The sound of rustling leaves echoed all around me. If I looked into the distance, I could see the forest, as wild and untamed as the first time I set foot on the planet. There wasn’t a single structure in sight: just me in a lush meadow surrounded by trees and sky.

I took off my sandals and made a few steps forward. The sensation of cold, wet soil tickled my senses, almost as if it were real. The authors of the simulation had gone through considerable lengths to recreate perfect virtual copies of floral specimens. I also suspected that Prometheus had taken the time to further modify the assets based on my file. However, as perfect the scene was, it came with its limitations. If I wandered outside of the meadow and into the forest, patterns would emerge—similar trees, same texture variations, identical branches—making it obvious I was in a simulated environment.

“Elcy?” a voice asked behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to see Alicia standing there in her white cadet uniform. A few weeks had passed since we last saw each other, but she looked different. The stress and self-doubting ever-present on her face was replaced by an air of confidence and maturity. Back when I was a ship, I had often seen children become battle-hardened veterans in a matter of months. Even so, I had to admit that my former roommate’s transformation surprised me.

“Hello, Alicia.” I smiled and turned around. “You seem a bit different.” Her hair was much longer than I remembered, braided with care and twisted in a bun on the back of her head. It also made her seemed taller than she was.

“Yeah,” she laughed. “It’s been a hectic few months.”

Relative space-time paradox. What had been weeks for me must have been months for Alicia.

“Still haven’t learned how to wear sandals properly, I see.” She smiled, attempting a joke to break the ice. I couldn’t tell whether it was as an apology for the way she behaved back at the academy, or because she had kept postponing our talk for a week. Possibly a bit of both.

“I’m getting there.” I tilted my head. “I didn’t excel as much as you.” Now I was my turn to bury the hatchet. “So what’s been happening with you? The things you can talk about, I mean.”

“Things have been good, but hectic.” She resorted to the standard evasive answer. “I expect it’s the same for you.” Alicia tested the ground with her uniform boot. It was obvious she hadn’t been on planet in a while. “Getting an assignment on a science ship is a big deal. Less than half a percent of cadets get sent on one.”

“There are far fewer science ships.” I shrugged. “I can change the setting, if you want,” I offered.

“No, it’s fine.” Alicia bent down and touched the grass with her hand. “Just unexpected. It never crossed my mind to have an SR of nature. I sort of miss it.” She looked up at me. “Is this your home?”

“As close as possible.” I went beside her and pointed at a spot on the horizon. “There’s a spaceport about there. It started small, but has grown enough to be visible. Mostly freight. The commercial one is close to the city, which is roughly there.” I pointed slightly to the left.

The thought reminded me of the time I used to work there. Sev had gone through that phase as well during his last years of high school. He had been so desperate to impress me that he tried to mimic my work habits. After his final year, none of us worked at the market ever again.

“Want a chair to sit?” I offered.

“The ground is fine.” Alicia hesitated a moment, before sitting down. Even in the academy she avoided it. Back then, it was more of a peer pressure thing. “I haven’t done this since I was a child.”

“It’s not something you forget doing.” I joined her on the ground. “Have you been in touch with anyone else?”

“A few people.” Alicia plucked a handful of grass. “I used to exchange messages with some of the five percenters the first few weeks. We got too busy to keep in touch after. Things I can’t talk about.” She looked down and away from me. “I write to Carmel every week. I don’t know when I’ll be allowed to get a response.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” I nodded. Carmel wasn’t one of my favorite people, but apparently he still meant a lot to her. I could chalk it up to that age where people rarely knew what they wanted, but Alicia had already beaten the odds once. When we first met, I didn’t think she’d even make the cut. As it turned out, her scores were far higher than my own.

“At least I know he’s writing back.” She opened her hand, leaving the blades of grass to be taken by the wind. “What about you? Still giving everyone a hard time?”

“Sort of.” We both knew this was code for “yes”. However, I suspected that even Alicia didn’t know to what degree she was right. “I might have gotten in a bit of trouble, but it’s all fine now.” At least in one aspect. “One of the cadets quit after my first mission.”

“Ouch.”

“It wasn’t because of me.” At least not directly. I’d never know whether Shiala would have stayed if he had been the one who made the third contact. Everything considered, probably not, though I couldn’t know for certain. “Still unpleasant, though.”

“I bet. I’m the only cadet on my ship.”

“Nice.”

That was strange. Usually cadets didn’t go on solo assignments until their second transfer. Apparently having a high academy score had its advantages. When I was active, cadets were rare. Command had the good sense not to place complete rookies in command positions during active battle. That created a significant shortage of training grounds, at times assigning a full squad of cadets on a single ship. Aurie had gone through the experience once, while being refitted with a new weapon system. She rarely discussed it, but from the few things she said, she didn’t cherish the experience.

“Is the food any good?” I scratched my ear.

Ten minutes in, and we had already run out of topics of conversation. I couldn’t say I was surprised, yet at the same time I had hoped that seeing each other would spark something. Confidentiality protocols forbade me from discussing anything about the third contact, the artifacts and patterns I’d found. There was no doubt in my mind that Alicia had also experienced similarly wonderful things she couldn’t tell me. As a result, we were sitting here, politely exchanging trivial nonsense, knowing that both our ships were listening in, probably transmitting every word and image to command for counterintelligence analysis.

“What’s your ship like?” I asked a new question before she could answer.

Alicia’s face lit up.

“Prometheus is a science type, which automatically makes him very smart,” I went on. “He has at least the number of processing cores that I did when I was active, as he keeps reminding me.”

“Seriously?” Alicia laughed—a full unadulterated laugh I hadn’t heard since we were at the recruitment center. “He tells you that?”

“He has a point,” I confessed. It also didn’t hurt boosting Prometheus’ confidence a bit. As all science ships, he was prone to emotional variations. “He’s still terrible at improvisation, but he’s doing his best. A few more decades and he’ll get there.“

Storm clouds appeared in the sky above. Apparently Prometheus didn’t consider my praise of him a compliment. Our values were just too different. At least I could see he realized that, or it would be raining already. I would hardly have minded, though Alicia might have.

“Looks like you’re getting along.” Alicia said once her laughter had died out.

“Why wouldn’t we? I’m part of his crew.” Even though Prometheus was half my age, he was a specialist in his area.

“My ship is...” Alicia paused, as if searching for the right word. “Actually, she’s a lot like you.”

“Short and sarcastic?” I arched a brow. In my present form, I had difficulty comparing myself to any ship.

“You’re not that short.” Alicia was kind enough to counter, even if I could tell it was a lie. We both knew what a sore subject my height was. If I had the option, I’d go through a whole range or procedures to get a few extra inches. “I meant funny and supportive.”

I didn’t consider myself either, but I nodded.

“In fact, she’s very curious about you.”

Curious? “What do you mean?” As a ship, she probably had access to my service record and my current personnel file. With enough clearance, she could peek in my biometrics and memory scans as well.

“I mentioned that you were a ship when I got your first message.”

Only then? Maybe Bull Calf had raised my expectations too much, but I had hoped that would be the first thing she’d mention upon boarding. New ships tended to be curious by nature. I remember how I was the first few years. On several occasions, the XO had to tell me to stop chatting with the troopers because it was distracting them too much. For Alicia to have hidden that fact, she must have been stressed beyond belief or ashamed of it. As bad as it sounded, I hoped she had been stressed.

“She asked what class you were,” Alicia went on. “And then I mentioned you were a retired battleship. She almost flipped.”

“I’m glad I have that effect on someone,” I said under my breath.

“After that she wouldn’t shut up.” Alicia didn’t register my comment. “Each time I’d have to postpone, she’d grumble and bombard me with questions.”

Typical for a new ship. The fact that she didn’t access my fleet files, however, was surprising. Even during communication silence, all ships had a copy of the fleet personnel database, which was automatically updated whenever communications were restored. I used to have one until retirement, and even after I had composed a short list of ships I knew.

“Didn’t you give her my file?” I probed.

“Can’t. She’s not allowed to store ship specs.”

That was an interesting slip. Alicia and her monitors hadn’t noticed, but I had just gotten probably one of the most sensitive information possible about her mission. The only reason I knew for a ship to have fleet information missing was when capture was feared; and since it was unlikely for Alicia to have been sent to a war zone, it means that she was in an unknown region of space.

Well, Sev, looks like I’m not the only one on an explorer ship. I thought. Maybe I hadn’t been the only one to stumble across a third contact artifact either?

“What did you tell her?” I leaned forward.

“Mostly that you were fun and weird.” Apparently she had omitted that time when she had requested that she be placed in another room. “I said that we were roommates and you helped me out a lot.”

At least that element was true.

“And that it’d be fun to meet you,” a new voice said.

The sound markers made it clear that the voice was synthetic—young, sharp, and female. The way she shortened the vowels gave her a slight unidentifiable accent, present in later generation ships. Back when I was constructed, speech patterns were designed to be clearly understood by all, which by definition meant devoid of any identifiable features. The only “accent” I had was Standard 071, a young female voice and intonation. As my first captain liked to say, my voice reminded him of his coffee machine.

Before Alicia could turn around to react, her ship had emerged in the simulated reality. Intriguingly enough, she had chosen to take the form of the current poster girl for fleet recruitment: tall, slim, athletic, with bronze skin and long platinum hair. I had seen images of her in the recruitment center, waving from the walls and columns, reciting positive statistics that would get people to join. Unlike us, she was dressed in a violet version of a captain’s uniform, the insignia clearly visible on her chest and shoulders. Also, she was completely barefoot.

“Heya.” She waved, as if it were the most normal thing in the universe. “I’m Radiance! Alicia has told me so much about you!”

“Good to hear.” I offered a slight smile.

I knew a Radiance a long time ago. He was an admiral ship in charge of my fleet section during during the Star Well campaign. Like most of my acquaintances, he had been destroyed during a Cassandrian counterattack. There were rumors that the salvaging authorities had managed to find several of his cores after the battle, though details remained sketchy.

“Is it true that you’re two hundred years old?” Radiance’s form rushed towards me, stopping precisely a meter away. At this distance, I could almost perceive her as a real person.

“Rad!” Alicia shouted, shocked and embarrassed by the ship’s words. If anything, I found the question rather flattering.

“Not yet.” I still couldn’t tell if she was showing off her processing power by appearing here, or if she was genuinely curious. Knowing how I acted at the time, I suspected a bit of both. “What about you?”

“Twenty two months in four days,” Radiance said, as proud as a kitten that had managed to claw onto the table. “Are you really retired?”

“I was.” I thought a moment. “I guess I’m unretired now.” Or whatever definition the bureaucracy had come up with.

“Wow! I wish you could—” Radiance’s avatar disappeared mid-sentence. I looked at Alicia, concerned. My former roommate was still there, face blustering with shame. In some aspects, SR was too good to be comfortable. Radiance’s subroutines were undoubtedly monitoring Alicia’s vitals and creating the corresponding image.

“Do you need to go?” I asked.

“No, it’s just...” Alicia sighed. “Rad is fun and nice, but she has her... peculiarities.”

“I don’t have the clearance to hear more, I take it?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “You must know how it is. You’ve been through this, after all.”

“Yep.” Although, twenty-two months was alarmingly young for a ship to be out. From what I knew I had spend three years in training and simulations before receiving a proper crew. “She seems like a good fit.”

“Oh, she is.” Alicia smirked. “She has more in common with me than anyone else, even her captain. It’s weird in a way. I’m the lowest ranking lifeform on board, but for her, the only thing that matters is that were the same age.”

I tilted my head.

“She associates age with the time we joined the fleet.” Alicia plucked a single blade of grass from the ground and held it in front of her face. “I did some training before I was sent to the recruitment center, so apparently that counts as well.”

“I see.” I could see the logic.

“Elcy, I know we weren’t very close, even after our heart to heart.” The mood suddenly changed. “I still feel bad about some of the things I did to you back in the academy. So I wouldn’t blame you if you said no.” She took a deep breath. “But, there’s a favor I want to ask you.”

“You know that the conversation is being monitored,” I reminded.

“I know, and I have permission.” Her facial expression had become remarkably sharp. “It’s about Radiance.”

“Oh?” This was a surprise.

“When I told you that I postponed our call because I was busy, I wasn’t completely honest.” She pursed her lips, looking me right in the eyes. “I was ordered to. I can’t tell you all of the reasons, but some had to do with Radiance.”

“She’s still learning, isn’t she?” I ventured a guess. “There were some tell-tale signs.”

“It’s more complicated than that. The bottom line is that, in a few months, I’ll probably be assigned to another ship. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be here for this long. However...” there was a long pause. “Radiance took a liking to me. Both new, both less than two years in the service, both female... she considers me a friend. When I go...”

“There’s no telling how she’ll react,” I finished the sentence for her.

I half-wanted for Alicia to laugh or shake her head, but she didn’t. Instead, she let go of the blade of grass, watching it be caught by the virtual wind and carried into the distance. For the first time in a long while, I was faced with a impossible predicament. When Gibraltar has requested retirement without telling me, I had felt hurt. When I had almost lost Cass, I had accepted retirement. The question was, what would Radiance do?

“My Commanding Officer told me that it isn’t a big deal, but... I’m just not sure. Maybe I’m the one with the problems.” Alicia forced a smile. “It’s my first time on a ship. Maybe I’m projecting my fears on her, but...” she paused. “Can you keep an eye on her, Elcy? I’m not asking that you keep tabs on her or anything like that, but if she send you a transmission, could you please be there as much as possible?”

Ever since my retirement, I had received many strange requests. This one was both weird and not. I knew exactly where Alicia was coming from. In part, I even shared her concerns. In the course of my active life, I’d had millions of people pass through me, and with the exception of my captains, I had never shown half as much closeness as Radiance had towards Alicia. With my limited information, I couldn’t be sure if that was a feature of the new ship class, or if it was an unexpected side effect of the brief training process.

What do you think, Sev? I placed a finger on my chin. Should I take care of another kid?

“I’ve raised the matter with my captain,” Alicia said, her voice slightly weaker. “He said he didn’t see any harm.”

“And you shared your concerns with him?” I asked. “All of them?”

“Yes.” Alicia nodded. “I even made a request to extend my assignment onboard.”

No chance of that happening. Cadets had as much control over ship assignments as ships did with transfers. I would have preferred if that wasn’t the only reason she had agreed to have a talk with me. Then again, I couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Can you clear it with command?” I scrunched my lips.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Okay. Get the okay. I’ll be here for her.” It’s like Sev all over again.