Resistance is futile (XII)

"Hello Ian, you have no idea how good it is to finally meet you."

"Really," Ian replied nervously. "That's an interesting thing to say." As he edged around the room towards particle weapons locker the looking for whoever had spoken.

"Ian, who are you talking to?" Sam asked, "Your vitals appear to be elevated and coupled with your recent collapse, do you require medical aid?"

"Sam," Ian asked nervously "Can you detect anyone else within voice range of my position?"

"No Ian, the closest person to you is Nick who is in engineering two decks up at the stern of the ship." Sam replied a little worriedly.

Ian shook his head to clear the crazy notion that was beginning to form, it just wasn't possible. He braved looking at the sword again, surely that pulsing light meant that he had undoubtedly tripped some kind of security protocol.

"No Ian," the strange voice said. "You are not wrong or crazy, I am the blade's conciousness."

"Bullshit," Ian retorted almost immediately, "You have to be a practical joke Matt set for me to find. The very idea of an AI or any form of entity residing within a Katana built who knows how many millions of years ago before the japanese developed that weapon is ludicrious."

Sam was growing increasingly worried as he monitored the conversation and decided to notify Matt who informed him that he had not left the weapon there as a practical joke. Matt told Sam to dispatch medical drones and he and the rest of the crew would meet them there.

"I am NOT a joke or lying to you Ian. I am one of the last of the sentient weapons, known as Breakers and I have waited for you to find me for a very long time. Pick me up and I can prove to you the truth of my thoughts."

Ian was extremely wary of picking up the katana, and with a great deal of trepidation and caution he finally managed to hold it. The weapon was still pulsing, but Ian was not being hurt by it, so he was inclined to relax and listen to what this impossibility had to say."

"Release me from the sheathe and all your doubts shall be answered."

Ian's first instinctual reaction was to do anything but what the voice seemingly only in his head was telling him to do, but with great reluctance he finally with his thumb pushed on the guard and drew the weapon. From the very first moment the strange metal was bared again, there came this crystalline song of immense beauty that Ian finally recognised as the sword's presence that grew with every inch of bared blade. As the tip cleared the sheathe the blade trumpeted it's smug satisfed exhultation at being bonded to its wielder.

Ian was convinced utterly, the blade was alive and had bonded him. As the blade's exhultation waned back to smug satisfaction it turned its awareness back towards Ian and proceeded to stream the information he craved to him in a series of images and ideas, as it showed him untold millenia of Breaker history.

It began on a planet a long way from here, a sentient planet of all things. Not sentient in the way that organic beings were, but aware of itself none the less. The blade showed him how the planet and everything that was created there retained some of that improbable spark. How every impliment built on that planet knew who in all the universe was its wielder and how they schemed to be united with their partners.

"So, what do i call you?" Ian asked the blade.

A stunned silence was all that replied for about thirty seconds before the blade answered, "It was against Imperial custom to name any non-organic entity. They feared that should a Breaker be named its personality would grow to such an extent as to be able to influence or even posess it's user."

Ian contemplated long and hard before he replied, "How do you like the name Amadeus?"

"I would be honoured to bear the name Amadeus Ian, allow me to present you with a gift of similar importance."

Ian gasped as the sword presented him with the information of how to wield it using a flowing defensive and counter-attacking style he had never even heard of before. One that looked inherantly lethal and when he tried a few of the moves he found that the style seemed to fit him and Amadeus like a glove.

By this time Matt and the others had reached Ian, to find him utterly fixated on the blade. The medical drone scanned him, and after a minute Sam announced that Ian was physically fine although his brain activity was unusually high. Ian turned to look at his friends, stunned that they were there.

"Hey guys," Ian said weakly. "Look what I found...."

Matt stormed over to Ian, ready to kick the living crap out of him for scaring him half to death. He glanced over for a second at what was so important that he had needed to take most of the day to work it out of his system.

Matt's mind didn't believe what he saw in that half a glance, so he looked again in disbelief at what appeared to be a 15th Century Japanese Katana which was glowing. "What the hell...." Matt whispered before Ian managed to get out.

"Matt there are more in the rack, go have a look."

Matt couldn't believe that Ian wanted him to have a look at more impossible blades, but Ian's facial expression of absolute rapture convinced Matt that something funny was going on here. Matt looked through the blades on offer in the locker. Fifteen in total counting the one Ian had removed, his eyes soaking in the myriad of shapes and designs. As with Ian, one stood out as somehow different or special. A black hilt with gold and silver stylings that ran down through the pommel and onto the scabbard.

Matt barely picked it up before flying across the deck with sword in hand, to Anna and Nick's shocked outcry. Ian managed to halt them from rushing to Matt's aid as the blue symbols appeared and sank into Matt's skin. Moments later Matt stood up with a massive grin on his face as he unsheathed his sword and began to have a one sided conversation with it that slowly evolved into Matt just staring at the sword as the process of communication became internal.

Ian stared shivering while Matt had his sword drawn, the room seemed to grow colder and he could swear he could hear a garbled voice just on the edge of his hearing. Matt's sword pulsed a disturbing black that seemed to eat up any light that touched it.

When Matt was finished talking to his sword he sheathed it, turned and said, "Guys this is Shaitan, and he is a sentient blade. I'm also fairly sure that there is a blade waiting for both of you as well."

Anna looked at Matt like he'd lost it, but with a little prompting and a lot of pushing Anna picked out a paired dagger and short sword with a convuluted intertwining red, orange motiff with silver fleckled stars which she named Draco. Nick surprised them all as he chose a massive No-Dachi he called Geirwin.

Matt felt rather foolish standing in CIC armed with a sword, he chuckled for a moment. I look close to belonging in a damn anime, Captain with a sword on the bridge. But for whatever reason he couldn't bring himself to be apart from Shaitan at the moment. He sat down and placed the sword on the console in front of him.

The ship was empty except for himself, he had given everyone until 0400hrs tomorrow to see loved ones and sort out anything that required sorting. He wasn't worried about Nick not coming back, despite the stress and the workload, Nick was debt free and had that dreamy look on his face that said, I'm happier then I've ever been. He just hoped Emily would come along as well.

Ohh well he mused. Nothing I can do about it now, for at 0530hrs tomorrow, right before the dawn we launch.