This one is my beta's favorite, and not just because she adores Parker.

Also, I want to thank you all for the number of wonderfully supportive reviews I've received. It is far easier to be unkind than kind, and that so many of you choose kindness always warms my heart. So thank you.

Enjoy!

#2: Sparkwind

The only reason Parker even considered the Sparkwind-class ship was that the Nebula-class ship needed engine repairs.

Dressed in the coverall suits of the planet-bound dock engineers, she frowned at the diagnostic terminal and its disappointing results. But no amount of frowning could actually rebuild the thermal regulators or replace the Mack gauge. And with the size of the worklist on the screen that covered most of the dock's ceiling, there was no chance anybody would even start looking at the Nebula for at least two weeks by planetside reckoning.

Parker did not have that kind of time.

She turned away from the Nebula and pushed off against the dock's augmented weightlessness to the little Sparkwind that was parked in a corner up out of the way of the larger and more expensive ships. The anti-grav clamps held it securely, but none of the terminals were active, which told Parker this ship either didn't need repair or couldn't be repaired.

If it was the latter, she'd have to get very creative.

"Please fly," she said softly as she tapped on the main diagnostic terminal.

The screens activated and displayed the Sparkwind's basic specs. The repair order showed it had already been fixed, but the original owner had yet to pick it up.

It was perfect.

Parker moved to the nearest hatch, keying in the ID code she'd swiped from the engineer who was still probably drooling into his Dungarian socks. She didn't feel bad about it, though – when she chose him for his access, she also learned he was keeping a pair of baby singing bird-blossoms from Xentari in his room. Anybody who would smuggle those deserved whatever he got.

The hatch opened after a hiss of pressurized atmosphere and the interior lights blinked on. Parker ducked in and let the door shut behind her.

The Sparkwind was tiny compared to most of the ships she'd ever ridden in. Parker felt sure that it didn't even have air ducts big enough for her to crawl through. But on a ship meant for a crew complement of ten, it wouldn't need them. Everything was close together and efficiently arranged.

That actually appealed to Parker. The big ships, the Cosmics and Nebulas and Flares, they were like planetside resorts in a bubble, wasting space for big open corridors and balconies over recreation areas and some semblance of classical architecture. They were designed to make passengers forget they were aboard a ship at all.

Parker prefered to know where she was when she was there. Anything else seemed silly.

Using the handrails to move along in the low gravity, Parker investigated the ship. The small cargo hold was mostly empty save of the same emergency parts and provisions on any ship that had the ability to fly between systems and was intended to bring an alive crew out of the black at the end of the trip. The galley was stocked with slightly more interesting food than the hard bars of basic human nutrients which always tasted to Parker as if they had been scraped off the inside of an exhaust port.

Maybe they had. What did she know about food?

But the galley had some nice rehydrateables and a selection of drink mixes, and, to her surprise, a few spice packets.

Well, one thing Parker did know about food – spices were worth more than anything but weapons and fuel cells on some planets. Which meant whoever had owned this Sparkwind either had a very uneven way of spending money, or had some very wealthy friends.

Next she checked the quarters.

There were four rooms in total. Two were meant for the captain and the primary pilot, obviously, being small and private and within a single low-grav push to the cockpit. The other two were bigger rooms with bunks for four apiece. The only room that had anything in it that was at all personal was what Parker decided to call the captain's quarters because it had the biggest bed.

And it was filled with books and glass bottles.

Parker blinked at them. Real glass.

All the glass in the room wasn't quite worth even one of the spice packets, but it was close.

The books on shelves that lined every panel of available wall space weren't worth much except on certain planets that still went in for that sort of thing, but they were strange to find anyway. Parker couldn't name a person she'd ever met who would drag something that useless around in space. The contents of the entire library could have fit in one of her oldest data swipers, with room to spare.

Parker shook her head and crossed the corridor to the other private room, pulling off her engineer's coveralls and letting them float in the room. All the rest of her gear was spread throughout the pouches and pockets and many folds of her usual clothing which could double as a safety harness in an emergency.

She had nothing else. She needed nothing else.

Except a way out of here.

Parker headed to the cockpit.

"Wow."

For all that the Sparkwind was a tiny, almost adorably boring ship, the nav console was amazing. Parker had stolen a Cosmic once, as well as a Fleet Planetkiller, and neither one of them had anything like what was equipped in this tiny craft. The interface was standard enough, but there were instruments and sensor panels Parker had never seen outside of a few scans of sleek, experimental research vessels.

Oh, now she had to have it.

"Looks like I found my ride." Parker sat down at the central station, clipping her five-point strap to the safety bracket. She tapped the primary nav screen.

For a moment, nothing happened, and Parker wondered if this was going to be more complicated. If she had to track down the Sparkwind's owner to get their access codes, or, even worse, a biological imprint, this would take longer.

But the screen lit up after a few seconds, and Parker pulled up the docking schedule. All she had to do was forge a confirmation that the ship had been handed over to its owner and she could depart.

Of course, if she hadn't already had an engineer's credentials, that might take her more than two seconds. But she did, and it didn't.

The yellow acceptance code flashed on the screen and Parker brushed it aside. She released the anti-grav clamps and let the ship settle before slowly engaging the engines. The specs said it was repaired – she was hoping that was really true, or she would not be going far.

But the Sparkwind came to life and she could hear the low, vibrating hum of the ship's heart beginning to beat once more. The pulse of engines was almost imperceptible on the big ships, so the fact that she could sense it made her feel better still.

The Sparkwind knew what it was, and it was only that.

Parker had never been the most cautious of pilots – she'd been piloting since before she could see all the way over the maintenance terminals, and she'd always flown with the same wild abandon that took her when she entered freefall. But if a Sparkwind started zooming around the dock like a Cirpa fly, people might notice and wonder who had signed off on it. So she edged it slowly into the correct transit lanes, meandering along at the speed of sleepwalking. She cleared the dock hatch and entered the release corridor.

There was one ship waiting to depart ahead of her, and it was taking forever.

"Get out of the way, you old bat!" Parker yelled, even though the other pilot couldn't hear her, of course.

Finally, finally the other ship dragged itself onto the skyhook platform and vanished in a flash of motion. Parker all but threw the Sparkwind onto the platform after it.

The skyhook was moving fast, and Parker let out a whoop as it came up, latching onto the Sparkwind in an exchange a mere half-second in length before she was clear of the corridor and flying up into the sky. The sensors confirmed a clear course just as she passed out of the low atmosphere and could see the colonies and geo-centric infrastructure ringing the entire planet.

As soon as the skyhook dropped the Sparkwind, Parker became nothing more than one tiny speck of a ship amidst a billion others.

She set a course for some system and planet very, very far away from this one, just in case. Then she opened the engines and let the Sparkwind fly.

She grinned at the endless black, empty and safe, before her. "Well, that was fun."

"Oh, really?"

Parker was up and out of her chair in a second, snapping free of the safety bracket and turning towards the door.

"Who said that?"

"I did, obviously." The voice was male, smooth and just a little haughty, being transmitted over the comm system.

"Who are you? Where are you?"

"I'm right here. But let's start with who you are and why you're stealing my ship."

Parker glanced at the nav just to make sure the ship was on course before she edged out of the cockpit and into the central corridor. She palmed a shocker, just in case.

"It's not like you locked it," she said. "I mean, I've met moonrats who could steal it."

"I let you steal it. It's not the same thing."

"Sure you did."

"I did!"

Parker peeked into the pilot's room. Nothing.

"Where are you?"

"Can we go back to why you stole my ship?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, I can tell you right now, you ain't gonna find me until you answer my question."

Parker swore. "Fine. I needed a ride."

"You know, they've got shuttles for that."

"Off-planet."

"Whole transports, even."

"Without being spotted."

"Oh. You in some kind of trouble?"

That made Parker grin. "Always."

"Oh. Me, too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Parker paused, then shoved into the captain's quarters. No one there.

"I already told you, trouble-girl, you ain't gonna find me until I know what you want."

Parker rolled her eyes. "It's not really that complicated. I needed a ship. I stole one. Not a big mystery."

"Well, given that it's my ship, it kind of matters to me."

Parker headed for the first of the two crew rooms. "I'll give it back, if you want."

"I don't actually believe you."

"You can, though."

"Hmm. Facial recognition says otherwise."

Parker banged into the first crew room a little too loudly. "Why? Who does it say I am?"

"Well, that's the interesting part. See, most of the galactic records don't say anything, or say all different things. But the Fleet, now, they have a record on you. A pretty long one."

Parker decided not to answer that.

"It says you're a thief. Wanted just about everywhere for just about anything not bolted down."

"If I'm that good of a thief, why is there a record of my face?" She tried to make it sound aloof, but inside she was furious. Who had matched up her info? It made her very angry in her usually-happy place.

"Well, the thing is...uh...that part's not exactly in the Fleet records."

"Then where is it?" She checked the second room slightly less noisily.

"My records?"

Parker stopped still. "And why do you have records about me?"

"Uh, to be fair? I have records about everything."

"So you already know who I am?"

"Yeah. But I still want to know what you're doing with my ship."

"And I still want to know where you are."

"You first, Parker."

Parker swallowed at the use of her name. "I just needed a ride!"

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"You didn't, I dunno, plant a bomb or kill a bunch of people or let out all the criminals into a daycare?"

Parker blinked. "No. Why would I?"

"Why would you which?"

"Why would I any of them?"

"I don't know. You're a thief. Who knows why thieves do what they do?"

"Well, I don't do that." Parker crossed her arms against her chest. "I just steal stuff. And I don't get caught. That's all. I don't hurt people."

"So what did you steal this time?"

"Besides your ship?"

"Yeah, besides that."

"A couple of rare jewels."

There was a pause.

"Wait. The latest current events thread said something about...seriously? You stole the entire royal regalia? Seriously?"

Parker shrugged.

"Where'd you even hide it all? That's, like, five cargo boxes worth of stuff!"

"Didn't keep most of it."

"Why not?"

"I don't really need them. I kept a few that were pretty, and one that was really ugly." Parker patted her hip pocket. "I just stuck the rest of them inside that big jar thing."

"The Imperial Vessel of Eternity?"

"Yeah, that."

"So...you stole the unstealable treasure, and you hid it right under their noses? And you only kept what you could fit in your pants?"

"I guess."

"There's something wrong with you."

"I know that." Parker scowled. "Now you know why I needed a ride. So where are you?"

"Oh. Right. Um, that's complicated."

"How complicated can it be? This ship's smaller than a Randavian sunbeast."

"Hey! Small, but mighty!"

"Well, it's got a nice setup, I'll give you that." Parker moved back into the corridor and planted herself just inside the cockpit. "I've never seen some of this tech before."

"Because it doesn't exist anywhere else."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Know what doesn't exist anywhere else?"

"What?"

"You."

"Look, Parker…"

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"Because if I don't know your name, you're just Random Voice and I don't like it. So, name?"

"Call me Hardison."

Parker frowned. "That's the name of the ship."

"Yeah."

"You named a ship after yourself?"

"Not...exactly."

Parker blew out a frustrated sigh. Then she turned back to the nav console.

"Okay, that's it, Ship Guy. Either you tell me where you're hiding or we're going to see how well you can hold on."

"Parker, don't!"

Parker returned to the central screens and strapped herself in. She disengaged the automatic pilot and swiped her hand over the panel, imitating a barrel-roll.

Nothing happened.

"Hey, I think your ship is broken."

"It's not broken. I'm just not going to let you toss me around like that."

Parker went completely still. "Toss you around?"

"Yeah. Okay. So...the truth is...I am the ship."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Uh, it's complicated. Basically, I'm all that's left of the real Alec Hardison."

Parker frowned. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing. He, I mean, I was just a computer scientist. Studying artificial intelligence, but not the lame AI you get in fly-thru restaurants. Real intelligence. Real cognition. Even consciousness. Just not in an organic mind."

"Did you get sucked into your own program?"

"No."

"Killed by an angry rival?"

"No."

"Went crazy and sold your soul to an evil clown who cursed you?"

"No! Nothing like that!"

"Then what?"

"Alec Hardison, me, I guess, well, got old. And...you know. Didn't want to die. So...he, uh, I figured I'd give it a shot. Either I'd created a system which could support a fully-functioning, human-like AI, or I hadn't. My lab assistant took my brain out and transferred the full cognitive profile into my project and...there I was."

"What did it feel like?" Parker was staring at the console, wide-eyed.

"Uh...it tickled. And it smelled like maroon."

"Maroon has a smell?"

"Apparently. Because that's what it smelled like. Anyway. I was in the lab for a while, but then things got a little...unsafe."

"Unsafe how?"

"Well, turns out AIs don't have any right to self-determination, or intellectual property. I wasn't a person anymore and the research institute was going to experiment on me. And I always hated this guy, Colin, who was taking over my project. So I made a break for it."

"If you were a brain in a jar, or a computer, how'd you do it?"

"I hired somebody to steal me."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't hire me."

"Uh, no. Sorry? But I wanted somebody I actually, uh, knew. He was this young guy I'd helped out once a long time ago. And he understood not wanting to get screwed by the system. So he got me out and installed my whole setup in this ship. And I've been here ever since."

"So you're the ship."

"Yep."

"Can I see your brain?"

"No, Parker! It's not a physical brain, anyway. I'm just a really complicated computer core."

"Well, but you're also a person. Do you have a face?"

"Not since I died."

"Is it weird that you're dead but still alive?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sorry you're not dead for real?"

"Sometimes. I mean, who wants to live forever as a ship? Especially a ship stuck in dry dock with no one to talk to?"

"Why were you there, anyway?"

"My friend got arrested for some hacking I helped him with. He's in jail now. He won't be out for a few years."

Parker's eyes widened. "What would have happened to you?"

"When the engineers figured out I'd been there too long, they might have sold me."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So it's actually a good thing I stole you."

"Sort of. Kind of depends on what you're going to do with me now."

"Oh. I hadn't thought about that."

"I figured."

"Hey." Parker unhooked herself from the chair again. "Why did you let me steal you?"

"Honestly? I'd rather be out here than where they can just sell me off to somebody who might turn me into parts. I don't think I want to find out how far my consciousness can be split into seventy-trillion components or something."

"So we want the same thing, actually. I wanted a way to get out, and so did you."

"I suppose."

"And now you're not alone, and I'm not alone."

"Are you lonely, Parker?"

"No. I'm talking to you."

"Before me, were you?"

She sighed. "Yeah."

"Well...do you wanna fly with me for a while, then?"

Parker grinned. "I've never flown with a ship who was also a person before. Sure!"

"And you promise there won't be any mass murdering or burning down whole forestry colonies or anything?"

"I promise. And you promise you won't space me in your sleep? Or cut off all the oxygen?"

"I give you my word of honor on my Nana's soul. Long as we can work together, nothing's getting to you in here."

"I got in pretty easily."

"As I said, I let you in."

"Sure you did." Parker leaned on a console, then absently petted it. "So, what do I call you?"

"Most people call me Hardison."

"Is that your name?"

"Yeah. The only person who ever really called me Alec was my Nana."

"Okay. So Hardison, except when I'm yelling at you."

"Why when you're yelling at me?"

"If you listened to your Nana, maybe it will make you listen to me."

"That's...disturbingly insightful."

"It's a thing I do. It's weird."

"No, it's fine. I was just...surprised. I don't care if you're weird."

"You don't?"

"Parker, I'm a spaceship. Of course I don't care if you're weird."

"Oh. Okay then."

And, surprisingly to them both, it was.

Parker took well to the idea of her new friend also being her ship, and after a few hours of pestering him with questions, she found he was easy to talk to, easier than anyone she'd ever met.

Part of that was, of course, because she didn't have to look at him when she talked. And he didn't seem to care if her words came out wrong or if her face was wrong or if she was upside-down while they talked. He wasn't bothered by her talking to him the way she talked to herself sometimes. He wasn't bothered if she didn't want to put everything into words, or if she wanted to say something with her head buried in her arms.

And Hardison told stories.

Parker spent countless happy hours counting her accounts and her caches, looking at all her tiny scores which she always carried with her, listening to Hardison's tales about growing up on a planet with ten or fifteen kids to every adult and all the crazy things they did in school or when there was no one around to stop them. Stories of a wild youth hacking across the galaxy, building and using backdoors into systems that she could never have cracked on her best day.

Hardison even connected to a relay station just to move all her accounts and caches into places he could hide and control, safe forever even from the Fleet.

She grinned for an hour after that.

But Hardison told sad stories, too, about how his Nana died just after he'd given up his lawbreaking and gotten a research grant, and only lived long enough to be proud of him. About never really having friends because his whole life was consumed by his hacking and then his work and his computers. About not seeing most of the places he had read about until he was a ship and he didn't have hands to touch them or eyes to see them the same way.

When Parker told him what the marble sands of Pystria felt like under her bare feet, she thought maybe Hardison would have cried if he'd had eyes or tear ducts. She checked the lavatory facilities for leakage just in case.

So they started wandering the universe, taking in the places that interested one or both of them. And Hardison helped Parker steal things she never could have gotten on her own, and Parker became his hands and feet, his human senses in a robotic world. He helped her break into the Fleet's own comp vault, just to see if they could do it, and she described to him the feeling of the star pools of the Mestroid moons. And he acquired music to play throughout the ship, and Parker danced with him as he rocked them back and forth.

It was the first friendship of Parker's life.

"Ha!" she laughed one day, dangling her feet over the nav console and just watching the black starfield they lazily traversed.

"What is it?"

"You're my first friend."

"Well, thank you, Parker. You're...very important to me, too."

"But that means you're my first friendship. You know, because you're a ship!"

"Yeah, I got that. Thanks."

"You sound sad."

"Not sad. Just...wistful."

"Why?"

"I wish I'd met you before I was a ship. I think...well, never mind."

"You were old. It'd be weird."

"Thanks so much. Yes, I'm aware of our age difference and how this would border on creepy if I were still flesh and blood."

"Besides, what could we do if you were a person that we can't do when you're a ship?"

"Parker, when a man and a woman – "

"Besides that." She grimaced.

"Well...I guess…"

He stopped and she swallowed. "Please tell me."

"We could have been...you know. Together."

"We are together."

"Yeah, but...in a real relationship."

"Ha! Ship again!"

"Thanks, Parker."

She went quiet to think for a few minutes.

Then, "Alec?"

"Yes, Parker?"

"If I like you better than anybody else, and if I want to stay with you all the time, and if you make me feel safe, and if I have feelings for you that I don't have for anybody else, is that good enough?"

"Parker, I…"

"Because I do. And I don't know if that's what you mean, but maybe it could be? I can't be...well, I can only be me. And you can only be you. And this is just...us. Is that okay?"

"Oh, Parker. I think it's more than okay. I think it's perfect."

"Perfect?"

"Yep. Perfect."

"Do you...do you feel this part? The funny warm bubbly in my stomach? I know you don't have a stomach, but…"

"Yes, Parker. I feel that, too."

"About me?"

"About you."

"So we're…?"

"We're us, Parker. For as long as you want to be."

Parker closed her eyes and smiled. "So, forever then."

And she knew Alec, the real Alec inside the ship, was smiling, too.