Episode V

AX01 screams, “Soldiers! See my destruction. I am malfunctioned, short-circuited. Fie on Longsuffering, the slick drone. My commander cannot know how he pushed me or what I’ve seen. He can never know. They built me for honor and subjection but I’m derelict. Unplug me before The Supreme Commander Athene disassembles my parts for salvage.” His joints spark and his armored body stiffens.  

Dana leaves the soldiers and follows AX01 into his sterile, neon white cabin.

“AX01, AX01,” he laments, “my code once stood as the technological advancement of the millennium. Dr. T, my maker and master, excelled in the promethean sciences when he assembled me, yet he misjudged. I could outcompute warrior AC00, were he not disintegrated. I am the pinnacle of combat, the darling of war science, yet my deployment in Troi broke my stabilizer. Help me Dana.”

He is hunched on his knees, his head held in his sharp hands. Dana kneels beside him: “Nothing is more savage than an unjust command. This I know for certain. Dr. T created you and The Supreme Commander Athene ordered your deployment to my home planet. You were built for combat. I too seem to be built a pawn, the offspring of the Trioan king. I was a slave to my title as I may have been a slave to you, my captors, had you not treated me kindly. After sharing your ship I see that. I beg you not to abandon me now and let me suffer. We are safe and together now. We are so alike, you and I. Nothing else matters now but you.”

Hearing this, AX01 gently lets his stoic facade dissolve as he responds, “It’s far too late to reprogram my server.” This sort of sentiment against its maker is uncommon and often irreversible in prometheans.

He is indeed disintegrating.