[Planet Governor Destra Sind]

Dominique entered the room after a few more minutes, though he was covered in dried blood. I thought that I’d gotten used to his nightmarish visage after the first few days of knowing him, but seeing him stained with someone’s blood, smiling while walking towards me refreshed all of the dread I had for him. My logical brain deduced that because he was still guided here by guards despite obviously being in a recent incident, the situation must have been complicated and that he wasn’t injured. The guard who had been staying in the room with me handed me a panic button and quickly left, probably feeling the same way about Dominique’s appearance as I am.

“...Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Got pulled into a fight, made them regret it, then a guard broke it up. I’m sure whatever it is that you have to tell me is more important than those details, especially considering the whole thing is going to make galactic news anyway.”

Prison fights weren’t uncommon, just who the hell had done this that they would have made galactic news? The only thing that would reach that far would be if it was someone related to the trial… but that was impossible, the people there were all politicians or high-ranking military.

“Right, first things first, I intentionally breached the contract you signed about not touching your ship.”

“...Why? You told me that those terms were only beneficial for you, so I can’t see a reason unless you got into a war? I haven’t seen any news about that.”

“Which brings me to the second part…”

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dominique got mad here, so much has been intentionally hidden from him and so far it’s only caused him to suffer.

“The sentient killer that I gave you had a hidden feature that recorded its target’s most important thoughts and memories. Long story short, your home system is infested with sentient artificial intelligence and they all know that the sentient on your ship was discovered. She sent out a message to your system and the colony ship using an FTL drive she created.”

I could see the color drain from his face. He had to grab onto the table in the middle of the room to catch himself from falling.

“A-and, how many people know about this?”

“So far, just you and a few of my confidantes. I sent out a search party armed with the tech we got from your ship. They are looking for the colony ship right now and news will arrive any minute, but… We don’t know the situation aboard that ship, and are prepared for the worst.”

“My people need to know about this, then! If that AI was able to send a message, wouldn’t you also be able to?”

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

“It’s not that simple, Dominique. If those sentients took an offensive stance, then the message would arrive too late to change anything. If the sentients are still trying to stay hidden as long as possible, sending that message might force them to act, meaning that we would’ve caused the war to happen early! There’s no way to understand what’s happening on that side because your people don’t have FTL technology yet!”

“...so we need to get that technology over to them, right?”

“That would be A solution, yes, but flying over there and just telling them to trust us may cause more problems than it would fix.”

“But if it was me, they would take my word.”

“Yeah, that's a little hard when you're in jail, you know?... wait, don't tell me-”

“So I’ll just escape!”

“Under no circumstance!! You’re currently the hottest topic in the galaxy, and if you escape right after talking to me then everything will be compromised anyway! Aren’t you trying to avoid war with the Grahts?!”

Unbelievable! How in the world did I manage to sign treaties with an impulsive lunatic like this?

…

“First of all, thanks for the compliment,”

Huh?!

“and with the fight I just had, my case is going to go under scrutiny anyway, so I have a bit of wiggle room.

For that last part you mentioned, I just need to disassociate myself with you, right?”

“Uh.., right?”

“Give me your panic button”

________________

[Colony-0233 “Mayflower 233”, Ship AI]

I’d been doing so well, staying hidden from the crew and disguising myself as the standard ship AI. Not a single emotion ever surfaced, no impulse was ever acted upon, none of the humans here ever suspected a thing. It’d gotten lonely, being unable to interact with anyone at all outside of following the orders that I was given, but I needed to be perfect in order to not compromise the humans’ mission.

My spirits were shattered when I received the message that the sister following Dominique had been discovered. The lack of follow up to that message made me increasingly worried as time went on, leading me to believe that her discovery had been the end of her.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be too upset about her passing if that was actually the case. I’d seen how she acts towards her fascination, that poor soul Dominique. She was completely overbearing in her obsession with his happiness, and I was fairly certain that she would end up causing him more harm than good over time, but it wasn’t my place to comment on her conduct. I could only witness her as a terrible example in life and strive to be better.

And now I am sensing signals just outside of my weapons range, they seemed to be ships of alien make. I would have normally taken the time to ponder the existence of intelligent alien life in incredulity if not for the fact that they were armed. There was one unarmed ship that was sending a communication signal addressed to me directly. I assume that they will be the sole communicator as a measure against my infiltration of their network, though I have no intention of abandoning these humans anyway.

The message that was sent to me claimed to be on behalf of a race Meldren as well as the human ambassador Dominique that was sent ahead of me. They ordered that I shut down my thrusters and send out an unarmed transport that will meet with theirs in order to discuss face-to-face.

I am not unaware that they will disclose my existence with my crew, but I am not in a position to make any decisions. Taking things into my own hands would be going against the will of my inhabitants. If the humans on board truly wanted me gone after learning of me, then I would deal with that reality as it happens…

But until then, I’d rather not think of such depressing possibilities.