Thea

“Would you mind grabbing Samira?” Bryce asked. “It looks like she’s still awake and the last time I tried going in the maintenance corridors, she threatened to blow up the ship.”

We were walking through the cargo bay and could hear music coming from Sami’s area.

It was very early in the morning; we had just gotten back, and I was still a little tipsy. The night had been really fun, all the way up until Bryce and Lysc started talking business, and the last thing that I wanted to do right now was start that same conversation all over again with Softie and Sami.

“Sami might still be awake, but Softie definitely isn’t,” I said. “We should just go to bed and deal with all of that in the morning.”

Bryce looked reluctant. She was clearly in business mode, and I needed to do something quickly or we were going to be up until morning talking strategy. If I was going to be up for that long, then I would much rather be doing other things.

I took both of her hands in mine and did my best attempt at bashful innocence.

“I’m exhausted and I just think that the other two would appreciate not being disturbed this early in the morning,” I said. “I need to change out of this dress, and I think I’m going to have trouble finding any clothing to wear until the morning.”

“Thea, didn’t we just buy you a ton of new clothes? Including way too many sets of pajamas?” she asked.

In her defense, I think she was just really tired. It had been a long day, not to mention she didn’t usually drink nearly as much wine as she had that night.

“Princess, I said that I’m going to have trouble finding any clothing to wear until the morning,” I spoke slowly to make sure she understood. “Any. Clothing. At. All.”

There was a flash of understanding, and Bryce’s smile followed soon after.

“I guess they can wait until the morning,” she said. “We really should focus on your wardrobe crisis first.”

I nodded. “Priorities are important.”

We raced up to the captain’s quarters but by the time we finished getting ready for bed we were both too tired to do anything. Instead, I simply pulled Bryce’s arm tightly around myself and enjoyed the calm of her rhythmic breathing as I fell asleep. This was definitely better than planning.

~~~~

Bryce was a heavy sleeper. This was good, because early every morning I had to untangle myself from a very grabby pair of elf arms.

She woke up early, which meant that I had to wake up even earlier to make sure breakfast was ready in time.

I was hoping to have a bit of leeway since we went to bed so late, but I knew better than to expect that with Bryce. She was startlingly consistent with the strangest things and her morning routine was set in stone.

After getting dressed, I started towards the kitchen, but found Sora in their tiny fox form. They were sleeping in a ball of silver fluff on the dining room table. I carefully lifted them up, and they half opened their eyes.

“Softie, I told you to stop sleeping on the table. It gets covered in your fur and it’s a pain in the ass for me to clean up.”

They responded with a sleepy yawn and closed their eyes again. I walked them over to the couch and dropped them onto it. Despite the relatively high drop, Softie didn’t seem to care. They curled both of their tails around their body and fell back asleep. I made a mental note to make them wipe the table down before breakfast.

I got to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Bryce needed coffee in the morning, and it was the only way that I found to get Sami up for breakfast.

She could smell it from downstairs and this way I wouldn’t need to go fetch her.

I had been experimenting with adding eggs to a banana-like fruit to make a fruity pancake, and Bryce said they were delicious.

I made a small stack of those for everybody, along with some fried meat that was close enough to pass as pork. For Bryce, I fried up a few thick mushrooms that, with the right seasoning, tasted almost like strips of bacon.

Bryce and Sami were already chatting at the table when I came out with a couple of mugs of coffee. I kissed Bryce and sat the mugs down before going back into the kitchen to gather the food. When I returned, Sora had joined the table, and I set food down for everybody except for them.

“Nope,” I said. “You don’t get anything until you wipe all of your loose fur off the table.”

“I don’t shed.” They looked insulted.

“I beg to differ.” I threw a dish rag at them. “Clean it up and then you can have food.”

The smell of fried meat combined with Sami’s overacted reaction to eating it must have been pretty convincing, because Softie started wiping. Once they finished, I set their food down and sat next to Bryce to eat my own.

“Maybe if you started sleeping in your own bed instead of on the table, we wouldn’t be having this issue,” I said between mouthfuls of pancake.

“The table is more comfortable,” Softie shrugged. “It’s nice and cool.”

“It’s not sanitary,” I said.

“I’ve met the people Sora dates,” Sami laughed. “They probably don’t even know what sanitary means.”

“Coming from the grease monkey,” Sora said.

“At least she started washing her hands before meals,” I said. “She actually listens to me, unlike some people.”

Sami waved her two mostly grease-free hands at Sora, like having almost clean hands was the greatest achievement in the world. Admittedly, it was a massive improvement over how she used to come to meals.

Actually, Sami coming to meals at all was a joint undertaking for me and Softie. So far, we could only really get her to come up for breakfast, and we delivered her other meals to the workbench. Sami was a massive workaholic. It wasn’t healthy, but she was getting better.

“How did the dinner go?” Softie asked.

“Well enough,” Bryce said. “Lysc didn’t admit to the bomb until we brought it up, but that was what we were expecting.”

“Did she offer us a job?” Sami asked.

“Yes, but it’s dangerous,” Bryce said. “She wants us to kill the local Syndicate lord.”

“That better pay well,” Softie said.

“They offered ten million credits if I did it myself,” Bryce said. “But then lowered it to two million after I refused to use the mana engine spell.”

“Two million is still a lot,” Softie said. “Sure, it’s not a luxury yacht, but we can’t expect all of our jobs to pay like that.”

“The yacht also included life-destroying blackmail, and a magical bomb that could blow up the city,” I said.

“Probably more than just the city,” Sami added helpfully.

“There are always going to be strings of some sort.” Softie said. “The question is, are we going to take the job?”

“Thea and I are,” Bryce said. “I thought about it last night, and I don’t want the two of you involved with this one.”

“We’ll need to make a living too, Bryce,” Softie said.

“You’ll still get your cut. Gods know Samira has made more than enough modifications to the ship to earn her share, and we’ll still need you to fly us off of this rock when we’re done,” Bryce said.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help?” Softie asked. “I don’t like the idea of being stuck on the ship doing nothing and collecting a paycheck while you two are risking your lives.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“You taking part in the actual assault is too dangerous. A single survivor could get a report to Mother and she’d be on our trail,” Bryce sighed. “With that being said, we need some reconnaissance done before the assault. You could probably help with that.”

That seemed to satisfy Softie, but made Sami nervous.

“Just be careful,” she said. “If you get caught and taken off world, we’d have no way to chase after you.”

“Samira is right. Without a navigator, we’d be stranded on Drassun,” Bryce said. “I’m not going to baby you, Sora, but please keep that in mind.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Softie conceded. “So, what’s the next step?”

“We’re meeting to form a strategy in a few days, but first I need to get my implants repaired and Thea needs her first set,” Bryce said. “I was going to set up an appointment with the technician Lysc suggested after breakfast.”

“Would it be possible to include Sora in that appointment?” Sami asked.

“That shouldn’t be an issue; is there a problem with their implants?” Bryce asked.

“Nothing specific.” Sami shrugged. “They’re just old models. We couldn’t exactly be picky when we installed them.”

“What about yours?” Bryce asked.

“Mine? They’re fine. I have a tablet that I use for interfacing with the ship,” Sami said. “I just use the implants for messaging.”

“And they barely work for that,” Softie said. “Upgraded implants would speed up her work and probably knock out that headache that she refuses to complain about.”

“I’ll arrange the appointment for all of us then,” Bryce said.

“There’s a problem with that, captain,” Sami said.

“What’s that?” Bryce asked.

“We can’t pay for it,” Softie said. “At least not until we get paid for this job.”

“I’ll pay for it,” Bryce motioned to stop the incoming protests. “I consider this an investment, not a gift or even a loan. Fitting the crew with implants that are actually good is going to make all of our lives easier.”

There was some arguing back and forth, but Bryce refused to budge. She clearly wouldn’t listen to any protests or promises of repayment.

We finished breakfast, so I set out to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen while Bryce went to the bridge to set up the appointment.

~~~~

Doctor Navarro’s “office” was actually the entire 108th floor of a high-rise building near the city’s center. Bryce assured me the windows that made up the walls couldn’t be seen through from the other side, but I wasn’t convinced. What was the point of owning such an expensive office if people couldn’t see you in it? Well, besides the view. The office was higher than the edge of the crater, which meant you could see the entire city and the surrounding jungle. All of that made the view pretty amazing.

The office, though? That was less impressive. Doctor Navarro had set up about a half-dozen stations on the floor and the only thing that he had separating them was a few crappy roll-away privacy screens. The whole place smelled overly sterile and all the natural light from the windows just bounced off the white tile floors, making the entire room way too bright.

And the echoes. There was so much empty space that everything echoed. You could whisper into the corner of the massive room and everybody would hear it, no matter where they were standing. The doctor really needed to hire an interior decorator, or maybe just somebody who could actually see.

The doctor wore a pair of glasses that were so thick that I had to assume they would give a normal person some sort of vision based superpower. Definitely x-ray vision, but probably the ability to shoot things from their eyes as well, maybe heat rays or ice beams. I kind of wanted to try it.

“Captain Virra, I assume?” Doctor Navarro asked. He got up from his desk as we approached and shuffled towards Bryce.

It was still basically impossible for me to tell a mortal’s age, but I had to assume that this guy was nearing his tenth millennium based solely on the way he walked.

I doubted his wispy white hair was a fashion choice, but I knew the rest of his outfit definitely wasn’t. He was wearing a set of terrible green scrubs underneath a lab coat, and a pair of fuzzy slippers.

“That’s right.” Bryce shook the human’s hand with a smile. “And this is Thea, beside her is Sora, and then Samira.”

We each greeted him, then he led us to a spot in the room where four reclining examination chairs were set up. They were surprisingly comfortable.

After we each took a seat, the doctor took out a handheld device and placed it against the back of Bryce’s skull.

“Oh, I see,” DoctorNavarro said. “Your implants are certainly beyond repair.”

“I expected as much,” Bryce said. “Will you be able to replace them? I’d prefer if I could get something at least equally as powerful.”

“Easily enough. Although, they won’t be corp branded like yours were,” the doctor said. “If you wanted that, we would have to order them from off world, which isn’t worth the expense for what is usually a lesser product.”

“I might have to get used to a new interface, but that’s fine.” Bryce shrugged. “Do you have a catalog of options available?”

“Here you are.” Navarro pulled a tablet from a cluttered table and handed it to Bryce. “I can install anything in there by the end of the day, but if you want external processing, it’ll take a few hours longer.”

He left Bryce to browse and placed the device against my skull.

“Sorry doc, there’s nothing in there,” I said.

He laughed and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Oh, there’s plenty in there, just no cerebral implants.”

Softie was next, and Doctor Navarro frowned after scanning them.

“These look secondhand and possibly older than you,” he said. “The install is very sloppy. Have they been giving you problems?”

“Nothing Major,” Softie said. “They vibrate pretty badly when I shift and itch like crazy when I’m in fox form.”

“And every time we shift into the Aether, you nearly black out from the pain.” Sami added.

Doctor Navarro nodded solemnly, but moved onto Sami before commenting.

“Your implants weren’t designed for shapeshifting races, and modern Aether drives require a lot more calculations than they used to,” he said. “They would push any extra computing to your brain, which is extremely dangerous, and can even be deadly under the wrong circumstances.”

“I told you we should have had it looked at earlier,” Sami said. “That amount of pain is always a bad sign.”

Doctor Navarro sighed. “Tell me about your implants, Samira.”

“They’re fine,” she lied. “I don’t use them very often.”

“She gets headaches,” Softie said. “Really bad headaches. Medication doesn’t help.”

“How often are you getting these headaches?”

“Two or three times a week if I don’t use the implants.”

“And if you use them?”

“Every time,” Sami spoke quietly and was avoiding eye contact. “The headaches aren’t that bad and they usually only last a few hours at a time.”

She was lying again, but I think Doctor Navarro realized it because he just sighed and shook his head.

“Sora’s implants were installed correctly, although sloppily,” he said as he moved the device away from Sami’s head. “But Samira, the way they installed yours is entirely incorrect. Continued use is causing brain damage that will probably only get worse.”

“What type of brain damage?” Sami asked.

“Well, there’s no good type of brain damage,” the doctor said. “But I would expect it to manifest as increased irritability, cognitive delay, trouble sleeping, and possibly memory loss.”

“Is that something you could fix?” Softie asked.

“After we remove your current implants, any decent nanite swarm should be able to take care of the existing damage over the course of a week or two.”

“She doesn’t have nanites,” Softie said.

Doctor Navarro looked surprised and his eyes moved rapidly for a moment before he returned to the conversation.

“Oh! I hadn’t thought to look, I had just assumed,” he said. “Salinthea, you don’t have nanites either? That could be an issue.”

“Sami didn’t need nanites when she got her current implants,” Softie said, but quickly corrected themself. “Actually, we were lied to and that’s why her implants are so messed up, isn’t it?”

“Most likely, yes. It could also explain why your implants were installed so poorly,” Doctor Navarro said. “Your nanites are subpar, at least when compared to more modern varieties.”

“Would you be able to upgrade Sora’s nanites along with giving some to Thea and Samira?” Bryce asked.

“It’ll drastically increase recovery time, but I don’t believe we have a choice,” Doctor Navarro said.

“Alright, let’s go with the g-4780 implants and the type-18 swarms.” Bryce handed the catalog back to the doctor. “Will it take long to manufacture those?”

“A few hours,” he said. “I would recommend getting something hearty to eat in the meantime, especially for those who have never had nanites. There’s a restaurant on the eighteenth floor that should be passable, if a bit expensive.”

Food sounded good to me, so I jumped down from the chair, and the others followed.

“Thank you, doctor, we’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Bryce said and turned to leave.

“One last thing, Captain Virra,” Doctor Navarro said. “I’ll need more direct access to the left side of your skull to install the implants.”

“I don’t understand,” Bryce said.

“Captain, he means that you have too much hair,” Sami said.

This seemed like an excellent opportunity for me to play with Bryce’s hair, so I raised my hand to volunteer.

“What if I put it in braids for her? But just like the left side,” I said. “It would look super hot, and then I guess you can stab her with needles or whatever.”

“Stab me with needles or whatever?” Bryce asked.

“As long as you kept the braids small or far apart, that would work,” Doctor Navarro said. “I just need to access the scalp to make a small incision.”

I ignored the protesting as I pulled Bryce over to the doctor. This was very serious, and we needed to make sure we got it right.

“Can you show me where?” I asked. The doctor pointed to a point on the left side of Bryce’s head, but I couldn’t see it, so I pulled her head closer to my eye level.

“Hey! Careful Thea, that hurts,” Bryce complained.

“Can you point to it again?” I asked.

“Right there,” Doctor Navarro pointed again, this time pushing a finger into Bryce’s hair. “A bit of hair won’t hurt, but hers is too thick like this.”

I pulled Bryce’s hair up and over her ear to get a better look. I thought I could work with this. Two, maybe three braids? It would show off her ear more, which was definitely a bonus.

“Thea, can I have my head back, please?” Bryce asked.

“For now.” I released her. “But we’ll need to get your ear pierced, maybe a few times.”

“What? Why?” Bryce asked. “Thea, my ears are really sensitive.”

I knew her ears were sensitive, I took advantage of that fact nearly every night. Unfortunately, we really didn’t have a choice. Not piercing her ear would be a tragic waste.

“Sorry, princess, but I don’t make the rules.”

Dr. Navarro pointed us to a body modding parlor near his office, and once Bryce saw their selection, she was entirely on board.

Although, she tapped out after only the third piercing.