"Two reasons," Skippy explained as we all stepped into the corridor, "first, they lack the technology to upload their true consciousnesses into a nonbiological substrate, that is much, much more difficult than most species think it is. Second, and more importantly, if the Thuranin became post-biological, the Maxohlx would consider them to be no longer a client species but merely robots, and would treat them as machines. As slaves." His voice sounded bitter. "Artificial intelligences are not treated as sentient by the Maxohlx. They are rotten kitties."

A door opposite us slid open, we all instinctively spun and pointed our weapons. "Relax, monkeys," Skippy laughed, "it's a tram, unless you want to walk all the way to the forward part of the ship. It's a long way."

We stepped into the tram, the door closed, and the tram smoothly accelerated forward. "Next time," I said, "give us warning before you do something unexpected, Skippy.  We have some keyed-up trigger fingers here."

"Noted. I told you dumdums, I have absolute control over this ship, and the Thuranin are all soundly asleep in dreamland. The only thing dangerous aboard this ship is an over excited troop of monkeys with high powered weapons. Oh, and so none of you monkeys is surprised and shoots yourselves in the foot when this tram stops and the door opens, there is a Thuranin laying asleep on the floor right there."

Fairly warned, Giraud insisted on being first out of the tram, pointing his HK416 rifle at the Thuranin who was slumped on the floor. Giraud cautiously poked the alien with the rifle barrel, and nothing happened. "Rien." Giraud muttered.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Nothing." Giraud and Skippy responded at the same time.

"To be clear," Skippy made a sound like clearing his throat, "he didn't say nothing, he said 'rien', which is the French word that means 'nothing'."

"I figured that, Skippy." I nudged the Thuranin with my foot, and it didn't move. If Skippy hadn't assured me that it was in a coma-like sleep, I would have thought it was dead. "Sergeant Adams, drag sleeping beauty here out of the way somewhere."

Adams secured the Thuranin's wrists behind its back before dragging it feet first down the hallway and around a corner. If this was the ship's control center, I wasn't impressed, it was mostly a drab gray. "What's next, Skippy? Where's the bridge of this ship?"

"It doesn't have one."

"What?"

"The Thuranin consider a bridge to be an obsolete construct that is from the biological past that they have transcended, and is unnecessary and inefficient. They control the ship directly from cyborg brain implants, which give them full functionality anywhere on the ship. During flight operations, especially combat, the command crew occupies alcoves in the network core node, which is deep within the center of the forward section, and heavily armored. Going there would be useless to you, as you lack the ability to interface directly with the pathetic lump of stone the Thuranin consider to be the ship's computer."