Chapter 40: Chapter 40 A Plan is Born
"What do you mean, how do we take it out?" laughed the man who claimed to be his father. "I've spent the past 200 or so years hiding from the damn thing!"
"I don't intend to sit on my ass, watching everything I've done in the past fifteen years disappear into smoke," growled Dustin, standing up. His fists were clenched tight.
His father stopped laughing and looked serious for a moment. "Look, I don't have a fucking clue how to take out that AI, or I would have done it years ago. I lost your mother, all of my people, and I thought you, because of it. Trust me, if there was a way, I would have done it by now."
With a deep breath, Dustin was able to get himself to calm a little, and he turned and left the room. He wasn't sure what he was going to do just yet, but he wasn't going to waste more time hiding here. All thoughts of just drifting in space, were gone. He was fired back up, and thinking again.
"Where do you think you're going?" called his dad.
Dustin stopped. What if this was another trick? Every time he thought he had everything figured out, something would happen to reveal that what he thought was true, was actually wrong. What if the AI had sent this guy to try and convince him not to go after it? His timing in showing up, and the fact the AI hadn't followed them was very coincidental.
Turning back towards the man, who was struggling to get out of his chair, Dustin asked, "What's your name?"
Giving him a perplexed look, he said, "What?"
"My dad had two names. One that he was known by everyone, and one that only his family knew. What is your name?"
Understanding bloomed on his face, and he laughed. "My public name is Keith, but my family name is Kitteral."
Relief surged through Dustin, as the doubt was erased from his mind on who this person might be.
"Why do you ask though? What has happened in your life to make you doubt your own father?"
Dustin's face darkened, "Josagn."
His father's face darkened as well. "Those creatures are worse than trash. Though…"
He turned and rummaged through a box that was shoved under the console, finally bringing out an old paper folder shoved full of papers.
Dustin was amazed it had survived in his father's ship, and still be readable.
Ruffling through the papers, Kitteral finally pulled one out and handed it to Dustin with a flourish, as if he had just solved all of their problems. Taking the yellow paper gingerly, Dustin looked over it, and saw that it was a list of aliens.
"What is this?"
"This is a list, that I was able to put together, of aliens the AI absolutely hates. They are deemed not worth contacting, according to the AI, and might be of some use to us. The Josagn are at the top of the list, which is what reminded me of it."
Dustin scrunched his brow as he handed the list back. "I don't know how that will help us. Just because the AI doesn't want to contact any of those races doesn't mean we can use any of them to kill it."
"Look, you are the only Uz'En born with any technological knowhow since we left the planet ages ago. If anyone has a prayer of figuring out how to take out the AI, it's going to be you. I don't mind helping, if you can prove to me whatever plan you come up with will work, but I'm not going to be much help in planning the attack."
"I know how to reverse engineer just about anything. Tell me that it's possible to do something, and I can probably figure out a way to make it happen. But taking out an AI that's entrenched itself into every system in the galaxy, and has a planet sized processor somewhere out there, is a bit out of my league."
"Wait, a planet sized processor? How do you know about that?" asked his dad, excitedly.
"Well, I dived into the system, and saw it when I followed one of its programs back to the main system, to report. It's kind of confusing to explain."
Kitteral gaped at him in surprise. "You dived into the system? Like went into the computer and looked around?"
Dustin shrugged, "It didn't take me very long to figure out how to do it. I just plugged myself into an access port and messed with electrical pulses until I found one that worked."
"You make that sound easy! I've tried to figure that out for ages! But, why didn't the AI spot you and come after you?"
"I had the feeling, and the impression, that it couldn't see me at all."
"Well, there you go. Dive into the system and kill it at the core. That's how you take it out."
Dustin shook his head. "I'm not sure how to do that. It would probably figure out a way to attack me, and I'm not sure what would happen if I was hurt while dived. Would I get separated from my body and not be able to get back?"
"Then we distract the hell out of it, while you prepare to attack it at the core. Then once you've done the deed, hightail it out of there. We need to know exactly where the thing is, though, so we can have a physical attack while you're diving, to add to the distraction."
Dustin looked up at the ceiling in thought. "If I dive again, I might be able to look around, and see what the stars around it are, or maybe I can find its location in a stored file, somewhere. But it might notice if I start rummaging through its files. Regardless, I'm going to need a lot of processing power, to pull all of this off."
"Do you know where any large computers might be?" asked his dad, slumping back down into his chair.
With a smile, Dustin said, "Actually, I do."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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Sdrawkcab Sounds simple in hindsight...surely it will work, right?
Chapter 41: Chapter 41 Finally Together Again
"There's a way to track ships, when they warp, I've seen people do it. I just don't know how," complained Olivia as they watched the bounty hunters pillage the station.
"I know a way, if the ship's computer will let me," said Granny, tentatively.
"By all means," said the computer. "Dustin set you as one of the few people allowed to access my main programs."
"What?" cried Olivia in outrage. "And not me?"
"Olivia, you left him heartbroken. He almost didn't allow you to come along, when he discovered you were on board," said the computer.
Granny wasn't paying any attention to them as they argued back and forth, and dived into the programming, typing furiously.
"Ah, so that's how you do it," said the computer, breaking off on the argument, mid sentence.
Olivia sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, pouting. "This is just like that time he wouldn't let me help by killing the guards around that robot graveyard, when we were kids."
"What kind of guards?" asked Old Motha curiously.
"They were those big blue aliens, with tentacles hanging down from where their mouths should have been. He said I wouldn't like it if they caught me, and I laughed, as if that would happen. I remember…" She stopped as she realized what she was saying, and looked over to see a wide grin on both Granny's and Old Motha's face.
"It seems you are starting to get some of those memories back," said Granny, hitting one final key on the keyboard.
"This is kind of weird, remembering something that I know, being a clone, I shouldn't remember."
"That's only the half of it. I have memories of every Gooblen I've ever been with, when they died," said Old Motha.
"You do?" asked Granny.
"Of course! It's the responsibility of the matriarch to consume the crystals of those who die, to make sure that the line continues. I fear that so many have died away from me, and I haven't been able to get the crystals, that, that's the reason why the younglings have been born without crystals."
Granny looked horrified. "I didn't know that you were supposed to eat them!"
"It's a secret known only to the matriarch dear. I was planning to step down and let you take over, once we got settled, but that hive mind has decided that we can't live on that planet with the Uz'En, so I don't know where we're going to go."
"I'm sure that once we get Dustin back, he'll jump in another planet or something, for you," said Olivia, watching as the computer started pulling up the faint warp trails on the screen above them.
"We'll see," said Old Motha, turning to look at the screen as well.
"Looks like that one's the one we want to follow," said Granny, typing in a few things on her monitor. "Make sure you stop before you reach where they stopped."
"The guidelines you gave me are quite complete. It's remarkable to say the least."
"I was the one who came up with this method of following people, ages ago. It's become pretty standard by now, I imagine."
They prepared for warp, leaving the bounty hunters behind. This ship wasn't really designed for warp, but Dustin had left it as an emergency option. They waited with bated breath as they left the warp field and everyone gasped when the scene opened up around them.
"Emergency jump initiated!" cried the ship's computer as they saw the huge vessel in front of them.
Olivia's pulse sped up and adrenaline coursed through her veins as she saw the nanobots streaming off the thing, towards them. This was a ship of the AI! It had already successfully made its own nanobots!
They disappeared just as the nanobots reached them. Reappearing in empty space a light year away.
"Emergency purge activated!" said the computer, as a silent alarm sent red flashing lights spinning in the corner.
"What's going on?" asked Granny.
"Some of the enemy nanobots were successful in making contact before the jump was complete. They have been purged, but our location may be compromised. I am preparing to jump again!"
They jumped three more times, before the computer felt safe enough to stop.
"From what I can determine, based on the minimal information provided, that was a mother ship of the AI. Its design was intended to swallow smaller ships whole. I can only speculate, that Dustin was captured by the AI."
"No, I refuse to believe that!" cried Olivia, slamming her hand down on the console.
"Olivia, we're not giving up on him, we just need to take the time to figure out what our next step is," said Granny. "Look, there's an asteroid belt here that has some fuel in it. Let's refuel the ship and take a moment to think."
Olivia nodded after a moment, and watched as the asteroids grew in size as they approached them.
XxxxX
"I just wish I could get a message to Olivia," said Dustin, crossing his arms in thought.
"You might just get your wish," said his dad, turning as an alarm sounded and he pulled up a picture of the ship approaching.
"How did she find me here?" he wondered, heading towards the airlock they had used earlier. His dad hesitated for a moment, before following him.
They flew out of the ship, through the crack of the asteroid the ship was hiding in, and out towards the incoming ship, which paused its mining.
The airlock opened to let them on board, and Dustin paused for only a moment as several Gooblens almost flew out into space. They hurried and boarded, to close the airlock.
"Why are there so many Gooblens on my ship?" he asked, once he had changed back to his normal form.
"We not allowed to stay on Uz'En world, like we told we could, so we stuck here until we find a new home," said one of the Gooblens with a yawn.
"Old Motha wants new people brought to her," groaned one Gooblen, further in the hall, and all of the Gooblens next to them groaned.
Before Dustin, or his dad, could do anything else, they were grabbed and dragged across the sea of Gooblens towards the bridge.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
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This will be an interesting reunion.
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