NOVEL SIMPLE 58. ICV Carbide
“Josè was pretty taken with the design we presented, if you’re curious,” said Jay conversationally. “Thought that the concept of a warp capable tug with construction equipment built in was quite the idea for a rescue vessel. The idea of it starting from a modular platform was Victoria’s, of course. He liked that idea too; liked it a lot, in fact.” As much as I loved my old captain, paying attention to him was proving impossible while all of my mental faculties were so entirely focused outside the window. Not even the blueprints flashing through my vision could distract me.
At a length just under eleven meters, the I.C.V. Carbide presented a slightly shorter and sleeker silhouette than Oxide once did — but what it lost in length, it made up for in width. Five meters of reinforced durasteel hull sat between the modern-style nacelles flanking the aft compartment. As with the old military transport I’d incorporated into its predecessor, the Carbide had a pair of impulse drivers built into the nacelle pylons with a cargo access hatch between them. Instead of the transparent fishbowl of the Oxide’s cockpit, this one was more of a vertical blister that protruded forward from the rest of the hull.
Two manipulator arms were also built in to this new ship, one each port and starboard, though they were of slightly lesser capacity than those that my Oxide could have handled. However, the trade off for that reduced capacity was that these arms were built into pods mounted low on the fore end, allowing them to be fully shielded while not in use. Those same pods also housed the forward landing struts, while the aft struts were situated just inboard of the impulse drivers.
The interior layout was pretty similar to my old ship too. The aft compartment was fully multi-purpose, with full environmental controls and artificial gravity plating. A nice touch I’d never considered was the mounting points built in to the deck plating. Using either a proprietary line of modular units, or a universal mag-lock, anything from passenger seating to workbenches could be mounted within the compartment securely. Amidships, a double set of airtight bulkheads separated a tiny fresher and a bank of storage cabinets from the aft hold and the cockpit fore. As with the Oxide, this middle section was where the Carbide’s crew hatch was located. Also apparent in the plans, if not in the hull’s appearance, was a powerful subspace communications array, a tractor beam emitter, and a maker station capable of printing basic foods and simple parts or machines.
In every bit of the design, the signs of my own ideas and those of my mentor sang out clearly. Having a maker station was something Vox knew I’d always thought would be cool, while the modular mounting and mag-lock system of the aft compartment had Jay’s fingerprints all over it. I’d never really considered installing a tractor/repulsor array on Oxide, the manipulator arms were already perfect for the work I'd planned on. For Carbide however, the array expanded her capabilities considerably. Another thing that caught my eye was the reactor core: the Carbide utilized a modern matter/antimatter annihilation reactor as one might expect, but its design was alien to me. There was a near-unnecessary amount of safeties and cutoffs built in to the housing, and the only explanation for the design was that Vox had taken the lessons learned from the Oxide’s last flight seriously.
A hand on my shoulder finally broke the spell I was under. “You still in there, Adresta?”
“Huh?” I said intelligently, turning back to the two men that were also in the room.
Jay laughed. “Let’s hope the custodial staff can get your face the rest of the way off that window!” Confused, I looked back at where I had just been standing and was stricken both by the fact that I didn’t really remember moving to the window and the rather blatant smudges all over it that happened to be an almost exact match to my face and hands. Heat rushed to my face.
Mister Yates cleared his throat with intention, though the smile on his face didn’t seem terribly bothered by having to get my attention back. “As I was saying, Miss Matson, I believe that a good investment opportunity is available to you in the form of this ship. I’m afraid that the final price is not fully covered by the settlement, though by my understanding the remainder should be well within your means.”
Once I finally calmed down enough to sit and look at the paperwork properly, later pages of the documents I’d been provided contained everything I needed to know about the construction contract along with the legal settlement from Kruger’s assets, and he was right: only a few hundred thousand credits of the final invoice would have to come from my own pocket.
‘Victoria’ picked up the conversation. “Captain Erickson did wish to cover the remainder for you,” she said, “I managed to convince him your pride would insist on your completing the purchase personally.”
My friend’s words hit with a sting that bit all the deeper for their accuracy. Even through everything, pride had always been the one thing in my life that hadn’t broken. My self-reliance, my resistance to asking for help, all of it was rooted in pride. Therapy had made that painfully obvious. Still, that pride had served me well in many ways: it was what drove me forward for many years, even when nothing else seemed to. There was no doubt I still had work to do on myself, but I wasn’t about to let all of that go.
Thoughts on the wording aside, there was no denying the accuracy of the AIA’s statement. It wouldn’t have sat well with me if I wasn’t involved in the purchase. If this was to be my ship, it was going to be my ship, not the Erickson’s ship, not Jay’s ship, My ship. By having someone else build it, they’d already taken that chance from me. Others could call it irrational if they wanted, and they’d probably be right, too — even I could acknowledge the faults in my logic — but knowing it was irrational didn’t change how I felt. For my own peace of mind, I needed to own it, and right now that meant spending my own money to cover what the settlement couldn’t. Nobody would have claim on Carbide but me.
“You aren’t wrong, Vo-Victoria,” I said, hoping that my slip-up wouldn’t cause issues. “No offense to Captain Erickson, but I most definitely would prefer to handle paying for the ship myself. The help and support I’ve received from everyone has been incredible, but I’m NOT helpless.” I waved a hand, gesturing at my recently acquired shell. “Especially now that I’ve got all of this. Besides which, I was saving up money before to fund that trip to Celeste. Now, with that already taken care of, putting it towards a new ship feels appropriate. Fitting, really. Especially, since that trip was paid for by the loss of the ship I’d built and the shell I’d lived in.”
Jay huffed, though a smile was still pushing at his cheeks. “Your age, your body, your employer... no matter how much changes in your life, you’re still the same person I met a decade ago.”
My smile turned pained even as a more pleasant memory came to mind. “Nonsense, I feel my age more and more every day.” The engineer raised an eyebrow at me as if to ask ‘really?’ “I think those were your words? Think I’ve changed quite a bit over those years, actually.” A deep sigh escaped my chest, and with a small chuckle I poked one breast in an effort to push myself back out of those thoughts. “I for one think the tits are an excellent addition.”
The reactions this elicited from all three others in the room each made me laugh for different reasons — Yates had busied himself with his personal pad and Jay was rolling his eyes at me, while Vox was the only one to respond verbally: “Miss Adresta, I do not believe this is an appropriate time for that sort of self-exploration.”
I shrugged. “Hey, I was prepared to pay full-price for these tits, and I will appreciate them whenever I want, thank you very much!” Both men seemed humored by my proclamation, though Jay was dragging an exasperated hand down his face through his silent laughs, while for her part, ‘Victoria’ just rolled her eyes in a very human way. She’d been studying again, that was apparent.
As the levity faded, reality almost seemed to lose its grip on me for a moment. I stepped back to the window to take another look into the bay, catching sight of my own reflection in the glass. ICV Carbide was the second coming of Oxide, just as I was the second iteration of myself. In many ways, it felt like I had somehow been shunted into some kind of parallel universe. My life had always been work and toil, trouble and suffering; and yet, somehow I was now in a very different world, one where I had people around me that cared, where hope for the future was never a stretch to find.
In my mind, separating myself from that old life completely was practically impossible. Sure, I could literally delete the memories of all of that negativity. It wouldn’t even be that difficult, now that portions of my brain were computerized. Perhaps, as Madame Klein had said, I had thrown away part of my humanity. I didn’t feel less like me; In fact, I felt more like myself than I ever had! So, yeah, I could delete the memories, I could just never remember any of it ever again, should I so choose. But it was all still a part of me, in a strange, disconnected kind of way. I’d worked for my life, and worked hard for it. That was a part of me.
It was easier to just forget, but I didn’t want to. That previous life, those years of struggle and setback, they were still mine, no matter how separated I felt from them now. Forgetting what had happened wasn’t the same as it never having occurred. All of the struggles, all of the trauma... that path had made me who I had become, and I was proud of that person.
I was snapped back to the reality of the present moment as Jay wrapped an arm around me comfortingly, having joined me by the window while I was deep in thought, and it was all I could do to bury my face into his chest and hold on for everything I had.
“Thank you.”
With arms that once could have bent steel, the old captain hugged me back with the care of a saint.
I hated that even the positive emotions just felt like so much in the moment. Were I any sort of misogynist, I might have been more judgmental of myself for having all of these emotions. However, in reality I was glad to have them. Growing up as I had, emotions were a luxury I could not often afford. Now they were a force of biology not easily ignored. They weren’t always fun, but they brought life into my life, for all that made sense.
“Of course, Adresta.” Jay’s whispered words were a balm to the chafe that my thoughts had become. I breathed in deeply of old grease and leather, and the hug from Jay felt comfortable, felt safe.
A light cough sounded from the table, and I peeked behind Jay’s shoulder to see the lawyer patiently waiting for us. “Well, this is all very touching,” Yates said diplomatically. “But if I could get some signatures, Miss Matson, then we can make these contracts legal and all be on our merry ways.”
Jay looked down into my eyes, gentleness and care etched in his face. “To business then, Apprentice Matson?”
I smiled. He hadn’t called me that since I’d left the Forge. Apprentice had been my official job title on the ship’s roster at the time, but the old captain was painting it in a new light now. “To business, Captain Jay.”