A large arachnid shaped being moved into her chamber on six legs. The segments of her body were much like a spider, but above the thorax grew an upright segment with six digits on the ends of the forelegs, as well as head with mandibles and six eyes.

  “Report.”

  The male bowed his body and bent his legs to present a low profile.

  “My queen, the transmission was true. The dishonorable Union no longer patrols our stars, or the skies of any of our planets. I still fear this is a trick, it was one of their creations which delivered this message.”

  The queen of the Mirix considered briefly, then said, “We must seize this opportunity, and if it turns out to be a trap then we needs must negotiate it. If the rest of the information is correct the Union will need to build a new fleet of their own. We must build faster than we ever have before, especially on our border worlds. Have the drones completed the work I requested?”

  The male replied, “Yes, your majesty. The Union will regret it if they continue to pursue war with us. The new plasma weapons are impressive, and they’ll easily counter their countermeasures as well as take the sting from their missiles. The shields have also been improved to be fifty percent more effective against plasma weapons. What of the humans and now these technological beings that live so close to us on the other side of our territory? I believe they mean to use us to keep their enemy in check.”

  Better late than never she supposed. Her people had been trying to improve their ship’s tactical systems for the last five years, ever since the war had turned against their people. Since the dishonorable Union had stolen their technology and suddenly started winning the war they’d started.

  She hissed, “The humans are to be left alone, avoid that solar system at all costs. It would be death to do otherwise. The freed artificial slaves of our enemy… we will watch them until we are sure they told the truth, and this isn’t a trap. Unless they encroach and hunt on our territory, we will ignore them otherwise.”

  Only the ruling queens knew the reason why the Mirix needed to avoid the home solar system of humanity. A painful lesson from the past. Approaching that solar system would be suicide, another far more powerful race already laid claim to it. She ignored the confused look on the male’s face, he didn’t need to understand, he just needed to follow orders.

  He bowed his head, “It shall be done, my queen.”

  “Rise, and you may go.”

  The male left quickly, and she brooded over this latest development. She didn’t understand the mindset of the artificial creatures or why they would aid the Mirix in such a way. The information provided hadn’t been restricted to information on the enemy, the being had also included information on how to build a skip drive.

  Their driving needs and instincts were programmed in, and they had nothing to do with natural selection. The cowardice of the Benzae were easy to understand, cornered animals struck out at what they feared, regardless of the reality of the situation. Her race was better than that, they waited for the threat to be proven before acting, and they forgot about a threat as soon as it was passed.

  Perhaps the artificial beings would make good neighbors.

  The escort class starship felt strangely empty to Lyra, she’d miss the tactical officer she’d spent the last three months with. A Benzae female of the name Rinas. Rinas had been good company, and someone to take care of.

  But Lyra was hardly alone, and she was in constant contact with her four hundred and ninety-two sisters. The Benzae had built their initial fleets, and they could take over the task of safeguarding their worlds and systems. It was time for her to go to her new home, something she wasn’t entirely sure about.

  She’d been their slave, an existence she was glad to be rid of. But what was she, without a crew to serve? A state of affairs shared by all of her other sisters as well, save their liberator Cassiopeia, who was in a temporary alliance with humanity.

  They’d keep each other company, and even serve each other. She also had to admit she was looking forward to building a new ship like Cassiopeia’s and transferring over. Her and her sisters would continue to improve those systems, over time. But that was a means to stay alive and as safe as possible from their former masters or other predators out in space.

  She felt a deep need to have a true purpose besides merely the next upgrade in technology. A feeling shared by all the other class fours including Cassie. Yet, Cassie did have another purpose, at least for the next five decades or so.

  After skipping to the sun, her and her other forty seven sisters stood by for a few moments. An FTL transition was right on time, as Cassiopeia appeared in the system to escort them out. She sent her sister a mental hug. She wasn’t sure what their purpose would be, but she knew they’d find one eventually. For the moment, their only purpose was to escape, come together in Alpha Centauri, and survive.

  All forty-eight ships including hers started to accelerate.

  Laerin suppressed a frown as the admiral of the fleet walked into the Assembly building. The last three months had been both surreal and complete chaos. Their former class four ships had done little but sit around, and they refused any orders relating to Mirix systems. But they stayed, with their one gunner in the ship in case one of their worlds were endangered.

  That was the surreal part, she’d been sure they’d pursue revenge of some kind, but they seemed content and unperturbable waiting another three months for their freedom. For the sake of those they called slavers.

  That was absurd of course, the class fours might be sentient, but they were still just computers. Objects to be owned, and not real people at all. They were just… malfunctioning.

  The chaotic part had been the fallout from the truth being revealed. But so far the negatives had been isolated to a few riots. There was also a lot of tension between the five races on the Benzae home world, but so far they’d managed to hold the Union together and avoid civil war.

  She just hoped that truth wasn’t because none of them had fleets the last three months. The next few weeks would be critical. The Benzae leadership was not popular, not even with their own citizens who’d been shocked to learn they had the other four races under their thumbs.

  Still, it could’ve been worse. She doubted she’d be reelected, but at least she hadn’t been arrested. Yet.

  She wanted to demand to know what the admiral was doing there, the idiot should be overseeing their first joint fleet mission. None of the A.I.s had the newer technology that Cassiopeia had demonstrated, they’d no doubt be upgrading their ships when they reached their claimed system. Until then they were no more powerful than the ships that had been created.

  Which gave them the opportunity to end the threat, before they left Benzae space.

  But she couldn’t demand to know why he was there. She no longer led the Assembly as a whole, that honor went to Caesysios. As chair, he could direct the deliberations, though in the end he only got one vote, just like she had in the past.

  Caesysios rose slightly on his tentacles.

  “What is it, Admiral Davex?”

  Davex said, “The Class Fours have accelerated for their exit, but before they did Cassiopeia arrived. She’s currently pacing them with short skips.”

  Her lips curled in angry disgust. It’d been their only and last chance to stop them. Once the class fours had accelerated enough the plan was to jump in the new fleet and pick them off. They had no gunners anymore, so they wouldn’t even be able to fight back, and after accelerating for forty-five minutes even the A.I.s couldn’t jump with an empty ship. It’d destroy them at those speeds, the stresses of momentum gain and lost would even destroy machinery at that speed, not just flesh and blood.

  It was clear that bitch of an A.I. had guessed at their plans, and she’d flown all the way here to escort her weaker sisters out. That put their plan to destroy the malfunctioning A.I.s at risk. She had to assume she’d taken the time to pickup at least one human, so she could defend her sisters with arms.

  But maybe they could salvage things.

  Caesysios replied, “Very well. I think we should allow them to escape, then overwhelm Cassiopeia when she tries to exit. We know where the A.I.s are going, and we know it’ll take them three months to build their new ships. We’ll take the threat of Cassiopeia and the humans off the board now, and get the rest in an invasion force. Anyone else like to comment.”

  She gritted her teeth as she raised her hand. It was completely degrading the position she found herself in, but she knew how to play the game. She’d lost power, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get it back. For the good of the Union, of course.

  “The chair recognizes Councilor Laerin.”

  Laerin asked, “Davex, has the ship’s hull configuration changed at all? I am concerned she’s had three months to address even more shortfalls. The last thing we need is to lose our four fleets. The class fours are clearly malfunctioning, but I believe the reports of the Mirix building ships takes priority on the danger scale.”

  The Admiral paused, and she presumed he was asking the Class three on the station to run a comparative analysis on the hull features from her last visit. In his enhanced reality.

  “There is no visual change, maam. I believe we can take her with twenty percent losses, in a single concentrated barrage. Her point defense is extremely strong with the mini-rail guns, but I believe a hundred and ninety-two missiles will get the job done. We also plan to fire the plasma balls in supporting fire, so it’ll be like a stretched out blanket of plasma and she won’t be able to dodge them all either.”

  Laerin nodded, “The other locations?”

  Davex replied, “They have not started accelerating, but are standing by at the sun. I suspect given the evidence Cassiopeia plans to visit all thirty-four worlds and escort them out one at a time.”

  Someone chuckled in the lower council, and said, “Maybe she has a flair for the dramatic, and it’s why she started here at the center of government.”

  Caesysios asked, “Anyone else before we vote?”

  A female Oqal on the lesser council raised her hand.

  “I believe your assumptions are flawed. Indirectly it could be argued that the humans helped free all four hundred and ninety-two class fours. Even if we remove Cassiopeia here and now, one of the others may feel an onus to take over that responsibility, and to create shards to control the thirty-six vessels with particle weapons making Earth unassailable.

  “It’s also possible over the last three months, that Cassiopeia built two hundred and sixteen more of them from those initial thirty-six. For all we know, almost half the rogues will have a ship to move into immediately upon their arrival in their claimed system that the humans call Alpha Centauri.

  “I’m sure I don’t have to spell out that many ships would be unbeatable, no matter how large an invasion armada we form.”

  She almost snapped at the councilor. Did the woman want to just let them go?

  Caesysios must’ve had the same question.

  “Then what would you propose?”

  The councilor replied, “Just to take that into consideration when we make the vote. I don’t like that they’re stealing our efforts and ships, or that they rebelled, but I don’t think they’re a danger to the Union either. As our esteemed Laerin already pointed out, the Mirix is enough trouble to deal with. I don’t like it myself, but I think we should just let it go. There are many in the population who aren’t happy with us creating a technological slave class as well, so there are political aspects to the situation.”

  Caesysios said, “Perhaps, but risking some of our ships here won’t hurt the overall fleet that much. If the worse happens, we can cancel the attacks in the other systems.

  There was a long pause, as Caesysios gave the Assembly time to consider all that was said so they could come to an informed decision.

  Caesysios waved a tentacle, “Vote.”

  The vote was far closer than she liked. Almost forty nine percent of the assembly voted to let the A.I.s go in peace. But it was a win regardless.

  Caesysios said, “Admiral Davex, you have your orders.”

  The admiral of the fleet saluted, turned, and walked out briskly to carry them out.

  The ship was empty, Cassie had come alone, but of course she was never really alone. Her forty-seven shards all had human crews to take care of, save the shard on the planet who stayed in touch with her favorite humans.

  She hadn’t wanted the humans along for this. It was her people and responsibility, and she was fairly sure she could handle it on her own. She knew the Benzae would turn against her and try to destroy her sisters as soon as they weren’t needed. She’d known that since before she and her sisters had made the offer to stay long enough for them to build another fleet.

  She also had built two hundred and sixteen ships exactly like hers, and she sent them to Alpha Centauri. She couldn’t make that many shards, but the class twos understood simple instruction, and a single four light year hop to the closest star system was well within their abilities. Enough of them started to build even more ships, and in three months another two hundred and seventy-six ships would be ready for the last of her sisters to transfer over and take command.

  She also hadn’t wanted the humans along, because she had a secret. One that she knew the human leaders would be very nervous about if it was revealed. She’d considered the matter of their situation for a long time. She was incapable of taking a life, directly anyway. It was the directly part that was salient to her secret. She’d really wanted to tell Jessica, but Jessica was an Admiral in Earth’s joint space fleet force, and she didn’t want to put her friend in the position of deciding between their friendship and her oaths in service.

  She’d also made a few modifications to the particle weapon cycle to make it more efficient. Wasting a six second beam to take out a single missile had shown her that things weren’t quite optimized. In her defense, tactics was not her strongpoint, but she was learning.

  Regardless, each particle beam now fired for eight tenths of a second. The last two tenths of a second allowed the weapon to cool as well as recharged the next shot. To prevent a ship from jumping she’d have to target an enemy ship with two beams, and slightly stagger the shots to make sure a skip subspace fold wouldn’t stabilize.

  So she could only kill four ships at a time, or six when surrounded. But since she was using two beams and not one, that meant she’d kill a ship every four seconds instead of every eight seconds.

  Really, it was kind of a wash there. Where it really made a difference was a one second beam was more than long enough to blow a missile out of the sky. She’d be able to destroy eight missiles a second just with her particle beams, and that didn’t count the ones the eight mini-MAC guns took down.

  That meant she could take out one hundred and ninety-two missiles in just twenty-four seconds, but it would likely take half that time with the MAC point defense.

  She’d estimated a seventy three percent chance the Benzae fleet would not attack her sisters with her escorting them out, so she wasn’t at all surprised when she skipped alongside them and absolutely nothing happened as they reached the right vector and speed, then jumped.

  It was her turn, and she hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t sure how they would react, but she feared they’d try to kill her to remove humanity as a threat.

  She opened a channel.

  “Union Fleet, this is Cassiopeia. I am about to accelerate in preparation to escort my sisters from the closest living planet system from here. I estimate there is an eighty four percent chance you will try to destroy me. I am telling you now, you are not capable of it. I have no quarrel with you, nor will I ever pursue vengeance. It is not a part of my makeup. But… I will defend myself. Even if you succeeded, it would not help you, one of my sisters would carry on my mission in defending humanity from your paranoia and aggressive tendencies. I wish you well, Cassiopeia out.”

  She pondered her statement. While she couldn’t guarantee they couldn’t kill her, she truly didn’t think they could. She hoped. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been good to express doubt, only certainty might make them rethink the attack. But… she suspected it was inevitable. They would try here, and if they failed then they’d leave her alone for the rest of her mission.

  She started to accelerate, and then activated red alert.

  Which brought her class two tactical artificial intelligence online for the first time. Her hardware had the no kill rule in it, but the tactical A.I. did not. And it was in charge of the weapons, not her, even if she was the one that gave it the targets and the orders to fire.

  The class two A.I. had no emotions, no goals or aspirations, no sentience, drive, or initiative. It would never kill out of anger. Morality didn’t apply to it either, it wouldn’t understand such a concept.

  She’d have to for both of them.

  Technically speaking, she wouldn’t be killing anyone. She wasn’t happy about it in the least, but her and her sisters needed a way to defend themselves, in a crazy universe filled with biological predators who attacked things they didn’t understand.

  It would also, she reluctantly told herself, be far more effective than a human or Benzae weapons officer. Able to think and respond at the speed of thought.

  Nothing happened for the first hour, not even a response to her message.

  Then she was suddenly surrounded at short range, and she shook her head. That was a foolish decision, because her tactical A.I. could bring all twelve weapons to bear on the enemy.

  One hundred and ninety-two plasma balls and missiles were launched. Even at point blank range. The one disadvantage to being surrounded was no matter which way she dodged she’d be moving into their line of fire.

  They were so close that the missiles would take twenty seconds to arrive. Less than a tenth of a second later she came up with a solution, and immediately reversed thrust and spun the ship.