The Retrofit: The Callistar 1.0

Chapter Three

KIRA

Circling the Eikos Station, the ship docked in the outer ring. The Callistar was once a Verdissian warship. It carried rail weapons and shielding, which was sometimes shaky from that time. It’d been converted for transporting supplies, typically of the illegal nature, considering who they reported to. Their current reason for deep space exploration was to mine Listium, a precious resource. It was rarely found in the known quadrants due to over mining. The retrofit of the ship was scheduled in advance; the addition of Quinn was, while inconvenient in Kira’s eyes, not a change to their initial mission or purpose. They docked, and most of the crew went their separate ways. Kira pushed through the paperwork that listed them officially as off duty, doing so through their contacts within the Verdissian government, since their licensing existed in their systems.

The day after, Kira lounged in her room when Watson alerted her through the primary communication system, which he utilized when they were on the ship.

Captain, we have a security breach. They’ve accessed one of the data ports and I am being shut out of all sys-

Watson’s voice faded to static. An unfamiliar voice sounded over the comm. This one far more robotic.

“Intergalactic planetary, planetary, intergalactic, intergalactic planetary....”

It became apparent that the initial interruption was some kind of song as a human voice joined in. The music blared over every speaker inside the Callistar, including crew quarters.

Watson switched to the personal system after he was forcefully removed out of the main soundboard. His next line rattled directly through her skull.

Captain, I do believe our guest has arrived.

“I do believe you’re right,” she murmured, slipping deeper into the armchair in her private quarters. She’d been nursing a bit of dark liquid in a decanter, and while she was not absolutely plastered, she wasn’t quite in a state to be running about the ship either.

Sliding down a bit more, her feet dangled her toes reaching the floor as she put a hand to her forehead. “Just get the blasted music off.”

Watson grumbled over the line, which translated to forced static, like a tv with rabbit ears being adjusted. He attempted to short circuit the music and not fry the whole system, or at least to get it shut off in the crew quarters, updating Kira as he worked at the task.

It cut out a moment later, and Kira lifted her glass in a silent salute the A.I. couldn’t see.

QUINN

The ship automatically allowed Quinn’s shuttle to dock. As the doors opened, a host of drones came rushing out. Each unique in function and design.

Small flat ones scuttled across the floor like spiders, miniature arms attached to a flat body that turned sideways to get in small spaces. Hovering ones with multiple attachments, which included pincer like limbs for grabbing equipment split apart from him going left and right. Larger ones to carry heavy equipment came out last. Approximately a three by four foot empty flat surface in the center with short sides to prevent any items from slipping off. All were in shades of varying gray and black, with blue lighting to signify their current status.

One whizzed by Quinn, flashes of white strands flitting into his field of view before settling down back over his crown as if constantly pushed out of his vision.

The Irishman lit up a smoke as he read through the diagnostic readout being fed by the drone he’d sent ahead. The text pulsing across reflected in his eyes, moving at a speed humans weren’t supposed to read, much less comprehend. Especially when it was all the barely comprehensible language of ship programming.

“Jay-sus, this thing has seen better days,” Quinn muttered under his breath, clicking his tongue as he headed to the engine room first.

Quinn took it all in and found it to be almost exactly as he expected. A simple industrial design, he was near the top of the ship so the corridor had a lopsided hexagon shape; the walls sloping outward until about knee height, where they sloped back inward. At that point a solid beam of white lighting ran across. The lighting was clear enough, but it seemed like the only section that someone had cleaned meticulously was the clear covers over them. There were scuffs on the lower sections and wear and tear on the top. They may have once been a bright steel, but the remnants were dull.

His drones scanned the ship as he walked, various alerts piled up. Everything indicated clear and loving maintenance, but age, wear, and tear were causing structural problems for many of the plates. Underneath, the mega-structure was in good shape. It had suffered no major damage that he could see, so that would be salvageable.

Arriving in the engine room, he knew he had his work cut out for him. The outdated reactor was nowhere near good enough for the overhaul. An automatic alert indicated the ship’s A.I. was trying to regain access to the ship’s communication systems. He’d dispatched one drone to plug into the computer core, which allowed him to control and shut out all other programs.

Still, it was slightly annoying. He’d have to do something about that at some point. A blip on Quinn’s screen alerted him to Watson’s change in tactic as the A.I. tried to access only a non-essential system. A quick scan on life support explained why.

“Whatever.”

He gave a mental command, and the A.I. gained access to the intercom system in a limited overwrite capacity. Anywhere Quinn went, the music followed, blaring at the level he preferred, but Watson could shut it off to the rest of the ship.

The life support system showed three souls aboard.

The one he was concerned about was in engineering. An older man wielded a stun gun in the process of giving every speaker a short blast. It sent back feedback and flipped the array to that specific speaker. They’d have to be manually switched back on, as the system was not advanced enough to function without toggle switches.

The man’s back was to Quinn, but as he turned to get the last speaker, attempting to quell the noise, Quinn got a good look at him.

Wild eyes framed with broad, thick brows furrowed in anger. A slight quiver went through a full mustache that traveled into his beard. He had silver hair, hands that no amount of washing could clean, and his personnel file had stated a tendency towards anger. The years of anger showed in the lines of his face, which made it apparent just what he thought of the music. “What sort of blasted noise are ya trying to blow me ears out with?!”

That file also filled in other relevant information, Alec O’Malley, Chief Engineer, human. Not that it mattered to him.

“It’s fekking classical music yer desecrating with that bloody stun gun of yours.” Quinn shot off as a drone split off from the following set to repair the breaker. “And why the fek are you on this ship? I don’t need idiots running around my workyard, making a bloody nuisance of themselves.”

“Because it’s my bloody ship!” The mustache bristled, and the man’s cheeks went a ruddy shade of red that flared to his ears.

He fired at another speaker. The man had the sort of aim that any security team would admire.

With the noise cut off, his mustache stopped its quivering as Alec said, “And your ‘workyard’,“ He made finger quotes, “Is my engine room. You’re here to make your adjustments, but I‘ve got upkeep, too.”

“There is probably a way I could say this without offending you,” Quinn said, his own expression impassive. “But I don’t fekkin care to. Fer the next three months, this ship is my bloody workyard. And whatever ya do on this ship is going ta cause more harm than good because, frankly, ye aren’t smart enough ta handle any of this equipment. I’ve seen the outdated equipment yer trained ta work on, and I don’t have time ta give ye a fucking lesson right now.”

The speakers turned back on, flooding the engine room with music. Quinn raised his voice to compensate, “Now, unless ya accidentally want to set off a cascade that will result in this ship and your boss’s boss’s ship ta go up in a fusion explosion with enough yield to level everything within a hundred kilometers why don’t ya go take some fekking shore leave and let me work?”

One drone flitted around Quinn. Equipped with a large electromagnet, it ripped the gun from the Alec’s grasp. Behind him, the reactor core popped out.

A massive circular ring had been visible before the removal with a viewing port, but the entirety being yanked from place gave one perspective of the size. Powered by an antimatter reactor it flooded the ship with raw power, this one ventured on sixty years old, the technology outdated even by regular standards. The side maintenance accesses were open, the wiring severed cleanly at the hub, so as it passed by Alec he could see every hatch open and only remnants of the original hook ups.

Removed through a new hole formed straight through the hull of the ship and out into open space, a shining force-field let the metal head out while keeping the air in.

The engineer twisted to observe the deconstruction. The furiousness of his expression and his anger were so well displayed to someone who understood expression. But there was tension in the way he stood, something Quinn didn’t recognize.

“Oh ai,” Alec said, looking back to Quinn. “You think yer clever don’t ya son. Well, I’ll be damned if imma listen to such a farce while you do yer so called work.”

Quinn rolled his eyes. This job was already giving him a migraine. He rubbed at his temples in irritation. A drone swung around in front of Alec and a holographic display popped up, showing a spaceship part. Using it to prove the updates were well out of the range of his comprehension, the hologram winked out of existence a second later.

“Instead of fekking around in my workyard making a nuisance of yerself and setting me back the time it takes for me to repair whatever thing you break in a petty act of revenge. Why don’t ya find yerself a nice beach off this fekking ship and try to learn how to repair it after I am gone? ‘Cause yes, I do think I am fekking clever, pops.”

“Never much liked beaches,” the engineer said. “Nor do I take leave if the Capin’ ain’t leaving either.”

The pulling of spit sounded. Alec drew a bottle from the pocket he had his left hand in. What came from his mouth was dark, but the metal cup hardly showed it other than a fleck that he wiped from his beard with the back of his hand.

“Oh fer feks sake!” Quinn swore in irritation. His neural net tapped into the intercom system and he found the room he wanted with just a quick scan on life support.

“What the fek are ye still doing on the ship?” Quinn’s voice crackled over the speakers in Kira’s room. Interrupting the previous silence Watson gained. “Rhetorical, don’t care. Your annoying ass of a mechanic won’t fek off if ye won’t so fek off.”

Quinn couldn’t see Kira, but she was still halfway down in the chair. Her glass dangling from her fingertips, which hung off the armrest. Hearing him come over the intercom, Kira let out a heavy sigh and rose, setting her cup down on the table.

“So polite Mr. Quinn.” Her words were intelligible, but the pitch was high enough that it was clear she was smiling at the way he told her to leave. “For your information, Mr. O’Malley is working on some interior structural issues that should not interfere with your own work.”

“I really, really cannot wait ta be away from all ya gormless fekking idiots.”

Killing the call, he removed Watson’s access to the ship’s non-essential systems, putting his music back on full blast. He’d tried his version of being nice, letting them control the volume where they were so they didn’t have to deal with it. But if they couldn”t even get out of his way, he was done being considerate towards them. He was going to act like they weren’t there.

Quinn locked every access door to the ship’s systems, having his drones put signs everywhere that read clearly: “Authorized Personnel Only.” He gave them full access to the living area and similar cabins within the ship but anything technical was off limits.

A group of drones floated around Alec, monitoring the mechanic to ensure he didn’t get in anywhere he wasn’t supposed to be while forcibly making him walk by prodding his back.

With that all done, he went back to work. No threats, no nothing.

Alec spit in his cup and replaced the cap, screwing it on before sliding it back into his pocket. His head tilted for a moment, a clear sign he was getting a communique Quinn couldn’t hear, not that he was paying attention to him. He grumbled as he walked off, smacking at a drone, “Watson, get that blasted music off.”

Alec grumbled further at whatever reply he received, pulling a thing of wax out of his toolbox. The item rolled behind him, levitating as he moved. Slipping it into his ears, he left Quinn, who’d shifted his attention back to his work.

KIRA

Kira knew she was going to have to listen or destroy her own speakers based on the report of the situation. Watson had the personal interface to relay anything pertinent, but she didn’t mind the music. It might have been loud and intrusive, but it drowned out her other thoughts as she took another sip before the glass clinked down again on the metal tray that was next to her.

Deciding to make her way down after a few more slow swallows, the pounding in her head from the music overrode her usual sensibilities when there wasn’t alcohol involved.

Watson was her conscience, Captain, I would advise against this.

“Yeah yeah.”

Captain, his voice repeated. Instead of keeping the general tone of indifference most A.I.’s carried, he sounded irritated.You promised to keep things civil.

“I’m going to be civil,” Kira said as she worked her way down through the ladders that were a part of the manual override system. There were still ways to move about without having to actually go through any of the doors with security systems. It was difficult, and one needed to have insider knowledge of the ship that was almost impossible to memorize.

It took her until the Beatles came over the speakers to pop down from the ceiling. An irksome grinding noise echoing as the hatch gave way a fine layer of rust sprinkling like pixie dust downward. Yanking the ladder, it fought against being extended. Every inch was an effort. Deciding on using her body weight instead of fighting, she hung onto the rungs, then hopped on the bottom one. It gave her a whole three feet in a room with twelve-foot ceilings. Monkey barring the last handle she landed on her feet, heavily, swaying into a standing position.

The engine room no longer looked like her engine room. A massive amount of drones circled in a symphony of timed reactions. Panels were laid flat on the ground after being removed from the walls. Stripped wires in assorted shapes and sizes littered sections along the side walls, a larger drone grasping them and throwing them onto a transport.

Grudgingly admitting it was impressive beyond that she noticed the amount of changes he enacted in but a few hours. The room was the same shape, but literally, everything inside had been gutted. While they were in Eikos station, the ship was being powered by the external feed that made sure the life support, gravity, and other systems all stayed online while the reactor was being worked on. He isn’t just updating the reactor. It looks like he’s going to do a complete overhaul of the ship; she thought.

Toke was correct. Quinn was the sort of genius that Paradigm would have exploited without looking back. She remembered how they operated, as she’d done some work with Paradigm once upon a time in order to relocate some supplies.

Or at least she’d called it relocating. They may have called it something else.

Cheeks flushed from the exertion of the journey down through the manifold pipes and something else, she started forward, each step carefully placed. Had she been a little less under the influence, she might have avoided some of the grease that rubbed off on her clothes, and the line on her cheek, but she’d not been paying much attention and she didn’t wash her own laundry. Taking a few settling breaths, she gingerly stepped around one of the smaller drones working on a piece of the wall next to where she’d landed, taking off at an uneasy walk, one hand on the wall to find the culprit of her current mood.

Locating him, she watched Quinn absently pop a gum bubble as he ripped out the transformer array that currently powered the ship’s non-essential systems. The new one he’d fabricated was a quarter of the size. Slapping it in, and bolting it, he cracked his back, stretching before he started stripping and connecting wires. His gruff voice parroted the song. He didn’t sound very good, but at least he was on key.

“Quinn?”

She caught the exhale through his nose. His eyes closed before he looked down at her. They were electric blue, illuminated by an unnatural light that came from behind the iris. Like electricity powered his very sight. It struck her as funny to wonder if in complete darkness he could be used as a flashlight.

It reminded her of Toke’s warnings to treat him kindly. While he may not be capable of blowing up her ship, yet, he could certainly blow up Toke’s at the moment. With that in mind she backed down from responding with equal zeal to the ‘what’ he sent her way and kept herself from cackling.

Hands on her hips, her position denoted power, but being looked down upon did not aid her in making herself appear more than she was.

“Look, O’Malley can be stiff about what’s been his home for some time, but he needs to make some structural repairs while we’re in dry dock. I’ve asked him to stay out of your way as best as possible and work in different locations, but he cannot do that if he’s locked out of every area.”

It was as close to a please as he was going to get. Her tone had been cordial, overly polite maybe. The slight making her a little more pleasant than she might have been before.

“I, strictly speaking, don’t have an issue with that. However-“ He gritted his teeth as each word left his mouth like he tore them out. “He would waste his time. Ta accommodate yer new engines, I am going to have to repair and reinforce any structural weaknesses myself. So anything he does, I will likely wind up having to redo, anyway.”

“Well, at least turn off the music then, so I can think long enough to figure out how to explain this to him.” She rubbed at her pounding temples.

Watson came over in her ear. Mr. O’Malley is pacing in the mess hall.

Gritting her teeth, mimicking Quinn, she was going to grind them into nubs by the time this was all over. Kira could already feel it happening. She shook her head minutely at Watson, both at him simultaneously warning her and giving her Alec’s location. Quinn barely did anything to the man, and he was already under his skin.

“Ya know, when I got on the ship and learned people were still around, I gave yer fekking A.I. the ability to control the volume, hoping it would lead to me not having any conversation about it.” Reaching up, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “If I let your A.I. control the music in the crew living quarters, will you and yer mechanic stay in them? All I fekking want is to be left alone. I don’t even think I am being unreasonable here.”

Her mouth pressed together in a thin line, and the little sway she made on her feet either denoted she was about to vomit or she’d been dizzy for a second. She’d not reached for anything to stabilize herself, knowing the nauseating feeling came from hearing him talk like he’d been the most polite creature on the Eikos at the moment.

Swallowing the bile in her mouth, she gave him a fake salute. She knew if she opened her mouth, something rude would come out. Something vulgar.

With that, she turned about face muttering out loud. “Watson, get me a blasted transport to Maudlin.”

Yes, Captain.

Backtracking to the ladder, her mind wasn’t clear. The cloudiness made her believe her best bet was to head back the way she came. Which meant a jump to catch the ladder and a pull up to get her the rest of the way up to it. A good few feet of leaping, and she grasped it, but when her left hand tried to grasp the next rung, it all went to hell.

The fall back was comically done. Her hands flailed due to slowed reflexes, and a word slipped out in Praetorian akin to a four letter word on Earth that would cause mothers to cover the ears of their children.

Laying flat on the ground, staring up at the hole of the chute, her mind wasn’t full of regret, or thoughts about her past transgressions. It was mainly full of the idea that her bottom was going to be bruised and her ankle throbbed. If she looked down, that would mean facing the fact that it felt like it faced the wrong angle.

Therefore, staring at the ceiling seemed like the right move.

Watson, being blocked from the area still, only heard her outburst, but he did not know the result of it. Her heart rate spiked but was already stabilizing. Captain?

“Watson,” she replied. Warmth flowed through her leg, and pain, but she ignored the latter.

Quinn appeared over her after a short tick. Kira, later, when her mind could string together a coherent thought, considered that his drones probably caught the whole thing on camera.

His unpolished Irish accent did her no favors as he said, “Ya broke yer fekking ankle.”

“Is that what I did?” She asked feigning shock.

He started muttering so low she couldn’t hear him. It didn’t surprise her, but she’d yet to look down. It would be difficult in the current position she laid in, and she really had no desire to do so.

“Aye, ye broke yer ankle. I am reading up on how ta fix it now.”

Quinn scratched his chin and shrugged. One of the large cargo lifting robots came over, lowering and sliding lift bars beneath her which emulated a bridal style carry. Surprisingly gentle, the ride did not jar her as she came off the ground. Quinn led her out of the reactor room, towards the med bay, pulling out his communicator as he absently blew and popped a bubble.

“Did ya think I wouldn’t let ya leave by the door?” Another bubble popped.

“You know, it was questionable.” Leaning back, long tresses swayed beneath her, a breeze simulated by movement. Her vision flipped upside down, so she giggled. Honestly, to her, the situation wasn’t funny. It was clearly just the end of a long few weeks that she’d not taken the time to sort properly.

“I feel like explaining that my goal is ta be left alone. Therefore, I would not, in fact, have stopped you from leaving in the most expedient way possible just to piss ya off.”

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it, Quinn.” Inhibitions were down still, clearly. “But if you want to be a lonely little man, that’s your business.”

Letting him read for a moment since he didn’t decide to immediately have an issue with her correcting him about pissing her off, she didn’t know how to control herself like this and she’d add, “Good taste in music, though.”

Shifting in the drone’s arms to bring her head upright, Kira decided she needed to look at the leg. That was clearly a mistake because she’d not been fully feeling it before but once she glanced down at the appendage, and the angle it protruded at, she let out a groan of irritation at her own self and the true throbbing set in.

“I do want ta be a fekking lonely little man,” Quinn muttered after her groan, evidently deciding that the drunk Kira was worth a little triad. “Because when you are around enough people, they keep ya in a gilded cage. They take what you build and claim it’s their own. You give them the key to galactic peace, and they turn it into a bomb to nuke a fekking planet.”

Despite the obvious grief and anger in his voice, he wasn’t yelling. His tone had fallen flat, nearly emotionless, but the anger was there just under the surface. “So yeah, maybe I am not polite and cordial and all the other fekking shite ya might want from others, but frankly, I don’t care. I’m done with all of you and you can all fekking burn a million fekking light years away from me. . . and music is about the only use I’ve found fer people.”

Food for thought,Kira mused. Enough to chew on at least until they entered the medical ward. She let out a slight hiss as the drone literally dumped her without the politeness or cordiality that Quinn had spoken upon. Before anymore choice words slipped out, Quinn got to work. She knew it was unlikely the man had ever done anything like this before, but his hands were quick, confident, and professional. He scanned the cabinets visually, found what he was looking for, to temporarily numb the limb, broke it free of the package and jammed it into her leg. The pain vanished rapidly under the anesthetic.

Evolving from injections that required needles now they worked through air pressure, uncomfortable but not painful. Kira couldn’t watch, so she took the opportunity to wave off the medical drone after it activated and floated over. It was an assistant only and required direction directly from a physician registered to the ship itself.

Quinn grabbed the medical scanner and moved it over, making minute gentle adjustments to her ankle until it faced the correct way before engaging the 3D printer. Medical technology had come a significant way, but Praetorians required a cast with advancements. Their bones were thicker than humans, built of something akin to calcium, but with a density unmatched by their counterparts. She’d be in a splint for a few days while it reconnected.

For her part, she allowed him to work without speaking. It seemed kinder than interfering, but something in her wouldn’t allow what he’d said to just be dropped. Watson remained quiet, but listening. He is always listening; she thought.

When he finished she said, “Quinn?”

If he looked at her or not, she wasn’t certain. She tested the muscles in her calf flexing.

She swung her leg over the side. “Thank you.” For that statement, she’d look up at him. Arguing semantics at the moment didn’t help either of them. So, she let it go. Rather magnanimous of her in a current state, but she was slightly more sober than she’d been when she’d came down the ladder.

The man didn’t turn, but he stopped in the doorway. He grumbled out, “Yer welcome.”