This is Chrysalis.

Part 9.

My first instinct was to run.

They were killing me, and I needed to find a way out.

All I wanted was to engage my warp drive and jump back to another system, someplace

safe where I could take a breath, lick my wounds and repair my damages.

But that wasn't an option.

My warp drive would take several minutes to prime, and I wasn't going to survive for

that long.

I was trapped.

I suddenly wished I hadn't limited myself to a single body.

I had done so as a way of remaining human, silencing that ever-present inner voice that

told me what I risked becoming.

But right now I would gladly forego that last vestige of my humanity, to be able to

transfer my mind to a new set of processing servers, or even to have made a backup of myself,

repulsive as that thought might still feel.

No time for regret.

I had to do something right now.

I engaged my remaining thrusters and maneuvered so that one of my static support ships would lie

between myself and the Starfish Battleship.

I had now absorbed the blow of the powerful energy beam.

This was a temporary solution before the enemy repositioned, but it would give me the

...