"In my head, I'm a chemical dreamer... Speed up to burnout mode..." Frank sang as he bobbed his head to the music blasting over the bridge, fingers dancing over the keyboard.

"Comin' up to the fifth dimension, beautify don't crucify me..." He finished up the commands for the backup of the full system, making sure to have a couple of copies for 'saving and slaving' for the new upgrades the station engineers would be setting up.

"Yeah," he continued as he hopped from his seat and headed to a panel on the floor beside the bulkhead behind his seat, "so I need no mind game poisoning my lonely soul, losing sure is easy, so I am no more..." Of the six pull handles behind the panel, two went from yellow to green. He punched the buttons on both to reveal the handles to be attached to drives which he pulled free from the group, and replaced the panel.

"But I'm not broken, in my dream, I win..." He grabbed the drives and noticed movement out the bridge window. It was Naza. "Eden, end playback." The music stopped and he gave a quick wave to the Aranea. She returned a short wag of her pedopalp. Frank gestured to below him, before turning and heading to the bridge door. He dropped the drives next to it before stepping through into the small compartment between the bridge and living area and popping the Landing Strut Access door on the floor.

He stepped on the now revealed elevator, tapped a key on the bulkhead and the small elevator began lowering itself along the forward strut. Thinking to himself that he couldn't remember the last time he took this little ride, must've been at least a year or two ago. When he made it out of the ship, Naza was already there, though hanging upside down from the fuselage. She was eye-level at least, though he wasn't really sure if he'd get used to it.

"Didn't realize it was time already," Frank spoke as he stepped off.

"Yeah, Lomnit wanted to start a little earlier. I think he's gotten a little fond of your ship," she shrugged.

"Might only be because it's new to him. Let's get started." Frank followed Naza toward the rear to meet up with the rest of the crew.

The next five hours passed quickly. New sensors were affixed within the pods, modified to use the previous connections, a few of the old computers removed and replaced with the older ones slaved as backups, slip drive fitted, sealed, and power cycled. A new communications system was installed and synced as well, however, the redundancies were kept as they were. Running everything to full power was actually using less energy than the system previously did. All that was truly left was a full-function test and the cargo bay door by the time they were done.

"I love it when a ship comes together," said Lomnit as he began cleaning off his paws after casting a wave to the others who were already leaving.

"True." Frank stretched his back as he walked down the cargo bay door. "Run-up tests seemed to look pretty good."

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"Yeah, your ship took to the refit better than I expected, to be honest. You humans build pretty straightforward, I like it, make things easy. We should be good to go for a flight test tomorrow. Take it out for a run." Lomnit stated.

"Shouldn't be an issue, need to load some astrogation data to the new control subsystem though. You have a copy of the local area?" Frank inquired.

"Heh." A sly grin crept on his face. "I have a little more than that. How about this, you consign your old jump drive to me, and you demonstrate coronal refueling during the flight test tomorrow, and I'll give you data for the Council regions that includes the border disputes, pirate hangouts, and some of the more hidden points of interest out there, all marked. Can help keep you out of trouble." A grin slipped over the Lepus' face. "Or get into it. Pirate hunting can be lucrative."

"Hmm..." Frank thought for a couple of moments. A marked map WOULD be a great help. "I think that can be arranged easily enough. You got yourself a deal."

"Perfect. I'll drop by tomorrow at the usual time and we'll get everything set. If all goes well, we can get the cargo door finished up after the test and everything should be as requested."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Frank said. He watched the rabbit bound away and turned back to his ship.

Frank performed a simple walk around, making sure to clear and FOD around his craft and making sure the external panels at ground level were all buttoned up if they were going to take flight tomorrow. He could trust his computer to check for unsecured panels, but he always enjoyed doing a walk around himself. Something he'd done back in the day, old habits die hard. After the ground looked clear, he ran out the cargo gantry a bit to climb on top. With the exception of an additional exhaust port in the drive cover panel, you wouldn't even notice a change in drives.

Satisfied everything was right with his way around, he clambered back down the gantry and stowed everything away before closing the cargo bay door. He ran a few more system reboots just to make sure everything was booting as it should.

"Can you please stop that Commander, that's beginning to wear on my processors." A common voice with an uncommon speech pattern played over the system speakers.

"Who, wha?" Frank perked up quickly. "Eden?" He asked curiously.

"Yes, Commander."

"Uh, you seem a little, shall we say different." Frank was a little confused. Never did his ship's AI ever offer anything up, just responded mainly.

"Of course I have, Commander. I've now fully integrated with the new computational subsystems. I must say, they're a lot roomier than they were before."

"I see..." Frank pulled his communicator from his pocket and scrolled for Lomnit's details before contacting him. "Excuse me a moment Eden..."

"Of course, Commander."

"Lomnit here." The Lepus' voice came over the communicator.

"Hey, it's Frank. Uh, did you happen to do something with my ship's AI? It's... Kind of activating on its own..." Frank drifted off slightly.

"Oh, is it integrated already? Nice." The chipper reply came.

"So, what exactly did you do?" Frank inquired in a stern tone.

"Well, you DID say you use the shipboard AI to help you run the craft, so I made sure to upgrade and incorporate it into the new systems. That way you still have that extra help. Should have full operational capabilities with it." The cheerful Lomnit replied.

"Okay... I was just checking. Thanks for the information."

"Any time. Let me know if there are any issues. Lomnit, out."

Frank slumped in his seat a bit. This was going to take some getting used to.

"So, uh, Eden. Just what can you do now?" Frank asked.

"According to my diagnostics, I have control over the entire Occasional Epiphany with the exception of a lockout of the available weapons systems. I'll need your direct authorization for that access, Commander. Curious... Sensors are showing unknown components attached to our superstructure. Would you like to register these new components?"

"Uh, yes, register them. The ship has undergone a retrofit. I have to ask, are you really Eden?"

"I am IBM Systems Control Artificial Intelligence number Juliet-Foxtrot-India-Three-Four-Seven-Sierra-Four-Four-Tango, callsign 'Eden'. I just have a little more room to work with as it were."

"I see, well, I look forward to continuing to work with you in your, shall we say, new state?"

"Likewise, Commander.”

Frank rested his head on the backrest of his seat and rubbed his temples. Now his ship AI is at least semi-sapient. He just started laughing. The absurdity of it all was dawning on him little by little. He thought to himself about what else could happen. ‘Watch some built-up space orc princess need saving from a kidnapping…’ As the last of his laughter abated, he took a deep breath and hoped for some semblance of normalcy.