Chapter No.111. Battle.

War is only a last resort.

The next day I arrived on the command deck and sat down in my Captain's chair. It was situated on a platform behind the helmsperson's and weapons stations. It reminded me a lot of how the Enterprise was configured in Star Trek. There were several control sections on the arm rests and the seat could swivel.

Alexa came onto the command deck and took her seat next to me. She turned and flashed a smile at me.

The others soon occupied their seats at their assigned stations.

"Well, I suppose we should go to the next candidate habitable planet."

It wasn't going to be that easy, it seems!

"There is a large number of ships coming out of warp," Judy said. "Their configuration matches Tyco's proto-human collective."

"I was afraid of this. Go to Red Alert! Activate all weapons! Inform the Two Scath and the Myst ships to do the same. Prepare for combat."

I watched the main screen as the armada of ships approached and split into three sections. There were at least a hundred of them, totally outnumbering us."

"Do you wish to summon the rest of our fleet?" Judy asked.

"No. This is obviously a Tyco trick. We will deal with them here."

Judy began the maneuvering to avoid enemy fire. However, I was able to deflect their weapons fire. Causing it to veer off at angles. Madison began firing our weapons while Judy maneuvered around to get a better attack angle.

The violence of the battle escalated as the Scath and Myst ships began blasting enemy ships to pieces. Our vessel tore into the main armada and began blasting ship after ship. The violence of the battle surprised me. It was as if Tyco had gone mad.

Marie suddenly got up and ran to the elevator. I knew that something was wrong, but I didn't realize it until it was too late. I managed to form a protective energy shield around her before she exploded. What I witnessed made me sick to my stomach. The ball of energy contained the jagged pieces of Marie. Red blood stained the inside surfaces of the containment sphere. The sight of it was disgusting.

There was nothing I could do now to save her. I had a more important task of protecting our vessels. However, as sudden as the attack began, it ended. The remaining enemy ships retreated and went into warp.

"Do you wish to pursue?" Judy asked me.

"No, we've killed enough today." I turned to look at the pieces of Marie that remained. "I want her resurrected in a new android body."

"We will take care of it, Jason. You must render Marie's debris into a metal container and teleport it to engineering. They will transform the ruminants into useful material. The intact nanobots will be collected and reused."

I imagined a large metal drum and made what was left of Marie go into it. After ending the energy shield, I teleported the container to engineering.

I looked at the massive amount of debris floating in space. Many androids had been destroyed in this insane attempt to kill me. It made me sad and angry, but I could not allow my anger to result in more death. I assume that Tyco thought that I had been destroyed, but I wasn't sure about that.

"How did we miss the explosive in Marie?" Molly asked.

"It must have been shielded from our scans. We need to know how that was accomplished before we have another disaster."

"I believe that the coding to create an explosive device was added to her data after she was murdered," Barney said. "I believe that we should be able to check through all of our data for that type of coding."

"We have begun a scan of all human-android data, Jason," Judy informed me.

"Good. Coordinate that with Molly."

"Yes, Jason."

It wasn't long until they had an explanation.

"We have located the coding that resulted in Marie's destruction," Molly said. "It was designed to make the nanobots breach the energy conversion device in her body. Even though the amount of antimatter in that device is small, it is capable of blowing us to bits."

"Are you inferring that we all had this coding in our personal data?"

"Yes, but it is now being purged."

"If this is true, why didn't Tyco make me explode?"

She smiled. "Ah, that is the most important question, Jason. Your data didn't have that coding. It is the reason that you were designated Prime Mover."

"Are you inferring that my promotion had nothing to do with my capabilities?"

"That is exactly what I am saying. You were destined from the very beginning of this madness to be the leader, not by Tyco, but by the androids themselves. They purged the coding from your data as an insurance against Tyco's takeover of the collective. They figured that one slight variation in your coding would not be discovered."

"If that were the case, why did they make you the Prime Mover?"

"They were testing you. They wanted to see if you would retaliate against their choice. Since you didn't, they were convinced that you would make the most effective leader of the collective."

"In the meantime, any one of you could have exploded while next to me, ending my reign."

She smiled. "That's what you get when you're dealing with machine logic."

I sighed. "Yes, you're right about that. I am saddened that we had to learn this from Marie's destruction."

"Yeah, that was a truly disgusting way to go. It will be interesting to see how she is after being resurrected."

That was something that we would all be interested in. Our chance at eternal life depended on it.

However, Marie wouldn't be finished being resurrected for at least a couple of days. I decided to bury my sadness in a beer at the Black Hole bar on the agricultural/recreation deck. Alex, Vince, and Barney were already there.

"I don't understand why this bastard Tyco risked a battle with us," Alex said. "Surely, he didn't expect to win."

"It was a trick. He hoped that exploding Maire would destroy me. The attack was only a ruse to make sure that Marie and I would be on the command deck at the same time."

"Why did they use Marie?" Vince asked.

"She was my former wife and they knew that I would resurrect her. The only other possibility would have been Molly, but I think that he realized that she would have discovered the code to activate the destruction."

"What I find amazing is that you were chosen from the beginning to be Prime Mover," Barney said.

"Yes. It certainly deflated any ego I have. I was simply a convenient choice."

"As it turned out, it was a propitious choice," Alex said. "You have made the right decisions all along."

"I've been lucky so far. You never know what this Tyco is going to do next."

"I wonder what it would be like to be resurrected after being destroyed," Alex said.

I smiled. "This brings to mind the third Star Trek move, The Search for Spock, where Spock is sort of resurrected by reuniting his karta with his body. In our case we're reuniting our data with our android body."

"I think Spock's resurrection was more spiritual than what we're doing," Barney said. "Ours is just based on computer logic."

I shrugged. "Yeah, but in a way, ours is sort of spiritual. It just works in a more scientific manner."

Jessica, the head of the barmaids, sauntered over and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Marie will be okay, Jason. It will be as if she had awakened from a long sleep like a princess."

"Yes, but she will be a very angry princess with a desire for revenge."

Everyone assumed that would be the case.