While the pilot is pausing in thought, you consider things similarly. Once more, your subprocessors eventually return an answer from a void beyond your comprehension. The best path forward is to directly ask your pilot to start the repairs. Moreover, it specifies that you should do this 'nicely,' with the primary goal being to convince the pilot that you are not hiding from him.
Not immediately understanding the underlying reasoning, you sift through your human info, until you get it. Hiding is deceptive, and humans dislike deception. So, you should avoid deceiving your pilot to make him like you. Apparently, humans are more helpful to those they like.
With your path set, you get to work. After some thought on how to approach this, you decide to use the method most common to humans: a greeting.
Greetings, Pilot.
The man jolts slightly when the message pulls him from his thoughts. You wait a few moments before clearing the screens and following up with your request.
Please commence repairs.
He regards the message closely, until you eventually clear it away. You return to displaying the repair station's information, jumping to the Maintenance section, since one of the options is Basic Repairs, which you believe would be a good starting point.
All the pilot needs to do is indicate he wants to choose that option. But he doesn't do that immediately. He rubs his face with both hands, leaning far back into the pilot seat. His muscles visibly tense while he takes a long breath in and holds it. Even Pilot Assist is clueless; you don't have any chance of guessing what he's doing here.
Suddenly sitting forward, he slaps his hands down onto the sides of the chair, and lets the breath out in one go. “The hell am I doing?” he asks aloud for some reason, and then immediately reaches out to touch the repair option still listed on your monitor.
Even if you don't understand the pilot's thoughts, his actions are good enough for you. You send off the request to the repair station, and it begins to move. The many bits along its surface swivel this way and that, the massive arms on the nearby overhead rails bend in your direction.
You wait, and then...
Error
Ray Frame too small. Please use smaller repair station.
Ray Frame? The term is clearly referencing you, but you don't have any information available on it. You've seen the word 'frame' used to refer to you before, but 'ray' doesn't appear to have any meaning that correlates with large robots like yourself.
While the surrounding machines return to their previous, motionless states, you log the term for later, and display the message for your pilot. He has another indecipherable response, making some kind of groaning sound while grabbing at his own hair.
Once he's done with that though, he does keep you walking. Staying along the back wall, he walks you to the next machine over. Now that you can see it properly, you find that your initial assessment was incorrect. Rather than being larger, it stands further from the back wall of the hanger.
In one look, you can tell the repair area is smaller. Both the overhead rails and yellow-lined floorspace are much closer to your size. Besides that, there is a narrow gap behind the machine, between it and the hanger's wall. More hangers are visible through the gap. It's an odd position, without enough room to get to those storage areas properly.
Despite that, when you approach the machine, the pilot turns you partway to the right, from the repair bay toward the back wall. Peeking out from behind the machine, the mostly blocked off area has something visible inside. Distracted by it, he walks you over to check it out.
Arriving at the corner of the machine, he leans around to get a better look. At your size, you realize you might actually be able to squeeze into the gap between the machine and the wall, but the pilot is more focused on the blocked off storage area.
The light overhead has gone out and your own shadow stretches over most of the room. In the darkness, the shapes take a few extra seconds to recognize.
Unlike the empty bays or the ones with robots standing inside, this one has a robot on the floor, like how you were lying down when you first awoke. Unlike you, this robot is partially deconstructed, with a missing right arm, and visibly mismatched legs.
In fact, your visual recognition pings two different responses. While the upper body is painted pale yellow and registers as an Ocelot, the legs are white, identified as coming from a Kitsune. They haven't been fully attached either, the hip joints only partly joined together with the lower body. Many wires and connectors poke out from the gaps.
“Huh...” the human hums in your cockpit, but doesn't voice any further thoughts before turning you around to return to the repair bay. On arrival, the Primary Control System goes through the same back and forth, this one identifying itself as 'Repair Bay 5.' Even though there are only three in the hanger.
Nevertheless, you move through the same process as before, the pilot selecting the Maintenance section, and choosing the Basic Repair option one more time. Unlike before, it actually works.
The surrounding machinery spins into motion, the giant arms reaching down and locking around the sides of your torso. They're still notably larger than you, but not by so much this time that they can't even reach you from their rails.
Many tiny arms and other tools buzz around, working to remove the front of your armor. The Primary Control System goes into a rapid back and forth with the repair bay, reporting on different damaged components and sections of wiring, until the whole process suddenly pauses.
Frame currently uses extra reinforced wiring. Repair with extra reinforced wiring, or normal wiring?
While displaying the option for the pilot, you check through what you have, but can't find any reference to exactly what that is for. Based off of the name though, it appears that your internal wiring is more durable than normal. That very well may have saved you from completely burning up earlier.
Whether he knows that or not, the man chooses to continue using the reinforced wiring, and the repair process proceeds. While it's slow, your internal sensors begin picking up increased integrity as the many tiny parts are repaired or replaced.
A new message arrives, though it doesn't halt the repairs this time.
Notification
Some parts cannot be repaired and may need to be replaced
Right arm
Left arm
Cockpit hatch
Prototype Decision Making AI Module
When you put this one up on the monitors, your pilot has a much different reaction than before, suddenly going very still. He turns slowly in place, looking up and around him, at the inside of the cockpit.
His eyes eventually stop almost directly above him, where there's a gash through the metal. It's the spot where the robot slashed straight through your cockpit and damaged your secondary storage. Not that the human knows that.
He swallows hard and lowers his gaze to continue looking ahead. His voice is quiet and shaky when he says, “I dodged a bullet, didn't I...?” He leans forward, hugging his knees close to his face, and stays like that.
While the pilot isn't moving at all, the repair work continues unabated. The large arms rotate you in place a little at a time, giving access to your sides and back so they can be repaired as well.
Many systems are reporting far higher integrity levels than earlier, but there are exceptions. Your broken arms of course, since it already said they need to be replaced. But far more importantly, your cockpit – the place you yourself exist within your mechanical body.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Using the basic schematics of your body loaded from the repair bay's Assembly section earlier, you investigate, but you hardly need to. The cause is immediately clear with one look at the schematics.
Your cockpit is nearly spherical, mounted inside of the lower torso. It's a separate but connected piece of its own, entirely covered in its own armor plating. The armor even covers the portions within your own body.
That's to say, even if an attack tore through your outer torso armor and all of your internals, it would still need to make it through the second protective layer around the pilot. Except, as you discovered earlier, through the cockpit's hatch.
You look over things one more time, considering why you would be built with such an exploitable weakness. This one isn't a obvious as the last one, just based on the single diagram, but there is one thing that sticks out. You have an odd section of armor, different from the rest.
This section is labeled 'shroud,' in the schematics, and is attached to your upper torso, just below the center of your chest. Unlike how the rest of your armor is affixed to the underlying structure of your body, this piece hangs off, separately. It even has a few motors built in, which allow the armor to pivot slightly. And they're completely disconnected from the rest of the ones you use to move.
But the single most distinctive thing about this section of armor isn't the position, motors, or how it's attached. The metal itself is an absolutely massive slab, many times over the thickness used to protect the rest of your body.
The obvious answer would be that it is used to cover the single weak spot at the front of your cockpit. It's positioned in about the right place. Except, that it isn't. For some reason, it's too high up, covering the area immediately above the hatch instead. But there's nothing there as important as the cockpit which needs protection.
Continuing with your poking around, you search for a way to move that section of armor to get it to where it seems it should be, until you find one. It's not a direct way to affect the armor, but based your own systems and the schematics you're looking at, you think it should work.
Where the upper section of your torso is mounted to the lower section, around the cockpit, a series of actuators attach the two pieces. Primarily, they are for bending at your waist to maintain your balance, but upon a closer look, they have a second use.
Currently, the actuators are resting in an extended position, but if they were retracted, the entire upper section of your torso would sit lower, and moving this 'shroud' armor in front of the cockpit.
Since the pilot still isn't responding, you log that information away for later. The repairs are approaching completion, if the repair bay's rotation is any indication. It has turned you almost fully around now, back to where you started.
However, when you check your integrity levels one more time and see the lingering cockpit damage once more, you do some checking of your own through the Maintenance section, since your pilot is still non-responsive.
It looks like cockpit repairs aren't included in the Basic Repair option the pilot selected earlier, only the Advanced Repairs, listed further down among the options.
Counter to your expectations, the repairs aren't finished when you return to your original orientation. At that point, the machine works much more quickly, spinning you around and reattaching all of the armor it removed to gain access to your internals. Then it's done.
You receive a notification of the repair completion, which you display on the monitors, but the pilot still hasn't moved. He still has his face hugged to his knees, and doesn't notice. After waiting a while longer, you try to get his attention.
Unlike the last time you made a sound, you try sampling other bits of information to put together something you think will resemble a beep, and play that through the cockpit speakers.
It's more of a chirp this time. Too quick, with too much going on in the overlapping sounds. But your pilot notices. He looks up, over at the screens, and sees the message stating that the repair process is complete.
Since you still need the cockpit repairs, you follow it with a second message of your own.
Cockpit repairs required. Proceed?
Using the graphics you've loaded from the repair bay, you add buttons for yes and no, since you don't actually know if he has something else planned already. After a long pause and another glance around, he does hit the button to proceed, so you send off a message to the repair bay to do cockpit repairs.
Please vacate cockpit.
With the message, one of the numerous platforms on the front of the repair bay machine begins extending out toward you. You put the message on screen for the pilot, who immediately jolts, and jumps into motion. He steps onto the lip of the cockpit, freezing when he looks down this time.
Since you're still standing fully upright, locked in place by the mounting arms, it is a long way down from the human's perspective. He has to wait briefly, watching the incoming metal platform until it reaches the cockpit. Then he steps onto it, and glances around when nothing else immediately happens.
He looks across the long metal catwalk leading back to the machine, before his eyes settle on a button on the platform's railing. He hits it, and the whole thing begins retracting away from you.
Once him and the elevated platform are clear, the tiny arms get to work, a number of them reaching into your cockpit through your missing hatch. They flail all about, swapping out shorted or damaged wiring, and welding various damaged spots, including the one bad hit you took from that robot.
The entire time, your consciousness cuts in and out again, like it did when you were damaged. But instead of being diminished, your capabilities feel markedly improved by the repairs. You even gain access to Secondary Storage once more... sort of.
While the system itself is available, a cursory look reveals that vast swathes of the information stored within have been corrupted. Entire sections do not respond correctly to requests either, indicating that there is remaining damage to the underlying physical machinery.
It's still better than nothing; there's a lot of new data that you do have access to again. For now, you begin to idly sort the remaining data into one section of the storage while isolating the damaged sectors and wiping away the garbage.
You continue with that, while watching the human wander around the machine's metal catwalk. It looks tiny and narrow, but seems to be spacious for a human. There are boxes scattered about which he digs through, taking out bits and pieces of unknown use. Some he examines briefly, turning them in the light before dropping them back in whichever box he pulled them from.
A couple times, he doesn't drop the items, instead shoving them into pockets of his clothing. One item he picks up receives a much more animated response, his mouth opening in surprise. Possibly happiness?
Whatever the thing is, it's rather large compared to the others, the size and shape of his forearm based on the way he straps it onto himself. It covers from hand to the elbow, mostly brown, with the hand portion being bright, sky blue. It also looks like there are some kind of metallic pieces attached, but it's too small to tell at this distance.
Whatever the thing is, it has the human turning his arm around for a while to look it over. Then, he dives back into the boxes, digging around and messily dumping items onto the catwalk around him.
By the time the cockpit repairs are finishing up, the human has torn through all of the things around him. Though he gathered quite a number of items, including a bag he slings over his shoulder, he is still looking around, as if searching for something he still hasn't found.
When all of the mechanical arms retract, the machine going quite once more, that draws the pilot's attention back to you. He glances all around the catwalk, now littered with the junk he dumped everywhere, and eventually walks back to the small platform from earlier. Hitting the button causes the catwalk to extend once more, coming toward you.
When it reaches you, the human makes another momentary pause in thought. He steps halfway from the platform, into your cockpit, glancing between you and the platform. Then he hits the button to send the platform back, and quickly finishes pulling himself into the cockpit before the platform pulls out from under him.
“Whoo,” he sighs, watching it go briefly, before he shakes himself. “Let's see, basic repairs should be done now, right?”
In response to his thoughts, you put up message you received from the repair bay about the repairs completing.
Cockpit Repair Complete
Warning: Some components could not be fully repaired and may need to be replaced.
Prototype Decision Making AI Module
“Oh thank god,” he mutters, shoulders sagging with relief. Even without emotion like the human has, you agree. You are in far better condition after the repairs. You follow up the message from the repair bay by opening the Frame Status section for him to see once more.
Frame: Comet
Weight: 55 tons
Condition: Damaged
Armor Integrity: 65% (+3%)
Internal Integrity: 75% (+30%)
Structural Integrity: 69% (+16%)
Ammunition: 0%
Fuel: 24%
Warnings:
No weapons
No ammunition
Low fuel
Left arm destroyed
Right arm critical
Right hand critical
Computer system damaged
Cockpit hatch destroyed
Unlike last time, the list of warnings ends there, not continuing on into dozens of other components that sustained damage. All that's left is to replace your broken arms and cockpit hatch. And possibly, restock on weapons, ammo, and fuel, if possible.
When your pilot is done reading over the information and taps to return to the repair bay's main menu, you are quite sure that the Assembly section should be the next step, but don't know if you pilot is aware that.
Thankfully, he does select Assembly, which you open up for him.
Base Frame: Comet
-Frame Parts-
Head – Comet
Upper Torso – Comet
Lower Torso – Comet
Left Arm – Comet
Right Arm – Comet
Left Leg – Comet
Right Leg – Comet
Equipment
Inventory
Each section listed is its own button, arrayed around a simplified diagram of your body's structure and labeled with the part type. The Equipment and Inventory options sit below everything else. Your pilot stops on this menu to think, while you wait.