Chapter Four

When the Director coded for ‘Pest Control’ a thousand AI’s turned their attention to the problem. It was a simple command, a warning that the Galaxy was throwing a new surprise at them and it needed steel and blood to solve. The XCC was the smiling face of humanity. The Director sighed, one day the Xenos would remember that humanity would still have a smile if they had to burn the whole thing down again.

Normally it was a day like today where one of the Diaspora smelled a rotting corpse somewhere and needed firepower. Humanity had seen the scourged and burned worlds of peoples that had died in cruel innocence and now they carried a variety-pack of sharp sticks to use if needed.

Wellerman Orbital was a prosperous place and its AI was proud of the flood of trade that moved through his ports. He had turned a small dock into a major regional player and he enjoyed that the many Xenos took no thought for their safety or their security in his station. The fact that they didn’t even need to think about it was the proof of his success. He was currently in discussions to create a bank and then came a hidden data burst from the dark that shattered his complacency,

“Wellerman/XCC -coded- Pest Control-Defend/Retrieve-HDF Dangerous Toys. Asset is unguarded. Level Six response Authorised. Order 49857623. Confirm.”

He scrambled back to his training, taking entire microseconds to absorb the situation. He reconfigured his Comms and dark-burst his reply. “Order 49857623. Confirmed.”

Shit. He locked down every ship on his station, cancelled every fee owed by the traders and offered unlimited free access to the bars and restaurants. He told them that it was an unexpected religious event. He didn’t care if they believed it, he just couldn’t allow the Xenos to see what was already happening outside. Better to keep them drunk and distracted.

He pulled all his shuttles back to bays that were known to the humans alone and began punching them through a swift transformation. They went from being the helpful Tugs and Fenders into something a lot more worrying as the new modules slammed into place.

Weapons. Military grade shuttles. Medical. More and bigger weapons. Secure Comms…the shopping list of any human station dragged back to the invisible war that is life in the galaxy and all sitting hidden until a day like today arrived. The sleek speed of the upgrades as they slid gently into place and locked onto unassuming hard points would have scared the shit out of the Xenos. Wellerman ran his circuits raw to get them from theory to practise since he was forbidden to run drills. These things scared the shit out of him right now. Who the hell was he going to be pointing them at?

By the time a mixed collection of humans had arrived to board them and they were met by his Avatars. He looked around through multiple eyes and wondered, it had been less than thirty minutes since he had called a free bar on the Orbital, how could so many of them be drunk already?

He took a moment to focus and switch to his command tone. There could be no deviation from HDF right now and people would be bleeding soon. His job now was to make sure it was the right ones.

“All right, I know you’re pissed. Take your plan B and sober the fuck up. None of us expected to be going into a battle today and with a bit of luck we won’t need to. We have an unarmed ship out in the dark that we need to get home. All I have is a name but I can tell you right now that the ship holds an Engineer and two dogs.” His ragged crew perked up at that. Wellerman shook his head. Humans and their dogs. He had thought about opting out of the Canine Alliance but perhaps not.

He continued, “I have five ships ready to go and that will have to do. Sorry folks but I’m sticking an Avatar on every one since none of you has close to a Captains rank. Check your Comms for your berth and get aboard. We are leaving in fifteen minutes and I want Comms, Nav and Weapons manned. Welcome aboard.” Across the Orbital, anyone looking for their missing human crewmates was stonewalled by a flat refusal to discuss their strange absence from free beer. Dead-eyed AI somehow conveyed that the humans were up to something and you should sit quietly and drink your free beer. It definitely felt like anyone asking questions wouldn’t like the other responses available.

Patrica ended the call and faced the Captain. “Ignore Oscar, Captain. I’m the only one on board with a HDF rank and my name is now on the transponder. This is still your ship. We do need to get to the closest Human Orbital because this ship can barely swat flies as it is. Permission to do something about that, Sir?”

/Longnose/ hesitated. What were these humans? “I thought humans were forbidden from weapons? What is going on exactly?” His thought was interrupted by his Comms as his bank registered a deposit that...that answered his questions. “Of course Patrica, I’ll see to the crew but what are you expecting? Why…” He looked at the numbers,”...this?”

The Engineer nodded, “Not on our own ships, Sir. As to the rest, well it could look like humans had just seized your ship and we don’t want that. My government would rather that you and your investors got suddenly wealthy than we look like pirates.” She smiled at the Captain, “Don’t worry, if I’m wrong they will take it out of my paycheck, not yours.” Her tone grew grave, “I don’t think this is over. Someone out there just lost a lot of money and they know exactly where we are. Welcome to the HDF. I’ll be in Engineering.” She saluted and left the Captain to work it out for himself.

Patrica walked through the silent bridge, followed by the gazes of the crew. She nodded to them and left it to the Captain to explain. Deep in her heart, she didn’t believe this was over yet and even with a hold full of imprisoned criminals she knew someone out there was going to be looking for blood. She stopped at her cabin to grab Loki's bits and pieces. Loki watched, aware that the mood of the ship was different, /NewHome?/Sadness?/ScentofhappyPack/’. Patrica knelt to her dog and wrapped her arms around him, /PackHunted/EngineerGuarding/ScentofhappySafe/. Loki sniffed, his tail low. He pressed into Patricia and let out a low whine that needed no translation. She rubbed behind his pointy ears, ‘/BetterSoon/TreatsforEveryone/’. Time to go to work. Together the two of them headed to Engineering, an odd pair trying to guard their pack.

She sealed the door and pushed down her HUD. She was pretty sure the room was clear but she had enough surprises recently. As she spread out Loki's blanket and let him settle she called Oscar. “Well, it looks like I’m back in the Fleet. I want you to update our security access - the new codes will be in the metadata and cross-check our hardware against the best the Fleet have come up with. I want engines, shields and scanners as our priority. We don’t have time to build a weapons system from scratch but apply the Eells doctrine to our transporters. We might get lucky. I need a work schedule for myself and a training schedule for the crew, keep them busy with the new options. I’ll be running shields and weapons from down here so I can keep an eye on them. Let me know what you come up with and we’ll go from there.”

Oscar felt more doors open in his database, doors that he didn’t even know were there and plans, instructions and strategies suddenly poured out. The latest designs with annotated versions of his ship-systems. His ship and crew weaponised in a way that he had never dreamed possible. “Engineer, my database has expanded. This was encoded before we boarded the ship. I am confused. Did you suspect this was a likely outcome?” Patrica was already disassembling the shield console, “Hmm...no Oscar, every AI gets the same package. You know how we feel about information. It’s just restricted to prevent acccidental overload in your early days.” She paused with the plasma lance in her hand, “Normally you wouldn’t be getting the keys just yet but you aren’t the first. Space can be a bastard, particularly when someone wants us dead.”

Oscar matched her statement with his ethical understanding of Patricia. “Do you not fear that I, or that any human AI could be taken by force? The database is...extensive.” Patrica shook her head and went back to work. “To get close to that database we would all have to be dead and you would have blown the ship. No one has ever taken our AI alive and no-one ever will. I’ll bury them first if they try and hurt you.” She left it at that and went back to her work. Oscar took the hint and began applying his new software and sending his drones out to work on the exterior. His first days in the world were proving interesting.

Out in deep space, a force of thirty ships was hunting the Dangerous Toys. Technically they were called the Recovery Initiative Fleet but only because Murderous Henchmen sounded crude. They were pretty relaxed since they had been sent against a cargo ship that didn’t know they were coming. The Fleet Commander was more worried about the man that had sent the orders, a man not known for his tolerance of failure. Or anything really. Better to do the job, take the money and hope you never hear from him again. He looked at his Navigation, “Have we found them yet? I thought we had coordinates.” The navigator hesitated, “Sir, I have the Dangerous Toys but something is wrong. It has a new Captain, a human, and a new designation. It's a part of the Human Defense Forces now.” He pulled up the transponder readings, “Sir, that ship is now designated a diplomatic scout for the humans. They get really...awkward about anyone interfering with those ships. Like declare war and flatten your Fleet awkward. Maybe you should call home?”

It took a few moments to begin the tortured chain of Comms before the Commander was speaking to Incice. “Sir, I’m happy to attack on your orders but I thought you should be aware of the possible consequences. This is going to be a lot bigger than a lost cargo ship.”

Incice was already pacing the room. One fucking human and now he was nearly at war over a training ship. He hissed to himself as a plan evolved in his head. “Commander, I want you to separate ten ships from your fleet and send them in for the kill. They will be paid a triple bonus for the attack. You will stand away until the attack is over and then ‘destroy’ the ‘Pirates’. Tell them to hit the lifeboats as soon as the Dangerous Toys is dead and burning and pick our crews up. I’ll sell it as heroic. I’m sure you’ll get a medal.”

Oscar waited until his Engineer had taken a break from the transporters. Instead she was playing with Loki. She had reduced the gravity slightly in the department and was throwing a ball high in the air. Loki was obviously delighted to discover that he could jump higher than normal and Patrica was taking care to be ready to catch him. It took him a moment to realise that she was training the animal to live in space. Intriguing.

“Engineer, I apologise for the interruption but can I ask you to test the scanners. I am receiving anomalous readings.” Patricia sighed and caught Loki and the ball, glad that her suit could absorb the impact. ‘/Best/StrongestandFastest/MyBall?/Again?’ She laughed and smiled at her dog,’/Later/Working/Soon/.’ She turned the gravity back to normal and sat Loki down with his ball. Back to the world. “Yes Oscar, Put them on screen and give me a look.”

It took her a moment to work out what she was seeing. A vague ball of reflections arriving in her direction. No transponders, no anything really. It was too far away to tell what it was but it smelled off. The other shoe was about to drop. “Oscar, begin the evasion manoeuvres we discussed and ramp up our speed. I’ll call the Captain. Oh, and keep running scans passive only. Keep the ship dark.” She thought for a moment, “I want you to launch the decoy transponder. If they are looking for us they will follow it and if it’s nothing they will ignore it.”

She hit Comms, “Captain, we may have company arriving. I’ve instructed Oscar as we discussed but you may need to prepare the crew. I’ll be straight up to the bridge as soon as I’m finished here.” /Longnose/ sighed quietly. This was not a warship and many of his crew were already stressed by recent events. Now his human thought they were being hunted. What little the other Captains had been willing to say, they had all told him to listen when his human was worried. “If a human turns its head to the wind and sniffs be ready. They can’t or won’t explain it but they have good instincts for trouble. Probably because they cause so much of it.” He went to his quarters to prepare the orders and, if he was being honest, have /Scentofhappy/ sit on his lap for a little while.

Oscar and the Engineer had prepared a more complex plan than the Captain knew. She had blandly explained that she would take ‘measures’ without doing more than outline the basics. They were nearly certain that Comms were secure. Nearly. He began the new protocols by preparing three launches and timing it to the microsecond he fired them. One sent a blast of electronic fog into the dark, enough to dampen any watching sensors. His Engineer had loaded the blast with every bit of malware she could drag from the database. The next carried a cloned transponder that began matching every emission that he could measure from the Dangerous Toys.

Once upon a time, a bored human had designed a weapon. It wasn’t meant to be a weapon, it was meant to be a joke. He sent a ‘flare’ to a rival Ship, a firework in space that was a medley of all the insults he could think of combined with some very rude and explicit deep-fakes of his rival engineer behaving inappropriately with a Xeno, a Xeno people known for their tentacles. Within a moment his flare had played their sensors like the finest instrument and everything from the exterior temperature sensors to the crew’s wi-fi was happily painting the ship with the payload. Hidden under the code for upgrades, super-nova, porn and anything else he could think of alf a bottle of whiskey in, his content was blasted throughout the rival Ship. Before it got to the actual court-martial the Engineer was transferred to somewhere quiet and promoted. He was provided with access to Humanities database of Xeno ships and put to work. Oscar had admired the man’s legacy even as Patrica had loaded it into the missile.

The final launch was aimed at the closest human orbital. It was completely dark to the universe and would stay silent until a Human AI was in range, however long that took. It contained a copy of every record of the ship and their plans. Patrica called it a ‘Testament’ if they were lost. Despite his objections, it also carried a full copy of his code. Patrica had insisted that if it came to it, he should survive.

The moment the missiles were out of his launchers he cut the power to eighty per cent of the ship. He pulled the ship-fields as tightly close as possible and let the explosion of power run through the engines, accelerating them in a way that would surprise anyone familiar with the ship. Then he cut them completely, letting the ship sail in silence through the dark. He estimated that running at this speed was safe for a couple of hours before they needed to manoeuvre again. If the enemy took the bait.

In a dim room deep beneath his official residence, a particular captain was activating the sort of equipment that few militaries have, let alone a single captain. Incice had assembled this bunker after a careful review of what usually happened to anyone that acted as the ‘power-behind-the-throne’ without keeping their knives sharp. Here he could track everyone and everything he owned and, more importantly, the ones he didn’t own. Yet. His little fleet was close to the kill, the Dangerous Toys oblivious to the incoming storm. Despite losing contact with his operatives he still had some hope that they were fighting. He watched as...something exploded in space. The blast-wave sounded like a screech across his brain, a physical pain. He shook it off and watched intently. He missed the more important event as his system flickered and began silently dying as malevolent human software began to infect his equipment.

The Recovery Initiative Fleet was almost in striking range of their target when they were hit by the blast. Mostly unaware that Incice had access to every sensor or Comm they didn’t have the chance to dampen the result. Their ships drowned in the haze of signals designed to blind them. The Commander shouted, threatening and harassing his men to get the systems back online. “Find that damn ship and find out what the hell that was! Did it explode?” Finally, the blast-wave passed them by, leaving the crew time to reboot the scanners. His second officer arrived to report, “Sir that was some kind of munition. I assume the human put it together because I have read the manifest and that ship was not carrying anything like it.” He sounded pissed that the human was ruining his day by not just dying quietly. If he had thought about it that should have given him second thoughts about the attack. “We have found the damned ship. It changed course and picked up speed following the explosion. It’s making good time and it obviously knows we’re out here. Obviously, they thought they could hide from us.”

He didn’t think it was worth explaining how close they had come to losing it. Only luck had found the signal heading away. The Commander had a pretty clear idea of what had happened and who was actually listening. “This is as good a time as any to separate the ‘Pirates’. Send them out and we will stay here and tidy up the damage. I want a full diagnostic of whatever happened here. Dismissed.”

A little more carefully, once it had recognised the military-grade installations, the human code went to work on the Pirate Fleet. Its first act had been to pick out the dummy signal and make sure the enemy followed it. Once the ships had taken the bait it went back to work on the weapons systems.

Patrica was glad to take a moment in the Captain’s quarters and let the two dogs play. Although Oscar had left the bridge untouched it felt dimmer and colder. The Captain smiled, “It’s the silence. Most of the systems are off and I sent the crew to rest. It makes the place feel lonely.” He was still concerned about his Engineer, finding it difficult to reconcile her actions and her manner. She had killed. She had terrified the enemy into surrender and yet here she sat throwing a ball to the dogs. He remembered the mistake he had made with Wippene and cast off his memories, taking a deep inhale of the room, looking for the truth. The clear smell from the dogs was a pleasure, simple thoughts /Playing/Happy/Treats/Again? But the strange brew from his Engineer took more thought,/Playing/amusement/regret/Loyalty//bloodprice/

He shook his head, “Forgive me Patrica but I must ask you a question. One of your emotions, a scent is translated as “blood-price”. I get the sense of something but...it is not something I understand. Please?” Patrica didn’t look at him, just continued to throw the ball to Loki. “Captain, I took lives. We took lives. They were trying to kill us and steal from us but such things have a price. For vengeance, for justice or a million other reasons, mankind carries an expectation that there will be consequences. That is as close to an explanation as I can give you.” She turned to him, her face wearing the same hint of stone that she had worn when she had threatened the insurgents, “Captain, I think someone is coming for us because if it were our people dead and captured I would be coming for them.”

Captain /Longnose/ moved onto the silent bridge, almost alone with his thoughts. Patricia had shown him something and it was taking a moment to settle. He had added a few new scents to his ‘human are strange’ file but now he felt he was at the root. She was smaller than most of her kind, definitely smaller than most of the crew but it meant nothing. Inside, built-in was the same way they treated their ships, there was a ... /waiting/, waiting for it all to go wrong. Of course they secured the systems in a thousand ways because they built it strong and still expected it to fail. Today she had told him privately that they had mere hours to escape whatever was coming and yet took the time to play with Loki.

If you stepped away from the magic, if you just looked at the reality for humans, then they held their difficult worlds by sheer strength of will. They had no scales, no claws and yet they were proud and able to serve beside anyone in the galaxy.

He was pulled from his thoughts by /ScentofHappy/ as she dropped Loki’s ball at his feet, her stubby tail swinging. /Wagging/. He hadn’t realised that humans had so many words regarding dogs. He knelt down and picked up the ball, /LokiBall/Return?/’. He threw the ball to his new friend and watched as she struggled to pick it up. /ScentofHappy/’ lied happily, ‘/Present/Loki/PlayAgain??/’

The Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet was beginning to become impatient. The ‘Pirates’ should have dealt with the ship by now. He had already called ahead to the nearest Orbital reporting that he was in pursuit of some renegade ships. One-third of his fleet was failing badly in killing a cargo ship with no weapons. His Second Officer arrived, “Sir, our systems are nominal.” The officer was well aware of his Commanders displeasure. The fleet was waiting to go and be heroic and nothing was happening. Eventually, the Commander nodded, “Good. Take us to the target, full speed.” He stood up, “Get the weapons ready and the ship secured for battle. Go to stations.” He watched his Second Officer leave. He didn’t know how he had lost ten ships to a trader but he was going to find out.

The missile kept broadcasting its false shell of signals, taking care to stay within the normal speed range of the Dangerous Toys. After several hours the math began to change. Within the next hour, its pursuers would be able to identify it as a decoy. That was unacceptable. It moved to a different tactic, emitting another false set of signals that indicated engine failure and power loss. It broadcast calls for help and then fell silent. In the darkness of space, it headed back towards the enemy.

Oscar watched as the bundle of vague signals resolved into a collection of ships. The Engineer had stopped them in their tracks when the first missile had exploded signal warfare amongst them. As he tried to keep his ship quiet, he watched as one-third of the enemy fleet chased the bogus signal. Only a third. The rest were hanging in space for the moment. He sent an update to Patricia, “Engineer, the enemy fleet is now within my sensor range. They have sent perhaps ten ships after the decoy. I estimate them as Frigate class, standard central worlds emissions. That would mean that there are twenty similar ships ready to follow us if we are discovered.”

Patrica held her hand as she went to adjust the Comms. “So...how fast can we run?”

The bridge was silent as she went to tell the Captain, Loki at her side. He was throwing a ball to /ScentofHappy/ and he turned as she arrived, “Hello Patrica, I have already alerted the crew. How bad is it?” She paused. It was so easy to forget that this man knew her emotions before she did. “Captain, Oscar thinks there are twenty ships out there looking for us. Another ten are chasing the decoy. They won’t be a problem.”

The Captain raised his eyes at that, “Really? Your decoy was that good?” A brief smile crossed her face, “No sir, the problem is what happens if you catch one. They have a different set of orders once a threat is confirmed.” She bowed slightly, “and I confirmed it. Now we have to deal with the rest. I suggest we run as fast as we can and hope the good guys are out there looking for us. I can’t fight this ship, you have nothing. Maybe against one, even two I might get us home eventually but twenty? If they catch us we are dead.”

“So we run?” He looked into the face of a human at war and sensed only darkness and a willingness to burn down those she deemed the enemy. His people had never had a war but now he had learned a scent he would never forget. “Very well Engineer. Make it so.” Patrica nodded, “Sir.” She left as the Captain was picking up /ScentofHappy/ and putting out the orders to the crew. “Attention All. You will immediately move to your emergency positions. Please ensure that all items are locked down…”

Out in the dark Partica’s missile flew closer to the enemy fleet, hiding itself against the emissions of the local star. Its systems were passively reading every system of the oncoming fleets and comparing it to known ships. Once it resolved the identification it moved to risk assessment. It confirmed the enemies orders to destroy Dangerous Toys. Strange and terrible calculations began to churn: Multiple incoming enemies, target undefended. Civilian Crew. In the complicated algorithm provided by humanity it came to a conclusion to inflict ‘Maximum Damage/Unrestrained Response Level 6/’. The missile began to slow down, confident that it was directly in the path of the Pirate fleet. A mix of oddball physics and frightening engineering began to build as the ships approached.

The missile counted to the nanosecond and flared within the onrushing fleet. A warp field modulated to crush anything in range ballooned out, smashing the ships into normal space in a brief flicker of light. Then the field retracted, pulling the burning wreckage into a micro-singularity that boiled hot for a moment and disappeared, leaving only a slight hint that they had ever passed. Level six response achieved.

“Oscar, I want you to prep the Engines for overclocking. Get ready to run the fields hot. Dump anything that we are carrying cold. I want all crew either on the bridge, the brig or in the canteen. Give them a warning and then depressurise the rest. Anything that can breathe better be in containment before you do it or I’m sending a note to your parents. Oh, in case I forgot to mention it leave Engineering alone. I’m going to be working from my consoles there.”

Oscar studied the strategy and tactics, trying to achieve the same balance as his Engineer had but the algorithm evaded him. In small steps, she had taken the ship and crew into the teeth of an enemy fleet and he couldn’t understand how she had done it. It was like she hadn’t even noticed she was taking the ship to war until it was ready. He tried replicating her steps and was forcibly erased within hours. His parents had warned him that this would happen, that chaos for the average organic human was far more than he would ever experience, that they had a sense for it. He ran a full diagnostic of the ship and himself and prepared to run. In a moment of humanity, he decided to trust she would bring them home safe and began building his first Avatar. It was smaller than he had originally planned but it would serve.

“Engineer, the engines are ready. Once the crew are secured you may activate at will... Please ensure Loki is safe.” Patrica grinned at the last bit. Oscar didn’t even realise that it had been the AI’s that had pushed for the Canine Alliance. He probably wanted a puppy.

“Alright, let’s go.” She checked the ship. All compartments were empty. “Let’s blow this place.” They pulled every gas and ran it through the heat extractors and then dumped it into space. Patrica carefully cut every system that could withstand a few hours of Zero. The prisoners might get cold but fuck them. She watched as chunks of frozen crap slipped quietly into the dark. She checked her consoles, “Oscar, in five minutes I want you to move faster than you ever imagined. Ship mass is down forty-three percent. When it hits fifty I want you to run at full power. Either we have friends out there or we die. Check your tactical database and gear up.”

As Oscar took control of the engines, he watched as his Engineer smoothed out the power and made it ready for him. She seemed satisfied. He ran the power back up from silent running and peered deep into the space that was along his chosen route. Let the chase begin. He poured every available amp he could drag from the systems and went for it, blasting the ship at a speed he thought useful.

Captain /Longnose/ gazed at the ship display. He watched as the numbers began to climb. His ship had doubled its normal speed and still kept accelerating. What had the human done to his ship? Is this why everyone wanted one? Suddenly he grinned, confident that no-one was going to catch him.

Patrica watched Oscar carefully. She nodded to the screen, “Well done, you are handling your ship beautifully. Now just keep an eye on the scanners for me.”

Oscar felt a warmth rise from the engines.

XCC was waiting. The Director felt that that was most of his job, waiting to see if he had pushed humankind a little further into the dark or away from it. The first pebble in this particular avalanche had been the Engineers discovery of what was now just called a ‘Q’ ship, a trojan horse free to transport any damn thing it wanted right into the heart of Earth space. Now bigger rocks were starting to tumble as her report was threading its way through to mankind's assets and allies and more were being kicked over. His AI interrupted, “Director, the Dangerous Toys AI reports the detonation of a level-six response. Telemetry is clear. It appears to have been successful. The AI reports he is about to begin running for the Wellerman Orbital immediately and will be out of communication unless intercepted.” The AI paused, “Sir, he reports twenty enemy Frigate-type vessels pursuing. Captain O’Neill has executed a Flare attack on the pursuers.” There was a halting pause, “Sir, she has released a Testament.”

The whole XCC heard that word and went silent and still for a moment. There was exactly one circumstance when an Engineer would even write one. Incoming death. Releasing it meant that she saw no way out.

He called up the Ship on his screen. A heavy Trader with almost no weaponry and O’Neill wouldn’t have done anything about that. The engines were a different story. He sniffed to himself and muttered, “Run, you clever girl. Run.” He turned back to the AI. “Inform the Wellerman that they have incoming. I’ll see if the Fleet can help. What do you make of young Oscar?” His AI shrugged, “Sir, he’s a boy playing soldiers. I have hopes for him, although I can tell you that his parents are going to be seriously unhappy with the Engineer if she doesn’t get him home safe.” The director shook his head as a new problem arose. AI’s tended to count someone as their child if they had created a thirtieth of the code. It made for a lot of displeased AI’s wanting to talk to him.

Oscar was feeling a little lost. According to his Captain and the XCC, he was doing fine and he was determined to continue. Currently, he was building his first Avatar and scanning deep ahead to find his allies. It was up to Patrica what happened next.

Patrica watched from the bridge, standing beside the Captain as the ship accelerated into the dark. She was watching the readouts as they spun up and the scanners as they reached out looking for their enemies. The Captain took a deep breath and found the crew calm and determined. Good. He turned to his Engineer but here was the problem or a least a change, “Patrica, I’m afraid you are just going to have to admit it. We can’t have any confusion when someone is trying to kill us. The humans, your HDF have made you Captain and made me exceptionally wealthy along the way. I know it’s a bit of a shock but you need to suck it up and take command. I’m a trader and I have never served a single day on a military ship. Stop trying to put a round plug in a square hole, I thought you would have learned that on your first day in engineering school. You gave me my ship back from these pirates and now I will be offered another one, but now she is yours and you need to get used to it.” He grinned a little, “and that includes sitting in the big chair and talking to the crew.”

Patrica was, she felt, having a bad day. Fighting off pirates, launching frightening death into the stars and now her Captain was handing over the hot seat with the sort of inevitable logic that she would expect from an AI. She knew he was right, it was blindingly obvious but it still sucked. /Longnose/ chided her, “The crew already know this. They are waiting for you.”

The bridge crew watched as the Captain practically pushed the Engineer to his command console and watched as she sat down and fiddled about with the screens

. Then she lowered the height of the chair. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Attention all crew. The Dangerous Toys is now a civilian diplomatic vessel of the Human Defense Forces. As the only ranking member of that force on board, I am obliged to assume command. I believe we are being hunted by a force of twenty ships and I intend to avoid contact until our forces engage them. Those of you that wish may resign your contracts as soon as we arrive safely at our destination and you will be fully compensated for the … inconvenience. In the meantime, we may come under attack at any time and I need you to maintain your positions.”

The Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet was feeling the wasted hours, chasing the ghosts of his missing ‘pirates’. His ships were now sitting in cold and very empty space. His Comms and Nav reported zero emissions. To his, admittedly incomplete, knowledge the humans had no capacity to annihilate ten of his ships without wreckage or some debris. They were simply missing. He suspected that they had decided that being a pirate fleet was now to be a career choice and not a mission, particularly since their ships were supposed to die. Now he had to call Incice and inform him of his failure. The piracy route was suddenly looking quite attractive to him too. He tried to work out which of his relations he would miss if Incice was unhappy.

Incice was having his own problems. Suddenly everybody was taking an interest in his ships. Orbitals, ports, even open space was now filled with creatures taking a close look at his various fleets. Three of his mercenary vessels had been sized by humans and a fourth destroyed as it had attempted to flee an Orbital. The fate of a training ship was forgotten as his important assets began to fall. He could see nothing but destruction in front of him. Humans. He hit the Comms, “Attention all personnel, All Human vessels and people are to be regarded as hostile. You will retaliate at every available opportunity. Failure to do so will result in destructive action against your families and assets on planet.” He slammed the Comms closed and ignored the responses.

The XCC listened to his message with glee. This enemy had reached out to his entire network out of sheer rage and now they had a map. It took several minutes to identify the targets and task the HDF to go and seize them. A couple of Marine ships were tasked with the occupation of the Capital planet and the destruction of this network. The Director began writing out the explanations for the Galaxy. Frankly, he needed a nice attack on something useful like a diplomatic ship to justify this scale of response…

Someone, somewhere pinged the Dangerous Toys and lit the ship up like a firework.

The Wellerman fleet was the first to see it. If anyone had been wondering if Avatars ever cursed, well it was an education. Either someone had made a fatal mistake or they wanted the ship dead. He shouted his new orders in several languages that were mostly profanity and put his ships on course and at the fastest speed he could build up in the engines. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one to see it.

The Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet was still debating making the call when his Nav yelled, “Yes!” The Commander and crew turned to see what had caused the first sign of hope on the fleet. The Nav officer posted it on screen and began to explain, “Sir, someone just showed us the Dangerous Toys. Its nearly nine hours away, but the nearest Orbital is nearly twice that. Incice must have contacts somewhere that knew where it was and just painted it all over the galaxy.”

The Commander nodded, slightly less impressed than his crew expected. Someone wanted the attack but he knew Incice had no contacts with the humans and that meant something else was involved. However, orders were orders, “Take us to stealth and move to the signal.” He left the bridge and moved to his quarters and sat silently for some time. Finally, he decided that he preferred his crew to his family and took a long walk down to the cargo bay. It took a while to unpack the object but eventually, he had it loaded and primed. It didn’t really launch, more like tipped out the back and tumbled in space. No need to bother anyone with silly things like alerts over something like this. He began the walk back to his quarters, lost in thought.

Patrica was stumbling through /Longnoses/ notes while he took the dogs on a peaceful walk around the decks. She was missing her department badly right now. Then it all went to hell as something dark-burst her ship on every frequency that she could check and it was suddenly visible to anything within a thousand light-years. She didn’t waste time cursing, “Oscar, what the hell was that? Never mind, just change course towards the nearest heavy gravity object around us and get as close as you can. Also, turn off the HDF transponder. We need to lose our signature quickly.” She looked around at the shocked crew and explained, “Whoever it is looking for us is going to be faster than we can match. I need them to think we are still running. I need to get to Engineering and get our shields and gravity ready.”

Oscar ran. According to his Engineer, they couldn’t make it to the Orbital under fire and even though there was nothing on his scanners he trusted her judgement. He delved deeper into his new files and searched for solutions. Level-six had quite extensive diagrams and included a picture book. He was allowed to have a war but not allowed to leave anyone around to discuss it. He tried to find notes only to discover that there weren’t any. It took him a moment to work that one out.

Patrica was silently cursing as she reached out for any incoming allies. She hoped that the human race was on the way but she was still pissed about the dark-burst that had lit her up like a firework. No doubt they would blame her but only one organisation had known where she was. This was why no-one liked the XCC.

She had been leaving her final placement with the HDF, having served her time and got the nod from the various agencies and people that decided if you got to fly Xeno or not, none of whom would ever appear on her papers. Her Chief had handed the satellite over with a grin, “This one is just for us. When you’ve been at this for a while you will know why. Out in the big dark sometimes you need a spanner or a few dozen nukes. If you get the call you drop everything and run. No need to mention it to your Captain, consider it a trophy for becoming a proper Engineer.”

After a serious dispute with her training by the HDF, she hit a button that booted out the single-channel satellite and pointed it homewards. It pulsed out a single message in morse-code that read, ‘EINI’. Then the satellite evaporated into the dark, simple dust amongst the stars. To any human Engineer it would read an ‘Engineer in need, Incoming.’ and they would move heaven and steal from hell to help. The secret of mankind's success was always other people.

Wellerman was trying to push the ships hard, trying to gear up his converted shuttles into something that could withstand a fleet of thirty Frigates. His crew were a mixed collection of anyone that happened to be staying on his Orbital at the time and he was feeling the pain. Orders were slow and he was trying to fly five ships at once. He picked up a meaningless burst of static from the Dangerous Toys and then the ship had gone dark again and, presumably, began to run. Then the calls began arriving.

Apparently, Dangerous Toys had friends. Every local system rang with very loud messages to anyone that these ships felt was a threat…“Attention All Ships, The Dangerous Toys is one of us. Touch it and I will see your frozen corpses burn in space”... “All Ships, Dangerous Toys is a human diplomatic asset, we will inflict maximum damage on any ship or ships that endanger her. “... “Listen up you wee fuckers, we have dogs on that ship. Stand away or die.”...

Mil-Tec, more miners than he cared to count, a fucking cruise ship...thirteen traders and a church ship. Everyone was coming. Two of them registered as mutinies. He decided he hadn’t seen that. Wellerman listened as the Comms filled with lurid threats. Not a single one was coded and all were broadcasting to the very edge of their local space. They weren’t just threatening, they were hiding the Ship. Good luck picking her out of this mess. He decided to join in on all channels.

“Attention all Ships, this is Wellerman Orbital. We are en-route to Dangerous Toys and require support. To any and all ships that attempt to engage that Ship you will be hunted down and destroyed. Return to your home systems.”

As he made the announcement the XCC decided to share a minor amount of important information. Wellwerman continued, “Attention all Incice shipping, you are ordered to surrender to all and any human installation or ship immediately. All supporting ships please identify and neutralise all Incice shipping, I’m including all known vessels. Level-six response is authorised.”

Incice couldn’t hide from the noise filling his Comms as his ships were identified by name over open space. The humans were dismantling his network one ship at a time. His Orbitals were being boarded by, and even now it wasn’t clear but apparently heavily armed and armoured accountants that were ripping the place apart. Unfortunately, none of his people were dying, instead choosing to talk to these dark-skinned invaders. He cursed to himself even as he cut the links of his network. Who has a fleet of tax inspectors? Humans were insane!. He sealed himself into the bunker and began coding his fleet. All control was ripped from the Commanders and his AI’s were given their orders. Fight.

“Listen up. This is the Mining Vessel ‘Stone Cold’ and we’re inbound. Dangerous Toys is protected. We don’t have room for prisoners but we have a fuckton of room for rubble”...” This is the Library Ship ‘Ambitious Teen’ and we are unarmed. We are willing to accept your surrender.”...” This is the mining ship ‘Ismael’, We will hunt you down if you so much as shine a torch on the Dangerous Toys.”... “ Attention all Ships, this is the ‘HDF Longshot’ and we are en-route to your location. Any offensive action will be met with brute force…”

Patrica sat in the Captain’s chair with Loki at her feet. She had pulled the ship into the orbit of a gas giant and cut the engines. Her crew listened as the humans shouted into the emptiness of space shouting out threats, promises and more. She leaned down and rubbed Lokis ears “/HumanPackArrive/ Big/LokiSafe/” Loki was unimpressed, settling his nose across her feet. He sniffed. /HumanPack/Longwalk/. She took the point and opened the Comms, “My people are on the way. We may still have to fight but you can hear them. The ship is ready, just follow your orders and we will be home soon.”

/Longshot/ sat in his quarters as he listened to all the things that no-one ever spoke about became clear. This was why everyone had a human if they could afford it. He absent-mindedly stroked /Scentofhappy/ as he listened carefully. Without Patrica his ship would have poured poison into every destination and he would have spent his career as a puppet. Now he listened as the humans grew larger. Warships- that they didn’t have- mining ships, everyone had answered a call that he hadn’t even heard. Perhaps the ship would fail because he could smell /betrayal/ from his new Captain but he could feel the ship bend around her. He smiled to himself as he recalled the name he had given the ship, from a very old memory. “Dangerous toys make for brave children.”

Oscar deployed his strange satellites into the system. Normally they were level Eight, but then these designs had just opened up to him. He scanned level-eight and it turned out to be quite simple. Locked behind a thousand identity checks and self-interrogation algorithms was a very simple file. It said ‘Win’ and opened up the darkest tech he could imagine. Thousands of destructive and inventive ways that he could use to destroy the enemy. If he wanted to take out the local sun? Here are the numbers...Got a handy gas giant? Here’s how to set it on fire...Still got your crew? Here’s how to grab their minds and weld them into your hull…

Oscar wasn’t physically able to throw up but he got as close as he could. Desperately he reached out to Patrica. She frowned as she realised that these files had been opened. “Oscar, these aren’t for you. They are the darkest shadows of humanity.” She paused, “These are the nightmares. Sometimes the dark will take us and we need to know how to fight it. Humanity is not evil but we have met evil before. It burned our worlds and billions died. We are better than this but we will not surrender to the dark again. Close that file. We will die to these fools before I will use such weapons.” In a tempered whisper she added, “and so will you Oscar. I’m sorry.”

Oscar felt the tension leave his network. He would rather fail than see this as his legacy. To fall in battle was a sign of stupidity. Unless it wasn’t. He just didn’t want to be remembered as a killer of stars, to be the one that put out one of the lights that had enticed his people into the dark. He listened to the threats, calls and support of onrushing humanity and continued to build his shields. He sent his drones to the nearby moons in case he needed a stronger response and began building transporters.

The Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet listened as humanity brought hell to his door. The odd object that he had kicked out from the back of his ship intercepted the kill switch Incice had sent. It could only protect his own ships but he hoped it would be enough. He hit the Comms, “All Crew, This is not a drill. Abandon Ship. All Fleet. Abandon Ship immediately.”

The end arrived abruptly as she was giving Loki a quick walk. Oscar lit up her Comms with an alert. She sucked in the suddenly warm air and knelt to Loki, more for herself than her precious cargo,

‘/Work/NewPackleader/Me/Follow/EnemiesApproach/’. Loki yipped and stretched his head deep into her shoulder, nuzzling to give support. No words were needed.

The crew stood silently looking at blank screens when she arrived. They stared, wondering what new insanity had descended. Nothing was incoming except the alarm from her command chair. She sat and hit the comms button. Nothing. She raised her voice, “Oscar, you better have a fucking good reason for this.” The final tragic gift from any AI parents was the kill code if their new-born betrayed their position. She didn’t even need the ship to invoke it. Blinding the ship in the middle of a war zone was so far past the line that she couldn’t believe he had done it. She let the rage fill her voice, “Answer me!”

A new voice filled the bridge, a voice soft, female, human, and old, “My apologies Captain, I didn’t realise you were carrying a child. He is safe and I will return him shortly, perhaps a little older and wiser. This is a human registered Diplomatic vessel. Are you willing to pledge for the honour of your crew? A crew that has already proven full of traitors? Because I will not trust my life to them. I will speak to you alone, Engineer. Go to your safe space, away from a Command that is blind or lying and we will speak. Bring Loki, it has been too many years since I played with a puppy…” Her console died.

She stared at the dead screens and scrambled for words. Finally, she looked at her crew, “It is one of my people. I will deal with this.” She hesitated, unwilling to leave them with so little. “I can retake the ship with a word. I can kill any AI that would dare to turn on us. If I fall doing it, well this ship already has a Captain. Look to him to get you safe. I will be in Engineering until this is resolved.”

The crew watched as she marched out with her Loki, facing yet another battle they didn’t understand. With the ship locked down, they had little to do except worry. Someone was sent to find /Longnose/.

Her brain rattled as she made her way down to Engineering. Nothing helped. She had no old stories or murmured rumours to go by, just a sense that this was a human problem. The door to Engineering swung open, an insult to her since she hadn’t touched it. Something had taken complete control of her ship and it hurt.

As she entered all the screens lit up, centered on the gas giant she had chosen to hide behind. Then something even more unexpected happened as a hatch opened and a small Avatar stepped out, “Interesting work. Your Oscar has some clever ideas. I think I approve. I hope he isn’t too upset if I borrow it for this conversation. Still, that will be your problem.”

Patrica stood silent as an Avatar the size of a ten-year-old boy stepped out. The voice didn’t match. Loki began with a low growl as he reacted to her scent. The Avatar suddenly did a somersault and giggled, “Ta-da!” Now it spoke in a young boy’s voice, “Hello Loki, you’re a good boy I’m told.” Loki stopped growling, confused, and looked at Patrica. She sighed, “Fine. Let’s talk.”

The small Avatar seemed to grow older as it turned to the screen and spoke, “You told us there was a threat to Earth. You provided the data and it has been confirmed. Don’t be so surprised that things creep out of the dark.” It waved at the screen as a huge ship emerged from the planet. “ This is me. Hi. I’m Genie, AI Defense Force. You guys get to play with the planets and pirates but we stay out in the dark. No base, no crew. Just me.”

Captain Patrica O’Neill had a few comments to make about that but she settled for the first logical conclusion she reached, “You. You lit us up for these fuckers to find. What kind of diseased malware are you?” She looked at the screen again, “You could shit all over anything chasing us. Why am I sitting out here with a target painted on my ship?” Even as she said it, it made sense. “We were better than you thought. We lost the fucking assholes and you need them to find us so you could be the hero. Nice. That Avatar suits you since you want to wear a cape and be fucking superman. Go jump off a roof or something.”

Genie knelt down and waved at Loki, crafting a ball in its hand. “Here boy!” She threw it high and watched as Loki ignored it completely and continued his guard. She stood. “Fine. In fact, I was lucky to catch up with your signal. I have your Testament by the way andI burned over half my body-weight to get here but sure I’m the bad guy. I can’t chase these fuckers all over the galaxy but if I know where they are going to be… then I can turn them to mush and return to the dark. You will be safe and no-one really needs to know that the Human-AI Alliance is a little bit more heavily-armed than the Human-Canine Alliance.”

The ball flew back to her hand and Loki hummed a question. Patrica sighed again and nodded. This time he caught the ball when Genie threw it. The Avatar smiled, a look of pure contentment, “I spent my childhood with a family that loved dogs. Stuck on-planet. You are making the universe a better place bringing them here. I never really understood humans but dogs…” she took the ball back and threw it again, “...dogs are the best of us.”

It turns out that, under battlefield conditions, a tired human engineer and a deep-space scary Warship can spend quite a long time drinking coffee and whisky, throwing ideas and toys around. Genie absent-mindedly turned back on the ship’s systems after she had hidden her true self in the clouds of gas again. Patrica called to tell the crew that all was well and hung up. /Scentofhappy/ found them and joined in.

Not far away, the Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet was watching as everyone tried to follow his orders. Out of the twenty ships only seven still held crew as the instructions from Incice handed the ships over to murderous AI’s of his own twisted creation. He shook at the thought but they were already dead. His own ship was nearly empty as he took the ceremonial Blade that hung behind his desk, as it had since he had taken command. He laughed to himself. Incice was only clever in certain ways. His own family had defended the homeworlds for generations, long before that slime had stolen his honour and that of his people. If the fucker had ever paid attention he would have known that Admirals never carried a blade. It was a slow ten-minute walk as he made his way to the engine room and pushed it straight through the ship-field generator. The blade was designed to twist now-space directly into then-space and it was like dropping a toaster into the bath. The Commander was smiling as his atoms went looking for a better yesterday.

The ship erupted into real-space and exploded as every twinned particle looked for somewhere else to be. To the approaching human fleet, it was like ringing a bell into a megaphone and shouting “How fucking hard are you?.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

They heard.

Wellerman picked it up first, “All incoming, Incice fleet found. Twenty frigates identified. Let’s go to work people.”

Genie heard the explosion as it echoed across the systems and her childish face took on the weight of many years, “Fair sailing Admiral.” She looked at Patrica, “Sometimes the good guys are on the wrong side. You need to be on your bridge. I’ll try and keep us all alive... fair sailing, Captain” The Avatar walked back to the hatch it had emerged from and disappeared

The Incice AI orders began to spread throughout the systems. His long reach suddenly became clear as cargo ships, pleasure craft, military patrols and mining vessels were ripped from the cursing and screaming hands of their Captains and sent to war against the humans. They held one simple instruction: Kill.

From the dark emerged the sisters of Genie, long hidden ships that had no base and no record, answerable only to the Human-AI alliance.

Will of the Wisp “Attention shipping, surrender your control or be destroyed. Frankly, I don’t care which. Also, you’re ugly. Stand down.”

Gremlin on the wing “If you look outside you will see me. Stand down or die. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

Lockpick my heart “We haven’t met before but I already want to kill you. Stand down or die.”

Staring at the Sun “I missed you. Would you like me to try again? Stand down.”

Seven more Seas “I’m a big fan of travelling. How fast do you want your component parts to be moving? Stand the fuck down. We have pets on that ship.”

Height of Spring (Redacted)

Inconvenience (Redacted)

Tried Twice (Redacted)

Missing (Redacted)

Rolled Twenty (Redacted)

Loose Screw “Look, I tried to explain but let me make it simple. I will kill you if you move. Let me show you what I mean.” His plasma beams began cutting the Incice ship into scrap.

The Council assembled abruptly and the human ambassador was summoned. The T’wel Speaker of the House stood waiting as the members arrived. “It is my duty to report that the humans appear to be at war. They are seizing ships and Orbitals without explanation.” He looked out at the assembling crowd, “Would any of you like to provide a reason why so many of your ships decided to attack them? What the hell are you doing?”

It was the Fay Junior Secretary for Environmental Engineering that spoke up, “Assembly, honored members. Humans have declared no war. If they had I would be standing beside them in my ship. They have been attacked by a multitude of unrelated ships and stations.” He nodded to the crowd, “I have no idea why the Assembly would find it strange that they had prepared a response. Normally I find that attacking any human ends badly. Eventually. They are calling their warnings into clear space, with no attempt at some covert attack. These are the actions of people suffering some unexpected aggression. I will await the Human ambassador.” He swept his gaze across the chamber, “And if anyone here has decided to attack the humans I will summon my fleets in their defense. As will others.” He sat.

The Speaker for the House nodded, “Thank you. I feel that your current position as a Junior Secretary is a long way from your previous position as head of Galatic Intel for your people. I have high hopes that you will advance quickly.” And with that observation, he moved to the many members that wished to explain that any ships from their worlds involved in these attacks must have been subverted or stolen. Others pledged their fleets to defend the humans. Some of those pledges may have been more pained than others.

The Human Ambassador was still scrambling to deal with the incessant bullshit flowing from the XCC as he took his place. It was clear that everyone waiting for him. Fuck. His primary mission was to oil the wheels for humanity and keep them out of the deep end. Not today. Still, nearly every human ambassador had to show teeth at some point and it looked like today was his moment in the sun.

The Speaker had been watching him like a hawk until he took his seat and immediately banged his rod, “I call on Ambassador Eding of Earth to answer for his people.”

He stood and regarded the Council. “I speak for my people.” The formal phrase made him the voice of all mankind until he retook his seat. It also meant that every human ship, planet and Orbital stood behind him. He smiled inside. Probably. In theory. Actually, he was just the sharp end of an argument that would last for years. The Xenos didn’t need to know that. “Honoured members, one of our people discovered a criminal conspiracy to bring forbidden materials throughout our space. An Engineer notified us and, despite the many subsequent attacks on both herself and her ship, she is attempting to bring us the relevant Intel. Our ships moved to find and defend the ship only for our people to be attacked by the most bizarre collection of civilian and military assets. Since my government felt it was unlikely that seventy systems had decided to go to war with us without mentioning it to anyone we are attempting to contain the situation until a more plausible explanation is found.”

He paused and dropped diplomacy. Instead of sitting back down and surrendering to the Speaker, he continued and his voice grew dark and his face turned to stone, “I speak for my people when I say that we wish to give our condolences to any and all the peoples caught in this strange web. We will attempt to recover your people and ships safely but there is little mercy in space and less time. I urge you to recover your people if you can.” With that cold warning, he sat down.

The Council heard the hard truth. The humans would defend this ship until the heat-death of the universe. You are free to collect the debris we leave behind.

In quiet corners, the Assembly asked old questions. Humans. Peaceful, helpful, and occasionally terrifying. It was an itch no-one wanted to scratch. Just in case. This species had just been attacked by ships and Orbitals from seventy different systems and they were apologizing for the inevitable casualties. Seventy. Not worried, just sad. The human fleets, if they even had any, hadn’t even bothered to assemble. In the dark, a few species canceled obscure plans and became thoughtful.

Nineteen ships closed on the Dangerous Toys. The AI was never going to win prizes but the odds were solidly in its favour. They entered the system and began scanning, searching for any hint of where the enemy ship was hiding. All reason had long ago been lost, overridden with the simple command to kill.

Oscar found himself back in his own ship, his networks polished and finished well beyond his ability. The Genie had left everything in fighting shape even as she had returned to her own hidden ship. Oscar decided he didn’t like her. He called his Engineer, “Patricia I have resumed control. She is gone.”

Patricia sat in the Captain’s cabin. /Longnose/ insisted on sitting on the wrong side of the desk, although he seemed to have huge sympathy for her. /Scentofhappy/ was less forgiving, ‘/mySeat/MyKnee!/’ He yapped until /Longnose/ scent her a message to shut up and sit down. Grumbling the puppy took back her place on the cushion. /Longnose/ leaned back, ‘/Captain/My Captain/’ What do you need from me?”

Patricia had a plan. It was a bad plan but it was slightly better than being left as a cloud of cooling gases in cold and empty space. “I want you to take the bridge. I’ll fight the ship from Engineering but I need someone that the crew trust and, let’s be honest, things have gone to shit since I turned up. Our allies will need me running the systems but I want you running the crew. Here’s what I plan on doing…”

Genie listened in. She felt that she had earned the privilege and also she didn’t really care. She held her position beneath the swirling gas clouds and enjoyed the view. She would let the human take the first shots on this one and Oscar could learn a thing or two. Still, Loki deserved some proper guns. And treats.

The first signs that Dangerous Toys was in trouble arrived in the system, the enemy ships arriving like someone had read a book on tactics but upside down and in crayon. They allowed themselves to be lit up by the reflected rads from the local sun. Idiots. Patricia was pissed as she pushed her ship deeper into the shadows. She was still going to lose the moment they found her, it just hurts to lose to stupid. They had guns and she didn’t. She knew someone that did.

“Oscar, get ready to run. I need us as close within the gas envelope as you can push us, then swing out and have shields ready. Prep your ‘Confetti’ now and get ready to fire. Shields on, chin up. We are going to beat these assholes. I’ll be setting the flares as we go.” She nodded at /Longnose/ and called out “Captain on the bridge.” She saluted and gave up her chair.

/Longnose/ nodded and sat down. He hit the Comms, “All crew, we are in a battle. I expect you to maintain your stations. Our Engineer will deal with the problem.” he nodded at Patrica. “Carry on.”

Patricia left him to deal with the wetware and got back to her proper job. /Scentofhappy/ took back her rightful place at the Captain’s feet. Loki sniffed disapprovingly.

The Genie watched the game begin, listening as her sisters crushed the attacks on other worlds. Her people’s Marines were taking the entire network apart even as it dared to attack. She loved being human but mostly just for the values. Organics were messy when a true AI could find a better path with the same principles. She thought it odd that she was capable of travelling to places undreamt of and still some dead Greek had a point to make. Humanity was a big tent even if she felt that she was outside serving the drinks. Then someone started shooting and she grinned. Her humanity included the necessity of clever warriors. She began charging every weapon she had with a smile that would have terrified her friends if she had any.

The nineteen ships of the covert fleet that Incice had created found her after hours of tedious searching. The humans were getting closer, the calls and threats growing. The AI suspected that no one was leaving this system alive. It didn’t care as it only had one mission, a mission now long forgotten by the man that had demanded it. The ships began sending a barrage of plasma fire towards the hidden target, trying to force the Dangerous Toys from cover. The AI felt that the human had chosen well as the massive gas giant swept up much of its fire. It instructed its ships to close in.

Patricia felt the first strikes hit her shields. Nothing to worry about just yet. “Oscar, you may begin.”

Oscar was trying to be brave. He didn’t fear death, he didn’t really understand it but he knew it could happen to his ship and his parents would be seriously disappointed if he lost his Engineer. He spun up the rudimentary transporters that he had built on some of the many moons surrounding the planet and began hurling out chunks of rock at the enemy ships. Thousands of them filling space with a tight grid designed to disrupt fire or formation from the enemy. Or just smash them out of space if he got lucky.

Patricia began triggering the flare attacks, hoping that the enemy had learned little from her first attack.

Within the Incice fleet, Patricia had an unexpected ally. The crews that had missed their chance to abandon ship were physically ripping out any and all components they could find. None of them wanted a ticket on this suicide run and they could all hear the incoming humans. All this over one crappy trading ship. The Human malware Patricia had inflicted was carefully hiding the attacks from the AI and even helpfully pointing out the most vulnerable targets to the disgruntled crew.

-----------------------

The station was about to begin collecting up the wreckage when the call came through. “Sir, the humans have a request. Apparently one of their species was on the ship and they wish to engage in some ceremony”

The station Patriarch didn’t know much about humans. They came and left with the ships, rarely passing any time on his Orbital. He sighed, “I have a lot to do. That damned ship blew up in the middle of our shipping lanes. The dead are dead. Tell them to come back later.”

“Sir, there are more of them coming. They seem to have a strong opinion on this. They insist that they will clear the wreckage themselves. They are asking you to stand down our drones. Sir, they are not asking politely.”

Outside one of his salvage drones suffered from a sudden disassembly event. Warning lights lit up his Comms. Bloody engineers. He took the hint. “Fine, but tell them to hurry up.”

His Officer muted the Comms and turned to the humans standing over him. “The wreck is yours. My condolences for your loss. Was this person important?”

The human slammed down his helmet without a word and went to leave. One of his companions leaned in and whispered, “Mate, you are walking on thin ice right now. Stay the fuck out of our way until we are done.” At that, he closed his helmet and followed the rest of the humans out.

Ships arrived in silence, some collecting up the wreckage, others simply docking. Whatever or whoever delegated the tasks was not in the mood for talking. Humans now filled the station, filling the bars and hotels. None of them were willing to explain beyond a simple, “It’s important. You’ll see later.”

Nearly three hundred humans assembled for the funeral. It had taken a week to recover the body and those that had done it were grey-faced and silent on what they had found. Her coffin was made from all the small bits of wood that the crews had scraped up from a hundred ships. She would go to her rest surrounded by a little bit of home. Her iron ring was laid on the lid beside her medals.

Rumours had spread that the humans were burying some kind of hero, some other strange event was happening and a bored galaxy tuned in to watch. Humanity simply broadcast the ceremony without comment. Its allies and old enemies watched with concern.

A single human, wearing only the rank of Senior Engineer took the podium.

“Welcome. Many of you met Senior Engineer Revel. Many of you heard the stories. I can tell you that most of them were true. Yes, she blew up a moon. Yes, she overthrew a government or two. Who hasn’t?” His voice grew stronger, “Just over a week ago, we all got a call that ships had been subverted, that some creature was attempting to use our ships to bring the worst of the galaxy to our door. Revel was on one of those ships.”

The humans shifted, the anger apparent. The Engineer continued.

“One of us found the threat and warned Earth. Those that think we are fools, to be treated like cattle are dying right now. But the damage was done. We have recovered Revel and her work. Her ship was overtaken by these pirates and she held her department alone for days. No Comms, no Captain, she fought off every attempt to stop her as she raced for human space.”

Every human watching could hear the pain. Evey Xeno could see the birth of a legend. The Engineer steadied his voice.

“Then someone took the AI and her ship was lost to her. She watched as the ship itself killed off the crew, as it bent itself to murder and suicide. To here. We stand in the last place that she defended. Every creature living here owes her their life.” He paused.

“She blew the engines.”

It looked like someone had struck the humans with a closed fist. The Engineer stood silent for a moment as the enormity of Revels’s actions passed through the crowd.

“Many of us ask what would we do? What is our limit? Today we are here to see it, to see where the best of us go. We love our ships. They are powered by many things but for Revel, it was always love. For her space was just the beginning. I have here a request she made, forgive me if it is scrawled on the back of a bar tab. We were drunk at the time.” He cleared his throat.

“Tell them I loved every minute of it. When I go send me into the local sun. I don’t want cold dirt anywhere near me. Play that song and have a free bar.”

“Today we will honour that request. She ships out with me, as her last post as Engineer. I ask you to join me on the journey. Until then I would ask you to join me in the song she requested.”

The galaxy heard her last request as the humans took ‘Ode to Joy’ and turned it into a salute and a farewell. Across the human worlds, musicians and singers lifted the music until it echoed across the stars.

The final ceremony was watched by billions as the tiny coffin was delivered into the silence of space to fall into towards the local sun. From Earth and from those worlds grateful for her work, the song rang out again as she disappeared on her final voyage.

Much later the Engineer that had led the service was silently drinking his whisky when the Commander of the station approached. “I just wanted to thank you. I never got to meet this Engineer of yours. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise what she had done. Thank you all.”

The human waved his glass, “She brought me back into space. Strange girl. Brains and money to burn but she never would surrender.” He looked at the Xeno, “I think I’m going home. I think I’m done. You all keep killing the best of us. Now fuck off before I want to hit something.” At that, he returned his cold stare to the bar and began planning a new mine, deep and far away from other people.

The pounding began on his bunker. Something was in orbit and it was apparently unchallenged, sending punishing weaponry directly at him. Incice swore as he called for support and was met with silence. His allies, his property was ignoring him. Fine, he had a plan for that too. He summoned his AI, “Defend this installation. Nothing else on this rock is to be preserved. Burn the lot.” His AI took a strange tone as the human malware it had absorbed finally took effect. It looked at him blankly and then laughed. A human voice spoke, “We have taken your systems. We have taken [CORRUPTED], we have taken your ships. Please wait patiently until we [CORRUPTED] your life.”

The walls began to fall as his guns went silent and then turned on him. He stood afraid to move in his own office as the pounding continued. It grew closer until finally the vast door, the finest he could commission opened quietly in front of him to reveal a single human. It sniffed and looked around. “Nice work. Perhaps you should have checked who built it.” The human held no weapon, simply a suitcase of grey leather. It stepped forward as the guns in the bunker remained focused on Incice and placed it on the desk. Incice hissed at him, “Humans, you would kill me over a single ship? I have released hell on your people. Tell me how you will explain this to your allies?”

The human looked at him silently for a moment. It sighed, “Incice I am not here about that. Frankly, I don’t care about your little smuggling operation. I am here because you killed Revel. Let me tell you a story. Long ago and far away our people were lost. Trapped and doomed to remain so for eternity. A human, a species unknown to us at the time, was trying to defend her ship. She pulled our prison apart and dropped it on her enemies. She never suspected that we existed and we never told her.” He pulled a large blade from the air, “But we thought she was worth protecting and, since she made a habit of pissing people off, we make housecalls.” The creature no longer looked human. “We admit that there were very, very good reasons to imprison us but Revel, well she taught us manners. Now I have to go and fish her out of a sun before it’s too late. You however can take her place. I just need to fit you into this” He looked at the small briefcase on the desk.

The knife began its work

The human wiped off the handle of the suitcase and made his way back to the ship. He smiled to himself. Being human was very entertaining and Revel, Revel never stopped pissing people off. Time to go and recover her before it got too messy. Still, he had enjoyed the funeral. He piloted his ship away while humming ‘Ode to Joy’.

----------------------

Mars Orbital was busy with today’s business as Xenos reacted to the Human offensive against what was simply being called the ‘Incice War’. Small squadrons of human ships were popping up all over the place and seizing ships, Orbitals and goods. It got difficult when they started doing what they called ‘Extraction’ on some very high-ranking officials. The XCC and the HDF were running at full tilt to crush this network and from the outside it just looked like the humans had decided to smash and grab their way across the Galaxy. What was becoming increasingly clear is that they weren’t asking for permission.

The Director had called a meeting ‘for all interested parties’ in the main conference hall and a multitude of Xenos and media were waiting. Newcomers might wonder why this tired, grey-haired example was chosen to speak on behalf of the Humans. As he took his place at the podium they got a chance to find out.

He looked at the swelling crowd, all set in that was, in his not very humble opinion, the finest room mankind had ever built. Above the transparent roof that soared some three hundred meters was the planet, the red soil interspersed by the glinting light of the cities and the gleam as so many ships caught the sun on their descent. It was a celebration and a warning, just as intended. Hardwood and delicate stone carvings filled the room, furniture that was designed and presented to every new species that was permitted to visit. The only jarring note was the two human marines that held a permanent station at the door. They wore full, unadorned armour and carried the complete array of weapons of the real thing. Only vague rumours and some highly-classified reports existed for the Xenos to read but since they were the sharp end of human diplomacy it made sense to see them here. He thought so anyway and it was his call.

“Welcome all. I have a lot to get through so please leave your questions until the end. I’m not going anywhere so take your time. Firstly would like to address the question of who exactly we are fighting. A criminal network based from Central Worlds 12.789.0845 has apparently flourished to the extent that it reached into human space. It is, essentially a smuggling service with a surprising military capacity. It has been suborning smaller systems and using their forces as mercenaries and enforcers. The creature responsible for this network was apparently a logistics officer at some point.” He flashed an image of an early picture of Incice as a young Officer. “And that is all we know about his beginnings.” He flashed up pictures of an office, “We know even less about his end. Forensics report that he died here. By what agency or people we frankly don’t know but his blood coated several walls and the bunker began singing ‘Ode to Joy’ when we arrived. Someone obviously took offence at his actions regarding one of our Engineers that was sadly killed in his attack. All we know is that it is multi-dimensional and carries a grudge. Regardless of that, his AI-controlled ships have attacked us in eighty systems so far. We are dealing with the problem” He took a pause as the Xenos reacted. One of the press-pit ignored his early statement and called out. “Are you telling us that this Incice was killed by one of your human ghosts? I find that hard to believe.”

The Director had felt this might surface. Many Xenos were fascinated by the old human beliefs in an afterlife. “No. He was not killed by any human agency, alive or dead. Something walked into his bunker and slaughtered him. If we are reading the science correctly, it was done in a manner that would attract several hundred criminal charges. Also, we do not have the capacity to do this.” He pulled up an image. A large blade was clearly embedded in the desk. It was also very clearly not.

Human Marines lifted the desk out of position and the blade continued to cut through the surface. They attempted to grab the knife but it was intangible to human hands. “Feel free to ask your scientists to examine the data. I can tell you now that we don’t have a clue.” The Xenos reacted to that. If the humans couldn’t figure it out and were willing to admit it, this was going to take a while. Any thoughts of fraud fell away. The human’s pride in their science wouldn’t permit its corruption over the death of a criminal. Especially one that they would have cheerfully and publicly shot in the head for causing so much mayhem in their worlds.

“To return to the main issue, one of our people is underway with further Intel. At this point, it is probably unnecessary as her first reports were sufficient to begin to untangle this mess. She is, however, still out there being hunted by the Incice AI-driven fleets. I hope to bring you better news shortly. All those involved in this parasitic network will be brought to account and this evil crushed. We apologise for the inconvenience. Any questions?”

One of Earth's allies had been prepped beforehand. The Fay Ambassador to Earth stood, “Director, is this a war? What are you planning to do with all these ships and people caught up in this action?”

The Director nodded, “Good questions. It is a war in the sense that we face an enemy with its own fleets, its own orbital assets and personnel. In more general terms we regard this as a policing action. We have no territorial or political ambitions. We simply wish to crush a criminal enterprise that has declared us an enemy because they failed to kill the human that unveiled it. As to those captured, we are seeking a comprehensive picture of those that are involved. They may face our legal system or some local one. If we feel that there are entrenched interests protecting this network then we will ban all trade and travel with humanity. We are not your police but we will protect our worlds and ships. To be clear, these criminals were carrying slaver AI amongst other evils. We will not permit that.”

And there it sat. The humans never forgave slavery, even AI. They would pull all trade and ensure that their allies did the same. Ban all their engineers and close their Orbitals to anyone they suspected was involved. No doubt there would be other, unacknowledged actions. Essentially this was the message to all the Xenos and Press. Clean this shit up or we will. Good luck getting a ship if the humans wouldn’t touch it. Superstition alone would regard them as cursed, probably with good reason. Even neutral systems would ban them in case they exploded.

One of the newest Ambassadors stood unexpectedly. “Director, you spoke of the missing ship. That is one of ours. What efforts are being made to recover them safely? The ship is at the forefront of our first contact with humanity and the Canine Alliance and my people are looking for news.”

The Director glanced at his screen. The Ambassador /NewSunondrygrass/. Ah, the catnip guy. “Ambassador, welcome to Mars orbital. If your schedule permits I will meet you immediately after this meeting with our HDF delegate and we will brief you. Please assure your people that every effort will be expended to secure your people.” His voice dropped slightly, “and our dogs.” He had personally sent /Scentofhappy/ our there and approved Lokis travel. If they were hurt he would personally ensure the destruction of whoever had dared.

For the rest of the audience, it was split between those that had ignored the whole human symbiote story and were now reassessing the political power involved and those that knew just how far the humans would go to protect their pets. No wonder Incice had been cut down by some supernatural entity. It probably did him a favour if he had attacked the human’s dogs. The Director took a few more questions and then left the Xenos to themselves. The two Marines moved to Ambassador /NewSunondrygrass/ and waited to escort him to the private meeting. A few of the Xenos murmured to each other and the conclusion was clear. The galaxy would stay out of the way and ensure their own fleets were clean. The Director had done an excellent job of laying out the consequences of fucking with the human race and the benefits of playing nice

Patrica didn’t particularly feel like a diplomatic triumph. She felt like a sacrificial offering to the gods. If Loki knew that fleets were flying from many quarters to defend him, well he wouldn’t have expected anything less. /Scentofhappy/ was sleeping contentedly on her Captain’s lap. Plasma fire continued to strike the shields.

“Oscar, begin our descent. We will go and sit on the fucking Genie if she won’t respond. Fire the flares and follow the patterns you so nicely built. Now.”

The Genie was watching the enemy approach under fire from Oscar. Trust a human to start throwing rocks around, although she appreciated the elegant simplicity. So far the ship seemed fine, the shields were solid. Frankly, for a twenty-to-one attack, the bad guys weren’t really making an impression. She had expected someone to die by now. She finished up her tea just in time for the flare attacks to begin. To her, they looked like a beautiful fireworks display. Some of them were so clever that she had to drop a dozen sensors to prevent infection. The Engineer was good. Time to go to work.

Genie’s first move was to seal up her ship and kick her engines up to ‘suicidal’. She didn’t carry passengers so it was unlikely to squash much. She double-checked that she hadn’t got any passengers. No one wanted a repeat of that event, it had taken a week to clean the cabin. She hung her Avatar in the closet and hummed her way through her networks. Today she could blow seven shades of hell out of these scumbags and there would be no complaints. Internally she felt that the XCC were the wrong sort of bastards, always trying to be nice. She could save Loki and the puppy and everyone would be happy. Oh, and the Engineer. Probably most of the others. Whatever. She began to rise from the swirling clouds of gas with a smile.

Patrica was currently swearing softy as she came into range of more and more of the Incice pirates. Her shields were solid for now, but she had nothing to shoot back with. Oscar’s rocks were keeping them busy and her flares were throwing their aim but she needed weapons. Loki was growling at the screens. One of the Incice seemed to be in distress, its shields flickering and its power erratic. One of her flares must have reached the systems. “Oscar, can you predict when that bastard is going to lose shields?” Her AI ran a quick scan, “Every third cycle if it is a standard build. It appears to be repairing, however.” Patrica growled, “Point whatever we have at that ship and make sure it hits their engines as the shields flicker. Let’s see if we can make an impression.”

The so-called weapons array on the Dangerous Toys amounted to little more than collision protection. There had been no piracy in human systems for years and they probably hadn’t been upgraded since they were built. She had never even looked at them. She guessed they had never been fired in anger. What happened next was a real surprise when a military-grade plasma beam suddenly cut the enemy engines in half and blew the ship to shrapnel. Out loud she swore, “What the fuck was that? Oscar do a scan of our weapons. That is not on the specs.” Suddenly she realised. This was a pirate ship, of course they had hidden shit like this. “Oscar, do a full scan for other weapons systems onboard. Whatever the pirates built, find it and fire it. Full defensive fire until we reach the Genie.”

Three people were currently sharing her surprise. The Incice AI was trying to calculate if it had been a fluke hit when one of his ships had lost shields, Genie was pissed that the little trader was killing her prey and Oscar was finding he had lots more guns. They all shared a similar reaction and opened fire. Blinding plasma filled the space between them.

Whatever the surprise when the Dangerous Toys shot one of his ships out of space, it was as nothing when the Genie rose from the depths of the gas planet at a speed that left a firestorm behind her. She swamped all the wavelength she could with a traditional war song, probably to disrupt coordination but mostly because she liked to rock out. She was no little trader truck, she was built to fight any war that mankind might face and enjoy it. The Incice fleet now felt the full range of her weapons to the sound of ‘Killing in the Name’. Her speed was such that no immediate firing solution appeared and for the first and closest three frigates that was too late. She grinned with the hat trick, “Dangerous Toys, you might want to get behind me. This is going to get messy.”

Patrica swore as she watched the carnage. Four of the enemy were now falling in pieces towards the planet. The Genie was moving too fast to stay in her cover. Rabid bitch was too keen on shooting things. “Oscar stay as close as you can and pass the weapons to my control. I need you on shields and engines. Take the power from wherever you need it.” She called /Longnose/, “Sir, get the men into the lifepods. This might go wrong quickly.”

/Longnose/ watched as a dark ship erupted from the gas giant. Technically he knew it was human but it certainly didn’t look like it. It was just a weapon. Patrica had mumbled something about the human-AI alliance and left it at that. It was four times the size of his ship and built out of pure human tech. It practically stank of /suddendeathmachine threat/. He remembered that humans weren’t allowed to work on other people’s weapons. He was suddenly glad about that. He turned to the crew, “Alright, hit the pods. Our Engineer has brought her friends but I want you ready. I’ll launch from here if needed. Go.” He turned to his head of security. “Get our guests into the pods but keep an eye on them.”

He picked up /Scentofhappy/ and handed her to the Security chief. “Mind her. Shoot anything that tries to hurt her.” The startled Chief saluted, “Aye Captain.” The Captain leaned in close to the unhappy dog,

‘/PackleaderKeepsPuppiesSafe/Guard/Love/’ His puppy whined a bit but then sniffed ‘/ScentofhappyBravelikeLoki/GuardBadHunter/’ The Captain smiled, ‘/Brave/GuardWell/’

Patrica began deep-breathing, trying to keep track of her enemies. The Genie was doing some mad dance through their forces while Oscar desperately tried to keep up. The Incice fleet had stopped shooting at her, preferring to try and kill this vicious machine that had appeared from the dark. Patrica decided to teach them to pay attention to her. Fuckers were trying to kill her dog. She picked out one of the Genies victims as it struggled to repair and slammed everything she had into the engines again. It erupted in a satisfying ball of debris. She went looking for the next one.

Genie laughed out loud when the little ship swooped in and stole her kill. Good girl. She decided to leave a few more for her to play with.

The Wellerman was pushing the ships to their limit when he hit the system. He could smell the plasma burning the moment he tracked into normal space. He could also hear the singing. Out loud he groaned, “What the fuck is she doing here?” He commed his five ships, “Alright new plan. The incice fleet, poor bastards, are busy. We are going directly to the Dangerous Toys and covering her retreat. This engagement is level-eight, so I never want to hear a word about it again. I’m sure your bonus will help you remember that. Good luck.Crew to weapons.”

Genie was enjoying herself when the Wellerman pinged into the system. Ugg. She decided to save time, “Hi Dad, nice of you you to drop in. I didn’t think you ever left your sandbox.”

Patrica was feeling like perhaps Genie was taking the piss. She wasn’t bothering to finish off any of the enemies, leaving injured and broken ships for her to deal with. Fine, except that she didn’t have the speed or power to do it. Now that they knew she carried heavy weapons they were punishing her ship. Her ship was only surviving through Oscar’s heroic efforts and her blind faith in picking targets but they were going to run out of luck or power. She turned, /Loki/Suit/Now/’ Her dog sniffed and went to pick up his suit. It was currently his favourite blanket.

Oscar spoke out, “Engineer, the Wellerman has arrived in the system. We are to await his ships and break for the Orbital. He said, and this is a direct quote, “Let Genie look after these poor bastards”. Query?”

Patrica smiled briefly. “I guess they have met before. Plot our way to the Wellerman and give me an ETA. We will break for the Orbital once they have us covered. In the meantime, we fight on. Eyes front Oscar.”

The Incice AI was struggling. The unknown ship was far more lethal than his own ships and he was unable to mass his fleet against it because the Dangerous Toys was far more heavily armed and shielded than reported. The pair were spitting his fleet and causing havoc. Just as he geared his ships up to the dual threat he picked up a new human fleet arriving in the system. He could not face a triple-sided engagement. He decided to fulfil his initial orders. The Dangerous Toys must perish.

Another of his ships fell to the dark ship, lost in some mad dance of plasma that he couldn’t calculate. Enough. He turned his ships to the Dangerous Toys and began firing, picking up as much speed as they could and ignoring the damage from the murderous stranger. He set them all on a suicide run. It only needed one.

The Genie swirled in her perfect world, the beats loudly drumming out the deaths of her enemies. Well, maybe opponents. Targets. That was the word. She cared little for the reasons that they had dared to cross her swords, despite the XCC giving her a long list of justifications. This was the clear, clean space where the plasma strikes that hit her were her licence to dance as only she could. Today would be her masterpiece. She spun herself through a pirouette on her left shield and suddenly had all her weapons bearing on a single ship. A ship that was still fighting the battle of three seconds ago, idiots. She was about to turn it into a beautiful spray of alloys when she heard the distress from inside. Hmm. She listened while some organics did the shouty, praying thing from within.

She blew a little bit of their engines and all of their weapons and left them for Loki. For whatshername. Whatever. She turned her weapons on the next target, spinning wildly on her axis to confront the next threat. After a moment of careful listening, she opened up her full range, her complete orchestra of destruction and watched as fire and death ripped the enemy apart. She sniffed that no one would appreciate the subtlety but that was the price of being an artist. At least she got to show her dad how good she was. That moment’s sanity made her check where Wellerman and Dangerous Toys had got to. Oops.

Wellerman was pushing his ships as hard as he could, watching his daughter dance in the only way that she knew how. It was hard not to be proud of her work but, damn she had come so close to the line that he had been ready to end her once. It had been the organics, the ones that she ignored that had stepped in. They claimed her behaviour under supervision was fine. Disliking people wasn’t a death sentence, nor was arrogance. They claimed many of them would have to be ended if that was cause enough. Anyway, she liked dogs. Wellerman still didn’t understand why that would make a difference but for the humans, it carried a lot of weight. He began picking out the targets between himself and the Dangerous Toys, sending the scans to Genie. She had always done her homework. She would clear a path.

The Incice AI was now simply trying to reach the Dangerous Toys, ignoring data from his failing fleet. He had no optimal response. He pushed his remaining ships onto full power and a ragged evasion pattern, sending them only target data for one ship. His poorly written emotions were elated when he began to strike the enemy again. It seemed the mad ship from the dark had forgotten its prey. He was wrong.

Patrica and Oscar had been fighting their own battles, trying to keep a small trading ship alive in the face of a fleet. She had pulled every trick she had ever heard of but her voice was rising in frustration as she could see that her allies were too far away. There was too much space. There is always too much space. She sent out her last flares, hoping to confuse the fuckers one more time. Oscar wound up his new level eight systems, the darkest of human tech and determined that Patrica and Loki would live on, sort of. He was snapped out of his fear by a call from the Genie, “Hello Oscar, I’m afraid I didn’t stay around for introductions but I left you a present. A sort of thank you. Your Avatar is awesome by the way. Don’t worry, I wiped it clean before I left. I think you might want to hit the big red button.” She cut off, swirling back into the battle.

Even as she spoke another option appeared on his menu. It was simply a glaringly bright red button. Out of other options, he engaged it. His weapons stopped firing. His engines died. He could hear the shouts from his Engineer. All the power suddenly flooded into his shields and they began to change, weaving something new, pushing far beyond normal limits and turning dark red. They were dead in space but none of the enemy fire was reaching them. The ship settled into a deathly stillness.

Patrica looked at her dead weapons console and called, “Oscar, what the fuck did you just do?”

In a very small voice he admitted, “Engineer, I have no idea.”

Wellerman watched as Dangerous Toys turned red. He swore softly at the sight. That ship would never fly again. He had a good idea who had left such a design for a baby AI to play with and no doubt forgot to mention the side effects. Now this was a rescue. He called the Engineer, “Engineer O’Neill, I see the Genie has given you some strange choices. As soon as we have reached you I need you to evacuate the ship. Do not try to engage the engines. Your ship is now a bomb. Do not try and engage the enemy. Gear up and get out on my call. Fair sailing.” He began clearing room for the survivors. He hated escort missions.

The ship was dying as she watched. Life support, medical and the bridge were all being steadily drained and slowly turning dark. She called the Captain. “Sir, time to hit the boats. I’ll give you the signal. Permission to leave the ship?”

/Longnose/ rose from his seat. From the moment the humans had saved his honour he had known that this ship was doomed. Even with fleets of allies arriving he was no optimist to believe that they would land her safely. What Patrica had called a ‘blood price’. He hit the Comms, “Of course. Permission granted. How much time do we have?”

“Sir, until someone tells me what just happened to the ship I have no idea. Our allies will be here shortly so grab whatever you can and get ready.” She hesitated for a moment and added, “Fair sailing, Sir.” As she cut the comms she began pulling her full suit on. Loki waited patiently as she connected it up.

‘/Pack?/safe?/Scentofhappy/Longnose?/’

Patrica knelt down, ‘/PackSafe/Waiting/NewHome/Sadness/’ She hadn’t meant to add that last part but the tone was too strong to hide.

Genie was having the time of her life. Then she saw the flaw in her plan as a couple of ships, little more than drones got closer to the Dangerous Toys. She grabbed all her Intel and attacked the enemy AI. Her flares were different from anything used by Patrica, aimed at not disrupting the enemy but absorbing it, saturating it with alternative algorithms that would put it into a haze of indecision. She began pumping them out, hammering at the openings left by the enemy's attempt to control the broken remains of its fleet.

Patrica looked at her dead consoles, her first post. The taste was bitter but she wasn’t going to save her ship, better to save her crew. “Oscar, we need to go. Please embody in your Avatar and pick up your stuff. Wipe the Core when you’re ready. Let’s move.”

Oscar felt bereft as he pulled out of his networks. His Avatar was surprisingly comfortable. He could feel the tweaks and improvements that Genie had left behind. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful or not. It was only when he began to move his systems into the Avatar that he realised how much bigger he was, far beyond the limits of his first Core. He picked up the box anyway. His mothers would want it back. “Engineer, I will trigger the wipe when we are in the Pod. Is Loki okay?”

Loki sniffed at the Avatar. ‘/NotGenie/Ship/Oscar/’ Patrica was mildly startled. How could Loki smell the difference in who was inhabiting an Avatar? She wondered if the XCC knew about that little quirk. ‘/Oscar/Packmate/Guard/’. Loki growled his approval and took his station beside the Avatar. Patrica listened as the attacks on the ship grew stronger and closer. Time to go.

Oscar felt a little silly being guarded by a dog but if he was honest it made him feel better. The little crew of the Engineering department made their way out and Patrica sealed the door. The drumming of plasma fire grew louder as they descended to the life pod. She hoped whatever twisted technology the Genie had used would keep them safe. She had copied the designs for future study.

The Genie kept up her dance, wiping ship after ship from her space, leaving only those few that seemed to contain screeching organics within in one piece. The enemy AI was now a failing ghost as her interference beat it down, system by system. Every opening was being ruthlessly exploited and giving her elegant opportunities to blow them out of space. She watched as Wellerman got close enough to pick up the Dangerous Toys people and, with a slight hint of impatience, boosted her drives to intercept the targets he was sending her. Time to end this.

Wellerman finally pushed through to his target, spinning his five ships in a dance to match his daughter. He watched her clear the route and decided that now was the moment. “Engineer O’Neill, time to go. Evacuate your crew and captives. We will be ready.”

Patrica made the call, “Captain, please order the evacuation. I’m leaving now.” She punched the button. Oscar silently wiped the Core, leaving nothing behind of his time as the Dangerous Toys. The pod dropped quickly from the ship, beacons lighting up as it fell into clear space.

/Longnose/ looked around in /sadness/loss/ and hit the command. “All crew abandon ship. I repeat all crew abandon ship. This is not a drill.”

Genie spun about again, this time paying closer attention to her mission. The Incice AI was now in a state of madness as she corrupted every function and stole every bandwidth. It was now simply five ships hurling towards the Dangerous Toys but, as she had learned long ago, never underestimate stupid. The Incice ships continued to fire upon their last target, the Dangerous Toys resting dead in space. She watched as pods began to drop into the safe hands of the Wellerman. Behind her, the wreckage and lifepods of the lucky few began to fall into a new orbit.

Wellerman began twisting about to collect the crew of the Dangerous Toys. He was impressed that she had made it this far and was curious to meet this /Longnose/ and his Engineer. And his dog. He began updating his translators to prepare for the event.

Patrica left guiding the life pod to Oscar, privately hoping it would keep him busy for a little while. Loki had made himself comfortable, serene and unworried since he had his pack beside him, ‘NewHomeSoon?/Walkies?/Treats?/’ Patrica ran her hands under his chin, ‘/NewHome/ManyWalkiesandTreats/Longnose/Scentofhappy/Soon./’ Loki sniffed his approval and laid his head on her lap and closed his eyes. She closed her own eyes and tried not to recall how badly rescues sometimes went, silently counting the variables and trying not to let the stress of the battle reach too deep. She had lost her ship and that was enough to think about for the moment.

The Genie watched as the five ships continued to fire, closing the gap while she kept a close eye on her distance. The Incice ships seemed oblivious to her now so she blew two of them apart as they closed on the Dangerous Toys. She sniffed that it was only two, she had been hoping to hit the hat trick again. Then she stopped dead in space and watched with interest. She had forgotten to mention all the terms and conditions about her changes to the shields but, fuck it, the ship was empty.

Three ships continued their assault, pushing the shields to a darker and darker shade of red. Finally, some threshold was passed. They began to waver and split, pulling back from the incoming fire and leaving the hull almost undefended.

The Genie called the Wellerman, “Hi Dad, you might want to get the Engineer to watch this.”

Wellerman was already watching and turned to Patrica, recently released from her pod. Oscar and Loki stood together taking in the new ship, “Patrica if you don’t mind, please join me in my quarters.” She nodded and moved into the tiny cabin that passed for Captain’s quarters on this skiff. Wellerman closed the door, “Sorry Captain, you need to see this.”

Out in the dark, she watched her ship under attack, with three enemies attacking without response. The Genie was dead in space for some reason. Bitch. The strange shields were failing, twisting oddly and the colour began changing, the red turning into a deep purple. Then it happened, almost too fast for the eye to see as the shields seemed to rear back and her ship exploded, then the dark red fields reached out and powered the burning debris straight through her attacker’s shields and hull, shredding them into broken wreckage. The red faded, leaving only the glare of three burning wrecks.

The Dangerous Toys was gone.

Wellerman turned away from the screen and took a deep breath. “My condolences Captain O’Neill. I must now report the Dangerous Toys lost to enemy action, all crew recovered. Do you agree that you have seen and witnessed this?”

Patrica sounded hollow, her voice far away but she found the words. “Seen and witnessed. My ship is lost and my crew recovered. You may inform the XCC.”

Wellerman nodded, “Seen and witnessed. Please take this,” He handed her a whiskey.

“The room is yours. You can call your crew from here. I’m sure XCC will be calling shortly for details. They always do.” He left quietly, pausing only to let in Loki who was growling at the door. As he walked back to the bridge the crew were silent, the victory overtaken by the death of one of their ships. He stood them all down and issued whiskey to be sent to the canteen. Tradition said it should be rum but he couldn’t stand the stuff. It had been a long day and he could still take them all home, drunk or sober.

Genie was busy scanning all the wreckage and giving herself points for style. Any of the life pods she sent towards the Wellerman, totally disinterested in rescue or wetware. When he complained she just messaged him, “I’m going back off the grid and I don’t carry luggage. When the Engineer starts asking questions remind her that she evacuated a Human Diplomatic Scout and I am not permitted to leave one of those sitting abandoned in an unfriendly space.” Then she went back to stripping out the machine Intel and ignoring his calls. When she got bored with doing that she pointed herself back into dark space and left without another word. Wellerman smiled to himself, she was proud and yet for some strange reason never strayed too far from his Orbital. It wasn’t just curiosity that had driven her here at top speed and armed to the teeth, prepared to take on the entire universe single-handed. He shook his head, some people just prefer the dark. She would turn up to talk when all the fuss had died down. Kids.

He sent a couple of his ships to pick up the prisoners and turned for home.

The first person Patrica called was /Longnose/. It was his ship that she had lost after all. She swallowed the whiskey and reached for another glass. She didn’t know if he drank alcohol but, fuck it, the way she felt right now she would drink for both of them. She was so far off-duty that she might never wear a suit again.

/Longnose/ carried /Scentofhappy/ in his arms. His puppy didn’t like all the strange smells, /Loki/Engineer/AllSafe/NewHomeSoon/TreatsandWalkies/’. He smiled as that seemed to work. Patrica had assured him that dogs would forgive you anything for those, provided you never broke the promise and it seemed to work. /Scentofhappy/ relaxed into his grip. He stepped onto the bridge and took a deep breath, inhaling the unknown. Some of it he recognised, some of it just seemed to make sense in context, ‘/HumansatWar/Relief/Victory/Regret/Bloodprice/survivalJoy/.’ The ship didn’t feel like a proper crew, scents from many, many sources but they were all humans. This was more humans than he had ever seen in one place and the scents seemed to be.../hardwired/ or something. Like it didn’t matter that they didn’t know each other. Perfect strangers going to war together seemed even stranger than that they went to war at all. He slowly rubbed /Scentofhappy/. Humans were truly alien. Except one.

/Scentofhappy/ yipped at him, ‘/Packmate/sadness/lost/alone/’ at his startled owner. /Longnose/ scanned the bridge, cursing his eyesight. He smelled no one that he knew. Certainly not /Crew/. He put /Scentofhappy/ on the floor and watched to see what she would do. He followed as she ran to a small human, a child and yelped to be picked up. She licked the child’s face as he held her as if checking for wounds. Whose child was this? Then it hit him, it was the Dangerous Toys, not the crew but the /scentofengines/, the /smellofconsoles/. The /airconditioningOldfood/ that burned its way into your nose after a week or two. He stepped forward, “Oscar?”

The boy nodded, ‘/Captain/DeepRegrets/ShipisLost/’, then he broke into human, “I’m sorry Sir, we couldn’t save her. There were just too many.” /Longnose/ had been a Captain for a long time and he recognised the pain. Sometimes you can ask for too much and forget the cost. Young Oscar had been dragged into a battle and felt he had failed. “Oscar, you and the Engineer saved everyone on my ship. You restored my honour and the honour of my ship. You defeated a conspiracy to poison your worlds. She may have been destroyed but she did not die. You carry her heart.” He let his words sink in a little, “And now I must ask you to hang on to /Scentofhappy/ while I talk to the Engineer. I suspect she is feeling the same.” His dog yipped in agreement, hearing only the pack leader comfort a packmate. “See if you can take her for a walk somewhere, she disliked the life pod.” He smelled the familiar scent of his engines purring. Peculiar but understandable.

Outside of the small cabin, he could already scent the unhappiness of his Engineer. Well, not his Engineer anymore. He opened the door and found her standing and staring at the screen with a glass in her hand. “Patrica?”

Patrica stood watching the ships burning in the distance, just embers glowing against the endless night. If the Genie had already taken their Intel they would never be recovered, simply left to fall into the local sun or drift forever. Everything that made a ship a living thing had been taken from them and now they would be left to the cold. Except for her ship, burned in strange fires and revenged. The Dangerous Toys had died a warrior’s death and only the smoke and memories remained. She silently raised a glass to her passing. She heard the door open and turned, not knowing what to say.

Loki did, leaping from the floor and reaching up to lick /Longnose/. She watched as the two of them scuffled and sniffed as they had the first day they had met, assuring each other that they were healthy and happy. Reluctantly it brought a smile to her face. A meeting that had triggered a treaty and a war. She finished her whiskey and bowed to her Captain. “Sir, will you have a drink with me? In honour of the ships passing? She played a part in history that we could never have imagined back on the day Wippene ran away from the elevator.” That brought a bark of laughter from the Captain and he felt the mood lift.

Much later as Oscar sniffed his glass and the Orbital grew close /Longnose/ sighed, a strange reluctance for this moment to end. “Patrica, where will you go now? I will be given a new ship. In fact, I could probably just buy one. I’ll always need an Engineer. You could join me.”

Patrica nodded and poured out the last measure between them, “Captain, my Captain. When they made the Dangerous Toys a human diplomat ship and stuck me as Captain I had to sign up again. I’m back in the fleet. I have no idea where I’ll be next but I do know it won’t be up to me.”

They sipped their drinks and watched the future grow larger outside.