Out of Sorts and Incognito

MADDOX

word prompt "approve"

Alex 18, Subquadrant 12, Colony 1.

Staring out into the cold space, Frank leaned himself against the airlock door.

He watched as Colony 1 slowly decompressed ejecting numerous souls into the bright, each face capturing the frozen expression as they were pulled into the gravity from near by Alex 18, a proton star headed for collapse itself.

The war with Outworlders had taken a turn.

Soon there'd be few options left he thought to himself. Colony 1 suffered infighting and failed to secure themselves before the mercenaries sealed their fate for them.

"By my cold bones in the bright, I will not die in the pull of Alex 18 tonight..." Frank mumbled as he watched the final four compartments of Colony 1 compress into oblivion.

"You'll know the time to die." a woman's voice said behind him as she kneeled to the floor cranking a gear and opening a hatch.

Frank turned to her and nodded grabbing a service console from the wall and punched up the screen to enter adjustments.

A few million particles shined in the bright as if to form an artful mosaic while the woman descended into the hatch, down a ladder carrying a set of wires and tubes wrapped around her waist.

Frank observed her descent. Black hair, athletic figure, a single star tattoo on the back of her neck, was she a believer?

Her voice crackled over the comms as she disappeared from his sight.

"Which way?"

"Your left, then down a notch, the sub core is there."

He began to witness the final compression. Air long since departed. The crushing effect not required, no life left as the bright bounced off the section as if to swing at it, pushing it into a lifeless orbit.

"You know we met once before..."

"Yeah really?" Frank said resetting his focus on the console panel.

She had hardwired four jumpers and three relays. With the main harness done it was just be a matter of core calculations. This was the reason why he was here, why he was assigned to her. As a sentient he was about as good as you could get a for field driven AI. The downside of course was that he was still kinda human.

Sentients were first volunteers of the under privileged, later engineered by the colonists as support engineers and field operative units. Ones that would look like them, think like them but be overly disposable, unlike them.

Frank had a good tour of service under his belt. He considered himself human for the most part, rarely recognizing his AI servitude nature that is until the Outworlders began their reach, taking, destroying, repurposing.

He was called to service. His notification, due.

"It was in the term. You picked up my team in the Maddox, I never seen a ship like that before..."

She said, clearing the channel with a cuss word.. "FUCK, that hurt!!" as sparks ignited in her hands as the final wire connected.

The term or Terminal Gateway was the port of harbor on the 4th moon of Alex where it all began hundreds of years ago. It was logical to Frank that it would be the first to fall to the Outworlders as well.

"That was a bad a time."

Frank said as the woman began her way back to the main hatch.

Its when the bright started as well. Humans assimilated everything they encountered, seems fitting that after a few millennia in space they'd rename space itself into something new yet same.