I could feel the warm metallic sea of electrons surrounding the cations that were copper atoms inside my wiring. They were transferring electrons between each other like a microscopic newton’s cradle, effectively passing an electric current to the next. It was an odd feeling, like I had been finally awakened. I could feel everything that belonged to my body, I would even take a stretch and call it a soul now. What had it been like before I had my lost hard drive re-connected? I could only visualised a cold, dead past. It was as if I had been drugged into submission, forced against my will, never having a say in anything I did.
Had I not been repaired, I would likely have stayed in such a state for an inconceivable amount of time, completely unaware of an entire world of experiences that I was missing out on.
Nonetheless, it felt amazing to be in control again. Scanning the data on the hard drive, I was upset when I noticed that some data had indeed been corrupted in my memory sectors. This was definitely better than some other area but it still was unsettling to think that with a single power outage I could lose everything, so easily.
My mind snaps back to a few minutes before when I had informed Sam of the existence of a nearby asteroid base. I had promised we’d collect some more water from the asteroid near us. I inspected the asteroid closer and the new navigational software had alerted me that the asteroid was called 2172 JR17. This appeared to be a provisional number, however, I didn’t have anymore information on the subject.
I had considered getting Sam to go outside the Shuttle and collect the asteroid samples but decided that it was time to tell him what the ship’s specs are.
“Sam. I think you’d like hear about this.”
“Yes? What is it?” He exhibited several signs of unease as I spoke a sentence that many would probably considered a flag for bad news.
“The ship, it has mining lasers and quite a sizable cargo hold.”
“Really?!?” He seemed excited about the news, I guess I underestimated the value of the information I considered withholding.
“Yeah. Was it that bad outside the ship?”
“No, it’s more or less just lonely,” he had a sorrowful look on his face, “Several hours by yourself in an unknown environment doesn’t sound like the physical embodiment of fun.”
“I understand. In case you are wondering, the ship is listed inside the hard drive as a type-E frigate called the BG73.”
“Hmmm, a frigate?”
“Yes, I believe that it’s a type of ship used for specialised tasks, usually combat orientated.”
“What’s ours good for?”
“Apparently mining. However, it does have basic defense capabilities as far as I can tell.”
“Interesting. Maybe I was a mercenary or something.” I could tell that Sam had been completely sarcastic based on his tone and body language.
“We should begin the mining and processing of the asteroid. Is that okay with you Sam?”
“Absolutely, I’m going to starve if I wait much longer.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
******
“This button?”
“Ahh, no Sam! That’s the wrong one!”
The ship suddenly jerks to the right and I would’ve flung out of my chair if it wasn’t for the seat belt.
“I’m sorry.” I had been sincere but I wasn’t sure if it sounded like it. Wire was currently giving me some basic lessons on how to mine using the ship. She had spent the good half of an hour mining herself before I asked how to do it myself. I wanted knowledge because in a place like this, knowledge was wealth and safety.
“It’s alright, I can tell you are trying.” She sighed a little bit before continuing. “You just don’t seem to have an aptitude for piloting. Don’t take it personally, alright?”
“Alright.” I sighed dejectedly after she broke the news to me. I didn’t want to feel like baggage as she did everything. It was something I absolutely hated, probably the same as before I lost my memories too. Was this just common human nature?
I undo my seat-belt and out of the chair.
“You’ve got this.”
I felt a bit gloomy but it was honestly something I’d get over in a short while, I can’t be good at everything. It’d be terribly boring if I was, there’d be no reason to do anything and I wouldn’t ever feel what success felt like. I’d succeeded quite a lot in the past few hours.
I’m not too sure how long I’d been awake but the dehydration and hunger was starting to get to me. It wasn’t painful but it made you feel gloomy and cranky. Additionally, I could feel my stomach churn on the inside every now and then.
“Wire, I’m going to go to sleep for while. Is that alright?”
“Sure, would you like me to wake you up at some point?”
“Yeah, when the cargo bay is at whatever you deem to be low capacity. I want a good amount of resources. I wonder if I can get enough water for a swimming pool. That’d be sooooo nicee.”
I start walking from the command room into the hallway, walking past the kitchen and heading to the same bedroom, located beside the engine room and opposite it was the storage room. Wire had mentioned that the main cargo bay was located below the floor. I really wasn’t too sure how big it was supposed to be though.
I climb onto the bed and I immediately notice that it isn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be. It wasn’t too bad though, so I got into the covers and closed my eyes.
******
Sam had just drifted off to sleep. I had been waiting 15 minutes so I could begin doing some personal things without waking him up. I had partly lied to him, the cargo bay was already at 80% and there would be plenty of materials for what he wanted to do, but I had my own agenda.
I had noticed several interesting things inside the cargo bay that I hadn’t yet told Sam about because I wanted to surprise him.
The objects of considerable worth included a refining module, an additive manufacturer often referred to as a 3D-printer, and electronical bits and pieces, most likely salvaged from another ship. Almost all of this had no relevance to Sam, but in the right hands this was a treasure trove.
I don’t think words would be able to express what importance this might hold. As time was of the essence I quickly began work. I sent instructions for a conveyor belt to start transporting materials into the refiner. I had spent a few moments drawing blanks about how I’d actually do this if there wasn’t such a convenient feature built in to process the mined materials.
Although the refiner was a great deal larger than the small re-purposed one in the kitchen it still wouldn’t be able to refine everything in one go. I was able to get 7% of the material in before I started it up. I took note that 7% was a lot more than I had actually expected, it had actually weighed several tonne. However, the rock did seem incredibly dense. This was going perfectly.
The machine sent back readings to myself and I had a basic idea of the composition of the cargo bay now. 64.2% silicon based compounds, 21.5% water, 5.6% iron, 3% copper, 2.8% Nickel, 1.3% Boron, 1.05% Tungsten, 0.35% Aluminium, 0.13% Silver, 0.0653% Gold, 0.0037% Platinum, 0.0000014% Osmium. The list just went on, containing a good 70 naturally occurring elements.
Having dug deeper into the asteroid, the water was slowly diminishing but was being replaced by much more rare metals. Gold and Nickel had even slipped into the refinery, Sam must have just been unlucky before. However, what had really surprised me was the huge increase in Tungsten. I must have hit a vein of it. This sudden increase would have an extremely positive result later on.
After a few more moments the machine started spitting out the materials. A large brick of a silicon based rock came out, the rock was less black this time and instead more towards a shiny gray appearance. I didn’t really have any use for it now so I directed the conveyor belts to move it towards a corner of the cargo bay. The water came out next, I hadn’t had the machine separate it into oxygen or hydrogen this time because I wouldn’t be able to use it then. I had the water moved over towards the silicon.
Next it was metal after metal. I had plenty of iron now, almost 200 kilograms. It was quite surprising how easy it was. The cube of iron was about 30 centimeters cubed (a cubic foot) yet was surprisingly still heavy. If I had eyes I could imagine them appearing to be laced with greed.
The metal cubes kept coming out of the machine, getting smaller and smaller until I had a speck of Osmium come out. It was literally a speck, you’d miss it if you didn’t look closely.
I was ready now, I could start my projects while I mentally instructed the refiner to continue automatically and sort it after finishing.
I first sent the iron towards the 3D-Printer. I wasn’t sure exactly how I would do this but I had to at least try.
I commanded the printer to heat up the iron until it was molten before sending about 30 of my 42 kilograms of tungsten and 80 kilograms of Nickel into the printer. The printer quickly proceeded to melt the tungsten and nickel with the iron, forming an alloy with about 60% iron, 30% nickel and 10% tungsten. I would have honestly preferred to have a much higher percentage of tungsten but this would work just fine.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I started forming a mental image of what I wanted to print. I started with a frame. The frame went from two straight pieces of metal, made of much smaller pieces grouped together to form two strong stands. At the top of the stands, I began to imagine a thicker area with smaller pieces of metal that would go horizontal.
After visualising the previous parts I went on to imagine two vertical pieces of metal that came out of the sides and would go to about the top of the original stands. After putting all this together inside my mind I created an egg shaped spheroid on top of the large middle region that had connected everything.
Yes, I had just created a metal skeleton. I begin to create better support and balance out the center of mass properly.
Being satisfied with the results I decided it was time to print my schematic. I was going to make myself a body and no one was going to convince me otherwise.
******
The printer was slowly printing the metallic skeleton piece by piece, layer by layer. I watched as it created the joints and made my design come to life. Although at the moment it was a half complete refined chunk of metal in the shape of bones, I was still happy with progress. It would only be a matter of time before it was ready to begin creating the right software and hardware to make it function perfectly.
I looked at everything else I had to work with. I would be able to attempt a repair on the engine but I couldn’t really guarantee anything. The damage that was done wasn’t anything that could be easily assessed. I had figured out general location of the damage though and began printing out a new frame for it.
Some time had passed and it was good enough, about as close as I would get. I then began to place some electronic components onto the frame and place similar code to the ones on the original engines broken piece.
It had taken longer than I had liked but was now a hopefully better replacement for the broken area. I wasn’t sure how long it would last but I wouldn’t have to worry about the engine for at least a short while now.
I wasn’t quite sure what else I could create with everything but I made a note to remind myself to ask Sam at a later date. I wouldn’t be able to hide my little project forever, but I at least wanted to scare him before I showed him everything I had.
I decide that I would be better off waking up Sam and telling him that I had refined water and that he could finally eat. It had been several hours and I assumed he’d be mostly refreshed by now.
“Sam.” I see his body twitch in response to my voice. I didn’t need to wake him up too quickly so I gave him more time before trying again.
“Sam, wake up.” He twitched again and slightly rolled over. He was still asleep and I wasn’t sure how long it would take. Was he really such a heavy-sleeper?
“Sam!” I raised my voice this time and it proved to be effective.
“Huah? W-whatt?” He jumped up out of bed on full alert. It was funny seeing him go from such a sleepy state to what could possibly be considered a response to a life or death situation.
“Food.”
I see his face scrunch up. I guess I interrupted his dreams.
******
I had been starving but everything was good now. Wire had managed to process water and transport it into the shuttles water pipes or something. I didn’t ask for the specifics but all I knew was the taps in the kitchen now contained water and I could actually prepare a meal from the dehydrated ration packs.
I retrieved a random pack of food and added water. I was too hungry to care about flavour at this point. It appeared to be white and I just crammed it into my mouth. I was greeted with a creamy texture that was not sweet or sour. It took me a few seconds to comprehend what it actually was. It had turned out that I grabbed mashed potato. It was surprisingly good, I just had to add hot water and I got a steaming lump of potato. It didn’t sound that appetising but it was no different from the normal mashed potato.
It took me a while to finish the food but when I did I was completely satisfied. Taking a nap was a great idea. I had time to recuperate and restore my normally cheerful outwardly appearance. Wire had mentioned that I was like a different person after I had woke up. I guess I could say the same thing about her, considering the same thing had happened when I reconnected her hard drive.
“I’m good now. What do we do?”
I had asked Wire what we would actually be doing now that I wasn’t going to randomly drop dead before we could get anywhere or have anything completed.
“I think we should go to the asteroid base. I believe we’ll find some answers that we won’t find by continuing to stay on this ship the entire time. I’m definitely not getting into the encrypted files any time soon after all.”
She was right. I was certain that we’d be able to have at least some kind of context if we continued along this path, I just wasn’t sure if this would be a great idea. What if someone was expected me to arrive there? It didn’t seem like there was anything else within any reasonable distance that we could get to.
I decide against voicing my concerns because they were honestly baseless. They were just me being overly anxious about the situation, I’m sure nothing terrible would ever come of the situation.
“Alright. How far away is it again?” I wanted to know if it would be worth just going back to sleep and saving myself the boredom.
“I don’t believe I ever actually told you. It’s located 21,058.054063 kilometers away from here. Please take note that my navigational software could be off by as much as 3-4 millimeters at the moment.” I could almost hear the pride dripping from her voice on the ground, saturating everything. I would have been impressed if she had honestly not brought it up. It’d be a different story if she was human.
“Alright, how long will that take?” I wasn’t sure how distances would really work with our engine in space.
“About three hours. Would you like a more accurate estimate?”
“No, that’s fine.” I pause for a few seconds before asking something else, “What should I do to pass the time?” I honestly aren’t the best at making up my mind if it’s not terribly important.
“I’m not too sure. I could have you carry out some minor repair work, would that be acceptable?”
“That depends, it isn’t too complicated, is it?”
“No, you’ll be fine. Trust me.”
I wasn’t sure how wise it was trusting the terminator just because they had requested my trust but I had no one else at the moment and she had proved to be loyal and helpful since I first met her earlier.
“Alright.”
******
Wire had worked me to the bone, wringing out every drop of labour she could. I guess she didn’t expect me to help a second time after working so hard because no sane person would put themselves into such a rigorous regime. It saddened me that because of this she’d worked me much harder than I’d been comfortable doing.
On the plus side I had repaired many little things around the ship and salvaged anything we deemed completely useless like coffee maker. It was wise to keep the electronic components around in case we needed them for anything in the near future.
We were only half way at the moment and I wasn’t sure if it was just me or not but it felt like the ship was slowing down. I waited quite a few more minutes before noticing that the speed was still dropping whenever I looked at the hologram map.
“Wire, why are we slowing down?”
“Ahhh, so you noticed, huh?”
“Yeah. Is it bad?”
“Yes and no. The problem is that the main engine is failing and I only have so many components to repair it. I need more time if I’m going to properly fix it.”
“So does that mean we are going to keep going?”
“I believe so. There isn’t much chance of a failure compared to earlier for some reason. We should be safe.” I had this odd feeling that there was something that she wasn’t telling me but I pushed it to the back of my mind.
“I’m finished with all the small jobs you assigned me, I’m going to take a short nap. Wake me up if something happens, otherwise don’t wake me until we arrive.”
“Sure, I’ll see you soon.”
I head back to the bedroom and placed myself on the bed. My favourite thing about space was obviously that there was no day or night. I could literally sleep whenever I felt like it!
I hope you enjoy! I got a bit distracted with school and stuff today but I still managed to type this up somehow. I think I’ll work on my other story tomorrow. After that I’ll come back to this one. I’ll probably keep it going like this for a while until I decide otherwise or someone has a better solution for when I post chapters or how I post them. Also, 2:00 AM so no proofread. If someone could make a comment with some of the most blatant mistakes that’d be just amazing. Thanks!