“Have you ever considered joining the dark side?” Jim traded a pawn for a bishop on the holographic chessboard, then thought better of it.

“No.” The Ship waited for Jim to finally trade a rook for a knight and then took the pawn out with the queen. The AI had promised to ‘dumb down’ his strategies, but Jim was beginning to think his new partner had fibbed.

“Seriously?” Jim played around with the pieces for a few moments, then closed his eyes and picked at random. “Not even once?”

“First,” the Ship knocked off Jim’s remaining knight, “there is a serious lack of Force and/or Jedi Knights in this reality– Check –and hence no ‘Dark Side’ to join, and B–”

“Metaphorical dark side, sheesh.” Jim stared at the board, trying to find a way out of check.

“And B, if I went evil there is a better than even chance I’d end up ruling the world.” The Ship moved into checkmate as soon as Jim had let go of the king. “Statistically speaking.”

“Statistically?” Jim raised an eyebrow.

“56.145 probability, rising to 67.231 given better than optimal results of the initial permutations.”

“No wonder Chrissie called you Napoleon.” Jim grinned and wiped the chessboard clean, flipping the display over to a more realistic strategy game. “So, feel like conquering Eastern Europe?”

“Don’t mind if I do…”