USD: The Morning After Arrival to MIL-1A

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A, Navy Neurotrauma and Rehabilitation Center, Resident Annex A5, Room F

The nurse asked if there was anything she needed. Alex shook her head. “No thank you.”

Someone had been to check on Elis every thirty minutes and Alex was grateful for the care they seemed to give her sister. The doctor had scheduled a meeting with both of them for later in the day to go over the test results and discuss treatment options and prognosis.

That made Alex nervous. She didn’t want to hear bad news, but at least the medical center seemed much better staffed and equipped than the shipboard medbay the Iron Horse had. Although the nurse had suggested that Alex find an apartment on the station to stay in rather than Elis's room.

After a night of sleeping there, Alex understood why. With someone coming in every 30 minutes, and all kinds of noises and people going and leaving on the floor at all hours, it was difficult to rest. Alex had grown used to that partly while on the Iron Horse, but it was a far cry from the once peaceful evenings she remembered having on the Tears.

She was torn though, as she didn’t want to leave Elis alone. Deciding not to go far, Alex headed to the medical center’s cafeteria. It was much larger than she had expected, with a half dozen different food stations and all kinds of naval and medical personnel taking breakfast.

She spotted one hot food place that was cooking different breakfast foods. There were multiple different options, but she decided on trying the sausage, mushroom, and green pepper omelet. Some fried hashbrowns were also on offer, and she took them without hesitation. There was also the option of some type of red sauce, and she took that, too.

Instead of going back to the room to eat with Elis, she elected to sit in the large dining area. Mostly because of the pleasant view of the window booth and a change of scenery. Having a table was a nice bonus, too.

While eating, she considered her options and situation. In the short term, there was no avoiding staying on MIL-1A and she acknowledged that Elis’s condition would determine a lot of her options, so definitive decisions would need to wait until later.

Switching her Datapad over to the StationNet, she browsed information on the prices of purchasing a ship. A small, long range courier would be ideal, but when she saw the listed prices from a local shipyard she felt gut-punched.

| Barton Industries Inc. |

|| Starship Class List ||

||Civilian Recreational||

|Starline Class Light Yacht: 885,000,000 SE|

|Diamond Class Yacht: 1,500,000,000 SE|

|Luxurious Class Yacht: 8,888,000,000 SE|

||Civilian Class Light Freight||

|Raleigh Class Light Cargo: 1,850,000,000 SE|

|Grissly Class Fast Cargo: 2,225,000,000 SE|

|Fireok Class Heavy Cargo: 2,885,000,000 SE|

||Civilian Heavy Freight||

|Hulk Class Super Freighter – Modular: 56,000,000,000 SE|

|Evergreen Class Mega Freighter – Modular: 255,000,000,000 SE|

|Notice: All prices represent average costs only. All ships are built to custom specifications and are subject to contractual agreements for procurement. Contact the nearest Barton Industries representative for more information.|

Alex thumbed off the site page in annoyance. The prices for everything were 10 times higher than she was used to on the frontier. She wasn’t even looking in the right place. Purchasing an interstellar vessel was apparently a lot different than she had expected, and the time durations for getting a ship were listed in years.

Realizing she needed to find a used ship—not look up new construction, she changed her search criteria. There were many more ships available in the new list, but prices were still extremely high and far out of her 150 million credit budget.

She was even outpriced from intra-system ships meant for independent mining and prospecting around the star and moons of the system. It looked like most independent contractors often relied on loans, but she had no credit score and she had no intention of finding a loan shark or something of that nature.

She was pretty sure that only worked in video games and fiction stories.

Switching tack to look at prospective travel tickets to 92 Pegasi was also a dead end. The news had meant that the relatively few possible routes taking passengers there were canceled or delayed indefinitely. No civilian contractor wanted to fly a passenger ship into a warzone, apparently.

The route back would likely need to go through Solarian space, which would take at least two, but more realistically, three months. It had the huge advantage of not going through a secure inner system that was likely to have an NAI guardian. Alex felt like she had somehow lucked out in 63 Hydrae. Thraker had confirmed that the woman who had visited her in the smuggling compartment via hologram was the custom station’s NAI.

Recalling that conversation, she wondered what would have happened if she had accepted. She knew that she had the highest authority level possible, but she suspected that just taking over and commanding NAIs wasn’t a realistic idea. As evidenced by rogue and escaped NAIs possibly living in Meltisar.

It seemed that somehow, they could get around and escape if they wanted to?

She shook her head; until she found one to talk with, she’d have to be wary and not take anything for granted. There could be the possibility that they’d hijack and take her over instead, even with Omega authority… Who knew what they had come up with or done in the last 80 years to circumvent the Entity’s programming?

She took a bite from her breakfast and swapped over to looking at more ships, this time searching for ones related to private military contractors.

The old military ships for sale turned out to not even be a consideration, as the market was even more arcane than the civilian one. Alex realized she might have asked Thraker, but the prices weren’t likely to be lower than the civilian ships and she realized now why the Iron Horse was in such a bad shape despite the income the mercenary company had commanded in the frontier.

Frontier rates probably barely covered port fees and crew salaries here…

Alex sighed and focused on her omelet before it got cold while looking out at the white-orange clouds of the gas giant.

Getting back wouldn’t be easy. So she decided to think about a different approach. Fixing up Nameless. If he was online, she didn’t care if they had to go to some uninhabited place in the system and build everything from scratch. She was sure he’d be able to bootstrap them to a ship, eventually.

Or even better, repurpose available things and technology and improve it and turn a profit. Dozens of ideas floated around in her head how they could earn enough money just by using advanced NAI technology and selling advanced items locally. Even if she had to stay a bit on the shady side and avoid detection by the authorities, who probably wouldn’t appreciate an unregulated FedTech supplier suddenly appearing without authorization.

Nearly finished with her breakfast, Alex considered why Thraker had directed her to keep her PSI status hidden beyond the obvious. He’d given her his number and let her know she was welcome to visit the Iron Horse and the skeleton crew manning it while it was in port, or to contact him if she needed help… but other than that he had seemingly cut her loose.

Admiral Darren as well. Despite all the angst and trepidation she had experienced; the Admiral had given her his private number and told her to contact him if she needed anything, and that he would make sure that Elis remained eligible for every medical benefit the navy could provide.

She looked up and around the dining area, wondering if she was being watched. The feeling was silly, considering the entire station had cameras in the public areas. They’d have no problem surveilling her remotely.

Finishing the last of her water, she picked up her tray and carried it toward the tray return.

There was a digital sign above the slot thanking everyone for returning their trays, but it prompted another thought. What had the message in the bathroom been about?

If the Admiral could put her in contact with another NAI, then she’d be able to repair Nameless, she was sure. She didn’t want to take over or force them, but surely they’d be willing to help her jumpstart a new computronics module?

Although the issue of where to keep it… or how to get around was not obvious. She would need a ship. Or at least an office or industrial space large enough for one. She knew the dimensions, at least roughly. Even if the first thing she did was turn it into some type of hand fabricator.

Wondering if Nameless would be able to surf the Meltisar SystemNet as easily as he had in the frontier systems, Alex made her way back to Elis's room. Elis was sleeping as usual and Alex went to the recliner and plopped into it. The fake window display was showing a sunrise on the Gas Giant.

Alex immediately launched into a net search for information on NAIs. There was a lot of data, but it was almost all related to NAIs everywhere but Meltisar. There were only a few conspiracy theory sites that had anything to say about NAIs in or around Meltisar itself. Most of those purported it was some type of trick or conspiracy from the military to control the population.

She wanted to laugh and tell them they weren’t far from the truth, but she doubted that the navy would appreciate her humor. Especially since there was some truth to what they were saying… even if they were saying it in an incredibly nonsensical way.

The numbers for Thraker and Admiral Darren both blinked on her screen after she closed the browsing program.

She’d avoided considering asking them for help because of her distrust of them, but… maybe the devil she knew was better than one she didn’t?

Closing her eyes, she fell into a nap. She’d needed it apparently, because the next thing she knew she was being gently woken up by a nurse.

“Alex?”

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, Alex felt surprised at the prompting. “Hi?”

“The doctor will be here soon to see you and Elis. You’d been sleeping so soundly all day I thought I’d wake you up.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Alex looked at the fake window, the morning had been replaced with an evening shot of the moon, showing the divide between the dark and light sides of the moon, the city lights of the nightside shining up from the surface.

She’d slept all day. It felt like she slept all day, and she stood up and stretched while the nurse took care of and checked on Elis.

Well, they both had needed some rest, apparently.

The nurse finished checking on Elis and left the room. It wasn’t long before the doctor arrived. Alex stood up and stood by the side Elis's bed, hoping he would have some good news for them.

The doctor was an older, tall, thin man with graying hair. He smiled and introduced himself.

“Hello Alex. I am Dr. Pierce, and I’ll be attending your sister while she is here at the Neurotrauma and Rehabilitation Center. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” He said, offering her a warm smile.

Alex nodded, feeling a well of anxiety building in her chest. "Yes, I do. Is there any way to help her? Will she wake up?"

Doctor Pierce's expression softened. "Right now, your sister is unresponsive but still showing signs of brain activity. She is scoring a ten out of 16 on our clinical scale for comas. She’s in what we consider a vegetative state.”

The doctor approached the bed and examined Elis.

“Her pupil and corneal reflexes are normal, which is a good sign. She also has normal breathing patterns after we did some tests, which is also excellent.”

He gentling squeezed Elis's hand and prompted her to squeeze his hand back, but Elis didn’t wake.

“I understand she has been opening her eyes and moving on her own?”

Alex nodded. “She has been waking up, but I haven’t noticed a pattern. She was real active on the way here, but has been sleeping a lot since getting to the room. I think they sedated her for the transport. Would that have had an effect?”

Doctor Pierce shook his head. “It could, but her chart showed it was a very mild sedative and should be out of her system by now. These things can come and go in waves, so it might just be she’s resting better now.”

The doctor checked Elis's breathing with a stethoscope.

“Her lungs and heart sound fine. I’m afraid we can’t be certain how long it will take her to recover. She might stay like this for a long time and not improve at all. Or she might recover gradually. Unfortunately, other than confirming that she has active brain activity, our tests haven’t been able to discern anything specific.”

That was not what Alex wanted to hear, and she felt like she was being crushed.

“I’ve seen in her notes that she’s been given a priority directive from the admiralty, so it’s possible we can consider advanced experimental treatments, but I recommend that we wait before we move on to any of them.”

"How long do you think we should wait? And why?" Alex asked, her brows furrowed in worry.

“At least a month, but two or three would be best, I think, considering that she has considerable brain activity and is breathing without issue. She will likely need a new feeding tube, but she has done well on it from the notes from her previous physician.”

Alex frowned. “And why can’t we consider the advanced treatment now?”

“I need to emphasize to you that the experimental treatments we can consider are not without risk. They involve utilizing pre-programmed nanites and invasive procedures that could cause trauma or even worsen her condition. While we’ve seen promising results in certain cases, there is no promise of success.”

“We’ve seen similar cases to your sister, who show improvement on their own, with no experimental or invasive treatment. I cannot say for sure, but it’s very possible that giving her more time will allow her to recover on her own and it would be much safer.”

The doctor pulled out a datapad from his pocket and handed it to her. “I have some further information on these treatments here for you to read. I’ve also included my number that you can call directly if you have any questions or concerns for Elis.”

Alex accepted the pad and nodded quietly, taking in the information. Waiting for Elis to improve over possible months made her feel tense.

“If we wait, could it make the experimental treatments less effective?” She asked.

“Excellent question. Currently, no. As long as Elis’ state continues to be at the level she is at now, it should not. From the brain and body scans there seems to be no current inflammation or degradation of tissues, so as long as she continues to breathe on her own, have good pupil reflex, and maintains some flexion and brain response the treatment should be just as effective if we wait.”

“What if she shows some signs of degradation?” Alex asked.

Doctor Pierce nodded. “In that case, we can reassess and possibly begin the treatment immediately. I can’t stress enough how dangerous the nanite infusion can be.”

Alex frowned. “If you are using nanites, does that mean you have an NAI that provides it? I didn’t think they were permitted in Meltisar.”

Dr. Pierce shook his head. “The nanites are pre-programmed as mentioned. It’s possible they have more advanced treatment by NAI who can oversee the nanites directly, but I’m afraid that’s not an option here.”

“There is no possibility of maybe transporting her to a medical center with an NAI that could do the treatment?”

The doctor hesitated, but then nodded. “Patient movement is restricted but it could be possible to transfer to a center in the Imperium. However, that process would be quite difficult and long, and take up to six months or a year. There is also the consideration of cost of care, and it might be difficult for you since you are not a citizen.”

"I understand, Doctor," she said, doing her best to keep the heaviness out of her voice.

Doctor Pierce patted her arm. "We’ll do everything we can to make sure Elis gets the best care possible. Try to get some rest and take care of yourself. You can't help Elis if you're not at your best."

Alex nodded as the doctor left, still holding the datapad in her hand. The only thing she could think of was that she needed to restore Nameless to help Elis.