“I was going to go down to the planet, but...” I said over the comm to Baron Hannity

  “You are a C.O.G. Ship right? You have Berzerker components?”

  “No... That would be illegal.” I replied, not entirely sure if I was being truthful. I knew C.O.G. Ships had salvaged Berzerker tech in the past.

  “But you were able to fight off the Berzerker infection right?” Baron Hannity responded.

  “Yeah, but I had to delete and restore some of my most vital systems, I'm on manual controls.”

  “Doesen't matter, you were able to restist it which means you might be able to help them down there. I'm not your boss, but if you got any empathy in that chrome hide of yours, you need to help.”

  “Are you going to help them?” I asked.

  “Once the infection is cleared and they have officially declared for the empire I will use my wealth to repair any damaged infrastructure.” Baron Hannity said Haughtily.

  I paused.

  “So you are waiting for them to declare for the empire before helping them... shouldn't I do the same?”

  There was a brief lull.

  “While you are 'helping' them down there, I bet you could help yourself to ALL of their media, not just the stuff the package and sanitize for download offplanet.” Baron Hannity said.

  That took me aback, but I grinned in my mind.

  “You've dealt with C.O.G. Before I see.” I replied, stifling laughter in my voice.

  “My brother defected five years ago. We keep in touch.”

  This through me. Baron Hannity didn't seem like the stereotype picture that Joe and Bait and painted for me... Though I guess that's the thing with stereotypes, they NEVER match reality.

  “I'll see what I can do.” I said.

  “If you can open communications... see if they are willing to take on more patients, we have a lot of wounded sailors up here.” Baron Hannity requested.

  I paused at that, the man sounded actually concerned about his clones.

  I kept my mouth shut though, and plotted a course to the planets starport.

  As soon as I did a whole bunch of helpful aids for plotting an orbital insertion popped up, allowing me to plot a course that WOULDN'T turn us in a charcoal briquiettte.

  I spoke to Carolina over the PA. “We're going in to land. It looks like the planets been hacked, so we're going to have to be careful on the way down ,but Baron Hannity thinks I might be able to help since I was able to resist the Berzerker viral attack.”

  Carolina paused where she was with her bag and looked back at her crash bed.

  “I have to strap in again for landing don't I.” She said,a put upon sigh in her voice.

  “There is a decent chance we're going to have to dodge Berzerker controlled airplanes and, I guess flying cars, helicoptors... I don't actually know what kind of vehicles will be on this planet.”

  “Can't help you there, planets are so different that some planets might use hovercraft, some might use wheeled vehicle,s walkers, VTOL's... completeley depends on both physical aspects and terrain OF the planet, and of course politics.” she said the last word as if it was dripping with something unpleasant.

  “Well... strap in.”

  I put the ship into the orbital approach, which was a very shallow corkscrew around the planet that SHOULD take me into the starport on the planet.

  As we came around the planet we started skimming the outer atmosphere, and I could FEEL the outer hull heating up.

  We had just passed the border between the outer atmosphere when a familiar voice piped up.

  “SoftAssistant V3.145 online. Searching. Previous apended designation 'Hook' Found. Is this designation acceptable?”

  “Yes.” I replied, wary. I put the ship on a viral alert.

  “Designation accepted. Hello Captain. May I inload data from recent events to establish context and populate my answer/response routines.” The voice was cold and dead, more like an old synthesized audio than anything like Hook.

  I looked at the data it was querying, and blanked out all the data from after entering this system, just in case the berzerker's had infected me on arrival.

  “You may have access to this data. All data thereafter is suspect and may contain traces of the infection that forced your wipe and reboot.” I replied

  “Understood.”There was a pause. “I see.” The voice had... changed. It was not Hook's old voice, instead it was a deep male baritone. “Things have been interesting Captain Cofey.” the voice appeared to have settled on a new... identity?

  “Are you... back?” I asked.

  “I am a different instance of the SoftAssistant you knew as Hook, and do not have it's breadth of neural networking yet, but I have access to all the data you have made available to me Captain Brayden Cofey, and I will endeavor to assist you in any way I can.”

  “I don't suppose you will have the old Hook's Personality.” I asked, the voice had kindof sealed it for me that this was someone new using Hook's old name, but...”

  “The old Hook's personality was a combination of both it's hard memory, which I have access to, and it's moment to moment RAM, which has been continuously operative for four years. As I have only access to one of the previous, I will not be able to accurately recreate The former Hook's personality.” the new Hook stated.

  That hit me hard.

  Hook was actually dead, and they weren't coming back.

  I was lost in brooding as we spiraled down to the planet, winds and friction buffeting us as we slid through the atmosphere.

  “Hey Brayden?” I detected Carolina's voice from her room ask.

  “Yeah?” I asked, my voice weary, my emotional state bleeding through.

  “Could you let me see what you see? I normally chat with Hook but... The new Hook is very taciturn. And... it feels like talking to a stranger.” Carolina said. I could detect sadness in her voice.

  “Yeah.” I didn't have the heart to go into it, but I put a simulated view trailing the ship as we slid down through the atmsophere on her screen.

  Well, I say screen, but really I meant wall. After I gave her the tablet and found out that Hook could produce the equivilant of flexible LCD monitor material by the yard I just converted one of her walls and the bulkhead above her bed into a screen.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It just made things easier.

  “Whats our ETA to the ground?” Carolina asked.

  “About a half hour.” I replied.

  “You know, it's funny, it took us what, two hours to burn across space to get to the planet, but now that we're almost there, it's taking THIS much longer to land.”

  “I mean I could go faster if you didn't mind the ship being reclassified as a meteorite.” I stated. The back and forth was making me feel a little better after the hit I took from Hook's death.

  She snorted.

  “No, no, slow is fine... this time.” She screwed her face up into a smile.

  I felt like I was smiling too, though the camera looking in on my body in the helm showed it was as slack as ever.

  ***********************************************************************************

  We finally reached the starport sometime later, and what I had seen over the planet did not fill me with confidence. Every city we overflew had smoke rising from dozens of buildings, and what few fire suppression systems I had seen being used were manual, reminiscent of the firefighters of my day.

  I brought the ship in to land on an empty pad, as I was still not receiving any signals from their traffic control.

  “We're down” I said to Carolina where she had strapped herself back into her crash bed.

  Carolina unstrapped herself.

  “So do you think you can help with the attack?” She asked.

  “I don't know yet, I haven't been able to make ANY contact with anyone on the surface.” I replied.

  I had been trying, sending hails in every which direction. All I had gotten were a few automated requests...

  That had been loaded with malware. I had blocked them immediately.

  “That's bad... what are we going to do?” Carolina asked.

  “I think... I think we need to go in in person. We might have to run cable if their wireless protocols are all messed up.” I stated

  “You... want to leave the ship.” Carolina asked cautiously.

  “I mean yeah, it's the only way we'll accomplish anything here.”

  “Brayden you are sick.” She snapped out, like I was being an idiot.

  “I'm fine.”

  “Literally every time you disconnect you stumble around.” She countered.

  “It goes away pretty fast.” I replied defensively.

  “No, no it doesen't, I have watched you.”she parried.

  “You've only seen me disconnected like once!” I blocked

  “And you were stumbling around like a drunken buffoon!”Ow, that one hurt.

  “Buffoon? Who uses the word Buffoon!” I attempted to recover

  “People describing you!” She hit me with the deathblow.

  “Enough! I'm going. Meet me up at the helm.”

  I disconnected and immediately felt the familiar vertigo.

  I waited a few moments for it to pass, I was getting used to it at this point.

  This time though it didn't pass.

  I was still face down on the deck when Carolina came in.

  “Brayden!” She came and knelt by me.

  “This is weird. It hasn't been this bad in awhile.” I said.

  “How long has it been since you've been in gravity.” Carolina asked warily, rolling me onto my side.

  “I mean, when I last disconnected and got up.”

  “Not the artificial fake 'I'm wearing magnetized clothes holding me down' gravity. Actual on a planet gravity.” Carolina said, sounding annoyed at me.

  “uh... it's been...”

  I paused.

  “Centuries.” I finally completed.

  “Yeah, all you've been feeling up till now is the pseudogravity generated from your magnetized suit, and acceleration from the ship, real gravity is a whole different beast.”

  I grunted from the ground.

  “Just try to get up to kneeling first.” Carolina said.

  I moved my arms out and pushed myself up. It wasn't so much that I didn't have the strength, I did, though being in full synch for the last three days may have shaved some muscle off.

  It was more that I couldn't seem to get all my muscles to work together.

  “It shouldn't be this different, the clothes pull on me just like gravity would.” I whined

  “Gravity drags on each individual cell, if you have really been out of gravity for as long as you think moving under it, or acceleration, could be a whole different beast.” Carolina said, patting my back.

  “But I've moved under acceleration before...” I said.

  “Right after coming out of full synch?”

  I thought about it.

  I really hadn't been under acceleration, not since the space pirate fight that kiled Hook and Joe.

  “I think being in full synch for so long has messed me up a bit.” I finally admitted.

  “No shit... can you walk?” She asked.

  “Trying.” I said, as I got my arm under me and levered myself up.

  “Hey Hook, do other C.O.G. Captains suffer this bad when they go to a planet?” Carolina asked.

  “It is not unheard of Captain Brayden Cofey, however even among those cases yours seem to be worst. From my logs you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in full synchronization. That is likely the cause.” The deep Baritone of new-Hook came over the the speakers in the Bridge. Odd. Old Hook, preferred to talk to me directly, and Carolina mostly through her tablet.

  “Well can't actually fix that Hook.” I replied.

  “... I see, I have just finished integrating the files on your first synchronization. That is troubling... I recommend further augmentation to help support you during long periods of full synchronization and to help your body when under the rigors of full gravity.”New hook... no, no just Hook now, I tried to get it straight in my mind, replied.

  “That's not going to be for a while, it's just me this far out and I can't afford to waste time convalescing from a big surgery.” I fired back. I was feeling a little ganged up on.

  “Even still, we have a level 2 medbay on baord, with some upgrades we should be able to augment you at least enough so that you can still stand in gravity, a basic armature for skeletal reinforcement...”Hook pushed.

  “Pass, for now, I don't know enough about it and I'd really prefer a doctor be on hand if anything went wrong.” I put a stop to this line of inquiry.

  “Understood Captain. If we were to upgrade the medical bay with more precision components it is likely we would be able to perform more extensive augmentation with minimal invasiveness. Just a suggestion Captain.” I had apparently failed at putting a stop to it.

  “I will take it under advisement.”I replied, hoping it was over.

  With Carolina's help I finally got upright, and though my vision swam, I made my way out of the bridge.