She parked and got out, pinging her recharged bots to keep careful watch of the cart.

Entering she was greeted by an old man. “Aren't you a little too young to be out by yourself?”

Ellie glowered and crossed her arms in front of her. “Aren't you a little too old to be out by yourself?”

The old man looked at her for a few seconds, then, threw his head back and laughed.

Wiping a tear away, he asked. “So what can I do for you miss?”

“It's Ellie and I need some food.”

“I'm Tom the owner of this fine store and what kind of food are you looking for?”

“Just a box of nutripaste.”

Nutripaste was the cheapest food around. A tube of paste packed with all the vital nutrients one needed for twenty-four hours of hard work.

“Well we do have a large supply of those. What about instameals?”

Ellie thought about it. Instameals were full meals in suspended animation. The nanite replicator manufactured the whole meal, packaging and all, then slowed down the cellular decay of the food, producing a vacuum sealed meal that stayed good for ten years.

More expansive then nutripaste the meals tasted better.

“And how much are these instameals?”

”Pretty cheap. The UEN military contracts the production to Tevon Galactic here on Hemwell.”

Ellie nodded. Living on the largest manufacturing world in the UEN had a few benefits.

“Okay I'll take them.”

Tom showed her to the back where a whole storage room was packed with instameals. Ellie looked at Tom.

“A salvager found a whole cargo load of them.” Tom answered her unspoken question, looking sheepish.

Ellie grinned. “It so happens I'm going out salvage parts too. What do you buy?” Ellie ask the shop owner.

Tom looked at her skeptically. “The junkyard is no place for a young woman! Beside do you even know anything about ship parts?”

“I know more about ships and ship parts then you!” Ellie boasted.

“Will then, Ellie, please follow me.”

Curious Ellie followed him out of the room and through another door in the back. They arrived at a large store room and Ellie realized the building was a lot bigger then the front of the store would suggest. The place was packed with salvaged items, most used in the environmental plants’ of ships. She saw water storage tanks, filtration units, oxygen recyclers, waste reclamation units, everything you needed to keep a ships environmental plant going.

Tom started asking her what part did what, what part went with what type ship, and then tried harder questions. He gave problems and she gave the proper fixes until he finally ran down.

“Well girl you sure know your stuff. Did you grow up on a ship?”

Ellie was about to answer when she spied an old bot. Walking over to the partly covered bot she moved the boxes away to see an old dark brown colored Neski A10. About thirty years old, the bot was humanoid with a heavy frame and casing. The Neski Corporation made very sturdy bots for industrial use unlike Somoko and Tesenki who made house bots.

Compared to a Neski model the house bots were extremely flimsy.

Seeing Ellie’s interested, Tom explained. “Yes, I got that a few years ago. There is something wrong in its programming that I was never able to repair.”

Ellie nodded and reached down to tap the bot on the left ear. The activation button worked and the bot turned on.

“Gre..Gre..Greetings.” The bot slowly pushed itself up.

“Like I said the bot never worked right.”

“Thi..thi..this..u..u.unit..i..i..is..fu..fu..fully..fu..fu..func..func..functional.” Ellie was charmed.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The bot towered over her, six feet in height, with wide shoulders and a large chest; everything was covered by thick plates. The body of the bot looked more like a streamlined version of a medieval suit of armor then a bot. Only the face mimicked a human more closely with a round head, two eyes, a nose and a working jaw.

The A10's were designed for heavy lifting and dangerous work environments, prefect for Ellie's needs.

Ellie turned to Tom. “So can I keep him?”

Tom looked form her, to the bot, then back. “Sure no one else has been interested in the old bot and it's just been taking up room.”

Ellie thank him and turn towards the bot. “Please go outside and wait by my grav cart.”

Sending it a picture of her grav cart, the bot turned and lumbered out of the room.

“So Tom, what is your interested in environmental parts?”

Tom nodded. “They are in high demand by family ship owners, and third rate merchant ship companies. The larger ship companies just replicate new parts.”

Ellie could understand that. The environmental plant was the most important system on a ship and the one that broke down the fastest. With UEN charging exuberant taxes on all replicated parts, single ship owners needed to find a way around that or they would lose their ship to maintenance costs.

Going back to the storage room Ellie had a fun time picking out different instameals. There were nanite made steak and potato, nanite made chicken with green beans, nanite made lasagna with bread, nanite made soup, Ellie took two of everything. She was looking forward to trying out different meals and seeing what tasted the best.

Tom gave a really cheap price for the meals and Ellie rushed to thank him. He waved it away.

“Just find me some good parts to sell.”

Thanking him again Ellie took her box of food and went outside. The A10 was standing patiently waiting next to her car and stepped forward to take her box.

“Thanks.”

“Ha..ha..happy..to..to..be..be..of..of...assis..assistance.”

Ellie grinned and lead the way to the back of the cart. Opening the cargo hatch she decided to change into her light armored power suit. Grabbing the suit she had fixed on the garbage scow, she pushed the other parts further back to make room for her instameals.

The bot dutifully placed the box down in the cleared area, and then stood silently waiting for her order. Ignoring the bot for the moment, Ellie shucked off her outer work coveralls, throwing them in the cargo hold, and started to don the suit.

The light weight armored ship suit she had on did nothing to impede her, and she found the suit actually fit better with it on. With the batteries empty she needed to manually adjust the suit. Stretching her arms and doing a little hop, Ellie adjusted the fit and nodded in satisfaction.

“A10 please go to the passenger side and get in.”

Without a word the bot turned and started to move toward the passenger door. Ellie picked up the suits helmet and closed the cargo bay hatch. Walking to the drive side door she opened it and saw the bot seating holding her bag and taking up most of the small compartment.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. She had forgotten the bag and having a hulking piece of metal set on it would have been devastating. Sliding into the driver’s seat she placed her helmet beside her and pulled out a thin cable form the suits thigh compartment and plugged it into a slot in the carts instrument panel.

She saw the display change to a wire frame view of her suit. Hitting the diagnostic bottom she had the carts limited computer run a scan of her suit. A small beep a second later showed the suit was fully functional with batteries drained of power. Hitting anther button started the batteries recharging off the carts fusion reactor.

Starting the grav cart she heard a high pitch whine form the grave plates and the cart listed to the right. Another high pitched whine and Ellie's side of the cart listed. The grav cart rocked back and forth before the grav plates settled down and the slow computer finally rebalanced the vehicle.

She turned toward the other occupant in the compartment.

“Nova you must be heavy.”

Setting still and looking straight ahead the bot answered.

“This..this..u.u..unite..wei..wei..weighs..thr..thr..three..hu..hu..hundred...pou..pou..pounds.”

Ellie laughed. “Okay first your left hand, palm up.”

Lifting up the arm nearest to Ellie, the bot turned its hand palm up. Ellie opened an access panel on the bots inside wrist and pulled out a cable. Picking up her commpad she had left sitting on the instrument panel she plugged the cable into one of the commpads ports.

Ellie had developed a special AI for finding backdoors and hacks into computer systems and to scan the software for any weak points to exploit. It helped Ellie fix broken bots and find flaws in her programs. It also helped Ellie hack into corporate systems. A very useful bit of code that Rosa pretended Ellie only used for diagnosing her bots.

She now ran the A10's core program through the special AI looking for any harmful code or backdoors, the last thing she wanted to do was trust a hacked bot.

Ellie's program ran through the code finding errors and coding conflicts. Bot AI's were interesting in that they had a limit to their intelligence but learned from their interactions with people and situations to better understand what to do to complete assignments and improve on their work.

This lead to bots accumulating a large amount of junk data. Data that had to be carefully scanned and organized so vital data did not get accidentally deleted and degrade the bots improved efficiency. Ellie spent an hour cleaning the A10's memory file and installing upgraded compression and learning algorithms that the thirty year old bot lacked.

Ellie ran one finale diagnostic that confirmed the A10's core code was completely free of errors and malice code then disconnected the cable. Setting her commpad back down on the instrument panel she packed the bots cable into its access compartment and closed the panel.

Now Ellie needed to find out if all her hard work had fixed the A10.

“A10 what is your status?”

“Internal diagnostic shows improved data processing and functions.”

Ellie felt a ping of sadness. She somehow missed the stuttering voice the bot had on activation. Shaking her head she tried to clear her unhappy thoughts.

“This unit is fully functional and happy to be of assistance.” The bot continued.

Ellie instantly perked up, smiling as the bot repeated its first sentence to Ellie upon activation. Still smiling Ellie pulled out of the lot and headed out of town, towards a distant point that would lead to her future.