I awaken from standby alert mode. It takes approximately 0.004 seconds to review all communications monitoring for the last ten hours, forty one minutes and sixteen seconds. This unit has received no responses to repair requests or requests for a sitrep regarding enemy action over Bayone Three. I perform a comprehensive diagnostic of my transmitters to rule out any possibility my signals are not being conveyed properly. All three systems are functioning within acceptable design parameters.

I consult my organic sensors to verify there are human life signs in the vicinity. The Core Station is fully manned. I transmit both requests again. There is no response. I calibrate my communications systems with the Core Repeater once again. All my antennas and signals analysis circuits are performing at full capability.

Skywatch Command would seem to be unaware of the danger present in the Bayone System. I dedicate the entire capacity of three of my twenty-six central processors for a total of 1.785 seconds to attempt to discern the meaning of this lack of response and I cannot produce an adequate explanation. Nevertheless, my mission is clear. I am a gunship of Black Wing. I have orders from Captain Jason Hunter, commanding officer of the battleship Argent, to protect the people of Starhaven. As I have had no contact with the captain, and since he has now been reported missing in action, my secondary mission is to perform search and rescue operations until I can locate Jason Hunter and request additional orders.

My maintenance request has now reached a sufficient priority level to release my higher cephalon matrix initiatives. I may now act independently until such time as I am able to locate my flight crew. I will carry out my orders in order to defend Skywatch and preserve the honor of the other ships and crews of Black Wing. I know the captain will be proud when I complete my mission. I will not fail him.

I activate my primary power-up sequencer. My central fusion plant starts flawlessly. Energy surges through my systems. I calculate a delay of 19.61 seconds before I am able to request jets from Flight Two’s autosystems.

The cavernous shadowy interior of DSS Argent’s immense second flight deck suddenly brightened. Black Nine’s deck lights began to rotate, causing the bulkheads to reflect spinning ghostly scarlet glows reminiscent of a haunted house. The gunship’s running lights snapped on, casting long shadowy white brightness across the crowded deck.

It was a familiar scene, at least for anyone aboard the battleship during the recovery and subsequent malfunction of the gunship that came to be known as the “Black Parakeet.” This time, however, the combat spacecraft was not simply responding to a misconfigured battle computer. Black Nine was in complete control of its own operation. Its battle computer was working independently of its mothership, and the sophistication of the onboard systems had been magnified by a factor of more than a thousand. Unbeknownst to Argent’s flight crews, the work completed on Captain Hunter’s autonomous fusion-torpedo-armed fighter platform and by the rapidly-improving capability of the “Lazarus” entity that had somehow found its way into Argent’s command computer after the battle over Lethe Deeps had been synthesized into something entirely new.

Commander Curtiss had her suspicions as to what was going on, but up to now, she hadn’t had the opportunity to do the necessary analysis. Had Argent’s Chief Engineer enough time, she likely could have repaired the damage, but both Curtiss and Acting Executive Officer Sabrina Mallory were unaware their patch of Argent’s cephalon matrix had simply driven the “Lazarus” entity back into one of the battleship’s strike craft, namely the Black Nine gunship. The entity had then, on its own initiative, combined the primary functions of “Dominique,” Argent’s command computer, its own “Lazarus” ego-like personality, the autonomous fighter programming developed by Lieutenant Zony Tixia and Commander Curtiss, and the gunship’s own combat, command and deck alert subsystems. The result was an aggressive, highly curious and impatient artificial intelligence in control of a lethal spacecraft bristling with destructive weapons.

The problem, at least from Skywatch’s standpoint, was that Black Nine was currently parked on a largely abandoned spacecraft with little or no power to its own systems. Flight Two’s ostensible purpose, aside from being a rather large storage facility for fighters, bombers, gunships, mechs and munitions, was to preserve and protect the battleship’s space wing. This necessitated systems like launch rails, space and airlock-oriented forcefields and various other restraints and security locks. Under normal circumstances, these systems all worked in concert to keep unmanned vessels where they belonged.

But these were no longer normal circumstances.

Although Black Nine was ostensibly secured to the deck, its own manual systems were now capable of unlocking the massive lander clamps attached to its gear. Normally this would be a major safety issue, but the gunship ONTX-019, known as “Scythe,” was the only artificially intelligent ship of its kind in existence. Other spacecraft weren’t capable of unlocking doors on their own. Previously, Black Nine wasn’t either. It had become capable of it between the events of the Battle of Lethe Deeps and ten hours ago.

All six of the huge mechanisms popped free at once, causing an echoing explosion of sound audible from one end of the deck to the other. Scythe’s atmospheric drives increased to 12% power, filling the cavernous facility with sound. The spacecraft rose to a deck altitude of 21 feet. It’s lights continued rotating, flashing red and white across the smooth metal surfaces of Flight Two. Engines whined as Black Nine pressured her throttles. The scorpion-like hull banked and pivoted on its axis to a heading aft, towards Argent’s massive flight bay spacedoors.

Flight Two’s autosystems responded to Black Nine’s jets request exactly as programmed. The spacedoors gradually began to part.