Drifters' Alliance, Book 2 by Elle Casey Page B

answer.
    “Yes, Captain.”
    “When we night crawled the other day, did we bring anyone with us?”
    “No, Captain.”
    “Are you programmed to alert me automatically when that happens?”
    “Yes, Captain, I am.”
    “Is there any reason why you would ignore that programming?”
    “I am sorry, Captain, but I do not understand the question.”
    Baebong looks over at me, confused. I guess he and the computer are on the same page — the one that says computers can’t ignore their programming. But both of them are forgetting that one time when they did, when everything in our ancient world went up in smoke.
    After I heard the stories about our world ending, about the viruses, the bombs, and the reaction of the computers after the dust settled, I never totally trusted a non-sentient being again. Raised in a household where computers did almost everything a human could do only made me more suspicious of their entire race. That’s how revolutions start … right under your nose and even inside your own home sometimes. After all, it was a computer who helped me escape my personal prison, and I know for damn sure my father never programmed it to do that. I took its chip with me when I left so that he couldn’t destroy it. The sentimental part of me entertains the idea of resurrecting my savior inside another host one day. The smarter version of myself fears what that means about both the compubot and me. Until then, the chip remains inactive and on my person, in a tiny compartment sewn into my jacket that no one but me knows about.
    Jeffers enters the flightdeck chamber from the other door, to my left. I watch as he takes a seat in the other available chair. “What is that?” he asks. “Do we know who’s piloting?”
    I shake my head, staring at the ship as it gets closer and closer. Something about it looks off. I realize that not everyone flies nose forward, but it’s usually when there’s something wrong with the azimuth indicators that they fly kind of off-kilter like this one is. He’s not sending out a distress signal of any kind, though, otherwise we’d be hearing it right now.
    I’m guess I’m used to ships looking more … purposeful. This one is just floating, letting some small thrust given a long time ago send it where it’s going. It’s possible a piece of space junk bumped into it and knocked it off level, but anyone on board would have probably straightened her out if that were the case. It’s almost as if it’s just limping along instead of actually trying to reach a destination. Or at least, that’s the impression it’s trying to give. There are no alarm bells ringing on my ship, but they’re clanging like crazy in my head.
    “Try to reach it,” I say to Baebong, hoping my internal alarms are just overblown paranoia. I suppose it’s possible this PC could be experiencing an emergency even without a distress signal, and if the ship is in trouble, I’m not against helping its captain out. He can’t have more than one other person on board with the size of the thing being what it is — maybe two, max. Turning into a jellyfish out in the Dark with no gravitational field to keep my feet on the ground and my bones strong is my worst nightmare, so I’d never leave someone else to that fate if I could help it. Besides, it’s just common courtesy not to let your fellow human turn to jelly, right?
    I try to let that good Samaritan vibe calm my nerves, but it’s not helping all that much. One of the best cons in the universe is the lame duck gambit. I’ve played it enough times myself to know it’s very effective when there are sentimental suckers around.
    My lieutenant’s fingers fly over his array, and a beep rings out into the flightdeck space, indicating the system’s readiness for his transmission. I let him handle the first contact attempt, certain he knows to use the three closest locator beacons to our position followed by the one farthest for directional purposes. It’s something