“The Orrery does not wait for pilgrims. It waits for balance.”
Kirr in a moment of reflection
“All to the rest room. All to the rest room.” Loud, noisy.
‘All to the rest room. All to the rest room.’ Quiet, internal.
‘Is this a drill?’ asked Feebee.
‘No.’
‘An exercise?’
‘No’
‘How can I be sure?’
‘Good question. Trust me?’
Feebee laughed, ‘Could that be a test too?’
‘Fair,’ was all Kirr said.
But she thought on it. It was actually a valid point. Did Feebee know the difference between the sims she’d been put through and reality?
What was her sense of reality? She’d spent more ‘time’ in sims than in the real. And had way more memories gained there than in the real.
Kirr moved on. Had to. They had a situation in the real and needed Feebee.
‘Can you come to the Rest Area?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘On my way.’
The route to the rest room took her past the armoury.
Peas sat at a bench. In front of her was an assault rifle, broken down. She was cleaning the parts. Seeing Feebee she jumped up and saluted.
‘Ma’am. Found a different rifle to clean.’
In the rest room, the two coffee boys sat alone. Their cups half empty, a third cup, full and some biscuits were on a plate in the middle. Bench press and Spotter in the corner, pressing weights and spotting.
She crossed to the coffee boys. “Whose is this?” she asked pointing to the full cup of coffee.
After what seemed like an age, one of the coffee boys answered, “It’s Sparky’s.”
“Did he make it?”
Another pause…
“No.”
Then someone Feebee didn’t recognise walked in. She immediately dropped into a low crouch, weapon drawn, intent clear.
“Identify yourself!”
“Sergeant Tiffany, Tiffy. Tech specialist, Engineering ma'am. Can I show you around?"
She shook her head. Déjà vu?
“No,” she said. Getting up and holstering her pistol. “I know my way around.”
“Of course.”
“Join us.”
They waited, then the door that led to the armoury whooshed open. Peas was always last to join.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“All present. Right. Who called the meeting?”
‘I did.’ It was Kirr.
An avatar appeared on the table between them. It was of a red headed female human, normal looking, maybe a bit thin, dressed in an androgynous JSOC uniform. The rank patches were obscured, as if not fully rendered. The eyes though were a light blue, almond shaped with visible creases above the eyelids. The outer corners of the eyes were elongated and up-turned. They reminded Feebee of cats, of pictures she remembered.
“I called it,” she spoke out loud. The voice was calm and authoritative.
‘When did you come up with that?’ Feebee asked.
‘Do you like it?’ The question conveyed hesitancy, something she’d never heard from Kirr before.
‘Oh. Ok, good. Well, it’s not for me to like or dislike it. If this is how you see yourself, it's fine.’
Then Kirr spoke to them all, “Hello. I am Kirr. We have a situation.”
They all looked to Feebee, she nodded. “Continue Kirr.”
Kirr spoke through her avatar that paced the table. “We have activation of many systems throughout the ship. North and South.”
The schematic of the ship appeared above her head, she pointed out the AMBER sections.
“This was our assessment of the ship’s health a couple of cycles ago. More than half the ship was AMBER, none GREEN, many RED.”
Feebee put her hand up, then quickly snapped it back down. “How are you catagorising the RAG status of the areas?”
“RED is less than 15% capability or operational function present. GREEN is a return to 85% operational capability. AMBER is in the middle, fifteen to eighty-five.”
“Looks bad. Two cycles ago?”
“Yes.” Before Feebee could ask more, Kirr continued, “Now however.” She pointed to the schematic; it refreshed. “Almost all the RED’s gone. There’s more GREEN.”
“How?”
Kirr shrugged, “TBD.”
Feebee laughed, “You don’t know do you?”
“I don’t. We don’t.”
Feebee thought for a good minute. The more she thought the stronger the pull became. The ship was calling her.
The AI waited, it was literally an eon for it.
“I want to go and see. I have to.”
“That’s not a good idea.” Kirr's response was immediate.
“I’m going to see, with my own eyes.” Feebee was adamant.
“Then you go alone.” The avatar looked to the others. They nodded.
“Oh, OK. Good. Alone it is.”
The EVA suit didn’t fit her anymore. She didn’t get upset. I’ll just print another.
‘Kirr, print me an EVA suit. Enough to get across and back with some redundancy.’
‘Ack. Go to the macro-forge at J.02.14.’
The route took her past the armoury. She ducked in.
Hhmm, where was Peas?
The bench was empty too. No rifle. Crossed to weapons rack. She put a knife and spare ammo, green and blue, in her backpack. She holstered the pistol at her hip, a clip of blue inserted.
She turned to leave. Peas was there, at her desk. Feebee never heard her appear.
She snapped to attention, “Ma’am”
“Do they need cleaning?” she asked pointing to the Ruger Mini-14 in Peas hands.
“They gather dust.”
Feebee smiled, “Bye.”
“Bye Ma’am.”
She followed the directions in her overlays. J.02.14 turned out to be a medium sized room on the edge of the SSOCOM area. The macro-forge was in one corner near a stack of feedstock bricks.
Feebee could hear chatter from the loader droid. ‘Hi there.’
The droid turned towards her unsure why. It’s limited AI had no protocols beyond the two things it did and did very well.
Collect feedstock when levels got low. Load feedstock when asked to.
It felt pride in its job. Had never failed a load or run empty. All reports on time.
There was the characteristic “Ping” as the print finished. Feebee reached across the print plate and took the EVA suit. She lay down her backpack and shucked the suit on.
It fitted like a glove. She laughed at the thought. The gloves fitted like gloves, the suit fitted like a … well, like an EVA suit.
There was an echo of laughter from Kirr, just a few scratchy tones.
She checked the suit.
POWER: 100%
AIR: 100%
WATER: 100%
INTERNAL TEMP: 37oC
FOOD: 0%
‘Any Choc?’
‘Just water.’ More scratchy laughter.
‘Where’s the nearest point of egress South, from here? Show me.’
She followed her overlay to an airlock. She could see across to the main ship. Twenty or thirty paces. In the real. Space.
Her heart started to pound. Deep breaths.
She started to hum; words formed in her head. Whisper, whisper…
Stillness returned.
Balance restored.
Feebee stepped into the airlock, the door shut behind her. The air was sucked out as it equalised.
The Beast stirred and reached across time and into her real, her realm. It took effort, lots of effort given the load on its current resources. It had to reduce the priority on some key queries, push them onto its backlog. Humour kept cropping up and was a key to understanding. The Beast was sure about this. It mattered.
The Universe groaned.
The Beast heard and was more confused.
The outer door started to open, the barest crack.
Then stopped.
Before Feebee could do anything her suit failed. Not slowly like a power drain but here one second, then gone. No warning, no alarms, no countdown.
A complete failure.
She reached across and pressed the green button to close the outer door.
Nothing.
She pressed it again.
Nothing.
No panic. A quiet assessment. Critical thinking.
I cannot leave by the outer door.
I cannot close the outer door.
The inner door will not open with the outer door open.
My comms needs power.
My suit has no power.
I cannot access power.
I cannot access more air without power.
My only air is in my suit now.
No power also means no nano-forge.
I have minutes.
Others may come.
If I panic, I die faster. Or I can do nothing and maybe live.
She sat, cross legged. Her fists relaxed as she recited words from Ancient Memory. They were from the Litany to Veltrin and came as Drexari words, all clicks and guttural tones.
Slow, breathe.
Hold fast. Be still.
Let this moment be me.
I am the peace within the storm.
I am stillness,
The quiet between waves.
Waste nothing.
Balance holds me.
Quiet keeps me.
A green shadow was cast onto the wall of the airlock. Green is good. Was the door closing?
She turned her head. No, it was still open.
Slow, breathe.
Hold fast. Be still.
Let this moment be me…
