kittyboy: "I'm not saying it again. We are not going to blow anything up."

  Oblivion: "Why not?"

  kittyboy: "We don't need to blow anything up. We need to get our ship to safety, get repairs, restock, rest, alert the starmada."

  I didn't want to say Alliance Starmada because I was worried Oblivion might freak out and destroy us.

  Oblivion: "Boorrriinng."

  kittyboy: "Not boring. Peaceful."

  Oblivion: "What about that little ship?"

  kittyboy: "What ship?"

  Oblivion: "The little ship out there, so close I can feel its electricity. It is wounded, smoking, torn, waiting to be killed. It will not survive. Can I blow it up?"

  Oblivion projected a view of The Pharaoh onto my HUD.

  kittyboy: "No!"

  Oblivion: "Why not???"

  kittyboy: "I'm on that ship!"

  Oblivion: "You are?"

  kittyboy: "Yes!"

  Oblivion: "Oh …"

  I hadn't thought about communicating with ships like this. I figured there had to be some aiways embedded in ships, or ships with advanced AI, but the Solar Union and Outer System Alliance both frowned upon personification of ships since we blew them up so often. It was a fine line, but some things were just machines, like The Pharaoh, and some things were more than that, like Kibble.

  I waited patiently for Oblivion to say something else. I just needed assurance that we were safe, and then we could claim the Oblivion and get someplace safer.

  Oblivion: "So … can I blow it up?"

  kittyboy: "NO!!!"

  Oblivion: "Why are you on that little ship?"

  kittyboy: "It's my ship."

  Oblivion: "But I am your ship."

  kittyboy: "Yeah, well, until recently, you weren't my ship. You were going to blow us up."

  Oblivion: "Why did you stop me???"

  kittyboy: "BECAUSE I'M ON THIS SHIP!!!"

  Oblivion: "You can be reanimated."

  kittyboy: "I have other people here who can't be, and you can't just go around blowing up ships - reanimation or not."

  Oblivion: "Yes, I can."

  kittyboy: "I'm ordering you not to."

  Oblivion: "I understand. You come here. Then we blow up that ship."

  kittyboy: "We are NOT going to be blowing up any ships right now. That's an order."

  It pouted.

  Oblivion: "… fine."

  kittyboy: "Later, I promise, we will blow things up. Lots of things, okay? There's a war going on."

  zerogstar: "There's a peace treaty, remember?"

  I knew I shouldn't have let the crew into our conversation. So much for transparent leadership.

  Oblivion: "A PEACE TREATY?"

  "Don't tell it that," I said aloud to @zerogstar. "It wants to destroy things. I need to, you know, promise we can do it later." My mind spun back one of my origin's childhood memories, a young Henry Hayes stuck indoors while lightning flashed outside. "Like it's a child who wants to play outside, but there's a thunderstorm."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She grimaced and put her hands on her head, thinking.

  zerogstar: "We'll need to hunt down pirates who want to break the treaty."

  I gave her a thumbs-up. That was pretty good.

  Oblivion: "Good. Let us hunt down pirates now."

  kittyboy: "Not now. Restock now. Hunt later."

  I dismissed @foxcutter to rest. I wanted him to see @bitchfrog again, but she had given him the all clear, so whatever he needed next was up to him. I would try to find a moment to talk with him when the time seemed right and when he'd been able to process his time on Dactyl.

  Oblivion: "This is acceptable."

  Good!

  kittyboy: "I'll come over with some of my crew. We're going to the Pit, a space station currently about halfway between Psyche and Jupiter. We'll send the coordinates."

  Oblivion: "Yes! The Pit is full of pirates for me to destroy!"

  kittyboy: "No, no, no. The Pit is to restock and rest. Then we hunt pirates."

  Oblivion: "… this is … acceptable."

  A thump caught my attention, followed by another thump.

  "What was that?" I asked the crew in the cockpit, only to be met by shrugs. "Are we drifting into the terrordactyl storm?"

  "Scanning," @zerogstar said, returning her attention to her console.

  kittyboy: "What's going on over there?"

  Oblivion: "The crew was trying to blow me up."

  This all made sense. The crew on Oblivion would have realized eventually that someone had taken control of the ship or that the ship had simply failed. They would try to regain control. I didn't doubt that eventually they could work out a hack, but with The Pharaoh nearby, they knew we would destroy them or try to take the ship before they could get control back. At that point, they would try to destroy Oblivion by any means necessary, including blowing themselves up individually.

  In my head, I pictured all the crew on Oblivion huddling together near the fuel tanks or missile storage, then exploding themselves simultaneously. Shit! We had to do something.

  kittyboy: "Why didn't you say something before?"

  Oblivion: "Because they cannot blow me up."

  kittyboy: "What do you mean?"

  Oblivion: "I locked them out."

  "Captain," @zerogstar interrupted. "It's the crew of Oblivion."

  @auroraloon tapped me on the shoulder. "Look outside."

  Dozens and dozens of puffy dead bodies, the gas inside them expanding as they froze, were floating toward us, pulled by the forces of the terrordactyl storm. Soon, they would be part of the meteor storm itself. That would be a mess to clean up.

  Thud. Another hit nearby. Thud, thud. One hit the main viewer of The Pharaoh, showing us its surprised face and wide, dead eyes. It bounced off and away toward the storm. I was afraid to ask.

  kittyboy: "What did you do?"

  Oblivion: "I spaced them and locked them outside. It is not as fun as blowing things up."

  We needed, or at least wanted, some of them to be alive so that we could question them. I wondered about @stardvark. And what if @bronzelion was over there? That would be a big prize, but he would probably have blown himself up anyway to destroy evidence.

  kittyboy: "Are they all dead?"

  Oblivion: "98% of them are dead or dying."

  kittyboy: "Why didn't you ask me, wait for my command?"

  Oblivion: "I am permitted to preserve myself by any means necessary. You would not let me kill that tiny ship. I needed to kill something. Once they decided to kill me, I killed them back."

  kittyboy: "But why kill them? Couldn't you gas them, put them to sleep or something?"

  Oblivion: "You do not understand Oblivion. Oblivion is death."

  Semantically, the ship was wrong. Oblivion is not necessarily synonymous with death, but I wasn't going to argue that point, because I did understand what I was dealing with. I was inextricably connected to the most deadly machine in the solar system. What did I expect?

  Oblivion: "Look at that one. Its skin cannot hold its insides. Ha ha ha. See how it spills out. This is joy."

  Oblivion projected the dead body it had described onto my HUD. I rubbed at my temples. There was nothing I could do about this, not right now anyway. At least I didn't have to worry about trying to commandeer the ship in a big battle or about Oblivion being destroyed before we could steal it for ourselves.

  kittyboy: "I'll be right over. Don't kill anyone else, please. @kittyboy out."

  Oblivion: "See you later, alligator."

  I had an indistinct recollection of putting catch phrases and curse words in the catnip virus to make Oblivion more interesting. I groaned. I guess it worked, but I underestimated its lust for murder.

  What to do? What to do? I thought to myself, tapping my toes. I needed to pick some crew to stay and some to join me on Oblivion.

  The humans would come with me. That was easy. The Pharaoh was too damaged. They would be safe on Oblivion as long as Oblivion didn't try to kill them. Maybe I was wrong, but that seemed less risky. Okay, Sango and the humans go to Oblivion.

  @auroraloon would want to go with @dustcaller. Er, not want. Demand. In fact, I didn't even have an option there, so @dustcaller and @auroraloon would both join me on Oblivion.

  @awesomedog should stay on The Pharaoh, along with Kibble. I might even give him command of the ship. He was the highest ranking Alliance Starmada soldier other than myself. If I followed protocol, which I did sometimes do when it suited me, then protocol required that @awesomedog assume control of The Pharaoh. He might even do that even if I tried to leave the ship to @foxcutter. So, to avoid drama, @awesomedog would take control of The Pharaoh.

  @foxcutter should stay on The Pharaoh as well. I needed someone reliable who had been part of my crew longer than @zerogstar. If @astrowave were with us, he would be the natural choice, and I would have both of them stay. @zerogstar was still not familiar with the Alliance Starmada. @awesomedog would treat her as an outsider. That would suck, so @zerogstar had to come with me.

  I realized I might be being selfish, hoarding my crew. This was so different from being an isolated Wavepilot. I liked my crew, and I wanted them around. I checked my logic.

  Am I being selfish?

  No, I am being logical. It's just a side benefit that I get to keep a lot of my crew with me.

  I didn't dwell on it any more than that. Time to get to work.

  kittyboy: "@awesomedog, The Pharaoh is yours to command. Please head to the bridge. @foxcutter, you will stay here to navigate. Everyone else, we're hopping aboard the murder ship. Be ready for anything."