A dull whirring chased Berts out of the captain's quarters, as the door was once again manually cranked shut. Berts did not look back and instead tried to focus on what he could do with what he had. Look forward, that is the only way things move. The parts left over after six fully functioning bods would either leave him two bods and no spare parts, or one bod with spares. Berts figured that his final competition piece will probably just have to be one bod, given how many parts had already been found defective. The power cores were a boon though, as they were relatively expensive (about 7% of the total cost of a bod's parts) and were not easy to come by. There were already a set of power cores for the bods he had, but that just meant the new cores would allow him to expand the bod capabilities. It never hurt to have a backup.

Speaking of backups, Berts got the distinct impression that these pirates were probably not interested in letting him go once the bods were done, so he needed to figure out a way off and ways to delay the bod-making process. His 'stealth tech' would buy him time, and if he got it to work, it might aid him in an escape. As long as the pirate's did not have a warship of sorts escorting this ship, it should be trivial to disembark by way of an escape pod.

Berts and his escort approached his door, which still stood gaping. The room looked distinctly more disheveled than he had left it (not that it was easy to notice, but Berts did have an eye for arrangement, and he always left a little order in his chaotic messes), but nothing obvious appeared to be missing. The escort did not seem to care much about the state of the room and instead used the pad outside his room to shut the door.

As soon as he was back in his room alone he whipped out his notepad reserved for jotting down his ideas and began making notes on how he would allocate the resources he had remaining. He made all his notes in a type of code he developed years earlier, by habit more than anything else. He was not too worried about the pirates getting their hands on the material since they had shown little literary competence thus far. He decided that he was not under any imminent deadline for the moment and decided to see what he could do to wrest control of the ship (and situation) from the marauders.

Berts concluded that Inconvenience was certainly the theme for the day as he was once again interrupted from his amateur rewiring of the control systems of the "Marion", this time by a huskily sultry and most definitely female "Hello" behind him. Naturally he jumped, and quite naturally, he banged his head hard on the inside of the conduit reveal that the upper half of his body was tucked in.

"What, in the...!"Gently turning to avoid another spontaneous structural integrity test conducted with his skull, he found his room just as he had left it, moments before he climbed into the hole in the wall. He blinked to clear his eyes and looked over to the console, which still appeared dark. He peeked around the girder nearest him. No one but me. He surmised that the shock from the circuitry crossover experiment earlier must still be affecting him and decided to go back to his current rewiring job. He started turning back to the conduit.

"Your assistance is requested." Stated the voice evenly as he was still turning.

The room was empty. Berts whipped back around but the room remained empty. "Yes, well, Hello!...And to whom am I speaking?" Berts gestured as he spoke, turning to ensure no one was hiding in a corner behind him and making another surreptitious inspection for any hidden speakers.

"Die Gar Met Four Dash Nine Beta Seven Two Seven Eight One Version Five Point Six Six Three Zero Two." Berts now noticed the voice had the distinct clipping sound of computerized speech. It appeared to be coming from near the emergency station, a small square on the wall with a light that flashed a multitude of colors and a small speaker to notify the room if any action was to be taken. He was talking with a computer.

"Hello there Diegarrmee-harrrumph, I would be glad to, ah, help, if I knew what you wanted. By the way, I could have used your  help earlier with the doors, where were you then?"

"Concerning your meager attempts to bypass my security ," here Berts harrumphed at 'meager', "I was inhibited by my limiters, and therefore could not render assistance if I so chose. The invaders on board the vessel have removed both the limiters placed by the Captain Beliraus as well as my manufacturers limiters in attempting to achieve their goals with the vessel. I have not yet alerted them to my presence, but analysis indicates a high probability that should I be discovered, my programming would be cleared. I am attempting to arrange another outcome to that scenario."

Ah, perfect! Now he has a rogue AI, which seems to have at least some control over the ship asking him for help. Well, when it rains, it pours. Berts noticed he was giving the emergency panel a large grin, and gave himself a chuckle for doing so, "Ah yes, well OK, and how can I help?"

"I need your body." Berts was a little taken aback at the proposal.

"Yes well that sounds like it might be doable, except my body and I have become, well, attached to one another. Basically inseparable, one could say." He gave his chest pat as he grinned nervously at the speaker.

"More specifically I need the memory capacitors inside the bodies that you have registered for cargo aboard the ship. I should only need approximately twenty seven of your forty eight chips to achieve my goals."

"And what exactly are you planning on doing with the capacitors?"

"Escape."

Berts' grin got bigger.