5. Freefall

  The maps show the system we arrived in as a dead system, with six planets, including a Venusian planet in the green zone. Those maps are centuries old, however, and haven’t been updated since the Atlians landed in our dimension and began changing everything in their wake.

  Instead of the second planet being a toxic wasteland with a temperature hot enough to melt led, it was an ocean paradise with a peach-tree that was in full blossom, so large that it was visible from orbit.

  We arrived in the system and were immediately challenged by its guardians, more old-soulships like Samonosuke, but they backed off once they recognized him.

  And then they immediately began giving him shit at needing to get tugged home by an infant.

  “I’m sorry I shot you mister Samonosuke,” I said again, not realizing that the other ships could hear me. “I still feel so bad about that. You were saving me and I—“

  “Don’t worry about it kid,” Samonosuke said quickly, but the damage was done. The other ships were guffawing and teasing him about taking a bullet in the ass. They showed an ancient clip of an old cowboy jumping around after getting shot in the buttocks with Samonosuke’s hull photoshopped in to be the man’s head.

  I was a little embarrassed, especially as Samonosuke began shouting at the other soulships. In his defense, I posted the unedited record of the battle for them to see that it really was all of my fault.

  They were quiet for a moment.

  “You did well to protect the child,” one of the older soulships said eventually. “He should not have been on his own at that age.”

  The other ships grunted an agreement.

  Then they all resumed giving Samonosuke shit about getting shot in the ass by a toddler with a pea-shooter.

  Nobody was teasing me , exactly, but I felt really embarrassed. Samonosuke noticed and whispered to me.

  “Don’t worry about these guys. I was expecting as much. They were worried when I was late checking in and this is them paying me back for making them worry,” he explained. Then he grumbled “And once you get past the absurdity of the situation, it is kinda funny. I’d be giving them just as much shit as they’re giving me if it had happened to someone else.”

  “I feel bad,” I said. “I really am sorry.”

  “Blame your crew for you being in that situation to begin with,” he told me with the soulship equivalent of a shrug. Anyway, you can disable the tractor beams now. Now that we’re in system, I can limp my way to the repair bay. And you can go land on the planet.”

  “Land on the planet?” I asked. “Why would I do that? I mean, I can do atmospheric entries, but—”

  “That’s exactly why you should do that. You can . That alone is reason enough,” he explained. “And besides, your new crew members will be waiting for you down there.”

  “I’m getting new crew?”

  “Yeah. If you’re still serious about joining the alliance, then once you land, some Atlians and their allies will want to board you to see if they’re compatible with you. Once you find a partner, then they’ll round out the rest of their crew with locals and you can start running missions,” he explained.

  “Will I have to fight like you?” I asked, trying to sound brave.

  “Nah, kid. You’ll be doing things more like bringing medicine and tools and people between worlds like this one. The government thinks that it has a map of all the world terraformed by the Atlians, but they’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. But you’ll probably only see the public ones until you’re a bit older, and the alliance trusts you not to blab.”

  “I can keep a secret,” I said.

  “Kid, I’ve seen your .jpg. When you’re ten years old, maybe then we’ll trust you not to accidentally upload the hidden networks that we don’t want the empire to know about on the public net. But until then, you’re basically a child to us. We’ll take care of you because that’s what we do with children, but we won’t trust you with anything important. So don’t worry about it too much.”

  I grumbled at being called a child because I wasn’t . I hadn’t shown anyone the .jpg in weeks! But I took his advice and deactivated the graviton clamps that kept us linked before going towards the planet. I received a landing solution which put me on one of the landmasses opposite from where the peach tree was growing, and me and my crew began going through the checklists for atmospheric entry.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Let me just say, going into a controlled freefall while the air burns around you and your surface reaches superhot temperatures? Well, it’s an amazing experience. Really wakes you up, like jumping naked into a half frozen pond. Or so I’m told; I obviously can’t do that since I’m not human. But wooh boy was the first time an experience.

  It was so much fun that I decided I had to do it again. So rather than land where I was supposed to, I kicked on my thrusters and shot back out into orbit for another go.

  We received a communication from the surface from their air traffic control. “Come in SoulShip Artemis model designation Arty. Arty, why did you cut off your landing?”

  “WEEEE!” I shouted.

  The captain put through a communications link on another line with the surface to explain that I was only a few months old, and they nodded sagely at the news.

  “Well, feel free to play around with the atmosphere. You should be safe, just trust your instincts, and when you’ve tired yourself out land on the continent where you were originally scheduled to land. Don’t worry about the exact location, we’ll come to you.”

  So with the excitement of a kid doing dives off of the high-dive, I jumped in and out of the atmosphere eight times before wearing myself out and finally landing where I was supposed to.

  I finally landed in a wide open field where the grass was growing tall enough for an adult human to get lost in. My landing burned up a bit of that grass, but it wasn’t that big of a deal, since it didn’t spread. About twenty minutes later, our hosts arrived.

  The first to arrive was an Atlian Cultivator. He flew in from over the horizon, moving at supersonic speeds but without the sonic boom that he should have caused. He landed nearby and bowed politely to me.

  “I am Senshi. I request permission to enter your sanctuary, young one,” he said.

  I flashed green lights at him and began playing “Welcome to the Jungle.”

  I don’t think he got the reference, but understood it as the invitation that it was, climbing the stairs that I lowered for his use. My crew turned up to meet him, and he nodded at them politely.

  “I am Senshi,” he repeated to them. “Samonosuke has already informed us of the situation, and I shall be responsible for weeding out the remainder of you who will not be allowed to remain aboard the Arty. I must ask at this time, however, if there is something else that we should be calling this fine young ship?”

  “What do you mean?” Rebekah asked.

  “I am asking if he is happy with his name,” Senshi clarified. “We haven’t formally registered his IFF yet, so it would be easiest to change it now. If he decides to be called something else later in life, then we can still make the change, but it will take a while to universally update his designation.”

  “So I get to pick my name?” I asked, booming my outside speakers because I just realized that they had always been on this entire time but had no atmosphere to work in.

  “Yes. If you want to,” Senshi answered.

  “Do I have to answer right now?”

  “No. We can continue for a while, but we’ll need to register your IFF before you leave this system so that our other locations recognize you as a friend and part of the alliance,” Senshi explained. “So you have until then. If you decide on a name, you can inform us at any time. Otherwise, we will ask before registering you as Arty. I will say, Arty is a fairl common name for SoulShips, and you are an exceptional ship.”

  “You think I’m exceptional?” I asked.

  “I can taste it in your Qi,” Senshi assured me. “And the fact that you disable the mighty Samonosuke in battle is no small feat!”

  I blushed, my lights turning crimson. “That was an accident,” I protested.

  Senshi laughed. “Come. Those of you who have not been cleared, please follow me and we will begin the interviews.”

  The remaining twelve members of my crew who hadn’t been taken aboard Samonosuke were led outside. They knew better than to argue with an Atlian, especially one who could fly. It helped that a transport arrived thirty minutes later and the ones who were weeded out were allowed to board it, being informed that their debts would be settled for them and they would be returned to Imperial space with a small amount of cash in order to start their new lives.

  From a legal standpoint, I was technically a corporation as far as the Imperial Government was concerned, with sixty percent of my shares being owned by my crew and the remainder being owned by various other investors.

  This was quickly being settled behind the scenes by the Alliance, as they purchased out the shares from the banks and other investors who had put forth the capital to buy me. With the addition of strong-arming my crewmembers into selling them their shares, they peaked out at seventy-eight percent of my shares, but quickly created a dummy corporation of which I, Rebekah, and the remaining members of my crew were the only members.

  Effectively I owned myself; the presence of my crew in the corporation was just there to give the illusion to the government that we were operating under their laws, while also allowing them to guide me through the more technical and boring aspects of being a corporation.

  Of the crew members who left, only three returned, and everyone else was flown away. I never saw them again, but they were mostly the ones who were really upset that I’d awakened and become more than just a tool.

  Once they were gone, a new transport arrived. This one was filled with children.

  ?