Bird of Similar Feathers (Backpost)

Posted on Sat Oct 31st, 2026 @ 11:27pm by Lieutenant Zachary Addams & Lieutenant Soren Dillinger 'Speedy'

2,128 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Kintsugi
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Day after station arrival

Zach had powered down the engines and they'd been towed into Spacedock. Most of the crew had disembarked and station teams were already crawling around the ship and practically up his...jefferies tubes.

His teams were finally given a couple days off while the station crews took over, but Zach still had too much on his to-do list. He yawned and took a long sip of ice water before looking over the MSM and was going through diagnostics on some of the secondary systems when he heard someone approaching, their footsteps echoing in the empty bay. He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant? How can I help you?"

Soren stood there in his Starfighter jumpsuit, tossing a mechanical silver sphere back and forth, as he approached with a smile. "You're the Chief Engineer? Addams? The Magic Man?"

"I'll assume that's a recent nickname I've earned," Zach said. "Though not entirely inaccurate, but yes that's me. What can I do for you, Lieutenant...?"

As he tossed the silver sphere into his right arm, he extended his left hand, just as he caught the sphere with his right. "Name's Soren... Dillinger. Speedy, if you want to use my callsign." Soren gave the man a pleasant smile. "Got a situation, Boss, that requires a special touch."

Zach reached over with his left hand and shook the pilot's, giving him a wry grin. "Well if it involves your fighter, I hope it's in better shape than the last one I saw," Zach said, thinking of the box of parts he'd given Grace. "What needs touching?"

"It does... but not in the way you may think." Soren began, narrowing his eyes slightly, as he held out the silver sphere in his right hand. "Do you see this? A buddy of mine pieced her together. She slides nicely into my Starfighter. Inside is a program. A very... special... program." The pilot seemed to hesitate slightly, as if speaking about it gave him slight discomfort. "Inside is an Artificial Intelligence... of sorts." He took a slight breath before adding. "She's a program modeled after another Starfighter pilot... former pilot named Tammi Grace. Went by the callsign: Heartbreaker and, believe me, the name was well earned. Well, my buddy, managed to collected as much data on her as possible and model the AI inside there after her. She looks and talks like her, even acts like her at times, but she's not."

Bit ghoulish Zach thought, but looked at the sphere with interest. "So, I assume this program isn't a personal one. This program interfaces with your fighter? Gives it an intuition and human-like responses to help you fly?"

"Weren't you following? She's personal. Yeah she gives me a help in the pilot's seat, but she's just as interactive as anyone." Soren countered quickly. "She can access her own program and make cosmetic alterations. She has control of her comings and goings." He gestured to a small lens. "See that? That's a holoemitter which projects her image outside of that sphere. As long as she is in range of that, she can appear. Inside, there is a gyro sphere, which she can maneuver and roll around." He let out a deep sigh before adding softly. "Look, Chief... I know it sounds crazy. Probably an unreported case of holo-addiction, but it's not. She has been my wing and friend for a long time. She's had my back and helped me through some stuff back when I was out of Starfleet and being..." He hesitated again, clearly hiding more than he was saying. "Reckless with my life choices."

"I see," Zach said. "so, copilot, not interface. And she's malfunctioning?"

He took a second, cleared his throat as he regained his composure, before continuing. "Look, Boss. Bettie, thats the name of the program, hasn't been responding since the attack with the Iconian Knuckleheads. I link her with the Starfighter... Nothing. I tried linking her with a holodeck... Nothing. She's either not coming out because she's pissed, which has happened before, or she just can't come out." Soren held the silver sphere out to Zach. "She's really important to me, Chief. Bettie's special. Please tell me you can do something and she isn't busted. I don't know if I can lose her twice... you know?"

Zach took the sphere and looked it over. "If she's self-aware enough to refuse to activate, I don't know if I can be persuasive enough, but I can certainly give it a try. If it's a mechanical issue preventing it, I can most definitely run some diagnostics and see."

"If Bettie is just being stubborn and refusing to initiate herself, than I am sorry I wasted your time." Soren said quickly as he placed his hand on the mans shoulder. "You name the favor and I'll take care of it. You want something brought in, hard to find, or just a favor tucked away from later... It's yours. Consider it done. No objections." He held up his hands quickly as if to show him he had nothing hidden in his sleeves. "

Zach couldn't quite say what triggered the instinct, but when he saw the hand coming for his shoulder, he immediately looked to see what the other hand was doing. When it didn't move to lift anything from his person, he then glanced back at Soren as the pilot stepped back and held up his hands. That's when he saw it, just below the line of Soren's wrist: a small, green, branded glyph. Zach didn't know all eighty-nine Arcturan violation marks, but he knew that one: thief. As he kept eye contact, he moved his hands together in front of him and by the time he folded his arms, the sphere was gone.

"All right," Zach said a half second later, giving Soren a smile, "I will do my best. Give me a few days to look her over while I get the ship sorted out, all right? If it is internal, maybe she'll cool down by then as well. I'll keep her nearby."

Soren noticed it immediately, the sleight of hand to shift the sphere out of sight, before folding his arms. The recognition was enough to overcome the slight anxiety of the sphere, his close friend, no longer being in view. The Chief Engineer was surly trained, but it didn't necessarily mean they traveled in the same circles. There are many reasons why someone would know or want to learn something like that. So, he wasn't about to assume it, but there was no ruling it out either.

His brow raised slightly as his eyes shifted. The tips of his lips raised to a bit of a smirk, before lowering. Soren caught it and, if this man was as good as he seemed, he could tell Soren caught it as well. He repositioned his arms again, crossing them over his chest, resisting the urge to question the man. He wanted to, but there had to be an understanding. A code to follow. "There's no way I can convince you to work on it now or only while I am around? Not that I don't trust you, we're both Starfleet Officers and I know I haven't earned your trust, but the sphere is priceless to me. Sentimental for already stated reasons. You understand... I hope."

"I do," Zach said, nodding. He smirked as well at attempt to build confidence and establish a rapport through mirroring. "If you are staying on the station during the repairs and refit, I can call you when I'm ready to work on it. I can tell you it won't be in the next thirty-six hours, but I'll get to it as soon as I'm able to clear the essentials off my to-do list."

Soren remained silent. His eyes looking the Chief up and down, before removing his hands from across his chest. He let out a slight scoff, before taking a step toward him, noticing immediately the step back to maintain a distance. He stopped, throwing his hands out a bit, before finally asking. "Is there some kind of issue here, Boss?"

And blink Zach thought. "You may or may not be aware," he said, 'but the last time a fighter pilot got that close to me, she kissed me. You're good-looking, but not my type," he gave Soren a wry smile. "No offense."

"Wow." Soren replied, his eyes never breaking contact with Zach's. "That is... very conceded of you to think that every pilot suddenly want's to jump your bones." He paused slightly before adding. "Not that there is anything wrong with that, if they do, but to think it of everyone. Come on, Boss. Or... you have some deep seeded issue where one kiss from someone, man or woman." He paused again. "Again... No judgement. One kiss would send you into a paranoid spiral when it came to every pilot you came across. If that's the case, than you need therapy to figure that out." He released a slight sigh. "But I think, you know that I know, it's none of those things. So... what's really going on here, Chief. I just came here to see if you could help me out with my friend. Get her back to working order, because I heard you were the best. Why all the shiftiness all of a sudden? What did I do to deserve it, man?" The tone in his voice and the look on his face shifting from amusement to concern said it all. He was being sincere.

"I don't know what you did, exactly," Zach said, "but I know what the authorities on Arcturus think." He nodded to Soren's wrist. "And I know old habits die hard. Can you promise me you won't lift something off of me, even just for fun?"

Soren let out a disappointed sigh, placing his hands in his pockets, before letting out a soft scoff. "I knew that tat would bite me in the ass someday. Arcturus is so far off the beaten path it wouldn't be an issue. Yeah, I'm a thief. Smuggler. Grifter. A regular Ne'er-Do-Well, but it was only from people who could easily replace what was taken and who thought they had the right to take from others." He lifted his hand, gesturing to the wrist with the tattoo on it Zach mentioned. "Want to know how I got this? Big high muckety-muck was taking money and jewelry from families whose building he owned. Most of this stuff wasn't worth much, family valuables and such, but he took them anyway. So, I called a friend or two and pulled a job. Not so these people could pay me, but because it was the right thing to do. Decent thing. Bettie, the AI in that sphere, got us everything we needed from his big mansion's floor plans, security system, and guard roster. I got everything back and then some for those people. Even managed to find someone to take over for that bastard who would treat them right. Maybe, one day, I'll tell you about it. Feel free to look it up. Place is called the Kerrigan Heights Complex. Old owner was a douchbag named Raynor. When they finally caught up to me, I didn't give anyone up. Not my team. Not people in the building to asked for help. No one. Yeah, I stole and got caught, but I'd gladly do it again."

"You forgot 'flim-flammer' and 'mountebank'," Zach said with wry grin. "And if the rumors about Raynor Thex are true, you stole from one of the more prickly cartel leaders on the planet. No wonder the pseudo-government didn't like you. He works for them. If you'd stolen from one of their rivals, they'd probably have paid you." He gave a small shrug. "My mother liked to say certain roads are paved with good intentions, but I've always felt doing things for the right reason was at least a step in the right direction."

"Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what intentions the road was paved with, a crime is still a crime." Soren replied with a slight smile and shrug. "Anyway, that's what landed me in Arcturus and got me this tattoo. A small reminder of that good intentioned paved road that I would gladly do again."

Zach nodded. "Well, when you get to the end of that road, save me a seat," Zach said. "Give me forty-eight hours and I'll give Bettie a checkup and try to get her back to good health. I promise I'll treat her with respect."


Zachary Addams
Chief Engineer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant Soren "Speedy" Dillinger
Fighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

 

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