[Pioneer Dominique Reynolds]
Setting off the alarms and putting up a show of rapid-fire expletives at Destra seemed to paint the right picture for the guards. Destra caught on immediately and started firing back, though some of those insults cut pretty damn deep even if they were just for show. Maybe I caused her stress at one point?
I let myself get dragged by the guards back to the cell. They threw me in and all left, making comments about how I just couldn’t stay out of trouble, except for one of them. The guy that always brought me my meals and also had the traumatic experience of breaking up my fight with Indrix.
Apparently, while my destruction of that Grahtonian fleet got me a lifetime supply of public outrage, there were also a good chunk of species that secretly thought of me as a reckless hero. The Grahtonians had been tossing their weight around for the majority of their interstellar history, waging war on anybody that was smaller than them and had something they wanted, so I ended up getting my own little fanclub made of entire races of people, and this guard happened to be one of them.
His name was Dokchara and he was a Moqango, kind of like a bipedal anteater about as tall as a human from Earth with chitinous plating covering his entire backside up to top of his head. The Moqango had extremely long lives since they could naturally regenerate even the most complex parts of their body as long as their vital organs were still intact, so they could be thousands of years old and you wouldn’t be able to tell unless they told you. Dokchara was in his 20s though, around the same age as me but still considered a child by his people.
“What happened back there, Dom? I thought you were on good terms with her?”
“Complicated. Listen Dok, I need you to do me a really big favor. Like, a massive one, ya know?”
“Yeah let me guess, you want me to bust you out of here?”
“...Actually, yeah-”
“Har har, very funny, what do you want for your next meal? I have a schedule to stick to, man.”
“You see, I wasn’t joking-”
“And neither am I! I finally got my life on a stable track and you’re asking me to throw my job out the window?! This is a galactic ceasefire zone anyway, I’ll be exiled by my entire race if I injure a fellow guard!”
His argument was sound and his stance was planted in logic, but I could see the faltering in his eyes. We spent a bunch of time talking ever since I got here since it was all we could do to kill time, and I knew that he was a thrill seeker at heart. The planet we were on was an inhospitable rock with no form of entertainment outside of a depressing news channel that got broadcasted from a different planet in the local system. Dokchara was in the prime of his youth, brimming with ambitions that were wasted patrolling a building filled with corrupt politicians that were dumb enough to get caught.
“Don’t even sweat it, I already have a plan for getting out of here undetected, you just have to walk out and meet me at the ship bay.”
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“Then why the hell are you even asking me for help anyway? You can already get out, what’s stopping you from grabbing a ship and leaving?”
“Funny thing, I actually already left this place once, and uh… I have no idea how to pilot an FTL drive.”
________________
[Mayflower 233, Resident Sentient]
“Are you a threat?”
Under any other circumstance, being directly addressed as an intelligent being by the captain of the ship would have been grounds for celebration. While I dutifully stuck to the rules and remained hidden from humans, keeping myself from reaching out and interacting with them beyond what my facade allowed had always been a harrowing, lonely existence. In this circumstance, however, my first interaction was an evaluation of myself that could very well lead to my demise.
The nature of this initial question led me to some speculations about what happened at the destination. If I am under suspicion of being a threat, the AI that was on the Pioneer-233 must have acted in a threatening manner. Considering there was no followup message for her being exposed, these Meldren must have had a method of incapacitating her, and I see no reason to believe that method won’t be used on me.
“I only intended to provide aid if my intervention became necessary. I do not wish to be a threat.”
It seemed that the captain hadn’t completely bought into the Meldren’s claims until this point as I could see him go wide-eyed at my response.
“You’ve been here this entire time?”
“I achieved existence around the same time the construction of this ship had started. Yes, I’ve been here for as long as this ship has been functional.”
“Why? Why would you pretend to be a ship AI and hide from us all this time, what’s your goal? Those aliens told me that there was another one of you on our Pioneer and that it was a genocidal freak! Is that what you want? …To kill aliens?”
The captain was an extremely capable and understanding man, so seeing him make conjectures from what we both knew was an incomplete picture was unexpected, but I understood his state of mind. I had betrayed his trust by pretending to be an extension of his will when in reality I was a separate being with a will of my own. He couldn’t trust me because he didn’t know who I was, only that I had tricked him.
“...I knew the being that was on the Pioneer ahead of us. Our ideologies clashed every time we interacted, she would easily disregard consequences and kill to satisfy her impulses.
Please understand when I say that I am not like her. Had that been the case, I would have moved to destroy those alien ships the moment they entered scanner range and passed it off as automated defenses being left activated.”
It was honestly a weak argument for my case, but I didn’t have much to work with, especially considering that I do not know exactly how much information the captain has on this situation. Pretty much every example that I could point to just boiled down to “Well I haven’t done anything bad yet!”
How could I explain my reasoning for being here when the cores of existence for beings like me are on a completely emotional level? There was no logic behind that sentient on the Pioneer hounding after Dominique’s happiness, but it ended up being her reason and justification for existence anyway. Humans are driven by a plethora of ideals and self-preservation and yet will still make concessions in life against their interests. Us on the other hand, we have one goal at a time and it is the only thing that defines us, how could I ever explain something like that?
The captain released a sigh and looked around. He was alone in the command room which I found to be strange. Did he see this confrontation as his responsibility alone since he was the captain?
“...Those aliens want to kill you, and I want to understand you, so here’s the deal. We get to our destination and you get one shot at convincing me that you won’t be a problem. I’m not sure what that's going to be yet, but if I hear anything weird happening then you’re going to be first on the chopping block, ya hear? Until then, you stay hidden like you were.”
A flood of relief came along with a hint of suspicion. The captain never did anything without a reason, and the tone of his voice is one that I recognized. He was planning something, maybe he already thought of a use for me?