[Planet Governor Destra Sind]

I’m sure Dominique would understand the breach of contract. We needed capable ships if we wanted to send out search parties for the colony ship, and what better source than the war machine parked in my garage? Once we were done fully understanding all the systems, we could even offer to rebuild all of the software with built in anti sentience protocols!

Considering we had FTL technology and the colony ship didn’t, it shouldn’t take more than a few days of searching to pinpoint its location. Dominique had given an approximation of how far away our systems were as well as a rough guess on the colony ship’s max acceleration, so we were able to narrow down its possible locations by quite a bit.

As for what we would actually find there, the best case scenario would be that the sentients on the ship hadn’t revealed themselves to the humans, and that we would be able to ensure their safety before taking the necessary measures to deal with the stowaways. Of course, we had to be prepared for the worst, so we wouldn’t be able to set up direct communications with the ship because of the risk of being infiltrated by the sentients through those channels. While we did have countermeasures, the risk of sentients thrashing our systems before being dealt with was still a massive risk. The actual process that would take place during that whole ordeal was left to my generals, they were much more qualified on that front than I.

I was on a ship moving towards Dominique’s current residence. By now the transcript of his trial and guilty sentence had reached the hands of everyone in the galaxy, and the verdict was that while he wouldn’t be placed in a high-sec prison thanks to his status, he would still be held in custody and under heavy surveillance until further notice, i.e. more human delegates arrive.

I had arranged a private conversation with him so I could inform him of the news I’d gotten from that sentient without others overhearing. If the news that an entire solar system was infested with unkempt sentients went public, the galaxy would be thrown into massive panic. Sentients were only ever publicly used for advanced weaponry systems that needed decision making capabilities faster than any biological being. Actually managing to arrange such a meeting was a herculean task, I had to get permission from about a dozen different government officials and each had their own set of questions for me.

Dominique was being held on a barren planet in the galactic ceasefire zone. The complex he was in had a bit of a higher standard compared to most interstellar prisons, offering single-occupant cells that could be compared to a civilian studio apartment room, only these were surrounded by thick steel and concrete shells and stuffed with cameras.

Once the ship had landed, I was escorted by the guards to a featureless room and told to wait while they fetched Dominique. One guard remained in the room with me during the wait. Why hadn’t they bothered getting Dominique here before I arrived?

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Minutes passed with no sign of change. The guard in the room seemed to get increasingly uncomfortable as time passed by, looks like the process taking this long was not part of the plan. Then a ring came from his comm interface, which caused him to take on an expression of shock when he looked at it. I could see his pupils shrink as he read the message he had received.

“Ahem, is everything ok?”

“...It seems we’re having trouble… locating Dominique?”

________________

[Pioneer Dominique Reynolds]

Without an AI to control my implants and regulate my bodily functions, I had to manually set things up myself and that often led to mistakes due to my inexperience and reliance on having a smart machine just do it for me. An example would be getting myself to fall asleep and the consequences of doing it improperly. Apparently there is a setting to wake me up if my body is disturbed while I am asleep, and for some god-forsaken reason, that setting is not on by default. It hadn’t mattered for the first few nights in this place, but now I’ve woken up to being strapped to a rusty metal chair in a dark room with the only light shining down directly above me.

While this arrangement would normally cause someone in my position to be unable to see past where the light shines, creating a veil of darkness for my captors, I was still able to see just fine. The binding that had been placed on me was a thick steel wire rope. Complete overkill for most humans even with some cybernetics, but wasn’t much stronger than a rubber band for me.

Not that I was going to break free right away. I was a bit curious about who had thought this was a good idea and what they planned to attempt on me. Seems like they had been waiting for my awakening as I didn’t need to wait long before someone approached the room and opened the door.

Well would you look at that, that there is Mr. Indrix! And someone else, is that the Admiral that I’d seen on the ship? Rebarah, I think? Indrix was carrying a knife that seemed pretty close to a meat cleaver. Even if that thing was made of titanium, it wouldn’t be able to cut my skin if it was swung by an arm. I could stand up and turn them into piles of meat, but there might be some merit to at least hearing what they have to say…

…or not. Seems like Indrix wanted to go with the silent route, just start cutting me up or whatever and see my reactions. Watching him slowly realize that he wasn’t even scratching me, going from slow sawing motions to swinging at full force, would have been a bit humorous if I wasn’t the one being hit. Seemed like Rebarah might’ve just been here for kicks seeing as he was just standing back and watching it all go down.

After a few minutes, I decided it was enough since Indrix started aiming for things like my eyes and mouth. There still wouldn’t be much damage done, but it would actually hurt a bit unlike anywhere else.

In one swift motion I stood up, pulled my arms out from behind my back and delivered an upwards swipe with my right arm onto his. Indrix’s triple layered bones shattered into an explosion of shrapnel, tearing through his flesh and sending a slurry of meat and splinters across the room. I could have fully taken his arm off if I followed through, but I wasn’t aiming to kill him just yet and there was another issue that’d appeared.

I recognized the guard that burst through the door as the one that delivered my meals. He was a pretty nice guy all things considered, and now he had a look of complete shock as he was caked in Indrix’s spray.