Initializing Mission Logs

Mission Log 3: XVLQ57814

Xia’s confirmation that the energy and parts recovered don’t quite justify how far out of their way they went is good cause for XVL to feel ashamed. She can only try to redeem herself by getting enough out of these confounded mechanisms to change Xia’s mind. She’s gonna earn her wage.

Unfortunately, the Acheron’s tech is on the antiquated side. Not quite an old rust bucket but definitely not cutting edge. However, in gutting it, XVL has found herself in possession of some of her favorite models of thruster components, specifically one that went off the market because the production had been considered costly and unethical. Well, XVL has no issues with unethical. There’s nothing more unethical than letting your ethics get almost a trillion people killed.

The components, when properly and expertly routed, can save up to .0000061% of the base thruster energy per revolution. With four main thrusters on the ship, this may end up saving them quite a bit. Most of the other components are quality-of-life stuff, things that keep the bay running in good shape and a bit more automated. She installs a hyper influx scan to automate the coolant tanks, reducing one extra check she has to do a week. The medpod synthesis stabilizer runs an extra check on all synthsludge produced, just to make sure nothing’s getting an extra helping. Finally, she uploads some software into their pod comp to run a few redundant scans.

It really isn’t much but it’s the best XVL can do. If there’s one thing she’s learned from centuries of experience, it’s that you can’t let the deaths of others cloud your way forward. Adjust and overcome and that’s all there is to it.

Still gloomy despite her own attempts to cheer herself up, XVL is accosted by Tetra upon entering the galley.

“Are the parts secure?”

XVl smiles at the navigator’s chipper tone, so much like a bird’s. “Everything’s in tip top shape,” she announces. “Haven’t done much software work in ages.”

“What kind of engineer are you typically?” Tetra pushes. They pop a cherry flop cake into the little invigorator on the ship and tap a few buttons. “Mechanical, I assume, at the very least. Specializing in warp craft, life support, and obviously ET vehicles.” They pull their cake out of the appliance, careful not to shake it too much. “And you said software, so I’m guessing you’ve trained in that field. And of course elec, though I don’t know enough specifics to assume. I assumed astrophysics but I’m not sure what schools still taught that after that last edu-data leech.” They wrinkle their nose, always an interesting expression on their asymmetrical face.

“Actually,” XVL says, pouring herself a bowl of oats to make up for her skipped breakfast, “I don’t have a lot of formal training. I didn’t do a lot of school, but honestly, schools were pretty phased out by then cause of the leeches. I barely knew anyone with formal training. I just worked when I could and read when I couldn’t.”

XVL watches Tetra prod at the cake with a long straw. It’s a little too early and the cake predictably flops. Tetra stares at it, annoyed.

“No wonder you’re so boring.” Tetra prods their straw into the mess that was once cake. After a long slurp, straight faced and impassive, the navigator smiles, eyes crinkling slightly, more on the right side than left. “You spend how many hours in the bay?”

XVL crosses her arms. “The ship needs constant maintenance! I need to spend most of my time on it. It’s not like you’re constantly recalibrating our direction.”

Tetra holds up a long, silver hand. “Be calm. I said it in jest. You’re the little workhorse and it’s a game to poke fun. To your question, I am constantly running the calibrations mentally and I engage with Cradle or Niner hourly regarding our trajectory.” A smile appears on their face at Niner’s name and they finish the cake.

XVL’s cheeks burn at the rebuke, but she still maintains her glare. “See? Your work requires interacting with people. I don’t exactly have a crew member I work closely with who also happens to be my doting spouse.”

Tetra has the same satisfied smile. “You’re still young. When we find a destination for the ship, you will be a hero and all the girls uploaded will fall over themselves for you.”

This is an appealing argument and now XVL’s flush is less angry if still very present.

“Besides,” Tetra concludes, picking up their tray and pushing it into the cleaner, “no one who is really ‘no fun’ suggests metatag.” With that, they turn from the room.

XVL winces but tries to hide it. For all their chattiness, Tetra was probably just probing for intel, fishing out a story. Still, it’s nice to chat with the crew, have them seek her out for a conversation. She’s still the baby of the group here, much like back at Last Light, still someone they have to coax out of her shell to talk, but they’re coaxing her all the same. And even though XVL still tires of it easily, it’s nice to know she’s wanted. Ulterior motives aside, isn’t that the point to the game?

---

Her attempts at teasing out a story from Tali come to fruition about two weeks after the ghost ship. XVL had been worrying that perhaps he knew she was onto him, but he didn’t resist much when she got him talking. He had been ‘teaching’ XVL how to play Go Fish when she’d started to probe his past.

“You know, I’m a pretty big shot now, but I wasn’t always this way. When I was like, maybe in my 50s, I was what you might call obsequious…”

The man loves to talk and it isn’t hard to get him going.

“...told the commander at the mess hall, ‘ah ah ah buddy, you wanna play with me, you gotta pay with me’. It was kinda a buzzphrase I was trying out at the time. Didn’t really work; got a taze to the nose…”

Maybe he’s lonely. Or maybe he’s always like this at home. Everyone on the ship takes to the chatter with different degrees of tolerance. XVL secretly thinks that Cradle enjoys it. How else does he manage to be around Tali so much as to complain as much as he does?

“...three months, imagine three months with nothing but sawdust to eat. I tell you, being physical is a drag. And I know I said that I liked personal bodies better than hive bodies but it was still…”

Tali had been a security officer back at Last Light that guarded against both virtual dangers in the system and physical terrorism aimed at the servers that kept humanity uploaded. Being on the Coceytos is the first time XVL has been physical since she turned 25 and was virtualized. But Tali did it frequently.

“I kept my lunch sack close to my chest, knowing I was a deadman if anyone knew I had it. Kept that baby right here.” Tali pats his chest. “Well not actually cause this isn’t the body I had back then but if it were, that’d be the general area. I wrapped it up with bandages, you never would have known! Stayed there for three weeks until we got picked up. On the ride back to base, I took out my prize. Turns out berata cheese isn’t meant to be kept at a human’s body temperature for twenty one days. It was a spoiled mess. Only thing I had left to celebrate surviving was a gods-be-damned protein bar. And guess what?”

“It tasted like sawdust.” XVL’s grin is twofold, one for the story and one for the small victory. Tali would be on their side as soon as she got a good opening.

Then Xia’s sharp voice barked from XVL’s wristcom. “Engineer and pilot to the bridge.”

“Uh oh. Did I keep ya?”

XVL shakes her head. “No this is something new.”

“Good luck dealing with spider hands and the cap.”

XVL shudders at the image as she hurries down the corridor to the bridge. Inside, she sees Xia and Niner in the cockpit. The eyes on Niner’s mask are a blur of light and their lips are turned down in a frown more aggressive than usual.

Xia waves her over. “Niner’s reporting a system error.”

XVL wrinkles her nose. Tetra had just been quizzing her about her software training, and now here XVL is, dealing with software. She taps a few commands into her wristcom, starting a preliminary scan.

“It’s fritzing my X2 sensor,” Niner says. They reach out their aforementioned spider-like fingers to various buttons and levers across the dash. “Watch.” Depressing a few buttons, Niner slowly pushes up a lever. XVL doesn’t notice anything the first four times they do it, until Niner finally specifies. “There’s a blip between 93 and 94. Watch carefully.”

This time XVL sees it and she’s stunned that Niner even noticed this, rather less found it important enough to call her up on her downtime.

“I don’t think that’s an error.” XVL checks her wrist console, annoyed. It’s like Niner specifically found a minute problem just to bother her. “More likely just some data fuzzing in the air. I can reboot a few auxiliary portals if you really want. It’ll probably free it up but it’s not really worth the hassle. You probably wouldn’t notice a difference even once it’s fixed.”

Xia turns a sharp eye at XVL’s dismissal. “You’re talking about a highly sophisticated, incredibly accurate, and impeccably fine tuned machine. The difference will be noticed.”

XVL eyes the cockpit, skeptical. “The ship’s accurate but-”

“I meant our pilot.” Xia closes the distance between herself and XVL and XVL has to crane her neck to look the captain in the eye. “Don’t tell the pilot what they will or won’t notice. If there is an error, you are to fix it.”

XVL looked over at Niner, but besides a quirk upward of their lips, they don’t react to the scolding. Their smile could easily be at Xia’s compliment, but XVL feels like it’s at her expense. So instead of pushing it, she salutes sharply and heads over to the mainframe, the next room over.

The room is freezing and it takes XVL’s body a few too many seconds to regulate the temperature. It takes tons of coolant to keep the massive computer from overheating. The room is just an organized mess of wires and servers, status screens and monitors, and so many more bells and whistles that XVL almost wishes she liked computers more. They’ve just always been more a means to an end than an actual art themselves.

She slides her fingers across one of the monitors, waiting for it to wake up. When it does, it sends her a prompt. She taps her wrist console and it sends the data over. She stands there, waiting for the confirmation that this was just data fuzzing, so she can restart the systems and be done with it.

As the mainframe processes the information, XVL tunes out, wondering how the hell any one of them was gonna coax stories out of Niner. Really, turning Tetra is their best bet. Assuming they get Tali in the next few days, they could double down on Tetra. Once the navigator turns, it’ll be five vs one. Good odds. This game may be over sooner than XVL had thought.

The screen blipped and XVL jumped, turning to face it. For just a second, she could swear that she’d seen an error, some static, something. Something more than fuzzing, since fuzzing really can’t affect a mainframe like this. A few seconds later, the test completes and shows the data fuzzing XVL had predicted. No mention of the screen jilt but XVL swears something wonky had happened.

She runs the test again, this time watching carefully, but it doesn’t repeat the blit. Mainframes are nightmares to work with, always breaking or shutting down for no reasons whatsoever. Software… the only damn science that’s allowed to just not work. Grouchy, XVL punches in the necessary reboots and resets the ports she needed to.

When everything’s back up, she tests it one more time. Nothing. It may have been her imagination then. She collects her data and files it onto her wrist. Then she leaves the freezing mainframes for another day.

---

XVL receives a message from Xia a few days later.

‘Security meeting scheduled for 1115.’

It takes XVL an embarrassingly long time to figure out why she’s received a special notification for a meeting she’s never been expected to attend. The realization comes a minute later after she’d spent a few seconds hesitantly tapping ‘is my presence requested for this meeting?’

Of course. Xia wants XVL to snipe the tag while Tali’s engaged.

She deletes the message and checks the time. 1052. Just under twenty minutes. She places the slide chip back in a vent and sets down her wrenches. Time to move.

It’s not hard to slink through the ship unseen, jumping corridors through hidden vents and using the maintenance grav tubes over passenger ones. She does note, however, that if she hadn’t used her special knowledge of the ship, she never would have made it in time. Xia must have known that when she sent the message.

XVL slides down a long chute that pours ten thousand litres of coolant every four hours. Right at the bottom, she jumps, grabbing a bar overhead before the coolant continues down to the purifier engines. Her heart is slamming in her chest. The engines aren;t dangerous, but if she’d missed the bar, it would take an hour to get out and the coolant is due to be released at 1200. She’d have been a mess.

She grabs a few more bars, hoisting herself up higher and higher the vent above before finding the loose panel. Back and forth she swings on the bar until she has the momentum to leap into the air and hit the panel dead on. It swings inward and she slides down another short chute before hitting a grate. She opens the grate and drops down into a small closet, conveniently located a few meters from the captain’s office.

1112, just on time. Outside the closet, she hears footsteps. A few seconds later, there’s a short rap on a door down the hallway, followed by a smooth gliding noise as the door to the office opens.

“Security officer!” Xia’s bark makes XVL jump a little in the closet, her own fingers halfway up to a salute before she catches herself.

“As you were,” the captain continues.

“Will we be transferring upstairs to the medpods now or-” His voice cuts off as Xia’s door closes again. Right, they were running system scans this week, to ensure their synthetic bodies hadn’t suffered any damage or degradation over the months aboard. This is going to be XVL’s best chance to get the protein bar out of Tali’s jacket. Will she have to head them off at the medbay? Or is Xia going to get it away from him now?

XVL waits another ten minutes before the door opens again and she hears Xia’s voice, a bit too loud, say “you can leave your jacket and bag here. The scan only takes a minute and it’s about a minute up and back. We’ll be back in no time.”

If Tali raises objection, XVL doesn’t hear it, and a few seconds later their footsteps have disappeared down the hall, leaving XVL in silence.

She gives it another thirty seconds. Wouldn’t do to have Tali turn and find her. Xia’s door isn’t locked like it normally is and XVL feels a sense of pride swelling in her chest. She had not, in any way, indicated to the captain that she received and understood her little mission, but Xia had full faith in her nonetheless. It takes no time at all to find the jacket, lying across the chest opposite Xia’s desk. XVL rummages through the pockets until she finds the protein bar, still wrapped neatly in its NutroYum packaging.

This is the tricky part. Denaturing a tag can take over a minute depending on the tool used. This is probably why Xia trusted XVL to snag the code instead of Cradle; XVL’s tools are just faster.

Ten seconds. Twenty. Forty five. XVL can hear her synthetic heart beat faster with every second. She redownloads the story from her memory bank into the protein bar again, but it still just keeps spinning. Her fingers play with the bland snack she holds, turning it over and over again, knowing her time was running out. Then she notices a small piece of sealant at the top. The package had been opened before.

With moments until their return, XVL irreverently rips the cellophane off and runs her tag denature program again, this time over the crumbly, dusty bar itself. It’s a different bar than Tali had eaten on deployment. He’d specified at large that the newer recipe replaced the 80% protosynthetic soy with an 85%, which you can tell by the darker color and yellow flecks, and as XVL’s wrist scanner attempts to find and descramble a code on the bar, she wonders if they’d even been right about the protein bar. She can all but hear the footsteps coming down the hall-

A little chirp sounds from her scanner and a green message appears on her monitor

‘TALI07064 signature retrieved.’

Before the grin fully sets across her face, the com link pings her a message.

“Engineer to medbay, stat.”

A frown immediately replaces XVL’s smile. The tone had not been congratulatory or smug or even neutral. No, the captain had sounded urgent and serious, and if XVL isn’t mistaken, worried.