Amir had woken up with a thumping stress migraine; he pulled some paracetamol out of his bedside drawers, downed it with a swig of water from his water bottle and stumbled over to his wardrobe to pull out a uniform for the day. The first day back on board he’d just checked out and slept. Not the most inspiring look but he had operational command of the marines on board so had instructed one of the surviving sargeants to lead a physical training day. Right now, just inside the door he was standing in front of, were what was left of the ship’s company of marines. About a third were left alive although a half dozen of them were only just out of medical. He had to face them eventually, he thought. Pulling himself together, he walked out of his cabin and into the main dorm. The marines all leapt to their feet when he entered and saluted.
“Stand easy, ladies and gents,” he began, and waited for them to relax a bit before he started. “Look, we got mauled pretty bad, there’s no denying it. You’ve all lost friends and comrades; that never gets easier and I regret I didn’t have time to get to know them all properly before this all happened. Death is never easy, I know I’ve seen enough of it to last me the rest of my life, as I’m sure you all have. So my job is to make sure we don’t have many more to grieve before we find safe harbour. So expect a fun programme of boarding drills for the time being. We’re not going to be chewed up like that again. From now on full tactical gear to be worn all the time you’re on duty, fully armed. Next time we’re going to be more than ready. Understand?”
“Yes sir,” echoed around the room. It was a bit flat; he guessed his inspiring speech hadn’t really hit the mark. Still he had tried his best.
“Any questions?” he added.
One of the marines raised his hand. “Do you think we’ll be boarded again,” he said nervously.
“Yes marine,” Amir said steadily - he didn’t want them to panic, “there have been two attacks on this ship and its crew and we’re stuck in this system until we repair the ship. So sadly I fear another attempt is likely, even staying within the Without’s security perimeter may not deter them if they are particularly determined, which it seems they are.”
“Is this anything about the new greenling?” a Corporal piped up from the rear of the room. Well that hadn’t taken long.
“What have you heard?” he answered, before kicking himself for effectively confirming whatever story was going around. Too late now he’d not be able to deny it - these marines were rusty, not stupid.
“That she volunteered, that she’s some aristo and probably who they’re after.”
“Well,” Amir paused, clearly it was all effectively out; time to stick to Chloe’s cover story.
“Yeah, well the aristo I was guarding does appear to the have been the target. I got her out to the without where a second attempt was made on her life. Then she did something stupid, really stupid. To be honest I’m not sure if it was genuine guilt about the lives lost to protect her or she just thought she’d be safer on board ship but nevertheless she volunteered. And as you all know, once you’re in you’re in for the long haul. So now she’s stuck as a rating - no doubt strings will be pulled eventually and she’ll be off for officer training, but for now, for better or worse, she’s one of us; no better than any one of us. Having said that, she is the Lord Mayor’s daughter so don’t do anything stupid. Be respectful but don’t give her special treatment, that won’t help her in the long run here. Understood?”
“Won’t her being here mean we’re more likely to be attacked again,” another marine piped up.
“Yes, but that’s not her fault - whether she’s guilt ridden or terrified or something else,” angry Amir suspected, “but regardless, she’s one of you now. You owe her the same protection as anyone else in this crew. She won’t be getting her own security from now on. She’s one of us no one is saying you have to put your lives on the line to look after her but I do expect you to offer her the help and support you’d give any other greenling, if you encounter her in the course of your duties.” He emphasised the last six words heavily, he didn’t want any of the marines to actively seek her out.
“Anyway, any other questions?” he asked and saw no further hands up, “well in that case get as much breakfast down you as you can - this is going to be a hard week.”
Eight hours later he and his men were exhausted. They’d been in the simulator all the work shift practising repelling boarding teams. To be honest it was too early to expect much improvement but Amir was still disappointed by the readout the training programme was giving. These marines really were rusty - he wondered if the Captain knew. He was going to have to write a report, great that would eat into his sleepshift. Then he remembered he had to tell her and Chloe that Lady Ellis’ secret was out. That probably should have been something he’d done before breakfast not eight hours later. Still, he walked over to the comms panel, set up a message with the highest privacy settings and then messaged the Captain and Chloe; simply stating: “The cat’s out of the bag about our new recruit.”
With that done, Amir turned around to look at the thirty sweaty and tired marines. “Right ladies and gents, good work but I expect even better tomorrow. Go get some food down you and a good night’s sleep.” They all rushed out instantly - eager to get to their mess. Well he couldn’t blame them, he was starving as well. Not bothering to go back and get changed he headed, still in full tactical gear with his rifle on his back, to the officer’s mess; a pretty major breach of naval decorum but not the actual regulations.
As he stepped into the officer’s mess the Captain immediately beckoned him to her table and seat nearly directly opposite her. “No time to change, Mr Choudary,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“I thought I’d squeeze in a couple of extra drills. You’re marines are rusty Captain, I’ll have a full report for you in the morning.”
“Aye, we’ve not seen much action the last few years; I’m not surprised, plus they’ve not had a Captain in eight months since our previous Captain of Marines was transferred.”
“That seems excessively long, Captain,” he remarked.
“Well as you may have gathered I’m not exactly the Admiral’s favourite commanding officer,” she said wryly.
“I wouldn’t worry Sir,” he answered blithely, “the Admiralty doesn’t have favourites, only different degrees of contempt.”
The Captain laughed at that. “Come on Mr Choudary, I think you’re going to fit in here.”
“I hope not, I’ve only got five years left before I’m out - I don’t want to get into anymore trouble.”
“Too late, you seem to have brought it with you,” the third Lieutenant (recently seventh, Allah help us, there were only six Lieutenants left now) called across the table. He wasn’t one of the aristos Amir remembered and saw some appalled looks from some of the other surviving Lieutenants, most of whom were.
“Aye,” he admitted, “she’s a brat but she’ll soon find some motivation to improve her manners, no? Anyway for better or worse she’s one of us now ain’t she. Her letting that sink in is her problem. Special treatment, for better or worse, isn’t going to help us, the crew or her.”
“Well said,” the Captain interjected before standing up. “I’m sure you’ve all heard about our new crew member, the Lord Mayor’s daughter” she began, emphasising the last part, “to be honest I’m not sure how it all came to pass but she’s here and on our roster now. So as Mr Choudary said I expect you all to treat her with the respect all the crew should be afforded - no more, no less. Just know I’ll come down on pandering to her just as hard as any harassment. Make sure your sailors know that.”
“Yes sir,” echoed across the mess. Well thought, Amir, the admiralty might not like her but she sure could command a room.
“So Mr Choudary,” she smiled, “How are you going to sit down with that rifle on your back?”
“Ah,” he said, she had a point.
“Hand it over, I’ll prop it against the back wall behind me, no one will knock it over there, except me and I don’t count.”
Amir smiled and handed her over his rifle before sitting down in his seat.
“So Mr Choudary, boarding drills?”
“Yes sir, next time we’ll outfight them. I just need a week to get my marine’s back up to scratch, another two to get them really effective and then I’ll have them train the rest of the crew.”
“The rest of the crew?”
“Yes sir, I believe another attack is inevitable. We bloodied their nose in the end and with us in the security perimeter it won’t be immediate but it will come as long as they know we’re still here and crippled.”
“Well best to get the repairs completed as quickly as possible rather than take men off their duties to do boarding training,” commented the new first Lieutenant from the Captain’s right hand side.
“Maybe, but I’ve seen Ms Liu’s damage reports. I’m not convinced we’d be safe to slip until well after my projection of when we can expect another attack.”
“And when is that?” the Captain asked.
“Anytime from three to seven weeks from now,” he replied.
“Explain,” she ordered.
“Well they’ll need to assemble a bigger force, with fighters to combat the without’s fast response units. That will take at least a week but probably more. Then there’s slip time - it’s not negligible and we don’t yet know where they are based and what reinforcements are immediately to hand. Finally I believe they will make use of their stealth technology to spend time positioning themselves optimally before making their attack. That will take a couple of days. I then would expect them to focus on taking out our weapons, shields and any drives we have operational by then, and then we should expect boarders in greater numbers than before. Probably at least double. My marines will be the backbone of our defence but the whole crew is going to be involved again. The crew need to hold areas until my fire teams, of which I only have five left, can reach them and clear them. That’s the plan the crew need to be trained to defend their stations effectively, you’ll need to put an officer in charge of overall command and control of the crew.”
“I’ll put the Master of Arms on it; he’s a grumpy old bastard but he’s got the skills.”
Amir raised his eyebrows, that decision would irk her Lieutenants even if she did seem to have a firm rein on them. Still putting a Warrant in charge of command and control was nothing if not...unusual. Alright, it was damn right subversive. This Captain was the strangest aristo he’d ever met, he was even beginning to suspect he liked her; maybe it was all the shared secrets, maybe it was just who she was.
“A good choice then,” he said, throwing her a bone. Hell he was a Captain of Marines, none of the other officers really respected his rank anyway; the perennial problem with being a marine. With that he started to tuck into the meal that had appeared before him. The rest of the meal was spent making idle chit chat, something Amir never really felt comfortable with outside his small circle of friends, none of whom Naval life permitted him to see for years on end; were they even still friends at this point? Amir dwelled on that as the Lieutenants and midshipmen around him talked about their various sections and how repair work was going. The Captain had turned to discuss the following morning’s orders with her first Lieutenant. So Amir found himself finishing his meal and making his excuses to retire to his bunk early. The Captain took pity on him and dismissed him.
Four weeks later he was finally satisfied with the performance of his marines. They’d have a fighting chance now, still some way off where he’d hoped they would get to, but a marked improvement on where they had started. Still he couldn’t delay the crew training any longer. He spent the night allocating his NCOs to various training details. There weren’t enough NCOs or simulator space to train each crew detail more than once a week. As he scrolled down the lists he spotted Sparrow’s detail. Nightmare, but he didn’t think it was wise to leave an NCO in charge of those two disasters waiting to happen. Sighing, he assigned them to his own work roster and carried on working through the list. He wondered how the two girls were getting on? They needed to pull it off but could they?
A day or two later he was waiting in a training simulator as Sparrow’s detail trooped in for their first session. Sparrow led them in smartly, ordering them to form up. “Water recycling detail reporting Sir,” she said still quietly but more confidently than he expected.
“Very good Warrant,” he pretended to be reading her name badge before adding, “MacLeod.”
He then introduced himself to the rest of the detail, asking their names. As he was inspecting them he noticed that Ms Elis was holding herself very stiffly. Well to be honest that was to be expected, despite the Captain’s warnings he wasn’t surprised to find some of the crew were evidently taking it out on her. It would toughen her up, he supposed and there wasn’t much to do about it unless someone seriously injured her; this was Naval life unfortunately and she’d have to learn to hold her own. Still he should say something to Chloe, or even Sparrow; Sparrow was the Warrant in Charge of the detail afterall. Still she was Sparrow, was she capable of whipping angry ratings into line yet; well they both had to toughen up he thought making up his mind.
Putting that aside he began the training session. “Marksmanship to start with,” he announced, “two magazines, sixty rounds ain’t a lot in a firefight but that’s what you’re getting. So we need to make sure every shot counts. The targets will be in full tactical gear; so chest shots are pretty much out, you’ll just set off ricochets. The only way to stop a target in full tactical gear is to aim for the weak points: visors and joins. The easiest shot is to the visor but they’re hardened; you will need at least two closely spaced shots to penetrate it. The joints are less armoured - but only the neck joint will really take the target out. Knees joints will stop them at least but it’s only possible if they turn away from you; so not a great deal of use for a defender. So today I’m only going to count head or neck shots as on target. Now pick up your rifles and assemble behind the barricade; these are actual barricades, not whatever you cobbled together last time. They’re being fixed to every door. As soon as you hear a boarding alert wherever you are, get those barricades across every corridor at least three foot from each bulkhead door as quickly as you can. Remember they’ve got tactical armour on; you won’t, these barricades are your best friends.” He then stopped to demonstrate how to extend and collapse the barricade before continuing. “If you are ordered to retreat, try and take the barricade with you so the enemy can’t use it plus whoever hoiks it gets a bit of extra back protection.”
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“Now show me what you’ve got,” he ordered, “take six shots and we’ll see where you are.”
To his surprise both Sparrow and the Lady Elis both managed to place six shots all within the visor, the spacing wasn’t great but that would do it. The same couldn’t be said of the rest of the Techs in the detail. Clearly they’d only handled side arms since their basic training, and probably then only doing the minimum required practice with them.
“Good shooting Warrant, as expected,” before adding also, “and you too Seaman Ellis; however, good isn’t going to be good enough. You all have to be excellent if you want to give yourselves a fighting chance.”
The rest of the training session didn’t really yield any improvements, Sparrow’s shots actually got worse but given how skinny she still was she must be getting tired. Leaning down so that he wouldn’t be heard by her detail he whispered in her ear, “Probably time to start hitting the gym, you need to build your muscle mass next now that you don’t look like you’ve been starved.” The girl nodded silently and returned to reloading her weapon. “Also once we’re done a word if you would Warrant.”
“Yes sir,” she said in her quiet voice.
Amir made them complete the full ten volleys before reviewing each crew member’s performance, setting them goals for next week. “Any chance you get to access a simulator or firing range, do so, even if you’re only practising with side arms. Even playing shooting media will help with your reactions and hand eye coordination,” he ordered before dismissing them. Sparrow lingered behind until all her detail had left.
“How are you getting on Ms MacLeod?”
“I believe my detail is operating within acceptable parameters, Sir,” she responded in that slightly robotic way she didn’t seem to be able to shake. It was a good thing most of the crew had never heard the pilot avatar speak and there was no danger yet of her being sat next to an officer at the Captain’s table - still the service record Chloe had created, and indeed quite reasonable performance so far, would mean she was on track to be WO1 before too long.
“You’ll need to work on speaking more naturally,” he gently admonished her. “Anyway, that’s a problem for the long term. In the short term you’ve got two. Apart from Ms Ellis, your detail sucks hard. You’re going to have to whip them into shape somehow. As we go on, I’ll be expecting more and more for you to actually be leading your detail. You up to it?”
“I will try my best, Sir.”
“Mr Choudary or even Amir is fine, when there’s no one else about,” he hastily added; he wasn’t sure if his orientation was common knowledge but he didn’t want to be seen to be overly familiar with a junior rank.
She waited patiently for him to dismiss her, but Amir was still thinking about the other issue, what could he tell her; would she even understand what she had to do, and even then was she even capable of it. Well only one way to find out. “I think Ms Ellis is being bullied, physically, you need to put a stop to it.”
Sparrow’s eyes widened. “Yes Sir,” she said, her voice finally rising.
“Good,” he said. He would talk to Chloe on the comm to in case Sparrow wasn’t up to the job but for her own sake she had to be seen to try herself first.
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Sparrow pondered Mr Choudary’s advice, the detail’s performance she was sure she could improve - she’d seen them all improve as Water Recycling Techs. Her Petty Officer in particular was coming along in leaps and bounds and even Ms Ellis was now competent enough a welder to be of some use. She would have to get Ms Liu to take her to the gym. She had no idea what exercises she needed to do; definitely not something in her programming.
Ms Ellis, what was she to do about that. Honestly she didn’t know. She didn’t have the physical strength to stop any attacks being made on her, all she had was rank and she didn’t even know when any physical attacks were taking place, she’d just have to keep her eyes peeled for any changes in behaviour. But that would take time and Mr Choudary had made it sound like something that needed to be urgently addressed. Certainly, she thought, if Ms Ellis was being injured she needed to step in quickly; she found herself becoming quite distressed as she imagined the other girl being beaten. Maybe she needed to talk to someone, but who - the dorm had filled up now and she really hadn’t been able to gauge any of their personalities yet. Not that was something she was capable of anyway but she resolved to observe them all more carefully that evening.
Returning to the dorm after dinner she decided that the easiest course of action was just to ask Ms Ellis herself, surely she knew who her attackers were. So she made a beeline for the other girl’s bunk. “Seaman Ellis,” she began and then paused not sure what to say next, this had all been easier with the extra heavy lifting of the interface. Even Ms Liu had noticed her social interactions were stiffer and less natural than they had been - well that was her without her social interaction sub-routines operating on the interface and uploading directly into her suggestions. She was on her own now. “Um,” a poor start, as the other girl finally looked up from the tablet she was reading, “is everything alright Seaman?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t it be,” the other girl snapped back, before curtly adding, “Sir,” as usual. Sparrow was confused. Mr Choudary had been firm in his suspicions but Lady Eliss was denying it. That didn’t make sense, now Mr Choudary had pointed it out, she was moving slowly and stiffly, even if her nanos were repairing any major damage she knew there was nothing to do about the soreness and stiffness that came with healing.
“Um, I’m glad to hear it,” she replied feebly, “but if there is something wrong please let me know.”
“There’s nothing wrong, Sir,” the other girl sighed crossly.
“Well if there is, please tell me,” she said, sensing there was nothing she was going to get out of Lady Ellis. As she was leaving she noticed one female sailor catch her eye. Confused, she walked over, and peered at the Sailor’s name badge.
“Is there anything I can help with you Seaman Gomez?” she stumbled through nervously.
“Oh just thinking about going down the range to practise again, fancy joining me Sir?”
Sparrow wasn’t sure what to make of this but got the sense she should accept the invitation. “Sure,” she said slowly. So she found herself using half of her sleepshift practising her pistol shooting. Her strength even without the gym was improving and she could now hold her sidearm straight for long periods, even if she still wasn’t anywhere near as accurate with it as she was with a rifle that she could support on the barricade.
“Good shooting sir,” Able Seaman Gomez said as they finished, “didn’t think you had it in you.”
“You’re scores were better, um…” she said trailing out.
“Maria,” the Able Seaman replied.
Sparrow considered that - was that overly familiar. She didn’t know but as they were both off duty shifts she guessed it couldn’t hurt. “Thank you Maria,” she said in the quiet voice, which was all that she could manage when she was struggling against her programming. Nevertheless, she noticed a subtle shift in how Ms Gomez was looking at her, there was clearly some sort of appraisal going on. Finally, the other woman seemed to make up her mind.
“Look, you didn’t hear this from me,” she started, “but think about where on ship there are no officers and no warrants that everyone has to go.”
Sparrow thought about that. In her old life she’d have just got the interface to tell her but now she had to browse through her local storage and her organic components weren’t nearly as fast at parsing all the data. She became aware of the other woman staring at her. “You’ll need to think quicker than that,” she sighed before adding, “right I’m going back to get some sleep; best of luck Sir. You may want to get a few more practice rounds in.” Sparrow didn’t really understand, she was thinking as quickly as she could and she knew that was many times faster than a human could, and she was still thinking when the other woman took herself off back to the dorm.
When it came to her, later that night in her cubicle, she realised now obvious it was; she shouldn’t have had to think about it. The general mess. When was her next thought; not morning, it would be too obvious if they didn’t give her nanos a chance to heal her overnight. So dinner then. Well in that case her course of action was obvious.
The next evening it was all so obvious, why hadn’t she seen it before. Maybe she was spending too much time in her cubicle. She watched as she saw a group of sailors, acting friendly but sweeping Lady Ellis up and then walking around her in a way that blocked off any route of escape for her. The other girl just traipsed slowly in the middle, her normally perfectly poised figure now slumped and resigned.
Her path of action was clear to her now. She waited fifteen minutes, this was something she had to catch in the act. She hesitated and then decided to strap on her side arm, Mr Choudary was right she didn’t have enough physical strength to break up any fight and she’d need a pistol if this all went wrong. She thought about fetching Ms Liu as well, but hesitated. Mr Choudary had strongly implied this was her duty to sort out. Besides she couldn’t let Lady Ellis be hurt further and by the time she fetched Ms Liu the assault might be over. In fact she hoped she hadn’t left it too long already.
Sprinting she dashed to the general mess to the general mess she knew the Lady Ellis had been assigned to. She reached it in just under three minutes, according to the wrist watch she had acquired when her first allowance packet had arrived in her new account; she found Chloe had created a transaction history. Clearly Rita wasn’t a saver - she wondered if that reflected Ms Liu’s own approach to financial management. Then she realised she was getting distracted rather than just gathering herself. She brought herself back to the situation at hand. She listened through the mess door. It was noisy, that was to be expected, but not the usual noise of eating and conversation. This was it.
The door was locked. That shouldn’t be possible but the room was probably stuffed with system techs. She tried unlocking it anyway. When that failed she accessed the nearest wall mounted tablet, logged on and started navigating to the ship’s security systems. Quickly she identified the tampered door, whoever had coded the door to lock had been sloppy; they had triggered the emergency decompression bolts but had never bothered to code in much more than how to open and close them from a tablet inside the mess. That meant Sparrow just had to find the panel in the mess and instruct it to remotely open the bolts; with all the noise in the room she doubted anyone would hear them retract.
Moment’s later Sparrow had the door unlocked; she took a deep breath and opened the mess door. The sight that greeted her was worse than she imagined - the mess tables had been pulled into a square, in the centre of which she saw a big petty officer and Lady Ellis just in time for her to witness her take a massive blow to the head; without nanos it could have been a killing blow. As it was, Lady Ellis went down heavily, she was already bleeding from dozens of places, she saw another seaman leap into the ring and roughly haul her to feet again. Sparrow felt a sudden, hot sensation take hold of her mind.
Without thinking, she stepped into the mess and bellowed, “What the hell is going on here, stand down the lot of you!” At once the room turned to face her.
“It’s no concern of yours,” the man in the ring shouted, “you jumped up little girl.” And he hit Lady Ellis hard again in the stomach, the other girl doubled over and coughed up a small puddle of blood.
“Are you disobeying a direct order, Seaman,” she said cooly, daring not to break eye contact with the big man for fear that to do so the whole room would rush her.
“No, sir,” he said grinning still, “nothing going on here but some hand to hand combat practice, Isn’t that right Seaman Ellis? She’s still got some work to do.”
“This is not hand to hand combat practice,” Sparrow said, the hot feeling welling inside her turning her words steely and clipped.
“Well that depends, perhaps you’d like a turn to show your skills Warrant,” out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of men move towards her.
“I would think twice about that, offering violence to a senior rank is a capital offence,” she said as calmly as she could, she noticed the group of men hesitate but then continue their slow advance. Her hand she found was instinctively now resting on the release clip on her sidearm’s holster. The big man noticed.
“I wouldn’t do that Sir,” he grinned, “not if I was you, only ten shots and there’s scores of us.”
“I only need one,” she hissed, the part of her that was Sparrow the pilot was amazed at what she was apparently capable of, she didn’t really know what was happening. This must be all some instinct from her mammalian brain reasserting itself on her. Never a good thing, she mused, in fact all her programming was telling her to stand down; she couldn’t shoot a human could she? Nothing in her programming would allow it but she found herself carried down the burning river that was flooding her mind.
“Well you better be quick,” the big man shouted as he leapt over the tables and charged towards her.
Quick, well that was one thing she definitely was, before the man had completed his leap the pistol was in her hand and she was already lining up a shot by the time he landed. Crack went her pistol as her shot landed in the man’s right kneecap; he collapsed to the ground in shock and pain. “Any one else fancy reconstructive surgery?” She practically screamed at the room before turning her attention to the wounded man. “I could have blown your brains out for that, remember that,” she spat out. Then some part of her compelled her to kick the man’s damaged knee as hard as she could which led to another cry of pain from the man, which she secretly relished. What was going on with her; she missed the interface’s diagnostics, as frankly right now she had no idea.
Turning her attention back to the room: “What the hell did you all think you were doing? Did you think no one would notice, or turn a blind eye? This is one of your shipmates, she volunteered, she wants to repay her debt to you; the crew who saved her life. And this is how you treat her? You’re all a disgrace. The only reason I’m not calling the Marines down here to arrest you is that we’ve lost too many hands already; you’re no good to the Whittington shot by a disciplinary committee.”
She felt some of the fire coursing through her brain finally start to ebb and Sparrow was able to take control of her body again. Still some of it still lingered and she added, “Right, I’m taking Seaman Ellis to medical. If he shows up before she’s out I’ll finish him off and anyone who comes with him. And clean this mess up.” She strode over to the other young girl and steadied her on her feet.
“Come with me, you’re safe now,” she said to Lady Ellis, who just nodded slightly, utterly defeated. She helped Lady Ellis to the door before turning back to the room. “If this ever happens again I’ll see to it that no-one in this mess is shown any mercy. If I have to come back it will be with a squad of marines with orders to cut you all down. As for those of you quartered in our dorm you will report to me at 06:00 hours each day for the next week.”
With that she led the Lady Ellis out of the mess, shutting the door behind them. She stopped at the Comms panel and sent Ms Liu a message and then after a moment she wrote Mr Choudary a message as well, which simply said: “handled.” With that the last of the fire went out of her and she found herself back in control of her body.
“Are you alright Seaman Ellis?” she asked.
“Do I look alright?” the other girl weakly spoke, her speech slurred from all the blows to the face she had clearly taken, even as her nanos were already hard at work reducing swelling and bruising so they’d not be visible by morning. Sparrow worried about internal damage though; nanos were only so good; she needed to be checked out at medical, especially if this had been going on for some time.
“No Seaman Ellis, you don’t,” she responded automatically.
“Well,” she sighed, “there you go.” The other girl paused for a moment and Sparrow was worried her condition was deteriorating but then she raised her head and looked her in the eye. “Thank you, I guess,” the other girl suddenly said so quietly it barely was barely audible.
“That’s ok, it’s my duty to maintain order onboard ship,” she said, again falling back on her programming’s autopilot.
“Whatever,” the other girl let out.
“I think you should try not to talk seaman, I think it’s best we just get you to medical.” After that she did stop talking and Sparrow carried her down to medical. It occurred to her this was potentially dangerous. The Medical staff were the only ones who might recognise her; she had put on some weight but she was still recognisable as the waif that had fallen out the pod. She’d just have to count on them having no reason to suspect her; as far as they were concerned she was still in the pod. Still in and out at double time, as Mr Choudary was fond of saying.