He'd had a few shifts running the navigation console; a fairly boring assignment, generally involving making one or two course adjustments across the entire shift. When he wasn't on-shift, he was learning more about the weapons systems that the slowly forming fleet supported. How to fix them when broken; how and when to fire them. What went wrong. What went right.

He had every course taken he needed for the crew. All he needed now was to pass the larger-scale versions of the combat test he'd taken before. But in some deep, primal way, the way he'd acted in the simulation had disturbed him.

He sat at the forward entrance of the 13's cargo bay, looking out at the assemblage of girders supporting the flotilla's construction. Right now, the three smaller vessels were, to all appearances, complete; simply piggybacking on the 13's hyperfield until they reached the end of the ride.

He was currently on real time-rate, watching his overheating warning slowly count down. He'd discovered that he actually had to sleep; that apparently no matter what body you put it in, the human mind would eventually go mad without taking a break on occaision; and while his room had no bed, yet, he could simply shut his body down, and sleep standing up; even accelerate it if he wanted. For the moment, he didn't want it. He had plenty of time before his next shift.

More crew were being awakened, constantly. The ships were ready. Captain Peterson had even given them names; Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera. There was talk of renaming 13 Nyx; but he was leaving that decision up to its new captain, when she took over. Which would likely be any time now.

Behind him, the airlock opened. A tiny puff of atmosphere escaped; destined to be forever lost to hyperspace; as footsteps emerged. At least a dozen new crew, out to look over their new ship most likely. He glanced back to wave at the newcomers. And his gaze froze.

Black hair. Green eyes. Pale skin. A smiling, happy face. A body that was perhaps just a bit shorter, wider than she'd prefer. His Icon helpfully denoting her name. As if he needed it. Kelsey Danvers.

The smiling face disappeared. For a moment, fear flickered across her gaze; then anger. She dropped into a defensive crouch, hands raised, as the other new crew kept moving, oblivious... but only for a few seconds. A single foot smashed into his upper body; he went limp, simply letting her strike; with enough force to send him flying over the edge.

If not for the net of emitters surrounding the cluster of ships, his body would have been lost to hyperspace; though even as he considered it, he knew McCloud would just give him a new one. His rapid exit was gently twisted back around; and he smacked face-first onto the outer hull of the Tisiphone; just a few meters from an observation window where Captain Peterson stared at him in a blend of amusement and confusion.

***

That face. That black-haired, smiling, cute, monstrous face. She'd never thought to see it again, outside her nightmares. The other crew with her... new people. Soon to be her fellow crewmates on the Tisiphone. No idea of the past that had filled the space between the two; and all looking as if she were the crazy one; keeping a wary distance; several were already reporting the incident via their Icons.

She taps her own; a tiny black dragon that had come to alert the moment she'd seen his face, as f it could burn the offending surface off for her. "Captain Peterson. This is your new engineer, Officer Danvers. We need to have a few worlds."

"Does it involve the reason Thompson just slammed into my ship?"

"Yes sir. I'd recommend he be restrained indefinitely. He's a hazard to anyone around him. I'm not sure how he passed muster, but he was medically discharged and forbidden from leaving the surface or owning a weapon. He was lucky not to get away with prison time."

"Ah. Come meet me on the Tisiphone and we'll talk. I'll have him head back to the 13."

She clenched her fists. She could just faintly feel the metal scraping, at the upper limits of what her overlay would allow her to exert in terms of force. She needed to get this straightened out. Immediately.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Another tap on her icon; a bit more firm than necesary, the tiny black creature she'd nicknamed Onyx long ago giving a hiss as she pulled up directions; and started climbing one of the ladders, leaving a group of befuddled crewmates behind; though a pair of them started to follow. Good. They might be confused, but that was the right instinct.

Tisiphone was, first and foremost, a warship. A modest cargo bay predominantly filled with neatly packaged spare parts, all freshly sealed and bound. This was the most open space on the ship; every cubic meter was filled with a field emitter, power cable, bunk, or storage compartment; the sleek, speartip-shaped vessel quite different from the bulky, expansive craft she'd awoken on.

She saw Captain Peterson sliding down a ladder just a few feet in front of her; and the airlock slid closed behind her. She hadn't seen the man; aside from her briefing by an old Survivor recording, the rest had been filled in by a mildly irritating old doctor and a few of her new engineering team. Onyx, of course, helpfully displayed his name beneath his feet as she watched them descend.

She gave a quick salute as the captain pulled to a stop. "Sir."

"Danvers. I'm fully aware of the man's medical discharge. It was fairly clear that the issue was biological, not mental. Not likely to ever be a problem again."

She grimaced, looking down at her hands; then up at the captain. "Sir. They couldn't completely prove it was biological. The only real evidence they had was that his uncle did the same thing on his first flight up. That man... One of my best friends was dead for a few minutes. Barely revived. He tore her throat out with his teeth. Broke my arm and three ribs when I was helping hold him down."

"I understand that they couldn't prove that at the time. Do you know how and why you're here?"

"I'm... a copy of my old mind. Taken from just before the Enemy killed me."

"Every headset, navy or civilian, had equipment in it that steadily recorded your brain. Every synapse firing, every thought, every memory. By six months before the arrival, we had almost a billion people's minds copied and saved. An analysis so finely detailed that we could stick it into a robot and it would wake up feeling as if it were that person. Do you know what that means?"

"...No sir."

"Not only did McCloud confirm that his issue was biological, but she isolated enough information to find that hundreds of other spacers had a less intense version. One that merely moderately heightened agression, rather than inducing a psychotic episode. Most of them ended up with dishonorable discharges. I plan to give them all a second chance... without that problem."

Could she have been wrong? She'd seen his face. The hate. The malice. She'd been convinced for so long that he'd somehow just hidden what he really was. That he'd planned to hijack the shuttle somehow, and turn pirate. There were always criminals hidden somewhere. She'd done her best to make sure he wasn't a threat to anyone again.

"I'm.. still not convinced, sir, but so long as we aren't working on the same ship, I doubt it'll be a problem."

"Good. I'm officially taking over as 'Commodore' Peterson now, captaining from here on the Tisiphone. The layout should already be in your Icon; familiarize yourself. We'll be starting regular duty shifts here once all my people have been relieved over on the 13."

"Yes sir." She turns... trying to put that murderous image out of her mind as she heads to the nearest ladder; distantly hearing Peterson explaining that no, she isn't being punished for assaulting a fellow officer, to the men who'd followed her.

Looking over the Tisiphone, comparing it to the Shanghai... it was like night and day. No spin gravity cylinder. Fifty missile tubes. Thirty-six point defense clusters. A Hypercannon with a full six light-second range; the maximum even the Enemy had achieved with the weapon. The ability to hit eighty percent of lightspeed in less than an hour. All told, this thing was slightly more than a match for an Enemy destroyer.

As she slowly ran her hands along one of the auto-loader tubes, she closed her eyes. Imagining the last stand they'd had over earth. That she hadn't been a part of. She hadn't scored a single kill. Untold thousands of officers dying, struggling to reach escape pods, trying to stop incoming missiles.

And on the ground. It would've been even worse, to know it was coming, and not be able to do a damned thing to stop it. Opening up her gaze once more, she started to carefully examine the autoloaders. Brand new. Freshly built. Not even dust. Still. She wouldn't be worth a damn as an engineer if she didn't check every single circuit and servo, front to back, before they left hyperspace.

She tapped Onyx; more gently this time, petting the tiny dragon, before calling up a list of her subordinates; giving them all a ping to meet her in the main engineering section. Time to get things started.

***

Derek shut off his overlay as he entered the ship. He wanted to cry; to break something. To call her and apologize for the thousandth time. To scream at her that it wasn't his fault. But he definitely didn't want anyone to see him like this. Some of these newbies would be under him; better they see a blank robot than a man in his late 20s weep over a girl who hated him; and with good reason.

He still had a few more combat trials to run. He knew the weapons. Best prove he could use them, if it came down to it. Perhaps a touch of his old life had followed him here; but he could still make this one count. Maybe after he'd inevitably gotten himself killed a few times he'd be in a better state of mind.