"Captain, someone's following us." I called through the intercom system on the bridge. Aisling looked back from the front window, a look of perplexed alarm on her face "I did a local scan and received a response ping from something in the direction of Luna. We're being trailed."

"Son of a bitch…" she muttered, her eyes flickering with an irritated sense of focus as she stomped back to her terminal "Any more info?" She said, pulling up the area scan data for herself.

"Not yet, I wanted to alert you before I tried to make a more detailed scan. They might still think we overlooked them."

Aisling nodded. "Maintain speed." She said before she turned and hit the intercom switch "Attention crew, everyone to the bridge, now. We might be in some deep shit and need to put our heads together. Drop whatever you're doing and get here now. You too, Shaw."

The clambering I felt through my shell didn't last long, the crew quickly coming together with an urgency I hadn't seen yet. It seemed that when she called everyone to the helm for a meeting instead of the mess, they knew it was serious.

In moments, the room was crowded, Joel and Shaw coming in last as Aisling turned to address them "Alright, everyone, we got a tail." She declared. "Just one for the time being, but they could have reinforcements behind them. Thanks to our new core being more judicious with our location data than our last one, we might still be able to get the upper hand here."

"Foundation?" Joel asked.

"Probably." Aisling nodded "We need a plan before we alert them. Heads together for this. Meryll, you think you're fighting fit if we can't shake 'em?"

I nodded slowly to myself. I had downed plenty of targets in both human and AI sims by now. While I felt confident that I could take on a one on one battle with a standard core, it did make me hesitate knowing that this was a ship full of living, breathing people now and not just a simulated block of code. But I had to defend myself if I needed to. The crew and myself were more important to me than them when it came down to it "Yes captain, once I know their make, I can come up with a strategy."

"Good, other ideas?" She called.

"Could overclock the engines. Race them to Venus. They can’t win against a colony’s point defenses." Mouse said uncertainly "It's risky on a few levels, but it's an option."

"Probably riskier than letting Meryll have her shot." Aisling nodded "Come on, anything guys."

"Try to open communications. Bluff our way through and see what happens?" Doc tossed out uncertainly.

"That's a lot of 'if's." Aisling muttered.

"There's always the chance it's not them." Ray offered.

"Wishful thinking, but you don't just happen to run into another ship in wild space, it's astronomically improbable that it's just minding its own business. Virtually impossible." Aisling explained "They're after us, no question there."

Shaw took a limping step forward and declared with confidence as if it should have been obvious rather than insane, "Surrender and comply."

Everyone else's face turned to look at Shaw like he was an idiot, but Aisling looked intrigued "Elaborate." She commanded, irritation in her voice.

He shored himself up, glad to see the captain would at least hear him out "Give them false information, then strike when they think they've already won. Turn the tables on them"

The room went silent and he smiled smugly at the others "It very nearly worked on you, if I'd known more about Meryll going in." He chuckled “Or if I had more of a crew to work with me."

I thought back. He'd escaped from his bindings so easily once he was inside of the ship. He could have done that at any time, though, with his implant. I hadn't thought of it until just then, but we didn't need to find him tied up like that, and we'd let ourselves get ambushed because we didn't know enough about his implant or fighting Style until then. "Your men never tied you up in that cabling, did they?" I asked.

Shaw chuckled a little "If my men turned on me, I'd be dead. We can try your more direct approaches if you want, but if it's really a foundation ship, we're outmatched and we need to remove the ship from the equation."

"And we take them on in a boarding situation?" Joel scoffed "You're insane."

"Not the first person to tell me that. But here I am, still alive. If you can fight them on your own ship, you have the advantage." Shaw stepped back, having said his peace.

The room went silent again and Aisling finally broke it "Shaw's is plan D then." She admitted, turning back to her terminal "We need more info. Light us up, Meryll."

I let out a sigh and opened my eyes for a moment to steady my nerves. The moment I started sending more complex pings directly at the other ship, it would know that we were onto it, but we couldn't plan any further blind.

I prepped a bomb of scripts to assault the ship's sensors before it could respond so I could get a detailed look at our opponent's make as quickly as possible. While accelerating just slightly to make sure we were ready to flee if they took the queries as a threat.

First came the shape data. I ran it through what I knew from the sims and quickly realized that we weren't looking at a military craft. This was a civilian ship, a transport. Not too dissimilar from Theseus. Though, it was armed to the teeth in every way it could be. Multiple gun arrays at strategic points to give it full spherical coverage. "It's a pirate vessel." I declared in surprise to the helm.

As more data flooded in, I started to get a better idea of its heading and velocity; it was undoubtedly following us. But as I assessed its engines, I frowned. It was lighter than us, built for speed. I couldn't outpace it in a straight sprint, even if I did have a little extra power, that was for certain. This ship wasn't built haphazardly. It was an enthusiast's custom job. And it was probably outfitted as well as they could manage it.

"Skulls." I declared to the crew. It began to accelerate with me, giving chase as they figured out that we'd seen them. As if to confirm, the communications panel lit up.

'Bring us Shaw and we'll pay your bounty.' Was what it declared. But Aisling crossed her arms. We'd already seen through that ruse.

"What you think, Meryll?" Aisling asked while I continued bringing us up to speed "You a match for this?"

"Maybe." I said slowly. That ship was a tank, though. Outmaneuvering it wouldn't be something I could guarantee, especially since we were both already traveling at a breakneck speed with it having a distinct advantage if I tried to turn into a battle now. It was far from ideal, and I couldn't help but think that it was better armed than I was “It’s a losing battle though. Too many factors going against us already.”

Aisling stared down at the comms panel for a long moment and let out a frustrated growl before turning to Shaw "Alright, you fucking lunatic, what's your plan?"

Shaw put on that same smug smile that made me hate him just a little bit more.

—

We took a short time to discuss our strategy, sharing our assets with Shaw. In exchange for his trust, I reluctantly agreed to allow his implant to boot again. It felt like a fairly limited weapon anyway, compared to everyone outfitted with firearms. As we started to agree on the final details of the plan, the rest of the crew began to scatter around the ship, getting into position.

As I began to slowly decelerate, I watched Aisling type into the comms terminal ‘Scared the shit out of me. Thought you were Foundation.’

‘You’re more paranoid than we took you for. Lucky we don’t charge you for making us come all the way out here. Our prisoner ready to go?’

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‘Yeah. I’ve got him and his guard ready for you in our cargo bay. I’ll come down to meet you too. Standard magnetic ship attachment at the airlock?’ she asked

‘Sounds good to me. Decelerate so we can align with that hunk of junk.’

Aisling frowned and couldn’t help herself but to give some banter when her ship was insulted ‘She’s a masterpiece and you know it, motherfucker.’

“Good, don’t seem overly friendly.” Shaw agreed with Aisling’s tone as the message was broadcast “Make ‘em think it’s business as usual for you.”

“Ain’t acting. No one makes fun of my ship. Almost hope this stunt actually fucking works now. Meryll, just comply with their core for the docking procedures, but try to hack your way into their system and get us some info on what’s going on inside. And get ready with their door.”

That felt like a tall order. Static systems and normal AIs were one thing, but conscious or not, a ship core was the most powerful computer humanity had ever devised. I wasn’t even sure what to expect if I tried to infiltrate its systems. But maybe the surprise attack angle would help. It wasn’t a person, after all. Maybe the same principle that made me an ace in ship combat versus a standard ship core would apply in a battle of the minds across a network as well. It seemed like a hell of a time to test those waters, but I didn’t exactly have time to come up with a way to practice now.

As the pirate vessel grew uncomfortably close, the fact that its guns remained trained on me was unnerving to say the least. Still, they weren’t firing. I figured that they must have wanted to take us alive. They didn’t care about my shell. They didn’t care about Theseus. But they definitely weren’t out to kill all of us.

I’d interacted with the computer at the port authority on Luna a couple of times by now, but it was nothing like the queries I received from the ship core. The data stream quickly became a flood as it sent long arrays of commands and queries to me, nitpicking exact procedures. It made it difficult to picture what was happening within my own shell, trying to keep up with it, and I was mentally exhausted in moments. Still, it cooperated with me. I had no idea what it must have thought of me, if it was capable of such an opinion, but it must have realized that I was slower than it. Maybe this wouldn’t be as simple as I thought. “Talk to me, guys, are you ready?” I asked, not able to focus on my own internal sensors at all.

“I’m in position. Shell’s primed, should go right through.” Mouse said quietly over our comms.

“Bait’s set.” Joel declared.

Ray checked in next “Bulkheads are sealed.”

“Stay calm Meryll. You got this.” Doc tried to reassure me calmly from my heart “Not the worst spot we’ve been in.”

After a moment of arranging things to the other AI’s exact specifications, I felt us click together, the straight, flexible corridor between our cargo bays locking us to each other. A dogfight was now physically impossible. This had to go as planned.

With both of our airlocks still shut tight, I tried to get a read on what was happening on their end of the corridor as planned, but the other core just bombarded me with information the moment I tried to make any kind of query to its systems. I couldn’t be the recon tool that they’d planned for me. But I still had a much more important job that I now had no idea if I’d be able to manage. The other core, despite it lacking a consciousness, was still a brain operating magnitudes faster than I possibly could.

“Alright. Open up and get ready to put things into motion.” Aisling let out a deep breath “This better work.”

I took a deep breath. There had to be something I could do. But for now, the plan moved forward. I monitored the connecting hall from our side. It didn’t seem to have a problem with me focusing on my own systems at least, now that the docking procedure was over.

I began to see people walking through the corridor. A lot of people. They were in foundation armor, and they were moving with urgency. It didn’t surprise me though, their ruse had been pretty transparent thanks to how much Aisling knew about the Skulls and how far from their MO this was. But it was too late to flee now anyway, if this had been our first realization about what was going on. I took another deep breath. Had to stay calm. And I had to get to work. If I was going to beat this computer, I would have to do something drastic myself.

I began opening up new files, rapidly building scripts with the scraps of information that I was able to glean from the other core’s responses to my queries. It was far too much information for me to parse, but it was still a lot of useful information. Locks that I had to find ways around and develop keys for. My coding was sloppy, but I thought that it might be enough to sneak through the single command that I had to make functional for this to work. I watched as their end of the airlock closed, watching the stream of data very closely for a particular pointer. There. I frantically inserted the data and my best guess of how it worked into my script and saved the files.

I couldn’t believe I was actually about to do this, but I didn’t see any other solution at this point.

I watched carefully as my own airlock door slid open, a whole unit of armor plated soldiers flicking tactical lights on as they walked into the intentionally darkened cargo bay we’d set up for them.

“Freeze!” Their commander shouted as their guns leveled toward two figures standing just to the side in the middle of the room. But they hesitated as they looked twice, their guns lowering as they realized what it was. The corpses of the two men that we’d taken for our bounty were propped up against crates, made to look like they were standing at attention. “Move in, look for the target.” The commander motioned and the men started to spread out into the cargo bay. The target. They were after someone in particular. I shivered as I realized that this really couldn’t just be an incidental run-in with a ship full of wanted fugitives, they were after me.

“Get it open Meryll, I need the shot.” Mouse gave a whispered demand.

Coming back to my senses, I took in a deep breath and clenched my teeth as I opened my eyes and reached for my arm terminal, shaking slightly as I ran the command I’d prepared.

‘Run psychic damper, 1 second, run appended files’ displayed in my vision before I disappeared. And once more, just like that, Meryll was gone. I cowered in my corner of my mind as I watched an exchange of data explode at a frightening pace between myself and the other ship core. It was like watching a battle of wills with no soul between the two opponents. Just logical traps and prepared maneuvers that I hoped would serve as enough to slip through.

It was unbearable watching the mental assault continue with the crew on both sides totally unaware of the deadly game of chess being played on a psychic network around them.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to feel anything at all. At least my frustrated desires didn’t seem to impact my performance toward my goal, and this time I wasn’t just staring at a clock, waiting for it to end. That part of myself that remained was at least able to try to root on my logical self and hope that I would be able to make the change I needed to.

Five hundred milliseconds passed. I was exhausted trying to keep up with what my mind was doing. It was too much to track anymore. Yet I still kept going. I didn’t know exhaustion, after all. I just knew my duty, the tools at my disposal, and cold knowledge.

I once thought I felt an imposing presence over me. Over the real me. Threatening me. It almost felt like it was threatening to expel me from the audience chamber. Like I was a process taking up too much memory. That I could be closed out forever if I decided I needed more resources. But terrifying as it was, the feeling passed and I felt a variable click. Error queries began to flood my way, as if the other core was asking what I was doing, how I had done it. In its own way, it felt helpless, and It was begging me to stop. As much as a soulless computer could, it was begging for mercy.

I merely watched the flood of queries and impotent digital flailing run into walls as I began putting up a defense now. It was barely any movement, but the airlock door at the far end of the corridor was beginning to click open again at the glacial pace of my accelerated frame of mind. And another half second of defending it later, I crashed back into consciousness.

I doubled over as best as I could in the chamber, closing my eyes to watch while I caught my breath.

The far airlock began opening with a loud twist of metal, causing some of the soldiers to look back and see what was going on behind them.

Mouse lay prone behind the only cracked open doorway into the cargo bay, obscured by crates that only allowed the barrel of a two meter rifle to peek through. He smiled slightly at the opening in the airlock. The last paneling thick enough to stop him.

The gun bucked back, almost flying out of his hands as a deafening explosive sound of devastating gunfire that made my sensors momentarily glitch carried through the entire ship, the bullet trail visibly passing all of the soldiers and through the opening in both airlocks, where it quickly tore through the interior of the stolen pirate vessel, ripping a hole through multiple interior walls before the sound of explosive decompression rocked through their ship.

Joel quickly sealed the bulwark once the shot was through, separating him and Mouse from the rapidly decompressing space the soldiers now stood in. Several of them tried to fire their guns as they started to fall and slide back from the force of the air leaving the combined cargo bays, but there was no one to shoot in the room, they were just firing on phantoms. And soon, the room’s life support was drained, vacuum quickly consuming the air and replacing it with impossible cold.

I opened my eyes. I did it. We did it. I just hoped that it was enough as I continued to take in deep breaths, trying to stop the pounding in my ears and the dark spots showing in my vision.

“Meryll?! Christ Meryll, what was that! Did you just use the damper?!” I heard Doc calling.

I couldn’t help but notice that the other core had gone silent. Completely silent. I didn’t need to check: We’d killed it. Or at least maimed it so badly that the psychic feedback had crippled it into submission. Mouse must have hit something critical. He knew exactly what he was doing with that gun and the layout of the enemy ship. ‘Yeah, had to.’ I texted Doc, unable to focus enough to work the intercom for the moment. Or much of anything else for that matter. In fact, I was beginning to feel dizzy.

I remember seeing the soldiers gasping for breath and shivering, one futilely trying to shoot at something, maybe to try and doom us as well, but his weapons were too small caliber and failing to do much without oxygen to ignite. I briefly considered what I was doing. I was participating in taking a human life, almost directly. I could watch the life draining from their eyes. But I still felt so distant and dizzy. Exhaustion made me feel little more than the passing thought that perhaps I should feel pity for these dying souls. I turned off the life support to the cargo bay to ensure I wasn’t wasting oxygen on them when I shut our own airlock so that I could separate from the other ship, but that was as far as I got before the data stream stopped and I passed out from my exertion.