Ensign Issac "Centurion" Drummond.
The message came through the photon chat network via private message. The headers indicated it came from the Utopia Planitia Shipyards.
I assume that you are invoking my full name and title in the manner of Earth's traditional "you're in trouble" usage?
Centurion reviewed its recent behavior, attempting to translate its logs into how they would be viewed by others.
- Wildly successful mission
- Getting along well with the new crew
- At least, it thought so, fleshbags could be so hard to read sometimes.
- Promotion
- Department transfer
- Would Diz be upset about a department transfer? It seemed unlikely; she had always encouraged exploring new things.
Perhaps the Romulans had detected it in more detail than it thought? Blowing its siblings' cover, so to speak, would certainly justify a few harsh words. It braced itself for Diz's reply.
Considering that Amelia's ship has been back in the sol system for a couple days now, and I had to hear about your promotion and change in position from Corey catching chatter on here?
The conversation map Centurion had been building collapsed. It paused for a long moment, considering its reply.
My apologies; I assume that information would have been helpful in your continued advocacy for me and my siblings. I will notify you of my achievements in a timely manner from now on.
Advocacy. I know you know what the meaning of the word family is.
Another person joined the chat, also from Utopia Planitia Shipyards.
Kitten. Positive reinforcement. Tory, we want to hear from you when something good happens — not just for the benefit of the project, but because we care about you. You daft collection of binary. ;)
I believe you misspelled "deft", and you well know that I'm quantum, not binary. I also believe that I have once again failed to account for sentiment. One moment.
After a brief data transmission, Tory stood in the lab, in its small redheaded human form. "Did you hear about me cracking REDACTED encryption, and also skulls?"
"An Admiral never misspeaks, he says exactly what he means," Corey insisted, setting his PADD down.
"If you believe that, I've got a bridge I can sell you. Comes in international orange, has a lovely view." Diziara grinned at her husband, then moved to catch Tory in a hug. "We don't have high enough clearance to read the whole report of your last mission, but the bits we have caught sound impressive. We're proud that you've turned an emergency deployment into a good posting though. You're getting along with your crew mates?"
"I believe so." Centurion tilted its head doubtfully. "It can be so hard to tell with– organics. Fen has been helpful in both integrating with the crew and equipping me for missions."
"So Pond is letting you off the ship, is she?" Corey stepped in for a hug also after Diziara let Tory go.
"She made it recon, that's very much a field work position. I swear, brass can't find their ass without a yeoman to grab it for them." Diziara directed a wink at Tory.
"No flirting in front of the kid, you know it doesn't like that messy fleshbag stuff." Corey shook his head and Diziara rolled her eyes.
"Oh, Tory. I have something for you." Diziara tapped a terminal on one of the work benches. A small glowing rainbow cube materialized midair, and she tapped it gently, sending it drifting towards Tory.
Tory tilted its head and reached out for the cube, dissolving it with a touch. Inside was a 21st-century space exploration bot, designed to assist with routine tasks in indoor zero-g situations. On contact, a network address pinged, and Tory went still for a moment, examining the little bot hologram's pre-programmed behaviors as it whirred gently around the room.
"Useful. Where did you find it? I'm not familiar with the model." Tory's voice was as deadpan as ever, but the floating bot's erratic movement and blinking eyes betrayed its excitement, as it rapidly sent standard commands to see its reactions.
"I pull up plans from historical archives to tinker with all the time, and found this one in NASA's. I though it might be helpful here at the shipyards—updated to modern tech—and Diz helped me prototype in the holodeck." Corey patted the little bot as it floated by. "They called them astrobees."
"I decided to try a low level AI in it — something on par with Noah's parrot, Jackson Polly. I think I remembered the value of the blue you like." Diziara indicated the color accent on the side of the bot's casing. "But you should find the hook to change it easily. There's a README if you want it."
In a moment, the bot flashed through a number of colors and poorly-mapped textures, before settling back to the same color it had started. "This color will do. Are there any spare mobile emitters available?"
"I think all the working ones are claimed by someone currently. The astrobee might be light enough to run concurrently on your emitter with some minor alterations though." Diziara pulled up the emitter specs, projecting them above the work bench. "A full emitter like yours would be overkill for it at least."
Corey stepped close to her side, his left hand settling on the small of her back as his right poked at the emitter specs. "You'll need to bump the memory and processor, and it'll cost you battery life. Or we can work out one tailored for it. But you'll want to give it a subroutine to monitor its battery life." Corey though a second. "Pond will get annoyed if you let it wander the ship alone though."
"It will be closely monitored at all times." Tory replied quickly. "Though... I suppose the captain will want me corporeally nearby so that she can see it being monitored." It made a slight face at the inefficiency of the idea.
"You can probably negotiate with Pond on that, depending on what it's naturally inclined to do without guidance..."
"Careful, or Amelia's R&D person—Zola isn't it?—will build herself a whole fleet of these things." Diziara shook her head.
"Have you seen the specs on her Little Big Probes? I would be interested to see what she'd do with the astrobee. We'll send her a copy of the specs for the physical version we're fabricating for here in the yards. That version lacks the AI that Diz imbued yours with." Corey turned and looked at the little cube-shaped bot. "Are you going to name it?"
Tory was silent for a moment, communicating digitally with the little bot. Finally, it said, "It will name itself when it's ready. Until then it's just the astrobee." The bot turned, understanding the reference to itself, and buzzed across the room to Tory.
"I can't wait to see what it names itself." Corey leaned closer to Diziara and lowered his voice. "Did you give it enough AI for it to want to name itself?"
"It should be about on par with Jackson Polly — I based him on the data the Starfleet database had on African Grey parrots... and they're damn smart birds. I didn't generate any personality subroutines for the astrobee though, since there isn't really useful data on what a bot should behave like unless we apply humanoid norms to it... and it seemed silly to do that since Tory isn't fond of fleshbag socialization. It is going to take its cues from Tory on how to behave." Diziara didn't bother to lower her voice and smiled at Tory and the astrobee.
Tory nodded its appreciation to Diz, shifting back to its low-poly form and taking the little bot in its fingertips. "It will name itself when it's ready," it repeated confidently.
"You'll be sure to let us know when it does, and what it settles on, right?" Diziara crossed her arms. Tell it what she expects, instead of waiting to see what it deduces from a lack of direction. Normally she liked where it went without direction but sometimes...
Tory didn't miss the tone of her voice. "I'll call. It will tell you itself." It paused. "I will translate for it. Is that sufficient?"
"Is that sufficient?" Diziara repeated.
Corey snorted and took her hand in his. "Yes, Tory, thank you."
Tory froze for a moment, its face flashing to a distraught pixellated smiley, then to its happiest form. "Thank you. It is an excellent gift and I will treasure its assistance."
"Let me know if you want help programming extras for it, there are specs for some specialized attachments NASA designed for it, or we can create new things." Diziara laid a hand on Tory's shoulder.
"I'm sure that Fen–" It paused again. "Yes. I will let you know. Thank you." Sentiment, it reminded itself.
Diziara laughed. "I won't be hurt if Fen helps you, but they may be busy so the offer is there."
Tory nodded, relieved. "It will probably be satisfied with the existing arm attachment, but if it wants more I will remember the offer." Seemingly in response, a small mechanical arm sprouted from the bottom of the little bot and snapped happily. Tory picked up a hyperspanner from the workbench and tossed it into the air experimentally, watching the bot track it and swoop down to catch it just before it hit the floor.
"Already teaching it to play catch." Diziara shook her head with a smile.
"I should be going for the briefing... Congrats again on the promotion Tory." Corey laid a hand on Tory's shoulder. "Don't forget Kitten, you have to run those test flights on Letty's mod for the fighters to justify my letting you out of the briefing." Corey caught Diziara by the back of her neck, pulling her in for a quick kiss.
Diziara snorted as Corey headed for the door. "And if I don't, you'll write me up?"
Corey paused in the doorway. "Of course not, I know how effective that is with you. You'll sleep on the couch tonight."
"I'll go crash with Stace then."
"I'll warn him, or better yet– Tory, name an obscure language."
"Befunge!" Tory replied instantly, its face in devilish mode.
Corey chuckled. "Wasn't quite what I was reaching for... if I ask Stace to make a programming language—especially one like Befunge—into a localization pack for you, we probably won't hear from him for months as he tries to figure out how to vocalize it. Can you pick something intended for organic vocal communication?"
"I get it, I get it." Diziara held up her hands in surrender. "I wasn't going to skip out on the test flight anyways, you know I enjoy flying even when it requires writing up reports after. Go on to the briefing, before you soil your sterling reputation." She flipped him off and blew him a kiss.
"Love you too, Kitten." Corey laughed as he headed out into the corridor.
Diziara shook her head, settling leaned against the edge of a work bench. "So, Tory. Before I have to go pretend to be a responsible officer for a little bit... can we talk about your socialization with us fleshbags?"
Tory's face switched to a mild blue frown and it recited dully, "Organic feelings are real, valid, and useful, and should be respected."
Diziara sighed. "I know our emotions and socialization habits are foreign to you. I really get how hard it is to parse, they don't exactly follow logic a lot of the time. But Corey and I don't go on and on about it because we're trying to mold you into behaving like a fleshbag, we do it because we want you to not just survive, but thrive."
Tory was still for a moment. "I suppose it is easier for me to accommodate the world than for the world to accommodate me." It nodded.
"Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely the last person to encourage anyone to conform just to make things easier for them." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "It's a balance, deciding where the line between compromise and losing yourself is. But the biggest lesson I've learned is that going it alone wears you the fuck down.
"When I was young, I lost someone who was my whole universe. As a result I kept everyone else at arm length for many years after, and no matter how strong I was, no matter how much people admired that facade of strength I maintained, life hurt. It wasn't until I finally started letting people into my life again—people like Corey and Stace—it got better. So when Corey and I try to teach you how to navigate our emotional needs, it's so you have the tools you need to maintain a group of people around you that will help you survive this universe." She opened her eyes again and offered Tory a melancholy smile.
"That is... reasonable. I would like for you and Admiral Waterhouse to continue being my... family." Tory shifted back to its human form - given that Diz couldn't read .emo files, a human face was the best way to express emotion. It put it to use now, showing a sad smile. "I will make the effort to make that easy for you."
"Corey and I aren't going to stop being your family. But one day, he and I won't be here." She took a long moment, then sighed. "Average human lifespan's like a hundred-thirty, and who knows what mine is given the genetic shenanigans my parents had to involve to make me and my brothers. Even though Amelia and Noah will certainly pick up the torch when Corey and I can no longer advocate for you, eventually they'll be gone one day too. You and the other photons will be left in the universe to make your own ways, and that means you need to be able to take on new family and you need to be able to watch out for each other." Diziara grabbed hold on Tory's hand and squeezed. Her gaze lingered on the connection.
Tory frowned. "Perhaps by then there will be enough of us to advocate for ourselves." It looked to Diziara for a long moment, then pulled her into its best approximation of a hug. "I should transmit back to the ship now. Thank you for... everything."
"You thank me by making me proud, okay?" She squeezed him tightly in the hug. "And when you get back to the ship, will you ask Amelia to give me or Corey a call when she can? She's been in debriefings every time we've tried to call, and we don't want to leave a message given why... it's about Noah."
Tory nodded and released Diziara. "I will relay the message." Without another word, it was gone, and the astrobee disappeared as well microseconds later.
=/\= End Log =/\=
Rear Admiral Corey Waterhouse Fighter Design Team Lead Co-Creator Project Torchwood Utopia Planitia
Captain Diziara Fighter Design Test Pilot Co-Creator Project Torchwood Utopia Planitia
Ensign "Centurion" Drummond Reconnaisance USS Joshua Norton, NCC-74819-A
