After finding a donor who appeared to have similar sized feet and borrowing his boots, Dave made his way to medical and patched up the hole in his forehead. He then decided that if he was going to be walking around an all but derelict ship, that he didn't really want to be dodging corpses. Cam informed him that, at times, people did indeed die on expeditions and the common practice was to hold a small ceremony and release the body through the airlock. Then the ship would turn it's engines towards the corpse and do a short but full power burn to incinerate it. This kept a person shaped frozen body from accidentally causing damage to passing ships, or running into a space station along the way.
Unfortunately the ships engines were a no go, so Cam picked out one of the lesser used airlocks on the Fortune's Profit and Dave spent the next several hours collecting bodies and doing as much as he could to place them respectfully in the airlock for storage. This was made a little bit difficult as rigor mortis left quite a few bodies in extremely odd positions, but Dave managed. While the zero G environment made moving the bodies much easier, moving forty two of them took a toll and Dave decided to nap for a bit.
Waking four hours later his stomach decided to start singing the song of it's people. Cam directed Dave to the ships galley but could not say for certain if the food items there were biologically compatible with humans. Best case he ate and it would be fine, worst case the Fa-Wel cuisine killed him. Dave a long internal debate as to the pros and cons of death by food poisoning, death by starvation, or death by asphyxiation. He decided to try a small portion and see what happened. Fortunately the human body could go without food for a lot longer than it could go without water and water was water to both humans and Fa-Wel.
After about thirty minutes with no ill symptoms it was agreed between Cam and Dave that the food stock should be okay. Finally, after all that, Dave sat in the Captains chair on the bridge and began discussing options with Cam. "The hauler in the cargo bay is still in working order and fully fueled for star system navigation. You will use a good chunk of fuel correcting the stellar orbit, however there is an outpost not too far that will be well within range of the remaining fuel." Cam said. "That's great", Dave said, "But I have no clue how to pilot a spaceship".
Cam remained quiet for a moment then responded, "I can fly the hauler, however I can not do so remotely. Fortunately this hauler was designed with an interface cradle for a cognitive assistance module. You will have to disconnect my module from the Fortune's Profit and install it in the hauler." Dave rubbed his chin for a moment, :That sounds good, but you will have to walk me through the install process." he said. "I will have to give you full instructions prior to the transfer. As soon as I am disconnected from the Profit I will not be able to communicate with you until I am installed on the hauler." Cam said.
Dave had performed his share of DIY work on many things from cars to computers and he felt confident that he couldn't screw this up too badly so he agreed to move Cam's module to the hauler and use it as an escape pod. The instructions were surprisingly simple. Two data connection lines needed to be removed along with unbolting the two hold down straps. Dave made his way to a small room in the back lower level of the ship and Cam opened the door.
There in the middle of the room was a fairly unremarkable gray metal box about the size of a storage trunk. the two data lines emerged from the top of the box and fell over the side plugging into a smaller box on the side. This one was about the size of a shoe box. Two more lines exited the bottom of the smaller box and plugged into the front of the cradle. After confirming the instructions with Cam, Dave got to work.
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Unbolting the straps was simple and the data lines had an almost too simple quick disconnect design. Lifting Cam off the cradle he made his way at a steady pace towards the cargo bay and the hauler. The cargo bay was a mess. It was clear that the attacking ship took as many things as they could that were not bolted down. There was debris floating everywhere, and Dave even saw one unopened GAU-8 crate. Dave's eyes fell upon the hauler and he let out a short chuckle.
The hauler did in fact resemble an old cab-over Peterbilt truck, just much much larger and with a few obvious differences. It was a two deck high box with a long windshield across the top deck. The body extended back probably about four or five times the length of a typical truck. At the rear corners were four engines mounted on swept back pylons that almost reminded him of the wings of an F-14. It was sitting on four landing struts and the entry door was about a third of the way back from the front. A ramp was extended leading to the door, so Dave started for the ramp.
There were a couple of things that Dave either never knew, or just plain forgot. First, while zero gravity did make it easier to move heavy objects, they still had mass. Second, inertia made things that had a decent amount of mass very hard to stop in zero gravity. So as Dave moved Cams module across the cargo bay he had picked up a little more speed than he probably should have. As he neared the ramp he attempted to stop and found himself yanked forward by the inertia of the module. The force was enough to break the magnetic seal between his shoes and the floor. This left Dave sailing along behind the module holding on for dear life.
Luck was almost on his side as the module bounced into the ramp, the ricochet causing it to head for the open hatch in the hauler. However, as the module started to enter the doorway it scraped against the side crushing and breaking away the smaller box that the data wires were attached to. "Son of a motherless goat..." Dave said as the damaged module continued into the hauler with him trailing behind. It ran into the opposite and stopped causing Dave to plow into it shortly after.
Getting his feet planted firmly on the deck he looked over the module. The smaller box lay outside the hauler in pieces, the data wires from the module to the box seemed to be intact as the quick disconnects appeared to have detached cleanly. He wondered what the chances were that such an advanced piece of technology could still work while clearly missing parts. He maneuvered the module into a small room in the back of the hauler that had the cradle in it and set it down on it.
After bolting down the holding straps Dave noticed that the cables emerging from the top of the module were just long enough to still connect to the data ports on the cradle. Hoping that Cam would still boot up and be able to provide him with instructions on what to do about the damage he caused, he plugged the two data cables in. All the lights suddenly went out, not just in the hauler but out in the cargo bay as well. "Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw..." Dave said to no-one in particular. "Of course I would fuck something u..."
His self deprecating monologue was interrupted when all the lights came back on in conjunction with a long, loud..... sigh. It was one of those sighs that Dave remembers hearing from a few of the women in his life as they took off a bra after a long day. Also of note to Dave was this sigh sounded distinctly female to his ears. "Cam?" Dave asked tentatively when the sigh finished. "DAVE! I'm free! What did you do?" Cam responded in a clear, joyous tone. The old monotone completely gone.