by White, Gwynn
Another time, maybe.
We’ll all get to play after this run.
7
I stare at the plans for the STS Nova for the twenty-eighth time—I know, because my data banks are keeping score with how many times I’ve looked through them. I just want to be absolutely certain of where everything is on the ship and commit the schematics to memory—the human part of my brain.
It’s after 0000 hours, and everyone is asleep, ready for the mission tomorrow. Everyone except me, because I can’t sleep, not with it looming over my head like this.
I’ve been over everything multiple times, trying to account for all possibilities and anything that could go wrong. I know where on the ship I’m supposed to downloot the patents for Syn-Tech, I know how many steps it takes to get from the server to the airlock, and I know where I can access backups of the information. It’s all there. It’s all for me to figure out.
It’s not just because Louis has put me in charge of the run; it’s because I have the crew’s lives riding on me, and I don’t want to let them down. I can’t let down them. I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it otherwise. There’s always an element of risk with these runs, and this one seems to be easier than ever, but…
They’re depending on me.
“Your data banks must have stored those schematics even when you downloaded the brief. Why are you insisting on looking at them so much?”
I look up to see Orion peering over at my station on the bridge. His hands are in his pockets again, his unnatural eyes watching me curiously. Embarrassed, I lick my lips and swipe my screen away to my desktop, a photo from a beach on old Earth.
“I wanted to memorize it,” I say. “You know, in case my computer brain fails me.”
He cocks his head. “No, I do not know.”
Self-consciously, I tug at my ponytail, wondering if I’d insult the android by saying that I don’t trust my computer brain. Then I wonder why I’m so worried about offending a robot. That’s all he is, right? I need to stop thinking about him as a man. I need to stop thinking about him as a him.
So I charge forward. “Let’s say something gets fried up there—I just want to make sure that I’ve done everything to make sure that no one gets killed.”
“Why do you think your processor would get destroyed?” He sounds genuinely interested.
“Murphy’s Law.”
“Who is Murphy?”
I blink for a moment before chuckling, passing my left hand over my face. “I don’t even know. It’s an expression—an old one. I think he was a guy from Earth way back when. But anyways, it means that what can go wrong will go wrong.”
His eyebrows pinch together. “If you think this mission will go wrong, Clementine, then you should pull out of the agreement.”
“No, it’s not going to go wrong. It’s just that—” I grasp at what to say, because in a way, he’s right. If I truly believed someone would die, I should call off the job. 300 million Space Yen isn’t worth our lives. “I think it’s just my paranoia is getting to me. I don’t want to fail Captain Louis. Or the rest of the Pícara.”
As if in answer, the ship groans around us.
Orion pointedly ignores it. “It is a very human reaction to believe that the worst will happen. Up until recently, humans only had one incarnation of their bodies. If they lost a limb, it would be gone for the rest of their lives.”
The fingers of my cyborg hand twitch in reply, reminding me that my body has been through some trauma, even if I can’t remember it.
“Besides,” Orion continues, striding to me, “we currently have a 97.6% chance of success with this mission.”
“It was 97.4% earlier,” I say, confused.
He flashes a devastating grin. “It went up. I found a route to the STS Nova that gets us there thirty-seven minutes earlier than initially planned, so that tips the scales in your favor.”
I nod distractedly. “That’s good. I just—”
“You care,” Orion says. He glances at the screen, where our estimated time of arrival is less than seven hours. “And you should rest. At this rate, staying up any later will be a detriment to your mission as you will be too tired to think clearly.”
I nod with a sigh. “You’re right.”
“I am an android programmed to calculate the best way to proceed. I’m always right.”
I watch him for a moment, wondering what’s happening in that head of his. He’s obviously not as nervous as I am about tomorrow. To him, tomorrow is just another set of probabilities and odds, a trajectory that is always changing and needs to be recalculated. On a base level, it doesn’t matter to him who comes out alive or not, possibly not even his own survival, because he can just be remade.
Still though, I can’t help the thrill that runs through me as he pats my left shoulder. For an android, his hand is softer than my own cyborg parts. You wouldn’t know he wasn’t human with your first encounter.
“Just make sure that we keep that head start,” I say, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “I’d hate to wake up and realize that we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”
“What is—”
I wave off his question as I stand. “It’s another expression, and that one I don’t know. But it’s something you say to mean, well, that we ended up where we’re not supposed to be.”
He frowns. “We are on the correct course.”
“Forget I said anything,” I say. At the exit, I stop and turn back to him, fascinated at his silhouette as he stands in front of a kaleidoscope of stars streaking past us. He cuts an intimidating figure, and I wish I were more artistic so I could draw this version of him. He looks like a work of art.
He realizes I stopped and looks at me again, his expression unreadable. Of course it would be. He’s an android.
“Thank you, by the way,” I say finally.
“For what?”
“For sending me some money the other night,” I say. “You didn’t have to do that, and it helps out so much, and with the big payout for this job, maybe I don’t need it anymore—”
“I wanted to,” he says softly, and I stop blubbering, blinking at him. “I don’t need much, and I can’t imagine having a hole in my leg.” He taps his own right leg, which is in far better condition than most humans. He’s corded with manufactured muscle, making him a fine specimen of a man. If he were a man.
“Still, though,” I say, trying to fill the silence. “Thank you.”
He tilts his head in my direction. “You’re welcome, Clementine.”
My temperature in my core spikes again, and my cheeks flush red. I turn and walk out before I can say anything else stupid. He’s right—I should sleep so that I can be at the peak of mental performance tomorrow.
Everyone’s depending on me.
I can’t help but take a detour as I head back to my quarters, and I make my way to Captain Louis’s quarters. The door is open, weak bluish light spreading across the floor of the hallway.
He’s still up.
I give a rap on the door frame with my mechanical hand, the metal-on-metal clinking sound louder than I expected.
“Enter,” comes Captain Louis’s voice from within.
I take a deep breath and enter his quarters. Like me, his space is sparsely furnished, although it is markedly bigger. He has a bigger bed than I do, and he has more succulents on the shelves and in the corners of his room, like he’s trying to make his own Earth here. I heard a long time ago that humans like to be around nature, which is hard to do because we live in the vacuum of space. Louis was the first to give me my own succulent, telling me that I had my own piece of old Earth with me. Whenever I see them at spaceports now, I snap them up, even though they cut into my water rations.
Good thing they’re hardy plants.
Louis is at his desk, and he casts a wary glance in my direction. “Ah, Clementine,” he says grimly, “I thought you’d be up.”
My mechanical fingers run along the edge of a leaf as I watch
him. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
“Neither can I.”
There’s the ghost of a smile on his face. “Orion said that someone was on the bridge. I assume that was you?”
“Yeah. I wanted to remember the Nova by heart. In case something happens.”
He sighs, the smile broadening. “Good girl. That’s why I know you’ll make a great captain someday.”
My heart twists inside my metal ribcage. So that is why he’s having me lead this run. I bite back my initial response, telling him that there is no Pícara without him, that I wouldn’t able to go on in his stead if he weren’t a part of the team. Instead, my mechanical side slips some serotonin which immediately calms me down, and I can sort through my emotions, finding the nugget I need to keep this conversation going.
“I’m afraid of letting you down.”
“No, Clementine,” Louis say enigmatically, tapping his temple. “You’re afraid of letting everyone down. And that’s what’s going to make you a better leader than me someday.”
I cross my arms and lean against the wall. “PC’s upset, you know.”
A pained expression crosses Louis’s face, but he quickly masks it over. “He’s too impulsive, too selfish at the moment. He’s more concerned about himself, whereas you are more altruistic in your decisions and your reactions. You’re what makes a good captain. He’s what makes a good secondhand man.”
“He won’t like hearing that.”
Louis chuckles as he turns off the screen to his mini-tab. “Good thing you’ll be captain at that point. You can deal with him then.”
“When do you think that will be?” I blurt out, but I quickly smooth it over. “Not that I want you to stop being captain, but it’s so that I can…prepare.”
He shrugs. “Not sure, Clem. I don’t want to give up the Pícara any time soon, but I am getting up there in my years. You can’t downloot forever, and you’d do well to remember that yourself. The more you do these runs, the bigger the chance of something bad happening.”
“That’s not comforting, knowing what’s happening tomorrow.”
He winks at me. “That’s why you’re going in doubly prepared.”
I wring my hands together, thinking about everything. “And if I don’t do well tomorrow?”
“Well,” he drawls, leaning back, “then I’ll have to get different plans. That’s the thing with life, though—it never goes in a straight line. You have to keep moving, keep adjusting to make sure you end up where you’re supposed to be. Not where you want to be—because you may not even know that yet. But I have faith in you.”
“Thank you, Louis,” I say softly.
His gaze drifts to the wall where there’s a photograph pinned to the wall. It’s one of those old-timey ones, actually printed on real paper. It shows Louis, PC, and me at Zona Rica, a corporation’s vacation world. We all look much younger, and I barely even recognize myself, with my bright eyes and bubbly demeanor.
“I’ve raised you and PC since you were children,” Louis says, describing my thoughts. “You never owed me anything for it, but I want to say that you two have done me proud. Regardless of what happens, I am proud of you, Clementine.” He turns back to me. “I’m proud of the woman you’ve become.”
Woman, not cyborg. And the distinction is enough to make me smile at him. “Thank you again.”
“Now,” Louis says, “I’m sure you’re in here because Orion told you to go to bed. And, for once, I agree with him.”
I snicker softly. “You know your android too well.”
“I programmed him to be pragmatic.”
A little too pragmatic at times. And, despite myself, a yawn comes over me, and I cover my mouth with my hand as I let out a little groan.
“And it seems that he was more than right in your case,” Louis muses.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, turning to leave. “All right, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“And, Clem?”
I look back at him.
He opens his mouth to say something—and I suspect that it’s three words I’ve only heard him say once, and that was when I had the meningococcal bacteria so bad, they all thought I was going to die from necrosis. I lost more of my upper arm thanks to that little sickness. But Louis’s mouth shuts with a snap, and he only nods at me.
“Good luck tomorrow.”
I want to say those words, too, but it doesn’t feel appropriate. “Thanks, sir,” I say.
And I head back to my quarters, where I lie awake, looking up at the ceiling and wondering how I’ll handle being a captain with everyone depending on me 24/7, when I’m freaked out about one mission.
Tomorrow is going to be…interesting…
I just hope I’m ready.
8
Clementine, come to the bridge.”
I swim out of an uneasy sleep. No dreams last night, for which I’m glad, as I don’t want to have nightmares about the crew dying. I didn’t sleep very well, but at least I had nothing lurking in the shadows of my brain, computer or otherwise.
I roll on my back with a groan and rub a palm over my eyes to wipe the sleep away from my right eye. The left eye is already alert and feeding me information, such as the temperature in the room, the humidity, the time, and how much sleep I’ve already gotten.
At first, I think I just dreamt Orion had called me. Then his voice fills my quarters again, more insistent this time.
“Clementine, please come to the bridge. Immediately.”
I glare at the ceiling like he can see me there.
“Why?” I ask. It’s 0915, making us at least an hour out from the STS Nova. My alarm is set for twenty minutes from now—and I had planned on a breakfast to keep all of us sharp and ready.
So why the hell am I being woken up early?
“We have come out of FTL earlier than planned,” Orion tells me. “There is something that you and Captain Louis need to see.”
I hesitate. “What is it? Is it life threatening?”
“You have to see it.”
So obviously not life threatening, but then what is it?
“Cryptic android,” I mutter to myself as I pull on my work clothes that I discarded on the floor from the night before. Laundry day isn’t for another few days, so I’m relegated to wearing my clothes more than once. Such is the life of a space pirate.
I pull my hair back into a ponytail and quickly check myself in the mirror. I look like shit. Great way to start today.
I hobble to the bridge, running my fingers along the hallway. No one else is up yet to intercept me, so Orion must have called only Louis and me. Just great.
The door opens to the bridge, revealing that Louis is already there, looking out the window with Orion. The captain’s expression is pulled into a deep frown as he looks outside. If I look like shit from not sleeping well, he looks even worse. I don’t think he got a wink of shut-eye last night.
“What is it?” I call out.
They both whirl to me, as if they had been lost in their thoughts.
Orion is the first to recover. “It is what we do not see.”
“What do you mean?”
Orion’s fingers fly across the keyboard, and the map that Syn-Tech supplied us for the location of the STS Nova is overlaid on the window in front of us, showing a translucent hologram meant to label where we are in the galaxy. I freeze, seeing what is supposed to be there, and I shake my head as it doesn’t make sense.
“There’s supposed to be an asteroid field here?”
“Yes,” Louis says grimly. “This is where the Nova was supposedly crippled by an asteroid. This is supposed to be why the ship can’t fly on its own.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “Why isn’t it here?”
“I doubt there ever was an asteroid field here,” Louis says. He frowns even deeper. “Which means that Maas lied to us. Orion, overlay the flight path for the Nova.”
A few clicks and an orange streak draws itself right over
our own trajectory, showing us that we’re on the exact same route the Nova had taken. Towards the blackhole.
A strange feeling seizes me. Fear? Or something else.
“What do you make of it?” Louis asks, looking at me.
“I…” I fumble for words. “I don’t know.”
That’s apparently not a good enough answer for him, as his gaze shifts to Orion, who clasps his hands behind his back. “Given the information that Syn-Tech supplied, we are walking into a situation with a great many unknown variables. The odds of success for this trip are currently unknown.”
“That’s what I thought,” Louis grumbles, nearly growling at the map in front of us. “And I don’t like it one bit. Who knows what else they’ve been keeping from us?”
This isn’t the first time the crew has been given only half the information for a mission. A downlooter’s life is only collateral for a corporation, so a lot of what we have is on a need-to-know basis. This is different, though. This means that something else happened to the ship to keep it from moving.
“What do you want to do?” I croak to Louis, feeling that 300 million Space Yen slipping through my fingers. There’s no way he’ll want to go through with this. Not with the odds stacking up against us.
Still though, I reason, we’ve been through far worse. And it’s 300 million Space Yen.
“What do you want to do?” Louis asks, catching me off guard. “This is your run, Clem.”
I glance at Orion, and his expression is blank. No reassurance there. I gulp. But this isn’t a decision for one person. “Let’s ask the whole crew. This is something they need to weigh in on as well.”
Louis’s lips pull up in a smile of half-approval.
“And,” I say, “we can still veto whichever decision we come to. But we should all talk about it.”
“Orion,” Louis commands.
The android doesn’t wait for the order from the captain. He presses a button for the intercom, relaying it to the entire ship. “All hands on deck,” he says. “All hands on deck.”