“Alright, knock it off you two, we’re in a crisis situation and running on emergency power, no time to be goofing off. Shipnet is currently for work use only. I’m calling a meeting. Sam go put on your android body, you’re attending. Sorry to cut your tutorial short, you can continue it later.” The captain’s voice spoke sternly over what sounded like a speaker.
“Ah, how long have you been listening?” Tom asked as he started to vanish, logging out of the system.
“Long enough to hear my officers acting like horny teenagers.” was the reply.
“Haha, we were just teasing the new Shipbrain, we weren’t being serious.”
“I was! Seriously no recreational use of Shipnet? No fair, what am I supposed to do for fun?” Margaret asked.
“Go have sex in the real world.” The captain said grumpily, “After your shift of course.”
I realized they had already logged out, but since I was focused on the bridge, I could still hear them talking. I could hear what was happening on the bridge?
“You can hear and see anything that happens onboard the ship, Sam,” Doppel whispered, “...and I do mean anything. Truth is, that rigorous training Shipbrains get? It’s mostly meant to weed out those that would abuse all the power that comes with the job. Which is why I’m frankly shocked that the last Shipbrain was allowed to serve… there are logs of the things he did and watched people do, that you should be glad you don’t have to look at.”
“Gross,” I muttered, only to be echoed nearly at the same time by Margaret.
“Gross!” She complained, “Real sex is icky. I’m a virtual slut only. No offense.” She told Tom, “I just think semen is disgusting and don’t want any of it on or in me in the real world.”
“Not planning on starting a family then? Also, there’s such a thing as condoms, you know? I have some if you’re not just pulling my chain.” Tom pointed out.
“Nope, never having kids, also I’m not a fan of sweating so no thanks.”
I decided that was enough eavesdropping for now, and instead told Doppel. “Ok help me connect with the android body,” I said with a sigh.
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Sometime later I was standing naked staring at myself at a full-length mirror in the old Shipbrain’s cabin. My cabin now, though I planned to spend zero time in it until I had Doppel use a repair bot to sterilize the place. It resembled a sex dungeon with shag carpets and more mirrors than could be considered healthy, including a massive one on the roof above the opulent enormous bed that filled most of the available space.
The reason I was staring at the mirror was that I’d seriously underestimated the level of pervert that was the old Shipbrain. The body I was wearing, which had all five senses fine-tuned to a higher level than a normal human, was a caricature. I could see quite clearly that I was basically a walking action figure, zero fat, muscles that would put a flesh and blood Olympic bodybuilder to shame. Extremely wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist then thick beefy legs, I looked fake. You could tell at a glance that I was too perfect to be human, the face was also sculpted to a level of flawlessness that brought it right to the verge of the uncanny valley.
“You can adjust the face, it’s fully morphic,” Doppel told me.
Concentrating, I tried picturing myself looking like a handsome older brother to my original self, softening the features, changing the eyes to a more realistic brown, the skin tone slightly darker and the sun-bleached blond wig of ridiculous curls into a dirty blond unkempt mess.
Now I just looked stunning, I thought to myself, rather than ridiculous. I frowned a bit, noticing the perfection of the tiny lines that furrowed my brow, then added a bit of five o clock shadow just for fun. Tiny hairs pushed out of my pores. The pores were actually functional. With my enhanced sense of smell, I could tell that I had a slight musky odor that was probably illicit pheromones that would subconsciously arouse any nearby females. I turned that off, feeling dirty just for knowing I had the functionality.
But the functionality that I really objected to was the one between my legs. “I get why someone would want to make it dangle all the way down to their knees,” I confided to Doppel’s ghostly presence, having heard plenty of frat boys in college whose idea of a pick-up line included boasting about the extent to which they had “upgraded” their “package”. It was to the point where many of my female friends in university had seriously considered augmenting themselves to be more “accommodating” simply so they could fit their boyfriend’s ego enhancements. In a society where body modifications were relatively cheap and commonplace, men seemed to have forgotten that the female body only had so much room, to the point where women felt pressured to augment themselves just to be able to handle what was becoming the new “average” male size. It was more than a little ridiculous really, I thought to myself, a sexual arms race, where would it end?
Maybe it would end here, with this becoming the new normal. “But, why, for the love of all that is holy, is this thing prehensile?” I asked Doppel. Horrified but curious despite myself, I made the forward-facing tail-like appendage wag back and forth without moving my hips.
She shrugged, “Why would I know? The good news is that looking at the schematics, it’s also retractable. Minimum length is still pretty well endowed though...”
I retracted, shuddering at how weird that felt. “You and I shall never speak of this again. Nor to anyone else, understood?” I told Doppel. She nodded in agreement.
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“First off, I’d like to introduce Sam, our new Shipbrain. Sam has already saved our ship once when she pulled the manual power disconnect on the jumpdrive, only seconds before our fusion reactors went critical. Her psychic ability to generate a field that allows our tech to function properly is also the only reason any of us are still breathing. So please, everyone welcome Sam.” The Captain said, starting off the meeting by putting me on the spot.
I’d picked out what was the most conservative thing the old Shipbrain owned by way of a wardrobe, but I felt uncomfortable in the tight form-fitting clothing that showed off every tiny motion of my oversized muscles. I felt like a muscle-bound idiot rather than an officer. I was already by far the youngest person in the room, did I have to look like an immature oversexed creep? I cleared my throat nervously, “Nice to meet you all,” I said in my gravely manly voice. Could I change that setting later, I wonder?
“Sounds just like the old one, looks like that ass too, just with a different face.” One of the officers I hadn’t met yet, an older woman, about the same age as the captain, with a stern disapproving face on a rather diminutive body. But for all her small size, she radiated authority and competence in a way that even Captain Tanlier couldn’t seem to match, despite his much larger stature.
“Sam, meet our vice-captain, Elaine Tanlier, she’s in charge of the second shift.” Captain Tanlier introduced us, sounding more than slightly sour. “Elaine, I gave the old Shipbrain’s body to Sam, since the ansible connection it uses can only be accessed by the Shipbrain anyways, seemed best to just give it to her.”
This was news to me. I had an ansible connection? An ansible was a tech provided by the Ulderani at a rather high cost. It used entangled particles to allow for high bandwidth, instant communication across literally any distance, though only from one paired device to the other. There was no way to jam or block that connection either, as it didn’t actually travel through space.
Well, except jumping into another dimension, apparently, as all the other ansibles the ship had built into her communication array were all offline. Still, it was cool to know that I had a nearly unbreakable, zero-latency connection to this body. That extra feature must have cost more than everything else about the android combined, I speculated. It was sure to be useful somehow, at some point, assuming I could overcome my revulsion at actually using this beefcake bot. Then I remembered that my android body wouldn't work outside of my tech field, and it seemed less useful.
“Her? Oh, you poor thing.” Elaine said, briefly sounding sympathetic. Then she scowled at the Captain. “Stop introducing me as Tanlier, we’re not married anymore.”
“Well, you refuse to sign the divorce papers so that’s not technically true,” Captain Tanlier snapped back.
“You want me to sign those papers so you can force me off the crew,” she countered. “I still own half your ship shares until I do, so good luck getting my signature.”
Captain Tanlier visibly ground his teeth before changing the topic. “Look, I know this crew has become more like a dysfunctional family than a professional outfit. And I know I have my fair share of the blame for that...”
“You mean like how it was your unqualified cousin that was the one that got us into this mess and nearly killed us all? I’ve been telling you to fire him for years.” Elaine groused.
Captain Tanleir continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Most of us are either part owners of this ship, here because we had the shares to buy our way onto the crew, or because we got rejected from the UN Space Fleet. With all the new warships being constructed, there’s a real shortage of qualified spacers these days, and for better or worse, most of us have good reasons for being here instead of getting three times the pay working for the UNSF.” That much was true, I reflected, my professors had all been shocked and disappointed when I’d told them I wanted no part of the Ulderani’s war and would only apply for civilian jobs after graduating.
“Way to give a pep talk,” Margaret muttered.
“I’m sorry and who are you?” Vice-Captain Elaine asked. Apparently, Margaret was also a new addition to the crew. This meeting, scheduled at the end of the first shift and beginning of the second shift, was their first chance to meet.
“I’m the science officer, of course,” Margaret said, puffing out her chest proudly.
“This ship is a glorified cargo ship, what need do we have for a science officer?” Elaine asked skeptically.
“I bought ship shares!” Margaret announced, “I own 0.2% of this hunk of metal, so I made the position. Every ship should have a science officer. I also have a Ph.D., so I’m a real scientist.” She added smugly.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Should I ask; a Ph.D. in what?” Elaine asked sweetly.
“Moving on...” the Captain said, interrupting the pending catfight. “What I wanted to say is that we all have our share of problems and circumstances. None of us are perfect, and none of us are prepared for a situation like this. But here we are, and it is up to us to not only make the most of it but somehow do what’s best for our passengers. Could I get each of you to give a report so we are all up to speed?”
First shift’s chief engineer, a kindly-looking middle-aged black man who looked like he still hit the gym regularly, and the guy who’d been nice to me when I first woke up after becoming a brain in a jar, spoke first. “Do I need to introduce myself? I’m Jim, right?” That drew some chuckles, Jim was the most well-liked officer on the crew, everyone seemed to know him.
“Anyways, Sam here is literally working her magic on the whole ship. No idea how that works but as soon as we plugged her in, all our electronics throughout the ship started working right again. Except for the ones that got fried by the power surge. No more bluescreens!” He said, pumping his fist in joy. “The repair bots are back online, waiting only for her “go-ahead” to get started helping us fix things. Everyone give Sam a round of applause, please.”
The roomful of people mostly turned to give me a brief round of applause, some more heartfelt than others. One person, the only full cyborg in the room, just gave me a robotic scowl and crossed his metallic arms.
“You’re welcome?” I said, feeling self-conscious. “It feels awkward being praised for things I do automatically with no effort on my part. It’s like getting applause for breathing well. Doppel, tell the bots to do their thing.” I added.
“Who’s Doppel?” The scowling cyborg asked.
“Ah, she’s the name I gave my tutorial program doppelganger. She’s me, but upgraded with what the computer wants her to know, I guess.” I explained.
Margaret looked intrigued and some of the other officers looked like they wanted to learn more about how Shipbrains worked, but the scowling cyborg spoke up first. “So it’s true! You have no training for this job? I was next in line to be Shipbrain! That fancy android body should be mine! I’m second shift’s chief engineer, and my brain is already in a jar, right here.” He said, thumping his metal chest. “I trained for it. I was the old Shipbrain's best friend! He promised me I’d get his body if something happened to him. The way I see it, you’re the one responsible for his death, didn’t warn him fast enough, didn’t know where the manual power disconnect was until it was too late? His blood is on your hands and you’re wearing his corpse!”
I was taken aback. Was that true? Was that my fault? Jim must have seen something in my expression because his own turned thunderous.
“That’s enough. She tried to warn both the old Shipbrain and the old third shift chief engineer! It ain’t her fault they were both too damn stubborn to listen or didn't know any better. Third chief even grabbed her arm and physically restrained her from pushing the abort button until it was too late. She went above and beyond her duty and no one expected her to know where that switch was on her first day of work! Don’t pin this on her!” Jim defended me.
“We don’t need her to be Shipbrain for her mutant whatever bullshit ability to work. We should have just kept dragging her brain jar around. And if we needed her to work harder, maybe we should have just given her a little taste of what the last Shipbrain got. A few volts would have supercharged her right up, I’m sure! And the third shift chief only snapped a gasket because you forced him to play babysitter for your new hire pet rather than doing it yourself!”
“You’re out of line, second chief.” The Captain said sternly. “Don’t make me fire you!”
“Fire me?” the cyborg laughed, “Hah! How are you even paying me? The way I see it, you and your bitch wife don’t own anything anymore. This floating heap of junk belongs to no one, and I don’t have to listen to your shit anymore. Tell you what, I quit, I’m just going to go plug myself into the Shipnet and fucking play VR games until we all die or the new Shipbrain does all the real work of fixing the mess she helped create.” The cyborg stomped out of the conference room and no one stopped him.
“Well, he was almost entirely an idiot, wrong about everything he said, except that last point. How are you paying us?” The ship’s doctor, the sarcastic woman I’d spoken to only briefly before, said in a tired voice. “I know he’s not going to be the only one wondering that. You’ve been pushing us to work double shifts for a week? If I wanted that kinda stress, I’d have stayed working as a surgeon at my old hospital. Want to know why I took this job? On average, I had one patient per day while working here. I burnt out a long time ago, and I don’t care about any of you enough to volunteer for double shifts, so I don’t see why I should listen to you either.”
There was a long moment of silence while I thought furiously and no one else volunteered a reply.
“Well, what about Shipnet access?” I asked.
“What?” The captain asked.
“You said that the Shipnet should only be for work-related uses right now to reduce strain on the system. I am that system, I can handle a little strain.” I told him with confidence I didn’t feel. Doppel had briefed me on the state of the ship’s computers, and they were not in good shape, which meant more strain on me, as the Shipnet basically ran with my brain as its core. “I say, if you work your normal shift, you get 1-hour access for recreational use. If you work a shift and a half, 12 hours, you get 2 hours recreational use. Double shifts? 3 hours. But if you don’t work like that asshole who just walked out? You get banned. Once we have the ship's systems fully repaired, maybe we can go to triple pay.”
It seemed silly to pay people in access to what was essentially a VR gaming device. But I knew that most of these people were addicts. I had the logs to prove it. On average, they were all used to spending more than half their free time on Shipnet. Controlling the access to their main form of entertainment and relaxation was about the only leverage we had to get them to actually do their jobs now that we had no other way to pay them.
The silence this time was more pensive. Finally, the captain said, “That could work. Well, if you think you can handle it, let’s do it that way.” He sounded relieved, I’d thought of a solution that might just have prevented a mutiny.
“I’ll take one hour for a normal shift, then.” The doctor, whose name I still didn’t know, said. “The second shift’s nurse can handle the Ulderani autodoc just as well as I can, you’ll be fine.”
“Alright, that’s settled then,” Elaine said, giving me a look of grudging respect. I suspected she’d been enjoying watching her ex-husband squirm more than she’d been worried about an actual mutiny or strike. “Let’s get this shitshow back on track, shall we then? Someone explain that supersized space station we’re orbiting? How does it even have enough mass for us to orbit it like this? At our current speed we should have been way past escape velocity...”
“Call it a wheelworld,” I suggested, “Super-sized space station sounds like a space-themed burger joint.”
“Fine. How does that wheelworld have the kind of surface gravity to hold an atmosphere like that? Are the builders crazy enough to trust the same artificial gravity systems our ship uses? Cause one failure in a system like that and millions could asphyxiate if that’s the only thing keeping the air in place...”
“No, the wheelworld is actually a lot more massive than it should be. The gravity is all naturelle,” Margaret said using flawless French instead of just saying “natural”.
“How the hell...”
“Neutronium,” Margaret announced. “My best guess is that there's something like ten to twelve Earth masses worth of neutronium in that central hub. That lets it have near-Earth gravity even though the habitable surface is more than four times further away from its core than Earth’s surface is.”
“The Ulderani do have the tech to manipulate neutronium, like in the gravity coils.” I mused out loud. “Back at school, my professors said that we think they use some sort of anti-entropic stasis field to hold the neutronium from decompressing violently when not in use...”
“Oooh!” Margaret exclaimed, “I read about that theory! It’s the same field we use in our main food storage unit to keep things fresh? I hear you’ll die if you accidentally lock yourself in there and the field turns on.”
“Stops the heart, but you can be resuscitated,” the ship’s doctor confirmed. “Ulderani sometimes use it as an emergency medical treatment, stuff someone in a stasis field, take them to the hospital while they’re frozen in time, then resuscitate them when they get to the operating table. Cryosleep is safer though, resuscitation doesn't always work."
“Speaking of food,” Captain Tanlier interrupted, eyes already slightly glazed from the science talk, “How’s our food stores looking?”
“Good.” A large fat man who’d been silent so far said. “Hi, I’m Big Bob, chief logistics officer, and head chef, first shift.” He told me when he noticed my curious look, “One hundred days worth of food for the crew, but in a pinch, we do have enough food to feed ten thousand for a year if we’re willing to steal some from the colonists. Half our cargo holds are full of freeze-dried rations so they have enough time to grow their first crop. The other half is a lot of farming equipment, prefab easy-to-assemble houses, tractors, and so forth. We’re a colony ship, we can feed ourselves indefinitely if we land somewhere with land that can be farmed. Them colonists shouldn’t mind ninety extra mouths to feed if we pull our weight,” Bob opined.
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Elaine said with a sigh. “They’re Body Purists.”
“Well fuck.” Margaret complained, “Aren’t those the anti-tech nutjobs that hate anyone who has any sort of body modification including the neural interface devices every single one of us has?”
“They don’t hate all tech, just any tech that alters the human form in any way. They’re anti cyborg more than anything else, but they also dislike people who mod their penises to be hung like horses, if that makes you feel better about them.” Elaine said with a droll laugh.
“What? A group of males who don’t pin their self-worth on the size of their junk? No way!” Margaret replied with mock surprise.
I gave an involuntary chuckle, thinking about my own thoughts on the topic only a short while ago.
“Ladies, please. Most of us poor men are only trying to keep up with the ever-expanding average size.” Tom said, laughing.
“Don’t encourage them, Tom,” the captain said with a scowl. I suspected Elaine had been referring to something of a recurring topic with the captain. Maybe a source of friction in their marriage? It could certainly have been a problem that would have been tough for Elaine to handle if she didn’t feel like “accommodating” the issue. I giggled a bit behind my hand.
“They don’t approve of androids or brains in jars either, though,” Elaine pointed out pointedly, her attention drawn by my amusement.
Welp, that sucks for them, I thought to myself. “We should just drop them off on the other side of the wheelworld and set up our own little farming village somewhere else then,” I said.
“Yeah, they wouldn’t be able to do much without your tech field, those tractors are all electric powered, not gasoline,” Bob said with a shrug. “But the biggest problem is, we can’t offload them the normal way.”
“What do you mean?” Captain Tanlier asked.
“He means all those cargo shuttles we’d normally use to drop off colonists before heading home to pick up another batch, won't work outside the tech field. We could send Sam down with every shuttle trip, risking her and disabling our ship while she’s gone. That would mean we can only use one of our twelve shuttles at a time, which would make unloading the cargo take months. And every time Sam leaves, we’d be holding our breath hoping she makes it back in time to get our life support back online. Meanwhile, the people on the ground would also be pretty screwed without working technology while she’s flying back and forth...” Jim painted a pretty unappetizing option, I thought to myself. One faulty shuttle and the people left on the ship would die.
“Or we crashland the whole ship, which is doable, but she’s not designed to handle that. It will be a risky one-way trip. No way we could take off again, not without extensive repairs and building some boosters or something." Jim concluded.
“Well, fuck.” Captain Tanlier said with a sigh of his own.