Hi Steemians and SF-Fans,
this is the sequel of my entry for the NextColony contest from 
„Well… seems you have good arguments here, Mister, I will wait. Same conditions. Payment in advance before taking off.“
The soldier seemed satisfied with the answer, at least he turned his head and stepped out of the ship.
Finally Higgins pushed the button of the airlock, way harder than needed. In his mind a speech bubble formed with nothing but a huge „SHIT“ in it.
He returned to his workroom. The "White Ninja" had like all modern ships not a distinct command centre, but thanks to Eve, he could control it from every room, even the rest rooms (what already came in quite handy).
„Eve, show me the guy´s trajectory“ he said while pouring genuine wine from the solar system into a drinking glass made out of genuine glass.
Few only knew about this eccentricity of him, but if you were born 150 years ago you would tend to develop those kind of treats as well. Of course the wine has never seen real grapes, but he was told the bacterial cultures at least were exposed to good old Sun, which sort of comforted him. And the taste was much better then that of wine from any other system, even from the soil rich "P". He was going to confirm that soon, by the way.
But first he looked at the display Eve had opened for him. Higgins had to congratulate himself for being wise enough to place that ridiculously expensive tracking-nanobots in the passanger cabins air flow. A few were taken up from the thing - probably through the (fake?) breathing - so he could see in great detail a projection of Muffin City and the path the creature was taking. The remaining ones would be retrieved back from the air filter system and stored for the next opportunity. He loved smart technology.
While he was enjoying his wine, he observed that the soldier was heading straight towards one of the big markets - one of those where not always legal transactions were made and where the scary tartarians and other Aliens sold their occult stuff. Higgins had been there several times to obtain the more exotic parts for his ship, armament-wise.
Eventually the flashing dot stopped and Eve zoomed in.
„What´s that shop, Eve?“
„It is officially registered to the PSA, the Pangalactic Salvation Army“, the AI replied instantly.
„Are you kidding me?“, he grumbled.
„You know, that I never lie to you.“, Eve replied indignantly.
All at once the room turned intensly yellow for a fraction of a second, accompanied by that characteristic sound Higgins had learned to hate. An APT - Authority priority transmission!
The Authority was the non-official government of practically all humans on whatever planet or other outpost they lived. It was stationed at Cyclops, a planet with a bizarre geophysical anomaly and which the colonizers (with dubious Alien help) had reconstructed into an impregnable fortress. It had turned out for most of the colonies to better comply and accept to be ruled by The Authority than to spend 2/3 or more of their budgets on military. But it didn´t make The Authority popular in any way. Some compare it with the Mafia, just with more military power than any mafia-like organization ever had before.
APTs need to be regarded and adhered to in any case – 24/7. That was one of the rules if one wants protection from The Authority. If not, one sooner than later gets outlawed. To be outlawed decreases life expectancy significantly!
Eve showed the message to Higgins, replacing the city projection. It was almost a Solar week old - even priority messages can take that long with the many jumps needed to reach every spot across the Galaxy. It was basically an urgent request to alert the Authority and representants of it immediately if someone knows anything about the presence of an AI with the codename „SABLIT“. It apparently went psychotic and consequently was kicked out of the Galactic AI consortium, but had managed to steal and hide inside a robot prototype of undisclosed specifications. It was considered as highly dangerous and any contact should be strictly avoided. In the message there was also a pic included that – he knew it already – showed exactly his passanger, just that the pic was sketchy compared to the level of detail Higgins had when standing next to him.
„Holy Jesus. Can things get worse?“ Higgins asked himself.
„Maybe, but I can´t imagine.“ Eve replied.
„That was a rhetoric question, Eve and your imagination sucks anyway!“
He swallowed the rest of the wine and refilled his glass.
„Captain, you have to report it. Should I open a line to the Authority´s office here in Muffin City?“
„Negative. Hold On. I have to think first.“
He was in a terrible situation. If the AI was as dangerous as they say, he should leave immediately and report later from a safe distance. But on the other hand, the Authority would anyway find out about what he had been transporting during the last days, and he could lose his license. Besides the interrogations would be gruesome - he knew this first-hand.
„Where is the AI now?“ he asked Eve.
„Sorry for bad news again, but it is on its way back to us, it is fast!“
„WHAT? Prepare for emergency take off, NOW!“, he shouted.
„Too late. I´ve got an emergency launch window earliest in 90 secs, and SABLIT is almost here.“
„Explain, what is ALMOST?“, Higgins almost freaked out.
„He is basically here and tries now to override my locking mechanism. It hurts.“
„FUCK! FUCK!“, was all he could say, ignoring for now the fact that Eve decided to call the creature as "he". A superior AI will find eventually its way inside. And they had no time to find out. If he wouldn´t cooperate with that entity and it managed to get in, it could take over and kill both Eve and him, if it saw no use for them or thought they were hostile. Too risky.
„Open the airlock and let it in, for gods sake.“
Eve immediately reacted and Higgins could see a vid with SABLIT skillfully jumping through the half opened door into the White Ninja.
„This is a nightmare.“, he commented, shaking his head.
Eve closed the airlock, just in time. The ship was released, took off and slowly maneuvered through the dense traffic out of the space terminal.
Higgins nervously watched displays showing the surroundings to check if there would be any Authority-commanded vehicles to intercept them, but so far it looked good. Could it really be that nobody at the market had noticed that eye-catching armored soldier?
Meanwhile SABLIT made it´s way through the corridors towards his room.
"Which course?", Eve asked.
"I have no clue, just bring us for now to the next long distance portal. Step on it!"
The door pushed aside and SABLIT entered. Higgins turned his chair and loked at it. His credo was "attack is the best form of defense", so he firmly said
"They are hunting you. Eventually they will find you, but I could help you."
"Correct, you might be helpful, Earthling."
It started not too bad, Higgins thought.
"They say you are a psychotic AI?", he continued the "small talk".
"They lie. You have no idea what I am. I will explain it."
That was the moment when Eve raised the alarm and threwed the room into a flashing red.
"Two Authority battleships just entered the system! Heading directly towards us." Eve remarked calmly.
To be continued...