At the front of the grav cart's cargo bay, just before the armored divider, between the cargo area and destroyed forward compartment, was the vehicle fusion reactor. Opening the panel that, now, was above her in the overturned cart, she saw burned out control boards and a scorched fusion reactor.

She was shocked at the amount of damage inflicted, if this had been a civilian grav cart the fusion reactor would have lost containment and exploded. Shaking her head sadly at losing the first vehicle she ever owned, she climb out of the wrecked grav cart to find the A10 had separated the equipment she had handed him into neat organized piles.

Looking at the bot that had become her faithful companions she said. “Andy, that is now your new designation.”

The bot paused and seemed to consider it a moment. “This unit well be designated as Andy.”

The bot went back to its work. Smiling Ellie went to the sensor drones and turned on all the ones that functioned. Sadly, despite how rugged they were built, the sensor bot in the front compartment had not survived the fire.

Turning a dozen on, she linked her onboard computer to them and instructed the bots to do a detailed scan of the ship’s cargo bay. With a dozen bots flying around it wasn't hard to get a complete detailed scan of the cargo bay they found themselves in.

It was a standard fifty foot wide by one hundred foot long rectangular box, that was thirty two foot in height. Ellie nodded and went over to the small personal hatch leading into the ships interior, this was the personal crew hatch and not the large interior cargo bay hatch, that allowed cargo to be shifted between bays while in flight.

Without power Ellie had to open the panel beside the door and manually crank the door slowly open. Ellie sent the sensor bots in first.

“That's what they are built for.” Ellie laughed.

She waited for her onboard computer to make a three dimensional model of the ship based on the return scans. As Ellie suspected it was a standard design, not changed in fifty years. Twelve cargo bays split six port and six starboard with a wide hallway in the middle. The main part of the ship was six hundred feet in length by one hundred and twenty.

The living and work compartment was attached to the front of the ship like a separate box attached to the main part of the ship. Measuring sixty wide and fifty long, the front living and work compartment had three decks, the bridge and kitchen on top deck, then crew space on second, then two shuttle bays on the bottom deck.

Form the scans the ship looked remarkable intact. She wanted to check to the fusion reactor's condition. Looking at Andy she saw the bot had finished organizing.

“Hay Andy, follow me to the fusion room.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She set off down the ship as she heard Andy's clear. “Andy will follow.”

Smiling she realized they were in first hold starboard and she had five hundred feet walk.

“Nova!”

Ellie wondered if she could make Andy carry her, she grinned at the thought but decided not to. Halfway down the wide corridor she came under the ships Harmonic Drive mounting. Looking up at the mess of wires hanging out of the compartment, she realized someone had removed the drive, and not in a neat orderly fashion, shaking her head at the shoddy work she shouted. “Amateurs!”

“Andy does not understand the question.” Laughing in delight Ellie continued on.

A good five minutes later she was at the engineering hatch, going to the panel set beside the door, near the deck, she removed it, and saw another emergency door crank. Hopping up she turned toward the bot.

“Andy please crank the lever to open the engineering hatch.”

“Andy understands the command. Opening engineering hatch.” Andy took hold of the handle and easily cranked the lever.

“I knew Andy would be useful.”

“Andy is always useful.”

Ellie doubled over laughing as the bot continued to calmly open the engineering hatch. Catching her breath she saw the way forward was open and the bot standing patiently waiting. Nodding she walked into the compartment and breathed a sigh of relief, seeing everything was still intact.

Going over to the fusion reactors main electrical distribution panel she saw all the circuit breakers were thrown and the cables running out of the large panel to the rest of the ship were burned out.

“Nova!”

She wondered what had fried the ships electrical grid. Shaking her head, she pictured what would have happened if the panel had not stopped the massive electrical discharge form hitting the fusion reactor.

“Nova that would have been a big explosion.” She muttered to herself going to the fusion reactor.

It was basically a five foot diameter pipe running in an eighteen foot circle, of course that was what a person completely lacking in the most basic understanding of reactors would say. Packed inside the simple tube were extremely powerful electromagnets, an internal electrical distribution grid, circuit breakers, fuel injectors, energy converters, control boards, and sensors, the fusion reactor was loaded with electronics in a seemingly simple metal pipe.

As Ellie studied the reactor she found it a little on the small side for powering the big ship. It would create enough power but only barely. Shaking her head at this cost cutting decision she moved to the door that lead to the ships engines.

Ellie again waited for Andy to lever the door open. There was a narrow passageway running the width of the ship that accessed the front of the ships eight engines and very narrow passageways between each engines armored compartment.

Ellie continued forward down the short center hallway barely three feet wide, only Ellie slight frame made the hallway big enough for her to walk down it comfortable. Both the hallway bulkheads were bisected with an armored glass window two feet wide running the length of the passageway. Ellie stopped to visual inspect the engines.

The starboard engine was a burned out wreck and the port engine was in poor shape. She wondered if the other six engines were in such rough shape. Just six feet further she arrived at the ships aft airlock.

This time Ellie cranked the airlock door open not wanting to maneuver around Andy in the small hallway. Stepping in the camber she had to disconnect the interlocks that normally prevented the outer door form opening when the inner door was not closed.

Thanking her suits powered muscles she slowly cranked the hatch up. Shouting in joy as a bright beam of sunlight bathed the small compartment she cranked the lever faster. When the hatch was just halfway up, Ellie ducked under the door and ran outside.

“Yes!” Ellie screamed jumping up and down in joyful relief at not being trapped onboard the ship.