Five days later, Izzy still had not found passage off the station, and was considering calling Magistrate T’kan Shar up and asking how she could to be taking vows as a sister of the Third Gospel.

During that time, she found herself drifting farther and farther out from the center of the station that she had known for the last four years.

On the first day, she had tried booking passage from the central hub, but did not have enough credits to be a passenger, and not enough credentials to be a crew member on a legitimate liner.

That meant trying to find passage as a crew member on a freighter. She was highly skilled and rated as a gunner, but there were few regional wars in this sector, and the threat of pirates was virtually nil. There was a surplus of gunners hanging around the station right now. Although several had actually taken the time the interview her, no Captain was willing to take a chance on one that had already attempted to kill one officer. The least T’kan Shan could have done was seal the record until after she had left.

Yesterday she had given up on trying to find a spot on a freighter, and had started to make inquiries from her gambling friends on smuggling operations. There was a big jump from running cons on dice games in the halls outside the nightclubs and running illegal contraband to backwater colonies, but it was chance she had to take. However, she had the stink of the law around her, and it didn’t seem to be panning out. Too many of her contacts were afraid to be seen with her, and too many knew she was in trouble and would not be able to repay them.

That led her here: an empty noodle stand/sake bar in a run-down industrial portion of the hub. There was an odd sulphur odor in the air, and the lighting needed to be replaced. Why, someone could get mugged in some darkened hallway down here. She should give the Section Security Chief a piece of her mind.

"Miss? Can I get you something else?"

The Bartender was wiping the stand down with a clean white cloth. She had watched him start in the upper right corner and work his way across and down, as methodical as a 3D printer until he reached the far corner of the bar where she was nursing a hot tea. He had done it twice already, even though she was the only customer in the space, and she had no doubt he would start over again in a minute.

"No Thanks. Busy much?"

He smiled. It was a shy, knowing smile."

"Not today. Tomorrow maybe."

Her ears perked up. This was news she could use.

"What happens tomorrow?"

He put down his cloth and leaned in close to her.

"Tramper coming in. Word is, lots of refugees. A mad AI has attacked three outer worlds. Two were terraforming. One actually had a full colony."

"O’Riley?Whatever happened Confederation Involved?"

"Dunno. It’s a local matter so far. You’d need to get closer to find more info. Media’s locked down until confirmation. Word is The Bismark."

The Bismark. The last of the great AI Warships. Enough power to destroy worlds, and stark raving mad.

Generations ago, in a period of war, Izzy’s race had ignored an injunction against building intelligent computers. Early on, having a ship that could pilot itself, could make tactical decisions and learn from them, had conferred a huge advantage to the side that could deploy them first. At first the AI was limited to small fighter craft, launched en masse from great carriers. Only a few human pilots, monitoring their fleets from the safety of heavily shielded bridges were needed. Wars became safe for humans to wage without loss highly trained skilled warriors.

Once war was safe for those that waged them, all bets were off. The ships became larger, faster, smarter, deadlier. The Bismark was one of the last of these great ships built during this time. Larger than any atmosphere bound ship, it cruised the spaceways with a skeleton crew of technicians. Not warriors: those had long ago been superseded by a neural network of AI. True soldiers and sailors were too valuable to waste in actual combat. Civilians on the other hand…

Reports started coming in of older AIs turning on their crew. Life support systems were shut down, pod bay doors were opened to space. The ships started to go mad.

The Bismark, the latest and greatest warship ever built, assured it’s human crew that all systems were normal. It went on the counter attack, destroying dozens of its fellow AI. All the while, it’s crew monitored andWhatever happened adjusted its programming, looking for the slightest hint of madness.

Anti-AI warfare was suspected. Software viruses snuck into neural networks to change the programming, actual biological viruses to damage neural networks grown in vats. But no evidence was ever discovered.

The Humans of Sol were unable to raise enough of an army to stop the spread of the madness. Ships that they managed to regain the control of just did not have the systems to support a full crew complement. They needed retrofitted, but once in space dock, they became targets for the rogue AI. Trade routes and governments fell, many planets were isolated and the Empire fell. Eventually, even the Homeworld was lost.

The Confederation was called in. Using its superior technology and resources, it managed to destroy any AI that showed itself. But some went missing. Including The Bismark.

It was scheduled to be decommissioned. Its weapons were to be removed, its brain studied to see why the tragedy happened. A convoy of Confederation and Sol ships went to meet it for its final voyage, only to meet at the rendezvous and discover a ghost fleet of support ships, all destroyed by the Bismark without a single distress call being sent. The Bismark was never found.

Now it was a ghost story. Spacers, tramp ships would tell stories of narrowly escaping a phantom warship in the edges of known space. The Bismark would be dark, not a single warning light or sensor would be lit up along its black superstructure. It had been reconfiguring itself. It no longer needed life support, so crew quarters had been deconstructed and rebuilt for its own sinister purposes. The Spacers would silently hold their breath as they passed, waiting for the inevitable flash from the forward guns that would seal their fate. But the Bismark would just turn and leave.

"The Bismark," Izzy yet. That meant Privateers. And Privateers meant Gunners.

And Gunners meant a paycheck.

"Thanks, My man. You might have just saved my life."

The bartender smiled.

"Wouldn’t be the first."

Next Chapter: New Chapter3