The Retrofit: The Callistar 1.0

Chapter Twenty-Two

KIRA

“With this new system, I hardly think we couldn’t pass through a planet and we wouldn’t feel it,” Morgan commented, putting in the coordinates with his skilled hands.

“Let’s be on the safe side,” Kira said, knowing he was joking, a smile on her face as she heard the shuttle doors. Turning to find Quinn, that smile spread a little wider.

He joined her, standing by her side over the secondary section of the console, choosing to remain close.

“He’s excited.” Kira leaned his direction so Morgan wouldn’t overhear.

Ready to perform the first of the fairly large jumps they’d been doing mini ones in known space to not draw attention, safely ensconced in neutral territory, and on the edge of known space, they’d be doing longer ones. Morgan confirmed the end coordinates.

“I figured.” Quinn looked only to Kira, his expression more readable than before, pure adoration that she had to work to not fall into.

“You two gonna be helpful or just stand there?” Morgan asked.

“You seem to have it under control over there,” Kira shot back, knowing she had to get herself under control as well.

Quinn’s fingertips brushed against her palm as he slid them between her own. “You are doing fine,” he said. “I’m monitoring the system while you work.”

“I forget you’re connected.” Morgan gave a frank look to Kira when she’d told him he had it under control and a more thoughtful one to Quinn.

Kira squeezed his hand back lightly and teased Morgan again, “But if I could speed you up before I become an old woman, I’ll help.”

“I am trying to think of a joke to add in. But I feel like pointing out that Morgan’s progress reduces by eighty-six percent every time he talks isn’t hitting quite the right note,” Quinn said.

“No, that’s perfect.” Kira laughed at his statement, having trouble even getting the words out. She felt tears spark at the edges of her eyes.

Morgan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Some of us don’t have a built-in processor.”

“I mean, if it helps, your productivity has now slowed one hundred percent.” The corner of Quinn’s lips were slowly rising.

“Maybe you should stick to fixing things,” Morgan half whined as he turned back to get to work once again.

Kira devolved into a fit of laughter even further, to where she almost wheezed and had to lean against the panel.

“My comments appear to have convinced you to fix your productivity, as it is now back to normal levels.” Quinn offered helpfully. The young man could not stop his own grin from splitting his features and he chuckled to himself.

Kira ended up on the floor. She’d not laughed so hard in a long time. Morgan could see the humor in it, and with the Captain losing it, he tried hard to conceal his smile as well. Kira knew he could take a joke at his expense; he just had more composure than the Captain at the moment.

His productivity went back down to zero, as he could not concentrate on putting in the final jump coordinates.

Quinn didn’t have another remark because Kira had a hold on him and practically yanked him down, so he went with her, dissolving and clutching his side when a stitch set over it.

“You two, it’s really not that funny,” Morgan said, clearly exasperated, but not down and out.

“Still zero!” Kira hollered out.

Kira and Quinn were both settled on the floor. They sat back, trying to get a hold of themselves. Kira could no longer produce any sound that wasn’t a wheezing laugh, Morgan joined them, laughing, not as boisterous but in a good way.

Then, the lift sounded, and Watson emerged, catching them in the act. “Are we jumping this morning?”

“In a second. Watch,” Morgan answered him. Kira turned her head into Quinn’s shoulder, having caught the joke the way Morgan said it.

“Time does matter to some,” Watson said sharply.

Morgan drew in a deep breath, settling himself. “With your leave, Captain?”

Kira waved at him to go on. It wasn’t necessary to be strapped in; they would not feel the movement. Quinn rose upright and offered a hand to Kira. Taking the offer, she didn’t let go right away. She had eyes only for him in a moment that she shouldn’t, but she said softly, “Thank you.” She let go, and they got back on track. Watson monitored the primary systems without ever having to truly look away from the viewscreen.

Morgan then performed the jump. A sensation as if the world slowed for a moment hit all of them, but then it stopped.

The engines covered such a large amount of distance in one burst that it felt close to folding space and time.

“How long will it take to scan the area?” Kira asked.

“The survey drones should be able to complete preliminary scans of a sector of this size in about eighteen hours.” Quinn filled in the answer. The initial scans of the number of planets and the type of sun were already complete, and he read off the projections. A habit Kira was used to.

“Good.” Kira shifted back to business then. “Morgan, set the long range scanners for other space fairing craft. I’d like to know well in advance if we’re going to be set upon here.”

Morgan, already on it, vocalized it to reassure her.

“We’ll jump again in 24 hours after completing the scans,” Kira added.

Their mining equipment had come at the last minute, besides dropping Quinn off. They were dispatched not only to find him a suitable planet, which they wouldn’t settle for the first one offered this close to known space, but also to find Listium. They were on a mining venture according to their logs. There were still some things that needed to be checked on said equipment that Alec attended to. Kira wanted to check on him next and his progress.

Even if they found what they were looking for, the amount that they wanted was going to be difficult to mine quickly and it would not be in one location unless they were very lucky. Even then, it could undermine the ecosystem for them to pull so much out of one planet. The only way they would do it was if the planet was never likely to terraform.

Watson stood next to Morgan and asked, looking over his shoulder, “Do you want to know of any life forms, Captain?”

“Anything of note,” she answered. “We are still not to interfere. We play by Praetorian rules. Morgan, I will leave you and Watson to it. I need to check in on Alec.”

“Are you coming?” She asked Quinn.

Morgan and Watson had already merged back into the work they needed to do. They received orders and were ready to fulfill them.

“Yes?” Quinn answered and while they headed down to check on Alec he said out of nowhere, “I had fun on the bridge with you and Morgan.”

“I did as well.”

They were alone, so when he leaned over to promptly kiss her, she did not resist. They wound around one another, making out like teenagers under the bleachers until they hit their floor, disengaging and straightening themselves into presentable members of the crew.

Alec crawled down from the cockpit of one of the mining drills, using some very colorful language. He saw Quinn and the Captain and complained to them as well, “Bloody set these things up to work remotely, but I don’t ken why they wouldn’t leave room for ya to run them manually.”

Kira covered her mouth with her free hand before saying, “You’re not meant to go down on the surface in these places.”

“Well, of course not. It would be incredibly dangerous.” Quinn blinked.

“Oh, yes, it’s dangerous.” Alec rolled his eyes as he hit something on his pad, his annoyance fairly clear. His not caring about the danger was also fairly clear.

Kira tried to hold back her amusement at his irritation, a quiver at the corner of her lips giving her away. It was hard to not hear it in her voice when she said, “You can still take down one of the shuttles.”

“Why do so many people on this ship want to eschew basic security precautions?”

Clearly, Quinn was keeping track. First Kira and Rick, then Morgan, if in jest, and now Alec. It was like they chafed at any restriction that kept them safe if they did not agree with it.

“Why is it so bad to avoid injury? I really do not understand.” Quinn questioned.

“You’ve never lived boy, living comes with danger,” Alec informed him. His eyes narrowed at something on the tablet.

Kira did not comment on that one, but her expression shifted to concern and she redirected Alec. “What else do you need done?”

“I... You know that I have been living in the constant danger of being recaptured since leaving Paradigm, right?” Quinn quickly betrayed her, even if unintentionally.

“He means that in order to do things worth doing, sometimes it’s dangerous,” Kira supplied. She knew Alec’s explanation was going to be less than kind. “Mountain climbing is dangerous and yet people still do it.”

Alec nodded before handing the pad to Kira. “These are the ones left. I just need everything routed to the primary controls.”

“Ah.” Quinn had a blank look on him, indicating he was conferring on his net. He glanced off to the side as he read out the inputs that were given to him. She’d grown so used to it, she barely paid attention anymore as he did so.

They broke apart from Alec and she tried to explain further, “Quinn, there is.” She hesitated. “There might be things I do you may not understand. Things that put me in situations that make you uncomfortable.”

She didn’t wish to do so, but she knew she would, especially with unfamiliar territory coming up. Going down on a planet’s surface because she would not subject the rest of the crew to things she wasn’t willing to do was one.

“I mean, I don’t understand why you would make choices that increase your chance of risk.” Quinn’s expression was unreadable, as if he were trying to sort out how to feel. “I really don’t think there is an explanation you can give me that will make that make logical sense, but I am not upset. If that is what you want to do, you will do it. I have no desire to change that part of you because without it, I wouldn’t be here with you now. However, just because I will not object to it doesn’t mean I will like it.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you.”

Kira stole a kiss after assuring they were out of Alec’s range of vision.

“You are terrible at following your own rules,” Quinn wasn’t arguing, his grin enough to say he didn’t care.

“Remember, I don’t follow safety regulations.”

Kira started crawled in and out of the mining equipment. They resembled classical skid steers, large attachments able to be placed on a slotted section, heavy treads over the thick wheels, allowing it to move. Thrusters came installed on the bottom and sides for movement in space. Magnetic locks allowed it to travel on the outside of a ship.

Manual calibration typically wasn’t necessary, but the physical checking of all the components, the walk around, and reaffirming the systems readings was a tried-and-true way to catch any last-minute issues.

Kira wiped her hand across the side of her face, a dark substance akin to grease smeared over her cheek. The engine on Kira’s craft needed a replacement filter. She’d launched right into fixing it.

“Do you want to go up to the galley and eat lunch with me?” Quinn’s voice called up to her.

“Is it that time?” She popped up out of the hatch.

“Yes, it is that time,” Quinn said with a shake of his head. “So, is that a yes?”

“Yeah, of course. Let me finish this. I’ll be down in a second.” She dropped back down into the machine, promising to be out in a moment. There was a safe way down, but she didn’t take the ladder on the back. She instead leaped down onto the treads and then popped off of those by scooting to the edge and coming down. Making a good leap, prepared this time, she reinforced her ankle from her last fall.

Quinn took the moment to practice something he’d seen Morgan do, rolling his eyes.

“Did you roll your eyes at me?” Catching it, Kira wasn’t chastising but felt a blossoming warmth for the man with the action.

“Yes.”

“And I can’t even be mad about it.” She sighed playfully, giving him what was supposed to be a mad face, but it only lasted for a few seconds before breaking. “Next time though,” she assured him, using her free hand to make an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture.

“I will bear in mind that I have a finite number of times I can roll my eyes sarcastically at your behavior.” Quinn snorted.

“You’re already down one.”

“And am I correct in assuming that I only get a finite number of times I can roll my eyes, but the number of times you can do things that will make me want to do so is unlimited?”

“You are.” That was what broke the dam of laughter which echoed down the hallway towards the mess hall as they stepped out of the lift. Kira couldn’t keep from doing so. Everything bright and loud and enthusiastic about her encompassed in how free it was.

Naturally, her laughter prompted his own, and he joined her. She thought it provided a glimpse of the sort of man he would have been without Paradigm’s influence. Then again, without it, he would have never been born, so it was impossible to say for sure.

He’d been so good at sharing himself lately that she almost felt bad when she took him out of the galley and they ate alone, having a picnic lunch, but she wanted him to herself for a second. To memorize as much as she could while trying to forget why she was doing so.

QUINN

After finishing calibrating the machines assigned to him, Quinn found and offered to help Kira finish her work. With his help running calculations, the work would take a minimal amount of time. Except he swiftly learned that Kira preferred her help in the form of small talk and not in him doing the work for her. Which he didn’t mind in the least. Even if their small talk was more her talking at him, as he occasionally thought of a good question.

Alec’s arrival with a question helped to distract him from being a sounding board to being useful to their engineer instead.

Quinn reviewed the testing algorithm on the machine. They had a testing sample of Listium to use. Despite that, it only calibrated to about 76% accuracy. Everything appeared to be in order. It didn’t take long for Quinn to figure out the problem, and he handed the solution to Alec with a slight smile.

“Could have used you years ago, lad,” Alec said, looking at it with a smile.

Kira popped up about the time that he finished, peering over Alec’s shoulder curiously. “I’ve told you I’d get a computer engineer on board, but nooooo.”

“I don’t need no bloody computer engineer.” Alec’s mustache ruffled itself. “Things were fine.”

“We’re both finished. Are we free to go, boss?” Kira asked.

Alec hadn’t even been looking up, nor did he when he scrolled to the bottom of the code. “Yeah, be gone, both of you.”

Alec’s dismissal was casual, which didn’t really surprise Quinn. He readily followed Kira out of the storage bay. The man’s affection, trust, and desire for her only seemed to grow by the day. Perhaps such seemingly boundless growth should have worried him, but it was the best he had felt in his entire life. He barely ever even felt considered the trauma of his upbringing anymore. It lingered those rare times he was alone in the wee hours with his thoughts, but those were becoming rarer in the last few days.

Kira wanted to check on the progress of the scans. It might not reveal much, but they’d not been to the bridge since that morning, so they made their way there.

What they found was not an unusual sight for Kira. Morgan had his feet up and propped as he watched information flash upon the HUD. Kira barely gave him a cursory glance as she asked, “How are things coming along?”

“Nothing so far of note,” Morgan replied, feet coming down, but he remained seated, his hands locked behind his head. “Not that we expected anything this close.”

“Still have to scan,” she noted to Morgan.

Morgan shrugged, getting up out of his seat to stretch. “Picked over already, no doubt.”

“Potentially, the route you took is fairly popular for deep space explorations.” Quinn had been involved in watching the calculations.

It was not outside of the realm of possibility that someone had jumped to the same star they had since Morgan had picked one of the brighter, and therefore closer ones.

“Most likely,” Kira agreed. “But we are doing it sector by sector. You’ve just sped up the process quite a bit.”

What took weeks would now only take days.

“It was no trouble.”

It really wasn’t. Most of the equipment on the ship had already been designed by him previously and he hadn’t had to foot the cost of the materials. So for him, it had just been a matter of building the ship, which he’d enjoyed. There was a slightly better than non-zero chance that he would build his own ship once he had settled in and could get to work.

Morgan half laughed and said, “Looked like it was loads of trouble, but we appreciate it.”

Kira echoed the sentiment through a smile and a slight squeeze of his hand. They bid Morgan adieu not soon after and checked in on the other crew members, even catching Jaden, rigging up purple paint.

Kira walked right by like she didn’t see what he was doing and Jaden pretended he didn’t see her, either. He offered a half wave at Quinn, which he returned.

Walking away, Kira turned her head and answered no one, “I will be down momentarily.”

Waiting another beat for the reply, she looked at Quinn. “Watson is retrofitting one of the shuttles. He needs my opinion on something. I can go down alone.”

“I can go. Unless you think it’s better I don’t.” He didn’t want to preclude her asking to avoid upsetting the A.I..

“If you can both behave.”

“I can behave.” There was very little that Watson could say at this point that would get under Quinn’s skin. The insecurities the A.I. had picked at regarding Kira were no longer a sore spot.

“Well, that’s one of you.”

He couldn’t speak for Watson. Well, he could, but he was fairly certain that if he looked up the A.I.’s inner thoughts, Kira would be rather cross with him. Thus far, he hadn’t done so out of respect for the A.I.’s core intelligence, and he saw no reason to violate that particular sanctity of thought.

Watson held up the tracking device for their inspection. “I had a feeling,” Watson said when they came in separately, keeping things professional. “That there was more than met the eye to their visit.”

The sight of the tracker made Quinn frown. If such a thing was on the ship, he should have detected it. His neural net blinked back on and he scanned over the logs. It depended on some kind of trigger. The device hadn’t sent its signal until they’d been in the same location for a few hours. Since it sent a subspace transmission, the Praetorians didn’t want it to trigger constantly, too high of a chance to get caught, but they couldn’t have it trigger randomly since subspace shots took time to line up. So, it had a sensor that could track time between jumps.

It had triggered, and he’d missed it because he’d been with Kira and his neural net had been off.

“They were more concerned than they let on then. They’ve never hassled us like this before.” Kira took the tracker. No larger than a little Bluetooth speaker and squared like one, but the tracking from it was great if you were in a good range.

Watson looked at Quinn when Kira spoke before returning his gaze to hers. “Yes, well, they’ve never had a reason to before. I’ve been monitoring chatter for Paradigm. They’re working with most governments doing a contract for repossession of property.”

“Well, I can reprogram the tracker to send a spoof signal so they don’t know we’ve located the tracker. That way, they won’t know where we are and won’t know we found it.” Quinn made a priority alert for any outgoing signals, not in standard broadcast frequencies. He kept his systems running. He’d die if that happened, but it could go into sleep mode and it had a small emergency battery that could save his life in the event of a strong enough EMP.

“Even with a signal like that, they still might have something on the device itself. Better to just jettison it as well.”

Watson gingerly took it back from Kira. “This may not be the only one. Leading them on for a few sectors will give us a chance to find them all and do it properly.”

“If there is more than one, they should all be of similar make and production if not identical. I’ll have my detection drones do a sweep of the ship.” It wouldn’t take long for them all, if there were more of them, to be found. He didn’t argue with Kira about the spoof signal. He could set it up in such a way that there was zero risk, but he assumed she was aware of that and was being overly cautious.

Kira nodded tightly. “We’ll scramble the signal then after they’re found and drop them on our next jump.”

The drone that Quinn had activated swiftly entered the room before anyone could speak. The floating octopus mechanical wonder grasped the tracker, scanned it, and broke down its composition for him so that it could be programmed for the others.

“Thank you, Quinn,” Kira’s voice still sounded tight.

“Captain,” Watson started, his voice overly gentle with her. “Should we move ahead of schedule? Jump a few sectors to put distance?”

Folding his arms, Quinn offered no comment on this as the scanning drone did its work. A diagram of the tracker and its components appeared as the ultrasonic vibrations mapped the interior components. Once he had a full analysis, he loaded the easiest to track variables into some drones and sent them whirring through the ship.

“I’ll call a meeting to discuss it.” Kira sounded distant.

“I’ll come once the scan of the ship is completed.” Quinn’s full on work mode had hit, preparing a multitude of counter measures should something like this happen again, he’d leave without so much as a goodbye.

KIRA

Kira had been about to explain the issue when Quinn arrived on the bridge. An accompanying drone set three more of the trackers on the table. Alec got up, taking one. He’d been earlier than the others and he’d gotten a partial rundown.

“They came on board to plant tracking beacons,” Kira finished her train of thought with that. “Watson suggested we jump quickly and avoid the next few quadrants. Quinn is going to scramble their signal and we’ll drop them on the next jump as well for extra safety. Their vessel isn’t equipped to follow us for too terribly long.”

None of the crew looked overly concerned. They lived a smuggler’s life under the pretense of being legal. They all knew that. It came with certain dangers.

Hela sat next to Rick. Rick looked furious, not with Quinn but with himself, his expression cold. Hela touched his shoulder, and he softened only a little.

Alec held the tracker and said with a sigh, “We have to consider other ways they could track us as well if they’re sending a different vessel, lass.”

Kira nodded.

Morgan grinned and took it from Alec. “Let them try to catch us.” Always confident in his abilities, and he wanted to play with them.

“Statistically, the Praetorians would win through numbers if nothing else,” Quinn rationalized. “Sorry, you were just displaying bravado, weren’t you?”

Alec clapped Morgan’s shoulder and chuckled.

Even Max let out a tight smile at that one. Kira tried to keep hers hidden.

Rick stood up. “More than one jump,” he put in his vote. “It would be safer until we get far enough that we are a needle in a haystack.”

Quinn spoke up again. “I’ve already prepared an interception for the subspace signals the tracker broadcast on. The next time they transmit, it will send out a set of coordinates in a random direction, tracing them away from us. The number of jumps is irrelevant.”

“It doesn’t matter, they might guess we found them,” Rick clarified. “Those should still go as soon as possible. We should make a cluster of jumps until we can scan again.”

Kira did not disagree with his logic. When they scanned, it left them in one place for quite a while, and she did not want to be vulnerable for any reason. “That’s fine,” she agreed.

“Does anyone have any other suggestions?” Kira would hear everything, even if it was not helpful. Sometimes the smallest things made a difference.

With the consensus being no, she said, “We’ll keep to the schedule and make consecutive jumps in the morning. After the first, we will drop the tracking beacons.”

With the matter being settled, everyone dispersed, save for Morgan, Watson, and Quinn.

“I will take the watch tonight, Morgan.”

Morgan looked a little crestfallen at that, but nodded.

“I can stay as well, Captain. It will be a long night.” Watson’s offer came quickly.

“I was going to stay,” Quinn replied.

Kira may not have been looking at either of them, but she didn’t need to. The peacocking would have to come to a halt quickly.

Watson merely glanced at Quinn and replied shortly, “I do not require sleep and I do not tire. My offer is to keep the Captain awake or to monitor when she cannot.”

“My offer is because I enjoy her company. However, I think it is her decision if either of us stays with her this evening.” Quinn sounded a bit clipped, slipping into a monotonous drone.

“Both of you stop.” Kira snapped. Quinn had said he could mind his manners, but he was losing them at the baiting of Watson.

Watson let out a soft, “Sorry, Captain.”

The glance that Kira gave Watson was one of exasperation in the face of uncertainty. “You are right, Watson. I cannot monitor throughout the night without some fatigue. I will stay until midnight and turn it over to you, then.”

Watson nodded. “Kira,” There was emotion in his voice when he said her name. “This is only one attempt.”

“That’s all, Watson,” she said dismissively.

Quinn was blissfully quiet.

“Yes, Captain.” Watson moved past them both. Morgan had somehow gotten away unscathed and stayed that way, slipping out alongside him.

Kira walked to the HUD, putting her hands on the edge, her knuckles pale.

“I’m sorry. The thought of you spending the night alone with him, even knowing that nothing would happen, made me... irrationally jealous. I tried not to snap at him, but I didn’t want him or you to think I was unwilling to stay up with you.”

“You do not have to apologize.” She looked out the view screen still as she spoke, “Watson purposefully egged you into it. He is much more skilled in guiding a conversation than he lets on.”

“I’m still sorry.” Quinn wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing the edge of her shoulder. “Since I know I am part of why there is a problem at all.”

“You should not apologize for how you feel on a matter.” Turning towards him, she embraced him in return, “Watson is handling this poorly and that is not your fault. Nor should he try to upset you purposefully just to prove a point.”

“I suppose. I just dislike seeing you so annoyed.” Quinn admitted. “I love you, Kira.”

She felt… the same, but the words caught on the tip of her tongue and would not emerge. She loved him, and yet he would leave, to protect her, to protect the ship, to protect her crew. There was such devotion in remaining steadfast and committing to the plan he’d devised, but it broke something in her and she could not say the words back.

And I’m supposed to be the adjusted one.