A tear rolled down her cheek, her lip quivered. He had hit the nerve he was looking for, the one that led straight back to her long forgotten human dreams, the ones she'd had before she was used as the center of an organic computer.
Hampon offered open arms and she leaned into him, weeping. “No one ever asked me,” she sobbed.
Perhaps it was his new found youth, maybe it was the effect of rare emotional contact, but he felt a deep sympathy for the young woman. Whether her father or anyone else had taken the opportunity to ask the critically ill girl if she wanted to become the Eve Mind. There was a ghoulish cruelty to the thought of having one's conciousness transferred to the coldness of machinery without consent, and as he soothed Nora he genuinely wanted nothing more than to protect her. “It's all right, we're going to make things better. It's going to be fine.” He reached out to his aide, who was quietly in tears herself and she handed him a kerchief.
When Nora's quakes and sobs stopped some time later he drew back from her and looked into her eyes. They were glazed, tears were starting to dry. “Come back to us, it's not time for that,” he said quietly.
Her eyes focused on him again and he offered her the soft white cloth. She took it and wiped her tears away. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“How do you feel when you're connected?”
She regarded him with mild surprise and thought before answering. “Normal.”
His heart sank at the answer. “There's no emotion there, is there?”
She shook her head. “There's noise everywhere but it's all the same. No one's angry or sad.”
“Or happy,” Lister finished. “That's what I want for you Nora, and I know it won't be easy, but anything that's worth having is worth working for. Would you like my help?”
“Help with what?” She blew her nose, filling the small compartment with the sound.
Hampon couldn't help but smile. “I want to help you be happy, in the most human sense. When you're ready you can choose your own road, but I'd like us to be friends for a start. Would you like that?”
She nodded.
“All right, I'm going to have to leave but I'll be back soon.”
“There's a battle going on, I understand.”
“In the meantime, would you like to move to better quarters? These seem small and drab.”
“I saw some on deck twelve, section B I liked in the system, and they're empty.”
“Then they're yours. That's not far from mine either, but you probably already knew that,” Lister teased. “Well then, Mia here will help you with your things. If you can stay focused on just being yourself, on not connecting to the computer system she'll even help you decorate if you like.”
“All right,” Nora beamed.
“But Mia will stop helping if she sees you're not paying attention. She can be your personal assistant all the time if you like, and I think you'll get along well, she's a nice young woman. She's brought a present for you as well,” Lister directed the aide to give the box to Nora.
She took the long lid off and gasped as she moved the thin white tissue paper aside. “Oh, it's beautiful,” she said in a hushed whisper as she drew the upper half out carefully.
“Mia can help you get washed and dressed. You can talk to her, she's here to help you with whatever you need,” Hampon nodded at the young woman knowingly. He had opened the door as per Mia's instructions, and as she had predicted the whole experience was an emotional one for him as well as Nora. Mia would have her work cut out for her, but as the best qualified therapist in her age group amongst the West Watch, he expected her to do well.
“I'll be around to see how things are coming along in your new place,” he offered a hug and Nora took it with vigour.
“Thank you so much, I'll try to stay out of the system.”
“Good. Make sure you eat regularly and get plenty of rest. I don't want to watch you wither away like Gabriel,” he stood and was just about to leave when Nora stopped him.
“Lister, where's Gabriel? I know he left the main fleet but couldn't find out where he'd gone.”
He offered her a comforting smile; “He's on a mission to spread the word of the Order of Eden. Don't worry about him right now, you could concentrate on your own happiness.”
Emergence
Captain Alice Valent was still reading after action reports from the various section commanders aboard Triton when the door to the ready quarters chimed. She stood up, put her eye patch on and moved to stand in front of the desk. Somehow it just didn't feel right to have people see her sitting behind it. “Come in,” she called out quietly.
The Heavy armoured hatch was drawn out of the doorway by thick arms and Chief Grady stepped inside. The thick block of dense metal that kept the ready quarters secure was pushed back into place behind him. “I'd hate to have to use the manual cranks to get that open,” he commented quietly as the seals squeaked against each other for a second. “I'll send someone up to fix that noise.”
“Thank you Chief but I think you have bigger fish to fry. What can I do for you?”
“You can relax for a start.” He was amused by her demeanour, and as he folded his hands in the sleeves of his robes she realized she was practically scowling. “There are five chairs in this room and you're leaning.”
“I'm sorry,” she said with a sigh, sitting more comfortably on the corner of the desk. “There's just so much going on. I don't know how Jake did it.”
“He delegated part of the workload to you and all of his department heads.”
“I know, and I've been trying. You, Stephanie, Shamus, even Price and Finn have been great, but there's always something left. Medical is still a mess, thank God we didn't have many wounded, most of our fighter pilots didn't come back, and Jake's ship is ready for the scrap heap.”
“You mean the Samson.”
“What's left of it.”
“That's all taken care of. Once we know what's going on in orbit around Pandem I'll be able to send some engineering staff to help Frost and the deck crew make improvements and repairs.”
“He's still down there?”
“No, actually. I heard he was back on the gunnery deck.”
Alice sighed and nodded. “I still need him there. He's good at what he does, his people look to him and removing him, even if he did tell his people he was stepping down willingly, has caused an even larger divide between the gunnery crew and security. We can't have that, not now, so he's running things up there again.”
“And after this engagement?”
“Well, I'm not reinstating him as Chief, I don't think he'll ever have that title again, but to be honest I don't know what to do past that. I'm hoping Jake can make a decision.”
“Here's hoping. Captain Valance will be pretty pleased at the ship's condition considering what she's gone through. He might not even notice that the gunnery crew and security staff have taken sides.”
“So the repairs on Triton are complete?”
“They are. I had modified ergranian metal ready to patch her up and now the few holes we earned have nice thick grafts of the stuff.”
“Grafts?”
Liam smiled and nodded. “Laura gave me access to the copy of the Freeground development database she brought with her and after a little research I was able to figure out a way to add ergranian steel to damaged sections of the ship so it would bond with the metal surrounding it.”
“What about the light shifting layer? Will those sections bend light around them like the rest of the ship?”
“Everything will happen under the light shifting layer that runs on top of the hull, so there won't be any problems there. If anything the new metal should be dense enough to disguise any thermal or electromagnetic signatures even better than the existing hull. Eventually those grafts will replace all the metal around them, consuming the matter as they grow, I'll keep an eye on it.”