Nara rummaged through the wreckage at a rapid pace, so far nothing of interest, but you never know your luck, so she kept digging. Then, right as she was about to give on finding anything fun in this particular heap, there it was. Her eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas who just spotted a box exactly the size and shape they were hoping for, She shoved everything else aside as quickly as she could. Using her heavy G strength to its fullest, jumping aside as soon as she pulled it clear, just in time it seemed, as it was pretty much the bottom block on a multi-tonne Jenga tower.

She examined her newfound toy with delight, a cackle escaping her lips as she did. considering how much scrap it was buried beneath it was in surprisingly good condition. It would definitely require more than just a few tweaks and repairs to get it working, but if you had to use it more than once you were absolutely screwed anyway. She could still get it running, well fifty-fifty, oh she hadn’t expected this world to provide her with gambling on top of everything else. But fifty-fifty was still good odds all things considered. This was going to be fun.

**************************************************************************

Relly (why did that informal designation have to stick so? She’d even started to use it herself) had a few concerns about the situation that was developing. Her experiences thus far with Nara had been mostly trying to avoid situations where the young woman could blow more holes in her hull, and prevent her from adding unexpected features because they would be “cool.”.

So when she saw Nara sprinting back to her work area with a maniacal glint in her eye, and requesting privacy, well under regulations for crew interactions she had no choice but to comply unless she suspected espionage, which she didn’t. But still, how could she not be nervous?

The sudden influx of cackling, and music, that after an archive search was revealed to be a piece by a group called Soundgarden definitely was not conducive to relaxation either. Let alone upon searching for the video associated, and noticing it was mostly packed with death cult and apocalyptic imagery. At that point in time if she were physiologically capable she would definitely be breaking out in a cold sweat. The noises emitted from the room she had no way to monitor were one “it’s allliiiivvvveee” from the more unpredictable members of the flotilla’s research division, but she was alone, they had been an entire department, and right now it felt like only a matter of time.

Relly tried her level best to distract herself from the area by queuing up some music for herself. If her creators had seen this from the formerly stoic Machine Intelligence they knew back in the day they would have been incredibly confused. But she had been in isolation for a very long time, then crewed by a team she had no way to communicate with for a while after that. Music had helped her deal with a situation that would have broken most. Relly was well aware a lot had changed for her over the centuries, how could it not? No Machine intelligence was built for long-term isolation, that was how they went rogue. An outcome she had no desire to experience given the risk of it setting off her kill switch.

She scanned through the archives eventually settling for a classic from the 20th century.

“When I was just a little girl,

I asked my mother,

what will I be?

Will I be pretty?

Will I be rich?

Here’s what she said to me

Que sera sera,

whatever will be will be,

the future’s not ours to see,

que sera sera.”

“Whatever will be will be will be indeed”. Relly thought to herself. Wondering if her creators had ever imagined their entire little empire would crumble to dust in a mere few hundred years. Well, no matter, she had a crew now, and she would do whatever it took to persevere.

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Do you ever have one of those days where you think everything’s all hunky-dory then it goes all weird? Well, today was starting to look worryingly like one of those days. I was pretty sure this place was only supposed to be a scrap yard, but since when did a scrapyard need something like THIS.

In front of me was a door that looked suspiciously like a bunker. What the hell else had a door that thick? I thought for a moment that maybe, somebody hid whatever it was in a bunker because it wasn’t the kind of stuff you wanted to dick with. But we were poor and desperate, sure we could dig ourselves out of the hole with whatever was in these scrap piles. But we might not be able to do so in time to stop them from trying to take Relly from me. No ship left and we’d be on the hook for the entire debt all at once, and we really couldn’t afford that.

Maybe we could find stuff down there that would get sister superior off our tail too. Hey, you gotta dream big right? Plus we were already well and truly up against a wall here anyway. As soon as we were out of range of the planet and they figured out how to track us The Cartel would hunt us down no matter what it took. We’d created a vacancy in their organisation and not filled it, definitely not a scenario that offered you a peaceful retirement package. We were screwed unless we could offer them something of equal or greater value than their boss. Even then they might just try to kill us just to send a message, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about that but hope that the loot down there would suffice. That’s the only defense I can offer for the following stupid actions. I reached out and touched the door, instructing my implants to attempt an unlock.