Olivia had assembled her surviving officers and warrants on the observation deck; the rest of the crew could hear her over comms link. She looked around at her XO and the five surviving lieutenants that were all that were left of the command crew. She’d already had to give field promotions to four midshipmen just to have enough officers to cover the critical stations of the ship. The warrants were even more depleted - like the senior NCOs on board - they had disproportionately been victims of the various firefights that had broken out. She counted less than twenty left out of an original complement of nearly seventy on board. At least Ms Liu and Sparrow were still amongst the crowd that had assembled in front of the officers. Or rather most of the officers, Mr Choudary, still in a bloodstained combat suit, the Lady Ellis’ blood no less, was pushing his way through the crowd to join the other officers. His marines had at least come off well with only three additional casualties amongst them.
The ship itself had also come off well, yes the hull was riddled with holes again filled with sealing foam, but there was no major breach and the only major system offline were the main weapons batteries but they had been offline before the attack. They’d got lucky that their attackers had been still trying to retrieve Lady Ellis and not focused on blowing them out of the galaxy - which the ship they had identified certainly had the capability to do to the Whittington, although they still hadn’t been able to identify which flag she flew.
That was the good news she had to announce, the more serious news was they had very little idea where they were. They had a fix on one, probable, standard candle, which would give them at least a direction back towards Corporation space but there was a perilous year of travel in the slip required to get there and she still had no idea what had happened in the slip and probably wouldn’t until Ms Liu had debriefed Sparrow, who had only reluctantly agreed to attend this meeting; by all accounts she had been intent on staying by the Lady Ellis’ bedside.
Harriet Ellis, that was another surprise, she’d reviewed the combat footage. The girl was lucky if nothing else, she had held off the entire strike team with one lucky shot which had nearly killed her as well. Lucky, but also brave, she’d expected the young Honourable to panic at the first sign of gunfire but she had just about held herself together and had done her job as well. What the hell she was doing in such a dangerous post was another question Olivia knew she’d need to get to the bottom of before long. Hopefully she was safe enough in medical for the time being. In the meantime Olivia noted her actions in her dispatches; not that anyone would look at them at the admiralty for weeks. Finally she flashed a pending order to Ms Liu to promote her to leading hand at the next opportunity and decided it was time to get on with things.
“Well Ladies and Gents,” she began, “first the good news. The Whittington is just about intact. That’s it. Now the bad news is I’m afraid more extensive; we’ve lost nearly half of the ship’s company between these two attacks, we aren’t sure where we are other than that we’re a long way from Corporation space and it’s likely some anomaly in the slip not encountered before has sent us here.”
Olivia paused - both to let that sink in and figure out what to say next. What else could she say, they were lost, but she needed to think of something. “Regardless of all that, we’ve got a job to do, we can finish our repairs, then we’ll follow standing orders - obviously we’re to return to the nearest Without and report in but standing order for all lost ships is to - you guessed it - to chart and claim anything that looks like it might be valuable. So we’ll be making some stops along the way home. As few as I think we can get away with of course. That’s essentially it there’s nothing I can do to sugar coat it, we’re out here for a long time.”
Well I’ve fucked this, she thought to herself as she looked around the room. Although in fairness they were absolutely screwed. She’d have to talk to Amir about getting additional security on ship from his surviving marines; the crew would not be happy to hear they’d be serving most of their terms of conscription just to get back to Corporation space. Did Harriet need personal protection? It wouldn’t look good. She’d need to find someone intimidating but open minded to join Sparrow’s detail at least. Maybe she should pop into the Petty Officer’s mess tonight, once the alcohol had started flowing, for an informal chat with a couple of them she knew might be able to help.
Inwardly she cursed the Corporation’s stupid class heirarchy, although she herself had been born into an Honourable Family, the decision to exclude the general citizenry from officer training was incredibly stupid. For one, the Officer Training Programme mainly spent its time catching up Midshipman to the standard of a decent rating in terms of technical skills and knowledge in any case. Second, it just wasn’t fair God had created all people equal; if her family’s Catholic faith had taught her anything it was that, although to be honest she ignored most of the rest. Third, it would have helped her immensely right now if the Officers had any clue about the life of what the rest of the crew was like.
She looked up at the room again. “Yep, it’s shit.” she said, “I know it, now you know it and soon everyone will know it. We’re just going to have to find a way through, like we always do. Like it or not this is the reality of our situation and we all have to get used to it. Now tonight, I suggest you have a drink, hit the gym, write messages to your families, whatever you need to do to get through this. I’m authorising right now one shift off in the next 48 hours for every crew member to do just that. You’ll be responsible for organising that and making sure the essentials still can get done but that’s what I want - no exceptions. In 48 hours time we’ll be going all out to repair the ship.”
That at least relaxed the room a bit. She hoped her off the cuff order was actually deliverable, but hell it had to be.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Chloe stood next to Sparrow as she listened to the Captain. She knew everything that she was saying already but somehow it hadn’t sunk in what she had been saying. What would Chris, her husband (she’d been given permission to marry as a perk of being promoted to Warrant), do when he heard the news? He was deployed on another ship and they already struggled to have any time together over the five years of their marriage as it was. Would he wait a year, probably longer, for her with essentially no contact? Was that even a reasonable thing to ask him? Was that a reasonable thing to ask of her, not that she had identified any serious prospects on board? The more she thought about it she hadn’t even talked to him about her plan to rescue Sparrow, she hadn’t even considered him. And why were her only friends on ship really just a grumpy marine, the captain(???), and Sparrow.
Ah, Sparrow, Chloe thought, as she turned to look at the girl. It was amazingly all working; right now she really was acting as a competent Warrant; and that was not just the job side of it but somehow she was changing, becoming more human less a ship’s system everyday. If their friendship began out of Chloe’s obligation to provide some actual social contact to another person, that was all she could do at first, it had deepend over the years into a mix of genuine affection and Chloe’s fascination in the reasserting of human traits in what she had, prior to seeing Sparrow being dragged out of the pod, regarded as a very inefficient platform to run an AI on. She regretted that later motivation but at the same time she was now anxious about Sparrow’s reasserting humanity; at some point surely she’d think about her situation, what she’d been robbed of, and get angry and an angry, essentially super human, Sparrow was not something she was sure she could face.
She noticed the quizzical look in Sparrow’s eyes, there it was- human behaviour - again, and realised she’d been staring a long time. “Hey,” she whispered, “want to sneak out of here and get a drink?”
“Sure,” Sparrow smiled back.
Chloe grabbed Sparrow’s hand and pulled her out of the crowd of other warrants and snuck out the door, hoping the Captain was too busy working out what she should say to notice. Chloe punched the button for deck 27 where the Warrant’s Mess was located.
“It’ll be packed in a minute so let’s order our whole week’s ration now,” Chloe suggested.
“Um,” Sparrow replied shyly, “so there might be quite a lot of carried over ration on my ident.”
“You’ve not drunk alcohol yet?” Chloe laughed.
“I’ve never needed it to enjoy your company Chloe, and I don’t exactly have many friends, and I’ve always thought that alcohol was used to enhance social interactions,” she replied.
“That’s the theory but less often the practise,” Chloe felt obligated to caution. “However, tonight my dear Rita,” she laughed whilst being impressed at herself for remembering to use the cover in her current mood, “we shall practise as it was meant to be performed.” She turned to the rating from catering manning the mess bar who was streaming the Captain’s address to his tablet, she slapped her hands down on the counter and he looked up with a start.
“Six pints and six shots of rum please,” she picked up his raised eyebrow. “It’s going to be a long week for us engineering techs - we’re having our week’s ration now.” She nodded towards Sparrow sat at their table just to emphasise it was both of their rations she was asking for,
“Well just remember if that one vomits in here it’s me who’ll have to mop it up so if she looks a bit green get her head into the corridor for me”
“Ha,” Chloe laughed, “I will but it’s probably me you should worry about. You realise I’m your bigger worry, I’ll probably steal anything she can’t manage!”
With a carefully balanced tray she inducted Sparrow in the oldest naval tradition - of getting steaming drunk. Around them the bar filled up, well filled as much as it could with so many of them in the morgue. Sparrow had gotten predictably drunk after 2 pints and one shot and was lolled in her seat looking catatonic like every teenager did after their first time getting properly drunk. The fact she had agreed to get a drink then get drunk meant that her programming was exerting practically no control over her anymore. The programming must be reliant on some sort of regular calibration by the pod, the interface or even the ship’s AI. She shook herself out of thinking about the comforting technical explanations to Sparrow’s reasserting control of herself. She was a real girl now, shaking her head at her mental confirmation that she had never truly considered her friend as full human all this time even if her reaction to first seeing Sparrow was to rage at how a young girl could be treated that way. Well this must be the turning point, but what did that mean for her friendship with the girl. So far she’d treated Sparrow as a Warrant, as that was technically what she had always been on board, but Sparrow, the real Sparrow, was really a young teenager not the twenty something Warrant she was having to pretend to be. Their friendship had always been a sort of motherly one and Sparrow needed that surely? Resolved, she thought about what her own mother would have done to her at this age - pump her for information - and grinned.
“So Rita,” she said, shuffling her seat right up to hers, “how are you getting on; made many friends yet?”
“Huh”, the other girl started before snapping herself awake, “oh sorry Chloe, I’m not sure I like alcohol, um but you asked about something.”
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to do this again if you don’t want to,” Chloe smiled back at the other girl, “but I was asking how are you getting on; made any friends yet.”
“Yes,” the girl said meekly but her eyes had lit up, “I believe I have made friends with Harri.”
“Harriet?” Harriet Ellis?” Chloe exclaimed in shock, even though they spent a lot of time together, this wasn’t something Chloe had expected.
“Yes,” Sparrow said, her lips twitching quickly into a fleeting half smile, “she’s actually really nice.”
“Nice, are you sure? How are you judging this? You’ve got to be very careful around Honourables, particularly one from such an illustrious house as Harriet”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Sparrow said resolutely. “I don’t really know how I’m judging it I just know,” she added, slouching back into her chair again, “you’re nice too Chloe.”
“Thanks” Chloe smiled back
“She’s just afraid you know,” Sparrow said from her slump and drooping eyes, “and it’s not just about her being here, it’s her whole life she’s afraid of. A life mapped out for her, where she has no control, what kind of life is that? She’s scared, hurt and angry but deep down she’s nice.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Chloe gulped before lowering her voice to a whisper, leaning in close to be heard over the noise of the bar, and asking: “Sparrow, have you not thought that about your own situation, doesn’t it make you angry?”
“I’ve not really considered it, should I?”
“I think you’ll have to one day.”
Sparrow’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a second.“I have now, Chloe.” Damn there was Super-Sparrow again.
“And?”
“I can see logically that what you’ve said is true. However, the programming I received meant that I never really perceived an alternative life for myself, unlike Harri, so I can’t really bring myself now to feel aggrieved.”
“You’re becoming more you every day, you might not feel that way for long,” Chloe warned, “if ever you do feel angry about it come and talk to me.”
“I will Chloe,” Sparrow smiled sleepily.
Reassured, Chloe downed Sparrow’s untouched shots, and pulled the other girl onto her feet, wrapped a supporting arm around her waist, and guided her gently back to her cubicle.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alcohol was strange, Sparrow thought, she’d been so sleepy moments ago but seemingly from the moment Ms Liu, no Chloe - she corrected herself, had left her room, she felt wide awake and full of some sort of nervous energy. She sat up and poured herself a big glass of water which she drank quickly, hopping from one foot to the next the whole time.
As if that nervous energy was suddenly in control of her limbs she jumped out of her bunk and did her best sneaky walk attempt to arrive at Harri’s. It was empty. Oh, she thought, she’s in medical. So she dashed out her door and ran down to medical. When she got there she slowed herself, she’d need to sneak past the nurses station to get onto the ward after all. She thought about this and pulled up a schematic of the medical deck before rushing over to a systems maintenance tunnel. Moments later she dropped from the ceiling into the centre of the ward and rushed to Harri’s bed, tugging open the curtain. She shook the sleeping girl’s shoulders.
“What the fuck?” a startled, half asleep, angry voice hissed.
“I’m drunk,” Sparrow giggled.
“No shit? But what are you doing?” A more awake Harri asked.
“Let’s go to the observation deck?” Sparrow practically chirped.
“Shush, you’ll wake the whole ward,” Harri admonished, “why do we need to go to the observation deck?”
“Because me and Ms Liu were talking about friends and then I thought Harri’s my friend and then I thought what do friends do and generally hanging out was definitely something friends do and so I thought we need to do it.”
“Friends eh?”” the other girl said narrowing her eyes, before suddenly smiling, “Fuck it I guess we are.”
“So we can hang out?”
“You know where you are right?”
“Yes, the medical deck” her eager voice tailing off before exclaiming,”Oh!”
“Shhh!” she said but Harri was grinning, “you really are drunk aren’t you?”
“Yes I think so,” the other girl whispered back.
“Better,” Harri whispered back, “look, let's hang out here. Just scoot onto the bed so we can whisper and actually hear each other.”
“Really?” Sparrow whispered back excitedly.
“Yes drunk girl! You’re going to have a cracking hangover to get over.”
“A hangover?”
“Come on over and I’ll tell you all about them.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harriet had lain awake after Sparrow had finally been dragged away to hear the Captain, she had listened to the address with growing horror. She’d be serving out her whole naval career, in fact much of her life, stuck as a rating on this ship without even the possibility of officer training. A ship where she was despised by everyone except Sparrow, Chloe, the Captain and possibly Mr Choudary. Even her own detail were only polite to her - although she did think out of general principle they’d back her in any confrontation with another crew member; that was the only thought that made her feel safe to return to work. Once she recovered from whatever had happened to her.
She was still sedated, she could move a bit but there was no question of sitting up enough to inspect what the explosion had done to her. The medics had done a good job on her face and lower arms, which was all she had been able to see; there was just a small scar running down the side of her face right next to her left ear. Her hair had been badly singed and someone had cut it back in a messy medium length hair cut. Harriet guessed there probably wasn’t a great stylist on ship. Fuck it, what did it matter, she may as well leave it and shove it all inside her beret.
She could feel her wounds all over her chest and abdomen and suspected it was going to be bad, she could feel the tightness of her skin when she breathed which suggested extensive scarring she wasn’t looking forward to seeing. Well it was not like she’d be wearing any ball dresses with plunging necklines on ship.
She had seen the message from Chloe that she was going to be mentioned in dispatches with the recommendation she be awarded some sort of medal for gallantry and that she was being promoted to Leading Hand. She wasn’t sure she deserved either, even with all Sparrow’s training she was only just up to the standard of an able seaman she wasn’t sure how she fancied being an NCO; what right did she have to give even the smallest of orders? The medals bothered her even more, she hadn’t felt brave, she had felt terrified and just operated on instinct; she could easily have just fled instead. She was pretty sure at one point she’d pissed herself in fear. Thankfully she was now in a hospital gown.
She’d been thinking about it whilst pretending to be asleep so that one of the nurses wouldn’t bother her, when Sparrow dropped from the ceiling and ambled over to her bed. She was steaming - Chloe must have had something to do with this. Eventually she convinced the other girl to sit on her bedside and to lower her voice. Instinctively she reached over to take the other girl’s hand.
“So what have you and Ms Liu been up to then?” she asked.
“Chloe took me to the bar,” Sparrow giggled.
“First time drinking?”
“Yep, I wasn’t sure I liked it at first but I’m enjoying myself now. It’s a shame we can’t go to the observation deck though - I don’t feel like being quiet!” She said her voice rising again.
“Well tough, I’m stuck here so if you want to talk to me you’re stuck here too.”
“I guess,” she said sadly, “how are you feeling?”
“Everything still hurts and I can barely move, so not the best,” she quipped.
“I see,” the other girl replied, “is there anything I can do?”
“Keep coming to see me until I’m healed. I don’t see a lot of friendly faces these days.”
“Ok, I can do that,” the other girl smiled.
“Good, good,” Harriet replied, finding herself smiling back, “so what do you think of the new hair cut?”
“It suits you,” Sparrow said happily.
“Really, I think it’s a mess.”
“No it’s nice, you can see your neck and shoulders now too; they're nice as well.”
“Um thanks, no one has ever told me I have nice shoulders before,” Sparrow was really weird, she thought, although she guessed that was to be expected.
“Really, are they not a thing you can comment on?”
“No it’s just that people generally don’t,” Harriet explained, “they’re usually more focused on your face if you meet a nice one and your tits or arse if you meet a bastard.”
“Wow, so that’s how it is.”
“That’s how it is,” Harriet agreed, “you need to watch out for it as well you know. I think you’re going to be very pretty once you put on a little more weight and grow a bit more.”
“ I will?” she replied subdued suddenly, “I still don’t understand so much about how people interact with each other, I’m not sure I’d notice.”
“You’ll notice alright,” Harriet grinned wryly, “but don’t worry we’ll come up with secret signs so I can tell you if someone’s not being right with you and you can tell me if you need rescuing.”
“Sounds like fun,” smiled Sparrow.
“Oodles of it,” Harriet replied slowly, she was thinking about something. It probably wasn’t a great idea but she needed to know. “Rita,” she whispered but in the ward she was always really careful to stick to the cover story: there were no walls here after all, “can you show me my body?” She asked looking at the hand mirror the nurse had left whilst showing her her face.
“If that’s what you want then sure,” Sparrow replied slightly hesitantly. If Sparrow was worried about showing her it must be bad.
“Yes it’s what I want,” she replied determined to get this over with.
“Ok then,” Sparrow replied, gently drawing the sheets back and then lifting Harriet’s gown up over her chest and bundled it under her neck. The wounds she knew were covered with a clear gel nanobot dressing which was supposed to help them heal faster and cleaner but it did nothing to disguise the fact that her chest and abdomen were a mess of angry red, raw skin. That was bad if even after nearly two days the nanos hadn’t managed to repair her epidermis. She could already tell that even after they did she would be heavily scarred all over her stomach and chest. She’d been beautiful, she’d always known that, but now she’d forever be damaged. Well that should at least put off all the useless suitors her father had kept on introducing. Still she felt wet tears running down her face.
Suddenly Sparrow put down the mirror and pulled out a clean tissue, which she used to wipe Harriet’s tears before gently putting her arms around her into the gentlest of hugs. “It’ll be ok,” she whispered softly into her ear, “you’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever met you know?”
“Ha well if you join the Navy what do you expect, it’s not exactly conducive to a girl’s beauty regime. I mean look at the Captain she looks about ten years older than she actually is. And Ms Liu could make so much more of herself if she put a little effort in,” it probably was a deep personality flaw but criticising others always cheered her up a bit.
“You said I was going to be pretty?” Sparrow said, “what do I need to do?”
“I was wrong, you’re already very pretty,” it didn’t hurt to be kind and looking at the pilot she realised it was true.
“Thank you,” the other girl whispered back.
“So I’ve been promoted,” she said, trying to fill the awkward silence that had developed.
“I know isn’t it great, I bet you’ll move up really quickly; now we’ve worked through the big gaps in your knowledge you are coming along really fast. Then we can both be warrants and eat in the Warrant’s mess together.”
“You realise I’d be assigned to a different dorm then don’t you?”
“Oh, no I hadn’t thought of that,” Sparrow sighed sadly.
“Yep, two warrants in each dorm, you and Ms Liu. I’ll have to move on but don’t worry despite what you said I think being a Warrant is a long way off. Besides, who would want some fallen Honourable as their Warrant?”
“You shouldn’t think like that, you’ve proved yourself Harri, people are talking about how you held your section in the mess all the time. Mr Choudary’s marines are also saying they’ve seen the footage and they’d be happy to have you with them. I’m not letting you go though, I need you.”
“Good, I don’t think I have the stomach for fighting,” she whispered back, “I was so scared Sparrow.”
“I know,” Sparrow said, squeezing her a little tighter but not so much it hurt, “but you were scared and still did all you could, that’s what counts isn’t it. I’m scared everytime we go into the slip you know.”
“Careful,” Harriet warned, before whispering even more quietly, “I thought they’d have programmed that out of you?”
“It doesn't, it just makes us ignore our fear, but it’s still there,” the pilot admitted, “and my programming doesn’t seem to be working as it used to in anycase.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it’s just not working a lot of the time. I’m able to express things I never thought I’d be able to suddenly and I’m scared of going into the slip again, I’m not sure I can even do it now.”
“Hey you took down that big bastard for me, you’re plenty brave, and if the slip scares you well just about everything here scares me; so at least we can be scared together. We’ll make each other brave.”
“Yes,” smiled Sparrow back, “yes, we will won’t we.”
“Of course, as you said we’re friends now and that’s what friends do,.”
“Friends,” Sparrow sighed before shuffling over to lay next to her and she promptly fell asleep.
Well this was going to be interesting when a nurse inevitably came to check on her, Harriet thought. Maybe she should wake her up but there was no way she was getting into the service shaft again and no way she could sneak past the nurses’ station anyway so she may as well let the other girl sleep. Strangely with the other girl sleeping next to her she found sleep coming over her as well, the last thing she remembered was noticing the other girl was still holding her hand.