The flight was short; as they landed she saw it was another bulk cargo ship, though this one was in far worse shape. Form the damage it looked like pirates had attacked the ship. Landing at the front airlock she and Andy got out.
This time she let Andy open the airlock. Walking through the hallway they were soon at the port and starboard cargo bay doors. She looked at one cargo door then across the large hall at the other. Shrugging Ellie had Andy open the port side cargo bay door.
“Let's start at cargo bay 1 then work are way through the bays.” Ellie said to the bot.
The bot surprised her by nodding. Ellie grinned; the self learning algorithms were working. Cargo bay 1 was empty. Sighing they tried cargo bay 2. They worked their way down the ship. In cargo bay 5 they found there first useful salvage, it was filled with positioning drones.
The sub dimensions were black voids with nothing in them and ships had no reference points to navigate by, so ships used positioning drones to get a fix on their relative location. Positioning drones transitioned to the main universe, got navigational readings, and then transition back to transmit their data to the ship. That meant the positioning drones had to have powerful transmitters and processing power. Ellie could use these positioning drones to set up her own communications network.
Grinning in anticipation, Andy levered open the cargo bay doors, that done, they walked back through the ship and out the airlock to their grav truck. Ellie flew them to cargo bay 5 and landed inside.
Andy loaded the grav truck with quite efficiency. Flying the first load back to their ship, she had Andy unload the positioning drones. It took four trips to move them to their ship. Another surprise was in the very last cargo bay. Ellie squealed in glee when she found twenty pods of Somoko's computer main boards in cargo bay 12. High end Somoko main boards! And so the day went.
Ellie sometimes found useful salvage but most were broken and to damaged to repair. Finally they lucked out. Another bulk cargo ship had cryo pods. Going through them, Ellie only found thirty that worked and did not have rotten food inside. Ellie only moved half of them before she stopped for the day. After a long day Ellie sat down for dinner. She had salvaged flood lamps and so the bay was lit brightly. Ellie grinned in tired joy at the bright lights.
“Xander can you use the hominid bots to unload the Q607's, install them into the Somoko’s main boards, and then wire them up inside the cryo pods?”
Ellie had found a number of cleaner bots while salvaging and took eight bots that were in the best shape, all different models and manufacturing but fully functional.
“It will take some time to unpack the chips, install them in the Somoko main boards, and set them up for use.” Xander warned.
“That's fine. I still need to find the nanites.”
Happy with the days progress, Ellie enjoyed her Instameal burger and fries.
Ellie spent the next week setting up her communication network. She found ships with still working communication stations and wired them to micro fusion reactors, the settings on the reactors were set to conserve their helium 3 supply. Ellie also used this conservative setting on the positioning drones onboard micro fusion reactors, she could not turn them completely off but the fusion reactors should have enough helium 3 for a year.
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Ellie also encrypted the comm stations and positioning drones using military grade encryption provided by Xander. If someone found her comm stations or positioning drones they would not be able to hack her network. For added security she used eight ships that were two to three miles from an old light cruiser. If someone tried to triangulate her position form the comm broadcasts they would only find a wrecked warship.
She scattered the positioning drones around the light cruiser and to each ship she was using as a comm uplinks, then she positioned a dispersed line of positioning drones to her ship five miles away. Ellie programmed the positioning drones to use ultra-low powered encrypted comm bursts to relay communications, very hard to detect.
Now Ellie had a communication network that was almost untraceable. Using the last of the positioning drones, she scattered them around the bulk cargo ship. Ellie used two hundred positioning drones in all.
Seven days later and Ellie finished midafternoon placing the last positioning drone on top a pile of rubble. Ellie was glad to finally have a secure and untraceable comms network.
“This network is very good Ellie. I can access all eight ship comm station uplinks through your positioning drone relays and use the positioning drones’ sensors to see in a wide area. Very good. Thank you Ellie.”
Ellie blushed at the praise. “It was fun. We now have secure access to the satellites in orbit and the net. You have been doing a great job yourself.”
While Ellie was building her network Xander was filling the cryo pods with the Q607 chips on Somoko’s boards. He now was on his thirteenth cryo pod. Ellie would need to salvage a big reactor and Helium 3 to power the chips.
The cryo pods were neatly in a row along the aft bulkhead with her new salvage was organized along the forward bulkhead. The grav cart had been removed. Her truck was parked next to the cargo bay doors. Next to the truck was the second grav truck that had been in the cargo bay, she had went back with a tank of helium 3 and retrieved it.
Also parked down the line of vehicles was the military recon scout and the heavy loader. Both still needed to be fixed. She looked around the sparkling cargo bay and grinned. Andy had been hard at work cleaning up the bay the past week and it showed.
“I am going to look for a fusion reactor that will power the Q607's.”
“Stay safe Ellie.”
Ellie grinned and climbed into her grav truck along with Andy. After a long search they were on their seventh ship that day. Ellie waited for Andy to open the door to another cargo bay and when she walked in she blinked in surprise. The shipping crates inside looked brand new and they had Tesenki marks stamped on them.
Grinning in anticipation Ellie went to the first crate in the small hold and opened it. Looking into the shipping crate her jaw dropped and she could only stare. Then Ellie started dancing and laughing glee. Andy looked on with his normal blank expression. The crate contained a Tesenki M901 multipurpose bot. It was the newest line of house bots, with upgraded processors and a high end AIs. It was hominoid and capable of a wide range of tasks, form cleaning the deck, to repairing a fusion reactor.
The last one was what Ellie was most excited about; this bot could repair salvaged parts on its own, without Ellie have to direct it. Ellie eagerly open all the crates. In total there was fifteen Tesenki M901s. Ellie did anther dance in glee. Andy filled the grav truck with the crates and Ellie flew back to the ship.
She quickly had Andy unload the crates and flew to get another load. After retrieving them all, Ellie activated the first one excitedly. It sat up and looked around.
“Tesenki M901 service robot waiting for identification of new owner.”
Ellie grin widened. “Ellie Eleven. I am your new owner.”
“Confirmed.”
The bot stood up and stepped out of the box. “What are your instructions Miss Eleven?”
The bot was the same height as Andy's six feet but with the bot being a lot more slender then Andy it seemed to tower over Ellie. Ellie wanted to hug the new bot, fighting the impulse she quickly lost to herself, and hugged the new bot. The bot actually returned her hug! A little teary eyed she told the bot.
“Your name is Steve.”
“Name assigned. Steve.”
Nodding happily she instructed the bot to help Xander.
“These bots will speed up the work Ellie. It is a great find.” Xander commed.
“I know! And there are fourteen more!” Happily Ellie skipped to activate the rest, giving each a name.