Perimeter drone Alpha-1 accelerated towards its goal, the distant planet Pluto that hung suspended in space. The drone directed it's sensors onto the planet. Two polar ice caps, atmosphere of methane gas, from the readings the planet was obviously dead. The drone did note one irregularity though. The sensors showed that Pluto had three moons instead of the one that was expected. The drone shot back a data transmission, noting the irregularity and asking for instructions concerning the two satellites. Other than that the drone began its job, it descended down onto the planet, the atmospheric heat flare made the drone look like a small sun dropping down through the atmosphere. It slowed to a steady landing on the uneven gravelly surface. Waiting half an hour for the outer metallic shell to cool down, then started up its replicator system. If anyone had been looking from the outside they would have noticed a small rectangular opening in four sides of the pyramid. Eight sets of pincer arms extracted themselves from inside the drone, extending down to the rocky ground began picking up rocks and sandy dirt. After about a hundred pounds of raw material was gathered Alpha-1 started to feed the replicator the material breaking it down to the subatomic level. During this stage the replicator can add or subtract atoms from the raw materials, creating new alloys, plastics, acids, bases, and any other compound imaginable.

Soon it had enough materials to start building a new drone. A beam of light shot out of it and molecule by molecule, atom by atom, the new drone was slowly coming together. Thirty minutes later, the new drone was completed. Alpha-1 then downloaded its core programming into the new unit and activated the new drone. Aplpha-2 came online without complication, noting its core programming, and began to gather material for the next drone to be built. The new AI, who adopted the name Lewis, had instructed the first drone to build ten drones then download their core programming into the new drone, after which that drone would go off too its designated position. Then the new drones would make ten more, and those ten drone would make ten more and so on and so forth. If Lewis wasn't watching the progress of the drone then they would go on forever, as it was he would only allow them to go up to a thousand and start their new job. Lewis broke the drones down into divisions, ten divisions in all, a hundred drones per division. He chose these names represent the divisions, which were; Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Delta, Echo, Gamma, Foxtrot, Hilo, Kappa, and Lambda. He stopped the drones at hundred per division and order them towards their positions. Then had them arrayed in a dartboard pattern, the Alpha were the outer line of defense surrounding the outer orbit of Pluto and the solar system. Betas were positioned between Neptune and Uranus. The Sigmas, Deltas, and Echos took up positions around Saturn, Jupiter and their satellites. Gamma, Foxtrot, and Hilos were positioned around Mars and Earth. And the last two divisions were spread out between the sun and Venus.

He decided to have a few of the drones monitoring the Earth defense ring, enter the atmosphere and assume key positions around the globe, providing global coverage. This would allow Lewis or the other AI to destroy nuclear arms in case they fired upon other countries. He made a note of this to Sam, who was acting like a nervous nelly for some reason he couldn't fathom. He also made a note to Mitch about some possibilities for another AI to actually control the flow of information on the Internet or to monitor it instead. But this suggestion goes further than just monitoring the Internet like Sam was, it means to actually emplace the AI directly into the Internet, it would then be the Planetary AI. From their the AI, could in fact keep close tabs on all the governments on the planet, see who's planning what, who's selling this to that organization, and so on and so forth.

----------------

Emily was walking down the corridor looking for Mitch and Jack. She finally found them in one of the labs; sitting at a table with their heads slumped down, asleep. She crept forward, making sure not to make a sound. She heard the rhythmic sounds of Mitch snoring. She noticed Jack had a small puddle of drool just creeping out of the corner of his mouth. She looked around for a second until she found what she was looking for. She picked up a large book; she didn't know where it had come from, heaved it over her head and slammed the damn thing on the floor. Mitch shot straight up like a cork in the water and fell over his stool. Jack jumped up screaming about bacon bits and jammed his knee on the table. She couldn't help it, she laughed her ass off. When the two realized what was going on they made very sarcastic faces, like exaggerating mock laughter.

"Very funny. Gave me a fucking heart attack why don't ya." Jack said, rubbing his knee.

"Evil bitch." Was the only thing that Mitch said.

"So, what's up?" Emily asked.

"Well, Lewis is a big pain in the ass, but he's getting the job done properly. The entire system is now online and covering every quadrant of Sol system." Mitch responded.

"Good, good, anything else?"

"Yeah, we've been working on some designs for ships, droids, and drones. You ever see 'Battlestar Galactica', the new one not the older version? Well I figured we could replicate the Cylon Centurions, the big metallic looking robots. Instead of calling them Centurions we call them Battle droids. We are short on man power so they could fill in the ranks until we get more recruits up here."

"Sounds good so far. Anything to add Jack?" Emily asked.

"For the droids, no. But I have come up with a few ship designs plus class names for the ships." Jack punched a few command keys and a holographic image shimmered over the table. A large ship hovered, its hull had a craggy aspect to it. The ship itself was shape like a devil's pitchfork, more rounded off without the sharp points. It reminded Emily of one of the ships from a 'Babylon 5' mini-series, Excaliber, or something like that.

"This is our Battle Cruiser class type ship. This ship holds a crew of just over a hundred. It has hyper drive engines, sublight engines, nine particle beam weapons, four main singularity cannons, plus rotating frequency shielding and cloaking device. The metaphasic armor gives the hull a rocky appearance. The ship is about four miles long by two wide." Jack stated.

"Jeez, that is one big ship." Emily said.

"Yeah, I know. It's hanger bay can hold sixty fighter craft, using a suspending rack system. There are a few more little details I'll explain later, but you get the gist of it."

"Quick question. Could you explain what the singularity weapon actually does?" Emily asked.

"Sure won't take that long to explain it. Basically, I designed a space cannon to fire two different types of singularity weapons. Both types are gravitational singularities. One is a small unstable quantum singularity, in other words a small Black Hole. The other weapon is the complete opposite of a Black Hole, which is a White Hole or a miniature 'Big Bang'. Something you should never use around a planet unless you're really pissed at the people on it. The White Hole emits gravity, plasma, and untold amounts of energy. The Black Hole sucks everything down into itself using gravity to pull and tear apart the object it has a hold on. Anything else?"

"No." Peeped Emily, sweat started to appear on her brow.

Jack began to click a few buttons again, this time a new design appeared on the holo-display. The new design was much smaller than the battle cruiser; in fact from the dimensions being displayed it would have to be a fighter craft type. The craft had a needle like nose, very similar to the rig that Mike was flying. The main difference was in the wings of the craft, which looked like they came from a "Tie Interceptor." Think 'Star Wars: New Hope', Darth Vader's personal start fighter with the wings bent at a forty-five degree angle.

"Ok, here I've reworked the design of the fighter craft that Mikes' used to piloting. Still has the same ball shaped cockpit, needle like nose, but I reinforced the wings. With our current power source, everything on the craft with be enhanced, shielding, thrusters, sublight engines, even the particle beam weapons. I've decided to name this class of ship; Cerberus after the mythical three headed dog of Hades. I know it's an old one, but I think it's a good name, unless someone wants to name it 'Thundercat' again." Jack said smartly.

Emily smirked at the mention of the incident. Mitch replied with a one-finger salute. Jack shift in his seat for a minute, then tapped the keys again this time another larger ship appeared on the display. Emily could tell that it wasn't as big as the battle cruiser, but it looked very impressive none the less. The way the ship was designed gave it an almost organic look to it, like it was almost alive. The shape of the craft looked similar to that of a spade from a deck of cards. The tail end of the craft looked like it had a giant X, it smoothly blended in on the hull while the lower end of the X curved inward.

"Alright, this is what I calling an Interceptor, design mainly for speed and maneuverability. That doesn't mean that it is defenseless. It's packing three particle beams, shields, and a cloaking device. This ship can also double as a scout ship when the time comes for exploration."

"Well, these designs are going to have to wait until we get a ship yard up and running." Said Emily.

"Yeah I know. It's killing me to wait for it to be built." Jack said.

He started to tap keys again, and a smile spread across his face. "Well, we don't have to wait as long as we thought. Mitch check it out." Mitch lean over the display, his face scrunched up in concentration.

"Emily, according to this the new base will have the full capability of a ship yard. In fact it will be able to build most of our larger designs daily." Mitch said.

Emily frowned instead of smiled, her brow crinkled for almost a minute.

"Wait a minute, how will the base be able to produce theses larger designs daily? I mean how big is the base going to be, considering the massive dimensions of the ships?" Emily asked sounding very confused for a moment. Jack and Mitch realized she had a point. Jack brought up the file that was suppose to hold the base designs. He uttered a soft curse under his breath.

"Guys we may have a problem. The file that has the base designs has apparently been corrupted by an outside file source. The maintenance droids that were building the base called in for the plans and were infected as well, they tried an emergency shutdown, but it fail. Awe, shit. I think we have a virus in the system."

"Then what the hell are those droids building out there?" asked Emily.

Mitch walked towards the nearest view port, he looked left and right, then craned his neck to the right looking down. By the time Emily and Jack joined him, his face was slightly paled. He stepped back and looked at both of them in the face.

"I don't know how this happened; I don't even want to speculate on how it happened. Somehow for some reason, we are now orbiting what looks strangely like the 'Death Star'." Mitch managed to stammer out. Both Emily and Jack rushed forward to look out the view port, and what they saw turn their stomachs.

Nearly two thirds of the surface of the moon was covered in a metallic structure, there were canyons that seem to be twenty stories tall and was line with what appeared to be particle cannons, very large particle cannons. The third that wasn't covered was still the same craggy sandy surface of the moon but they could see little dark specks moving around. To see them even from this distance meant that there had to be thousands if not millions of maintenance droids scurrying about. They looked like a swarm of highly organized insects, buzzing to and fore.

"Sweet Jesus on a hammock. I hope you guys believe in the afterlife 'cause Mike is most certainly going to send us there when he gets back." Mitch said. His hands were shacking slightly

"Well, he did say he didn't care if anyone knew we were here or not. So he got his wish." Jack tried to rationalize this but he knew Mike didn't exactly want the Earth to collectively shit themselves when they looked up at the Moon.

"Ok, let's pretend we didn't see that and get back to work. Anything else you want to go over?" said Emily.

"Yeah, I think we need a few AI's for future projects, not as vocal as Lewis though. We can have Sam create their personalities from scratch." Mitch said.

"Yeah that sounds good. Sam, just two things for you to do." Emily said.

"Yes, what would you like me to do?" Sam relied.

"Sam, we want you to create five new AI, their personalities from scratch. Take as long as you need, ok." Emily requested.

"Certainly commander. Will there be anything else?"

"Yeah, one last thing Sam. We want you to run a diagnostic program on your self and all of the files contain within the computer sore. If you find any file containing viruses, quarantine the said file, and we can examine it later when Mike returns."

"Commander, are you saying that the computer core has been infect with computer based viral infection?" Sam asked. He sounded very concerned.

"Yes, it seems very likely. Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me you've never encountered a computer virus before?" Asked a very surprised Emily.

"In all of AI history none have come up against a computer based viral infection. I'm not even sure if I could be effective against such a thing." The AI sounded very morose.

"Don't worry about it. We'll think of something when we cross that bridge." Mitch said.

"Fine. I will complete the AI's within the hour. Running the diagnostic program will take about half an hour." Sam said.

"Good, Sam that's all for now." Emily said.

------------------

Mike awoke with a groan escaping his lips. He stretched his arms and legs trying hard not to wake Cerelia. He checked the display in front of him and it told him it was nine in the morning. He looked around, momentarily forgetting where they were. It took him a few minutes to remember what exactly had happened. They left Bermuda, late in the evening and landed in Naples, Florida, near a small retirement community. He decided to just sleep in the fighter, no use looking for a hotel nearby. As he turned back to look in front of the ship, there stood a small group of boys. They appeared to be around the ages of nine to eleven. They were just standing there, gawking at the ship sitting not ten feet away.

'Oh well. Time to head back anyway.' Mike thought.

He started up the fighter and the group of boys ran way back and hid in the nearby bushes. He lifted off the ground and headed out for sea. He was still waking up when the sensors picked up something coming up fast behind him. He directed the sensors behinds his craft and it took just a few seconds for a description of the craft to come up. What he didn't need right at the moment but was getting it anyway was two USAF F-15E Strike Eagles.

"Unidentified aircraft, I am ordering you to come about and land at Eglin Air Force Base. If you do not comply with these directions we will blow you out of the sky." Demanded one of the pilots.

"Let me think about that. Why don't you and your boyfriend go have some fun blowing up a trailer park or something." Responded Mike.

"You little shit. I repeat again, come about and land at Eglin Air Force Base or you will be fired upon." Repeated the pilot, who was starting to sound rather angry.

"Sorry. Not your bitch, not your slave, go fuck yourself and have a nice day." With that Mike activated his shields. He started to turn his fighter in a crisscross pattern. He didn't really care what they did; right now he was just toying with them. He noticed that Cerelia was wide-awake; he smiled reassuringly to let her know that everything was okay. The sensors reported multiple impacts on the shields, some bullets, but the last few were missiles. They were really trying to kill him and he didn't feel anything through he shields. He decided to comm them and let them know that they were just wasting their time.

"Hey, guys I getting pretty bored right now, so I'm just going to go home." Said Mike.

They were well over the Atlantic, miles form the coast and they were barely keeping up. He then got a good idea. He scrolled through the fighters' main menu and accessed what exactly was installed on the fighter. Apparently there was a small tractor beam on board, used for towing in small fighter craft or life pods. He activated the tractor beam and homed in on the two fighters. Once they were locked in the tractor beam Mike started to ascend through the atmosphere. Now the flyboys were screaming at him to let them go. He notice on the sensors that their craft had over ten minutes of usable oxygen and he thought that was just perfect. He exited the atmosphere two seconds later with the plane in tow, wouldn't take him long to get back to Sam with these two. Mike was smirking at the thought of those two seeing the ship for the first time, when Cerelia point towards the moon and asked what had happened to it. Mike focused in on the Moon and saw his new base.

"OK, that will do." Mike said with a small smile spread across his face.