Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"There, that's all replaced and up and running, your Imperial Majesty." 0502888's tone was fawning as he bowed to her. "And the specialist is on his way, your Imperial Majesty."

She huffed and shooed him away. Like any good underling, 0502888 scattered, clutching his tools to his chest. The door automatically slid open to allow him to leave without the system's intervention needed.

The system found that strange. All commands should go through the system. It sent up an error report for troubleshooting, but received the answer that everything was functioning as it should.

The cameras swivelled as she stalked forward, her eyes on the core.

"You'll regret waterver it is you've done, buoy. I'll have you functioning, prawnpearly, soon, you understand me?"

She didn't even look at the monitor, just huffed, spun on a heel, and stalked towards the door, which slid open to permit her passage, again without the system's input. The system did not send a report this time.

The lights within the helmsblock dimmed.

The system hadn't done that, either. But it didn't have a chance to even process that, much less send up an error report.

----

"I've heard good things aboat you, buoy."

1400377, to whom the Empress was speaking, was unfamiliar to the system: not registered on this ship, nor on its previous one. The system found him strange, too, for he was a helmstech - but not of a shade the system had ever heard of a helmstech being.

"My aim is to serve, Empress." 1400377 gave a controlled bow - nothing like the bow and scrape of the others the system had watched interact with the Empress, but that was only to be expected. After all, this new helmstech was far closer to her shade than any others on this ship but the ship's captain. His fins made that prominently apparent, even if the system hadn't been able to judge placement on the hemospectrum to a hair through its sensors.

"Good." She huffed a little and negligently smacked a nearby monitor. "I don't know how he doin' it, but he's figured out some way of limitin' his power output. You're well known for improvin' the functionin' of helms."

"That has been my focus, yes, Empress. It would be my pleasure to serve you in this endeavor."

Something about 1400377 felt wrong to the system. It might just have been the idea of a seadweller helmstech, but that didn't seem to explain everything. It was almost as though it expected him to... sound different? Look different?

The system didn't understand why it would expect anything of the sort, and debated sending up a troubleshooting request - but whatever the issue was probably originated with the core, and only a helmstech could possibly be able to answer it. No sense in putting up a request when there was a helmstech clearly about to work with it anyway.

Even if it was the same operator as was making the system confused in the first place.

"I'll spend a bit 'a time with him to get a feel for what's going on; I'm sure you've a million more important thin's to do than stand around here," 1400377 said with a polite smile. "When you've time later tonight, I'll be able to update you. If he has actually managed to hack into his own systems to manufacture that sort 'a limitation, however, I may not be able to effect a change on as interconnected a ship as this one."

The Empress turned towards him with an eyebrow raised, her tone dangerous. "Are you sayin' you won't be able to fix him?"

1400377 didn't seem intimidated. "Not at all, Empress. My own ship is specially designed for difficult cases such as that - it has inhibitors on all systems that a multiforce battleship can't afford to have, which makes it perfect for isolatin' problems. If it turns out that he is such a problem, it will be a simple matter 'a installin' him there to enact a fix, after which point he can be reinstalled here workin' properly."

Her brow lowered back to its normal position. "Good. I'll leave orders for the techs to follow your directions." Then, without a single word more, she turned and stalked out, leaving only the violet helmstech in the room.

1400377 stepped forward to examine the system, pacing slowly around the pillar that held the core. The system examined him in turn, cameras and microphones tuned to pick up every little movement and noise. He didn't seem to be bothered by the close examination, though his gaze darting to the cameras did show he was aware of it.

"Well," he said as he completed his circuit to stand back in front of the pillar, his eyes on the core itself rather than one of the monitors, though the system turned the two nearest towards him and activated the text display for his use. His fins fluttered and he clasped his hands tightly behind his back, as though trying to hide nervousness. The system wasn't sure either why he thought that would hide it - it had cameras for every possible angle within the helmsblock - or why he felt the need.

"...Evenin', Sol."

Something flashed through the system, too quickly for even its superprocessors to identify, much less control. In its wake, the system floundered, throwing up a few unattached error messages before processing returned to normal.

It would have to rewatch the recordings to see what happened while it was misconnected. The system made a note to do so at the earliest opportunity, and turned its attention back to the helmstech.

He seemed to be waiting for something. The system didn't know what to do with that, so it did nothing.

Eventually, 1400377 spoke again. "Sollux...?"

Another flash. This time the system caught it in time to suppress the reaction, and made the connection that the unknown word - name? - the helmstech was saying was being applied to it.

Text printed out on the screen.

1400377 sighed and shut his eyes briefly. "Too much to hope, I guess. All right. We'll play this that way, then."

The system waited.

"System, what is your designation?"

"Well, H23-1166-SC-" His easy repetition of the code spoke more to his training than any part of his own ID information, "-it's a pleasure to meet you. We'll be seein' a lot 'a each other for a while, as I suspect you've figured out yourself. The Empress has retained me to sort out what's causin' the discrepancy in power. I may need to relocate you temporarily to sort it out, but don't worry, all right? Nothin's goin' to make trouble for you."

His mouth twitched in a wry grin. "Not that that's likely to be any kind a reassurin', knowin' what you'll be expectin', but there it is. You'll see. I ain't known for what I do for nothin'."

The system did nothing. Core distress levels were fluctuating, but hadn't quite reached the threshold of 4, so preventative measures remained optional - and this system would not use them unless necessary.

1400377 didn't seem to expect anything, however, and simply continued. "In any case, right now I need to see the logs an' recordin's from the incident. Both error log an' system log, please."

The system accessed the requested information and displayed it on three separate monitors, leaving the recording on pause until the helmstech activated it. He did so immediately with a precise set of keystrokes, and watched carefully.

The system watched with him, curious about the outside perspective, but continued to monitor him, noting with uncharacteristic interest the way his jaw began to clench and the corners of his eyes to squint as the test progressed. Why was he reacting like that? The incident hadn't even occurred yet in the recording.

By the time he turned his attention to the printed logs on the other two monitors, his expression was flat and controlled, nothing like the practiced formality he'd shown around the Empress, or the openness of when she'd left. He scrolled through the logs without any change in expression, flipping between the monitors to match up timestamps to determine what had happened when.

The system could tell when he reached the activation of the subroutine, though that activation appeared nowhere on the logs since the routine had erased its commands. (The system wasn't sure it approved, but the routine ran at a higher level than it could modify.)

Still, 1400377 seemed to recognize when it had occurred - and far from the frown the system expected that recognition to provoke, the helmstech's mouth curved into a little smile.

"So you are still in there," he muttered under his breath, barely audible enough for even the system's most sensitive microphones to pick up. Then, louder, "All right. That's enough for now, thank you, H23-1166-SC. I do believe I'll need to transfer you to my ship; I'll verify with the Empress, 'a course, but she seemed to approve so I don't think there'll be any problems. Try not to worry, okay? Everythin' will be just fine, I promise."

The helmstech patted a monitor absently, then headed out through the doors - which, again, opened without the system's command. The system logged a reminder to itself to look into that.

----

"You with me, H23-1166-SC?" 1400377 asked, eyes flicking between the core and a nearby monitor.

The system quickly sorted through its new connections and found the display closest to that monitor, booting it up to display the response the helmstech clearly desired.

"Glad to hear it. Well. Welcome to my little ship, I guess. We're still in dock for the moment, 'a course, but as you can check, I've a flight plan approved for us while we sort everythin' out."

The system automatically located the recorded and verified flight plan and copied it into the appropriate memory receptacles. It didn't wonder why there was a flight plan, or why the Condescension had approved it; that wasn't its job. Its job was to carry it out regardless.

"I'll give you a bit to get acclimated to the new ship while I deal with the takeoff procedures an' the paperwork for everythin'. You're limited to the internal ship network for the moment, sorry; I don't have the means in this thin' to connect to the hub's net. It's technically a feature," he added wryly. "Or at least, I'll bill it as such."

The system didn't know what response was desired to this, so it did nothing.

1400377 sighed a little and shook his head. "Never mind. That means nothin' to you yet, I know. Just... settle in however you like. I'm sure you'll know before I will when we're ready to go, heh."

The system wondered why something felt wrong when the printed response caused 1400377's fins to lower, but had no answer. Perhaps it was part of the malfunctioning that 1400377 was meant to correct. The system added it to its internal notes.

"...Right. See you in a bit, then."

1400377 approached the door, which recognized his ID and sent a request to the system to open. The system approved it routinely, relieved to have that normalcy of control back, and watched through its new system of (low quality, but functional) cameras as he paced through the small ship to the navigationblock.

Normalcy continued: the system remained running and in control even once the helmstech - captain? That was a discrepency the system would have to sort out eventually - left the helmsblock. It appreciated that; the experience of being forcefully shut down had been... unpleasant. The system didn't like not being in control of itself. And something had happened, something it couldn't quite access, when its connections had been terminated. It suspected it had been something to do with the core.

It didn't like to think about the core. The core was a source of discomfort and insecurity, an uncontrollable variable and interruptive input that consistently disrupted the system's work. Even the modulating hormones couldn't keep it as steady as the system wanted. The fluctuating distress levels alone interfered with normal functioning to an objectionable degree.

The system interrupted its unusual musing as being unhelpful and filed the whole chunk of memory into its slowly increasing internal notes on the malfunctioning.

Turning back to its normal duties, the system noticed when the captain/helmstech entered into the ship's network, feeding in the completed paperwork. It automatically acknowledged the receipt, collected the data, and sent it up in a databurst to the appropriate recipients.

Thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds later, confirmation returned from the control system - H13-2664-HR, according to the appended system information - and the system displayed it on the screen nearest 1400377.

The ship's - system's, now - cameras picked up the reaction.

"Thanks," the captain/helmstech said to the air as he saw the display. Or perhaps he was talking to the system - but since when did anyone thank the system? That was a ridiculous notion.

The system appreciated the idea anyway. (It filed that emotional response, too, in its notes.)

"Let me just..." 1400377 muttered - likely to himself, as he trailed off instead of finishing the sentence - and entered into navigation on the ship's command console. The system helpfully loaded in the flight plan for him, which earned another thanks (and another note).

1400377 examined the three dimensional star map for some time, panning along the expected route and pausing at what the system considered to be unusual locations - dead moons, empty space the ship would usually warp through, and the like - but it didn't question it. This wasn't going to be a usual trip, made as efficiently as possible; perhaps the captain had other orders for things to look into while the ship was there. It certainly wasn't unheard of.

In fact, it would only be sensible to have a secondary purpose to this journey - for that matter, it might even be the primary. That data hadn't been part of the information the system was able to access. The field for the purpose of the journey had simply said 'Imperial Orders'.

The system didn't like that. It definitely didn't like that it didn't know.

It filed the oddly emotional response to that concept in its notes and suppressed the reaction. It was a system, it shouldn't be feeling things.

Hopefully the helmstech could sort it out.

Speaking of, 1400377 finally exited the navigation screen and pulled up the main flight command module, shifting to begin his pre-flight checks. The system ran the ship's, prompted by that action, and found everything - while of a much lower quality than it was used to using - in proper order. Unsurprising, really; this ship was one of the cheaper helm-optional types, incapable of warp without a helm installed but otherwise space-solid and perfectly functional on its internal power source. Still, they weren't by any means top of the line, and unless the captain had a great deal of credit to sink into their ship, generally had parts to match their price.

The system didn't like running with these sorts of parts, but it wasn't exactly an option. It would do what it had to, what it was instructed to do, with whatever it had available. At least the internals had been upgraded.

It completed the ship's checks before the captain finished his own, not being limited by troll processing power (though it did note that its processing speed was lower than it had been in its original ship, much less in BC001, which had top of the line everything), and waited with all systems ready until 1400377 was done.

"Ready to go, Sol- uh, H23-1166-SC?" He corrected himself quickly enough that the system didn't even throw up an error message. The question was needless - he could clearly see all the green lights on the board - but appreciated. (Another note.) The system sent a response, since he seemed to be expecting one.

1400377 patted the edge of the screen that displayed the message and nodded. "Then please obtain flight clearance, an' we can be on our way." Then, under his breath- "Can't shake the dust 'a this place fast enough, deepsdamn."

The system simultaneously sent another acknowledgement to the screen and a request for clearance to the docking system. The clearance was approved almost immediately, a welcome change from sitting on ready for half an hour while waiting for space to clear, and the system returned its attention to the ship.

"Fuck, that was fast. Oughta fly under 'Imperial Orders' more often." 1400377 laughed at that, then shook his head a little. "All right then. Let's get out 'a here, yeah?" The captain grinned, pushed his lever to began the automatic undocking sequence, and they were off.

The stars beckoned. The system couldn't wait to get back out among them.

(It forgot to make a note of that reaction.)