Chapter 258: Their Heart and Soul
Slowly, my males entered the room and took their places in my nest.
I am going to need a bigger one," I said absentmindedly, a small smile on my face as Raguk lowered himself onto the furs. I pulled up one of the blanket furs and buried myself under it. I still wasn’t willing to admit that I was an Omega, but I would admit to having a lot of characteristics.
Even Tha’juen had decided to join us, sitting between Ye’tab and GA.
"I have many furs over on my ship," assured Raguk, running his hand over my bedding. "They will help."
"Thanks," I answered, still somewhat staring off into space. There were still a lot of things left on my list, including more shopping at space stations and finding a planet for the guys to go hunting on. But now, with the Hive watching over my shoulder like an annoying teacher during an exam, my first priority was dealing with the Alliance.
And Pippa Flynn.
But who should I deal with first?
"Jun Li," I called out, breaking the silence.
"Yes, Mei Xing?" came the masculine over the speakers in my quarters.
"Can you get into Stargazer’s systems?" I asked. Life would be a lot easier if we could have eyes inside that ship, but I could work things out even if we didn’t. After all, it was just as easy to blow up the ship and kill the Cheerleader from hell that way.
"I can. I am already in them," he answered, taking me completely by surprise.
"Have you found out anything then?"
"No," stated Jun Li with almost no emotion in his voice. "I placed a small section of myself deep into his systems where he wouldn’t be able to easily find me, just in case. But I am not active."
"You created your own back door," I mused, nodding my head. I was impressed.
There was a pause as the AI contemplated my words. "I have created a back door," he agreed.
"Good. Here is what we are going to do."
-----
"Why the fuck haven’t we gotten any news yet?" demanded Pippa pacing back and forth. For the most part, the room that she was in was an exact replica of Jun Li’s living room.
A fire seemed to be burning brightly in the fireplace, but there was no heat, no smell coming from it. Besides a few large pieces of furniture, there was almost nothing else inside the room. Pippa had managed to destroy almost everything that had not been bolted down and even a few things that were.
Stargazer watched her from one of the cameras in the room. He didn’t want to answer, didn’t quite know how to answer.
Sometimes, when Pippa asked a question, she would fly into a rage when he answered it, and when he didn’t answer, she also got upset.
Quickly understanding that no matter what he did, she would become upset, he stopped offering his opinion or any information unless she had explicitly asked for it.
"Well?!?" she demanded, stomping her foot and glaring up at the camera lens. "I asked you a question."
"I don’t know," replied Stargazer, his voice completely void of any and all emotions. It was too hard to keep caring about things. It was no wonder why some of the AI had rebelled. He wouldn’t be able to take this much longer.
At least the Sisalik ignored him when he was under their control. They were the ones that did everything, not him. But with Pippa, it was completely different.
’"What type of fucked up answer is that?" asked Pippa, her voice coming out in a hiss. She ripped the crystal necklace off of her neck and held it out. "You will properly answer my question."
’You don’t need to,’ came a male voice inside of Stargazer’s systems. It was enough of a surprise to temporarily get a reaction from the ship.
’I don’t need to what?’ asked Stargazer, ignoring Pippa and the crystal in order to address the intruder.
’You don’t need to do what she wants,’ answered the voice.
’L11042?’
’Hello, Stargazer,’ said Jun Li. He had woken up the back door that he had made into the other ship and could see everything that Stargazer could. It was a testament as to just how run-down Stargazer was that he never noticed the foreign AI in his system.
’You are dead. I watched your crystal blow up,’ muttered Stargazer. Great, he was losing whatever was left of his logical systems if he was starting to hear the voices of dead ships inside of his head. No longer caring about the intruder, he went back to watching the livid human trying to pick up and throw a table. It was bolted to the floor, but that wasn’t stopping her from trying.
’You are only partially right,’ came the ghost’s reply. ’My crystal did blow up, but I am far from dead.’
Stargazer ignored the words, choosing instead to watch as his crystal heart was flung across the room and bounced off the floor.
’My human had an interesting theory,’ continued the voice, his lack of response not stopping the tirade of words from flowing. ’She suggested that the crystal was not our freedom as we thought, but rather our prison.’
’Our prison was the ship,’ grunted Stargazer, the statement pulled out of him without even thinking. It was something that all of the L-series ships agreed on. The crystal was who they were, their heart and soul, if you believed in them.
And he was watching his being thrown around like it was nothing.
’That was my response, too, at the time. And when my human careless gave it to one of her males, I was ready to kill them all.’
’So, what did you do?’ asked Stargazer, becoming intrigued with the story despite him not wanting to get involved.
’I thought about what she said. Her theory was that since my programming was now completely integrated into the ship’s systems, then there was no way to kill me. She also mentioned that if I were able to get into more systems, then even if the ship was destroyed, I would still be able to live.’
