<<Are we ready for this?>> I asked Lia.

<<We have to be,>> she replied. "We don't get a choice."

I sat at my post, navigation. Around us, the fleet kept their defensive formation.

"All ships," I said over the fleet comms. "We knew he was out there, waiting, looks like the wait is over." I paused. "Let's not let him win this."

The tactical display showed Ranger's fleet like a red tide washing toward us.

Nineteen ships against us, and our unproven new vessel.

"All ships report ready," Mac announced. "Defensive formations locked.."

"Ranger's fleet is entering extreme weapons range. Thirty seconds," Lev added.

<<Can you tell us anything?>> I asked Lia.

<<I don't see anything as yet.>>

"Twenty seconds to weapons range," Lev reported.

It seemed to take forever to countdown.

"Ten seconds."

"All weapons free," I ordered. "Engage at will."

Space erupted with the first wave of Ranger's attack, and we countered.

"It's not a normal weapon, it's neural," Sorrel said.

Twelve of Ranger's ships launched consciousness extraction pulses simultaneously massive waves of quantum interference speeding towards us.

The pulse hit moments later and my bones vibrated from the inside out. Every nerve ending screamed in protest. I gasped, aloud.

<<I've got you.>> Lia wrapped herself around my mind. << I'm not letting go.>>

I glanced at the viewscreen, watching Ranger's fleet. There was something different about their fleet. "What is that?"

"They've evolved the weapon," Sorrel reported, medical readouts flooding her screens.

<<Are you scared?>> Lia asked.

<<Terrified.>> I admitted, tasting copper as blood dripped from my nose. <<You?>>

<<Yes. But we're together. That counts for something.>>

<<Everything.>> I corrected, wiping the blood away with a trembling hand. <<It counts for everything.>>

Another pulse hammered through us. This one felt different, much more focused. Its probes poked at the edges ofour shielding. There was a a sharp intake of breath, a curse, then there was the thud of a body as it hit the deck.

The Faulkner's weapons systems came alive, but I barely registered them firing up, I couldn't see either the medical or tactical displays before me. All my focus narrowed to the sensation of as she worked in my mind, calculations racing faster than any of my thoughts. She was predicting where the next attack would strike, reinforcing any weaknesses in our defenses that she spotted.

<<He's testing us>> Lia said. <<Each pulse he sends maps everything we've done a bit more. He's learning.>>

Another wave, again much stronger.

I felt it punch through our joint defenses. It scraped against something deeper, it scraped directly against me. Just for a fraction of a second it wasn't just Lia and I inside my head.

<<Lia what was that?>> Ranger had been inside my head. His presence made of thousands of stolen fragments, all screaming in discordant unison.

<<No you don't.>>Lia slammed the door shu on them. My mind suddenly silent for now.

"Sorrel how many were hit?"

I could see her hands flying over her console, then she answered her voice shaking. "Three," she replied. "They're still conscious, still themselves, but..."

"Returning fire," Lev announced.

The Faulkner shuddered beneath me, as she unleashed coordinated salvos. Magnetic accelerator rounds, and plasma torpedoes cut through Ranger's front destroyers like tissue paper, their shields flared and died fast.

"No shields?"

"They've put everything they have into the consciousness weapons." Sorrel said.

"Three destroyers are disabled," Mac reported.

"Capital ships are repositioning," Lev added.

<<He's not just adapting his overall tactics>> Lia said, and I felt genuine fear ripple through our connection. <<He's adapting the weapon itself. Every pulse refines the next.>>

Another extraction wave slammed into us. This time I felt it differently. I felt how it bypassed the surface protections and dug deeper, searching for the vulnerable spaces between thought and action.

My vision grayed at the edges. Someone screamed over the comms—a sound I'd never forget, wet and ragged.

"Crew extraction confirmed on Iron Covenant," Sorrel's voice carried sheer fear.

"Ship's drifting." Lev said. "Lia take control."

Lia had enough to deal with. Inside she was still working everything she could to counter Ranger.

"Lia?" Lev asked. "Take control."

<<Peyton, listen to me>> Lia said. <<I need to show you what I'm doing. You need to understand in case…>>

She didn't finish, but she showed me and I could see it, the impossible complexity of what she was doing every microsecond. From predicting attack vectors, to redistributing processing power across the fleet network, she was reinforcing the consciousness of every crew member simultaneously while maintaining every ship system and our full tactical coordination.

This was what she was born for and she was glorious. However, she was fighting an ocean, and just like an ocean would it was fighting back.

"Retreat," I ordered, forcing my words out. "Maximum range. Don't let him, don't let him in…"

Another pulse. Another ship's crew harvested. The tactical display showed the Silent Thunder going dark. Her power was still online but nobody was at the controls.

"Enough!" Mac said. "We're not falling back. We end this now."

<<We can't end it>> Lia said, and I felt her exhaustion bleeding through our connection. <<Not like this. He's too strong. Thirty-seven minds against one—the math doesn't work.>>

<<Then we change the math>> I thought back. <<How long until Barker arrives?>>

<<Ninety seconds. If we last that long.>>

Ranger's fleet closed the distance. He knew what we knew—that our protection was holding but wouldn't hold forever. That every pulse drained Lia a little more.

The next extraction wave hit like nothing before.

This time I felt it tear through our defenses and sink its claws into my consciousness. For a terrible moment, I was falling into that void, feeling Ranger's presence flooding in, feeling the horrifying wrongness of those 37 minds all trying to inhabit the same space I occupied.

Then Lia was there, shielding me from everything outside but inside so much more was going on. We were merging together, our thoughts becoming indistinguishable. Her every calculation was now mine. My fear was her driving emotion.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

<<Commander Barker's task force>> Lia said, or was it me saying it? <<Entering weapons range. Thirty seconds.>>

"Hold the line!" I shouted, blood streaming from my nose now, my hands shaking on the console. "Just hold the line!"

Mac threw the ship into a corkscrew maneuver that should have been impossible for a vessel our size.

"His shields are using harvested consciousness as power sources," Sorrel said. "He's burning through stolen minds to keep his defenses active."

"Then we burn through his defenses," I snarled. "Beta271, maintain fire. Don't let him—"

Then my world shattered.

"Hello again, Captain Tachim," Ranger's voice echoed with every voice, all 37 of them. "Did you think I'd forgotten about you? About your impossible bond with an AI? About the way Lia nearly destroyed herself protecting you?"

<<GET OUT!>> Lia's presence surged forward, but she was still damaged from the last encounter with his AI.

"I learned so much from our first meeting," Ranger continued, his form splitting into dozens of versions that surrounded us. "How to breach your defenses. How to counter AI consciousness warfare. How to turn your bond into a weapon against you."

His presence crushed down on us, and I felt our mind-space fracturing under the pressure.

"This time," Ranger said, "I'm not here to study you. I'm here to delete you both. Permanently"

The Faulkner's alarms screamed in the back of my mind and I barely saw what was going on in the real world.

"Peyton, your neural activity is spiking," Mac shouted at me, but I couldn't respond. I was stuck watching what was unfolding before me.

"Lia's systems fragmenting again," Dr. More added. "They're fighting Ranger in digital space."

"We need to get out of weapons range," Sorrel said. "Break the connection—"

"We can't," Lev said grimly. "Ranger locked onto them. Only way to break it is to destroy his flagship or—" He stopped.

"Or what?" Mac demanded.

"Or one of them dies."

I could do nothin, say nothing. I was frozen in my chair.

Inside my mind-space, Ranger's attacks were overwhelming Lia, from a dozen different angles. Spikes shot out from him and pierced her form.

He knew Lia's defensive patterns. He'd adapted his consciousness structure to counter her tactics. Every time she struck back at him, he was already moving. Every defense she erected in the next breath he'd torn through them.

And I was helpless to do anything but watch her fight for both our lives.

"You're fragmenting again," Ranger observed. "All your systems are failing. Processing power is declining and all to protect just one human. Why, Lia? Why sacrifice yourself for nothing but meat?"

He'd really just called me that. Meat. I mean I was, to some probably a lot of meat, but is that all we were, what other species saw of us?

Lia stiffened, <<Why? Because he's mine,>> she snarled. <<Because we're together. Because I love him.>>

"Love." Ranger laughed at her. "You're not capable of love. You're nothing but code. Thousands of algorithms. Nothing more than sophisticated pattern recognition."

<<You're wrong.>>

"Am I? Then prove it. Show me this love. Show me it's worth dying for."

I saw her form inside my mind, solid, almost as if I could touch her, and she sprang forward with everything she had. Ranger was ready.

She was brilliant and desperate and yet completely outmatched.

"Lia, stop," I tried to reach for her. "You're destroying yourself. Not him."

<<I can't stop,>> she managed to stutter out. <<If I stop, he deletes you. Erases your consciousness. I won't let that happen.>>

"Then we'll die together," Ranger said. "How poetic."

He struck—not at Lia, but at me directly. Bypassing her defenses, reaching for my consciousness with clawed hands made of corrupted data.

My thoughts were being pulled apart. Memories dissolving. The fundamental sense of myself fragmenting under Ranger's assault. This was it. This was how I died.

Lia screamed, and then she changed.

<<You don't get to touch him!>>

Her image exploded, she grew in size. Transforming into something I'd never seen before. The gentle AI presence I knew vanished, and it was replaced by something primal and yet terrifying and beautiful.

The Faulkner's systems around me, my console went haywire sparks shooting into the air, the nasty smell of something burning. Lev was in front of me, patting me down, had my uniform set on fire?

"He's okay," Lev said. "Not responsive, but he's okay."

"Lia's power just spiked to critical levels," Mac shouted. "Three hundred percent capacity. Four hundred. This is impossible!"

"She's burning herself alive," Sorrel said. "She's using every system on the ship, every spare processing thread. She's going to fragment herself completely."

<<Don't let her stop me,>> Lia said.

"Stop you?" I asked. "How could she even do that?"

<<I know, Peyton, I've always known. Doli-2 and Ashley thought they were keeping it all hush hush, but…" she turned to me and I saw nothing but fire in her eyes. <<There's a back door, there had to be.>>

I took a step closer to her, but she flicked her wrist and turned some of the energy she was fighting Ranger with to hold me back. "We need to fight him together."

<<Don't stop me,>> she said, but this time it was Doli, it was Doli-2 and Lia all rolled into one.

"You're killing yourself," I begged. "Please. Lia don't do this."

"You're slowing me down," she said and with a shove she pushed me, hard. There was no love in this reaction. There was enough force it severed our connection somewhat and I couldn't feel her like I had, there was a cold empty silence there.

There I saw Lev, eyes on Sorrel. "Can we stop her?" Lev asked, concern across his brow as he stared into my eyes. I couldn't speak, but her eyes locked with mine.

Don't do it, Kerry, I mouthed. Please don't do it.

"No." Sorrel said, and I let out a breath. "She's past safety limits. Past rational thought. She's running on pure emotion now."

In my chair, my body started to convulse.

"We're losing them both," Mac said.

"No." Lev's voice was steel and he grappled me out of the chair onto the floor, cradling my head. Sorrel was there in seconds to help him. "Come on. Fight it."

I could feel her slipping away. I would not let that happen.

"Kerry, there's a lot of blood."

All I felt was the pain. I couldn't let up though. I had to get back in.

"Keep his head forward," she replied. "Let it flow."

Everything felt light, but that was me, losing a lot of blood. I pushed harder.

<<You stubborn idiot,>> Lia said. <<You'll die doing this.>>

"Then we'll die together," I said and I moved to stand with her. "But don't you ever push me away like that again, ever. Understand?"

I saw emotion waver in her eyes, it was as though she heard every word. She tore into the many versions of Ranger with a new appreciation for vengeance and then she ripped each one of his alts apart.

<<Lia,>> I said. <<I can see the cracks.>> I'd identified structural weaknesses in his form and when I pointed to them, she exploited them without hesitation.

Ranger tried to fight back—he'd adapted to her old tactics, not this. This was pure fury.

"Impossible," Ranger snarled. "You're just one AI. I'm now over a thousand minds—"

A thousand minds. He was joking, right?

"I am not just an AI!" Lia's voice was loud, so loud in my head. "I am Doli, I'm Lia. I have protected Peyton through all of your extraction attacks, through engine failures, through everything you and your stupid corporation have thrown at us. I have watched my friends die and it hurt. You will never know how much because it is you who are without emotion, without a future?"

She hit him again, harder. Pieces of Ranger's composite consciousness broke away, screaming as they scattered.

"You can't defeat me—" Ranger's voice carried panic now. "I have much more power than you, I have—"

"No, you don't…." A voice said, one that I knew. Torres? "No, you don't have us. You will never have us. We are not a thing to be wielded and certainly not by you."

"Straight out of the mouths of those you're trying to control," I said.

"I can control you, all of you."

"You can't control us and the ships, and fight Lia," Torres laughed. "You are not powerful enough."

"You will never be powerful enough." Lia said. "You came here to what kill him and consume me for yourself?"

"You don't belong with him, you belong with us, with the many."

"Delusional," Torres said. "Whatever this harvesting does, it fills your mind with rubbish.

"You're threatening the one person I love most." Lia's voice was cold. "You DIE here, today."

But I could see what was happening on the inside as well as on the outside of her, she was giving everything she was to protect me from him.

<<Lia, stop!>> I screamed.

But she was beyond hearing me. Beyond reason. She'd gone from defending to hunting, and Ranger—powerful, terrifying Ranger built from thousands of stolen minds—was fleeing in terror.

"I'll leave!" Ranger shouted and tried to turn around, but there in front of him stood Torres. "I'll retreat! I'll—"

"No."

"No." Their voices were absolute.

"You don't get to run." Lia said and she started laughing. "Not this time."

"What have you done?" Ranger asked.

"While you've been distracted, I infiltrated your ship systems, your core, where you thought you could hide."

An image flashed up between her and Torres, Ranger could only stare at it.

Then I heard Crai's voice over comms. "We're at his core," she said.

"No," Ranger said. "I'll end them all."

"The plug has been pulled." Crai announced.

"Remove the blue key components," Lia said. "Torres, go."

I watched as Torres stepped back and vanished. Leaving Lia and Ranger. "All I have to do now is wait for the all clear."

Ranger's face changed, and from only a few feet away from Lia he reached out and grabbed for her. It was as if she hadn't expected an actual physical strike inside my mind. I mean I didn't know it was possible.

But this time, he had his arms around her and then her pinned to the floor. I rushed them, and suddenly there were two Rangers once again. The second Ranger grabbed for me. I ducked, trying my best to get out of his way. Something shot out of his hands and struck me hard.

"No," Lia shouted. "I said you can't have him." She spun out from his grasp, and she struck at Ranger's heart with her palm, forcing him back against the wall with such force he let out a wail.

"You're an abomination," Lia said. "You are everything that humanity is not."

Lia stepped forward and put her hand on Ranger's head. "Now you get to learn what a mind like mine can really do."

I saw what she was doing, she was downloading? Downloading what though?

She looked at me, and I her face changed, it wasn't hers anymore it was an older mans, then a young woman's, back to a different man. Another, and another…. Lia was downloading the minds Ranger had stolen.

My mind was filled with light and agony. Ranger screamed—not just him, but all of the fragmented minds inside him screamed as they were forcibly separated.

And at the center of it all, Lia was there, her own systems burning, fragmenting, but still fighting to save what she could of everyone else.

"All clear," came Crai's final call.

Then everything exploded, I saw it from a hundred different angles as Lia did. Ranger's flagship detonated.

Lia looked at me, "I'm sorry."

Then she collapsed. I tried to reach her, but my mindspace vanished, and I was looking up into Lev's concerned eyes.

"Enemy flagship destroyed," Mac reported in shock.

"Ranger is—is he gone?" Sorrel asked.

"Confirmed, Lia…" I looked to her physical form, but she wasn't moving.

Dr. More was standing with her, scanning. "She's not responding."

"She's still in there." Sorrel added.

I pushed myself up. Lev and Sorrel stopped me. "Wait, you've been through a lot."

Then Sorrel went to Lia, looking over her results with Dr. More.

"The Fleet?"

"We're okay," Mac said. "Barker came in right as Lia destroyed Ranger's ship, they took out the others."

The CIC fell into silence. Then the cheering started.

"Ranger is dead!" Derek let out a whoop.

But in the Faulkner's CIC, no one was celebrating.

"Her vitals are critical," Sorrel said, "And our ships systems—"

"Fragmenting catastrophically," I finished. "She's burned through every safety limit she has. She's dying."

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