“Is the shuttle going to be able to make it to the ground and back, Kid?”

A horrible grinding screech drowned out any possibility that Echidna might answer right away. When it finished, and my three companions took their hands from their ears, she finally replied. “Absolutely, Captain. I wouldn’t want to try to guide her into combat, because her long-range communications are shot, but we’re close enough I’ll be able to communicate with you directly, and I can relay my connection through you.”

“You’re going to what?” I tried unsuccessfully to hide my unease at the idea of my skull being used as a glorified repeater tower.

“Don’t worry, Captain. You’ve got the bandwidth I can send simple signals to guide the shuttle. I won’t technically be controlling it directly via you, just bouncing some instructions through so it will be a little less… stupid.”

I pushed off from the floor of the shuttle’s bay and powered up long enough to get myself to the crew compartment. The view of the rows of acceleration couches, one of them still vaguely sloppy with leftover gel, combined with Echidna’s comment to remind me of when I’d last been here. “It… it seems so long ago that I came aboard. I remember thinking how stupid the expert system in the shuttle was.”

“I don’t remember that, Captain.”

Echidna’s quiet voice broke me out of my reverie. “I’m sorry, Kid. I didn’t mean to remind you.”

“What are they going to do to me when we get back to the fleet?”

I glanced around. My steward and bodyguards hadn’t managed to fully divest themselves of their EVA gear yet, so for a moment my ship and I had some privacy. “I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I know what they’re not going to do. The fleet doesn’t scrap AIs. You might get a total refit, or you might get rebuilt into a system station. They might even migrate you to a new hull, if there’s one big enough to house all your components. But the Fleet doesn’t dump AIs just because you’re injured.”

“I know. I mean, I knew that from my records. It’s sort of nice to hear you say that, but… that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

I stopped midway through sitting down in my old seat, confused by her response. “What do you mean?”

“If Deep Stand had a villain, I mean other than the ‘Sects, it was your mother, Grace. If it had a hero…” she trailed off for a moment, gathering her nerve. “If it had a hero, it was Tiamat. They won’t give up on her.” Her next words were almost too quiet for my augmented ears. “You won’t give up on her.”

It took me a while to answer. While I thought, I secured myself in my old acceleration couch. When my bodyguards and steward arrived, I motioned for them to get themselves in and locked down, then cycled my own couch shut before speaking. “No, I won’t. I also won’t give up on you, Kid.”

“What if you have to choose?”

I’d anticipated the question. It’s why I’d taken so much time before speaking. “I’ll find the flaming piece of clutter handing me that noise and explain that there will be a third option, or I will find someone else to do her job for her.”

She sighed, and air rushed through the vents, clearing the last of the awful gel smell. “Thank you, Captain.”

“You’re my ship, Kid. I’m not giving up on you. Ever.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Thank you, Dustie.”

In that moment, she sounded so much like my lost Tiamat it brought tears to my eyes, but I smiled through them. “Are we good, Kid?”

“Ready to drop on your command, Captain.” Her words went out to the entire shuttle, and the readout in my couch showed each of the occupied couches as green.

“Let’s go pay our friends below a visit, shall we?”

***

The shuttle settled to the ground in a broad pasture, the nearest spot we could land to our target residence without damaging any of the local megaflora. After a few seconds of the view skewing about, it settled, and the distinctive hiss of a broken air seal sounded through the compartment. My augmentation flared until Echidna spoke.

“Shuttle landed successfully. Cargo bay landing ramp open. Putting the shuttle’s systems in standby mode.”

With that, gravity went wonky. I’d expected a small change; Imperial ships are kept at Earth standard, and the planet we stood on had slightly more. Not enough to matter for the Juniors or Card, and not enough to stop me, but enough I’d expected to notice.

I hadn’t expected the cloying stickiness of planetary gravity. The other three stood calmly, arranging uniforms and pulling items out of storage pouches. Before they could finish, I pushed myself up through the syrupy air and started toward the cargo bay. I hadn’t brought any gear; if I needed something other than my augmentation, we already had more problems than any number of trinkets could deal with.

“Card?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“What do you make of the gravitational oddity?”

She stared at me for a few moments before comprehension lit her eyes. “Sir, is this the first time you’ve been in a natural gravity well?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.” An odor tickled my nose, and I hoped I hadn’t accidentally dropped something edible in the cargo bay when I’d exited so hastily before.

“All planetary gravity is like this. Well, some is stronger, and some is weaker, but they all feel like this.” She smirked, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Sir. I keep forgetting how young you are.”

I frowned, and she held up her hands, palms outward. “No disrespect intended, Sir.” The tiny Card in the back of my head radiated sincerity.

We slipped down the ladder into the cargo bay, where the rank scent of decay hammered into my nostrils. “Echidna?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Did you pump air into the shuttle at some point?” I quickly scanned the cargo bay for any trash while my two bodyguards crosschecked their handheld uplinks to Echidna.

“No, Captain. The shuttle has been more or less wedged into the bay since I woke up, and I didn’t have time to repair it. I almost jettisoned it as a decoy at one point.”

Unable to find the source of the stench in the spotless bay, I accessed my senses and dialed down on the intensity of my olfactory intake. The rot died down to a dull background roar. “Urgh. I’m almost wishing you had. Something stinks in here.”

I turned to the other three, who stood waiting for me. “Okay, crew. Let’s get hiking. How far to our destination?”

“We’re about four kilometers from a small encampment we saw from orbit, Sir.”

I waved at him, and he led the way. I followed, still trying to get the reek out of my nose. I walked to the end of the cargo ramp and froze. The vista before me stretched on into blue infinity. My augments fired, encasing me from head to toe in a protective shield to keep the air inside my lungs.

“Sir?” Card stared at me, wide eyed, as my two guards spread to either side, alert for whatever had caused my reaction.

“There’s…” before the rest of the sentence crossed my lips, my conscious brain caught up with my subconscious. I forced my shields down, exhaling noisily. “Sorry, Card.” I nodded to my guards. Today I had Vince Tang and Tony Del Rio shadowing me. “Sorry, Tang, Del Rio. False alarm.”

“Sir? What set it off?” Del Rio asked. “I’m certed in planet-side scouting. You might have noticed a danger without realizing.”

I smiled at him wryly. “I know, Del Rio. I don’t think this one’s a problem with the world though.” Before he could reiterate his question, I explained. “There’s no deck above us.”

His face split in an unexpected grin. “I know, Sir. Still gives me a shiver down my back every time I step out into space without a suit or ship. Worse when I’m all unaugmented like this.”

That reminded me of an order I’d hesitated to give. “Gentlemen, I want you to understand something while we’re down here. If you spot a danger, let me know. I can deal with a lot more than you can. You’re only to engage if there is no time to inform me and you will not be putting yourself in undue danger.”

The grin disappeared. “Sir. Yes, sir. Understood sir.”

I sighed and tramped out across the strange, spongy deck beneath our feet.