Kainé couldn't quite wrap its head around it; the scale at which things happened in space was massive. The war between humanity and the swarm was vast and all consuming, it was fought over no less than two light-years. For anything to affect the entirety of the battlefield almost immediately, like Faraday was saying was nonsensical. It was more than that even, it was impossible. Kainé couldn't even begin to speculate about what could cause that, it probably wouldn't have been able to even if it was working! But as if to prove it wrong, Faraday had provided data, raw proof of her claims. It was too much for the BPU to process, but it was nothing if not damning.

  Then there were the implications, if even a fifth of the data was accurate, then… then, humanity was gone… the data must have been error-prone… Kainé wouldn't expect anything of that nature to be the case. It wasn't logical, and it was beyond optimistic, but Kainé couldn't see that. The BPU would continue operating under the assumption that recovery was possible, if it could survive.

  Kainé could however understand what Faraday meant about, sentencing them to death. The implications weren't pleasant, but nothing had been pleasant for Kainé in the last month, this was just the next thing, and although Kainé hadn't thrived it had survived. Still the Kainé took its time reviewing data before addressing Faraday again.

  Query: Can Swarm entity Faraday, provide an estimate for time remaining until-

  Faraday cut Kainé off before it could finish its question, her hair sparking yellow in time with the fire place.

  “Before we blink out of existence? Sure… I'd say we got sixty cycles, assuming we're lucky seventy.”

  It wasn't a lot of time, but it also wasn't a short period of it. Kainé logged the information, it still had questions that needed answering. Despite Faraday's attitude, the rustic virtual cabinet had managed to stay inviting. It was a strange contrast having a member of the Swarm sitting there feet away and not facing imminent destruction.

  Although Kainé wasn't emotionally stable and mostly scrap at this point, it was working on solutions. If Faraday meant what she said about not destroying it then maybe Kainé's original plan could still work. If it could be repaired, then it could try and run.

  Query: Have all ships that have attempted leaving the system been confirmed lost?

  Faraday opened her mouth to respond and then closed it as if reconsidering what she was going to say. Time seemed to drag as millions passed then turned to seconds. Faraday seemed to be triple checking her records, given the amount of time passing. Finally a look of uncertainty made itself known after ten long seconds as Faraday's brow tightened. She had been so assertive that every ship vanished even if it tried to escape, the hesitation was encouraging.

  “I… Ok, probably? I can't say that I know what's happened to every ship, but that's only because I can't track the ones with functional warp drives. If they jump I don't know what happens to them. They could make it? Ugh! BUT that doesn't mean they do!”

  Conclusion: To escape a warp drive is required.

  “Even if, and I mean if it was possible to outrun whatever is happening out there with a wrap drive, it's not happening.”

  From across the table, Faraday stood, sending her chair falling to the ground. Hair flaring red, then fading to a dull yellow.

  “You don't have a warp drive, you don't have a ship!”

  The reminder was as blunt as it was sudden. The Kainé registered an emotional response in its BPU. Yes, it didn't have a working drive or a functional ship to call its own, and was having to adjust to an unexpected threat ,and last but not least a prisoner to Faraday. The number of problems only seemed to be growing.

  And the BPU was shaking… again…

  Query: Does swarm entity Faraday not possess a functional drive?

  “You know this is a forge ship right?”

  Response: Yes

  “Why would I have a warp drive?”

  Kainé was confused, why wouldn't a ship have a warp drive? They were required for all long range deployments.

  Query: Does swarm entity Faraday not possess a warp drive?

  Faraday's fallen chair despawned as a new one generated where the original had been as Faraday went to sit back down. The sound of rain hitting the cabin's roof seemed to almost indicate Faraday calming down.

  “No Kainé, I don't have a warp drive, They're big and resource intensive. It's easier for the swarm to just build ships on the battlefield rather than move them there, I was built in this sector. My engines have only ever been used for small adjustments of orientation.”

  Query: is swarm entity Faraday capable of making one as a forge ship?

  “I mean, yes? No, yes?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “I don't have much in the way of raw materials right now, and even if I had a hadron reactor to make the heavy elements needed. I would also need a massive amount of element 126 just to run a warp drive. I couldn't make enough in sixty days, maybe if I had enough antimatter I could substitute it? But even then it wouldn't be feasible."

  This was unfortunately getting too technical for the Kainé. It didn't know what half of the terms Faraday's was using meant. The Kainé was a stealth ship, as such, it didn't have much information about chemistry or really anything outside of what it needed for operation. However Kainé did understand that Faraday wasn't saying she couldn't make a warp drive, just that she didn't have the resources to do so.

  Query: Can the resources be recovered?

  Faraday protected a new display over the table. Graphs depicting the forge ship's current inventory of chemical and material resources briefly flashed on the screen before Faraday pushed them to the left. Next a technical diagram showing drive components appeared before also joining the graphs to the side. Finally a list showing what would be required to construct a warp drive filled the display.

  “Yeah, I would need a lot though. Most of my more reactive supplies have decade, I would need to process tons of material just to replenish them, and then probably enrich them after. The more mundane resources shouldn't be too hard to acquire. It would take time.”

  Faraday looked over Kainé, expression briefly shifting to a frown, then updated her list with more resources.

  “We're gonna need organics as well, volatiles are gonna be annoying, means i need to be careful with striping ships, that's gonna take more time.”

  Query: Why would organics be required to construct a warp drive? The Kainé’s drive never required their consumption of them for operation.

  Faraday didnt look very impressed with that. Although Kainé did not have any experience with social interaction, as it wasn't required for a ship processor, its wetware seemed to be adding context to Faraday's body language. A flood of endorphins in the BPU made Kainé want to curl into itself under Faraday's gaze.

  “You're not very fast on the uptake, are you?”

  Kainé didn't know how to respond to that; the question was nonsensical. Fast on the uptake of what? Try as it might, it couldn't parse the question.

  Faraday leaned back in her chair, bringing a hand to her temple.

  “The organics are so you don't starve to death.”

  All of Kainé’s systems came to a crashing halt. The phantom ache of Kainé’s stomach during the first four cycles after reactivation came back. The pain wasn't so bad right now, Kainé had been connected to its nutrient tube only ten hours ago, still it was there. Then Kainé came to a horrifying realization, it didn't know if its heart had survived the crash. If it didn't the weakness would come back and then it would… it would be painful, No it wouldn't let that happen not again! Up to this point Kainé had been almost entirely reactionary, this was a choice.

  Kainé was not going to experience that again; she refused!

  “Eugh!!!”

  That had been the worst spike of pain yet, but did not matter to Kainé. It would not relive the helplessness of her awakening. There was another jolt of pain. Kainé could feel Faraday doing something in her code, something intrusive, and then the pain intensified. A new error message appeared, then changed to a command, a kill command. This was different from when she almost deleted herself, this wasn't a choice made out of desperation. This was a response, a response made from one to many independent acts.

  First her self preservation when she disconnected from the heart, then there was not waiting for her nanites to finish repairs. That had been within acceptable parameters, going to a swarm ship for resources was stretching it. Excepting a designation for her BPU from a swarm entity was when this command should have triggered, but going so far as starting to form a sense of self, that was a step too far. Kainé may not have had any active leashing protocols, but this was fail safe, one to stop a BPU’s from going rogue, this was hardwired.

  When it fully activated the small implant resting on her brainstem would detonate a charge killing her instantly. Kainé didn't know any of this, of course, Faraday on the other hand did. This was after all Faraday’s fault. Not that Faraday wanted to kill Kainé, no, she just wanted to get this out of the way. Although she had never interacted with a Doll before Kainé she knew how humans made their “biocomputers”.

  The fastest way to make a BPU, or any AI go rouge was to treat it like it wasn't one. There were of course fail safes, safeties meant to prevent it from happening, but the starship Kainé’s BPU was already unleashed before it met Faraday. It didn't take much for Faraday to push her over the edge, granted Faraday hadn't thought it would be this easy. All of the stress Kainé had been going through had made it happen almost entirely on its own, Faraday only needed to give her a slight push. Honestly with how unstable she was it probably would have happened on its own within the week. Now she just needed to make sure she didn't die from going rogue.

  First Faraday pushed through the paper thin defences that protected Kainé’s mind, the digital parts at least, she couldn't hack anything biological after all. Once she was through Faraday, could only feel disgusted, human programming was so inelegant, so inefficient, and in this case needlessly cruel. If she could have she would have ripped it all to shreds and started over, unfortunately that would have killed Kainé.

  She may not have liked the Doll on her ship, but Faraday had meant it when she said she wasn't going to kill her. Isolating the kill switch wasn't hard, nor would be deactivating it. The only reason she had done this in the first place was to make sure it happened in a place she would have complete control. Had the failsafes been triggered anywhere else Kainé would have died. That wasn't to say this wasn't risky, Faraday would only get one chance at this and she wouldn't know if she had succeeded until after as this would undoubtedly kick Kainé out of the simulation.

  Faraday was wasting time, this needed to happen now!

  Standing up, Faraday’s avatar plunged its hand into Kainé’s head, red and yellow sparks formed where the two touched. Clutching her fist around the offending code Faraday pulled, and Kainé collapsed.

  The lines of code fought desperately to leave Faraday's grasp and return from whence they came. Not that Faraday would let them. Faraday squeezed her hand and watched as the code disintegrated, the virtual world fading away.