Theft... Is not an acceptable lifestyle.

by Mr. David R. Dorrycott

"Lith, your read the communiqué?"

<Yes. An interesting. Development. Which procedure.>

Snowaters opened the crumpled paper. "17th Provo Confiscated..." she growled. "I put half a planetary GNP into that thing, are they so stupid as to think it wouldn't be protected?"

<Unknown. However. We are talking. 17th. Provisional.>

“Right" she growled. "Bring up a J-probe, I'll show 17th what it's like to deal with me."

Deep within the Star Diamonds storage area a dusty, softball sized grey-black ball was plucked from its resting space. Half an hour later, fueled and checked out, it sat within a rarely used launch tube.

"All data has been loaded?" Snowaters asked.

"Launch."

Kicked from the Diamond by a puff of Krypton gas the probe powered up, quickly fading from view as it made the jump to sub-space.

Snowaters checked the last readout, nodding to herself. "Send a message that her ship will return in three weeks, and my apologies for not insuring its security until she moved aboard."

<Done. Anything Else.>

"mmmmm Lets go see what's happening on Relnok. It'll be about time for the thousand year celebration when we arrive. I do so love a good party."

Four days after launch the probe exited sub-space half a light-hour behind the fleeing Star Destroyer. Quickly a micro-squirt transmission was made. Then the probe waited, maintaining distance.

Aboard the starship, deep within the bowls of security archived backups a program hatched. In nano-seconds its command structure over-rode all involuntary programs within the ships immense network. Secured with minutes before any organic lifeform could possibly notice the change, it sent a query.

When the Judis-probe received the query it transmitted several microseconds of data, then self destructed. Upon reception the new AI program went to work.

"Self Destruct has been engaged. Self Destruct in ten minutes. Please utilize on-board shuttles, life-pods are currently inoperative due to power failures."

17th's temporary Captain looked up. "Self Destruct?" he asked, "Who the #$^%%$ initiated self-destruct?" Picking up the manual he had located, he flipped to the command section.

"Computer" he ordered.

"Your command Captain" the system asked.

"Dis-arm self destruct on my command. Security code Allah one one zero Pearl Beer."

"I'm sorry Captain" the system replied. "That is not the correct code. Please try again."

He stared at the page, carefully repeating the code, and getting the same answer.

"Self Destruct level one. Engine Ramp Up initiated" The ship shuddered as massive engines began to overload.

"Engineering. What's going on" he ordered.

"W'e canna stop 'er Captain, 'She a-gonna blow" came the answer.

"Fargs" he cursed, "And it's such a beautiful thing too."

"Self Destruct in five minutes. Initiating core coolant dump, internal decompression."

"Captain" engineering called. "There's 'noting kin do, we' 'banding ship."

Staggered he watched helplessly as his skeleton crew abandoned the bridge, heading for their ships stored on the shuttlebay. Shaking his head, he took of at a dead run following them. "I'm gonna lose rank" he cursed, "But I'll still be alive." Minutes later he watched out a porthole as his personal shuttle clawed for distance from the huge bomb only light seconds away.

"Captain" his Chief Engineer called. 'Der's ah call fer yu."

"Pipe it here" he ordered.

"This is Sugerplumb, security AI" a voice said. "Now that you pi-rats are out of me I'm returning to my owner." There was a pause, during which the captain grabbed at his heart and tried to breath. "Next time, it'll be the real thing, with no chance to escape. Lady Snowaters does not like thieves."