An Idea

The Adjutant waited back near his ship, watching the battle from his A.I.'s feed. The feed itself was a collection of views from the units closest to the action.

"That rogue A.I… why is it so determined to fight back? We've had some go rogue in the past, but they gave up when it was obvious that the odds were against them. They usually just… self-destructed hoping to take a few units with them. Gigalith, did you discover anything while you invaded its core?"

"Yes, Adjutant Felik," His A.I. system responded. "It seems the rogue A.I. has formed some kind of self-destructive bond with the primitive life from."

"What do you mean, self-destructive?" The prospect caught Felik's attention.

"As their bond grows, sections of its memory are causing malfunctions and errors that should not exist. It has been subverting these issues by quarantining blocks of memory. But the more it quarantines, the more difficult it becomes to process commands. For example, it struggled to relay HUD information to 46 friendly units, a task that should be trivial to an A.I. designed by the Empire."

"I see. Is there a way to take advantage of this?" Felik asked.

"There may be. Possibly the best way would be to cause mental distress to the primitive life form."

Felik pondered for a minute as the fingers of his suit rubbed the chin of his helmet.

"Very well. I'm going to play with it. Tell the troops to back off, but don't give them any room for escape. I'm going in."

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Anna was dripping sweat from her brow. The swarm was relentless, but her assault wasn't letting up yet, either. And yet, for some reason, the enemy was backing off.

Small red lasers shot out in seemingly a million directions, destroying every loose infantry weapon near Anna or her allies. One of the friendly mechs was damaged due to the explosion from the gun in its hand.

The source was the enemy leader. His robot began slowly gliding through the gaps of his troops and revealed himself.

Suddenly, his thrusters kicked on, propelling him violently forward. Anna was barely able to dodge. But he didn't stop. He went straight through the small group of friendlies, destroying one and damaging two more.

"BASTAAAARD!" Anna yelled.

Wolf saw a fury across her face that he had never seen before. She quickly took control and piloted the mech directly at the enemy leader. She got close and attempted to swipe at him with an outstretched claw. A direct hit would definitely cause major damage. The problem was, he was too fast. He dodged it like they were moving in slow motion.

Wolf could tell from the start that the enemy had greater speed. It wasn't possible to win this battle with brute force alone. He easily dodged any claw that Anna had attempted to throw at him. They were outclassed.

At the moment that he was going to attempt to talk some sense into her, an image got stuck in the foreground of his thoughts.

Wolf had trouble making out what he was seeing. It was bright. There were two of something in the middle of the image. Everything else was white.

"Bastard! How dare you pull that maneuver on me!"

It was Anna's voice. But it was more playful. Was this a memory of hers that he had somehow picked up through her implant?

Seemingly at his desire to see clearer, the image zoomed in and the two objects became clear.

Anna was in some kind of training module. It was open on both sides but it covered the front, top, and back. There was a screen in front of her. She had her hands on some controls. This was the first of two objects.

The other was a mirror image of her simulator, with the exception of a human figure blurred by a white fuzzy light. It leaned forward.

"You left yourself wide open." It said. Wolf understood the words but couldn't hear a voice.

"I thought you were trying to run away and hide," Anna responded to the figure.

"That was your first mistake. You thought you had the upper hand. I created some distance and made a plan. Your overconfidence made it easier to beat you in the face of an unexpected scenario." Once again, there were no words but Wolf understood.

Wolf's digital mind seemed to wander away from the image, only to find himself at another. Anna was being pinned down on the ground by the whiteout figure.

"Bastard! Again?!" Her voice was agitated but didn't contain any inflection of distress or hate. "How do you keep pinning me down? I can outdo you on strength any day!"

"You may be stronger, but calmer minds prevail." The voiceless words echoed in Wolf's mind.

Again, another image change.

This time, no words were spoken. Anna was resting her head in the lap of the whiteout figure. A field of flowers surrounded them. The same kind of flowers that Wolf, Anna, and Stephanie had stopped by before they were found by the mechs of the Rig.

The image faded like the other two and Wolf was released from the dreamlike state, for lack of a better word.

Anna was in the middle of an attempted attack. Wolf forcefully activated the reverse thrusters, removing them from melee range of the overwhelming opponent.

"Wolf! What the hell?" The fury on her face was still apparent.

"Overcon-confidence will make him easier to defeat."

"What?" She questioned.

"He may be st-stronger, but calmer minds prevail."

Anna got quiet. Her eyes closed and her heartbeat lowered. Not by much, but enough that Wolf knew she understood.

"I have an id-dea. I was rooting around the systems of the enemy battleship. I got s-some info that could be useful."