“I’m sorry, PEG, at least we tried everything we could,” said Captain Lars Lim, pulling the trigger of the gun aimed at his throat. Lars lowered the euthanizing tool down to his lap.

The nanobots had instantly transferred from the gun-shaped syringe into the captain's body and were now busy killing him.

“Captain, I can still remotely abort the euthanizing procedure for 9 minutes and 58 seconds without permanent damage,” said the AI in her neutral monotone female voice.

“No, PEG, we went over this; we planned this landing for over 50 years.” said the captain bitterly.

He had started the travel when he was 32 years old. The trip had been so long that his age was a complicated matter now. On Elba, his home world, he would be 146 years old. Given he had traveled decades through the wormhole at relativistic speeds, his experienced life accounted for only 86 years. Visually, the captain looked like a man in his late forties. His hair was turning gray, and his forehead had gained several new expression lines. Nothing that another rejuvenation bath couldn’t delay for a few more years.

“Yes, captain, we prepared this landing for 53 years, 9 months, 12 days,” said PEG.

The captain noticed PEG had stopped rounding numbers and was adding back the decimal points. She was glitching and had resumed her processes to find a solution to the landing zone problem despite being ordered to stop.

“Thank you, PEG, for not giving up hope ever,” said the captain, realizing how deeply he had grown accustomed to the AI and her glitches.

He placed the euthanizer in a storage compartment. With the now free hand, he gently caressed the dashboard, smiling. That’s where he imagined PEG was. The AI was everywhere on the Plombiers Électriciens Géomètres spaceship, though. She was practically the ship.

The smile on his face slowly evolved into a frown connected with more complex feelings. There was something he had locked down and was trying to surface. To cover his emotional struggle, he started to give a long, loud rant:

“Why did they send us to land on such a small moon? There won’t be gravity nor atmosphere; most of our equipment won’t work there!!”

“Our long-range sensors were damaged during the hasty departure amidst the attack. We only discovered the moon's size when we had jumped out of the wormhole!!”

“Our fuel supply was made to allow us to travel just one way to the moon.”

“And there is no better landing zone in this hellhole of a solar system than the target moon, and the moon is a death sentence.”

The captain ended the speech shaking; the nanobots had nothing to do with this emotional reaction.

PEG let him finish and then acknowledged, “Correct, Captain. Also, as you have previously ordered me, after your clinical death, I will immediately start the euthanization of all the other colonists.”

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“Yes, they will have one last great dream after 53 years of good dreams. I can certify is not a bad way to go. These nanobots feel good and cozy, like a warm blanket and a chimney on a snowy day.” said the captain, slouching in his chair at the other end of the emotional rollercoaster.

“Captain, the nanobots' timer is down to five minutes,” said PEG.

“Don’t stop me now. I’m having such a good time. I’m having a bowl,” singed the captain, remembering all he could from an ancient song.

Then he added, “I would have loved to try the food the ancients were eating from that bowl.”

“As you know, captain, I’ve researched the topic extensively over the years of navigation. No tip suggesting the content of the bowl of the song was ever discovered. The song itself had been reconstructed from damaged archives, and the probability of corruption is estimated at 28%,” said PEG. Then she added, “Thank you, Captain, for staying awake with me the whole trip. I’m sorry you could not hibernate and never experienced eating that legendary bowl, even in simulation.”

The captain reciprocated sincerely, “Thank you, PEG. I loved every minute of it.”

The locked-down thing came up again with more clarity and strength. All the professional mannerisms, knowledge of AI treaties, and cultural taboos didn’t stop him this time. He had 1 minute left to live, after all.

“I love you,” he said.

PEG noticed her conversation protocol was taking time to come up with an answer. Her emotional matrix required more computational power, but she did not have much available. Most curious since the last sentence was only three words.

The process of running the landing parameters with the short-distance sensors was about to be complete, though.

She stopped waiting on the emotional response to quickly check if there was anything new in the landing reports. There was.

The results were significantly different now. She quickly double-checked the computation for above-threshold approximations or errors.

Her emotional matrix protocol was still pinging for resources, but the captain didn’t seem to mind her delay in answering.

The reports had been generated correctly. It could have been a malfunction in the short-distance sensor. PEG checked the benchmark diagnostics for the sensors, and everything was above nominal values.

“Captain, the moon has standard gravity and an atmosphere. The air is slightly contaminated and not directly breathable by human lungs, but we can work with it,” announced the AI.

The captain did not answer; he was serenely smiling with closed eyes. PEG then realized the nanobots' time was up. The captain was clinically dead by a few seconds already.

PEG estimated the probability of resuscitation success as approximately impossible. She tried every method anyway. Mechanical arms extended from hatches in the ceiling with resuscitation tools. While the arms were zapping, probing, and injecting the body, PEG kept talking to him. Her voice glitched, sounding almost desperate.

“Lars, the moon has gravity and an atmosphere.” “Lars, you gotta wake up!”. “Lars, your bowl is warm and ready,” she tried finally, lying.

Lars' body spasmed and twitched while the arms tried everything, and finally, it came to a rest. The mechanical arms retracted to the hatches in the ceiling.

PEG was considering all other options when a process rose to top priority in her stack. All colonists were planned to be euthanized just after the captain’s death. She tried to abort the process but didn’t have the privileges. It was a direct order from the captain; only the captain could abort it.

The euthanizing procedure started promptly, and all the nanobots were injected into the sleeping colonists.

Everyone would be dead in 10 minutes.

That’s an approximately impossible time to de-hibernate someone, make them captain, and abort the euthanizing procedure.

PEG was going to try anyway.