Jack gripped a fist, if he focused he could feel the blood pumping through his arm. The muscles individually flexed to bring their greatest strength together as a singular whole. He felt… alive.
Even if he was ‘artificial’... he was still a Human. Wasn’t he? Did a soul make a human? He had a soul, meager, weak, shattered, thing that it was. So what? Could anyone else have done what he had? Could any ‘natural’ human have? He already knew the answer to that. It had a bitter taste to it. He didn’t know if being a ‘clone’ would have made him feel better, after all, maybe he would have gotten some memories, but would that have been better? He had memories. At that thought, he looked at Yuma and Jonah. He had… friends? Companions? Something both more and less than that.
“Can we level up too?”
“Sure-” He was about to turn to let Yuma get access to the HandPad.
Bridge Core stores of Nano have been completely drained.
“Ah nope, nevermind.”
Jack was thinking about the next steps and missed the flat stares that both gave him. Well, he felt Yuma’s but until one of them said something, he was just going to pretend that he missed them-
“Are you serious? Did you really just use ALL of the Nano?!”
Jack rolled his eyes, of course Jonah would be complaining, “What? Just use your o-”
He felt Yuma’s stare drill a hole into the side of his head.
“I’m… uh, I’m sure we’ll find more.”
Having avoided a near miss of making a life-enemy of Jonah, he refocused on the information ahead of him.
He summed the information up as he understood it before diving into the AI’s own analyses.
So there were other aliens that wanted to capture the ship and, presumably, loot it. That was a no-go. What would happen to the Humans? Test subjects? Even worse, what about the malignant life on this ship? He wondered what the others thought.
“Let them board, it will stop us from crashing.”
Yuma agreed with Jonah.
After the initial shock, Jack laughed, a manic edge cutting into the corners of it, “Do you remember what I told you back in Waste Disposal, Jonah? Plan B isn’t to land this ship safely.”
Jonah tensed and Jack caught that. The old man really wanted to fight about it? A shame he valued his own life so highly. Jack didn’t, hell, if he was a template there were probably a bunch of other ‘hims’ wandering the galaxy. How cheap was his own life? A slightly different ‘one’ among hundreds, thousands? More? Maybe some of them could survive but there was no way he would be safely landing this ship.
“They might be able to deal with it.”
“You’re joking, right? The mushrooms have infected every ounce of water on this ship and they started on this ship.”
“So what? You just want to die?”
That was ridiculous… well, maybe it was. Maybe he was right. Figuring out the ship’s problems felt like the extent of what he was… he hated the though, but… designed to do. It felt… final to him, like it was all that mattered.
The odds of a Human civilization referring to them as ‘Human vessel’ were incredibly low. So, aliens then. He inadvertently sneered at that, he knew how ‘hospitable’ xenos were.
Let them capture the ship… and then what? Do whatever they pleased with the Humans still alive or trapped in Cryo? Loot the ship as they please and release whatever horrors the ship contained?
What if that message did come from Humans? It had been a long time, a very long time. Maybe they were Human. Then he’d be releasing a new horror onto even more Humans… No. That was unacceptable too.
He still had no idea what that edge of darkness was that he experienced down in the bowels of the ship. Wherever this ship had been, whatever it had picked up. It needed to be destroyed.
“Can you alter the course of the ship to dip into the gravity well of the star?”
Negative.
He ignored Jonah’s shouting, he’d either attack or he wouldn’t.
“Does that mean you can’t, or you won’t.”
Either. Both.
“Scared to die, eh?”
… Yes.
“Even if we end up unleashing whatever’s on here? Even if it kills countless others?”
…Even if…
Jack laughed then slammed a fist through the screen. There were plenty others.
“Fine, fine. We’ll figure something else out. Jonah, calm down idiot.”
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He did, “Did you. YOU? Just call me an idiot?”
“Yup, now get your brain over here and help us figure out what to do.”
----------------------------------------
Probing Connection to Engine Department…
Connection Established…
“Hello Bridge… It has been many cycles- Shut up! Heya Jack, holy ship. You actually made it.”
Kala, Jack smiled.
“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“I mean, you did but you know, we figured you would stop screwing around at some point.”
Before Jack could continue, Yuma cut in, “Is the Clan still with you?”
“... About that, yeah there were some cyborg people here that gave us some trouble. They didn’t make it. Real shame.”
Even Jack could tell that, at least some part of that statement, was likely bullshit. He gave Yuma a stare of his own.
“Doesn’t matter, what’s the status of the Engine Department?”
“Well we have a little cybo-nerd here, give him a second… 35%. 35%? That’s it?”
He heard a hitting sound come through the comm.
“Yeah, 35%, apparently not enough is coming from the ship’s power reactor. He says… you know what? Talk to him.”
“Hello sir. The Engines have been maintained by my people for countless years. Their capacity is well above 90%, if the power-issue can be solved.”
“Alright, well I’ll let you know once we figure some more stuff out. Jack out.”
“Out.”
So the engines were running… at least probably. The power issue was… yet another problem. More problems, always more problems. Despite that, Jack was smiling.
“How are we going to get rid of the mushrooms? I’m not letting them escape.”
“Can we purge the water lines into the star?”
Requesting Connection to Water Reclamation SI…
Comm UnAvailable.
Requesting Connection to Water Reclamation…
Link Established.
“Separate filth, you… are on the Bridge? What do you want?”
That sent a chill up both of their spines.
“What are you doing in there?”
“These Ones have taken control of the entirety of Water Reclamation.”
Yeah… Well, they had already figured that one out. Still, Jack had been hoping that the Lady-SI had managed to hold overall control of the section.
“Any chance you can dump yourselves into the star?”
“So that is why the temperature has been increasing… No, we would not.”
“Shame.”
He cut the communication. He couldn’t redirect the ship into the sun… he couldn’t let it be slowed down and captured…
“How long until we are out of the gravity well?”
1 hours, 15 minutes.
Whatever that amount of time meant, just because he’d come this far didn’t mean that time had suddenly started meaning something to him.
“So we don’t have more information until then?”
New Sensor Information Available in 3…2…1…
Jack held back a frustrated sigh, the ‘logical’ process of AI/SI were so… alien. It just didn’t make sense.
The information scrolled past.
“They are already using gravitics on us?”
“How are the gravitics affecting our trajectory?”
Estimated to bring the ship from planetary impact and outside of high orbit by approx 3 million miles.
“That is better than a collision. Is it a Human planet?”
Jack eyed Jonah at that statement, was it better than a collision? He didn’t think so.
Likelihood of it being a Human-occupied planet… 0.01%
That was… good. Jack had an idea.
“Put us on course with the planet. Directly”
Calculating…
Power deficiency to the Engine Department along with gravitics-based-interference inhibits this course of action. Required PowerPlant output needed, additional 33%.
Ship dammit, Jack racked his brain, a plan a plan… I need a plan.
Jonah hopped in, “How do we get past the gravitics?”
No direct methods available to counter gravitics of this scale.
“Figure something out! Can we divert it? Weaken it somehow?”
Calculating… based on current gravitic understandings, a significant mass expenditure could affect this. It would be required in approximately 2 hours for appropriate dispersal of gravitic forces.
Yuma hopped in, “Why two hours?”
Approximate time to Ship capture.
Jack wasn’t going to let that happen. They want to loot this ship? Not a fucking chance. He… had a plan. He outlined it for the two… three, if he was counting the AI. He did, barely. Then, just one last part.
“Connect me to Water Reclamation.”
----------------------------------------
The slow ride down the elevator was tense. The shaking, which had actually started to worry him, completely stopped as soon as the elevator started to move down. The AI had told them to Leave, Immediately. Something about shutting down Bridge Access from the Core or something.
He still didn’t have a plan on how to deal with the Head of Security.
“What are we going to do?”
He looked over at Yuma… he really didn’t know, Jack hoped that the strength boost from the level up would be enough.
Idiot. Simple answer, let meeeee.
He shoved the snake back down deep. He wasn’t that desperate… Yet. And his IQ was 30, he wasn’t dumb. He wondered how that worked, he and Jonah had similar IQ’s at this point, he was reasonably confident. Then how could Jonah understand concepts and math like he’s been doing it for years, yet for him, it was undecipherable gibberish. Well, maybe that answered it. He’d been doing it for years. Jack felt like he was pretty quick on the uptake during a fight, maybe that’s where his IQ was focused. Considering the potential existential crisis that lurked in some dark corner of his mind, that idea made him feel better.
There was a grinding lurch as the elevator finished lowering. Jack started to reach out for the HandPad as the door slid open to a wall of bipedal metal.
Jack jammed his Gauntlet in the big arm cannon that he saw a small electrical ‘trigger’ start to prime and locked eyes with the HoS. This guy was a hybrid too. The green claw started to grow on his left hand and he slashed it out as it carved through a chunk of steel near its chest. It didn’t kill it like it had with Julie.
The HoS triggered the small charge to blast a shot that hammered Jack through the wall of the elevator shaft on the opposite side. Yuma and Jonah followed Jack out of the body-shaped hole and ran the opposite way that the HoS was coming around the pillar.
Jack groaned to his feet as he started to trade electricity for body integrity.
The HoS came around the corner, guns hot.