Theseus

I stepped slowly into the cargo bay past the dormitories. This place had been hard to parse when I first saw it in my mental map. Now it was hard to pay attention to it because of the pressure of the floor against my feet.

I'd been offered a simple robe from Doc's wardrobe. It was light and felt pleasant, even though it was far too large for me. And it would allow me to keep my dignity as I explored. The sliding and banging coming from the room ahead of me meant that it was given in good foresight.

I found myself standing against an upper railing, looking down on a mostly empty industrial floor. Joel and Mouse were sliding the few stray crates out of the center of the cargo bay, stacking them off to the side. I had to blink as I watched. Joel, I could understand being capable of lifting such things. Mouse was a small boy, yet he was able to lift things with a strength that matched the large man.

As I pondered it, I closed my eyes and saw the blurred outline of the room. I hadn't explored it directly while I was in the core module, but the data was still there. When I looked down again, I saw Joel looking back at me.

"Whats she doing out of her cage?" He asked, condescending as he was before.

"What, I can't wander my own ship?" I asked, leaning over the railing and smiling at him. I was beginning to feel more confident with my situation. I had little left to lose, and after I'd gone through the dread of that realization, it actually felt liberating. I was growing some manner of confidence and felt like I could be sarcastic.

"Ain't yours, it's the captain's ship." Joel spoke harshly.

"And I'm the captain's ship." I shrugged at him. Mouse let out a small laugh at the quip.

"Think you're real funny, don't you?" He muttered as he walked over to one of the crates they'd left unstacked "Come on down here, I got something to show you."

Mouse looked concerned, but I began moving slowly down the stairs anyway. I didn't think there was anything he could show me that would shock me. Stolen goods? Salvage? I didn't really care. If I was going to be a pirate, I'd have to get used to what I was hauling around.

When I approached him, I didn't expect the crate to slide open and reveal a young woman's body, inside of a cold storage crate. I had to take a step back, looking back and forth between him and the body, attempting to demand an explanation with my expression.

"Take a look. It's our old core." He declared "You keep sticking around, this is where you end up too."

She was extremely pale. She had long black hair, no clothes, and I saw a barcode tattooed to her side. She also had multiple holes in her skin where raw flesh and muscle was exposed. It took only a moment for me to realize what they meant. I reached up and felt at the plate behind my ear. It was in the same position as her head wound. The same was true for her arm and her waist. I felt my own cyberware in turn. I had to turn away and cover my mouth with my hand. I felt like I was going to be sick.

"What, you think we're swimming in cyberware components? The stuff in you had to come from somewhere." Joel closed the crate back up and Mouse looked away as well, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

It made sense. But still, the idea that a part of someone else had been dug out of them to be put into me was grotesque, even if they were just a ship core. "You're an ass." I muttered to him "I didn't need to see that."

"Ask me how it died." Joel said gruffly.

"... How'd it die?" I asked dryly, my curiosity getting the better of me.

Joel hesitated a little, pursing his lips before he turned quickly to Mouse "Why don't you tell her, boy?"

"It died to psychic trauma." Mouse spoke up softly "The lower engines blew out when another ship shot us."

I remembered that I had a set of lower wings, but there were no thrusters. So I'd figured that they were decorative, not that there were systems missing "What exactly is psychic trauma?" I asked reluctantly.

"You can feel the ship, right? Like you're part of it." Joel spoke up "Imagine if someone shot your arm clean off. Painful, right? You could die from that pain. Now imagine Theseus' wing gets shot off."

The image of my own arm getting torn off scared me, but it was something I could have visualized before, grim as it was. When he told me to imagine terrible damage falling upon my starship shell, I grabbed my own arm forcefully. The sympathetic pain made me shiver. It hadn't dawned on me until that moment, but pirates sometimes had to attack, and were attacked by ships in turn. And those weapons could cause serious damage to a starship. A starship that I now was.

I took in a deep breath "A-Are you saying... that I could die if Theseus takes too much damage?"

"Joel, you're scaring her." Mouse finally spoke up.

"Course she's scared, she's a corpo softie. Never had to face her mortality before. We've all got our lives on the line here, she should know that just cause she's got armor plating around her doesn't make her any less vulnerable." He walked past me and kept talking "Better hope we don't run into trouble before we get to Luna, then you can get back to your safety bubble and keep making the bastards richer."

I barely registered his last comment, I was reeling hard from his words. He was right. The possibility of my own early demise wasn't something that I'd ever had to seriously consider before, and it was terrifying. I felt dizzy. The world spun around me for a moment before I was able to focus again.

As he turned back to keep leaving the room, his footsteps stopped "Captain." I heard him say before I heard the sound of crashing metal and had to swing around in surprise. Joel was lying in the scattered contents of a tool shelf, struggling to push himself up "The FUCK was that for?!" He groaned.

"For making my ship cry." She said flatly. Preoccupied by my growing fear, I hadn't even noticed, but my eyes had grown wet. I was shaking. But the captain coming to my defense at least brought my attention back to reality. She continued, remaining neutral in her expression "We're not dropping her off on Luna. She's part of the crew now. I've told you before, Joel, don't harass my crew."

Aisling kept walking toward me, despite Joel's groaning "How was I supposed to know?"

"He's right though. Even if he's an ass about it." She walked past me and sat down on top of the crate that contained my predecessor's remains. "The ship isn't armor to you. It's you. Getting hit in a firefight is going to hurt. And if you get hurt too much, or in the wrong way, well..." She tapped her hand down on the crate.

I gulped. She wasn't helping me feel any better about the situation. "I... I don't know if I can..."

"But you're not disposable. We survived the last attack, but it was a fluke. Powered down and they lost track of us in the chaos, and they were only after the salvage we'd marked. So we got away. Normally, we'd be screwed without a core and be just as dead."

She stood up and put a hand on my shoulder "Core's not a part we lose often. We did everything we could to protect that one cause we're dependent on it. We'll do the same for you. Mouse is young, but he's a crack engineer, he'll keep you running. Let him know if anything feels off or starts to hurt. Gonna see about some psychic dampers once we hit Luna too, should keep you from going into shock too quick when you get hit. I take care of my crew, got it?"

I nodded slowly. She had a way with words that helped me calm down, but I was still worried.

"And some sims." She added, starting to walk away, back past Joel "You're gonna need to learn how to navigate in a battle. Avoid getting hit too much, learn how to fire back and you won't have to worry about it."

"Will I have to get into so many battles?" I asked quickly, not wanting her to leave just yet.

She kept walking past Joel who was still picking himself up "In space? No. Not really. Maybe once every couple months. We avoid even getting seen where we can out here. But they do happen, and all it takes is one failed skirmish. So we still gotta get you ready cause it will happen eventually." She briefly turned back to Joel and quipped "Clean up this mess, Joel, honestly." Before she gave a wave and kept moving. He rolled his eyes and knelt down to do as he was told.

Joel had made it sound like an inevitability, but the captain's words were encouraging. I had time. I could learn to pilot the ship more expertly. I could upgrade my parts. And I had an engineer to take care of me. Maybe I could hold my own.

"So... you're really staying?" I heard Mouse's small voice behind me, so I turned to look down at him. He looked so frail, but he carried himself with confidence and strength. Small, but tough. "And... you really are the ship?"

There was a short silence as I parsed everything I'd just heard before I nodded to him, still unsure how he wanted me to act around him. My mind felt unclear, like I'd checked out at some point. I felt woozy.

He grew a serious expression on his face "Tell me something only the ship would know!" He suddenly demanded.

I had to take a step back, surprised by the question. Was he testing me? I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. There was a lot of data in my mind that I didn't need the full psychic link to access, but I wasn't sure how to express it all verbally. What exactly was he asking for? He knew my shell inside and out, so maybe he was looking for the unique features of the ship. Its flaws. So I just started with the little things I'd noticed in my limited experience at the piloting controls "The upper starboard wing flap isn't completely straight and it's misaligned about point six degrees. The micro-propulsion on that side also doesn't release until I put output to about 25%. The port thruster gets about 18% more electrical power than starboard, so I have to compensate to keep us flying straight. I have this weird itchy feeling on the underside armor, so I think that means there's a broken sensor array... should I keep going?" I sounded tired. I was tired. I wanted to return to the core module, and it was strange to me that that was what I automatically turned to as 'relaxing' now. I was so tired.

Mouse just stared up at me, eyes wide as I pointed out the little nitpicks that I had with the propulsion systems. When he finally spoke up, it was to say "It's really up to 18%? I thought that patch would make more resistance than that. And I know about the wing, but it's such a small deviation, is it really a problem? I promise I'll clean the propulsion system and take a look at the underpanelling when we get to port though." he sounded excited as he spoke, like his distrust for me had fallen away in an instant "Oh wow, I've never worked on a ship that could actually talk back to me like this! This is going to be so much easier than slogging through the log files and trying to guess what's wrong, please, I need to make a list." he pulled a small data pad out of one of his numerous pockets and began to jot things down on it with a stylus.

"The wingflap's fine, I can deal with it." I started. That was when I noticed it. His hands, they had what looked like bits of metal plating along his palms and the underside of his fingers. Barely visible circuitry ran up the underside of his arms, and bits of more plating stuck out at his elbows. It was no wonder that he was able to perform engineering tasks and lift heavy crates; he was augmented as well, just much more subtly than I was. But it was clear on close inspection that both of his arms were completely synthetic.

"Your arms..." I started, shocked to see such invasive cyberware not only on a child, but fitted for a child.

He furrowed his brow and looked up directly at me again "What about it?" he asked quietly.

I wasn't sure what to say. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I thought that it might come off as patronizing. The boy was clearly sensitive about it, like Doc when I asked about his past. Maybe it was best that I let him tell me about it on his own terms. "They... must be really helpful in your line of work." I tried to redirect it into a compliment.

His expression softened slightly and he looked back down at his data pad, continuing to scribble notes about what I'd reported about the ship "Yeah." he said quietly "They are. I'll keep you safe, okay? I'll repair anything that breaks down or starts working wrong." he glanced to the closed crate with the old core in it "I'll make sure that doesn't happen to you." he put the pad back in his pocket and looked back up at me. He almost looked sad "But you gotta tell me what it's like. Being a ship. Okay?" he asked.

I nodded. I wasn't really sure how to express what it was like bonding with a starship in words, but I didn't know how I could say no to the kid in that moment.

"Okay." we looked at each other in silence for a few moments. It was like he was observing me. Even when he turned away to walk toward the engine room, he glanced back at me a couple of times until he turned a corner and disappeared.

I felt my shoulders relax, and leaned back hard, thumping against the wall. Closing my eyes, I still saw the hangar around me. I didn't want that. I needed a break. I needed to be alone with my thoughts, but the data kept flowing. What I saw with my eyes closed was dizzying, and the physical reality around me when they were open was becoming unbearable. I really was going to become reliant on the core module to rest my head.

"Why'd you agree to it?" I heard, turning to see that Joel was still there, picking things up off the ground "You know you're gonna get into some real illegal shit, throwing in with us. Your comfy little cubicle won't be waiting for you anymore."

I looked up at the ceiling. Was he still trying to goad me? After a moment, I knew what to tell him "Because I'm a freak."

I heard him stop rummaging in the scattered tools and look up "Well yeah you're a freak, you're a ship core walking around like a person."

"If I go back there, they're going to... I don't even know. Keep me in a lab forever. Dissect me. Something like that. I can't just go back to my job and pretend this didn't happen." I pursed my lips and stood up straight again "I'm not a person anymore. I wouldn't be to them anyway. They'd just... use me for profit."

"How's that any different than usual?" he muttered.

That was the last straw. I was starting to get irritated at Joel and I had to let it out. "You know, you're right, it's not. corporate colonies suck, they're leeching the life from everyone that lives inside and outside of their influence, turning us all into work slaves, destroying worlds, ruling with fear, and undermining everything that it means to be a free human being! Is that what you want me to say?!" I stomped my foot down, and despite the fact that the heavy physical movement made me feel like I was going to lose my balance and fall over, I continued with my rant "You think I didn't already know all of that! I've been a part of it! What the fuck was I supposed to do about it? Stand up and say something? Get fired for 'insubordination' and fall into poverty? Go homeless and starve on the streets, where I'd get beaten by the police who'll get praised for reigning me in for the crime of being too poor to deserve anything? What a great life that would be!" I snapped, taking a few awkward steps toward him. I felt like passing out, but I had more to say to him "Do you think we don't know? Do you think people like me are actually doing the work they make us do because we want to? We don't have a choice!" I had a lot of emotions flowing around with all the other data. I held my head, feeling at the neural implant. I was spent.

"Welcome to the other choice." he muttered as he slammed the last of the tools onto the rack and turned to leave the room himself.

Alone at last, I held my head and fell once more against the wall, reeling at the pain and confusion. I had to get back to the core module. Walking was hard though. My body felt so heavy. I grabbed hold of the staircase railing and stumbled my way up. Through the long hallway and into my heart, my vision blurring harder as I stumbled into a wall, starting to lose feeling in my legs. "Doc..." I called, my voice cracking "Something's wrong."