5
Ava had been half kidding, but Ethan had picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and booked it up the stairs and onto the Main. She was trying to demand he put her down before someone saw, but the words didn’t come out. He carried her down the Main to the set of ladders after the galley but before the barracks, the same set she had used when she made her way down. He set her down by the ladder, and before she could recover enough to chew him out or thank him, he turned and ran to the equipment locker to meet up with Juarez and Peters, whom she could still hear laughing merrily about how upset they had made Curry.
Ava reached out a hand to the ladder to steady herself and suppress a laugh.
Idiots,
she thought again.
Her face was red from the cheering and exertion. And only that, she told herself.
She looked away from the door that led to the equipment locker and began the trudge of a climb up the ladder.
She ascended one rung at a time, pulling with her hands before stepping up and pushing with her feet. It was not easy, but it hurt less than walking. When she reached the top, she dismounted the ladder with the practiced ease of a drunk toddler, nearly spilling herself back down the ladder, but she managed to keep her feet, and her hands found the railing of the upper main.
She made her way to the bridge and fell into the first open chair she reached. Daniels’ chair. He was the comms officer, but he rarely worked from the bridge, and now, while the ship was in leap, there was no need for him to monitor comms until they reemerged into realspace.
Kane was at the data core, conversing with a holo projection of a man in an old variant of a naval uniform. This was the ship’s AI. It didn’t have a name or personality. It was a shackled AI, capable of vast computational power, data storage, and instant recall, but lacked directional thinking or motivations other than what it was directed to take care of.
Ava called it Cap’n because it looked like what she thought an antiquated sea captain must have looked like. It didn’t care. It knew when she said that name that she was referring to it and responded accordingly. The AI had its directives and followed them. She could have called it anything, and it would have figured out that it was being referred to and acted accordingly. Kane called it simply “AI” when referring to it, but she had seen him smile when she called it “Cap’n.”
AIs like this were strictly regulated in the core worlds, with some more ludicrous factions outlawing any form of machine intelligence altogether. To Ava’s knowledge, there had never been any great AI uprising that ended the worlds as they were known, but it didn’t stop naysayers from screaming that the end was nigh at the very thought of an unshackled machine mind.
She had once heard from a dock drifter of a people who had merged with AIs to transcend the frailties of their human bodies. An entire sector of people who were part machine and biological and shared their bodies and minds with their AI counterparts. Ava had involuntarily shuddered at the thought of another mind pressing against her own, but a part of her couldn’t deny the practical nature of such a decision. The human brain was undisciplined and prone to failings in ways artificial ones just weren’t. Scaffolding a mind with machine order could unlock magnitudinal performance across the board.
She had decided that such a transformation would still be too much for her. She had little privacy as it was. How could she trade the security of her mind for increased potential? She doubted there was any going back if it wasn’t to her liking.
“Ava?” Kane asked, breaking her from her reverie. “Report.”
Ava sucked in a breath. “The team has finished with the cargo hold and has moved on to the equipment lockers. From there, they will perform inventory and equipment checks before doing the same in the
Cat’s Paw
and then the
Cat’s Eye
. Once complete, they will move back to the cargo bay for completion. Curry is doing some scans and demands complete silence while he works,” Ava added.
Kane frowned. “Curry demands?”
“Yes,” Ava said. “Apparently, it is absolutely necessary.”
Kane thought for a moment before shaking his head. “The man is well credentialed and does great work. Maybe a bit high-strung. Try not to aggravate him, hmm?”
Ava feigned shock. “Sir, I would never intentionally aggravate one of our esteemed shipmates.”
“Oh?” Kane asked as he tapped the AI core control panel. The display changed from Cap’n to a screen of direct messages, all from Curry. Each message had a different heading.
Lunatic space yahoos
was one. Another read,
I would rather work taped to the outer propulsion systems than in this zoo!!!
And still another,
I know she is your daughter, sir, but lobotomies are still heavily practiced in some systems.
“Oh,” Ava said. “Yes, I do believe we could take more steps to exist in a more harmonious state with a man as levelheaded as that.”
Kane stared deadpan at Ava before they both barked with laughter.
It was just the two of them on the bridge. They had two more full days of leap before they arrived at their destination, and these posts didn’t need to be manned so much as observed. Cap’n could have moderated the whole of the leap if Kane were willing to relinquish control and step back in the interim, but Kane wanted an officer on deck at all times. He was old-fashioned, Ava thought.
When the laughter died, Ava was in tears from the pain of it, but she played it off as though it had been from the laughter and nothing more. Kane pretended not to notice as he collected himself.
“But also, really do go easy on him. He is of value to us, and we don’t need him having a psychological breakdown and trying to space us while we sleep,” Kane warned.
“Yes, sir. We will make an effort. We just got carried away,” Ava explained.
“Yes, what was all the yelling for in the first place?” Kane asked. “I heard it over comms.”
“You heard it over comms?” Ava asked before realizing. “Oh, Curry was transmitting? What a rat.”
“Ava,” Kane warned.
“Sorry, sir. The boys were celebrating me shambling all the way down there. I think they are trying to motivate me or cheer me up. I don’t know. They were just being stupid. I will talk to them,” Ava finished.
“Don’t be too harsh. I respect what they are doing, but we need order on the ship. If we allow ourselves to fall prey to lackadaisicalness, we could be inviting our own disastrous ruin,” Kane said.
Ava mouthed the word
lackadaisicalness
slowly, as though it tasted unpleasant.
Kane rolled his eyes. “It’s my word of the day.”
“Word of the day? When did you start doing a word of the day?” Ava asked with mild interest.
“Hailey is pushing me to it. Says that it is important to stimulate the gray matter by continuing to learn, and a good way to do that is expanding one’s vocabulary. She set the AI the task of providing me a word of the day at 0600 hours on cycle and recording my number of usages. I am at five,” Kane explained.
“I am sorry to interject, sir, but four recorded usages is the official record. You must use the word in a contextually applicable sentence or situation in order for the usage to be marked in the official recording.” The direct messages blipped away and were replaced by Cap’n as he corrected Kane.
“I am at four,” Kane agreed as he glared daggers at the AI.
“That is something,” Ava said, having lost interest at the mention of Dr. Hailey. “Seems useless.”
Kane shrugged. “Well, we will see. Someday you will find that leadership gets tiring when you have to micromanage every little detail. You become more effective when you set direction and trust in your people to get it done.”
“Oh? Just trust it gets done? That doesn’t match what I see you do,” Ava said.
“Trust but verify. If all you do is trust, then you wouldn’t know if there was a miscommunication and the direction followed wasn’t what was meant, or if there was an incorrect estimation. Sometimes it is easy to expect more from someone than they can give, or less from someone who could do more,” Kane explained. “Also, there is an old saying that my grandfather liked to use: ‘The squeaky wheel gets the grease,’ which I didn’t understand until I started leading people.”
“Seems pretty simple,” Ava reasoned.
“Okay, Captain Ava. What does it mean to you?” Kane asked.
Ava formulated her response in her mind. She knew this was some sort of test. “It means,” Ava began, trying to sound confident, “people who complain or voice their needs are going to get what they ask for, or at least some sort of change.” Ava looked at Kane. “Right?”
Kane snorted. “Very similar to what I believed. But that is only the surface of it and fails to take into account the other wheels that do not squeak. The members of your crew who will toil and break themselves for you without a complaint. That doesn’t mean they do not have issues or grievances, Ava. And they will see someone who is complaining seemingly be rewarded for it. That breeds contempt and resentment. When a wheel squeaks, check all of the wheels. Do your diligence, and maybe you can keep any of the wheels from squeaking.”
Ava considered that for a moment, thinking about her own team. Juarez was the first to complain, and then Peters. Ethan never complained, but she didn’t think he was afraid to voice concerns. He was honest with her.
“Did you ever forget to grease all the wheels?” Ava asked.
Kane smiled. “Yes. More than once, and it cost me relationships and crew. It caused unnecessary conflict and headaches like you wouldn’t believe. Sometimes you have so many things going on that you start acting in a self-focused way and expect everyone to understand, but they won’t, or don’t, or can’t. People are different, Ava. Some have a greater capacity in one respect or another, and some skills require situations or experiences. Empathy is like a muscle that needs to be trained in some, while it comes naturally to others. Estimating a person’s potential helps you determine what you can realistically expect from them. Do you understand?”
Ava was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so. Not really.”
“I didn’t either for a long time. It took a lot of failure in life to start learning,” Kane said.
“And now you have it all figured out,” Ava presumed.
“God, no. I am still learning. I am not a young man anymore and cannot afford to go through the remainder of my years in a lackadaisical manner,” Kane said.
“Very good, sir,” Cap’n interrupted. “You have hit an honest five.”
Ava delivered four more messages for Kane: to the galley to put in an order for dinner, to check in on B Team to inquire about their progress on the checklists, to find Hailey for a daily checkup, and finally, to formally apologize to Curry, who was still finishing his detailed scans of the object.
Ava had to wait silently for him to finish. It had been the longest errand of the day. Ava had waited on her feet for several minutes before lowering herself into a crouch and then finally sitting cross-legged as she watched him make a scan and then make a note, then scan and make another note. There was a rhythm to it that was actually quite calming, she thought.
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After an hour, Ava found the rhythm to be the most annoying thing she had ever experienced.
Ava counted her breaths, but it was getting harder and harder not to hate Curry’s precise turn to make a note after a scan or how he made a soundless whistle when he noticed something interesting. He was like a machine. A machine that performed a vital role, but no one enjoyed having to be around while it performed that role, Ava thought.
Ava still held her temper in check and kept her expression calm. She breathed, and she waited.
Curry let out a sharp, “Ahhh.”
Ava jumped, having been lulled into a near stupor. “What?” she asked.
“What is wrong with you?” Curry asked angrily.
“What?” Ava asked again.
“You, you, you. You just waited there to jump out and shock me? To scare me? What is this about? This ship is a madhouse. Insane. Lackadaisical, even!” Curry exclaimed.
Ava weathered the engineer’s tirade with a shocked expression.
“Okay, first thing. You saw me come in. I saw you see me. I saw your expression and everything. Next, I have been waiting here for you to finish so I could apologize about the intrusion earlier. Last thing, are you finally done? How many more scans can you possibly need?”
“Oh, I had thought you had left,” Curry replied, as though he had not just been blustering a mere moment prior. “Well, then. I am waiting for your apology.”
Ava felt her face growing hot. Even in the normally cool cargo hold, she felt her temperature rising. “I was going to say that I was very sorry that my team’s overly zealous display to encourage my rehabilitation disrupted you and your research, and we are sorry.”
“Acceptable. Don’t let it happen again.” Curry turned and gathered his notes.
Ava pushed herself onto her feet. “No, that was what I was gonna say.”
“Yes, it was middling, but it was a fine enough apology,” Curry stated as he rushed past her toward engineering.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Ava yelled desperately.
Curry paused at the door to the lower main and turned back, confused. “I’m heading to my shift maintaining this ship’s data core, reactor, and leap drive.” He turned to leave but paused again. “You are very loud.”
Ava stared in stunned disbelief before stumbling back several steps and sinking into a sitting position on the floor’s grating, her back against a wall.
“Maybe it is best that I didn’t get to complete that sentence,” she said to herself.
Ava stretched out her legs as she thought about what her father had been telling her. People were very different. Curry was one of these very different people. If she had a strong understanding of him, she wouldn’t be surprised by anything he did.
“That will be the day,” she laughed to herself.
Her muscles ached everywhere as she sat on the floor and leaned back against the support.
She let out a sigh of relief as the support at her back seemed to heat up. She pressed back into it with her eyes closed, enjoying the moment.
Kane had said that once she completed her final task, she was free of duty until 0500 on cycle. She glanced down at her arm screen and noted that it was 1450 on cycle. She had just over twelve hours before she needed to be back on the bridge, taking care of whatever random errands the captain could dream up. She knew full well that this was not real duty but rehab until she was back to a passable condition.
In passing, she had checked in with her team. They had completed inventory of the equipment lockers and were in the middle of equipment checks when she had shambled in on her way to the med bay.
She had pulled Ethan aside to ask him how the team was doing, how
he
was doing.
He had seemed genuinely taken aback when she asked how he was doing. He had quickly recovered and said he was at one hundred percent. She had accepted his answer but added that if he ever wasn’t, or had concerns, she would listen.
Ethan had given her a weird look and assured her that he would.
“Ava? You okay, kid?” a voice called to her.
Ava startled out of her thoughts, opened her eyes, and found the source of the familiar voice. Stanley was walking over to her at a brisk pace. He was the oldest crew member on the
9Lives
and had worked with her father for as long as Ava could remember. He was a small man with shoulder-length white hair but a huge bald spot in the middle that always reminded her of the grunge cats that prowled the port city of Antola, the home of the
9Lives
.
Stanley pulled his glasses out of his overalls’ front pocket and put them on as he neared, looking Ava over.
“You hurt? What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Fine, I’m fine. Just spent. Sort of just fell back and was resting for a bit,” she explained. “How about you? Shouldn’t you be off making sure the ship isn’t falling apart?” she asked as she began working her way to her feet, relying heavily on the wall for support. It felt cold now as she planted her hand against it.
“Oh, I’ve got it glued together, and all my twine knots should hold till we make port,” he joked. As the head technician of the ship, he made sure that every inch of the ship was in firm working order and was fastidious in his administration. “But you, you looking to ruin our payday?”
“What?” Ava heard herself say. She felt like that was all she had been saying recently. As much as her body revolted at her every movement, there were moments when her mind felt fogged over.
“Your backrest here. Not my place to know what it is or how it works, but I am guessing the engine boys would have a conniption if they saw you leaning on it. Didn’t even wash your hands beforehand. No gloves. If that Curry character saw this, the Doc would have to shock him back alive,” Stanley rambled.
“She isn’t a doctor,” Ava managed to say after valiantly forcing herself not to say
what?
again.
Ava turned to look, and he was right. She had been sitting against the pristine white surface of the artifact. She had been using it to stand up. She was still leaning against it.
Ava pulled her hand back as if it had bitten her. She was worried the oils from her skin could have caused some sort of damage to it. She leaned in to peer at it but couldn’t see anything, not that it meant there wasn’t damage.
“Oh, come on. I’m sure there is no harm done. But you’re alright? You need Ethan to carry you again? I would do it, but I ain’t as strong as I used to be,” he said.
“Yeah, I am fine. I just didn’t realize,” she said, still staring at the artifact.
It had been warm, hadn’t it? she thought.
“Well, like I said, no harm, but probably don’t be touching it like that. At least not till the engine boys say it’s okay to touch it. Then you can touch it all ya like,” he finished.
“But you are alright?” he asked, starting up once more.
Ava turned to him and assured him she was alright. He fetched her one of the tech stools and offered to drag her as far as the stairs, but she declined and told him she wanted to sit here for a while longer, if it was alright.
“Ain’t bothering me none, as long as you are good and all. Should be fine,” he said before briskly walking off toward the stairs that would take him to the Main, likely heading to the mess.
She was thankful for the stool. The floor grating wasn’t the most comfortable surface to sit on. Even clothed in the thick canvas overalls of a spacer, the metal had a way of pressing in and eventually causing its own pains.
She oriented the chair to face the artifact and pondered. She thought about the potential gain from the sale. The upgrades to the ship they could install. Kane had talked about adding a third, larger shuttlecraft. The ship already had a docking port for one. The two smaller shuttles were good enough but required multiple salvage trips and limited the equipment they could bring along. A larger shuttle would enable some of the techs to accompany them and set up a disassembly station right on site.
We could update the barracks and mess hall with more comfortable accommodations. Upgrade the ship’s water systems to allow for hot showers.
That was a step too far. Ava knew Kane would see that as an extravagance, but still, Ava could dream.
She slid closer, peering at where she had pressed her hand. She half expected to see some sort of marking. An even deeper part of herself almost expected to see a screen appear and start talking to her now that she was alone.
She laughed at herself.
What made her so special?
Nothing,
was the answer from deep within.
You are just a spacer,
it told her.
She
told her.
She was a member of this crew, no better or worse than the lot of them, she thought with some stubborn satisfaction.
No,
she answered herself.
You are the daughter of the captain, and you are the leader of a team. You have to hold yourself to a higher standard because more is expected of you.
“Hell,” she said as she leaned back in the chair, away from the artifact.
She turned in the chair, orienting it toward the door. She was beginning to build up her will to stand and head to the mess, where hopefully Stanley was keeping his mouth full of food and not blathering about finding her resting against the payday of the century.
She knew he wouldn’t. He liked to talk, but he wasn’t out to make trouble, and he kept to his own business. She knew, too, that he had a soft spot for her.
Kid,
he had called her.
To him, she was.
She was in her mid-twenties, and he had to have been in his fifties, but really, it was because he had known her since she was small enough to stow away in a tool crate.
Ava leaned forward, centered her weight over her feet, and stood. She began the journey back across the bay toward the stairs.
Juarez and Peters were at the mess, as were Stanley; Arch, another technician; Shelly, the cargo master’s assistant; and Zach, the ship’s pilot. No one from Team B was currently in the mess, and from what she had heard, the ship’s navigator, Haulie, had taken ill and was taking meals in his cabin.
Ava forced herself to walk normally, which hurt less this time than it had before. Her legs still burned.
They ate as Peters recounted a story about some ship-jumping spacer he had encountered before they departed to follow this lead. It had happened in a bar called the Unstable Orbit, a place they all knew but where most had the sense not to spend time. Juarez added his own side commentary as the story progressed.
“She was easily the most beautiful ship rat I have seen come through Antola in months,” Peters said.
“Most beautiful one that would talk to you, anyway,” Juarez added.
“She was exotic,” Peters explained.
“Like a Terriny Flu,” Juarez piped in.
Ava laughed at the face Peters made.
“Okay, but she had all of her teeth, and she didn’t have a noticeable smell.” Peters glared at Juarez, who thought for a moment and nodded in confirmation.
“High bar,” Shelly laughed between bites of the steamed, rehydrated pork and potato fluff she was eating.
“Nothing compared to the beauties on our ship, of course,” Peters assured them.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Zach said with a wink.
Peters returned the wink as he continued his story about how smooth he had been, how they had danced, and how she had demanded he take her home with him. This had been the day before departure, and it was common practice to board the night prior so that they could wake and get right to preparations without having to scrounge up the ship’s roster before takeoff.
“You didn’t,” Ava scoffed, partly amused and partly disgusted.
“No, of course not,” Peters said.
“Yeah, Stanley over there chased her off when he tried to bring her on board,” Juarez added.
Ava glared darkly at Peters as he tried to explain.
“No, I was just showing her the outside of the ship. I wasn’t going to bring her here. I would never,” he promised.
“She wasn’t no good. I can smell trouble, and she smelled like trouble. You should be thanking me,” Stanley complained.
“And I would thank you, Stanley,” Peters said, “but nothing was going to happen, so you saved me from nothing.” Peters turned back to Ava. “I swear, never even crossed my mind to bring her aboard. Anyways, you should have seen the gal Ethan was talking to.”
Juarez groaned. Ava, who had gone back to eating, nearly choked on her rehydrated peas.
“What?” she asked between coughs.
“Yeah, she actually was the prettiest gal, present company excluded, that I’ve seen. Maybe ever,” Peters explained.
Juarez nudged Peters.
Peters nudged him back. “No, really. She was tall and slim, real mysterious, and had huge—”
Juarez nudged him harder.
“Heard you had to talk to Curry for us. We are real sorry about that. We just sort of forgot he was there,” Juarez said.
“Oh,” Peters said, jumping onto the new subject. “Yeah, he had told us he needed complete silence, and we were trying to be quiet. Managed it on the way down to the hold, but yeah, we kinda got too hyped up.”
“You’re the ones that set him off today?” Zach asked.
“Yeah,” Peters responded. “We were just trying to cheer Ava on for walking to the service lift by herself. Got a bit too loud for him. He yelled.”
“He didn’t just yell. He must have sent fifty direct messages in the span of five minutes demanding the right to airlock troublemaking crew,” Zach laughed.
“He sent you messages?” Juarez asked.
“No, he sent them to the captain, who delegated Isaac to look them over and summarize them. Isaac didn’t tell me what it was about, but I heard him bitching up a storm about them,” Zach explained.
“Hey,” Ava interjected. “We are getting into a bad topic. Crew shouldn’t spread rumors about crew. Doesn’t sit right talking about someone behind their back.” Ava looked everyone over. “Understood?”
A scattering of assent answered her.
Ava felt the mood shift, but it didn’t sit right with her that official complaints meant for the captain were being discussed like gossip.
Everyone finished eating and went to enjoy their free time or return to their bunks. Ava finished her plate and stood to put it in the dish cleaner. She turned toward the door and saw Stanley standing there, looking at her.
“That was the right call, Ava. Captain would be proud,” he said before turning and leaving.
Ava sighed and made her way back to her cabin to sleep.
When Ava made it back to her cabin, she took another half-dose of medication with a full cup of water and rolled into her bunk, exhausted. She mentally swore at herself when she failed to kick off her boots. They were still firmly tied.
She pulled one knee up to her chest and clumsily worked the knot loose before sliding the boot off. She began to do the same with the other, but sleep took her as she struggled with the knot.