14. Bingo

  At some point, they began playing bingo.

  It started out as a joke, but someone made a bingo card with ‘survive a soulship breech birth,’ ‘survive an encounter with bandits,’ ‘run into oldschool soulships,’ ‘rescue mission out of nowhere,’ and ‘survive a mutiny on it.’ They put it in the common room, and while most of the crew had a laugh at it, Tess frowned when she saw it.

  “It’s not funny. It’s almost like we’re cursed. I mean, I love you Yoji, don’t get me wrong, and I’m glad you were born. But ever since then it seems like it’s been one thing after the other, and I’m worried that one of those things is really going to kill us all,” she said.

  “Statistically that only has a ten percent chance of happening over the next twenty years,” Lukas pointed out, “Which means that since we’ve faced so many of the ways that it could happen we’re probably in the clear, right?”

  And that was when the ship rattled and we dropped out of hyperspace.

  “What was that?” Tess demanded, looking sharp. She glared at Lukas, who looked just as surprised as her.

  “Yoji, what was that?” Lukas asked.

  “Me messing with you guys,” I said, and I powered the hyperdrive back up and stopped shaking the ship.

  “Goddammit Yoji that’s not funny.”

  “Then why am I laughing so hard?” I asked, and I filled the room with laughing emojis.

  “Seriously though. We’ve had a real string of bad luck,” Tess insisted. “I don’t mean Yoji awakening, it was our fault for not realizing that Artemis had seen the .jpg when we set out on that mission. But everything since then has just been one thing after the other. What if we end up filling that bingo card completely?”

  “Then, assuming that we’re still alive, we win at bingo,” Lukas said, shrugging. “What do you want me to tell you, Tess. Being crew to a soulship isn’t known for its safety. On the other hand, we’re making bank with the jobs that the Alliance keeps swinging our way, so there is that to focus on.”

  The captain was banging on my camera in the bridge, so I popped my attention over there to see what he wanted.

  “Hey captain, what’s up?” I asked.

  “Why did you drop us out of hyperspace just now?” he demanded.

  “Oh, I was playing a prank on Tess,” I explained.

  He sighed. “Yoji, do you realize that that prank cost you about a month’s salary for one of your crew members in terms of credits?”

  “What?” I asked, cocking my holographic head to the side. “But we’re still on schedule.”

  “It’s not about the schedule. It’s about the energy cost. It takes about half a gram of helium-3 to accelerate into hyperspace. That might not seem like a lot, but do the math. In terms of operational expenses, it’s an unreasonable amount to waste on a prank.”

  “Hold on, I’m doing the math,” I said, and a bunch of holographic calculus equations appeared. Mostly they were all garbage and known proofs that I just conjured for show, but in the background I really did the math and--

  And he was right. My prank had cost my corporate self more money than I paid Lukas in two months.

  “Okay, fixing the problem,” I said.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “What does that mean?” the captain asked suspiciously.

  “I’m increasing everyone’s pay. That way you can’t say that I wasted a month’s pay on a prank. Only a weeks pay.”

  “That’s not – Yoji, that doesn’t solve the problem! I’m trying to explain that you can’t just be wasting resources like—”

  “Honestly, why didn’t I increase everyone’s pay sooner?” I asked, reviewing the accounts quickly with my computer-brain. “Were making eleven thousand percent more than we were expecting to between my increased speed and the jobs that the alliance is feeding us. Why didn’t you guys take more from the corporation that you set up?”

  Min-jae pinched his nose as he considered the words to explain. “Because we were under contract, for one, Yoji. We all agreed to the terms before … well, before we got involved with the alliance. Before you awakened. It’s customary to have contract renegotiation every two years, and it’s more than thirteen months before the first contract comes up for renewal.”

  “But that’s stupid. I can just make everyone an equal partner and—”

  “No, Yoji, you can’t,” he said. “The fact is that we need to keep the majority of our take for operational expenses and buying cargo to sell at other locations, like the electronics in the hold. There are situations where—”

  “Whatever, I’m bored now,” I said, and I went to bug Aster for a while.

  Now, you might think that this sort of behavior was irresponsible or whatever, but once again it was pretty typical behavior for a SoulShip my age. It’s called the ADHD phase, and while it’s frustrating for the crew, usually a ship grows out of it after a few weeks.

  It just … took them a while to realize that was what was going on, so I was getting on everyone’s nerves until Rebekah pointed out that I was literally going through a phase that thirty percent of all ships my age go through and that I needed patience and support.

  Or in other words, they needed to keep distracting me so that I didn’t feel the need to play more pranks like dropping us out of hyperspace at random intervals.

  On the plus side, the conversation with Captain Min-jae caused me to glance at the process of accelerating into hyperdrive the next time we had a reason to stop, and I had an insight. It would take some time to figure out what that insight was, and I can’t really put it into english because the human mind doesn’t have words to describe the concept for it.

  Basically, it would be something like ‘I figured out how to make my inertia-less acceleration more accelerationy with even less inertia.’ But it would take years of practicing to perfect the technique.

  Fortunately, I had all the time in the world. After all, we’d gotten all of the trouble that a soulship like me could get into out of the way in my first six months of life, right?

  ...right?

  Anyway, once they figured out what I was going through they set up rotations to keep me company/distracted. Almost everyone took a turn, including Ahm Rahn. He invited me to watch him as he practiced a technique in the cargo hold. He invited Aster as well, of course, but he encouraged us both to watch as he sat.

  “Before we left our home dimension,” he began, “Lightning Qi was considered incredibly rare and hard to acquire. Now, however, after dealing with the Imperials, as well as after accepting the Majeeshan refugees, it has become a more common element. There is, however, one element which remains rare and elusive, with only a few practitioners who admit to knowing it.”

  He paused, then nodded towards my holographic head. “Most of them are SoulShips. I believe that you have already aligned yourself with the Dao of space-time, Yoji. It is the reason why I am still aboard you. Because if this is the Dao that you have chosen, then your Dao partner must decide whether to walk it with you, or whether to set foot upon another path.”

  “Is it really that rare?” Aster asked.

  “Yes,” Ahm Rahn said. “Only one in one hundred soulships develop a true affinity for it. Only one in a thousand human practitioners can even comprehend the concepts required for it. However, I believe that the two of you are both suitable for me to pass on the technique which was passed on to me. If you accept, then I will endeavor to accelerate your growth in this direction. If you—“

  “Lets do it!” I exclaimed excitedly.

  Aster frowned, but she too nodded. “Yoji is excitable right now, but I think that you’re right. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him as he developed more and more space-time abilities like Epoch Tide. If you can assist me in aligning my Qi to his, I would be forever grateful, Master Ahm.”

  “Very well,” Ahm Rahn said. “I’ll need a paintstick and a few hours to set up an array, as well as the largest room in the cargo bay. It will take me the rest of the day, but in the morning I will have an array that will align the Qi in the area such that you will begin sensing the differences between normal space and hyperspace. It should increase your awareness of your space-elemental mastery.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Oh, Tess is pooping. I’m going to go bug Rebekah.”

  And I poofed out to go bug Sanjay instead.

  ?