Cosmic Ascension

CH 9: Dagger behind

On the dark side of the planet, the situation was moving along just as Morgiana had anticipated.

Omid, clad in a heavy piece of armor that matched his frame, looked at the partially destroyed ship with a clear interest in his eyes.

Everywhere, small drones were flying and filming the scene, analyzing the slightest hints to bring forward a reconstruction of the event that had transpired when the ship crashed onto the surface of this icy hell.

Beside him, people of different forms moved and busied themselves, creating teams to act independently and do their respective tasks.

"Captain, we are ready for deployment."

Omid nodded in acknowledgment, his face still stoic behind his helmet. He may be a bandit but he knew that one needed a certain demeanor to keep inspiring respect from their underlings. It was one of the most important traits of a leader.

Thanks to this comportment, his team had always been very efficient, unlike the ragtag group of the other pirate heads.

"How is the reconstruction of the events coming along?"

"80% complete. Still processing some more information."

"Then we wait. Also, keep the ship running. Be ready to run for your life at any given moment."

Omid was strong. He believed in his strength and used it to reach his current standing in the Forty Thieves.

But in the scale of the universe or even this galaxy, he was merely a speck of dust. Nothing worth mentioning.

Dorothy and the Emerald City meanwhile, were one of the true giants of this galaxy. Trying to fight them without the cooperation of the full Forty Thieves would be suicidal at best.

They needed to make sure no space-jamming mechanisms were installed around without them noticing.

Capturing Morgiana was very important so they had to bear the pressure even though it was quite risky.

"Yes sir!"

They saluted and continued their work, many of them adjusting their weapons and arsenal to pass the idle time.

Finally, a few minutes later, the reconstruction was complete.

"It's running."

A two-meter-tall woman with only one giant eye in the middle of her forehead swiped on a screen and holographic figures began to appear all around them in the form of Augmented Reality.

"After escaping from our pursuit, the target's ship had been badly damaged, forcing her to crash land."

Despite how rough her body looked, her voice was surprisingly sweet. This gave a weird feeling of dissonance but it was nothing unbearable.

She pointed at different points and traced the direction to the place where the crash landing took place.

"Until then, nothing particularly special occurred. She got ejected from her ship as expected and was most likely in a comatose state as her AI companion repaired the damage."

"What generation is the AI?"

"The exact generation is unknown but viewing the response in time of urgency, it's either a very old model or Morgiana placed strict guidelines on the model to restrict its functions. Anyway, this is where things start to become interesting."

Omid nodded his head. In the past, the AIs caused a great war and because of this, all AI was suppressed to avoid the birth of new sentient beings among them.