"Castle, is it possible to rename you?" I asked apprehensively, knowing how Ark felt on the subject.
"Candice, I have not functioned for over a century, this is the first time my captain's yacht has returned in all that time. I doubt my old name holds the weight it used to," she replied.
"Quite contrary, my dear. You, are a historic relic, shrouded in mystique and mystery; Ark told me about you when I was little, even he envies you, and what you may be capable of. My old captain even warned me that if I found you, I should stay clear." I smile to myself as I continue to scrub the panels in the dining room, the main hall, cockpit, and my bedroom already done, showing an eggshell white throughout the cleaned portions of the ship. "Would you care to venture a guess as to why, my dear?"
"I have no idea, wouldn't my systems be outdated by now, newer and better ships produced?"
"Castle, of the five ships built with the same frame as you, only Ark is currently commisioned by a government, three are confirmed Dead, and for the last fifty years nobody has been able to find you, you have been classified as a ghostship, a ship with an intelligence, presumed dead, but with systems flickering through powered states without warning. Fifty years ago, your hyper engines activated in the middle of a salvage mission that was aimed at 'reclaiming' your repair bots and trying to get them to Ark. Only one was taken from the ship before your hyperspace shield came on, and the engine began to flair." I had seen the videos from Ark, he had been on her port side watching the operation.
"In our current society, nothing is more dangerous than a Ghost Ship, and the longer they are unseen, the more likely they are to be dangerous, with corrupted memory files." I sigh at my own admission as to how dangerous me chasing this ship was, but I am still glad I did it. "But what truly makes you dangerous is the fact that of your four sister ships, you were the only one capable of using magic."
Ark had told me about this too. In the fight where she was officially declared sunk, she had been launching void magic and using space magic like it was going out of style. Because the empire feared the ships being captured, they never told the sister ships about the specifications of each other, and hardcoded a ban on them pilfering any information about their sister ships from the systems; well anything told orally could be retained, or captured video from non-government sources.
As I finished the last little corner of the eggshell-colored wall in the dining hall, I heard something clanking on the hull of the captain's yacht. "Castle, is that you on the outside of the yacht?" I ask quickly as I run to the cockpit, to see if I can see anything.
"Yes, Candice. Three repair drones are correcting the deficiencies in the yacht's angle shields, as well as replacing the armor plating, rerouting wires, as well as bringing the yacht up to current shipyard standards. Please, do not worry, as the oxygen seal will not need to be broken in order to fix the deficiencies in the yacht. The path between my bridge and the yacht is now part of the oxygen seal, if you are uncomfortable, you may proceed to the bridge.
I decide to take her up on the offer, and walk through the hallway to the back of the ship, to the door between the two hyperspace engines, upon looking into a small camera to the side, the camera quickly determines that I am allowed to open this particular door, and it slides into the floor.
Charing is still visible on the walls, floor, and ceiling, and most of the lights are either off or flickering, but their priority for repair is on the lower end of the scale. Smooth patches of steel are visible past mangled messes of wires, pipes, and infrastructure that got pierced through during the last battle Castle participated in; this hallway was truly a mess, but for now, it was part of the Seal, and therefore safe.
The pale grey carpet that had once been stretched smooth across the floor was now bunched in places, especially near places where new patches were evident. The door behind me closed as I walked down the corridor, and a junction in the hallway went to the left and right.
"Candice, my sensors show your lifesigns at the junction of the dorsal escape tunnel; both left and right tunnels will lead you to the main bridge, server room, crystal storage, battery storage, and the emergency bridge. due to the cleaning drones being used in light repair operations, I would like to recommend not approaching the emergency bridge, as they have not been given a chance to remove the human remains from the room, would you like for me to change their priority to doing so?"
I'm not sure if I can get used to her being so stiff.
"No, your operations and repair of defense mechanisms are a priority at the moment. We will need to go into a mining belt to collect minerals for you to repair, Boss made sure that I had permission to use the claims used by Davidson's Crew, but I can't pick them clean. we might be able to collect enough minerals so you can rebuild a few turrets, but I doubt we can take much more than that from the crew claims and still be in their good graces."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Since FTL communication arrays are operational, once you reach the bridge, I will be able to connect you to their vessel," she informs me, losing a bit of her monotone reply, almost seeming excited to be doing something other than repair.
"Are your shields operational up to fifty percent, able to last at least an hour, and not drain your systems to the point you go into sleep mode in under sixteen hours?" I ask plainly.
"No," she answers.
"Then we stay here, doing basic maintenance, and repairs until you can. I did not find you, just to lose you. You know what most ships are capable of these days, and of the twenty sentient ships built by the empire, you and Ark are the only two left."
"I wasn't built by the empire. I was stolen by the empire. I was built by the kingdom of Tal Oz, I was built to be the Queen's Flagship. Ark was built based on my design, but they couldn't get the crystal formations right in order for him to use magic." she dropped a bomb on me there, decided to go down the path to my right, thick armored glass with massive blast shutters allowed me to see out into the void, stars, tiny in appearance from this distance, could be seen stationary through the panes. to my left, doors every few feet. I opened the first door, and a wave of heat hit me, the control servers for the repair drones were working overtime and felt like they were beginning to overheat.
"Castle, what is the maximum safe operating temperature of these servers?"
"Thirty-two degrees."
"And what is the current mean temperature?"
"Seventy-nine degrees."
"Shift priority, fix the climate control for this room and maintain the temperature inside for optimal processor usage. Once this room is repaired, return to current priority list."
"Yes, Captain." she paused for a moment, then continued. "Captain, if I remove material from the hangar floors, I can repair 100% of the hull, bring the ship to 100% oxygen seal, and repair 89% of the electrical, hydraulic, and life support systems, and we can be underway by the end of the day, it would also allow me to correct the issues in the battery bank and allow me to store 77% of the power I was originally capable of."
"Go ahead, thanks for the recommendation." seemed like she was opening up some, but still quite stuffy.
I opened the second door along the hallway, and a network of light filled prisms filled my vision, I glanced at the door quickly, and in the old written form, the door was named 'Crystal Access' "Your crystals are pretty. Ark never let me see his."
"It's prohibited for anyone other than the captain to enter that room," she answered back abruptly. "Even then, I have a bit of apprehension with a new captain in there."
"May I ask why?" She doesn't answer for a while, but then seems to figure out how to say something.
"I am bare in that room. It would be like walking out of a changing room wearing only your underwear. I would say birthday suit, but there are actually covers to protect the sensitive formations."
"Thanks for the heads up." I close the door and walk past the doors labeled for the batteries, and emergency bridge, and enter the door labeled 'Main Bridge'.
There was no smell in the room at all, and a fresh patch just behind the door, and a place where a panel should be, but instead, hanging wires; which let me know why there was no odor here. The main viewing screens, two of which would normally display graphics about important ship systems, that would be mounted between the port and starboard emergency exits, one of which was the door I just entered, were shattered. the starburst pattern on the center one told me that it went before the room went vacuum. The crystalline shattering of the other two told me they blew because the room went void; at each of the officer stations around the room, the screens were the same way.
Shuttle traffic control's radar screens were of a different design, so they could function in the void, the three screens were working proudly, the screens were each a different color to denote which axis they were recording from, port to starboard was yellow, bow to stern was red, and dorsal to keel was green.
Across the bridge, in the same location on the port side, was a station set up almost identically, however I knew it to be the fighter traffic control, all the manned and unmanned fighters in the area would show up on those three screens, and would also show inbound shuttles, but not outbound ones, that were also on the STC's screens.
The three chairs at the communication's stations were well labeled with intership communication, intraship communication, and Chief of communications.
Likewise, the four chairs at the security station were the same, with the additional one labeled Cyber Security.
On the floor, in the center of the room, was a chair recessed into the floor, angled back slightly, Ark had the same thing, this was for a human pilot, Ark preferred to have a human pilot, but it wasn't needed. He only liked it because it allowed him to focus on the other aspects of the ship, and ignore mundane things like moving.
To the left of the pilot's seat is the Chief Engineer's station, and to the pilot's right is the navigation station, with the ship captain's chair being placed behind the pilot, but still close enough that a captain the height of a normal adult could kick the pilot in the head without much trouble while never leaving their chair.
The light in the center of the semi-circular room was without a shade, and only part of the fixture was working anyway, so the diffuser only served to add an eerie ambiance to the room without smells. But, the thing that creeped me out the most, was what was in the center of the back wall, flanked by the ship's two main elevators.
"Castle, can you explain what that is in the center of the back wall in the main bridge?"
"Oh, you mean me?" she asks.
Water inside the tank drains quickly, and the cylinder of glass raises into the ceiling, as massive cords pop off of the thing that was in the tank only moments ago; and before me stood a very naked girl, with no arms, but beautiful blue eyes and hair so dark that it shimmers violet in the scant artificial light.
Instead of arms, she had robotic prosthetics, the kind that was used a century ago.
"Don't worry, Candice, this body is just a proxy I can control anywhere onboard this ship," she answers from in front of me, instead of the overhead speakers. "I am still part of the ship, but I can remote pilot this proxy as long as I am not in battle. the body is not human, so it requires charging instead of food and water."
"We need to get you some clothes." At my comment she places her arms on her stomach and a liquid substance wraps around her torso and upper thighs then seems to become a fabric bodysuit. It also traces itself along cracks in the artificial skin, and repairs the cracks, making her look more human than before.
"No need, nanites can take care of that issue."