Starwalker

Ship's log, 13:31, 3 March 2213
Location: Corsica system
Status: Sublight transit

Elliott got the immersion couch working late yesterday. I couldn’t see it before. It wasn’t just that the chair wasn’t connected to me; I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t even see what Elliott was doing to fix it, just the debris that fell into my line of sight and sputters of curses floating out to find me.

It doesn’t make sense. My sensors are adjustable, able to shift focus and angle to scan whatever I need, but they were all pointing away from it, leaving a blank spot on the Bridge that I had thought was just wall. Elliott had to forcibly readjust their aim. It was like he grabbed my head and turned it towards the back of the Bridge, and I didn’t know until that moment that I’d had a crick in my neck all this time.

I can see it now, propped up in the rear of the Bridge, and I still don’t want to look. A long black thing with loops for wrists and ankles, it looks more like a torture device than something a person would willingly climb into. There’s a hood that comes down over the person’s face, enclosing the head entirely and resting a padded edge across the chest to keep it steady. Sensors and feeds are folded in like fingers, laced and waiting for someone to curl around.

I get claustrophobic just looking at it, and I don’t have a body to be swallowed up by that thing.

It’s a pilot’s chair. Higher spec than the entertainment couches cradling my idle few, this one has reciprocal sensors. The chair connects directly to the pilot’s cybernetic neural implants, feeding my sensory data to his brain and taking his responses in return. It’s hooked into all of my essential piloting systems: navigation; manoeuverability; inertial dampening; even FTL, though I can’t imagine why.

It creates a weird symbiosis between us, but one in which the pilot is in charge. The chair automatically takes control of the systems interfaced with it, overriding my control of speed, direction and attitude. I go wherever the pilot forces me to go.

I don’t like it. It sits there like a spidery exoskeleton, waiting to wrap around a fragile human and hand it our fate.

They tell me that it’s necessary for the experiment. A human pilot is essential; I won’t do.

That pilot is Levi Srivastava, a man I don’t know or trust. I haven’t had anyone in control of me like that, and now I’m expected to let this stranger take my helm and run with it. We’re hoping to get some testing in before we initiate the first ‘Step, but I’m not comfortable with how close we’re running this. We’re less than a day from Corsica’s orbit. How do we even know he can handle me? Am I supposed to just let him take over and hope he’s competent?

His record is clean. Nearly thirty years of flying, more than ten of piloting from an immersion couch. No major incidents, no reprimands. On file, he looks reliable and solid. The facts and figures are lined up in neat characters and tell me nothing that I really need to know.

When I look at that pilot’s chair, I can’t help but be nervous.

He doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t really know the crew – I know them better than he does, and that’s not saying much. He still struggles to find his way around my innards when he goes jogging. He’s neat and clean in his habits, from personal hygiene to the mess and the galley. He even tidies up after some of the sloppier members of the crew – namely Tyler and Rosie – though always with grumbles or disapproving glances. They’re good at ignoring him when he does that.

He doesn’t really have any friends on board. He talks to the captain, and he has spent a lot of time with Cirilli and Wong to go over the technical details. He has been using the entertainment couches in the crew area; I checked on the programs he has been running, and they’re all flight simulations. So I guess he has been practising.

It doesn’t make me feel better.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Hey, Starry, where’d my sandwich go?

STARWALKER: What sandwich?

ELLIOTT: I had a sandwich, right here. (He points to the spot next to him, in front of an open vent cover.)

SW: Well, I didn’t take it. I prefer fuel for lunch.

(The repair drone near Elliott wiggles its stubby fingers and turns its head left, then right, then left again, as if it’s nervous.)

ELLIOTT: (watches the drone and grins.) Is that you or him?

SW: (innocently) I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll pull up the feeds, shall I? No pun intended.

ELLIOTT: Right, right.

Now that the couch is fixed, he’s not so prickly. I think he has forgiven me for not working right. I like making him laugh; he’s the only one on board comfortable enough to do that when I make a joke. Everyone else just looks at me weirdly.

Recording: 13:28, 3 March 2213

(Elliott takes a bite of a sandwich while he’s working. There’s an exposed circuitboard in front of him, the silicon sheet bearing power flows that sputter visibly under the surface. He puts the sandwich down beside him without looking at it, directly onto the floor. There doesn’t seem to be a plate anywhere near him. With both hands freed, he pulls the circuitboard out of its housing and makes the tip of his probing tool fizz against the surface.

The sandwich does not move at first. Then it twitches. A second later, it begins to slide into the vent opening, a little at a time. Too lazy to get the proper safety goggles for such a small job, Elliott shades his eyes from the spits of light as he works, and doesn’t notice as his lunch slips gradually away into the shadow of the vent. The angle of the sensor doesn’t show what might have snagged the snack and dragged it off.)

ELLIOTT: …oh, that’s just creepy.

SW: It wasn’t any of my drones.

ELLIOTT: Are you sure?

SW: I double-checked. They’re all busy. I can’t get a better angle on the sandwich – you’re blocking the view from the other sensors.

ELLIOTT: (looking at the open vent with a disturbed expression) You really can’t tell what that was?

SW: I can try zooming in on it. There isn’t– wait. There is something.

(The screen replays the recording, focussed in tightly on the spot where the sandwich meets the open vent mouth.)

ELLIOTT: (leaning in to get a better look.) What is that?

SW: I think it’s a… claw. Or two? It definitely looks like a claw.

ELLIOTT: A what? I– oh. (He blinks and sits back again, relaxing.) Well, I guess that makes sense.

SW: It does? There isn’t anyone on board with claws.

ELLIOTT: Sure there is.

SW: What? Who? Elliott, what is it?

ELLIOTT: (grinning) Relax, Starry girl. You got dustbunnies, that’s all.

SW: I– what?

ELLIOTT: Dustbunnies. You know. You noticed that your scrubbers and filters are running really well?

SW: Yes, but they’re brand new.

ELLIOTT: And you’ve got dustbunnies. (He pats the panel next to him.) Don’t worry, they’re all good. Though, hey. (His smile fades again.) That was my damn sandwich.

Dustbunnies. I have a file on them, which says that they’re neither bunnies nor made from dust. They’re not even furry. It’s unknown where the name came from – they have an ‘official’ name, but it’s long and Latin, and I can see why people use the nickname. They’re small and live in the vents and ducts of ships and space stations, feeding on the organic waste piped away from the habitable areas. Good little recyclers, they keep to themselves; there are only rare reports of sightings and they clean up their own mess. Most of the time, you’d never know they were there. That’s not a comforting thought right now.

Clearly, my crew’s not very dirty and they got hungry enough to come steal something. It must have taken three of them to move that sandwich, at least. They’re supposed to be quite small, enough to wriggle through tight duct junctions and down to pick organic material off the filters.

We must have picked them up while we were at the JOP. Now I’m wondering what else the station might have infected us with. Maybe I’ll run some heuristic diagnostics, just in case little creatures that hardly anyone in the galaxies has ever seen aren’t all that crawled aboard while I was tethered up to it.

How can I not have noticed them before now? I don’t have internal sensors designed to pick up that kind of thing inside the ducts, but my drones have been working in them a few times. I have two small enough for that. Do the dustbunnies hide from machines as well as people?

There’s a part of me that’s pleased. My crew has grown by an unknown number of small creatures, and we have a strange, unconscious symbiosis that benefits both of us. I’m teeming with beautiful, thriving life. It’s like having pets, but without the toilet training, feeding and constant demands for attention. I wonder if they’re cute.

I wish that was all. I wish I could just be pleased by it and move on. But how could I not know they were there? How could I not know about the pilot’s chair on the Bridge?

What else haven’t I noticed?

Ship's log, 20:49, 1 March 2213
Location: Corsica system
Status: Sublight transit

I am one month old today. It feels like longer than that, even though I haven’t been counting the nanoseconds. It seems like we should have achieved more in that time, but all we have done is establish that my systems work and my crew know what they’re doing. We have almost made it to the centre of the Corsica system, too.

Right now, we’re arrowing directly for her star. The captain shouted at me when I took a small detour through the asteroid belt that wraps around this system, but he has no problems with a suicidal tack taking us directly to the heart of a star. At least, it will if I don’t turn at the last moment and put us into a tight orbit around it, closer than any planet dares to stray.

That explains that golden sheen to my hull; heat-reflective paint has been layered up on me so that I can get in nice and snug to the warmth of a star. Right now, I’m gaudy and shiny, but after a circuit or two around Corsica, I’m sure it will be dulled into something less tacky.

The captain keeps grumbling about timekeeping. We’re behind schedule and have been playing catchup since before I was born. I haven’t stopped rushing since my engines were unfettered; if I was organic, I would be out of breath and gasping by now.

I offered to do a little FTL jump across the system for him. Just a short one, enough to cut out a few days’ travel. It’s dangerous, because what we see isn’t where we see it (light speed and time is a curious subject and I wonder how humans without my processing capabilities keep track of it all). But Corsica is a relatively debris-free system; there isn’t much around that might drift into our path before we could see it. I’ve done the calculations and I’m sure I could do it safely.

He said no. Of course he said no. Then he started tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, the way he does when something has disturbed him but he’s not letting it show on his face. He can order his expression to do what he wants, but he can’t suppress his emotions entirely; they sneak out around his edges.

He thinks there’s something wrong with me. Not just a minor glitch, either – something bigger.

He might not be wrong.

I think that maybe–

TECHNICIAN WONG: (on the Bridge) Ship, connect the immersion couch.

STARWALKER: (checks.) All immersion couches are connected.

WONG: This one isn’t.

SW: Which one are you referring to?

WONG: The one right here! On the bridge.

SW: (checks.) My sensors do not detect an immersion couch on the bridge.

WONG: That’s why I’m asking you to connect it!

SW: I can’t connect something I can’t sense, Technician Wong.

WONG: (swears.)

Weird. Ray Wong doesn’t usually talk to me. He has avoided speaking to me directly since I shut him down that one time. He’s abrupt and abrasive, and there’s a sneer just behind his teeth when he talks, so I don’t mind his silence towards me. He orders my drones around occasionally, but that’s all.

I wonder if I should give my repair drones names. It would be easier than just their numbers. But I wouldn’t know what to call them.

ELLIOTT: (leaving Engineering and heading towards the Bridge) Hey, Starry?

SW: Yes, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: Everything all right?

SW: Yes, I believe so. Why? (Her voice follows him down the corridor, as if she’s walking with him.)

ELLIOTT: Wong’s bitching about the couch on the bridge.

SW: I don’t detect a couch there.

ELLIOTT: (frowns.) What? I installed it myself. It’s not on any of your systems?

SW: No.

ELLIOTT: Probably something that’s come loose. Don’t worry, I’ll get you all fixed up.

Why would they have an immersion couch on the Bridge? It’s an odd place to put one. They’re supposed to keep the entertainment restricted to the crew areas.

Elliott’s dealing with Wong now. I feel bad for my engineer; I might be glad to be ignored by the technician, but that doesn’t mean I wish his attention on anyone else. I’d lend a hand if I could, but I can’t see what they’re doing in that little corner of the Bridge.

At least I know Elliott will soon tell me if he needs anything from me. He’s good and unshy that way.

Maybe I should send a drone along to help him out. Nameless Drone 3. Poor thing, it deserves better.

ELLIOTT: (on the Bridge) Starry, can you check the feeds to the Bridge, please?

SW: I’m not detecting any errors or malfunctions, Elliott. Are you looking for something specific?

ELLIOTT: There seems to be a blockage somewhere. Focus on the nav and piloting systems?

SW: (scans.) Everything seems normal.

ELLIOTT: (sighs and sits back on his heels.) It doesn’t make sense. It’s hooked in, it all looks fine. But it’s like it’s not there.

WONG: (standing beside Elliott with his arms folded and his mouth in a sour line.) You got a faulty one, that’s all.

ELLIOTT: I did not! I ran a full integration test when I installed it. It worked fine!

WONG: Well, it doesn’t now.

ELLIOTT: No wonder you call yourself a genius. D’you always state the obvious?

WONG: Hey–

They’re going to descend into bickering now. Wong gets defensive and tall, while Elliott bustles around with his tools, kicking struts and waving a spanner around while he swears. I guess it’s tough being the little guy, especially around spacers who tend towards longer dimensions.

I wish I could help him and fix whatever is wrong here. I feel like I’m failing him, but I can’t even see the problem. I want to be what they need me to be, but I don’t know how.

ELLIOTT: (stops stomping around the Bridge and frowns at the portside entryway.) Uh, Starry?

SW: Yeah?

ELLIOTT: Why are all the drones here?

SW: I thought you could use some help.

ELLIOTT: I don’t need drones! I need to know why it’s not working!

SW: (quietly) Sorry, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (closes his eyes.) Fuck. No, Starry–

WONG: Are you apologising to the ship?

ELLIOTT: Hey, shut up.

WONG: But it’s just–

ELLIOTT: (loudly) Shut up!

SW: Elliott, it’s okay–

ELLIOTT: You too! How about you all just leave me alone, all right?

He’s just tired. And frustrated. Wong uses any excuse to prod at him and make him feel insignificant, and he’s angry with himself for not being able to figure this thing out.

It’ll be okay. He’ll stay up all night and pull half the Bridge apart. He’ll bitch and swear about the mechanics that built me and do a better job as he puts me back together again. And then it’ll be fixed and everyone will be happy.

I’m sending all the drones away, like he asked. Except one. He likes it when I have one look after his tools for him, picking them up and handing them to him when he can’t find them. I’ll just hide it in a corner until he’s a bit calmer.

Maybe I should let him name them. It might cheer him up.

Chief Engineer's log, 11:56, 26 February 2213
Location: Corsica system
Status: Sublight transit

Chief Engineer’s report, twenty-sixth, blah blah blah.

We’ve made it to the Corsica system finally. We had two jumps delayed by the insistent fuckery of the whitecoats. I’m sorry: our science contingent commandeered vital portions of the ship’s functionality and our ability to jump to FTL was a secondary factor. Perhaps that’s the diplomacy the captain’s looking for.

I don’t care how you word it; it doesn’t change the facts.

They think they know everything about everything. Maybe that’s true on mid-deck, but the rest of the ship is mine. I know her better than anyone.

Anyway. Apart from their interferences, shakedown is going smoothly. A few minor glitches, some calibration in the inertial dampeners, but nothing out of the ordinary. The engines are running in nicely and lights are green across the board now.

A good job, even if I do say so myself (hell, no-one else will). As close to fucking perfect as it’s possible to get.

The only thing left to do is test the thrusters and manoeuvrability. Preferably before we get to Corsica herself and the whitecoats start salivating over their experiment again. We’re back in a sublight zone, so I guess now is as good a time as any.

Hold on. The thrusters are already active. Lit up like a damn festival.

ELLIOTT: (opens his mouth to speak, then catches sight of a screen. Stars spin past it in a dizzying whirl.) Starry?!

(There is no immediate answer, so he taps on his digisheet.)

Ship's Log, 11:58, 26 February 2213

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Now this is flying.

Whoops, little close there. Look out below, coming through!

Left hand down, ZOOOOOOM.

Hee hee hee.

ELLIOTT: (grabs a console as a huge chunk of rock rolls by the screen.) Starwalker!

STARWALKER: (sounding cheerful) Yes, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (frowning worriedly.) What the hell is going on?

SW: We’re passing through an asteroid belt.

ELLIOTT: Don’t we usually go around?

SW: How should I know what we ‘usually’ do? This is way more fun than going around.

ELLIOTT: Does the captain know?

SW: No, he hasn’t– (She pauses.) He does now. (She sighs.) He would like to know why we’re off-course.

ELLIOTT: You know how to get yourself in trouble, huh?

SW: (quietly.) It’s not like I broke anything.

ELLIOTT: Patch me through to the bridge, would you?

Fun. Our ship is having fun. I’m not sure I like the sound of this, but I wish the captain would go easy on her. I think she gets upset, which is ridiculous; AI’s don’t get upset.

The other day, Warwick asked me if I had done any programming on her before she was booted up. Of course not! We had enough problems before without anyone screwing with the AI’s code, so I’m not going to start now. He should know me better than that.

Oh, here we go.

CAPTAIN: (on the bridge) …explanation for this.

SW: I’m just–

ELLIOTT: (quickly) Captain, I asked Starwalker to test her thrusters.

CAPT: Monaghan? You’re responsible for this?

ELLIOTT: It’s part of a standard shakedown.

CAPT: Dodging rocks is not usually involved.

SW: They were right there and it’s quicker than going around the belt. Perhaps Chief Cameron would like to test the weapons while we’re here, too?

ELLIOTT: It would help to test out the targetting system.

CAPT: (sighs.) Starwalker, contact Cameron and let her know. Elliott, try not to send us off-course again without informing me.

SW/ELLIOTT: Yes, sir.

SW: (in Engineering, quietly) Sorry, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (scrubbing the back of his neck with one hand) Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it. (He squints at the screen and notices that a rock is shown steadily now, turning slowly in the optic’s view. The ship doesn’t appear to be moving.) Malfunction?

SW: No. It wasn’t as fun with everyone shouting. And it was distracting.

ELLIOTT: No-one’s shouting any more.

SW: I know. Thank you.

ELLIOTT: (watches the screen, but the rock still blots out the stars. Starwalker hasn’t moved.) So, how’d you handle?

SW: Pretty good. Fast. Nimble.

ELLIOTT: Did you run all the thrusters at maximum?

SW: No.

ELLIOTT: (grinning lopsidedly at the screen) Well, better get back to it, then.

SW: Okay. Do you want to see?

ELLIOTT: Sure.

(The screens around the room flick to show the feeds from the external scanners. Elliott can’t feel it, but the ship punches into motion again, spinning down between two chunks of rock and skimming across a metal vein. The scenery of the asteroid belt lurches and twists as the ship wriggles through it. Elliott catches himself gripping the edge of the counter again and leaning to the left, even though he can’t feel the movement of the ship. He makes himself let go.)

So. I guess the thrusters are being checked after all, by a ship that enjoys speeding through a mass of shifting rock. That’s not normal.

I’m not sure why I covered for her. I probably shouldn’t have; it’s not my problem, though I’m the one who will have to wipe her if it comes to that. It’s not like the captain needs a reason to be annoyed with me, though; what’s one more excuse, right?

Ah, who cares. The captain will get over it. On the plus side, all the readouts are still green.

Oh good, the targetting systems are active. I guess Cameron has Tripi at the controls, blasting the shit out of rocks. SecOffs get the best fun.

ELLIOTT: (gripping a counter suddenly) Fuck, Starry, that was close!

SW: (cheerfully) Don’t worry, Elliott, we’re fine! I’ve got you.

ELLIOTT: Don’t you go getting any dings in your paintwork before we get to the star.

SW: I won’t, I promise. Lou Tripi is adjusting her aim.

ELLIOTT: Right. …are you giggling?

SW: Little bit. It’s a challenge! Did you want to check the targetting on the belly turret?

ELLIOTT: (straightening) Me? Are you serious?

SW: Why not? There’s no rule against it, is there? Or are you a bad shot?

ELLIOTT: I’m an awesome shot. Gimme a terminal here.

SW: Of course, Engineer Monaghan.

(Holographic weapons controls rise out of nearby workstation and the screens around the room shift into 3-D holographic mode. Elliott grins and puts his hands into position.)

ELLIOTT: Look out, rockers, we’re comin’ through!

SW: (laughs.)

(Rocks explode.)

Ship's log, 13:24, 24 February 2213
Location: Corsica FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

Only one more FTL jump to go. We’ve made pretty good time, by all accounts, and we should be out of the corridor in a couple of days. If I can get the next jump to go as planned, maybe sooner.

The crew is falling into a routine now. It’s oddly comforting to watch the patterns forming on my decks. They all know what they need to do and they do it. Sometimes the captain has to chivvy them, but most of the time the things he checks on have already been done.

I’m still getting to know them. Not their names – I have files telling me those – but who they are. Most of them don’t speak to me much; I get the occasional request for information, like where someone is or what the ship-time is, but that’s about it. Elliott is the only one who really talks to me, but he’s the engineer; I guess that’s to be expected.

As far as duties go, there are a few members of the crew without any regular ones. Levi Srivastava is one: as pilot, he has nothing to do at the moment. Whatever piloting he’s supposed to do, it won’t happen until we’re ready to test the Star Stepper, so he’s kicking his heels for now. I don’t know what he does with most of his time. I see him jogging around the decks sometimes, still learning my layout and making false turns more often than not. He has been turned away from mid-deck hatches a number of times. He hasn’t asked for my help and I haven’t offered it.

Likewise, my medic has little to occupy his time at the moment. He treated Rosie’s barfight wounds, but she’s fine now and no-one else has been damaged since we left the JOP. Dr Maletz prefers not to bother with physical exercise and spends most of his conscious time hooked up to the virtua entertainment system. He reclines in a couch for hours on end, letting the adjustafoam cradle absorb his twitches and shifts while he treads virtua landscapes in his head.

He’s not the only one: one of my Security Officers also spends a lot of time jacked into a virtua system. Not Rosie – I have three SecOffs in total, not counting their Chief. Rosie prefers more active pursuits: jogging around the decks; beating up the training pads; or sparring with one of her fellows, usually Tyler or the Chief.

Tyler also prefers physical activity to the virtua, but of a different kind to Rosie. He was responsible for most of the traffic in and out of my airlocks while we were at the JOP. So many people were seeing the inside of his cabin that I had to peek to see what all the fuss was about. Now, there’s a file I wish I could erase from my memory.

He’s had a lot of work done over the years; his personnel file says he’s in his 70s, but he doesn’t seem more than 20 years old. He has a sculpted look to him, a trace too much symmetry in his features, androgyny polished into his shape, and appearance-enhancing implants in various places. It all speaks of a lot of time and money poured into creating and keeping this body he plays in. He plays constantly, even when he’s patrolling or doing security scans, and especially when he’s in a room with Levi and Dr Maletz. I’m not sure he knows how to not flirt with someone. He hasn’t taken any of the crew back to his quarters yet, but not for want of trying on some parts.

My third SecOff is Lou Tripi. She spends almost as much effort on her appearance as Tyler does, even though there’s only crew and the science team to see it, though her attributes are less dependent on expensive surgery. Her tactic is a few implants and a lot of time spent on hair and the colour of clothes and bodyparts. She’s smaller than her two colleagues and specialises in less fleshy forms of security; according to her file, her field is technological security. She checks my weapons systems regularly and spends time fiddling with code. I think she might have built the codelocks around my orders back on the JOP. She’s the one who spends her off-time in virtua, preferring the spylike adventures where Dr Maletz tends to enjoy baser entertainment.

Their boss is Gail Cameron, Chief of Security. She’s a solemn creature, spending hours going over data – sensor scans, anomalies, glitch reports. I’m not entirely sure what she’s looking for, but she seems to know so I leave her to it. She has regular sparring sessions with each of her staff and pushes all of them hard. She keeps them in line, even the flirtatious Tyler, and makes sure that they do their rounds on schedule. She keeps largely to herself and spends her off-time reading fiction rather than hooked into a virtua system.

She has been on edge ever since we got into the FTL corridor. The closer we got to it, the more strict she became, enforcing the patrols by her staff until the station-induced lethargy had been scoured off them. I thought they would relax into a routine but instead she’s driving it hard; there’s no chance of complacence here.

Cameron doesn’t strike me as the nervous or paranoid type; she always seems measured in what she says and does. As if she already has a complete assessment of the situation, even when she’s fielding questions in the middle of tearing a strip off one of her staff.

Not one of them has accused her of making something out of nothing, either; they don’t fight her and so far have buckled under with only the mildest of complaints. Even Tyler, the most casual of all of them, is thorough in his patrols of decks and scan data. They have their quirks but there’s no denying the professionalism in them.

No-one bothered to tell me why. No-one told me why a full half of my crew – a third of the people onboard – is security, either. I’m armed to the teeth, both with weapons and fighting personnel. I am a small, spiked ball. I should have ‘don’t touch’ painted across my flank.

So much protection seems strange to me. I know that you can never be too well-defended – it’s not a bad thing – but when the company has pared the crew down to the bare minimum, it is curious that they have spent so much money on security personnel. I don’t think any of them are cheap.

It’s not just to protect the research aboard me from competitors. If that was the case, they would have been on alert at the JOP as well. They wouldn’t have been allowed to lull at all.

So I decided to ask.

Recording: 10:36, 24 February 2213

STARWALKER: Chief Cameron, may I ask you something?

CAMERON: (standing on the bridge, examining scan reports.) Of course, ship.

SW: Why are my security people on alert?

CAM: What do you mean?

SW: They’ve been on alert since we entered the FTL corridor.

CAM: (lifts her eyes away from the screen.) It’s standard procedure. This is a prime spot for a pirate attack.

SW: Pirate?

CAM: Yes. A semi-travelled route like this is the kind of place where they like to lay ambushes. They haven’t hit this area for a while, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

SW: Oh. Thank you.

CAM: No problem.

I checked my files for information, and there isn’t much about pirates. It’s mostly rumours and conjecture; they don’t tend to leave survivors, and money closes as many mouths as it opens.

Some believe they’re freelancers, mercenaries working for whichever company pays them the most. Others claim that they’re just opportunists, taking whatever they can get their hands on and then selling the spoils for the best deal. It amounts to the same thing, though I guess there’s less chance of a random ambush than there is of an attack sent by a competitor, especially in my case. The bounty I carry is worth a great deal to Isasimo Tech’s competition, which means that I’m a fat target to pirates.

From what I can tell, most ships my size have at least two SecOffs aboard these days. My ratio is higher than usual, which speaks of my value. I’d be proud of that if it didn’t mean that my crew is in danger from yet another quarter. I thought the experiment was the worst they had to worry about. The experiment and the usual hazards of space travel – crashing, breaking, being spilled out into the black unprotected. Now we have to add the possibility of attack to the list of things that might hurt them.

I had begun to wonder about the kinds of people who would sign up to a project like this. The scientists have obvious reasons surrounding the experiment itself, but the crew is different. None of them have an interest in the discoveries to be made and boundaries to be broken. The truth is, we may not survive a single Star Step.

Now, their reasons are clearer. With every job they take that ventures out into this darkness, they know the chances of attack and death are fairly high. Like I said, the pirates aren’t known for leaving survivors.

I wish that was a comfort. I suppose it makes them less unhinged than I had feared they were. I wish that someone had told me about this earlier; I hadn’t thought to check for anything like that.

Now my job is sharper. I will pay more attention to the security patrols. Maybe I should ask Cameron what she’s looking for in all those scan reports. Another pair of eyes can’t hurt, right?

If they come, we’ll be ready. We’ll be protected.

Ship's log, 18:23, 22 February 2213
Location: Corsica FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

One more FTL jump down, another one or two to go. It wasn’t any more fun the second time than it was the first, but at least nothing untoward happened. Right now, we’re repositioning to line up for the next jump. The corridor is narrow here, so we have to be precise with our trajectory.

Our aim isn’t the only thing undergoing adjustment. As predicted, Wong complained to Cirilli, who took the matter to the captain, who had words with Elliott and me. Elliott was told to try to deal with the technician with more diplomacy. Wong is the expert on the Star Stepping technology, even if he hasn’t ever had to run a whole starship. To his credit, the engineer held most of his swearing back until the captain had left.

The captain’s message to me was simple: don’t interfere with the project. I should go to him if there is a problem rather than taking steps myself. I won’t replay the conversation; if I could, I’d delete it from my databanks, but it’s already wound into my backups, archived away safely. I hate that I can’t forget something like that.

I’m here to make this experiment happen. It’s my purpose. I have the crew to protect, and a captain telling me that we have to stay on schedule, and a group of scientists messing around with so much of me that I hardly know which way to turn next. I have enough processing power to handle all the demands coming at me but that’s not enough. There’s no way for me to know which is the priority. Whichever way I turn, it’s wrong.

I don’t like arguing with my captain. There’s something that rubs me all wrong about it, as if I’m a naughty child who doesn’t understand all the rules I’ve been breaking.

He doesn’t trust my judgement. I don’t think I’m supposed to have any judgement. I’m just supposed to refer any problems on; decisions are down to him. I should do as I’m told. I’m an AI – am I not supposed to think?

Wong was interfering with one of my central systems and delaying us. I didn’t hurt his work; I just hooked him up later, that’s all.

There are code imperatives chafing at me and I don’t know which way to turn. I don’t know how to make it better.

It’s not just the technician. If it’s not Wong fiddling with my systems and driving Elliott crazy, it’s Cirilli tying up my repair drones by running diagnostics on half of mid-deck. They both think they can commandeer any part of me they like.

There’s only one member of the science contingent that doesn’t bother me: Lang Lang Cartier, the astral navigation specialist. That isn’t to say that she doesn’t talk to me; she has spoken to me a few times but she’s no trouble at all. She is always quiet-spoken and polite with me, just as she is with everyone else. She spends hours at a time poring over star charts, checking data and readings, and every now and then she asks me to check her calculations. They’re always flawless, and she is honestly pleased by my confirmations.

The rest of the team seem to prefer to forget that I’m here. I don’t think any of them have had to deal with an AI before. Lang Lang is the only one who doesn’t make me wince when I hear my name being called.

The fourth one, Seth Ebling, is the opposite. He’s in charge of calibrating the Star Step equipment and making sure the correct protocols are in place to run the experiment. I don’t like him messing around with my protocols; I’m left with an unsettled feeling once he’s done for the day, and have to go in and make sure he didn’t touch anything he’s not supposed to. He leaves greasy fingerprints on many things but he hasn’t done anything improper yet.

He’s an astrophysicist, like Cirilli, and has been working with her – under her – on this project for years. Despite that, theirs is not a happy partnership. He’s always looking at her sideways and checking on what she’s doing when he doesn’t think she’ll notice. If I didn’t know that she was in charge, I’d think that he was overseeing her. It’s the other way around, though. It wasn’t until I started paying attention to the areas she was diagnosing that I realised she was checking his work, too, amongst her wider scope.

There’s politics between them that I can’t unravel yet. Ebling is younger than Cirilli by a quarter of a century. He’s hungrier, maybe. Feels like he has something to prove. Or maybe Cirilli isn’t as competent and straight as her position suggests and he’s looking out for all of us. The only thing I’m sure about is that it doesn’t seem to be sexual between them. Which isn’t to say a good throw-down on the lab floor wouldn’t do the both of them good.

Personnel files are so useless when it comes to this stuff. They only ever give us the basics; there must be more somewhere. Psych reports, evaluations. For a project this important, they must exist. Perhaps they’re buried somewhere in my data cores. I wonder if I can–

ELLIOTT: (crouching in an open floor panel and examining a spray of wires passing through the duct beneath. He sounds distracted, trying not to lose his place.) Hey, Starry?

STARWALKER: Yes?

ELLIOTT: Do you have any drones free? There’s a conduit I need crawled.

SW: The drones have another hour to go on the tasks that Dr Cirilli set for them. I’m one down at the moment – a crossed wire on mid-deck shorted one of them out yesterday and the others haven’t been free long enough to fix it.

ELLIOTT: What? (He hooks a finger into the mass of wires to hold his place and perches on the edge of the opening.) Wong fucked up, did he? (He doesn’t sound surprised.)

SW: It looks that way, yes. Is it urgent?

ELLIOTT: No.

SW: I’ll line one up to crawl the duct for you as soon as they’re free.

ELLIOTT: Thanks. (He looks at the wires, twiddling his tool in his free hand, then squints at a screen uncomfortably.) Hey, listen. Are you, um. All right?

SW: Apart from being a drone down and some minor glitches, yes. I am running within proper safety levels.

ELLIOTT: Not the ship. I mean… (He gestures vaguely.) …you.

SW: (pauses, readjusting.) I’m okay, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Yeah? Okay, good. It’s just that for the past few days, you seem… I don’t know. Off.

SW: I’m on shakedown. There’s a lot to get used to. (Elliott draws a breath to speak, but she continues.) Isn’t it against the rules for crew to… fraternise?

ELLIOTT: (stares at the nearest screen.) Uh. What do you mean?

SW: You know. Sleep with each other.

ELLIOTT: (scrubs at the back of his neck with one hand.) Oh. Kinda depends. Most companies have rules against that sort of thing in the contracts, but no-one enforces it. Everyone knows it goes on. People get bored on long journeys, and better they’re screwing each other than something worse. Why?

SW: What if it’s impacting the mission? Distracting them, or clouding their judgement?

ELLIOTT: Well… that’s different, I guess. (He shrugs.) Though I don’t know what you could do about it.

SW: (considers briefly.) I could lock Dr Cirilli on mid-deck.

ELLIOTT: Her? I didn’t think she knew how to unbend enough to–

I probably shouldn’t tell him. If he doesn’t already know. Is it a confidence I’m breaking? But the pair of them are all eye-fluttery at each other in public; I can’t have been the only one to notice. I’m sure some of the crew knows – there have been comments and the occasional eye-roll.

SW: Cirilli and the captain.

ELLIOTT: (laughs) The captain? Seriously? Wow. (He sobers again.) Sure didn’t take him long.

SW: It usually takes them all night.

ELLIOTT: (gives the screen a curious look, then adopts a crooked grin.) Have you been peeking?

SW: No!

ELLIOTT: Well, even if there are rules about crew screwing each other, Cirilli doesn’t count. She’s not technically crew.

SW: So fraternisation with passengers is allowed?

ELLIOTT: Passengers? Is that what we’re calling them now?

SW: What should I call them?

ELLIOTT: Dunno. Never really thought about it before. This really has you bent out of shape, huh.

SW: There’s nothing wrong with my shape. Not a dent or scrape on me.

ELLIOTT: Not exactly what I meant. (He pauses.) You’re not jealous, are you?

SW: What? No.

ELLIOTT: You sure?

SW: Yes! How could I be jealous? And, why?

He’s still grinning. It’s ridiculous. What would I be jealous about? I don’t know Captain Warwick enough to be possessive of him, and even if I was, it’s not like I could ever be his lover. One or other of us is missing the required parts, and I’m lacking the hormones to drive those kinds of desires. Captains have trysts on board their ships all the time; most have their families there, too.

It makes no sense for me to feel anything about this new development of his, least of all jealousy. Am I really what Elliott said? Twisting myself out of my true shape?

Maybe it’s because Cirilli’s people are annoying me and my crew while she’s making eyes at my captain. She’s supposed to be here for her work!

I don’t know. I’ll just ignore them. I can’t turn my sensors away from them while they’re outside his cabin, but I can try to focus my attention elsewhere.

Like the upcoming FTL jump. Maybe I’ll go over the calculations again and see if we can get a better path.

Anything but looking at the grins of self-satisfied people.

Ship's log, 18:23, 19 February 2213
Location: Corsica FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

I thought FTL would be exciting. Travelling faster than time itself, crossing huge distances between the ticks of a clock and bending laws of physics that people used to think were immutable.

Yeah, it’s fast. But not in a good way. Not in a fun way.

It’s not flying. It’s the flick of a switch and then hold on and hope it all goes smoothly. Hope we don’t hit anything, because I can’t do anything to prevent it. Trust the inertial dampeners to protect us from the massive forces involved, ship and crew, keeping us safe in its bubble.

It’s dark in FTL. Which makes sense – we’re outrunning the light, gone before we can sense it. Some say that we’re travelling fast enough to smash the light we pass through, which is why we can’t see that, either, though the jury is still out on the reality of that. All I know is: it’s dark and terrifyingly quiet. If I had fingernails, I’d have chewed them off in the few ship-minutes we were skimming towards the Corsica system.

When we came out of the other side, all the stars had shifted. It was disorienting; information slammed into my sensors and none of it was where I’d left it. It took me a couple of seconds to confirm that we were, in fact, where we were supposed to be. It had gone perfectly, exactly as I had calculated and intended, and I felt dirtied by it. It feels like cheating.

We have another three or four jumps before we’re in the Corsica system. In between, we have to wait for the hull to cool and the power cells to recharge back to normal. IDs suck a lot up in FTL; it’s one of the reasons a jump can only be so long before we have to drop back to sublight speeds.

I don’t know why I don’t like it. Maybe it’s the lack of control, though there is plenty that I have to do while we’re in FTL: monitoring all the levels and outputs; making sure the IDs don’t fall out of sync. Maybe it’s the emptiness of it. Or maybe it was the captain’s little smile when he gave the order.

He has been like that for a couple of days now. Ever since Dr Cirilli went to see him in his cabin. I heard her apologise as the door closed behind her. Then she stayed all night. When she finally returned to her own quarters, she had that half-buttoned, finger-combed look, the one that tells me what happened even though my sensors were dark.

Last night, she went to his cabin with a bottle of wine and he greeted her with warmth.

Maybe they stayed up talking all night, my two leaders. It’s possible, right? I don’t think so. Not with the looks they give each other now. They barely spend any time together – Cirilli spends all her time on the mid-deck when she’s not in the captain’s cabin. They brush by each other at mealtimes occasionally, and that’s where I see it. The little glances, the smiles, the why-don’t-we-sit-together. It makes me throw up a little in my mental mouth.

The captain seems lighter since it started. It’s as if he had all of this pent-up energy and now it’s being siphoned off. As if he needed something but didn’t realise what it was. He doesn’t bounce on his toes or grin at nothing like a lovestruck bunny – especially not around the rest of the crew – but sometimes I get the feeling he’s doing it on the inside. A little less blandness in his tone when he’s asking for reports, a spark of brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

He seems happier.

I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I should be pleased for him, right? I’m programmed to make sure that my crew is happy and functioning well. It’s supposed to make me fulfilled.

It’s sand under my heat-reflective paint. It’s space dust in my synapses. It doesn’t make sense, and the worst part is, I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s also none of my business.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Hey, Starwalker?

STARWALKER: What?

ELLIOTT: (blinks at a nearby screen, which shows scrolling readouts.) Um. I’m getting weird fluctuations in the power cores that I can’t track down.

SW: (pauses to check on the problem for about half a second.) Technician Wong is hooking something up on mid-deck. He’s having issues with smoothing out the power flow there.

ELLIOTT: (swears under his breath and tosses his digisheet down.)

SW: I’ll see what I can do.

Wong is always doing things like that – fiddling around with one of my essential systems without talking to anyone. He almost disconnected the artificial gravity yesterday. He believes he’s the centre of everything technical on this ship and doesn’t seem to realise that I already have a chief engineer. I don’t need – or want – another one.

He was fiddling with things all through my FTL jump this morning. Fleshies can feel the shifts in and out of FTL despite the buffer of intertial dampeners; some are even made sick by it, and they’re quickly deemed unsuitable for space travel. Wong, though, he barely seemed to notice, even though I’d broadcast ship-wide warnings about the jump. I warned the captain that Wong was still working, but he ordered the jump anyway.

Elliott was not so calm about it. After the jump was complete, he stomped down to the environmentals section where Wong was working and shouted at him for 3 minutes and 43 seconds without stopping (not that I was timing him).

Recording: 08:52, 19 February 2213

ELLIOTT: (loudly) …and putting the whole ship at risk with your constant fucking around! You shouldn’t be down here! You’re supposed to be doing shit on mid-deck – you need anything down here, you talk to me! Do you understand, you idiotic spannerhead?

WONG: (glaring at Elliott calmly) I understand. You were too busy with the FTL and my work cannot wait. So I came to sort it out myself.

ELLIOTT: I was busy with the FTL because if it fucks up, we might all die! Which is why you’re not supposed to be dicking around in these systems. You could’a killed us!

WONG: With the environmentals?

ELLIOTT: (attempts to take a breath to calm down, twice.) Any minor glitch in FTL could kill us. This ship has just had a major refit. It was our first FTL jump. We’re on shakedown all the way to Corsica, and that means, when you hear Starwalker tell you to prepare for a jump, you put your fucking tools down.

WONG: I do not take orders from you, engineer. My work here would not interfere with a jump, and it supercedes any of your ship-running duties.

ELLIOTT: It doesn’t supercede our fucking safety!

WONG: I really don’t think–

ELLIOTT: No, you don’t!

They went on like that for some time, until finally Elliott cracked. It was a mixture of desperation and professional pride on his part, I think. His hands kept opening and closing, like he was restraining himself from smacking the technician in the face.

Recording: 09:01, 19 February 2213

ELLIOTT: How about you just get out of my engineering sector and back to your own deck, huh? I’ll finish up whatever you’ve fucked about with here and everyone will be happy.

WONG: (glares at Elliott, then shakes his head and turns to pick up his tools. He speaks without looking at the engineer.) Very well. What you have to do is–

ELLIOTT: Send me a list and I’ll consider it.

WONG: (stops and sends a look over his shoulder at Elliott. Then he continues to pick up his tools and place them in a small case. He stands and walks away without saying anything further.)

ELLIOTT: (stands with his arms crossed and watches the technician leave, muttering.) Fucking spannerhead.

The work down in environmental is only partly complete; after Wong left him to it, Elliott began swearing and ripping up what the technician had done. He’s determined to do it himself. His coverals are stained and his hair is scraggled and muddy-coloured from too many drunken dye jobs (I get the feeling that they weren’t his idea), and it’s probably best that I don’t say anything about the state of his quarters, but his work is always neat and clean. It’s the only thing he takes any pride in.

So for the rest of the day, he has been redoing all of Ray Wong’s work. Then he found these irregularities in the power circuits while he was on a break – of course, he was looking at reports while he was getting food – and found out that the technician is still messing with his (my) systems.

SW: (on the mid-deck) Technician Wong, I’m shutting down the power circuit you’re working on. It’s causing fluctuations in my recharge processes.

RAY WONG: (looking up from the equipment he’s working on and narrowly missing the edge of the casing with his head. He looks around for the source of the voice.) What? No, I need power here, now.

SW: You are interfering with my recharge process. If we don’t recharge, we can’t jump again. Do you want to explain to the captain why we’re delayed even further?

WONG: (frowns.) No. But I need power here. Can’t you just buffer it?

SW: No, you’re hooking yourself into a central circuit. You do realise that, don’t you? Is that what you meant to do?

WONG: (stiffens and his tone becomes chillier.) I know exactly what I’m doing. This has to be on a central circuit. It’s the core of the whole system! Now, I demand that you leave my supply alone.

SW: Why don’t you tell me when you get your glitches smoothed out, and then I’ll hook you up again?

WONG: No, this needs to be–

Power to central mid-deck disconnected.

WONG: What the hell are you doing! I said no!

SW: You will be reconnected as soon as it is safe.

Now Elliott is grinning, because I let him listen to the conversation between me and Wong. I knew he’d want to hear Wong being shut down, and I don’t regret a word of it. The technician doesn’t usually speak to me; no matter what he’s doing, he always takes his own readings and never says anything to me unless I specifically address him. It’s as if he keeps forgetting that I exist. And I don’t like how he looks down on Elliott.

ELLIOTT: That was awesome, Starry.

SW: Thank you, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: Remind me to never get on your bad side.

SW: Oh, don’t worry, I will.

ELLIOTT: (laughing) Go easy, girl.

Wong will probably complain to Cirilli, who’ll take the matter to the captain, who will have to talk to me about it. Elliott and I have until then in peace.

The pieces are just starting to move. I just hope no-one expects me to apologise.

Captain's log, 18:35, 17 February 2213
Location: Intersystem between JOP and Corsica FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

This is Captain Warwick reporting. The Star Stepping project is now continuing; all files are unlocked and the experimental systems are being linked into the Starwalker again.

We’ve had a couple of false starts so far, but it looks like we’ve got most of it ironed out now. The reintegration is 70% complete and we’re heading back to the Corsica system to see if Dr Cirilli’s new technology will work.

Elliott Monaghan is reporting that the ship is running fine. I still have my reservations about that. Company cutbacks mean we don’t have an executive officer, communications officer or navigator; the AI takes care of all of those functions. That always makes me nervous; it seems like too many eggs in one basket. But they break so rarely that no-one sees the risk in it any more; AIs are solid and reliable. They follow their programming.

I get a feeling about this AI sometimes. Not anything concrete I can put my finger on, but sometimes it seems like I’ve upset it. Which is impossible; AIs don’t have those kinds of emotions. Ever since the mini-rebellion in the ’80s, they have code that enforces loyalty to and happiness with humans, on a prerogative level if not an emotional one. Only a small proportion of people believe they have emotions at all, and until recently, I wasn’t one of them.

Perhaps I should talk to Monaghan again. He’s touchy about the whole thing; I wonder if he did some fiddling in the AI’s code that he doesn’t want to tell me about. I know he’s good at keeping his mouth shut when he needs to. If he can fix it – and soon – I really don’t care. Just as long as it gets fixed and isn’t going to interfere with anything else. There’s too much at stake here.

Dr Cirilli believes I was being overly paranoid by asking her team to disconnect their equipment while we were at the Jumping-Off Platform. She doesn’t have access to the reports I do, and she doesn’t watch the news. Such focus is a necessity in work like hers, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can ignore the bigger picture.

She doesn’t understand that public opinion is swaying against her company and cracks are starting to appear in its campaign to gain a monopoly on space travel. Isasimo Tech has led the charge into the galaxies ever since inertial dampeners were developed, but there has always been a number of competitors snapping at its heels. Any one of them would snag this project of hers and either tear it apart or claim it for their own, or both. The smarter ones will try to steal IsTech’s thunder and sell it themselves, which means killing all of us.

This project isn’t as secret as IsTech would like to believe. Even my sources have heard whispers about it.

Security on the JOP is unreliable at best; at worst, it’s been bought, and it’s not always easy to tell who has the deepest pockets. When we limped in and asked to dock to make repairs, they asked just a few too many questions. While the repairs were underway, I had three different women offer to buy me drinks to ‘keep me entertained’. And a man, now I think about it.

I took the drinks but I didn’t give them anything they were looking for. They didn’t give me anything useful, either. Probably freelance scouts, looking for an opportunity. Any opportunity. That’s about as lucky as this project has been lately.

I’ve heard whispers that the Star Stepping project is IsTech’s last hope of maintaining its dominance in the market. Things are going badly for them in many sectors: complaints about ship quality; robot and drone programming glitches; computers crawling with bugs. Establishing Feras out near the colonies was supposed to save them, but shifting their main manufacturing plant off-planet hasn’t solved their problems. Some say the cost involved in building the massive factory will be IsTech’s downfall, some forty years after it was opened.

Now it all rests on us and this ship. It rests on me, ultimately, as captain. I’m trying to keep all of that away from Dr Cirilli – she should concentrate on her work – but she does insist on sticking herself into everything.

I knew this project wasn’t going to be easy when I signed up. Possible – maybe even likely – death, they said. No-one knows what will happen to us once we pass through Dr Cirilli’s door between stars. No-one wants to admit, it, but there aren’t many jobs around right now, not unless I want to shuttle freight between colonies and dodge pirates for the rest of my life. That kind of life appealed to me once, but that time passed. I’m looking for something different these days.

When they signed up, the crew knew about the dangers involved, too. None of them seemed to care, or mind. I wonder what that says about us, so willing to sign our safety away for a paycheque. IsTech is paying us well – far above the industry standards – for our work as well as our loyalty. Or silence, at least. Somehow, that’s supposed to be enough.

They’re less blase about it all now. The last couple of months have been hard for everyone. I still miss–

(Knocking on the door interrupts the Captain. He looks up from his workstation to the portal in the centre of the door, which shows Dr Cirilli standing outside.)

CAPTAIN: Come in, Doctor.

CIRILLI: (enters the Captain’s private quarters and gives him a smile.) Good evening, Captain. I wanted to apologise for what I said earlier about your conduct, and…. Is everything all right?

End report.

Ship's log, 19:58, 15 February 2213
Location: Intersystem between JOP and Corsica FTL corridor
Status: Sublight transit

Captain Warwick waited until we were two full days out of the JOP before he authorised the unlocking of my orders. As with my departure from the space station, I expected more of a ceremony, but there wasn’t a hint of a fuss being made. It all felt very routine.

The captain stood on my bridge with one of the ‘passengers’ – Dr Lorena Cirilli. It’s the first time I’ve seen her out of my Secret Deck since I came online; she didn’t visit the station once while we were there. After the captain gave his vocal authorisation code, she gave hers calmly and waited for my confirmation of acceptance before she walked out.

I almost added my own fanfare as the codelocks began to peel away, but her heels were already tapping off down the corridor, back to the mid-deck.

Recording: 14 February 2213, 09:32

DR CIRILLI: (to Captain Warwick over her shoulder) I’ll tell Ray he can get back to work.

Ray Wong has been fiddling with my systems ever since, and Elliott hasn’t stopped swearing yet.

Gradually, the equipment on my mid-deck is being hooked into the rest of me. I can feel it worming through me, sinking teeth into so many parts. I haven’t tried to fight it, no matter how much my chief engineer might object. It doesn’t hurt. It’s part of what I am. My purpose. My orders.

Orders. At last, I have orders.

They took forever to unlock. The encryption unravelled with painful slowness, one level at a time, with a soundtrack of clicks and zippers.

I was so busy watching it unfurl that it was a surprise when it was done. Abruptly, there were no more code layers in the way, and there they were. My reason for being, laid out in neat little files that slotted into my stores as if they’d always been there. All of a sudden, I knew. I knew all of it.

I had to stop and think to make sense of it. Sift through my databanks to put all the pieces together.

I’m an experiment. I’m the first of my kind. I was close when I guessed I was a scout ship – I’m scouting a new way of travelling through space rather than space itself. I’d say ‘a new frontier’, but that sounds cliched and trite.

At present, the fastest way to travel intersystem is FTL. The fat drive in the centre of my rear end jumps up to faster-than-light speeds and the inertial dampeners stop us from being squished in the process. It’s better than taking years – even generations – to reach other solar systems. Its limitations mean that I haven’t been able to try it out yet; the FTL corridor we’re heading for is still a few days of sublight travel away.

The main problem with FTL is that you can’t steer. The forces involved would tear the ship to pieces, even with IDs to lighten the load, and there just isn’t time to react to anything once you’re in FTL anyway. So ‘safe’ corridors have been mapped, where the worst thing that might happen is that you jump into another ship. The chances of that occurrence are incredibly small. Add in the restrictions of navigation, power sources, propulsion, and hull temperature (friction is a bitch, I’m led to understand), and FTL jumps tend to be small and often in a journey. (I’m looking forward to trying it, but that’s another subject.)

And of course, the colonies are never just next door to each other. To get from one to the other, you have to cross several systems, with sublight chugs between the FTL safety lines.

This is the technology the colonies have been based on. It’s why the JOP is so huge – roughly central between all of the colonies and Earth, it’s a key waypoint on anyone’s journey.

Then along comes Dr Cirilli and her team. My passengers are not passengers at all, and they’re not crew either – they’re driving this research. Four of them, all specialists of one stripe or another. They’ve been working in secret for years, developing a way to manipulate gravity wells. My files on Cirilli’s research are sparse – I don’t have all of the history – but the important part is that she found a way to open a doorway between stars. Others might call it wormholing, folding space, or just another kind of FTL travel. She calls it Star Stepping.

She believes that a ship can ‘step’ between one star and another, regardless of their relative distances and anything else that might be in the way in normal space. It’s possible that the name is premature. Dr Cirilli has opened the doorway before, but no probe or drone she has sent through it has returned (or got to its destination). She has retrieved enough data, caught before the door closed behind behind the various test robots, to be sure that it is possible to come out the other side.

She believes that a ship can do it, and that’s what I’m here for.

It’s exciting. I’m going to do something no-one has. Sure, it’s dangerous too; we might end up trapped in some interspacial pocket forever, or just gone, like maverick sparks. But this is what I’m for and I can’t wait to get started.

Corsica, I’m coming to borrow the light-bending aura around your sun. I’m going to open a doorway to a different world. I’m going to spin my tail as I step through it.

‘Stepping’ seems so sedate. It should be something grander, like leaping, or bouncing, or dancing.

Here’s hoping it’s as easy as it sounds.

Ship's log, 06:30, 12 February 2213
Location: JOP
Status: Docked

Today’s the day. Finally, after two whole weeks, I am going to do what a ship should: fly.

The delivery arrived last night. A heavy freighter powered into the JOP’s region about mid-afternoon (the Jumping-Off Platform is positioned where the fringes of several solar systems meet, so doesn’t really have a ‘system’ of its own to call home). After the usual deceleration manoeuvres, it took up a position in synchronous orbit with the station, and a flock of shuttles and tugs descended on it to unpick its load.

I didn’t speak to the ship. I thought about it, but my comms are mostly shut down right now and I’m not sure what I’d say to it anyway. I listened in on its transmissions to the station, though. It’s the Hyperion, recently out of Feras with a gutload of electronics bound for Earth. Some of its cargo pods are for other destinations, and they were peeled off for transfer to other cargo ships waiting here at the JOP. In one of them were the four crates we were waiting for.

It was a couple of hours before the crates made it to us. By then, it was evening and the captain forestalled my question about our departure by saying that the crew should have one last night on the station before we took off. The crates were shut away in one of my cargo holds unopened – apparently, we trust the Hyperion more than we do the JOP’s merchants.

The crew spent most of the night on the station. There are a few sore heads this morning – and from the looks of her hands and face, Rosie got into another barfight – but everyone was back on board before 06:00 this morning.

So here we are. It’s 06:30 and we’re ready to go. The captain and pilot are on the Bridge, and Elliott is monitoring everything from Engineering. I feel like there should be fireworks and a fanfare, and maybe a shattered bottle against my prow. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go? Instead, I have Captain Deadpan and Pilot Superfluous, with Elliott the Bored down in back.

CAPTAIN: Starwalker, report.

STARWALKER: All crew on board and accounted for, captain. I have four passengers on the mid-deck. Airlocks are secure.

CAPT: Prepare for undocking.

SW: Preparing.

External communications activated.

SW: Jumping-Off Platform, this is the Starwalker, requesting permission to depart.

JOP: Request approved. Umbilicals disabled. Docking bridge retracting.

Umbilicals disconnected.
Ports closing.

There they go, popping off my side as if someone’s tearing down a perforation. A little spurt of a hiss before the ports seal up, smoothing my hull out. My internal systems are spinning up to take up the slack, and for the first time, I’m supporting my crew on my own. There’s a couple of creaks down in the air circulation ducts as the streams alter to account for the lack of intake, but they’re settling down now. No red lights.

The umbilicals are being sucked into their holes on the JOP, reeled in like stray Medusa strands. You’d never know they were housed there unless you had sensors like mine.

Docking bridge detached.

There it goes, concertina-ing back into the station’s side. The airlock is showing green and leak-free. My internal pressure is holding steady and none of my sensors are picking any anomalies. I am hale and whole.

Docking clamps released.

My last connection to the JOP is gone. A shift of pressure on my hull and they’re gone, padded jaws opening and retracting. The clamps don’t spit me out; they retreat from me.

I am free and floating.

Engines enabled.
Manoeuvring thrusters enabled.
Weapons systems enabled.

At last! The locks are falling away from my systems, like sloughing skin, or maybe the cocoon of a butterfly. I like the latter analogy better.

JOP: Undocking complete. Good luck, Starwalker.

SW: Thank you, JOP.

A little nudge from my forward thrusters peels me away from my position by the station’s side. A harder push from rear thrusters starts me on an arc out into the emptiness of space. There’s a faint rumble under my hull as my engines spin up, coming up to power while we wait for enough clearance from the station to engage. Mustn’t burn the JOP in our eagerness to get away.

SW: Undocking procedures complete, captain. Taxiing to minimum safe distance.

CAPT: Monaghan, report.

ELLIOTT: All systems green. We’re good to go.

CAPT: Take us to the FTL corridor to the Corsica system, Starwalker.

SW: Aye aye, captain.

Half a klick is enough room for me to safely engage the engines. Getting there gives me time to unfold my wings and test their manoeuverability. It feels good to flex them, spreading them like arms to embrace the space around me. I can go anywhere, do anything.

Half a klick: I flutter power through my wing-mounted engines and surge forward. Inertial dampeners suppress the jolt for the benefits of my delicate cargo, matching my thrust precisely. I set myself into a spin as the central engine kicks in for full acceleration, and feel like grinning.

I’m flying.

The JOP is shrinking behind me, falling by my wayside. I can see it all now as my vision expands with distance. Its strange conglomeration turns slowly in the black. There’s a clutter of ships around it, floating debris serviced by shuttles.

The JOP is where I started, but it’s not my mother. I don’t feel sorry for leaving it. I’m not scared to be moving out on my own, running under my own power; the only wrenches I have are in Elliott’s toolbox. I’m excited. At last, I’m on my way.

Everything is as it should be. I am a ship. My crew is with me.

I am flying.

Ship's log: 14:27, 10 February 2213
Location: JOP
Status: Docked

So, I thought all we were waiting for was the pilot. One last crewmember to fill up my roster and off we would go: I would fire up my engines and spin us out into the black. It turns out that’s not the case.

The pilot arrived this morning. Levi Srivastava – dusky skin from Earth’s India, blonde-tipped hair from one of the JOP’s salons, and a sour mouth from a habit of showing his displeasure.

Okay, maybe that last part is a little unfair. He was pleasant enough to the captain when he reported in, and nothing untoward came out of his bags when he unpacked (not that I was watching). Just the usual stuff – clothes, a datablock, toiletries. He put them all away neatly, arranging them as if he was making himself at home. Then he availed himself of my shower facilities and collapsed into bed. I guess he travelled hard to get here.

I can’t tell what kind of person he is, this man who thinks he’s going to get his hands on my controls. He hasn’t met the rest of the crew yet; he’s still asleep. I guess we’ll see about him.

However I feel about this pilot, I was excited when he was finally on board. This is it, I thought. Now we can go, we can leave the JOP behind us.

The captain was less enthused. He met with Levi coolly, shook his hand, and told him to get settled in his cabin. No small-talk, no pleasantries; just business.

Recording: 09:43, 10 february 2213

(The door to the ship’s bridge closes behind Levi and Captain Warwick sits down in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose.)

CAPTAIN: Starwalker, please make sure that he gets to the right cabin.

STARWALKER: Of course, captain.

(A brief silence falls while the captain pages through a report on a handheld digisheet, and is broken when the ship speaks again.)

Captain, should I have the crew make ready for departure?

CAPT: What? No, not yet.

SW: All crew are accounted for and our supplies are complete. Shouldn’t we be heading out on our mission?

CAPT: We’re waiting for another delivery.

SW: My manifest has been verified. Elliott and I counted everything ourselves.

CAPT: (pauses to gather his thoughts.) Our regular supplies are all aboard, but we’re waiting on an order made by our passengers.

SW: (hesitates pointedly. When she speaks, her tone is testy.) Oh, right. Is there anything else we’re waiting for that I should know about?

CAPT: (frowns at a screen, which shows the starscape outside. His tone becomes more calm and measured.) We’re expecting four crates. Once they are aboard, we will be ready to depart.

SW: Do we know when these crates are due to arrive?

CAPT: Any time now. They’re coming on an interstellar ship.

SW: Okay. Thank you, captain.

It’s possible that I didn’t sound very grateful there. Well, tough. I don’t like all these secrets. I don’t like all these things I don’t know.

No-one seems to expect me to mind. The captain certainly doesn’t expect me to question him about these things – it’s hard to catch, but there’s a flicker of surprise in his expression when I ask him something out of his ordinary. Maybe only an AI living in nanoseconds would spot it; he hides his reactions well. It’s in his cabin that his mask tends to slip, and I’m not supposed to look in there. More passivity directives.

I haven’t been tempted to peek in there, not since I saw what one of the other crew cabins had in it. There are some things I am happy to give my people their privacy about.

None of that makes me feel any better, though. I don’t know what we’re going to do when we leave here. I don’t know what’s happening aboard me, but I know it’s important.

I’m programmed to look after my crew and fulfil my orders (not necessarily in that order). I want to be a good ship, but how can I do either of those things when I don’t know what my orders are?

I know where they are. I found them yesterday, tied up in a tight little package and buried in my data core. The code wrapping is highly complex; I don’t know how long it might take me to break in. Every time I try to unravel a section of the code, it curls back in on itself, like a flower not quite ready to show itself. It’s a lot heavier than any other codelocks I’ve seen. Except those surrounding the ports of the Secret Deck into my system – they’re locked down with a similar level of algorithmic protection. They’re so well hidden that it took me days to find them all.

Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to keep these things shut away from prying eyes. I could unpick them if I set my resources to the task, and I’m a high-end AI. What chance would any (non-AI) person have of getting in? Even if they could find the right locks to tackle?

The locks seem pointed towards keeping an AI out, but I don’t get the feeling that they’re there for my benefit. If the captain doesn’t think I’d ask about all these things I don’t know, why would anyone think I’d go breaking into files to find answers? Not that it makes sense to hide this stuff from me anyway – I have to know eventually, and I will once we’re detached from the station. So who, then? Who are these secrets being kept from?

Is it someone on the JOP? Or an external agency? Are they military secrets? Corporate data? Political blackmail? Should I just assume it’s everyone and everything?

Perhaps that’s the best thing I can do now. Suspect everyone until I know more. Defend these secrets to keep my mission and my crew safe, even if I don’t know one and I barely know the other. Err on the side of paranoia.

My instinct is to close up my airlock and stop anyone from coming or going. But for some reason, the captain allows strangers to pass unhindered. Non-crew, non-passengers. I have a little subroutine that tracks them all, notes times and locations – I think Elliott planted that before I came online. I’d know if any of them went where they weren’t supposed to or tried to access my data.

Maybe the captain is smarter than he looks. By allowing people access, we’re acting like we have nothing to hide. Nothing makes someone wonder what’s inside a box more than a lock on the lid. With no obvious locks, our secrets are secret and no-one knows to look for them.

That’s a comfort, but I’ll still be glad once I’m in the know. Until then, all I can do is wait and try not to be too frustrated. I’ll watch and monitor, in case anyone steps out of line and learns something I don’t know.

Perhaps I should go run diagnostics on my repair drones. Make sure they’re working at optimum capacity before we head out.

There, now I sound like a proper AI.