Hi, Sev,

How are you? I hope that you’re treating your android well. And before you start making silly claims, I know that you do, so you can grumble all you want about it.

A lot of things happened since my last mail. I’m still not sure that I’ll be allowed to send this, or remember it even. With luck, maybe we’ll both find out about it in ten or twenty years. It’ll be interesting receiving mails from myself that I have no memory of. I’ve never had that happen to me... yet.

Third contact has been confirmed by two other people and Prometheus. Technically, I might be written in as the initial discoverer, which has almost made Prometheus acknowledge my existence. There was even a suggestion that I receive a post-factum award at some point. Knowing fleet bureaucracy, I’ll probably get it after my second retirement.

They’ll be sending me to the surface in a few days. It’s still uncertain if I’ll be alone or part of a team. Funny how there’s no adequate procedure about this. After two wars, I’d have thought there'd be a whole corpus of protocols and redundancies. Turns out that the original procedure was written a hundred and eighty-eight years before I was made. The last addendum was done ninety-one years ago and only involved technical changes in the communication standards. You’re probably smirking right now, saying I’ll be in my element. Well, when you’re right, you’re right.

My door rang. I reread the last sentences of my message. For some reason, they seemed out of touch, as if I were talking to a reflection in a mirror. Time and distance were to blame in part, but also me. Getting thrust back into things was making me start to think as a battleship again. My daily routines, my interests, the way I addressed Ally: all were an indication of it. Right now I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

My door rang again.

“Enter.” I scratched my chin.

“Captain wants us,” Shiala said. This was the first time we’d seen each other since the discovery. I had expected being on a third contact mission would have pumped him to infinity. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“Okay.” I put the datapad next to my sandals. “How are things with you? Signed the form?”

“Hmm?” He glanced at me confused. “Oh, err, yes. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Yep.” I nodded several times, silently inviting him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Well, let’s get going.” I headed for the corridor. “Lab C?”

“Err, yes, Lab C,” he mumbled.

The last time I’d seen someone behave like that was when Sev’s son had broken up with his girlfriend. If I had my nanobot control, I would have sent a few med probes into him to confirm my suspicions. Prometheus had probably done it already. Back when I was a battleship, I used to do it every three hours during the course of battle. As cadets, we had given out consent upon joining, even if it was phrased in a way that not many were aware.

Our walk to the lab passed in complete silence. Shiala didn’t seemed in the mood to talk, and I had no intention of pushing him. My thought were focused on the symbols. Thirty hours after my meeting with the major, Prometheus had managed to find seventeen locations that had them. Each instance was like the rest: a symbol composed of circles and straight lines, encapsulated in a chunk of crystal. No energy anomalies had been found, no artificial structures, no unusual mineral or gas deposits. It was as if the creators of the symbol had scattered it all over the planet and disappeared.

Prometheus? I asked the ship. There was no immediate answer. Prometheus, are there any new locations?

I expected him him to grumble at me for wasting his time, or breaking some rule or other. Nothing of the sort happened. Most likely he’d been ordered to limit communication. Either that or he just didn’t want to talk to me again.

The lab was packed with people when I got there. Ally and a group of junior scientists had occupied the far corner, surrounding themselves in a fortress of computers and tech equipment. Datapads of various shapes and sizes covered the floor, amid a sea of food trays and ration wrappers. I expected to see Major Tanner there, but having the captain along with half the bridge caught me by surprise. Immediately, I stood to attention.

“Don’t bother.” The captain waved, giving me a lazy ‘dismissed’. “Get med checked.”

“Sir?” I arched a brow.

“Full physical, psyche, and all the rest,” he explained with the testiness of a university professor addressing imbeciles.

“Yes, sir!” I gave a quick salute and started to turn around.

“Here, cadet,” a voice stopped me midway.

The ship’s doctor was there as well, along with several of his assistants. From what I could see, they had installed a portable med bed in the lab. Two technicals were also there, in the middle of a heated argument concerning data transfers.

“Yes, sir.” I squeezed my way through the crowd, making my way to the doctor.

This would be the first time I had a medical check done on me in such conditions. I myself had done several during combat. The procedure was always the same: have the android subroutines transport the med beds to a suitable place close to the majority of casualties, send out the med bots, and constantly monitor the data feed of every individual wounded. All in all, quite a basic procedure. Seeing the human equivalent was amusingly mind-boggling.

“Just lay down here,” the doctor said in a rushed voice, trying his best to ignore the chaos around him. “You won’t feel a thing.”

“I’m a battleship, doctor.” I smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I’ve gone through this before.”

“Oh, right.” He shook his head, searching for something among the plastic boxes on the floor. “What can I say?” He grabbed something that looked like a micro scanner. “Where have you been all my life? I can’t reassure my usual patients enough. There’s just something about the thought of med checks that reverts them to seven-year olds.” I felt the cold surface of the device press against my neck. “Any complaints?”

“None, doctor.” As I lay on the bed, I tried to keep track of what was going on. For a moment, I managed to see Shiala having a heated discussion with our senior cadet. With the med checkup going on, it was impossible to hear what they were saying exactly. “No headaches, nausea, vomiting, or anything of the sort,” I preemptively answered the question.

“Okay.” The doctor removed the micro scanner from my neck. “I just need to check your bone density and nanite version. Oh, and I’ll need your consent to have Prometheus run a memory probe. Your personal information will be purged immediately after we’re done, of course.”

“You have my consent.” I closed my eyes and moved slightly to get to a more comfortable position. Having a med check done in full uniform turned out to be rather uncomfortable.

I felt an influx of data flooding my mind. For a single second I lay there, an observer in my own body, then everything went back to normal. By the amount of requests, I wouldn’t be surprised if Prometheus had made a complete copy of my public core partition.

“You seem quite up to date,” I heard the doctor say. “I practically don’t have to do a thing.”

“I went through a nanite update on the training station.” The nanite version was mentioned in my personnel file.

“I’ll be sure to thank your previous doctor for the good work.” I felt a cold bracelet be placed round my left wrist. “Almost as good as mine. Bear a few moments for the bone density check.”

The few moments passed—two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, to be exact. The doctor cracked a few jokes in between talking with his assistance and reassuring someone that I would be ready on schedule.

You’re sending me down, aren’t you? I asked Prometheus again. You don’t have to say anything, but the procedures are pretty obvious. The discovery must have gotten command excited.

Personally, I’d have expected for the landing to be delayed until a few support ships arrived. Prometheus was many things, but he wasn’t remotely combat equipped and he knew it. Two additional battleships, four preferably, would be a logical thing to have.

“Alright, you’re all set,” the doctor said. “You can get up now.” I opened my eyes and sat up. In the five minutes of my medical check, the chaos in the room had doubled. Technicians were running about, removing panels and performing modifications in a very not-on-the-book fashion.

“What do I do now?” I turned to the doctor. The man’s face was glistening with sweat.

“Oh, report to the—”

“I’ll take it from here,” Major Tanner interrupted, grabbing hold of my arm. “Thank you, doctor.”

Command rushed the operation? I asked Prometheus.

No comment! came the answer.

Thank you. That answered one question. Someone in authority had given a priority order and the Prometheus, along with his entire crew, was scrambling to make it happen. I could tell that everyone hated it, but for me the chaos felt like an entirely new experience. Back in my day I was the one rushing forward and having command yell at me to slow down. My second captain used to make fun of me because of that. Each time a priority order came from fleet command he’d make a habit of ordering a ship-wide communication and start the announcement with “Good news, Elcy, command has ordered us to do something insane!” I used to grumble a lot about it at the time, but looking back, it seemed funny.

“We’ll be sending three landing parties,” the Major said as we entered the decontamination chamber. “Each party will be a group of three. You will be in my group along with cadet Shiala.”

“Understood, sir.” I stood still as nanobots sprayed onto us. Since we were were entering from the ship, the process was more of a formality, making sure we were free of any contamination elements. Coming back on would be completely different—thirty-six hours of full decontamination before boarding, unless the protocols had been updated in the last hour.

“Remember, keep it simple!” Major Tanner waved his finger at me. “No wandering off, no sightseeing, no exploration without a direct order from me! Got it?”

“Yes, sir!”

“The exos are being set up, so you’ll be alone for a while. Remember—” he pointed a finger at my face “—you will do as instructed. Prometheus will be linked to you at all times!”

This was probably the worst prep talk I’d heard in a long time. Despite all his intent, the major remained a civilian trying to come off as a fleet commander. With some effort, he could probably appear intimidating for a few scientists, but in the ranks of the military he would have been chewed up and spat out in less than a week.

“Of course, sir.” I gave a salute. “Anything specific you’d like me do until you land?”

“No.” He crossed his arms, glaring at me as if I had food in my teeth. “You’ll receive further instructions once you’ve arrived at site alpha-delta-three.”

The all clear message popped up on the walls, letting us know we could continue to the hangar proper. I waited for a few moments, just to be sure the major would forget to dismiss me, then left the decontamination chamber.

“You know that things are bound to go wrong?” I looked around.

Please don’t make this more difficult than it is, Prometheus grumbled.

Oh. So the crew weren’t the only ones under pressure. Being cut off from the communication channels, I could only imagine what was going on behind the scenes. Millions of data streams were constantly being exchanged between probes, Prometheus, and fleet command, in addition to all the onboard monitoring he had to oversee. Even for a ship of his capacity, this was a considerable strain.

The hangar was much smaller than I imagined. Mine had been at least ten times as large, capable of holding hundreds of ground troop shuttles. This one could barely fit five and a dozen landing pods. I walked to the nearest pod and slid my hand along its surface. It was cold and smooth, made of a similar material I had been made of. In a way it felt strange, bringing back memories of the the time I slid through space. Maybe once the mission was over, I’d ask Ally to run a simulated environment of me as a ship again.

Elcy? Prometheus asked.

“Yes?” I circled to the other side of the pod.

Have you done this sort of thing before? There was distinct hesitation in his virtual voice.

“Don’t worry, Prometheus, no one has done this before.” I smiled. “But we will now.”