USD: 52 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Gamma Virginis, IND Iron Horse, en route to 63 Hydrae

Alex was off duty, standing in one of the small sections connected to the ship’s outer hull. Much like the Shrike’s observation deck, it had a port to look out into space. It wasn’t the same large half wall-length window, but it was large enough to watch the shimmer on the ship’s D-Field as they ‘flew’ through jump space.

She’d listened to the explanation while she had learned how the waveform drive worked. They weren’t really moving at all. They weren’t even in real-space, but somewhere else. The drive took in a massive number of complex parameters and then shunted the ship through the jump point into another dimension.

A mistake meant the ship would never come back out. It was something that did not happen often, but there were always horror stories. She’d been subjected to them multiple times already by Rick and Sawet.

Her thoughts turned pensive. They were due to exit the jump point very soon, it was the reason she was here, to watch the fiery display of the jump exit. She wasn’t officially allowed on the bridge or to know the details of the system. Not as a junior crewman or as a rescued passenger.

That was fair. She was an outsider. Even if they had worked together, it wasn’t the same as interacting personally on a day-to-day basis. And Rick and Sawet had gone out of their way to protect her from the worst of the crew who disliked her because of what she was.

She wasn’t sure how much of that was their orders, and how much it was just because they liked her. Often, their responses and actions felt quite genuine to her. It was enough support to keep her from falling back into a depressed daze, and she was glad that her naïve younger self had fed them kebabs daily while she had been moored at Ackman Station.

A higher pitch in the ship's thrum signaled a change in the waveform surrounding the ship, the vibration through the hull loud enough for Alex to hear. She broke out of her contemplation to look out into the solid black expanse of jump space hiding behind the shimmering fields.

Then they were spit out back into reality, a sudden flare of red flowing over the bow of the ship towards the rear. The pitch-black background and red hue slowly faded into a sea of tiny stars.

Alex sighed and went to look out the port facing the ship’s aft. The white orb of the ShipCore that they had been rescued in was welded onto several makeshift beams. It made her feel a bit strange thinking that part of her brain was inside of it, constantly transmitting back and forth.

She had no idea how to make a computronic module to expand the capacity, and that meant she did not know how to decompress Nameless and wake him up.

What she had figured out was that like weightlifting making normal humans stronger, her practice with controlling the nanites to do specific things made it less taxing. She’d spent a few hours after shift cleaning the restrooms when no one was using them. Inch by inch, replacing all the rust with shiny brand-new surfaces.

“Planning to disarm the failsafe and kill us all?”

Alex turned toward the gruff voice, not recognizing it, but she remembered the man’s face. It was the marine who had been glaring at her on the bridge.

“What?”

The soldier approached and Alex felt herself tense up, the adversarial tone setting her on edge.

“We know what you’ve been doing. Not all of us are fooled by your little act.”

Alex stood up and made to leave. He didn’t try to stop her as she passed around him in the corridor.

“We’re watching you.”

Alex set her tray down at the mess table and slid onto the bench seat, sitting across from Rick. Sawet followed and sat down as well. The earlier paranoia she’d felt after the encounter with the marine on the outer deck had slowly evaporated and she discounted it as some ingrained hostility.

“I wish there was more gravy. The mashed potatoes aren’t great unless you drown them, and no matter how much I beg, they won’t give me more.”

Rick eyed her, then picked up his little white gravy bowl and slid it across to her. Alex raised an eyebrow.

“What? Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure how you can stomach that stuff. It isn’t really gravy, more like liquid… goop.”

“But its tasty goop!”

“Tastes nothing like real gravy should, though.”

“Hmm… don’t think I ever had any other kind of gravy?”

Sawet and Rick shared a look that Alex and grown to know well and she giggled. “Now you’re going to tell me how unlucky I am to have never experienced ‘real’ gravy.”

Rick grinned at her and followed up immediately. “Until you have some brown gravy on beef tips, you’ve never had any.”

Sawet shook his head. “You mean chicken gravy on pork?”

Rick shook his head, “You’re weird, Sawet.”

“What’s this then?” Alex asked.

Both answered at the same time, “Sludge.”

Another man approached their table and pointed with his free hand to the seat beside Rick. “This spot taken?”

“Knock yourself out.” Rick answered, but both he and Sawet looked at the newcomer curiously.

Alex recognized him. “Hey, you’re Martin, right? The sensor tech on the bridge?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“Thanks for explaining things. I thought Thraker was going to drill holes in me if I got it wrong.”

All three men froze slightly at her faux pas of naming the Captain.

Rick coughed. “The Captain can be like that, yes. Never piss him off.”

Martin nodded at her, “No problem, actually I had a few questions for you about… Uhh.”

“About uhhh?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“I heard you can do things with nanites.”

Sawet frowned and narrowed his eyes at Martin. “Hey mate, orders from on high not to listen or spread rumors ‘bout her.”

Alex took a bite from the ‘fake’ shredded chicken after dipping it into the gravy to hide. It was actually pretty good, in her opinion.

“No, it’s nothing bad like that. There are some problems with the sensors on the ship, nothing we can really do about, but I was thinking if the material could be cleaned up on a nanoscale, it would restore a lot of the clarity…”

Alex felt curious. “I might be able to help. It really depends on what kind of restoration we are talking about. I’ve managed to re-polymerize some seals and I can reverse iron oxidation… Really find it strange how so many things on the ship are rusted now that I think about it…”

Sawet replied first, “Ship sat flooded at the bottom of an ocean for a while. Not an earth-standard ocean, either.”

Alex knew starships were technically water tight, but…

“I guess the pressure ruptured things pretty good. But why go through the trouble to raise it, then?”

Sawet raised an eyebrow. “Just after the collapse? Even wrecked FedTech was a huge deal. Most things couldn’t be rebuilt until the cores took back control. Now it’s all heavily regulated. Pretty sure the ship only gets a pass from FedTech restrictions because it is a relic.”

Alex eyed Martin, who was still looking at her, “Sure… I can look if you want. I can’t promise anything; still not sure what I can do.”

“Nice! I’ll have to clear it with my SO, though. He’ll probably have to go to the XO or the Captain, actually.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. Was there some rush to improve the sensors for some reason?”

“Not really, but the system has a lot of noise from the civilian mining ops. But most of that traffic is going toward Piscium, not Hydrae. So it is all on the far side from our route.”

“Alright, well, I’m around whenever.”

Rick looked over at Sawet. “So, what are you planning on doing with your pay when we land?”

Sawet grinned widely. “I’m going to hit the beaches and have some fun. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to relax and enjoy ourselves planetside.”

Alex continued to eat, glancing between them as she listened intently. She really wanted to know more about their destination.

Rick chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m thinking of going rec flying over the mountains. Family probably trashed my old glider by now, though.”

Martin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Not sure what I’ll do. Didn’t have any time to settle in before signing up.”

Rick and Sawet exchanged a look. Sawet spoke, “You’re from the Imperium, right? Not like it isn’t a melting pot, so you’ll fit right in.”

Martin bit his lip. “Never really had to make my own decisions before.”

Rick wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “No worries, buddy. We’ll help you figure things out and get an apartment, and whatever needs sorting. Not like any of us will be destitute, shares should be pretty good from what I understand.”

“Never really had to be in charge of my own money, either.”

Alex’s ears pricked. “You don’t have your own money in the imperium?”

Martin shook his head, “You do, but I’m an earther. State provides basic needs, but most on the planet don’t make more than what that costs, so we always have a zero balance. Actually is the reason I’m here. I’ll send back half my pay to my family.”

“That’s rough,” Rick said. “But at least you can have a positive balance. I feel bad for the Solarians.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. “So the Solarians don’t have money?”

Sawet nodded. “They get allotments based on the social credit of their profession.”

“But what if they don’t… work?” Alex questioned further.

Martin had the answer, “They get a basic allotment at birth; if they don’t work it doesn’t go up. The basic is worse than the Imperium’s, though. A box to live in and meals is it pretty much. Do a high demand job for a few years though, and they can retire pretty happy.”

Rick chimed in, “Better than the Corpo system where you work yourself to death unless you win the lottery or are good enough to end up in management, skilled labor or the military.”

Sawet grumbled. “Meltisar isn’t much better.”

Rick looked at Sawet skeptically, “You actually get paid well though, and it’s up to you to supplement your social benefits for retirement.”

Sawet looked pained. “Ugh. Why are we talking about this? You know I have nothing saved.”

Rick looked to Martin, “We’ll help you sort out things when we get to the MOR.”

Martin gave them a grateful smile. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Alex’s ears perked up. “What’s the MOR?”

“Main Orbital Relay, planet’s primary station.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t tell me much. Is it like Ackman?”

Rick laughed, “Uhh.. no.”

Sawet shook his head. “About four million people live on it. It’s an O’Neill Cylinder.”

“Four… million?” Alex tried to picture something that could hold that many people on a station and came up short. “Isn’t that dangerous? What if someone attacked it?”

Rick snorted, “Attacked it? I mean, there have been some minor terrorisms in the past, but Meltisar has the same level of security as a core world even without an NAI.”

That didn’t satisfy her. “What about RKVs? Or just a ship flying fractional C at it?”

Martin raised an eyebrow at her, “Obviously has a D-field and anti-RKVs. Anything big enough to get through the very strong D-field is going to have to shoot its way through. Anything small enough that it can’t is going to become plasma and deflected.”

Sawet shook his head. “Isn’t this kind of basic info? Kind of important for a captain to know.”

Alex frowned at him, “I don’t have Nameless to answer my questions…”

Alex’s words trailed off as an officer she didn’t know walked into the cafeteria. He was laser focused on her.

An NCO called out as soon as he noticed the officer, “At ease.”

Conversation died for a moment until the officer spoke announced an “As you were.”

He didn’t deviate from his path, still headed directly for her table. Sawet leaned in and whispered to her, “That’s the new XO, hardass.”

Alex felt herself tense up at the man’s unwavering stare.

“Ms. Myers. If you will come with me, there are a few people who wish to speak with you.”

Alex nodded quietly, confused why an officer had come in person to collect her when a crewman could have done just as well and not caused as much a commotion. Everyone in the mess hall was staring at them both.

“Right now, sir?”

“Yes. Leave the tray for someone else.”