The noise of the Starbase’s alarm caused me to wake with such a start I nearly fell out of bed. I sat up and swung my head around wildly looking for the danger. “Melody! I’ve been trying for ten minutes to wake you, I was about to call the infirmary. I was sure there was something wrong. You slept through your alarm and your backup.” It was Starbase, trying to get my attention.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry!" I panted as I threw on my clothes. Fortunately, Vin'aren wouldn't leave until I was completely packed last night; she knew that if she didn’t make sure that I was finished I wouldn’t be. Running a comb through my hair - luckily it was a fresh, cute, close cropped cut so it wasn't too bad - I grabbed my uniform jacket and headed towards the door. As I looked over the checklist that Vin had taped to my door - I really need to thank her - I looked at my kitchenette wistfully.

"There isn't time to make coffee," Starbase said.

I sighed. "I know. It's just… No, I have to." Decision made, I ran over to the kitchenette, grabbed my hand grinder, brewer,  measuring cups, scale, and the airtight container of coffee and swept it into a bag. "I don't know what kind of coffee Far Reach has, and I don't want to be a grump because they have bad coffee."

Starbase sighed dramatically. "Really Melody? Fine. But you have to leave now unless you want me to get the fire brigade to bring you.

Starbase was threatening me with having to get a ride from the only folks who have vehicles on board. The fire brigade uses small electric vehicles to carry hoses and equipment to a fire and sometimes bring injured people to the infirmary. If they brought me to the docking ring because I was late I would probably die of embarrassment.

"Thanks again for the wakeup Starbase, I’m going." I ran out the door, no breakfast and no coffee.

I'm the brand new information warfare officer on the exploration Starjumper Far Reach. It simply would not make sense to miss my first real posting. The administration of Starbase and the joint Human and K'laxi colony Zen'agan's Reach have sponsored our mission to traverse the warp gates and go as far as we can. I had a hard time believing that nobody had ever mapped the whole system before, but here we are. 

Yes, humans have their wormhole generators and usually just link between points in space. It’s quick and easy with… minimal side effects. But, before they met us, the K’laxi didn’t use them. When they reached space for the first time they found a whole series of Gates that link together star systems all over the galaxy. It took them a long time to figure out how to use them, but once they did it was much easier than developing their own FTL. They learned that each ship needs to have an addressing module, which tells the Gate where they want to go, and they have a list of addresses to known locations. 

I’m excited, because this mission will be crewed by humans and K’laxi. Their government put up about half the money for the mission, so they’re an important part of the crew. They're the first sapient species we ever met. They're from a world that's smaller and lighter than ours, plus their planet is straight up and down, no tilt and their orbit is almost perfectly circular.  That means they have no seasons. It's always a fall (for us) day there.  I went once for vacation with my moms, it was kind of weird. We were there for a month and the weather was identical the whole time. They didn't even know what a meteorologist was until we explained the concept.

They're so cute looking too.  They're shorter than us, furry, with big expressive ears on the top of their head, and a long fluffy tail that they can grab things with. Someone said they kind of look like a cat or squirrel or fox person from comics and I guess I can see it, but they are definitely their own thing.

Our ship, Far Reach is  an AI, and has been alive for nearly a thousand years. It’s not unique that our ships have AIs or that they’re so old, but it surprised me when I first heard it. Humans and AI have been working together (mostly) harmoniously for two millennia. When an AI takes on a new ship, they name it and that becomes their name.  I learned - the hard way - it's incredibly rude to call them by an old name.. That was awkward. I apologized and she said it was okay and that I didn't know, but I think I was beet red for like three hours.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Far Reach started out as a Starjumper, an old, old ship originally designed to go between human colonies at relativistic speeds. They were already very old before wormhole generators were developed.. They can thrust with their star drives at tens of gees when needed (though when there are biological people on board they keep the thrust around one gee) and they coast through interstellar space at half the speed of light.

Before they were Far Reach, the Starjumper we’re riding on was refitted at the Greylock docks in orbit around The Reach.  It's a brand new facility meant to bring the K'laxi and us closer together. Made up of Human and K'laxi facilities, it will enable us to work even closer together to design ships.

As far as I know, Far Reach has more K'laxi parts than any Starjumper before. They still have their stardrive and massive matter printers and exawatt laser batteries (just in case) but a lot of the interior was refitted and reconfigured to be an exploration ship. There's a new information warfare suite (hello!) hibernation cabinets (just in case) and enough cabins for the crew to each have their own room, with room to expand later.

When I found out I was selected for the mission, I wondered why an exploration ship has an Information Warfare Suite (and your lovely Information Warfare Officer). We're not planning on going to war per se, but we don't know who we'll be meeting - if anyone - and how friendly they'll be.  A few years ago back in Sol, Venus decided that AIs weren’t people anymore, and tried to beam malicious applications to shackle the AI ships. There was a small war that burned through a few systems, but they were soundly defeated wherever they showed up. Since then they seem to have dropped the rhetoric and aren't really making anti-AI noises anymore, but I can’t imagine that’s the end of it. We can also send out our own weaponized signals if needed, but we probably won't need to do that.

I make it to the docks out of breath and see Captain Q'ari standing in front of the airlock fielding questions from the press. This station is large enough that is has more than one source of news, and they all jostle and jockey to get the best shot. She sees me walk up late and flicks an ear, and her tail swishes slightly while otherwise maintaining her composure for the cameras floating around her.. I just hope she’s not annoyed enough to say anything. I salute. "Apologies for being late Captain. Permission to come aboard?"

She returns the salute and says "Permission Granted Lieutenant Mullen. Please endeavor to be more punctual from now on." Annoyed enough to say something after all. Oh well.

"Yes Captain. Thank you." I head inside. As I hurry to my cabin my boots clang against the metal flooring. My cabin is right where I expected to be, and I toss my belongings inside without even putting them away - I'll do it later - then rush up to the Command Deck. "Hi Far Reach! I call out brightly as I walk onto the Command Deck.  It's set up human style with the Commander's seat in the rear towards the center, and everyone sitting around them at their stations.

"Good on you to join us Melody." Far Reach says wryly. "I was wondering if you were going to show up on the back of a Fire Brigade vehicle." There were chuckles from the other crew members. I'm known as being slightly late for things.

It's really hard to be punctual, okay?

"Very funny Far Reach. I made it, on my own, and I managed to remember my coffee supplies." I said smugly.

"Good thing too" Far Reach said "Because I just happen to know that there are thirty kilos of coffee from the northern mountains of Parvati that were loaded on just this morning."

I gasped. Parvati's mountain ranges were known for producing excellent coffee. Some said it was even better than some coffee from Earth. It was a rare treat. "How did you manage that?" I didn’t even try to hide the surprise in my voice.

"She didn't have anything to do with it, that was all me." I turned, and Ambassador Vivenni was standing there, looking casually elegant. She wore a smart tailored uniform of the K'laxi government and stood there with her hands on her hips. "I heard that some people here enjoy good coffee and I happened to know offhand of a shipment coming in, and was able to... ahem... ask for a donation to the cause." she said, her eyes laughing.

I didn't think to ask where she learned so much about coffee, it's poisonous to K'laxi. Even decaf will mess them up. They do love tea though, and I'm sure the stores are packed with chamomile tea as well as other flavors.

"Thank you Ambassador!" I said gratefully. "It's so nice of you."

She smiled "I know a bit about coffee thanks to my human friends, and when I saw this go by, I couldn't help myself.  Enjoy!" And she turned back to speaking with another officer.

Maybe this trip would be more fun than I had originally thought.