Page 4 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

However, accessing subspace from a moving starship, calculating from new locations, finding a safe place to swing out, calculating the new landing location, and doing it all in an area wide enough to encompass an entire starship was incredibly difficult.

Alred knew all that. Knowing any of the math at all was why Sway had been on the list of potential candidates for navigator in the first place.

But since what he knew wasn’t actually navigation skills, his name had been low on that list. It was like asking a youngling who just figured out how to stand up to drive a hover.

The jump in skill was too great to be a reasonable expectation.

Still, Tanin had taken a risk on him because Sway seemed more trustworthy than the others. To Tanin, that quality was more important than what he knew. After all, knowledge could be learned, but the inherent character of a person could not.

Tanin kept the vow he made to Sway that day.

He never asked Sway to hurt or kill anyone ever again.

He ordered others on the crew to do so, but never Sway.

Even more impressively, Tanin convinced the others to give Sway that same consideration.

They made sure not to force him into a situation where he’d need to commit violence.

In return, Sway was determined to be the best navigator he could, even if he had to learn everything nearly from scratch.

So, he could do more work. He could always do more work.

He could keep the bad thoughts at bay and be a reliable member of the crew. He could.

A little light flashed on one of his displays, and there was suddenly a tiny person walking across his console. He was bright yellow, see through-

-and he had a face .

Sway blinked at the small light form, stunned. He was pretty sure when he last saw the computer person, just yesterday, Alred had been faceless.

The tiny figure stopped, turning to grin up at him with fists on his nude hips. He was male in shape but neutered for modesty’s sake. And he had a face . It was a very strange sight after years of only seeing him as a faceless, vaguely person-shaped figure.

The light form was a fake body for Alred to use to interact with people.

Alred was the ship’s acting AI, so his body was the ship, in a way.

But it was hard for regular people to hold conversations with a ship.

Or to see one as a real, living person. The light form was like a doll used to speak with them, giving them something more familiar to treat as the person Alred.

However, his body was not the ship, but actually his core attached to the ship.

The core was like a brain in a body, so it was practically the same thing as a person.

Alred, for all that he was acting as an AI, was still a sentient being.

Just a technologically based one. He still demanded the same respect and acknowledgement that any other being would.

But the light form didn't need a face. It never had. Alred’s eyes were the cameras and other sensors spread throughout the ship. Eyes on the light figure were as pointless as feathers on a rock. To see him with one now, so suddenly, was odd.

Especially when he smiled – with a mouth – up at Sway like nothing was different.

“ I’ve already started us on the docking route to Hir-Fallow, ” he said, his voice tiny in proportion to the tiny light form. “ Tanin is in the upper bridge now contacting them. I’m so excited for my upgrade! ”

“It’s the Humility’s upgrade, not yours,” Garnet said, chuckling as she stepped around Spot so she could stand beside Sway and look at the little Alred. “You’re not actually a starship, Alred.”

“ I am right now, ” he countered smugly. “ You can be jealous, it’s okay. Jealousy is a very normal, healthy reaction. Denying it wouldn’t be good for you. ”

“Jealous that I don’t weigh a few thousand tons and have lasers in my face?” She snickered, grinning at him like she wasn’t surprised that he suddenly had features. “Yeah, I’m totally jealous.”

“ They’re projectiles, actually. We don’t have the credz to afford lasers.

And I’ll have you know, I’ve dropped a few tons since I was an AI on Rik-Vane.

And I’ve not gained back enough to weigh nearly as much as the starship recycler I used to be.

So, I’m doing rather well on my weight, thank you.

I’m very healthy. It’s quite rude of you to shame me for my size. ”

Sway had no idea what a ton was, but it seemed like Alred was just playing along with whatever teasing game he and Garnet had going on.

So, he just smiled at the two of them as he checked the ship’s trajectory, speed, and coordinates.

They were going pretty slow – relatively speaking – as they came in on approach to their destination.

Short, slower-than-light navigations were easy for Alred.

As a computer, he was better at calculations than Sway. So, for standard navigation, he could do a lot of the work. The dynamic changes of subspace math, however, was more suitable for a non-computer based brain. With Sway and Alred together, they could get the Humility almost anywhere.

Hir-Fallow Station was massive, even by station standards.

It was dedicated to ship repair and upgrades and could accommodate multiple ships of many different classes all at once.

It also had an entire city within it for the workers that did those repairs and the crews of the ships who came in on those ships.

Sway couldn’t see it from here since the bridge didn’t have windows, but he could see the data that represented it on his holodisplays.

The others of the crew would enjoy the amenities of the station while they were here, doing a couple tasks for Tanin to help in upgrading the ship at the same time, but Sway had already volunteered to stay onboard.

Someone had to supervise the upgrades they were getting.

Since Sway in particular had to be here when the new subspace generator crystals were installed to do the calculations to get them calibrated, he might as well stay the entire time.

Let the rest of the crew enjoy themselves.

And he didn't really feel comfortable out amongst crowds and attractions, away from the work he needed to numb his thoughts, so it was just better to be here.

“Are you sure you don’t want to trade halfway through?” Garnet asked not for the first time, her pretty face scrunched up with guilt. “Tanin and I can watch the ship for a while too. Give you a chance to get out and see the station. Have some fun.”

Sway smiled at her, genuinely touched by her kindness. She was generous, and she looked after the crew with a good heart. “I’ll be fine, Garnet. I really will. Thank you though. You two are newly mated anyway. You should enjoy your time together. I will be happy to watch the ship.”

It was going to be miserable. The ship would be fully powered down while upgrades were being performed.

Which meant that Sway would have absolutely nothing to do to take his mind off of his own thoughts and memories during those times.

With the others gone, and Alred concealed in his core so that no one figured out he was here, the ship would be unnervingly quiet.

But it was a misery that he was already resigned to experiencing. He would not be any better off on the station. At least on the ship, he could sneak into the medbay and steal some sedatives if the thoughts and feelings became too overwhelming.

He didn’t do it often, but sometimes, even if he worked himself to exhaustion, he would begin having nightmares that wouldn’t actually let him rest. He’d end up staying awake so long, he would become a danger to himself and the ship.

Using the sedatives to make himself blackout wasn’t the best option, as the sleep wasn’t that much better, but at least it helped.

The upgrade shouldn’t take that long. And when repair crews weren’t working, he could get his own subspace math practice in. He could even download learning modules to do while the systems were offline. It was better than nothing.

There was a lot of work to be done on the ship.

It was going to take days to complete. They were getting new crystals for their subspace generator, improving the shielding all over the ship, and replacing the old life support system with a new, more reliable version.

All of which was incredibly expensive, but necessary.

Even more so now.

The females were delicate. Their newest crew members needed more consideration than the rest of them. And while Sway didn’t mind being uncomfortable, or even outright in pain, he didn’t want to subject the females to that.

Their inadequate shielding had already made them sick in the past. They were just lucky that the life support hadn’t cut out again, as it had a few times before the two of them arrived.

They had survived; but there was a chance the females wouldn’t.

Making certain they had space suits for them was one of the first things they did, just in case.

The upgrades to prevent outages were next.

They simply couldn’t allow such things to happen again.

Not to the human females. And especially not to Garnet who now carried the captain’s youngling.

That wasn’t the only reason though. Tanin was a great male, and Sway was happy, relieved, to be following him. Proud, even. As were the others, he knew. Any mate of his would deserve their respect for that, even without considering the youngling in her belly.