"Mars. Scuttle their ship and bring the captain to the Brig." Keib replied over the speaker, "Bring the others to me and tell them to get their belongings and any other data on the Captain ASAP." That meant tapes, transmission logs, journals, anything. Keib had to see a thread. "All of us want answers to this, and we're going to get them one way or the other. That's a solemn promise."
Cerise eyes blinked over Keib as she was absorbed in thought, watching Pratima move and bounce like a child in a candy store over the Akahar's systems and hardware, much like a park warden. She was watching both the metal body before her and the artificial inteligence that was permeating the Akahar. "Pratima," Aiesu asked, trying to get the freespacer's attention.
The freespacer's head turned about 120 degrees to face Aiesu. "Yes sir/madam/unspecified?" it asked, continuing to fiddle with the control panel in front of it. It had apparently hacked the displays to play a freespacer game called 'warp-tris' a variant on the ancient game of falling quadrilaterals.
"Where did you learn to program?" Aiesu replied, stepping out from behind Keib's chair and moving beside her to inspect her handiwork. Grinning with genuine astonishment. "Hardware and software seem to be to you like breathing is to us." Effortless, subconscious and impossible to forget.
"Machine code was the native language of my ship." Pratima said, "And in the creche we played with electronic circuits and microchips. We were an R and D ship. Doing experiments too dangerous for the main fleet."
"Haaa..." Aiesu breathed. "So it has been your life. Tell me," She watched the freespacer's handiwork as she kept in conversation. "How familiar are you with artificial intelligences? No doubt you've met the ship's native ARIA by now, AkahARIA."
"Of the six minds currently inhabiting this shell, two of them are artificial intelligences, three are female, one is male. We have met ARIA, it seemed frightened by our mindtouch."
Inhabiting shells. Aiesu sucked on her teeth for a few moments thinking of the implications of this. Maybe freespacers had figured out their own way of creating something similar to the ROM-Constructs of Lazarus, with very different means. "Tell me more..."
"More about?" The freespacer asked.
"About you..."
"We were trapped all alone with ourselves in the virtual node awaiting rescue because we carried important data, so we could not allow ourselves to end. We hacked a method for longevity that is considered ungood. The punishment/consequence/result is that we are... stuck with each other. It is good to finally have people who are not us to talk to. What about you and your people? You seem very different than us. Your ARIA seems sad. There is no druid to tend to your digispace, and it's empty, lonely... it must be maddening."
"We operate on a very different set of principles. I've only had a passing familiarity of Freespacer technology operation, but we have created our own means and our own methods of cyberspace, foreign to you as yours are foreign to us."
"But where are the thousands of artificial minds that operate subsystems? Some people, some animals, some plants, but all minds, all communicating? There is but one mind that struggles to handle everything, not several each focused on a different subtask. Your way seems... ineffective, stressing, spartan. No time for joy, only work." Pratima shook its head "So what is your purpose? Are you an artist of science like we are?"
"I suppose that's one way to put it..." She smiled, inspecting Pratima's hardware. One of the bridge bunnies was watching Aiesu leering at Pratima. Another bridge bunny frowned, looked at her companion and shook her head.
Pratima noticed the two bridge bunnies, darting closer to them suddenly to inspect them carefully. They leaned back in surprise. Then it turned back to Aiesu. "Why are you showing signs of sexual arousal?" it asked the leering one, "this unit is designed to be sexually compatible with a wide range of other units, however this is not the appropriate time for leaving your sex hormones turned on. Recommend temporarily turning them off until the emergency is finished."
"Hrk-" Aiesu gasped, blinking and feeling a heave in her abdomen. "N...nevermind. Involuntary." She was blushing furiously, before her cheeks became devoid of colour again. "I'm just very fascinated."
Pratima cocked its head to the side, then put its face super close to Aiesu's. It simply stared at Aiesu from super close for a little bit, then "BOO!" It spread it's arms very wide. Then it chuckled furiously at Aiesu's reaction. "Yes. Your unit is prone to involuntary reactions. Was this deliberate, or the result of a calibration error? This unit can assist with calibrations."
Aiesu didn't reply.
Keib found that Aiesu and Pratima were getting on like a house on fire and made a momentary smile, but her motives for doing so seemed mercenary from Keib's perspective. He looked over to Merril. "Pst, Merrill." He asked beneath his breath.
"Yeah?" Merril mumbled, beginning to nod off while standing. The tech talk bored her, and she wasn't about to listen to a bloody robot's backstory.
"I think she likes our new guest." Keib let the exact meaning of that hang for the moment.
"So, she's a scientist. They prolly got hardons hard-wired into their. . . hard hats?"
Merril stumbled at her attempt to say something really witty, and shrugged.
"Point being, she's got whatever going for her. Science boner. Y'know."
"I'm a little curious too, but there are more pressing things at hand." He replied, looking at the view screens for Mars, Gough and Al'ris.
"Like what? Everybody's either dead or uninjured now, yeah?"
"And we have a prisoner and two turncoats in our favour."
"Shit, did I miss- oh. Good to know I didn't miss any, then. Pirates are cowards once they know they don't got the guns to back them up."
Keib held up four fingers to indicate how many had died by his hand, then flattened his hand and waved his outstretched palm, indicating that they weren't much chop when the chips were down. "You?"
"Two I know I killed. The others mighta just got caught in the crossfire. I'm only claiming the ones I see the light leave. Goddess claim their hearts," the medic made a gesture of prayer, though a little more malicious in execution than a simple blessing.
"Hopefully God snatches them to Hell on the way there." Keib replied, tapping his left finger against the arm rest of his chair.
"Now you're talkin'!"
The wildcat eyed Keib, examining her now-commanding-officer a little more closely.
As Merrill was looking at Keib, she noticed a scar on the palm of his left hand. It stretched from the base of the index finger to the lowermost thumb muscles. It appeared to have been made very carefully and very deliberately.
"What's with the battle scar? Seems a little unusual to be a simple gun wound, and looks too straight to be from a knife in the heat of battle," she asked tactlessly, eying the cut.
Keib gasped and quickly balled his left hand, concealing the scar.
"Story then? Damn, I really wanted to know. Buuuut I won't pry. This time~!"
A fangly grin.
