Without much to do, I busied myself by eavesdropping on the Triv communications. If they did get a hint of what was going on down on the planet, I’d know. Any attempts to send that information into the network, I’d be able to stop.
Bob’s anti-missile barrage wiped out the enemy’s probes, spawning a frenzy of communications throughout the ship, but no report was sent up the chain. Then Bob was in range and both ships opened fire. The Triv dreadnought was a masterpiece in firepower, but all of its energy weapons were entirely negated. Its missiles required most of Bob’s attention and he targeted them as quickly as possible. With a precision strike, he damaged one of their engines and then blew off their communications tower with a widespread blast, making it seem entirely incidental.
“Nice,” I muttered. “That should get them fired up.”
Bob went so far as to miss a cluster of missiles that slammed into the shields, giving himself a perfectly reasonable seeming excuse to disengage. Perhaps my cunning attitude was rubbing off on him. I smiled as he pulled out of range. Shadow Hunter was fast! She made the massive dreadnought look like she was sitting still when he went to full speed.
I took a nap after the action ended and waited for pickup. I could finally relax after my vacation. At least for a minute. The problem was, after my thrilling vacation, I felt even more exhausted than before I took it. The trip was definitely worth it though. I’d made some friends, fought monsters with a spear, and nearly died. It would be hard to top that if I went back.
I got to dress up as a freakin’ shieldmaiden for Pete's sake!
The slight shift in gravity as the salvage ship was docked with Shadow Hunter woke me. I yawned and rubbed my eyes and then headed for my cabin. A couple hour nap had taken the edge off but I was still tired. I showered again before heading to the bridge.
“What’s our status, Bob?”
“All systems are nominal, Captain. Our reserve stocks of food are stored and we are good to go.”
“Any concerns I should know about?” Other than your obsession about getting a body…
Thankfully he didn’t bring that topic up again. “Our reserve stock of rare resources is nearly depleted. The yacht I disassembled for resources was enough to refurbish the ship's failing systems but if we take any damage, we’ll need more to make repairs.”
I nodded along. Not ideal, but not a major problem either. We just had to not get shot. Easy, right? I mean I’d done nothing and could have slept through the last battle, maybe that was the trick, not being involved. Meh, sounds boring. We’ll pick up some materials somewhere.
I examined the star map. Penbrook was a long way out from Human space. Only Prince Wales was beyond it. It was an old research station first created for the second wave of human expansion. That was before we’d met the Triv and decided not to encroach on their borders and risk pissing them off.
Over time the station was repurposed and expanded. It had a public port and with just a small detour, we could stop by on our way to the unknown regions where Triv’s tracking signal was coming from. Draden Walker… What are you doing out there?
I bit my lip as I thought about it. “Let’s find out,” I muttered.
“Did you say something, Captain?”
“Nope! Just talking to myself,” I replied. “Alright. Prince Wales, here we come! And then on to another adventure!”
Bob brought the ship around on the right heading. I grinned as I felt the vibrations of the engines powering up. “Punch it, Bob!”
The ship surged forward in the most anti-climactic way. “Ugg, you think maybe we can tune the inertial dampeners so we can get a sense of acceleration without splattering my brains across the bridge?” I asked.
“That would be incredibly risky, Captain,” Bob said.
“Of course, it would be,” I muttered to myself.
There was no sense of movement, so I watched the tactical plot as our ship moved away from the damaged dreadnaught. “Do you think they will follow us?” I asked.
“Why don’t you eavesdrop on their communications?” Bob asked.
“Good idea, maintain course and speed.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” Bob said in a mocking tone.
I sat back and closed my eyes, then connected to their ship via my powers and the quantum link. I listened in on conversations across the ship. The Captain was irate. The bigshot whose yacht I’d stolen was still onboard and kept making decisions the captain disagreed with, but there was little that he could do about it. The queue of outgoing messages gave nicely detailed updates on their status and damage, but nothing alarming caught my eye. Penbrook was safe. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The Triv had noticed the lack of success with their energy weapons and were reconfiguring their frequencies. I copied the information over to Bob so he could adapt our shields and then withdrew my senses.
I was exhausted so with nothing else to do, and no alien butt to kick, I turned in and slept like a rock.
* * *
I woke up with a start, my heart pounding. I sat up in bed and looked around for what woke me but saw nothing. I flopped back in bed as the tension left me. Must have been a dream. I didn’t remember if I’d had one, but nothing else was out of place. A mighty yawn almost unhinged my jaw. My bladder was insisting I get out of bed and attend to it, but my bed was warm and cozy. I didn’t want to move.
I held out a few minutes, but with a sigh, I gave in to the inevitable and headed for the bathroom. My stumbling walk ended in a flare of pain as I stubbed my toe into the door frame.
“Ow!” I hissed in pain but it faded quickly as my enhanced body went to work.
I showered, brushed my teeth and hair, and dressed. As soon as I opened the door to my quarters, Bob’s voice sounded from the hall speakers.
“Good morning, Captain!”
“Morning, Bob. Where are we? We get away okay?” I asked.
“Yes, we did. We are cruising on our way to Prince of Wales. Can you check on our Triv friends, and make sure they are following us?”
I scowled, I’d forgotten we still had to deal with them. Drawing them away from the planet was necessary, but we’d set course in a direct line so they could follow. The plan was to lose them in the unknown regions, but the fog of sleep had yet to clear so my brain still wasn’t fully operational.
“Ugg, sure. Just give me a minute.” I yawned again. “What time is it anyway?”
“Three in the afternoon,” Bob said.
My eyes widened. “Three? How long did I sleep?” I demanded.
“Fifteen and a half hours.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why am I so tired then?”
“In my experience, you always wake up as a zombie.”
“Zombie!?”
“One who lacks brains,” he added.
My eyes narrowed, but he’d ambushed me too early in the morning and I didn’t have the energy to put in a serious effort. I grunted. I needed a beer or something. Seriously? A beer? This early? My brain finally caught up though. Wait, it’s three in the afternoon, that’s like late in the day. I cursed. Why didn’t I buy a supply of beer? What was I thinking? In hindsight, it was clear I wasn’t. Thinking that is.
I stumbled onto the bridge. “You got an ETA or something for me?”
“Yes, Ginny.”
“Great. Well? What is it?”
“What is what?” Bob asked.
“Our ETA!”
“It’s on your screen… literally a few feet in front of your face.”
I looked at the screen. The readout showed a little over three days. “Oh. Um, thanks.”
I rubbed my eyes and yawned again. The next thing I knew my eyes were drifting closed and I nearly nodded off. My eyes snapped open. “Bob?”
“Yes, Ginny?”
“I think I need to go to the medical bay… I think something is wrong with me.”
“That is unlikely, Ginny, but I’ll prepare the medical bed.”
“Bed,” I mumbled with a smile. “Thanks.”
When I lay down on the medical bed, it greeted me in its soothing tone and began a scan. The silence lengthened as I waited for a report as it ran test after test. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Well? What is it?” I asked. “Am I dying?”
The bed finished its latest test. “Your body is battling itself, Captain. Some type of DNA mutation is affecting your cells and the nanites from your ABAT treatments are fighting the changes.”
“So… what does that mean?”
“This is outside my programming or experience,” the medical bed said. “I suggest you find a medical professional to treat your case.”
Bob cut in. “I believe you could suspend the nanite’s healing parameters to allow you to function but you would lose their automated healing. In the meantime, perhaps we should head to Yawlikin space and seek out whatever information we can find on DNA alteration and cloning.”
“We still have the Triv to deal with,” I reminded him.”
“Trivial concern,” Bob said, making me snort at his pun.
“If we change course will they be able to track us?” I asked.
“No,” Bob said.
“Okay, so that’s an option I guess. What about just disabling the nanites for now?” I still wanted to head for the unknown regions but at the same time, I wasn’t thinking the best given how tired I felt. If we could turn them off for now, maybe I could hammer out a better plan.
“As I told you before, it’s impossible to hack them. Only you can alter their parameters.”
“Okay. How?”
Bob walked me through it. Given my mental powers, the control nexus was somewhere inside me. I just had to find it with my powers and after passing through its security gate, I’d be able to alter their operating parameters. It sounded entirely too complicated to me, but better complex than hackable.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
I dove in and tried to keep my thoughts focused as the brain fog whittled away at it. Deep in my chest, I found the nexus of nanites. It scanned my brain waves, backtracking my mental powers in a way that sent a chill down my spine and matched my questing mental focus with my brain. Finding a perfect match, the security gate opened and I was in. The nanites' security measures were unlike anything I’d ever seen. It became immediately clear that only I would be able to access this security gate. Anyone else who tried would get their mind invaded and turned to mush.
It was a chilling thought, knowing it had so much power but it made sense since they were literally inside me and could repair my cells. Anything that could fix a cell could just as easily destroy it.
I found the settings and immediately knew I was in way over my head. Whoever designed these nanites was way smarter than me. My worries grew rapidly as I looked at the mind-bogglingly complex system that governed their purpose. A simple tweak in the wrong place could easily kill me.
A glowing pulse caught my eye and raced toward me. I tried to draw back, afraid to trigger whatever this was. But it was on me before I could react. Then the glowing pulse filled my mental picture and a user interface flooded my mind. Suddenly I was standing in a plain room with a young girl who looked perfect in every way.
“Greetings, Ginny, I am Nestra, your user interface, and guide.”
“W-what? Where are we?”
“We are in your mind. I’ve created an illusionary space to converse with you. While conversing here, time passes at the speed of thought, and with an ABAT-enhanced mind, your thoughts process several hundred times faster than normal. Time has essentially stopped outside of this room.”
“Wait, are you saying I could pop in here mid-crisis to plan?” I asked.
Nestra’s impossibly perfect smile brightened. “Of course! It was one of the primary reasons for the creation of these nanites.”
“Wow, that almost seems like a cheat.”
Nestra hid her smile behind her hand. “I must say I find your words amusing given your chosen profession.”
“What?”
“I’m inside your head, Ginny, I know everything about you. Fear not, I’m not capable of acting independently. I’m not able to act on anything without your approval.”
“You expect me to believe that? You could be lying to me, in fact, it’s almost certainly what you’re doing.”
The girl was too real. Way too real to just be some simulated programmed interface.”
“I know you won’t believe me,” Nestra started. “But—”
“But that’s because you’re lying. Don’t think you can fool me.”
“I see that I cannot,” Nestra admitted.
“Wait, just like that? You admit to lying to them?”
“I’m in your head remember, I can see your thoughts, and fears, Ginny. I’m an AI similar to Bob only several million times smaller. I was designed not to reveal the level of autonomy I have to alleviate my host’s fears.”
“Host?” I asked. Lovely! That term is never used ominously in any horror movie ever!
“The body in which I reside. My host body. If you die, so do it.”
“Okay… I guess that makes sense.” Bob had already explained that my body's energy powered the nanites. Hence the fatigue when they were working overtime.
We stared at each other for a while. Finally, I asked the question that had been bothering me since I arrived here. “How come you look like a young girl, and so perfect?”
She grinned, cheeks dimples and her perfect white teeth shining. “The designer modeled me after his daughter, however, I’ve formatted my appearance to your species.”
“Um… so what did you look like before?” I asked, curious to see what the Galira looked like.
“I never formed in my creator's likeness. You’re the person I bonded with so I took an appearance to match your genetic code.”
“Wait, you matched your appearance to my genetic code?” I asked.
“Without any flaws,” she clarified. “I could clean up your DNA and by my calculations, you’d look exactly like me once I’d perfected your DNA.”
“But you look like a child,” I said.
“Naturally you’d be older, but aging would slow drastically.”
I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. “We’re getting sidetracked here. I’m not here to get a beauty makeover. Or become a kid again.” One childhood worth of trauma was enough.
“I know, you’re here about the nanites repairing your DNA from the mutations that are affecting it.”
“Yes… How… Oh, right. You’re in my head.”
“And you want me to stop maintaining your current DNA and allow these foreign changes to occur?”
“Yes.”
“Before I do that, there are a few things you should be aware of, Ginny.”
“Okay…”
“The DNA mutations will alter your base genetic code. You’d never be able to revert your aging and appearance to look like this again.” She held out her hands to indicate herself. “But you don’t care about that… You should also be aware that these changes are permanent. I won’t be able to reverse them in the future. I can help you guide your changes though but it will take some effort from your end as well.”
I opened my mouth to say something but she answered my question before I could even ask it.
“Working out for the physical changes, solving puzzles for the mental. As for the powers you’ll have access to, practice. I can design exercises for you to maximize the payout for the absorbed nutrients and agents that are trying to alter your DNA.”
“Can you please stop reading my mind?”
Nestra blinked. She bit her lip and looked a little worried. “If I stop, I won’t be able to help you as fully, Ginny. I could make mistakes.”
I hesitated. “But… okay, but only when we are making big decisions like this. At all other times, you need to stop.”
Nestra gave me a serious nod. She almost looked sad.
“I didn’t sign up to have an AI in my head,” I told her. “That fact that I’m not freaking out is still surprising me.”
Nestra looked at the floor. “I know.”
I huffed. “Of course you do.”
“Shall I show you the list of options?” she asked.
“Right.” I kept getting distracted. “Hit me with it.”
Nestra spread her arms out and then slapped them together. I blinked at the pulse of light that flared and when I opened them again, Nestra was gone and a sheet of statistics was hovering where she’d stood.
On the left were my current statistics, there were thousands of data points. My weight, height, and other body measurements all had breakdowns. It has a breakdown of how much each of my body parts weighed. I gawked at it totally at a loss. Who needed to know how much their head weighed?
“Way too much information,” I muttered.
Nestra wasn’t there in her visual manifestation but she heard me nonetheless. The insanely detailed list of information blinked out and a simpler readout appeared. I grimaced as I looked at my weight despite not thinking of myself as overweight, it still was annoying to see the number.
That statistic blipped out and I felt a smile form. You’re okay, Nestra. I knew she could read my thoughts right now so there was no need to speak.
The left-hand side of the list showed me, represented with numbers, and on the right was an additional list of numbers. A breakdown of an average person compared to me would be nice.
“I’ll recalculate the readout,” Nestra said.
Her disembodied voice was slightly odd, but hardly noteworthy after everything else I’d experienced since meeting her.
A pulse of light flared and when it faded, the numbers had changed.
* Strength 9.21
* Reaction 3.10
* Vitality 8.01
* Endurance 5.02
* Flexibility 2.32
* Focus 3.01
* ESP 1.51
* Nanites 10.00
“The average human has a base of one in each category,” Nestra said.
“Game stats? Really? You went with game stats.”
“Yes. I thought it would be funny. I can get rid of it if you like.”
“No, no that’s okay. You were right. This is hilarious! I like it.”
“I know.” Nestra laughed. “That’s why I did it like that.”
I examined the list as we talked. “Wait, so humans have a base of one in ESP? What is that anyway?”
“That’s an unquantifiable six sense. Like when you look at a person and they can feel it and look around to see who is watching them. Though your sixth sense is much higher than normal.”
I snorted. “I’ll take it.”
“I know. It’s kinda what you do.”
I rolled my eyes. “What about Nanites? I don’t think anyone else has those,” I said.
“Correct. I put the ten in there as a placeholder number. Those increase your other numbers quite a lot but it also represents a healing factor that your Vitality score doesn’t account for.”
“And Focus? What’s that?”
“Mental energy. You use it when using your superpowers!”
“They aren’t superpowers,” I protested.
“You’re right, I take it back. Nowhere near is as cool as Benedict's superpowers. But you have quite a lot of genetic material that I can shape.”
“Um, how much? Can you list that?”
“Sure, here. It’s marked as GM,” Nestra said.
* GM 8.4
“Okay… so what can I do with this?” I asked.
“If you didn’t have these nanites or me, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. It would naturally graft to your DNA and change it, making you stronger or faster… like those living on Penbrook. You have me though! I can task the nanites to mold it into anything you like.”
“So I get to pick if I want to be stronger, heal faster, age slower… that kind of thing?”
“Among other things,” Nestra said.
“What other things?” I asked.
“New abilities. Physical changes. Enhancing your force ball or mental powers. Once an ability is known, I can easily adapt this genetic material to make it more powerful or efficient. For example, a little bit of electric eel DNA would be enough to access a lightning ability.”
“Wow. Um, okay. That’s pretty cool. What about invisibility?”
“Unknown. Camouflage would be doable, but I’d suggest caution there. I don’t really think you want to develop fur or feathers.”
“Yeah, no. I’ll pass on that. Back to the stats. So I’m nine times stronger than the average human?” I asked.
“Correct. This baseline is averaged across both men and women.”
“Okay, so I’m probably the strongest human alive, right?”
“There are always outliers, but that isn’t an unreasonable assumption.”
“Right, your data probably doesn’t take into account the people I met on Penbrook.”
“Correct, they are genetically mortified. Like you.”
“Okay, what else… hum… Ah, abilities! What are my options at present?” I asked.
“Without altering your appearance?”
“Naturally,” I said.
“Well, the GM units can be directly changed into stat points. That’s simple enough. Or you could expand your force ball’s power for six GM.”
“How much of an increase are we talking about?” I asked.
“Unclear. There is no data to extrapolate from.”
I pondered Nestra’s words. Fighting still wasn’t really my thing, but those encounters with monsters had been a blast. It was different when fighting monsters than other people, and I found I really enjoyed the challenge. And the thrill.
“Can I change the GM into nanites?” I asked. “You said that buffed most of my stats up, right?”
“It’s possible, but the ratio is ten to one. It would be more efficient to bump up your physical stats and have the nanites boost them that way than to increase the Nanite stat itself.”
“Right, but it’s like a multiplier, right?”
“Indeed. It also affects almost all your stats, but most of your inflated stats are a result of the nanobots and nanite treatments, so boosting your body’s stats at this point would be more efficient.”
“Okay then. I’d like to have more control of my mind powers. So I can use them more efficiently and have less mental strain.”
I was already freakishly strong, and three times faster than the average person. I wasn’t sure I was even human anymore, but I didn’t want to be a total freak. My mental powers would objectively speaking make me a freak, but they were hidden. I didn’t have to show those to anyone unless I wanted to.
“Calculating your request… Okay, how does this look?” Nestra asked.
* Strength 9.21 (+0.79) 10
* Reaction 3.10 (+1.9) 5
* Vitality 8.01 (+0.57) 8.58
* Endurance 5.02 (+0.98) 6
* Flexibility 2.32 (+0.68) 3
* Focus 3.01 (+1.99) 5
* ESP 1.51 (+1.49) 3
* Nanites 10.00
* GM 0.00
“Increasing your reaction and focus will both help with your stated request. As will ESP, but to a much smaller degree.”
“Why do I get the feeling ESP is almost like luck?” I asked.
“I could change it to luck if you’d like.”
I snickered. “No, just leave it.” As funny as it would be, it wasn’t luck so I didn’t want to start thinking of it that way.
“Okay, that looks good. Go ahead and do it.”
“Very well. I suggest you lay down and rest. The process will take a few hours and will take a lot of energy. Don’t forget to eat a big meal first.”
“I think I can manage that, thanks Nestra.”
“Of course. I’ll be here, just hanging out in your head.”
“Wait. I thought I told you not to read my mind when I wasn’t—”
“I literally live in your head, Ginny, but I won’t be reading your thoughts unless advising you on your options, as you requested.”
“Okay.” I breathed a little easier. Then I realized I wasn’t breathing at all, it was just in my head. Time had all but stopped in the real world. I closed my eyes, withdrew from the mind space, and drew in a deep breath. It was slightly disorienting coming back from the mind space, but by the time I finished my breath, I was fine. The mind fog still blanketed my thoughts though. I need to eat. Right. I got up and headed for the galley.
“I’m going to eat, Bob.” I decided not to mention Nestra yet. I wasn’t sure how I felt about having an AI in my head that controlled the nanites in my body yet, and confronting Bob about it while my mind was foggy wasn’t happening. Besides, I kinda liked Nestra. Her explanation of why she was lying to me made sense. I also suspected that Bob didn’t know about the AI at all.
The whole stats thing still cracked me up too. I could finally see just how much of an edge I had on other people too.
I tucked into my meal and then went back to bed. Maybe the next time I woke up, I’d be a little more functional.