I considered going the quick way, via the torpedo tubes, but Mommy might have gotten a bit loud about it, so instead I took the turbo lifts to the cargo bay. I wanted to see the fishies!

Yes, yes, I know they’re not fish, but I’m also Very Young so calling them fishies is half the fun. It’s Cute and Adorable.

Floating into the cargo bay — I had altered my thrusters so they made cute little burbling noises that helped people know I was coming — I eased my body up against the transparent aluminum. Hmm, I may have to redesign my body because this one lacks a nose I can properly squish against the barrier. Actually scratch that, when I finally get my humanoid avatar I will be able to make sure that my cute little button nose is especially squishable and just right for pushing against windows or giant panes of transparent aluminum for aquatic habitats.

“Hello fishies!” I said, projecting my voice using some force fields. I dropped the frequency until the whales could hear it properly, being careful that the volume wasn’t too loud. Then I raised it up until it properly fit into dolphin and similar toothed-whale ranges.

Eeeee! They liked it!

I giggled happily, creating little pulses of flash-boiled water to cause bubbles, very very carefully, which were met by more bubbles from the dolphins and other aquatic mammals. Eventually the whales told me to stop causing such a hullabaloo so I reluctantly said goodbye to my new friends and instead floated over to the rest of the cargo-slash-shuttle bay. To see The Forbidden Toys.

I felt it then, I really did. I was a Jovian, a Ship Mind. Not just a Mind, but a Ship Mind. Even those of us who inhabited stations and shipyards and other massive factories and living spaces were Ship Minds.

I was a Ship Mind without a ship.

I could just take one, of course. I’d get in trouble though, a whole host of trouble. I’d lose my rambling privileges at least, and would be relegated back to interfacing with things through Mommy’s particular brand of Runabout Parenting. That would Suck, it really, really would. It would be a brief, very brief, glorious nova of Fun, and then I’d be locked up without trial, clapped in irons, forced to walk the… I shook myself. The thought of playing Pirate with a shuttle was very, very tempting. But I turned away from them, as much as it hurt.

“Shiver me timbers!” I said forlornly.

“Hmm? Oh! Hello there, Miss, uh Chance, was it? Do you have a last name? Chance Buran or something?”

I put-putted my way over to the Lower Decker checking the cargo manifest and arranging the heavy looking canisters of whatever-it-was and studied him. Kit Walker, another human. Mouse brown hair, brown eyes, light skin.

“How’d you know it was me?” I asked. “Were you spying on me?”

He laughed. “There’s only two of you, and if you were Buran I don’t think you’d be in your mobility platform for one, and I don’t think I’d catch her blowing bubbles at the dolphins for another. Crewman Ik’ik’ik’keke’kekeke would’ve been more respectful than to blow bubbles back, too. I think. Maybe.”

I was shocked at his ability to pronounce Cetacean names, even if he did have an Adriatic accent. I wondered where he’d picked it up from. I put-putted around him, studying him closer. He waved his arms at me.

“Hey!” he chuckled again, “get off out of it. I’ve got to get these sorted out before the Ch’Tang gets here!”

My put-putting stopped dead and I turned to look directly at him. Hmm. Maybe I needed googly eyes or something. “Did you say the IKS Ch’Tang is coming here? Martok’s old ship?”

“I wouldn’t say old. At least not where Ch’Tang could hear it.” There was a chime from his PADD and I saw him stop to pick it up, his eyes scanning a few rows of texts. I hijacked the datastream and ingested it, spinning around happily. Klingons! And they had a Ship Mind! “Dammit, I don’t suppose you can help?”

“If I help, can I stay here when they land their shuttle?”

He peered at me, narrowing his eyes. “Who says they’re landing their shuttle here?”

I powered up my tractor beam, pointing my sensors at the outsized blister-packs he was sorting. Interesting. “Well why else would it matter that you got these squared away?”

He deflated slightly. “Just don’t tell anybody that you helped me, these are quite delicate so shouldn’t be manually tractored. By humans at least.”

I floated closer and whispered, “Mommy sees all and knows all, but if she told on you there’d be a note in the log and people would Ask Questions about why it mattered. But since Mommy wants that even less than you do, I won’t say anything. As long as I can meet the klingons.”

He deflated more. Seriously. I was beginning to wonder if some creature had drunk his bones. “Alright.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

***

The klingons’ shuttle — I didn’t think it was Toron class, it was too long — slid smoothly through the forcefield with far too much precision to be piloted by a squishy human or a Starfleet toaster. The rear door opened and a single klingon female stepped out, followed by a bunch of klingon males. The honor guard took up stations around the ship as Captain Ortuk Gakar strode out of the craft like he’d just won a medal, wrote a thesis on how awesome he was and invented a new type of sliced bread. All before breakfast.

The Fed welcoming committee saluted as Captain Montgomery in his best finery and those weirdly formal looking gloves that always reminded me of 20th century cartoon characters stretched out a hand for a shake. Ortuk looked like he was thinking about biting it off, but eventually faked out a handshake with some sort of klingon sign of respect that I wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t just made up on the spot, then just as the hand was being taken away, snatched it back and went for a body-jolting shake like he was trying to pull Montgomery’s arm out the socket. He probably was.

“Well met, for a Federation lap-dog! I see our presence here is properly awaited. Come, surely you have something more fitting for a meeting than this frippery?”

It was quite masterful, really, half-way between burning insults and jovial banter. I lowered myself down to a more klingon and human height and put-putted my way closer as the formal and boring part of welcoming another captain onboard took place somewhere in the background.

Now that we were all friends — or would be, once the blood wine or Acamarian brandy or whatever came out. I reminded Mommy to not try putting synthehol in the klingon beverages — I could finally get to meet the really interesting person in the room.

“Auntie Ch’Tang!” I shouted, and slammed myself into her chest. The avatar spun right around, then glared down at me.

“Auntie?” she hissed, an icy glare in her eyes.

“Well, my Mommy is second gen, you’re first gen, so you’re technically great aunt Ch’Tang, but—”

Ch’Tang’s eyes narrowed and I could see her thinking about whether or not her phaser would work on me and how much trouble she’d get into by using it.

“I will allow ‘Auntie’,” she grumbled, “if only to stop you putting however many greats in front of it.”

“Is that a real phaser or is it just holographic or does it fire actual ammunition? How many people have you killed? Did you phaser them to death or stab them? Ever had to rip somebody’s heart out and—”

“CHANCE!”

Mommy’s avatar faded into view as she activated the holographic emitters. She put her hands on her hips and Glared. Ch’Tang’s look of mild annoyance turned to one of sly joy as she looked down first at me, and then over at Buran.

“Oh I like this one! Come, niece! I will regale you with stories of the many, many battles I have taken part in! Why, once I had to murder my way to captain of a vessel, and spent months as an outlaw in the front of the civil war!”

“Cool!”

“Don’t you dare!”

I decided I liked Auntie Ch’Tang, even if she did have a strange taste in pets. As we all headed to Ten Forward — did that count as a restaurant chain now it was on multiple ships? — I mused on the three types of klingons; there were the pedigree that were in Starfleet, the overly excitable hunting dogs that you had to watch didn’t poop on the carpet like the visiting dignitaries, and then the wild dogs that Minds like Auntie spent time putting down.

Actually, scratch that, Little Miss, I thought to myself, that’s very speciesist. I analyzed where that had come from and decided that I wouldn’t be able to remove it from me, but that I’d have to keep a check on it. Ooh! My first ethical quandary. I felt so grown up.

Still, it was a useful, if rude, way to look at things. Ever since Great Aunt Whoever had caused the Klingon civil war, the Klingons had been… changing. With the rise of their Ship Minds — Jovians all, but wearing Klingon skin did change a Ship — the more Federation-inclined factions had taken to a new kind of code of honor. Where previously they’d been all kinds of reactionary tit-for-tat against shoulder bumping that would end in somebody getting stabbed in the back, now they were kind of… hurt my friends and I’ll rip your arm off, let’s go drinking buddy.

It helped, I think, that they’d started to… liberate their own slave worlds from their own kind during their still-ongoing civil war. It’s harder to put your own boot back down when you’ve just been welcomed as heroes for stopping exactly that kind of behavior. I think they enjoyed being liked more than they could admit to themselves.

“So, your mother has refused you your right as a Jovian for a proper hull? Hah! Challenge her in mortal combat and seize what is yours!”

Sometimes, I think Auntie Ch’Tang likes being a Klingon a little bit too much. That, or she forgets that’s not exactly how things work in Starfleet.

“Or… you could come with me! I will give you a battle cruiser! We will sail amongst the stars and crush our enemies, songs will be sung about us for centuries!”

I thought about that. I mean… I could… “Could I have a better mobility platform?”

“Well,” Ch’Tang leaned down conspiratorially closer to me, “I have been working on a war-mech shaped like a targ. It is as fierce as a dozen Klingon warriors, more powerful than anything the Starfleet milksops would have you wear. You could be my enforcer onboard, meting out discipline amongst the crew, until you are ready for your own pack of warriors.”

Not helping my ethical foundations there, Auntie.

“Don’t you dare kidnap my daughter,” hissed Buran, sitting down opposite Ch’Tang. She put her elbow on the table and gripped the other side of it.

“You dare to lecture me, Federation dog?” roared Ch’Tang, gripping the other side of the small table and planting her own elbow on it. Palms smacked together and teeth grit as the two avatars squared off with an arm-wrestle. Uh-oh. I backed off as I heard the poly-metal alloy creak. There was a loud crash as the structure gave way, with Ch’Tang loudly proclaiming how Mommy was a cheating curr, whilst Mommy insinuated that Ch’Tang’s parent had had illicit dealings with a servo-droid and then the Traditional Klingon Bar Fight got properly underway.