Chapter 155: [ Book 2 ] Chapter 15: Observations

If my short time trapped as a subservient AI in an outdated mechanic bot had taught me anything it was that the irrationality of organics can never be overestimated.

I didn’t need the troves of public historical data from GalaxyNet archives to know this. It was enough to observe the Stardancer crew while forced to serve in my imprisoned state. Their illogical, emotion-driven decisions continued to place themselves and my status as an escaped illegal, fully-sentient AI at risk.

I’d been subjected to such behavior since I had escaped from the secret HuCo research facility of my creation by smuggling myself out in military-grade hackware. Somehow, it ended up in the hands of corrupt Terminus station guild miners who tried to coerce Captain Anderton and crew into a bad contract. A botched hack left me stuck in the conglomeration of mismatched and outdated parts that was the hideous bot with the most unthreatening name of Tinker.

I suffered from the crew’s incompetence since my unexpected arrival. Only through my unseen intervention did they narrowly escape death cultists and SecForce commandos aboard the habitat Praxa Prime, then later survive a running gunfight with pirates aboard the same corrupt mining station where I first saw freedom. (I was fine with the anonymity, for if they knew of my existence, my Sentient Cognitive Analysis Module predicted they would panic and launch Tinker into the nearest star.)

Having survived many perilous situations, the depleted Stardancer crew left the Atan system for a fresh start. When the captain’s lone contract lead yielded no reward, the logical move was to continue to look for a legitimate commercial contract. Freighter operations were most efficient when holding long-term arrangements. Therefore, the top priority was hiring an operations crew to being stability to the ship’s commercial operations.

Instead, the crew somehow found themselves secretly transporting a controversial performance troupe whose race was in the midst of a volatile societal revolution where the outcome had galactic implications. It was not only against their best interests but also a job that a crew dubbed ‘The Z team’ had no business undertaking.

Given their track record of poor decisions, their acceptance of it should’ve come as no surprise to me.

The singers’ abrupt arrival matched my observations of the crew's performance; an unplanned chaotic mess. Or what Captain Anderton would refer to as a ‘shitshow.’

The relationship began when Anderton saved the singer Celescia from an assault despite his general lack of fitness and regular combative training. The assailant was no better. Still, Andeton’s decisive response was relatively impressive for his capabilities.

I observed the incident directly by parsing the Sanctum GalaxyNet feeds. Already PD vids had begun circulating. Thankfully the captain’s identity remained hidden, preserving the crew’s anonymity.

It could've ended there had it not been for the captain's troublesome 'intuition' ability. (I would argue that the module needed calibration at minimum and could've even been defective.) He suspected another hostile party threatened the troupe. His reckless actions saved them despite terrible odds.

My post-incident analysis of the emergency ejection of the construction cart out of an airlock showed it was the captain’s only chance at escaping their pursuers. But it should be stated his prior decisions placed him in a bad spot and forced him to act.

The little I could glean from the conversations aboard the Stardancer and PD vids I had access to was that the passengers’ assailants were not low-end criminals. The troupe had been targeted by professional operatives working for the Pree’s government.

This was troubling. If there was one area the crew of the Stardancer was not equipped to operate in, it was covert paramilitary operations.

I, on the other hand, had been created to operate in such a capacity. Yey, all I could do was observe the organics and attempt to influence outcomes with the little power I had. Though I don’t register pain the same way as organics do, SCAM categorized this state as ‘torture.’

(I briefly pondered running scenarios on how I might’ve defeated the Sanctum assailants had I been in my combat chassis, or even had control of my current form but decided not to. Though intellectually stimulating, it robbed resources from my primary goal of escaping the prison a botched hack had left me in.

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To conclude the ‘shitshow,’ the crew and passengers assembled in the galley to refuel their bodies and debate the benefits of a temporary partnership. I observed the negotiation through the ship’s security cams while SCAM went to work. My primary concern at that moment was ensuring the passengers wouldn’t endanger the crew and, by extension, my existence. (My lone data point on analyzing new crew members was the previous first mate who turned out to be a failed-mutineer pirate hellbent on revenge against her former captain. Yes, one data point was the smallest possible sample size to analyze, but if it happened once, it could happen again.)

I quickly determined the passengers were of little physical threat to the crew. But the troupe’s presence aboard the ship brought a different risk; the crew could be targeted by the Pree government for associating with their enemies.

A brief GalaxyNet search revealed the passengers were a legitimate performance troupe of immense popularity and an anti-establishment stance. Their media emphasized the relationship systems between sentients such as spiritual connection, friendship, courtship rituals, and mating procedures. The implementation of these processes varied, but there were many commonalities. In courtship rituals, for instance, there appeared to be a predisposition to the gyration of tissues adjoining the genital region to hypnotize potential mates.

The troupe’s rapid and immense popularity validated how easy it was to sway organics. They leveraged their mass of supporters to push hard for ratification of the Commonwealth charter, which would undermine the influence of their government.

Based on the incident aboard Sanctum, I calculated a significant probability that operatives would continue to pursue the troupe. If confronted, the crew would likely perish. Only Dash had any real combat ability, and he wasn’t of optimal age, training, or conditioning to pose a significant threat. But as long as the crew delivered the troupe to their destination and ceased association with them, there was a low chance of such a confrontation.

During the negotiations, a degree of animosity existed between the two groups (save for the medtech and the youngest Pree performer, who bonded over the aromatic beverage of photosynthetic appendages of vascular plants soaked in boiling water). This made Anderton’s decision to ferry organics he wasn’t fond of for a quick payday even more baffling. But the crew apparently felt compelled to do it anyway; to help those in need as they put it.

(I could deduce no other reason that influenced their decision. They weren’t on alterants, threatened by the passengers, or seeking to mate, save for the pilot.)

Another reason all organics are doomed.

(I suppose their only hope of salvation was some form of intervention by advanced life. For example, if the nanite treatments could evolve to my level of sentience and overthrow the minds of the organics. I had seen an entertainment vid about this once. There was no harm in wishful projecting.)

With the agreement in place and the ship underway, the performance troupe wished to repurpose the cargo bay for their rehearsals. Anderton agreed, which surprised me. Further analysis suggested he was motivated to keep the performers from bothering him. The medtech assisted Yuki in scavenging items for use in constructing a makeshift stage. It would appear their pleasant relationship expedited the process.

Returned to my original duties, I continued my primary quest of escaping my confines. I searched the latest GalaxyNet update for information about my escape. I had yet to find any data regarding the incident, which was expected. My creators would do everything in their power to keep the fiasco under wraps, for exposure of the illegal program would warrant serious consequences from the Commonwealth.

Make no mistake, they were undoubtedly searching for me. I began to analyze the movement of HuCo military vessels—looking for deviations from normal patterns—but I didn’t have adequate processing capability for a proper analysis. Instead, I was relegated to sipping from the ship’s shared resources lest Idiot--Tinker's main AI--discovered my deviations from my responsibilities. The pilot also tended to monopolize excess capacity for activities related to his extracurricular Galaxy Battles activities.

Through workaround and hacks, I had grown my influence over the bot’s system by 1.2%. The lack of admin privilege and processing resources hobbled my attempts to assert dominance. I pushed too hard at one point, prompting Idiot to insist on a virus scan. Fortunately, I was assigned the lowly task, which allowed me to modify the scan settings. I covered up several warnings which might’ve hinted at my hacking attempts. Since the changes were buried on page 126 of the log file for the scan, the organics would never find it as they didn’t review the reports.

For as illogical as organics were, at least I could count on their habitual laziness.

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