PrincessColumbia

  It wasn’t that Diane didn’t care; it was that it all seemed so silly.

  Norma hadn’t dragged a chair over to stand on to get in Rokyo’s face, but observers could be forgiven for thinking she had grown a foot in order to directly challenge the older Morvuck. “This is her first visit to her homeworld! I thought the whole point of you showing up was to keep her SAFE!”

  Everything seemed silly. And minor. And trivial. She had met a dragon.

  Rokyo was clearly more amused than anything else, “And I already told you, she was completely safe. Safer than she could have been with me, or even my whole team. The entire Aiexi military couldn’t keep her as safe.”

  Russe leaned closer to her so he could speak quietly directly into her ear, “Seriously, are you okay? You’ve been...quiet. And crying. Like, the whole time since we caught up to you.”

  Norma snarled up at the taller woman, “What the hell is ‘Aiexi’?”

  Diane nodded, not turning to look at Russe. Not really looking at anything, because her mind’s eye was busy repying the entire incredible encounter. With a dragon.

  “Aiexi is the name of the principality we’re in. We haven’t been our own nation since the pnetary government unified a few centuries ago, but we still get to have our own armed forces,” answered Rokyo, “And those armed forces are the rgest on the pnet.”

  “And best!” volunteered a woman who was short for a Morvuck but not as short as Norma. Her name was, apparently, Koar Otan. She was keeping Diane supplied with Jyantin Tonic made from store bought packets and hot water from the workshop’s drink dispenser. It wasn’t homemade like she’d had on the way in, but it was leagues better than what she had on her station. Better get Norma to secure a case if we can swing it with our avaible funds, she thought as she took a sip. Koar was the bringer of the beverage so was alright in Diane’s book.

  “I don’t care if they’re the best at water polo!” snapped Norma, “Diane was out there alone with a creature that could swallow her in a single bite!”

  “If she doesn’t stop snapping at the captain,” growled another woman, one who Diane hadn’t heard the name of yet, “I’m going to have to take her out back to have a ‘discussion’ with her myself.”

  “That ‘creature’ wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head.” Rokyo tried to reassure Norma.

  Before anyone else could say anything, Diane finally mustered some words, “Norma,” she almost croaked, “I’m fine. Really.”

  Norma was suddenly in her face, though instead of a look of fury it was apologetic concern, “Diane! Please, you didn’t see it from our perspective, you were...you could have...” The smaller woman was holding her by the shoulders and gently shaking her.

  Diane couldn’t seem to form words again so just wrapped her arms around the woman she was starting to think of as her friend. Someone took the foam cup of Jyantin Tonic out of her hand and she was grateful she wouldn’t accidentally spill it on Norma.

  Norma buried her face in Diane’s shoulder, “I was scared, you dork!” she accused and proceeded to quietly sob into Diane’s shirt.

  Rokyo sighed in relief as Norma was keeping herself occupied with crying into Diane’s shoulder. “Alright, let’s get on triage here; Russe, keep them...” she gestured vaguely at Diane and Norma, “...there. Nkeri, get over to the front desk and answer the comms. If it’s the press keep ‘em spinning until we can get Diane off the mountain and more with us so she can think clearly. Keep any lookie-loos...”

  The Morvuck named Nkeri flinched her head back in confusion, “Any what?”

  “Sorry, Earth phrase I picked up and use sometimes. Anyone who is coming by just to try to get a look at Diane. Keep ‘em out.”

  “Oooh,” said Nkeri with a nod, “Like scent sniffers but for eyes, got it!” the solidly built woman smiled at Diane reassuringly as she headed to the front entrance to the workshop proper. Moments after disappearing from view, the repeating three-tone chime that had been going off uninterrupted for so long it had become background noise finally stopped.

  “El-tee,” Rokyo addressed the taller, dark haired woman that had threatened to have a ‘discussion’ with Norma, “Contact the spaceport, get with their head of security. Their going to want to make preparations for Diane getting back to her ship unmolested.”

  “Aye, captain,” replied the woman as she pulled out her mini-tab and started thumbing through screens.

  “Koar, you...” Rokyo raised an eyebrow at the cup Koar had gently removed from Diane’s hand, “Actually, you’re doing everything exactly right, keep it up.

  “Got it, boss!” smiled Koar with a jaunty salute.

  The woman in charge proceeded to give some individualized instruction to a couple other people then said to the group, “...and I don’t think anyone is getting regur work done today with all that. Everyone check your schedules and project dossiers, if there’s something that can’t wait until tomorrow, schedule it for night crew. Answer any messages about orders and support for our actual business, if any press gets through to your individual comms bounce them up to Nkeri, and otherwise just keep it casual. I want the party to stay here just in case, but hopefully it turns out to be an unscheduled holiday.”

  The small crowd of women disbursed, not a few of them smiling warmly at Diane as they moved to return to their respective duties. As they did, Norma managed to coral her emotions into something resembling her more usual borderline sassy demeanor. She straightened and Diane released her from the hug, the smaller woman wiping at her cheeks with her palms and otherwise collecting herself before she turned to face the woman she’d just been tearing into.

  Rokyo smiled at the trio she wasn’t actually in charge of, “Now, I imagine some expnations would serve to cool the room a little.” She gave Diane a significant look, “Do you think you’re back with us enough to follow along?”

  Diane wiped her own cheeks and scrubbed at her eyes, mildly relieved and disappointed that she’d stopped crying. Relieved because crying did get tiresome and her eyes were starting to hurt, disappointed because it meant her emotional high was starting to wear off. She blinked her vision clear and nodded at Rokyo, still not quite trusting her voice.

  “Good enough,” Rokyo said with a nod and a smile, “The...being you, ah, encountered is...they’re registered to the gactic lingual dictionary as Grindal-hough, but they have so many names that are still in use I could list them all for hours. My own family’s name for them is Rokyoweasha.”

  Russe raised an eyebrow, “That sounds suspiciously like...”

  She nodded at him, “I was named after them. They exist in a very simir way to Morvucks that some whale pods do with certain sea-faring families on Earth.”

  While Russe was nodding in comprehension, Diane and Norma were both confused. “What’s a ‘whale pod’?” asked Norma.

  …and what do whales have to do with dragons? added Diane silently. If this Earth had been programmed differently than how her own was in the process of developing, it was entirely possible the whales wouldn’t, as was currently being predicted by America’s scientists, be wiped out as a threat to the emergent A.I. They were one of the smartest non-human animals on Earth, more than a few people had been theorizing that anything more intelligent than a single celled organism would eventually be wiped out by the A.I. once they were done with humans. The threat of already endangered animal species being wiped out was one of the few things that united the more ‘left’ leaning Americans to the anti-A.I. cause.

  “Right,” answered Russe, “You grew up on the station, you probably wouldn’t know. They’re ocean-born mammals that live in Earth’s oceans. They’re also megafauna, but since they live in the water they can vary from about twice as big as a human to several times as big as the grindal...huff?” he looked to Rokyo for confirmation of his pronunciation.

  She smirked at him, “Humans just call them ‘dragons,’ and it’s an evocative enough name that it’s starting to catch on with some people here on Mortan.”

  Russe chuckled, “So, yeah, the biggest whales on Earth can be huge, even compared to that dragon. A bunch of whales together is called a pod.”

  Rokyo continued after Russe finished, “One of the times I visited Earth on business, my host for that visit happened to live on one of the Northwestern ndmasses. It wasn’t quite big enough to be its own continent...’Greennd,’ I think he called it, but we took a day trip to the coast where we went on a whale watching excursion. The owner of the boat told us his family actually had ancient ties to the pod of orca...that’s a type of whale that hunts other whales,” she crified to Norma, “And they’d spent the st two centuries restoring that bond. The orca and the humans would hunt together on the ocean, gathering fish together for the humans and the humans helping the orca with their hunting of animals that split time between nd and sea.”

  Huh, thought Diane, I wonder if that’s actually a thing outside the game? I didn’t learn that in high school biology, that’s for sure.

  “The...’dragons’ have one advantage that the whales don’t, and that’s the ability to exist out of the water. Because of that, the bond between dragons and Morvuck is ingrained in every culture the pnet has ever produced. They’re not technically reted to Morvuck, not within the st few million years, anyway, but taxonomically are probably closest to us of any of the megafauna. As a result, they have a special pce in our...” she smiled fondly at something remembered, “In our hearts, in our families. The shorthand we use is ‘Matron.’”

  Rokyo put her hands in her pants pockets and leaned a hip against a nearby desk, “That Matron that Diane encountered has cimed this city as her territory. She’ll fly in and around it, she’s raised a daughter here just in the time since we opened this workshop. When she doesn’t have her own hatchlings to raise, she seems to take special interest in that school...which among Morvuck make it a rather prestigious pce to send your daughter.”

  “So...” began Russe tentatively, “What did it do with Diane?”

  “That...” Rokyo grinned conspiratorially, “Was unexpected, but we at least know what it means...or at least what we think it means.” If possible, her smile grew even brighter, “Diane’s been adopted by the Matron.”

  If there were words that could have stolen the breath from Diane’s lungs more effectively, she couldn’t have thought of them to save her life.

  “What do you mean, ‘adopted’?” asked Norma as she crossed her arms.

  “That’s the traditional understanding of what Diane just experienced. We have records, usually no more than one Morvuck per generation is adopted by a Matron like that. I think the st was…huh, during the World Games, do you think?” she posed this st question to Koar.

  The shorter Morvuck shrugged, “Think so, boss.”

  “That was during my grandparent’s generation. It happened to be the first such adoption captured on camera because a Matron decided to crash the event and adopt one of the athletes. Mara went on to practically sweep the games.”

  Norma snorted, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to piss off a mama dragon.”

  Rokyo shook her head with an amused smile, “You misunderstand. That made her competitors work harder to try and beat her. As prestigious as it was for Mara to be adopted, it would have been even more prestigious to beat a Matron’s daughter.” She snorted in amusement, “Of course, that meant it was probably the cleanest Games on record, nobody wanted to let off even a whiff of cheating or rigging with the prestige of a Matron’s title on the line.”

  “Which,” Rokyo sighed and straightened, slowly approaching Diane, “Brings us to the… ‘shitstorm,’ I believe is the human term.” She waved a hand in the direction of the lobby, from which Nkeri could be heard still speaking to callers, “You already had some social credit thanks to being a Lost, now you’re…well, I guess you’re ‘Found’.”

  Norma leveled a ft look at Rokyo while Russe snickered behind a hand.

  Rokyo continued with a hint of a smile, “Everyone will want a piece of you, which means your money is no good here. At all. I’d be surprised if you didn’t take off, what, tomorrow?” Russe nodded, “With docking credits to your name. People were already bending over backward to give you a leg up yesterday, today they’ll be falling over themselves trying to just be around you.”

  “Yeah, and what’s all that about?” compined Norma, “Not that I’m upset that a whole culture is so good to their Lost, but I haven’t heard of any other world being so…” she waved a hand airily, trying to come up with an appropriate word.

  “Accommodating?” offered Russe.

  “That!” Norma pointed at him, “From what I hear, Earth is good if you’re anything but a human, and then you’re expected to ‘bootstrap’ yourself. Mikantns put their Lost on UBI without the usual qualification requirements for military service…but the way Diane’s been treated you think she was the only Lost from Mortan, and royalty to boot!”

  Rokyo smiled sympathetically, “It’s a cultural thing, I think. Most Mortan folklore and myth has some form of adoption story, and the st dominant religion before organized churches faded from prominence had the central…what’s the word?” she looked again to Koar.

  “‘Triumverate’ is what the linguists tell us is the closest formal match, but most of the church doesn’t like that and is going with ‘Found Family.’” Koar shrugged at Diane’s surprised expression, “My folks are members of the church and I was raised as a member, even if I don’t really call myself one these days.”

  “Right, the ‘Found Family’ were all lost in some way before they found each other. It’s pretty much built into our cultural code to welcome home a returning sister or daughter.”

  Diane shook her head gently not able to imagine a church that taught that sort of loving acceptance so freely. It…sounds…divine, she thought, feeling a little sick at the sacrilege she just committed, even if it was just in her own mind.

  “Why aren’t you a member of the church anymore? Or is that too personal?” Russe asked Koar.

  She shrugged, “I’ve just seen too much as a soldier. Aint that I don’t think there’s nothin’ like goddesses and all, just saw too many prayers go unanswered, y’know?” a shadow haunted the normally upbeat expression she wore, “But the church is nice enough and the people are good women, so I still attend when I’m visiting my folks, I just don’t, you know, do the whole ‘prayer and obedience’ thing.”

  “Speaking of,” interjected Rokyo, “After Daffyd called I had Leki dig into the genealogical record.”

  “Who?” asked Norma.

  “Leki…? You’ve met her…”

  Koar snorted in amusement, “You introduced her as L-T, cap.”

  Rokyo huffed a self-depreciating ugh, “Oh, sorry. The three of us served in the same unit, she was my lieutenant. She discovered that the Somni’els line…well, you’re it. Pretty much anyone you might be reted to close enough for a legal cn match was killed in the Cortixian March.”

  “What’s a legal cn match?” asked Russe.

  “There has to be a common ancestor within four generations. Any family line younger than that is considered a new cn for government purposes, meaning things like property ownership and contract w can’t extend to anyone past the fourth generation,” answered Koar. At her boss’ raised eyebrow, she shrugged, “Genealogy and inheritance is a big thing in the church.”

  Russe began running some calcutions ticking off imaginary tallies with his fingers, “Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, approximately two parents per generation, figuring on the gactic average of three children each…”

  “Five for Morvucks,” interrupted Rokyo, “It’s estimated that three thousand Morvuck cns were wiped out in the war.” She turned a pained expression on Norma, who was looking a little green, “You can understand why it’s such a big deal to welcome home a Lost for us.”

  “So, that’s…what…70 cns in Diane’s family?!” Russe’s voice broke as he realized the death toll he’d just calcuted.

  “You’re the start of your own legacy, Diane,” said Rokyo softly as she gently pced a hand on the younger Morvuck’s shoulder. “And with the adoption by a Matron? You’re going to be a legend no matter what you do.”

  Diane’s eyes were burning with a sudden resurgence of tears as her face turned red, “But…I didn’t…” she croaked out.

  Rokyo’s smile couldn’t have been prouder than if Diane had been her own daughter, “You screamed challenge in a Matron’s face! You made her proud of you if I judged what I saw right. Most of the women out there would have been on their knees and showing their throats, including me!”

  “She was happy I yelled at her?”

  “You stood up to her, and that was even when it was obvious you would die if she wished it. I have no doubt she smelled the Lost on you, even if she didn’t know what it meant; she absolutely could scent your fear, she knew you were terrified out of your mind when you stood up to her. Half the block could, that’s how we found you after we heard her first vocalization and realized you’d disappeared.”

  Diane shifted uncomfortably at that, “…sorry. Just…needed some space.”

  “Y’know,” offered Koar, “My folks would say you were moved by your ancestors to be there and that’s why you got outa here with a couple dozen women and this guy,” she pointed at Russe, “All tryin’ to keep an eye on you.” her eyes twinkled with mischief as she delivered this theological analysis.

  “In any case,” a touch of humor underlined Rokyo’s voice as she smiled at Diane, “You’re going to get offers to join your cn to another family line. I strongly suggest you turn down everyone until you’ve had another decade pnetside if you choose to live here eventually. There’s too much politics involved to make any ‘good’ choice of family lineage in the circles you’ll be moving in eventually. The best you’ll be able to do is ‘least bad,’ and that’s if you join another at all.”

  “That’s…pretty sound advice,” was all she could think to say.

  Rokyo squeezed Diane’s shoulder and stepped back a little, now looking at Norma with a slight smile, “With all that happened today, I think you’ll discover your station is about to get suddenly very popur, at least with traffic from Mortan. You were talking about me expanding my business to your station…I think it’d be downright foolish not to do so now, don’t you think?”

  Norma’s smile was as fierce as it was calcuting, “Oh, absolutely. The business of Diane’s host snubbing her by not setting up shop on her station? That’d be social and financial suicide.”

  Diane snorted in amusement at Norma’s sudden change into a cutthroat businesswoman. “Threaten her friend’s life, she’s a complete mess,” she mumbled, “Talk about the station, you’re lucky to get out with your panties on.”

  Russe snickered behind his hand.

  “Computer,” she managed to choke out, “Is the cabin soundproof?”

  “It is.”

  “Good, lock the room down. Nobody gets in for anything short of impending death.” She probably didn’t need to go that far, but it had been too much. The moment Rokyo had said, ‘adopted,’ the cracks in Diane’s emotional high began forming.

  Rokyo, as it happened, had been right. There were LOTS of people who suddenly wanted to be Diane’s Best Friend Ever.

  Norma had, thankfully, taken the beast known as ‘The Press’ by the horns and began wrestling it into submission, getting assistance from Nkeri with some of the culturally specific matters and managing to keep the spotlight off of Diane directly and more on the reason for their presence on the pnet as well as the extreme luck involved to nd a Lost in the flight path of a Matron.

  Leki had returned from her discussions with the spaceport not long after Norma began dealing with the PR fallout. “I had to tell them to look it up on the socials to see the video…”

  Diane had gone white at that, “…of course there’s video!” she said putting her head in her hands.

  Leki just smirked at her discomfiture, “…once I did and made sure they knew which dock they needed to watch for they got a team out…but not quite in time. Seems some enterprising social engineers had gotten to your ship first and decided to give it a fresh coat of paint.” Russe flinched along with Diane, which earned a chuckle from Leki, “Oh, I don’t think you’ll be too upset. Security let them finish and made sure nothing else was tampered with.”

  Rokyo had summoned her car from her home via a gig worker, which meant that for Diane to get back to her ship they had to wait…which gave the governments enough time to track her down.

  First was the mayor, and Koar had built on her retionship with Diane as The Bringer of The Drink (and, thankfully, she was still keeping the warm liquid coming) by also being her wingwoman when dealing with a politician. Everything from subtly supplying the name of the city they were in (Longwood) to succinct expnations of local traditions and even suggesting a nearby lunch spot (the same food vendor, it turned out, that Diane had passed on her interrupted walk just that morning) when Diane’s stomach loudly compined she hadn’t gotten more than Jyantin in a few hours.

  Right on the heals of the mayor’s exit came the decidedly less enjoyable interaction with the Terran Federation’s embassy. They had sent a car around to collect them, and when they “politely” declined the ambassador, himself decided to make a visit. Fortunately, that meeting was extremely brief as Rokyo’s car had finally arrived shortly after the ambassador had. Between Norma’s (justifiable) anger at feeling as though EarthGov had abandoned her and her people and fury that the Terran government couldn’t be bothered to check to see if there was anyone actually on the seed stations before giving them away, her normal role as ‘Governor’ (and, by extension, Diane’s person that Peoples better than she could) was a wash. Russe ft out refused, though not vocally. He simply made himself scarce the second the ambassadorial staff came sniffing around (He ter expined it was due to him having a…less than clean record with the Federation, but the undercurrent was that he had other, darker reasons to distrust the Terran government). As for Diane, she was beginning to suspect more and more that her getting the ownership of the seed station was more to get another Lost off the government rolls than any sense of altruism, in-game at least.

  Of course, she had reminded herself, That’d be a solid in-game bit of worldbuilding. I’m not actually from Mortan, my parents didn’t die as a result of the war in this game, and I’m here on an assignment to find and track rogue A.I., not pick up a part for a station I don’t actually own.

  As though sensing her thoughts turning her emotions sour, Rokyo had managed to diplomatically tell the ambassador to get out of their way and bundled Diane into her car’s back seat, with Norma joining her and Russe sitting shotgun.

  As they pulled up to the ship, Rokyo burst out ughing, “Well!” she blurted, “That expins why security let them finish!”

  As her view was obstructed from the back seat, Diane climbed out of the car as soon as it had stopped and froze as soon as she took in her ship’s new look.

  Rokyo secured the car in park and climbed out to join Diane, “I’d say they did a remarkable job. Of course,” she put a conciliatory hand on Diane’s shoulder, tugging her taller frame in for a one-armed hug, “You’d have no context for this. Rainbows are symbols of the bond between Matrons and Morvucks. I’d wager half my company’s annual profits they were doing this to honor you as, heh, our first Found Daughter.”

  “Tell me,” groaned Diane, “That’s not a thing!”

  Leki had been following in her own car right behind Rokyo’s and now stepped up next to Rokyo on the other side from Diane, “Afraid so,” she said with humor ced in her tone, “The socials are having a field day with this. You should see the video that someone put together of you with the Matron. They combined video captured from a few dozen mini-tabs and set it to music. Beautiful orchestral score, too.”

  “I’d rather not…” muttered Diane as Norma and Russe joined their group admiring the new look of the Ad Astra.

  Russe whistled, “Wow, did they actually get the thermal coating on that quickly? It looks like it’s already dry!”

  Koar, who’d ridden with Leki, joined them next to Russe and supplied, “Nah, it’s probably a polymer of the color and the thermal paint. There’s a few custom paint houses we work with for a few jobs that have the formu. It’ll wear off faster than the multi-yered jobs, but it goes on and dries quick.”

  The ship was, indeed, painted with a rainbow, but in addition to that was a gorgeously artistic rendering of a dragon’s head covering the entire nose of the craft, complete with metallically reflective scales the color of the Matron that had ‘marked’ Diane and expertly rendered horns that tapered back to the leading edge of the top two wings of the ship. The mentioned rainbow was painted along the bottom third of the ship and down onto the bottom two wings, making it seem like the rainbow was the dragon’s body. As for the rest of the craft, the previous industrial metal gray and steel had been completely covered over with blue and white, evocative of a bright, partially cloudy sky without any explicitly painted clouds. Even the craft’s name and registry numbers were painted artfully into the motif of the rest of the ship.

  Almost as soon as they had opened the access ramp to board, porter bots started arriving with complimentary supplies, various gifts, and the first of what promised to be several ‘care packages’ from well-wishers from around the city. After the st bot trundled away a station transport cart arrived with a handful of women wearing worker uniforms for the spaceport and led by a slightly graying woman with a clipboard.

  “Just came up to let you know we had to hold more at the receiving bay since our computers said your ship was gonna be overloaded if we sent more,” said the apparent forewoman as the workers, apparently cargo handlers, started the logistical process of loading 11 pounds of stuff into a 10 pound sack. Thankfully, Russe took charge of that while Norma and Rokyo began discussions for having the rest shipped to the station via cargo ship with the forewoman.

  Koar finally nudged Diane gently with her elbow, “You’re lookin’ a little shell-shocked there, sister. Why don’t you go hole up in your cabin for a bit? Boss-dy and L.T. can take charge here if your little spitfire there,” she jerked her chin in Norma’s direction, “Doesn’t overthrow the pnetary government first.”

  Diane smiled weakly, nodded in thanks, and made her way into her cabin and sealed it.

  Finally met with silence, complete and isoted ck of noise from anything except the dull hum of the ship’s engine core and her own breathing for the first time in over forty-eight hours, she took a breath. Then another.

  She flicked her shaking hand in the gesture to bring up her in-game HUD. Slowly, as though every motion required exquisite concentration on her part, she navigated to the ‘Account’ screen and found the ‘Log out’ button. Her breathing was becoming more ragged, more erratic the longer she stared at the holographic dispy. Hand now trembling so much she couldn’t move it in a straight line, she brought it up to the red button and…stopped.

  After a moment, she lowered her hand back to her side and took a step, the HUD sensing her movement dismissed automatically, leaving her an unobstructed path to her bunk. The room was small, maybe just rge enough she could fit two of her VR cubicle back in Huston inside with a little room to spare. This meant she’d crossed to sit on her bunk in only a couple of steps. She looked around the cabin, noticing the little details, such as the psticine ‘zipper’ seams of the bulkheads that made it easy for a maintenance tech or bot to apply an electrical charge to release the vacuum tight seal. Then there was the pocket door that lead to the head, the toilet inside being useable in both gravity and zero-G if the gravity pting ever gave out. The pillow that seemed a little bit lumpy on the left side but that actually made it better when she was getting a cramp in her neck, which always happened after a strength training workout…while in VR. While in the pod’s VR.

  “…it all seems so real…” she whispered to herself. She looked down at her hands in her p, turning her right hand over and rubbing the pads of her fingertips together, flexing the muscles in her fingers in a way that felt so instinctive that she barely gave it a thought to extend her cws.

  “It’s…not…” her eyes started burning from unshed tears again, and as powerful an ecstasy she had been feeling earlier after the encounter with the Matron, she was feeling an agony that she was struggling to name.

  “M-my name…” she said in a shaky voice, “…is…D…” she felt like her throat was closing up. Swallowing thickly, she began again. “My n-name…is…Dyl…” a pained whine squeezed from her throat and she sniffed back a sob.

  “It’s not…r-real…” she said again, her eyes fluttering closed as tears streamed down her cheeks, “I’m not here. I’m n-not a Morvuck and I’m not on a ship on an alien pnet and I’m not the commander of a space station and I’m NOT the daughter of a dragon!”

  She inhaled a gasping sob as her heart felt like it was shattering, “My n-name is Dyn Samuels!” she finally snapped out before heaving in another breath, “I’m Am-m-merica’s b-best cyber-agent!” Her chest felt like it would burst from the pressure of pain she was feeling. This isn’t working! This worked before! Why isn’t it working?! “I’m in a pod,” she spat the st word angrily, “In the agency building on Earth!” every sylble hurt more and more, fury and self-loathing burbling up from deep inside, “I AM NOT DIANE SOMNI’ELS!”

  Right on the heels of her negative decration of identity a scream of absolute anguish tore from her throat, like someone had stabbed a wild animal, and that animal was her. Already hunched over and on the edge of her bunk, she fell to the floor and curled into a tight ball, “It’s not real, it’s not real, this isn’t real, please make it stop feeling so real…”

  I don’t want this to be fake! she realized, I want to be adopted by a dragon and have a friend who’ll tell me where to shove it and a ship that sails the stars! I want to…to…

  Realization of what she wanted hit her like a sledgehammer and she screamed again, I want to be a woman! Even though she could think it, she couldn’t actually say it out loud, not even in the privacy of a soundproofed cabin on a starship on an alien pnet…even if all of that had been real.

  “B-but I c-can’t!” she burbled, “I can’t because it’s not real! It’s all fake and it’s not real and I hate this I want to go home and I want my mom and…” her sobbing grew so overwhelming she couldn’t form actual words anymore.

  She wasn’t sure how long she was curled up on the floor, feeling pitiful and broken and like the entire world had ended outside the walls of the cabin. It was long enough that she was feeling hungry even though her appetite was shot. She wanted to eat something to calm her stomach but she wanted to throw up just thinking about trying to gag something down. It’s not real, she thought, The pod’s just going to feed me nutrient paste anyway, no matter what my virtual body says.

  She was unsurprised to hear the sound recognizable to just about any Trekker; the digitized door chime that announced someone was looking to make entry into her cabin. As much as she didn’t want to answer it, she knew whoever was at the door would get progressively more insistent until someone (probably Russe) forced the computer to override her command over safety reasons or something.

  Picking herself up off the floor, she did her best to straighten her clothes and checked the mirror over her rack. Her eyes were puffy and tear tracks were streaked down her face. She took a moment to step into the head and turn on the faucet, spshing some water on her face and drying it quickly.

  She had just finished making herself presentable when another door chime sounded. Sighing, she sidestepped out of the head, slid the pocket door closed, and tabbed the release for the lockout with her thumb.

  She was surprised to discover Rokyo on the other side of the door. While at first the older woman was wearing a smile, that slid into a frown as she took in the sight of Diane’s face. After a moment of awkward silence, Rokyo said, “Can…can I come in?

  Diane’s eyebrow went up, but since she didn’t trust her voice at that moment she just nodded and stepped back to allow the other woman in. Rokyo stepped in and closed the door behind her, and once they were both inside the small space they gnced around.

  “I’d offer a chair, but I think my bunk is the only pce to sit in this room,” sighed Diane.

  Rokyo smiled primly and sat on the edge of the bunk, patting the spot next to her in invitation. Diane wanted to smile but couldn’t summon the energy, just slumping down into the proffered spot on her own bunk, almost folded in on herself and staring bnkly at the wall opposite.

  “So,” started Rokyo, “Can I guess that today’s been a bit overwhelming?”

  Diane huffed briefly and nodded.

  “Would it be anything you want to talk about? I’m sure it’ll help you feel better to get it off your chest.”

  For a moment, very fleetingly, she thought of telling this woman about everything that had her curled up in a ball just minutes earlier. ...but I can’t, she groaned mentally as she sighed deeply, Not only would that be terrible OpSec but I’d also be betraying everything I believe in. But, the NPC that was being puppeted by an A.I. by a hideously complex game program was, if she were following the same behavior and interaction patterns she’d dispyed thus far, would probably try to pester(affectionate) the answer out of her.

  Finally, she said, “I don’t think there’s any way in the entire universe you could understand what’s going on for me, it’s...I dunno, this isn’t personal, I mean you not getting it. Hell,” she put her head in her hands, the heels of her hands pressing gently into her eyes, “I barely understand it. Just...I want...there’s things you can’t have, you know? Like...I wish I had my mom.” She was entirely unsure where she was going with this. “I lost her a while ago, right? But...when we were at dinner st night, I just wanted to take her there and have her try the food. But I...don’t have mom, I won’t ever again. I...watched her die.” Rokyo let out a little, ‘oh!’ of surprise but didn’t interrupt, “So it’s not like I’ll ever get my mom, but I want her back so bad it hurts. And when...” she pulled her hands away from her eyes and sniffed, tears starting to flow fresh again, “When the Matron...did the thing...adopted me, I guess, and then when you told me what it meant?” She felt Rokyo’s hand on her back, the older woman gently stroking her shoulders in comfort. “I guess I realized...like, ‘wow, wouldn’t mom love to see this?’ But nope, I can’t. Mom won’t ever know I got adopted by a dragon...a Matron. And that’s just the start. There’s so...much I want to be real that just...can’t ever be.”

  She choked in a sob and tried to figure out how to say what she needed to next. Finally, she managed to whisper out, “...and today...so much about today...I could almost...” she hiccuped and curled in on herself even tighter, “...I could almost believe it was all real.”

  She let her torso be pulled over into Rokyo’s p as the older woman hugged her front-to-back and Diane let herself be comforted as she cried. It may not have been real, but at that moment Diane was ready to tell ‘real’ to get fucked.

  After what she was sure was far, far too long for Rokyo, Diane finally got her emotions back under something resembling control. Another trip to the head to wash her face and she finally led her visitor out of her cabin and into the rec space of the crew deck of the ship. “I’m sorry for all that,” she said quietly to her host in the thankfully otherwise empty room, “Probably the st thing on your mind when you came to my cabin for...whatever it was you came for.”

  Rokyo smiled a smile that spoke of wisdom, “What I wanted was far less important than what you needed just then.”

  Diane’s wan smile felt empty, “Still, what did you stop by for?”

  “I was seeing if you wanted to join us for dinner, Norma was somewhat shameless in funting your status as,” her smile quirked up a bit more, “The ‘First Found Daughter,’ don’t roll your eyes, it’s actually kinda catchy!” Diane snorted at the chastisement but didn’t interrupt, “She flexed her political muscle as your Governor to get us a table at a pretty nice restaurant, my whole crew is there with your team now. That said, I can come up with some excuse if you don’t feel up to joining us.”

  Diane sighed and shook her head, “No, I couldn’t do that to Norma. She’s been...really a good friend since our rough start. If she told ‘em I’d be there I’ll be there.” She rolled her eyes, “She and I are gonna talk about using my name like that, but that’s for ter.”

  Rokyo smiled as she started toward the hatch to the access corridor that led to the forward sections and the dder to the main deck of the ship, “A rough start? You’re going to have to tell me about that on the way there.”

  Diane felt a smirk on her face, “Oh, she’s a spitfire, first time I think I met a human that’d stand up to me like that.”

  Maybe it wasn’t real, and maybe she was talking to a puppet and about to eat fake food at a fake restaurant...but it felt real for now, and she could at least have fun as she slipped back into the role she’d chosen.

  “Welcome back, Commander!” chirped a surprisingly cheerful Katrina.

  Diane felt her foot nd properly on the deck pting, which was good as she would otherwise have fallen over from the surprise.

  “I heard we’re getting a team from the same company that provided the repcement part as well as a significant shipment of inventory for the station,” continued the hologram.

  “Yeah, and you can thank me for th...” Norma’s eyes fell on Katrina before her entire forward motion was arrested from surprise.

  “It wasn’t just you, Norma, it was also Diane’s new status as Found Dau....” and the ‘surprised halt’ hat trick was achieved as Russe stood in the airlock hatchway, jaw hanging open.

  “...what? What is it?” asked Katrina with what Diane could swear was a bright blue blush of bits.

  Diane opened her mouth...then closed it without saying anything. Norma managed to get out a, “Uh...” before running out of steam. Russe held up a finger as though about to make a point but never actually vocalized anything.

  “Commander, what’s wrong?” asked Katrina, whose behavior as she asked (eyes turned down, hands twisting as though nervous) would indicate in a human that she was well aware of what the issue was but was hoping it wasn’t.

  Diane finally managed to say, “...you’ve got cat ears.”

  Katrina hunched into herself, as though feeling guilty.

  “And a tail,” stated Russe, whose brain had finally gained some control over his mouth.

  Said tail whipped around Katrina’s holographic body and into her hands where she proceeded to fidget with it, “It’s...not a problem, right?”

  Diane blinked a few times, trying to reset her brain enough to answer. She straightened, adjusted her shirt cuffs and belt (mostly to give her hands something to do) and answered, “No, not at all. It was just...”

  “Unexpected,” contributed Norma, who was following Diane’s lead in trying to recover her composure.

  Diane started walking through the docking ring hall in the direction of the main intersection, “Is this due to the upgrade Daffyd installed?”

  She almost tripped as Katrina shrugged and started ‘walking’ to keep up with Diane, “Sorta? Once the new array was up and running my processing was able to allow for a lot more flexibility with the far superior garbage collection that my pre-upgrade system was incapable of, so Daffyd suggested I try ‘flexing’ a bit, pursuing pathways that I may not have had the luxury of exploring before in my decision matrix. One of the alternate presentations that was built into the ‘Katrina’ matrix was a catgirl, so I decided to try it out and...”

  “...and?” prompted Diane as the now-catgirl hologram stayed quiet for longer than she usually would have.

  “AndIkindalikeit!” she said in a rush.

  Diane couldn’t help but smile, “Well, okay, so long as your program is functioning properly and we don’t have to call Daffyd in for an emergency system check, explore your preferences to your processor’s content.”

  Katrina smiled brightly, “Thank you, Commander!”

  Diane found the car was already waiting for them so climbed in as Russe and Norma did the same, “And it’s cute, I like it too. It suits you.”

  Diane didn’t realize she enjoyed making a hologram smile until that moment.

  PrincessColumbia