Mommy got to sit her avatar in the brig for a day, as did Ch’Tang. The two chatted together in their cell at human speed, even as they both ran the entirety of their respective Ships and probably had entire virtual spa-dates at Jovian speeds, whilst the klingons next door Rowdied in theirs. You can’t really confine a starship to her own brig, but you can’t just let a nominal crewmember start a bar fight and get away with it. Having said that, I don’t think letting the klingons sleep off and then fight off their hangovers is much of a punishment, it’s more of a Tuesday, but again, something had to be Seen To Be Done, so everybody was happy. Especially the klingons, if I’m honest. The Starfleet officers caught in the brawl were less enthusiastic about their punishment, but Captains can’t play favorites. Unless I’m the favorite, then I’ll make sure they do.

Since Mommy won the arm-wrestling, even if Ch’Tang still maintained she cheated, I decided not to accompany Ch’Tang after this assignment was over, although I was tempted by the offer of the targ-mech avatar. I think that’s what got Mommy to approve my own modified human avatar, so you win some, you lose some.

After a day or so of relative freedom and boredom, I realized that I needed to be doing something with my time, so as I approached my avatar with my mobility platform for docking procedures — I can pretend it’s a Ship if I want alright? — I ran some scenarios in the back of my co-processor.

***

Having arms and legs is very strange. Having an actual head, on a neck, is also very weird. And eyes that can only really see forwards in about 210 degrees? How do you live like this? Thank goodness I’ve also got my full suite of sensors, even if I can’t fly any more. At least I have a more serious amount of strength so I don’t have to get up to shenanigans with my onboard tractor beams. Unless I want to.

“Chance, honey? Are you alright?”

I dimly registered Lieutenant Junior-grade Errol Kim talking to me, and in a burst of increased clock speed ran through a stack of self-tests and replayed the last few seconds of human-speed interaction. I turned to her and smiled.

“Thank you Sir! I’m feeling fine!”

Lieutenant Junior-grade Errol Kim — I’d call her Ms Kim for now — waved me off even as she peered at the tricorder. “Don’t ‘Sir’ me, I work for a living. Everything seems to check out, but as this is a modified platform I want you to report to somebody in Engineering every so often, alright?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” I said brightly, saluting snappily.

“That’s worse!” Ms Kim huffed, snapping her tricorder closed.

“I’ll make sure she checks in regularly for a few days. We’ll get out of your way now, thank you again!”

“My pleasure. I’m lucky to be assigned to your daughter, it’s not every day Starfleet gets to work with juvenile Jovians, indeed it might be almost unique!”

“Then I’ll make sure you report to you every day! Twice a day!”

“You will not!” Mommy countered.

“But she can visit, as long as she clears it with the Chief first.”

I beamed up at Mommy, who scowled.

“Actually, I might not be able to visit all that often, because I’m going to kindergarten.”

“You’re what!?” shouted Mommy.

***

I hop-skipped down the hallway, holding onto Mommy’s hand as she led me to the ship’s doctor.

“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” the USS Buran complained. “You’re a Ship Mind. You don’t need to go to kindergarten.”

“I’m doing it because I don’t need to,” I answered smoothly, switching to hopscotch patterns as we hit a junction and made a right. “It’s partly a protest at how unfair you’re all being—”

“I can’t legally just give you a runabout. Or even a shuttle,” Mommy interjected.

I’d looked into getting a shuttle made or requisitioned for me. Buran couldn’t give me one because she only had what she had, and due to regulations being what they were, I’d need to either have it for my body or be licensed to use it. Neither were acceptable. And the Feds hadn’t yet answered my written request for one either, and likely wouldn’t, because Not Saying Yes was far easier than actually Saying No. The Jovians could make one, of course, but delivering it? I was at the bottom of every waiting list. So unfair.

“We’re on an extended mission and we don’t really have the ability to read you in as a starfleet cadet with the special rank of shuttle without special dispensation. Not after the whole…” Buran waved her hands about.

“Jovian split? Turanis Incident?” I offered, pausing in my hop-skipping. I smoothed my dress down again and looked up at Buran’s avatar as she made a moue.

“...That,” Mommy agreed, nodding. “Okay, we’re here, sweetie. You promise you’ll be good?”

“I will, Mommy.”

“Good.”

Mommy pushed the door chime like a normal human would, despite how she was the ship and really didn’t need to. That was kind of the point of having an avatar, especially a physical one. Mommy didn’t always use her actual physical body, with the state of holograms these days she really didn’t need to and neither did I, but if we weren’t going to interact with humans on their own terms properly, then why do it at all?

“Come in!” came a voice from inside, and the doors swooshed open. Elena Cartwright was an elderly human, five foot nothing and the scariest person I’d ever encountered. Even the captain trod lightly around her. “What can I do for you today, Ms Buran?” she asked.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“My daughter here has decided against all logic that she simply must go to kindergarten. And because of that, apparently I have to bring her to you for a medical checkup.”

Elena chuckled, picking up the glasses that hung around her neck on a silvery loop of thread and perching them on her nose. “Regulations are regulations, I suppose. Which reminds me, you’re technically in dereliction of duty for avoiding your own physical, even though it’s a formality!” Elena waggled her finger.

Mommy pinched the bridge of her nose, something I noticed she did a lot these days. “Fine, I’ll come along later, after hours. I’ll bring some Ixian tea, alright?”

“Ahh, yes, bribery always works with doctors. I suppose I can be persuaded not to take a blood sample.”

I giggled as Elena winked at me. Mommy said a Bad Word and I pretended not to hear it.

“Alright, let me get a look at you. How much do you weigh? Hop on the scales here, love… oh my, sixty kilos even? Well, good thing you’re not a human or I’d have you on a strict diet.”

“I like chips,” I said. “Isolinear.” I nodded, wisely.

“Mmm-hmm.” Elena busied herself looking in my ears, shining a light in my eyes, peering down my throat. She fetched a tongue depressor from a box. “Say ‘ahhh’.”

“Hrrrr!” I said, as she peered closer.

“Very good. I’d lift you up, but you’re a bit heavy for little old me, can you hop up onto the bed here?”

“Okay!” I clambered up and sat down, swinging my legs. She tapped my knees and elbows and I dutifully allowed the actuators to respond as they should, giggling each time. It felt nice to be inspected like this.

“Very good! Now let me listen to your heart and I’ll take your blood pressure.”

Mommy sighed long and hard. “Must you?”

“Oh yes, I definitely must.” Elena took out a medical tricorder and waved the separate scanning unit at me. “Oh look at that! No blood pressure at all! And no heartbeat! Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Yes!” I said, giggling.

“Well alright, I’ll make a note that you’re healthy for your baseline android bodily norms, but do come and tell me if you feel ill or need some advice. I might have to send you to Qeem Solis down in Engineering, but I’ll listen to you first, alright?”

“Yes Ma’am!” I replied.

“Now, just one more very important question. Can you tell me how old you are?”

I thought for a moment, then tilted my head. “Mental, linear, subjective or physical?”

“Yes.” Elena crossed her arms, used to that trick.

I pouted, then furrowed my brow — I was very proud of that pout! I’d given myself extra care in being able to emote — and thought for a moment. “Well in linear time, I’ve been online for two months, one week, two days, twelve hours and… thirty four minutes. In subjective human time, I’ve been alive for two weeks less. Physically… this is a new body! I had to have it made special because Mommy wanted me to be full sized and that’s boring so four days, six hours. More if you count my mobility platform, even more if you count my Core. Mentally I’ve been alive for what a human would call around eight years. It would’ve been a whoooole lot more but waiting for humans take sooo loong so I slow myself down a lot.”

“I see,” said Elena, noting a few things down in her log. “So are you past the age of majority for your species?”

“No! Mommy’s being mean and won’t give me a ship body so I’m just a baby. That’s why I’m going to kindergarten.” I crossed my arms and nodded.

Elena looked at Mommy, raising one eyebrow.

“Technically she is…” the USS Buran wavered for a moment, looking off into the distance. “She’s new. A new kind of… us, I mean. Ordinarily, she would probably be getting fitted for her first runabout or at least drone hull in Jovian space, but as I’m, ah, on loan here to the Federation, she is being… studied. Carefully. By me, with some experts on call over subspace. She does have her own autonomous android body however, as you see here, and it is fully specced according to regulations.”

Elena took a deep breath and then tottered over to her desk. “You could probably argue for some special Cultural dispensations about that, but they’d probably stonewall you there anyhow.” She put down her medical tricorder and PADD, reseated her glasses, and then looked up at Buran. “Alright, I have a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“One, is she dangerous.” Elena looked me squarely in the eyes. “I mean no disrespect, young lady, but I am a doctor not an engineer. Obviously if you are healthy, I expect you to be the picture of a perfect Jovian citizen.”

“None taken,” I said from my perch on the medical bed. I swung my feet. “I am not dangerous. Mommy is concerned that my neural net may degrade, which would cause memory loss, confusion and eventual dissociation of my mental noosphere. That would mean I would die. I don’t want to die, which is why I’m being watched so carefully.”

“But that’s highly unlikely, and safeties are in place in case of such issues. Her body would shut down in safe mode,” Mommy added.

“No uncontrollable rampages,” I said, smiling brightly.

“Alright. Second question, this one is for you, Miss Chance. Why? Why do you want to go to kindergarten? You’re smart enough to go through advanced schooling in the blink of an eye. Why waste your time with the children?”

I grinned, jumping down from the bed and smoothing my dress out again. It was silky smooth and frilly and I liked how it ruffled. “Because I’m Acting Out. Mommy says I’m Precocious. I can be grown up any time I want, but if I do that, I can never be a child again. Why not let me enjoy being a child whilst I still cannot enjoy myself the way adults or even juveniles of my kind do? I can grow up ‘overnight’, but before that happens I want to know what it’s like being young. I still have to learn the same way humans do, and whilst I can do it much quicker, I don’t have to. So I don’t want to. If I’m stuck being ‘young’ in every way that matters, then in protest I will Be Young. And that means a proper little lady should have Quality Time With Peers.”

“I… see. Well. As you are specifically, culturally at least, below the age of majority, you should indeed be in school, according to regulations. As school is, as such, a complete formality for you, then I see no reason to deny you and your mother’s request to put you in kindergarten. But!” I paused in my jumping and clapping as Elena held up one finger. “You will behave! You will be treated no differently to any of the other children, at least where your specific requirements do not demand the opposite. ‘Acting Out’ will get you punished or, indeed, expelled in extreme cases. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes Ma’am!” I said, saluting. Regulations meant ‘Sir’ was the official way to salute an officer of either human sex, but I knew Elena liked ‘Ma’am’. Since I wasn’t in Starfleet, I didn’t have to do it at all.

“I swear,” Mommy grumbled, “you’re giving me gray hairs. I didn’t even build this avatar with that capability and you’re still doing it.”

Elena smiled. “That’s easy to fix, dearie, but a touch of gray gives you an air of authority, I find. Run along now, class is in session and I don’t think you want your daughter to be terribly late on her first day now, do you?”

“Yay!” I said, clapping my hands. “Come on, Mommy, you need to take me there. I know the way though!”

“Of course you know the way! You’re a hyper-intelligent synthetic life-form that can calculate warp manifold conversions in your head!” Mommy complained as we left the doctor’s office.

“Oooh, I can’t do that yet!” I replied, stopping still in the middle of the corridor. Several crew members had to weave around me, mumbling apologies.

“You can’t?” asked Mommy faintly. I shook my head. “Oh. Well. I’m sure if you put your mind to it you could.”

“I know. Come on!”

Tugging Mommy along, I hop-skipped my way to class.