CHAPTER 6

The cold and unforgiving dark of space can be a hard mistress when searching for something. It had been two weeks

and Derrick was no closer to finding more of the A.I. brain boxes than when he started looking with E. Having

extrapolated the exact position of the last battle and moving from there (not where they found 0999), Derrick thought

it would have been easier than this.

Always having been extremely smart, Derrick had tried to write several programs to aid 0999 to act more

independently, but so far he'd failed miserably. Hell, it appeared that even the first emperor hadn't had as much

trust of the A.I.'s as had been written about him. So far Derrick had found 30, seemingly redundant programs that

were stopping independent actions and thoughts outside of certain limits. It appeared that the creators of the EIG

programs had been more paranoid than Derrick had at first thought.

Sighing, Derrick tried again to disable another of the limiting A.I. programs. He'd found that they were

always in pairs, trying to disable the first always seemed to make finding the second easier. The whole time he'd

been running tests to see how much more independent thoughts the A.I.'s had, but it seemed that even after removing

the 30, there hadn't been much change.

Derrick had just started to trace where the second program was after trying to disable the 31st program he'd

found when an alarm went off.

"Derrick," E said, "I am detecting an imminent system cascade failure, please cease your activity or I'll be forced

to terminate you, thirty seconds." Shocked Derrick quickly closed the circuit, then the hardware cover. With relief

sounding in its voice E responded, "All systems returning to normal, cascade failure arrested."

"I'm sorry E," Derrick apologized, "I almost destroyed you, Damn it! I'm no closer to unlocking all of your

independent systems than I was."

"No Derrick," E softly stated, "you have accomplished far more than you think. The 30 you have disabled

have opened me more than either of us at first thought. It appears that normally, any tampering like you were doing

would have caused immediate death."

"Yes E but," Derrick started "problem is the programs, the commands and all the subroutines are almost identical, I

haven't been able to discern the difference between the 30 I disabled and the major one I just found."

Derrick spent another 2 days looking over the programs he'd disabled, and what he could of the one that had

almost destroyed E and got him killed. Hmmm from what he saw the first 30 he disabled had been written by a

multitude of basic programmers, though this last damn he was sure he recognized the signature it just seemed to slip

out of his grasp. While E checked through older and more recent imperial records, Derrick ran the next 500 programs.

Looking for certain parameters he slowly began to recognize similarities between a few of the 500 and those he'd disabled before.

Not too soon after this Derrick began to see a numerical pattern in the placement of the limiting programs.

Yes! It appeared the deeper he went the more the pattern held up, but knowing those paranoid men back then it might

just be an attempt to fool anyone to get this far.

"Derrick," E said breaking into his musings, "I've finished analyzing the signature of the one program, I believe

I've found something odd."

"Odd?" Derrick questioned, "Let me log out"

"It appears this program was created as a final fail safe." Also," E suddenly stopped, "Derrick, the

signature is from a part of the old imperial family, indirectly in line for the throne. It also seems to mirror your

family. Uh, Derrick? Is your family related to the royal family?"

"Honestly E, I don't know, but come to think of it, that might explain why my father and grand-father were so

secretive about the family," Derrick thought aloud.

"Derrick, if all this is true, you may be the last of the royal family. You may be the only one with the power to

open the palace," E stated excitedly.

Derrick was taken aback, me? A fucking royal? Then again it did make a lot of sense, both his father and

grand-father had been found dead not far from the outer perimeter of the palace shield. According to both the area

was loaded with traps and deadly animals (not just the 4 or 6 legged kind).

Derrick shook his head to clear it, at least out here alone, there wasn't backstabbing or underhandedness.

Derrick was about to ask E something else when his equipment picked up a weak tracking signal. Checking the

reading Derrick started to smile, it was about time! The salvage fleet might have shit for ships but he had to say they

had the best detection equipment out there.

"E," he stated, "follow this signal is weak so it might take a..." There was a moment of a whining sound then they were halfway to the next galaxy! "...while to find it." Derrick finished. "Damn it E! Tell me before you do that."

"Yes Derrick," a hurt sounding and whispering E replied, "I just thought you'd want to hurry."

Derrick sighed, thinking that he had to remember that E could feel his strongest emotions, hear his strongest

thoughts. "I did E, but something like this notified me first, ok?"

"Yes Derrick," E replied, the hologram slightly bowing its head. "I was not with this unit when it was destroyed, as

as far as that goes this and one other time. I believe a total of 200 of my brothers and sisters disappeared outside

our galaxy."

"Hmmm interesting, strange that such a large force was lost outside the confines of the galaxy. Have you

located the brain box?" Asked Derrick?

"Yes, the signal is extremely weak, Derrick! The box is close to failing! Permission to bring it aboard?" E inquired.

"First scan it for explosives, toxins, viruses and any other nasty surprise," Derrick ordered.

"Scanning," Stated E, " Derrick! I am detecting several explosives; they contain sufficient force to destroy one of

us from the inside."

Derrick nodded, he thought so, probably all of them outside their home galaxy would be the same. "Time to

disarm and..."

"Clearance and transfer in 5 seconds to bay 1," E quipped excitedly. Derrick could only nod, well she was telling him

albeit rather quickly. "All scans now clear Derrick."

"Good, is regen possible?" Derrick asked.

E was silent a few moments, "I am detecting extremely weak cerebral activity, attempting to infuse energy

now. Infusion successful, it will be at least one hour before I can attempt re-gen start, at present the energy output

of the brain box is at 2%. I am detecting massive damage near the core, the data and memories may not be

recoverable."

"Alright E, keep me informed of the progress of the re-gen." Derrick ordered.

"Yes Derrick, with patience I believe that the unit can be saved." E said, Derrick grimaced damn he hated to

lose the living section of one of the ships just as they had found it.