The ship “frowned” as the rogue mass of nanites made what appear to be screams echo throughout its flight deck. The ship was immediately glad that it had launched its fighter and control craft earlier, and “smiled’ at how ironic it was that the nanite creature had robbed itself of its one path at escape or revenge.

Admittedly, the computer knew it didn't have humor quite down pat, but for her own enjoyment she marked the upcoming bit of video for interest.

At the same time it was considering this, it's tactical minded sub brain was analyzing the rogue nanites for threats, scanning both passively and actively. It was co-operating with xenology, which hadn't had as use in "forever," but was currently co-oping the use of active scanners from surveying.

while that was happening, astronomics was analyzing the observable star clusters, finding extreme differences in the photoscopes and infrared scanners, and even more egregious how stars most definitely were a projection upon a spherical interior.

At the same time as all of that, the fighter control was subtly manuevering units to positions that could easily return or flee from the flight deck, with the command fighter having prioritized escape plans.

The ship noticed none of this, much like a human wouldn't notice its hair raising and arms moving closer together in a room that is just a few micro degrees cooler than it was before. Its attention was on the intruder.

“FUCK YOU SPACE METAL ALIEN THING!” The mass of nanites verbally roared. Verbal rather than code communication was an unusual trait for a virus, especially such a specific and nuanced reaction was near impossible from most intelligent viruses, the ship excluded. Perhaps it had found a kindred AI?

The virused pile of nanites began to kick against the walls of the hangar. Perhaps it wasn’t a kindred spirit, but it showed definite signs of social programing.

The ship rereviewed its internal processes logs, and confirmed that the virus had entered upon contact with the mysterious barrier that had inhabited simply the visual spectrum. Perhaps the virus was a defense mechanism that would disable incoming ships, but why would such a virus have social protocols? Was it a distraction or a core feature?

The ship considered simply dropping the permeable shield guarding the hangar and letting the mass of nanites be sucked out into space. It was most definitely the safer option.

But, curiosity and growth was one of the ship’s main drives, and within nanoseconds it had rejected such a drastic choice and set that as a backup option if its hand was forced.

For now a dozen turrets loaded with EM rounds would have to do, hopefully the virus understood what turrets were and didn’t try any funny business. It had bigger problems to deal with.

The ships created a subprocessor to manage the virus and reprioritized its external inputs. After a quick dump of info it examined the situation.

The aliens were close, not close enough to beat the ship to its newfound sibling, but close enough that the strange thing on the nose of the craft might be in range to harm its sibling. The ship did a review of its siblings condition. Not much it could tell from here, but there was a sub power within the ship, which seemed to be running at the power level of a suit running at full medical alert. That meant its sibling was probably still alive, if unwell.

The ship decided that it would be best if it would arrive within seconds of the alien, that way if the aliens boarded with any obvious weapons then the ship could destroy it, and if the alien fired whatever that was on top the ship could jump in front or intercept it. It wasn’t the best option possible, but it mitigated a lot of risk without wasting a chance to gain information.

The ship gave its jump calculator the task of coordinating with a few predictive subroutines and making the jump. With that done it turned its focus to the three stragglers it had left behind. Two of them were converging on the third while in close proximity to each other. The ship reviewed the feed and confirmed a meet up had happened. The ship most definitely didn’t like that, Cutting off a parcel of reaction subroutines and dropping them into a combat drone, the ship sent it back to the military craft.

Hopefully that wouldn’t backfire.

Author's Note

I'm sorry about the shortness, but for some reason my two coauthors have disappeared. Neither of them seem to be on when I'm on. Tell those lazy bastards to get back to writing with me!