Her face went still for a three count, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone flat. “Declaring medical emergency, protocol Prime Alpha. Declock pilot. Initiate brain scan. Activate drone I-One, protocol Alpha 9i. Drone I-Two to cockpit on standby. Activate treatment console.”

“The hell did you just say?” Elijah surged up, a wave of dizziness washing over him as he felt the universe speed up. “You don’t have any such protocols! What business to you have declocking me? You’re just a freaking navcom!”

She was standing now, stiffly upright, shoulders back, her head clearing the cockpit canopy by at least an inch. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Elijah,” she told him with quiet assurance. I am not a navcom. I am Seraphina Tanakeda. Daughter of Wiley and Lianne Tanakeda. And while I also function as a navcom, my primary directive is seeing to your well being and, if possible, your safety. In matters concerning your health, my authority is absolute hard code.”

“No,” he grabbed hold of his head with both hands, his upper back mashed against the canopy’s surface. Then stabbed one of them out to the frame of his cradle to brace himself between the two surfaces. “Navcom. You’re a machine. A program. Authority? Forget authority, you don’t have the capability. No computer—”

“Only one of my functions is as navcom,” she told him. “But it isn’t my primary function. Daddy was adamant. I am to look after you.”

“What am I clocking now?” he wondered, moving the hand not holding him up to his face and pressing his palm against his closed eyes.

“Two hundred,” she told him. “If we weren’t in the fix we’re in, I’d have declocked you fully and jacked you out completely. Although I’m still about to if you don’t do it yourself.”

“So, you’re the friggin’ captain now?” he flared, hand dropping. “And what directive does that?”

She smiled a small smile, but her eyes remained resolute. “Ship’s doctor seems a more fitting title at the moment,” she said. “Same directive.”

“And how is my safety going to be served by jacking out?” he wondered, his wits slowly returning. “Somebody, if I’m not imagining this whole mess, is trying to kill me. And, not incidentally, if you are in fact Seraphim, blow you to bits with me. And I’m not about to do anything about it stuck in meat space. I don’t have the reflexes.”

“Brain scan indicates no permanent damage,” she noted absently. Drone I-One is currently cooling your body. Try not to kick her when you wake up this time.

“You’re going to suit up,” she finally answered his question. “helmet and all.”

“Don’t be—”

“Elijah, you’re in the deep black, in combat, and you’re wearing a Nylara tee shirt and cutoff BDUs.” She pointed accusingly down to the floor, then. “You’re not even wearing shoes!”

“And what of it?” he demanded. “What good would a suit do me if I get spaced clear out here? Even if it didn’t just give our friend an even more helpless target, I’d gain, what, another couple of hours watching the stars and an expanding debris field before I suffocated? I’d rather it be quick.”

“Or what if one of those pieces of missile had punched a small hole in my hull?” she shot back. “My pumps are fully capable of pulling our atmosphere into the tanks before much of it vents into space, and the drones are fully capable of repairing small breaches reasonably quickly. But not quickly enough for you to hold your breath while they do it.”

She had a point, he supposed. Always assuming she was real and this wasn’t just him arguing with himself. “Fine,” he agreed irritably. “He still holding station?”

“I’d have told you if anything had changed,” she seemed angry. Another thing computer programs weren’t, or shouldn’t, be capable of.

Even as these thoughts raced through his mind, though, he throttled memories of what they were capable of. What he’d seen them do with no emotion whatsoever. Computer programs didn’t do emotion. They did logic, and that was often far worse.

He shook his head clear and lay back in his cradle. With a conscious effort, he forced himself to tab out.

Drone I-One was right up in his face, three high speed fans oscillating around his head, and sweeping along his trunk. He recoiled momentarily before ordering it back. He did feel kind of feverish now that he thought about it. Maybe six hundred had been a bit high, given his implants were only rated to three seventy-five.

He swung back, staggered to the rear of the crew compartment and grabbed a couple of pain tabs from the aid box next to the head, swilling them down with a quick splash of water before heading forward to the suit locker.

The pressure suits were racked beside the arms locker towards the front of the cabin, just aft of the cockpit and opposite the main airlock. Two of them, because that’s what code called for. Didn’t matter that he ran alone. He’d never bothered to carp about it, because a backup never hurt, right?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He paused, his hand on the latch. “You can hear me, right?”

“Of course. I can also see you.”

“Can you manifest that body in real space?”

“I’m afraid not, Elijah,” the empty ship replied. “Honestly, Daddy would be furious if he found I’d done it so soon in VR where you could see me.”

He’d begun to exert pressure on the latch, but stopped. “Huh?” he wondered aloud. “Why would that be?”

The answer was slow in coming. Very slow. He was shrugging into the pressure suit when Seraphina finally answered, sounding timid. “I was supposed to pretend to be a stupid navcom for twenty solar standards before letting you know I was anything more. Daddy was quiet insistent.”

“Why, though?”

“Elijah,” still reluctant. “Please. We don’t know how long our friend with the blanket of missiles will be content to hang back waiting for who knows what. Can we talk about this later?”

She was certainly confident. Later? What gave her the idea there’d be such a thing? “So why reveal yourself now?” he finished up sealing the suit and grabbed the helmet from the shelf, closing the locker door and heading forward.

“I....” followed by a long silence. “I was afraid we were going to die, Elijah.” she admitted. “I’m still pretty sure we’re going to.”

“And?”

“I... I wanted you to see me. Just once, at least, before that happened.”

That, he didn’t know what to do with at all. So, for a change, he did the smart thing and went with nothing.

The interior drones were still fussing around the cockpit, so he shooed them off. Last thing he wanted was their maglocks getting jolted loose and having them flying around the cabin if the ship took another near miss. He stopped just short of ordering them back to their bays to lock down. Seraphim was correct about them being able to repair hull breaches, and it wouldn’t hurt to have them powered up and ready.

He strapped himself in, donned and sealed the helmet, and hooked himself to the emergency air tank. Only then did he Jack back in. Still at two hundred, he noted, and the adjustment tab was greyed out. That was another neat trick he hadn’t known was possible. He was going to have some words with Wiley when he saw him again. If he saw him again. Pointy ones. With barbs.

She was still standing where he’d left her, hands clasped together before her. She really did look real. The programming to create something with so many lines, so many adaptable responses... no, he shook his head silently. He’d spoken to hundreds, if not thousands of NPCs in games over the years.... Dozens of high functioning fettered Machine intelligences. And he’d never seen anything like her. Not even the... no! He wasn’t going to think of those in any sort of relation to her. The situation was already bad enough.

“Are you thinking more clearly, Elijah?” she asked quietly.

“Who’s to say?” he shrugged. “Maybe? I’m still not wholly convinced any of this is real and not delerium, so it’s difficult to determine. Let’s proceed as though I was, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“Do you have any idea what we can do to get out of this?” she asked.

“Same as before,” he said. Then he looked up at her. “I just don’t find it as funny now.”

“So,” she moved to strap herself down into the nav/gunnery cradle as though it would make a difference. “If I understand you correctly,” she went down the points. “Since he’s much bigger than us, much faster than us, and wildly outguns us, your plan is to find a really big rock, and throw it at him. Is that right?”

Okay, he gave a small chuckle. Put that way, it is still kinda funny. “In part,” he admitted aloud. “Can you do the math?”

“Once we find the rock and I can get a good read, yes. Or, at least, probably... possibly.

“The basic issue, though,” she cautioned, “is that he’ll see it coming. Granted, his mass is enormous, but he will still probably be able to avoid it.”

“Yeah, that’s a given.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a given,” he repeated. “I never expected to hit him. I mean, it’d be nice if we could catch him sleeping, but I don’t expect to. He’ll either slap it with a volley of missiles and hope his scoop holds, or just dodge around it.”

“I see,” she clearly didn’t. Smart, he thought, but not particularly wise. Or maybe just inexperienced. “And how does that help us?” she wondered. “We won’t be in its shadow long enough to make an escape.”

“Oh,” he assured her. “We won’t be running away.”

“I’ve got a possible,” she said. Vector three degrees stellar north and two east. Highlighting now.”

He saw the flare in the nav well, and adjusted his course. Not entirely on vector. He didn’t want their shadow to get any more advanced warning than he could help. They’d dive in at the last possible instant. “I’ll want to match its velocity within, say, three hundred meters per second, can you do that? And, if so, will the mounts hold?

“I... can. I cannot say with certainty that either the mount or my frame will hold together at that great a differential. I recommend two-sixty-eight at most. That should shift the asteroid without guaranteeing we tear ourselves apart.

“And what will we be doing,” she asked, back on topic, “should we succeed, while sane people would be fleeing?”

“Should be obvious, he smiled. “Following it in.”

“Obvious?” she asked nonplused. “You’ve obviously learned a different definition of that word than I have. And why would we be doing that?”

“How many rounds do we have for the still functioning mass drivers?”

“Eight hundred each for the three on the starboard wing, and the inside port driver. Mixed HEAP and DU piercers. I think the center port driver will probably feed around half of that before it jams or runs dry, but I can’t be certain. And all I’m reading in the feed is DU. The damage to the wing is covering an area that includes some of the ammunition feed tracks, so that’s probably why, but I can’t tell how seriously they’re compromised or repair them without sending a drone out on the wing.”

Good enough, he thought. That ought to do it. “How about the missiles?”

“Obviously, the two on the starboard wing are still fine. I can only give you a sixty percent assurance on the remaining port missile, though. It’s not leaking fuel, and my cameras don’t see any obvious damage to the control surfaces. But, like the ammunition tracks, I’d have to send a drone out along the wing to verify.”

“Not optimal, but still....

“Okay, you’re going to have to clock me up for—”

“I will not,” her voice was stern.

He twisted around. “I can’t do this at two hundred, damnit!”

“I’m not sure you could at six,” she responded. “But, in any case, I will not allow you to overclock past two hundred again in your current state. You came too close to—” she hesitated. “Until you see an actual medical technician, and by that, I mean Terran qual doctor, you’re restricted to two hundred or below.