Chapter 17

..[ JACY ]..

The three Month break they had taken was up and over before Jacy knew it. She wasn’t complaining though. She liked the moving to places, new and old, too much. Plus, there was a limit to how much she could do there. All her research had had to be transferred to Swift. And that had taken a while. Removing all traces of their research from Canary had taken even longer. But all that had come to an end eventually, and the departure date arrived and passed.

They were on a fast straight shot towards the edge of explored space for their duodecant, they would be there in as little as four months. People had wanted to go visiting some of the colonies in The Empire on their way out. Mativo had agreed on the condition that they keep up with the ship. Jacy didn’t think it was worth it. Anyone on an Explorer Class ship should be more interested in the discovery of new things, not visiting places that had already been discovered. There was still countless of teams scheduled to go visiting the colonies. They were mostly made up of new explorers who had yet to visit this places. She assumed that was kind of okay. But not really.

Her new quarters were fancy enough. Maybe a bit too much for her tastes. The overall design had remained the same since the first expedition. As much as Mativo wanted to make their stay as enjoyable as he could possibility think, space on a space ship was still premium. And there were a lot of crew on board this time. Tens of thousands. The number so high she didn’t like keeping it in her head. She imagined what a nightmare it would be on a Colonial Class ship.

The color scheme of the interior of the ship had changed. Gone were the monotone dull whites of the previous ships. In their place, was a collection of greys. From those so white they appeared white to those dark enough to be called black. There were red greys, brown greys, yellow greys, and all other versions of greys the design team could get their hands on.

Of course, the hallways stayed a dull white with a few strips of grey at the edges. The deck floors were also a dull brown color. The lights were a soothing yellow.

The amount of decorations available for the rooms had increased multifold. Things like floor carpets, wallpapers, pictures, plants, both real and plastic were available.

She had opted for a mild decoration theme. No wallpapers or pictures for her. But she had added a floor carpet and an assortment of plants to her room. Real ones. Each corner of her quarters had one or two plants in pots. They were all chest high to her. By the end of their five-Year expedition, they would be barely reaching the top of the deck. All of those were nonflowering with large broad leaves. Genetic engineering did wonders in designing the behavior of things.

There were also two other plants on each side of her one meter eighty display in her living room. And another one next to her workstation. Yeah, she might have gone overboard with the plants. No one had seemed to complain though. Until she tried to put some in her bathroom. She didn’t understand why that was not allowed. To her, it made the perfect place for a plant.

She had kept her furniture to varying shades of charcoal grey. Except her bedsheets, those were a light pink.

She decided to take a nap. It would be a long four Months before the fun began a new, but it was time to get acclimated to her new bed. It would house her for the longest of time in the whole expedition.

…

She woke up a few hours later feeling well rested and ready to start another period of arduous training and testing of what she could do with her bioaugmentics.

Andrew and Park had helped her design a new version of nanobots for her to use. She was still holding out hope that one Day, they could come up with a version that worked both for her and Mativo. But that seemed like a pipe dream, and every new advancement they made always seemed to push the two versions further apart.

Her newest design of bioaugments had seemed like a step closer, but it had had devastating results. Nearly killing the test subject. Each time she designed a bioaugment that could work with Mativo’s version of nanobots, that bioaugment always reacted adversely to being attached to a living host. The recent data they had gathered showed the damage similar to what Mativo’s nanobots would do a living host not capable of withstanding them. There were a few differences, but Jacy didn’t think those would help her with what she wanted.

Mativo had told her to embrace the differences and pursue that which gave her the most rewards. He had said that even if she succeeded in making the two compatible, it would only end up crippling the advancement of her research. And limit the full potential of what her bioaugments could truly achieve.

What she had gotten from that statement was that there was a possibility to make them compatible with each other. And if she truly believed in Mativo’s rightness, then it was a certainty. Even if it would end up crippling her future, she wanted to see what that would be like. And maybe even prove to herself she was actually good enough to do it.

She only found Andrew and Mbithe in the lab.

“It hasn’t been a Day yet and you guys are already here?” she asked as she sat at her workstation.

Their new lab still had the arrangement of the old one. A conference room that was connected to the rest of the Senior Deck by the single door. Not to be confused with the other more general conference room next to the Bridge, this one was Mativo’s private room. Only six people were allowed in; eight with the recent additions.

From the conference room there was another door to the observation room. Which had two more doors; one to the recovery room, and the other to the simulation trial room. The four rooms were collectively known as Mativo’s Personal Lab. It was said that it could survive being plunged into the middle of a star. Jacy never wanted to test that. But she was curious as to why Mativo wanted it build with such specifications.

“We could say the same to you,” Mbithe answered not even bothering to look away from her work. Andrew just grumbled something unintelligible.

She left them to their work and got to preparing for her tests. Pushing herself forward was her number one priority. She wasn’t good enough for a match up with Mativo yet, but she would be by the time the five Years were up. And she knew of only one way to get better; get hammered down by a superior opponent. If Mativo wasn’t going to do it, then his sparring partners would have to do the job.

After setting up the simulator, she went inside to begin her training. But Andrew stopped her before she could close the door.

“Jacy… never mind. I’ll tell you when you are done.”

“Now I want to know.” She returned to the observation room fully. Andrew should know better than to tell anyone that.

“It’s just… I think there’s a module for Mondhe that might work for you too.”

“How long will it take to upload?”

“Upload? Less than a Second.” She began to reply before he cut her off. “You will have to tweak your nanobots a little.”

“Shit. And how long will that take?” She knew the answer, but felt the need to ask anyway.

“A few Days, at most.” He looked apologetic. Even though he had been guilty of nothing. In fact, it was good news. Any tweak would be beneficial to her.

“Okay. We will talk about it after I’m done here.” And she returned to the simulation. Her opponent looked kind of bored.

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Had they added personalities to these things?

..[ MATIVO ]..

I was intensely glaring at Mondhe, who had the decency to blush. I wanted ashamed, but I would take what I could get.

“How?” I finally asked.

“I told them—” she began to explain herself, but I cut her off.

“I already know what you told them,” I was feeling a barrage of emotions I couldn’t even begin to understand.

Jacy and Sylvia next to me were done. At least Jacy had the modicum to maintain her composure; Sylvia had completely let go. And she was loud.

The thing was, of the one thousand two hundred hybrids born on the ship only two forty-six had joined the expedition. Of her siblings, Mondhe had been the only one interested in joining us. And given the choice, she had chosen to join us and choose a new caretaker for the remaining two Years of her wardship. It was her choice of caretaker that was the problem. She had chosen me.

I was one hundred percent certain that I was not a registered caretaker. Nor would I ever commit myself to such a torturous job. But according to her, when she had been offered a list of caretakers who would be on the ship, she had said she already had a caretaker. The Caretaker Agency agents had asked who. And of course they knew who I was and who she was; so they had congratulated her and let her go. And being the little she-devil that she was, she had kept that information to her-little-self until it was too late. We no longer had a Caretaker Agency onboard the ship to help me pawn her off to someone else. After all, the youngest hybrids on board the ship had less than two Years to age out of the Caretaker System. All caretaker issues onboard would be dealt with by me and the ship’s council. And I already knew how that would go with my current problem.

“The fucking idiots,” I said to nobody in particular, “I will have them reduced to their individual atoms for job negligence.”

“You can’t blame them,” Jacy said, she had calmed down enough to talk. Sylvia was still incapacitated. “She’s known as the Princess. She speaks in your authority to those who don’t know better.”

“Of course, they don’t know any better. They would think I would give a ten—”

“Fourteen,” Mondhe corrected me.

“Thirteen,” Jacy corrected her.

And I ignored them both, “— Year old that kind of authority.”

“The problem is that she is the only one known to hold that title. Even your family doesn’t use them.”

“Because we are not princes and princesses,” I told her.

“But that is where you are wrong,” Jacy argued. “This is already an empire. And it needs a ruling family. You take up the mantle or it’ll create a vacuum. And that will only lead to unrest.”

“I didn’t take you for a diplomat,” I told her after her long power talk. It felt long to me. If she wanted someone taking up the mantle, she should be talking to my family and not me.

“I have been spending too much time with Sylvia lately.”

“What?” Sylvia asked at the sound of her name.

“What are you so worried about? Just a Year and some Months and she is off your hands,” Jacy said.

“We both know that’s not how this will work,” I told her. And then a more disturbing thought occurred to me. “Where would she even stay?”

According to ship policy, only Senior Officers were allowed to stay in the Senior Deck. If a Senior Officer had family onboard, they either stayed on a different Deck, or the whole family stayed in the lower Decks. Even visiting the Senior Deck was restricted.

There was no way she was going to get a whole crew quarters to herself. But she had been ready for that.

“I’ll stay with Sylvia,” she said without a doubt. Sylvia was a Senior Officer, but she preferred to stay at the lower Decks. Something to do with the people, I forgot really.

Sylvia on the other hand, hadn’t been ready for that at all. And hearing that cleared up all the mirth from her body. “Come again.”

“Don’t you worry,” I told her as I patted her on the shoulder. She was too shocked to even make an effort of dodging. “It will only be for a Year and some Months.”

Mondhe was starting to show signs of doubt, “I could ask someone else to let me stay with them.”

Sylvia quickly recovered, “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll be happy to stay with you.” She then turned an eye at me, and I dreaded what was coming, “As long as you keep telling everyone you are his daughter, it will all be worth it.”

“But that will make them think you are her mother,” I pointed out.

“No one would believe that. Look at her.” She gestured at Mondhe wholly.

“Why? Cause she is too pretty to be your daughter?”

“No dumbass. She has got the traits of a hybrid, which neither of us have.”

“They could be recessive.”

…

Mondhe and Sylvia found me waiting at the entrance to my personal lab. Mondhe had been to the one I had had on Canary, but she still needed clearance for this one. It would be Sylvia’s first time in any of my personal labs. Her only reason for coming was that she would be Mondhe’s chaperone on the Senior Deck. On paper I was the caretaker but in practice, Sylvia did most of the caretaker duties.

Sylvia wasn’t allowed to touch or interact with anything that could divulge trade secrets. She could watch the simulations though, that much was allowed. It was then that I wished we had created a separate observation room. But I never knew such a situation would arise.

I took them straight to the observation room where we found Jacy already in the simulation room. She was being thrown around like a rag doll. I was being very generous here. Sometimes, I thought she was pushing herself too hard. I had asked her to undergo the bioaugmentation soon as it was proven safe, but she had needed time to think about it. Relationships. There was a reason I didn’t like them at all. She didn’t need to think about whether to undergo the process or not; but how to tell her then girlfriend. They eventually broke up, and they were trying to get back together again. Seriously, I could never tell where feelings were involved.

The other four scientists were on the observation room, closely monitoring Jacy’s, well, everything. Her having bioaugments made that there was more to keep track of. I wasn’t a greeter, and I didn’t plan to start then. Besides, Sylvia’s energetic greeting had been met with murmurs that sounded nothing like responses to any greeting I had ever heard of.

The simulation ended when she was knocked out. She began to stir a few Minutes later. I took that time to load up the simulations Mondhe would be going through right after Jacy’s. She still had one more to go. For me, it was shield Day. I had realized that I had issues remembering when I actually used a shield. Even in simulations. I reintroduced shield training to shore up my defenses. The strongest offense was defense. No, I think it was the other way around. Anyway, I needed to work on my defense and I made it a whole Day thing. That way, I would never forget again.

“Are you sure it’s safe for her in there?” Sylvia asked as I opened the simulation room door. Mondhe walked right past me and went to check on Jacy.

“Yes. Like all simulations, this one has levels.”

“And what level was that?” I decided not to answer the question. Instead walking in and closing the door behind me. She would need one of the six of us to open it. And I was sure the simulation room would scream ‘bloody murder’ if she so much as toed in.

Jacy was already back on her feet. She looked… bruised in a lot of places. Like a lot. But she still appeared ready to take more. We left her to her simulation, while we did warm ups at the side of the room. She won the last bout, but it had been easier too. A confidence boost then; walking out in a win.

“Why did they add personalities to the sims?” Jacy asked me as she cooled down by the bench. Mondhe was already moving to the center of the room to begin her bouts.

“I thought it would make things interesting. It’s got all personalities known to humans. From wimpy cowards to lethal jerks,” I told her, raising a small arm shield and feeling for how it affected my energy.

“What kind of personality did you choose for me?” Mondhe asked as her sim opponent began taking shape.

Her opponent was a girl of Caucasian descent, a few centimeters taller than her. She had long light pink hair tinted with red, braided into twin braids that fell to her lower back. They swerved left and right as she tilted her head. She had a short sleeved sky pink t-shirt barely past her belly button, with black strips running down the sides of her torso. A pair of black shorts, and leggings the same color shade as her hair. Black calf-boots with pink laces completed her look. Plus, the glittering nail polish.

“Wow! You are pretty,” the sim said in awe, her voice a sweet sing-song thing. “My name is Pink, what’s your name?”

“Thank you,” Mondhe said as she turned to us, with an obvious blush to her face. She had made her first mistake.

“Keep your eyes on your—” I tried but it was too late. The kick was so hard I could have sworn I heard ribs crack. “—opponent.”

I whispered the last part as I watched her fly more than ten meters back before falling to the ground. Maybe I had started her too high level. But my fears were unfounded. She got up with her eyes completely black. Not entirely, there were small whites at the edges, but those where bare visible. And her claws extended. Wait, what?

“I didn’t know she could do that,” I heard Jacy say next to me. My shield had already completely disintegrated.

She closed in fast, going for a claw as her first move. I thought she was too far for it before I saw the blades. Too fast they barely registered to my chip. But Pink was ready, getting out of the way in time to avoid decapitation. One of the braids wasn’t as lucky; falling down in four pieces. And Pink met her head on.

“What personality did I choose again?”

“You don’t know?” Jacy asked looking at me in disbelief.

“I thought I had chosen a girly vain personality,” I said as I watched the two feral cats, for lack of a better word, bite, clash, claw, hiss, kick, punch and scramble all over the simulation room. “I thought she would be a competent fighter, offer distractions by talking too much about herself. Not this.”

“She shredded one of her braids.” Jacy said as if that answered anything. When she realized I was still not getting it at all, she explained, “For a vain girl, her appearance would mean everything to her. Besmirching it would be the highest insult to her.”

I got back to my shield training, leaving the girls to their duel of honor.

“Well, they did a splendid job.”