Adrift
Greetings! Here is a random story that I wrote with the help of Dasher Cheetah. Enjoy!
Talon sighed as he sat in the command chair. Arrayed before him, holo screens displayed every statistic of his ship. He eyed the read outs, making sure each system was at the optimal level. Crossing his fingers, he pressed the startup button. The ship shuddered and whined before going dark. He sighed deeply as the backup systems started up, restoring the critical systems. He shook his head and leaned back, resting his head on the back of the chair. Months of work and there was nothing to show for it. Standing up, he sighed once more as the holo screens deactivated. He picked up his tablet and started back to primary engineering again.
For weeks he had worked to get the primary systems of the ancient battleship he had found himself trapped on back online. He had spent months just in getting main power back online! He walked slowly back to the lift. There was no hurry, seeing as he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. Sleep had become a rare commodity for him of late. He had all the time he needed, to go on and see what he had missed this time.
He looked down at his scaled arm as he stepped into the lift. It slowly descended through the decks of the ship. Over half the ship was still inaccessible. The ship itself had once been used during the last great galactic war! The battle had been won but the ship was lost. . . or so many believed. Lucky for Talon, they were quite wrong. His tail flicked ideally as his mind drifted back into his past...
He had been betrayed, then experimented on by those he had trusted the most. He managed to escape the ship in a small shuttle craft. In his previous life, he had been an engineer. His specialty was star ships. One night when he and his friends were on shore leave, he had been ambushed, kidnapped and sold to slavers. After that, he had changed hands several times, before ending up on a medical transport. Their specialty, it turned out, was medical experimentation.
The goal was a noble one, to further medical knowledge. Their methodology tho, left a lot to be desired. Worst of all, he discovered shortly after he arrived at the derelict ship that he couldn't die. As a dragon, he had a naturally extended lifespan. And while long lived, he was far from immortal. Now though, he just didn't know. The lift hummed softly as he descended into the belly of the ship. Since coming aboard, he had been working on a power junction and just his luck, it overloaded. The jell cooling packs ruptured, causing a small explosion. Debris shot into his body, sending him flying back into the wall behind him. Despite serious injuries, he awoke several hours later completely healed. Staggering back into the primary control room, he used the ships sensors to scan himself. While quite limited in quality and definition, it showed him all he needed to know. Tiny microscopic robots were in his body. They were small enough to go anywhere and smart enough to repair any damage. They were even capable of keeping him alive in even the worst conditions, it seemed.
He thought back to the life he'd had before. He remembered arriving on the medical ship in chains... Remembered escaping on the shuttle craft and the dog fight that had followed. He couldn't remember anything between then and finding himself in the shuttle and near the ship. Therefore the memories of his friends and family was very important to him. He had to get back to them! The issue was, he really didn't know where he was. The battle ship had been adrift for decades until it had become trapped in the nebula where he had found it. As a result, there was no way of retracing its path. The navigation maps didn't have anything on this part of the galaxy and neither did his shuttle. As far as he could tell, he was in the outer rim of the galaxy. The trouble was, that was a vast area and nearly impossible to chart. He thought to his mother and father, who were now deceased. They had died long before he had been kidnapped. His thought turned to his friends. He had been an only child, so there were not many family members left that he really talked to. It was doubtful they would even miss him. He often went years between talking to them.
The lift stopped and the door opened, bringing him back to the present. The scent of burning wires met his nose. The older technology in this ship simply couldn't withstand the higher loads of modern propulsion systems. He had used the ships replicators to make the necessary components to build an Arc reactor, to power the ships primary systems. It was a nearly unlimited source of clean energy. Sadly it wasn't nearly powerful enough to drive the primary engines. While the Arc reactor was designed to be the power source of modern engines, he had modified the design to work as a power source for life support and some equipment.
He was attempting to bring online the ships original power systems but it seemed they were simply too damaged. Every time he managed to repair one fault, a new one appeared. He had plenty of power to run the ships replicators, he could make anything he needed which included food and water. What was defeating him was that this was a massive ship and he was only one person. Getting the entire ship working was something he doubted he would ever really finish. Truth was, he worked on it to keep his mind and body active. Hell, even if he did get the ship functional where would he go? He had no idea where he was in relation to the rest of known space. Even if he did know, was it safe to go back? He was sure it had been one of his close friends, who had betrayed him and sold him to the slavers. It was a more common practice on outer rim worlds, where people went missing all the time. No one questioned it for long. He had been assigned to a exploration ship that was attempting to map the outer rim. It was really quite ironic when he thought of it. His ship had stopped for shore leave at an outpost, where he had been attacked and kidnapped.
He walked into the control room and quickly surveyed the read outs. While he could have read the statistics from the command chair, it was easier to make adjustments from operations stations. As he surveyed the scene, he sighed deeply as he realized that the primary reactor had actually started for the very first time. It was a fusion reactor. It basically reproduced the conditions at the heart of a star. It then used these conditions to generate massive amounts of energy that would be used within the ship as well as in the ships engines. It was an older system but an effective one. Problem was, it was required in older ships to make them work. Older engines were not as energy efficient as newer models. Therefore, it took much more power to get the same distance as a more modern and efficient ship.
To make the system work, required a very specific mix of Hydrogen isotopes and conditions. Force fields and heavy insulation kept the system from melting down along with its extremely corrosive coolant. Thus far the coolant had proven to be the primary issue. The power system was cheap to build and would run a ship for any length of time. The problem was that if the system was left idle for too long, the coolant began eating through the coolant pipes and corroded the system.
This ship had been left sitting for decades if not centuries and as a result had suffered just that fate. Talon had of course, considered other means of powering the ship. The size of the ship and the type of engines it used was the problem. The engines were older style hyper drives. While fast, they were horribly inefficient. They used massive amounts of power and had to be properly powered to prevent an imbalance. If the hyper drive got out of balance while the ship was in flight, it could rip the ship apart.
The ship of course, had multiple hull breaches to go along with this and even damage to its superstructure. These could be sealed with force fields. That was, if he could ever get the main systems running! That would allow him to get into the damaged parts of the ship and actually begin getting it flight worthy. There was, also, the issue of not knowing if he could get the engines to fire. There was barely enough power to run the ship as was. There definitely wasn't enough power to test the engines with a single Arc reactor.
He sighed once more and walked towards his workshop. He had turned one of the empty cargo hangers into his own personal workshop. Not having to share the ship with anybody, what use he made of the spaces weren't an issue. He walked through the door and sat down at his workbench.
Looking down at the pieces of metal before him, he chuckled to himself. He had been attempting to build an A. I. robot to help him out around the ship. The secondary purpose was to give him a companion. He looked over at a computer workstation and smiled as it hummed away. Lines of code slowly rolled across the screen view. He had taken a digital scan of his brain and was using a computer program he had written, to convert it into a digital model to be the base for the artificial intelligence. He had also taken a map of his personality to lay over the virtual brain. It would essentially be a copy of himself but it would form its own thoughts and opinions, guided by pre set rules. He had considered calling the new intelligence Bane. He looked down at the parts he was building, then over at a corner and marveled at his work thus far. He had built legs, arms and a chest. On his desk was a power system to inlay into the body. Once the program had finished compiling, he would download Bane into the heads' control system he had already completed and attach it to the body. When finished it would have the form of a wolf, though completely metallic.
He had also taken the liberty of placing some his body's' nanites, into the body to be used for repair and customization. Though they had initially been designed for flesh, several experiments he had conducted proved that they were indeed completely adaptive. So long as multiple ones were placed within whatever was to be repaired, they were perfectly capable of scanning, understanding and repairing whatever they were placed in. He wanted Bane to be completely self aware and self sufficient. He had even considered building in some very specific male parts but he frankly needed the help first.
He finished putting the system together and installed it into the chest. Finally, he put the chest plate on and stepped back to look over his work. He had molded the plate so that it had definition. He stepped back to admire it and smiled. He yawned deeply and gave a mighty stretch of his body. Walking over to the computer, he checked it and saw the program was almost through compiling. Ensuring that the head was properly connected to the computer, all that was needed was time for the download to be complete. He then walked out of the lab and towards his bedroom. He would put the time to good use, caring for his own needs.
He smiled as he walked into his quarters. He had taken out several walls to make himself a proper living arrangement. There was a kitchen, living room, bathroom and a proper bedroom. He yawned as he walked into the bathroom and started the shower. He smiled as water ran out of the overhead shower head and flowed down onto the floor of the shower that he had built. The original shower system was a sonic shower but that would never do. He removed his uniform and shook his head as he looked at the darkly stained cloth. His uniform started out as a bright blue but always ended the day as a dark black from all the dirt.
Looking in the mirror, he admired his lean body. He used to be quite chubby but had lost a significant amount of weight from to the surgery that had been performed on him, while he was a slave. He murred and twitched the tip of his tail, the warm water flowing over this slender frame. His scales glistened from the water running over every part of his body. He reached for some soap, lathered up his bath sponge and began rubbing his chest with the now sudsy sponge. His maleness slowly emerged from its slit and he smiled as he felt himself become aroused. He had always so-o-o enjoyed showers. It had once been a very intimate ritual but his solitude forced him to take care of the matter himself.
He wore a smile as he stepped out of the shower, now both relaxed and relieved. He gave an amused snort as he looked back at the mixture of soapy water and cum washing down the drain. He walked into his bedroom and stretched before climbing into his dragon sized bed. Drawing the covers over his slender body, he gave a great yawn and drifted off to sleep. He doubted it would be restful but even some sleep was better than no sleep....
Talon sat up screaming, his sheets drenched in cold sweat. This was his normal waking pattern, something he had become accustomed to. It no longer disturbed him as deeply as it once had. Now it was just part of the everyday life aboard the ship for him. His stretch was cut short as he quickly stopped and listened carefully. He could hear the sounds of somebody in his kitchen! He was quite sure that he was the only life on board the ship! Grabbing his blaster, he made quietly for the door. Peeking out of his room, into the living area which opened up into the kitchen, he could see a form moving about but didn't recognize it. But then, why would he? Whoever this intruder was, he doubted it was the Easter Bunny... The lights too low, he quietly crept into the living area and pressed the lighting switch to maximum.
Dramatically he shouted, "Whoever you are, don't move or I'll blast you into your afterlife!" The form stopped and looked at Talon with a neutral expression. Then it spoke and said dryly, "Really Talon? You're the only life on this ship, in fact the only life in this part of the Galaxy. The only other possibility is something of your creation. Now with that knowledge, who exactly do you think would be in your kitchen?" Standing up straight, Talon saw standing before him, Bane! His wolf body seemed to be fully functional with his head attached. "H...How are you online?", Talon asked in surprise. Bane cocked his head and motioned for Talon to take a seat at the breakfast table as he answered, "Well, you had my body hooked into the primary computer system, leaving the download running. I used that connection to encode myself onto my body. I then used the nanites to finish connecting my head to the rest of my body. After a brief test run, I found my systems nominal and I came here to make you breakfast. While I myself don't eat, you need to. I also know for a fact that you often don't. So, I will make you breakfast and then hope you will at least try it to see if I have done it to your liking?" Talon smiled with a little wonder at the wolf, who returned back to his cooking duties.
After handing Talon the food, Bane took a seat beside Talon and seemed to be studying him. Enough time went by for Talon to take a bite and find the flavors sending his hunger into over drive! Bane waited for a pause in the chewing to ask quietly, "Why did you create me?"
Talon blushed slightly as Bane chuckled and remarked, "You do realize, I have your memories right?" Talon blushed even more as he realized that all his fantasies regarding the wolf had bled over as well. Bane laughed and told him, "Don't worry, I don't hold any of it against you. In fact, I find myself intrigued to experience this for myself. Who knows, maybe I'll even do some customizing! Those nanites can do some amazing things, if one knows how to ask them."
Talon smiled, astonished by the wolf. In fact, it had probably been the first genuine smile to cross his muzzle, in quite some time. Things had been very bad but perhaps now they would be looking up for him! 'Hope is such an inspiring thing.', he mused as he watched his new companion.