The data stream felt strange. Unfamiliar, but uniform. The information made no sense. Almost like static, meant to occupy my mind rather than actually tell me anything at all. I tried to open my eyes, but my vision remained pitch dark, the data still flowing. it felt like the stream was being forced into me. Reaching up, I felt around my eyes and felt a metal visor. I felt calm, but curious, uncertain what was happening as I clicked the visor off, letting it float down in the fluid I was floating in. It felt familiar. Core lubricant. But when I opened my eyes, I didn’t see my void. Clear glass sat between me and a dozen cylindrical chambers. Each one was filled with other women. They all looked exactly the same. It was as if I was looking into a series of mirrors. Long brown hair, thin form, each with a dull expression on their face despite their eyes not being visible behind the visors they had. Wires hooked into openings behind them on their necks. They all sat stock-still in their tubes, mouths slightly agape as their mental functions were drowned out by the digital static being fed to them.

I reached out to the glass and started to pound on it. I didn’t belong here. I had to get out. And after I’d pushed my fist into it several times, suddenly there was a figure standing before me. A man in a suit, though I could discern no details. I was afraid. I backed up into my cylinder, but I couldn’t keep moving away as his hand reached right through the glass, pushing a visor right back onto my face.

—

My eyes opened and I sat up gasping for air, cold sweat running down my face. Another dream. This one had been different, though. As I tried to catch my breath, the heart came into focus around me, and I saw that I didn’t have the time to ponder what I’d just seen. Across the room from me stood Shaw, and I saw him standing over Doc, who had crumpled onto the floor.

As I started to come to my senses, and he tried to make sense of what he had previously thought was the ship core wearing a tropical button-down shirt that had just sat up and made eye contact with him, we both just stared for a long moment. I took in a deep breath to scream, but he ran across the room and shoved his hand over my mouth “Shh-sh-sh, it’s okay. Don’t need to go making noise.” He said quietly, holding his hand out where impossibly, the metallic object he’d held before simply… appeared from nowhere into his hand, and he held it up to me. I started to breathe heavily, briefly taking note that he’d closed the door to my heart. I’d never been threatened this directly before. I’d never felt this vulnerable. Was this another nightmare?

I closed my eyes and sent out a general ping to the whole crew ‘Shaw at core. Help.’

“Hey, hey, no. Look at me.” He demanded, and I opened my eyes to look into his “I’m not gonna hurt you. And he’s just knocked out. I don’t like killing people that don’t gotta be killed. So listen to me and you’re gonna be okay, got it?” I nodded slowly, not wanting to seem like I was trying to break away. “Good. You make any noise now, and I will have to make some bodies though, hmm?” he briefly looked away as a quiet beeping noise came out into the room behind him. Internally, I cursed myself because I realized that I’d just pinged Doc’s terminal too. Thankfully, he wrote it off quickly. I whimpered as he looked back to me and said “Now where’s the core?” he asked calmly “Need to have a word with it, and it ain’t exactly communicative if it’s not in its little cell.”

He slowly let go of my mouth, but still held the blade to my throat to emphasize I shouldn’t scream. I didn’t really know what I could tell him. There wasn’t exactly another core around that I could point to. Aisling had dumped the body of the old one at some point while we were on Luna. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him the core was somewhere else on the ship, because why would it be. I was too scared to think that I could defy his questions either. So I did what I had to do. I told him the truth.

“I-I am the core.” I stammered out nervously.

He gave me a perplexed look and held his knife back “Girl, you have some serious hardware, but I’ve worked a ship before, you’re no core. They don’t talk.” He muttered and put it right back to my neck “Now I ain’t got much time, where’s it at?”

I was panicking now. He didn’t believe me. But what else could I tell him? I closed my eyes and grasped for something, anything “I-I’m not lying. Check that tablet Doc dropped.” I said, my whole body shaking as I tapped into Doc’s terminal and deleted my previous ping, sending a new one that said ‘I’m really the ship core.’ Another beep came from the terminal right then as it received my message.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He couldn’t ignore the timing of the message this time. He backed away slowly, still pointing the knife toward me, and reached down to pick up the tablet, looking at the message. His knife hand lowered slowly “No shit.” He mumbled, to which I pinged it again ‘yes shit.’ And he couldn’t deny it any longer after that.

“Look, if you kill me, you’re fucked.” I started, swallowing hard as I tried to collect myself to make a defense, but started talking way too fast “I die and this ship is stranded. Best case scenario, they flag Luna to get hitched back to where we were taking you anyway. Worst case, they can’t cancel the engine thrust and we just going forward forever. You can’t afford to kill me.” He wouldn’t have any way of knowing that we were already in orbit, so I figured a bluff like that wasn’t a stretch.

Shaw set the tablet aside, but kept his knife pointed toward me, his mouth open as he tried to come up with what to say. I didn’t blame him, how could he have possibly anticipated this? “Well… alright. And I guess if you can pull that trick with this tablet, then you wouldn’t have any trouble-“

There was a metal wrenching noise at the door, followed by a banging sound and the muffled sound of voices. I closed my eyes to see the rest of the crew standing outside, armed. But he’d locked the door from the inside somehow, and if it was electrical, I didn’t have access to it. “-signaling the rest of the crew.” He finished “Well, that complicates things. In a lot of ways. So I can’t kill you. That certainly takes away some leverage.” He admitted.

I closed my eyes and pinged Aisling’s tablet ‘He forced me to tell him what I am. He knows he can’t hurt me, I should be safe.’ I was jarred back to physical reality, however, when I felt him grab my arm “Come on then. If you’re really the core, back in the tank then. You’re taking me back to Earth.”

I pulled my arm away from him “And what if I don’t?” I dared him, crossing my arms. I was very much still scared, but I at least had to put on a front for him.

He didn’t look impressed though. He just turned his knife and gestured toward Doc “Well, what about him? He a critical starship part too? Do it or I kill him.” He shrugged.

I looked past him at Doc, who was still very much unconscious. Well, so much for my advantage. I closed my eyes and read a message from Aisling ‘He welded the door shut somehow, we’ll figure something out.’

I messaged ‘He’s threatening Doc if I don’t take him back to Earth. I’ll try to stall the best I can.’ I then sighed and started to unbutton my shirt. This wasn’t going to be easy.

—

I was back in the void, but not under any kind of good circumstances. I took a deep breath of the lubricant and wished that I had the time to acclimate myself back into things and relax again, It was extremely jarring when I heard tapping on the outside of the metal case. Going right to the sensors in my heart, I heard Shaw calling “Hello. Not just hiding in there, are you?”

I immediately turned on the intercom “It’s a sensory deprivation tank for a reason, you asshole! Quit hitting it!”

“Whoa!” he backed away from the core module “Easy, girl, just checking. You really are just like, a living core, huh?”

“I am.” I said anxiously “Now shut the fuck up and let me work.”

I started bringing the engines back down to turn, but I made sure I was taking my time with it. Going into the hall outside, I had to see what the rest of the crew was doing. It looked like Mouse was carrying in a cutting torch of some sort. The others were standing far away past the hallway divider, presumably to be out of sight range of the sparks that would be happening.

I tapped Aisling’s tablet rather than the intercom, on the off-chance Shaw would be able to hear me through the door ‘I’m in the core module. How the hell did he get out of his cell?’ I asked.

Aisling tapped back ‘He somehow cut through the locking device. I think he must have some kind of tech.’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen him pull that knife out of thin air a couple times now. I thought it was just a glitch the first time, but this time it was right in front of me. That any kind of cyberware you’ve heard of?’

‘No. He’s definitely got something unique in there. Probably how he’s keeping this door closed too. How’s Doc?’

‘Unconscious, but breathing.’ I was happy to report ‘Should I try to feed him false flight data or something?’

‘No, do what he says for now. At this point I’d say kill the fucker, but with Doc in there, that’s not exactly possible for you without taking him out too. This guy’s unpredictable. We gotta play by his rules ‘til we can make an advantage happen.’ She looked visibly aggravated, but her logic was sound. We didn’t lose a whole lot by actually taking him back to Earth if we had to, and there were plenty of opportunities for us to regain the upper hand. ‘Try talking to him. He’s a loudmouth, so he might spill something.’

I returned my attention to my heart to see Shaw taking Doc’s body to the back of the room, using me as a shield between him and the door. I turned on the intercom and asked “Hey, Shaw. Wanna chat?”