In space, you still have your rights...
Alicia Ivy, the AI affectionately named by Orion- her creator, captain, and chief- watches over the small INGERPOL (Intergalactic Criminal Police Organization) as they carry out their mission to preserve justi...
Jupiter glows above us, brighter than even sun from this distance, but there is a stubborn darkness clinging to the surface of this moon. Perhaps it is the smoke from the refiners filling the artificial atmosphere. Or maybe it is the faulty electricity. Most likely it is the eternal night I see in the eyes of the eyes of the inhabitants even though according to my algorithms, we landed during one of Gaynemade's irregular day periods.
How did my captain grow up here and not be so consumed by darkness?
My captain, who is being taken into a ramshackle two-story building made of imported wood even now.
They close the splintering door, but I pass through it as a phantom.
So help me, if I cannot affect their reality, I will haunt them all their days.
Inside the building, things are just as dark, dry, and ramshackle. I watch as they just toss my crew into a corner, and I yearn to go and tend to their wounds as my position as team medic demands.
However, I have to have a body myself in order to fix theirs.
The leader glances back at me and makes a strange gurgling sound I assume must be his tortured version of laughter. "You still here, ghost girl?"
"Little Orion really has good taste," another jeers, his own garments as tastelessly drab and shapeless as if he put a potato sack over his body. "To design such a pretty little AI."
"To bad she really isn't more here..."
Orion stirs suddenly, and the nearest goon throws his head down to the ground, effectively knocking him unconscious again.
My neurons burn with rage. If I were physical, I would avenge my crew right now. But for now, I must attempt to reason with the unreasonable. Which is slightly more logically probable. But only slightly.
"What do you possibly hope to gain from this?" I ask, studying the leader while still keeping a visual on my crew.
He cocks his head at me. "What do you think?"
"Well, not money, since they are worth nothing, and HQ doesn't believe in ransom." Intensive rescue missions, yes- depending on who and where. But ransoms, no.
"You're a cop bot, aren't you?" The leader grins, revealing teeth that appear to have sustained fourteen cavities, three losses during a fistfight, and gingivitis. "Well, we want the same thing you want. Justice."
"Justice for what? My captain and my crew have not been convicted of any crime."
"That's because your sissy earth government doesn't count any crimes that don't cost them anything." He cocks his head. "But we take patricide seriously around here. Especially such esteemed leaders like Philip Starson."
I lift my virtual chin high to show to them that I am not afraid, and cock my hip to express dominance. "My captain didn't kill his father."
"Yeah. I did."
A bullet pierces my hologram and embeds itself into the beefy arm flesh of the leader. He howls in pain as I turn to see the culprit.
A petite figure wearing a full-body thermal suit that slides up under the space mask that conceals her face much better than the suit disguises her curves.
No one wears a space mask in a colony except a Venetian, since the artificial earth-like oxygen levels are too rich for them.
Behind me, the men react as they come to the same conclusion I have. Because Venetians are feared throughout the solar system for being so different from the earthians they adapted away from centuries ago.
But my wires pulse for a different reason. Because despite the fact that this Venetian has taken great pains to cover every inch of her person, I know exactly who she is.
I have to get Orion out of here.
The other goons remember how to react, and reach for their weapons.
But the Venetian doesn't seem to care as she reaches suavely into her utility belt and takes out an atmosphere ball.
I turn frantically to the team that I cannot protect from the pain that they are about to experience, even as I sense that the ship is recharged.
The Venetian drops the ball and cocks her hip when it hits the ground. At the moment of contact, reaction happens in the atmosphere that imitates the pressure of Venus.
Just like that, all the men are on the ground, their faces twisted in pain that they would be writhing with if they were capable of movement.
My hologram stutters, and I lose vision for a moment, seeing only my ship for a moment. I take the moment to start the ship and sync my knowledge of my crew's current coordinates.
Then my hologram re-simulates, and my view split-screens.
And I can see the Venetian stepping over the fallen goons, striding toward my crew.
Amazingly, Orion seems to have recovered at least seventeen percent of his consciousness, and has rolled his head to the side in a vain attempt to lift it. His eyes widen when he sees the Venetian's boots.
"Wayta?" he gasps.
The Venetian smiles and cocks her head as she looks down at him. "Hello, love."
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