“That went better than I thought it would,” Woozy finally said. “Me too,” I admitted. “Pepper’s reaction was very close to what I expected. I don’t think they’re ever going to trust me again.” “They’ll come around, beep. Pepper’s always done what’s best for the crew, you know that.” I emitted a little chuckle from my speaker. “Listen to you, all upbeat all of a sudden. It’s good to hear you happy again.

It didn’t take long to assemble the crew. Even without my network, there were so galaxy-damned few of us that it didn’t take Pepper and Woozy long to make the calls. I spent that time thinking about how I wanted to handle this. Despite what I’d told Woozy, I had my doubts about how this might turn out. These were good people who wouldn’t normally rush to action, but we’d all been through something so terrible and so recently that being confronted with the person responsible for it might push them into something hasty.

Pepper wordlessly excused themself. When someone asks in that tone, you know that the conversation to be had will be a private one. “What happened?” Woozy asked. They’d felt the emergency shutdown just the same as everyone else. From the way they were panting, they must have run here. “Hi, Woozy,” I said. Woozy’s breath caught as they heard my voice. The voice they’d known for years but had been missing since the disaster.

No, no, that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. My crew weren’t slaves, they were my friends, my colleagues! As shipmind I had rank, but outside of the Navy we were equals. And Woozy! How could anyone think Woozy was my slave? They’d bent the galaxy itself to come and be with me when I’d given them every chance to walk away, and I loved them all the more for it.

I jolted awake as the alarm sounded. No time to grab my uniform, I’d just have to go to the bridge in my shipsuit. Long practice and endless drills saw me already out in the hallway, clipping my helmet to my belt as I moved, when the announcement followed the alarm. “Code delta! Code delta! All crew to combat stations. Keep right in the hallways, secure all hatches and volatile equipment.

I had been sweeping my one working high-gain radio antenna across our path, and it had found something. It was faint, but the pattern was unmistakeable. “Crow,” I asked my comms ferret on the bridge, “does that look like a lifepod beacon to you?” They grinned, the first outward display of emotion I had seen them make since waking up in the infirmary. “It does.” “All hands,” I announced, “we are diverting to pick up what appears to be a working lifepod.

Woozy had left the bridge shortly after Pepper did, while I was reviewing the records. They hadn’t gone far, though. I could see them on a camera one deck down. I projected my synthetic voice through the nearest wall speaker. “Woozy,” I said. “I know I’m not your favourite person in the world right now.” Which wasn’t at all my fault, but I wasn’t going to mention that. “But I’m afraid there’s something I need to talk to you about.

Pepper excused themself from the bridge with a minimum of ceremony. Quicker than I would have liked, but they’d been clear that, even now, they felt that the medical bay, not the bridge, was their proper place. Pepper was the commanding officer by rule, but had de facto ceded the position to me, given my experience with the role. “Captain’s off the bridge,” Crow announced. Well, at least someone still cared about protocol.

“The brainwave patterns are quite conclusive,” Pepper said. “You were asleep. The technical term is REM sleep, which is the phase you experience dreams in.” “I was definitely dreaming,” I agreed. “But Lem tells me that I was carrying on a coherent conversation and operating two drones at the same time you were recording those patterns.” “As you say. Truthfully, Captain, I don’t know how that’s possible. The best I can think of is that the interface is allowing part of you to remain awake.

If sleep is an odd idea for the disembodied, dreaming is doubly so. I was on the bridge of my old ship, sitting in the command chair in the center, where I belonged. From here, I could easily see every station and every person operating them. Every face was a blurred mess. People I knew yet didn’t know. Every voice a low murmur just below the edge of recognition, yet somehow the words entered my mind like I’d thought them myself.