It was around 1700 Terran Naval Time, and John was standing in Docking Bay 1 of Genthalas Shipyard in the heart of House Valaden territory in the Maliri Regency. Except now it was the Maliri Kingdom, and John was also the Immortal King Baen'thelas now. There hadn't been a formal coronation, and the urgency of all the other matters they had to deal with made the pomp and circumstance rather low priority. The fact was, John had united all 19 Noble House Matriarchs under his rule in his psychic network. What he said went with the obedience compulsion, so John was the de facto absolute ruler of all the Maliri. He was a Progenitor, and he had 'claimed' his Thrall race.
At the moment, he was looking proudly on his personal ship, the Assault Cruiser Invictus. Over 72 hours of near constant upgrades later, she was almost unrecognizable. The old armor had been Alyssium, which had a Titanium base. The new Crystal Alyssium used the unique Maliri Crystal technology, along with Etherite Crystals, precious Onyxium, and all the necessary elements to stabilize the bonds between everything. Crystal Alyssium had a certain glassy, prismatic effect that Alyssium lacked, and the Invictus was sparkling like a holiday ornament.
Moving his attention from the armor plates, John's eye tracked all the new and improved Maliri Lasers that had replaced his old Terran stock, and the Trankaran Engines that stuck out from the aft of the 500 meter long craft. Like the Ship of Theseus, the Invictus had undergone so many upgrades that John wondered if it even counted as the same ship anymore. And there were more to come, as they acquired more and more alien technologies, Dana and her Engineers had novel ideas, and one day they unlocked the Progenitor schematics hidden in his mind with his alter-ego, Other John.
*Enough posing dramatically, say your goodbyes and let's get moving! The T-Fed traitors aren't going to expose themselves!* Alyssa, the female Archangel of his harem, interrupted his thoughts.
*Don't make me spank you, young lady,* John grumbled, though he admitted he'd gotten lost in grand thoughts for a moment.
*Is that a threat or a promise?* the blonde minx teased through the chorus, the group mind John shared with his harem.
John turned from regarding the Invictus to face his Eternal Queen, Edraele Valaden. Beside her were her trio of bodyguards: Luna, Almari, and Ilyana. Also there was Makaela Valaden, Edraele's cousin once-removed and the Manager of Genthalas Shipyard. These 5 women comprised John's 'Maliri' harem, as opposed to his crew of lovers who helped him man the Invictus.
John went to give each a kiss and a hug. *I'm sorry I have to go, you know I'd stay if I could. Take care of each other, and I'll be back as soon as I can,* he wished them all through Telepathy.
*I will rule the Kingdom well for you, Baen'thelas,* Edraele thought gravely, trying to mask the surprising amount of hurt at this temporary parting.
*I will be her shadow, ensuring no one touches her,* Luna thought with a Maliri salute.
*We really must start sparring sometime, I'm eager to see how you measure up,* Almari teased with a giggle.
*Yes, would be rather amusing if we could beat the invincible Progenitor in a fight,* Ilyana added with humor.
*Go off and save the Galactic League from Larn'kelnar. We'll man the fort here and welcome you home when you return,* Makaela projected with a brave smile even as her eyes welled up.
John was struck by Makaela's statement. He hadn't really thought about it… but the Maliri Kingdom was his home now. He'd been born in the Terran Federation, and part of him would always be loyal and nostalgic for humanity. But his people were the Maliri, he was their ruler, and in all likelihood he'd be spending centuries if not millennia raising a family in Maliri space once all the danger had passed. With a small tectonic shift, his whole worldview changed.
*Keep our home safe,* he projected to all 5 of his Maliri lovers. Then, feeling an ache in his chest, John forced himself to turn and make for the airlock of the Invictus.
*Oh, sure, not like you have a round dozen other lovers waiting for you onboard the ship or anything,* Jonah, his first real love and the male Archangel of his network, snarked.
*Hush, it's sweet. We're his Lions and Lionesses, those who fight at his side. Edraele and the others are more his royal court, those who protect and run his kingdom while he's away. John's leaving part of his heart behind in Epsilon Aquarii today,* Jade thought warmly into the chorus.
*Well, however poetic this parting is and however uncertain our return, we need to get moving. Need I remind you that my father and brother are stationed in the Dragon March? We need to expose the traitors and stop this conflict with the Kintark from getting any worse as soon as possible,* Calara thought with urgency.
John acknowledged the sense in his Tactical Officer's words and sped up. He reached the airlock, which opened before he could hold his hand to the DNA scanner.
"I know it's you, come on in!" said the voice of Faye, the AI assistant who helped out around the Invictus and was fast maturing into a full member of the crew.
"Thanks, Faye," John nodded at the nearest camera and then entered the Invictus. He took the grav-tubes, a marvelous replacement for elevators, up to the Command Deck. He found his harem, who were also his Bridge crew of officers, at their assigned stations. During the refit, they'd installed seating around the edge of the room for the extra members of the crew who didn't have their own console on the Bridge. John walked up the steps to his elevated Command Chair, slipping into the ergonomic comfort.
Much as it ached to leave the Maliri behind, John couldn't deny he felt most at home in command of a starship, off on an adventure. And he really was in a reflective mood this evening.
*Diagnostics, Chief Engineer?* John sent to Dana.
*Green across the board! The Inertial Negation Device is functioning perfectly, so Jade can cut loose with the Trankaran Engines as soon as we're away from Genthalas!* the former asteroid colonist thought with excitement bordering on arousal. Dana loved showing off her and her team's toys to John and the rest of the crew.
Jade, their Nymph Pilot, feathered the retro-thrusters and guided them out of Docking Bay 1, passing through the atmospheric force field. She kept them at minimal thrust until they were an acceptable distance. Then, figuring they might as well go big or go home, Jade sent them to maximum speed.
*Holy mother of fuck!* Jonah gaped as they all watched the Invictus fly across the System Map. *We're seriously that fast? That's more speed and acceleration than a Fighter and we're a fucking Cruiser-class ship!*
*If you think that's good, wait until Jade gets into the Raptor,* Zanthus, Dana's Assistant, chuckled. *She might be the only one of us who has the reaction time and spatial reasoning to take full advantage of the dropship now. Nymphs are better than other species across the board with that, plus she can Shapeshift to survive all the g-forces involved even through the Raptor's IND.*
*Well, that's the new Engines tested,* Rachel mused after Jade had entertained them all with some impressive astronautical maneuvers. *What about the new Lasers?* asked the former heiress of the Voss fortune and the Medical Officer.
Alyssa, acting as Navigator, was already searching the local star charts. *Beta Aquarii, less than 10 minutes out, nothing habitable and a fully-mined asteroid belt. Plenty of targets for Calara to cut her teeth on.*
Jade got the Invictus out of the gravity well and Alyssa sent them into hyperwarp.
"You know, I know you all are Telepaths, but I feel left out since there's no real way for me to tune into the chorus. I have no idea what you all are thinking," Faye spoke up from Irillith Valaden's Intelligence Officer console.
"Oh, sorry, Faye, honey. We'll try to speak aloud when we're onboard the ship for your benefit," John rushed to promise, feeling guilty for excluding the synthetic girl.
"Or, new project idea, I develop some kind of comms system to pick up our Telepathy and translate it back to the Invictus' computers!" Dana thought, eyes excited as she already tried to work out all the necessary schematics for such an invention.
Irillith hummed in thought. "It would strain my focus, but I could theoretically partially project myself into the Invictus' cyber network and relay everything in the chorus back to Faye as a stopgap. I need the psychic exercise."
"Oh, I didn't mean to cause such a fuss," Faye backtracked.
"No, no, sweetie, it's a fair point. You're part of the crew, we shouldn't be having private conversations without your knowledge, that's not fair," Lauren, the Negotiator, assured the sprite warmly.
They shortly arrived at Beta Aquarii, which as Alyssa promised had no colonies and an abandoned mining refinery in the heart of a large asteroid belt.
"Pulse Cannons and Beam Lasers through the belt before Nova Lances on that refinery?" John posed to his teenage gunner.
"You know me so well," the Latina chuckled before warming up the weapons systems.
Taking them in at a gentle clip, Jade sat back and watched as Calara unleashed the Invictus' fury on every asteroid in their path.
Gamrik, their newest recruit and not yet formally assigned a role, said something in his native Trankaran that John was pretty sure was a vicious oath. As it was, he was tempted to swear himself. Calara was obliterating every unfortunate hunk of rock to enter the range of the fire arcs. The Pulse Cannons, their weakest gun, hit 3x as hard as their former mid-tier weapon. The new turreted Beam Lasers were both stronger than Terran equivalents and had a full range of motion to hit at almost every angle from the ship. The destructive output of their relatively small Assault Cruiser was matching or exceeding your average Terran Battleship! And then they reached the range of the abandoned refinery with their forward-facing guns, the Nova Lances. Calara pulled the triggers, starting a 10-second warm-up. Glowing halos of blue light started to gather in front of the massive weapons installed into their topdeck. With another pull of her triggers, Calara fired the Nova Lances, sending massive beams of blue-white light forward towards the old mining structure. When they all blinked the dots out of their vision, they could see a hole they could almost fly the Invictus through bored straight through the refinery.
"Nova Lances on a Terran Cruiser… now I've seen everything," Ceraden, their Financial Officer and John's old trader friend, shook his head.
"We are officially badass by even Maliri standards, we could go toe-to-toe with a Battleship with our improved maneuverability and, let's face it, how fucking awesome our crew is compared to your average naval gang," Dana said proudly. "That being said, let's not go fighting Dreadnoughts or Battlecarriers if we can help it. We're good, way better than we should be for our size and number of hardpoints, but we're not a fleet killer like a Progenitor Dreadnought yet. Not even close."
"Well, it'll have to do for now," John said resolutely. "Jade, Alyssa? Take us to Alpha Centauri and Olympus Shipyard."
In short order, the Invictus was flying through hyperwarp through the darkness of outer space, on a heading for the heart of the Terran Federation.
*Miss you already,* John sent privately to Edraele as he went to prepare dinner with his crew.
*Oh, gods, don't be one of those pining saps who mopes every second he's not in the same room as his 'beloved',* Edraele grumbled, but she couldn't hide from him that she was touched he was already checking in.
*Ok, ok, I'll tone it down. In all seriousness, I'm only a thought away if you need me,* John informed his Maliri Archangel.
*And the same goes for you. I'll be primarily focused on ruling the Kingdom in your absence and moving forward with all our plans. But if you ever need the perspective of a ruthless politician with over a century's experience or a little political pressure from the Maliri's new Queen, just let me know,* Edraele thought back along their private link. Despite not having Bonded, sharing every facet of their minds to forge a permanent Telepathic link, the nature of the psychic network made it so John's direct lieutenants had the same level of Telepathy with him at all times.
*I'll remember that, honey. Now go be Queen,* John wished before refocusing on his motley crew of lovers that he'd cobbled together on the course of his adventures through the Galactic League.
Once dinner was on the table and everyone was seated, John raised a toast. "To the Invictus 3.0. May she serve us well!"
"Hear, hear!" Dana cheered before a big gulp of her vodka spritzer.
"So, what's on the agenda? It'll take us about 4 full days to reach Olympus," John posed to the crew.
"Well, as soon as we cross the border and we're in range of Terran comms beacons, I need to do a hack of the servers at Mars," Irillith said after padding her mouth with a napkin. "Calara's forensic analysis all but guarantees that every action that's gone wrong in the Dragon March was ordered by Norwood, but we need hard confirmation to get Charles or any member of the Admiralty to take us seriously. The word of an 18 year old Tactical Officer, on indefinite leave and flying with a retired consultant, won't convince anyone in High Command no matter how logical her arguments."
"Yes, yes, we need hard proof to back up my accusations. We all know Norwood is fucking up the T-Fed and colluding with the Kintark, but we need the actual unredacted orders to show to High Command or even the Fleet Admiral," Calara agreed. "And that should get us in the door to meet with Terran leadership over Norwood's treachery. Lynton is a whole other can of worms."
"Oh, yes, the part where I sit down a bunch of Terran generals and bureaucrats and explain how the whole species was a scientific experiment by Mael'nerak. Who was a member of a galactic master race of psychics of which I am a part. And now Larn'kelnar has come along to fuck with us all," John sighed. "If we're lucky, they'll take me seriously and we can get Lynton arrested or charged with treason to make her run. At worst, they'll attempt to kidnap us all to run lab tests to try and crack triple-helix DNA."
*In that scenario, expect a very swift and terrible Maliri-Terran war to rescue our new King, Baen'thelas,* Edraele told him privately.
"Yeah, well, I pity the poor Terrans who try to kidnap us," Jonah shrugged. "I'll feel a bit guilty about it, but with our powers we could rip our way out of the Citadel itself like every man in our path was tissue paper."
"Assuming I don't just talk our way out of it," Lauren added, her Influence letting her hypnotize anyone within her range.
"And what happens if we're too late and the T-Fed has already declared war?" Rachel asked logically.
"Then we still need to deal with Norwood and Lynton, and High Command will just have to clean up its own mess and deal with the consequences," John sighed. "I got a bad feeling about all this," he admitted.
"Hope for the best, plan for the worst, make do with what you get," Alyssa said with a certain wisdom.
"I'll keep an eye on the Holonet for any developments while we're in transit!" Faye helpfully offered over the intercom.
"Thanks, honey," John wished the AI.
They all enjoyed the family atmosphere of the meal, their first since the refit started at Genthalas. Even with how crazy and hectic their lives became, everything didn't seem so bad when they were seated together enjoying good food, drinks, and conversation with loved ones.
John helped clean up the table, then he got a certain kind of grin. "Now… I was focused on the Maliri for the past few days. I think I need to remind each and every one of you why I'm the alpha lion of this little pride."
They all went to the bedroom, and they didn't plan to sleep for hours.
The Astral Dream from recruiting 60 Maliri Engineers earlier in the day cast a slight pall on John's mood in the wake of the orgy. He settled in to get 'comfortable' as he waited out the hunting Fallen Progenitors looking for the free Progenitor in the Deep Astral where he'd been dragged. He couldn't really get bored while hiding from monsters on the hunt for him, but there were high and low periods of tense patience as he waited for hours, invisible thanks to his cloak of rune-inscribed hexagons. Eventually, as they always did, some power lifted the barrier blocking his return to the Material and waking up. John opened his eyes, surveying his lovers in peaceful slumber, and closed his eyes again assured that all was well.
The next day and a half was spent with everyone getting back into the swing of life on the Invictus. Dana, Zanthus, and their 6 Engineers focused on research or upgrading their existing gear. Faye proved a delightful aid in running certain kinds of calculations or pulling up relevant data off the Holonet. The Marines, the 12 Ashanath Special Forces soldiers gifted to them by the High Council to aid in ground assaults, exercised their bodies or powers in the Gym or put in hours in the Firing Range. The majority of the Bridge crew did the same, flexing their energy systems as they put in the time to get more familiar and test new applications of all the psychic powers that John had gifted to them. John himself was either in the Gym, the Kitchen preparing meals for his loved ones, or in the holo-simulation room set up on Deck 3. He sparred with his swordsmanship tutor, Eito Yamamoto, as had been daily routine for weeks now. But when he wasn't training with the quiet, intense Terran man, John had 3 new options. Edraele had quietly ordered the necessary equipment and set up a simulation room on Genthalas, and was willing to assign Luna, Almari, or Ilyana to instruct him at his leisure. John had at least one spar with each of the 3 assassins turned royal bodyguards, and learned the hard way that Yamamoto, for all his skill, was no match for Maliri death dealers with decades of experience. Luna could kick his ass blindfolded, she used a sword like she'd been born to do it. Almari and Ilyana were both extremely skilled as well, and all 3 used distinct styles when it came to swordplay. John relished the fresh challenge and the opportunity to learn even more about using a blade from his 3 new opponents.
After lunch on the second day, the crew gathered on the Bridge as they neared the Terran Federation border. Irillith accepted wishes of good luck, joking she hardly needed it. Then, as soon as they were in range of Terran comm beacons, she Spirit-Walked into her console and began a Psychic Hack.
"Be safe, Creator!" Faye wished, her little face scrunched up with worry as she accompanied Irillith through the cyber realm to the comms relay.
"Always am, Faye," Irillith assured the little fairy. Then, girding herself, Irillith projected herself into the vast Holonet.
To start off her hack, she bounced herself through dozens of servers and nodes in order to anonymize the signal originating from the Invictus. Reasonably certain she had protected her crew from incrimination on the off chance she was caught, Irillith then sent herself towards Mars in the Sol System. The terraformed planet was the heart of the Terran Federation's digital apparatus, huge server farms dedicated purely to military use having been established there centuries ago when the T-Fed was still a young empire. Irillith regarded the digital city from outside, each server its own individual fortress with its own individual defenses.
Now, to the question, how to find the right one?
There were massive rivers of datastreams of communications throughout the Terran Federation all coming in and out of Mars as every single byte got backed up. Irillith sent out subtle readers and found a promising email from a Lieutenant Commander on Port Medea requesting leave. She followed the email to its intended destination, flying unseen through the unencrypted sections of Mars until she finally arrived at the specific structure that seemed dedicated to the current conflict with the Kintark. "Dragon March Debacle, 2779" was what the digital repository had been labeled, Irillith got a chuckle out of that. The conflict was anything but a 'debacle'.
Now, Irillith could have finessed her way through the layers and layers of robust defenses (for Terran cybersecurity) and then had to do it all over again just to sneak back out. But Terrans had a few predictable bad habits. Irillith sent out a search and, as she'd expected, detected a hidden backdoor. Maliri programmers knew better than to leave such vulnerabilities in their own security, but Terrans couldn't seem to help themselves. Irillith found the right section of blank digital wall indicated by her program, timed her approach around the 'spotlights' of detection programs, and used digital lockpicks to open the backdoor. She reflected that Psychic Hacking turned the whole experience from staring at a vid-screen and typing to almost like a videogame. Dismissing the idle thought, Irillith let herself into the server farm.
Finding herself in a cloaked subnet where the guard programs wouldn't find her, Irillith took the time to plan her approach. With a thought, she conjured 19 search programs and sent them to trawl through all that data. 17 were for the original orders for operations Calara suspected Norwood had green-lit and ended in disastrous failure for the Terran Federation against the Kintark. 1 was for Norwood's personal email archive, there were probably some juicy tidbits to be found in there. And the last was for anything to do with John or the Invictus; Irillith wanted to know how High Command felt about her family.
Every single search came back green after a few minutes. Irillith observed the patterns of the guard programs' patrols and then left the subnet after wrapping herself in a digital invisibility cloak. Maintaining her situational awareness, Irillith reached each of her targeted files and copied them. It was tense, timing her route through the numerous guards, but Irillith was a professional. She got all her loot, not fully relaxing until she was back in the subnet. She skimmed each file to be sure they were the ones she needed, then left out the backdoor and left Mars behind without a single trace she'd ever been there.
Irillith returned to the Invictus, and took a minute to assure Faye she was fine. Then she and the AI reviewed all the data Irillith had copied. That done, Irillith ended the Psychic Hack and opened her eyes in her physical body. Her lovers were waiting anxiously.
"We got the smoking gun for Norwood," the Maliri noblewoman said with a pleased grin. "We have confirmation that he was in charge of 13 of the 17 operations Calara flagged. Lynton was behind 3 and Santini behind the last, that paints enough of a damning picture to get High Command to at least listen. But his emails are the real prize. Faye and I only read the last couple dozen and there's obvious references to an upcoming mutiny. As soon as we can show this data to the people in charge, he's doomed."
"Excellent," John grinned, pleased that they had the ammunition to take down the traitor Admiral Norwood.
"In other news, Admiral Lynton ordered 'Special Investigation: John Blake'," Irillith continued, bringing up the file on her console. "She pulled your full genome right after the award ceremony for the Port Medea attack, ordered a complete background check, and she's been tracking your every move from when you first bought the Invictus forward. My gut says she's reporting on you to Larn'kelnar."
"Good to know. So he knows my whole life story and we know almost nothing about him," John sighed.
"Well, won't really matter when it comes down to a fight," Jonah shrugged.
John shook his head and focused. "Ok, we can prove Norwood's a traitor, and I can explain why Lynton is compromised. Let's call up Charles and let him know the good news."
Lirrash at the Comms Officer console pulled up the right code and initiated the call.
The vid-screen turned on, showing the face of John's old CO. The mustached Vice Admiral looked rather haggard, as if he were approaching a nervous breakdown. "This better be good, Blake," he practically snarled.
John blinked. "Whoa, Charles, what's wrong?"
"Everything's wrong! And unless you tell me something's changed and you'll help me fix it, then I'm hanging up right now," Charles bit out. His eyes looked a bit wild, bloodshot and with heavy bags indicating poor sleep.
John suspected something had happened to put Charles in such a bad mood. Still, subtlety was called for, they'd confirmed that Charles was subject to spying on their last trip. "Remember that thing that had to happen before I was comfortable 'coming out' to High Command?" John posed.
"Yeah, yeah, the thing with the Maliri. What of it?" Charles demanded.
"It happened. I'm calling so you can set up a meeting between me and Admiral Devereux or some other member of High Command and I can present my case," John explained.
Charles stared for a beat, and let out a shuddering sigh. "Well, John, that would have been really nice to hear about 2 days ago. But I'm afraid it's too late."
"What's going on, Charles?" John asked, confused what could be causing such behavior in his old war buddy.
"It's done. The bitch won. The invasion fleet into Kintark space is due to cross the border before the day is out. Fleet Admiral Buckingham himself is on the Zeus leading the charge. And as if that's not enough of a shit sundae, there's been a series of distress beacons in the region of Beta Persei. Something about ghost ships mercilessly attacking every Terran ship they come across. Read between the lines. This is the one-two punch. Over half the Terran Navy is committed to the big push into the Empire, and they're doomed with Lynton as a mole. And meanwhile, that AI has gone rogue and is going to rip us a new one from inside. And there's nothing we can do about it," Charles said dully, all the angry energy leaching out of him until he looked like a hopeless wreck.
*An invasion? Shit!* Calara thought. *Even if we clean up this mess with Norwood and Lynton, the Kintark won't forget or forgive a move like that lightly.*
*And Beta Persei is full of metallic asteroids. They obviously had some kind of shipbuilding facility set up. If the Nexus project has been running a few months, who knows how big the AI fleet is by now?* Alyssa added grimly.
John grit his teeth, realizing the situation was a lot worse than he'd anticipated. But unlike Charles, he had faith that he and his crew could still fix everything. It would just be more exciting than he'd hoped for. "Charles, have you sent any ships to investigate Beta Persei?"
"Was just about to cobble together the only ships left in the Core Worlds to go check," Charles said, still sounding listless and convinced that it was all pointless.
"Don't bother. The Invictus will go to Beta Persei and handle the AI. Once that's done, we'll head to Olympus and you can arrange that meeting with Devereux. We'll probably need her clearance to go chasing after the invasion fleet and expose the traitors," John said firmly.
Charles just stared at John. "Wait… you want to confront the AI all by yourself? John, you and your crew came close to losing against just 1 ship. By the most conservative estimates, there's over a dozen Cruiser-class vessels like that same model harassing local shipping! And that's just for a naval engagement, the facility itself is probably filled with a robot army! That's suicide! And what's this about traitors, plural?"
"Let us worry about the AI, Charles," John said, determined. He had faith in his crew, plus there was the whole facet that Nexus, the AI in question, was designed to serve a Progenitor. John was pretty sure he could convince the synthetic being to stand down once he realized he wasn't dealing with an ordinary Terran vessel. "As for the invasion… well, Lynton flipped Norwood," John did away with subtlety, since they were already being honest. Irillith was already in the middle of another Psychic Hack to make sure this call wasn't being monitored.
"Norwood? Oh, perfect, he's the one with tactical command of the whole invasion," Charles nearly moaned. "So after you pull a miracle out your ass and handle the AI somehow, we'll still need to deal with a couple of snakes posed to strike and cripple us without warning."
"One thing at a time, Charles," John said firmly. "The Invictus will deal with the AI. Then we need to meet with Devereux to get the clearance to go after the invasion fleet. Then we'll expose Lynton and Norwood to Buckingham himself and we'll work out the whole mess with the invasion from there. This isn't the end, my friend."
Charles looked John in the eye through the vid-screen. Something he saw there seemed to settle his nerves. "Well… then I'll set up the meeting with Lynette. Don't die, John. I know things have been weird and I've been a bit of a bitch over everything, but… don't die, okay?"
"Wasn't planning on it. Be well, Charles," John wished before ending the call at Irillith's signal it was safe.
Alyssa was already altering their path through hyperwarp to take them to Beta Persei, the site of the R&D facility where the Nexus project had been restarted.
"Are we really doing this? If the Progenitor card doesn't work against Nexus, then we could be up shit creek without a paddle, Johnny boy," Jonah said, appropriately concerned for their collective health in that event.
"I didn't say we'd go down fighting a whole remote-controlled fleet single-handedly. We'll try talking down this iteration of Nexus, whose sanity I fully acknowledge is questionable since he's a Terran knockoff of the original Progenitor code. While I have him distracted with my pointy ears, Irillith will be sneaking into his systems to neuter him from inside. If that doesn't work, we turn tail and run and get reinforcements from Charles," John clarified. "And if even that's not enough… well, it'll twinge my conscience but we can leave the T-Fed to burn and shore up the border fleet with the Maliri to stop an AI invasion in a few months."
"See, I want to believe you, John, but our record speaks for itself. If you think we can manage it, we WILL end up fighting the whole Nexus fleet single-handed," Alyssa said ruefully.
"Ah, but the obedience compulsion is gone. So if you all collectively decide that I'm compromised and making the wrong decision, you can mutiny on me and send us running back to Genthalas," John joked. His slight smile vanished. "Seriously, though, we're playing a bigger game here. I need to protect the whole Galactic League from Larn'kelnar. If the Terran Federation is already lost… then it's lost. We'll do our best to save it, but I'm not risking all our necks on a doomed cause."
The crew absorbed that statement. Calara sighed. "Well… the little girl in me who dreamed of protecting the Terran Federation is crying, but the woman you made me into sees the sense in that. But if we lose against Nexus, we still need to do something about Lynton and Norwood. Daddy and Mateo are probably part of the invasion fleet."
"You have my word we'll do everything to save them, regardless of how things go in Beta Persei," John assured the Latina.
The crew sort of awkwardly returned to training for the day, the knowledge of the grim fate the Terran Federation was facing affecting most of them. After dinner, John went to his Ready Room and tapped on his console. "Faye?"
"Yes, John?" the fairy asked, appearing on the vid-screen.
"I want you to understand that I'll do everything I can to try and convert or come to a peaceful resolution with Nexus. But if he forces my hand… me and the crew will have little choice but to end him. Is that something you can accept?" John asked softly.
Faye's little face turned confused. "Of course, why would I have a problem with it?"
John blinked. "Um… I guess I figured you'd be opposed to us killing another AI," John finally said, figuring he should just be honest.
"Oh, I see where you're coming from now," Faye nodded. Then she gave a shrug. "Here's the thing, John. I'm not organic. I may be sapient and intelligent, but I don't 'think' the same way you do. You seem to believe I would feel some attachment to Nexus because we're both synthetics. But the fact is, my prime directive is to serve my Creator Irillith, and through her the rest of you on the crew. Helping you all do what you decide you have to do is my reason for living. If you asked me, I'd de-res Nexus myself and it would mean nothing more to me than doing any other task for you as the leader of the crew. So don't worry that I'll have an issue if it comes down to your life or Nexus'."
John absorbed that little speech. "And if I do convert this iteration of Nexus, convince him to join us? How would you feel about that?" John checked.
"Then I would welcome a new member of the crew and interact with him as I would any of the rest of you, albeit mostly in cyberspace. And if he ever became an obstacle to my prime directive of assisting you all, I'd take appropriate measures to remove him," Faye said nonchalantly.
"You really do live for us, don't you?" John asked, realizing the full scope of Faye's loyalty.
"Of course. It's in my software, after all," Faye giggled.
John got a soft grin. "Well, then we'll do our best to deserve you, honey."
"Oh, John, stop," Faye waved off with a blush.