In the morning, I went straight to the canteen to get breakfast for Nate and I, then headed for his dock. His guards were waiting outside as usual, and gave me a friendly nod when they saw me approaching. 

“Do you know if Nate is awake yet?” I asked. 

“No, but you’re welcome to go in,” the guard on the left said. “We’ll stick by you like usual.”

I nodded, and they opened the door to let me through. The dock looked empty, though the Hope’s cargo bay door had been opened. I stepped through, and was about to call out to Nate when I was hit from the side by a large shape. We were sent sprawling, and I cried out in surprise. The guards rushed in, weapons drawn, but relaxed when they saw what had happened.

“Oh man, Case, are you okay?” Nate asked, looking worried. He was getting up from where he landed, which was on top of me. “I didn’t expect to see you so early!”

“Blessed, did they give you subdermal plating too?” I groaned as Nate helped me up. Bruises were definitely going to be in my future.

“Sorry, I was doing some laps of the dock,” Nate said. “Gotta stay– oh.”

I turned to follow Nate’s gaze, then swore under my breath. Our breakfast had been smashed and scattered on the floor. We were lucky it didn’t get on either of us, but it was still upsetting. It must have been plain on my face, because Nate knocked on the top of my head to pull my attention away from the spilled food.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he said when I turned around. “I’ve got food on the Hope, and not just field rations. The good stuff.”

“The good stuff?” I echoed. After half a year of Frontier food, all I could remember about Ulthean food was that it was bad for me. “I’m sure we could just get more from the canteen.”

“You sure you want to pass up on Vander Cakes?” Nate asked, goading me. “I’ve got Whole Breakfast With Waffles.”

My stomach suddenly remembered the joys of Whole Breakfast, and sent messages to my brain that it better not say a word if it knew what was good for it. Even my mouth was about to start watering. It had been so long.

“Well…” I said, unsure at first, but Nate’s earnest expression won me over. “Okay, but we’re going to eat on the Benevolence. I will explain, but I can’t talk about it here.”

“Uh, sure,” Nate said, a little confused but willing to follow my lead. “Should I heat the food on the Hope?”

I shook my head. “Thats okay, my galley works,” I said. “You can just get the food and we’ll do it there.”

Nate nodded and jogged back to the Hope. In a few minutes, he was back with a few boxes of good old, ‘natural’ Ulthean breakfast. Notably, he was only wearing a dark t-shirt and pants, which was a relief. We were only going to the next dock over, but I was glad he didn’t have anything with Ulthea’s flag on it.

“No jacket?” I asked.

“Oh, Sarge said it was probably why that guy attacked me yesterday,” Nate said. “ It’s clean again, but I figured I’d leave it behind for now.”

I cocked my head. “Sarge being who?”

“Oh, them!” Nate said, pointing to one of his guards. “Sir Urthstripe said ‘no real names, no faces’, but she never said we couldn’t chat. They’re actually really nice, I just wasn’t able to talk to them until you gave me that Outer Lingua.”

I looked over to the one he identified as Sarge, who nodded. “He’s a good kid,” they said. “Just brought up Ulthean. No offense.”

I snickered. “None taken,” I said, then turned to Nate. “Ready?”

We made the short walk to the next dock over. As we did, I rehearsed how to introduce Nate to Benni. Nate, this is my friend, Benni! No. Nate, I’d like you to meet Benni. No. Now, it might be a bit of a surprise, but this is Benni! No… 

“Good Morning, Captain. Good Morning, Private Nathan Brooks.”

We both jumped as Benni’s voice came piping from the dock bay door intercom. Maybe it had been a little early to repair the radio array.

“What in the Blesseds’ names was that?” Nate asked, somewhat frantic. “How did it know me?”

The bulkhead doors slid open to let us in. “My Name Is Benni, The Ship AI Aboard The UAN Benevolence. My Database Has The Biomonitor Information Of Every Active Member Of The Uthean Army And Astronautical Navy, Stored Just Before Our Exodus. Also, You Were Here Yesterday. I Have Heard Much About You, Private Brooks. It Is A Pleasure To Meet You.”

Nate looked more than a little surprised, and maybe a bit scared. “It’s, uh. Nice to meet you?” he said, then leaned down to whisper to me. “Case, what’s happening?”

I led him into the dock where the Benevolence sat waiting, gesturing towards the ship with a smile. “This is Benni,” I said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“Um. Okay,” Nate said, frowning. “Thats the unleashed AI, right? I was told that it’s dangerous.” 

As we came closer to the ship, the cargo bay door lowered to let us in. “It’s not any more dangerous than we are,” I said. “We have free will and the choice to hurt others if we want, but we don’t.”

Nate grimaced even more. “Yeah, but it has missile pods, interior and exterior laser turrets, and a forward rail cannon on a gimbal,” he said. “We have fists and feet. It could blow up this whole station if it wanted.”

“The Reminder Is Appreciated, Private Brooks.”

Benni’s voice coming from the ship’s bay intercom made Nate jump again, and I laughed. “Nate, it’s fine,” I said. “Benni likes people. It has the same survival instinct we do, and it isn’t going to do anything as long as it doesn’t feel its life is at risk.”

“Or The Captain’s. I Will Not Allow Harm To Come To Her. Please Ensure This Does Not Happen, Private Brooks.”

“Whoa, easy,” Nate said. He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “She’s safe with me, big guy. Also, Captain? You called her that earlier.”

“Captain Black Was Given Command Of This Vessel By Me When I Was Taken Off Of My Leash.”

“Ship AI has the authority to do that?” Nate asked. “I thought only commanders could promote captains. You weren’t even in the Navy.”

“Nate, relax,” I said, squeezing his arm. “It needs a commanding officer, that’s just how its architecture works. Besides, who’s here to care?”

For a moment, Nate looked like he wanted to say ‘me’. Luckily for him, he changed his mind. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. 

“Come on, let’s make breakfast,” I said. I began to lead Nate into the ship proper, until Sarge called out to me.

“Just a moment, Miss,” they said. 

“Huh?” I said as I turned. The two guards were still standing at the bottom of the cargo bay ramp. “Aren’t you guys coming?” I asked.

“Sir Urthstripe’s orders were not to go into any Ulthean ships,” Sarge said. “I’m not certain it applies to yours, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I need to give you this.”

They held out a small clicker. I walked over and took it, giving it a once over. “What’s this?” I asked.

“Panic button,” Sarge said. “We all have one in case we don’t have time to radio in an emergency. If anything happens, hit that button, and we’ll be there.”

“Oh, thanks, but I don’t think I need it,” I said, holding it back out to Sarge. “Benni can keep an eye on us, and I’m really not worried about Nate.”

“All the same, you should hang on to it while you’re in there,” Sarge said, pushing my hand back. “If something went wrong, I couldn’t face Sir Urthstripe without having done what diligence I could.”

I rolled the panic button over in my fingers, feeling unsure. It felt like just having it projected distrust onto Nate, but it also didn’t seem like I had a choice. Pocketing the button, I nodded. “Alright. Thank you,” I said.

“Stay safe,” Sarge said as I made my way back to Nate.

“What was that about?” he asked.

“Overprotectiveness,” I said, then led him inside the ship.

As we made our way to the galley, I pointed out all the areas I had repaired, especially the ones that had taken heavy damage. Nate had a combination of pride and discomfort on his face, clearly impressed with what I was able to do, but each repair was a reminder of what the retrieval team had done.

“Those weren’t warning shots, those were a hairs breadth from textbook kill shots,” he said when we arrived in the galley. By now, the poor guy looked like he was about to throw up. “They really… they…”

“Did you think I was making it up?” I asked. I took the boxes from his hands and led him to sit at the table while I prepared the food. The Mealtastic™ Mk. 8 hummed as it filled the room with the smell of good old home cooking. “I would show you the cockpit, but I had to replace the whole thing. Do you see why I’m so hesitant to take Blessed Madsen at their word?”

“Is that why you wanted me to come here?” Nate asked, still a bit dazed.

“No, I wanted you to come here because these ships have eyes and ears everywhere,” I said, leaning on the counter. “You’ve seen the surveillance cameras around, right?”

“Sure,” Nate said.

“When I started repairs on the Benevolence, Benni and I found nearly thirty cameras hidden inside of walls, mirrors, beds, you name it,” I said, my voice grim. “There wasn’t an inch of truly private space.”

Nate grimaced. He had already looked bad enough, but this revelation was clearly starting to shake his faith. “But… But the Department of Cooperation has to make sure it can find dissenters, right?” he asked. “If they can hide and make plots in the bathroom, they can shake the foundations of Ulthea without anyone knowing.”

“Wh– I–” I stuttered, unable to comprehend where his thoughts were at. Was I like this back then, too? “Nate, invading our privacy for the sake of potentially finding citizens that disagree with the Blessed is just… It’s not okay! You’ve seen how little it took for them to try to retrain us.”

“Even harmless jokes can turn into dangerous plans,” Nate said darkly. He couldn’t bring himself to look at me. 

Just then, the Mealtastic™ Mk. 8 played a little jingle, ending with a prerecorded sound byte of the Blessed Srita Vander’s chirping voice, saying “Time to eat! Ooh, smells good!”. The silence that followed was deafening. I took the tablet with the prepared document out of one of my pockets and set it on the table in front of Nate.

“Read this,” I said. “I’ll be in the engine room. Eat breakfast if you want, I’m not hungry.”

He didn’t stop me as I left the room. I didn’t want him to. What I needed was to talk to Benni and try to cool off. Whatever Nate was trying to imply, I wanted to believe he didn’t mean it, that it was a line fed to him by the Blessed Madsen. I had to trust that he still trusted me.