The glowing green grass smelled like spring and a smoth warm breeze let the young womens blue hair wave. If it was the tickeling straind of hair or the beaming sunlight that let her sneeze, she didn't now - and at this moment she didn't care. She looked up as if expecting something above her but there were just little cirrocumulus' and the bright blue sky. A perfect day willing to invite every lifeform to just settle down in the soft green grass for a moment. Slowly the the women - or was she still a girl? - sat down. Just rest vor a moment and give in the temptation. Again she gazed to the sky. What did she expecting to see? She winced. "I must not be here!" she warned herself and closed her eyes tightly. The sky darkened. Something broke through the sporadic ceiling and it became dark around the young women. The grass disappeared and a surreal entanglement of column of figures and circuits took it's place.

The Sasani cruisers 'AI' was back in function. She only hoped none of the crew noticed that she saved herself a little part of her human awareness. Despite the device which blocked her emotions and mind-altering drugs, despit eof the observing devices with which she was connected and despite her task to control the whole ship there was still the 9 year old girl who was abducted by the Sasani. Meanwhile the gril became a young women - and a part of a machine... a living part. Children are so easy to manipulate - this applies to human childs like to the children of most other species.
According to the cruisers logs all happened eight years ago but to the young women it seemed to be yesterday that the hooded warriors invade the starfleet science and research camp. It seemed just hours ago that her parents and the other grown-ups had been killed and the children been abducted. As if just minutes went by that they applied her the emotion blocking device, drugged her and connected her to a default system to train her on her new duty - to be the heart of a Sasani cruiser. At the beginning, when the urge to be free was still there and the personality was not completly eliminated, nearly everyone tried to take the ship over with their new powers. Tried to turn everything against the Sasani and escape their tormentor. But soon they must learn that the securitysystem, controlling the AI, worked perfectly. Some died at their attempts to break free of the Sasani controll but with lost of their personality it trickled away as a rule. Those where attached as living AI's aboard the cruisers.

But sometimes it happened, the AI knowed it from the logs, that an AI hat to be replaced because her awareness was still intact or flashed up again. If the controlls discovered this, the AI was detached, replaced and retrained. Foolishness and arrogance where characteristics Sasani scientists don't have. They absolutly considered this could happen and guarded themselfs against it. An out of controll AI could be disconnected from the ship by seconds. An AI, who want to break free, would first try to override this system but it was just logic for a narmal working AI.
In here was the point how this AI differs from the others: She had managed to fool the controls. She forced herself not to waste her possibilities in a futile act, to fight down her anger. This AI hoped. She hoped to be rescued. This AI - the little girl inside her - was full of fear. Fear that the Sasani would take away the last bit of her awareness because she was careless

With relief she discovered that the engineers didn't notice anything. But there was something else which raised new fear. She should load the cruisers weapons. The target was somewhere on a planet - a research camp.



"The Sasani took position and loading weapons. They aim for the camp." reported the tall chief of security - a Risean with long, dark hair and black eyes - who stood at the tactics. His voice was calm despite the tensed situation. "Thei don't respond to our hails." the OPS officer shook his head.
"Red alert, shields up and load weapons, Jorell. Primary targets are weapons, shields and impulse of the Sasani cruiser. Fire when ready!" was the captains short answer and let his officer take control.
"Ensign Sosam, bring us within range." he ordered the red haired Trill at the helm and watched while her gracile fingers slided over the console.
Captain Quentin Rame wasn't happy about how this turned out. He hoped to be here before the Sasani and evacuate the scientists. Actually it was their own fault. This scientists came here ignoring the fact, that UFP interrupted all scientific projects in the Sasani realm. The Sasani don't like other species on their grounds and insited that no one entered their territory without explicit permission. And they had no problems to enforce this with weapons - although if there are just some scientists. 'Civilians!' thought the Captain.
At all costs he had wanted to to avoid a fight with one of this Sasani ships. He didn't know how the Sasani do it but their ships reactions where a lot faster than all ships he knew could. It nearlly seems they were alive.
The first torpedo salvoes flashing through space but where reflected by the Sasani shields. "Hit. Barely damage. They answer firing." reported Jorell dryly. "Evasion maneuver. Hail sickbay." answered Rame.
No... a fight wit the Sasani was not good and meant loss. The air was tense.



Actio et Reactio. Cause and effect. Everything went like automatic. The AI was well trained. They gave the other ship the chance to withdraw with ignoring their hails but as they began to fire no mercy would be shown.
Durin the first salvo, which was reflected by the shields, they analysed the ship. Federation. Registration: NCC 95501 - USS Eureka. Class: Souvereign. Endangerment:middle.

This just needed a fraction of a second. By now the target of the weapons of the cruiser changed. The weak points of the federationship where aimed. There was no sign of the part of the AI who wanted to be free, want to resist - thereby this would have been such a good possibility.
The shields of the federationsship reduced rapitly and she aimed for the warpcore - FIRE!



"Shilds at 12%, hull is damaged." the chief of securitys voice was disillusioning. "They aim for the warpcore." he added.

"Evasion maneuver. Gamma 3." ordered Rame but in the same moment the helm overloaded. Sparks drizzled, Sosam fell to the ground her hands and face covered with blood. The next they felt was the torpedo which punched through the shields.

But it missed the target it aimed for and punctured the hull of the cargo hold. Without thinking Jorell continued firing because the Sasani cruiser too suffered damage due the salvoes. First down where the weapons, than the impulse. The cruiser was unable to fight or move.

"The Sasanis weapons, shilds and impuls are offline." reported Jorell. Silence. Just the cracking noise which came out of damaged consoles could be heared. Captain Rame was sceptic. His view swept over the bridge of the USS Eureka. Crewmember, who fell down during the fight picked themself up. The scienceofficer led Sosam to the lift to take her to sickbay.
"First reports come through." Rames XO broke the silence. "Shields offline, hullbreach at level 7 and 8."

"Why did they miss the core...?" Rame asked the remaining officers more rhetorical. "Sir?" Jorell looked puzzled but Rame ignored it.
"Status of the Sasani ship?" he wanted to know instead. Jorell, who served under Rame for five years now, knew what he wanted to know "Fortyfive lifesigns... fortythree. One... One is human! Internal sensors offline. Primary systems on emergency energy. Life support online." it was hard for Jorell to stay calm. A human biosignal? How could that be?

Rame sound out the surprise in the voice of his CoS as he discovered the human biosignal. He assumed something like this. Well not that it's a human sign but... in some logs - sometimes the last to be found of a ship which fighted a Sasani cruiser - where evidences that the sensors detected other lifeforms that Sasani on the cruisers. One thought of malfunctions but now Rame new he was up to discover something.
"We have a one-time chance here." his voice gained more strenght again. It was the hope finally to find out what secret the Sasani cruiser holds. "Commander Vail, prepare an away team together with Lieutenant Jorell. Secure the cruiser and arrest the crew. Commander Burton should disassembly the cruiser bit by bit!"



The sensors where blank. For a moment she feared that her effort was futile but then she felt how she got isolated more and more and finally disconnected from the ships systems. Now she was blind and deaf.
Helpless and dizzy she hung in the AI apparatus. Hoping that the starfleetship would not destroy them, hoping that the Eureka would win the fight, hoping that, if the Eureka won she would be discovered and hoping that they would not leave her here.

Martyn Burton, Chiefengineering Officer aboard the USS Eureka, took to it like a duck to water. Secured by a group of security officers, he studied his tricorder. At first he hadn't much enthusiasm for this trip. There was a lot of work to do aboard the Eureka and he had to be part of an away team.
But barely begun with his research, curiosity replaced his anger. The efficency of the datalines he just examined, were indeed unusual high but it was nothing which could explain the fast reactions. How did they do this? What was the secret of this ship?

"Commander! Here!" the excited voice of the medical officer Stephanie Maddison could be heard. The beautiful brunette woman nearly run towards hin and pointed fiercly in a specific direction. "The human biosignal..." she pointed towards a door in two meters distance "It's... You need to help me!" she still pointed to the door, her hands shaking.
Martyn sensed that she must have been seen something what shook her to the bones and that she just couldn't be more specific. Kindly he shoved her to the side and entered the room.

The square room with the domed roof was barely damaged. It was so intigrated within the ship that the heart, which was kept here, was secure. What Marty saw now took his breath away. A round object took the majority of the room. Many wires and cables went from it to the walls in which they disappeared. Inside this object was a young, nacked female with blue hairs which seemed to be shaved at some places. Everywhere at her spine and head where operated some sort of interfaces with which she was connected with the object. To the engineer it seemed that she wasn't conscious. What was the purpose of all this?
Suddenly Marty understood: The Sasanis ships where indeed alive in some way. Carefully he begun to disconnect the heart of the ship - how he decided to call her until he knew who she was - and took her out of the object. He thought he sensed light movement in her fingers. Would she come back to consciousness?

The AI felt the physical connections to be removed and lifted out of the apparatus. Was it the Sasani engineer? She tried to fight it but her muscles didn't obey her will. She tried hard but er arms and legs, which she hadn't used for eight years now, stayed immobile.
Only her eyes obeyed and opend slowly. The world around the AI was dark and blurred. She couldn't recognize a thing.

She felt that she was carefully put on the ground . Slowly she could differ between schemes and tell apart humans and objects. The first what she saw was a darkskinned male - human. She couldn't see his facial features clear but she knew he was not Sasani.
She could roughly recognize movements and then it got warm around her. They covered her with something - like her mom and dad did it often.
She tried to say something, to thank them but her vocal cords, since years unused, didn't work. So just her lip movements reveal what she wanted to say.

Martyn called the Doctor after he covered the nacked women with his uniformjacket. "What is your name?" he asked her with a gentle low voice as he recognized that she was awake tried to speak.
"Nia..." it was just a whiff on sound as she tried again to speak but Martyn understood and smiled "You are safe Nia..."

Just like far away Nia recognized the Doctor examined her. It felt that she had to hold out hours after she was isolated from the ships systems. Persevered in fear the Sasani would retrain her. But it just took a fraction of what she felt... how agonizing slowly time go by if you are not part of the ship. But she was finally free. Her mind was free again.