As she walked through the lab, the face that was out of focus began to speak to her once more.

I'm surprised you bounced back so quickly, but I was in the middle of trying to analyze the movements of our enemy

Another contaminant. Remove the device from her arm.

She wasn't going to let that happen, but she had to move first. Realizing the truth she spoke, "Tai, activate the Slumber Party protocol." She walked around the 'consoles' as her many previous lives tried to figure out what their next move would be. But this wasn't like her. She didn't wait for direction or orders. Not every version of her did anyway. She was daring. Decisive. Something was very wrong. Looking at the data on the screen she realized what had happened, "A buried hypnotic trigger. Personality implantation into the memories. Spread out enough so a brainscan won't find it, but connected by specific stimuli to initiate a state of hyper focus and suggestibility to buried orders."

She was nothing. She wasn't there, but that wouldn't be enough. Not as Tak felt her synapses start lighting up. That was the old ways. The original intent. But things have changed. Someone thought they were smarter than me. Made a weapon to seek me out and erase me. I got to it first, and now it will unite all of you within me.

Of course, it didn't matter what the figure was saying. It never did. What mattered was that this was her mind. Her body and her life. Tai stood up to the figure but she motioned him to stand down. She was a ghost. A foreign agent unwelcome in her mind and in her home. She would deal with this herself. Whatever this intruder was, what she was seeing showed that it needed her will broken to take perfect control and if there was one thing she was never inclined to give it was full cooperation. She felt her heart race, her temper boil, and one fact push its way to the surface. She was not simply a clone. Not just another face in the crowd. She would be so much more than that. Whoever thought that they could just walk onto her home and try to take her life away was going to regret it.

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

Katsi wasn't surprised that by the time she got back to the med bay through the service tunnels that the status indicators had shown the area had been locked down. She was however worried as she still hadn't seen Trinta since they parted company. Had her friend found out what was going on? Had she been kidnapped? Or worse, killed? Arriving at one of the access panels for the medbay, she watched her sister's vitals start to drop off the map as Sita and Ellefu seemed to be fretting over the readout on Tak's monitors. As they rushed towards her body, Katsi took a desperate action, pulling the cord for the detonating cables to send the panel flying. It hit Ellefu in the shoulder, a loud pop signaling that it had dislocated her shoulder. Charging the now injured figure, she pinned the traitor to the floor, twisting the damaged arm. "Got you! Leave Tak alone!" As she worked to keep the woman restrained, she felt cold steel at the back of her neck. A scalpel perfectly placed to sever her brainstem if she moved wrong.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ellefu began to laugh in a way that was very much not like her, the attire she had been wearing shifting like it was made of goo into less of a lab coat and more of a combat suit. She sneered, "You sincerely believe that you can overcome me with raw force like a barbarian? I am one of the greatest minds to ever explore the cosmos! I prepare for everything."

Tak's mouth opened and she said, "Tai, Activate the Slumber Party Protocol!" This caused everyone to look at her with surprise only to have the lights go completely off for a moment before turning on at maximum brightness. Katsi was glad she had been looking towards the floor, but it hadn't helped her avoid it entirely as another flash happened. The medbay had become a rave from the odd strobe effect that Tak had activated. She was surprised that it seemed more effective on her attackers than on her. Still, Katsi couldn't stop herself from muttering some swears. As Sita recoiled from the flash, Katsi turned to punch her on the cheek. Her form had improved under Sai's training but she hated this sensation as the shock of her first genuine strike in a long time shook her whole arm. She felt Ellefu lock a chokehold from behind as she did so, the sound of her combat suit pulling her shoulder back into joint nearly deafening Katsi. Still, something about this felt off. Wrong. Her form was like someone who had only ever read about a chokehold from a book. There was efficiency, but there was no spirit to back it up. Right when Katsi was wondering if she might be able to break the hold, Sita charged her quietly with the scalpel. Before it could make contact, someone had grabbed her wrist and twisted it backwards, jamming the scalpel into her throat. As she and Ellefu tried to figure out what happened, the figure flipped back into a handstand and kicked Ellefu directly in the teeth with enough force to knock her back into the nightstand near Tak. As she fell back, another clone came from a panel in the wall, grabbing Ellefu and pulling her away into the secret tunnels before the sisters could react.

When Tak opened her eyes, she tapped a few buttons on Tai's interface and the lights stopped strobing, but had gone a dark red. The three crewmembers looked between them as Sita laughed from the ground, "Unexpected, but it will do just fine." Sita coughed up blood before looking at the trio and sneered, "I am the greatest mind the cosmos has ever known. I have taken your weapon and soon, you too will become my weapons. You stan-"

Her speechifying was cut off as Anisa placed a boot on her neck, jamming the scalpel further into her neck, before twisting her heel and severing her spinal cord. Tak sighed in disappointment, "So... how are we going to stop The Original?" Katsi looked at her in disillusioned shock, as if wondering why Tak wasn't more disturbed to watch Anisa kill someone so effortlessly. She shrugged and motioned to the dark red lights. They clearly had bigger issues. Looking at Tai's interface she stated coldly, "One of them got to the bridge and set the Ziegfried to collide with the surface. How are we going to stop it, Captain?"

Anisa spoke firmly, "We are going to the hangers. I'm entirely positive this ship can survive an impact with a planet. Our goal is to stop our assailant and tyrant once we make landfall. Save what we can and make sure that what happens today ends here today." The other two looked concerned but Anisa couldn't be more sure of herself right now. That clone had just spoken about making them her weapons. That can't have been an idle threat from someone with an ego that big. That meant whatever she was doing went beyond wiping out the experiment. As she remembered the last time she had to fight this species she knew the reality of what was about to happen. They were going to wipe out an entire culture and she would do it alone if she had to.