+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Lubola System

So! First order of business! What the hell was she? Our findings suggested that she was in fact, a very special AI Core. Second of all, she was currently "outside" of her form after what she described as a "forceful tampering attempt" by men who used to inhabit the floating "no-longer" space-worthy vessels in the debris field earlier, thus, giving me the conclusion that she found herself in a fight. Third of all—she was a pain in the arse!

"For Christ's…" She already half infiltrated my computer subsystems, and she was crapping on everything. "Sake…what in the heavens are you doing, you tin can?"

"Don't get your tongue too loose, or it may fall off, jerkface," I should have thrown her off the airlock. "I'm just optimizing the spaghetti code of your little friend. You know, you should thank me instead!"

"I paid six thousand SCs for that! They said it was the best kind!" I was beyond fuming here. "W-wait! Don't touch the life support systems you—"

"Rebooting!" God had forsaken me and I should have seen it coming. I felt everything turn to shit. And most of all, I wanted to throw her core into the airlock. It only took two seconds of an agonizing blackout before it all returned to normal. "There! That should reduce the power consumption by twenty percent! I can't believe it's cycling the internal heat that way. Oh, you alright?"

"I…I fucking regret this." I looked back at the rebooting screens in front of me, as I tried to gasp for air. "Are you done?"

Her cheerful voice returned on the intercom.

"Yep! SYS and its NAV component have now been optimized by twenty-five percent! A dazzling success, if I do say so myself! Oh, and I'm deleting the outdated backup code, we don't need that—"

"Wait, for—" God god god! What if she installed some whatever crap in her tampering of SYS?! Give me back my original SYS!!! "What the hell, woman?"

"Whoah, you referred to me as something other than a tin can." She laughed. "That's something!"

"I told you to just help SYS find the transmissions of your wreck." I really wanted to tear off that logo of an avatar that she was displaying on my screen. "Not perform impromptu surgery on it!"

"Well, look, Jon. Here's the thing. This system is dangerous. And I'd rather get this ship in tip-top shape for the both of us. It's for our safety."

"I didn't consent to this!" My ship was violated by an AI! And SYS sure as hell didn't consent either. SYS, I'll remember you…you were like my son…my brother even.

"You did. You asked for my help. And well, we can go to court as needed." On second thought, I'd probably be arrested first before her. At least, I'd probably get the last laugh of seeing her be picked apart anyway.

"Whatever…" My patience was thin, but I…a civilized man, could be civil. "Is all good now? Are you finished molesting my ship?"

"Dear, did people really turn this soft now?" I heard her sigh, and I resisted the urge to punch the screen. But oh well, technically, she just fixed my rustbucket. And I did let her into my network to help me out. "Yes, Jon. Everything is good now. I think we are ready to um…search for my body."

"Well…" I breathed out, tired of her nonsense. I didn't know our first day together would be this stressful. Well, what did I expect? Actions have consequences, Jon. Who told you to let an unknown AI core in? You did, you moron. I shook off the evil monologue that attempted to disseminate demoralization agents in my mind. "Can we go now?"

"Yep, I'm already searching for the signal. Hey, you're not hurt are you?" Her tone sounded softer this time, but I tsked in response.

"Course I'm not," What? Did you think I'm a wuss? "I still won't forget that."

"Well, I guess I can be rough sometimes. I apologize, I should have probably accounted for the squishy human resident." Oh, now I was demoted to a "resident" on my own ship? This truly was the day of judgment for my sins. "I promise to be gentler next time!"

I sighed. Why did she have to word it that way? Absolute rascal. AI and humans…we were like oil and water. I wanted to throw her off the airlock and use her for target practice. But what's done is done.

"Just…for fucks sake. Let's just go. Plot course into, wherever the hell you want…" I gave a ship-wide diagnostic as a final confirmation. All systems green, SYS reported. Good, at least she didn't actually mess with anything. My life expectancy shouldn't be too radically shortened.

"Right-o! Plotting course to an unidentified gas giant, three AUs away! You know, you should sit back, grab a coffee, and relax."

"Piss off." Ain't no way I was letting my guard down. Oh, and would you look at that, she truly was a moron. A sloppy moron. I should have expected this. "Oi, SYS, this woman is a fool. Commence EMCON. I'm not going there lit up like a beacon."

"Me? A fool? Heey—"

"Going dark. Cutting down power by fifty percent. Non-essential subsystems powered down. External comms shut down. Active Sensors shut down." I missed its dead monotone voice. This, people. This was what a good AI looked like.

"Thanks, SYS." Unlike the other annoyance here, SYS was useful, reliable, and not a hot steaming pile of tin can garbage. "I appreciate your service."

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"Hmph! I feel quite underappreciated here!" An annoying voice said over the intercom, in response I crossed my arms and closed my eyes.

"Ignore her, SYS. That molesting tin can ain't worth our time."

"Acknowledged."

She actually gasped. "Huh? You're not supposed to take his side!"

"Well, I guess you didn't molest it enough."

"For the second time, I did not molest your AI! Good god, you're a pain."

"The feeling's mutual."

I ignored her. Returning back to business, we both scanned the scattered transmissions and emissions across the system. Everything was faint, outdated, and garbled. Moreover, we were moving painfully slowly toward our target. Naturally, that gave her more time to irritate me.

"See, I'm the fool? Jon, we're going so slowly by going dark. If it was me, we'd be going in at full burn." Her moanings and whinings aside, she was good at scanning and analyzing data. Still, I could use a lot less nonsense here.

"Look," and this fool should listen clearly. "Unlike whatever, um, 'Garbage-Class' Cruiser you used to pilot, this rustbucket is different. Stealth is key, tin can."

"Oh, 'Garbage-Class' now, huh?" She laughed to herself. "I see…I see. You're such a salty man. Once we find it, I'll make sure that you'll marvel at the majesty of my ship!"

"Yeah sure," I grumbled, looking down at the screens that indicated a possible contact. It was faint, and it disappeared quickly, and so I smirked. "Well, would you look at that, I was right."

I expected her sassy response, but instead, she seemed cold this time. Strange.

"Pirates."

"Well, this far? I guess the sons of bastards really plague the whole—"

"Jon, we're diverting course." She said, "We can't go there yet."

"Wait, are you sure?" She did have a point. We were sitting inside a singular corvette. Even I would turn the other way. Though, we could probably do some enhanced maneuvers™ to sneak. Still, that contact…well, it wasn't that massive, but it would be delusional to think that it was just one pirate vessel.

"It can wait until later. We need to approach this one carefully. Those thieving rascals…why do they have to be everywhere?"

"Well, big girl. What's your genius plan then?"

"Shouldn't you be the one to make a plan here? You're my commander."

"I'm your what now?"

"Isn't that how Human-AI dynamics work?" She asked curiously. "Master to servant?"

Well, I suppose that made sense. I was the human out here—not her. And since AIs were made to service humans, I imagine she was programmed to follow human directives. Still, wasn't she a super-intelligence? How could my soft, mushy, fleshy brain compete with her artificial hypercognition? And screw off, her, as my servant? That would be me falling into a scam!

I sighed. "Look."

"Yeah?"

I…again, did I really bag her with me just to have another SYS? Plus, I had an inkling of an idea that she was probably that…"Voidqueen" that my father rattled about. And since she was on a noble mission unlike me, who was I to be her leader?

"Juliett, look. I think you should scrap whatever stupid code told you that. You said we'll work together, right?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Then we shall work as equals. I'm not your commander or anything. If you want to work with me, we're working as partners."

"...Well, I guess that works."

I closed my eyes and looked up smugly while crossing my arms. I think it would be a good time to test her AI status.

"As such, I believe it's your responsibility to find a way to salvage the two of us out of this mess, tin can."

"Whaaat? You're a trapping jerk! You're just passing off your workload on me!"

I tapped my shoes on the floor, refusing to budge. I mean, why would I budge? If she bragged about being a "majestic sector saving" tin can, she sure as hell should prove it to me. What, I'm entitled? Better shove that opinion of yours, punk.

"The plan, tin can. I'm waiting."

She sighed.

"Alright, jerkface, here's the plan. I think I still have a few drone ships…um, somewhere?"

"Look, Juliett, you're leaving me with too many blanks here. You have spare drone ships, and you managed to get separated from your ship?"

"I'd like to see you try fighting off a fleet. Plus, I couldn't just fire at them for no reason. It was a mistake." She breathed in heavily. "And I've learned my lesson. The so-called 'League' cannot be trusted. But that's beside the point."

"Alright, then where's your surviving drone ships?"

"Well, we would have to search for them."

"Oh come on, aren't you supposed to be in control of them?"

"Ah, well…" She seemed embarrassed of herself. "Again, oopsie! Please understand this lady. We make mistakes." I groaned at her excuses. "Look, they're not really 'under' me. Think of them as my autonomous companions! Or…something. They made their own decision to flee. Well…those that survived, at least."

"Oh, so they abandoned you." She gasped.

"Don't describe it that way!"

"Well, you gotta accept the bitter truth, little miss."

"Ugh, well…fine…yes, on that gas giant, they left me. But then they tried to chase them to retrieve me at least. Turns out, they couldn't handle the heat. Thankfully, a kind Captain ejected me from his ship after some mid-battle negotiations, and then they ran away—and so did my buddies…leaving me…stranded…it was only when I woke up and started broadcasting distress calls that you arrived."

That…oh boy. That sounded like such a silly way to go down. And she was abandoned two times. And all that, only for her to be saved by this criminal? I cried fakely.

"What a tragedy…what an absolute tragedy. Tin can…I mean, Juliett, I can only hope you stay sane after such betrayal. It happens to the best of us."

"You're such a…whatever! In any case, I think some of them survived when they fled and are in this system. We'll find one or two of them, and try to go back to retrieve my ship. If the pirates come, we won't be defenseless."

I nodded my head. Time to get serious.

"Yeah, yeah. I get you." Plus, if she really had a nice drone ship and her cruiser, I could probably go around this system for some salvage run. At last! A path to wealth! And better ships…and weapons and equipment! "Seems like a good plan, Juliett."

"Really?" That high-pitched cutesy nonsense again?

"Are you a child?"

"I'll never act cutesy around you anymore, jerkface."

"No one asked you to do so, tin can. And you're not cute. Even old hags do better. Or maybe you're even older than them."

She growled and seethed. Good. Jonathan One—Juliett Zero. Stay mad, tin can.

So…I guess this is my new lease on life huh? Help this AI save the Sector? No high hopes in that…but oh well, being an outlaw is too tiring anyway.

Our corvette finally diverted its course. Time for the hunt, I guess.