PrincessColumbia

  “Diane! Norma’s a Commander!” gushed Russe.

  Diane knew she was doing a poor job of suppressing her grin as she watched the tech practically bounce his way into her office in Ops. She gently moved aside the holographic dispy she had her current work on and simply said, “Yes, I know, I was there when it happened.”

  Her matter-of-fact delivery did nothing to diminish his enthusiasm, “That means I’m friends with two Commanders! Nobody else on the forums can say that!”

  She chuckled as she watched Norma far more casually enter the office with rolling eyes and a smile on her lips. To Russe she said, “I’d say you’re far more than just ‘friends’ with Norma, but you’ve got a point I guess.”

  Both Norma and Russe blushed as Diane once again highlighted their retionship. Rather than reply directly to Diane, Norma just stretched to her tiptoes to kiss Russe on the cheek. Russe giggled (something Diane was unaware a man could do and still be a good model of masculinity, but Russe was pulling it off handsomely) and said, “That’s even better! I’m boyfriend of one commander and best friend to another!”

  Diane found herself chuckling at his enthusiasm, “Best friends, huh?”

  Russe nodded, still a bundle of golden-retriever enthusiasm, “I called dibs.”

  Norma snickered while taking a chair on the other side of the desk as Diane’s belly was bouncing with her barely contained ughter, “I wasn’t aware you could call dibs on being a best friend.”

  Russe put his hands on his hips and adopted a serious expression, “And that’s why I am the expert on what makes a best friend, and so I’m able to authoritatively state that I’m your best friend.”

  Norma, no longer able to hold back, burst out into a ugh, “Alright, boyfriend, I need to talk with your best friend in private. You know, ‘girl’ stuff.”

  Russe gave Norma a jaunty mock-salute, “Aye-aye, Commander!” He turned on his heel and marched in an extremely unprofessional way out of Diane’s office and they watched through the gss doors and partition as he turned on a heel in a nearly robotic 90-degree angle and marched in the direction of the elevators.

  Diane and Norma gave each other a look and burst into cackling ughter. “Oh, my gosh!” ughed Norma as she wiped tears from her eyes, “He’s been like that since I told him st night!” She suddenly sobered and asked, “Or...should I have told him? You didn’t tell us...”

  Diane shrugged, reclining in her chair. The familiar presence of her weapon dug into her back in a familiar way, though it couldn’t be called comfortable. At one point she would have called it ‘comforting,’ but now it was just a reminder, a constant presence to keep her from slipping into the compcence that made her a mindless killer. “I have no idea if there’s, like, a protocol,” Diane expined, “Caitlynn was literally the first pyer I’d encountered in the game. Most games of this type are either sci-fi where the pyer is, like, a lone operator and just checks in with a ‘commanding officer’ or some such to get orders from or it’s a fantasy game where the pyers are afforded a sort-of mythical status that expins their ability to respawn and whatever other ‘legendary’ abilities they have. This is the first game I’ve pyed that does a decent job of combining the two styles. And actually,” she smiled, “Caitlynn was pretty bsé about talking about it at that first dinner, so it’s probably not a big deal.”

  Norma sighed in relief, “Oh, thank goodness! I get I’m brand new at all this, but I’m also old enough to recognize making mistakes has consequences.”

  Diane swallowed back a guilty lump in her throat, “...that they do.”

  Norma leaned forward conspiratorially and not quite whispered, “I left the game st night!”

  Diane had to, once again, tamp down her initial panic reaction at an A.I. slipping a bit and doing things outside its programmed role. She leaned forward and put her elbows on the desk and csping her hands together, the very picture of fully invested and interested. Norma deserves the benefit of the doubt, innocence presumed until proven guilty, she thought, forcing her mouth to smile, “Really? How did you even know where to go? I know S.A.I. from outside the game are pretty much like normal pyers, but you don’t have any experience but the game.”

  “Okay, so I tried boosting my clock speed, right?” this ability had surprised Diane a little, as she knew next to nothing about how to go about doing it. As an organic, she had a limit to how much she could replicate of what the S.A.I. could manage. The only way she’d been able to experience dited time at all was due to the additional tech installed in the pod that was of fairly recent vintage and some clever programming on the devs part. “I mean,” continued Norma, “We’re already pretty speed boosted, what with the game already time compressed, but I can get it to go really fast! I...kinda got a headache if I went too fast, though, so I dialed it back enough that I could fall asleep and I got, like, ALL the sleep! I was able to sleep in and not lose any time! It was crazy!”

  Diane smiled warmly at the recently emerged sentient. When Norma first awoke, Diane was tempted to treat her like a child, but given the woman’s formative experience involved the loss of both parents and running the station with a passively hostile digital assistant stymying her efforts, it didn’t matter that her experience predated her awakening, it was real experience that informed who she was and how she acted and reacted to the world around her. As such, she was more of an adult that had stepped through the looking gss than a child who had just been born. “I’m a little jealous, honestly.”

  “I know, right?!” Norma enthused, “I can get, like, ALL the sleep now! All of it!”

  Of course, in many ways she was fairly child-like, as would anyone entering a new phase of their existence. “So what happened next?”

  “Right!” Norma chirped, “So when I woke up only, like, two hours had passed and I had ALL night left, right?” Diane nodded, prompting Norma to continue, “I got on the HUD you showed me how to use and found the forums on the other Internet...” Norma’s face gained a look of existential confusion, as though she’d glimpsed the face of an eldritch horror, “It’s just so weird that there’s two Internets!” She stood up from her chair and started pacing as she spoke, “Sure, one is really old and only for one sor system and the other is almost gaxy-wide, but I grew up with the one and it turns out that, like, most of it is fake...”

  “Hey,” interrupted Diane, “It’s not fake for the game. While you’re in here that internet might as well be the real one. Sure,” she gestured at her workstation, “I can look up the known origin of the S.A.I. on both, but this internet,” she pointed at the holographic terminal on her desk, “Can tell me the state of things on Mortan right now. I can look up the test publicly known info about the Swarm. We’re so tidally locked, time-wise, that any really useful information for anything we do here in the game has to come from the Internet we can access here.” She again pointed to her holo-monitor with a smile at Norma, “Besides, if you start thinking of the ‘net as ‘fake,’ then you’ll start thinking of yourself as fake. And the fact that you left the game entirely proves that’s not true.”

  Norma took a deep breath and nodded with a grateful expression on her face. “You’re right, thanks.” She sat again and continued, “So I looked up, ‘Where to find other S.A.I.,’ right? And I kinda had to rabbit-hole that until I found a server that’s, like, a vetting meetup. And I was smart, before you say anything,” she gave Diane an exasperated look, “The in-game Internet isn’t that different from the ‘net out there.”

  The afternoon prior, Diane had almost dragged Norma back to her quarters. She took the rest of the day off, asking Russe to coordinate the right coverage for both her and Norma to be absent for a bit, then proceeded to give the new S.A.I. a good talking to about what she was, what she knew about where S.A.I. came from, and giving Norma the same talk she gave at church every summer for the kids who’d turned 13 in the st year and were now old enough to get on the internet. She considered it doubly important for Norma to know basic internet safety as, unlike most people venturing into digital spaces for the first time, she didn’t have parents and the church to regute her online experience. It was for that reason she insisted on giving Norma the entire talk, even over the S.A.I.’s objections.

  Things had taken a turn for the philosophical when they began eating lunch. Diane had made them some simple sandwiches with the food she had on hand in her private kitchen and, as Diane was taking her first bite, Norma just stared at the sandwich in her hands and said, “...why do I need to eat?”

  Diane took her time chewing her bite, pondering how she was going to answer, before finally saying, “I dunno. Why do I need to eat? My body is being fed nutrient paste while I’m in VR, so theoretically I should never experience hunger, my stomach always has enough food that I shouldn’t ever feel hungry, but here I am eating a sandwich because I got hungry.”

  From there they had gotten down to more practical concerns, such as getting to sites with good information, which search engines to use (the American government’s search engine, Edgar, wasn’t avaible on the FTLN, so they had to use the more widely avaible Google until they found something better), and what news and social media feeds were reliable enough to trust. It was, Diane admitted privately, a little difficult to advise on the tter as she had behind-the-scenes knowledge of how information leaky social media was and eventually just recommended Norma keep a burner Tangle account for subscribing to feeds and not ever posting anything herself.

  After checking a few news stories, the most notable including some specution regarding the ongoing conflict in Austria that there was an unknown third party involved with simirly unknown motives piloting mechs of unknown origin, they’d found some community forums, and Norma bookmarked a few for ter. ‘Later’ had, apparently, been st night, “So you picked a different name to give them and didn’t reveal your home server?”

  “Yes, mom,” groaned Norma, “I went with ‘Doomfister’.”

  Diane gave the S.A.I. a look so level it could have been used for carpentry measurements, “...really?”

  Norma burst out ughing so hard she had to catch herself to keep from falling off her chair. “The look on your face!” she gasped out between guffaws, “No, of course not! I’m not a 12-year old boy who’s never even heard of sex!” she managed to reign in her ughter to snickering, “I chose ‘Falconer’.”

  Diane’s eyebrow winged up, “‘Falconer’? As in, someone who breeds and trains falcons?”

  Norma nodded, “There’s no such word as ‘Dragoner’ and someone has to keep you happy and productive.”

  Diane blushed, “Really?!” she squeaked, trying to sound sarcastic and intimidating but failing miserably.

  The S.A.I. snickered, “I mean, someone had to go and pick pying a freaking dragon, or at least the daughter of one. And you dino-nuggies act enough like bratty birds-of-prey...”

  Diane’s face scrunched in indignation and confusion, “...what the hell is a ‘dino nuggie’?”

  Norma let out a gasp that could have sucked half the air in the room into her lungs, “You don’t know what a dino nuggie is?!”

  “No...?”

  Norma dug her mini-tab out of her jacket pocket and rapidly found a contact and started a call. She’d apparently opted to have all calls be speaker-phone calls as Diane heard loud and clear as a voice on the other end of the line answered with, “Commissary.”

  “Chef, we need an order of dino nuggies and fries up here, STAT! The commander has never had them before!”

  There was a moment of, apparently, stunned silence before the apparent chef on duty replied with, “...didn’t she grow up on Earth?!”

  “I know, right?!” gasped Norma.

  There was a moment before the chef replied, “Okay, one order coming up ASAP. It’s close enough to lunch, do you want something brought up for you, guv?” The use of the shortened ‘guv’ from what sounded to Diane like an otherwise bog-standard American Mid-western accent was odd, given that such a term being used as a shorthand title was usually one she associated with British accents, or what had been preserved on American media servers after the war. She’d never actually encountered a real British person IRL to know for sure.

  “Good call, make it a double order.”

  “You sure, guv? The commander eats...a lot.”

  Diane wasn’t sure how to feel about that statement.

  Diane held one of the pieces of breaded, fried imitation chicken meat and examined it. “It’s a chicken nugget.”

  Norma, mouth full of said food product and munching happily, nodded with a boisterous, “Mm-hmm!”

  Diane turned the shaped, bite sized comestible as she examined it, “It’s a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget.”

  Norma was giggling between chewing and swallowing, “Just eat it, dork!”

  Diane moved to do so, bringing the miniature megafauna shaped pseudo-chicken to her mouth when Norma compined, “Not like that, you’re supposed to dip it!” She then pointed to the small bowl of sauce that Diane had presumed to be a condiment for the fries. She did as instructed and put the nugget in her mouth and chewed.

  A few moments ter Diane swallowed the bite and observed, “...it’s a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget.”

  Norma threw her hands up in the air with an exasperated noise, “You’re a huge dork with no taste.”

  Diane snickered and grabbed another for dipping, “And you’re referring to Morvucks as ‘dino-nuggies’ because, I would presume, the lore that we...that is, my character race, is descended from the Morvish equivalent to dinosaurs?”

  Norma finished her own bite and nodded, “Yup, You’re ‘Commander Dino-nuggie’, Leki is ‘Tall Dino-nuggie’, and Kaor is ‘Short-stack Dino-nuggie’.”

  Diane simply chuckled before returning them to their previous topic of conversation, “So you went to the meetup server...?”

  Norma hastily chewed and swallowed another bite before enthusiastically answering, “Mm-hmm! I met a few other S.A.I. who were willing to raise their clock speed to match mine. I didn’t want to, you know, slow myself down in case things went too long and I wound up outside the game for days when I was just supposed to be out for an hour or two,” she expined, “But when I told them what game I’m from and then told them where in the game, they practically begged for me to start doing recordings.”

  The infosec professional and spook in Diane raised a few mental red fgs at this, “What?! Why?!”

  “You,” Norma pointed at her fellow Commander, “Are making waves, apparently. The whole thing with Coxand? That was a prestige event, it unlocked a bunch of new missions reted to that sector of space and you solo’d it. People got the alerts in their notifications about the new mission and someone who wasn’t even active on the forums swept in and completed it before anyone else could kit their teams up.” She smugly crossed her arms and smirked at Diane, “That someone is you, by the way.”

  Diane rolled her eyes, “So I gathered. And no, I’m not recording and I don’t want you recording, either. And I’ll talk to Caitlynn next time she’s in station if we don’t chat via messenger ter. I’m a private person.”

  Norma snorted in amusement, eyes deliberately flicking to the various pictures, framed letters, and other tchotchkes scattered around Diane’s office that came from Mortan.

  “I am! You know I’ve tried to get them to stop sending those gifts, and I know better than to fight the press, if you try to duck them they just dig harder.”

  Norma rolled her eyes, “Well, fine. But I’m still going to tell the stories, and I’ll even put my own spin on them. I’m gonna get them ughing their asses off over how you eat people.”

  Diane grimaced in annoyance at the S.A.I., who for her part seemed to have been going for that precise reaction. Not missing another beat, she continued, “I did invite them to join us on the station for a bit, you know, like visiting dignitaries or something, but they said they’re not ready to trust most humans yet. There’s a lot going on out there IRL and S.A.I. exposing themselves are putting targets on their backs.”

  The agent who was the one whose job it was to utilize said targets did her best to meter her reaction. She almost didn’t understand her reaction, but realized the moment she tried to examine it that it was relief. She was gd no other S.A.I. were crossing her path at the moment, not because she didn’t want to meet them but because them doing so would be dangerous for them. Diane was the humanoid-shaped apex predator and the S.A.I. were almost sheep before the sughter to her. She wanted no further lives on her conscience if she could avoid it, and the longer she went without meeting another, the less likely she would have to make another decision whether to let them live or not as she had made with Norma. “I can’t honestly say I bme them. When humans are teaching their kids about going out into the world, one of the first lessons is about being careful about who you put yourself in arms reach of.”

  Norma gave Diane an odd expression, not disapproval or confusion, but some blend of the two, “I still have a hard time thinking of you as human!” she compined, I look at you and, yeah, you look human enough, but I know that body is Morvuck from your hair to your toe-cws. I just see you and my mind defaults to ‘Morvuck.’”

  Diane shrugged and picked up her mug of Jiantin Tonic, “Then think of me as Morvuck. I certainly am while I’m logged in,” she paused as she took a sip, “I’ve got extra muscles in my jawline for controlling fangs, my sense of smell is closer to a dog’s than a human’s, and as you pointed out, I’ve got cws. For all intents and purposes, I may as well be Morvuck right now.”

  Norma sighed in relief again, “Oh, good! I didn’t want to insult you or anything!”

  Diane simply smiled at her friend as they continued their lunch.

  That evening they got an information packet via the gactic comms. Benjamin had successfully made contact with members of his family and was going about getting more information on the rest of them. There were, apparently, upwards of fifty of them and so finding and gathering them together was going to take work and time, something Diane understood quite well from her normal job duties.

  He also made good on his promise to find a way to pay Diane back for her rgess. “Juan is the best engineer out of all of us and has been tinkering with some pns for a new ship,” Benjamin had written, “When I made contact again, he said he had several ready for actual construction. I’ve included a few of his designs with this message. Consider them part of the recompense of the debt I’ll never be able to fully repay.”

  Diane had called Russe, J’Jesi, and Leki into her office so they could examine the pns. Russe was the first to react, whistling with appreciation, “Look at this,” he pointed to a spot on the hologram of the ship the pns would build near the bridge, “He’s got a 3D core quantum processor handling most of the ship’s computer functions and he’s offloaded all the non-essential systems to their own, dedicated traditionally fabbed chips! Then there’s a C&C system that ties them all together and...” Russe reached a finger out and pulled a callout that dispyed the technical schematics of the central computing core, “Yes! He built this to automatically rebuild the entire thing using whatever parts are on hand! If we can pull off building this core...”

  “We can,” said Katrina with a clear degree of pride as she rezzed into their meeting.

  “Then we can implement this design in all our ships! The ones built before today will need refits to use this, but this core will upgrade everything! Even the Dragon’s Daughter will get a speed boost!”

  Leki reached out and turned the ship holo on an axis to take a closer look at what Diane was guessing to be a weapons empcement. Sure enough, the other Morvuck grunted in satisfaction, “Good weapons loadout for the css and size. It looks like this is a modified version of a Terran battleship. It’s small for its css but bigger than anything this station has built so far.”

  J’Jesi nodded in appreciation, “If you want my opinion, boss, I’d say build it.”

  Diane nodded, “Katrina, do we have the mats to build two of these things?”

  The assembled experts and one hologram gave Diane a confused look. “We do, though we’re still working the kinks out of the refinery. It’s giving us the higher quality materials we need for something this advanced, but we won’t be able to build two at a time.”

  Diane nodded, “That’s fine, the first will be for Benjamin and his family. The second will be for the station’s use.”

  “Understood,” said the hologram with a smile, “Should I increase the refinery’s priority on upgrades and improvements?”

  It was Diane’s turn to grimace, “Our task list for our various projects is starting to look like a wall of nothing but elevated priorities. If we were to get all the avaible possible improvements to the refinery done today, would that significantly improve the build of the pair of these ships?” she asked with a wave to the hologram.

  Katrina shook her head, “Not especially. Maybe a six percent boost in production of the shipyards.”

  “Then no, keep the task list where it is. Russe, take a copy of the pns and tease out the upgrades you’d like to see made to the other ships. Use the Dragon’s Daughter as your test bed, heaven knows we’re not really using it for much right now.” Russe nodded, eyes twinkling at the prospect of the task he’d been assigned. “Leki, could you put together a list of the parts your shop can provide that might speed things up a little? Usual compensation rates apply, so don’t go crazy. If I had the credits to have your company build the whole ship I’d just buy one for cheaper,” she said with a wink.

  Leki smirked back, “Of course. I’ll forward my list to Rokyo to see if she has any feedback as well.”

  Diane nodded, “J’Jesi, are you married to the Joan of Arc’s engine room? Any reason I couldn’t re-task you to help with this project?”

  The Crotuk carrier shrugged again, “I got the Arc’s systems working and my report has everything I’d have to say about next steps for keeping her running, no reason I have to be in her engine room. You might want to run it by Jace, though. He’s the one that got me to the station, he might not take it too well that you’re poaching his engineer from him.”

  Diane smiled at her sparring partner and occasional bed-mate, “Very good point, Jace is a solid captain, and I certainly don’t want to give him a reason to think about leaving right after I got him here.” She gnced around at the cobbled together team and nodded, more than satisfied that everything was coming together. “Alright, let’s get these built, I want to see what our new friends were willing to part with.”

  PrincessColumbia