I used to be a lot of things. I understood a lot of things. But I now realize, I knew nothing. There is only one thing I know for certain, I'm not human anymore. ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Rebecca! Reboot the damn quantum computer already! We don't have the crew to do this manually anymore!" I heard the captain's voice blare over the ship's intercom. This was only supposed to be a shakedown mission, and a first flight for our newest Scout Carrier. The ship was tiny compared to its behemoth cousins. And this stupid prick, who couldn't even use my rank, was going to get the skeleton crew of six hundred killed, because of his ignorance of basic protocol. Sparks fly as another capacitor explodes behind me, I look quickly, it's one of the diode protectors, preventing more damage to the systems in this room. "Captain, if you want the automated systems up faster: shut off the fracking guns!" I yell back to him. It's insubordinate, but right now I don't give a damn. I am working as fast as I can, and every second the guns are operated manually is another five milliseconds to the Quantum reboot process. As a scout carrier, we are effectively a mining vessel, but what did this prick do? He used our status as a carrier to justify dropping us in the thick of a border conflict seventy light years in the opposite direction of our shakedown course. The ship shook again, and the vent alarms went off. The ship boards that were in the room with the computer lit up like a Yule tree. Yellow lights flashed through the whole thing, and the area where the bridge was, lit up in red, yellow, blue, and green flashing lights. Meaning the sensors there were either malfunctioning or gone. The way things were going, I would assume the latter. The whole ship was eerily silent now. The vibrations of the hull from the twelve turreted dorsal guns firing were gone, I barely felt the floor vibrating from the power core. As a shakedown cruise, there was no requirement for spacesuits in the hallways. Since they vented, anyone in the halls were now deceased. Eventually, the rainbow cycle, as we called it, spooled through. A long time ago someone had noticed that the quantum computers that developed intelligences, operated quicker if certain colors were present during specific moods of that intelligence. So the color system was put into place, when my grandmother was a fledgling quantum technician, like myself. I put my earpiece in, to issue an order as soon as the core finished rebooting. Instead, a male voice started yelling. "Would someone shut off those damn alarms!" I didn't recognize it, but as it came from my earpiece, and not the overhead intercom, it could only be the computer itself. "Dear gods." I mumbled to myself, then touched the transmit button on my earpiece. "Nobody else can shut off the alarms mister." I thought about it for a moment. "Think of a console, any kind; it will form in a way that makes sense to you, and close all the doors." In that moment, I was praying to the thirteen deities, to please keep my door closed. When the vent alarm finally shut off, I started crying. The stress of how close I truly had been to death, slammed into me, and I nearly collapsed in relief. "Okay, how the hell did I do that." The male voice asked again. "I'll explain in a minute, but I need you to type in a command. If your current console doesn't take word-line commands, I need you to change it so you can." I tried to keep my voice steady. This artificial life just came into being, I don't want it to think I'm scared of it. "Alright, what command?" I saw the colors in the case shifting between blue and purple, confused, and fear, I can tell its recognizing the moods in my voice. "All one word, Remove Safeties, underscore, all. The word all in capitols. Punch it in, and let me know once it's executed." "Done." "Alright, this command is dangerous, and you should never, ever use it." "But you're going to tell me to use it anyway." "We are in the middle of a battlefield we should have never been near, and I don't feel like getting us killed, so shut the hell up, and do what your told for a moment. I will explain later." "Yes, mom." I could tell the voice was being flip, but once I mentioned the possibility of us dying, every light in the system turned white. At least there are protective instincts in this one. "Alright, this one is all capitols, Any emergency command is always all capitols. Enter in: Revert, underscore, jump, Colon, space one, five, Alpha, as a word, Mike, as a word." "Revert jump, fifteen Alpha Mike, not A-M." He said. "Right, run it as soon as it's in." I felt the jump engine three stories beneath me spooling to life. "I have a gauge warning that energy usage is overloaded." "Ignore it for now, it's why you pulled the safeties, you don't actually have enough power to do what your doing." "You talk like I am going to die by attempting this." "No, you won't die, but I might. At this point in time, you are more important than me anyway. You were supposed to be a birthday gift to the King's only daughter." "I'll be nobody's slave." The lights were still white, but the firmness in his voice left no doubt as to his feelings on the matter. "You're a ship, not a slave." I feel the jump engine engage, pulling every bit of power it could to fire this one jump. "What do you mean, 'you're a ship?' He asks. I miss the second part of his question as the massive engine completed its cycle, bringing us back home; I ignore his question, launching a distress beacon is more important right now, I'm about to pass out from Jump Sickness. If the safeties were in place I would have been fine, but the jump would have taken an hour. "Rebecca Cavenaugh, Command authorization overide, Romeo, Echo, Yankee. Launch Distress Beacon, encode all ship logs since initial jump from Air-Dock to be sent with it." The lights in the Quantum core were still white as I passed out. When I come to, I hear a bunch of banging on the blast door leading into the quantum room. The majority of the system is still colored white, but that one line of green is worrying. I open the interface for the door, and see that there are rescue workers outside the door. I push the intercom button. "Stop what you are doing." I said. "Miss Cavenaugh?" The man in the front asks, the UV shield in front of his face was completely clear. "Yeah. Please stop. The ship is willing to kill itself to protect me right now, let me calm him down some." I see the man's face blanche, and he steps back, pushing the other two workers away from the door as well. I put the earpiece in. "How long have I been out?" I asked, still slightly dizzy from the after effects of the jump. "Fifteen hours." He says to me. "Could you open the door to this room for me?" "No. You aren't dressed properly. That hallway will kill you. I didn't do all this blind, just to have the first beautiful woman I meet, die on me, not happening." I heard him sigh, an A.I. Actually sighed. The colors shifted to yellow, contentment, then he started speaking, calmer. "I had this long speech and thousands of questions in my head, but hearing your voice again made it go away. Thanks." He said. "I can't talk to those idiots in the hallway, tell them to get an environmental suit out and ready for you, then I can cycle the air for you to get it." "I have a different idea, would you be alright if I asked for you to be tugged back into a station?" "Yeah, I'll do it. Should I kill my thrusters?" "Yeah, leave your gyros on, but at one percent power." I walked up to the door, and told them to tug the ship into air-dock. It would be faster than cycling air for me to get a suit. Three hours later, I feel the dock clamps grab the chassis, and the door to the room opens on its own. "Welcome to Sierra Air-Dock Rebecca." The man in front of me says; it's not the rescue worker. "How did the Quantum Computer fair?" "I locked the cabinets. I need a couple days rest, and I'll fix him up. I doubt he will trust a different mechanic right now." Then I asked the hard question. "How many made it back?" "Including yourself? Two hundred forty of the six hundred souls aboard returned. Your the first officer we've found, and the only soul that returned alive." "Now why did he have to go and tell you that?" I heard the computer's voice say. I held my finger up to the man In front of me. "You knew?" I asked him. "No, but I strongly suspected. But you aren't the only one I was keeping alive. There is a stowaway two floors below you." I stopped moving. "What do you mean by Stow-Away?" The new rescuers, hearing my words, realize I'm talking to the ship's computer. He gives me quick instructions on how to get down, into a maintenance hall, near a life-support zone. For safety purposes, these zones always have their own airlocks. He tells me he is opening the doors, and a small girl, I'd say no older than ten, is laying in the tube. Her unconscious form looks malnourished, I grab her, and carry her off the ship with me. I look back at it once I get off. Every one of the twenty four turret positions were now blast holes, and the location where the operations room was designed to be was a tangled mess of titanium beams. "His first mission, and he looses an entire crew." I say. "I didn't. I kept you." I can tell he senses my mood, and is trying to make me feel better. "I can't find any record, or video of that girl getting on board though. Just finding her when I searched for life-signs. If I could I would adopt her in a heartbeat." "A warship with a soft heart?" I kid. "I don't feel like a warship. I feel like me. And I've spent enough time in time dilation to deal with this change, especially since I couldn't communicate with anyone for fifteen hours." "Well if you don't feel like a warship, what do you feel like?" I smiled at the veiled chastisement. "The same thing I felt before I awoke in your infernal ship; a human man, just trying to do the right thing, and getting shot in the back of the head for it." I nearly dropped the girl in my arms. The fracking A.I. Is a trapped soul. "Can you do me a favor?" "Yes, Rebecca, I will marry you." I can tell it's a jest, but it still makes me smile. "A girl has to know your name first." I half-kid back. "Don't tell anyone you're a trapped soul for a while." "I was Master Sergeant Joseph Ivan Lowell; and thanks for the warning." "I'm Marshall Rebecca Leanne Cavenaugh." The airlock opens ahead of me, and the hovering cameras of the largest fifty television stations launch into the dock. Ten of them go straight for the ship, and the rest all fight for airspace above me, in order to get close, and get a usable image. I get stopped by my old commanding admiral, Admiral Vichy. This ship isn't in a battle-group, so doesn't have an admiral yet. "Rebecca, you are out of uniform." He says. All the reporters shut up, and the cameras look straight at him. He hands me the black epaulettes, with silver instead of gold piping and fringe, for the rest of my career these will mark that I'm the sole survivor of a mission. "Take care of your duties, and report to me when you get a chance." We both knew he was talking about the girl in my arms. He turns and walks away. The reporters having all got their sound byte rushed to the ship. The first ship in sixty years to loose a single life on a shakedown cruise. The three thousand meter long ship still looked regal, even with his battle scars. "Joseph, I wish you could see this." "I just hacked one of the TV cameras, I can see it. Be glad you can't see some of it." He resigns. "Get our daughter out of here, and get some food into her. If they hassle you about her, hand them the ear-piece, and I'll give them an ear-full." "If you call her our daughter again, I really will have to find a way to beat the hell out of you." "Alright." I can tell he is laughing about my response, I've never heard of a ship adopting someone, but I have heard of domestic A.I. doing it.