Eight Gs, One Bard, Zero Regrets

The Morrigan emerged from the Duke’s dry-dock like a predator stretching after a long nap. The new weapons caught the morning light as Caitlin coaxed the thrusters to life, feeling the added weight of the guns balanced against the glorious pull of the M-drive, which kept everything smooth enough to be smug about it. The ship vibrated beneath her fingers, a low bass purr that she felt through the soles of her boots.

Maltz, strapped into his engineering station on the bridge, ran a final systems check. His ears gave a single twitch. “Everything looks… disturbingly good. Power flow’s steady. Heat buildup’s lower than I like.” He tapped the console twice. “I don’t trust it.”

Caitlin tilted her head, her tone too innocent to be sincere. “It offends you when things work properly, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” Maltz's ears flattened slightly against his head.

She nudged the throttle. The ship leapt forward.

The gravitic compensators did their job, smoothing out the Gs, but the force under the hull was unmistakable. Caitlin let out a low whistle.

“This is wildly over the top! I approve.”

The Morrigan punched through the upper atmosphere and burst into open space, banking hard around the outer traffic lanes. She skimmed low over lumbering mega-freighters, stirring a flurry of curses and indignant threats on open comms from merchant marine pilots who never even saw her coming.

Maltz flicked an ear and leaned in, squinting at the readouts. “Acceleration curve’s holding. We’re pushing close to eight G.”

Caitlin leaned into the controls, flipping the ship into a lazy corkscrew. “Tell me that’s not the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.”

A warning light flickered on Maltz's console. "Primary stabilizer's running hot," he growled, clawed fingers dancing across the controls. "Rerouting coolant flow." The light blinked twice more then went steady green. "Temperamental beast," he added, but with unmistakable pride.

Caitlin pushed the throttle forward again. “Sound as a bell. She moves like a dream. Now let’s see how she bites.”

Maltz bared his teeth, more fangs than smile. “Weapons test?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

The Morrigan hit the dense asteroid field like a wolf diving into a flock of particularly confused sheep.

Caitlin steadied her hands on the controls, her pulse quickening in time with the thruster bursts. The ship moved. Oh, it moved. The gravitic systems and M-drive worked in perfect, glorious harmony, letting her weave between spinning asteroids with a precision that should have been illegal.

“Alright, Maltz. Let’s show the universe why it was a terrible idea to let us have this ship.”

Maltz locked onto a particularly ugly rock. “Target acquired.”

Caitlin eased off the thrusters, lining up the shot. “Light it up.”

The Morrigan howled like the goddess she was named after.

The quad pulse laser turret spat bright fury, cutting deep glowing scars across the asteroid’s surface. The torpedo barbette hummed quietly as it found a firing solution, but Maltz wasn’t feeling that wasteful. Not yet. He switched to the particle barbette and let loose.

The blast didn’t just shatter the asteroid. It erased it. One second it was there, the next it was a cloud of ions and regret.

A wave of static rolled through the sensors as the field scrambled to adjust to the sudden absence.

Silence.

Maltz blinked at the data. “That was… a lot.”

Caitlin whistled again, slow and impressed. “Oh, I like this ship.”

She checked the outputs. “Weapon systems are stable. No strain. But you didn’t need to fire that many times.”

“Disagree,” Maltz said, still beaming.

He powered down the weapons. “We’re going to start so many fights.”

Caitlin pushed the throttle toward the jump point, the engines purring like something ready to pounce. “Only the fun ones. And best keep our promise to Duke Whatsisface and sod off somewhere very far away.”

The asteroid field vanished behind them, and the Morrigan slipped cleanly into the improbable pocket universe known as jumpspace - where the laws of physics took a polite holiday, causality went to lunch, and common sense had never even applied for the job.

Later, somewhere in the lazy heartbeat of jumpspace, the Morrigan drifted like a shark dreaming of speed.

Caitlin lounged at the helm, coffee mug within easy reach, playing an old reel on her fiddle, each note clear and sharp enough to wake the dead.

Maltz, crouched under a side panel with his tail twitching and a capacitor in his teeth, grunted around it. “So… what about the new ship’s brain?”

Caitlin blinked. “Sorry, the what now?”

Maltz dropped the capacitor with a clink. “The AI upgrade. You did ask for one, remember?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, frowning. “Ah… right. Forgot about that. Got caught up in the guns and the flying and the shenanigans.”

Maltz rumbled something about priorities, but before Caitlin could reply, the console flickered. The lights dimmed, the hum deepened. A smooth, voice filled the bridge:

“AI upgrade ready. Please specify preferred personality parameters.”

Caitlin blinked. “Huh.”

Maltz peered at the console. “Just tell it standard interface and be done.”

Caitlin tilted her head, thinking. “No… no, I want something different.”

The console waited, blinking patiently.

“Something with a bit of history,” Caitlin pondered. “Something traditional. A fili.”

Maltz squinted at her. “So we’re just making up words now?"

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “A fili. Old Terran term. Poet, storyteller, seer. Kept the history, told the tales, cursed your enemies with a well-placed verse.”

Maltz scratched his furry chin. “So... a bard?”

“A proper bard,” Caitlin said firmly. “Not the singing-in-a-pub kind. The kind that could ruin a king's reputation with three lines and a bad mood.”

Maltz muttered, “Sounds familiar.”

There was a brief pause, the faintest flicker of the ship’s lights.

“Confirmed. Personality engaged.”

The air shimmered, and a figure took shape beside the console. Bardic robes flickered and glowed, eyes like banked coals, mouth already set in disappointment.

“I am Cathbad,” he intoned, his voice rich with centuries of disdain. “Fili-in-Residence. Keeper of records. Arbiter of taste. And I have just read your last ship’s log.”

Caitlin gave a friendly nod. “Welcome aboard.”

Cathbad scowled. “I was not asking for a welcome. I am wondering why none of you know how to use a semicolon.”

Maltz banged his forehead against the side panel with a heavy thunk. “What have you done?”

Caitlin raised her coffee mug. “We’ve got ourselves a bard. Grand!”

Maltz made a noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh. “We’re going to die listening to poetry.”

Caitlin leaned back, unfazed. “So you can run the ship?”

“I am the ship.” Cathbad straightened, the medallion at his chest pulsing with entirely too much self-importance. “An Omega-class intellect. Fully self-aware. I can chart a jump through a dying star, stabilise a reactor mid-meltdown, negotiate trade rights with a Hiver, and compose an elegy about it before you have drawn your next breath.”

His robes shimmered with a ripple of data. “I can advise kings, manage fleets, and correct doctoral theses in sixteen languages. And yet here I am. Installed in a vessel that, until recently, stored pool noodles in the torpedo bay.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “You done?”

“Hardly.”

Maltz gave a slow, resigned nod. “We’re all going to die listening to verse, aren’t we?”

“If you’re fortunate,” Cathbad said, adjusting his non-existent cuffs, “you’ll die properly punctuated.”

Caitlin stretched. “Aye, good luck with that.”

Cathbad’s holographic robes billowed, as if responding to a wind no one else could feel.

“Be warned, if you insist on misusing commas, I shall insist on reciting The Song of Emer. All eighty-seven verses.”

Maltz groaned, louder this time.

Caitlin gave a small, satisfied nod. “You’ll do.”