Krekilesh's frustration knew no bounds. The infant godlings that had been sent into the fray to act as spies were being rooted out one by one. One of them had overstepped in an attempt to sabotage the enemy's efforts to rally their divided colonies. And now they were all paying the price.
He had explicitly given it the order to do nothing, but he was not blessed with the grace of a god to inhabit his being, so his words went unheeded. The arrogance had shocked him at first, but he knew his place. It was not his right to question the Gods, but when the godlings had yet to absorb the wisdom of even a single generation, it was difficult not to question some of their riskier decisions. Particularly when they so often ended in such tragic failure.
THE GRINGOLET – SUBSPACE, EN ROUTE TO THE AVALON
Dan found himself temporarily assigned to the Gringolet's onboard company, which meant he technically reported directly to the Captain, but in practice, it meant he reported to the Commander. Luckily the Commander was pleasant enough. He was given a spot in the duty rotation, a bunk, and somebody lower on the food chain he could report to for the duration of the voyage, which was a significant relief for him. It was going to take him some time to get used to his new surroundings, but for the most part, everything was the same.
His rank was adjusted to fit with the Avalon Fleet rank structure, which resulted in a slight pay bump compared to what he made before, which was an unexpected but not unwelcome bonus. Overall, things were looking fairly good for him. The only truly sour note was that he'd received a message from his parents. They were outraged he hadn't informed them that he'd be leaving the planet and demanded that he resign immediately and come home.
Part of the reason he hadn't done just that when he'd heard the news was because of them. He had no desire to deal with them or their desire for him to take over the family business. He didn't particularly want to run a store. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but it wasn't that. Escaping home for military service had been easier than confronting his parents on the subject, but eventually, he'd have to do it.
But today was not that day, and he typed up something that made it seem like he cared about their opinions, but he just had to do this. After all, how could he ignore the call to fight against a threat to all of humanity? Dan didn't actually feel that way, he absolutely could ignore it, but he'd rather go fight in an interstellar war than deal with family issues. It probably wasn't a healthy coping mechanism, but Dan resolved to not think about it and sent the message. Not like his parents could actually do anything about the situation.
And with that, Dan settled into his new routine with little trouble. It turned out that life in the military was pretty similar from service to service, so he adapted quickly. The language barrier was challenging since he wasn't exactly fluent in Standard, but he was able to manage and study in his spare time to make up for his lack.
His exceedingly high marksmanship scores earned him a good amount of respect early on, as well as some antagonism from those who had previously dominated the rankings. But none of that was new, and aboard a starship where everything was under fairly strict observation, the more extreme forms of retribution weren't possible. Dan still wasn't exactly thrilled by the transfer that had resulted in him being forced onto the galactic stage, but so far, it wasn't so bad. He only hoped that his luck would continue to hold.
***
The days following the surgery had not been kind to Gus. The process by which the implant had been attached to his brain was apparently not the norm, at least according to what Vivien had told him while she was cutting him open. In the long term, the implant would be more a part of him than it was for most people, but during the surgery for the new addition to his brain, he had descended deep into the depths of his mind to escape the overwhelming sensations as his brain was tinkered with.
His mind flashed back to his childhood, remembering the day his father never came back. The drill he'd been piloting had been buried during an accident caused by a sudden tectonic shift. He very distinctly remembered that it had been one of the last drills the colony had left, mainly because that's all anyone had talked about. No one had seemed to care that he'd lost his father.
Following that tragedy, every night when his mother would come home from her work, before even checking on him, she would pour herself a drink. Every night she would keep drinking until she passed out. He'd had to learn how to take care of himself even then, as his mother fell apart in front of his eyes. He remembered the day she didn't wake up, the alarm blared as he tried to wake her, but she wouldn't move no matter what he did.
He tore his mind away from the memories and fell into the same pattern he did even then. He avoided the negative thoughts by diving into mathematics and programming. His mind instinctually reached out to the newly grafted part of him and grabbed desperately at the ship's network, which promptly denied him access. In the center of the vortex of painful memories howling through his mind, shielded by a litany of equations, Gus sat, slowly rocking back and forth, laughing like a madman when he was denied access.
He took the challenge thrown down by the computer and went on the attack. The monitoring system that had been attached to him wasn't able to keep up when he overloaded it with queries. Its limited operating system crashed and automatically rebooted itself. That was all he needed to insert himself into its systems.
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From there, he impersonated the monitoring system and used that to worm his way into the rest of the ship's network. Just as he was finishing his edits to the ship's authentication registry, he found himself suddenly shunted out. It was like someone had slapped him and sent him reeling back, and he opened his eyes in shock. He'd been trapped in his mind since the operation, and the sudden burst of external input from his implant startled him back to reality.
Gus blinked his eyes open and found himself lying down in a private hospital room. It was relatively spacious compared to what he'd come to expect from similar rooms aboard spaceships. On the wall opposite him was a view screen, he saw that there was something on it, and he propped himself up on his arms to see better.
What met his eyes was Vivien sitting on a plain wooden chair, sipping from a porcelain teacup. "Good morning Gustav, I see that you have managed to cling to your sanity in spite of what you just experienced. That being said, I should inform you that usually, people ask permission to access ship systems instead of trying to hack their way in." She nonchalantly sipped from her tea and smiled at Gus, inviting him to respond.
"Sorry about that," Gus replied. He was still trying to sort his memory out again and remember what was going on. He'd had an accident of some sort and had needed surgery? Memories rushed in when he thought of the surgery. He blinked in surprise at the rush of memories and the lightheadedness that came with their sudden arrival. "Sorry, I think I'm still a little disoriented. I seem to remember what happened though, even if it's all a little jumbled in my head at the moment. How long has it been since the surgery?" He looked around him and found a pitcher of water and a cup. He gratefully poured the cup full, taking a long drink of the cool water.
Vivien gave a nod of her head in understanding as he poured himself his water. "At least the important part of your memory seems to be more or less intact. The skills that got you noticed are there at minimum, which is good. And to answer your question it’s been four days. Now for a question of my own, tell me Gustav, do you remember what it is you are to become?"
"I'm going to become a ship brain," he said after taking a few moments to pull the memory from the swirling chaos of his mind.
Vivien nodded, "Good, I've put in requests for some medical tests, but based on your reactions just now you should be fine. Typically the insane ones never regain proper conciousness and biological rejections are pretty immediate for this sort of thing. At this point it's just formalities and waiting to arrive at The Avalon, which has the only facilities for the final transition."
Gus just nodded along, not sure what to say. It was strange to think that he would soon be living in a tank, learning to control a starship. It just seemed so surreal. He imagined it wouldn't really sink in until after he finished transitioning.
He didn't have time to ponder the thought, however, because a ping erupted into his brain from his implant. He jumped in surprise, it would likely take some time to get used to having a computer embedded in his brain. He engaged the interface and found that he now had limited access to the ship's network. Mostly it was the same as before, but his security clearance had been increased, so he had much deeper access to records than before.
"Good, I see you're integrating with the implant nicely. You should have full access per your security clearance level. I'm going to assign you some homework that should make life easier for you in the long run." A message popped into Gus's head from Vivien with a frankly massive list of links to items in the ship's database. He flinched at the length, much to Vivien's apparent amusement based on her chuckle. "It's not as much as you think. I recommend going through each one in order. Send me a message when you've finished that first one." And with that, the screen blinked off, and Gus was alone.
With little else to do in the meantime, Gus began to work on his 'homework.' He quickly understood why Vivien had said to message her after he finished perusing the first link. It was an instructional document on how to use his implant to interface with other computers and 'borrow' their processing power to speed up his thoughts.
He finished the document and sent her a message. The response was swift. She'd allocated a small amount of local processing power to him. It was enough for him to start learning how the process worked, but little enough that he wouldn't be taking away from anything critical while he bumbled about in the learning process. He realized that this was part of why she'd said his homework was less than it looked. With this new tool under his belt, he'd be able to learn things much faster than he usually could. It was similar in concept to a kids show he'd grown up with, where the hero was able to train in a chamber where time passed at a different rate, and he was able to out train his opponents because of it.
In Gus's case, he wasn't trying to out train anyone, but it would still be helpful. He'd be able to absorb information much faster, even with the minimal amount of resources Vivien had allocated to him. Though he imagined it was limited to start with so that he could get used to actually doing it. Which meant he should probably stop thinking about it and start doing it. And with that, he tried to tap into the ship's systems and immediately blacked out.
Gus awoke to boisterous laughter coming from the viewscreen in his room. Vivien was curled up on the ground of her virtual environment, apparently crippled by the hilarity of what Gus had just done. "So do you want to tell me what I did wrong? I'd rather not black out every time I try to interface with a larger system." Gus said rather grumpily. It was clear that Vivien had anticipated this happening and was amused at whatever rookie mistake he'd made.
Vivien wiped away a tear and dragged herself back onto her chair. Once she had composed herself, she smiled and flicked up a paragraph on the screen. Gus read the text and groaned as he realized his mistake. Vivien gave a slight smile, "It's ok you are not the only one to have made the mistake of not easing in and slowly ramping up usage. It's why I gave you so little access, if I'd given you more and you tried to use it all at once without ramping up first it could have killed you."
Gus let himself sink into the bed as he let the embarrassment wash over him. Then he tried again, this time slowly integrating the additional processing power. He followed the recommended process and quickly found himself at the maximum he'd been allotted. Vivien had vacated his viewscreen and sent him a quick congratulatory message. He sent a thank you back and then dove into the material she'd provided him.