How Cynthia always managed to find paper books during our short ship-leave was beyond me. Paper books. They took up a lot of space in our already rather small rooms. Most people opted for electronic books since they already had a computer of some sort. Where she had hid them until now was another mystery since we hadn’t been at a port for over a week.

Cynthia rummaged through a box that held twenty or so novels while I sat on her bed. She was clearly checking her inventory before we reached our destination in roughly two weeks.

I commented idly, “You had better not be planning to stick those in my room unless you intend to remove the two boxes that you already have hidden under my bed.”

“Well, there is no room left under my bed, so they have to go somewhere. I know that there is still room under your bed.”

I kept my amusement off my face, but knew she would hear it in my voice. “The key word there is ‘my bed’. I have stuff too, you know.”

She waved a piece of paper in the air. “Ah, but I have bribery!” She tossed the sheet of paper at me.

It took two attempts for me to catch it mid-air. I am positive that paper breaks a few laws of physics when people try to throw it. Some of those flips simply should not be possible.

The paper was actually a receipt for an electronic book, specifically, a manual and user guide for a new type of loading bay machine that the Captain was very likely going to purchase. This machine was a far cry from our current aging ones and had very different controls as well as requiring different types of maintenance.

And it is a sure bet that Mack is not going to turn over a new leaf and put effort into learning something new…

Cynthia knew me well enough to know what kind of treasures would tempt me. I actually liked to learn things like this. I sighed in defeat. “Fine. But there had better be no sloppy romances in there…”

She grinned triumphantly. “Thanks! I also made certain that there were no books about abused orphans after your complaints about the justice system last time. There are a few good romance novels, sci-fi books, and fantasy ones in here as well.”

I was a sucker for helping abandoned children, and even that fictional book had shortened my temper’s fuse – and I had read it the day before ship-leave to boot. Just the mere memory of it brought back the faint dull headache that had plagued me the last few days.

Cynthia knew the book had struck a nerve, but I somehow doubted that she knew about the two dead men who had previously run a child brothel… There was no way that their bodies would have been found before we left the docking station.

I hadn’t killed them – I wasn’t a trained fighter, after all. But I had managed to track down one of the children’s fathers, who just so happened to be a highly ranked gang member. He had been searching hard for her, and I knew he wouldn’t just sit by idly when he found out where his daughter was. It was really amazing what kind of information my Analyzer could dig up with a few semi-illegal software downloads… I had uninstalled those ones before getting back onto the Tyndel.

I eyed up the box of books warily. “Please tell me that there aren’t any of those 17th-century novels in there. We are so far past horses and wagons on the Old Earth. I mean, come on, have you ever even seen a horse?”

She thought hard. “I think I saw one in a zoo that specialized in Earth animals once. Or it might have been a zebra or a giraffe, I can’t keep track of the fauna found on every planet out there.”

I chuckled as I rolled my eyes. “I bet you were too busy flirting with whatever guy had taken you to the zoo.”

Her jaw dropped. “How did you know about Jon? I never told anyone about him!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Because the only way someone would get you into a zoo, or anyplace with lots of animals, is if they took you there on a date.”

She blinked and peered at me closely. “So you don’t know about Jon, then? Just that I went on a date?”

I pulled my Analyzer off of my belt. With a faint grin, I said, “Let me do a bit of digging…”

“Oh no, you don’t!” With a surprisingly swift lunge, she tackled me onto the bed and pulled the Analyzer from my hands. She rolled away and started tapping the screen wildly. I merely sat up and watched her with a grin.

She quickly grew frustrated. “How do you even make this thing work?” she exclaimed. “I need to put an unbreakable password on your access to the spaceweb.”

Two of the years I had spent at university had partially revolved around how to work the complicated technical gadget. There was a very good reason why more crew members didn’t carry the useful thing, and that reason was because of the daunting training required, as well as the constant refresher courses.

Technically, this machine could do anything my computer could do, although it would take longer and not show the information in a way that most people could understand it.

My mind had caught onto one keyword though. “Spaceweb? You can’t put a lock on that. If there is something posted there, then it is there for all to see.” The spaceweb was mostly social media and various websites, inspired by the Old Earth’s Internet. I had a hunch about her embarrassment though. I watched her intently as I asked, “What did you two do that you don’t want me to know about?”

Her eyes went wide. “Uh, nothing?”

I rolled my eyes at her obvious lie and held out my hand as a silent request for my Analyzer. “Pass that thing back before you activate the security defenses on it and it gives you a good shock.”

She immediately tossed it back to me like it was a bomb. “You have security add-ons on that thing?! I heard of those, but I don’t think I have ever met anyone who had actually put them on their Analyzer.”

I glanced at the screen, but she hadn’t even gotten off of the secondary menu screens. She had managed to set off half of the security retaliation countdown bars though. I shook my head as I reset it. “With as much money as I paid for this thing – and the software on it – I wanted to make sure that no one could steal it.”

There were also not just one, but three tracking chips in it, just in case it did walk away. The machine’s screen was able to detect my fingerprints, as well as my general tapping speed and rhythm. The facial recognition feature would also keep a stranger from getting past the general information screens. There were more things it checked, and if all else failed, there were voice commands and a tiny skin DNA tester pinprick needle as a failsafe.

She stared at the rather humble-looking device. “You should really put warnings on that thing.”

“Not a chance. If someone tries to take it, they will be in for quite a surprise.” Especially if I activated the long-range high-security settings via my personal interspace account on the spaceweb, and I can access that through almost any computer…

The rather fancy security upgrade had been a gift from my brother, who had been more than a bit paranoid about his little sister going off on her own with a strange crew. I wasn’t about to mention the fact that the self-defence capabilities on the machine were the most dangerous ones allowed without me having to declare it to the docking station inspection staff if I left the ship.

I put it back in its holder on my belt. “So what did you two do? You might as well spill the beans so I don’t have to look it up.”

“Ummm… It was just our first date. He lightly squeezed my rear end, and I pushed him into the big water fountain.”

“That is nowhere near as exciting of a story as I had hoped for…”

She ducked her head sheepishly. “The fountain also happened to be a display for something called a crocodile. They were only ten months old, but they were half his size already.”

I pulled out my Analyzer with a resigned sigh as I tapped into the spaceweb to look up what a crocodile was. Separating fact from exaggeration or rare occurrences was something that my Analyzer excelled at, and it immediately populated details on ten-month-old crocodiles, along with a few pictures.

I asked, “So, how bad was the damage?”

“A few puncture wounds from a defensive snap when he landed on one, but he refused to even answer my calls after that.”

I honestly don’t blame him. “I am sure that there will be other guys. It might be best to wait until you are permanently assigned to a ship though.”

She sighed in disappointment. “Yeah, I know.”

Spaceships like this paid minimum wage for assistants, and they were well-known to be stepping stones to better and more generous careers. They kept the experienced Overseers and paid them just enough to get them to stay, but they didn’t care if the assistants came and went since it kept the salary costs down. And they also don’t care if the Overseers slack off as long as the work gets done…

I patted her shoulder sympathetically. “Come on, let’s drop these off in my room and go see what kind of fun activities are occurring in the workout room. I think it is dodgeball today.”

She immediately stood up and grabbed the small box of books. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?! I love dodgeball! Let’s go!”