I scanned my stats. Just thinking about them made me snicker. Nestra was a hoot. Maybe having an AI in my head wasn’t so bad. The whole reading my mind thing was freaky, but I’d had some rest and time to process. It wasn’t that bad now that I saw how it worked. She was a slavedriver though, I’d been working out daily and pushing my body to the max.

I still hadn’t mentioned her to Bob yet. Keeping secrets was a habit for me, and even though I knew my brain couldn’t be hacked, thinking about the AI in my head made me uneasy.

Shadow Hunter was still en route to Prince of Wales, and Star Hammer had deduced our destination and was in pursuit. My smaller ship was faster and we’d arrive with plenty of time to top off our consumables, refill our water tanks, and ultimately leave before they could catch us, or so Bob assured me. I still worried. At least when I had time.

Like a whisper, Nestra’s thoughts brushed my mind. Why have you stopped? You need to do seventeen more situps.

I sighed heavily and slipped out of my mind. She was so pushy. I wiped my brow, crossed my arms over my chest with my hands on my shoulders, and ground out the remaining sit-ups. The increased gravity in my workout room made them far more difficult, a necessity if I was to put a strain on my enhanced body.

“Happy now?” I muttered.

Yes, I’m quite pleased with your progress. Now the pull-ups. Three hundred should suffice to establish a new baseline.

I wiped my face with a towel. Nestra didn’t seem to understand the concepts of breaks. I drank plenty of water and got to it. There wasn’t much to do on a spaceship by yourself. Soon my arms were burning and I struggled to finish the unreasonable number of pull-ups.

Nestra’s pushy whispers motivated me and I pushed through. Even my legs felt like jello after I finished. I staggered as I released the bar, my chest heaving as I tried to breathe.

“Time for some food,” I declared before Nestra could come up with something else unreasonable for me to try. “I need some serious calories.”

Bob’s voice sounded from the overhead speakers. “Shall I prepare a protein shake for you? Its composition is ideal for—”

“No! I screamed.

If I never drank another protein mix shake, it would be too soon.

Nestra’s tinkling laugh sounded in my mind. He’s not wrong, you know. I’d recommend—

I cut her thought off with a firm refusal and retorted to Bob. “I’m eating a real meal, with real food, and if you try to get between me and my food, I’ll bite you.” Most of that was for Nestra, but I didn’t appreciate Bob’s snarkiness when it came to my food. That was a blasphemy I wasn’t going to indulge. Food was sacred to one who’d grown up on the streets and gone hungry more often than not. Nobody came between me and my food.

Nestra tracked my calorie intake and started meal planning for optimal efficiency. I let her make her meal plan, I’d just ignore it later when I wanted a sweet treat or something. I had depleted my body's stored energy and was still extremely lean. The nanites had made even my fat cells more efficient at storing energy.

My stats weren’t anything more than a guideline, right now, for example, if I tried to lift what my stats indicated I could lift, my exhausted state would prevent me from doing so. Adrenaline might bypass my exhaustion, but they were simply a way to track my progress.

After giving my food time to settle, I continued my workout. The days passed and my food stores shrunk.

“I’m going to need to recalculate how much food I need. I’m consuming it at an alarming rate.”

Yup, you’re a hog. Nestra’s voice whispered in the back of my mind.

“Not helpful,” I muttered.

“Did you say something, Ginny?” Bob asked.

“No,” I replied as I headed for my quarters. It was after dinner and I wanted to change into something a bit more relaxing and get a shower. “Just thinking.”

Liar, Nestra whispered.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Bob said.

I felt a headache coming on. I facepalmed. With a sigh, I came clean. “I was talking to Nestra, Bob. The AI in my head.”

There was a long silence. “My voice analyzers seem to be malfunctioning, Captain. Did you say AI?”

“Yes. She was thrown in as a package deal with the nanites,” I said. “Wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“I’m sorry, Ginny…”

“It’s fine, Bob. Not your fault and my fears were alleviated after seeing how the security on this works. No one will ever be hacking this AI or my brain, I’m the only person who could even try, and I’m sure I could think of an easier way to commit suicide if I wanted to.”

We talked as I entered my room and flopped onto my bed. “Go ahead and say hello, Nestra.”

How?

“Oh. Right. She can’t actually interface with you, Bob.”

I realized that probably wasn’t strictly true and dove into my mind. I used my mental powers to link with the ship and since Nestra was in my brain, she was able to see everything I was.

Try now, Nestra, I thought to the AI.

What followed was almost too fast to track but my enhanced mind managed. The two AIs traded information and I was relieved to note that Nestra shared nothing personal from my mind. Every memory and thought was open to her but none of that was shared. I trusted Bob and didn’t mind if he knew about my past, but Nestra knew it wasn’t her place to share those things and the last knot of worry about her faded from my mind.

Thank you, I thought, and I sensed an odd disconnect between the mental feelings of being hugged and the lack of it in reality. Still, it was the thought that counts. At that moment, Nestra and I became friends. We got each other. She was glad to have another AI to converse with. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but she must have felt incredibly isolated all alone in my head.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Let me know if you need anything, I whispered my thoughts back to her. I didn’t want her to go crazy. There was enough crazy with just me in there, I didn’t need her adding more.

While Bob and Nestra got acquainted, I worked on the mental exercises Nestra wanted me to do. It was good practice holding my focus with my mental powers while working on sudoku puzzles.

The evening passed and my mental energy drained away. Nestra was overly chipper that night when I went to bed, happy to have made a new friend. You lucky girl, if only you knew what most people were like. Maybe she did, given she was in my head, but it was totally different to experience something firsthand as opposed to just hearing about it. Bob was becoming a great friend though and I was happy they could meet without anything blowing up in my face.

* * *

The old renovated space station orbited a barren moon. The moon was unsuitable for a colony given the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that went on frequently there. The moon drifted on the edge of a planetary system with several asteroid fields and two gas giants. It was perfect for a launch point for colony ships heading future out, however, that dream had never taken place.

When the Triv were discovered, any expansion into their sphere of influence was permanently canceled. The station was repurposed.

The Prince of Wales space traffic controller sent an automated message with instructions on their procedures. I skimmed the information. Not finding any changes from what I expected, I called the station up for docking clearance. My ID transponder was running and I expected no complications.

“Welcome to Prince of Wales, Captain Amerson.” I was using my Ginny Amerson ID. “How can I help you today?”

“Thank you, I need clearance for docking.”

There was a pause. “Our mid-size ship berths are full at the moment.”

I considered my options. After some thought, I shrugged. It didn’t really matter. I’ll just take the transport. I groaned as I realized I still hadn’t named it yet. They would want a name. Meh, it’s got an ID number, it will be fine.

I pulled up the information on the transport and sent it to the traffic controller. “I have a small transport I’ll use. You should be receiving the details.”

“Got them. I’m not familiar with this model but the dimensions look fine. Will you be doing any trading?”

“I need some consumables,” I told him.

“Very well, I can put you on the B deck. That will put you close to what you need. Save you some trouble.”

My eyes narrowed. What’s his angle? I let out a breath and relaxed. Play nice, Ginny. “Thank you, that sounds wonderful.”

The details were quickly finalized and I got ready to leave. Bob could look after Shadow Hunter in case the Triv showed up.

I took my feet off the counsel and looked up at the ceiling. “Alright Bob, I’m heading out. Let me know if—” An explosion rocked the ship.

“What the heck was that?” I demanded.

Something else exploded, nearly knocking me off my feet.

“The port engine power junction overloaded, Captain.”

“How? We just repaired that!”

“I’m attempting to determine that now, Captain. In addition, when the overload occurred, the surge blew the containment field on the engine and it exploded, several rooms were breached and open to space.”

I cursed. “Did someone sabotage it?”

“RB units are examining the damage now, it will be a few minutes before they have finished investigating.”

The station was hailing me once again. I rubbed my forehead. “Why can’t we ever seem to catch a break? I angrily answered the call. “Yeah? Captain Amrson here.”

“Our sensors detected an explosion aboard your vessel. Do you require assistance?”

“I’ll let you know. No one was injured, but we’re still investigating the damage.”

“Give us a call if you need anything.”

“Will, do, thanks.” I ended the call.

I pulled on my war suit and sealed it, then headed down to check on the damage myself. There was no way anyone could be aboard with Bob watching everything all the time, but I wasn’t taking any chances. The RB units set up a temporary airlock and I cycled through.

“Captain, preliminary reports show no sign of sabotage,” Bob informed me.

“If it wasn’t sabotage, then what was it?” Now I had even more questions.

Arby walked over to me, his blank metallic face staring at me for several long seconds before he found the right radio frequency to speak with me.

“Captain, the replacement parts we installed experienced a catastrophic malfunction.”

“What are you saying? How? It was brand new!” I tried not to take my frustration out on poor Arby, he was still my buddy and not programmed for more than the most basic human interactions. He was a repair bot, nothing more.

“We detected numerous impurities in the steel the components were made from.”

I stared at him for almost five seconds before I grasped what he was saying. “Cheap steel?” I glared up at the ceiling and shouted. “Bob! Why the heck didn’t the material processor filter out the impurities?”

My anger built as I waited for a response. Cheap freakin’ steel! I knew the material processor could take scrap and repurpose it, getting rid of everything that wasn’t suitable. There was absolutely no reason for this to have happened.

“I apologize, Captain. I tested the first batch of steel we ran through the processor. It was high-quality steel. Everything looked good, so I had the material processor skip the quality checks after that. I’ve traced the defective parts to steel retrieved from destroyed SB tanks and vehicles.” Bob paused. “I never considered a country might have such poor quality control measures for their military arms factories.”

I was still mad, but right now wasn’t the time to vent we had more pressing concerns. “How many other parts are at risk of failure?”

“I’m scanning the data available, but I’m afraid the RB unit will need to check everything, just in case I missed something.”

“Is the rest of the ship safe?” I asked.

“I’ve begun powering down all non-critical systems that I can, and have directed the bots to begin their maintenance checkup of the critical systems. We should have a pretty good idea of what we need to fix in a few hours.”

“Do we have the needed materials to replace everything we need to?” I asked.

“Yes, we can reprocess the defective parts and remove the impurities. The rest can be made up using what we have in our cargo bay.”

“Okay.” I breathed. “Fine.” I took another breath. Let it go, Ginny. It was an honest mistake. I’d just got my home working properly, and now this. I kept a tight rein on my anger. It can be fixed. It will be alright. “Is the transport spaceworthy?”

“Yes Captain,” Bob replied.

“Fine. Get things fixed. I’m going to head over to the station. Send me a list of anything we need once you have a tally.” I was too worked up to sit around, I’d definitely be snapping at Bob or someone if I didn’t have something to do. It would be best if I distracted myself. It wasn’t that big of a deal. It could have happened in the hyperway. God only knows what would have happened if the engine exploded there!

“I’ll see to the repairs, Captain.”

I didn’t respond. I stopped by my quarters to change into something more comfortable and grabbed a few things, then marched to the transport. In most cases leaving your problems behind and expecting them to fix themselves wasn’t advisable, but that was precisely what I was going to do. Bob could deal with it.

“It’s fine Bob, just get it fixed,” I was still mad, but I forced myself to say it. Bob was one of my only friends and he didn’t deserve the silent treatment, even if it was his fault.

“I’m sorry, Captain. It won’t happen again.”

“Look after the ship,” I said, then boarded the transport and strapped in. I leaned my head back and sighed heavily. Get over it. It’s time to check this station out. Maybe I can find some sleazeball to scam. That would go a long way toward improving my mood. Now I just had to hope we could get everything fixed before the Triv showed up. That was not a fight we could win if our engines were out. Our shields could stop their energy weapons cold, but their missiles were another story.