“Throughout history, the side with superior firepower and technology always won the war.”

***Deep Space***

***Antioch***

“Do you believe them?”

“I don’t see another way to solve the situation,” I answer Silith. The both of us are in the ship’s cockpit, while the kids are confined to their rooms. After a lengthy discussion, we decided to leave them there. The two of us simply needed to have a private discussion.

“Solve the situation? What does that have to do with believing them?” Silith asks, her voice sounding a little stressed. I can’t blame her for that, since I am feeling the same way. The whole situation turned into an emotional mess and there is no good or bad way to solve it. In the end, we simply have to choose a solution which we can live with.

I simply start talking, explaining my thoughts to her, “Look. As I see it, we can either believe them, or we do not. Let’s say that we don’t believe them. Then we are in trouble. It would mean that we are up against beings who have control over the basic functions of our bodies, and I currently have no idea how to fight G.O.D.

“At the moment, it seems like our best option is to play along and assume that they aren’t lying to us. It’s clear that they have goals of their own, but for the moment it seems like our goals and theirs align.”

Silith grumbles and sits down in the pilot chair. “I just want to have my babies back! Not some strange personalities who I don’t even know...”

I clear my throat. “I thought that you and Minerva were getting along fine.”

She looks up, her eyes wide with disbelief. “No, we do not! That little bitch tried to hack into our private communication!”

“You are just mad because she seems to idolize you,” I mumble. Then I start counting with my fingers. “She is headstrong, prefers to solve her problems with trickery – rather than negotiating with the other party, she knows what she wants… should I continue?”

“Not if you don’t want to talk yourself into an early grave.” She narrows her eyes. “But you are missing the point.”

“Right! Whether we should work with them or not... Do you really want to contemplate the other option?” I gesture with my hand in the general direction of their quarters. “If we don’t believe them, then we have to do something about it. Something permanent, because I don’t want to have potential enemies on this ship! Shit, I don’t even want to have the stowaways on this ship. But it seems like we can’t do anything about them at the moment.”

Silith sucks in her lips, clearly thinking hard about the problem. “Okay. I’ll spend more time with them. I want to get to know them before I decide on doing something so final. In the meantime, you should find a way to deal with the stowaways.”

I grunt, but I don’t have much hope that a quick solution can be found. The stowaways evaded detection for weeks, and without a sudden change of circumstances, or a mistake on their part, I don’t think that a quick solution will present itself. “It pains me to say it, but I would rather focus my energy on our quest. The stowaways aren’t malevolent at the moment, but our story will come to an abrupt ending if we aren’t prepared for those warships. We are just one month away from the quest-marker.”

Silith looks up at me. “How do you know that?”

“Simple triangulation. I had the ship fly at a slight angle towards the target. Then I logged the slight position changes of the quest-marker and applied a little of good old astrology.” Sighing, I kneel down next to Silith and take her hand in mine. “We will make it through this. All we need is a little bit of faith.”

She chuckles and hugs me. “I thought you hate G.O.D.?”

“Yes, I do! I meant having faith in ourselves!” I pull her up. “We just need some time to settle down, gather our resources, and to utilize our potential. There is a lot more knowledge in that pirate database. All we need is some time… and people. We need people, Silith. All this shit is much too big for just the two of us.”

Finally, she smiles at me. “That means that we should better find a way to deal with Samuel and Minerva.” Her expression hardens with determination. “Apparently, I will have to do a little bit of ‘intensified mothering and training’.” Laughing darkly, she turns and leaves the pilot-chamber in search of the kids.

Why do I have the feeling that Sam and Min have hard times ahead of them?

Shaking my head, I turn and sit down in the pilot’s chair. Only the front-screen is active, showing me the dark nothingness of the warp bubble which surrounds our ship. I place my palms on the connector pads and close my eyes, opening my mind to the network.

Steering the ship without a direct connection is possible, but electromagnetic waves or radiation could interfere with a wireless connection. It’s also hard to explain, but a direct connection ‘feels’ better.

I check the ship’s functions, going methodically through each system and making sure that everything works correctly. One of my fears is that the stowaways are using their time to sabotage the ship. Though, they had more than enough time to do so up until now. It genuinely looks like they are just trying to get by until the can jump ship.

Does that mean that all we have to do in order to get rid of them is to stop in a colonized system? Doing so is a risk on its own. Not to mention, the stowaways could snitch on us.

Shaking my head, I discard that option.

I return my attention to the ship and the drones which I have working on various projects. Aside from the obvious systems, I have several research facilities helping me to get a grip on the new technologies. They are mostly operated by my drones, but I have to keep an eye on the experiments. Everything sounded so easy when we bought that database, but there are still things which I have to figure out.

One doesn’t simply build a null-field projector which can loosen atomic bonds, something which my drones have no problem with. There are many things I need to understand. Additionally, there are tools I require before I can go for the final product. Pushing my research in that direction may seem useless, but I want to understand the nano-technology which is so intertwined with my body. Building something on an atomic level seems like a good first step.

The fact that somebody else is in control of my body functions sends shivers down my spine.

After making sure that everything is in order, I turn my attention to the miniature drives which are supposed to propel my new rockets. They are based on the artificial gravity plates which we copied from the old warship. To be honest, I don’t entirely understand how they work. Neither does the database, yet it holds the blueprints and detailed instructions on how to manufacture a gravity plate. It seems like this technology was handed down from a vastly superior species. It bugs me, and so I decided on this being another one of my projects.

Someone went and gave the cavemen a gun. He taught them how to make a barrel and black powder. The cavemen happily accepted this gift, without ever understanding how the gun actually works. That's at least how the situation feels with the gravity plates.

It opens many possibilities. If I can re-engineer the principles behind the grav-plates, it might be possible to turn them into reactionless drives.

The fact that the G.S. is using such technologies also hints at the possibility that they stole it from other artificial intelligences. Who says that humanity is the only victim who they tried to milk for information? When they held Silith and me, they used our mathematical gifts for their own purposes. At least they tried to do so. I don't think that I told them anything of real value. That's why they shut my project down. Who says that other artificial intelligences in captivity didn't advance G.S. technology by leaps and bounds?

If that's the case, then we might actually stand a chance. Cavemen with guns are no less dangerous than modern men with guns. Though, it also means that there are ways to use their ignorance against them.

Grumbling, I push the unpleasant memories of my captivity aside and return my attention to the rocket project.

When Silith and I designed the new ship, we concentrated on lasers and ray guns for active defence. To attack, we added some scaled up versions of the same weapons. We did so because we decided that chemically fuelled rockets wouldn’t be of any use in a real space battle. The involved speeds would require the rockets to be so big that they would be respectable spaceships of their own.

And a big rocket is also a big target, which would require unleashing either an excessive amount of rockets in a single salvo, or to give the rockets their own defence system. Seeing the amount of resources which would be required to make such weapons feasible, Silith and I happily discarded the idea in its infancy.

Satisfied with the results, I focus next on the anti-matter system and start working in earnest. There is a lot to do before we can face five warships.