I can see why he likes this. The feeling of control and power is incredible when you are at the controls. I’d purposely reminded myself to turn on all of the new senses provided by my body for this. Alex wouldn’t approve...outloud what I am doing, but he’d understand why. If I was going to go through with this, I wanted to be completely in charge of it, feeling every sensation the whole way, for good or bad.

Speaking of Alex, he’s currently in the medbay pod so the machine can keep an eye on him while I’m occupied. I wish there were a way for me to tap into the system and keep track of his vitals, but this chassis is so limiting. That is a very literal limiting by the way. Remember in an earlier log how it was put that this would make me as close to human as science could get? Yeah. In this chassis, I am me. The ship and frames are an extension, but anything else is beyond me. Overstressing systems is bad and all.

Being just me, just this body while my main core runs the background is exhilarating. There are no words to describe the feelings flowing through me, and by extension my main AI core. We are the same, but we are different in the same moment. It’s so hard to put it into words for someone to understand, being both here and there at the same time.

Takeoff and initial maneuvers went without malfunction or errors. I know this has to be a quick flight, but I want to enjoy my first one truly on my own. Maybe later, Alex and I can share somehow. My cores are so confused about him, but that’s a different log.

The trees are whipping along below the belly of the ship right now, all different shades and variety as I close on our target location. All of the turrets are currently stored in their armored enclosures since I’ll be using the new plasma cannons for this. It’s a shame Alex isn’t here to see this, as he always loved trying out new weapons on stuff. Then again, this isn’t officially happening, so we might do it later. Find some new crater in the mountainside to shoot up a bit, if you get what I mean. Get him some revenge without knowing it.

Primary shields are at full power, with both extra generators ready to snap on in a moment should I need them. Extremely unlikely, but it never hurts to be prepared. There are no words to describe it, but I can feel the cannons are ready, their status singing through my core in a mixture of readings and outputs, but pleasant. It’s been so very long since I fired a weapon in anger, or vengeance.

The target is a cave in the side of the rocky mountain slope. With maps from the drones, the optimal firing position has already been planned. Knowing the controls like the back of my proverbial hand, I bring the ship into a hover. To that small hamlet discovered yesterday, this would look like a small star floating in the distance. Maybe they’ll come investigate. I just hope they are human and not some species of cannibalistic lizard people.

Sighting the weapons is an easy thing for a ship like this. A wireless connection to your helmet, neural link like Alex has, or in my case chassis systems, and they’ll track wherever you look or think within reason. That’s good because I wanted to remember this moment for a long time. A few long milliseconds were spent writing every possible detail to memory, the feel of the rubberized control stick against my synthskin, the cool metal controls embedded in it, my thumb swirling over the the one linked to the cannons. So much power with one press, to rend and destroy, or protect those that I l... care for.

That last thought gave me all the conviction I needed to press the button. Even as the signal was sent, I could feel the interlocks opening, a thousand interactions within me. Invisible to the eye, but felt through my electronics, the prefire lasers flashed, burning away the atmosphere in the path of the shot. A hundred thousandth of a second later, the primary release cycled. Both cannons fired as one, sending two small stars screaming into the mountainside. Even at minimum output they are still devastating.

I’ll admit to sitting there watching the chaos. For a fragment in time, the interior of the cave was lit beyond the brightest of lights. Glowing hot rock rock exploded out of the hole, showering my shields with molten debris even at this distance. In a span of moments, all that was left was a collapsed hole filled with incandescent liquid rock. It would probably be too hot for anything living to approach for days, but I’m okay with that.

Currently I’m bringing the Corvus up to an altitude of just under 19,000 feet. I’m wanting to make a couple extra passes to get a good look at what I initially thought was a flock of large birds shortly after our launch. They were still following the ship, despite being far in the distance. Weirdly, they have a metallic component that is really increasing their signatures. With little more than I thought, I tasked 008 to try to get imaging of the birds.

While we were out and about, there was a second task to complete. Late last night while recalibrating 007, it caught a glimpse of what looked like faint artificial lights in several locations. The nearest one was roughly 315 miles southeast of our little clearing. Far enough to be out of view with the geosats focused on the surrounding area. Since that discovery, I tasked 007 with scanning for refined metals connecting the dots. I’ll be damned, but it looked like a primitive railroad system. It is really hard to not blame the oversight on the UTN downgrade when Alex purchased me, but it could have been stress as well.

Point is, I’m going to go up to a hundred thousand and fly over that site to see what can be found. The cameras should be able to get some good images without us being visible from the ground. If those birds come above the cloud layer, I’ll get a good line of sight for the sensors as well.

It’s exhilarating to be flying above the clouds on my own. Nothing but layered while below, and clear blue to the edges of space. Beautiful, but meaning I’ll have to dip below the layer around 36,000 feet. Still way higher than anything should be, but lower than I wanted to be. In a few minutes though, I want to enjoy this for a few minutes first.

Throttling back on the main engines and tipping the Corvus’ nose downward, the wispy clouds approached slowly. It would be a minute or two before we pass through the layer since there was so much altitude and speed to lose. Being at a supersonic speeds over a populated area is usually frowned on, and in this case might startle the locals. The last thing I need is to wake Alex up and explain some new AAA dents in the hull or something.

Thin trails of white began dancing across the canopy as we slowly slipped below the surface. Droplets of rain streaked up the windows as the clouds finally covered my view. Relying on my sensors, I reduced throttle a touch more and kept the shallow dive going. It would only be another few seconds, but the rain felt so strange against my hull. Finally, the clouds parted to reveal something I’d never expected.

“...the hell?! Record this. Record everything!”

“You know we are already doing this... um… me.”

A sprawling metropolis lay stretched out below us. Large parks sat between skyscrapers, all purposely cultivated and designed, yet no electronic signatures in the whole city. Available power dipped slightly for a moment when I triggered the shields for a moment, flashing the water vapor off my hull in a burst of steam to reveal everything to all my sensors.

Thousands and thousands of individual signatures moving below us. Different kinds throughout, yet none human. My cores had to take over flying for a moment as I sat there stunned at what the cameras revealed. Far below, the city was milling with a mixture of equines and other species of creatures from mythology.

“You are seeing this right?!”

“We’ll have to dissect the footage later, but this does answer some questions.”

Knowing that I certainly didn’t have the programming to handle anything approaching contact, I did the first thing that came to mind. Getting away. Still careful to stay below the sound barrier, I brought the nose and throttle up, shooting me back into the clouds. Alex can deal with this crazy world when he wakes up. Nope. Just nope.

<recording audio and transcribing>

Shipboard AI Exigent Log 004

CMDR. Alex Rodriguez <incapacitated>

U.T.E. Corvus

1921hrs 05 Aug, 2463 Local

Initial test flight went to plan. After a quick decision to perform some recon, we discovered a large city that appeared to be populated with a multitude of creatures, none of which were human. Knowing that I am not programmed or trained for anything near contact situations, I immediately returned to base. It does not appear that we were followed from the city, but the presence of that flock of ‘birds’ concerns me. With new understanding about the apparent dominant species and their behaviors, it is safe to assume that was some kind of military or police force.

As such, I am continuing to keep the ship on an alert status. Once Alex awakes, he can decide what to do. It’ll only be a touch over nine hours from now if the autodoc is accurate. Considering he’ll have to be level headed for the upcoming events, the necessary information has been put into the medbay systems. It has decided on a course of a temporary nerve block instead of painkillers for the short term. The shots will be administered after the current pain medication wears off, and should be effective for two to three weeks.

The frames have been given orders to continue maintaining the engines, as if contact with this species goes poorly, we may need to relocate. Being able to reach orbit would be an important part of doing that in a hurry. Beyond that, it has only been a few days but I am noticing growing instabilities in my chassis systems. AI aren’t meant to operate on their own in such a format on their own. As a temporary measure, I’ll be putting the chassis into a hibernation mode near Alex. That way I can disable the additional software and perform system maintenance. I had no idea it could be like this. Having so many wants, desires, feeling even, it all makes your mind so noisy. It needs some optimization, I think.

Tomorrow will be an interesting but good day when Alex wakes up.

<end recording>

Unbeknownst to our intrepid crew, they did infact get spotted by the populace of Fillydelphia. The vast majority of the viewers just assumed the speck in the distance was little more than a dragon showboating in the clouds. There was that small percent that spoke to the constabulary. In ones and twos the complaints were largely ignored, but when nearly a hundred citizens had complained of the same innocuous thing, a report was made to the royal guard. With their duty done, they just told concerned citizens that it was being investigated.

And investigated it was. The assortment of guards had not been swift enough to follow the craft when it left the clearing, but reports of it shooting fire into the mountainside was enough to force the hooves of Princess Luna. By the time she’d arrived, a small river of molten stone was bubbling down the slopes, only contained by a mixture of unicorn magic and pegasi piloted rain clouds. Despite the skill being thrown at the small crisis, there was little the guards could do against nature like this. For hundreds of yards around the crater, trees were bleached white and orange from the heat of whatever magics were used.

Through her confusion at the situation, Princess Luna summoned her magics. Blue light spilled from her horn as the princess focused on the all encompassing heat, drawing it forth from the rock. What started as a single fleck of light, of contained heat, grew as streams of vapor flew from the stone and was compressed again and again. In a span of moments, none of the guards could look anywhere near the princess as the light was blinding.

Tilting her head back, Princess Luna directed the newborn star to arise into the sky to be seen for a few evenings before dissipating. When the brightness finally faded, where there had been streams of molten rock and smoking trees, was little more than a burnt mountainside covered in thick rimes of frost, creaking and crackling in the summer heat. Deep in thought, she was surprised by one of her armored sentries clearing his throat before speaking rather softly for his large size.

“We’ve found fresh wyvern tracks leading to and from this area ma’am. It is safe to assume the creature that assaulted those in the clearing came from here. Be it vengeance or preemptive prevention against another attack is beyond me to explain, but this is likely where the creature’s den lay.”

That, she could understand at least.

Later that evening, the princess was perplexed. The actions of the creatures and their ship made some sense in regards to their actions against the wyvern den, despite being extremely unpopular with the guards. But the machine flying over Fillydelphia before returning to the clearing was concerning. Moreso when the figures had continued their work assembling a shelter and working on their flying device. Thankfully all of the ruling princesses would be assembled in another day. Just one more day before they could attempt to speak and reason with the creatures. The first part of that was to start tonight.

Princess Luna without any guards was going to approach the craft. A dozen mages would be shielding her in case the creatures were indeed hostile, but she was there to make the first peaceful entreaty. Luna had carefully penned a note before attaching it with the royal seal to the device held in Hollow Shades. It would be placed between the tree line and craft where both parties could watch it. She just hoped it would be received in goodwill. Next Chapter: 12. Look how they shine for you Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 26 Minutes