“No, sir! I just don’t have any training, sir.”
“That’s ‘chief’, not ‘sir’. I work for a living, and I don’t have time to train a newbie up from scratch right now. Maybe once we leave the cluster, but you’ll have to get by on something else until then. It says here you’ve got boosted reflexes?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“Think you can keep your head in a fight?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“She’s already proven that,” Naoko put in. “Once when the inugami tried to kidnap me, and again when we were attacked by a dangerous predator in the swamps. Not a moment of panic or hesitation, either time.”
“Firefights are different,” he pointed out. “But we all have to start somewhere. Come with me.”
He led us across the room, through an armored hatch and down a narrow hallway lined with armored storage compartments. A hatch opened at his touch, and he stepped inside.
“I’m assigning you a personal protection swarm,” he said over his shoulder. “This model looks like a couple of those mini-dragon pets the kids are fawning over these days, so you can take them most places without being conspicuous. If you manage to get yourself into a fight they’ll deploy attack microbots to protect you, and lay down smoke to cover your retreat.”
He pulled a large box out of the storeroom, and handed it to me. Then he paused for a moment, watching me.
“Strength boost, too?”
Oh, yeah, I guess the box would have been too heavy for a normal girl my size. It was twenty kilos, easily.
“Yes, Chief. Um, I can see x-rays, too. I’m not sure what that’s good for, but Naoko thought you might know.”
He waved off the distraction. “Espionage crap, obviously. You’re too damned small to be designed for a nuclear battlefield. Now remember, Alice, these bots are not toys. They’re lethal weapons, and anyone who sees them in action is going to treat them as such. So I expect you to leave them in covert mode unless you find yourself in a situation where you’re in fear for your life. You do not use them to win a bar fight. You do not use them to beat up obnoxious dirtsiders. You do not use them at all if you can possibly avoid it. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Chief. I won’t use them at all unless it’s a life or death situation.”
“Good girl. Be sure to read the instructions carefully. You can use one of the training rooms to practice with them if you get the urge. Their base station will fab consumables for them as needed, and the bots are rated for a fifty year service life. Use them responsibly, and I’ll see about setting you up with some self-defense training the next time we have a long haul in hyperspace.”
“Thank you, Chief. I’ve managed alright so far, but I really want to learn how to fight before I end up getting in over my head.”
“I hear you, kid. For now just stick close to the crew when you’re portside, and we’ll take care of you. Oh, and Naoko?”
“Yes, Chief West?” Naoko said cautiously.
“Next time you need help, call me. We’ve got the resources, we just have to know that you need them. Don’t be the girl who vanished without a trace because she was too proud to ask for help.”
Naoko suddenly seemed to find the floor very interesting. “I apologize for my excessive stubbornness, Chief West. I shall endeavor to do better in the future.”
“Good. I assume the captain has plans for getting those submission codes out of your head?”
“I assume so, but we have not discussed the issue. I suspect he intends to keep me in the dark, in case I have some contingency that would force me to resist such measures.”
“Being hacked sucks,” he said sympathetically. “Especially if it’s in your hardware, which it probably is in your case. Try not to let it get you down, though. The captain must have some idea how to fix things, or he wouldn’t have kept you on the ship for so long.”
“I hope you are correct, Chief West.”
He nodded. “That’ll do for now, girls. Now scram. I’ve got a lot of work to do before we make Takeo Station.”
I stayed quiet until we had a couple of closed hatches between us and the chief, since he was bound to have enhanced hearing. Then I relaxed with a giggle.
“Whew. He’s kind of intense, isn’t he?”
Naoko patted my shoulder. “That’s his job, Alice. But he’s very protective of the crew, so there’s no need to be afraid of him.”
“Afraid? Why would I be afraid? I think I like him, actually. He makes me feel safe.”
“Oh? So you like military men, then?” She said teasingly.
I blushed. “I didn’t mean it like that! Besides, he’s like, forty. I’m just a little kid to him.”
“Calendar ages don’t mean much to spacers, Alice. I suppose you have some growing up to do still, but technically you’re older than I am. I was only fabbed two years ago.”
“That still sounds weird to me. I guess the fox girls were all fabbed as adults, too?”
“Most androids are,” Naoko agreed.
“Huh. Well, I wasn’t, and I don’t think I’m quite ready for stuff like that yet. I only started getting those kinds of feelings a few weeks ago.”
“Ah. Then I shall be gentle of your feelings, my friend, and try not to tease you overmuch.”
“Thank you, Naoko.”
We walked in silence for a moment.
“All those guns and armor are kind of hot,” I admitted.
“Mmm, aren’t they? If I hadn’t imprinted on the captain, I might well have made a play for him myself. Although luring him back into an organic body might be difficult, and his religion would be a complication.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes. He’s a Mormon, Third Reformation branch. They think it’s immoral to have less than three wives, and then there’s that whole ‘be fruitful and multiply’ thing…”
“Naoko! You’re terrible.”
She grinned at me. “You’re cute when you blush like that. Now, here we are at your cabin. Take a look, and tell me what you think.”
Had she just been trying to distract me? The hatch we’d come to had my name on it, but the space that my map showed on the other side was way too big to be a cabin. Ten meters wide by twenty deep, with an eight meter ceiling? That had to be wrong.
I put my hand on the sensor next to the hatch, letting it read my biometrics while I exchanged encryption keys with the lock. It set itself to my code, and gave a happy little chime. Then the hatch slid open, and I gasped.
Sunlight!
No, not real sunlight, but the spectrum was a perfect match for Felicity’s star. The bright, airy space had a display ceiling programmed to look like sky, and mirrored walls that turned the greenery along the edges of the room into an illusionary jungle. The floor was soft grass, and a little brook cascaded down a jumble of stones in the back to fill a pond in one corner.