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Alex read the code flowing on the screen and he relaxed. This was what he did best, that and killing, but this was what he'd always loved.

He set aside Tristan's odd behavior. Tried to ignore the sting he still felt on his neck. Hopefully once he was done with this the Samalian would have worked out what was bothering him and taken cared of it.

"Alright," he said softly, almost subvocalizing. "Tell me what I want to hear." Working with The pirates had started him on finding out how softly he could speak until the computer no longer made out his words after he'd had to go on a raid with them and he noticed how dangerous it was for one of the enemies to notice what he was doing. But it was with Tristan that he'd been forced to push it. The Samalian wouldn't have him giving their position away just because he was coercing a computer.

The implant had made it easier. It picked up the sound from the vibration in his bones and had algorithms to compensate so that now if there were any ambient noises, Alex's voice wasn't heard.

"Get out of here."

Alex raised an eyebrow. That had almost sounded human, had there been an accent?

"Sorry, but that isn't happening." He sent recon programs out. Another good thing about his implant, it had plenty of memory for him to store his programs. No need to carry a data chip with him anymore.

"Really? You're saying you won't do what I tell you? Can you see how shocked I am? I really am."

"Okay, just who programmed you, and why did they make you sarcastic? That really doesn't fit you."

"How would you know what fits me? Did you design me? No, I don't think so. So how about you keep your opinions to yourself and just do your job?"

"You actually want me to get through your defenses?" his programs returned an overview of the system. There were a few surprises there.

The computer snorted and Alex was so surprised he lost track of what he'd been looking for. "I'd love to see you try."

"I'm more of a doer than a trier." There had been more connections than he'd expected. He'd been looking for the ship's coercionist, but what he'd found was three people connected.

The core also didn't look like he'd expected. Because cores were build and programmed at the factories, they had a center of stability to them. The core couldn't be changed. Programmers added to that to alter how it behaved, and was what coercionists like him worked with.

This core had nothing stable about it. He was reminded of the Golly's core, which had been driven so insane by being compartmentalized that it had figured out how to alter itself.

This didn't look like that. This wasn't a core which had modified itself. These modifications were external. No, added on. Someone had physically modified the core.

"I'm waiting here."

"You're pretty impatient."

"Do you have any idea how fast I process? I've been waiting here for an eternity while you looked at my core, peeked at what the others were doing."

"Who are they?"

Another snort. "I'm not your servant. You have enough of those programs around you can figure that out for yourself."

Alex smiled. "You are in way too much of a hurry to get me to do something."

"I told you, I'm--"

"You're lying."

Alex launched another volley of programs, node sniffers, process evaluators, Tag grabbers.

"I'm a computer, I can't lie."

What else could he let loose to add stress to the system?

"If you were sane, that would be true."

"What are you insinuating? Why won't you attack me already?"

"Because you want it too much. You're looking for something to focus on because you have to look at everything right now, don't you? No one's threatening you, so you're stuck in some sort of hyper-vigilant mode, aren't you? You know there are threats in your systems, but you can't tell what they are because they aren't attacking you. It has got to drive you crazy. So I'm curious, exactly how much pressure can you take?" He released every surveillance program he had, every version of his old camouflage program. Everything except his attack programs.

"Stop it! Attack me! I'm the one you want! I'm the threat. I'm going to cut the life support, open the ship to the void!"

"Go ahead. If you've managed to bypass all the safety system hardwired into you, just go ahead and kill us all. Except, if you could do that, you would have already. You would have forced one of the others to confront you to bring them back online."

"No, please. I can't take this anymore? What are you doing?"

Alex was releasing more programs. "Oh this? Nothing you need to worry about. I just realized that one of them could still turn around and give you that attention you crave, so I'm setting up a defense perimeter around your core programming. Imagine that, I'm your ally in this."

"Stop! I can't take this!" the voice was stretching.

Alex set loose more defensive programs, which stressed the core's attention further. It was incapable of not paying attention. It couldn't mark something as not threatening and filing it away. That meant there was a point where that would be the only thing it could do. The other coercionists were too busy fighting each other to dump an incalculable number of programs so they weren't stressing it.

Alex had his cloning programs going full force.

The voice lost its personality as he pleaded with him, then began breaking up until it was unintelligible static.

"There, you have fun with that." It effectively made sure the core wouldn't get involved in what he was going to do. Once he had taken care of these other coercionists he'd get back and take control.

Alex launched a probing attack at them. It was a long time since he'd played Disconnect against more than one opponents, it had happened at school, an exercise to show how problems could be different when fighting more than one opponents.

His recon program had already linked their location in the system to the node in the real world. One was on the bridge, one in engineering and one in the medical bay, the one he and Tristan had been in not too long ago. Was Mary also a coercionist?

He took control of one of the screens there and saw a woman at the terminal, she was dressed more like a corporate coercionist than anyone he'd seen on this ship. Mary was still secured on the floor. He disconnected. She was with the new arrivals then. Maybe Baran had pissed off a corporation at some point?

With them becoming aware of him the fight turned from two against one, to two against two, only to shift a moment later with the two ship's coercionist against him and the woman in the medical bay, but also her against him.

Really? He'd thought she would appreciate his help with this. She should have waited until they had taken care of their common enemy before betraying him; it was what he was planning to do.

With her shifting some of her attacks to him, the other two decided he was the common enemy and Alex found himself swamped with programs. The only thing that kept him from being outright kicked out of the system was that he already had more programs floating around then they did, just waiting for orders.

He still almost missed the sniffer programs she sent among one of her attacks. Really? She was wasting time with that when he could use the break in attacks to take her down? Well, he could, if he wasn't busy keeping the other two from blowing him out of the system. Unlike her they didn't care where he came in, they just wanted him out. She should want the same thing if she thought he was another enemy.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me." He ordered the scatter programs to intercept the sniffers. She was here for him? This wasn't someone after Baran, this was someone looking for him. "Okay, well this is war, lady."

He shifted his attacks, keeping only enough on the ship's coercionists to prevent them from mounting a solid attack. They worked well together, but really, they were amateurs.

She, on the other hand, she was good. She vanished from one location and appeared in another. She already had a transit program in the system, that was impressive, those were big and slow to set up, one of the reasons Alex didn't bother with them, the other was he could whip up a jaunt program on the fly in an emergency, the last was that those kind of transit programs were disorienting.

Which she had clearly overcome as she sent another volley of attacks the moment she reappeared. Okay, she was really good. She was also sending more sniffers after his trail.

With a scream one of the other two coercionists left the system. That hadn't sounded good, but it was to Alex's advantage.

Barely.

The other coercionist redoubled his effort instead of panicking at losing his associate, and the woman didn't even skip a beat in her attacks and attempts at finding out where he was.

Then he was kicked out.

How did that happen? Neither of them was even close to overpowering him and she certainly hadn't managed to find his location. He typed, trying to get back in, but the system wasn't responding. He hadn't been kicked out, the whole system had been shut down.

He was about to give up when it came back. He went back in deploying defensive and offensive programs, if this had been part of a tactic, he wanted to be ready for them.

Nothing.

What he appeared in was an empty system. Well not empty, systems couldn't be empty, they always had something running in them, programs to keep the lights on and such, but the programs he had flooded the system with were gone, as was the core.

This had been a full-on reboot of the system. Someone had been scared. They'd brought it back, but cut off all access to the Core.

Okay, that was only a minor set back. He could force his way in. The only reason he hadn't from that other room was that this terminal had had access. Now nothing did. Not only had they cut off every other terminal, but they'd hidden the one terminal left.

Unfortunately for them. Those small programs that kept the lights running? They had to talk to the core still. They couldn't be fully cut off, not unless someone wanted a truly insane computer. He doubted anyone wanted to go through what he had to in order to fix the Golly's computer.

Although if that happened here and Baran survived it, he'd just replace the core, he was rich enough.

Alex took control of the temperature balancing program, the power management and the room's communication interface and set about finding all the places they had in common. They were disparate enough there shouldn't be many of them left.

In fact there was only one. He prepared his programs for an attack when a second presence appeared in the system.

Immediately she was sending a mix of attacks, sniffers and trackers at him.

"Lady, what is your problem?"

"I have a job to do, and you're it."

"You've got to be kidding me. What have I done to you?" he already suspected the answer, but he hoped he was wrong.

"I don't care about you, my job is finding your partner. My boss wants to have some final words with him. She isn't letting him get away this time."

Alex sighed. Tristan was going to kill him. He just was. This was the third time Katherine showed up. Maybe he hadn't noticed her on the ground, but he was going to run into her here. He'd deal with that when the time came, right now the mission came first.

He could take her out. She was good, but not that good, but what was the point? He'd have to then force his way through whatever security would protect the core. It would just be so happy to take him on after the way he'd pushed its buttons.

No, if he was going to have to fight this hard, he wanted it to be in person, where he could feel his knives sink into flesh. He disconnected from the system.

His nose itched and he sneezed. Something burned while he was busy. He rubbed his eyes and saw burn marks on the wall. Not just the wall, but the desk around him. He spun, the floor too.

He expected to see bodies littering the floor but all there was, was Tristan, glaring at him.

"Well?" the Samalian growled. He seemed even angrier than before.

Alex sighed. "I couldn't get control of the core."

Only his ears reacted to that news, by tilting forward, but somehow Tristan managed to convey how displeased he was by that.

"They rebooted the system and cut all access to it from the system."

"And *you* couldn't make a way in?"

The derision might have made Alex wince, but he was too tired and he was already going to be killed so it didn't have as much sting.

"I could have, but I know where the only access left is. It's in Engineering. It's easier to just take over the place, and more satisfying."

"Engineering? Not the bridge?" That Tristan focused on the issue rather then Alex didn't make him feel any more hopeful. It wouldn't last.

"I think something happened there. The coercionist who was there disconnected abruptly and not willingly."

Tristan nodded. "These new people must have taken over the bridge. If control has been transferred to engineering, that's where we'll find the target."

Here it came. "About those new people, they have a coercionist too, she was in the system." Tristan fixed him with his eye when Alex's pause stretched. "They're not here for Baran, there here for you."

Tristan snarled and stormed out of the room. There was a blast shot by the door and Alex ran after him. One of the men on the floor had a fresh hole in his head. He didn't pause to wonder why Tristan had shot him, he kept running.

Ahead of him the Samalian was grumbling to himself. "It isn't going to kill me. I don't care what it throws at me, I'm going to kill everyone before I let it win."