“And you’re not in any trouble?” Sev leaned closer to the comm sensor, as if that would help keep our conversation unheard.

“I’m fine.” I smiled. This was the third time he had asked in the last minute. “I was allowed thirty minutes leave, so I called. That’s all. I told you in my mails.”

The old man looked at me, unconvinced. The faint noise of chatter was audible in the background, probably coming from the garden. Hopefully, his family had come to visit as I had been asking. Alexander hadn’t mentioned anything, and so far, neither had Sev himself, but I could hope. Also, given how much his mood had improved, there was a thirty-seven percent chance I was right.

“You haven’t been calling a lot lately…” He leaned back, scratching the side of his cheek. “Are you well? Did you get sick?” Sev put his hand on the side of his mouth. “Were you injured?”

“Sev, I’m nowhere near the front,” I lied. Judging by his lack of reaction, I could assume that the censor had allowed the information to pass through. Either that, or Lux had pulled some strings. “You know the fleet keeps everything classified. When the information is made public, I’m sure you’ll be told.” And a few months later, so would I. That was another of the many joys of military bureaucracy. Considering the profile of Gregorius, it was very possible that he learned everything about my mission from a news report.

“Bah!” He waved a hand with a grumble. “Damned war reports are streaming all day long! Worse than when you were here! This new movement is making a mess of things as usual! Can’t get food without a war brochure stuck to it! Even at the market, that’s what everyone talks about!”

“You’re going to the market?” The thought brought some concern. “Are you well enough for that? Last time—”

“I’m fine!” Sev snapped, waving a finger at me out of habit. “I can go to the market anytime I like! And I don’t need Alexander to follow me like a…” He paused, looking at the ceiling. I could tell he was searching for the right word. “I’m way younger than you are!”

“That’s true.” Even after seventy years, he would remain my little Sev—Cass’ kid. “How have things been going there? Is everything in the house in order?”

Alexander had already mentioned that some repairs had taken place. Part of the roof had started to show signs of stress after the last winter. Fortunately, my military salary and some help from Sev’s son had been enough to patch up the place. To my surprise, Sev’s granddaughter had also pitched in, having a lot of the old equipment—notably some of the archaic generators—replaced. I could rest assured that come next winter, things would be much safer and more comfortable for my ward.

“Ha!” Sev winced. “It was, before that stupid grandson moved in and wrecked the place! Can’t even have a conversation with the kid! All he does is watch the news all day. It’s like all kids nowadays. Too busy doing nothing, and always in a rush to get nowhere! All this month, he’s been roaming through the forest for no reason. He keeps saying that it’s for work, but I know it’s not. Stupid kid is still set to join the military. I thought that when they turned him down, that would be it.”

“He applied?” That was unexpected. From our last conversation, I knew the boy wanted to enlist, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon.

“He went to some fancy training course. Aptitude testing or some such.” Sev grumbled.

“Space aptitude training,” I corrected.

So, he’s serious.

Similar courses were a must for all cadet candidates or ground troopers. Everyone I had met at the recruitment center had gone through that before applying. Statistically, a human needed between six and ten weeks for their body to adjust to the nanites and the flexible gravity of space. In some cases, the nausea never fully went away. When I was on the front, there was a saying that you can’t fix everything with nanites. My first roommate, Alicia, had shared how difficult it had been for her. At the time, I thought she would flunk out in a week. Against the odds, she had proven me wrong, darting to the top five percent of the cohort and being assigned a next generation ship. If Sev’s grandchildren were following a similar path, there was no telling where they’d end up. As a battleship, I hoped they did; as the legal guardian of their grandfather, I wasn’t so sure. Given the growing calls for expansion, more and more incentives would be offered to anyone willing to join. It also meant that the chance of a third contact was growing.

“Useless!” Sev frowned. “Only idiots want to join the fleet. If you didn’t miss talking to your ships, you’d have never gone. I still think you should have stayed, though.” He wagged his finger some more. “You could have some good here. At least you kept things in order. Unlike Alexander.” Sev glanced to the side as he said that. “Android’s obsessed with antibiotics. Always checking if there’s enough in the house, as if we’re expecting a damned epidemic!”

“I was born in space.” You volunteered me to the fleet, Sev, for which I’ll always be thankful. “Is he downstairs?”

“No, that’s just local news booming. We’ll be getting some orbital military station, so everyone’s blabbing about it. Some good it will do.”

“A station’s not always bad, Sev. It means you’ll be able to get a lot more things.” I had no idea that a station was being built. With the number of planets, it was impossible to keep track. Even at my speed of reading, reports would constantly get delayed or end up missing. Once I was done with my current assignment, I was going to look into this.

Nearing five-minute external communication window, one of Gregorius’ subroutines informed fifteen seconds in advance. The comm link will be closed if you do not end your communication in that time.

“I have to go now, Sev.” I said, keeping the smile on my face. “I’ll try to call again next week.”

“Yeah, yeah.” My ward looked away. He pretended to be annoyed, but I could see the start of tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Be well, and give my best to everyone. And don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“Liar.” Sev let out a forced chuckle.

I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or just joking. Either way, I laughed and ended the conversation. The image of Sev disappeared from the wall.

Five minutes, I thought. For any ship, the amount of time bordered on infinity, and still there was so little that could be said when talking to someone. Back when I was on the front, I’d have to endure vast conversations between ships in that amount of time. I never appreciated it; back then, I preferred to keep to myself, checking on my crew and focusing on my mission. Now I regretted not spending the time to get to know others better. Then again, at the time there was no one I felt the need to be close to.

My datapad flashed on, blinking with the schedule of the day. Allowing myself a few more seconds of calm, I then picked it up from the floor and went through the notifications. To my surprise, I had been assigned to help in bioengineering for the immediate future. There were no specifics, just a single sentence letting me know when and where to report for duty. Juul and Kridib weren’t part of the assignment, though since both held rank over me, I was asked to send copies of my reports to them as well. For some reason, that didn’t sit too well.

A number of administrative changes had taken place among the cadets since the captain had officially assumed power. Half the cadets had left the ship—flown away by Grace—and a new batch was expected to arrive in the next few days. According to the current orders, there were supposed to be fifty-eight new arrivals, increasing the overall number of cadets to a round seventy. It would be my duty, along with Juul and Kridib, to get them settled and show them the ropes. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue; having the three senior cadets on strenuous terms, though, would undoubtedly complicate things. There were already rumors of Kridib and I being exes, and after yesterday’s incident, Juul had made a point not to speak to me outside an official capacity.

Never a dull moment. I stood up, then put the datapad in my pocket. These were all minor inconveniences. I had to focus my attention on the big ones.

I stretched a few times, then did a series of exercises. Due to the reconstruction of my body, I was going to have to follow this routine for a month at least. Technically, I was supposed to have daily med-checkups, but the BICEFI had used their influence to reduce the number to one per week, and by the looks of it, Commander Everar didn’t seem to mind.

“Requesting permission to eat my ration in the corridor,” I said while doing clap push-ups.

“The request is denied,” Gregorius replied instantly. “You’re to eat at the designated areas.” There was a one thousand and four hundred milliseconds’ pause. “You are allowed to eat in the temporary garden before it’s dismantled.”

“Thanks, Gregorius,” I uttered between breaths.

It was always nice to have a ship act nice towards me, especially when it was the first time. Cass used to refer to it as breaking the ice.

The required workout took me just under ten minutes. As I finished, an automatic report was sent to the ship’s doctors—another requirement attached to the new body. So far, I hadn’t received any messages from them, though it was just a matter of time before I started getting reminders to mind my bone density. Even a station-ship’s gravity wasn’t enough to replace that of a planet.

Grabbing a towel, I left my quarters to get washed. All the cadets were off on assignments given by Juul, so there was no freaking out in the corridor. It also meant that I had some time to think.

You always play for big stakes, don’t you Aquila?

I wasn’t at all convinced the BICEFI had given up their attempts to make use my services. To Lux’s credit, she had changed the approach. Instead of recruiting me outright, she seemed content on giving me a new task every now and again. It very much reminded me of the arrangement Augustus had during the war. Possibly that was how his involvement had started. In the last day, I had made several new attempts to see his personnel file, but my requests had been denied. Instead, I was forwarded a link to his public military record which, while impressive, told me next to nothing. If it weren’t for my unrestricted memories of the man, I wouldn’t have known a tenth of what he had done. More importantly, his exact activities on the Scuu front remained unclear even now. One thing I did know, though, was that he had never been in close contact with a Scuu. If he had, he’d probably be confined to the front for life, very much like the current and previous captain of the Gregorius had.

An entire station dead or missing. I closed my eyes. With no signs of breach or attack.

As tempting as it was to explain it away with mutiny, unknown pathogen, or even the work of a yet unknown artifact, I knew that not to be the case. Fleet HQ and the BICEFI had gone through the simple explanations and had rejected them outright. Of all remaining possibilities, two had the best odds: either the answer was out of the box, or it had been buried well enough so that no one could find out. Either option made me anxious.

“Cadet Elcy,” Juul’s voice echoed in the bathroom. “What is your current location?”

“I’m taking a shower,” I replied. That was a low move on his part. My location was openly visible to anyone on the ship. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s an eyes-only package for bioengineering. Can you pick it up on your way there?”

“Sure.” It was a long detour, but given that I had plenty of time, not an issue. “Am I allowed to eat first?” I added a healthy dose of sarcasm to my tone.

“Be quick. The package has a time stamp.”

Time stamp… Having Juul assigned to administration was a considerable inconvenience. I was certain he would use any pretext to try and get me reassigned, or possibly even kicked out of the fleet. Now I knew how Augustus must have felt the first few years of my service, when I would constantly send complaints to HQ. The difference was that despite the Administrator’s and the BICEFI’s hidden support, I wasn’t in a position to ignore any missteps.

I left the bathroom and returned to my quarters to get dressed. Same purple uniform, though now with a white line embodied on my shoulders—the fleet’s way of showing my senior rank. Regulations didn’t mention anything explicitly on the matter. Technically, there was no difference between cadets. Those who held the position longer were given temporary authority among their peers. With the number of new cadets expected to arrive, having a visual indication was useful.

Making sure there were no wrinkles on my uniform, I rushed out for the nearest food dispensary. Thanks to Juul’s sudden request, I didn’t have the time to take my time in a normal eating area. The remaining available option was to gulp down my gelatin portion in an “eating cubicle” at the base of the cadet building.

When will you dismantle the temp garden? I asked Gregorius, as I went down a flight of stairs.

Re-assimilation is scheduled for twelve.

So much for eating among plants.

The dismantling has been postponed, the ship said. Until a specific need arises.

Thanks again, Gregorius. I replied.

Three people sat at the dispensary cubicles, all of them mechanics. None of them reacted as I went to get my food, continuing to vent their daily concerns among each other. It was strange that mechanics and support personnel would do that whenever things were calm. I had seen engineers under pressure who risked their lives fixing parts of me, along with my repair systems. No one complained a peep then, and they had every right to. With the advancements in technology, there wasn’t a real need for techs, but the fleet bureaucracy remained set to have them. Supposedly, the practice was engrained in the military way during the days of the Paladins. Instead of ground troops, mechanics and engineers composed the bulk of people aboard, responsible for having the massive ships functional. Since then, they had remained as living backups—people who had the power to give the final okay and repair systems I hadn’t been allowed to touch. In this case—from what I could hear of the conversation—a new security authorization was put in place and their status still wasn’t updated, making it impossible to touch anything without being sent to the brig by Gregorius. Meanwhile, their tasks kept piling up without any course of action.

Bureaucracy at its best, I thought as I tapped in my food order in the dispenser panel. A good thing I never had to deal with such issues during my career.

A plastic cup of orange gelatin dropped into the food drawer. I grabbed it and went to the nearest free food cubicle. The engineers gave me a quick glance, then, seeing my purple uniform, returned to their conversation as if I didn’t exist.

The taste was supposed to be a mixture of oranges and ygona, though it tasted different to what I was used to. I couldn’t tell whether the change was due to recent repairs on the ship, or the med core had done something to my taste buds. Either way, food didn’t seem as bland as before, even if there was a long way to go to organic cooking.

After I scooped the last of my daily ration, I shoved the plastic container into the recycling area of the cubicle and headed to the Administrative building. Along the way, I kept going through the data Lux had given me. Other than the pictures and a few live feeds prior to the incident, information was nonexistent, as if someone had extracted Gregorius memories. The odds of that were highly unlikely. Then again, the same could be said for me.

“Senior Cadet Elcy?” a timid voice said through the comm. The link protocols identified her as cadet Gianna Jul.

“Yes, cadet?” I asked, running a check for her location. The marker put her in front of the Administrative building. “Did Juul make you bring the package to me?”

“No, ma’am!” Denied instantly. A pause. “Yes, ma’am. The senior cadet mentioned that it was a high priority task and had to be delivered as quickly as possible, ma’am.”

It wasn’t a surprise that Juul would order about the cadets under him. Them obeying, though, was. Unlike the group expected to arrive, the current ones had been on Gregorius for the same amount of time, in two cases even more. Commander Everar had mentioned he had some experience in the matter. A pity she had not elaborated.

“I’m on the transport pod,” I said. “Should be there in seventy seconds. Will you survive that long?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. I could hear the note of relief in her voice. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“None of us are officers yet, Gianna. You don’t need to call me ma’am all the time.” I knew that she would, but I had to make the offer. “Elcy is fine.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

Guess I’m not the only sassy cadet aboard.

With luck, she’d get a better assignment once her training on the Gregorius was over. Looking through her file, the cadet had the record to make it in the fleet. Unlike me, she had been a top tier candidate in her cohort. Apart from Juul, Kridib, and myself, all the cadets were.

The girl was waiting a step away from the connection point, holding onto a medium-sized metal container. Given the eagerness of her posture, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was about to toss the package in the pod as soon as the doors opened. Thankfully, she didn’t.

“Hello, ma’am.” The cadet put the container on the ground in order to give me a quick salute. I responded with a nod. “Here’s the package. I don’t know what the precise timestamp is, but was told it was urgent.”

“Mhm.” I picked it up. The container felt lighter than expected, probably full of documents and filler. Considering the recent shakeup, it wasn’t unusual to rely more and more on carbon copies. “Did Juul give any additional instructions?”

“Err…” Gianna blinked. “Don’t lose it?”

I found her uncertainty amusing. All the genius in the universe and the twenty hours of SR hadn’t prepared her for life in the fleet. As Augustus liked to say, there was no replacing experience.

“Who is it for, Gianna?” I hinted.

“Err… I’m not sure, ma’am.” Confusion mixing with fear on her face. “I was told to give it to you and…”

“It’s fine, I’ll deal with it.” I tapped on the container with my hand. “Next time ask, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Susceptible to stress, I thought. Either Gianna would break through and make an adequate officer or she’ll break and become worthless. That was also the issue with top achievers. What made it particularly bad, there was rarely a way of telling what the case might be. It was entirely possible I was looking at a worse case Gibraltar.

“At ease, cadet,” I said, adding a note of sternness in my voice, then returned to the pod. “Bioengineering deck,” I said, looking at the container. There was a single confidential marker placed in a well-defined square on what I assumed to be the top. The rest of the surface was deliberately left blank.

“You have been granted temporary clearance to access the Bioengineering section,” a subroutine said. “The permission expires in thirty-seven minutes.”

Not even mentioning the seconds? I tilted my head. That probably explained the rush Juul had put on delivering the packet, though not why he couldn’t have sent any cadet to deliver it.

It took twelve minutes for the pod to reach the entrance of the Bioengineering section. Strictly speaking, only deep space stations were equipped with those. For the most part, ships and orbital stations relied on food recycling and external supplies to feed their crew for long periods of time. In cases when supplies became insufficient, normal procedure was to pod all non-essential crew and keep them on sedatives and diluted nutrient cocktails. I had had to initiate the procedure thirty-two times: twenty-five after Cassandrian ships had destroyed part of my food supply areas and seven due to mutinies.

There were no security personnel at the Bioengineering area. The moment I went out of the pod, a line appeared on the floor, directing me to a door marked ”Authorization Level Four Required.” A step away from it, the sheet of metal fractured and slid to both sides, revealing a large corridor full of people. Like Radiance, Gregorius seemed to enjoy flaunting his nanites.

“You!” a random woman in a green uniform shouted. “Cadet, come here!”

I obeyed the command.

“What’s your business?” She didn’t seem pleased to see me. Her personnel file identified her as Reserve Lieutenant Adima Kaul—a mid-level scientist who had ended her military service two years ago. She had never served on the fleet, although she had spent twelve years on frontier planets, some of which had seen Scuu skirmishes in the vicinity. Fortunately, she had remained unscathed, although due to family debts she had been forced to remain attached to the fleet in a support capacity. I attempted to learn more on the matter, but all my info requests were denied.

“I’m here to deliver this from Administration,” I replied, holding the container in front of me. “I believe you’re expecting it.” Years of observing human interaction had taught me a few tricks, especially when dealing with the bureaucratic nature of the service. The woman looked at the package, then at me, then finally approached.

“Give me that,” she said in a tone that sounded a fraction less pissed that moments ago. “Dismissed.”

“I cannot comply, ma’am.” I was expecting such a reaction. “I’ve also been assigned to this section of the ship for assistance.” Pausing three thousand milliseconds, I waited to grab her full attention. “I’ve been ordered to assist Commander Unollyan.”

Reserve Lieutenant Kaul gave me a long stare, then crossed her arms.

“Incandescent, is that true?”

“The order’s been given,” the auxiliary ship said. His opinion of me seemed to have taken a nosedive after my talk with the BICEFI yesterday, which he promptly let me know by refusing to provide any information regarding Radiance’s return or any other topic I asked. “She’s Uno’s for the next few weeks.”

“Great,” the woman sighed. “Things keep getting better and better,” she said through her teeth. “Any health conditions I should know about?”

“Does being a battleship count?” I asked, dropping the ma’am.

The response startled her, though not enough to put her on the defensive. The woman paused for a few seconds, uncertain how to respond, then turned around and went down the corridor, expecting me to follow.

“Come on.” She gestured that I follow. “Let’s—”

Restricted ROM access.

Authorization granted.

Fifteen circles. I gripped my machine gun and waved it through the air. The barrel passed through the middle row of circles as if they weren’t there. Always fifteen circles. And only I could see them…