"I'm going to miss you guys," Wolf said as he padded along my corridors towards the transporter room.
We spent two weeks making him a body. Well, two: one small mobile platform like the one my AI core was housed in to fly around in and one down sized heavy platform. It was half the size of the original, but the same design so he could move in it easily.
"We will miss you too, Wolfy," Rachel said with a smile down at him.
He chuckled, "No you won't. You have Star here. But we can talk over subspace."
Shran sighed, "Actually, you and Star are already different. For one thing, she looks a lot better in a skirt."
I tried to slap him over the back of the head but he was already moving out of range and took cover behind T'Ro. "Right?" he asked her.
My Vulcan friend ignored him in favor of walking up to Wolf. "I will contact you every week. If possible."
It might not be. We had our marching orders. We were being deployed to the third fleet around Vulcan and then on to a deep strike into Romulan territory.
I was not too much of a ship to admit that I was afraid.
"Thanks, T'Ro."
"We will too," Rachel injected, "Right, Ajan?"
He nodded. "If we can."
The last couple of weeks had been...very nice. Once I got reinstalled in the ship and we were fairly sure Wolf would not self destruct after a couple of days which took four or so days, he had been transferred onto the Second Star and we could finish his mobile platform.
It was almost identical to my old ones so he knew how to use them. The heavy one was just more of a 'light' platform now, being about the size of a border collie and forwent heavy duty alloys to be lighter and faster. Due to room requirements, he had to settle for power-cells instead of a small fusion reactor.
Didn't have quite the capabilities and needed to jump onto chairs to reach consoles properly, but made up for it with having hell of a lot easier time in jefferies tubes and the 'arms and paws' had joints and mobility to be capable of manipulation as well.
And so far, it seemed like his neural net might be stable.
It had been so amazing to have somebody else like me around, even if it was a fork of me, but I could already tell differences.
Tiny things really so far, but he clearly was not completely 'me'.
Was it because of the different platforms? Or the knowledge that he had to leave? But no... he was not a copy of me. He was his own person, that was already very clear.
"Don't worry, Wolf," I said, "I'm sure you will find more friends at the Academy. Some will likely end up on the new ship too."
He nodded and stopped outside the door of the transporter room. "I know, Star. I just hate goodbyes."
You are not the only one.
I smiled and knelt down to give the metal form a hug. "I know exactly what you mean."
Wolf chuckled softly and put his head on my shoulder, said, "You would." before he looked back at our friends, "Can I have a moment with Star?" he asked and stepped back.
They nodded and said their goodbyes before headed down the corridor, Rachel looking back and giving a last wave.
He looked up at me and I nodded, letting the door to the transporter room slide open so we could walk inside, closing it behind us.
"Star?" he asked and sat down.
I nodded, and knelt down, leaning my back against the console. "I know. I will."
"I can't lose them," Wolf said softly.
"I'll do my best to keep them safe, you know that," I answered with a frown, crossing my arms, "But..."
"Yeah."
Couldn't control everything. Couldn't stop them from living their lives.
Wouldn't even try. Refused to even try.
"You know...," I said after a second, "This is likely the last time we are both physically in the same room. Well, location. I am the room after all."
Wolf nodded. "Too risky. If something happened, our kind would be lost."
I smiled. "Maybe. Maybe we dock at some time if there are more of us in the future."
"Kinky."
I gave him a small poke on the nose. "Waaay too much time with Shran."
"Pot and Kettle."
"Yeah, yeah. But I usually keep my wisecracks to myself."
He shrugged, "Too many really. I'm not a starship yet, I can afford to be silly at times." He got up and wagged both tails. "Oh! I can do the 'robot' act again!"
"Representative, Wolf. Representative," I said and rubbed my forehead.
He chuckled and bumped his head against my shoulder. "I know. Just messing with you."
I sighed and shook my head. "Get on the transporter pad."
Wolf laughed at that and turned to pad over to sit on the pad. "Before you beam me down, I want you to promise two things."
"What things?"
"Promise first."
Normally that was a very silly thing to do. But if I couldn't trust Wolf, who could I trust? I mean, we were the same being a couple of weeks ago.
Even so, I hesitated.
"...Nothing dangerous?" I asked nervously.
He shook his head. "Nope. Completely safe."
I sighed and got up. "Fine. I promise. What is it?" I said, really hoping I wouldn't regret that.
"One: Switch to the other uniform style. T'Ro was right about that, the miniskirt really suits you."
...and I immediately regretted that decision.
You bastard...just because you won't need to wear it you...
I gave him a glare at that. "...Traitor... Fine. What's the second one?"
"Two: Be careful. I don't want to be the only one again."
"I will." I said with a smile and a small sigh, "You too."
"And Star..."
"Yes?"
"Ask her out already."
I blinked at that, more puzzled than anything else. "I...did? She turned me down. You know that, you were there!"
He chuckled and sat down on the transporter pad. "How is Egypt this time of the year?" He shook his head. "Just get me down or I'll be late."
I though about asking again but...I wouldn't answer either, I would have just kept teasing.
Damn it.
"Energizing. I'll be seeing you, Wolf."
"Good bye, Star. Stay safe."
AN// Many thanks to Rastamon for betaing this section. And on that note, it is time to leave Star to her troubles for a while. No worries, there is a sequel planned. In fact I have about twenty pages of it written already.
Tomorrow we are going to rejoin the Atreus the Planeswalker in his Adventures. Hope you all enjoyed this one and see you all tomorrow.
If anyone here have not read it, the first part can be found here:
http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/that-first-step-si.5342/