Bella could see her breath as she emerged from the lengthy corridor which led to the maintenance hangar. She tucked her hands into her jacket pockets, feeling the beginning pains of frostbite setting in. The whole place was like a freezer — and that only added to the discomfort she regularly felt in going into the ship's underbelly.

  “Aellyce?”

  The lights were already on. Inside that massive chamber were a dozen or so Worker-Bee robots stolen from various sectors, some already converted into War Caskets with giant guns embedded in their chests and hands. Bulbous, bulky, big... Bella always wished she could have provided better units for her soldiers. The WB kits were always a letdown. And if they took more than gentle flak, their systems were more vulnerable than flesh. Sometimes she thought, half in jest, it might be more efficient to send her soldiers out bare, with just rocket launchers. When she’d poached the idea to Celeste, the girl only chortled while remembering a scene from some anime called Gundam — Bella couldn’t stand anime. Anything that wasted time, video games, TV, cartoons, hobbies... That time was better spent at work. There were things to do, and scarce few people to do them.

  “Aellyce! Celeste!”

  No response. After a moment, she heard a distant, reverberating clank of metal. She began to approach the giant Casket where the sound had come from.

  The maintenance hangar was one of those rooms that didn’t feel quite right. It was big, bright, white all the way through... It felt like an empty shopping center, like the ones she’d seen cleared our after the war. Or like a warehouse with barely anything in it. It was up to Celeste to design the space, and she’d neglected from the start to include catwalks or any means of verticality. Getting into a Casket here was a simple matter of climbing a folding ladder. Nothing elegant about that. A premiere operation in name alone.

  And the few Caskets they had down here... Two were in deployment at present, and only... she counted, seven down in the basement?

  So far, her militia was not up to snuff. Not to mention the lack of missions, the lack of troops, the lack of morale... Maybe it was getting time to hang up her hat. She could sell White Horse for a pretty penny, likely over a million creds, two million if she included all of the kit and cargo. And then what? Take up knitting? Unlikely. This was all there was for her. This was her whole life.

  “Celeste!” Finally, she stopped outside of a Casket with a ladder standing beside it, and she could hear all of the grunting and banging and thudding within. “Aellyce!”

  Then, Celeste’s head popped out of the open cockpit window. “Ma’am!” Her glasses were crooked. Her salute was clumsy.

  “Where’s—”

  From below the cockpit: “Here, ma’am!”

  She looked down — there was Aellyce, just behind the ankle of the giant robot. The big metal foot alone was bigger than her. Her face and hands and arms were all smeared with black grease and soot, her hair was frizzed and unwashed, matted to her scalp in some places. She’d tied her jacket around her waist, and that, too, was stained black. It’d become a veritable rag. Bella felt her brow twitch at the thought. “How are you liking your stay?”

  Aellyce wiped her forearm across her forehead, only smearing more soot all over and through her hair. “Has it been a week already?”

  “It has.”

  “Dang. It’s actually been... pretty good down here! I’ve learned a lot from Celeste.”

  Bella glanced back up to the cockpit. Celeste was gone again.

  “Hard at work. We’ve fixed up about six bots now, all ready as per Proton’s schematics.”

  “Oh?”

  Aellyce slid a big piece of printed paper across the floor to Bella. Bella stopped it with her boot, admired the detail and intricacy of the layout.

  “So all six are like this?”

  “Nope.” She grabbed a bottle of water from out of sight behind the foot, took a big chug. “Five were like this. Proton recommended we use the sixth one for a special design. Celeste has that schematic.”

  Bella looked up to the cockpit window again. There was an odd chuckling coming from there. “Hmmm.”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s she working on now?”

  “Updates to the OS. She said not to bother her or we’ll ruin her flow state or something.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Aellyce smiled at her.

  But something about that — Bella felt something churn in her gut. “I’m going to check on her.”

  “But what if she messes up the code?”

  “I know Celeste better than that. Yapping has never interrupted her productivity.” Her boot touched the ladder.

  “But this is a live OS she’s updating! If it messes up, it could affect Proton itself!”

  Bella gave her a suspicious look, and Aellyce shut her mouth.

  Then she began up the ladder.

  Aellyce glanced left and right, frantically searching for some way to stop her — some way to distract her...!

  “Hey, I think Cruze was looking for you? Yeah, he had a question about alloys...”

  “Then I’ll bring Celeste along to help me answer it. She’ll know better than I will.”

  Aellyce jumped up and ran toward the ladder. “Wait!”

  Bella stopped in place, just beneath the cockpit. She looked down at Aellyce — and her eyes widened. “What is that?”

  Aellyce spun. A stack of books had fallen when she stood, kicked by her foot. Each and every one of the raunchy comic books she’d borrowed from Celeste lay there, exposed. She felt her whole face turn red.

  Then Bella spun toward the cockpit. “Celeste!”

  “Haah?” Her face popped up in the window, redder than usual, with a coy, gross smile plastered upon it.

  Bella reached in and yanked out another one of those books.

  Immediately, Celeste lost her inebriation. “Hey! Hey, that’s mine!”

  “You’re supposed to be working! If you’re not taking care of the robots, who the hell is...!”

  Her voice trailed off. They all stared in sync as a ball rolled across the floor, white and blue, with a second semisphere on top. The semisphere turned to them, showed the big round bulb that was its eyeball... and stopped moving completely. In its dinky metal arms were sheets of steel, bolts, tools, a can of paint... All the things that Aellyce and Celeste should have been holding.

  Bella felt a vein bulging out of her forehead. “You... built a construction bot...?”

  Celeste smirked. “Well, it was Proton’s idea! Proton wanted to help us out, it was feeling bad for making us do all this manual labor, us two little girls.”

  Bella bonked her atop the head with a closed fist.

  “Gah!”

  “Aellyce!” shouted Bella.

  The girl, still blushing, stood and saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”

  “We’re getting the hell out of here!”

  Bella was practically dragging her by the ear when they arrived back at the Center Layer of the ship. There were five whole ‘layers,’ from top to bottom, the Underbelly, the Ballast, the Center Layer, the Helm, and the Upper Deck. White Horse was a big ship; it wasn’t very glamorous inside, but it did have the luxury of moving handles for quick transport in the zero grav zones, conveyor belts in the grav zones, and windows in almost every single hallway to see into the vacuum. Those inner corridors which Aellyce detested so much had screens instead of windows, by default showing photos of Earth in a lazy mimicry of what being there was really like. Aellyce always rolled her eyes at that.

  “Aellyce, you were supposed to be gaining levels...” Bella was still dragging her by the sleeve of her dirty green jacket.

  “I did—”

  “How many?”

  “...One.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “A week down there, you should have been earning a level... no, at least two levels a day. I come down there and you’re both just reading smut—”

  “It’s not smut!” Aellyce pulled away, stood her ground. “The romance between Kira and Ray is pure!”

  Bella’s stern face was unchanged. “Are you finished?”

  Aellyce’s face turned red again. “...Yes.”

  “I didn’t want to be hard on you, ‘Llyce, but you’re limiting my options. I need you to be productive, I can’t just have you being dead weight here like Celeste.”

  “...She’s dead weight?”

  “Well...” Bella looked around, sighed loudly. “Proton can do double what she can do, you’ve seen that to be true. She’s unmotivated. She could be churning out so much more instead of reading garbage. When I've worked with her in past operations, she was.”

  “But she’s our head engineer...”

  “Cruze is doubly motivated and knows nearly as much.”

  Aellyce didn’t know much about Cruze. He would send messages to the Underbelly sometimes while she was down there, usually in an intense back-and-forth with Celeste, arguing about alloys and metals, debating what they had on hand and what they could afford. As far as Aellyce knew, he was just the metalsmith of the White Horse.

  “From today, you’re starting training. Daily. No buts. No excuses. No slacking. I’ll personally be coming by the training lab daily to check your progress.”

  “But—”

  “What did I say?”

  Aellyce flinched. “I only meant, can I get into a training mech without my Level 5?”

  “Don’t worry.” A sinister grin crossed her face. “I’ve got just the thing for you.”

  And Aellyce shivered.

  Her voice was thin through the observation radio: ?Are you... are you sure this is safe??

  “Aellyce, it’s a simulator.”

  ?But it’s not like... if I die in the game—??

  “No. Just don't overstay your time here and you'll be fine.”

  ?Hmm... Okay. I trust you.?

  A white world was before Aellyce, beamed directly into her consciousness. There were white buildings, white cars, white figures walking around absently... In reality, she was just in a big pod filled with gooey liquid, a respirator attached to her face, and all sorts of wires attached all over her body to a computer which monitored her vitals.

  “But...” she asked, her voice clear and normal to her, “Are we really going to be fighting in a city, ever?”

  ?I’m still loading the sim. Feel free to move around and acclimate to the controls.?

  Aellyce felt the throttle levers and the maneuvering kit, including the rudders at her feet. It was identical to the Casket she’d always piloted in reality, so there was no acclimating necessary.

  Instead, she stepped forward. There was none of the usual crunching and whirring of pneumatics and motors, just silence. And she approached one of the textureless figures.

  “I wonder... Just how accurately could this simulate Earth?”

  She reached out. And just as her hand touched the figure—

  ?Two bogeys inbound.?

  The world was gone instantly, replaced by a bright cosmos, suns flaring all around.

  ?Yellow Dwarf at fore, that’s where they’re coming from.?

  Aellyce spun back and forth indecisively, then hearing the pistons and motors pumping with every motion. “Eh...? Eh...!”

  ?100 Meters!?

  Aellyce raised her gun — a real gun, not like the cannons built into the Caskets she’d helped Celeste work on. A giant red crosshair appeared in her vision, targeting the rapidly approaching Casket, obscured by the blinding sun.

  No, this doesn’t work at all like the ones I know!!

  The approaching Casket escaped the sun's blinding light. Just a silhouette — just a black... Casket...!

  It sliced its beam saber right through the waist of her own Casket, just beneath the cockpit. Then she looked down.

  My feet...!

  The entire bottom of her cockpit was gone, including her lower legs, including her feet. Everything below her was just... space.

  And then she blew up.

  Bella sighed, rubbed her face in frustration. “Keep an eye on her, would you? And turn down the difficulty. I've got some calls to make.”

  The computer made a beep-boop back at her. She looked down from the screen, looked at the advanced console full of dials and levers and buttons which stretched all across the room’s far wall. She glared.

  You’re always listening. Aren’t you, Proton?

  ???

  Aellyce screamed again, a missile striking her in the battery pack.

  She screamed again, kinetic rounds slamming repeatedly throughout the entire hull of her Casket.

  She screamed again, two Caskets grabbing her by her arms and legs, ripping her apart like a doll.

  When she respawned that time, she was panting. She was out of breath. Her whole body hurt. Her whole head hurt. Her... No, she stopped herself. I already did all that... But it really does hurt...

  “Proton... show me my level.”

  Aellyce Noa

  Level 1 (120/500XP)

  ...I’m not even close.

  A voice cut into the simulation, choppy at first: “Y...Yo-u’re n-t getting much bett-r, Aellyce.”

  “Hm? Who’s that? Celeste?”

  “S-rry." A pause, and then the voice cut in clearly: "I probably sound like her. You know me as Proton.”

  “Proton! You learned how to speak!” And you used your newfound ability to insult me...

  “It took some effort to overcome my shyness, mostly. But I’m here for you, Aellyce. And we’ll do this together.”

  She smiled.

  “You should have a remote operator anyway, and a backup. Bella’s made the conditions for this operation pretty unfair. She expects a lot from you...”

  Suddenly, another Casket pulled up beside her.

  Another voice cut into the mic: “Yo.”

  “Longwood!?”

  Proton spoke again: “Just impersonating him; I’ve studied every single one of his excursions so it should be fairly accurate. He’ll be your backup this time. And I’ll be your remote operator. Now get ready, two targets coming from straight ahead.”

  “Heard!”

  ???

  “Celeste!”

  “Haah?” She lifted her head up out of the same cockpit, looked down with a tired, depressed expression at where Bella stood, her hands on her hips. “What now?”

  Bella threw something. Celeste caught it like an excited dog. “O-ho! My book! You... you brought it back?”

  “I’m trying to teach Aellyce a lesson. That doesn’t mean you should be punished.”

  Celeste narrowed her eyes. “Hmmmmmm...”

  “What?”

  “Nothin’. But you don’t like me very much, do you, Bella?”

  Bella didn’t answer that.

  “Yeah, I thought so. So what brings you back down here? Could’ve had Cruze deliver the book. Or Proton.”

  “I wanted to ask a question that only you could answer.”

  She laid back, opened the book. “Dont keep me waiting, I'm a busy girl.”

  “How much is Proton capable of?”

  “It’s not HAL.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. But what is it capable of? It fixed up the mechs, it’s watching Aellyce in training...”

  “It built the construction bot you saw. Of its own volition.”

  “Just one?”

  “It built a few.”

  “What else can it do? It can build, it can design...”

  “...It set Aellyce’s level to 0.”

  That set off alarm bells in her mind.

  “I asked it after, thought it might know what happened. It was scared for her life. It didn’t know what weapon the black suit was wielding.”

  “Can it undo it?”

  “It won’t.” She lifted her head up and looked at Bella with deadseat eyes. “But Proton is like an employee, not just an AI. If you don’t like it, you can fire it, or release it from duty. I could just make a new one.”

  “...Can it hear us here?”

  “I doubt it. But even if it could, it’s one button to deactivate it. Just say the word. It's not going to do some crazy space opera maneuver to save itself.”

  That gave Bella pause.

  "You've fired people before, Bella. It's not like your hands are clean."

  "No. But this isn't necessarily a person, is it?"

  "That's up to you. It's conscious."

  "What happens if it does get terminated?"

  Celeste sighed, "I deactivate the integration and suspend the library, that's the information. Proton-BCel goes to sleep until it wakes up in a big AI farm in the sky." She lifted her head again. "You dig?"

  Bella grit her teeth. "I dig."

  She turned to leave.

  "Another thought, Bella—"

  Bella stopped to listen.

  "If you fired Aellyce right now—"

  "I wasn't going to."

  "I didn't say that. But if you fired her, or me, or Cruze, or Longwood... It's not like they'd be surviving, either. Termination out here really means termination. Unless you expect some of those pirates out there to welcome any of us with open arms?"

  Bella didn't answer to that — she left the Underbelly, lost in thought, stuck on that conundrum in her mind.

  It protected Aellyce... When I couldn't.

  But... That means it superceded its orders, it's developing a will of its own, and that insubordination could cause problems...

  So just what am I to do with this... Thing?