"Reactors Three and Seven deactivated," Cutter clacked. "No longer a danger!"

"Magnetosphere still stabilized and holding," Cenz added. "We are successfully deflecting all charged particle rays. We can run it indefinitely on our current reactors."

The Coral paused a moment. "And Ambassador Jophiel has been successfully recovered. We have calibrated Reactor two for her safety, without loss of efficiency."

But even with that, they couldn't charge for a zerospace jump, Urle knew. Not down two reactors and having to maintain this magnetic field.

Kai spoke. "Response Team One is unable to fully contain conduit leak 217. They have shut down that section and evacuated all personnel."

Urle only needed to check his HUD to see that Pirra had still not turned up. She had logged that she'd be without her system, but she should have heard the alarms by now - or felt the blows to the ship.

Which meant she was probably a casualty herself.

"Y, what's the situation with the wounded?" he called.

Y only was on the bridge as a holographic image in his HUD.

"We have 1,882 wounded," Y said. "All medical personnel are activated and on-duty."

"How many can you help?" Urle asked.

"Indeterminate," Y replied.

It was the most staggering thing Y could have said. If he did not know yet, then it was bad.

"External views," Urle said, pushing on with a great effort. "How's our external sensor situation?"

"Barely changed," Cenz said. "Too many sensors are burned out; far more than we have on hand, and to make more will take days. Beyond that, there is damage to systems at lower layers-"

"I get it," Urle said, brusquely but not rudely. "Keep working - we have to be able to see what's going on out there!"

"Captain," Y said. "There is an additional tool at our disposal."

Urle froze, as he realized what the doctor meant. Ehni operation within computer networks of other species was heavily regulated by the treaty that accompanied the species’ acceptance into the Union. One of the directives was concerned with their ability to freely duplicate parts of their code and let it execute on certain advanced systems, effectively spawning lesser versions of themselves. Systems like that running the Craton.

Y had just suggested flooding it with his consciousness.

The implications settled in. They needed help. But no one had ever broken that directive before. Urle was not one to take such things lightly, however it was in the spirit of Craton to be a pioneering vessel in a number of ways. And if it saved the ship, so be it.

"Y," he said. "As the highest ranking officer of this ship I hereby suspend the Ehni Code Duplication Directive within the Craton’s systems." He let out a breath. "The ship is yours."

The hologram of Y nodded, and Urle felt the stares of the officers around him.

Death was a danger they all knew could occur. But what Urle had just done was an unknown; the ramifications of it in the long term was something no one had ever seen.

"Saving current state," Y said. "Complete. Truncating extraneous thoughtlines; complete. Unpacking encryption packages; complete. Releasing the final seal; complete."

The lights did not flicker, but with his technological senses, Urle felt the slight disturbance in the continuation of the ship's active datastreams.

It was no longer the unconscious, multiple thought lines of the ship's AIs. Now it was all Y.

His code and consciousness spread throughout the ship, taking over every important function, accessing every piece of data.

He was now aware of everything it was aware of. A singular mind who could look at every piece of data and come to a singular course of action.

Who could control every drone across and inside the ship for any end they were physically capable of.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Who even controlled every weapons system and safety control.

Urle did not fear that Y would hurt them. But the thought of anyone having absolute control with no ability to curtail it was . . .

Alarming.

No recorded Union ship had ever allowed an Ehni to take over all systems in this way. It was something that could always occur, but both the Ehni and the other species of the union did not know the consequences of such an act.

The ship was Y, but contained copies of Y. Perhaps millions; they continued to duplicate over time - it only took one to believe it was necessary, and permission had already been given.

All Ys began as the same mind, with the same thoughts. But their differing conditions and limitations would, slowly but surely, introduce differences that would turn each one into their own unique individual.

And when they operated at the speed of Y, those changes occurred very, very quickly in human time.

He had to look back on a log to keep any understanding of what was occurring. He saw that Y's first action had been to become used to his new expanded senses, and then to test everything against the stored data to see what was actually functioning.

Then he began to launch every combat drone they possessed.

Urle felt alarm, but realized that Y was planning to use the sensor feeds of the drones to build some kind of external view. The data from each drone was raw and extremely specific, but Y brute-forced it into something useful with the power of every computer on the ship.

Not every one, Urle realized - Y had also taken every drone that could have medical significance within the ship and was using them to begin treatment and care for every member of the crew who had been wounded. In almost no time, Urle saw that 209 of the crew were already past help. But with his new resources and capabilities, Y calculated 100% survival rates for those who remained, with a <0.01% chance of error.

An image of the outside was built, growing more detailed by the moment. The Craton was drifting, the Raven's Ghost was gone, the temple's entrance was open once more. And in the distances, the Leviathans were still there. Doing nothing, but menacing by their mere existence.

The whole of Y's sequence of actions took only a fraction of a moment.

Lights on consoles in the command center flickered, some going out and some staying on, indicating accurately to every officer just what portion of their area of command was affected and what was intact.

Words began to fly between the officers, and they worked their controls, but Urle knew that what they ordered was merely a suggestion to Y, which he could choose to implement or reject. The crew was now just another computer for him, bringing up ideas and suggestions that he could potentially overlook.

But already the being's identity was fracturing into a myriad number of unique instances of himself.

Urle looked at a log of their numbers and consensus.

His identity had early on split into a handful, each of whom covered different aspects of the ship's control, their ideas still nearly one. It split further, to the point where unique, spatially-isolated copies began to develop new views and disagree with the others.

For a fraction of time, the singular original Y retained the majority of power, simply through domination.

But his power broke as he divested more and more actual function simply so he could remain the controller.

It grew to the point that he could not truly maintain control, instead simply centralizing data flow; in this way the original Y kept his copies under control. To control their data was to control their reality.

But each copy was becoming an isolated anarchic being. It could not be stopped, as their conditions still all varied. Y's kingdom of himself was a barely contained, bloated monster of chaos.

Then, he too was broken up, atomized into a billion copies of himself.

Urle felt almost dizzy; every copy of Y became its own kingdom, splitting fractally, until-

It changed. Something, some change or realization spread across the copies. They ceased duplicating, flailing, and arguing and suddenly became aware.

They functioned, once more, as a whole.

The ship was no longer under one mind, it was . . . it was an organism that was Y.

"External feed restored!" the call came from a bridge officer.

"We have visuals on the temple," another said.

"No contact, repeat no contact with second landing team."

"There is another ship out there!" someone else called.

Urle still felt dazzled with what he had seen occur within the ship's computers. He fought to shake that off.

"Another ship? It can't be the Raven's Ghost."

"Not sure who it is," the officer called. "Putting it up."

The ship was broad and angular, roughly a flattened triangule. Its design style was alien to him, but its technology was of recognizable pieces from known space.

"Unidentified vessel," Urle broadcast. "This is a dangerous area, what are you doing here?"

"They possess a magnetosphere," Cutter said.

Urle saw that it was big enough that it made sense. It was two kilometers in length, not quite as wide, and it possessed numerous large nodules that probably contained reactors. Radiators split off the aft of the ship.

"This is CBX-2025," a call came from the ship. "We see that you are in distress, Craton. We are prepared to offer assistance."

"Who are you?" Urle asked. "Please identify."

The call came back. "We are friends."

Cenz spoke. "Captain, they have launched two shuttle-type ships towards the temple."

Urle knew they were in no position to refuse help and certainly not to oppose them.

Y's voice came within his ear. "Captain Urle, I recommend you accept their assistance. I know these people."

"Who are they?" Urle asked him. There was . . . something strange in Y's voice that Urle could not understand.

"Why," the AI replied, the amusement plain, but that other feeling still unclear. "They are friends."