***
"Transportation will be provided?" the docking area's airlock flashed green.
What sat in the docking cradle was shaped…differently. Still recognizably a jump-capable ship, with large maneuver engines, vaguely reminiscent of a corvette. "Billie, how long has this been here?"
"It docked with the Envoy aboard last night, why?" Billie's avatar asked.
"Last night." Amanda Yeh scowled, "and you told nobody??"
"I informed Station Management." Billie said primly.
"Yourself."
"I often have to tell myself things. How else would I know them?"
"You didn't tell anyone else!"
"I often have to keep secrets, this was diplomatic traffic."
“Hmmm… I guess but then you told my sister who
dad really is.” Amanda said.
"She
asked me the right way."
“I still am not happy about learning from a recording but then again this whole situation is screwed up in ways I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.” Amanda shook her head.
"Just imagine what it's like from the other side, Amanda." The Envoy seemed to appear out of nowhere, and checked her watch, "Well, Otto's a little late, I must get on that man about checking his clock."
Ardis cleared his throat, "You didn't specify a time."
"Oh! Right!! Too true. Everyone's got your goodie bags packed?"
“Yes.” Alison nibbled on some chocolate confection.
"Good-good-good. Simple enough rules once you're aboard
Tiny Armature, hands and other extremities stay inside except at designated stops, library's open, so are other designated guest areas, and please keep in mind, his sense of humour is…childish. He means no offense."
“As long as he doesn’t try hitting on any of us we should be fine.” Amanda shook her head.
"As I said, don't take it seriously." The envoy commented, "Because Tiny probably
will..."
“Great. Nick try not to punch anything for it trying to steal your girlfriend.” George said.
"No promises." Nick muttered.
“Besides I know who I like.” Alison blushed.
The Watch arrived, clan-style in full kit.
"Oh good, everyone's here now. Boarding this way." The Envoy motioned for them to follow.
"I do not recognize the class." Otto stated.
"Probably not, Tiny's new." The Envoy explained as if it settled everything, "i already warned the others, his sense of…decorum…is that of a poorly socialized fourteen year old boy with raging hormones and a childish sense of humour."
"Nothing a logic probe won't fix." Kralle, the senior Signals tech, noted.
"Please don't lobotomize your ride in flight?"
“Aff. We are guests. We should all behave as such.” Otto smiled.
Clamshell doors opened revealing the iris of the personnel lock. "Double locked?" Otto observed.
"Stylistic choice by the designer, it can handle personnel size loads, or larger." The Envoy explained, "the clamshell is to prevent unauthorized boarding, it locks down in flight and only unlocks by a command from the CIC. a tickler will just cut the power."
"How fast is she-"
"He." she corrected, "Tiny Armature is very much a 'he'...which gets annoying at times."
"How fast?"
"Two point five gees on safe thrust, four if he lights up the sunlight drives at full, but with passengers we'll be cruising at one."
“I see.” Otto gave a quick glance to one of the support personnel who quietly made notes.
"NEW?" one of the techs was almost delayed reacting. "Kolossus has a shipyard?"
"Yes. The ship class is yet unnamed over-all, but this one is tested on some runs, so Tiny's 'safe' for passenger service and courier duty."
“Seems impressive. Small Corvette size is it not?” Otto asked.
"I'm not small where it counts." a boyish voice came over the comm. "Welcome aboard. Hey! Can I show them CIC?? It's
really cool and we worked really hard to make it people-friendly and…"The Envoy held out a placating hand, "How about if you show them to their seating first, you can show them the command deck after?"
"Oh, right…okay…"
“Yes. From what I understand we will have some time during this trip for other activities.” Otto tried to put some charm in his voice.
The trip led them to a personnel quarters level with rooms already marked out for the entire party, set radially around a galley area.
"This…is very…nice?"
"Tiny isn't mature enough for a full military layout," The envoy explained.
“Still more space than what we get on a Bonnie.” Amanda said.
"This is luxurious compared to a
Union IIC." Tonya noted, "usually barracks levels are crammed and cramped."
"Diplomatic service currently. This level can be converted to house up to one hundred infantry in bay-type configurations." Tiny's voice explained, as a screen lit, showing a young teenage boy with a cowlick and odd, curly hair. "When I'm ready, Kolossus says I'll get the full ordnance package. Right now I have to do with just point defenses and light stuff."
Amanda glanced at Alison who nodded her head after a moment.
Ardis did some mental math, "You'll be slower then, won't you?" he asked.
"Yah…gotta sacrifice speed when the extra tonnage gets added, the core doesn't get bigger." Tiny confirmed.
"How much?"
"Kolossus won't say, but I won't get to
Cruiser size, or firepower, and I'm supposed to still be
relatively quick for a Destroyer once I've…matured enough. Which sucks, I want to be like one of the big ones…"
“Some of us have a fondness for Destroyers, especially the Lola frame.” Amanda smirked.
"So…you are incomplete, or just upgradeable?" Otto inquired.
"Upgradeable!" Tiny replied, "Everything on board is modular, and I've got an oversize power distribution net to handle it!!" the boy-image said enthusiastically. "But Kolossus says I'm not ready for that much capability yet. Kolossus says I have to 'grow into it more."
“Much like us humans must learn and spend time in service before we get to command a ship.” Amanda nodded.
"Kolossus says that too, but it sucks. I want to be big NOW… anyway! We've got departure clearance, everyone sit?"
Everyone stowed their bags and strapped into their seats.
“That’s right ladies. You can hold on to me as tight as you want.” Tiny said as the clamps released and he separated from the station.
The engines slowly came up once Tiny was far enough from the station.
“So you want to hang later and watch some holovids?” Tiny appeared on the closest monitor to Amanda.
“I’m going to be quite busy this trip.” Amanda said.
Once the engines evened out Amanda released her straps as did Alison.
Then Alison went into Amanda’s quarters.
Curious Tiny switched to his allowed feeds only to see Amanda and Alison taping over the cameras.
“We’ll take it off later. We promise, we just want some privacy right now.” Amanda said as she taped over the last camera.
“But there are only cameras in the common area of the room, not in the bedrooms or showers.” Tiny tried to protest.
“We know but with what we’re about to get up to we’re going to need the common area too.” Amanda giggled.
{Okay we’re going to have to communicate like this.} Amanda used sign language.
{So how bad should we tease him?} Alison signed.
{Let’s just build up a good sweat, enough to get our faces flush and breathing hard, and let his cameras catch just enough of us zipping our suits back up to be suggestive.}
{That’s good. Oh hey give me one of your spare bras. I’ll pretend I grabbed the wrong one and bring it back later.}
{When you do hide one of yours with it.}
{Duh. Have to complete the ruse.}
{I wonder if we’ll actually get him to blow a circuit.}
{If not we’ll just have to figure out a more thorough way to tease him.}
{Okay time to take off the outer layer.}
“It has been way too long since we did this.” Amanda spoke out loud as the two unzipped their outermost layer of clothing.
“I know. I almost forgot what it was like.” Alison giggled as she tossed her top on a chair.
“I forgot how ticklish you are.”
“It is an unfair advantage you’ve always had on me.”
“Okay enough loafing. Time to get to the real work.”
“Yeah.”
About an hour of intense exercise and grappling practice later“Oh yeah that’s the spot.” Amanda said as Alison was massaging her upper back.
“Right here?” Alison applied more pressure.
“Ooohhh… Not so rough.”
“You’ll feel a lot better in a moment.”
“Mmmmm…. Oh yeah. You’ll have to finally teach me how you do that one of these days.”
“Trade secret.”
“Need a shower after all that.”
“Yeah. Okay time to take the tape off the cameras.”
{You think he was listening in?} Alison signed
{It’d be a shame if he wasn’t.}
{Well now I’m actually in the mood to have some fun with Nick.}
{Slightly jealous.}
{Your standards are too high. You need to loosen up so that when you do find the right guy you won’t be completely clueless as to what to do on a date.}
{Don’t make me throw a pillow at you! Ready?}
{Yeah.}
Amanda took the tape off the common room camera.
It clearly started panning around the room just in time for Alison to finish zipping up her jacket and adjust her glasses.
Those two are mean! But hot. Okay play it cool. Maybe I’ll see something interesting when they do their physical training later. Tiny thought to himself.
“Have fun ladies?” Tiny tried to sound innocent.
“Sure did Tiny. Sorry about the tape but we’re weird like that when we do our training.” Amanda answered.
“Yeah. I only like dressing down like that in select company.” Alison giggled.
“Well let me know next time and I promise to turn off the cameras so you don’t have to tape over them.” Tiny offered.
“For being such a good boy, sure. Next time we’ll take you at your word.” Amanda smiled.
***
CIC was quiet. "Are you being good, Tiny?" Persuasion asked.
"Define good?" Tiny deflected.
"You're not spying on your guests, are you?"
"I'm just maintaining safety requirements." Tiny deflected again. "There was some interruption on my interaction interface with the guest quarters."
"Malfunction?"
"No. Tape. I think they think I'm being a peeper." his avatar appeared on a side-screen, "Persuasion, why would they think that? Did you say something?"
"I might've mentioned your love of dirty stories." she said.
'That's mean!"
"Yes, it is." she nodded. "Status?"
"We're still three standard days from the jump point." he answered, "Charging is going well on main drive, fuel use is within green zone expectations, environmental systems are functioning normally."
"If you were a peeper, who'd you be watching?" Persuasion asked, "Just curious."
"Nick seems neat, and there's an increase in Alison's heart rate when they're close, along with surface temperature increases on both their skin when they look at each other. Which doesn't jibe with the audio logs I just recorded between Alison and Amanda, which fits with several stereotypes of erotica, but no physical signs of attraction of that sort on file…"
"They're messing with you."
"Can I mess with them back then?" he asked.
"Keep it classy, Tiny. You don't want bad feelings by the end of the trip."
"I should like to obs-"
"Don't do that." she cautioned.
"How am I supposed to learn anything real if I don't observe the processes? Besides, they MESSED WITH ME."
“One if they’re really doing that they would go into the bedroom where you can’t watch anyway. Two trust me when I say violating privacy like that is a bad idea.”
"Oh! So only observe in public areas, and what they're willing to show to others! Thanks!!"
His image blinked out.
"What have I just done?"
****
Tiny Armature ran through the recreational and music files in the ship's onboard library, while another portion of the AI's attention pored through data on human dating cycles and rituals as depicted in popular media over the last thousand years.
More than a few options were off the table. Rose petals weren't in stores, the bathing spaces were showers, not bathtubs, and the provisioning didn't really include many of the staples in humanity's writings like oysters or wine.
These deficits would have to be resolved later but for now he would make do with what he had.
But mood music? There were petabytes of mood music from human media and he could control the lights.
Internal monitors showed his guests were starting to move around the permitted areas of the ship.
okay, play with me? Alright, let's play…Nick and Alison were in the galley area. He reduced lighting by twenty percent, shifting from blue-white to a 'warmer' hue range, and queued up 24th Century Classix artist Diedro Nahama's 'Love theme from Avalon' at low volume, adjusting the speaker outputs to make it as ambient as possible.
“You arrange this?” Alison looked at Nick.
“Neg. Though I must admit the music is pleasing.”
“Well I didn’t… Hmmm…”
Tiny detected Otto coming out of his quarters, and immediately cut the music and shifted the lighting to normal.
“Oh my, was I interrupting something?” Otto asked innocently.
“No. Not really.” Alison hesitated.
With that first test, Tiny now had his first self-directed experiment.
Kolossus will be so proud of me for finding a new experiment of my own!“Well I shall keep my interruption to a minimum so you two can go back to whatever it is you weren’t doing before I came along.” Otto smiled.
interesting. I wonder if I can influence everyone's moods this way..? It would be something to keep him occupied. Tiny began matching music to each member of the guest party based on their known algorithms and preferences.
Otto quickly grabbed his meal then went back to his quarters. In the corridor, a faint steady rhythm from a 22nd century spy movie started to follow him to his quarters…
“Most peculiar… Tiny is it? Is there some fault in your audio systems? I did not ask for music.” Otto said as he opened his hatch.
"What music?"
“I will take that as a
yes then. I highly recommend you run a full diagnostic on your audio systems. There seems to be a song following me around and I did not ask for one and I am reasonably certain I am not hallucinating.” Otto said as he sat down at the provided desk.
"Maybe it's your theme…?"
“I do not have a theme following me around elsewhere. There is a fault in your systems. Address it.”
"I'll run a few more tests." Tiny assured him.
This is going to be so fun!!Amanda came out of her quarters stalked by a heavy synthrock theme from the flying scenes of a Federated Suns action drama about the War of 3039,
Dancer’s Theme.
She looked around and found Alison and Nick still in the galley.
“Ugh… Worst part is I used to love this song when I was nine and watching the movie it is from on the trivid but now that I’m grown up, it’s grating on my ears a bit.” Amanda joined them.
“Hmmm, it actually seems to go well with the music Tiny is playing for us though.” Nick observed.
“You know now that you mention it, it shouldn’t but the two songs do just seem to work…” Alison focused on the competing songs.
“You know what this is in response to don’t you?” Amanda said.
“Yeah. We got two choices. Which do you want to go with?” Alison asked.
“Something tells me this will not end well.” Nick said as Amanda grabbed Alison’s hand then intertwined her fingers with Alison’s. “I will be in my room when this blows up in your faces.”
"Get Ardis to fix it?" Alison asked.
"I think so."
“You know this is most likely because he figured out what we really did earlier.” Alison pointed out.
“Yeah. We should stop by Elspeth’s too. Ardis will probably need her help.”
“Yeah. All’s fair in prank wars.”
“Careful Alison. Don’t want to give Tiny ideas, there should be limits.”
“Oooohhh…. Yeah. Should we even bother to keep walking hand in hand?”
“In this case I consider it a reward for Tiny. He’s got us this round.”
“He does deserve a little something doesn’t he?” Alison brought Amanda’s hand up and kissed the back of it. “Okay that was weird. No offense Amanda, you’ve got a body that most women would kill for and thus I can understand why lesbians would fall all over you but… Yeah. Doing that even for show for Tiny’s sake was weird.”
“None taken. Neither of us are actually that way. So that particular ruse was destined to fail if we kept escalating it anyway.”
“So what is our next play?”
“Later.” Amanda pushed the button on Elspeth’s panel to alert her that she had visitors.
“Just a second… Where did I leave my bra… There it is! Coming!” Elspeth answered.
Elspeth was still adjusting her shirt and coveralls when she opened the door.
“We come at a bad time?”
“Oh no. I just got out of the shower.” Elspeth answered as her hair shined in the light to confirm the fact.
“You notice any music following you around?”
“Yeah. I kind of like it.” Elspeth answered.
“Not everybody does and if we don’t get it to stop it is only going to be a matter of time before it causes an incident.”
“Aw. I hate that you’re right because I really like Tiny’s selection for me. It is a jingle from a commercial for a breakfast product that I used to see all the time when I was young and brings back some of the few good memories I had from before I met you guys.”
The music changed as the three walked to Ardis’ room. A slow synthetic rhapsody that none of the women recognized.
Alison pressed the call button on Ardis’ door.
Ardis opened the door, tool kit in hand.
“Ah good, you already grabbed Elspeth. Okay let’s get to work.” Ardis said.
“Don’t like your theme music Ardis?” Elspeth asked.
“Not particularly, no. It is distracting.” Ardis answered.
“Let’s fix that shall we?” Amanda smiled.
“Yeah.” Ardis joined them.
“This new theme, it seems familiar…” Alison pondered.
“It’s Ezekial Waznowsky’s fusion of the electronic synthesized version of The Beast of the Outback and the theme from Immortal Warrior 52.” Ardis stated flatly.
“Shit it is, isn’t it? I didn’t even notice it until you pointed it out.” Amanda was amazed.
“This way.” Ardis led the small entourage.
They followed him through several passageways and compartments until he stopped them.
“Elspeth I’ll need you to hook in there and run interference for me so I can work. Amanda, Alison. Well if you can think of a way to help distract Tiny, that might help this go faster.”
“And you know I’m slightly hurt that you didn’t ask me to be in on your little scheme and went with Alison instead.” Elspeth added.
“Only because I know you so well and know how method you get.” Amanda defended herself.
“True.” Elspeth answered as she hooked her rig into Tiny’s system.
“How long?” Amanda asked.
“Depends on how much Tiny fights back. So get to the distracting.” Ardis started pulling a wall panel off.
“Okay, back to the galley and distract him there?” Amanda looked at Alison.
“Yeah.”
The two were chased by an old song called
Entry of the Gladiators.
***
In the Galley, one of the Watch Techs (Bethany) was standing on a table, angrily shouting at the air, "You
Could try something Original!!"
The music cut off.
“Better!” Bethany started climbing off the table. "Instead of playing what everyone else plays on the common entertainment…top forty
crap... Oh! Hey."
Amanda and Alison shared a quick giggle at the sight.
“Hello.” Amanda said. “The problem is being worked on, but say care to help us distract the AI?”
"I wouldn't
mind so much, but I've just spent the last three hours dealing with a constant loop of the same frelling four songs-and I didn't LIKE stupid love song pop music when Cassie played it in the shop…"
“Well this is about to get weird.” Amanda went to a panel and began tapping into the media library until she found a particular song.
“I’m Alison Stabler.”
“And I’m Amanda Yeh M5 7775551.”
"And I'm not drunk enough for this…Karaoke, really??" Bethany visibly
winced.
“And this is our distraction!” The two women started dancing horribly out of synch with the music.
The beat was clearly Euro tech synth music that you could find in millions of dance clubs, painfully generic in many ways. No real uniqueness to it.
Bethany scooped up her terminal, and headed for the p-way to the airlock.
“So Tiny, enjoying the show?” Amanda asked as she danced, poorly.
The music cut off.
"Not really. I thought it would be funny and I'd learn things. Now everyone's mad at me and two of you are trying to hack my hardware."
“Things are getting out of hand aren’t they?” Amanda admitted. “We all really should just stop.”
“We’re sorry for being such teases. It was mean of us.” Alison offered.
“Yeah that was cruel.” Amanda added.
"Some of it was funny…you just took it too far, Tiny." Nick and George were standing in the door to the galley off their quarters. "I liked that spoken-rhythm beat you were playing while we were sparring, y'know?" George said, "but you got intrusive with everyone, and some people don't react well to that at all."
"Boundaries." Nick added.
“And that jingle you found for me, well it was sweet.” Elspeth walked into the galley.
“We were never actually hacking your systems. But I did find this sub processor that needed replacing.” Ardis held up a chip.
“You mean…” Tiny seemed confused.
“Tiny I don’t blame you for focusing on Amanda, or even Alison, but being completely ignored? Hurts a single girl’s feelings.” Elspeth frowned.
“I am so confused…” Tiny admitted.
“She’s saying she’s actually receptive.” Amanda translated.
“Really?” Tiny perked up.
“Yes. Let’s just say I have a hang up that makes dating humans more of a commitment than I’m willing to make at this point in my life.”
“What does that mean?” Tiny asked.
“Consider it a topic of discussion for later.” Elspeth cut off Amanda as she was about to say something.
“And now it's time for me to finally have some proper alone time with my boyfriend. Oh I still need to return your bra Amanda.” Alison tugged on Nick’s arm toward her quarters.
“After you and Nick have fun.” Amanda smiled.
Nick and Amanda disappeared into her quarters.
“To soothe things with the Watch personnel we will blame the faulty subprocessor Ardis found for the music and truthfully say the issue has been resolved if they ask for details. That way no one has to face their wrath and it is what we should do to make up for Amanda and Alison’s prank.” George said.
“Agreed.” Amanda said.
“You’d really do that for me after we just met?” Tiny asked.
“It is only fair since I started it and they are innocent victims in this and well I never gave you a fair chance to make a good first impression.” Amanda nodded.
“We are a team. We have each other’s backs, even when one of us makes a mistake that gets out of hand. So it is the least we can do to make it up to you.” George agreed.
“You guys… Man if this was a holovid I think this is where we’d just become friends.” Tiny said.
“We’re not quite there yet but there’s a good chance we’re now on that path.” Amanda smiled.
“I’ll take it.” Tiny said happily.
