The ride back to New Horizons was silent as everyone contemplated what they had just seen and experienced back on the planet. We arrived safely back to the ship and underwent a rigorous decontamination process along with all our gear and equipment. No chances were taken regarding a potentially unknown pathogen coming aboard such a tightly enclosed space.

Once we were done with decontamination the scientists were almost skipping down the corridor as they went to their labs to study all the samples taken from the world below. Cpt Green and I were to have our reports ready for both Cpt Johnson and Agent White by the end of the day.

I left that to my ship brain as I went to see if Vahlen had joined the crowd of scientists eager to study the new microbes and fauna. If she wasn’t too busy maybe she enjoy seeing the video of the spider attack and subsequent chase. On second thought maybe I shouldn’t show her the video, wouldn’t want her to freak out at me.

I found her, leaning over, looking into a microscope at one of the samples. She looked up briefly and started writing in her notebook when she saw me. “I hope I’m not intruding right now. I know this must be exciting for you.” “Oh yes you have no idea how excited I am right now. I’ve always been fascinated with life that originates outside of Gaia’s biosphere.”

I smile as I walk forward, “do you want me to be your lab assistant for the day?” “Would you? That would be fantastic, thank you so much.” I spent the rest of my day there working with Vahlen cataloging data, preparing samples, taking notes for her all those types of things. I had to leave to give my report but Vahlen showed no sign of slowing down.

“Vahlen I have to leave now to give my report now, try not to overwork yourself studying those microbes.” “Thanks for the concern but I’ll be fine, go and give your report to the boss man.”

I chuckle and say, “alright I’ll leave my body here, it’ll be like a regular AI until I get back, see you soon.” I slip into the ship and reappear in the conference room as Cpt Green walks into the room. I won’t bore you with the details of the report but both Cpt Johnson and Cpt Green agreed that it would be too risky, at this time, to further explore the sandy planet below.

At one point during the report the video of me shooting the spider was shown from both my perspective and several other soldiers. From the soldiers perspective they had heard me shout and then seemingly blur, in motion, before my pulse rifle fired at the spider attacking Pvt Carl. I couldn’t help but watch Agent White’s face during the video but he had schooled himself and kept control over his features.

I had found it suspicious how blank his face had been, during the video, so after the report was finished I followed Agent White to his room where I watched him punch the wall a few times in frustration. It should be noted that he had attempted to mask his room from my view but I was able to overpower his protection devices.

After venting his frustration he pulled out a briefcase and entering the combination, along with a dna and voice sample, the case opened. Reaching in he grabbed something I had seen just recently, a hyper communication device. Uploading the most recent report along with the videos of me he typed in one single line, {The AI continues to advance. What are your orders?}

It took a few minutes for whoever was on the other side to review the information but eventually a response came back.

{We need the AI for now. Once you have returned we can reevaluate the situation. Continue monitoring until then.}

Agent White grits his teeth and mutters, “those fools don’t understand, by the time we get back it may be containable anymore.”

I set the ship brain to track and monitor everything Agent White does from now on. With that done I sit back and ponder on this development. ‘I wasn’t really concerned with Agent White before, sure he may have wanted to dismantle my physical body, but I thought he was just one person. Now I have an unknown amount of people that may want to terminate me based on what they feel is a threat towards their existence. I need to prepare for this.’

With this thought in mind I review the fight with the spider and determine that every move I made was a reaction. All this speed and strength don’t mean anything if I don’t use them properly. It’s time for a combat brain.

This one actually took a day, real time, to create as most of it was predictions and best course of action with probabilities everywhere. In the end I think I got it though. I think an example would be the best way to describe how this brain works.

Okay, take someone standing at the end of a long wide hallway, now imagine him with a gun while you had a knife and you have to get to him before he shoots you. Now this brain would calculate based on a huge variety of things including gun type, barrel placement, shooters stance and incorporate it into a red line with a countdown to when whatever ammo would hit you. The next part would show a ghost of me showing where I needed to be in order not to get shot. In theory this would allow me to run through a shooting gallery of people trying to hit me without being hit, or if hit, get hit in a none vital area.

While this was still just an untested brain I felt really good about it. I even knew the perfect test for it with the marine’s revenge simulation coming up soon.

With the planet off limits, for the time being, and nothing else of consequence in the system we waved goodbye to the planet, aptly named Spider’s Den, and set off for the Leorian system, just a short 2 and a half weeks away. Along the way there I helped Vahlen with all her laboratory related needs while getting to know her a little better. All too soon though we arrived in the Leorian system, the testing grounds for my new combat brain.

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This is a shout out to JackaJack who pointed out my woeful lack of planetary and evolutionary information on Spider's Den, so here you go.

Spider's Den orbits a red dwarf star at an average distance of .8 Astronomical Units(AU), in comparison Earth is 1AU. Red dwarf stars are less intense in both light and heat so it allows liquid water to form here. The gravity is 9.81m/s^2 but the oxygen concentration is much lower, while still breathable you would feel constantly winded.

Another shout out to Sikeong for keeping me honest here.

For the existence of the spiders the best I can think of is down in the caverns, which run throughout the planet, the soil is extremely rich in nutrients which causes bigger worms, then bigger moles then so on and so forth till you get to spiders. The only reason the planet isn't covered in trees, due to the highly rich soil, is due to liquid water evaporating faster than it can be sucked up and the scarcity of rain water EXCEPT where rain water naturally gathers in the equatorial zone.

Now these spiders probably shouldn't exist here due to the low concentration of oxygen but I'm going to cheat and say they evolved super efficient lungs and hearts to deal with the problem and still be able to hunt their larger prey.