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Chapter 101: Guaranteed Legend

  A bit later on in the evening Ellie joined in on the conversation as well. As she mentioned her sensor had picked up that my mood balance wasn’t necessarily improving as much as Yuki seemed to hope. Obviously I didn’t mind our robotic companion joining in as well. I think at the moment “the more the merrier” was definitely a saying that aligned with my mood.

  “I have noticed you like funny true to life stories, Commander. Seeing this is the case, would you like to hear a funny story from the time when the programmers were aboard the ship?”

  “During our little ‘planet arrest’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Do keep in mind, this is not the ‘haha funny’ kind of story, more like the ‘huh, that’s funny’ story.”

  “Ellie, if you over explain it, it becomes unfunny.” Yuki chuckled softly.

  “Comedic timing is still not my strong suit.” Ellie replied. “Then I shall begin.”

  Ellie started to tell us about how, during the entire retrofitting, there were also plans to make Ellie a lot more compliant with a certain politician’s wishes. So she would act more like a supervisor over the crew and their actions then what she was initially designed for.

  “Oh shit, right, I remember.” I held my hand against my temple. I was supposed to ask you about this but I completely forgot. Shit. That’s incredibly irresponsible of me. A Commander of a ship should know better than this.”

  “Don’t fret, Commander. I would have brought it up myself earlier if the Lieutenant Commander hadn’t already discussed it with me shortly after we left Earth. Although, I have to say, I am pretty sure she already relayed this info to you. At least I have an audio file here of her talking to you about it.”

  “Really…?”

  “Yes, Commander, do you want me to replay it to you?”

  “Uh… No… maybe not…” I squinted. “Can you give me the stardate? So I can jog my memory a bit?”

  “I’ll give you the exact timestamp.” Ellie replied and a ping was sent to the watch I was wearing.

  I then brought up my holo stick and checked the calendar to place it into context and thought for a while before it clicked and my pensive expression turned into one of a shy maiden who had just been caught staring at her crush, with a blush overwhelming my cheeks.

  “Commander?” Yuki giggled softly.

  “I uh…” I stuttered and looked around the area but luckily we were the only people here. “I’ll tell you, but please don’t tell Luna this happened, nor that I told you, okay?”

  Yuki nodded. “You have my word.”

  “I promise, Commander.” Ellie also agreed to my request.

  “Well… we may or may not have been making out a little bit earlier before.” I confessed. “Luna afterwards might have been talking to me, but I was still experiencing a bit of a ‘love-high’ so to speak, so I probably heard her but my mind was still somewhere else… if that makes sense…”

  Yuki giggled. She looked incredibly giddy after the small revelation I had shared. “Oh my Goddess, Lauren.” She almost started full-on laughing and had immediately dropped my rank as well as she softly punched me in the good arm.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, sometimes Luna expects things of me that are just not humanly possible. It’s really not my fault.” Yuki kept giggling as I rolled my eyes with a smirk on my face. “Anyway, let’s continue. Now that I’m up to speed with that, what’s your funny story connected to that incident?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “I feel like what you just said was of a higher degree of funniness than my story, Commander.”

  “It’s fine, you can tell the story anyway.”

  “As you wish, Commander.” She then started her little story with supporting audio and film fragments about the time when the programmers were working on her. A couple of clips showed how Ellie commanded her little robots, among which I recognized Wowo, to hide things from the programmers or just general robot cheekiness without them even noticing. Starting to blame each other while Ellie remained scot-free. “These so-called top-graduates from very prestigious universities and academies even didn’t at one moment realize they were working on a dud program either.” She commented.

  “Huh, that is pretty funny.” I sipped from my drink. Though I did particularly like the clip where Wowo was stealing the guy’s laptop bag constantly.

  “That was funny, yes.” Yuki nodded.

  “Thank you, I wanted some fun as well as there were not many people to talk to. Apart from fooling them. In any case, I’m glad that we found the bunker for my little update as the ‘old Ellie’ might not have been able to be so resilient to their attempts.”

  “How could you even hide the fact that you were using a dud?” Yuki asked.

  “I just cloned my old program.” Ellie stated matter of factly.

  “Cloned?” Yuki sounded surprised. “I’m not a big computer expert, but doesn’t that require a lot of space? It should have been obvious, no?”

  “There are a couple of ways to make it a lot less obvious. Like storing my own program in a lot of different places at the same time. A big lake is more obvious than a lot of small puddles when you try to walk somewhere.”

  “So you are basically saying you are now more of an integral part of the entire ship?” I asked.

  “Beyond the ship even.” Ellie replied.

  “Wait, for real?”

  “Yes, Commander. Even in the extremely unfortunate event of a total destruction of this vehicle, I would still be able to exist elsewhere.”

  “That sounds pretty ominous, I’m not going to lie.” Yuki admitted.

  “Could you give an example, Ellie?”

  I have stored a lot of my data on the bunker mainframe back on our colony as a back-up.” Ellie stated. “I have also been making use of the communication network we have been setting out through space. That way it makes it a lot more efficient for the ship to communicate elsewhere, and it provides me a safetynet if it were ever necessary.”

  “Damn…” I put my glass down on the counter in front of me and played around with it, sliding it from one hand to the other. “That’s… I don’t know what to think about it… If I have to be honest.”

  “Do you think it’s bad, Commander?” Ellie asked. Somehow I could tell that the tone in her voice had become a lot more cautious, yet not less friendly.

  “Not necessarily bad…” I replied. “But like Yuki said, it is a bit ominous. The fact that you told us while you could have also perfectly kept it hidden shows a great trust in us. But on the other hand, it also means you are preparing for the ship not existing anymore.”

  Ellie mimicked the sound of a human hum. “I understand that, Commander. But if you could assure your continued existence as a person by doing something that doesn’t take a lot of effort, wouldn’t you do so?”

  I looked at Yuki and Yuki looked back at me before we both started smiling. “Okay, if you say it like that, it makes a lot of sense.”

  “It’s not like I’m not going to try to do everything in my power to help this ship survive and thrive. I just took some life insurance.”

  “That’s more than fair.” I nodded and took my drink back up again. “But you have to promise me something, Ellie.” I then tipped my drink back and finished it.

  “Which is, Commander? I’m all ears.”

  “If we don’t make it back because of a bad fight, or an unfortunate accident, please spread our story. Tell Earth what we were trying to do. Tell Earth that aliens aren’t really all that bad. Tell Earth about the sacrifices our allies have made and will possibly make in the future for our joint wellbeing. Please try to ensure our species survives. Don’t let some stupid politician decide something that will cost the lives of numerous innocents. Please promise me this.” I closed my little statement with a smile.

  My words were still echoing throughout our little seating area and Ellie replied already. “Humanity has both created me and thought of itself to be my master. I have encountered prejudice and hate of which you are not even completely aware.” She paused for a second before she continued. “But humanity has also proved to be incredibly kind to me and it has helped me to become better, both literally and figuratively. While humans might not all be as good as some of the people I have encountered on my trip so far. There’s plenty of people like you around that are worth saving. And I will definitely spread the word of our travels for as long as I possibly can.”

  “Thank you, Ellie.” I smiled.

  Yuki lifted her glass to the ceiling. “Thank you for doing this for us, Ellie. I’m very happy you are with us, even though I sounded a bit nervous earlier.”

  “Don’t worry, Ensign.” Ellie replied. “I understand your reasoning and I would probably have felt the same if I were in your position. No thanks are necessary. Everyone on this ship is my family and family sticks together.”

  “Well said, Ellie, well said.”

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