Wish

Excitement bubbles through me and I glance down at the tablet. The lift door opposite seems like it should open into another chamber but I can't find a way to activate the door. According to the schematic, it's a simple hexagonal room. It's only half the size of the lab. Niah can't even get it to unlock from the master controls in the lab so eventually we both give up. Besides, I've seen several other areas of the ship I want to explore. We can come back to this later.

I take the lift down to the next level. The doors slide open on another long corridor. Either side of me, I glimpse the edges of an overgrown garden.

I pull open a cabinet in the wall beside the entry and peer inside. It's large and looks like an empty storage closet but there's no base. There is, however, a twin set of buttons marked with up and down arrows. I push up and hear a soft swish as a platform whizzes up from lower levels of the ship and settles into place. "Cool! I wonder where it goes."

I pull up the map, noting the way the little cupboard seems to be marked on the two lower levels. There must be a section of this little lift that does a horizontal transit because its corresponding segments are in the refrigeration storage units of the main mess kitchen and the morning break room quarters. I close the doors again and turn to explore the rest of the room.

I glance around, trying to take in every detail as I move along the hexagonal path around a large chamber. The walls and ceiling are made of thick glass that looks out on the star-littered universe above. It feels like a giant greenhouse, which is odd because I imagine it doesn't get much natural light in the vast expanses between stars.

"I guess that's why the beams between the panels glow," I say to myself as I gaze up through the overhanging canopy to the ceiling above. I tap in some notes on the tablet as Niah asked me to do.

Most of the plants have sprawled in their untended state as if trying to claim the ship as their own. Even so, they are contained to the single giant room and clear of the walkway. As I turn another corner, I catch a glimpse of an inner courtyard beyond the wall of thicker trees. At its centre dances a water fountain spitting a mist of cool, clean water into the air and cascading back into a small pool at its base.

Then I see the garden rambling around it. I feel my mouth drop open. My stomach growls and I can't help but prance around the room as I gather the bright coloured fruits and vegetables. I taste and graze, feeling the rich flavours splatter my tongue. I frown as my arms fill, then sigh. "I can't carry all this." I grin as I realise exactly the purpose of the storage cupboard I'd seen earlier. Perfect!

I spend what must be several factors exploring the ship. I wonder where my place, or rather the place of my predecessor was on the ship, but none of the crew quarters feel familiar. There are areas I can't get into but, with Niah's help to bypass system locks, we manage to open most doors. Since there's so much to explore, I just skip the ones we can't open. I can come back to them later. I'd rather check out the medical lab, and the cargo bay which looks like it doubles as a hangar.

The med lab is closest to the main kitchen so, after I've transferred the food to cold storage and raided the kitchen for any other potential snacks, I head down what looks like a section of crew quarters to the large room at the end. I stop before the twin doors because there's a flashing marker on the room and the panel beside the door is also flashing red. Clearly the room is locked, but this is different to some of the other locked doors Niah helped me with.

"Niah, this one has red flashing lights."

"Hang on, I'll check."

It feels like an orbit before Niah messages again. The switch on the door lights up green as her new message beeps onto the screen.

"I needed to activate life support in the room. Should be good to go now."

The twin doors slide open and the lights in the room flicker on. I notice how clean and orderly the equipment seems to be. This place looks pristine compared to the mess of the crew quarters I walked past earlier.

Not only is it pristine, it's state-of-the-art. Floor to ceiling windows offer a panorama of the distant stars. Five medical beds sprawl around the walls to offer patients the greatest view. A larger diagnostic slab sits closer to the middle of the room.

What really draws my eye though, is the strange gentle sloshing of a pale mauve liquid in what is either a very, very big bath, or a small swimming pool. I lean down and dip my fingers in the goo. It's slightly warm and wet, but thicker than water. I trail my hand through it and feel the slight resistance of the fluid's weight.

"Niah! You really have to see this." I type, syncing the message with her workstation as she'd shown me.

"What is it?"

"There's a swimming pool in the medical lab but it doesn't use water, it's some kind of gel."

"Sounds cool, if you take a sample you can run a spec analysis on the diagnostics table. We can check out those results later."

"Sure!"

I glance around, finding the storage cupboard of medical supplies on the far wall next to the door. I draw out a test tube and take a sample of liquid. I slip it into a tube slot on the diagnostics table which seems to hum to life.

I stick my head around the door of a small bathroom, just a bathroom, and then move on to check out the rest of the ship.

By the time I reach the lowest deck, I'm hungry again. I hijack a small satchel from one of the rooms I passed earlier and detour back through the kitchen. Now I have a small stash of food to munch as I let the lift carry me to the final floor.

I'm finishing the last bite of soft flesh from a sweet purple fruit when the doors slide open. I almost choke on the mouthful when I see the cargo bay sprawling before me. Now, this is my idea of heaven.

The bay is wide and deep with huge hangar doors. It's also decked out with the coolest mech I've ever seen. Of course, that isn't saying much since I guess I've never really seen much mech, but the echo within me that remembers a life I never lived seems just as impressed as I am.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I lay my hand on the ships and equipment. It all seems eerily familiar. I know this is called a launch wing and it's designed for defence and attack should it be necessary while in space. Those are zip gliders designed for ground transport but capable of low orbit flight and used so that the Elixr doesn't have to land too much. They can haul the huge transport pods that hang on the walls. And those are mini-zips. They can haul the pods too, but they go significantly faster when they're not hauling. They are great for quick planetary travel between points but they can't be used in space because the pilot on top is exposed to the elements.

I type it all to Niah, punctuated with several exclamation marks. She sends back a message, "*eyeroll*".

"Hey!" I type back.

"It's cool, Wish. Sorry I don't share your enthusiasm for travel and transport units."

"You're on a space ship, Niah. Isn't that at least a little bit awesome?"

"I just want to get home."

The tablet falls silent after that. I don't know how to respond because I'd definitely rather be exploring. But I've explored most of the ship now. There are just two places I've not been able to check out. A room off of the crew quarters, and the small hexagonal room on the top floor. I head back two levels to give the crew quarter doors another go.

***

Niah

Long factors pass. From time to time, Wish needs help getting access to blocked parts of the ship. From my terminal, I activate doors, lights, and even, occasionally, life support systems in parts of the ship that have been deactivated.

Logs indicate that Elixr shut down a lot of key systems in response to my shutdown command earlier and, while it saves processor power, it's important to keep certain systems active. I make time to sort back through the systems. I recheck the status of most operations until I am satisfied we are running as efficiently as possible.

That means more and more often, I need to activate and deactivate parts of the ship as Wish moves through them, but it's fun to interact with her through the interface. Her text responses are frequently animated with excitement as she thrives on the curiosity of exploration and discovery. There has only been one chamber so far that is secured with multi-layer encryptions I can't break. It is curious, but since the room indicates only storage functions, I assume it's a secure vault for the crew's valuables. Wish suggests that we can come back to it later.

I push back my chair and rise to my feet. My legs ache from sitting so long and I remember that I haven't really used them in my sixteen narcycles of life. I stretch my neck, rotate my shoulders, and flex my back.

An alert flashes up on my screen. It blinks red and white with the words "Hey Niah!" I'm startled as Wish's soft voice echoes through the room. "Niah!"

I glance around but I'm still alone. "Wish?"

"Oh, yeah, I found out how to turn on the voice exchange between our work stations. But you have to come, Niah. I need your help."

"What do you mean? Can't I do it from the console like everything else?"

"No, you really do have to come. It's too heavy for me to lift on my own."

"What?" I pull up the map. A yellow dot flickers indicating her life-sign on the display. Either side of her stretches a series of chambers marked crew quarters. A short way down the corridor is a larger chamber but it's faded out as if blocked from the system. "What is it?"

"Just come, Niah." The map zooms out and a row of directions flash into place on the screen as if Wish swiped an overlay into place. I tap the desk beside me, grab the tablet that rises up from its compartment and swipe the screen to my device before darting out the door.

I head down two levels in the vertical transport and find Wish waiting for me. She waves up and down the long column of crew quarters. "All abandoned," she says. "Full of family photos, posters, beds, and stuff. I mean they feel lived in, but there's no one here." A shiver runs over my skin as I feel the almost living loneliness of an abandoned ship. What really happened to the crew?

"What about this one?" I ask, looking around. Heavy panels from the walls and ceiling are strewn across the floor, leaning heavily against the bare metal under-frame that makes up the basic structural integrity of the ship's hull. Against the door beside Wish, a shaft of metal is jammed into place. It's wedged into the functional weight of the door so the door can't open. Against the metal are rusty smears and splatter stains. "What in the nine-voids?"

"I'm thinking something major happened. There are other signs of disruption, tossed bunks, damaged walls, raided weapons lockers, but this is the first time I've seen this." She gestures to the warping of the door. "They've jammed it shut as if they didn't want what was inside to get out. Which is odd because the map says these are the captain's quarters."

I perk up, glancing down at my screen. "Really?" More curious than ever, I clip the tablet onto a harness at my hip that seems designed to hold the portable device. Then I cross to take a closer look at the way the metal warps around the structure of the door.

"I can't shift it myself, but it does move a little. Maybe if we both pull?"

I nod and step up beside her. I grip the panel. "One, two, three?" She nods back and on a three count we pull together. The metal plate shifts several inches but doesn't quite come free. I feel a little dizzy from the effort and pant, catching my breath.

Wish frowns at the obstruction. "Again, harder," she says.

I nod and we tug again. I stumble slightly, dropping the weight of the metal to the floor as it springs free from the door. It clangs and I jump aside so that it doesn't crush my feet.

Beside me, Wish dances back. Across from us, the door makes a loud grinding noise as if shifting on misaligned gears. "Hang on," Wish says. She leans against the door, pushing the seam to one side until it clunks and springs open as if the mechanism inside snapped.

I lift an eyebrow. "Sure you don't have super powers?"

She laughs. "It just needed a little weight. I think it was already damaged." I nod and we push the other side together before stepping over the cluttered threshold and into the room beyond.

Inside, the room is immaculate. The bed is made with military precision. The desk is tidy and functional. Blue-lit screens still flash with forgotten processes. A spinning ball of orange light with a solar map takes prominent place on the display. Opposite, the room expands into a suite with a kitchenette and en suite bathroom with modern fittings.

"Wow," Wish says. I nod.

"Nice digs huh? Dibs?" I turn to her and wink. She laughs.

"Hey, your DNA gets dibs, sure thing." A weight sinks in my belly as I register her words and I swallow.

There are signs of the captain's personality everywhere. Touches of warmth and colour give the pristine room a sense of having been someone's home. A single photograph in a frame sits on a low table beside the bed. A young honey-haired, brown-eyed woman gazes up at a smiling man. Their faces are eerily familiar.

I wander around, exploring the strange man who I guess is my predecessor. Kind of my father? With a swish, a panel opens in the wall beside the bathroom and an array of clothes springs out on a rod of hooks. There, amongst the skin-tight male-form synthetic body suits is a stylish black coat lined with navy silk interior. Its brass buttons gleam as if polished with dedication. A row of stripes panels the shoulders, and pins decorate the lapels and wrists. I reach forward, running my fingers over the fine fabric. A familiar scent dances up to me. Home. It smells like home. I reach out, tracing my hand down the sleeve.

"Put it on," Wish urges.

I glance at her and sigh. "It's a dead man's coat."

She shrugs. "Then he won't need it."

I gaze at it, longing for its familiar, warm embrace. I already know that wearing it will fill me with confidence and pride. It's a captain's coat. It commands respect. But I don't know if I've any right to expect any. I was a mistake, a malfunction. While Hart still seems to think I can complete the mission, I can't help but wonder if his hopes are misplaced.

"Really, Niah. You should wear it. Wouldn't he want you to?"

I bite my lip. "You think so?"

She nods and after another brief moment of hesitation, I reach for the coat and pull it from the hanger. I tuck my arms through the sleeves and wrap the coat around me. It's longer than I imagined, hanging almost to my feet, but it's warm and it feels right to wear it.

A flashing light above an elongated panel draws my attention to the wall of white behind where the coat had been hanging. Down the rim of the panel is an array of scratches as if someone tried to jimmy open a compartment with a sharp metal tool. I touch the screen on the front. A warning flashes up. "Access Denied."

"What's this?"

Wish leans forward to take a look then shrugs her shoulders. "No idea."

"Do you think he tried to get it open?"

Wish shrugs again so I unclip my tablet and swish the command so that its screen lights up on the panel display. I tinker through the commands, looking for an unlock sequence. The flashing red light gets more insistent with each attempt and eventually a blasting alarm startles us both. "Eagrim's beak!" I swear, frantically pushing buttons as I try to reset the system and shut off the alerts. My heart is racing. Beside me, Wish frantically darts to the door and glances down the corridor as if terrified a crew of crazed army bots will descend to obliterate us.

"Shut it up, Niah! Before we get in trouble."

"I'm trying!" I frantically press commands and retype lines of code.

"Uh oh!" I turn at the groan of bored frustration Wish makes. "It's the bossy bot."

Hart whizzes into the room. "Cease! Cease! What are you doing? You are not permitted to access that system. Desist immediately!"