31 Karima and Doug

When Karima and Doug opened their eyes, they discovered that they were in a warzone. If not for the battle suit, Doug would have been disintegrated by an energy beam that missed a starfighter. 

Grabbing Doug by his collar, Karima's battlesuit activated its flight function. Karima flew to a partially destroyed fighter. The pilot was dead, turning her left hand into a port jack, she inserted it into the ship. The remains of some kind of robotic flight assistant were left inside the ship. 

The fighter was a two-seater, but it seemed that it could be flown by a single pilot. She strapped Doug in.

"Don't move, I'll try to get this thing to work." 

Moving from one pile of floating debris to another, Karima gathered as many usable things as possible. Doug watched the battle in the sky. The nice thing about hiding in the wreckage was no one wanted to fly through it for fear of damaging their ship. 

Unfortunately, they were in constant danger of being struck by stray laser attacks. Doug jumped so many times that he began to wonder if he was a frog. At least he wasn't a rabbit or his heart may have exploded a dozen times by now from fear. 

Karima removed the carcass of the scrapped robot from its cockpit. With quick movements, she deconstructed the robot and added its unique tools to parts of her body. Her body absorbed those tools and their functionality. Now, she was able to utilize those specialty tools and process the wreckages of ships much faster. 

She was able to establish enough power, and Doug could activate the ship's computer. He began to search through the information. His mutant power to translate anything came in handy as he translated the new language into English. 

Without speaking, the pair worked together. Doug handled the software and Karima handled the hardware. The work distracted Doug from the potential instant death scenarios he imagined earlier. 

"Doug, cycle the PT-Power Coupling at 7rp," Karima sent through the helmet.

"Okay, give me a moment," Doug opened the canopy of the ship and moved into the pilot's seat. He moved his fingers across the computer inputs. The dim consul transformed from nearly dead to fully operational. This change moved throughout the ship as the entire fighter brightened like a Christmas tree. 

"Great work, Karima!" 

"Thanks, any luck making contact with the others?" Karima asked.

"Batman sent a new message about having a ship to pick us up, but as he sent the message we lost contact," Doug replied.

"Do you think he's okay?" 

"I don't know, I think we're far enough from the others that the suit's communication system can't reach them. I'll try again now that you've got power restored to most of the systems," Doug said.

"They may not have time to respond, given this battle we're in the middle of," Karima added. 

"Yeah, who knows?" 

The pair continued to create a makeshift ship from the various parts available to them. One of the big ships blew up and crashed toward the blue marble-like planet in the distance. 

"I wonder if there's life on that planet?" Doug asked.

"If there is, that ship's going to ruin their day," Karima responded half-joking. The ship crashing into the planet was a tragedy, but joking helped her focus. She couldn't get trapped by the misery of the situation. 

"I'm going to try and contact some of the others with the ship's communication system," Doug informed Karima.

[This is Cypher, please respond BAT-Team members. Omega Sentinel is with me, we're working on transportation. Ping me your location through your battlesuit. Give me a status update if possible. I will send this message on loop.] Douglas switched the message off of his internal speakers and set the loop.

"Hopefully we'll hear something soon," Doug sent to Karima. 

"Hey, Cypher, come back here and give me a hand."

"Sure," Doug exited the pilot's seat and used the boosters in his suit to guide him to Karima. 

"Here, see if this is useful," She said. Doug took two objects that fit over his suit's forearms like bracers. He tested it and discovered he could extend different tools. 

"What is this?" He asked. 

"I keep finding pieces of robots, I guess. I was able to construct interface tools for their computers. It allows you to use more than human inputs to communicate with the AIs and hack in. 

In some ways, these AI systems seem primitive or dumb. However, they are robust in their functionality," Karima said.

"Dumb AI, that's a good idea, they probably had the problem we had with AIs like Ultron causing havoc," Doug offered. 

"With a dumb AI it can do the functional work like computations and what not, while not being a threat," Karima nodded sagely. 

"Of course, it makes them easier to hack," Doug said.

"It's harder than you think due to redundant systems, but once you get the hang of it, it's not too bad." 

"Easier than getting through Stark's security, for sure," Doug responded.

"Or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s" Karima said.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't too hard, I still find Stark's more troublesome," Doug fiddled with the tools on his left arm.

"Is there a trick to S.H.I.E.L.D. that I don't know about?" Karima asked she had returned to affixing parts to one of the engines.

"Not a trick, but a backdoor. At some point Tony put a backdoor into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network. Once I found it, I created my backdoor. He changed his backdoor protocols after he discovered me, or maybe it was Jarvis," Doug worked hard. 

Karima stopped for a moment, "Interesting, I'll have to see if I can find something like that."

"Don't bother, I'll give you access," Doug said.

"You say the sweetest things," Karima joked. 

A crackling sound came over the communication system:

[This is Dr. Nemesis, Invisible Woman is in need of immediate medical attention. Darwin is here with me, and we are in an escape pod ready to drop.

Once we enter the atmosphere, there will be a loss of contact. Meet us on the ground below. I'll send our coordinates if possible.]

Karima turned to look at Doug. "We need to get down there, can this thing handle landing on a planet?" Doug asked. 

"It can land, but I don't know if it will do much after that," she responded. 

"Okay, do your best," Doug climbed back into his seat waiting for Karima to finish her repairs.