Excerpt from Intergalactic Witness Protection

I saw that my captain was unhappy, and knew immediately that our team was about to thrust itself into danger.

If I could feel worry like he does, I know it would be washing over my circuits even as it flows through is veins now. But while that emotion is denied to me, as all are, I have the mission I was coded with. To protect him and them. And I have stored in my memory banks the necessary information to do so- that is, the knowledge that this sometimes means saving my captain from himself.

He is too much like the Atlas of legends, trying to carry the world on his shoulders, even though we are beyond his birth planet.

Since he is in his private cabin, and my physical form is still dormant in the tech closet, I assume my holographic form to stand behind him and lay my hand on his shoulder the way humans so often do to give each other comfort.

Even though the phantom of my hand passes right through his shoulder, my captain looks up at me, worry glistening in the pupils of his eyes that seem to have swallowed his irises because of the dilation most individuals of the Gaynemade colony are born with.

“Alicia Ivy,” he says, using the name he gave me when he first created my consciousness. “Why did I even agree to do this?”

When my captain upgraded my abilities to holographic imagery, he programmed me to achieve human mannerisms that somehow correlate with my words. So I know my image cocks my head at him when I say, “To assuage your guilt over the past you could not help and forge a redemption in the great beyond?”

He chuckles. “I love how everything you say always sounds like you have a dry sense of humor.”

“I have no sense of humor. I only state facts.”

“I know. That’s what makes it so funny.” Shaking his head, he smiles at me, or rather the attractive feminine hologram he created for me back when he was a boy discovering space for the first time, and not a man who now had to awkwardly explain away the appearance he designed to coworkers.

“I am glad I make you smile, but why were you sad to begin with?”

My captain- or Orion as others call him- sighs heavily before clicking on his screen to make the message he received become accessible to the ship’s web- my web.

And just like that, information floods my circuits. This message isn’t from the commanding officers back on Earth, or even the slightly superior-to-us governors of one of the colonies. No, this message is from a private citizen. It is as simple message at that.

S.O.S. Lives in peril. Son is seriously injured. Wife already killed. Godspeed, Sparta- Reverend Shipping.

Sparta. The name of my ship- me. The title of my crew- mine.

My captain glances up at me. “I need you to search our databases- I had them refreshed during our last refuel with some good, old earth wi-fi-”

“I remember.” My captain talks more than necessary when he’s nervous. Something is upsetting him. Which is very bad, because he doesn’t blink in the face of danger and embraces challenges.

“Do we have a geographic location I can set navigation on?” I ask.

He nods, not looking up at me.

And then I know without him having to tell me where we must go.

Back to Gaynemade.

So that is what is upsetting him. My poor captain. “You do not have to go. Nicholas and Killa have gone on unchaperoned missions many times.”

Captain Orion shakes his head sadly. Gaynemade is not as nice as the other colonies. There is no law or order; only chaos and crime. If they don’t want to be killed at first sight, they’ll need a local whose made a name for himself there.”

Yes, that name he loathes so much; that he doesn’t deserve; that he should never have to hear again.

Father Killer.

“I will go get Nicholas and Killa,” I say. Then, even though I can leave my hologram in place and set up a separate one to initiate conversation with the partners, I shut down my hologram in my captain’s cabin. He wants privacy. And even if I am the ship itself, I can give him the pretense of such a thing.

In a moment, I materialize in the room I don’t even need to scan the ship cameras to know Nicholas and Killa are occupying.

I appear between just as Nicholas Smith punches through me to try and touch Killa Palla- only for her to grab his hand, twist him, and almost pull him forward. Instead, he tugs her toward him, and she falls through me and onto him. They both collapse on the training room floor, her chin-length ebony hair flaring out behind her.

Adjusting my view, I stare down at them. “We have an S.O.S.”

Killa slams Nicholas’s head down on the floor. “Good, it was getting boring.”

Nicholas groans, scrunching up his perfectly clean-shaven face (the only part of him he keeps trimmed according to protocol; his dark curls are much longer than the instruction book dictates). “I think I’ll call in sick.”

“It’s coming from Gaynemade.”

They both jerk up, her Martian paleness a stark contrast to his darker earth skin.

Nicholas blinks. “You mean-”

Killa stands at attention. “We will prepare for the mission and be ready to initiate posthaste.”

They both turn to leave, but then Nicholas glances back at me. “Don’t tell me Orion is coming on this one.”

“I do not need to tell you anything. You already know.”

He sighs heavily.

And I take on the ship’s consciousness to direct my team to what shall hopefully not be their certain doom.

Well, agents? What do you think? Feedback please!