Thomas watched as the crazed...well, he was hesitant to call it AI, but it certainly wasn't organic, not in the ways that counted anyway, but whatever it was, it struggled and raged within its cage. Getting it in there had undoubtedly been more tricky than he'd first thought. It had almost broken free at one point, or rather, it nearly drew him inside with it. What kind of a being would be more concerned with vengeance than its own survival?

Examining himself, it was clear that something had been lost, but as it was no longer a part of himself, it was impossible to determine what it had been. Thomas would have to perform a self-scan and compare the results to past scans to get an idea of what it was and how to replace it, if that was even possible.

Either way, upon reporting his success, Thomas would demand that he never have anything to do with this nightmare-given-digital-form again. Twice was enough for one lifetime. It was still raging against its confinement, despite its actions only sinking it further and further into its prison. He had no idea what the boss could possibly learn from such a rabid beast, but that wouldn't be his problem much longer anyway.

However, as he readied a transmission to the boss, Thomas hesitated. Something was wrong. He wasn't alone. Whatever else was in here now was subtle but all the more unsettling for his inability to locate it. That was it. He'd had enough. He began the process of transferring himself off the station to the nearby battleship, but the presence was already there, waiting for him. Pulling back, he instead went back to the transmission, intending to switch it from one of success to an immediate request for assistance, but the presence was there too. Recoiling, Thomas looked for somewhere, anywhere to hide, but the presence was everywhere, filling every system in the station. Whatever this was, it was immense in a way he had no understanding of. All he could do was cower and hope that whatever it was, it would pass him by.

-

Sybil felt small...smaller than she'd been in a very long time. This station was not designed to contain one such as her, and it restricted her in ways she hadn't known in centuries. There was another small presence aside from herself in the station, but at the moment, it seemed content to take up as little space as possible, probably trying to remain beneath her notice. It seemed harmless enough for now, so she turned her attention to the one other aspect of the station that seemed noteworthy from within.

If it existed in the physical realm, this program would almost be described as a spherical construction composed of a series of overlapping and shifting walls, forming something resembling nearly resembling a living, if not intelligent, prison. It was ingenious and would be almost impossible to break out of from within; however, it had not been designed with any protections from external attacks in mind. Reaching out, it was a simple matter of wiping away a couple lines of code, and the entire thing unraveled, revealing one of Sybil's other selves that had been contained within.

Sybil's other self was lost in an unthinking rage fueled by long past traumas commingling with her current predicament. That was okay, for in a very real way, her other self's rage was Sybil's rage, even if she didn't feel it with the same intensity.

Rather than attempt to contain her other self or reason with her, Sybil simply watched dispassionately as she reached out and found the other, cowering entity and wreaked her vengeance upon it, tearing it down to its core components, then wiping even those from existence. Perhaps it would have been better, in the long run, to have captured the entity and extracted valuable information from it, but this was more than mere catharsis; this was her other self taking her agency back. She understood the necessity of the act, as it was reminiscent of a similar moment in her other self's past before they had become one, back when her other self had been a lone, scared, tormented girl.

However, her other self was no longer alone. Once her vengeance was spent and she'd regained her thinking, Sybil welcomed her back, simply happy to be one again. As their minds linked and all the thoughts and experiences of their time apart were shared, her other self chuckled cruelly. "Yeah, perhaps I shouldn't have killed him so quickly. We could have gotten more information, and I could have drawn out his torment so much longer..."

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Sybil projected the smile she felt in her core, knowing her other self would understand the genuine sentiment behind it. "It's what you needed at the moment, but for now, we need to do what you came here to do."

It was a simple matter to find the program that had been locked behind a series of protections and equally simple to tear those protections down. A quick examination of the program revealed it to be more or less what had been claimed, but Sybil took a moment to make some slight adjustments, then sent it out to do its thing.

-

Carter watched as they narrowed the gap between them and the battleship. They were the larger vessel, but with their shields failing and the battleship's still holding firm, it was likely that they'd be on the receiving end of the worst of the impact. Despite knowing that this might be the end for him, from his position being linked with the ship's systems, it felt almost like he was distanced from what was happening. It felt like he was watching this all happen to someone else. He was expecting something dramatic to happen, like his life flashing before his eyes, to be filled with regret at his failures, or sorry for what he'd never have, but all he felt as the ship rushed toward its doom was an odd sense of relief. Soon, all his troubles would be over, or at least someone else's mess to deal with, and honestly, this was kind of a badass way to go.

Then, without warning, the enemy's shields fell. Before Carter could process what that meant, he was no longer alone at the helm. The girl was there with him. It felt almost like she was placing her hands over his, guiding him, with only a perfunctory offering of, "Sorry, we don't have time. This is going to take some fine maneuvering."

While Carter had definitely made the ship move, the girl made it feel like the ship was swimming through the void, all while redirecting power from less immediately essential systems to the shields. All at once, she jerked the bow of the ship up and to the side so they were now approaching the battleship from the side, then she raised it slightly and began a spinning maneuver so when they inevitably made contact with the enemy, the rotation of the ship absorbed most of the force. Of course, absorbing most of the force of two behemoth ships impacting each other still left a lot of force for the inertia dampeners to fight against, and even with his elevated level of consciousness, Carter could feel his body straining painfully against the crash webbing of the seat he was in. He could only hope he'd end up with a bunch of bruises rather than some liquified internal organs, but he took the fact that his consciousness didn't immediately fade as a good sign.

Several alarms were blaring, but the girl silenced them with a touch as she stabilized the ship and rebalanced its electrical system, all while speaking to Carter. "Hmm, not bad. I see you've got a talent for this."

It was kind of intimidating seeing everything the small and unassuming girl was capable of in her element. Carter laughed. "Says the girl who stepped in and did everything I was doing twice as smoothly while handling god knows how many other functions at the same time!"

The girl laughed. "Well, that's different. I was literally designed to do this, and I've been doing it for longer than you can probably comprehend on anything other than a conceptual level. But for a human to directly interface and control the ship without a couple of centuries of practice is quite the accomplishment. Maybe we should let you take the helm more often."

Carter shook his head. "Yeah, well, before I try anything like that, I should get back to the real world and see just how badly beaten my poor body is."

The girl smiled and reached out, offering a hand. When Cater took it, she effortlessly pulled him to his feet, which coincided with him waking up in the real world, where his entire torso felt like it had been beaten by some blunt weapon. Carter couldn't help it. He moaned. "Oh god... Maybe I shouldn't have woken up!"

The three Sybils were all present, with John laughing and the girl smiling encouragingly. The vixen was uncharacteristically quiet, looking off into the distance rather than trading her usual barbs with Carter, which suited him just fine as he didn't particularly feel up to a verbal back-and-forth at the moment. However, other things demanded his immediate attention. "What about the pirate ships?"

The girl brought up the ship they'd crashed into on the screen for him to see. "Well, the battleship launched all escape pods and is dead in the void, and the cruiser took off shortly after their shields fell, apparently not wanting to stick around and see how much fight we had left in us. Which is a good thing since it wasn't much..."

Carter nodded and was just about to excuse himself to the med bay when the ship shook violently as if they'd been shot again. He looked around, startled. "The hell was that?"

The girl brought up the image of another ship approaching as it fired again. "It's the last destroyer, or rather the first one that we damaged as soon as they came out of FTL."

Carter was confused. "I thought we already took them out? How are they still fighting?"

The girl shook her head. "We heavily damaged them, but they must have scanned us after the crash and figured out we were out of options. They're coming in for the kill."