[Distress signal has been received]
[Awaiting Emergency help]
The cold female voice sounded again in its metallic monotone. It was not a particularly strong ai, but it served its service well.
They were received quite well during the previous age, which was a couple of centuries prior, fortunately, or unfortunately, this age had already gone by.
Ai’s were a common sight during the previous age, as they were used to carrying out tasks that required inhuman precision or long hours for completion.
In the current age, however, dependence on Ai technology had gone down considerably as too many unprecedented accidents kept occurring causing harm to their users.
As per regulation during the current age, Ai's didn't have much autonomy, many essential processes required permitted personnel to see through or authenticate it.
They also lacked fundamental skills such as judgment and were over-reliant on logic or step-to-step processing.
This was not necessarily a bad thing, but during emergencies, all these weaknesses could cripple every single essential process. Protocols were set in a cascading manner such that all the essential processes were taken care of first so that more lives could be saved.
The problem with this was that it couldn't be stopped until all the set processes were completed, it was unclear when this trend had started, but current Ai emergency protocols were closed as such these processes once started were very hard to stop, almost bordering on being impossible.....
This would prevent interruption and was quite a great idea, but for a ship, without a captain or a superior officer, this was a death sentence, as any trap lay ahead couldn't be stopped without the essential personnel on the ship being active.
It was unthinkable for the shipbuilders to miss this critical weakness, but the solutions available were quite hard to accommodate for a common third-rate shipping company.
Access was limited to senior officials for a reason, if anyone onboard could gain access to the ship, then a terror attack would become an everyday occurrence.
There were multiple earlier cases where a survivor would crash-land an entire ship on a garrisoned planet, creating quite a disaster.
Third-rate states had limited military might, as such only essential trade routes and important star systems and trade or storage port planets were under military protection.
All these processes could have been simply authenticated by the ship AI but too many restrictions were placed on it, this was a circumstance of the times, it could not be helped.
This was not without reason, but this made it easier to grasp the workings of the entire system as such setting a trap would be rather easy, with the right equipment and knowledge, of course.
Pirates were not in general smart creatures, so it was obvious why not too many anti-intrusive systems were being run, pirates tended to head-on or petty and shameful tactical attacks.
The reason for not implanting stronger tech for attackers above the pitiful level of pirates was because hardly anyone would attack a third-rate vessel, especially one ferrying third-rate citizens.
However, the silver stroke had encountered an unrestrained attack.
It was a known fact that after plundering a ship, pirates would claim responsibility and increase their levels in the 'hit list' thus promoting their crew to future pirates.
Today's occurrence was rather special, it was unknown why but the AI system onboard was under attack, this was quite rare as there was nothing of essence to gain from this ship, compared to the strength of the attackers nothing of value was aboard.
This seriously begged the question, why, why was such a strong force used on a third-rate civilian spaceship.
The state onboard became extremely silent and eerie before another sharp alert rang out!
[Alert! Alert! ]
[Unknown drive is loading up]
[Authenticity of drive cannot be established, the onboard advisory recommends load up termination]
[Error! Error!]
[Drive authenticity has been compromised senior officer required to deactivate]
When things couldn't possibly get any worse, shrill sirens suddenly sounded throughout the ship before the blinking red lights increased in intensity.
[Alert! Alert!]
[Directive received: terminate life support systems, system advisory; terminate the process?, Error!: no response!]
[Warning! Warning!]
[2 minutes before code assimilation]
[Error! Error!]
[Software parameter breach]
[System breach successful, code assimilation completed]
[Malware detected, prerequisites require system shutdown]
[Terminating ongoing operations]
[Process terminated]
[System shutdown in 30 minutes]
Self-learning Ai systems were an obvious enemy to all sentient beings, as such perimeters were added to prevent too much knowledge and freedom to AI's this was a smart move because when it came to Ai's nobody could be sure of what to expect if a serious accident happened.
During an emergency, the captain or the Ai of the ship had to cut off external communications with exceptions only on military channels, or the local service providers responsible for emergency response, this was all according to set protocols.
There was a simple reason for this, The Galactic net accounted for nearly 70 percent of communication throughout the galaxy.
This presented so much data that even with all their Ai's unimaginable and ridiculous processing power, they still suffered service delays.
As such, localized branches of the galactic net were the only way to handle that much data.
Pirate attacks happened almost daily along the galactic rim, as uninhabited star systems outside state borders acted as a hive for pirates.
When attacks happened, the pirates would use the ship Ai or some other means to upload sensitive information from the ship or the gory scenes they left behind.
These videos took too long to pull off the strained galactic net, as such only military or rapid response channels were left online.
This acted as a safeguard, as using a personal comm to post such attacks could leave digital footprints that would later lead to arrest or execution. This lessened the number of torture recordings posted by pirates from surfacing on the galactic net.
Stolen novel; please report.
As all these processes were ongoing, the chair-bound survivor slowly moved as he repeatedly yanked at the restraining cables that had loosened considerably as their attackers hadn't bothered to refasten them after the death of their victims.
The metallic chair creaked as the repeated yanking almost destabilized its stands. Something miraculous seemed to happen as the cables rolled to the floor, freeing him from this torture seat.
A low, incoherent sound came out of his broken jaw as he dropped to the floor, bloody tears resumed flowing down his face.
The pain couldn't possibly be explained, as the cut stumps below the calves hit the floor first.
The dislocated and badly punctured arm lay on the ground as he dragged himself slowly across the floor past a seat that had a young sixteen-year-old girl nailed to the chair by a massive metallic rod that ran right through her chest.
Grunts sounded across the cabin as Jack, the only survivor clawed and crawled across the room. His blind crawl ensured that he would always bump against something or cause vibrations that could drop objects on top of him.
His broken jaw slowly reattached itself as blood flowed out. It was hard to guess where the additional blood flowed from, but the massive wounds slowly closed up, dragging with them the exposed internal organs.
He couldn't tell where he was headed as he predictably crashed onto a table-like platform, causing objects on it to rattle.
He crawled to the side as he tried to avoid it only to crash onto the side, this in effect causing a metallic case that was placed on the platform to tremble as it moved over the edge and dropped all the heavy tools within on Jack's back.
This caused a jarring crunching sound as the impact broke the backbone. A heart-wrenching screaming was then heard as it slowly turned from despair to furious rage.
This caused his eyes to open wide as the inhuman should spread across the quiet cabin.
His eyes emitted a silver light as rage distorted his bloodied face.
A low hum spread across the ship as a rattling sound followed quickly after.
The silver light from his eyes intensified as a hunger for a bloodbath overtook his despair and pain.
His wounds slowly closed up as blood stopped flowing out.
His energy of unknown origins almost completely ran out as his ghastly wounds healed up.
Surprisingly the amputated and bloody stumps slowly closed to start regrowth, but it was clear that it would take quite a while.
The disjointed arm had closed wounds, but it was still inoperable as the damage dealt was quite extensive.
He started moving on his knees as the light in his eyes slowly dimmed, leaving only the pupils shining a silver light. Leaning on the heavily damaged door, he stopped and looked back at the tied up and badly mutilated bodies inside the cabin as a slightly silvery liquid flowed down his face, a clear improvement from his previously bloody tears.
He sat on his knees and heavily thumped his right hand across the chest. He let his tears spill as he recalled all their cries of despair. He then turned and simply crawled out of the cabin.
'I will remember this
He slowly thought to himself as he went searching for a floater platform that was mostly used to transport heavy or delicate goods.
He couldn't stand crawling over all the blood and piled bodies. After finding the least damaged one, he floated searching for packed food stored aboard the ship.
'I have about 10 minutes before life support completely fails, I need to escape'
After a quick meal, he carried as much as he could while floating slowly through the ghostly ship.
'I'm pretty sure ships like this have escape pods, let's hope I'm right because if I'm not food is not the only thing I'll have to worry about '.
The middle decks were used for passenger cabins while the lower decks were for engineering, fuel storage, and secondary command.
The upper decks acted as observation platforms as they had multiple devices that could enable deep-space observation.
'The lower and middle decks have the highest probability of containing the pods, hmm I'm pretty sure nobody would settle them in the engineering bays or engine rooms
'Fuel tanks take the lower decks to avoid catastrophic events, at least that much is obvious '.
The floater emitted sparks as it flew a short distance away from the floor of the deck.
'I'm sure the middle decks have escape pods, that's logical, but they're not durable, they can't provide high-class pods to all these passengers it's simply not economical'
Silent thoughts came and went as the only survivor aboard the ghostly ship deliberated on how to increase his space survival chances.
'I can't expect to be rescued in the next few days, I'll have to hold up for at least a week, I need a strong and durable pod, wait I'm sure the ship officers alight last not only is it to show a care for their passengers for reputation but also to retrieve the Ai core and delete sensitive data, so their pods must be stronger…'
He didn't hesitate after his thought process reached this point.
He took a detour searching for a way to descend to the lower deck. Luckily or should I say unluckily due to the heavy carnage, finding it was effortless as the infiltrators went all the way down to the engine rooms.
As he controlled the floater to head down, he couldn't help but curse under his breath as massive clumps of torn metal blocked the way down.
'I won't make it in time if I try to force my way in, there must be another opening '.
He turned back and flew through the hallways as quick as he could, searching for another way leading down to the lower deck. On his search, he chanced upon a massive open hole leading down at least two decks.
"Did those as·holes used torpedoes to open passage?"
He couldn't help but ask out loud as he looked into the eerie darkness.
'This is quite dangerous I don't know where that even leads, I might end up in space or worse, in the fuel tank, drowning in low-grade ship fuel...'
'Four minutes... that's not enough to scout the entire deck…'
Due to the lack of bright lights, only the red emergency lights illuminated the dark lower decks, but it was not enough for a safe descent.
'Probable death is still better than certain death… a leap of faith it is...'
He steered the floater above the hole but due to the setting, it could only rise to a maximum height of 2 meters and could only fly as low as 15 centimeters any lower, and it couldn't be sufficiently controllable.
This meant that there was only one way to descend. Yeah, to crash-land…
'If the artificial gravity module was offline, then the fall wouldn't be that lethal…' he made silent analyses.
'I've already died once, a second time wouldn't be that different, only that it would be darker and more sinister… but not as bad as screaming with your guts flowing out' he gnashed his teeth before falling silent.
'What am I even thinking about, you're wasting survival time, you! '. He forcefully calmed his thoughts as he moved his hand over the operating console.
He took a deep breath before punching the biggest red button he could see. This was easy because it was the only button present, as all complex operations required a projection comm to feed all relevant data including mass or height.
His speedy descent came to a sudden stop when he heavily crashed onto the cold metallic floor of the low decks. His body skidded across the eerily slippery floor.
His head throbbed painfully as he rolled on the cold floor, bumping in a bloody body with a sickening squelch, like punching a plastic bag filled with a thick viscous liquid.
'Must... survive....' strong but sluggish thoughts made him get onto his knees groggily. He crawled over to the heavily damaged floater.
He dragged the bag of nutrient packets and canned food.
[FTL transit and system shutdown in 1 minute 27 seconds]
'Shit ' jack cursed under his breath as he tried to hurry his crawling. He had new injuries from the fall.
'Whoever did this will feel so hopeless when I get them I'll make sure the despair they feel during their deaths will be sufficient to birth a vengeful spirit and then I'll torture that spirit to death to birth another…'
He quietly thought to himself as he crawled past a bend in the hallway. The trail was clear as the damage only headed in one way.
Blood from the upper deck dripped down in heavy drops that echoed through the entire deck.
[FTL transit and system shutdown in 57 seconds]
'Heh, this was just a single trip but to all these families their lives might change forever...
'As the only survivor, I have the responsibility to avenge… pray that we don't meet '.
His eyes lit up as a low hum spread across the ship. Silver light flowed out of his eyes as he bared a migraine.
[30 seconds]
His vision blurred as the hall contracted and expanded unrealistically. It could be mistaken for a mirage.
[20 seconds]
[10 seconds]
[FTL transit and system shutdown in 5 seconds...]
[1 second... FTL transit complete, life support system: offline, system shutdown: complete. LONG, LIVE THE REPUBLIC!!]
[...]
The monotone Ai sounded for the last time before finally giving out, plunging the entire ship into eternal darkness.
With a low rumble, the banged-up silver stroke transitioned into FTL lighting up a magnificent swath of light in the infinite darkness of space before disappearing into the higher dimensions never to be recovered again...