I awoke feeling refreshed. My head was clear, and I felt better than I could remember having felt before. The room was still dim, and Hailey was nowhere in sight. I don't have a frame of reference for how long it's been since the first time I woke up on the ship, with no way to tell time I could have slept for hours or days. It was time to try this whole walking thing again.
I slipped my legs off the edge of the bed and found my boots beside it. It was simple enough to slip them on, and my jacket was a few feet away, hanging from the wall. Carefully, I rose to my feet and retrieved my jacket. My balance felt a little off, but my legs didn't feel like they would collapse under me as they had before. I slowly walked through my cabin towards the exit, gaining confidence as my legs behaved as they should.
"Now, where would Hailey be." My NIL unexpectedly answered my question. A 2D map appeared in front of me, showing a blinking golden dot, then traced a line to a blue dot. The map faded, and a golden line appeared in front of me on the floor. Right, I must be the blue dot then, and if I remember right from the tour, it looks like she's in the cafeteria.
Turning, I made my way down the hall following the line. I still couldn't get over how quiet this ship was. I'd spent time on tramp freighters as a voidrat before I'd become a miner. A ship this quiet didn't feel right. There should be messages going over the intercom, crew talking, and the sound of machinery. It was eerie, and I could only imagine what it had been like for Hailey, stuck here for hundreds of years, only being awakened when something needed to be fixed. Then finding another hundred years had passed with no one finding you. Unable to command the ship because a computer refused to list you as anything but a passenger. That was such a terrifyingly lonely life, it was heartbreaking.
As a lone human on my own, I might be without friends, but I could still find people to talk to. Other miners were always happy to have a communal complaint session about how horrible life was and commiserate over it. Just watching a game at the bar, you could feel a sense of belonging, at least for a time, as you shared a united goal of seeing your chosen side win. She'd had nothing, nobody to talk to, and nothing to do even if she'd stayed awake.
Entering the cafeteria, my jaw dropped. Where before there had been a pristine galley that looked like it had never been used, now it looked like the aftermath of the worst bar fight I could recall. The walls were splattered with void only knows what. There were puddles all over the floor of water and... other things. The washer was full of dirty kitchenware. Hailey stood in the midst of it all, looking like she'd just fought a war with a food synthesizer and lost.
Her hair was caked with clumps of goop. The pure white dress she wore now looked like some drunk miner's idea of a masterpiece painting. She'd frozen with a stirring utensil held in her hand over a large bowl. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, she'd obviously been trying to make something for me to eat when I woke up again.
My amusement died completely when I saw the look on her face. There was no embarrassment or frustration, she was scared. I was confused, why would she be scared of me finding her like this? I wasn't going to punish her, she'd done so much for me already I'd feel like a complete slagger if I got mad at her over making a mess for what was probably another meal for me.
"Hailey, what's wrong? I'm not mad about the mess." I took a step towards her and stopped. She backed away from me, cradling the bowl to her chest as if it would protect her. Before I'd left the hab I'd lived on, I'd helped with the younger kids. She was more scared than I'd ever seen any of them act when they'd been in trouble.
"Hailey, come on. I'm not mad, I won't do anything to hurt you, I promise. Tell me, what's wrong? Why are you so scared?" I carefully got on one knee, mindful of my weak legs as I tried to make myself look less intimidating as I looked up at her.
"Y-you're going to get rid of me. I messed up, wasted supplies. You're not going to want me anymore. I'm d-defective." I watched as she shrunk in on herself, hiding behind the bowl, unable to meet my eyes, and my heart broke at her statement. What had her people done to her to leave her like this? Was it worth even trying to find her home if this was how they treated people?
"Hailey no, you're amazing. You took care of this ship for so long on your own. You rescued me and gave me a new leg and this amazing NIL. You even gave me control of this incredible ship. Hells, without you I don't know the first thing about keeping this ship running. Come here, sunshine." She reminded me in some ways of some of the kids back on The Hab with how skittish and scared she was, and I fell back on old habits to try and calm her down.
Slowly, she lowered the bowl to look at me, then set it down. I kneeled there, waiting, as she slowly approached me. As she got closer, I held out my arms, and she dove into them. How quickly things had reversed from before. I'd had no idea she was so scared I'd leave her behind. I felt nauseous now, thinking about that delicious meal she'd made me. How hard had she'd worked, trying to do everything she could to make sure I wouldn't leave her alone.
"I promise, no matter what you do or what happens, I won't leave you behind, ok?" I murmured into her hair as I rocked her back and forth. I felt her nod against my chest as she held on to me as if I'd disappear if she let go. We stayed like that for several minutes as I calmed and comforted Hailey, ignoring the building pain from kneeling on a hard tile floor.
"I'm getting your uniform dirty." She mumbled into my shoulder.
"There's a whole dresser full of them, don't worry about it. But now that you mention it, since it's already dirty, why don't I help you with what you were making?"
"Ok." I felt her nod against my shoulder.
Standing up and pulling away from her, I was happy to see there was a small smile on her face now. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me over to the counter where she had been working and handed me another bowl. After cleaning a space to work, we quickly found a routine that worked for us. I still couldn't read the language and didn't know their units of measurement, so I mixed ingredients as she instructed while she went off a recipe loaded into her NIL.
It was nice, reminded me of being back on the hab and helping in the kitchens. We didn't have a lot of food variety, but we were creative with what we had. Vat-grown seaweed or algae along with fish that grew and fed off of it gave us a decent diet. We dried and ground the seaweed into flour and baked it into snacks or made a soup with the fish out of it. As a kid on a hab, you helped where you could, and the favorite place was the kitchen. There was always competition to see who would get to help there every day.
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I was pulled from the reminiscing by Hailey accidentally blasting me in the face with some kind of compressed filling by accident. I licked what I could reach on my face with my tongue, sweet. She looked at me apprehensively, still not completely over her fear from before. Giving her a mock scowl, I flicked the whisk I held in her direction, peppering her with droplets of the thick batter in my bowl.
"I'll have you know young lady, that if you're going to start a food fight with me that you should know I've never lost. I'm certain the kitchen of my hab still lives in fear of me to this day. The janitors shiver and look around in terror at the very mention of my name and the victims I would leave behind."
"Victims?" She shrank back a little and I nodded sagely.
"Those poor bulkheads. They didn't deserve to be slapped with soggy, slimy seaweed. Truly, I was the worst kind of rogue, covering those poor innocent bulkheads in stinky, slimy seaweed juice." She giggled.
I smiled at her, reassuring her that everything was still fine, and went back to mixing our breakfast. Soon we had a large tower of flat cakes in front of us, along with a dish of some sweet red sauce and the cream from earlier. It was delicious, the cakes were warm and fluffy, the sauce sweet and fruity, and the cream added a nice richness to the meal.
"That was delicious Hailey, what's it called?"
"Pancakes." She was back to her normal non-emotive self, but I could see that she was just a little bit more relaxed now. Her shoulders weren't hunched forward, her head was held a little higher, and her back a little straighter.
"Pancakes, huh. Appropriate and to the point. I like it. Well, you said something earlier about having a program to help me learn your language, do you think it's safe for me to use now?"
"Yes, your NIL should have finished integrating while you slept. I can upload the program the next time you sleep, and it will teach you the language."
"Great, do you have anything else, like a manual of the ship or something that will let me help you work on the ship? It's not fair to you to have to do everything around here." She frowned at my question.
"I can manage the maintenance easily on my own, you don't need to bother yourself for me."
"But I want to anyway. I want to help you, it's only fair with how much you've helped me. I feel like if I don't do my fair share, I'm just taking advantage of you." I never thought I'd see the way where I'd have to beg someone to be able to work.
"Here, let's start with something simple. Let me help you clean up." Putting actions to words, I started gathering our tableware and taking it to the washer before she could protest.
Between the two of us, it didn't take long to have all the dirty dishes loaded and washing. A wall panel slid up to reveal an alcove with cleaning equipment, and Hailey handed me a mop. I guess even on this fancy ship, nothing beat a good old-fashioned mop for cleaning messes. Ok, so this one was made with advanced materials that absorbed many times more mess, and the bucket had a filter in it to keep your water clean, I still stood by my statement.
An hour later and you wouldn't know that the room had ever been dirty. The floors were spotless, and the counters shined. The only thing in the room that wasn't clean was us. Between the cooking and the cleaning, our clothes were a mess.
"So... Why don't we both get cleaned up, and then you can teach me a bit about the ship afterward." I received a small nod in reply and made my way back to my quarters.
A quick shower, with unlimited hot water that I desperately wanted to take advantage of, and I was clean and dressed. Exiting my quarters, I tried mentally querying my NIL as to where Hailey was. Just like last time, it showed her location and then traced a pace to me. Going by the map, she was waiting for me in the engine room.
I made my way aft, my legs were already feeling stronger than they had when I woke up as they effortlessly carried me down the corridor. Any sense of weakness was long gone, and I felt like I could probably run if I wanted. I'd look into that later, maybe check out the recreation room.
Entering the massive engine room, I emerged on a walkway threading between large hexagonal towers that I'm guessing were the reactors. The walkway continued past the towers and over large cylinders that emerged from the rear bulkhead of the ship, the engines. Looking up, I saw the walkway staircases spiral around the reactors and disappear between them, the towers covering all five decks of the ship. Turning, I followed the path indicator leading me to one of the staircases spiraling down to the bottom of the ship.
The room was surprisingly cool for an engine room. The engines must be very efficient or well-insulated. I couldn't hear any kind of high-powered ventilation system, like was usually installed in most ships to help keep the engine room cool enough to be habitable. Even the best ones I had been in before this had been a sweltering furnace.
Emerging from the staircase I found myself on the bottom deck of the ship looking at the rear of the hull and the internal part of the massive drives that pushed the ship. Hailey was standing there in a body-hugging jumpsuit, the same charcoal gray as my uniform, waiting for me. I studiously ignored the way it showed off her gentle curves and focused on her face.
"Hey, looks like I found you. So, I'm guessing you decided to teach me about the engines, then?"
"Yes, I decided that we should start with the critical systems in case the need arises for you to fix them." I noticed she didn't mention me helping her out with simple everyday maintenance. Looks like I'll have to wear her down on that front some more.
"Yea, these things are huge for a ship this size, and I noticed for an engine bay it's surprisingly cool in here. Those two related?"
"Not really, the ship uses compressed cold plasma suspended extreme energy neutrons for propulsion. The reactors produce the neutrons that are then suspended in plasma that reaches eighty percent the speed of light." I choked on my spit.
"I'm sorry, did you just say eighty percent the speed of light? A Guild Cruiser is lucky to hit thirty percent, and a navy cruiser fifty percent, and you're telling me the thrust of this courier ship hits eighty-slagging-percent the speed of light?"
"Correct, the extreme speed neutrons are harvested from the Tritium-Neutronium Graviton Reactor. Tritium is fed into the reactor cores where it is compressed until it loses its neutrons and becomes protium. The neutrons are further compressed until they become neutronium which emits high levels of gravitons that are harvested to generate power. Afterward, the neutronium is suspended in nonthermal plasma using the recycled protium and used as propellant."
"Ok, so let me get this straight, this ship has what? Six of those reactors? You're telling me your people used six neutron stars to power a courier ship? Insane, your people are all insane." Who would have even come up with an idea as frag-brained as harvesting neutronium for gravitons? It was crazy and at the same time, it made so much damn sense. The problem with neutronium was the absurd weight of the stuff, and then these people just turned around and made it into an advantage by converting the problem, gravitons, to energy.
"Correct. Now, I will show you how to safely shut down and perform maintenance on the gravitic plasma control system. We will wait until you have a full understanding of standard English and can read the documentation and procedures on the reactors before going over them."
"You won't hear any complaints from me over that." I shivered at the mere thought of someone foolish enough to mess around with a reactor under the pressure of multiple solar masses. There were simpler ways to commit suicide.
We spent the next several hours going over the plasma containment system. She taught me how to purge it, depower the gravitic containment field and disconnect it. Then she opened it up and I got to walk around inside a chamber that only minutes ago had been full of compressed neutron-rich plasma moving at over half the speed of light. Well, it would have been if we were underway. She showed me how to access the graviton field coils, remove, and then replace them.
Then she had me do it myself over and over. She made sure that I could do this in my sleep if I needed to. She had the ship deliver some food, and we took our lunch break in the engine room, where she quizzed me while we ate. It wasn't bad, some kind of noodle dish she called ramen. Not as good as her cooking though. I couldn't say it was my favorite thing I'd ever eaten, it was like a human version of that noodle dish I always bought back on the station, but less slimy.
By the time what I assumed was evening rolled around, I was mentally exhausted. I returned to my room, had another shower and some leftover pancakes from that morning that Hailey had delivered to my room, and collapsed into bed. Before I could drift off though, my NIL pinged, and a picture of Hailey popped up in my vision.
"I'm transferring the language program to your NIL, Captain. When you wake up tomorrow, you should have a basic understanding of written Standard English." I nodded drowsily, before realizing she couldn't see it.
"Gotcha Hailey, you can just call me Rama, by the way. No need to be so formal. G'night." I mumbled, my eyes were already closing, and I barely noticed the progress bar that briefly appeared in my vision as the program downloaded and executed as I drifted off to sleep.
"Sweet dreams, Rama."