These region of normal space was virgin space, having never been traveled through man or even mapped by long range sensors. The stars shined for no one but the planets and asteroids that circled them. Dust clouds moved about the depths without being swept by robotic harvesters or manned treasure hunters.

Suddenly there was a purple blast of light in the background of black and white. Space unfolded, strands of energy splashing outwards, as the ship plowed out of hyper-space back into what most people called reality. This space was not a virgin anymore.

It cleared the surface of normal space, falling out of the hole made in it and slowly tumbled as the ship’s computers and the crew members awoke from their dark nightmares. Powerful radar and probing lasers came to life, as the ship’s systems tasted the flavor of the local environment. Crew members shook themselves to life, as they also started to attend the machinery, bringing up battle screens and checking the weapon system. This was NOT a pleasure cruise.

The ship was coal black with ancient binary symbols painted in red here and there, in a pattern only a computer or maybe a data monk could understand. It was sleek for such a large ship, with a dozen hyper-space fins and four huge normal-space engine pods that were slowly coming to life.

Its hyper-fins were already allowing extra power to bled into space acting like oversized heat vents. They poured invisible energy into space as the ship and its components shifted back to their normal state of being.

The captain frowned and stretched, checking his bones and muscles, as he waited for the final answer from his ship and the crew on whether their “partners” were present or not. His command module, like many of the others used by the living systems of the ship, was small and self-contained. All the controls and systems were designed to interface directly with his mind. None of that push-button crap for this ship.

“Pirate ship spotted,” reported the ship’s computers. “Medium hull, normal engine readings. Weapons have been powered up.”

“Excellent,” stated the captain, with a smile on his face. He slid his hands into the control slots in front of his command chair, as straps and clamps grasped his body, preparing it for battle. Crew members and logic units checked in, one by one, telling him they were all ready and waiting. He grunted as interface plugs slid into the back of his neck, flooding his mind with information.

The ship moved closer to the pirate, hailing it as planned. The captain smiled as in other command modules throughout the ship men and women accessed the ship’s computers and became one. He moved into the ship’s net and listened to the ghostly answer of the pirates.

“We have the package. Once you download the account numbers we’ll shoot it over via remote drones.”

The captain and his crew almost laughed, as their minds joined together, helped by the cold, steel enclosed logic circuits of the ship’s advanced AI core. His ship moved forward, increasing speed, almost reckless in its course. Screens flickered and screamed as the ship slashed through space towards the surprised pirates.

“Are you nuts! You’re can’t ram us!” The pirate ship, its hull with a red and yellow checkered paint scheme, started to dodge. Too little, too late. Energy, like glowing water, slammed into the red and yellow ship. Unprotected hull plates exploded outwards as they were vaporized, leaving gapping holes behind, full of destroyed power systems and burning equipment.

Again and again the black ship whipped out at the smaller one. The pirate ship fired back, mostly energy guns controlled by computers, computers too emotionless to realize when something was helpless. The return fire hit the black ship’s force screens and splashed off, like rain hitting an umbrella. Soon the red and yellow ship was nothing but a red, glowing piece of junk.

“Report,” demanded the captain, as the black ship withdrew to a safe distance, weapons cooling down in the “icy black darkness of space“ as one famous scientist use to say.

“Pirate ship’s systems and crew are dead,” came the answer of the group mind. “Our package is still untouched within the pirate’s hold.”

“Than send out the drones to dig it out, NOW,” broadcast the captain’s mind. “Do it before somebody else shows up.”

Even as doors in the hull popped open, releasing a tiny horde of remote controlled robots, the captain added, “We don’t want the same thing to happen to us, now do we?”

The remote robots, with their tiny bodies and massive limbs, shot across space with portable space bikes. From a distance it looked like bugs attacking a tiny toy rockets. The tiny fleet moved up to the wreckage and the robots jumped off, moving perfectly in the zero gravity, and entered the damaged skin of the dying ship. It only took a few seconds, but a few seconds was all it took for the captain’s heart to speed up. He waited for his luck to run out. He waited for the stars to explode or for the pirate to suddenly come alive with weapons fire or even some police force to show up shooting.

A whisper from the robots’ operators confirmed that the package was now located and being removed from its protective webbing. Soon the robots appeared on the hull, like insects pouring out of a burning ant hill and leapt onto the space bikes. With tiny flares the bikes headed back towards the black ship and the grinning captain opened the hatchway for the ship’s main hold.

The metal spiders reentered the black ship’s main hatchway, pulling the package in behind them. The captain glanced at it with the hull’s outside cameras and then scanned it with the more powerful detectors within the ship’s own hold.

“Damn it,” he exclaimed over the net, “its made from phased alloys. Somebody get down there and open it.”

The net was silent and one of the human minds slowly sent, “You know that won’t happen. The Elder Lights want it, unmarked and unopened.” Silence followed again as the crew and logic units wanted for the captain’s next order.

The captain growled and ripped out his neck plugs. He pulled out his hands and said out loud, “Set course for Hex. We’ll refuel there and then continue to jump back to mother base.”

The ship responded without a moment being wasted as the computer-human systems followed their captain’s command.

The black ship’s fins began to glow a deep, almost invisible purple that matched the ripple, the distortion that appeared right in front of the ship’s heading. It slowly pushed into the ripple, which almost acted like a fabric, holding the ship back. Each fin glowed brighter and brighter, as the ship pushed harder, forcing its way into the upper reaches of space. From reality to theory it went, finally pushing all the way into the unknown, leaving behind a brief orgasmic blast of light before disappearing.

Behind it was a silent piece of space, with the remains of a glowing slag that was once a working ship and its cooling corpses that were one living beings.

To Be Continued...