Digital Galaxies

“I’m bored,” I grumbled sleepily from my nest in one of the barrack’s bunks. I was watching Cerri work again because that’s all there was to do onboard the ship now. Shows always made it look like the mechanic on a spaceship was running around fixing things constantly, but nope… brand new ship that had been tuned to hell and back, the Turshen was purring like a kitten.

Cerri put down her datapad and gave me a look. “Alia, this is like the fifth time you’ve said that in as many minutes.”

“It’s because I’m bored,” I pouted, wriggling around until I was in a sitting position.

“That is your problem,” she smiled, lips quirked in amusement.  “I managed to keep myself entertained when there was nothing for me to do.”

“What did you do?” I asked curiously, enjoying the way she was speaking to me and working at the same time. I don’t know why I was enjoying that, but I was. Something about the way she moved while also flicking some eye contact to me every so often, a smile playing across her lips as she did so.

“Worked on… exodus stuff, but mostly I just played non-VR games. Long term strategy games and the like. I really enjoy the planning and thought you can put into them, along with… well, far too many spreadsheets,” she told me with a sheepish little smile. “You know, nerdy SAI data crunching games.”

A funny, wobbly feeling came over my chest as she continued to describe her exploits within the various grand strategy games she played. She was smiling and motioning wildly with her hands and just genuinely really enjoying herself as she explained one of her passions to me.

Eventually, I had to interrupt her, “You’re kind of brilliant, you know that?”

“I-I’m what?” she asked, searching my face with a gaze full of confusion.

“Brilliant,” I replied softly, waving my hand to encompass her. “I’ve met a few other SAI in my time, and you’re all just as diverse as us humans… actually no, even more so than us. You though, you’re so massively intelligent, it’s almost… I feel very lucky to be your friend. You’re going to do some pretty incredible things in your life.”

What had started out as a simple compliment had turned into something much more heartfelt, coming from deep within me. I meant every word too, she was just incredible.

“Oh,” she murmured, clearly unsure how to take my big speech. “That’s… very kind of you. I didn’t… I mean I haven’t really ever had anyone tell me such things.”

“It’s the truth,” I told her.

“Ah… well, you are also very intelligent Alia,” she said quickly, a little twinkle in her eye.

I couldn’t stop the amused snort that escaped me, girl was trying to change the subject on me. “Yes, but we’re talking about you right now.”

“I know, but I’m so… compliments are very hard to deal with so I’d rather we talked about how amazing you are instead,” she told me bashfully, trying and failing to simultaneously look at me and avoid looking at me. Gosh, it was cute. Cerri was really cute.

Wait…

Cerri continued to speak, changing the subject back to her games, but I was not listening, not at all. Because… what if I… I mean, it was obvious, right? Maybe this was just how things were with girls and friendship… no but, her smile was so good. Her twinkling eyes too, so full of life and intelligence and… she was so pretty, and cute, and funny.

Did I have a… a crush on her?

“I lost you, didn’t I?” she teased, now standing right in front of me, staring down as I gaped up at her in surprise, a blush rapidly growing across my cheeks.

My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. How the fuck had I not realised that I was crushing on her? My heart did little binkies of joy every time she touched me, my lips curved into a smile every time I thought of her… hell, I even daydreamed about cuddling her at pretty much every opportunity. Whenever she did cuddle me, I found myself lost in a sense of safety and affection, blissfully adrift among cotton clouds.

Fudge. This was not good! I didn’t even know if she had a sexuality, let alone if it aligned in my favour and even then she might not be interested in me back.

No I couldn’t be having these feelings for her, that didn’t make sense… was it really a crush? What even was a crush? God, I really needed someone to ask. Ed would have been the perfect person but… he still wasn’t very happy with me.

I needed to google it, there must be answers somewhere online. Had anyone quantified what a crush was yet? Maybe a scientific study that would outline the symptoms of a crush? Shit, I really needed guidance here!

A beep interrupted us both, Cerri turning back to her display. “We’re not far out from our objective now. Finally.”

Okay… okay… just put your mental crisis love explosion drama on hold for a second Alia, things are happening and you really need to concentrate. Freak out in your own time. Also try not to notice how good she smells.

“How long?” I asked curiously, pushing myself silently off the bed to stand next to her.

“Should be a few days before we reach the cloud proper, but we’re about to pass its outermost tendrils now,” she explained, whisking through new data that was flowing in a torrent onto her multiple screens.

“What even is this cloud thing?” I frowned, trying to make sense of what the ship’s sensors were telling us.

“Imagine… imagine a stone dropped into a pond and how the water ripples out from that point. Now imagine if those ripples were suddenly frozen mid-motion. That’s what we’re dealing with here,” she told me with a quick smile, her tail absently seeking out mine.

This time when our tails intertwined, I felt my mind hiccup and my heart stutter for a moment. I almost went limp there and then, the surge of emotion was so overwhelming. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold on for dear life while whatever was happening had its way with me, but I couldn’t because she was busy.

“Huh, that’s odd,” she whispered, leaning forward and easing the succubus spell she had on me.

“Oh no, don’t say that,” I groaned, placing my hand on her back, then promptly yanking it back as I realised what I’d done. Was it okay to touch her if I was crushing on her? “Um, bad things always happen when the scientist says that.”

“Nah, this is fine, it just seemed like the aether cloud flickered for a moment, disappearing entirely,” she said, waving off my concerns. “Probably malfunctioning sensors.”

“I don’t think so, I calibrated those myself!” I shot back, pulling up the sensor feed on my ocula.

Scrubbing through the data as quickly as I could, I went looking for what she’d seen. Sure enough, I found it. The cloud seemed to disappear off the scanners entirely, and I frowned with concern as I went back and forth over the event. I had damn well made sure those sensors were working!

What was I missing? What was I not seeing here?

“Fuck,” Cerri swore suddenly, reaching for her handheld comms unit.

On her screen, I saw what I’d been missing. She had zoomed the sensors out, apparently believing me regardless of what she’d said. What had I missed? The cloud hadn’t disappeared, it had just expanded to entirely encompass our scanner’s field of view, a microsecond, but it had happened.

“Gloria, get us out of aetherspace, now,” she screamed into the mic.

Crunch.

Reality stretched out in all directions, chromatic aberration on a physical level. In an instant, it reversed, contracting and snapping back into place with the force of a railgun round fired from orbit.

Everything spun, and it was all I could do to curl into a ball and hope I didn’t hit anything. This was way worse than when we’d been pulled out of aetherspace by the pirates. So much worse. My stomach lurched and warped within me, threatening to expel my most recent meal with prejudice.

A cold hand snagged me, I couldn’t see the owner, but it quickly became clear when I was haphazardly shoved into Bundit’s cockpit. A moment later and… oh gosh, oh gosh, oh no! Bigger crisis than the ship being crunched! Bundit had just shoved Cerri onto my lap! Help, what do I do? Wait… she needs to be secure!

I pulled the seatbelt out and wrapped it around both of us, pinning us both into bundit in a mess of elbows and legs and tails.

“Are you okay?” I yelled, wrapping my arms around her for extra support.

“Yes,” she replied, and it was at that moment that I realised her face was smooshed into my neck. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Bundit!” I giggled as the ship continued to spin wildly around us.

“Thank you Bundit!” she said breathlessly as Bundit’s chassis smashed into a wall.

Acting with inhuman speed that only an AI was capable of, the small mech activated its magnetic clamps and attached to the wall face first, protecting the open cockpit with its two fleshy charges crushed inside.

We clung to each other as the ship continued to spin uncontrolled through space. Whatever had just happened must have done a number on the ship for the automatic stabilisers to be out of commission. Guess I had a lot of work to do again. Silver linings?

“The cloud,” Cerri told me, voice strained by the contortionist position she was in. “It expanded again, we hit it… we should be dead. The ship should be nothing but subatomic particles drifting through space. Why are we still here?”

“I really hope we either both live or we both die,” I said with a hysterical giggle. “I don’t want to be apart from you.”

“Me neither cutie, me neither,” she replied, a warm smile in her voice.

As if in answer, the ship began to slow its vomit inducing carnival ride of tortured metal, until eventually, finally… it came to a rest.

Gloria’s voice crackled to life over the very abused sounding intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking, I apologise for the turbulence and very much hope your limbs are all still intact. Could we please have all the crew up on the bridge so we can figure out what the fuck just happened?”