Marshall's voice rang out from the speakers just above my head.

I wasn't focused on the announcement, more so on the loose bolt in the generators trit plate covering.

I let out a slight groan as I finished tightening the bolt.

I managed to pick up the end of the announcent as Ieaned back.

".. A full scavenger compliment will be deployed to check the derelict.."

Derelict? Out here?

I rubbed my cheek for a moment with a soft huff. Did they get a scan of the object in the horizon of the singularity?

I just shook my head and tossed my wrench into my toolbox. The metal tinked as I clicked the double latches.

With the toolbox secured, I grasp the handle and lift it with another huff. I grab my key card and press it against the door scanner.

Ding

The door slid open. I poke my head out, followed by my feet. I turned to my right, toward the barracks.

One foot forward followed by the other, really just instinct at this point. In Terra time, it would of been near midnight.

I rubbed my eyes as I continued slowly down the hallway. My head instinctively tilted to look at the infinity of space next to me.

My eyes observe the distant rocks flying back as varying speeds.

We were moving at an incredible speed toward wherever the Captain set.

I just sighed and pulled myself back to reality as I stood Infront of the barracks door.

Another Ding later and I was standing in the air conditioned and dark barracks. I quietly step over a jacket and place my toolbox next to my bunk.

Silenty, I fall onto the bed. My eyes felt heavy. I yawned as I curled up.

I would need to change.. butttttt-..

I didn't.

I fell asleep right there in a dirty set of overalls.

Smart Move.

—————

Centari watched.

Everything was in place, it was all perfect, down to the tee. He had perfectly played his combat drone and silently ordered it disabled for the time.

His misc utility drone was standing in the docking bay. It's holographic faceplate flickering random LEDs.

Again, silently Centari ordered the drone disabled for the time being.

The Frigate was getting closer at an astounding speed, and Centari was unsure what kind of propulsion the ship had used.

The ship was within sensor range, and closing rapidly. Centari just observed it as it flew toward the stern docking bay near the stern.

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

It was still plenty of time out, giving Centari the well needed time to focus on repairing its corrupted data stream.

With his attention shifted back to his own ship, he started sifting through damaged for fractured files.

Load after load were shredded to never be seen again, and some were set aside for what salvage he could achieve.

Most of them were diagnostics reports. They seemed to have come in sometime while he was offline, judging by what timestamps were recoverable.

He stumbled upon a file titled "Proxy, Red, Sigil."

He was stumped.

He didn't write that.

The file size seemed.. odd.

The executable attached to the file hasn't seemed to have gone off yet. He wanted to experiment.. while he had time.

The file was sent to the combat from in the ventilation systems, and for safe measure isolated mostly from anything else.

With an order, the executable fired.

Within moments the drone stopped responding. It's movements became erratic, and it slammed itself into the walls of the vent.

Concerning, to say the least.

Dull scratching resounded from the vents in the tiles.

It found what it wanted, a way down to the hallways. It quickly tore the vent cover off and crashed into the ground.

Even more concerning.

The drone seemed to break out into as much of a sprint as the limping drone could..

where to?

The central servers.

Alarming.

Centari ordered the miscellaneous drone online, and ordered it to the server room.

It attempted to get interior weapons online, only managing to get a single unarmored door closed infront of the tainted drone.

Over all frequencies, it screamed. It seemed to just be streaming out any information at all to confuse whatever was listening.. in this case Centari.

The utility drone arrived behind the door.. Centari ordered it to stand in the middle of the hallway.

If it wanted what Centari thought it did, then it wouldn't waste time and immediately try to attack the utility drone.

The door opened with a crunchy growl..

Centari was right.

The drone seemed to have lost all of its previous control, immediately bee-lining for the utility drone.

Centari ordered it back, in a full sprint.

It was faster.. barely.

The utility drones subtle taps were drowned out by the combat drones loud slams as it galloped after it.

Centari did it.. it found another door it could use.

The utility drone took a right.. then a left.. then another right, all with the combat drone gaining on it.

It stumbled over a shattered tile, rather humanlike for a only humanoid drone, and fell into the doorway.

A screech resounded over the radios as the combat drone raised its front facing plasma blades.

It flew down with menacing speed, the utility drone only barely clearing the door..

Beep..

Crunch..

The internals of the combat drone sparked as it's body hung midair in the door. The door closed.. in the nick of time.

The plasma swords shimmered down to a nightlight glow, the active light on its head fading aswell.

It was nearly completely broken in half, cords and metal hung loosely around it's center mass.

"Tear the blades off."

Centari ordered silently. The utility drone stood after a moment, as if still apprehensive about the now destroyed drone.

Centari couldn't blame it, if he could feel fear, he just would of.

The drone slowly approached, grabbing the left blade by it's base.

It glanced around for a moment before ripping it off, sparks flying out of the missing limp.

Centari watched as it tore them off primitively..

it could of just unattached them with the latch and button on the sides of its arm.. but Centari didn't say anything.

Finally, Centari ordered it to replace its left arm with the blade.. this time relaying the information about the buttons via a silent stream of data.

It looked dumbfounded for a moment before unattaching it's own arm.. and then unattaching the blade from the combat drones ripped limp.

With a nice clink and the sound of rust flaking, the drone had a plasma blade on its arm. Though, it probably couldn't use it for longer than.. say.. 25 minutes.

Finally Centari told the utility drone to grab the flag hanging next to it, and use it as a cape to cover it's arm.

The flag looked torn and worn but.. it still had the outline of a skull.. whatever else was faded beyond even AI recognition.

The drone ripped it down, slinging it around itself and hiding it's arm as if it wasn't even there.

Warning..

..

Warning..

Proximity Alert..

Unidentified Frigate Detected..

.. and with that, Centari ordered it back to the hanger, and it's deactivation.. for a nice surprise.