Deep

Chapter 15 Discovery

'Er. XO clothes.' Seki glanced down at herself. A bright blush appeared across her face, ears, and shoulders, and the video feed cut moments later.

'Ah, yes. What do you mean, Tomi?'

'You weren't supposed to receive that message yet.'

'What message?'

Sigh, she read my mind again. 

I was preparing a flaming response.

'Sek, dear, who are you speaking to?' asked a feminine voice. A real familiar voice.

'I'll call you back,' Seki said, and disconnected.

I don't think I've seen Seki topless before, and she is...

[No, we are not going there.]

Yes, we are not going there but...

[We. Are. Not. Going. There.] I resigned to the decorum of my inner voice. I massaged my temples as I worked through my feelings. Yes, I care more about Seki than any other living soul on this ship. I am Tama Maru's captain, so I am responsible for everyone, no matter what I feel. This isn't the time for me to be distracted by unfulfilled romantic attachments.

'Now go, you've got work to do,' were Tomi's parting words. She still believes in me. I can't let her down.

A minute and a half later, the shuttle touched down on the SMS dock platform. Three minutes later, I exited the dock and entered the facility proper. 

Manned spacewalks are hazardous operations that are rare occurrences. All crew has to be certified to be 'spacewalk' capable; unfortunately the crew almost never got the opportunity to perform a spacewalk, so it required constant drilling. The Space Mission Simulator is a safe environment for the crew to hone their skills and maintain their certification. 

I glided through the quiet, minimally lit facility. I travelled through the preparation area where the crew donned their kit. There were racks of spacesuits and shelves of other mission-specific equipment restrained on their racks. A short flight later, I was at the door of the actual simulator. 

The simulator was not ready, because it was still downloading data from SG's databases. It also required time to process the data. I considered accessing Alice's spare capacity to accelerate the process. I sipped the remaining coffee, which was still hot.

Sek, if you are calling back, now is nice.

As the seconds ticked past, I got a little impatient. I checked the simulators' status again. It had downloaded seventy percent of the data. 

I wonder if this thing has sufficient storage? I checked the local storage, and it was ninety percent full. 

Crap.

[You did not, quite, think things out, eh Daddy O.] Said my inner voice.

No. I did not.

[Are you the Captain of this ship, or a mouse?] I was about to receive a lecture. 

Then the status panel on the door went blank and its information in my visual disappeared. 

Great. What now?

I then heard a dull clack like somebody threw a large manual switch.

 The panel lit up again and the simulator control system proceeded through its initialisation cycle. The panel went green and simulator system statistics reappeared in my visual. Local storage grew four times larger, and local processing capability increased a whopping sixteen times.

Alice, you are amazing. 

[Unlike you.] My inner voice can be a prissy bitch. My inner voice is right most of the time.

'Alice?'

'Yes, Captain?'

'Thank you very much for the upgrades to the SMS systems,'

'Think nothing of it, Captain. Do you require anything else?'

'No. Thank you, Alice.'

'You are welcome,' she said with a brief smile, before disappearing

What would I do without you?

[Not much.] My inner voice spat. I was in an excellent mood right now, so I ignored it.

A notification appeared, telling me the data I required was in local storage.

Everything set, I started the program and entered the simulator. Displayed were the same animations I first saw at SG. I floated, observing the information presented before me. 

How the hell did we get here? 

I sighed audibly. 

Okay, there is something hidden here. I know it.

I took a sip of my dwindling supply of coffee.

Okay, the Tama Maru was a full light second away from its gravitational disturbance. I was certain an overachieving AI was behind that.

Alice, my dear, what have you been doing with my ship? 

I added Tama Maru's projected and real flight paths to the program. The projected path was yellow, the real track was green. My hunch was right, we are ahead of our projected positions, and a day ahead of schedule. 

Okay, Alice has been tweaking our flight paths. I will have to give her a good lecture on leaving me in the dark about changes to ship systems. The results of her efforts were outstanding, so I did not want to yank the reins of our cute thoroughbred too forcefully.

Hmm, is Alice cute?

[Hey, get back on point.]  

I am giving you a name, inner voice. How about Bob?

[Humph.]

Bob, it is then. I grinned at the thought. I stared at the data again.

So why the discrepancy between the Tama Maru and the other gravitational pairings? I analysed Tama Maru's flight paths again. Then, I saw it. The gravitational anomaly and the original flight path would have intersected.

The planned and actual flight paths of Tama Maru diverged four years ago. A kernel of an idea sprouted in my head. I removed the current plots and replaced them with those from four years ago. With that change, everything coincided perfectly.

They didn't have real-time data on everything's location. I rubbed my right hand on my chin, playing with the stubble. I felt a powerful need to pee. The closest toilets were across the facility by the spacesuits. I jetted out of the simulator, in a manner befitting a man who needed to empty his bladder pronto. When I returned, Seki was looking at my handiwork.

'You figured it out.' She said as she studied the modified simulation. 

At that moment, I was overjoyed she was present. Nothing else mattered beyond that.