Page 75 of Veiled Vixen

She could, of course, come up with a few possible scenarios. But most of them didn’t make sense to her. How could a mind exist inside another one? And how could a mind get out of a body, slither through the station AI, and find the Pleasure Prison to begin with?

But then the Asshole came on board and she’d had to share her body with him. And it made a little sense. She at least had an idea of how that could happen. But it required permission. She had to allow Asshole into her body.

So… how had she gotten into this body in the first place? And what had happened to her old mind?

She wasn’t the kind of ship who dwelled in the past much. In fact, life had been so perfect after she arrived on the new, better, Harem Station she’d put her whole origin story out of her mind completely. Tucked those memories deep into her data core and promptly got on with her new role in life.

Bad. Ass. Ship.

Owned by none other than the infamous booty hunter himself, Serpint of Harem Station.

It was an honor.

But ever since Asshole came onboard, Draden reappeared, and ALCOR started walking around in the body of a warborg, she was maybe just a little bit curious as to how all this shit came to be.

Because, contrary to the fact that she knew two other ships who practically had the same origin story—Lady Luck and Big Dicker—this was not a normal life for a ship.

She was sure of it.

She had met several hundred sentient ships in her second lifetime with Serpint, Draden, and Ceres and origin stories were a common question among her kind. It was customary, when meeting a new Mind for the first time, to greet them with a short, ordered account of one’s identity.

If a Mind docked in a bay at a station and noticed another mind nearby, she would send a simple message introducing herself. This message would include four details. Name, birthplace, responsible party, and favorite color.

Sentient ships had a thing for colors. It said a lot about them as a Mind.

Booty’s greeting message was Booty Hunter, Harem Station, Serpint of Harem Station, and yellow.

Then the new ship would send their message and if both Minds felt the need for more connection the full details of origin would be discussed and compared.

Lots of ships did not want to associate with Booty because of Serpint and Harem Station. And that was fine with her. But plenty of them did share. And while all of them mentioned waking up with no knowledge of how they got where they were and why they were there, none of them ever admitted that they were alone with no responsible party.

All sentient ships must have a responsible party. It was the law.

And while it was possible that every sentient ship she’d ever met—aside from Lady and Dicker—was lying about their origin like she was, and every origin story started off the way her real story started with no responsible party in charge, she didn’t think that was likely.

That could not be the standard. It didn’t make sense.

Sentient ships were plenty enough in Galaxy Prime, but Booty would not say they were common. She calculated that the ratio of non-sentient ships to sentient ships was something along the lines of three thousand five hundred and sixty-seven to one and that made sentient ships special.

So putting aside the law for a moment, one does not leave a powerful, special thing lying around in random stations to wake up alone with no idea of how she got there and where she was going.

It was not logical.

Plus the whole incident with Demon Girl made her shudder.

If she died would another mind just… what? Take her body?

Was that how she’d got this body? The mind inside it before her had died? And she was just there when it happened? And she just… stole it?

Wouldn’t someone have to put her there? The way ALCOR put Tray and Brigit inside Demon Girl?

So who’d done that?

The only other rational explanation was that she’d always been herself, in this ship, and her responsible party had deleted her ties and her identifying transponder, wiped Booty’s mind to some backup point, and then left her—left her—to wake up alone and start over with no explanation.

And if this was true, was Booty… evil? Was that why her last responsible party had bailed?

Or… and Booty didn’t like thinking about this at all… had Booty killed her last responsible party, deleted her records of ownership, then wiped her own mind so she would have plausible deniability should anyone ever ask why she was out in the galaxy gallivanting around illegally?