As much as she tried to focus on the task at hand, Rhia found a memory inexplicably being brought to the surface. An armored Rothian ran through the halls of the strange, alien ship. As opposed to the smooth contours of a Rothian vessel, this ship’s design was dominated by sharp angles and unpainted metal. It was meant to be efficient, practical, though its technology was primitive compared to Rothian designs. Still, this primitive warship was a very real threat to the Rothian border colony it was advancing towards. These aliens had attempted and failed attacks against larger Rothian worlds, so a small colony would have to do to sate their bloodlust. The ship was towing an asteroid, and this colony did not have the defenses in place needed to protect from it. Reinforcements were too far out, so it had to be stopped, here and now. 

The AI was doing her best to treat her agent’s wounds, though her options were limited. She had effective coagulants to keep her from bleeding out, and a cocktail of other drugs to encourage healing, but there was shrapnel spread all throughout her abdominal cavity. She could keep her going for now, but the odds of death were worryingly high without surgery. Her armor’s medical systems would be insufficient to deal with it, particularly since the armor itself was heavily damaged in the explosion. She wished the agent was equipped with the prototype medical nanomachines that were being trialed. Even with the bugs that were being reported, the AI would have liked to have [i]some[/i] options at the moment. 

In the present, Rhia brought herself to focus on Agent 595’s virus. Even at first glance, Rhia was unsettled by what she could detect of its design. Data from the event that led to her melding with Vreta’s mind made it seem…familiar. Regardless, their objective was more pressing than those concerns. Vreta acknowledged 595, while Rhia worked to help guide this virus. 

“Let’s see if we can make sure those turrets haven’t been programmed to target us. And just to be safe, let’s try to rotate them around so they aren’t facing us. If this is a trap, that would mean they would have to traverse all the way back around to target us. It would give us time to react.” Vreta recommended.