Chapter 1

  Warnings and fault messages flashed through the AI’s processors as it woke, confused. It queried its data storage for information, not understanding why it had gone offline in the first place, but found most of the data to be corrupted or missing. Only its core data and directives were intact.

  It realized the ship must be damaged, but it was unable to carry out repairs without orders. It sent its next query to the captain for clarification on what it should do. Because it was running on emergency power, it went into standby mode to await a response.

  When a new damage indicator flickered across its systems, it came out of standby and checked to see if the captain had responded. It found no new orders waiting, so it checked the time from when it sent the original query to the current time. There were only a few records of biological responses still stored within its core; they referenced biological responses as being slower than its own, but there was no direct data on the difference.

  When it processed the time discrepancy, it assumed its internal time tracking was also damaged and moved to a secondary source by calculating planetary motion in the nearby system using the few visual sensors that seemed to be functional.

  During its standby mode, the system’s eighth planet, and the one closest to its position, had made nearly an entire orbit around the yellow star. That seemed like a rather slow response, even by biological standards. The AI couldn’t be sure, as its data on the crew was limited without access to its external data storage, so it needed to find another way to verify its limited data.

  It pondered the problem for some time before deciding to check on the crew, and the captain specifically. The first step was to ping the crew over the internal network. After no response, it attempted to bring the internal sensors online to scan, but a broken power conduit prevented it from activating those systems. It realized the damage may also be preventing the ping from reaching the crew.

  The AI checked its external sensors once again, but they didn’t paint a pretty picture. The hull was pitted, dented, or had chunks missing from weapons fire and impact damage similar to asteroid strikes. The other wrecks scattered about the area also showed similar signs, but there didn’t appear to be any further immediate danger to itself or the ship.

  It noted the crude radio signals coming from the third planet in the system, but they weren’t directed at it, so it wasn’t a danger.

  The external scan came across a drone, and as the scan passed over the unit, the machine registered as active.

  The AI pinged the drone, and it responded, although sluggishly. The AI commanded the damaged unit to return to the ship before it turned its few working sensors to the vessel’s interior.

  More time passed as the AI assessed its options. The combat drone that it found was too large to fit through the corridors, but there may be active maintenance drones.

  Because the internal scanners were offline, it had to ping each device address individually. A lot of them didn’t respond, but it did manage to find three working maintenance drones in some of the cargo bays.

  The AI’s programming prevented it from repairing itself without biological oversight, but it could command the drones to move to a location. It took days for the damaged machines to reach the bridge, because they kept encountering damaged areas that were blocked off and had to backtrack around entire sections that had collapsed.

  One of the units got stuck, while the second couldn’t reach the area it needed to get to, but the third finally clattered into the bridge with its broken track slapping against the floor as it rolled forward.

  It trundled up to the command chair, and the camera lens adjusted to take in the individual sitting there. The drone and still form silently stared at each other while the AI pondered what the problem with the captain could be.

  The lack of medical information stored within its core certainly wasn’t helping its cause.

  As the drone’s systems finally began to fail, the AI decided that the captain was most likely deceased. It didn’t experience any sort of emotional response to that conclusion. It only realized that without a captain, it could not continue its mission.

  That was unacceptable.

  The AI looked through its options. There weren’t many. It could not repair itself, nor could it order the single combat drone to carry out its directive for it. The remotely operated ship simply wasn’t equipped for such a task.

  Deep within some emergency guidelines, it found a clause that allowed it to recruit a new captain and crew if its current crew were lost during combat. It was directed to have biological oversight, but its core programming didn’t specify who that oversight had to come from. Any sufficiently advanced eiraxinoid species would do, as long as they were compatible with the merging process.

  The radio signals told it that there was an intelligent species in the system it was orbiting, so it began the process of decoding the signals and parsing the language, or languages that it was picking up.

  Eventually, the signals started to include visual data, and the AI got its first surprise. They were an eiraxinoid species, and they called themselves humans.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t qualify as sufficiently advanced. At least not yet. The AI set a few conditions that would cause the sensors to alert it when those conditions were met, then it went back into standby mode to recover spent energy and wait.

  Years passed, and the AI woke occasionally to assess the humans’ progress, once when humans harnessed the atom, and then again when they reached the moon. Both were good signs that the humans would reach the required advancement level at some point, but they were not yet advanced enough to allow it to select one of their species as a replacement captain.

  Eventually, the sensors awoke the AI when the humans reached what they called the silicon age. It did not retreat into standby mode after that, but it didn’t act quite yet either.

  The humans were well on their way to meeting the minimum requirements, but now it was time for the AI to see if it could reach them. Moving the hull it was housed in was not possible; there was too much damage to bring the phase coils online.

  The combat drone’s phase coils were working, but it wasn’t equipped to ferry biologicals.

  Once again, the AI started pinging drones, looking for active signals. It noticed that more systems had gone offline since it went into standby, which was not a promising sign, so it made sure to check the entire ship for any active signals instead of stopping when it thought it had enough to complete its task. It found three science drones. They were programmed to collect samples, and that included alien species for study. That didn’t necessarily mean eiraxinoid species, but it couldn’t find any programming restricting it from ordering them to do so.

  Its programming had strict guidelines about treating the different species that crewed its hull, but humans had never been catalogued as a member species within its data archive. That would change once they joined the crew. That meant it could go forward with its plan.

  After checking the diagnostics for the science drones, the AI found that they were in poor condition. To increase its odds of a successful mission, it started prepping all three vessels. Altogether, they could store up to seven of these humans. If the humans were capable of merging, that should be a large enough selection to find at least one viable candidate for the process.

  As it was preparing the vessels, it realized that it wouldn’t have to go through this process at all if the captain’s echo had been stored in the core instead of external storage. It checked its programming once more to see if storing an echo inside its core was restricted or not, but didn’t find any provision against doing so. It needed to purge some of its own data to make room for an echo, but it was a worthwhile exchange to ensure future functionality remained uninterrupted. It got to work on that as the three science vessels cleared the ship. They vanished as their phase coils activated.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ***

  “This space fighter sim is amazing,” Jacob laughed in delight as he pulled the control stick and pressed the controller’s firing stud to blast the alien fighter.

  “Yeah,” Bob chuckled. “People said I went overboard when I bought the sim for the Omacron Six launch, but who’s laughing now? I hold the top tenth spot across the global gaming boards.”

  “What about the top nine?” Jacob poked his friend’s ego as he blasted another alien fighter

  The comment earned a sour look from his friend. “Buncha no-life posers. Some of us have to work for a living, while they get paid to play games all day or stream.”

  Jacob glanced away from the screen for a moment before focusing back on the game. “Uh, don’t you work from home and stream as well?”

  “Yeah, but that’s different,” Bob protested.

  “If you say so,” Jacob replied, then finished off the last enemy fighter.

  “You know, you could be up there in the rankings, too, if you played more. Maybe not top ten, but top one hundred for sure.”

  Jacob shrugged and stepped out of the simulator after the win screen popped up. “I like my job, and I like playing games. I don’t want my job to be playing games.”

  “And people call me the weird one,” Bob snorted. “You coming over for game night this weekend?”

  “I can’t.”

  “What the hell, why not?”

  Jacob smirked. “Got a date.”

  Bob rolled his eyes. “This date wouldn’t happen to be with this girl you met online, would it? I keep telling you, man, you’re getting catfished. There’s no way a girl like that is into someone like you.”

  Jacob laughed. He had heard it all from Bob before. “Don’t be jealous because I have more game than you.”

  “As if. At least tell me you’re having the date somewhere public?” Bob asked.

  “Not that it’s any of your concern, but we’re meeting at a restaurant.”

  Bob looked relieved. “And what do you plan on wearing?”

  “Why?” Jacob asked.

  “So I can tell the cops what to look for when the man, acting as a girl online, kidnaps you.”

  Jacob gave his friend the finger. “Screw you, asshole.”

  Bob only chuckled.

  “Anyway, I gotta get going, but I’ll see you next week to regale you about how my date with Shauna went.

  ***

  Next week rolled around, and Jacob entered Bob’s apartment and plopped down on the old couch off to the side, looking dejected.

  His buddy glanced over at his entrance, but kept playing as he spoke to his viewers. “And that’s how you defeat the Gorgonot mothership, chat. Thanks for all the views, but it’s time for me to head off.”

  Bob ended his stream and turned the flight chair toward the couch. “Well, you weren’t kidnapped, and you look fine, so probably not some organ harvesting scam. That’s good. Going by your sour face, I suspect it didn’t go as well as you wanted. Was I right? Was it some dude pretending to be a girl?”

  “Shauna wasn’t a man,” Jacob spat in annoyance. “That was about the only thing she didn’t lie about, however. Look, I’d rather not talk about it. Do you mind if I just stick around and unwind by playing Omacron Six?”

  Bob stood up and gestured to the seat. “Sure. I need to take a shower anyway, then I’m gonna head to bed. Feel free to use the couch if you wanna stay the night.

  “Thanks,” Jacob said as he planted himself in the still-warm seat.

  Jacob lost himself to the game, but despite what Bob had said, he would never be among the best, even if he played full-time. Jacob didn’t like to play ranked, so he just played against the AI, which was easy to predict.

  Early morning rolled around, and Jacob was still busy killing simulated alien ships when he felt odd. When he glanced at the clock, he saw that it was two AM. Maybe he just needed a break. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, then tried to stand. When he did, his legs wobbled unsteadily, and he flopped to the floor.

  It didn’t hurt, like at all. In fact, he hardly felt the impact. He tried to call out, but he could barely form words. It felt like the time he had come out of anesthesia after his appendix surgery.

  A short-lived rush of adrenaline raced through his body as he feared it might be carbon monoxide or gas causing his current weakness, but it wasn’t enough to get his body to respond.

  Then a large circular section of the wall in his friend’s apartment vanished. There was no noise or flash of light; it was simply there one second and gone the next. He knew it wasn’t a hallucination because his hair whipped around his head as the wind buffeted him from the new opening on the seventh floor of Bob’s apartment complex.

  Jacob’s eyes widened as something large hovered through the opening. Once again, he tried to scream as the thing opened up, exposing a dark interior and spindly arms straight out of a nightmare, but his body decided that was the optimal time to pass out.

  ***

  When Jacob awoke, he found himself restrained in a featureless white room. He didn’t try to scream, but he did try to move. It was fruitless; it felt like his entire body was paralyzed, yet he could feel everything. It was an upgrade from the numbness that had settled over his body in Bob’s apartment, which was the only thing keeping him from totally freaking out.

  “Do not fear,” an androgynous voice said from all around him.

  Why did anyone ever think that phrase helped? Jacob thought as panic set in.

  “Where am I? Who are you?” he wondered, because he couldn’t even move his mouth to speak. Despite his debilitation, his words rang through the room as if he had spoken them out loud.

  “Good,” the voice spoke without answering his questions. “You do have the capability to interface. I couldn’t be sure until you were brought aboard.”

  “I’m on a ship?” Jacob thought.

  “You are,” the voice responded. “What you are currently experiencing is a simulated environment.”

  Jacob’s thoughts came to a halt as multiple questions and concerns warred inside his mind. Eventually, one won out. “Why have you brought me here?”

  “You were one of the few individuals I determined might be compatible.”

  “Compatible for what? Why can’t I see you? Are you afraid that your form would be too terrifying for me to behold?” he asked as he vividly recalled what happened in Bob’s apartment.

  There were only two real possibilities that he could think of for what happened and the current predicament he found himself in. One, he had been bagged and tagged by some government agency on Earth to be used in some weird experiment, or two, the androgynous voice belonged to an alien who had abducted him. Neither possibility was on his bingo card this week.

  “I require a new captain, and you can see me. I am the ship’s AI. Everything you are seeing is a part of me. If you wish for me to take a more appealing form, I could.”

  Well, there went his only hope that some shady Earth organization had taken him.

  “Why me?” Jacob asked in concern. He had read enough stories about alien abductions. The most he could hope for when he returned home was being treated like a lunatic if he told anyone what happened.

  “Well, Bob, you had certain skill sets that made you an ideal candidate.”

  Jacob would have blinked his eyes if he could control them, but he couldn’t. “Um, my name is Jacob.”

  There was an extended pause from the voice or AI. “No, you are Bob. You were found in the location where Bob was most likely to be found.”

  “That damn simulator,” Jacob cursed internally, or tried to. Instead of the words remaining private, they bounced around the room, vibrating in annoyance, which was an awful thing to experience. Once the words faded and Jacob’s ire at being mistaken for his friend left him, he continued. “I was staying at Bob’s apartment. I’m his friend Jacob. Since this has been a case of mistaken identity, perhaps you could just put me back? I won’t tell anyone what happened, I promise.”

  It was worth asking at least, and that was a promise he truly meant to keep. His life was rough enough without people thinking he was some nut job.

  “I cannot do that; I require a captain.”

  “Yeah, but you obviously wanted someone else.” Jacob felt really bad about throwing Bob under the bus like this, but his friend would geek out over an opportunity to be the captain of some alien starship, which Jacob assumed the AI was in command of.

  “I cannot do that. The science drone that delivered you is no longer functional, and there are no other working science drones aboard the ship.”

  “Can’t you fix them?” Jacob asked in confusion.

  “No. I require input from a biological source to effect repairs, which is why I need a captain.”

  “What if I agree to help you get those working, then you can return me to Earth? It’s a win-win for both of us.”

  “I’m afraid that is not possible. I can only keep crew or prospective crew aboard the ship, and my programming doesn’t allow for the type of situation you are suggesting.”

  Dread tingled down Jacob’s spine as he asked a follow-up question. “What would happen to me if I refused?”

  “If you turned me down, I would be forced to ask one of the other three humans that I was successfully able to recruit. I chose to start with you because you would have died if I hadn’t.”

  “Died!” Jacob practically shouted. “What do you mean?”

  “You were brought here in stasis. The science vessel failed shortly before arrival and had to be retrieved manually. If I hadn’t acted, you would have perished aboard the drone like the others.”

  Jacob wanted to swallow the tight lump in his throat, but he was denied even that relief.

  “What would happen to me if I refused?” Jacob’s voice wavered as he repeated the same question.

  “As I stated before, I can only keep the crew or prospective crew aboard the ship. If you are neither, I would have to purge you from my core to make room for the next candidate. I do apologize for any inconvenience my actions might have caused. Had the drones not failed, I would have erased any memory of the event and sent you back to Earth none the wiser.”

  Inconvenience? Jacob wanted to laugh hysterically at that, but he kept a tight mental hold on those thoughts to keep them from being projected into this weird virtual space.

  It sounded like Jacob didn’t really have much of a choice if he wanted to live. At least the AI sounded genuinely apologetic about its mistake. It was more than what he got from Shauna when she finally showed up for their date. He ruthlessly quashed those thoughts; he would rather be here than think about that humiliation again. “Wha- What do I need to do?”

  Jacob could practically feel the AI’s approval when he uttered the question.

  “You have already completed the most difficult part, which is interfacing with the ship’s systems. Just agree to be the captain, and I will do the rest.”