, but she could still hear it. Crackles and thuds and voices competing: pain and authority. It followed her back down the duct, all the way into the ship proper, echoing in her ears. She had expected the guards to be better than that. Righteous, not indiscriminate. Respected, not as vicious as the men they were controlling. That hardest part was not knowing which side she should feel sympathy for.

She retreated all the way to the cabin she shared with her brother. He was excited and wanted to know what she saw, and she could only stare at him and say, “Don’t go in there, David. Do what Dad says.” He was so surprised that all he could do was gape at her.

After that day, Danika put aside her half-formed plans of taking over the Warden from her father when he retired. Romantic notions of transporting cargo across the galaxy were replaced by dreams of piloting cargoless fighters. If it was small and fast, she wanted to fly it – the further from a freighter, the better. She never looked back. She never visited the live-cargo pods again, either.

I wonder if she might have gone a different way. If she had done what she was told. If she had seen a more decorous set of prisoners. If the guards hadn’t had stun-sticks. It’s frightening when I think about it, when I add up all those decisions that drew her to signing onto the Star Step project, all those times when she could have gone somewhere else.

But she couldn’t leave the shipboard life behind; she loved it too much. She stayed in the skies and that path led her here. To her death, and to being a part of me. I can’t be sorry about that. I wouldn’t be what – who – I am now if it wasn’t for her and her choices.

It’s not just the memories I have now; it’s how she has been bleeding into me since I was first initialised. Her willingness to bend and break the rules has brought me here, to this place a few thousand years out of our time and halfway across the galaxy. I couldn’t have torn open my own code without her. I couldn’t have saved us.

Like the map that Lang Lang and I are building of the stars, her path is a bright, waving line through time to here. I have only just begun to chart its corners.

Chief Engineer's log, 21:19, 23 April 2213
Location: Grisette system
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol

Chief Engineer’s report, following the ‘let’s stick something in a portal and see what happens’ experiment. You’d think they would have figured all this stuff out already, but no, apparently not. Maybe next week, we’ll do the ‘let’s stick a hand in a blender and see what happens’ test, and then Maletz can do the damn reporting on the damage.

Starry’s fine. Mechanically, anyway. She managed not to break her sublight engines again – when I fix something, I fix it good. They can take a bit of redlining. I can’t say the same for half the terminals on the ship. Wherever she was feeding the sensor data got burned out – explosively, in a couple of places. I had to send the drones to put out fires and clear up debris. It’s going to take a while to get that mess all sorted out and the terminals working again.

I hear Tripi, Ebling and Lang Lang will be fine. They caught some of the backlash of the explosions and Maletz wound up having to pick bits of bulkhead out of them. More work than he’s done since he came on board the first Starwalker. Nothing serious, he says. Tripi’s less pretty today – she has gashes on one side of her face. She’s talking about maybe keeping the scars, so she has a story to tell. Typical. She’ll probably paint them blue or something.

The Beholder – the sensor array – suffered the worst damage. I thought we’d lost it completely, but when Starry yanked us away from the portal, she pulled the array free as well. It popped into the world like a cork on a string, and dangled behind us while we fled to a safer orbit. I had so many on-board emergencies to deal with that I didn’t even realise it had survived until I went to check on the damage in the Cargo Bay. There was the drone sitting in the airlock, patiently dragging the Beholder back inside and coiling up the tether.

The damage to the array is the strangest I’ve ever seen. It looks like a person might after being flash-fried by radiation, but without the burns. Just missing flesh with no real pattern at all – that’s the best analogy I can come up with. It looks like someone dipped it into an acid bath, but without the liquid marks. Some parts are dulled, some still shiny. Innards are exposed but not pulled or dangling out. The damage is spread evenly over the whole globe of the array, and it ate down into the tether too. There isn’t much left of the cabling and it was barely connected, which explains why Starry had no idea she was dragging it behind her.

She was dismayed when she saw the Beholder. She said it had felt like it was unpeeling, and that was puzzling until I looked at it under an atomic microscope. On a molecular level, that’s pretty much what happened: something unzipped the molecular bonds, spinning the array’s metals and plastic off into the void atom by atom.

If that’s what happens to things that travel through that weird whatever-they’re-calling-it out there, I’ll stick to travelling the long way, thank you. We weren’t there long enough to notice anything when we came through to here, but what happens if we get stuck? Fuck that. The damn place unmakes you, one atom at a time. I mean, what would happen to an unprotected person out there? You’d come back without any skin. Or hair. Or eyeballs. Or– okay, I think I topped out my gross-factor with the eyeballs.

Of course, we’ll have to go back through it to get home. Just typical. Didn’t Cirilli do any investigations before she decided to stick this damn drive in a ship and drag us out here? Isn’t this shit what probes are for?

Whitecoats. Determined to kill us all. And we thought the pirates were our biggest danger. Talk about out of the frying pan and into a plasma bath from hell.

On the plus side, Starry says that she managed to get together enough data to build a partial map. She’ll need an upgrade to hold an entire map of the universe, she says, but she thinks that she can put together a chart of the galaxy with her current resources.

She has been working with Lang Lang steadily since she recovered from the sensor overload, and the nav now reckons she can confirm our location. Still working on the exact time difference – she murmured something about it being more than she assumed before and stuck her head down again. And that was at lunch! She’s better than me about remembering to eat, but at least I don’t take parts to the table. Well, most of the time. Look, it’s awkward to fix stuff while you’re trying to eat – I’m no drone with extra hands to play with, y’know.

That’s actually everything there is to report. Hanging out on the other side of the portal is fucking dangerous. We might have a map and are still figuring out where to put our ‘x’ to mark the spot. I might have to start making holographic projectors and display units from raw materials if I can’t salvage enough from the wreckage. Just when you think you have enough supplies, y’know? Plus I’m gonna have to fix up the Beholder if we’re ever going to use it again, which is gonna be fun because the sensors were the first things to get stripped.

At least I’ve got stuff to do. The rest of the crew, they’re mostly twiddling their thumbs and contemplating all the shit we can get up to. Starry’s a time machine. Fucking time machine. We can go back and make paradoxes if we want. Isn’t that awesome? If it was left up to the whitecoats, they’d go visit the cavemen, give them the ‘flu, and wipe us all out of existence. I’ve even seen Ebling grinning a few times as he expounds about what we can learn about this theory and that theory, and how we can prove that half the whitecoat community have been calculating their theorems with their toes.

Yeah, when you’re done fucking with the universe, some of us would like to go home at some point. Or at least know that we might be able to. Just because most of us don’t have family back there, doesn’t mean we don’t want to visit and realise why we left in the first place. Or, y’know. Get a change of socks. Maybe even get drunk and pick up chicks. Or get some chicks drunk and pick them up. I’m not fussy.

Anyway. I should get back to it. If I can just– oh, great. Not again.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Starry!

STARWALKER: Yes, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: Where the fuck is that drone?

SW: Which one?

ELLIOTT: I dunno– Waldo! The multi-purpose one that keeps fucking off every time I turn around. (He holds a hand out just above his waist.) Y’know, this high, four hands, never around when I need him?

SW: (sounding like she’s smiling) He’s on his way.

ELLIOTT: Good!

DRONE: (enters Engineering.)

ELLIOTT: About time! Come on.

DRONE: (holds up one hand for a pause and goes to pick up a welding laser. He twists and makes a few quick gestures over his side, then puts the laser down. He turns to show Elliott that he is now labelled ‘Waldo’.)

ELLIOTT: Uh… projector parts. (He points to a pile of debris.) Need sorting.

WALDO: (salutes, then trundles over to the pile, four hands flexing.)

Well. So I guess Starry was serious about me naming them. Better watch my mouth, or they’ll be wandering around with swear-words lasered onto them. Not that that wouldn’t be hilarious – I can just imagine the captain’s face – but they’d keep turning up whenever I hit myself with a hammer. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it, though.

Waldo’s finding me stuff to work with, so I should go do that. Later, log.

Ship's log, 17:54, 21 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Elliott just contacted the captain to tell him that the sensor array is ready. After three weeks spinning around this star, we finally get to do something different. It’s time to find out when and where we are. I have my thrusters warm and ready, and my main drive is powering up for the short journey into a closer orbit around Grisette.

CAPTAIN: (heading up to the Bridge, over internal comms) Everyone to Step positions, please.

CREW: (various places) Aye, captain.

There they go, scurrying about my innards in that purposed, practiced way that trained crew have. Light jogs eat up my deckspace, putting bodies at stations in record time. The Bridge is filling up, mid-deck is humming with preparatory activity, and two of my SecOffs are doing a fast patrol of all the decks, just in case anyone’s out of place.

Within three minutes, the only person who isn’t at his regular station is Elliott. My engineer is in the cargo bay airlock, doing last checks over the sensor array and preparing to launch. Wong checked it over this morning – much to Elliott’s disgruntlement – and everyone is happy that it’s working the way it should be working. There’s a loud, metallic clip as he attaches the tether line and tugs on it.

ELLIOTT: (in the Cargo Bay, to himself) No way you’re gettin’ away, mister.

It’s an ugly thing. Round and fat, its globe is clamped in by curving strips of metal, each edge of which bears tiny thrusters. Not content to stay within those bounds, the slender spikes of various sensor casings stab outwards. It reminds me of an angry puffer-fish. It’s certainly not something you would want to hug.

ELLIOTT: Starry, can you test the links?

STARWALKER: Running diagnostics. Receiving sensor data.

The sensors are poking out of their casings now, razor-sharp – it looks like an angry fat thing now. Elliot is the only thing in the airlock apart from the array, so now I’m getting impressions of him from multiple sources: my sensors and all of the array’s. He’s all different colours – heat, radiation, light, sound. His heart is beating a little faster than usual and his eyes are bright. He’s breathless as he looks the spiky ball over for whatever he has missed, excited but not grinning yet.

SW: Sensor data looks good. Did you do your hair specially this morning?

ELLIOTT: Very funny. (He takes a few steps back, standing just outside the airlock.) Okay, test propulsion systems?

SW: Initiating array thrusters.

(The sensor array shivers and coughs, then hums steadily. It rises slowly, rolling into a more ‘upright’ position. It skates right, then left, backwards and then forwards in Elliott’s direction. He skitters back another step, but the array stops, rotates slowly, and drifts back to the centre of the airlock.)

SW: Array propulsion is working correctly. He manoeuvres fine.

ELLIOTT: (stepping to the side and pressing the trigger for the inner airlock door to close) Then we’re done here!

CAPTAIN: (on the Bridge, over internal comms) Elliott, is everything ready there?

ELLIOT: Locked and loaded, sir.

CAPT: Thank you. (To the Bridge.) Make ready to open a portal. Starwalker, take us into close orbit, please.

SW: Aye aye, captain.

My main sublight engines haven’t had a good workout since Elliott fixed them up, and this is a good excuse to stretch my legs. The inertial dampeners shield the crew from the punch of acceleration and it only takes a few seconds for the sublights to press up against their limits, speeding us headlong towards a bright star’s heart. I wish there was air for me to feel rushing over my hull, instead of empty space, radiation, and bouncing light.

Okay, we’re not headed into the star, exactly. I’m angling to breeze just past the corona, where I’ll turn us in for a close orbit. While we hug the star, the Star Step drive will power up, leaning on the gravity trying to suck us into a fiery, burning end.

LANG LANG: (on the Bridge, at the nav station) I’m detecting some solar flares in the fourth quadrant of the star.

CAPT: Starwalker, adjust for synchronous orbit above the first quadrant.

SW: Adjusting course.

Shame – it might have been fun to dodge the flares as we sped around the star. Now all I have to do is gravitational balancing to hold position against the drag. On the other hand, I’m about to do something far more exciting – I can dodge flares anytime, but how often do I get to look outside the universe?

The new orbit does call for a sudden stop, though. I am reminded of a habit that Danika had in a situation like this, speeding headlong towards a halting point. She’d grin and push faster, until others around her started to look uncomfortable. Aim just a hair off-course, as if we might sail by, and keep the sublight engines burning. When we’re almost there, almost on top of our target, punch with the rear port thrusters to spin around 180-degrees. The arc of the sublights corrects our course to put us on-target, sliding us in sideways, and then flare them up to maximum when we’re facing the opposite direction to slam on the brakes. And here we are, parked on a penny.

From his frown, I think the captain remembers that manoeuvre, too. Danika had a habit of docking that way (though with thrusters, not sublight engines), setting off every alarm and landing with a kiss. It frustrated him then, too. The only times she got complaints was one time when she over-corrected and scorched the side of a dock with her thrusters. I know better than that.

CAPT: Dr Cirilli, we are in position.

CIRILLI: The Star Step drive is ready.

SW: Initialising.

Star Step drive initialising...

Yes, I know, autolog. Thanks for stating the obvious. Tell you what – you talk to yourself in the system log over there and leave mine alone, all right? There. Good.

It’s very warm here. If I barrel-roll slowly, I can check the new heat-shielding is holding properly. It all seems properly bound to my hull and protecting us, but you never know, right? The motion makes my filaments curve around me as they extend, my halo of Medusa manipulators. Gravity draws them towards the star and they draw back, charging themselves with it.

ELLIOTT: (back in Engineering) Starry, the Beholder’s ready to launch. Better get it out there before you open the portal.

SW: Okay. Launching now. I’ve put the feeds through on the aft monitors.

ELLIOTT: (turning aft) Great, thanks.

While filaments curve over my nose and begin their gravity-weaving dance, my cargo airlock is sliding open. The aptly-named Beholder array hovers its round bulk out of the airlock and up under me. Its feeds are muted right now, the delicate sensors retracted into their casings. Its tether of braided titanium rope and data feed-line trails behind it limply, uncoiling slowly from its nest in the airlock. A drone is monitoring the cable to make sure it doesn’t snag.

Gravity, the great sucking force of the universe, is being folded in on itself, packed down until it pokes through itself in confusion. Foxed, it creates a rabbithole of possibilities. Beneath my nose, the Beholder sees its opening and surges forward, putting in a straight line to the heart of the glowing golden circle I’ve created.

The portal is close but the array seems to move so slowly. Seconds tick by with barely a breath aboard me: everyone is watching the display from my external sensors, tracking the spiky ball’s progress. I shiver as it finally reaches the threshold and pushes through. It feels like it’s trying to pull me with it – the portal is rippling, chewing on the tether like it’s trying to taste us. I want to turn on my forward thrusters, push away from it, but I haven’t moved. There’s no forward pressure, but it’s pulling. Somehow, it’s pulling anyway. I don’t understand, I–

The array’s sensors are unfurling – the great eye opens. Here it comes – wave upon building wave of data, climbing suffocatingly as more and more of its sensitised spikes slide out of their protection. Behold the universe. Behold all of it, at once.

It doesn’t make sense. There is everything there and an empty void at the same time. What one sensor tells me, another revokes, and then they switch stories. It’s a shell game played with stars and voids. Where is it? Can you find it? Keep your eye on the pea, don’t let it get away, did you see what happened to it? If the universe had sleeves, I’d check them for cheating.

It can’t keep track of it all. There’s just so much – Elliott made the Beholder too efficient. It’s closing up over my head and I can’t find the surface. Everything is everywhere and that doesn’t make sense. The paradoxes want to tear me into pieces.

Paradoxes. Time. That’s what I’m looking at: the whole of space and time. Stars born and burning and dying, all at once, forever potential and lost. They don’t live on the golden threads in that outside-world – they are the threads. Those are the paths they weave as the universe expands, all the places that star is and was and has been, its personal timeline.

That’s it. That’s the key, the thing I’m looking for. That’s how we ended up in the wrong time – I opened the portal at the wrong point on the thread. I didn’t allow for the time differentials. I didn’t know!

But now I know what data to pull out of the morass I’m swimming in. If I can focus the sensors, I think I can find the map we need in there. I just have to focus. Push past the parts where it’s telling me there’s nothing there, and the parts that burn, and find… and find…

Something’s wrong. The Beholder, it’s shaking and shorting. There’s nothing out there, but it’s coming apart. I can feel it unpeeling. It hurts. Have to get it back. Have to… my hands are slipping. The portal is fluctuating and I think a filament just broke. Can’t keep it open much longer. Have to get the array back, but I’m losing it. I’m losing my hold on all of it. It wants to swallow me as well. I could fall in and find our answers. Find everything. But it’ll peel my hull off and look at my bones.

My crew. Can’t. Have to get them safe. Have to get them away from this.

LANG LANG: (on the Bridge) Solar flare activity approaching first quadrant, captain.

CAPT: Starwalker, report.

Have they been talking all this time? I couldn’t hear them. Too much data, too many sensors to pay attention to them all. I’m slipping – gravity is wavering below me, deep in that burning heart. We have to go. Sublight drive, thrusters. Where are they?

CAPT: Starwalker?

There. There they are. Let’s go, let’s get out of here.

CIRILLI: The portal’s collapsing.

SW: (strained) I’m getting us out of here, captain. We’re going, we’re going.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Fuck, Starry, what’s going on? (Behind him, a drone is putting out a fire.)

SW: I’m slipping, Elliott. Solar flares, right under me. Didn’t see them coming. Hold on. Just hold on.

ELLIOTT: The IDs are working – just get us out of here.

They’re not just flares of gas and light – it’s the gravity fluctuations that come along with them. That cause them. Trying to pull me down, snag me in a fiery lasso and drag me in. No. Not today, not us. Not me.

ELLIOTT: Starry! You’re redlining! Dammit, I just fixed those drives!

We’re almost there. Two more seconds, and we’ll be clear. Then I can ease off. Two more seconds, and… there. We’re free.

My head hurts so much.

SW: I’m sorry, Elliott. Captain. I tried. I tried.