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Stepping over a pile of dead Fighters, security officer Jack Brice held down the trigger on his fusion pistol. Its high-pitched whine was drowned out by yet another troop of Fighters headed his way.
The pistol was aimed at a Hunter behind the troop and just as he released the trigger, the razor-sharp edge of a Fighter's shock staff pierced his side. The charged fusion bolt missed the Hunter's head about a good three inches.
Furiously, he looked back at the Fighter and bashed its chitinous face in with the butt of his pistol. How'd he miss that one? It must've been smart and played dead. Not smart enough to stay down though.
A howl rang out from behind and the Hunter was suddenly front and center. It swiped its bladed arm his way, knocking the gun out of his hand. It then delivered a one-two punch to his stomach and face.
He took a few steps back, whispering a stream of angry swears, and dodged another Fighter's shock staff, close enough that the electricity made the hair on the back of his neck raise. He took it by the insulated handle and yanked it out of the alien's hands, tearing its arm out from its socket in the process. He then spun around, knocking over the small group of Fighters with it before forcing the blade through a gap in the Hunter's chestplate. With a sick smile, he activated the staff and watched as it was cooked from the inside out.
When the now-sizzling alien slumped backward, he planted a boot onto its stomach to pull the bloodied blade out and held off the rest. He took a few steps back to where his fusion pistol was knocked away. In one smooth motion, he kicked the gun into the air, threw the staff between a Fighter's three eyes, snatched the gun from midair and fired a charged shot at the second approaching Hunter, the resulting explosion took the remaining aliens with it.
Then, he finally released his held breath and wiped his forehead, spinning the pistol's trigger guard around his finger before holstering it.
"Impressive as always." Durandal's voice echoed down from the sky, truly emulating his god-like nature. "I always seem to forget how entertaining it is to watch you do your job. I should have made some popcorn."
Jack removed his helmet and fixed his hair, then turned his head towards the sky with a smirk. "Time?"
"Six minutes and forty-seven seconds." The AI said. "That's in your top five. Good job."
The alien wasteland and many-mooned skyline slowly faded away with the alien corpses, leaving behind a stark-white room.
Jack placed the fusion pistol in a special compartment that Durandal had opened for him. "Keep complimenting me and I'll develop a complex." He chuckled and had to quickly pull his hand away as the compartment's door shut a little too fast in response.
Holographic training rooms were standard issue in all Pfhor battleships and corvettes. Its original purpose was just that: training. Can't be a powerful, galaxy-spanning race of zealous tyrant slavers without proper and consistent training, after all.
Jack used it to keep himself sharp during long lulls between missions, as well as let off steam that inevitably builds up when you spend your life under the command of an insufferably snarky AI with a god complex.
It also had a use in testing weapon prototypes, such as the new fusion pistol design Durandal had been experimenting with for the past few weeks. Apparently it had less kickback and a shorter charge time, but Jack really didn't see any difference from the ones he'd been using since Lh'owon, especially when a Hunter was glaring down at him. Hologram be damned, those things packed a bigger punch than the physical ones.
"If you didn't let that Hunter disarm you, you probably would've broke a new record. Real sloppy work there." Durandal said, then tsked disappointingly.
"Hey." Jack stepped out of the training room and headed for his quarters. "That's better."
"Also, you seemed to completely miss the point of why I called for you in the first place. I wanted to study my new gun, not watch you beat up a bunch of bugs with a stick."
"Alright, alright." He yawned as he entered his quarters and made a bee-line for his shower, tossing his helmet onto his bed as he passed.
While the dirt and alien blood had thankfully just been part of the simulation and disappeared when it was over, the layer of sweat on him wasn't. He stripped down and tossed his clothes into a corner of his bathroom.
He stood in the shower and enjoyed the warm water against his face for a quick minute before turning away and looking at the terminal that doubled as his bathroom mirror. "Y'know, you really can't blame me for improvising at the end there. I know you've been tinkering with the difficulty, because those Hunters weren't as aggressive last time I was in there."
"I may or may not have added another level of difficulty or two while you were asleep last night." Durandal admitted in a sly tone.
Jack gave a dramatic sigh and shook his head while he began to clean himself. "Of course you did."
An indignant scoff crackled out of the speakers. "I needed as much information as possible for the prototype, don't go yelling at me because you can't handle a challenge."
"I probably could have if you warned me first!"
"Kind of defeats the purpose of a blind test if I tell you what the test is, now doesn't it?" The AI added smugly.
He stepped under the shower head to rinse the soap out of his hair, but not before muttering under his breath. "Asshole."
Instantly, the water went from a soothing warm spray to well below freezing, eliciting a high-pitched yelp from the security officer. One that was no doubt recorded for use in future insults.
It had been twenty-five years since the fight at Lh'owon. A quarter of a century of interstellar travel, going to god knows how many worlds, fighting off Pfhor and finding Jjaro technology. Lather, rinse, repeat. All in the name of Durandal's end goal of escaping the collapse of the universe.
To say there was never a boring moment on the ship would be a bold-faced lie, but it was either this or spend the time between missions in stasis, so Jack picked the less boring option. Couldn't even dream in those things.
Now, Durandal wasn't a heartless captain. Whenever the ship needed refueled or restocked, he'd grant Jack a few days of shore leave on whatever world they found themselves parked at. Give him time to stretch his legs, chat with the locals, forget a night at the local bar. All that seemingly pointless nonsense that social animals apparently required.
The first few years of their travels together, Durandal kept very close tabs on him at all times when he'd leave, convinced that the second he'd take his eyes off him, Jack would have commandeered a vessel and hightailed it back to Sol.
Without fail, he'd return to the ship the morning they were due to depart. Sometimes he was a little worse for wear, hungover and crabby, but always happy to be back home. Either Durandal had truly broken him or it was genuine respect. The AI didn't know what was worse.
He'd never hear the end of it if he said it out loud, but Jack could admit that working for Durandal wasn't all that bad. At least not nearly as bad as it was when the two reluctantly worked together on the Marathon. His current behavior compared to back then was like night and day. His plans were much more thought out and safe, no longer just 'shoot first and ask questions never'. Best of all, he stopped holding his cards to his chest and always gave Jack thorough instructions.
Jack could only guess that since the seventeen year trip between Tau Ceti and Lh'owon was enough time for Durandal's Rampancy to meta-stabilize, it was also enough time for him to take responsibility for everything he'd done to the innocent people of the colony and to be more careful going forward. Not only for his sake, but for the people under his command.
It was the confession Durandal gave not long after the security officer was released from cryosleep that gave Jack this idea. He ranted about how much he hated humans while in the same breath admitted he willingly warned Earth of the Pfhor and gave them technology to help fight them off.
The selfish, impulsive and vengeful Durandal back on the Marathon wouldn't have done any of those things.
Jack took one last look at his freshly shaven face in the mirrored terminal screen before splashing it with water to rinse it off.
"I have no idea why you even bother doing that. It's not like I've ever imposed a dress code. The S'pht don't even understand the concept of growing hair." Durandal chimed in.
He gave the terminal an irritated glance as he rinsed off his razor. "Because if I let it grow out, you'd just call me a caveman." He tossed the razor into the dish with his other toiletries. "Start teleporting down pointy sticks and rocks for me to fight with."
That got the AI to let out a tiny chuckle.
He leaned into the screen, inspecting the hair on his temples and gave out a short, worried groan.
"What's wrong?" Durandal asked.
He poked at the offending hair and then turned to show it to the terminal's camera. "Are my eyes playing tricks on me or is that grey?"
"Well, you are over three hundred years old. Was only a matter of time."
He checked his other temple and sure enough, that side was even more grey. "Stasis doesn't count."
"Sure. Then that makes you..." There was a split second while Durandal calculated. "Approximately sixty-seven point two years old."
Jack groaned again. "Like that's any better."
He didn't look sixty years old, in fact, he barely looked a day over forty. There were many factors that were responsible for this, the big one being his cybernetics. If he truly had to, he could blame the greying hair and wrinkles around his eyes on stress. He certainly got enough of that around here to justify it.
"Hey." Durandal's voice was oddly sympathetic. "You're a damn fine fighter for a sexagenarian, I have to give you that."
He laughed at that. "Thanks. And you know what?" He took a step back to fully take in his reflection. "I think it makes me look distinguished."
"I think that's what the kids these days call 'old'."
He rolled his eyes and walked out of the bathroom. "Like you have any room to talk. You can't use stasis as an excuse like I can, so if anyone's old, it's you, grandpa."
"AI don't age, I've told you before." Durandal flaunted, switching to different speakers to keep up with Jack as he headed down one of the ship's halls. "I'll be here forever."
Jack passed a group of S'pht. They all greeted him with a cheerful chirp and he returned the greeting before returning his attention to the ceiling. "God help the poor bastard who's gonna be doing my job ten thousand years from now." He joked.
He stopped in the middle of the hall and looked out one of the massive windows. Distant stars whizzed by so fast they were more like brief streaks of white. He had stopped asking Durandal when and where their next destination was a long time ago. Their routine hadn't changed in over two decades, so why would it change now?
Something didn't feel right, Durandal had been quiet for a little too long. Jack was at least expecting a snide remark about bringing up God to a god-like entity, but... nothing. Was this hallway speaker on the fritz?
He turned up to the ceiling. "Durandal?" He asked to be sure.
Nothing.
Guess he had other matters to take care of.
Jack just gave a little hum and continued down the hall.
They may have just been simulations, but the sickening crunch of a holographic Pfhor's skull against cybernetically enhanced knuckles was just as satisfying as the genuine article.
"Okay, time out." Jack called out and the group of Fighters froze in their tracks, as did the dust kicked up by their scuffle.
He took in a much needed breath and headed over to a rock where he kept his belongings. He wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and took a drink from his water bottle. It was nearing the two-hour mark now and exhaustion was starting to slow him down, but like there was fuck all else to do.
Durandal had been rather quiet lately, ever since their little chat three days ago. Jack had trouble remembering what they were even talking about. The two were having one of their regular bullshit sessions when he just up and went somewhere else in the ship's network.
Since then, anytime he'd try to drum up conversation, it was always the same response: a firm, although not angry, "I'm busy".
Durandal was rarely ever busy between star systems, at least busy enough that he couldn't make time to chat. It was during their missions where they had to cut their banter to the bare minimum. The AI had his metaphorical hands full going over information Jack was finding, teleporting ammunition down to him and keeping track of any incoming bogeys. Their violent encounter with Battle Group Seven had taught Durandal to keep his eyes to the sky.
If anything, Durandal was the one bothering Jack during their free time. Constantly spying on him at all hours of the day (which he had gotten used to a little too quickly than he'd like to admit), sharing what must have been dozens of terabytes worth of information about eighth century France and the Holy Roman Empire, dragging him away from whatever he was doing to have him test new weapons.
Oh, wait, that's right. That's what he was doing before all this happened. Was it the gun? Was he busy working on his prototype?
Whatever the AI's deal was, Jack knew better than to confront him about it, lest he be properly introduced to the cold, unfeeling vacuum of space.
So he'd let Durandal sort his own shit out and used this unexpected moment of peace to sharpen his skills a bit more in the hologram chamber. It'd been a long while since he fought with just his fists so he kept his guns and most of his armor in his quarters this time.
Plus, he needed the stress relief.
He returned to where the Pfhor holograms were and took in a deep breath. "Alright, continue." And the fight resumed. He ducked under swiping staffs and shock blasts, tearing through the Fighters like tissue paper.
Was it something he said? No, if that was the case, he probably wouldn't be standing here. So what was Durandal's problem? Why did he shut himself away? It actually pissed him off thinking that twenty years back, he would've done anything to shut the guy up for even a fraction of a second and now he just wants him to talk so things could go back to normal.
The last Fighter's skull explodes into grey matter and greenish-yellow blood against Jack's knuckles.
This wasn't doing it for him. He needed a proper distraction.
"Increase difficulty." He instructed and winced when the training computer buzzed.
"Training program already at maximum difficulty: Total Carnage." It said in a stilted tone.
He grumbled lowly. "Fine. Increase number of Pfhor Major Fighters by fifteen. Increase Pfhor Hunter Captains by three."
He expected the next noise from the system: a dreadful sounding tone. Turning back to the rock, he retrieved a data pad.
"Warning: This action may lead to grave injury or death. The Rozinante and its staff are not responsible for any and all injuries or casualties that may occur as a result of this action. Passcode required."
He then rattled off a long list of random letters and numbers from the data pad. He'd have to thank F'tha later for pulling that passcode out of the sea of data in the ship. Hopefully, they wouldn't face any consequences from Durandal if he finds out. He'd happily take the bullet (or vacuum) for them if the need arises.
With the last digit, the computer made a much more pleasant chime, signaling that his command was granted. A large troop of Fighters appeared from thin air as well as a few tall blue Hunters, towering over the other aliens.
"Continue." He told the computer and all at once the army's worth of Fighters charged at him.
The fight became a blur of blue and purple armored aliens and bright blue shock staffs. He wasn't even paying attention to what he was attacking anymore, anything that moved was given a swift punch.
A Hunter roared above him and its shoulder cannon glowed green. He dodged just in time, the blast taking out some of the Fighters instead. As he fell to the floor, several Fighters surrounded him and began jabbing him with their staffs. Screaming every swear word in the English language (as well as a few Pfhoric ones that he'd picked up from unfortunate victims over the years), he grabbed one of the aliens by their ankle and pulled them to the ground, causing enough of a distraction for him to get up and take a few steps back.
The Fighters all stood in formation, ready to charge again, so he cracked his knuckles and made the first move.
The entire simulation suddenly went still, Jack's fist connected into a Fighter's cheek with the same effect as punching a panel of steel. He pulled his hand into his chest with a loud hiss.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Durandal's voice called out over the chamber's speaker system with the tone of a parent finding their child elbow-deep in a cookie jar. The simulated landscape and troops slowly vanished.
Jack shook the pain out of his hand and glared at the ceiling. "Well, I was training. But now I'm nursing a broken hand."
"Really? Training?" Durandal scoffed. "Looks to me like you're getting yourself killed. Where are your weapons? Your armor?"
"What are you doing here? Aren't you 'busy'?" He had to admit, he sounded really bitchy right now, but how couldn't he? This was the first time in over seventy-two hours that this bastard of a personality construct had actually given him the time of day and it was just to scold him.
"One: I own this ship, I can go wherever I want and two: Someone knew a code they shouldn't have so I scoured the network, hoping we weren't being hacked... and I find you."
"I needed a challenge." He knew for a fact that any excuse he could've given him wouldn't have worked. They knew each other too well.
"A CHALLENGE?" Durandal's voice raised, offended and furious. Jack hadn't heard him this angry in quite a while, much more so with that anger directed towards him, and it started to worry him. Could AI revert back to a previous Rampant state? "Oh, I'm SO sorry my simulations weren't up to your standards, Mr. One Man Army. Should I program an entire fleet of Juggernauts for you?"
"No."
He grumbled at that. "That's not enough of a challenge for you? Okay, then. I cou--"
"I'm sorry."
That stopped Durandal mid-sentence. He was suddenly silent and Jack wondered if he'd left again.
"I was stupid." He continued regardless. "I was bored and stupid. I'm sorry."
He could hear the low hum of the ship's bio-scanner.
"You don't have any serious injuries, so," Durandal's voice was now small and quiet. "Get hydrated and rest up."
"Can you please tell me what--" Jack started, but the lights in the chamber shut off, signaling the AI's departure. That really didn't stop Durandal from hearing everything he had to say, but he probably wasn't going to give him an answer.
For the sake of his sanity and lessen the risk of being jettisoned out into space out of spite, Jack spent the entire next day holed up in his quarters. In lieu of going back to the hologram chamber, as it was apparently "down for maintenance" a.k.a. "your little stunt just got you cut off until future notice", he fell back on one of his other stress relief methods: cleaning his guns.
He got to do something with his hands that wasn't crushing alien skulls into paste and it required every ounce of his concentration, lest he misplace a piece and the whole thing falls apart in his hands next time he's face-to-face with a Hunter. Who knew something relating to guns could be so meditative?
He really needed a hobby that didn't get you put on a galaxy's most-wanted list.
After the incident in the hologram chamber, Jack hadn't heard anything from Durandal, he must've dug himself further into whatever was keeping him 'busy'.
They'd had fights in the past. It was inevitable. After all, the two had been stuck on this ship together for twenty-five years. Said ship may be the size of a small city, but with Durandal literally part of its network, he could never really escape him. Their previous spats had never lasted this long, a day and a half at most. It usually ended with a practical joke on Durandal's part as a means to try and clear the air. Like having the doors only open if Jack asked nicely in fluent French or switching his workout playlist to forty straight hours of dreadfully boring podcasts about life in ancient Greece. They'd laugh and carry on with their lives.
It had been almost five days of the silent treatment and with how much Durandal likes to talk, that was practically a lifetime.
He secured the last screw in place on one of his magnums and aimed at the far wall, looking down the scope. Pleased with his work, he set the gun down with the others and grabbed one of his shotguns.
He made quick work disassembling it, admiring the handiwork that went into reverse-engineering the weapon from old files taken from the Marathon. Durandal had always been proud of this gun and while he was rarely given enough ammunition to truly show off its brutality, Jack considered it his favorite.
His mind began to wander again as he started cleaning the barrels.
He couldn't quite pin down the precise moment he and Durandal's relationship became more than kidnapper and kidnappee and after that, more than captain and security officer. When Jack could, without any hesitation, consider the AI a friend.
Maybe it was when Durandal teleported him aboard the newly-christened Rozinante and got out of the Lh'owon system as quickly as possible before its sun went supernova. He saved his life, but Jack assumed that Durandal only considered it "protecting his property" at the time.
Maybe it was when the Rozinante's life support went out and Durandal put him in charge of finding a drive from a scrapped Pfhor corvette. Durandal could've just let Jack die from asphyxiation, he certainly didn't need the oxygen. He went off course and delayed his mission by days just to keep him alive.
Maybe it was when Durandal put his life in Jack's hands. Not wanting to end up like Leela: torn apart and stored away in a containment unit to be tortured by his eternally-grumpy brother at a later date, he begged for a merciful death. With a little hesitation and a lot of aliens to fight along the way, Jack granted him that. Sure, it had all been an act in the end, but the sentiment was still there.
Whatever and whenever that was didn't really matter. All he knew was he wouldn't be stressed out right now if he didn't care about the jerk, but he did, and god was that hard for him to admit.
With an infuriated groan, he roughly set down the half-assembled shotgun and held his forehead. If he couldn't even focus on something as basic as cleaning his weapons, then what other options did he have to distract himself? He supposed he could find some off-duty S'pht to chat with, but even they could sense the tension between the two of them, so it was more than likely they'd bring it up.
The terminal in his room chirped. For a second, he thought it was one of the S'pht asking for assistance in another part of the ship or just one of the dozens of daily automated messages the ship liked to spout.
When he looked up at the screen and saw a green logo, he could only blink in surprise. Speak of the devil.
Too far away from the screen to activate it by touch, he instead called out. "Hey, Durandal." He tried to sound as calm and collected as possible, biting back the 'what's the matter, why are you ignoring me, do you hate me' to avoid sounding like a jilted spouse.
Oh god, is that what their relationship had become over the years?
"I need you in the hologram chamber. Ten minutes." Durandal said tersely and the screen shut off before giving him time for a response.
Jack nodded at the terminal anyway and got up from his seat. He wiped the gun oil off his hands and began putting away his things. He'd put the shotgun back together whenever he got back.
He said ten minutes, but it only took Jack half the time to get there. He blamed his boredom for the way he rushed down the halls and not the nagging concern in the back of his mind. When he stepped inside the chamber, he was surprised to see it was bare. Usually when Durandal calls him to test prototypes, he already has a simulation up for him to use.
"So." He started, hoping the AI was listening. "Get all the kinks worked out of your fusion prototype?"
"No. I was working on something else." Durandal said. "But the same problem keeps popping up. I can get this to work, the logic is sound, but--"
Jack hated whenever Durandal did this. Call him over just to keep him out of the loop. "What's your idea?"
"Helping you escape your own fate."
Jack narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What are you talking about?" Realization then hit him hard and fast. "W-wait a minute, is that what this has been all about?"
Durandal's voice was rather somber as he explained, blatantly ignoring his second question. "I said it before. My limit is the closure of the universe, yours is the breakdown of your physical body. Each is its own form of entropy, and while I'm still working on mine, I have found a solution to yours."
It was a lot to take in and Jack found himself speechless. So, Durandal continued.
"Unfortunately, you may not like the outcome." The terminal showed a picture of one of the many pattern buffers on board the ship. "Using the pattern buffers, I can replicate your brain's electrochemical patterns and instead of reconstructing a physical form, I can store them in my main core. You'll be as close to an artificial intelligence as I can make without the UESC's technology. We'll have to share a room for the rest of eternity, but... if we managed to share a ship for a quarter of a century, I don't think we'll have to break out the tape to mark your side and my side."
More silence, but Durandal didn't try and fill it this time.
Jack took a step towards the terminal and his voice softened. "Are... you worried about me dying?"
"Of course not." Durandal answered a little too quickly. "But, I'm sure you are and to cut back on any future whining I'd no doubt hear from you about your puny lifespan, I came up with an alternative." The humor in his voice was so false that it was more sad than anything.
"I'm not afraid of dying." He countered. "Never was."
"Oh." The outlines of Durandal's plan blinked off the terminal, replaced with his symbol. "Well, the option's there if you ever change your mind."
Jack swallowed nervously, honestly not liking this plan of his in the slightest. "So... I'll be without a body. Stuck in a machine until the universe collapses and then beyond that?"
"Hence the problem that keeps popping up." Durandal sighed. "I wouldn't force this option on you. I couldn't. Because despite how things started out when we first met, your freedom is just as important as my own."
Jack's heart sunk like a stone and he shook his head. "I... I don't think I'd want that."
"I had a feeling you wouldn't." The hologram chamber started to whir. "So, I came up with a last minute Plan B. And I hate it almost as much as Plan A. Since we can't spend eternity exploring the stars together like I had hoped--"
There was a flash as the chamber generated a form. A lean man wearing a complex suit of medieval-style armor stood before him.
"--Maybe I could meet you halfway and experience whatever remaining time you have with me on your terms." The man said with Durandal's voice.
Jack couldn't help but smile, holding back a laugh in case he'd get punched, those gauntlets looked pretty heavy. He took a step towards the man. "Durandal? Is that--"
"Yes." The man grumbled. "And I hate it. I absolutely hate this with every single fiber of my being."
He took a closer look at the human Durandal. His thick, swept back hair was a sandy blonde color. The armor he wore was quite fitting, as was the bright red cape behind him. A sword sat on his left hip and that put him a bit on edge. He left all his guns in his quarters, hopefully he wasn't planning on a duel in here. The Marathon's insignia, which the AI had appropriated as his own over time, were painted on both of his pauldrons in a shade of bright green.
What stood out the most were his eyes. They were an unnatural shade of bright green and gave off a dim glow, even under the bright lights of the chamber. It was possibly the only thing that broke the illusion of him not being human.
Jack stood back to take in the sight fully. A medieval knight in the 29th century, who would have guessed. "Well, I like it. It suits you."
Durandal's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't ever say that again. I'm compromising with you, so you better be happy. Thankfully there's a bit of good news out of this: this form is restricted to this room only and now I can physically hit you." He emphasized this by slugging Jack in the arm.
Jack could not hold back the tiny snicker that made his shoulders shake. Even with all that armor and Jack wearing nothing but a t-shirt and sweatpants, Durandal's punch felt more like a crumpled paper ball was tossed at his arm at full force. He sure hoped he was holding back because if not, that new body of his would be torn to shreds if they were to use this room for its intended purpose.
That gave him an idea.
"You know this chamber can be used for more than just training? We can go wherever we want. Like--" He spun around to the terminal and scrolled through some options for a few seconds.
The chamber changed to a red desert, a massive city sat on the horizon. Dozens of quaint dome-shaped homes were around them. The two were standing directly in front of one.
"--My home. Well... the closest approximation to my home, anyway, but..." He trailed off and gave a short, nervous chuckle. Durandal glanced around the simulation with a curious look on his face.
It was weird to think of Durandal having a face, but Jack had seen weirder things in the past quarter-century. He'll get used to it.
"This is how you'd want to spend time here? Hanging out like two old friends?"
Jack looked at him with a baffled smile. "Wait, we aren't old friends? News to me."
Durandal was silent and this time the perks of being an incorporeal god-like entity weren't here to hide his embarrassed expression. "I mean, yes, I guess you could consider us friends." He cleared his throat and placed his hand on his sword. "I just assumed you'd like to spar. I might be more of a 'disintegrate you from orbit with a giant particle beam' kind of guy, but I've been watching you fight for a while now. I think I could handle a little physical combat. You know, before your body gives out. Then we can give the whole 'hang out together in the hologram chamber' thing a shot."
"You talk about me aging like I'm going to keel over any minute." Jack tried to assure him and placed a hand on his pauldron. "I'm not dying anytime soon."
"Then explain the other night here." Durandal grunted. "If I hadn't detected that safety override, you'd be nothing but a stain on this floor."
Jack removed his hand and took a step back, giving him some space. "I'm sorry about that. I needed a decent challenge to distract myself. I was worried about you."
The AI gave a confused stare. "Why would you have to worry about me? It's you with a short shelf-life."
"You weren't talking to me." Jack explained. "I thought I did something wrong and I had no idea what. So, I came in here to get my mind off it and I just couldn't. So, I got stupid and found a better distraction."
"By pushing yourself to the absolute max without someone to watch over you." A smug smile crossed Durandal's face. "That was very stupid of you. Your words, not mine."
Jack smiled back and started to walk towards his childhood home. "Yeah. It won't happen again. I promise."
"Because you'll be dead. Either by the simulations... or by me." Durandal followed him.
"Hey, death is natural, buddy." Jack pressed his luck by wrapping an arm over Durandal's shoulders while they entered the house. To his surprise, he wasn't shoved away. "It's normal to be scared of it, but everything's gonna end sooner or later."
"Well, not if my mission is successful."
"It's the one thing we all have in common. Humans, AI, S'pht, Pfhor. Even the Jjaro had to die. The universe will, too."