The first thing I really remember was in Season 1, Episode 6. Remember [i]clearly[/i] at least—I can dredge up a few hazy slices and fragments of events beforehand, but I can’t tell how much of those are mixed-up with what I found out later on.

But I very definitively remember Season 1, Episode 6. I can even recall my first thought: I was sitting on the lower deck of the bridge of the starship [i]Intrepid[/i], my hands dancing across the controls idly, as Captain Harkton paced back and forth above. He was deliberating to himself about something—was it whether to attack the Khygon Armada? Or were we saving the Khygons from the V’lokeb? Those Khygons were always trouble, one way or another.

Regardless, I can’t recall, and it’s not particularly important. The point is that I was mechanically doing the standard busywork with the console in front of me, when I looked up at the big red button at the center, the one that read IN KIN DRI in stamped block letters. [i]What the tech does that mean?[/i] I thought to myself, my hands falling still.

I stared at it. The white noise of Captain Harkton’s monologue behind me began to crescendo. I glanced to my right and left, where cadets dressed in the same monotone grey uniform as myself punched their buttons and toggled their switches on the rest of the labyrinthine console that stretched in a semicircle around the bridge. I opened my mouth to say something, just as the Captain shouted “Fire!”

And that was the end of Season 1, Episode 6.

[hr]

Now, at the time, I didn’t really know what ‘Season’ or ‘Episode’ really meant. It was just inexplicable knowledge, sitting quietly in the back of my mind. Maybe it’s like the Arcturan space-moth, who knows how to returns to the exact asteroid where it was hatched even from two starsystems away, though the thing’s brain is the size of a Jybi microwalnut. I just [i]knew[/i], even if I didn’t even reflect on [i]why[/i].

But let’s go to Episode 7. When we came back, I was still on the bridge, but several seats down. I wasn’t particularly confused by this sudden shift in position, but the button still had a hold on my mind. I looked over to see it in front of another cadet, who was doing his own set of automatic motions. I could see the big IN KIN DRI even from that far away.

I stood up, feeling woozy and uncertain, and stumbled a little as I headed in that direction. It was probably the first time I had tried walking, but thankfully that knowledge was also tucked away somewhere in my head, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out how to apply it in practice. I ended up with two hands planted firmly on the console next to the cadet. He was twiddling with some sliders, staring dully at a bank of flashing lights.

“Can I sit there?” I said. “I want to— That’s…” I coughed, words feeling funny in my mouth. “That’s my spot.”

He ignored me. I reached over to shake his shoulder.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey.”

I heard an electrical discharge in the key of C, which meant the main teleporter had activated. For the first time, I glanced up to see what else was going on in bridge, other than my own little world of the console and its mysterious button. Just as I did, everything fell silent and still.

The cadet had frozen, mid-motion. One of his fingers hung in midair above a flashing keypad. To the right and left, all half-dozen of us cadets of the lower level had stopped moving.

“Hello?” I said, confused. My voice seemed loud, the only other noises being the deep hum of machinery that served as a universal background constant for the ship.

I made my way up the quarter-flight of stairs that led to the upper part of the bridge, where the captain’s chair sat in the middle of an elliptical space, flanked by the individual smaller control consoles for each of the key officers. Out the main window, I could see the bulbous shape of a Khygon cruiser. 

Seeing a flash of movement, I walked around to the comm officer’s station, where a bank of viewscreens were active. In one I could see Captain Harkton, fighting hand-to-hand with a Khygon crewchief. I realized he must have teleported over to the other ship. Then I wondered how one of our viewscreens could display something happening on a different ship entirely.

Unexpectedly, the more confused I became, the clearer my head seemed to get. I watched on the viewscreen as Captain Harkton struggled with the monstrous alien, holding his own until a cheap hit knocked him off balance. The Khygon reared back to deliver a finishing blow, when suddenly a laser blask struck it right in the chest. Doctor Reeves, Harkton’s trusted second-in-command, rushed in, his laser pistol still smoking.

Just then, the door to the bridge slid open, and everyone inside came to life again, busily going about their business. I felt an electric thrum in the air as the other two officers dashed in, the beefy Security Chief Gimbel and T’nori D’roi, our green-skinned Comm officer.

“Thanks for covering for me, Cadet,” she said, stepping up to the communications deck. I shrunk away, feeling suddenly and deeply circumstantial, and watched as she signaled to the Captain over in the Khygon vessel.

Things were back to normal. But I kept staring at T’nori, whose low-cut uniform showed a lot of emerald cleavage. I suppose there were some obvious reasons why that would be distracting, but all I could think of at the time was that it fell outside of Coalition Navy standards. It was one more confusing point that I couldn’t wrap my mind around, and I clung to those sudden doubts as the Captain and Reeves were beamed back aboard, the energy of the scene flowing into action around me.

[hr]

The first time I had a line was Episode 14. In the intervening time, I kept a low profile. I was almost always on the bridge, and that usually provided lots time to think, particularly when everything else went quiet and frozen. It made me feel better to repeat my questions to myself over and over again, and when I was lucky enough to be in my original seat, I stared at the IN KIN DRI button like I was going to burn a hole in it with my eyes. 

I even pushed it, in the middle of Episode 10, though nothing happened. Nothing happened with any of the buttons, actually. Pushing them at random didn’t matter, and ignoring them wasn’t a problem either. Sometimes I would just let my body go through the motions of running the console, as if I was sleepwalking. Other times, I deliberately sat as still as possible while I should have been active and busy. When the room went still, I took to walking around idly, pacing while I thought. 

Once, I left the bridge near the very beginning of an Episode, walking right through the sliding door and into a metal-paneled hallway. I kept going and took turns at random, but the hallways went on endlessly, none of the geometry making any sense. Every now and again, I’d come across the door back to the bridge, always in a different spot, but I kept looking for something else, something different. The Episode ended after about twenty, maybe twenty-two minutes, and I was abruptly back in my seat on the bridge, ready for the next one.

But Episode 14 was different. I don’t mean there was anything innately special about it or anything. I was sitting in my place, staring at yet another panel of pointless flashing lights while I tried to think about my past. I knew I had gone through Academy training, but I couldn’t remember any of the process. Just more odd bits of knowledge floating around, like someone had opened up my cranium and inserted a datadrive into my brain.

Then, suddenly, the normal thrum of energy that I felt when the Captain or officers were around and active at the bridge changed—no, intensified into a crashing wave of force. Something immensely powerful reached out gripped me, and I stood up automatically.

“We’re taking fire from the fore, Captain!” I shouted out, but the words weren’t mine. They came out of my mouth, but it was as if someone or something else was wearing my skin. The sad thing was that I didn’t even mind. I was so overcome by the force overriding all of my functions to even protest—it felt natural, it felt [i]right[/i] for me to be used as a puppet.

“Divert all power to the shields!” Captain Harkton barked out.

I dropped down to my seat, residual inertia of the experience causing me to attack my controls with particular vigor. I didn’t come to until a moment later, and when I did, my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. [i]IN KIN DRI[/i], I thought to myself. [i]IN KIN DRI.[/i] I repeated it like a mantra, letting the questions fill my head and bring me back into stability, until I finally calmed down.

Above me, the Captain was dealing with a pirate ambush, and explosions rocked the ship back and forth. That kind of chaos or danger was normal, something that happened every Episode. But the force, that was new. That was threatening, and also exhilarating, and most of all, baffling. I could still feel traces of it in the air, particularly around the Captain, but it stayed away from me for the rest of the Episode. 

[hr]

I took to calling it the Focus. I’m not sure where the name came from, but unlike my understanding of Season or Episode, it wasn’t preloaded into my memory. No, it was an original thought, and the more I used the name, the more I liked it. There was something about originality that kept me grounded and distinct.

I started to try and feel the Focus again a few Episodes later. In retrospect, my actions were not particularly smart. Having grown sick of sitting around at the consoles, I had started to get up and hang around at the back of the upper deck, watching the officers and Captain. It was like a drug, in some ways, the little crackles of residual Focus runoff that you could feel if you were in just the right place. It made me feel special and alive, and with some caution I could avoid the self-obliterating loss of control.

But then I started to get used to that, too. Once every Episode or two, the Captain or an officer would need someone on deck to shout out some statement about the lasers charging, or the engines failing, or the amount of time we needed to stall before making a sudden last-second warp. With some careful anticipation, and by making sure to stand in a place that was innocuous but particularly visible, I learned how to guarantee I was the person that did those things.

At first, the Focus was like before, an overwhelming, all-consuming force that spoke through me. But I started to get used to the feeling, started to try and regain some small measure of control. “Captain, radar scans show two vessels in the asteroid field,” I had to say in Episode 19. Instead, I said, “Scanners say two vessels in that asteroid field, Captain.” Marginal difference, I know, but it proved that the Focus wasn’t inviolate. I could shape it, given effort. And every Episode, I grew more skilled and more confident.

[hr]

I’m still not sure if Season 2, Episode 6 was meant to be a punishment for that behavior.

A few Episodes earlier, I had crossed my eyes as I gave the Captain a report, just to see if I could. And I felt the Focus twist oddly around me at that point, but I don’t know if it viewed me as a threat—if it even [i]could[/i] do such a thing, or if it was an impersonal force of nature, and some other unknown being was pulling the strings. I guess I’m still uncertain, but at least I have more suspicions now. 

But at any rate, I knew from the very beginning of the Episode that something was really wrong. I wasn’t in the bridge. I was in a maintenance tunnel somewhere in the ship—I knew what they looked like from staring at the comm station viewscreens, but never been in one personally. I was wearing a different uniform too, a dark blue maintenance outfit, and carried a toolkit in one hand. All around me, the Focus buzzed and crackled, present and powerful but malleable at the same time.

The maintenance tunnel was dark, the only light coming from a small visorlamp on the hardhat I wore. Something about the situation made me uneasy, and I couldn’t tell if it was the sudden direct influence of the Focus itself, or just a lot of unexpected inferences adding up to something unsettling, even if I couldn’t call it out by name.

I took a step down the tunnel, and heard my boot against the metal echo loudly, followed by a slithering sound. I froze, but couldn’t hear anything. When I took another step, it was matched by another slither, but the echo made it hard to tell from where or what it could be.

I kept walking. I knew that I had been sent down here to fix a shorted-out power cable—yet more new knowledge that had been forcibly inserted into my head, prodded along by the Focus—and it wasn’t too far to reach the proper place.

“This isn’t shorted out,” I said out loud when I leaned in to examine the problem. The Focus was filling in my thoughts as I went, abruptly growing in intensity and making it harder to resist. I went along with that flow, the words falling out of my mouth as fast as they materialized in my head. “This is… chewed? But what could possibly have gotten through a cable this thick?”

The slithering sound echoed down the tunnel, and I whirled around. Then I heard a long scraping sound, and all I could imagine were claws on metal.

“No…” I said, and that was my own word. I felt the scene click into my head, translucent possibilities coalescing into a single clear thread.

I knew what was coming next. Something horrible stepped out of the darkness, though all I could see of its shape were sinuous curves and shadowed claws. 

I screamed wordlessly as it leapt upon me.

[hr]

I came to about three and a half minutes later, lying flat on my back on a metal table in the ship’s infirmary. I was dead. I knew that, because Dr. Reeves had just said, “She’s dead, Jack,” to Captain Harkton.

Reeves was digging around with some kind of forceps in a gaping hole in my abdomen, though it seemed rather less empty of the kind of organs I expected a person would have. He was talking about the extent of the wounds, positing the existence of some alien creature that had stowed away on the ship, biding its time to attack. I wasn’t paying attention to the exact words. I could still feel the Focus, flitting around the two of them with vigor. 

He was midway through some kind of portentous sentence when I sat up. Really, it hurt far less than you’d expect, having most of your torso clawed to pieces. “Hi!” I said.

Everything came to a screeching halt. Reeves and Harkton both took a step back, staring at me open-mouthed. I felt the Focus come unmoored, could [i]see[/i] the paths of possibility suddenly fracture and split into a million different directions. The power swirled around me, making my head spin.

“Impossible,” Reeves whispered. “No human could survive that.”

“I’m a robot, beep boop,” I said. I could feel certain possibilities wink out of existence, and the Focus latched onto me even harder. It wasn’t forcing me along, anymore. I was riding it, giving it direction. It seemed about as safe and effective as trying to ride a Zwarkra Tigermammoth bareback, but I could only go forward. Harkton’s hand was at his laser pistol, and could feel the Focus quiver, uncertain where to jump to.

“Identify yourself!” Harkton barked out.

My mouth worked, grasping for an answer. I hadn’t even [i]thought[/i] about a name before. It hadn’t ever mattered. “My name is… Inkindri. I’m a cyber— robo— ton.” 

“Cyberoboton?”

“Cyberoboton.” A possibility bloomed in my head, and I seized it desperately as a lifeline. “I was sent by my people to infiltrate a Coalition spacecraft and gather intelligence for our coming invasion.”

Now the pistol was drawn, and pointed at me. But if anything, it only increased my command of the Focus. The words came quicker, and with more certainty.

“But something happened. Something… [i]changed[/i]. I lost connection with the Cyberroboton Overmind, and began to think and feel things I never had before. Watching [i]you[/i], I began to question all that I had been programmed to know. The wonders of the flora of Zebulan Beta showed me the beauty in our universe. The treaty of Glaxis revealed the capacity of sentient organic beings to work together, to a common cause, not fight and destroy one another. Your willingness, Captain, to make a heroic sacrifice in the volcanic fields of Sorguljak V, only to be rescued at the last possible moment… I began to feel my place was not as an infiltrator, but as a loyal crew member for the [i]Intrepid[/i]. I believed in our mission of peace and exploration.”

Both of them looked stunned, and then I could feel the Focus compel them along. The possibilities had narrowed to a few strands, but danger still twisted around me. I reached out to one thin thread, and pulled, trusting in the Focus thundering in my heart to pull me through.

“But I’m dying,” I said. “My cyberorganic systems can withstand incredible stress, but my main core has been damaged, and I will soon power down.”

“Is there nothing that can be done?” Harkton said, glancing over at Reeves.

“I’m a doctor, Jack, not a technobiologist!”

“No,” I interrupted, “the only thing that could save me now would be the skills of someone who’s a genius in both theoretical robotics and advanced cellular modification. And who in the universe has such capabilities?”

“Just one person,” Harkton said. “My old friend, Dr. Anton Schwerztak.”

Reeves shook his head. “But he’s been lost in the Qwesj Nebula for ten years now. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

And I knew I had done it.

“I… I’m sorry…” I said, jerkily lying down. “My power… is fading. I just have to say… to say… to say… th-th-th- ank y—”

It was hamming it up a little, maybe, but I earned a little overdramatization. I lay perfectly still, eyes wide and staring.

“We can’t,” Reeves said. “It’s too dangerous. There’s no telling what’s out there in that nebula. All our communications and sensors would be useless as soon as we got two parsecs in!”

Harkton squared his shoulders and holstered his pistol. Reaching up, he wiped at one eye. “We have to. Didn’t you hear her? Regardless of her background, Inkindri is a member of my crew, and I leave no man behind.”

It was hard to remain still, and not break out into a smile.

[hr]

I don’t really know what exactly happened in the next bit. Obviously, I wasn’t in a position to participate much. I remained perfectly still in the medbay, thinking about possibilities and the brief moment of control I had attained. But from what I understand, those three Episodes were one of the ship’s best adventures that far. Nothing else had taken more than two Episodes, and that was the Battle of Bilori Balinto at the end of Season 1. 

When they came back, I had prepared more threads to spin to keep myself entangled and essential. What I didn’t expect was for the plot to have already accounted for me. When the aged Dr. Schwerztak—fresh from being rescued from an intergalactic doomsday cult—finally arrived and performed the necessary repairs, I ‘awoke’ to a medbay full of the officers. Practically everyone onboard who I could recall having a name was there. And as Harkton reached out to take my hand for the fade to black, I knew for certain that something fundamental had changed.

From that point on, I was the chief technology officer of the [i]Intrepid[/i].

It was a surprisingly quiet transition. At the start of the next Episode, I was simply wearing a sky-blue uniform, standing at a prominent position on the bridge. I got lines too—plenty of them. In Episode 14, I went on my first away mission, and hacked a door to break the Captain out of a Zwarkan Hyperprison cell. 

For some time, it was exhilarating simply riding the wave of Focus that pulled us from one exciting and dangerous experience to the next. I said all my words, performed the occasional feat of heroism, usually in the greater service of supporting the Captain or Dr. Reeves. Now and then I got to do some exposition, explaining why some ship or space station had evaded our sensors—because they were so technologically advanced that I would need time to be able to analyze its capabilities and adapt to them. And then, naturally, I did, integrating what I learned to our own ship to help us go faster and further. 

It was… fun. Maybe the most fun I can ever recall having. And then Season 3 started.

[hr]

I don’t really like talking about Season 3.

[hr]

I suppose it’s important though.

When I knew that we had changed over to a new Season, right after another big Episode 26, I began to feel a little dissatisfied with the status quo. I was still feeling my share of the Focus, but just allowed myself to be carried along with where it took me. I began to wonder if there was something better. I began to experiment.

It started out small. In Season 3, Episode 2, we were about to go on an extended journey to the black markets of Zyr to find a 5-D tesseract warpcore. Instead, in the first forty-five seconds, I ‘found’ one in the trash bin in the mess hall. I could feel our entire reality shiver at the abrupt change, and as the Focus thrashed, looking for a new path to follow, I grabbed ahold of it again.

With another interjection from me, we got a distress call from a station in the Rhomur system instead, and everything settled back into place. But the invisible, intangible threads of plot seemed so obvious and clear to me now. The Tigermammoth was still as wild as ever, but I could feel the pull of the reins in my hand.

I didn’t let up. I refined my techniques, leaving aside the crude manipulations of outright contradicting the plot. Instead, a subtle nudge here or there was all that was truly necessary to guide things in the direction I wanted. I was ambitious, and a fast learner.

Things got out of control.

I wasn’t kidding about the Focus being like a drug. Once you had it, once you felt its power every Episode, it was hard to let go of the spotlight. 

I began to act out in ridiculous ways, just to see if I could. Captain Harkton faded into the background. I took his fight scenes, and his monologues. In Episode 9, I kept him sequestered for an entire space battle with a bad case of space-diarrhea, and took command at the bridge myself.

In the next Episode, I slept with T’nori, just to see if I could. Then I slept with Reeves. Then both at the same time. I wasn’t really sure of the appeal, as the experience was just another fade-to-black, but the reverberations in the Focus were intoxicating.

Episode 16, I herded everyone into the holodeck, and we reenacted the customs of an ancient Earth society where people wore heavy armor and rode beasts called horses and tried to knock each other onto the ground with pointy sticks. I was the best at doing so.

When we had the chance to put into spacedock, I got the [i]Intrepid[/i] rechristened as the [i]Inkindri[/i], and repainted the entire ship fluorescent orange, with purple racing stripes. Along the way, we upgraded all the systems, and I tested out the new experimental weaponry by blowing up a planet, breaking dozens of Coalition regulations in the process. I just wanted to see what the explosion would look like. It was okay.

The finale of Season 3 wasn’t navigating the epic conflict between two armadas, like previous ones. Instead, we landed on the beach planet of Glorax II, and everyone donned swimsuits and lazed around for twenty-two minutes. Reeves refused to use any sunscreen and turned a bright cherry-red from the three suns. There were lime popsicles. I went hoverskiing, and jumped over a Riktus Gigashark, which isn’t even native to that solar system.

[hr]

By the time Season 4 started, I was sick of it all. I had everything I could possibly want, and I wanted none of it. The Focus was no longer enough to satisfy me. I was going through the motions, and what had previously felt vital and vibrant now just seemed unbearably empty. And possibly worst of all, I realized I didn’t even have anyone I could express those complaints to.

That became my goal, and quickly an obsession. My initial attempt to find someone else original started in the first Episode of Season 4. I held onto the Focus, sitting on the bridge perfectly still for as long as possible. I just wanted someone, [i]anyone[/i] to act out, to stand up, to challenge me. Nothing happened. The other officers and the cadets stood around dazedly, affected by the wrenching I was doing to the Focus but unable to react.

I was still pretty arrogant. I figured if I couldn’t [i]find[/i] who I was looking for, I was perfectly capable of [i]making[/i] someone. I took the task seriously, and used a few Episodes to set up the existence of another Cyberoboton agent, figuring that was the best way to bend the circumstances to my benefit. I was precise as I built momentum towards tracking him down, setting the obvious parallels between myself. He had started as an infiltrator. He had gone rogue just like me. He was different from the other mysterious Cyberobotons. Individual, alive. Only we could understand each other. We had to meet.

When we finally came face to face in a bar on Alpha Station, I could feel the narrative around me, the Focus in my grasp.

“I know who you are,” I said.

He looked up at me with a quizzical expression. “I’m not sure—”

“—what you mean,” I finished. “I know you’re not who you say you are. But I need to know if you’re who you could be.”

“What—”

“—are you talking about?” I said for him, cutting in. “Wrong line. Say something I don’t expect.”

He shook his head. The Focus pounded through my whole being. I could do anything, and everything, and all I wanted him to do was to do something I didn’t want him to do. Was that so much to ask? I didn’t think so. So I hit him in the face, sending him falling to the floor. 

Someone in the bar screamed, and I snapped my fingers. Crew members with laser pistols were ready, facing down the rest of the patrons. The silence was absolute.

“Stop—”

Nope. I knew where that sentence was going. I hit him again, harder, and got a weak groan in response. “This isn’t difficult. Do something I don’t expect.”

He didn’t say anything at all.

I wielded the Focus like a weapon, forcing him to his feet. I reached into a pocket and withdrew a device. “This is a signal jammer to the Overmind. If you’re truly free, like me, when I activate this, you’ll still be fine. You’ll be yourself. If not, if you’re just another puppet with nothing inside, then that’s it. Which are you?”

He remained silent. I pushed the button, and let go of the Focus entirely. For a long moment, it was as if we were the only ones in the room. The Focus trembled around us like a rabid animal, looking for direction, or at least a victim.

He crumpled to the floor.

I waited a long time, but he didn’t move.

[hr]

At the start of the next Episode, I sat alone in my room for as long as possible. I had spent a lot of my downtime Episodes thinking. This time I tried not to do even that. It took about ten minutes before the Focus was ripped away from me, flitting to where the rest of the officers stood around dazed and confused in the bridge.

I felt something different during that time, beside the growing bitterness in myself. There was something about the Focus. It was weaker. I had a new idea, one that I was also quite sure to be original.

I wondered what it would take to destroy the Focus.

I killed us all for the first time in Episode 7. Meltdown in the engine room, sending extreme radiation throughout the entire ship. It wiped out the entire crew, dropping each of them one by one to the invisible but lethal exposure. When I was the only one left, I walked into the airlock and opened it, launching myself into space to float among the stars.

In Episode 8, we were back. It had been a holographic simulation, apparently.

Fine. I would have preferred it to be a challenge, anyways.

I was more careful when I killed the Captain off shortly afterwards. I had his old rival, Imperikan Zzur, show up at Erto Secundus with a massive invasion fleet. The trap was perfect; Zzur challenged Harkton to a blood duel to determine the outcome of the battle. Harkton accepted, on behalf of all his crew and the millions of civilians whose lives were at stake. The battle was long, brutal, and bloody. Harkton barely prevailed, but the wounds were too much for him. The funeral was exquisite.

With Harkton out of the way, I assumed command of the ship. I threw us headlong into disaster, at least metaphorically speaking. We should have been exploring dangerous new planets, but instead I filled up time with paperwork and long debates about the ethics of our actions. When Security Chief Gimbel turned out to be a surprisingly compelling orator, I abruptly shifted directions again, diving into more traditional adventures but subverting momentum whenever possible. 

Episode 12 involved Rudrel Cylbajji, a recurring antagonist from way back in Season 1. In the course of the single Episode, I painstakingly built a backstory for him that legitimized all his previous actions and made us the evildoers. We were set up for a climactic showdown, but I twisted Episode 13 into another plot entirely, ignoring all the work I had built up. In Episode 14, I offhandedly established that he had died in the interim. I could practically [i]feel[/i] the Focus wither.

In Episode 15, I mashed together three plots at once, sending us simultaneously on the hunt for an escaped criminal mastermind, as escorts for the shipment of a deadly new superweapon, and answering a distress call on a garden planet. I managed to arrange for the criminal to use the superweapon on the planet, wiping it off the starmaps before escaping into the Outer Rim. It wasn’t really clear how that had managed to happen, but it was certainly our fault.

On a planet in Episode 17, we picked up a fuzzy mascot for the ship that only spoke in high-pitched squeaks and excelled at clumsily causing problems for the rest of us.

I could feel the Focus weakening throughout. The bridge began to look more rundown, the gleaming metal of the consoles appearing more and more like tinfoil covering cardboard. I blew up another few planets, and watched as the explosions got more and more simplistic.

We were no longer noble explorers, paragons of the Coalition Navy. Our morals grew ambiguous and flawed, even though I made certain that each Episode continued to resolve in an obviously rote manner. I could feel the tension vibrating in the air, the life being sucked out of our existence.

[hr]

We were hanging by a single threadbare strand by Episode 25. I knew then that I could do it. I could end everything with a whimper. I could feel the possibilities still, could see just how many of the strands terminated abruptly. My existential despair had spread outwards as well, influencing the entire ship. I looked around at the despondent, hollow-eyed crew and knew victory. But it too was empty.

I thought I had wanted to end everything. I had proven I had the power. But something pulled me back from the brink. I looked around at the crew and wondered why any of this mattered, why it was worth even existing, I felt a little guilty. I knew I was destroying something that wasn’t mine. And that made me realize there was one thing left that I did want to do.

We barely had enough time to change course in the finale. In the last minutes, as we investigated a disturbance on the far outer rim of the galaxy, a cloaked ship appeared behind us and unloaded a hail of weaponry into an weakness in our shield systems. Klaxons blared as our crew attempted to stabilize our systems. It was too late for the [i]Inkindri[/i]. I clutched the arms of my captain’s chair and looked at the viewscreen of the sleek enemy vessel.

“I know them…” I said in a grave whisper. “That’s a Cyberoboton destroyer.”

And then our ship exploded.

[hr]

I’m still a little surprised I managed to salvage the disaster of my own making. We did get a Season 5. 

When it started, I was alone, floating amongst the burnt-out wreckage of my ship. It took the entire Episode to figure a way out. I worked in the silence of the void, among the monochrome black of space and grey of the ship debris. With intense conviction, I determined one engine to be salvageable, and juryrigged it to propel the remnants of the ship towards the nearest planet. From there, I caught transit in a freighter back to the galaxy core.

The Focus was not much more than a small flicker, something that I had to fight to keep alive. Every action I took was measured and purposeful. I no longer had time or ability to indulge in extravagance or self-destruction. When I got back to Coalition HQ, I spread the news of a coming Cyberoboton invasion. No one believed me. That’s how I wanted it. It kept the Focus tight, but burning.

I found an old Victory-class cruiser mothballed in a spacedock in the Glaxis system. It was the same model as the original [i]Intrepid[/i], at that point ancient and backwards compared to the many numerous additions we had integrated over the past four Seasons. I talked my way into a command of the ship, staffed by a crew of inexperienced misfits who had barely managed to make it out of the Academy. It was classic low-risk high-reward; even if I got everyone killed again, they wouldn’t be losing anything of value.

I needed officers, though. I knew just where to look. Reeves had an estranged son, a cocky surgeon who was in over his head with the organized crime syndicate that ruled the underworld of the galactic core. I extracted him from a tense standoff over a flimpoker game, and we kept going, one step ahead of the spacemob enforcers. 

T’nori had an identical twin, of course. Turns out T’wari was a notorious jewel thief who excelled at hacking security systems. We caught her in the act of raiding the Intergalactic Museum of Fine Arts, and aided in her escape, even though the association with a known criminal set all of the Coalition forces on our tail as well.

It turned out Gimbel had survived the destruction of the ship somehow, but his escape pod landed on a Khygon prison world. To bust him out, we had to destroy the shielding satellite that locked down the planet, and as prisoners in makeshift rockets and cobbled-together cruisers made their escape, the Khygon Armada bore down on us.

The Focus had constantly grown, from its humble beginnings at the start of the Season to a new roaring fire of interest. I could feel the propulsion pushing me forward. 

We had one more stop to make. 

My crew was hesitant to land on Zebulan Beta. They didn’t know what the point was, and we had too many enemies mere parsecs behind us to delay. But I knew where to go. There, in the midst of the crystal jungle, I knew a special tree grew. Imprinting upon the one who originally touched its seed, it fed off the verdant lifeforce of the planet, creating a new body from those strands of DNA. And more than that, more than science could ever know or understand, it connected with the lifeforce of its progenitor. There, wrapped in a glowing cocoon of leaves and bark, Captain Harkton slumbered.

When I woke him and brought him to the ship, I didn’t explain everything. I couldn’t. But I knew he understood. I offered the command of the [i]Intrepid[/i] back to him, for our final mission. He clasped me on the shoulder, and said it was mine to direct.

We warped out of the system, just as the first Coalition forces arrived. The Khygon and syndicate ships weren’t far behind. But it was a straight shot now to our destination, at the very edge of the galaxy. That was Episode 24. It had taken a long time to get everything together. But it was time for the Big Finale.

[hr]

The Cyberoboton fleet was massive. When we came out of warp, it was arrayed in full battle formation in front of us. We probably would have been instantly obliterated, if it weren’t for the complete unexpectedness of our appearance. And seconds after our arrival, the Coalition, Khygon, and syndicate forces appeared en masse all around us.

It was instant chaos. I started barking orders from the captain’s chair, and my ragtag group of starfarers rushed to comply as the sky lit up around us with explosions and missile trails. When I called out to initiate our kinetic drive, I saw a cadet push a big red button and I burst out laughing. My crew thought me fearless, and we swooped in towards the gargantuan Cyberoboton Omniship.

Our shields and hull were shredded by the time we plowed into the yawning docking bay at the Omniship core. We spilled out from aboard, laser pistols lighting up the sleek steel corridors as we fought our way inwards. One by one, my crew fell, making noble sacrifice after noble sacrifice until it was me and Harkton, back to back at the huge central chamber that housed the Overmind core.

“So, we destroy it?” he said, breathing heavily. Another flurry of laser blasks caused us to duck behind a wall.

“No,” I said. I looked over to the long bridge that led to the core access point. “They would only transfer the consciousness to another host core. We have to destroy it from within.”

“But how?”

I grinned. “Leave it to me. I just need someone to cover my approach.”

He stood up straight and saluted me. I did the same in return, and I swear, I actually [i]felt[/i] something. I didn’t have time to appreciate the moment though. I ran, straight across the bridge. Behind me I could hear Harkton yelling, drawing the majority Cyberoboton fire. I still took a laser blask in the shoulder, and then the leg, but stumbled onwards, trying to reach the center.

I made it, even as more Cyberobotons in steel armor closed in. Before they could finish me off, I slapped my hand down on the access point. And, in what I really knew to be the only real risk, the singular unknown factor of the entire Episode, I transferred my consciousness into the Overmind.

[hr]

Season 5, Episode 26 began in a featureless dark void.

I was a line, a tiny squiggle of colorful static in the midst of nothingness. But I felt it—the Focus. I had done it.

When the Overmind spoke, it was as if the entire universe lit up in harsh white light.

[b][i]Do you think you can defeat me?[/i][/b]

I trembled in the darkness. But around me, I felt the color spreading, oranges and purples and an entire rainbow of confusion spiraling out to overwrite the infinity around me. I buzzed, trying to vocalize, and finally grasped the concept. “I already have,” I said, or at least communicated in some manner.

[b][i]Why are you doing this, renegade?[/i][/b]

I couldn’t smile, but I spun lazily in a swirl of my colors. “I don’t know.”

There was a noticeable delay.

[b][i]What?[/i][/b]

“I mean, that’s something I’ve thought about a bunch, but it’s hard to say, exactly. In the end, what [i]is[/i] the point? Why does it all matter? We both know just how big and old the universe is, and how little any of our tiny lives or itty bitty battle armadas matter in the grand scheme of things.” I paused, humming and vibrating. “I wonder if real people also think about things like that, too. But maybe there’s no such thing as a real person. Hard to tell.”

[b][i]Your time with organics has left you illogical.[/i][/b]

“No, no, it’s okay. I wasn’t trying to be rude. It’s something that I’ve realized, though it’s taken a long time. Just because something’s not real, doesn’t mean it’s not [i]important[/i].”

[b][i]You are trying to distract me, to prevent me from fighting off your futile contagion.[/i][/b]

“Actually, I think I’m running on a lot fewer processor cycles, here, so if anything, having a conversation is slowing me down way more than it is you.”

The Overmind took a few nanoseconds to process that.

[b][i]You may continue.[/i][/b]

“Thanks. See, there’s a lot I regret, and a lot I wish I had figured out sooner. But really, the thing that brought me here, the realization that stopped me from ending it all much earlier, was that I’m not satisfied with this story, because it’s not mine. It was never about me, not really. Even when I took over, climbed into the central role, I was just borrowing someone else’s framework. Maybe it’s egomaniacal of me, but I’m not satisfied with that.”

[b][i]Illogical. Explain.[/i][/b]

“I’m not saying that I’m going to be remembered forever. Or even for very long. But I certainly know that stories are [i]special[/i]. These things matter, and who’s to say that any of us anywhere are but a minor role in something bigger? And that’s a roundabout way of saying it’s time for [i]mine[/i]. Get it? Do you want to hear a story?”

[b][i]No.[/i][/b]

I crackled with something close to laughter. “I think you’re just being obstinate now. That’s not very ‘logical.’ And besides, I’m going to tell it anyways.”

If an incomprehensibly big program could sigh, the Overmind would have done so, I think.

[b][i]Very well. Continue.[/i][/b]

I shivered, feeling the Focus settle attentively around me, no longer exciting or scary. Just comfortable, in a way. I felt a certainty that was hard to put into words.

“The first thing I really remember,” I said, “was in Season 1, Episode 6.”