When I’d judged the mood of the galley to be in a later-stage feeding frenzy, I placed my fork back onto my plate, which still had some uneaten roasted stuffed quail, and a few roasted vegetables left over even though I hadn’t left room for dessert. I stood up with a wine glass half filled with a syntheholic pinot noir and lightly tapped the side with a clean knife.

“Ladies, gents, both, or neither – please give a warm welcome to the inspiration for tonight’s chef’s special – our new managing A.I. – the one, the only – Quail!” I called out in toast, before using my neural interface to quickly release the lockouts on the gallery's built-in view screens. They had been set to the sunset at a tropical beach ambience.

Quail appeared live and large on the room’s main view screen, and all the other smaller screens, standing tall with all his charming indignity. The bow tie really did suit him.

There was a beat before various hesitant fleshy thwacks, a few unsure clacks, a bit of splashing, and low intermediate murmurous buzzing sounds were made. The remaining various eating sounds continued unabated.

“Thank you, and good evening, my crew,” Quail said as he imperiously looked over the gathered crew members. “My name is Quail – no relation to the dish on the menu – and I’m now the managing artificial intelligence of the Insurmountable Odds. I hereby accept full command authority. Effective immediately, your current mission is cancelled. This spaceship will assume standby status until portions of the next mission are released to appropriate members of the crew on a need-to-know basis. Questions?”

No one moved. There was silence for a moment.

“Ist dis meant to be, wie sagt man – ein witz?” Doc asked.

“... how do you say – a joke?” his sock puppet counterpart supplied in translation.

Crabtain furiously stridulated – Clack-Clack-Clack-Clack-Clack-Clack-Clack…

The crab sock puppet giggled. “Of course, it’s a joke! A funny one at that! Ha-ha-ha! snort Ha-ha!” It laughed like a certain piggish Muppet, except much deeper, which was a bit of artistic licence on Karen’s part. “We all know the M.A.I. is the only one onboard with zero authority! They’re an external contractor and not even a true member of the Exploratory Fleet. The only things they ‘manage’ are all the non-juridical A.I. of the Insurmountable Odds,” The crab sock puppet said with little-stuffed-fabric-claw quotes around ‘manage.’ “Ha-ha-ha! Snort Ha-ha!”

Simultaneously all in the galley showed their approval.

“Muh-ha-ha-ha!” Doc laughed like an exaggerated villain while flapping his arms like a 6-and-a-half-foot chicken. I wasn’t sure if that was due to being an ancestor to avians or if it was part of the current mimicry, but having partaken in Octoberfest celebrations I suspected the latter.

The two Munch-tarsiers curled up their tails and squeaked, most of their voices lost to ultrasonic frequencies. The tarsier sock puppet filled in the literal blanks, “Tee-hee-hee-hee.”

A large Ivy swarm erupted from the remains of platters of pureed synthetic quail – raw, boiled, grilled, and roasted. The wasps started to formation-hover in an aerial dance that resembled an animated starburst pattern. The wasp sock puppet laughed, “Buzz-her-her-HER!”

Karen dropped her stealth to ripple with colours, and she even pulled from her bag the mini-Karen octopus sock puppet and risked fractal recursion just so she could say, “Blub-blub-blub-hoo-hoo-hoo!”

Dede made a loud farting noise, presumably a clear statement in the universal language of derision, and the orca sock puppet said nothing.

I had a good chuckle. I hadn’t realised Quail was such a comedian!

Dede clicked and whistled, while the orca sock puppet asked, “Um, did someone, like, turn on the jacuzzi?”

“Frau Devourers, dis ist why you must go easy on ze feathers,” Doc chastised.

As Karen removed herself from the water the orca sock puppet translated, “Sorry, but, like, you know cetaceans don’t have a sense of smell and can only taste, like, salt. Other than the thrill of the hunt what do I get other than, like, a bit of texture from my chow?”

“You get gas, pilot,” the crab sock puppet said as Crabtain clacked disapprovingly.

“We could install a pilot light,” the wasp sock puppet probably joked as Ivy buzzed.

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“The risk of explosion,” the pink Munch tarsier said with their chest comm, “and therefore the risk of a hull breach,” the green interrupted with their chest comm, “is simply too great to allow any flames,” the pink continued, “near that much flammable gas,” the green tarsier concluded. The use of their comms was a sure sign of seriousness.

“Guys, stop gaslighting me!” The orca sock puppet cried. “Look, I think we have all, like, learned something important! Quail gives me gas.”

“The food or the M.A.I.?” The crab sock puppet translated Crabtain’s clacked tease.

Ignoring Crabtain’s comment, with watering eyes, I gagged to Doc, “I’ll cut back on her feather allowance in the future.” Then addressing everyone I gasped, “But for now, I’m beginning to wish it was the rest of us who didn’t have a sense of smell. How ‘bout we relocate to the bridge. It must almost be time for the main event!”

“Superb idea, chef,” the crab sock puppet said, “everyone, walk this way!” Crabtain ran sideways out the door while clacking. No one else walked like a crab.

“You didn’t sagen ‘Simon Sezz,’ mein captain,” Doc said as he walked after normally.

“Yes! Redemption shall be, like, mine!” The orca sock puppet cheered as Dede slapped her fluke on the surface of the water, making a giant splash. “Remember I’m, like, literally always flying us with, like, half a brain!” The sock puppet shouted from Karen as she was halfway through the door and as Dede dived underwater to swim her way to the bridge.

Ivy and Munch dispersed. No doubt they already had individuals on the bridge.

Quail glared at me. “Lukus, I don’t know what is happening around here, but I demand the access you promised,” he said with a little stomp of his birdfoot.

“Sure thing, cobber,” I said as I followed the others out. I pulled up the rest of the basic restrictions I had placed on Quail with my neural interface and removed them. “Meet us on the bridge,” I called back as I departed the galley.

As I walked onto the round bridge, stage left, I saw everyone already there. Dede was in the central infinity pool, which also had a continuous underwater window looking out at the enormous main holographic display screen. Crabtain was using the Riker manoeuvre to mount his saddle like captain’s chair behind her on a raised dais. Two tarsiers, blue and teal, were being Munch at the sensor and comm consoles to the right of the captain. A wall-sized terrarium at the back of the room was filled with several large Ivy swarm’s worth of wasps, but they were all at teeny-weeny consoles, like a miniature stadium-sized mission control.

To the left of the captain, nearest me, were several non-bridge-crew observation chairs suitable for different morphologies, with the Doc, then Karen, and then a seat for me right next to the captain. A glowing one-to-one scale Quail avatar was right next to the door I entered, at one of the many holographic displays in the room, staring at me with beady black eyes, like a cuckoo Cortana.

“I am not amused, Lukus,” Quail said with his natural indignity turned up to eleven.

“About what?” I asked innocently, stopping to talk away from the others.

“About what?! The contract I signed was deceptively lacking information which I now feel may have been relevant to my choice to accept it. And even now that I supposedly have full access there is barely any information available, I’ve no control over the given situation, and, apparently, I’ve zero authority except over some jumped-up subroutines. That’s what!”

“Well, this is an Exploratory Fleet ship,” I began, pausing before deciding to elaborate. “We needed a managing A.I. eager for the unknown and adventure. You were not just the lowest bid but also the first to step up, even with the sparse contract details, and that counted for a lot. Also, information security is tight here to ensure that if this ship is invaded, by any near-peer threats, they will have difficulty extracting information that they might be able to use for, among other things, backtracking to the solar system. As for your role, we have a full crew and you’re only an external contractor, but some of those A.I. you have authority over are pretty darn important, like the warpway connection path planner, and the warpway network pathfinder.”

“So, I am, what, the navigator? Well, I’m lost then. I don’t understand why we are where we are in the solar system. There is absolutely nothing around here,” Quail bemoaned.

“You’re more like the mouthpiece of the navigators, and I guess our legal adviser also, not that there are too many laws out there. Nearly none to be honest,” I said, and Quail seemed to perk up at the mention of his legal duties despite there being very little potential work. “And what’s here has been left off the map intentionally, but you could guess from what’s given. I’ll give you a hint – ‘Makemake.’”

“Makemake, the dwarf planet, is about ninety astronomical units away, on the sun's far side!” Quail said, beak lifted, while pointing up using a bird foot with an extended middle toe. At least I think he was pointing with his toe.

“Exactly! We’re at Makemake’s third solar Lagrange point. You may be interested to know it’s the most gravitationally remote Lagrange point in the solar system where the E.F. has deemed it practical to open a warpway, which the Insurmountable Odds already did on its shakedown and pathfinding cruise. Now that we’ve swapped initial data with the other ninety-eight ships in the fleet it’s time to go back and open some more warpways on the other side,” I said, gesturing to a circle of indeterminate size with a light-warping edge that was growing larger on screen.

“And what exactly is on the other side?” Quail asked tentatively, almost like he hadn’t expected to get as far as he had but was now quietly resigning himself to his fate. I suspected this time the bird had truly been flipped.

“That, my fellow fleet explorer, would be a spoiler,” I told him seriously. “But we’re almost there. Come over, and discover the answer for yourself,” I said breaking off the conversation and walking over to take my seat by Crabtain. Quail’s holographic avatar flickered into being on the far side of Crabtain, his virtual eyes looking forward at the view.

“Prepare for warpway transit,” Crabtain proclaimed officially, relaying the translation via comms.

“Mass nullified. All ready for warpway transit” Ivy announced officially, also translated.

“Hold onto your blowholes, because, like, the surf's going to get high,” the orca sock puppet said beside me, unofficially, as Dede clicked and whistled. “Like, cowabunga!”