====
“Beka?” Dylan said groggily, peeking through his cabin door. “What are you doing up so early?”
“It’s oh-nine-thirty,” Beka said.
“It is?”
“Yeah. And I was getting a little worried. You’re usually up before anybody.”
Dylan rubbed his face. “No, Beka, I’m fine. W--*I* just overslept a bit.” He smiled. “Maybe I picked up a bad habit from somewhere?”
“Eeeyeah. And have you seen Rommie? I can’t find her any--”
“Good morning, Beka.” Rommie, fully clothed and full of energy, peeked around Dylan. “How are you?”
“Uhhhhh....” Beka managed to work her jaw although her eyes stayed glued open. “Fine. Just on my way to work, uh....”
“I’ll walk with you.” Rommie squeezed around Dylan. “Captain?”
Dylan just nodded and faded back into his cabin.
Beka couldn’t stop sneaking glances at Rommie as they walked down the corridor. Rommie, for her part, looked straight ahead as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“So .... uh, I guess you and Dylan are .... um, an item?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Beka.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Rommie! I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can put two and two together.”
“And get five. An unprecedented feat.”
Beka just growled under her breath.
****
“I’m tellin’ ya, Nadya,” Beka said, sitting across from Commander Nadya Ratmanski in the mess at lunch, “they’re doing it.”
“So?” Nadya said.
“So it would help if they admit it! Jeez, isn’t it bad enough they ‘found each other’ while Harper’s away? He comes back, and finds out that (a) the AI he’s had a crush on since he came aboard is doing late night ‘docking maneuvers’ with her captain, and (b) neither of them will admit it? Is that a crisis waiting to happen or what?”
“Hmmm....” Nadya thoughtfully chewed her food and swallowed. “You’re right-- could get messy.”
“What could?” Trance said, coming to sit at their table.
“Dylan and Rommie,” Beka said, and she explained about her encounter that morning. “But what’s galling is they won’t admit it!”
“I’m sure it’s just because you caught them at a bad time,” Trance said. “You just have to handle it right.” She smiled. “Andromeda?”
A six inch version of Andromeda’s hologram appeared on the table. “Yes, Trance?”
“Isn’t there something you want to tell us about you and Dylan?” the gold-skinned alien asked.
“I don’t know what you mean, Trance.”
Trance’s smile faded a little. “I think you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Rommie, you know perfectly well your humanoid body spent the night with Dylan. Now, we’re your friends. You can tell us, really.”
“There’s nothing to admit. Not in the way you mean, anyway.” The hologram vanished.
Trance’s smile had vanished completely. “Ok. That’s it. I’m pissed.”
****
That night, Beka, Trance, and Nadya went to Dylan’s door. After begging and pleading failed to get the mighty starship’s AI to open the door, they switched to override codes which the AI rejected. After Trance’s third attempt to pick the lock had ended the same as the first two -- with electrocution -- they were seriously considering explosives when Tyr happened by.
“Uh--TYR!” Beka said, rushing over to Tyr after he’d passed them, hoping for once that her distrust of him wasn’t unfounded. “We, uh, we have a security situation here, and I was hoping that maybe you could override the lock on Dylan’s door--”
“So you could catch him coupling with the android?” he boomed.
“Um.....what makes you think--”
“Please. Beka. I am not unaware of the goings on on this ship. And I am disappointed in you, in all of you. To think you are all behaving little better than gossiping old women.” He turned to leave.
“No!” Beka snapped, grabbing his shoulder. “No, it’s not like that. Well, not entirely like that. We, uh, we could have a serious situation here. Pax. Remember, Rommie’s sister ship, the *Pax Magellanic?* Her avatar made it with her captain, too. And what happened? She killed her whole crew. Poof! Gone. That could happen to us -- to *you.* Do you and your genes really want to take that chance?”
“A valid point,” Tyr said thoughtfully, “even if your sincerity is questionable. You three, stay here.”
Beka, Trance, and Nadya waited up the corridor from the door as Try tabbed a code and it slid open. He disappeared into the cabin for about five seconds, then backed out, tabbing another code to close the door. He came over to the women with an ..... odd look on his face.
“You know?” Tyr said at length. “There are some matters on this ship that don’t concern me. And if you know what’s good for you, they won’t concern you either.” He went on his way.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” Nadya said.
“Not likely,” Beka said through gritted teeth.
****
“You sure we’re not going a little overboard?” Nadya said as she watched Beka and Trance rewire a control panel on the *Ereka Maru.*
“Nadya’s got a point,” Trance said. “Maybe it really isn’t--”
“HEY!” Beka snapped. “We’re on a mission here.”
“Mission?” Nadya and Trance chorused.
“Yes, a mission,” Beka said. “To prove that Little Miss Smarty Chips, the High and Mighty High Guard AI, is just as hu -- just as FEMALE as the rest of us, and has the same needs, and shouldn’t hide it or act superior about it! Are you with me?”
Trance and Nadya exchanged glances.
“Or would you rather she got away with it?”
“We’re with you,” Nadya and Trance chorsued.
Once they’d finished rewiring the console, Beka’s fingers danced on the keyboard, and a screen lit up.
“Internal security, yes,” Beka said. “Security cameras, got ‘em. The captain’s cabin, aaaaannnnnndddddd----”
She broke off and all three women stared at the screen, slack-jawed.
It wasn’t because Dylan and Rommie were lying on Dylan’s bed, stripped to their underwear.
It wasn’t because Dylan was snuggling with Rommie, spooning her from behind.
Now, the fact that the beautiful ship’s avatar was sucking her thumb in an infantile matter, on the other hand--
Beka’s finger slammed onto the keypad, blanking the screen. “I didn’t see that,” she said quickly. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Trance said.
“I think I can find a dozen of my shipmates from the *Bellerephon* to swear I wasn’t here,” Nadya said.
“Very good,” Andromeda’s screen image smirked from the monitor. “And ladies.....?”
Beka jumped in spite of herself when her control panel erupted in a shower of sparks.
“Don’t hack me again,” Andromeda said. “You won’t like me when I’m hacked.”
****
“Mr. Harper!” Dylan said as he, Beka, and Rommie greeted the young engineer at the hangar. “You had a good trip?”
“Yeah, Boss,” Harper said, “and yeah, I got some work done, too. Hey, Rom Doll! Miss me?”
“Yes,” Rommie said dryly as she and her engineer started down the corridor. “The quiet was almost unbearable sometimes.”
“Ah, you missed me, you know it.”
“In your dreams, Harper....” They went ‘round the corner, out of earshot.
“She really does miss him,” Dylan said quietly, “even if she’ll never admit it.”
“Uhhhhhhhbbbaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.......” Beka said.
“You used the security cameras, didn’t you?”
“Ummmmmmmmaahhhhhhhh....Dylan? You ever have these moments when it just breaks on you that the universe is totally insane?”
Dylan jammed a hand inside his jacket. “Mais oui, Josephine,” he said with a phony French accent, “but I do not let it get to me too much.”
THE END