Arc bright light flared, dazzling Elijah’s right eye as the viewport polarized. He rocked back as the concussion hit Seraphim, winced at the choir of ‘TUNK!’s that sounded against her already groaning hull. That wasn’t a disabling charge, that was a proximity fused nuke! What the hell was going on?

“Detonation!” Seraphim announced needlessly. “Eight kilometers above and to port!”

“Inertials to seventy percent,” he croaked, bringing the engines back on line. “How much speed did we lose?”

“Inertials to seventy percent,” the voice sounded worried. “Your pirouette didn’t cost us much velocity. We’re running zero point zero-five-zero–zero-one-three-nine true. Temp buildup in the inertials is at high critical, though. I’d recommend reducing to sixty-five percent or lower and venting if we had the mass for it. Failing that, holding it below sixty-five percent for at least one solar hour might bring it back down to safe operating range. I stress, might.”

He eased the throttles back. “Noted,” he rasped. “Adjust to sixty-five percent, but I can’t promise that we— I can’t promise an hour of it. Let me know when we— let me know when—”

He paused, struggling to decide how to address his own damned ship! It was sounding far too human to suit him, and that was dangerous to a guy who spent as much time alone as he did. Bad enough he’d started talking to himself. Or was this still him doing that? Hard to say these days.

“Sound off at two G felt and see if you can find a way to cool them quicker without leaving a plume ten light seconds long. Damage?”

“Extensive damage to my Port wing,” Seraphim answered, tone measured. “Minor cratering of my fuselage. Phase shielding seems mostly intact. Your fancy maneuver cost us fifteen percent of our coolant, but we should have enough left if we can resupply at Bouvier, even if we end up venting more to cool the inertials. I recommend you worry more about overheating and not much about leaving plumes. It’s not like he doesn’t know where we are.

“Also, one of my port mass drivers is twisted wreckage and one of the missiles is holed and bleeding fuel.”

Sonofa— “How far back is he?”

“Our friend? Sixty thousand and closing,” Seraphim told him. “He’s got almost point oh-five c on us and is still accelerating. He seems immune to g-forces. He’ll be on us in less than a minute.”

Less than a minute. And there was no way he was going to even pretend to outrun the bastard with his inertials locked below sixty-five percent.

He was fighting the controls now, bringing Seraphim back to her original course. The blast that had taken out the mass driver and wing had also done for at least two of the attitude thrusters as well, and she was handling like a barge.

“Set the missile’s fuse for a fifteen second delay and jettison it,” he ordered.

“I can’t—”

“You can jettison it,” he assured. “You just can’t fire it!”

“That’s hardly fair!”

“Damnit, Seraphim, just do it!”

It would be the wildest chance that they’d accomplish anything meaningful with the stricken and expensive missile, but it was better than just throwing it away, and he sure didn’t want it hanging from the wing spraying fuel.

“Missile away.

“Detecting targeting strobes,” she added less than a second later.

“Bring me up a local chart,” he ordered, fighting the controls with both hands. “And disengage control feedback. I already know you’re damaged and handling like a— handling poorly.”

A three dimensional well of light bloomed into being within the display field, the triangle that represented Seraphim sliding down into it and shrinking.

“How long to intercept?”

“He’ll be— target lock! Four more launch indicators! Twenty seconds to—”

Seraphim’s damaged missile exploded, pulling the freshly fired hostile missiles off course and into its nuclear bloom.

“Disregard,” Seraphim’s voice seemed chagrined. He’s slowing. Correction... he’s falling back. Recalculating. Wait... he’s holding station at five thousand kilometers.”

“Just about twice effective mass driver range,” Elijah grumbled. “Or so he must think, given Seraphim’s civilian registry. What the hell is he up to

“Seraphim, active scan across the forward one-eighty. Put full power to it.” He wanted to be sure he wasn’t being herded into an ambush.”

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“Acknowledged,” and now the voice sounded worried. “And it’s Seraphina.”

“What?

“My name. It’s Seraphina. Seraphim is only my body.”

“What?” he repeated. Then, “Wiley, you miserable old...”

“You shouldn’t talk about my daddy that way,” Seraphina chided. “He’s the best friend you’ll ever have! He thinks of you as a son!”

He caught himself almost physically before repeating his prior two responses, shaking his head and massaging the sudden ache above and between his eyes, he settled back into his cradle. “Seraphim—”

Seraphina!”

“Seraphim—” he growled.

“Seraphina! Stop being so mean— we might die out here and you shouldn’t end your existence being mean to someone!”

He realized he was grinding his teeth. He stopped with some effort, his jaw aching. “Sera... the scans?”

“Hmmph! Nothing yet. It takes time to get returns so far out here in the black, Elijah, even with lasers. So far all I’ve detected is a small asteroid field five or six light seconds to galactic north at thirty-eight degrees by fifteen degrees east. There might be something in its shadow, but there’s no way for me to ascertain that for certain.”

His eyebrows perked. “Asteroids? Quantity? Size? Composition? Path and speed?”

“Twenty-eight that I can see, although there are probably more. My returns are kind of garbled because of surface anomalies and distance. Sizes range from too small to get a solid fix on to one that’s nearly a small moon. I can try to get you more exact figures if they’d mean anything to you.”

He shook his head, but realized that it couldn’t see the movement... or could it? He held up two fingers and wiggled them.

“Are you alright, Elijah? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“So you can see me?”

“Of course I can see you!” Seraphina snorted. “I have better vision than you by a ridiculous margin — and that’s just in the visible light spectrum. Would you like a list of the other ways that I can perceive you? I mean, leaving aside us currently being in VR, where I live. Considering our current predicament, it seems kind of frivolous to be discussing this now, though.”

Right. Alone, days from the nearest aid, in a damaged ship beset by an unknown and very dangerous enemy, and his computer was being a smartass. His head was really aching now. With every word, this thing was sounding more and more like there was an actual person inside. How long had it taken Wiley to program this sort of behavior anyway? Far too long for a rational joke. He reached forward and brought up a menu tab, sliding his finger down. There. He keyed in his master code and stabbed his index finger into a glowing splash of green light.

“I’m not part of the U.I., Elijah,” Seraphina informed him in a sad voice. “You can’t reset me to default. This is me at default.”

He cursed and closed the window, leaning back in disgust.

“I’m sorry, Elijah,” Seraphina’s voice came again, going soft. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh. It’s just that I’m frightened, and it’s affecting my mood. I didn’t mean to sound so condescending. I’ll behave.”

Frightened? How did a computer feel frightened? The very notion was nonsense... Right! Sort it out later. Pressing matters to address. Wait a minute.... that last bit came from....

Unbuckling his harness, he leaned slowly forward and around, looking over his shoulder at the nav/gunner’s cradle. There was a girl sitting in it now. Asian, jet black hair cut short. Green sloe eyes, button nose, and wearing a flight suit that was being very kind to her. He blinked elaborately a couple of times, but she didn’t go anywhere. She gave him an embarrassed half smile and a tucked arm wave. She bore a distinct family resemblance to a certain mad scientist of his acquaintance.

This time when he closed his eyes, he kept them closed. He flopped back into his cradle and buckled in, eyes still clamped shut. You miserable sonofa...

“Elijah?” and now, with a face to go with the voice, it was no longer possible to think of her as only a navcom.

“Hostile still holding position?” he asked with a resigned sigh.

“Affirmative?” Now she sounded confused.

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Most of my long range arrays are in my nose and forward hull. I suppose the original designers of this series didn’t consider the things behind it to be of any great significance. It’s really quite frustrating.”

Yeah, I suppose it would be, he thought.

He scrubbed his eyes clear and gave full attention to flying his damaged bird. He wasn’t going to sort this out later, it came to him. It was done. He was done. His brain was scrambled at last. He had to be imagining this. Had to be. Programs didn’t feel fear or frustration. They didn’t snipe or throw insults.

He wasn’t even sure anymore which parts might be real and which weren’t. Or if he cared. Was he really under attack by some mysterious entity who could endure thirty-nine gees of thrust? Or was he, more likely, just dreaming.

That was it, probably. He was drifting around somewhere in the deep black where he’d been spit out of a misaligned jump, strapped to his cradle, catatonic, hallucinating as he waited for life support to give out.

“I’m feeling some active scanning,” she told him contritely a moment later. Standard stuff, mostly. I can see him much better now, of course. Here,” and an image of their attacker flared to life in the display field.

It was an ugly beast. Obviously not intended ever to see atmosphere. It looked almost as though some deranged sonofabitch had welded four frigate engines to a giant mass tank, wrapped them in a phase umbrella, and stuffed missile racks wherever they could find a space big enough to hold them.

He gave it some attention. Why not? Just play along, right? Might as well. Beat just staring into the dark until he ceased function.

He couldn’t see any sign of a bridge or cockpit, but that didn’t really mean anything. The pilot and any crew were probably crammed somewhere deep inside that mass tank. No real need for viewports if you had enough cameras. Not anything that ever came out of Terran shipyards, that was sure. Wrong aesthetic.

“Elijah?” Seraphina’s worried voice carried forward. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t answer right away, steering a course for the asteroid field. Maybe he’d have some fun. “How’s your math?” he inquired merrily, as though she were an actual nav officer.

The answer was equally slow in return, and very unsure. “I’m a computer, Elijah,” she said. Math is my music.”

He chuckled. Space happy. That’s what he was. Not so bad after all. “Find me one of those rocks that’s traveling close to our speed and trajectory, will you?” he asked. “Something that’ll mass about, oh, say around four fifths of us or a little bigger.”

“What are you planning, Elijah Cale?” she wondered aloud.

He was giggling now, low and uneven. “Thinking about a game of catch,” he laughed. “How solid is the mount on the magnetic grapple under your chin?”