A diminutive, sprite-like figure flitted through the crowds, her image periodically flickering as a stray hand tried to swat her away. A brief indignant flair is all she gave them, avoiding the raspberries or other, less mature, responses that she would have given not that long ago.
After all, she was a Captain now.
EVE6 sighed a bit as she finally drifted to one of the major crossings, peering around. It was one of her first real trips 'into the real', using a small prototype drone that could project her image and give her a view of the world around it. A body was being prepared for her and would, hopefully, be ready before their launch - but for now she was barely a foot tall, using all the power the poor drone could muster to render her into existence.
She spotted a few people heading into a nearby bar and smiled. It was good to see her future crew bonding and making friends.
***
Waylan walked about the station as well, fingering idly at the collar of his suit. It was nothing like the comfortable floral shirts and sandals he preferred to wear, but well - sometimes the higher ups got their way.
"Stupid monkey suit," he muttered. He promised himself that he'd have it, and all its accessories, off at the first opportunity. For now, he'd play along. The station was full of the first batches of Operators, most of them straight out of the newly finished Dawn City, and he just couldn't resist the urge to see them walking around in the wild.
It had taken a huge team to design them, of course, but he and Seraphina had been at the helm. He'd personally overseen every line of code, every joint, all of it - and was pleased with what he was seeing so far. They all seemed so diverse, so full of life. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't sitting around thinking of ways to make the next version better. They'd grow and adapt without him - these new 'children' wouldn't need his help to accomplish even greater things.
Of course, he was
also here to see the ship he'd had a smaller hand in developing. One of the pros of being so high up in DOARAD was that he got to play with all the toys.
There was one last reason he'd put on the suit and flown all the way up here, away from the projects that kept his genetically-tilted mind from going insane due to idleness. Ceilia was up here and it had been too long since he'd spent more than a few fleeting moments with her. He checked himself in a nearby store window, adjusted his eyepatch and tie, and continued on.
***
Chief Engineer Mu417 was running his inspection inside the
Ravenaca's Watch, the first of the new Spectre-class to launch. The ship was going to go out into the universe with more ceremony than usual thanks to its new crew and he had no intention of letting anything go wrong.
Mu had been one of the AIs overseeing the original colony ships that arrived in Sanctum years ago. At the time, he hadn't truly been sentient. Some odd combination of bugs or experiences had given him that spark only a few months ago - not enough to make him fully sentient, but enough to have him asking the right questions of the museum stewards who'd been taking care of him down in Obsidian City. It had been they who had gotten him into the early AI trials for the new Initialization process that AIs, Operators, and clones went through now.
The result of their efforts was a crotchety old man in a young man's body.
He eyed the ship's drive system skeptically, then popped open one of the access hatches and drooped himself inside. Mu pulled himself out, holding a loose bolt in one hand and wearing a triumphant grin. "I
knew it. Can't trust the ship fabricators to get
everything right. Now, let's see where you came from.."
With a wrench in hand, he began the hunt for the bolt's missing nut.
***
If there was one thing that any good bar needed, it was drunks.
Especially in a military bar.
Two men wearing flight jackets and, inexplicably, sun glasses, began to saunter towards the booth that Ceilia, Arye, V117, and Mikael had taken as their own as
"You've lost that loving feeling" by the Righteous Brothers
(or some SARP equivalent) began to play over the bar's radio.
The first one, sporting close-cropped dark hair and an easy-going smile, leaned up against the table a little more abruptly than he probably intended. He looked to Mikael. "Hey fella, mind sharing the wealth? It's just not right for one man to be sitting with this many beautiful women all on his own."
The other, with lighter color hair, added his own charismatic smile. "How about it, ladies? You look like you could use a good dance."
