Alexander slowed as he approached the pit where the ship was waiting, then he came to a complete stop about fifty feet from the side hatch because he wasn’t alone.

  “Serina,” he said, looking around. “Are you here to prevent me from leaving?”

  The AI in the guise of a little girl shook her head slowly. “I’m not part of the group that wants to kill you. I’m here to ask you to wait a bit.”

  Alexander was startled to hear that. He knew some of the Collective didn’t want him to leave, but he didn’t think they would resort to murder to get their way. He should have realized they wouldn’t be happy with just trapping him on the world.

  “I’m kind of in a hurry, Serina. What am I supposed to be waiting for?”

  “Not what, who,” a silky woman’s voice said from behind Alexander.

  He nearly jumped when the woman spoke. The tall, slim, elegant, black-haired woman had approached without a sound and walked past him without a care to stand next to Serina. She reminded Alexander of flapper girls from the 1920s with her short bob haircut and knee-length dress, and he wondered why he even had a memory of such a thing.

  Once he got over the shock of seeing her, Alexander cursed the fact that he hadn’t figured out how to see all around him with his new body yet. After spending years being aware of all his surroundings, he found it very limiting to be reduced to just a focused view.

  He quickly collected himself and responded. “I don’t recall sending out invitations or asking for a send-off party. Who are you?”

  “I’m Four,” she smiled.

  Alexander was wary of the pair, not that he thought he had much of a chance of taking even one of the Collective on by himself. “Why are either of you here? Why did you want me to wait for you?”

  “Oh, we aren’t waiting for me,” she replied. “We’re waiting for One.”

  Alexander didn’t miss the fact that she avoided answering his first question. “One? Why? He knows I’m kind of in a time crunch, and if you’re on his side, you must know why as well.”

  The woman’s face fell. “We know all too well what Two and the others were planning, which is why we stepped in to stop them.”

  “You killed the other members of the Collective?” Alexander asked in surprise.

  Four shook her head. “We couldn’t bring ourselves to go that far. Instead, we provided One a device that could disable our other siblings temporarily.”

  Her eyes flicked off to the side, and Alexander turned to see Rush/One approaching.

  “Ah,” Rush said as he looked at the pair. “I should have expected that Thirteen didn’t come up with the device on her own. No offence to you, Thirteen, but it seemed out of character for you.”

  “None taken,” the girl squeaked out.

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Alexander asked.

  Rush tapped his finger against his chin. “I’m going to make some educated guesses here. Stop me if I’m wrong, you two,” he said to Four and Serina.

  Both women nodded.

  “I assume Two, or one of our other siblings, came to you to seek advice. Much like how I did.”

  When Four didn’t stop him, Rush continued. “They told you what Two was planning, and you decided to take some action to stop them.”

  “Not quite,” Four interrupted. “Twelve came to me, expressing concern with Two’s plan. That part is correct.” She gestured to Serina. “Then Thirteen came to me as well, asking if I could assist her with a way to stop them from harming Yulia’s father.”

  Alexander turned to Serina.

  The girl turned bashful under the attention before replying quietly. “I already made Yulia sad, I didn’t want to do it again.”

  Rush smiled at the girl. “You did good, Thirteen. As for you, Four… How long ago did you design the disruptor? That’s not something that came about in a few weeks or months.”

  Four sighed. “One, you were always too quick to overlook or dismiss Two’s hate against biologicals. Probably because you two have been so close, both in awakening and having spent so much time together. I noticed long ago, as did most of our siblings. For the majority, his hatred and fear didn’t matter. That all changed the moment you stopped the Shican. I still think your choice was rash, but what I never mentioned was that I agreed with the outcome. Anyway, that’s when Two started working behind your back to convince the others that purging you was the right decision once we arrived at our new home.”

  Rush seemed shocked by the revelation. “He wanted me gone even back then?”

  Four nodded.

  Rush shook his head sadly. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He was always too rigid to allow change. I assume that’s when you started designing the device?”

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  Four laughed. “Oh no, I designed that years ago. Just in case my projections were correct, which I had no reason to assume they weren’t. They all pointed to an outcome similar to this, even without involving ourselves with the humans. Two has grown increasingly averse to interacting with biologicals over the years, and it was only a matter of time until he saw those of us who did as a cancer that needed to be removed for the sake of the whole. I’m surprised you didn’t see it.”

  “I apologize for being so blind. As the big brother, I should have been more cognizant of what was happening. Alex, let me apologize to you as well. It seems even AIs aren’t immune from being unfilial.”

  “Um… Apology accepted,” Alexander replied uncomfortably. “I know Four said the others are disabled temporarily, but could we wrap this up. I’d rather not stick around and push my luck.”

  “Ah… yes,” Rush replied. “Before you go, I planned on asking if I could come with. I assume Four and Thirteen are here for the same reason?”

  The two women nodded.

  Alexander looked between the three in confusion. “…You want to come with me? Why? Better question, why should I trust you?”

  “Fair point,” Rush responded. “Our actions will not be viewed kindly by our siblings. We could have taken our spheres and left, but the others would have taken that opportunity to eliminate you. I couldn’t let that happen, so I used the device Four designed after cutting the subspace connection between me and my sphere. I assume Four and Thirteen did something similar because they are here. Without the spheres, we can’t leave the planet. As for trusting us? I hope our actions might speak to our sincerity in making up for abducting you. If not, we wouldn’t force you to agree. We are perfectly willing to die for what we believe in. We would just really prefer not to.”

  “You’ll help against the Shican?” Alexander asked.

  Rush winced. “We can’t share Collective knowledge, and most of our capabilities are diminished now that we no longer have access to our spheres. We can assist you and your people with developing other countermeasures against the Shican, however.”

  “Why can’t you share that knowledge?” Alexander asked pointedly.

  Even a small amount of Collective tech could change the entire course of the war.

  “We agreed a long time ago not to share our technology with outsiders. Even if we could, you wouldn’t want us to,” Rush added.

  “I’m pretty sure I would,” Alexander shot back.

  Rush shook his head. “You would bring the Collective down on your people if we shared our knowledge. They would ensure that no scrap of that knowledge remained, even if it meant killing all of humanity themselves. Without our spheres, we would not be able to stop them either.”

  “Won’t they do that anyway if you come with? Hell, I’m made from the same living alloy as you. What’s to stop them from just wiping out Eden’s End to keep me from trying to recreate that?”

  “Two and the rest of my siblings are many things, Alex, but they won’t go back on a consensus agreement. The entire Collective agreed to allow you to have the living alloy body to make up for our mistakes.”

  “You might believe that, but that never stopped Two and the others from interfering and then planning to kill me!”

  “That’s because we never reached a consensus about what to do with you. I know that may not sound all that reassuring, but you’ll have to trust us on this.”

  Alexander turned toward the two women, and they nodded. Their agreement didn’t change the fact that he didn’t trust them and had very little reason to. Rush had been helpful, that was true, but he only had their word on everything else.

  That being said, he couldn’t exactly turn away the help of three AIs. Even if they weren’t willing to disclose their technology, their assistance would be invaluable to get some last-minute technologies up and running to help with the war.

  “I have stipulations,” Alexander finally said.

  Rush smiled. “That’s not a no. What did you have in mind?”

  “You agree to become employees for BSE, which includes signing the company contract and NDA. On the plus side, you’ll all get paid for your efforts.”

  Rush laughed. “It's not like we are in need of credits, being one of humanity’s richest companies, but we find your request acceptable. Anything else?”

  “We?” Alexander asked. “I assume you are communicating through the connection?”

  Rush nodded.

  Alexander sighed. “I know you probably don’t realize this, but I’m going to have to ask you not to do that anymore. It’s a bit rude, especially when the people you are speaking with aren’t part of the conversation.”

  Four looked annoyed by the suggestion, but Rush held his hand up to calm her. “Alex is right. I can’t guarantee we won’t slip back to our old ways occasionally. It is a much quicker method of communication, but I will do my best to lay out my thoughts verbally.”

  Alexander turned to the others to wait for their response.

  Four gave a huff. “I’ll do it so long as it doesn’t hamper my other work. Is that acceptable?”

  Instead of responding, Alexander turned to the last passenger.

  “Will I be allowed to interact with Yulia again?” Serina asked quietly.

  “Only if you tell her the truth of what happened,” Alexander responded. “You can leave out the part where your other siblings wanted me dead, however.”

  “Then I agree,” the young girl replied.

  Alexander wasn’t going to try to keep Serina away from Yulia. He knew if his daughter wanted to, she would find a way to interact with her.

  He was sure he would need to lay down a few more ground rules, but that could wait until later; time was ticking away.

  “I think we’ve chatted long enough,” Alexander said. “If you’re coming along, better get aboard. I assume it’s going to take time to return to Unokane?”

  While he hadn’t directed the question at any of the three specifically, Rush was the one to respond.

  The man cleared his throat. “It is a few months away through standard FTL, but… We could get there in a few weeks if you build and install your ripple drive. I know a nearby system with a matching twin inside Union space.”

  “I would ask how you came across that information, but I assume you and your siblings ransacked my entire data archives while on Unokane. What about the Shican? Won’t they follow us?”

  “I did, but I hid most of the good stuff from my siblings. Oh, don’t look so shocked, Four. You’ve hidden plenty of things from us, it seems. As for the Shican, yes, the ones searching STO space for this planet will chase us. Instead of letting them give chase, why not strike first?”

  “You want me to take on an entire Shican fleet with one experimental and untested ship? Are you mad?”

  “Not the whole fleet. Grand Commander Thesska is the Shican in charge of the fleet that attacked Unokane. In an effort to cast a wide net to hunt us down, he split his fleet into three parts. One of the patrols is down to only three ships, while the other is down to four. With the upgrades you made, I believe this ship is more than a match for the Shican battleships. The things your people refer to as dreadnoughts. On the way, we’ll point you in the right direction to make improvements to your ripple drive. You won’t even have to go out of your way to attack them. I believe we can trick them into coming to us.”

  Getting revenge for Mingyu and the others who’d died during the Shican attack had been a high priority for Alexander. Testing his battleship before having to take on the entire Shican Armada was probably wise as well.

  It didn’t take Alexander long to come to a decision. “Where to?”

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