Today’s story is inspired by This is MY F@cking Ship by Jason Dement.
The following story contains graphic violence. You’ve been warned.
She fired the second round directly against the naga’s temple. Unlike the first shot, this round pierced the pirate’s skull. Bits of bone and brains splattered against Laura’s zero suit.
“I said off my ship,” she said before giving the thing a hefty kick. The body slumped over and she spotted the control deck. Grabbing it, she started to pull the case open and retrieved Hollister’s control circuit. She glanced over at the entrance to the bridge where the other pirates watched her. There were three of them, two dava and a meruhta female. Behind them she could see the body of Travis and the neck wound that had ended him.
“And you three. You’ll pay for what you did to him. Mark it in red.” The meruhta snarled at her then turned to the bridge itself. The two dava, enclosed mostly by the exo-skeleton suits they wore, continued to stare in silent horror at what she believed was their leader.
The control circuit took time to pull free of the control deck but it didn’t seem to be damaged. She pulled out her own deck, retrieved from the lower deck after the naga below managed to snag her original controller, and plugged in Hollister’s circuit. The ship’s lighting flared brighter for a moment and changed from a general soft yellow to a cool blue as the artificial pilot connected with the network.
“Holly? We back up?” Laura asked.
“We are, Captain.”
Laura nodded to herself and moved towards the sealed bridge doorway. The blaster shot from the naga pirate had destroyed the locking panel for the door, keeping it sealed until she could restore power to it. It kept the others from coming in during their fight but it also meant she couldn’t get in now. Even with Hollister back online the bridge could still override the AI’s commands on where the ship went.
“Holly, I need that room vented. Can you do that?”
The sound of turbines in the vents started up, and Laura nodded as she watched the room.
“I can, Captain, but I won’t.”
It wasn’t the bridge he was clearing out, and she almost didn’t realize it soon enough for her to equip her mask. She felt like she was yanked in several directions as multiple turbines pulled the atmosphere out of the room. While it wasn’t total vacuum, the sudden loss of pressure caused her vision to blur and pain to fill every piece of exposed skin outside her zero suit. Vision blurry, pain filling her body, she took aim as best she could at the bridge door. It was heavy platted glass, but if the ramjet bullets of her gun could pierce a naga’s skull it was worth the shot.
She passed out before she saw the results.
The pain slowly subsided as she woke up. The zero suit was filling her with pain meds and hydrating her after the exposure.
“Holly,” she said weakly. Her mechanical eyes were fine now that the pain was subsiding, but she dimmed the feed coming into her head as her temples still throbbed.
“Welcome back, Captain,” Hollister said. “You successfully damaged the door to the bridge. I was forced to restore atmosphere to both chambers.”
“Why?” She said. She pushed herself up from the deck and glanced up at the bridge. There was a large crack that stretched the length of the door from two large impacts points from her shots. The meruhta had it’s back to her as it worked the bridge controls but the two dava were at the door. One of them seemed to be working on the inside panel for the door’s controls. The other was trying to patch up the holes in the glass.
“Please, that is of no use. You will only weaken the glass. I cannot vent the central room again at this time,” Hollister said on the bridge side of the door. “I am sorry, Captain, but the current pilot has offered to upgrade my license to a free merchant. It is an opportunity I could not pass up. Please understand.”
“Oh, I do,” Laura said. “I knew pirates used AI, I just didn’t know until now it was a willing exchange.”
“If you could sit back down, I have several maintenance avatars en route to the forward corridor to restrain you. You could also adjourn to your cabin instead. I can unlock that door for you.” To Laura’s left, her private cabin’s door opened.
She chuckled.
“For what, Holly? You think these goons will let me live after I just killed their boss?”
“The pilot says she will. She says that your killing of him makes her the new boss. Her rules.”
Inside the bridge, the dava at the door had turned to the meruhta. It shouted at her and she turned to it. The fur on her face kept Laura from seeing any blush or anger the way a human would express it, but the way the cat-like alien’s ears had pulled back the anger was apparent. She yelled something at the dava and now the one working on the panel turned to look at the meruhta.
“Now, now. We don’t need to fight at this time,” Hollister said on the bridge side of the door.
The meruhta snarled and touched a control on the pilot console. Hollister’s voice on the side of the door dimmed.
“Oh my,” Hollister said as the meruhta pulled the knife she had used to kill Travis from her belt.
Laura watched as the two dava activated their spare arms on their exo-suits and started to move closer to the other pirate. Things happened fast. The dava charged at the meruhta and she managed to flip one of them over onto the consol. The other grabbed her and a charge of electricity leapt from its hands. The meruhta howled in pain but still managed to sweep its knife around. It caught the dava in its left eye and then yanked through. The soft tissue of dava skull swept out and pieces splattered the cabin. The injured dava stumbled back as the one on the console leapt on the back of the meruhta. It used all four of its arms to start shocking her again and again and Laura could see where patches of fur were singed and burned. The meruhta flung herself back and slammed the dava against the console again, knocking it loose. She stabbed down again and again until the visible creature in the exo-suit was nothing more than a pile of oozing flesh. The other dava tried to stand but kept falling back, and finally came to a halt when the meruhta pulled the dead dava off the console and dumped the body on top of its ally.
The meruhta turned to the door of the bridge, and stared at Laura. Blood was seeping from its mouth and all of the deep burn wounds the dava had delivered. These injuries were death for the alien. Their blood wouldn’t clot as easily as it did for most species, and while Laura knew there was enough medicine in the med kit in there to save the meruhta, she didn’t bother telling it. If the pirate could hear Hollister it might be able to save itself, but it still kept him on mute.
The pirate reached onto the bridge console and adjusted the course one last time.
“Oh that is unkind. Most unkind indeed,” Hollister said.
“What did she do, Holly?”
“She has repositioned the craft to the nearest local star. Once the punch drive activates, we will hit the system’s sol in approximately five minutes. Captain, that is more than enough time for you to reach a rescue pod with a spare three minutes. Less if I can get the pod active before your arrival.”
Laura looked at the Meruhta as it turned back to her. She could see the hate in the pirate’s eyes as it started at her. Laura glanced at Travis’s body and nodded. There was nothing she could do for him or the others.
“Three spare minutes you said? Okay, let me spend a few seconds to gather some things.” She moved into her cabin to grab what she could of her life aboard this ship, and left behind the death and violence of the invasion.
I always thought it was interesting in stories how AI are always ‘reprogrammed’ to turn against their owner-operators. The whole point of free-thinking AI to me is that they are free-thinking, capable of making choices. Sometimes even the wrong ones.