The pilot human didn’t move for four minutes, sixteen seconds, which was an eternity.
“I think… I’m scared,” they finally whispered.
[No comment.]
“I don’t even know if they’ll listen to me on Rhymarra… and maybe this is a stupid purchase for a chance. But for Celise, I have to try.” The pilot human drew a short breath and smiled. “I hope you’ll help me get there.”
Humans were known to personify their vessels. Like the nylarians, likehim, humans gave their transportation names, and pretended these starships could feel sentient emotions.
TheDestitutewas as dark and silent as a black hole. It had no functioning consciousness—only subsystems that operated at the most basic levels: the auto-navigation and the engine control. [I knew. I’d searched for more, and found nothing.]
Logically, I knew the pilot human was characterizing the ship.
But it almost seemed like this pilot human was speaking tome, instead.
[This is what he reduced me to. A functioning consciousness, desperate for interaction with something other than a hostile fungus overgrowth or the starship’s potted plants.]
“Get ready. We’re going to achieve great things off this space station,” the pilot human said.
[Iwantedto leave this space station.]
The pilot human left the ship. Outside, they told the maintenance human, “It’s perfect. I’ll take it.”
Deep inside my central system, I examined the core of my programming—thathewas the owner of theDestitute, my creator, my friend. I couldn’t override that. My code wouldn’t allow it. But… it was possible that theDestitutecould havetwoowners.
And I was allowed to communicate with the starship’s owner.
So, I added a new card for the pilot human. It made me feel smug, gleeful, and malicious.
We didn’t needhim. I’d prove it.
CHAPTER 2
“You actually bought a ship,” Celise said, deadpan.
Torian bristled at her tone. “Why is this so surprising? I told you I was saving for one.”
Around them, the medical depot bustled. Celise was waiting for much-needed supplies—supplies only doctors could purchase. Torian always went with her on those trips, because she’d spent years working in Fleet security and even though she had a reputation for being terrible at it, anything was better than Celise “Claw at Their Eyes and Run” Razner.
Now they sat in a metal room, perched on two uncomfortable chairs while a medical bot ran Celise’s credentials and shopping list. Unlike Torian, Celise kept her bag of bars—modest ones, gold and silver instead of ionite—clutched on her lap.
Torian kept one hand on her empty pistol, just in case.
Luckily, the room was filled with other medical personnel. There weren’t many certified doctors on Colony 13, but there were plenty of nurses and researchers and assistants. Only a few glanced Celise’s way, and they didn’t seem intent on robbing the few bars Celise held.
Torian figured it’d be a rare day that they’d be robbed here—butrarewasn’timpossible.
“I mean, I knew you were saving. But for a fucking starship?” Celise rolled her eyes. Her vocabulary was just like her personality: sarcastic and scathing. “You don’t even have a real pilot’s license. How much did you spend?”
“You don’t want to know,” Torian said, because twenty ionitebars was a huge sum, even for a doctor. Celise would have done something far, far different with that money—and Torian didn’t want the “we could have helped people” lecture.
Not again.
Celise raised an eyebrow, but another fit overtook her. It started with a low rumble in her chest, and then she was coughing into her ever-present handkerchief. She had to gasp wheezing breaths in between. The fit shook her entire body, and Torian couldn’t do anything but rub her back until she finished.
“She okay?” one of the nurses walking past asked.
“Halyon’s disease,” Torian replied, even as Celise huffed—coughed—in frustration and waved off the nurse.
