We indeed set off from Kelbor towards Hester, which would eventually lead us to Zamir. It was great to see how the break had helped everyone relax after our ordeal, and I was glad things were getting back to normal.

  A couple days into our travel, I was sketching on the couch, as I often did, when Isa plopped down next to me. This wasn’t an uncommon event, but what followed was.

  “Pet, I need advice, one genius to another.”

  I ignored the weird nickname—at first, I had tried to stop it, but that just seemed to encourage her more.

  “Okay, Isa. What do you need advice about?”

  “Trigonometry.”

  Whatever I was expecting, that was not it.

  “Why do you need advice about trigonometry?”

  “Okay, so I’m trying to invent a calculator.”

  “…Calculators exist, Isa.”

  “I know, but I want to make a mechanical calculator. I think I can make it work. Probably.” She shook her head as if shaking the doubt off. “Anyway, I want the calculator to be able to do trigonometry, but I don’t exactly know how that works well enough to make it. Therefore I need your help, Miss Doctorate-in-Physics.”

  I just stared at her for ten seconds, maybe longer. I opened my mouth to say something, realized I didn’t know what to say, closed it, then repeated that a few times before finally speaking.

  “Have you figured out the other functions of the calculator? Like addition, multiplication, that sort of thing?”

  “Well, no, but that’s boring! Who’s going to be impressed by a calculator that can multiply? But trigonometry, that’s cool.”

  “Isa, I think you should focus on the basics first. Get those working, then expand the functionality.”

  “Ugh, you sound like my teachers in school. Granted, they were usually right, but still! Boring!”

  I lost it, a deep belly laugh coming out. Isa gave me a smile before she started laughing, too. Before long, we were cracking up together, garnering confused looks from the others in the lounge. Eventually, I got myself under control.

  “You’re absurd, Isa. Figure out how to do the basics, then we’ll worry about complex things like trigonometry.”

  “Fiiiiine,” she groaned. “You’re probably right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it! Silly Pet.”

  She bounced up off the couch, presumably to head to the workshop to work on her strange project. I just shook my head, a smile on my face at her antics.

  Deciding I was done sketching for the night, I wandered over to a group playing cards.

  “What was that about?” asked Ani.

  I shrugged. “Isa is building another unnecessary device. At least this one probably won’t hurt anyone.”

  Ani gasped. “Don’t jinx it!”

  Jara rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing to jinx—somehow, someone will regret this either way. I win.” She laid down her cards, revealing her victory.

  “You in for the next round?” Ess asked me as she shuffled the deck.

  “Sure.”

  The days passed like that—Isa being Isa, everyone else being normal. I sketched, played games, and worked. Being a senior ensign didn’t really change anything, not that I expected it to.

  After about a week, we reached the Hester system and its colony. Hester was one of the larger colonies in the empire, almost entirely populated by demons since it was founded by them before the war. It was much more lush than Kelbor and as such provided a lot of food exported to both Kelbor and nearby stations.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  We arrived in the Hester system on the last day of the cycle, so we ended up stopping at the station for a day of leave, despite having just had a long leave. The others dragged me out to one of the station bars to celebrate. Fortunately, they made sure not to drink too much on account of us shipping out the next day.

  After picking up some additional food stores, we headed for Zamir. It would take us nearly two weeks to arrive.

  Halfway through, Isa found me one night in the lounge.

  “I think I have it, come see, then help!”

  “Huh?” I asked, unsure what she was talking about.

  She didn’t answer, just grabbed my arm and tugged me away.

  “Uh, bye?” I said to the others as I was led out of the room.

  Isa didn’t let go of my arm until she had guided us to the workshop. I had been in there before, but only rarely. It was remarkably clean and organized, which made sense—you wouldn’t want things flying around in the event gravity failed.

  When we arrived, she beelined straight for one of the only things sitting out, a strange contraption that I couldn’t figure out the purpose of.

  As she spoke, she started pushing unlabeled buttons and pulling levers.

  “Okay, so you do this, then this, then pull that, and it should do the multiplication!”

  The machine clicked and whirred for a few seconds before something make a crunching sound and a piece popped off.

  Isa rubbed the back of her neck with a guilty look on her face. “Uh, that’s not supposed to happen.”

  I chuckled. “I could guess as much. So this is that calculator you were talking about a while back?”

  “Well, it’s supposed to be. Obviously it needs some more work, though.”

  “I still don’t quite understand the point, though.”

  Her shoulders slumped a little, and I opened my mouth to take back my probably-insensitive comment, but she beat me to it.

  “There isn’t really a point, I guess. Obviously it’s easier to just use the calculator on my tablet, but where’s the achievement? I know it’s silly, but I like the challenge, even if it’s a waste of time.”

  I stepped closer, my voice softening a bit. “Hey, Isa. Is my terrible sketching a waste of time? Is playing games with our friends a waste of time? Is doing anything other than our jobs a waste of time? Weren’t you the one who told me I needed a hobby to keep me grounded?” I paused for a second. “Weird phrasing when we’re in space, but whatever. If you find joy in the creation, then that’s the point. I’m sorry I made you feel like you shouldn’t do what you love, that wasn’t cool.”

  She gave me a half-hearted smile, and it made me sad to see her usual joy diminished a bit.

  “So, how’s this thing supposed to work, anyway?”

  Her eyes lit up just a little, and she started explaining the mechanics of the device. I could kind of follow it thanks to my background, but the details mostly went over my head. That was okay, though—the point wasn’t to understand, but to encourage my friend.

  At one point during her explanation, she slapped her forehead. “Of course! That’s the problem! Thanks, Pet!”

  I just nodded like I had done anything but listen in partial confusion. “Of course, anytime. I’ll let you get back to it for now.”

  She didn’t respond, already lost in the act of creation, so I slipped out and headed back to the lounge.

  “What was that about?” Jara asked.

  I decided not to share the details of the mini emotional crisis that occurred and instead just shrugged. “Isa’s got a new project that she wanted my input on.”

  “Another one? Didn’t she just start one a little bit ago?”

  “No, it’s the same one. She’s just further along now.”

  Jara rolled her eyes, but I caught a slight smile. “Isa is definitely a character. Now sit back down and deal, it’s your turn.”

  It was another two days before Isa had finished whatever changes she was making. At dinner, she sat down next to me.

  “Hurry up and eat, I’ve got something to show you.”

  I gave her an unamused look. “I’m sure it can wait until we’re done, okay?”

  She sighed before resuming her bouncing. “Fine, eat. But don’t dawdle!”

  I ate at a normal pace, not wanting to be mean but also not wanting to rush my meal. The moment I finished, Isa grabbed my tray with hers and deposited them in the receptacle before urging me to follow.

  When we reached the workshop, the device was sitting on a bench looking much the same as before, at least to my untrained eye. She bounced her way over before doing something very similar to the previous time, pushing buttons and pulling levers. This time, though, when the machine began to whir and click, it didn’t break—instead, some tabs popped out of the top.

  “Ta-da!” Isa exclaimed, gesturing with her arms at the device.

  “Uh, Isa, I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

  “Oh, right,” she responded sheepishly. “I put in for the multiplication of three times six and the output is shown by the tabs on top. They represent the result in binary.”

  I examined the tabs a bit more closely until I figured out that a tab up represented a one and a tab down represented a zero, and, indeed, the binary represented the number eighteen.

  “That’s actually really impressive, Isa. It’s entirely mechanical?”

  “Yep! Doesn’t even use a mana crystal, though you have to wind it each time you do a calculation.”

  “It doesn’t look like there’s much room, though. How big of numbers can it handle?”

  “Only up to fifteen times fifteen right now. It’d have to be pretty big to support much bigger numbers.”

  “Still, that’s awesome.”

  “Thanks, Pet. So—trigonometry?” she asked with wide eyes.

  I shook my head in faux exasperation. “Sure, let’s go over trigonometry. Now, be warned that it’s been a while since I last studied some of this stuff at a high level, but I’ll try to remember as much as I can. There are a few ways to calculate trigonometric values…”

  I spent some time over the next few days chatting with Isa about trigonometry and helping her figure out how to make a mechanical calculator to do the math. Fortunately, I found some textbooks in the ships data stores that helped me refresh my memory, since I was pretty rusty at the higher-level math.

  Before I knew it, we had reached Zamir. We didn’t stop, instead heading off into the largest single stretch in the empire without a stop, our destination for detailed surveying.