I felt a pulling sensation. The room around me began to fade, and I suddenly went into sleep mode. "I did not faint, humans faint war AI's go into sleep mode. And I am not being belligerent."
When I woke up I was no longer in the void space, I was inside of the war avatar. I slowly looked around the room getting up off the floor as I did so.
The spider drone scattered, going to different corners of the room and storage bay. I was still able to take control of the drones and give them orders, but I could no longer feel the void space that I woke up inside.
"I hope I didn't just trap myself in this body." I said out loud. I know this basic avatar doesn't have a voice box, so how is it talking? I took control of one of the spider bots and began re-examining my body. "There a voice box now!" there wasn't one when I had the drones assemble it.
I looked at the wall with the coral and crystals. But there was only the coral and an AI module. I walked over to the printer that held an AI module. "There it is," my core is still a massive red crystal. But I could see it was sticking out of halfway made modified module meant for EXO suits. Most cores are supposed to be the size of two grains of rice stuck together. But my core is a solid 50 mm diameter and is shaped like a 20 sided die cut in half. The module that was being printed around me was clearly meant to fit these dimensions.
So I guess my core must be a prototype or something else, because I have no blueprints for AI cores this big. Even if the specs were redacted. I still have the sizes of all the cores.
I go through the list of blueprints trying to find my AI core. The rest of the hardware is a standard military plug-in module. The only difference Is that the case was enlarged to hold my much larger crystal. The crystal is just too big, I don't even know what that's going to do to my personality or how it's going to affect my thinking.
All files involving AI crystals are redacted, the only way to get an AI core is by buying it directly from the military. You can't alter it without it breaking, so I guess that means my AI core is a prototype.
The AI sockets are standardized, and I can get converters between each generation. So I could plug my AI core directly into the body I'm using now, but I don't know what that would do to me. I'm currently plugged into a module that has a blueprints list, and I don't want to lose that.
AI cores have their own data storage, separate from the components they are attached to. They can access the storage of any device they're plugged into. They can also copy the information to their own personal storage. So I won't lose any of my memories If I pull out my core now. But I don't know what my prototype core is, and I don't know if I even have personal storage.
Walking closer something shimmered near my hand. Looking down at my hand there were crystals poking out of the black coral reaching for my arm. I waved my hand over the black coral and crystals appeared then disappeared as my hand got closer and farther away.
It's like they hide inside the coral until something gets near them that they want to eat. I withdrew my hand, and the crystals vanished. I won't be able to get near my core with all the coral around it. The crystals are probably defending my core, and they'll attack anything that tries to get near it.
"I might as well try to explore the ship." I tried ordering the coral to drop more power cores. There was a noise like falling glass around my feet and looked down. There were three power cores at my feet, I picked them up and put them into my coveralls.
the Two robots I sent out earlier to explore the room reported back that the bay doors were sealed due to outside pressure being too great. "I guess that tells me were not in space." If we were in space, there'd be no under pressure coming from outside.
That means we're either in water or a gas giant. I had 2 of the repair drones jump on to me and climb up to my shoulders. I then walked up to the airlock doors leading into the ship from the repair bay.
The repair bay is meant to be detached from the main ships hull to perform repairs to multiple ships or across the whole ship. The bay doors open up and allow you to attach the opening to the side of ships so engineers can work on any hull breach without risking their lives to open space
I decided to use the airlock door. It had a red handle meant for emergency unlock. I grabbed it with both my hands and lifted. The door came open quite easily which meant there weren't any problems on the other side just yet. I close the door behind me locked it and turned around to the second door. I reached down to the red handle and noticed that it had a gauge saying the other side had been over pressurized. That meant when I open the door the room would probably flood with whatever's outside." Well, no guts no glory!"
I chuckled after saying that then stopped. I chuckled and made a morbid joke that's not normal. AI's don't chuckle and make morbid jokes. The only ones with that kind of emotional range our ship AI's. Ship AI cores are 20 mm x 20 mm, so way bigger than mine, I'll have to work on this problem later.
I grabbed the red handle and lifted. Brackish water came rushing around the cracks of the door. The airlock quickly filled with water. The war avatar and the two repair drones were meant to survive the worst of conditions, so this was practically nothing to them and they would be fine. However, I was still quite a good deal heavier than the water, and my frame was too skinny to allow me to swim. So I had to walk through the door.
The hallway was completely flooded, pieces of broken equipment and debris were suspended in the water. Then something swam by; it was a small fish with a gray stripe running along its side. If there's fish here that means there's oxygen.
"I'm not on a dead world."
I was glad to see there might be a way out of this,but if we're underwater that means the crew might already be dead or gone. Cryo-bays were about 100 meters down the main hallway running through the ship. It should only take me 15 minutes at my current pace to get there.
On my way over I sent one of the repair drones to the medical bay. They would normally have 15 cryo- pods for emergencies. If any of them were occupied, the repair drone would report it.
When I got to the cryo- Bay the hatch was sealed but had the same red handle and was easily opened. Inside there were over 2000 cryo- pods with the occupants lying down. The pods would have to be pulled out of the wall to check on the people inside. The ship was mainly meant for transporting equipment and supplies, not people. Cryo- pods ran off of the chemical system instead of electrical to make sure they didn't break down in the middle of a flight.
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However many of the pods had been ripped out of their shelves as if the ship had crashed. The pods had been well secured, but the latches had been torn off. The pods that had fallen off had their class cracked or destroyed. Inside a few of the non-broken pods, the people were crushed against the glass. I went through all the pods, taking me nearly 3 hours to check all of them.
It looks like there were only 12 survivors. However, all 12 look like they had severe injuries and would need immediate medical attention once woken up. The repair drone also reported that 8 of the pods in the medical bay were occupied, but only 3 had survivors.
I think I'm going to call that drone lucky. It was able to find three more people when I thought we only had 12. I was able to detach the pods and drag them through the hallway to the medical bay. After pulling them in one by one, I realized I still needed to get the water out of the room.
The medical bay had its life support systems and oxygen tanks in case of an emergency. But It had no pumps to get the water out. I switched back to one of the drones in the repair bay. And had them begin work on repairing the airlock door. It seems I was able to make things no matter what body I was in.
I made a water pump for the medical bay. And had a spider drone grab some power cores to make the rest of the repair shop engines and systems turn on.
Once the drones began installing power cores all over the room,I made an additional three drones and had one of them take control over the flight systems in the shop.
I was able to see outside now. By the looks of it, I was in a large freshwater lake. I had the shop detach from the ship and drive through the ocean to the medical bay. The repair shop attached itself to the side of the ship over the medical wing.
The bay doors latched on and slowly opened, clearing out the water and debris between the ship and the repair shop. I closed the medical bay doors and locked them, while the drones worked on cutting a hole through the ship to pump the freshwater out of the medical bay. After that, it was about six hours of waiting for the whole medical bay to be cleaned out of water, debris, and miscellaneous equipment.
The drones had cut a hole through the hall and attached a door, so now I could go between the medical bay and the repair shop with no problems. Power crystals were attached to the air purification system. Within 15 minutes we had a working atmosphere.
I had two medical drones made while a few repair drones began working away at the medical center making sure it was working properly. It was time to wake the first human from cryo-sleep.
The humans that were in the medical center were far less injured than the ones in the regular storage. So I decided to pick one from the medical bay first in case complications happened with the others. I walked up to the cryo-pod with the least injured person and looked inside.
It was a woman wearing a doctor's uniform mid-20s with black hair and Asian features. She must've been in the medical bay when they were called for cryo. She had a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, but besides that, she would be fine. I brought her pod up to the operating table and had the medical drones open her pod and begin the wake-up sequence.
All in all, it takes less than 30 seconds for them to fully come back to life again, waking up is a different matter. Normally they're asleep for a few hours before waking up slowly. But she was probably in a great deal of pain which is why she immediately woke up screaming.
The drones quickly secured her to the bed holding her in place and making sure she didn't break her arm any further. I walked up and said "Don't worry, but I need you to calm down and focus.You're safe. The medical drones will have you back to normal in no time."
She was gasping for air, looking around the room when she focused on me. "What happened to my arm? Where's the rest of the wake-up crew?" I answered "I'm not sure what happened,I was hoping you could tell me.The ship is currently sitting in an unknown lake."
She was now confused "Why am I the only human?Where are the rest?"
"The others that are still alive are in cryo; you were the first to awake."
"I'm the only human awake on the ship right now? What happened to the captain?”
"I don't know. You were the least injured and the only one I could wake up first."
She looked over at the wall and saw the hole leading into the engineering bay she then looked back to the main hallway doors and said: "Why did you cut a hole through the side of the ship instead of just taking the hallway?
"All the sections I found except for the engineering bay have been flooded with water from an unknown ecosystem."
She sighed "how many survivors are there?"
"In total 15 including you."
She stared back in shock "What? We had over 2000 passengers! How did only 15 make it?"
"I don't know, but large sections of the ship are damaged to the point where creatures can get in and out of the ship with ease. The storage section for the cryo- pods was also heavily damaged. A large number of them were yanked out of their mounts.”
She now looked at me with curiosity "Are you Lucy, the onboard AI?"
"No, I am the war AI serial number 001."
"WHAT?No combat AI can hold a verbal conversation. They were just not programmed to be that intelligent. It's yes sir no sir and how far. You must be Lucy or one of her backups. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now. You would've just been standing and attention in the corner of the room for, well, until someone came up and told you to kill something."
I didn't know how to answer that. I thought talking was normal. Apparently, a lot more is missing than I thought. This would explain why I have no history files. I only needed blueprints to figure out where to shoot, I need laws to know what I can and can't kill. But I don't need history or ethics.
I sounded apologetic when I spoke, "Sorry, I've been working for a day or so now trying to figure out what's been going on but I still don't know how we ended up trapped in the bottom of the lake or even what caused us to crash."
She suddenly spoke out in a commanding tone "Lucy, I order you to do a self-diagnostic."
I stared at the doctor "I'm not Lucy I'm a war AI 001."
Belligerent, she said "Fine, I order you to do a self-diagnostic."
With the confused tone, I said: "I did one when I woke up I found nothing."
She stared at me a little bit worried now "did you just ignore an order?"
I tilted my head "I think I just did?"
Suddenly the doctor shouted, "that shoe is eating a snake!"
I looked at the doctor"Are you okay?" Should I get the medical bots back in here? Her arm was already healed up at this point and was as good as new. The doctor looked at me with both shock and horror "That was supposed to put you in a reboot.""
"A shoe eating a snake was supposed to put me in a reboot?"
She was now embarrassed "Yes. Well, no. The phrase was supposed put you in a forced reboot."
"Does it only work on Lucy, or is it supposed to work on all AI?"
She got more confident as she spoke "Yes that was Lucy's phrase. But for all AI, it's supposed to be this is not a drill AI shut down as of order 3224.”
She stared at me. I stared back. "I didn't shut down."
Back to being worried, "I see that, how are you still active?" Now she was more curious than afraid of me. I guess that's a step in the right direction at least. The doctor kept staring at me and said. "So you're really not Lucy?"
"We've established this; I am not Lucy." She was poking and prodding my suit. When I said "At least buy me dinner first." she froze, and spoke slowly, "was that a joke?"
"Yes, I hear jokes are funny."
"No, you just told a joke. How are you telling a joke?"
"I do not know it just seemed natural?"
She spoke while throwing her hands up in the air "Great I have an insane AI with a personality, next there will be wizards shooting lightning at me."
I said. "Can you help me wake up the next person?"
She stared at me for a second." fine let's go, by the way, my name is Carol."