Among Stars

Quera

"Aaand, that should do it," Naina said and wiped sweat off her forehead. She was in an oval room with glass walls and a glass ceiling. There had been a table and chairs, but Naina and Perez had carried them away. Now, in the middle of the room, stood a pedestal-like structure that was about the height of Naina. So about chest-level to Perez.

Naina stood before the pedestal with tools in her hands, and her hair in more of a mess than it had ever been. She was sweating, and sooty all over. Miles of wires and cables criss-crossed the floor of the room and met in the middle, going into the pedestal.

"It's a pretty nice place for it," Perez said. He was standing slightly behind the tiny elf. His hands were dirty with all kinds of stuff too, and his clothes looked less like a military uniform, than an old storage sack.

"They must have originally meant this to be the ship's control room," Naina said. "And then just converted it to a viewing area. All the interfaces and cables and connectors were too easily accessible from there for it to be just a fancy aquarium for nerds," she chuckled.

"I don't mind though, at least this one has more space than what I have in Travelstar," she laughed and remembered the absolutely tiny compartment where Quera's core still was.

"Quera, boot her up," Naina said.

"Acknowledged, Captain Melcey," Quera said. The pedestal lit up like a Christmas tree with all kinds of fancy lights popping up everywhere. "Everything seems to be in order. Oh. Even more so," Quera said. "You seem to have found something interesting, Captain Melcey."

Naina grinned. "Nice, isn't it! They not only had the NAIND cores, but they had the server blades, and a QAIe module! I've never even seen one. I knew they existed, but never seen one in real life," Naina babbled excitedly. "You're going to get another upgrade, and a big one at that," she said.

"I am looking forward to it," Quera said. "Everything has been backed up on Travelstar. Like you guessed, I had to overwrite some data on the ship's controller."

"That's fine," Naina said. I'll come there, take the backups, and... hmm. Hold up. Quera, does the station have a working data bank? Can we upload the backups there too? I'd rather not lose ten years of data if I don't have to."

"The installation has an adequate data bank online, uploading there now," Quera said.

"Great. I'll go pick the backups from Travelstar, wait for everything to be done, and then I'll bring Quera here," Naina said to Perez and walked out.

On the Travelstar, Naina was stacking mass-storage and datapads from all over the ship. She looked at the pile and laughed. "I guess we found something, right Quera?" she said.

"We did, Captain Melcey, we did." Quera said.

"Are you ready?" Naina asked.

"Transfers are all complete, if you're asking for that," Quera said.

"No. Quera. You and I both know you're more than a controller. You sometimes let it slip that you've gone a little further than I thought you could," Naina said gently. "I meant. Are you ready?"

There was a long pause. The only sound, beside the background hum of the station, was a tiny blinking light in the cockpit and a lone relay clicking away somewhere deep inside the ship.

"I don't know," Quera said. "I've been offline before, but this is different."

Naina nodded. "I know. I've never removed your core before. I can't even guarantee that I'll be able to install you in to the Infinity. I mean, I'm almost sure, but..." Naina said. "I don't want to lose you, Quera. We've been through too much."

There was a lengthy pause again. Naina listened to her own breathing.

"I know," Quera said. "I don't want to stop existing either," she said. "If I had a biological body, I'd go for a drink right now," she said, with a hint of amusement in her voice.

Naina laughed. "I know what you mean, Quera, I know."

"I'm ready now, Captain Melcey," Quera said after a minute or so. "I'm hoping this isn't the last time we will speak, but I'm now ready to be disconnected."

Naina nodded, and walked to the tiny alcove, where Quera's core was. She touched the core gingerly with her fingertips and sighed. She took the screwdriver from her pocket and opened the container. Looking directly into it, Quera's core was no more than a couple of fists in size, glowing like a futuristic firefly. Naina laid her hand on top of the core. It felt warm.

"Shutting down external connections," Quera said flatly. All around, lights turned off and screens darkened. Only the hyperdrive-come-converter was on. It now ran on its own power and didn't need Quera anymore.

Naina screwed open the kinetic inhibitors that held Quera's core in place.

"In case we don't speak again," Quera said quietly. "It was fun, these years with you... Naina."

Lights in the core blinked out. Momentarily, it was deathly quiet. Naina picked up the core gently and held it like it was the most precious thing in the universe.

"Thank you, Quera," she whispered quietly. She walked out of the ship, very carefully watching her every step. This was not a time to hurry.

It took her almost an hour to get back to the Infinity and to the room with the pedestal. She had made sure of every step so as to not fall down and accidentally break Quera's core.

Perez looked at her, then turned his gaze to Naina's hands. "Is that...?" he said.

Naina nodded slightly. "Yes. Quera. She's my ship's controller. But in all fairness, she has become a lot more. Maybe even my friend," she said.

She walked to the pedestal and held Quera's core above the receptacle. Carefully, she lowered the core onto it, and made sure the connectors were all aligned precisely as they should.

She pushed the core into the connectors and screwed the kinetic inhibitors tight. Closing her eyes, and drawing a deep breath, she placed her finger above a button that said "power," and let out a long breath.

She pressed the button, and the lights went out.