The Retrofit: The Callistar 1.0

Chapter Eighteen

QUINN

Morning came and with it came a fresh perspective. Heading to engineering, Quinn rechecked his work. They’d be jumping again that morning and even if his feedback loops were positive, he felt a connection to the ship.

He found Alec, busy doing the same thing, assessing, and reassessing, and who smoothly greeted him with his own profound and true accent. “Ach, the architect graces me with his presence.”

Based on Quinn’s prior evaluations, he still hesitated on whether it was an insult, a tease, or some strange way of calling him the shipwright. “I just wanted to check on things. The new reactor is more powerful than the old one. Everything is graded for it, but cracks can happen.”

“Graded for it.” Alec turned about. “It’s bloody advanced is what it is. Toke said you were doing upgrades, but I didn’t imagine to this extent.”

“The superstructure was in good shape, but everything else was out of date. Cutting corners for the retrofit would have just meant problems down the line. Fixing things means fixing them to the best of your abilities.”

“Yeah, well, we do the best we can with what we get.” Alec hardly seemed offended, his jovial mood easy to read.

“Most people do. New ships and parts are expensive if you can’t manufacture them yourself.” He addressed Alec, but he looked anywhere but at him. “Still, she was in excellent shape for her age.”

“Aye, I did pride myself on cobbling a few things together.”

“Was that you who ran the coolant lines through the power sinks for the burn drive, then?” He remembered seeing it, and wondering who’d done the modification. “That wasn’t factory standard, but it was an excellent idea for a reroute to let the engines burn hotter longer.”

Alec combed his beard. “Young Jaden helped me with that one. It took a few weeks to do it properly, or rather improperly considering it’s nae standard.”

“It was a good move, probably extended the burn drive’s life by about five years, while increasing its efficiency by around twenty percent. The old power sinks were only graded for standard usage to save on cost. It also would have helped you guys do emergency burns. Your mod may not have been standard, but it was better.”

Alec seemed to know how far to push and how to keep a conversation going. He thanked him before asking about the regulator. Eventually, they were off the manual. Moving onto other superficial questions about the structure, the underlying things that just made life easier, and the way he’d muffled most of the automated systems noises.

“Downright impressive.” Alec declared.

Quinn fidgeted uncomfortably, but nodded still. Alec wasn’t angry at him this time, but neither was he pretending to be something he wasn’t.

“Have ya gotten lunch yet? Hela sets out a tray for us who pass through.”

“I’m fine.” The nervous movements continued. The conversation had gone on for far longer than he intended already.

“Well, if ye change your mind, you know where the mess hall is.”

Alec departed, taking his tablet with him. Quinn found that the interaction with Alec hadn’t been horrible, and he was glad that he’d done it. That’s when he realized what he was doing, mostly because a thought occurred to him then and there that he would show Watson that the stupid A.I. was wrong. He could get along with the rest of the crew. The thought made him frown a bit. Was he doing this out of spite?

“Oh, you’re here.” A barely masculine tone hit the air, full of disappointment, and perhaps a touch of fear because where it came from was a teenager who’d just gotten over the cracking of his voice from puberty.

Jaden, the file supplied him, brother of Bree Morrit, the ship’s Doctor. The gangly teen was the opposite of his sister. The crew profiles described her as pale, with long brown hair. His skin had a warm mocha tint, with jet black hair shorn so close to his scalp that if it wasn’t so dark, it wouldn’t show. Broad nose and thick lips completed the look.

Quinn chose to not reply to his statement.

“Not gonna turn me out?” The kid readjusted a pack on his shoulder. The olive green bag’s thick black strap dug into his muscle.

“No.”

“Alright then, man.” The boy had apparently decided it was worth the risk of whatever he was doing. Crossing to a station Alec had not been at when he’d left. He dropped down in front of it, rigging what appeared to be a small but effective confetti cannon with a pressure plate trigger.

Quinn cocked his head. “What are you doing?”

“Rigging something up for Rick. He’s supposed to help Alec later.”

The answer was flippant and quick. Quinn knew Rick was the ship’s security officer. He’d seen him in passing, but had not spoken to him. The brooding man was even quieter than Quinn. Perhaps they were both poor conversationalists.

“You are setting up a confetti cannon connected to a pressure plate. I can divine what it does, but why are you doing that?”

“Because it’s what I do?” Backing out in an awkward army crawl, the kid rose to his feet. His cargo pants weighed down around his hips, but his loose shirt covered them still. “Look, I prank Tick and he does it back. It’s a thing we do.”

A definition of a prank flashed up for Quinn, and he frowned slightly at it. “Alright.”

“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

If Jaden was looking for a permissive adult, he’d find one in Quinn. Indeed, if the kid managed to befriend him, he’d find himself with a distinct advantage in the prank war against Rick, considering what Quinn was capable of.

But that wasn’t a concern at present, as a message blinked up, ‘lunch?’

He sent back his response a moment later. ‘Where?’

‘Bridge?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, please.’

He left without a goodbye, ambling into the bridge, smiling as he saw her working, not even really aware that he was doing so at first.

A flick of a hand and one could see the entire network of the stars. With one finger, the user could even bring up the Callistar’s network to see how everything was functioning. Kira stood before it, plotting the next few jumps so that they could be done overnight without her having to be up again.

An impulse struck Quinn to tell her he’d had two somewhat successful conversations with other crew members, but he watched her plot jumps instead. Space was 99.9% nothing, but when the only places you wanted to go were in that .01% that had something, you had to chart your course carefully.

Kira seemed so involved in finishing up the current course correction that either she did not notice his presence or wouldn’t break her concentration. The beeping of the delivery system for their lunch broke her out of her work and made her glance back. Her face broke into a brilliant smile, outshining his own, when she caught his eye.

“Hey you.” She cast aside what she was doing, clearing the view to the stars passing by.

“Hi?”

Lunch on the bridge did not differ from on the promenade for them, other than having a table. Kira spoke while they ate, mostly about being impressed by the jumps. As they sent the trays back down via drone, Quinn informed her of his morning.

“I talked with Alec about the changes to the ship and then he left for lunch. Jaden then came in to prepare a prank against Rick.”

Kira groaned audibly. “They’re not starting that up again, are they?” The comment seemed not an order, but a more verbalized complaint.

“Uh, I guess? Jaden set up a pressure plate connected to a confetti cannon and left it at Rick’s workspace.”

“That’s child’s play.” She dragged her hair back away from her forehead. The motion a stress reaction. He’d begun categorizing her movements. “It always escalates, always.”

“Okay? This is one of those people”s problems I shouldn’t try to resolve, right?” He could set a drone to the task, but it would have to scan rooms before people entered or constantly be roving.

“Yes, this is a people problem.” Kira touched his upper arm. His neural net suggested that she was pleased with him.

“What should I do if I get caught up in one of their pranks?”

“I would advise you not to get in their way at all, but if you do, I would leave it be. I feel as if your reaction would floor them, which I have to admit I’d almost like to see, but it’s best to just take the hit and keep on moving.”

“Okay.”

The comm panel lit up behind her, flashing. From around her, he could see her importing clearance codes necessary to get them into the spartan sector. He chewed thoughtfully. Their roles were reversed now. It felt odd.

“Sorry.” Her apology came as she retook her seat. “Until we get through all the clearance sectors, things are going to be hectic since we’re doing this the right way.”

The panel beeped again. Kira groaned.

“Do you want me to answer those?” He could split his focus between her and that easily.

“No, I mean it’s gotta be done, but it’s my job to do it.”

A new message popped up beneath her fingertips on the screen, waiting to be sent. An almost exact copy of the request she’d just made, “Are you sure cause it’s literally just this.”

“Your mind is like a computer, isn’t it?” Her back remained to him. One finger hovered over the button to send the message.

“Similar enough. Artificial organic consciousness, that was the goal with me. Free of the restrictions of A.I. because I am technically human.”

“And yet you can turn it on and off.” Her finger came down.

“I can shut off my neural net and put myself into sleep mode, which shuts down the rest of my processors. So yeah, sort of.” He couldn’t shut it all the way off, even in sleep mode a few of the sub processors had to stay operational to make sure he didn’t die but he could go from being able to split his consciousness as much as any true A.I. down to just four open windows.

The chair was empty and yet her hip rested on the edge of the table, forcing him to lift his chin to view her properly. He noticed her femininity at that moment, the soft curve of her full lower lip, the long black hair that shone purple in the right light around her face, and the gentleness of her touch as she cupped his cheek. “And you do that when we spend time together sometimes?”

“Uh, yeah, of course.” Heat coursed inside of him, trailing downward. Uncertainty gripped Quinn, but he told her, “Usually when I don’t want anything to distract me from the moment.”

How she looked at him in that moment made his heart pound uncontrollably. His vision became clear, no charts, no data, as his net shut off almost unconsciously. Holding her with his now pale blue eyes for a moment before the infuriating clearance protocols shot off again, taking her away.

He wasn’t really sure what had just happened, but whatever it was, it faded slowly. His neural net blinked back on and he answered the message for her. Standard paperwork like forms didn’t take him any actual mental effort to do since he could transplant the literal thought of the completed form into the table.

“Thank you.” She caught it as he finished it.

“It’s really no trouble.”

A sharp intake of air from her, the seat shifted as she leaned back, and she told him, “Don’t let Jaden draw you into their games either. It’s not fair to Rick, and it’s the only way things work.”

“So if he asks for help, I should say no?”

“You can-” Her gaze shifted down, then back up. “Help. They just need to be his ideas. You don’t need to make them grandiose.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got night coverage tonight, so I won’t be able to do dinner.”

“I could- I could come sit with you while you do that?” From how he’d found her, he surmised she might be alone on the bridge again.

“That would be nice.”

KIRA

Kira relieved Morgan early. She’d been unable to rest for the long night. Her mind ran a million miles a minute. Kira kept reliving the conversation she’d witnessed between Quinn and Watson. A nagging notion that would not leave her mind haunted her.

Watson screened most everything that came into the Callistar. Would he hide things from her? Or deliberately move them off the main alerts so she’d not see them? His conversation with Quinn worried her. As much as she might have wished to watch the other screens when he’d shown her, the audio kept drawing her back to Watson. Knowing the answer to that question had her drafting a letter to Toke when Quinn entered the bridge.

The console needed a featherlight touch, but hers were shatteringly hard as she hacked away at her work. The doors were so quiet anymore she had not heard him until he said, “Hi.”

At a side console, he took a spot at the table, so he was close, as she said, “hey,” and leaned back with one last keystroke. She noticed he’d not been looking down at what she’d been doing as she turned. Not that he needed to, but his respect for her privacy was noticeable. A beat passed before she asked, “When you worked for Paradigm, did you access their system to find out what they wouldn’t tell you?”

“Not at first. They made sure that the terminals I had access to were on a closed network. As I got older, I managed to find opportunities to get drones into networks I wasn’t supposed to be on. Then I started reading through things via drone.” For a man unused to interpreting other’s body language, he had his own openly displayed, seemingly the more comfortable he became. He leaned forward and halfway squinted.

Her frown deepened as he spoke. There were several communiques she’d not received, or that she had ‘answered.’ She knew she hadn’t answered them. “I can’t imagine being cut off for so long.” It wasn’t comparable in any sense of the word, but she still did not like for things to be kept from her, not like this at least.

“It is what it is.” Quinn quieted, opening his mouth to speak, then closing it, then opening it again. “Is something wrong?”

“I.” She clamped her mouth shut like he had, but she didn’t hesitate for nearly as long. “Watson has been screening my messages.”

“He has?” He matched her earlier discomfort. “You mean without you asking him to, yeah?”

“Yes, without permission,” she elaborated. “He has answered some as well, or simply put some aside.”

“Oh, do you want-” There was no telltale flick up the right to pull a memory, but the pause meant consideration, “To talk about it?”

“Quinn, are you researching how to speak?”

“Yeah, I wanted to…” under his breath he continued trailing off.

“It’s sweet that you try, but I like you as you are, too.”

He cracked a genuine smile. “Thank you, Kira.”

His confidence was becoming of him as he took her hand. Kira had not realized when he’d become so comfortable with such an action. He released when she told him, “you’re welcome.”

Kira shifted her attention back to the console. She closed out her messages, never having sent the one she’d been working on. Crafted in anger and done in the moment of discovery. She knew it was harshly worded, unfair in a sense, so she’d consider it again when a cooler head prevailed.

“I never imagined that I would go into uncharted space.” Her thoughts were errant, not quite as vastly different as his, but while it focused on their mission, it was not what they’d been discussing.

“Me either.”

“We always think we are the pinnacle too.” She glanced back at him with that. “But there’s always stronger and smarter people out there. Hopefully, they’re in a good mood if we come across them.”

“That seems unlikely. If there was a more advanced species out there, they likely would have picked up on some of our deep space transmissions by now. It’s more likely any alien races we come across will be on the same playing field.”

“Logic takes the fun out of wondering, Quinn.” Even with her statement, she seemed to still be having fun if her smile was anything to go by. She turned her seat to face him. Their knees would have knocked had she not folded hers up in her seat.

“It does?” Puzzlement turned to wondering with him, the smallest changes in how he looked easier to pin down the more time they spent together.

“Yes, because if you take away any chance of the possibility, you can’t imagine the possibilities.”

“Okay?” He arched his brow. “I mean, if you don’t eliminate any possibilities, I guess, yeah, we might find some other alien life. I suppose it’s possible they are using a high end of the radiation spectrum for communication. Maybe they are simply so far beyond us their technology no longer looks for stuff on the lower end?”

On the verge of laughing at him trying to play along, she didn’t wish to discourage him, so she kept it in. “Thank you, Quinn.”

“You’re welcome?”

“For playing along.”

“Oh, okay. I mean, you said you wanted me to think of possibilities.”

“I did.”

He reached for her again with one hand. She closed the gap. The placement of their arms was awkward considering they were sitting facing one another, but the contact was nice. Her hand was warmer than his, but the shared temperature quickly adjusted with the skin to skin contact.

“Captain?” Kira’s ear buzzed.

“Yes, Ann?”

“There is something that requires your attention.”

“Thank you, Ann.”

Returning to the side station, Quinn could peer around her shoulder if he wanted to or check it himself. She didn’t bother hiding the relay station as she checked it. The incoming relay came flagged as immediate. Instead of just urgent, Ann had protocols to interrupt proceedings for that.

Skimming quickly, she did not fully read until she hit a particular passage:

Commander West alerted the Praetorian authorities that The Callistar may be carrying unsuitable cargo. Whether or not this is likely or unlikely isn’t my concern, but there was an order that came across my desk today for a search warrant if the ship was able to be tracked down both in their quadrants…

The rest became a blur. Her vision narrowed into a tunnel. West had a pair on him, she’d give him that, but why was this relayed from a contact... Watson should have still been monitoring everything that came from his office.

A muscle flickered in her cheek. Her abilities were not always obvious, but the quick turn and the few steps to the primary display were done too quickly for comfort for most humans.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn was up, following on her heels.

Their long range scanners were active, but not focused on relaying any information unless pertinent. Any ships that came too close, any opposing factions, they would send on alert. But Praetorian ships just weren’t a concern, especially in neutral territories, but thirty minutes ago they’d gone from neutral to theirs.

“That,” she told him, pinpointing three small ships on an intercepting course. “They’ve been informed we have illegal cargo.”

“I’ll go to my room.”

“Okay.” Kira had other concerns with them being Praetorian and was already on the comms. “Morgan, we have Praetorian incoming, possibly looking to board. I need you on the bridge now.”

“Aye Captain.” The response was crisp, and immediate, no arguing or humor this time.

Quinn, halfway towards the door, stopped. The shuffling of his feet lacked speed and the sudden halt, then continuation, told her he was curious at the very least. She didn’t have time to console him or offer comfort at the moment. They had to be ready.

He was swapped for the Pilot in scant minutes.

A more serious grimace encompassed the thin set lines surrounding Morgan’s mouth, typically used for laughter and teasing.

“Is Alec up?” Kira questioned him.

“He is,” Morgan assured her. He’d arrived in his flight suit, purposefully missing the insignia on his shoulders. Since their departure, every crew member wore the same navy slim material, knowingly fireproof.

“We have Praetorian incoming, thirty minutes out tops. I have it on good authority they think we’re transporting contraband. They’re possibly going to want to board.”

Morgan’s entire body tensed. “Should I send out the primary alert?”

“Yes,” she ordered, then added, “Please.”

“I’ll take care of it, Captain.”

“I’m sure you will, Captain.” Kira teased, but her heart felt heavy, as if someone had dropped stones in it. West was a snake, but she expected it of him. She did not expect another to take the same approach, nor did she know if she could trust Watson anymore, not fully. She shook her head, deciding to take care of it immediately. “Ann, ask Watson to meet me in the lockbox, please.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Morgan.” Asking after Watson had reminded her. “Make sure they do not go into the storage where Watson’s fabricator is. Feign the door won’t open if you have to.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Gabby crawled across her fingertips, moving from one to the other as she stretched them out to give the Gecko half of a challenge. The dim light enough for both to see clearly after adjusting to it. The lockbox, as it was called. A reinforced section of the ship in the shielding that kept from being scanned openly by another ship. Five feet by five feet. It hardly gave one space to do much and held only a short armchair from the times Kira had been subjected to the location. Splayed across it lounging, she sat upright when the door opened but did not stand.

Watson’s arrival made it feel cramped, but neither of them felt claustrophobic.

“You asked for me, Captain?”

“Yes, reset the door, please. You’re staying in here until we get the all clear.”

His emoters were on, so the frown that crossed his face cleared when he did as asked. “Am I being penalized for something?”

Kira scoffed. “Would you like to be Watson? I found the messages you kept from me.”

The moment he went from on to off was as clear as Quinn. Quinn lowered his barriers to be emotional with her, to be vulnerable. Watson threw them up to keep himself from doing it. Knitted shoulders unknotted, tense posture released, and when he stood opposite of her, the safeguards back in place, his hands clasped behind him tightly.

“Did you think I would not find them?” Kira flushed with anger. Every rise and fall quicker with every breath.

“I did not wish to put you in a compromising position, Captain.”

“A compromising position?” Shooting up, she lacked a bit of height. He towered, but she was larger emotionally.

He gave away nothing, merely bored in appearance. “You had already interacted with our passenger and a sudden change could have threatened the delicate balance you had struck.”

Her hand itched to slap him. It would break her bones and do nothing, not even make him react. “But you replied as well. You told Toke- you told him I was trying. I would have never-“

“Therein lies the problem. Out of spite, you would have done the opposite, allowed him his isolation. It went against what was being asked of you and, considering your initial refusal, it would have jeopardized the mission.”

Clarity struck her. “You only replied once you learned about your body?”

Without access to the computer system, it was a stab in the dark to guess this. She’d not memorized the dates, but it had to be the reason.

“Yes,” he confirmed, his neutrality painting him truly indifferent.

“You’re a selfish, absolute-,” Kira slipped from the common tongue to Praetorian, painting an absolutely colorful picture of her opinion of the man.

“I had other reasons as well.”

How unbelievable it was to her, how utterly inconceivable that he could have thought those reasons were enough. “How can I trust you when you won’t even speak to me as you? Are you so changed by your years of only being a consciousness that you won’t allow yourself to feel this?”

“It is because I would feel too much.”

She sagged downward, knees threatening to give out, on the one hand she had the socially inept laboratory experiment who saw her as the sun, on the other she had the A.I. who wasn’t an A.I. who would just shut her out when he felt it necessary. Quinn may not have been capable of more, and Watson was capable of everything, but she couldn’t trust him.

He braced her at her elbows, holding her up. Her forehead hit his collarbone, her hands rested on either side of the warmed skin as she said, “I cannot trust you.”

“That was never my intention, Kira.”

“Nevertheless, it is what you have caused.”