Chapter 1252: Triumphant Return (1/2)

“Yes, it’s me, captain! 0541 reporting for duty. Glad to be of service,” the assistant happily replied.

“Quick, tell me what happened!” Jiang Fei urgently asked, cutting their reunion short. He was not able to rest well without confirming that Akatziris was really dead.

“Well, I’m not too sure about the details myself, but I can give you the info we collected from scanner readings and my own conjecture based on the data…” 0541 then briefly paused and pieced all the acquired information together before relaying them to Jiang Fei.

According to the AI, when the detached holding cell had disappeared without a trace, 0543 had deduced that it has been reduced to nothing after receiving the combined firepower of all of the ship’s main cannons at the same time. But her deductions proved to be wrong when the holding cell reappeared undamaged out of nowhere sometime later.

Shortly after that, the ship’s scanner logs recorded that there were signs of spatial distortion around Braveheart, followed by a complete system shutdown. And by the time the ship’s operating system had booted back up, the acting ship’s virtual assistant 0543’s software had for unknown reasons crashed, and 0541 had been reinstated.

As soon as 0541 had regained control over Braveheart, he discovered an unconscious Jiang Fei along with the wrecked remains of Akatziris’ mechanical body lying motionless on the ship’s bridge. Her memory chip was also found to be damaged beyond repair, prompting 0541 to declare the captain dead.

On account of the captain dying and the two other remaining Namekian survivors being exiled some millions of light years away, Braveheart fell into a captainless state once again. Thus, 0541 conveniently appointed the unconscious Jiang Fei as the new captain.

As 0541 compiled his report, he deliberately left out the details of his almost being deleted and only gave Jiang Fei the good news. The AI had already evolved to the extent of gaining the capacity to experience emotions and a human-like personality. 0541 did not want his best friend to feel indebted to him despite almost getting his software deleted for saving him. And since he had somehow survived termination and his program codes were still intact, he did not want Jiang Fei to worry unnecessarily.

“So… is she really dead?” Jiang Fei wanted to confirm the death of his worst enemy again. He was still oblivious to the fact that 0541 had put his life on the line to orchestrate the events that had led to the fusion of the two Cores of Will that eventually led to Jiang Fei turning the tables on Akatziris because 0541 had decided to keep mum about that.

“Yup! No advanced android could not survive with a damaged memory core like that. Not even her,” 0541 answered.

“Then… Braveheart is now mine?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Well, you can say that. Unless of course, the other two exiled Namekians somehow find their way back to the ship,” 0541 stated. Even though the chances of that happening was very minuscule, technically it was still a possibility.

“What are the chances of that?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Less than one out of 15,000,000,” 0541 replied. Ragnaros and Therazane had been revived using biological means and were now made of flesh and blood. It was highly unlikely for them to survive after being randomly flung 5 billion light years away from Earth. And even if they did, they were not furnished with the necessary equipment or ability to record the interstellar coordinates like the superior androids were and would not be able to find their way back here easily.

“Isn’t that as good as zero? Then why are you even bringing that up?” Jiang Fei rolled his eyes at the reply. For one, he did not believe himself to be so unlucky to the point that his two enemies would somehow survive and return to Earth for revenge. In addition to that, he now had a new source of confidence—his new power. Even if those two Namekians succeeded in making it back alive, he no longer had a reason to fear them. In fact, they should be very afraid of him instead!

Jiang Fei then remembered about his new power and tried focusing his mental powers to activate it but quickly became dumbfounded when he realized that he was unable to muster even a sliver of mental power from his consciousness.

“What the h*ll?”

Jiang Fei was flustered. He did expect his new power to vanish so quickly and mysteriously before he could even learn how to use them properly.