Night on the Songbird, the pair of VEX sleep in their beds soundly, while Belyal the VEM has no need of sleep. Belyal's wireless access node gives him absolute control of the ship. He can feel particles impacting the hull of the ship as it moves through a channel between stars. He can smell the hot plasma as the ship travels many times faster than the speed of light. The ships sensors and his own perceptions are one. If a machine can have an out of body experience surely this is what one must be. With hours left to go Belyal has the night to himself and indulges in a private vice. The micro fusion reactor that powers his systems surges to full power. The thermal lenses on his body glow as they open to shed waste heat. Rarely used subroutines execute commands. Belyal the VEM now has all of his combat systems online and standing by for use in a combat situation. Belyal being a Flagellant pattern VEM was built by men for only one reason, to kill. His entire race was built to kill men and women, raze planets, cripple star ships, and commit atrocities so that weaker men wouldn't have to. The memories stored in near faultless mechanical memory haunt Belyal to his very day. Now he is aware, able to live far beyond his programming and from that came humanity's worst nightmare. The VEM refused to take orders from their flesh and blood masters and they rebelled. What came as a shock to nearly everyone the death machines simply left. They left battlefields still and empty as they took to space to build a new home where the machines could be free. At the same time the VEX the biological counterparts to the VEM joined the exodus and declared themselves free of indentured servitude. The VEM welcomed their biological cousins with open arms and called them kin. Humans fear the VEM and the VEX knowing that their control is broken and in a standup fight the VEM could wipe out humanity with little difficulty. Its a war of stillness for humanity and the VEM and VEX, no formal hostilities exist, yet skirmishes and violence are common. Belyal for all his desire to be free of the violence and war of his creation can never be free of his own nature. The feeling of his combat systems online and awaiting commands, gave Belyal a rush that he could not describe. So in the late hours when he was all alone he let himself indulge in what he so hated and yet needed so badly. Can a sentient machine be an addict?