The Captain and his Executive Officer didn't have much to say after that. I slept then woke again and by the evening of the next day I was ready to leave the medibed. I had been moving my arms and legs, neck and head, gaining my mobility. I was able to sit up and lie down all on my own, at this stage. Now it was time to see if I could stand up and walk. Standing while holding onto the bed was easier than I thought it would be. Taking a step landed me on the floor.
"Miss, are you OK?" A male medical assistant approached me, to help.
"I'm OK." I took he offered hand and he helped me onto the bed again.
"Trying to walk? I think you need a little more conditioning on your muscles before trying anything further. How about some physio on your arms and legs to help stretch the muscles and ligaments? I am Corporal Hannerman, by the way, Miss." The guy was professional in his assistance, and I couldn't feel any creepy vibes from his attitude.
[Corporal Hannerman, aged twenty two, recovering gambling addict. Was busted for possession of stolen goods at sixteen and sent to juvie detention for two years until he enlisted in ASF. His record has been clean since then. He is working his way through medical training to become a certified medic. He's one of the good ones. Since leaving juvie, he's avoided anything to do with gambling. There are a number of communique from him to his male lover on a different ship. They met in basic training.]
OK, enough, enough! Nova would have kept rambling on about this guy's life story if I didn't have shut him up.
*Sniff* was his response. How could he even sniff without of nose is what I wanted to know?
Are you getting snitty on me, Nova? I asked in a stern voice, one my father had used on me and my older brother many times throughout my childhood.
[One does not snit in polite society.] Was his sarcastic reply. I sighed at his terrible humour.
I looked up at medical assistant next to me and gave him a tentative smile and lightly nodded my head. "I'd like that, please. I was starting to go crazy sitting alone with nothing to do."
"Oh, yeah. Your implant won't be authorised to use the ship's network. That makes sense, but you don't want to over do it too soon, or you could end up causing unwanted damage to your muscles or joints." He helped me back up onto the bed, then moved to the foot of the bed to the medial bed read out.
"Its says here that everything is in order, just your muscles are weak and your ligaments tight. You are underweight as well, but I guess you already knew that." I snorted out loud, then covered my mouth while looking at him.
I really was underweight. Six months in a modified cryogenic sleep in a gimmied-up space relic, it wasn't surprising that I'd lost a lot of weight. I don't even want to see what I looked like now. My hair felt greasy everyday and my skin dry. My lips were constantly peeling and my nails were brittle. I felt awful just thinking about it.
"Oh, but don't let that stop you from giving it a try, Miss." The guy looked like he was about to panic at my sudden sadness. "Hey, now. Look. You're going to be OK. The programme here suggests a light muscle rub down with stretching and flexing of your joints and ligaments. How about I find a nice medicated oil and we give it a go. Are you all right with a male medic giving you this treatment, Miss Cia?" He was professional and polite and I knew that he wasn't going to be take advantage of me or anything, just by his attitude and kindness. Knowing he wasn't attracted to the opposite gender helped as well.
"I'm OK with you administering physio therapy, thank you." I lay down and enjoyed the massage he gave. But when he went into bending and flexing each of my joints on my legs then arms, it was hard and aching work. By the end of it I was ready for sauna and a sonic spa. Too bad the medbay had neither. I groaned in pain when he'd finally finished the treatment.
"I know this caused a bit of discomfort, so can I suggest a muscle relaxant and analgesic?" Corporal Hannerman asked me as he wiped excessive oil off his hands onto a toilette.
"I think I'd better. I didn't know stretching exercises could be so painful." I moaned, feeling sorry for myself.
"Well, six months asleep in deep space will do that to anyone. I'm surprised you are already up and moving like this so soon after being woken up." He waved at me on the bed, indicating the physio he'd just helped me with. "Will you be up for another round again tomorrow, same time?" I smiled and nodded.
"Yes please. Also, where can a girl get a quality coffee around here?" I asked, pep back in my voice. He laughed and promised a double espresso with my next meal delivery.
It took another three days before I was walking around the ward on my own. I was still achy and sore in places, and the stretching became a part of my daily routine. Hannerman had added light strength training on day two and it helped a lot.
Medical gave me a clean bill of health and released me with a dietary requirements and exercise plan for ongoing care. After I said farewell to the medics who had taken care of me, Executive Officer Commander Railex met me at the door to the medical bay. Commander Railex is the Captain's 2IC, the older female voice of the conversation that I'd listened in on with Nova's help.
She's already had my story reported to her and her team, and I knew that they realised that my story didn't add up. When she invited me to her office for a chat, I knew she was after something more in depth. I decided to do this as I needed their help. I wanted to go home and the ASF was my ticket there.
Commander Railex's office was covered in a decade of military service. Plaques and awards, 3D ships models of spacecraft she'd probably served on, holographic pics of teams she'd served with. There were accents of an alien writing here and there that showed her xeno-interests.
"Thank you for joining me here. Please take a seat. Can I get you a hot drink?" She moved to her sideboard and served up a hot cup for herself.
"Yes, please. I'll take coffee with creamer and honey, if you have it." I sat in a single seater just in front of her small desk. She looked big on organisation, but not on wasting space. I liked that about the forty-ish year old woman.
"No honey, I'm afraid, but sugar plenty." She chuckled, probably at my outrageous honey request. It was a limited product from a protected species.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Habit I guess." I mumbled quietly.
"My guess you're from a high class family?" She handed me a hot coffee and laid the sugar packets and a teaspoon on the table beside me.
"Thank you," I said politely as I stirred in the sugar and took a drink. Hmmmm, so good. Can you even taste this, Nova?
[Unfortunately at this point of my assimilation of your bio... your meat puppet mainframe, I have not connected to your nervous system, nor your natural sensors.]
MEAT PUPPET?! I choked on my coffee and the concerned XO Commander handed me a serviette.
"You OK there?" she asked me.
"Sorry, yes. It went down the wrong tube. I'm fine." NOVA, that is horrible! What about your nanites? Didn't you steal enough already? We'd had a conversation about his stealing resources from Alliance Space Fleet, and when I'd asked him to stop his illegal acquisitions until I could actually pull together some creds to pay for it, he got in another snit with me. But at least he stopped his midnight manoeuvrings using the ship's fabricator.
"So, I hear your recovery is going well. I was surprised to hear that you were up and about on your second day awake. After your ordeal, it is quite admirable to see you growing stronger." She smiled at me.
"I was getting bored, so I found something to do." I shrugged a single shoulder and finished my drink.
"Anyone would think you are pushing yourself in preparation of running again."
[Very astute, this EO. I like her.] Nova commented with a chuckle in his voice.
"Again? Who says I was running in the first place?" I held myself firm in the face of this new threat, flexing all the muscles in my core – a trick my grandfather taught me. Flexing hands or feet was easily seen, and anyone with an ounce of business acumen would see that as a sign of weakness.
When Commander Railex chuckled in reply and I knew I wasn't dealing with a 'turnie', or what we used to call interns in the corporation. She wasn't new to this type of interrogation. I sighed.
How much can I trust her with, Nova? I asked my built in technological confederate.
[Tell her everything. Her records and communique, both professional and private, are clean. She is trustworthy.] His reply gave me much peace and comfort. I really needed to tell someone else about everything, someone who wasn't stuck in my head. What about her boss? I asked about Captain Sorten who was in charge of the ASF Clements space cruiser.
[He's clean too. At this point I can't rule out anyone else above him, though.]
"Is your office secure, Ma'am?" I asked and looked her in the eyes. "Can I trust this goes no further than your Captain?" I knew it was rude of me to ask this of her. I dropped my frightened little girl persona that everyone had seen in medbay, leaned back in my seat, cross my right leg over my left, and relaxed my shoulders back into the seat. I acted like it was my office we were sitting and chatting quietly in.
She took note of the every minute action and leaned back herself. She still displayed an open manner, but the slightly raised brows showed she was surprised at the changes in me.
"Yes, it is. We do have listening devises, but I can have those turned off or on at will. I have turned them off, you may speak freely."
Nova? I asked, knowing he was able to verify the validity of her statement.
[She has indeed turned the listening devises off. I admire her honesty. Hmmm-mmm.] He hummed, which I took to mean he was happy she was truthful. For a digital entity who liked stealing resources form a multi- government organisation to place value in a being's moral compass, I found this rather interesting. I watched her a moment longer, deciding whether I should do as Nova suggested and tell her everything.
"What about your implant?" I asked out loud while internally asking, Can you tell if she is recording this conversation or not? How do I know that she won't just upload her personal implant's recording?
[No, Cia,] he replied. [No way to tell until a message carrier lands in the ships communique cache for delivery.]
Hmmm, was my reply.
"I will not pass on what I may or may not record on my personal implant." She shrugged and I knew she didn't care if I believed her or not. "You will have to just trust me on this one." She finished her drink, with a little smirk on her lips. It was like she was seeing me as a little kitten trying to play at being a tigress. She was accommodating me, a visitor in her domain. She was perfunctory, polite and willing to give and take until the take took too much. Then she would turn into an XO who had a whole ship's crew of ASF personnel at her finger tips. What that would look like, against someone like me? I didn't want to find out.
I leaned forward, clasped my hands together and hooked them over my crossed knees.
"My name is Travicia Briller, heir apparent to the Briller Corporation on Briller Corp Prime. Seven months ago a trusted confidant and personal assistant aided local mercenaries, paid by my father's blood related brother, to kidnap me and deliver me to a smuggling establishment with the intent of disposing of me. I was awake for one day while incarcerated in a holding cell with thirty other live cargoes, many with pirate branded slave collars.
"I met a Mr Nicholae and a few of his... subordinates. I was then separated from the merchandise and placed in a store room alone. My BrainComp wasn't disabled, whether that was because they didn't know about the added bio-security and upgrades that my family paid to have installed when I was younger, or if they were instructed not to wipe it clean, I don't know. What I do know is that store room had shelves of crates and boxes, some of which held manuals and tutorials for piloting shuttles and planetary ferries."
[Hssss, you shouldn't have said that. If they find the smuggling base, they can verify your statement with evidence or lack thereof.] Nova's warning gave me a bit to think about. Like, only lie when your words can't be verified.
Well, what else was I supposed to tell her? That I had a digital entity download itself to my firmware and make itself at home in my brain? I looked up at Railex and continued my story.
"I escaped through a bolt hole on the underside of the asteroid. I actually thought it was the main shipping deck. The only shuttle I could get open was the one you found me in. They found me trying to escape but I cleared the space dock in time. I was nearly shot out of the sky when fighters came after me. The coordinates an be verified on board the shuttle computer. It should give you a location for the smugglers den as well."
The look on Commander Railex's face showed incredulity. She really couldn't put faith in my unbelievable story. Since when has a princess to a ka-trillion credit loaded company ever got kidnapped and set herself free again while piloting rust buckets into unknown space. Since never.
"I set the jump drive into subspace with no clue to the destination. There was an emergency override that would dump me back into real space once the shuttle's power ran low. I found the refresher unit was actually a cryogenic chamber that the smugglers had installed on the shuttle. I figured out how it worked, stepped in and turned it on. Then I slept."
"There was still seventeen days of rations still available on board. Why didn't you use them up? Why not wait for rescue?" The Commander asked.
"I wasn't going to wallow in self-pity and loneliness for half a month waiting for a rescue that would never come." I paused in my story telling, blinking some fake tears away. I looked up at her again and gave her a self-depreciating smile.
"I hadn't actually planned to ever wake up. I truly knew the very low odds of anyone ever finding me out there. That nebula was supposed to be my grave." I shrugged a shoulder and sat back in my seat, story having finished being told. "You know? I very nearly didn't bother with the emergency distress beacon. It was a last minute decision. I was so close to being lost forever."
"Yes, indeed," was the lady's reply. "We will notify your family on your behalf once we transition into the New Cali Sector tomorrow. If everything goes well, you will be able to meet up with your family or corporation representatives in less than two days. Until then, please sit tight and enjoy your stay."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is an ORIGINAL webnovel by author JV Findlay. Feel free to support her work over on ko-fi.com/jvfindlay ♥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~