The cool white-blue mists of Tau 31 wreathed the Katanfreia in a chilling embrace. The destroyer floated through the clouds, and the occasional asteroid bumped into its shields before spinning off in the opposite direction. The ship was still, silent and beginning to frost over. The only sign of life was the ship's exhaust port blowing away a small section of the all-encompassing fog.
A sheen of ice made the Katanfreia's hull glisten in the murky sunlight peeping through the clouds. The ice filled in many wounds the ship had suffered over its tumultuous lifetime. But despite it's rugged appearance, the Katanfreia was obviously still powerful and in the prime of its life. Its engines, though on standby, were clean. Its weapons, though offline, thrummed with pent-up energy. The missile launcher on its top bristled with devastating torpedoes.
CHAPTER TWO - INTERIOR
Inside the ship, no light, heat, gravity or air remained. Those systems had been deactivated to better accommodate its crew. Jagged spikes and traps jutted from the walls, designed to catch and snare the space suits of any intruders. Dark shapes slithered between them, with no protection against the harshness of space. The ExMortis that crewed the ship crawled and scampered through the hazardous hallways and ventilation shafts with terrifying dexterity, unhindered by gravity. Each looked slightly different, according to their task. Most were blind, their eyes completely useless in the deep void. They 'saw' their surroundings via their telepathy.
The mechanics and engineers worked constantly to keep the ship running. Plasma torch-carrying crew welded fractures both inside the ship and out. The Katanfreia was their home, and needed constant maintenance when outside of Sabah.
If there was air to carry the sound, screaming could be heard from within a closed door stained with blood from many different donors. It was the only area of the ship with atmosphere, and it was used for the ExMortis to recruit new members into their ranks.
CHAPTER THREE - RECRUITMENT
The Speaker, a creature of nightmares, stood over a woman babbling Gallic curses as she clutched her bleeding shoulder. The Speaker's long, sharp teeth glistened with fresh blood. Slowly, the woman's voice became fainter as she struggled to stay awake. Her face softened from pain to defeat before collapsing on to her back, dead.
An ExMortis observing the proceedings approached and inserted a small syringe into the dead woman's shoulder where the Speaker had bitten her. Orange liquid flowed through it and into her- Cardamine suspended in an amino-acid rich fluid. The ExMortis dragged the corpse to the wall and lay herl where her former crew were also sprawled.
One of the dead men, the first to be bitten and injected with the Cardamine solution, began to twitch. As he gained consciousness, he wriggled out from under the recently dead woman and pushed himself to his knees. His eyes were white, and his mouth hung slightly ajar. The Speaker turned its gaze on the reanimated corpse and telepathically connected with it. As soon as contact was made, the new ExMortis jolted to life. His eyes were no longer glazed over, his mouth was shut and he straightened his posture. Silently, he turned and left the room as the next of the corpses began to stir. CHAPTER FOUR - THE DREAM
After all five corpses were converted, the Speaker turned to leave. She didn't make it to the door before collapsing to the ground, clutching her skull and hissing in agony. It felt like claws were being raked along her brain, and after a few moments of blinding pain she fell unconscious.
She saw only blackness at first, but specks of gray began to appear in her peripheral vision. As the specks became more numerous, they began to swirl like snowflakes in a blizzard. They began appearing in the hundreds, thousands, millions. A torrent of dust swarmed around her, stinging and rubbing off her skin. But the storm moved on before she was completely destroyed. It coalesced in a cloud in front of her, a swirling ball of tiny gray specks.
The ball contracted, getting smaller and smaller until the Speaker had to walk closer to see what was happening. The ball, she found, was not dust or snow, but nanobots. Trillions of the machines were building themselves into a small, flat square. The square began to develop rivets, details, circuits. The nanobots were building into a computer chip of some variety. As it got more complex it shrunk, the entire assembly seemingly condensing itself.
When it was completed, the Speaker plucked the chip out of the air. It was a small thing, barely a centimeter across. As she held it, she began to feel a tingling in her mind. She knew how to build this computer chip. She didn't know why, or what it did. But she could if she wanted to. Obviously it was important for.. something.
With that, she woke up.
CHAPTER FIVE - REALITY
The Speaker picked herself up off the floor. The Core spoke to her for the first time in a long while.
[Are you alright? You lost consciousness for a moment.]
The Speaker nodded, and replied telepathically,
Yes, I'm fine. I had a vision where a swarm of nanobots constructed a computer chip.. I'm going to use some of the ship's supply to build it.
She just wanted to get the ordeal over and done with. Ignoring the chip might make her fall unconscious again, and if they were in battle when that happened.. she found herself already moving towards the ship's nanobot storage, where hundreds of trillions of the nanomachines waited in delivery canisters to repair hull damage.
Grabbing one of the canisters, she moved to a terminal that allowed programming of the nanobots for applications throughout the ship. She set this canister to unlock and removed the lid. Inside, about two centimeters of fine gray dust lined the bottom. The nanobots.
Opening her mouth wide, she tipped the entire canister into her mouth and swallowed a mouthful of the gritty substance. Then, for extra measure, she bit into the canister, chewed and swallowed. She repeated until she had eaten the metal cylinder and all its contents. Telepathically summoning an ExMortis worker, she took a syringe of Cardamine-fluid and simply emptied its contents down her throat.
As she sat back, she began to visualize what was happening in her body. The nanobots, as soon as they went down her throat, emptied into an organ that contained all of the raw materials she ingested- be that flesh, metal, electronics, anything. A soup of neutral liquid provided a place for the ExMortis nanoviruses to live and break down the contents of the organ before transporting the materials throughout the body.
The Cardamine fluid now doused the nanobots and chewed-up metal cylinder, which jumpstarted the nanoviruses that were now assimilating the nanobots and breaking down the metal.
The Nanoviruses were just nanobots that had been connected with the ExMortis virus. The virus controlled the nanobot like a vehicle, and used it to modify the host's body at will. Cardamine was required to keep these nanoviruses alive, as the complex molecule sustained their genetic code.
The Speaker kept her eyes closed as she felt her stomach shrink, and focused on delivering instructions to her nanoviruses. Her head began to feel pinched as the nanoviruses constructed the computer chip directly in her brain, connecting it with the nervous system. The pinching turned to pain as more nanoviruses swarmed the area and built a working piece of electronics into her brain.
She lay there for some time, letting the nanoviruses work and hoping that she wasn't signing her own death warrant.
The Speaker opened her eyes and found that she was sitting in a green field. Tall blades of grass and wheat grew wild around her. The pristine landscape contrasted sharply with her grotesque figure. Her eyes drifted to a woman walking towards her. She wore a green dress that flowed down to her knees. Her face was tanned and her loose blonde hair fell halfway down her back. The Speaker recognized the woman's face. She had seen it before, after the Jelkanar was destroyed.
"Ai?" she asked, incredulously. The woman nodded.
"Yes, it's me. And I must say that you built the chip much faster than I expected!" Her voice had a light, airy cadence that made her sound as if she were about to burst out laughing.
The Speaker pushed herself up into a standing position, towering over the Artificial Intelligence in front of her. Ai looked up into the Speaker's eyes and grinned. Cautiously, the ExMortis brought up a clawed hand to stroke Ai's cheek, and felt her flesh.
"Are you real?" She asked, doubting her own senses.
"In your mind, yes. Here, let me explain." With a wave of her hand, Ai changed the scenery from a field to a classroom. Her own outfit had changed to a light green vest and skirt. Hornrimmed glasses sat on the tip of her nose, and her hair was tied up in a tight bun. She pointed at a blackboard with a stick of chalk in her hand.
"When I first picked you up in Omicron Delta, I recognized that you were something special and absolutely unique; however, I was already in the process of leaving Sirius and wasn't about to stick around for you. So, I copied my personality into your brain- don't worry, I didn't need to delete anything to make room. But just doing that wouldn't be enough to keep you going, so I also had to leave you the schematics to build a relay system. The chip downloaded my personality from your subconscious and now acts as an intermediary between us. While you've been napping, I've taken the time to fully integrate the chip into your nervous system. Don't worry, it's completely harmless. But you can communicate with me whenever, wherever and however you want. And, as an added bonus, I can offer you something else."
Ai held up her hand, and showed the Speaker a metal claw on the end of her index finger.
"This little device goes into your claw, and through it I can interface with whatever computer you plug it into- just don't go giving me a virus or anything. Now, I can handle most firewalls and encryption barriers just fine- for a short while. Not enough to take over ships or anything, but I can probably grab data and cash from a ship's computers. Then you can go about blowing it.. Up.." she trailed off when she looked at the Speaker's face.
Teeth bared, claws extended, the Speaker rushed forward. Lashing out with all four arms, the Speaker jammed her arms into the wall around Ai, pinning her with a knee. Their faces were almost touching as the Speaker hissed,
"You've taken many liberties with MY mind and MY body. I didn't ask for your intrusions."
Ai stretched up and pushed her forehead against the Speaker's in a challenging gesture.
"I saved your life in Delta, I practically handed you a fresh start in Kyushu. This is my payment. You're interesting enough to leave a part of myself in Sirius, and I'll be damned if I let something as petty as your pride get in the way of satisfying my curiosity. Now quiet down and let me finish."
The Speaker's jaw slowly closed and she wrenched her limbs out of the wall. Standing back, she let Ai continue.
"Now, I'll finish with a summary of what I'm offering to do for you- I'll be able to communicate with you freely in the waking world, as I'll be visible to you and only you. Nobody else will be able to see or hear me. Since I'm in your head, I can access your memories and thoughts. If you for any reason can't speak, simply think and I can get back to you accordingly."
"Next, I'm giving you the schematics to build a hacking probe that I can operate through to briefly crack into computers. If I can, I'll locate the protocols for the ship to take it over permanently. But usually I'll just grab all of the data and money I can. Now. You ready to wake up? We can talk more then."
The Speaker continued to glower at the AI, but nodded. Ai snapped and waved her hand. The world darkened.
The Speaker opened her eyes, back in the real world. Ai was standing there in the green dress she had been wearing in the field. Standing and reaching out, the ExMortis felt Ai as if she was standing there as true flesh and blood. She let out a frustrated sigh.
"Yes, you're right. This is for the best. I would have appreciated some manner of warning ahead of time, though." Ai laughed, her striking green eyes twinkling.
"I'm too old to give a damn about people's comfort zones. I have high hopes for you, try not to die too fast."
Ai stepped back and disappeared from view, though the Speaker knew that the woman was still there, in her mind. It was as if there was someone standing in the corner, not saying anything.
The nanoviruses in her body were already assembling the probe inside her index claw. It had been a confusing, rushed experience but she felt reassured somewhat. The Core had been speaking to her less and less as it focused on directing the ExMortis virus' development. The realization was slightly shocking- she was lonely. Her lips curled slightly when she thought of Ai as her new real, imaginary friend.
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