Captain Talon stepped off my transporter pad, walking up to Captain Mason, "Captain."
He gave her a nod, "Captain."
Oh thank everything there wasn't more captains around. That could quickly have turned into a comedy sketch.
In any case, she did not look happy.
Higher than normal body temperature, high pulse. Still, she was good at hiding it against anyone not hooked up to the life sign sensors.
I was still bad at telling lies, lots of false positives and such, but base emotions, especially strong ones like anger?
Easy.
And she was pissed.
"That was an... interesting strategy." She said as they left the transporter room, heading towards the captain's ready room, "We didn't expect that."
Mason smiled, "As much as I wish, I can't take credit. Star was the one that came up with and executed the plan."
She raised her eyebrow, "Star?"
"That would be me, Captain Talon." I said, "But I can not take all the credit, the plans was checked and approved by several of the crew."
Captain Talon startled, "Is that the AI?"
Mason nodded, "It is. Star has proved quite an asset so far, it will be interesting to see how it will affect general ship performance when we start preforming real missions."
"I don't like it." She said and shook her head as they walked into his office and he headed over to the replicator to pick up a pair of cups of coffee, "This is a job for people, not machines. What happens if it runs into something it's not able to handle?"
...You do realize I can still hear you, right?
Putting the coffee down, Mason sat down, "Star is a person, just like you and me, Captain Talon. From what I have seen, she is more than capable of handling her duties on this ship."
She? Her?
Oh come on! You too? Maybe I should have picked a name like 'Deathdealer' or 'Dave', Dave is a good name. I could have gone with Dave. I know my voice is more or less neutral but it says right there in my personnel file that I grew up as male in the sim.
Ah, fuck it. Guess some things just come with being a ship. I really don't have the patience to correct everyone.
"It's a calculator. I know the court ruled in the favor of Commander Data, but even then I am not convinced even that was the right ruling. I don't trust it. If I knew from the start that it was this ship we would have the tactical exercise with, I would have not approved the request."
You know, you would think I would be insulted by Captain Talon's comments, but quite frankly, it made it seem like everything was right in the world.
Humans were still humans, no matter what else had happened. I was actually pleasantly surprised not to have run into more organicentrics during my time in the real world. You would think my existence would be rather threatening to them and because of my normally non-human appearance, I would be a easier target than Commander Data.
But then again, I'm sure they existed. I did after all spend basically all my time in Starfleet and not in the general population.
Members of Starfleet did tend to be more open minded.
"Captain Talon." Mason said, "I would thank you for not speaking about a valued member of my crew in such a way. Sandra, you have always been a sore loser, but this is taking the cake."
Taking the cake? Seriously, Captain, that expression was almost old fashioned when I was supposedly alive.
Or was it?
Hmm, I really should start doing comparative research to see what differ from reality and the sim when it comes to that kind of things.
Would be interesting to see how the sim actually matched up to reality back at that time. I already knew that most of the English I learned was not actually English but a combination language used in the Federation.
Kind of explains why it was such a mess in the first place, it comes form about a hundred different worlds.
"Come on, Alex. You couldn't beat me on your own and had to have the computer do it for you, that's all." She said and picked up her cup of coffee.
Oh, just because I wasn't really offended by Captain Talon's comments didn't mean I was going to just let them slide.
When she wasn't looking, I exchanged the coffee in her cup for what I replicated in one of the other replicators using my primary transporter array.
The way she spit the coffee over the desk and Captain Mason was quite satisfying.
"What the hell! It's salt!"
So it should be after a having replicated it with a coffee with that much of sodium chloride in it.
"I do apologize, Captain Talon." I said, "I apparently made a mistake with my replicator. I'm just a calculator so It is only natural there are errors from time to time. Can I get you a new cup?"
Captain Mason looked like he was trying really hard to look like he wasn't laughing at her.
Childish perhaps and I might get in trouble, but what was she going to do? Complain that I pranked her because of her organicentric comments?
Write it up in my fucking file then.
AN// Many thanks to megamiaouh for betaing this section.