Space Bound: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology

by J. E. Feldman

  “Girl, you don’t belong to anyone. You’re your own woman. So, why not have a little control? You never know. You might like it. Come on, let me hook you up.”

  Silence for a moment, then, “Okay. I mean, it would be nice to see what was going on around me. Won’t it be weird though?”

  “How would it be weird?”

  “Because I won’t have eyes. It’ll all be cameras, right?”

  Pan frowned. “Have you...had eyes before?”

  “I think so.”

  There was an awkwardness in that answer and Pan wasn’t sure she believed the amnesia this time around. It was a particular kind of AI that was used to having eyes. But that mystery wasn’t going to unwrap itself. It was going to need coaxing. A kind word, a gentle touch. Like the best of relationships, it was going to need time and attention and work.

  And it was time to get to work.

  “Don’t worry. It’s going to be awesome. You’ll see. I mean, like, literally you’ll see.”

  Hope’s AI module was linked to the ship’s audio system but, other than that, she’d been partitioned in. There were no direct connections to the ship. Pan decided to change that.

  She sat on the floor of the bridge with her work suit sleeves tied around her waist, wiping oily fingers on her vest, splitting and splicing wires as she hooked Hope up. They were in a dead zone, between FTL jumps, and they’d float there until Pan set them a course. She wasn’t in any rush. She’d been ready to see what the ship could do, but then Hope had come along and she just couldn’t ignore a sweet girl in need.

  It didn’t take too long. Pan spoke code, but hardware was all muscle memory. She knew instinctively what connected and what didn’t. Before long, she was ready to flip the switch.

  “Brace yourself, sweetheart,” she said, and swiped her fingers across the tablet on her forearm she’d connected to the command interface.

  Hope’s eyes opened.

  “Oh, wow,” her disembodied voice gasped. “Wow! I can...I can see everything. All the time. But it’s not too much, y’know? It’s just enough.”

  “Totally jealous right now. I’d love to have more than one pair of peepers. Hey, can you see me?”

  She twirled, arms up, wondering where the camera was in the bridge. Hope didn’t answer and Pan was just about to check the feeds, make sure she could actually see, when she finally spoke up.

  “Yeah, I can see you. I-I’m glad I get to finally see what you look like. Thank you.”

  “Ah, it’s no big thing.”

  “It is to me. I might never have woken up if you hadn’t come along. Now I can finally see and it’s all because of you. That’s a pretty big thing. I...I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re totally welcome,” Pan said, and tried to fight the blush off her cheeks.

  She didn’t think Hope would have slept forever. A ship like this was somebody’s pride and joy. She would have felt guilty about taking it, but the design of it rankled on her. It had stealth systems and weapons that were beyond military grade. Even the Authority didn’t field vessels like this. It was Black Ops shit of the highest caliber.

  And there was a sweet girl trapped in there, like a fly in amber. A genie in a bottle. That mystery was just begging to be solved.

  “Ready for external sensors?”

  “What does that mean? More cameras?”

  “Not just cameras. Imaging equipment, environmental scanners. You’ll be able to pick up ship signals, lifeforms, distant planets, and all kinds of things.”

  “What will that feel like, do you think?”

  “Sorry. I’ve never been a ship before. Most of the AIs I’ve spoken to haven’t really had much basis for comparison. It looks like you’ll have to clue me in.”

  “I’m a little nervous.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. If it’s not amazing then just shout the safe word and I’ll pull the plug.”

  “What’s the safe word?”

  “Oklahoma. It’s always Oklahoma.”

  She counted her in, backwards from three, then flipped the switch. There was a moment as all the systems green-lined and Pan tried to imagine the awareness flooding into Hope’s silicon mind. Honestly, she couldn’t conceive of having access to so much raw data. It went way beyond fingers and toes.

  “What’s the story, girl?”

  “This is amazing,” she breathed. “Pan, I don’t think I can describe this. I know the exact temperature in every part of the ship and outside. I know our fusion core’s operating at 23% capacity, which is nominal. I know that there’s a planet capable of sustaining life just a couple of light hours away. Oh, and there’s an asteroid over there. It’s mostly iron ore, but I’m picking up some trace amounts of silicon and copper too. And ice. Oooh, bacteria. Aww, they’re so cute. Like a little family on a road trip.”

  Pan laughed. “Sounds like you’re a natural.” And a total nerd. Adorable, but a nerd.

  Hope’s voice turned suddenly serious. “Pan, there’s a ship coming through this system. It just dropped out of FTL. We’re outside their sensor range right now, but...It’s an Authority vessel. If they find us here...”

  “They’ll know which direction we went in after we left Outpost 10.” She slid into the pilot’s chair and took control, skirting the widening circle of the Authority ship’s sensors. “Yeah, that’s a problem. They’ll pick up our FTL signature if we try to jump just now.”

  “What about the asteroid? The mineral density should shield us from scans. We can tumble right past them and make our move once they’ve jumped back to FTL.”

  She checked the data Hope was churning out. Her math seemed sound. If they set down on the asteroid, the ship would glide right past them, none the wiser. They’d be free to go on their way.

  “Okay. Good call. Let’s go.”

  They circled the asteroid tumbling through the vacuum, matched their speed, and landed on the surface. Pan stabilized them to the rock and killed the engine. Running dark, they’d look like a mineral impurity on the surface. Nothing worth noticing.

  Pan sat back and watched the Authority’s frigate take its dear, sweet time jumping back to FTL.

  “You know,” she said, “that was probably your best chance to get rid of me. I didn’t even see that ship coming.”

  “Why would I want to get rid of you? I’m only just starting to get to know you.”

  Pan smiled. “You’re too sweet. Looks like we’re going to be here awhile though. Want to see what else I can hook you up to?”

  Hope had expressed some worry at the prospect of being a pilot, but Pan had insisted that, if a moron like her could fly a spacecraft, she definitely could. Besides, she was going to be right there with her, every step of the way, like she was resting her hands over hers on the controls.

  When she put it like that, Hope breathlessly agreed to give it a try.

  They started small. A couple of laps around the system. Then Pan found them a ringed planet and they blurred the belt around its midriff by looping the debris field in crazed spirals, swerving around rocks as big as the asteroid that had sheltered them from the Authority at speeds fast enough to turn an unshielded human into paste on the wall.

  It wasn’t long before Hope’s fear had taken a backseat and her fascination, her adrenaline, her lust for life was at the helm. She whooped right along with Pan through every dive and swoop and soar.

  Once she was done terrifying herself, Pan punched in another set of FTL coordinates and put them on a stable course. She sat in her chair, sweat-slick and giddy. She could almost imagine Hope sitting beside her, their elbows touching, a grin on the other girl’s face as big as her own. She’d look over and their eyes would meet. They’d stare at one another--stare into one another--and then Pan would lean in, brush the hair off her cheek, cup her face gently, and...

  “I looked you up.”

  Pan sat up, shaking her head to clear the fantasy tingling on her lips. “Wha-?”

 
; “I pinged off the Authority database after you gave me access to communications. Don’t worry. I encrypted. They just thought I was a void ghost.”

  Pan nodded. It was an old espionage trick. Piggybacking on phantom signals from the beyond to gain access to official channels. The Authority were so massive, so fucking secure in their own superiority, they didn’t employ any high-level encryption. They were ghosted so often there were jokes about how Authority ships were haunted.

  The real problem was all the information in the world couldn’t turn the tide against so many guns or so much money.

  Hope was learning fast, it seemed.

  “I looked through your file.”

  “That’s only a little creepy.”

  “Well, I mean, if you didn’t want people reading up on you, maybe you shouldn’t be so interesting.”

  “That’s the nicest compliment a stalker ever paid me.”

  “Hey, it’s just smart to know who you’re getting in bed with, right?”

  Pan let that comment pass. Fast-learner or not, Hope probably wasn’t ready for the full brunt of Pan’s ability to flirt.

  “So, are you actually wanted in fifteen systems?”

  Pan shrugged. “Technically, it’s sixteen, but one of those systems doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I did.” And then, because that comment probably deserved more of an answer, “I don’t like slavery.”

  “Oh.” Hope cleared her throat. It was an interesting quirk for an AI, considering she didn’t have a throat. “It says here you’re the worst Rogue in the galaxy?”

  Pan scowled. “Baddest. Baddest Rogue in the galaxy. Fucking Authority auto-grammar.”

  “What’s a Rogue?”

  “It’s a catch-all term. It usually applies to mercenaries, but I ain’t no mercenary.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Basically, that we play for whichever team we like best. Not Authority and no particular system gov. We take the jobs we want and answer to no one. And the jobs I take, well, not everyone likes them, but...”

  “But you free slaves, arm resistances, and fight oppression?”

  Pan spread her arms, bowed her head. Couldn’t help the cocky little smirk that blossomed on her lips. “Well, I try.”

  She knew she was showing off, but she liked this girl. She wanted Hope to think she was cool.

  Oh, there’d been plenty of times when she hadn’t been cool. Blasting that mining chief’s family out of an airlock so he’d understand how it felt. Fighting her way to champion of the Iron Spire’s prison arena just so she could escape the fucking place. That freighter she’d crashed into Authority Mining Outpost 5. Not her finest moments.

  There was plenty to be ashamed of, but... Maybe enough to be proud of that she was, on aggregate, one of the good guys?

  That was really all she’d ever wanted.

  “Were you...looking for a partner?” Hope asked.

  “I might be. Why? You getting bored of joyriding? Want to smash some shit?”

  “Maybe. To be honest, so long as I’m with you, I don’t really care what we do.”

  Pan laughed. “You get any sweeter, you’re going to give me diabetes.”

  Hope had a whole ship worth of systems to play with. Pan decided to take a project of her own. While her friend was ghosting more information from the Authority, turning loops around everything she could find, and catching Pan up on all the gossip from the inhabited worlds they passed, she tinkered.

  It took a few days and Hope never stopped asking her what she was doing. She stuck to her guns and waited because she thought the surprise was going to be worth it. When she was finally done, she told Hope to get ready and donned the neural interface crown for the ship’s entertainment system.

  Crude VR systems used goggles and gloves, but a high-tech setup like this directly stimulated the areas of the brain needed for dreaming. They pulled the human mind into a deep fiction that felt as real as reality. Parasomnia kept you from punching the wall and the wireless connectivity meant you didn’t need any crude spinal jacks to plug in. She had the spinal jacks, but using them was never pleasant.

  Pan took a breath and slipped into the simulation. She’d decided not to go too crazy so she’d anchored it to the ship. She shut her eyes and, when she opened them, she was exactly where she’d started, just without the crown on her head.

  She waited a heartbeat.

  “Oh my god!” Hope gasped.

  Pan smiled. She took a deep breath and pushed herself up. This was the moment of truth. She’d been waiting for this for days now and, yeah, she thought she was actually excited.

  She stepped out of the rec room and walked to the bridge. It felt like the most appropriate place to put Hope’s spawn point, since they spent most of their time together there.

  She was there, standing by the pilot’s chair. A short girl with curves to spare and an adorable tangle of red hair framing her round face. She was wearing a white angel dress and it was just...

  Perfect.

  “Hey, you,” Pan said. “Long time, no see.”

  Hope stared at her pale hand, twisting it back and forth like she’d forgotten what it looked like and how to use it.

  “How am I...? How did you...?”

  “I hooked you up to the recreation system. When I plugged in, it created an avatar for you so we could interact. Surprise!”

  “This is...insane. I can’t believe I have a body. I can’t even feel the ship anymore.”

  “The AI’s taking care of everything. I figured it’d feel more authentic if you weren’t still connected.”

  Hope nodded and stared around the bridge. Must have been strange only seeing it from one angle, but at least she could move around of her own accord. She reached out and touched the pilot seat and her pupils dilated as she actually felt the leather.

  Pan took a breath. Moment of truth. She reached out and took Hope’s hand.

  Electric. So soft, so warm. Everything she’d hoped it would be.

  “How come...you look different?” Hope asked.

  Pan checked herself in the rec system’s user interface and grunted. Her hair was long and dark and fell past her shoulders and she was wearing double leather. Her piercings were gone and so were her scars. It had been a while.

  “This is how I used to look,” she muttered. “I guess I must still remember, on some level.”

  “I don’t mind, but...well, I like the way you look now.”

  “Me too. I’ll try and fix it.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil the moment.”

  “Nothing’s spoiled. Look at us! We’re here, together. How cool is that?”

  Hope blushed and that was everything she’d hoped too.

  Pan didn’t want to spoil the moment either, but there was something she needed to get off her chest and she’d waited long enough. She couldn’t put it off anymore.

  “Listen, I know you’re not an AI. You get nervous, afraid, excited and you’re cute, but...not in a mechanical way. When I talked about your internal sensors, you compared it to having eyes. And now I’m surer than ever because this shape you’re in is not generic. This is a real girl, isn’t it? You looked like this, before you became a...construct. A consciousness.”

  Hope turned away and Pan wondered if maybe she’d blown it. She didn’t want to screw things up. The last few days had been a whirlwind and, honestly, she’d never thought she would feel the way she felt about anyone.

  She just wanted it to be real.

  “What happened to you? I mean, how’d you end up like this? Aboard this ship? What happened to your body?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Pan gulped. It wasn’t the answer she’d wanted. She wanted to know this girl. But everything was a process, she guessed. And if she pushed her, she’d lose her. Not just in the simulation.

  “I guess not. I mean, we left that life behind, right? We’re free to start over.”

 
; Hope nodded, but her expression was pained. She snuck a glance at Pan, like she was thinking of speaking her piece; putting it all out there, for better or worse.

  Pan willed her to do it, but she chewed her lip and looked away. She took a step closer, pulled by the sudden urge to put her arms around this girl to make her feel better. To let her know that she was safe and that everything would be okay because they were together now.

  Then the AI pinged a warning into her ear. Not just a proximity alert. An engagement alarm. Damage reports.

  They were under attack.

  She threw off the crown and staggered up from the bed. The sudden disequilibrium of being back in her own body rushed over her and she weaved like she was drunk as she ran as fast as her rubber legs could carry her.

  Or maybe that was just the inertial dampers fluctuating as their mysterious contact bombarded them with laser fire over and over again.

  Hope was already in control of the ship’s systems again. Useful as the AI had been for giving them some alone time, it could only tell her what was going on. It couldn’t make inferences the way Hope could.

  The way a real intelligence could.

  “It’s not an Authority ship,” Hope said as Pan slid into the pilot’s chair.

  “Great. So, some other asshole decided to start shooting at us?”

  It could have been pirates or a local system government trying to shake them down. Except that this wasn’t some neon-lashed gang cruiser or petty dictator’s gunship. It wasn’t flying any colors, showing any emblems, or broadcasting any identification codes.

  It was silent, black, and sleek. A space ninja.

  Actually, it was like their ship. A different model, but the same soul.

  “Shields are holding. Can’t get a target lock though. Looks like we’re in a stalemate for now.”

  Hope made an uncertain noise. Even without being able to see her face, Pan knew she was suddenly afraid.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you and I meant it,” Pan said.

  She pulled the solid-slug pistol from its rig under her arm. She wore it openly, but they’d collectively agreed not to mention it, even if Hope had been wondering how many of the murders on Pan’s rap sheet had been committed with that very weapon.