"You would've had a really bad time in court martial." I told her. "You killed an unarmed engineer!"
"Luckily for me, court martials are no more." Mei said.
"And so are your morals, it seems like..."
"I panicked, okay!? There is only so much we could do in that situation!" Mei argued. "We can fight each other later, what is done is done. Tell me, what do we do next?"
"Okay..." I said, examining the engineering room. "Let's try to find the emergency overrides for automated systems, and an internal ship layout, so we can find our way around."
"Sure thing." Mei said. "At least they were kind enough to label everything."
"Here." I said, while reaching a knob to turn it. All of the doors in the warship were closed and locked.
"This should buy us some more time." I said.
"It would surely help if we knew where the people actually are." Mei said. "There are maps, but no monitoring stations or whatever."
"We have to manage a lot of people." I said. "We can't fight all of these people, but we must find a way to get the controls."
"What do you propose?"
"We could force quite a lot of them to stay away from the ship's bridge if we rearranged the nuclear reactor's radiation shields." I said.
"But then, how are we going to get to the bridge?" Mei asked.
"Hmm... Good point." I said. "Let's force everyone to leave the bridge first. I will cut the air supply to that area, and unlock only the necessary doors. We will wait for a few minutes until everyone is out."
"...or dead." Mei added.
Sirens started wailing when I used the overrides to disengage automated life support systems in order to perform dangerous actions.
"Timing will be important." I said. "Mei, I need you to get to the bridge as I move the radiation shields. No one should be able to follow you."
"You will be stuck in the engineering." Mei said.
"Once you get to the bridge, see if you can move the radiation shields from over there. If you can, make me a way to pass through safely." I said. "If done right, after this operation, we should be the only ones on the bridge."
"Okay." said Mei.
"Wait." I said. "Take an engineer hazard suit. There will be no air on the bridge when you arrive."
"Alright."
"Be safe out there."
Mei left the engineering deck and started to make her way towards the bridge. I moved the radiation shields of the ship's nuclear power plant to allow some radiation to leak out and focus towards certain directions. This triggered radiation alerts on some decks, keeping people away from approaching Mei's position.
Once she arrived on the bridge, she turned the lights on and off a few times to signal me, which I could see on the computers of the engineering deck. I then switched the bridge's air supply to automatic again.
This time, I handed the control of the radiation shields to Mei. She created a path for me to get to the bridge, and then trapped us inside by carefully arranging the shields to form a radiation field around us, as well as the engineering deck. This way, no one would be able to get to either the engineering deck or the bridge.
We were now in control of the warship.
"Attention! Admiral on the bridge!" Mei played the role of an XO to cheer me up while I was walking into the bridge.
"Mei!" I said in excitement. "This is a warship!"
"I know what a warship is, thank you." she said. "Why are you so excited? Is it because you are finally back in your natural habitat after all that time?"
"No, you don't understand." I said. "This is the single warship which supposedly survived the AI apocalypse. This is the single most powerful vessel in human space. With this, we can challenge any so-called state in the trans-Neptunian region!"
"What are you getting at?" Mei asked. "We are not going to be outlaw pirates. At least I am not going to be..."
"No, no." I said. "We will be the law! Think of it, we can unite the remainders of the human civilization and start working towards our plans to reclaim the Solar System!"
"How? By threatening them with nuclear missiles if they refuse to join us?"
"No, it sounds evil when you put it like that... I mean- ugh." I stuttered for a while. Mei was looking at me, slightly disgusted. "Look." I said. "We will have to gather materials. Let's contact the cargo fleets of the Imperium first, and convince them to join us."
"Then what?"
"Material wealth is everything here, in the post apocalyptic civilization. The more stuff you have, the more people will follow you. And besides, I am a former president, so I hope I still have some political weight here and there..."
"So... huh." Mei paused. "You are trying to resurrect the Republic of Mars?"
"Not exactly Mars, since we lost it already." I said. "But maybe the, umm... Let's say the Republic of... uhh..."
"The Republic of People Who Will Take Earth Back From Evil Robot Overlords?"
"Something along those lines, but a bit shorter preferably." I laughed.
"Count me in as the first citizen of this new republic then." she said. "Let's get to work."
"Okay. First things first, let's fly closer towards the mining fleet of the Imperium. They wouldn't dare oppose us."
"Won't we do anything about the Imperium and Order troops onboard?" Mei asked. "They won't be able to come close to us thanks to the radiation zones we created, but they can create problems still."
"I suggest we let them figure things out on their own for now." I said. "Both sides are inexperienced, and they don't really outnumber each other by a large margin. If you ask me, they will be fighting for a while."
"So be it." Mei said. "Then we should be able to deal with whoever survives."
"Exactly."