Chapter Eight (2/2)

He just wanted left alone. He would view others, but he would leave them alone also.

Which made the fact that a ship had dropped into the system he was currently inhabiting, orbiting a gas giant and extracting the resources he needed, just his luck.

The ship was screaming for help across multiple spectrum, using multiple languages, all of them from the lexicons that he had taken as his due from the ship he had rendered assistance to in the past.

Daxin reached out with some of his scanners, since he was plugged fully into his ship, making him the ship, and touched the other craft.

The hull was damaged in several places. Kinetic weaponry and what looked like a brush from a high intensity energy weapon. It wasn't bleeding atmosphere, which meant the crew had either gotten it under control or they had given up on trying to maintain atmosphere.

The new ship was armed. Light damage capacity older weapons that wouldn't have qualified as military grade weapons when Daxin had first joined a military. Even the strongest weapon the ship possessed wouldn't register on Daxin's debris shields. The weapons showed signs of having been utilized recently, before the ship had entered jumpspace only to tumble out in the barren system that Daxin was currently occupying.

But the ship was crewed by the living.

But they were not his people and he was not bound to help unclassified xenosapients engaged in combat.

But they were screaming for help.

For long ticks of the ship's atomic clock, Daxin considered if he cared enough to help them.

On one hand they needed help. He was bound to help others.

On the other hand he wanted left alone.

Then the alarms went off again and Daxin fluttered his debris shield in his version of surprise.

!*! HELLJUMP DETECTED !*!

!*! HELLJUMP DETECTED !*!

//BADBOI DAXIN BADBOI//

//OLDBOI DEATHBOI DAXIN//

Fido had detected the energy surge at the same time as Daxin, 'smelled' it so to speak, and identified it while Daxin was busy dropping his ship into the atmosphere of the gas giant to hide while he decided what he wanted to do.

He just wanted left alone.

But the one screaming for help was not the belligerent. It was not the aggressor.

And what was chasing them was the enemy of everyone.

Daxin knew that it wouldn't leave him alone.

Daxin felt something he had not felt in centuries, a thing he thought he had left behind with his flesh when he had traded it for metal.

The taste of iron and copper on a missing tongue, hammering of his pulse on temples long gone, the thudding of a heart left behind.

The taste of hatred.

The taste of wrath.

//NEWBOI SCARED//

//NEWBOI HURT BY BADBOI//

//HELP DAXIN HELP//

Daxin felt himself come alive in a way he did his best to avoid. The part of his brain that they said was wrong, the part that they had tried to fix, the part they had tried to convince him to let them cut away, woke up as he stared at the scan of the newcomer.

Daxin just wanted left alone.

But the newcomer would never leave him alone.

Would never leave anyone that it encountered alone.

Until it was alone.

Daxin reached out and tickled Fido's petting nerve, both the calm Fido and center himself.

//HELP DAXIN HELP//

We will, Fido, Daxin let his companion know with a few datapulses. Wake up the boys.

//FUNBOIS WAKEUP//

//FUNBOIS WAKEUP//

Daxin felt the virtual intelligences slumbering within his ship's computer systems wake up as Fido fed them datapulses, fed whirling particles to them. The Funbois, all dedicated virtual intelligences designed from the ground up by the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems best VI growers, woke up and eagerly awaited for Daxin to provide the data they needed.

//WE HELP NEWBOIS?//

yes

Daxin knew what he was facing. He had Fido loaded into his disaster frame, loaded himself into his disaster frame, dropped a message torpedo deep into the gas giant with orders for it not to launch for the nearest Terran Confederacy message beacon until after the newcomer was destroyed or left the system.

//HELP DAXIN HELP//

yes

Daxin fired up his engines, brought up all of his shield, not just the debris shield, spun up his projectors. The VI did checks on his weapons as it slipped into the weapon's systems, scampered into the shielding to ensure it was optimally deployed, and slithered into the ship's systems to ensure everything ran at 100% capacity.

”May I be of assistance?” Daxin sent to the damaged and screaming ship.

And armed his C-Plus Cannons.