C: Repression

The small cabin was silent, but it was an industrious silence. Rafaela sat in the complex adjustable chair that was currently locked into place in front of the main display screen. The core system was silent, but it was still efficiently guiding the scout ship toward the designated 'Princess Race' registration point. Rafaela was silent, but she was studying the screen in front of her with fierce determination.

The beyonder system's conversational mode might have an annoying default personality, but the system itself was incredible. Almost everything seemed to have options for customization, detailed information regarding its possible settings, and a dozen safeguards in place. The most frightening thing was, that if the scout's pilot chose to make her way past all of those safeguards, she could access and edit the system core's code directly.

Raphaela was not a system designer, and beyond acquiring a basic understanding of how millions of simple instructions worked together to form the complex systems that she used every day, she'd never been inclined or required to learn more on the subject. Modern systems did not give their operators direct access to their code. Changes were made with registered mods that did modify the code directly, but it was Rafaela's understanding that the mods were limited in the types of changes that they could make. Perhaps the beyonder system also had limitations, and she simply didn't know enough to see them, but it was still a scary level of access.

Rafaela didn't waste time on her discovery. She quickly moved through the options available to the scout's pilot, getting a feel for the way access was arranged, and what had originally been deemed significant information by the people who had designed the system. The small star was still spinning in the corner of the display, and its significance remained undetected as Rafaela familiarized herself with the ship that she'd spent hundreds of hours mapping components of and designing node layouts for.

On a physical level, she was already intimately familiar with the scout. She knew its body. Now she was getting to know its nervous system. Learning where the information collected by its numerous sensors went, and what kinds of things were being calculated with that data.

--

By the time the scout reached the station, Rafaela had found the section of the system that had been provoking all of the conversational complaints about potentially hostile ships and stations. She had even figured out what the proper solution would be, and she grumbled to the silent system, "I wish I knew how to tell you to just accept Eks Corp traffic registrations as official clearances."

The ship did not respond.

The less optimal solution that she used to clear half of the flashing warnings on the default display, was to raise the 'yellow' alert level to the default 'red' alert setting. The core system would now wait to raise both alert levels until a weapon discharge, or severe damage to the ship, was detected.

Rafaela wasn't entirely happy with the compromise, because minor damage to the ship might go unnoticed, but she could still make regular manual checks. She was a little startled when a chime rang out, but it only took her a moment to figure out that it was announcing that the airlock seal with the station had been established. A thrill that was half excitement and half fear shivered through her as she pulled herself over to the door.

The digital portion of the registration had been completed before she'd been given docking space at the station. If she hadn't figured out how to silence the warnings, she was sure that the core system would be screaming about all of the invasive scans that the station had made during the scout's approach. The Eks Corp station system had handled everything that would have been done by a human on most Cinder Sector stations.

She could still count the number of stations that she'd visited in her life on her fingers. New faces, new smells, and new walls waited on the other side of the door. Her pounding heart nearly rolled over in disgust when the door opened to reveal a short flexible tubed corridor that led to a second airlock.

Rafaela laughed and pulled herself forward. When the second airlock opened, a wall of noise slapped her in the face. She stood in the opening and stared at the open area in front of her with utter amazement. It took her a while to notice the military style uniforms on the two people who were watching her stare at the organized chaos of a large station's dock.

Most smaller stations shared the basic design, a slowly rotating empty cylinder around which the entire station pivoted. The first layer of the station was almost always used as a cargo transfer and storage area, and except on the smallest of stations, it rotated slowly enough that it was effectively a freefall environment. Thousands of people, drones, and cargo pods were moving in complex patterns through the vast open airspace, like an anim of fish in a crowded ocean reef.

The two people in uniform waited until Rafaela focused on them, and then the woman smiled. The man looked utterly bored, but he was the one who spoke first, "Cinderella?"

Rafaela's amazed expression soured at the sound of the name her stepsisters had used, despite Bellamy and Schmidt having adopted it since she'd received her race registration. "Yes," she agreed.

He held out a sensor pad, and told her, "Your print will authorize our inspection, and allow you access to your ship while it is docked."

Rafaela grimaced, but she wasn't really surprised. The inspection was required to complete the 'Princess Race' registration, and even stations that were cobbled together out of scraps would try to limit access to the ships that docked with them. SkyWater station did the same thing, though it was done less formally, because history was a record of tragedies that didn't need to be repeated. The sensor pad would no doubt collect a lot more than just her genetic signature.

She placed her hand on the pad, and the still smiling woman spoke up, "You ought to have verified our identities before giving your print, after all, anyone can wear the uniform."

The man stiffened and glared at his partner, finally losing his bored expression. "No they can't," he objected.

"I don't even know what your uniform indicates," Rafaela admitted a little sheepishly. "I just assumed that you were the race officials that the station AI mentioned."

Both of the uniformed figures gaped at her for a moment, and then the woman laughed. "You really are a Cinder Sector girl! We're both Eks Corp Security officers, and every real one will have the badge," she tapped an X embedded in the fabric on her chest, "and an identity tag," she pulled a small metallic looking card out of her pocket.

The 'tag' visibly glowed green between her fingers when she aligned her fingers between the spaces in the large X printed on it. "Captain Moira Ellis?" Rafaela read the green letters aloud.

"That's me," Moira agreed cheerfully. "It won't glow if anyone else holds it," she explained and handed the card to Rafaela.

The green glow vanished, and the little card was surprisingly heavy. Rafaela regarded the faintly textured surface with a feeling of suspicion that she couldn't explain, and handed it back. It was like something half remembered was telling her that the identification card was dangerous.

Moira smiled at her, and the man beside her grudgingly showed his own card, which Rafaela could only read because she caught the image of the words in her mind and let it process after the card was already hidden again.

Moira elbowed Officer Sam Kelly, and said brightly, "The inspection won't take too long. I suggest that you pick up a personal com when you go through admitting, if you don't have one already, so that you can wander around and enjoy yourself instead of waiting for us to finish."

Rafaela balked. "I'm staying for the inspection," she protested.

Moira shrugged and Sam actually gave Rafaela a faint condescending smile, as his captain replied, "Up to you, but if I were an outer sector girl, I wouldn't waste hours of free pass time standing around in my own ship."

"It's MY ship," Rafaela said firmly. The words were ones that she'd never said before, and she was still getting used to the beyonder core system, but there was no doubt in them.

The two uniformed security officers shared a glance, but didn't argue. They both looked at her expectantly, and Rafaela realized that she was still standing in front of the airlock. After a moment, she stepped aside, and gestured for the two of them to enter.

Moira raised an eyebrow and smiled again as she strode confidently past Rafaela. The ship registration had required an entrance code for the race inspectors, so Rafaela took another moment to look out across the vast space full of people moving before following the two security officers back to her own airlock.

Moira might have mocked her lack of caution over their identities, but to Rafaela, being verified members of Eks Corp's Security force was not much more meaningful than verbally claiming to be a member of the staff involved in organizing the race. The people who were supposed to do the inspection would be able to open the door.

There was little need for Rafaela to personally watch over them either, since the ship's core system would monitor them both with much more detailed sensors than Rafaela possessed. She was just a little nervous about whether or not they would be safe aboard the scout without her. She felt like the beyonder core system defaulted to viewing things in terms of threat levels.

Paranoid scouts probably lived longer and reported more information back, but killing off the inspection team would make getting banned from the race a minor consequence. The ship didn't have internal weapons, but neither of the inspection officers were wearing a suit, so it could endanger them simply by locking the door and cutting off the air. Moira and Sam were fast. The ship's airlock was already open and they were announcing their identities to the ship's core system by the time Rafaela caught up with them.