I had already informed Cpt Johnson about the marine’s simulation before we had arrived in the Leorian system and he thought it was such a grand idea that he wanted to broadcast it throughout the ship. I think it was either to encourage the crew through my combat powers or get a good laugh if I failed miserably.

Either way I didn’t like that Agent White would be seeing it but I couldn’t just cancel it because A, I needed to test the combat brain, B, the marines had put their sweat and tears into this, and would probably kill me if I flaked, and C, I had already informed Cpt Johnson about it.

With no way to avoid it I trudged to the training room where marines had formed a movie like setting where they could watch me from outside the simulation, some of them even had popcorn.

I had already been outlined the mission, which was simply to seize control of a ship controlled by pirates within half an hour or they would escape with me still on board. I had nothing to say so I simply stepped into the pod and began the simulation.

I awoke in an airlock and quickly checked what weapons they had given me. All I found was a nano knife and 2 smoke grenades. “Bastards,” I muttered as I ripped the control panel out of the wall. I quickly accessed the mainframe and slipped in a virus that would make me invisible to the AI and allow me to see where everyone was, with an added bonus of using the AI’s own processing power if it tried to get rid of it.

The schematics of the ship as well as the movement of 850 combatants appeared in my head. I access the controls of the door and with a hiss it opens. The reason I don’t simply try to battle the AI for control of the ship is because it has far more processing power than me in my current form and would win by simply out processing me.

I had two objectives in mind. First the engines, with them destroyed the 30 minute time limit would go away and I could proceed at my own pace. Second the life support, without it the temperature would quickly drop and carbon dioxide would begin to build up, of which neither was a problem for me. First things first though I have to take care of the 6 people running towards my position.

I readied myself, either the combat brain would be successful or the marines would have a laugh at my expense. I sprang into action, roaring around the corner that blocked their view of me startling them in the process. They were able to fire 6, 7, 8, 9 shots before I was amongst them, my knife flashing out and cutting arteries and finding hearts. It was over in a second, leaving me standing in a pool of expanding blood and 6 fresh corpses.

I picked up the gun that seemed to be in the best condition and continued onwards towards the engines. I ran into 2 more 6 man squads and 1 ten man squad on the way. Some of them didn’t even know I was there before a well-placed burst of light burrowed into their head and the rest hardly fared better as a scattering of fire would occasionally come my way before ceasing. The combat brain really showed its use in those engagements as I escaped without an injury.

I had hit my first road block at the entrance to the engine room. It only had one door and there were 50 combatants pointing their weapons at the tiny opening. I glanced down at the smoke grenades hanging from my belt and with a shrug tossed both of them through the doorway. I waited until the smoke filled the doorway and corridor whilst the pirates panicked and began firing blindly at the door.

With a thought my hands and feet changed to form hooks and with that done I climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling. Moving along the ceiling as laser fire and bullets whizzed below me I came to the doorway leading to the engines.

With a quick prayer I scampered into the room.

Luckily I wasn’t hit and now that I’m in the pirates didn’t stand a chance. I would shoot where my hijacked network told me they should be and before they would fall I would move to a new position and take a shot. Move and shoot, move and shoot the cycle continued until all the pirates were dead.

With all the pirates in the room dead I dropped down next to the control terminal, disconnected it from the network by ripping up the cords, and hit the big red button labeled shut down. It may sound silly that they had that but if there was an engine failure you wanted to be able to shut it down immediately.

With this done I shot the console to prevent anyone from restarting the engines and with this done my victory was almost assured as I could take as long as needed to deal with the rest.

Life support was very close to the engine room, a fatal error in my opinion, so it didn’t take long at all for me to reach it. Once again I disconnected the console from the mainframe but this time there wasn’t a shut button like the engine room had for emergencies. I let my combat brain get to work and shut life support down for good. It didn’t take long, maybe 30 seconds, before it shut down and like before I shot the console so they couldn’t fix it.

Now it’s as simple as letting the time run out for the remaining pirates on board. The emergency nanite jumpsuit should provide around 10 minutes of air before it runs out, at the current rate of cooling and toxification of the air it will be deadly for humans in 20 minutes. Of course there are some spacesuits that could provide safety, for a while longer, to a select few pirates but it won’t be long now.

I start to actively hunt for those that managed to secure a spacesuit and within 40 minutes of life support going offline the last pirate dies shivering and gasping for air that isn’t there.

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Whew, a lot of people want Agent White dead and gone. I'm sorry to disappoint but he'll be staying and meddling with Scott for the foreseeable future, he's important for Scott's development later in the story or at least for the outline in my head right now. Don't worry it won't be a cliché I've kidnapped your woman, hahaha, surrender or die type of thing.

Second, for those of you saying Scott's AI brain should be able to figure out a way to deal with Agent White and his associates, there are still to many unknown variables in play for that to happen. Even the most sophisticated computer can't compute what it doesn't know.(plus I'm only human and I feel my brain frying even thinking about how he would go about it)

Finally is the combat detailed enough or should it go a little more into depth ie more blood and gore where appropriate?