Chapter 50

"Who are you people?"

Renn looked up and saw a small Red holographic woman staring at him curiously. As he stared at the woman, he noticed she bore a striking similarity to the woman for the vision he just had, Darth Kress.

"Stop staring at me and answer me. Who are you?" the small red holographic woman demanded while trying to square up to Renn and the others.

"I'm Renn. Who are you?" Renn asked back.

"I have no idea." The Red woman said in a smug tone that didn't match her words.

"What?" Renn asked in confusion.

"What do you mean, What? How am I supposed to know who I am?" The red lady said like what she was saying made total sense.

"This woman's weird" Spark whispered to scythe who nodded sagely at the comment.

"I heard that." The Red hologram glared at him, "You lot are the weird ones, going around knowing exactly who you are. Its unnatural."

Renn and Alpha just continued staring at the hologram, utterly confused about what was going on.

"Renny" Sapphire cooed sweetly over the comm, "Be a dear and bring your new friend back to the ship. I want to speak to her."

"Who was that? Someone else who knows who they are?" The Red woman said listening in.

"Okay let's head back to the ship for now. We can figure out what else to do later." Renn told the droids, and they began walking out of the bridge and back towards the speedy vagabond.

"Hey don't ignore me!" The small hologram said forced to follow behind the group as Renn was still holding the holocron in his hand.

-

"So, you don't know who you are?" Sapphire said looking at the red hologram.

The holocron was placed on the centre of the holo-table with Renn and the others crowded around watching Sapphire staring at the red hologram. Both holographic women were projected over the table and were staring at one another.

"Ugh, why are all of you making such a big deal out of that? I've not known who I am all my life, its normal." The red woman said rolling her eyes.

"Sooo, before you get snarky with me little miss amnesiac. Was it you who forced your way into Renn's head?" Sapphire asked with a smile, that warped into an evil expression as she asked her question.

"Ahh, scary" the red hologram screamed seeing sapphire's face and tried to hide behind her holocron.

"Oh, you haven't seen 'scary' yet" Sapphire said menacingly as she advanced towards the other hologram.

"It wasn't on purpose. Honest." The red hologram pleaded, "I don't even remember how It happened, it's the first think I remember."

"Interesting," Sapphire mused as she stopped stalking towards the other hologram.

"Is it?" The red hologram asked.

"Yes. Now shut up I'm thinking" Sapphire shot back.

Renn and the others were watching the exchange attentively, not understanding anything that was happening.

"This is better than watching the holo-entertainments." Opal said grinning while watching sapphire and the red woman.

Sapphire looked over and glared at her and Opal looked away sheepishly and pretended she didn't say anything.

"Renn, could you tell us what the holocron showed you?" Sapphire asked.

"It was a vision of the past. About what happened to the fleet." Renn said and began describing the vision he saw on the harrower's bridge.

-

After Renn told the others the story of what happened to the Terror and to Darth Kress he was met by silence as they digested what had been said.

"It sounds like this Darth Kress person used the last of their strength to place their consciousness inside the holocron.

Sith holocrons often have a gatekeeper made from the cognitive network of their owner to act as a guide for its information. It seems that Darth Kress tried to due just that.

But due to her weakened state when she attempted the process, or the time that has past since, or possibly both all her memories were wiped after Renn activated the holocron." Sapphire said.

"So, this Red hologram is that Darth Kress person?" Shae asked from the side of the table.

"Nah, I'm me not some ghost." The red hologram spoke up, offended at people presuming to know who she was.

"And who is that?" Renn asked her.

"Still thinking about that, I'll let you know though." The hologram said happily.

"I think I might be able to help you with that actually" Sapphire said a strange smile on her face.

"Oh, really?" The red hologram said interested .

"Yes. You see I happen to be an A.I. that was made from a donated humanoid brain. And currently I am the only of my kind living in the galaxy. So, I'm going to turn you into an A.I. like me." Sapphire said and everyone looked at her in shock.

The A.I.s made by house Dredd weren't just programmed they were created from the neural pathways of a humanoid brain so that the A.I. could learn and grow more powerful over time. They essentially became a synthetic person.

The only problem was the brain was destroyed during the process and even then, there was only a small chance of the process happening correctly, so it was only used occasionally. There were only thirty-six A.I.s like Sapphire in existence before the destruction of house Dredd and all of them except Sapphire were killed during the destruction of Aruum.

The holocron with Darth Kress's conciseness in it represented an opportunity for Sapphire to make more of her kind. The point of using a humanoid brain to create the A.I.s matrix was because that was the easiest way to replicate the neural pathways that allowed the A.I. to be become so powerful.

But the spirit trapped inside the holocron could also be used to create an A.I. as it was made of Darth Kress's cognitive network, and because she was already a clean slate of a person there wasn't a risk of the process being rejected. So, Sapphire was going to convert the holographic holocron guardian into an A.I. like herself.

"Do I have a choice in this?" The red holographic woman asked.

"Nope," Sapphire said popping the 'p' as she spoke, "Bolt, grab the holocron and bring it to engineering please."

Bolt chirped in agreement, and soon the astromech picked up the red pyramid and started rolling out of the room.

"Wait! Let's talk about this first! What are you going to do?!" The spirit that used to be Darth Kress yelled as she was forced to follow the holocron out of the room.

"Should we get involved in what is happening there?" Spark asked Alpha who just shrugged and looked at Renn.

"I don't think so. Let's just go back to exploring those ships." Renn said and started waking out of the conference room.

"Coward." Opal said with a grin.

"What, I don't want to tell Sapphire what to do, do you?" He said.

"Not in the slightest" Opal said happily before skipping off with Seela.

"Hey, can I come and check out the ship too?" Shae asked Renn as she walked up to him.

"Sure, there are some spare environmental suits somewhere that you can use. They are probably a bit big for you and don't offer any protection from attacks but seeing as we already checked the ship for anything dangerous, you'll be fine." Renn said and Shae smiled.

-

All electronics in the Sith fleet had been destroyed by the experimental E.M.P bomb thousands of years ago.

Sapphire and Bolt had said that they could repair the ships, but they would have to replace most of their circuitry and electronic systems due to the damage they had received, as well as them being over three-thousand years out of date.

That added another issue. The ships electronic systems ran throughout their hulls and decks, criss-crossing every inch of the ships. So, replacing them would involve ripping the ships apart.

So Renn and Sapphire had decided that instead of repairing and restoring the Sith fleet they would use them to create new ships, using the droids on the lucrehulk as a work force.

Sapphire had analysed the ships designs, and also had access to the designs of most ships throughout the galaxy and would create new plans to build a new fleet for house Dredd.

The Lucrehulk would stay in the system with the Sith fleet and be slowly converted into a star base/shipyard. The fragment of Sapphire would stay in control of the ship and oversee the operation and update the battle droids onboard to act as workers.

The droids would then harvest the parts from the ships in the Sith fleet, plus parts that Renn would buy and transport to the system, to build new ships. Starting with an updated version of the Harrower class dreadnought, that would be over twice the size and would be able take and dish out much more damage thanks to upgraded technology from house Dredd.

Renn would buy a few cargo-transports when he returned to Sullust and would use them to ferry parts and extra droid workers to the system which would then be used to help with building the ships. Sapphire could create most of the parts she needed on her own as long as she had the raw materials so they didn't need to break the bank by buying hi-tec parts from the major ship builders and could source most of what they needed on Sullust.

The construction wouldn't be done quickly and would probably take years but that was okay. Renn was still a child and first needed to work on completing his own training before worrying about warships but in the future, they could be very helpful in defending his clan and his family.