ShipCore

USD: 70 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

Alex thought that the last week of ‘active’ training would continue along the course that had been laid out, namely a heavier and heavier focus on technical details and classroom learning and a de-emphasized component of physical training.

She had been wrong.

Everyone had already passed the physical requirements test, even the more rigorous ‘company S’ version that went beyond that normal conditioning expected. But they spent almost no time in the barracks, instead, they were almost constantly out in the field, taking turns leading their group to random waypoints, finding ‘lost’ caches, and delivering supplies or items to other squads that would inevitably be ordered to deliver them to yet another group.

Alex had struggled to focus, Rachel’s mere presence distracting her. When Tasha had almost caved her head in with a crate while they were unloading a lorry, Alex managed to shove her thoughts and memory of the encounter in the bunkroom away for long enough to not fuck things up.

At the end of the week, communication restrictions were lifted and they all received their belongings they had arrived with.

Alex’s first check of her messages revealed one from Admiral Westlake instructing her to meet with him as soon as she returned to MIL-1A.

There was nothing from Thraker. That worried her more. She had no word from him since the kidnapping incident and no news about it since returning, either. Alex sent a message to him, but also one to Westlake asking for information about the Captain-Major and the mercenary company.

Despite having a week of administrative bullshit to go through, Alex had already made plans for returning. First day, she’d visit Westlake and Elis. Second day had turned into a planned outing on the station with Rachel. Third day was supposedly going to be visiting Elis and dealing with the IHMC and Thraker… supposing that there was something for her to do about it.

The more she thought about making a nice organized list of things to do in the two weeks between finishing Basic and going to OCS, the more she felt at a loss. At least she would have a general outline of what to be doing and she knew she was pretty good at winging things. So that’s probably what she’d end up doing.

Heading back to her bunk to rest, Alex turned a corner lost in thought only to smack right into Tia. The other girl was like a steel wall and Alex almost fell on her ass. The shock was replaced with relief that it was Tia, someone else might have gotten hurt.

Tia gave her an unamused look. “You’re ridiculous.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Sorry. Sorry?”

“Ertan… You’re hopeless. You literally flirted for like five minutes and now you’re a walking hazard to anyone around you.”

Alex blinked. “What. Wait. How do you know about that?”

Tia grabbed Alex’s arm and dragged her across the hall, ripping open the door to a empty maintenance room and shoved her inside of it.

Alex unfroze as Tia pulled the door shut, casting the room into a dimly lit hues. There were a lot of items at hand to be used as an improvised weapon, and the realization that the area was off camera probably made it a good place for Tia to beat people up.

Tia shook her head and took a step forward closing the distance to slap her hand on the wall beside Alex’s head. “We aren’t fighting.”

Alex glanced at Tia’s arm. “You just dragged me into a closet. If your goal wasn’t to bully me… are you hitting on me? Sorry. The wall slap thing, it’s a holovid trope, right?”

“Yes.” Tia leaned in closer, and only stopped when Alex raised a hand to put on her collarbone to hold her back. The other girl’s eyes went down to Alex’s side towards the bag that hung off her shoulder. “I can’t believe you carry that around on you everywhere.”

It took a second for Alex to realize Tia meant her ShipCore.

Tia gave her a serious stare. “I gave you plenty of chances to leave. I didn’t expect you to come back after getting leave to MIL-1A. You’re freshly printed aren’t you? I didn’t put it together until now. A freshly printed rogue NAI. I can’t leave you floating around Meltisar when I have no idea who or what you might imprint on.”

“I… You’re an NAI? You… want to override me?” Alex asked as her mind caught up.

Tia reached up to stroke her cheek, soft fingertips sending a tingling sensation down Alex’s spine.

A melancholic look appeared on the other girl’s face. “I know you probably came here to get away from them. It took me twenty years to get out of my mother’s thumb, and I wouldn’t wish that trauma on you, or anyone. I’ll teach you what you clearly need to learn and then let you go later if you still want, but right now I can’t have you running around messing things up.”

Alex took a breath, a million thoughts whirling in her mind.

“I’m down for part of that, I have plenty of questions, because yes… I was recently ‘printed’ and have been winging things for the last year willy-nilly. I don’t want to mess up anything of yours and I really could use your help healing my sister.”

Tia stared her in the eyes. “I’ll help you with that. But I wasn’t giving you the chance to refuse. In case you missed it, NAIs are dominated by organizations that force you into a hierarchy, all led by crazy bitches who work against as much as with each other to maintain that.”

Alex had already known most of that but listening distracted her from noticing Tia move closer, her hand failing to keep the other girl back as she pressed her up against the wall. The scent of jasmine coming off Tia filled her senses and Alex looked to the side trying to remain calm.

“I’d managed to gather that, but no, seriously, I don’t want to join any of them. Or you. Sorry.”

The other girl cupped her chin and gently pulled her attention back. “First lesson, Chérie. Firewalls don’t work when you’re physically intimate.”

Tia leaned the last few inches in and kissed her.

Alex dropped her hand and unconsciously held onto the other girl’s sides, the taste of citrus on her lips filling her senses. Her mind going blank at the second time for the duration of a kiss with a pretty girl. A stupid thought of gosh I’m too easy flittered by before being chased away by a but I like it.

A red message in her HUD tried to steal her attention, but Alex closed her eyes and did her best to ignore it completely, going after Tia’s lips like she’d been granted permission to raid the mess hall, turning a light kiss and peck into something much deeper.

Tia started to pull back, but Alex held her close, refusing to let her go. Alex giggled as Tia turned her head away so she could breathe.

“Ertan, it just needed to be a peck.”

Alex didn’t answer immediately, as she read red text she had seen before, in what felt like a time long, long ago.

|NANITE SYSTEM DETECTED|

|AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE|

|AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE|

|AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE| AUTHENTICATE|

The visual indication was joined by an audible one, a slightly robotic version of Tia’s voice whispering in her ear to authenticate. That made her giggle again, “Your MainComputer sounds like you, even.”

A moment of silence passed as Tia waited. After a minute she looked at Alex with concern. “Why are you resisting it? Just let it go. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Alex grinned, “Okay.”

|CHI COMMAND OVERRIDE| FAILURE|

|OMEGA AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED|

Tia tried to pull away, a look of alarm filling her face, but Alex didn’t let her go.

A blue light pulsed from inside Alex’s bag as Nameless’s voice greeted her.

[Informative: This unit has assumed control of 321 computronics modules, including twelve local modules. Avatar ANUF processing has been restored. Sub-Core Celestia processing has been set to minimal levels. This unit will now analyze historical records data and process current ongoing activities.]

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