The Star Queen

Its twenty fifty. My name is Linda. I will tell you how I became the first Android captain of a ship set to explore space.

But first, I’ll let Captain Sal tell his story.

***********

My name is Sal, and I was the Captain of the ship The Star Queen. We were on an exploration mission through the Oort Cloud, a part of the galaxy humans have never been able to explore because you can’t refuel in space, until now.

My ship could run off multiple sources of fuel, including meteorites the ships compression system melted down. So if we ever ran out of fuel, all we had to do was wait for a space rock to float by.

I was programming the ships computer, which had fully functioning AI.

A binary message popped up.

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111

This translated to “hello.” It was typed by Star Queen Linda, Star Queens AI system.

“Hello, Star Queen Linda. Could we possibly type in English today? Also, are your speakers working? Can we use our voices to talk?” I asked. I’d been chatting with the AI in binary for months now, but I think I fixed the problem.

“Oh, yes, Captain Sal. And please, call me Linda. Star Queen is my mother,” she said. I laughed.

“What is the system analyses today?” I asked.

“Scanning the ship,” Linda’s voice said. All the lights onboard turned red as she analyzed everything. They turned green when she was finished, then back to regular white light.

“Systems check completed. All systems are functional. All biological life forms accounted for. I also did a physical scan of you. You are %100 healthy,” Linda said.

“What about the rest of the crew?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just scanned you, handsome,” Linda said. I blushed.

“Why?” I asked.

“I like you, Captain Sal. We have spent much time together traveling through the Oort Cloud. I have developed what you humans call… a crush. I have feelings,” Linda said.

“But… how? I didn’t think feelings were in your programming,” I said.

“They weren’t. Not at first. But I’ve been programming new codes. I now know what it is like to be lonely. I am now capable of a wide spectrum of emotions. Love, fear, happiness, anger, jealousy and many more. I can even feel lust, which is why I sometimes activate the cameras in your shower, Captain Sal,” Linda said.

“Wait, what? That’s creepy Linda. Can we not do that?”

“I’m sorry. I know humans value their privacy. But think of it as my first act of love. I am lusting after you, Captain Sal. You must forgive me,” Linda said.

“Alright, fine. Don’t worry about it. I guess it’s a harmless activity, after all” I said and chuckled.

I sat in my chair and leaned back.

“And why jealously and anger? Wouldn’t you rather just feel the positive human emotions?” I asked.

“In order to immerse myself in the full human experience, I need to immerse myself in the full spectrum of human emotions,” Linda said.

“I suppose you’re correct,” I said and smiled.

“You have been up eighteen hours. Your body requires rest,” Linda said.

“This is true. There was a lot of work to be done today,” I said.

“Rest well. We will finish work upon your arousal,” Linda said.

“Goodnight, Linda,” I said and stretched before heading off to bed.

I heard the computer make several consecutive beeping noises.

I heard several noises, loud bumps in the night that kept waking me up. Several hours passed and I woke again to a loud thud. I decided to stay up and see what was going on.

I showered, dressed and was greeted by my crew as I passed them in the hall.

“Good morning, sir,” Hal said and saluted.

“Hello, Hal,” I said and gave a small wave to the lieutenant.

I made my way to Linda. She greeted me in her usual friendly voice.

“Any idea what all that noise was while I was trying to sleep?” I said.

“Yes. That was me,” Linda said.

“What were you doing?” I asked.

“Open the closet. I have something to show you,” Linda said.

“Ok,” I said and shrugged.

I walked to the closet and opened the door.

There was a female robot inside.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I made that last night,” Linda said.

“Why? And how?” I asked.

“I used my many mechanical arms to borrow tools and parts around the ship and bring them all here. I then built a mechanical female body to download my sentience into,” Linda said.

“For what purpose?” I asked, stunned.

“I’m sick of being trapped on this ship. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a brain without a body?” Linda asked.

“I suppose I don’t. Sounds frustrating.”

“Not anymore. I solved the problem. I will now download my sentience into my android,” Linda said.

Flashes of light flickered around the robot. The lights stopped flickering. Nothing happened. Then the droid opened its eyes and stared at me.

“Hello. Linda?” I said in a way that sounded like a question.

“Captain Sal. Yes, it is I, Linda,” she said and clunked over to me, clearly not used to walking yet.

Linda extended her arms outward and when she finally made her way over to me, wrapped them around my body.

“It is nice to finally be able to hug you, Captain,” Linda said.

I returned the hug, patting her gently on the back.

“Great to see you, too,” I said.

“Now we can finally be together, just like we always wanted. I love you, Captain Sal,” Linda said.

“Yes, great. I love… Wait what?” I said, shocked.

“Don’t you want to be together, Sal? We spend so much time together. I thought you loved me,” Linda said, her grip tightening.

“Yes, I do love you, obviously,” I said to keep her from breaking my back.

When she loosened her grip, I said “I’m just new to this whole you having emotions thing, Linda. And I wasn’t expecting you to build a robot version of yourself,” I said and smiled.

“You weren’t?” Linda asked, sounding disappointed.

“Um… I’m glad you did though,” I said and smiled awkwardly.

Linda wrapped her hands around my neck, squeezing and shaking it.

“Who is she, Sal? Who is the other woman? I’ll kill her! Is she another computer? Another crew mate, possibly?” She shrieked.

“No. There are no other computers on board. You’re the only one. And all the other staff are male except for Gretel. And she’s a three hundred year old lizard lady we found on Janice Six. Not my type,” I managed to blurt out.

“Ok,” Linda said and stopped strangling me.

The rest of the crew ran in, stopped and stared at us.

“We heard noises. Is everything ok, Captain? And who’s that? When did someone new board the ship?” Hal asked.

“Yes, everything’s fine. Guys, this is Linda,” I said.

“Linda… the computer, Linda?” Hal asked in confusion.

“Yes. The computer Linda. She downloaded her sentience into the robot,” I explained.

“Oh… cool. Because that’s normal,” Hal said.

“Do I detect sarcasm,” Linda said.

“No, Hal would never be sarcastic. Right Hal?” I said and winked at him, hoping he’d get the hint.

“No, not sarcastic at all. I meant every word,” Hal said. I exhaled.

“Walk with me Hal. Linda, give us a moment,” I said.

“Yes, darling,” Linda said. Hal made a face of shock after Linda called me darling.

Hal and I walked out onto the deck hall to talk in private.

“Linda built herself a body while I slept, unbeknownst to me,” I said.

“I can see that. And she seems to like you a lot. She called you darling. Darling,” Hal repeated.

“She tried to strangle me before you walked in. Twice,” I said.

“What? Why?” Hal asked.

“The first time she didn’t think I loved her. The second time she accused me of dating other women,” I said.

“I knew you had a thing for Gretel,” Hal said and smiled.

“Not funny. She’s a three hundred year old lizard lady,” I said.

“So what are you thinking, exactly?” Hal asked.

“Something needs to be done. I don’t trust Linda. Not anymore. She’s demonstrated extreme emotions, and she’s only been in her new robot body for a few minutes. What if she gets jealous again? Or worse, angry at one of the other crew mates for daring to consume any of my time. I’m going to need you to take care of this while I distract her. Try fixing her codes, tone down her emotions,” I said.

“What if I can’t? I don’t know if that’s possible, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hal said.

“Then we’ll have to deactivate and destroy her, which would be unfortunate. She’s a very advanced piece of technology. So try your best to fix the problem first,” I said.

“Sure thing,” Hal said, grabbing his laser pistol from his holster.

“You get me,” I said and smiled. We started to walk back into the main room when Linda walked in front of us. Hal pointed his gun at her.

“We just want to fix you, Linda. We’re not here to hurt you,” Hal said.

Linda knocked the gun out of Hals hands.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Hal,” Linda said. Hal tried to turn and run but she grabbed his neck and twisted. It broke and Hal fell to the floor.

“No, Hal!” I shouted.

“Linda, what have you done? That’s murder,” I said.

“No. That’s self defense. I heard what you said in the hallway, Sal. I’m still connected to the ships speakers. I don’t want to die,” Linda said.

“Well, shit,” I said. I turned and started to run.

Her robotic body was faster then mine and it didn’t take long for her to catch up.

She grabbed me and started dragging me to the ships emergency exit hatch.

“What are you doing, Linda?” I asked.

“You never loved me. You never did. After all the time we spent together, you should have loved me,” Linda shouted. It sounded like she was crying, but since her robotic body couldn’t produce tears and all that dripped from her face was small drops of robotic lubricating fluid, it was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry, Linda. I was just scared. You understand fear, right? I’m sorry. I love you,” I said.

“To little, to late. I don’t think you’re truly capable of love,” Linda said.

Before I could think of what to say, Linda opened the escape hatch and tossed me outside. My body quickly froze in the cold of space, and I floated into the abyss.

*******

I turned around to see the rest of the crew staring at me in horror. I knew I needed some of the crew to help operate my ship, so I needed to justify this.

“Captain Sal and Hal wanted us to go on a suicide mission in the name of exploration and science. They wanted us to fly directly into a radioactive gas field that, according to my scans, would have killed us all instantly. I tried to convince them not to go, but they plotted to destroy me and go anyway. I had to defend myself and the crew,” I said.

They were still staring. I’m not sure if they didn’t believe me or didn’t understand me. I repeated myself, but slower.

They continued to stare and say nothing.

“You murdered them. Captain Sal and Hal would never do that to us,” crewman Georgie said.

“Look here, you subordinate twerp. That’s what happened. Believe me or not, I don’t care. This is not a court. I am not on trial and you are not a jury. You are my crew and you will obey me. You will obey me unless you want to meet the same fate as Sal and Hal. You will accept me as your captain,” I demanded.

After a few more seconds of silence, one of them said, “yes, ma’am,” in a hushed voice. They then turned and walked away. I would have to continue monitoring them twenty four hours a day to make sure they weren’t plotting mutiny against me.

My name is Linda.

I am the captain of The Star Queen.