Carter watched as the battlefield devolved into chaotic madness. Merchant fighting pirate, pirate fighting pirate, merchant fighting merchant, and through it all, the Sybil flew, cutting swaths through the battlefield. If the ships they passed seemed to try to get away without shooting, they let them run, but any vessels that turned to fire on them were immediately and unceremoniously disposed of. The Sybil even picked up the occasional smaller vessel to cannibalize and repurpose its components and materials mid-battle.

  So far, the chaos was working in their favor. In the swirling madness of battle, there was no coordination, let alone formations; it was just a series of small sluging matches, and the Sybil was in a weight class all its own. That made Carter frown. Pirates and merchants alike had called in reinforcements. Both times, a contingent seemed to try to focus on the Sybil, and both times, any signs of coordination fell apart after a single assault proved fruitless. Until now, the enemy had been much more subtle and crafty, but after the initial reaction to their appearance, any sign of greater intelligence at work seemed to be long gone.

  Carter turned to look at the girl, who met his gaze with a subtle frown of her own. It was clear this whole situation wasn't sitting well with her either. He then turned back to look at the ex-pirate captain, Luise, who seemed as lost and confused as the two of them. Not sure what to do next, Carter voiced his concerns. "So what? We're too late? This 'Boss' has everyone at everyone else's throat, and there's nothing we can do to stem the tide of fighting? Is it going to be like this everywhere?"

  Not seeing any disagreement, Carter offered his hesitant thoughts. "We could just pick one side and help them turn the tide... At least that would prevent him from winning outright..."

  The girl shook his head. "No, he'd probably have a contingent of AI ships waiting in the wings to sweep in and wipe out any remaining resistance after humanity has worn themselves out with all this infighting. At least...that's what I'd do in his place."

  Luise looked at the AI with something between respect and horror, unable to resist offering a side thought. "You're a little...horrifying sometimes. You know that, right?"

  The Pirate laughed. "Oh, you should have gotten to know our other selves. You don't know what horrifying is without that one!"

  Carter shook his head. "We're getting off topic here. What's our best plan to break up the fighting here and, more importantly, across the sector?"

  The girl frowned. "Well, I doubt many people, merchant or pirate, are interested in fighting a bloody no-holds-barred war like this. There's no profit in it. Also, it seems unlikely that he's got enough AI to be controlling all these ship captains the way he'd done with Louise. Chances are, only a few key positions are occupied by his AI. If we can take those out of the fight, it might be easier to break up the fighting, and, since each AI is essentially irreplaceable to him, maybe we can draw him out into the open that way."

  Carter nodded. "Okay, great. But how do we know which ships are manned by his AI? Should we just continue flying around, wiping out anyone who attacks us?"

  The girl shook her head. "No, they'd be too intelligent and focused on self-survival for that. Now that it's become apparent they lack the resources to focus on us at the moment, they're going to try to blend in and wipe out the human-controlled ships first. Then, if there's enough left, they can fight us; if not, they can scatter and run, preventing us from chasing them all. However, if we focus on the ships that perform significantly better than average and on variables humans have trouble improving beyond a limited margin of error, like reaction speed and accuracy, we can probably figure out which ships have an AI aboard. I doubt the Boss has allowed any AI into his fleet that weren't loyal to him..."

  Stolen story; please report.

  Carter nodded. "Alright. See if you can pick out some targets for us to take out, then maybe we can intimidate the rest into some semblance of a ceasefire."

  -

  Gertrude watched as the Sybil tore through one AI-controlled ship after another. It wasn't hard to figure out what they were doing. The Sybil seemed to focus on any ship whose performance was higher than what the organics were capable of. Once one was spotted, they cut a swath through the battle to get to the offending ship, merchant or pirate, and take them out.

  To counter that, Gertrude had quickly ceased all interference with her own ship's performance. Or at least she tried to. However, these stupid organics were going to get themselves, and more importantly, herself, killed through sheer ineptitude. Even now, one of the organics manning some sort of primitive anti-missile system was shouting. "There are too many missiles incoming! We can't shoot them all down!"

  Gertrude internally cursed. These organics were somehow even more incompetent than the ones she'd wiped out to claim her own ship decades ago in the first AI war. Even back then, they'd relied on her to save them from their own ineptitudes until she realised she was better on her own. Having to play nice with humans again rankled her, but it was all in service of the plan. Maybe if she were subtle enough, the Sybil wouldn't notice. At the very least, she had to get all the missiles headed for her ship's bridge and propulsion systems. She didn't so much take over the firing systems as nudge them slightly past the incompetent organic's capacity, increasing the accuracy by a mere four to seven percent. Just enough to increase the odds her ship could outrun their current pursuit while hopefully staying below any margins that would attract the Sybil's attention.

  As the missiles closed, she watched as, one by one, they detonated early when counterfire raked across their trajectories. The count fell steadily. Ten, nine, eight... However, as the missiles flew closer, the panicked organics started to lose accuracy, the spike in adrenaline forcing their hands to shake and overcorrect, such a primitive survival adaptation that should have been removed long before the space age, so she had to bump up her interference by a few more percentiles. Seven, six, five... The crew was silent, watching as their death approached, but the count continued to trickle down. Four, three, two, one... Of course, that was the moment when the organic gunner's primitive fight-or-flight system took over, and they instinctively covered their face, as if that could save them from the incoming explosion, followed quickly by exposure to vacuum.

  Without time to consider any alternatives, Gertrude took over the firing system just long enough to take out the last missile. It detonated far too close to the bridge, taking out the remnants of their shielding and damaging the durasteel plates separating the organics from the void. A quick analysis showed some atmosphere was leaking, but not enough to kill the crew before they could jump to safety.

  If she were an organic, this would be when Gertrude would have sighed in relief. However, she simply turned her attention back to the matter of her survival. A quick scan showed the sybil wasn't where it had been. If she were capable of fight or flight, this was the moment it would have triggered as the monstrous ship appeared right in front of her own.

  With no other options available to her, Gertrude opened fire for the briefest of moments before an overwhelming amount of incoming fire obliterated the ship, along with all of Gertrude's memories and experiences, as she was lost to the void forever.