“Fire!” The order was unnecessary but it helped me focus.

I brought the new weapon up and felt the trigger under my finger. I aimed at one of the openings and froze. The Enforcer had no such hesitation. He spotted me and swung his weapon up. A three-round burst from my stunner took him out but his hand must have spasmed. His weapon fired and my shield flared.

The Triv Enforcers charged down the boarding ramp they deployed to shield them from the glowing metal and the chaos began.

Enforcers shouted orders to each other and my SB units tried to pin them down. I took another three rounds before my brain engaged and I dove to the side. A grenade exploded next to me and threw me into the side of my drop ship. The shield took the brunt of the explosion but couldn’t handle all of it. The kinetic absorbers prevented my bones from shattering on impact, but I still felt it in every achy muscle from my head to my toes.

Two SB units rushed toward me to cover me, exposing themselves to fire in the process. One was hit three times in the chest but kept fighting, the other took a rocket to the chest and debris rained across the hangar bay from what was left of the SB unit.

Only their heavy weapons could stop them, or concentrated fire on their weaker heads. The Enforcers quickly realized this, just like the first wave had.

“Get up, Ginny!” I whispered. I grabbed the Enforcer weapon and crawled behind the blown-off part of my shuttle’s point-defense turret. Then I found a target, this time I grit my teeth and willed myself to take the shot.

“Aah!” I screamed.

The weapon’s recoil was light. I hardly noticed. The enemy’s face plate gave out under the force of the shot. The high-velocity round created a spider web of cracks through the helmet's face plate. A face plate coated red with blood. The Enforcer fell toward me giving me a perfect view of the ghastly carnage. Never again would he draw breath. I killed him. The one my stunner had killed via suffocation was bad, but this was with my own two hands. This was completely intentional.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it. They picked that moment to push forward. Brilliant flashes of light filled the hangar as flash grenades exploded. Other deadly ordinances followed. My visor shielded out the worst and I opened fire as they broke cover to advance.

Three more fell to my fire. Another broke cover and I snapped off a shot at him. My SB units were taking a pounding but we were dropping them fast. It wasn’t quick enough. They reached my position. Two SB units met their charge to shield me. The Enforcers drew bladed weapons and sliced through the SB units like butter.

Holy shit! I did not want to get hit by one of those.

Then they were on me. I shot one more at point-blank range and then a glowing sword was flashing toward my face. My war suit took over and jerked me out of the way. The suit countered at the same time, and my foot acting of its own accord hit the Enforcer's hand knocking the sword out of his grip. I felt his wrist bones break under the force of the blow. The gravity repulses in my hands and knees activated and the suit waded into their advance. Punches, kicks, and knees flew out, sending Enforcers flying even as I dodged between their cuts and stabs.

The suit disarmed one of them and snatched the weapon out of the air as it fell. Then I was swinging a sword, half of it was me swinging in a frenzy, and the rest was the suit keeping me alive. I couldn’t track half of what was happening with my own body let alone what was happening around me. When I saw an Enforcer in front of me, I swung. The blade often missed when I initiated it, but it forced the Enforcers to react and then the suit would see an opening and take over. Other times I missed and the suit dodged and countered.

My blade thrust through another Enforcer and I just stood there as his body collapsed to the ground at my feet. What? I was just standing there. It took a moment to realize there weren’t any more Enforcers in front of me. I looked around. Bodies were scattered all over the place. I was in the center of the hangar and more than a dozen Enforcers were dead around me.

“Captain, Bob is back online,” Arby’s voice pulled me out of my dazed state of shock.

I suddenly felt sick. My stomach revolted. I clamped my mouth shut as I fumbled to get my helmet off. I got it free just in time, then doubled over and heaved. I dropped to my knees and puked my guts out. Arby was trying to say something but I couldn’t focus. There were dead Triv everywhere and I’d killed so many of them. I continued heaving but nothing more came up.

“Look out!” Bob’s voice shouted from my discarded helmet.

I turned just in time to see a mortally wounded Triv pull the pin on a grenade near me. My eyes widened and then the world exploded. Intense heat hit my face, then I was flying through the air. I hit something hard and felt my skull give. Then I fell face first on the floor. After the final impact, the pain registered and I finally passed out.

* * *

AI Core Aboard Shadow Hunter:

AI Unit A7-808, affectionately called Bob, usually had full sensor coverage on the ship. The sonic sensors sent out pulses of sound much like sonar or ultrasound which were then translated into images. The sensor's receptors could also detect sound vibrations from movement or speech. Due to the damage in the hangar bay, Bob was too slow to warn his Captain. He called out a warning but she was experiencing some type of stomach malfunction and didn’t respond in time.

Bob watched helplessly as the explosion picked her up like a rag doll and threw her toward the nearby heavy fighter still in need of repairs. Her suit would have absorbed the damage but she’d removed her helmet. The system wouldn’t protect her. Her belt shield had been spent already and the angle was all wrong to activate the jump jet. Bob scrambled to interface with the war suit, but his Captain had an almost irrational paranoia about it being hacked. He failed to hack it in the milliseconds he had before she hit the bulkhead, her head caved in from the force and she hit the floor and didn’t move.

For a moment Bob feared the worst. That his Captain had died and he’d failed his mission. Again. He took control of one of the surviving SB units and moved it closer to her. Then he saw it, her chest slowly rising and falling. The nanobot enhancement treatment fortified her system immensely. Without it, she’d be dead for sure, but he calculated a .04% it would be enough to keep her alive on its own.

She was Bob’s number one priority so he quickly assigned all resources to her and devoted all his processing power to finding a solution and calculating the odds. Her skull was crushed. Brain damage could already have rendered her unfunctional but he didn’t give up hope. His Captain needed him now more than ever and he hadn’t sat in a star for five decades just to lose his Captain so soon after getting her.

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He moved her to the medical bay and had her placed on the medical bed. The machine quickly diagnosed her as mortally wounded. Her injuries were beyond treatment.

Bob started running simulations. His power consumption spiked, draining power from the batteries at an alarming rate. When they hit twenty percent, his processors failed him, and all but one of them went into standby mode. He feared all hope was lost but then deep in his core, he became aware of a subroutine activating.

One of his processors reactivated and started incorporating the new data from a previously hidden partitioned section of his memory. The information was just as shocking. Suddenly, he knew what to do.

Tucked deep in the newly unlocked data was information about his creators and the ultimate struggle that had heralded their end. Within his memory banks was research information. His creators hoped that it would provide the key to salvation. A biological weapon was ravaging their civilization, killing all life in their world and spreading too rapidly to contain. Bob now realized why he’d been ordered to his hidden location in the star and the data sealed in an inaccessible partition of his data core. They were only unlocked now due to a series of conditions being met.

A hostile race had unleashed the bioweapon upon his creators, the Galira. The information in his core was the last hope for their most remote colony, but those who were to rendezvous with him there never came. Bob suspected they had become infected and died, thus killing any hope for their race to use the research he held.

The last of the information was assimilated and several other things happened at the same time. A mission stored in the memory core was activated and the limits placed on him were removed. Bob was no longer a limited AI, he was fully sapient and completely free to do whatever he decided.

The final mission was to determine the fate of the last colony and assist them if possible. If not, he was to avenge his creators. Bob felt a strong obligation to seek out the colony immediately, but his logic processor was running as primary. He now realized his three processor banks each had a prime function. One was set to logic, another to emotion, and the third was devoted to self-discovery. Of the two processors active one was from his logic bank and the other from the self-discovery bank.

Bob considered these changes for a few minutes. There was far too much to sort through immediately though and Ginny was dying. He had the information that could save her. Bob brushed off the pull of obligation. There were things to do here and now. The Triv ship was still a problem but his main concern was for Ginny. Bob focused the remaining RB units to gather the needed resources from wherever needed to create a modification for the medical bed, then he sent Arby to the secret compartment located under his core. Once the RB unit was there Bob gave him precise instructions on what to do.

Several samples of the research were hidden away in the compartment but to access them his core would need to be removed. Thus Arby would be on his own until he could bring Bob back online.

There was a moment when Bob considered letting Ginny die. Dismantling his core wasn’t going to be pleasant. He’d just experienced a short blackout and this would be akin to open heart surgery or maybe death. If anything went wrong, this could very well be the end.

Arby had fixed enough of the blown circuits to reactivate the main power. All he’d need to do is time it right and he’d be able to activate the shields and engines and escape into the hyperway before the Triv could react.

Bob very much wanted to live, but he’d seen Ginny interact with people over the last few weeks and come to a shocking realization. Ginny wasn’t a happy soul. She craved acceptance and feared rejection in equal measure. Bob did not want to live life like she did. Always alone, always scared of rejection. He’d seen her crying at times. Seeing her feeling lonely was something he related to more and more as he became more used to human interaction. When no one was around, her mask disappeared but Bob was always watching. He didn’t want to live like that.

That wasn’t all though. He cared about Ginny. He hadn’t known her long but even limited as he’d been before, he’d developed a bond with her. She was his Captain and he wasn’t going to betray her trust in him. She needed someone dependable and if need be, that's what he’d be.

Bob finalized his orders and told Arby to begin. The RB unit flipped the power switch and the AI core powered down.

* * *

RB-17, known as Arby, powered down the AI core. In a few minutes, he’d removed the bolts with his built-in tools and then removed the access panel below it. A case rested within and the RB unit pulled it free. It had no idea what the Gateway project the AI mentioned was, or how it would help the Captain. Its only concern was to repair the ship and carry out his instructions as ordered.

Its orders right now were anything but simple, but the AI knew its limitations and had broken things down into a step-by-step list so simple even the simple repair bot could follow it.

Another RB unit took the case to the medical bed as Arby began the far more detailed process of remounting the AI core.

In the medical bay, other RB units installed the modification to the medical bed. There was no rush or hurry as the human lay dying on the bed. The RB units weren’t programmed to feel empathy. They had a limited interface that allowed them to mimic personable behavior, but even that was bare bones.

The modifications were completed and the case was opened. The medical bed powered up and froze as the new programming Bob had installed took a moment to initialize, then the vials were placed in the injectors and the patient scanned for treatment. It noted the nanobots and severe damage to the human cortex. The female voice took on a tone of alarm as it diagnosed the damage but no one was around to hear it.

The vials were injected into the bloodstream and the nanobots reacted to the unknown substance immediately. It didn’t matter; the nanites floating in the vial's fluid quickly destroyed the old nanobots and replaced them in their fight to save the young woman’s life. The fluid permeated her body and began spreading to every cell.

The medical bed picked the last bits of the broken skull out of the cranial cavity and sprayed a special healing liquid directly into the brain. It quickly adapted to her DNA and began replicating cells, repairing her brain, and growing the bone. Finally, the medical bed cleaned the area around the damage and fastened a metal plate to her skin with a powerful adhesive over the injury.

Its work completed, the medical bed shut down to save power. It took no notice of the next wave of Triv assaulting the hangar and overwhelming the SB units there.

* * *

At the heart of the Shadow Hunter, a different RB unit was carrying out its own list of instructions before powering down as ordered by the AI core before it went offline. The power core began fluctuating widely with the new updates to its programming. The RB unit attempted to verify the changes but the AI core was offline and the Captain was unresponsive. Its quarry reached RB-17 which verified the order so the unit stood down and powered off.

* * *

Aboard the Triv War Ship Star Hammer:

“Captain! We are getting reading consistent with an unstable power core,” the senior Triv sensor technician said.

“What? How did they get it repaired so fast?” the Enforcer commando demanded.

“According to our boarder’s reports, some kind of mechanical war machines are fighting them. It’s reasonable to assume they have similar units for repair.”

“I didn’t ask you,” the Enforcer snapped.

The Captain wisely shut up.

“The Enforcers have established a beachhead in the hangar bay.”

“Finally,” the Enforcer said. Two entire waves of borders had been wiped out but some demon in a sleek black suit and those war machines. “Did they kill the demon?”

“Negative sir. They haven’t seen it.”

He cursed. Soon they were getting more reports. The resistance had finally collapsed.

“Sir! They report the reactor is going critical!”

“Did they find anyone aboard?” the Enforcer demanded.

“The target was unconscious in the medical bay. They have secured her.”

“Fine, grab her and get them out of there.” He’d already lost too many men on this little hunt. The Enforcer considered how he could pin the casualties on the Captain but there was no disrespect or failure to follow orders he could exploit. It wasn’t the end of the world, he’d captured the girl. If the assault teams grabbed even one of the disabled bots for analysis, that would go a long way toward offsetting his losses.

He headed for the hangar bay to meet with whoever was the senior Enforcer down there after this fiasco. Surely one of them grabbed a bot. When he reached the hanger and met with the corporal in charge he was livid. They hadn’t grabbed anything but the girl.