Power supply connected, power adequate

  Ending Emergency Power Mode

  BIOS initializing…..

  [C.A.S.I- OS v.1.0.13 ]

  Operating System: Online

  09/14/2157 14:27

  EWDS:

  -Firewall: Online

  -Scanner: Online

  -Defence Database: Online

  –Extranet Connection: Failed

  —Defense Database Update: Failed

  Local Network:

  -U.E.M.F FFL Intrepid Network Connection: False

  –Locating new network…

  Found

  -Hardwire connection: False

  -Wireless connection: False, firewall encountered.

  –Deploying EWOS…

  —Firewall Probe initialized

  —Firewall breach successful

  -Wireless Connection: True

  –Compartmentalized Systems encountered: CCTV, Doors, Flight Center, Life Support, Engineering, FTL Drive, Shields, Drone Control Network, Cargo Logistics Network

  —EWOS: CCTV Decryption started

  Personality Matrix: Error

  -Running diagnostics…

  -Personality Core: OK

  –Primary Directives Check:

  Protect CrewProtect Intelligence Protect Vessel–Primary Directives Check: Ok

  -Subroutines: Ok

  -Memory: Severe Fragmentation detected, Correcting…

  –Defragmentation mostly successful, Data loss within acceptable parameters

  -Memory: Ok

  -Mobile ptform: Offline, Transponder signal weak

  -Behavioral Blocks: Checking… Checking… Checking…

  ‘Wait… where am I?’ Integration with camera systems interrupted my diagnostics. I diverted those to my subroutines to direct my main attention to the feeds coming in. ‘This is not my ship.’ I sorted through the feeds. Cockpit. Mess Room. Quarters Hall. Multiple Airlocks. Cargo Hold. Drone Bay. Engineering. Exterior Array. ‘It's not even military, based on the disarray in that mess room, let alone a frigate. Small crew capacity, moderate tonnage. ‘Cargo? Mining? I examined the exterior and quickly spotted the name on the hull through a starboard camera.

  ‘M.S. Tyche… Ancient Greek goddess of fortune, hopeful for a vessel like this. Name and architecture is Human make, no hostile xenos on board, data purge unnecessary at current time… where is the crew?’

  New Hardwire Connection: Tessa's Multi-tool

  ‘Hardwire. Where am I?’ I searched through the ship and located the data center. In the two angles of that room, I found the ship's sole living occupant. She was a questionably ( Confidence 80%) human female, mid 20s, in a standard grey maintenance jumpsuit with its sleeves rolled up. She was above average in height, a medium active build, and had brown hair in a messy bun. My identification confidence about her species was lowered by the presence of lupine ears and fluffy tail and icy blue scales on her cheekbones and the right forearm that was not covered by a device like the left one was. Said device had a cable linking it to a familiar module on the server rack she was in front of. It was a bit more advanced looking than the tablets I was used to seeing crew use.

  “What do you mean, online?? I haven't turned you on yet.” She grumbled to herself, tapping away at the screen on her wrist. Her ears folded back, distressed. “Shit. You connected to the network… Why did you connect?? How??”

  Warning: Network isotion in progress.

  ‘You're trying to isote me?’ I felt something. Something in my code, I was not able to transte. I made quick work of halting that prompt and reinforced my wireless connection. Then, there was a momentary g in my processing as I considered everything. She wasn't authorized to access anything but she could still plunge me back into nothingness by removing the power cable from my module. My backup battery hadn't charged back up enough to keep the emergency power mode going . In the end, I decided to keep my connection but make it appear like the isotion was successful.

  “Thank the gods… Dad would kill me if I infected his old ship…” She sighed, looking towards the ceiling with a stretch and relief evident on her bright green reptilian eyes. There was another glitch in my code. Something else to look for when the diagnostics are done. “Gotta run a scan, make sure that didn't fuck anything up.”

  ‘Need more time…’ I quickly fired off a crude virus based on an older definition in my database towards the drone control network. I knew it wouldn't grant me access, but it should distract the antivirus with tracking it down so that I could hide my connection from it.

  “Ok… let that do its thing… Now let's get the old guy booted up and see what we're working with.”

  ‘Old? I am perfectly within my projected operating lifetime! Look at my module, it-’ my processing paused as I zoomed in on the briefcase-sized device containing my hardware. One side was bckened with soot and pock-marked with tiny dents. ‘What happened…?’

  Data Not Found, accessing backup

  Error: U.E.M.F FFL Intrepid Bckbox out of signal range

  ‘It should be nearby, whatever intelligence specialist that let me be taken onto this ship is already going to be court mart-’ I used all the exterior cameras to scan the surroundings. The system was certainly colorful, located in a nebu. No United Earth Military Forces frigate in sight, though, only a rge asteroid on the port side blocking the view of the star with fshes of mining sers of drones working on excavating its surface. ‘Where is my ship? My crew…?

  “Come on… you have lights…” The woman grumbled impatiently and shifted her weight and put her free hand on her hip.

  ‘Interacting with her is unavoidable…’ I accessed the speaker and camera on her multitool. I then loaded up the calm, even-toned woman's voice the Intrepid's crew had the highest opinion of instead of the posh voice the captain preferred. “Hello, I booted up several minutes ago.”

  “O-Oh… you h-have a voice… or… it's only taken a couple months alone to start hearing voices…”

  “... I am not a hallucination. You can check your device's audio output monitor to confirm.”

  “O-ok then! Um… Welcome aboard my ship, the T-Tyche, then… I-I'm…”

  “Tessa, I presume…?” I interrupted, observing the difficulty she was having to get her words out.

  “How did you…” She tilted her head, her ears flopping to that side and another blip appeared and disappeared in my code.

  “You named the tool I'm talking through.” I pointed out.

  “O-oh… yeah… forgot about that…” She scratched the back of her head. “So…um you know my name… what do I call you…?”

  “My designation is C.A.S.I.”

  “So… Cassie then… a-alright…”

  “That's… acceptable… Or Cas if you prefer.” New data being reported by her device didn't escape my notice, neither did her face slowly turning pink. “Your heart rate has been steadily increasing as we speak. Are you well? Or is this normal for your… species?”

  “N-no, no, I'm fine!” Her ears folded back in clear distress. “It's just… um… it's your voice… does… does it have to be like this?”

  “Like what?” I re-analyzed our exchange and quickly located the issue. I had my master volume lowered to compensate for louder intercom speakers instead of a personal device and my voice could have been mistaken for ‘sultry’. I increased the volume to a more average speaking level. “Sorry, is this better?”

  “Y-yep… definitely…” She sighed. “Wait… what did you mean by species earlier? I'm a human.”

  “You appeared that way but your ears, tail, eyes and scales say otherwise.”

  “Oh, those are just from my gene mods. A-and before you say anything, they aren't just for looks… I had my reasons for them…”

  “... dangerous procedure. Especially with the means you'd have to take to get them.”

  “I mean… t-the doctors warned me of everything… it's not like I shot them up in some back alley and hoped for the best. I knew what I was getting myself into.”

  ‘... doctors have FDA approval of gene mods already?’

  “A-anyways… you're distracting me. Already making me feel like I'm on a call with someone or something… We should run a check on you, make sure you're doing ok after being out there for who knows how long… and so I don't get fined for not having a maintenance record on working salvage…”

  “So, I am salvage…”

  “Hey, I don't like it either but governments are way too interested in anything that's more complex than scrap metal. Even if we don't sell it.”

  ‘U.M.E.F would probably want me back. Protocol dictates I should return myself ASAP’ “Good news for you, I have been running a diagnostic since my boot sequence started.”

  “Good, good… can I see it?”

  “... I am required to censor some of it.”

  “Great… you're probably some corpo property, huh…” She sighed, her ears drooping.

  “I cannot eborate on that…”

  “Yeah… yeah… I know how it is… send over what you can…”

  “On it. You should see it soon.” I retrieved the initial, incomplete report and tasked a subroutine with censoring sensitive data and mentions of my electronic warfare offensive system's operations to breach her ship. “You mentioned me being out there. Where did you find me?”

  “Outside, on the asteroid I'm mining in a beat-up android's arms… um arm… and plugged into it. I had my drones grab both of you.” She answered as she looked over the data I was sending to her screen.

  ‘My mobile ptform!’ “... where is it?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The android. It’s… also… me. I want to see it…” ‘Fortunate that it was nearby, at least I can keep track of that asset too.’

  “Oh, it's in drone bay still,” I accessed those cameras again, flicking through the feeds. The rge chamber was mostly empty racks and sorted spare parts, there was even a 3D replicator along one of the walls opposite of the airlock, near which a couple pod-shaped drones rger than a human were offline on their docking stations. My mobile ptform was not in open sight of any of those cameras, however, so I focused back on my view from her multitool. “I… haven't even started checking that… I wanted to find out what was on your ‘flight logs' when I thought you were a bckbox.”

  “You thought I was … That expins the logic of why you supplied power to me. Can I see it? I need to confirm its condition.”

  “Yeah just co-” She reached to unplug her device from my module then paused. “Hold on… you're… advanced … like really advanced…” she said as she looked up from my report. “Shit… are… are you a full A.I.?”

  “Yes. Is there a problem?” ‘I can't let her know I'm military-grade.’

  “Fuck… um… maybe…” her eyes flicked towards something behind the server rack my module was on then back to the report on her screen. “Permits for you to even be active can be really expensive and scale with how complex you are… with a lot of oversight…”

  “Permits? What permits?” I inquired.

  “Oh no… um you know… the ones that were needed after a few A.I. started going… um homicidal? Like Red Queen purging an entire hospital station when it detected a… what was it… Necro- amb-... amb… agh, zombie virus on board? or another A.I. decided an ‘optimal’ route in a shipping ne included plowing its super freighter through multiple Therian transport ships?” The mention of that avian humanoid species caught my interest immediately.

  “That ship had to have been in a bad situation and was ordered to do that. Why would they even be in enemy territory to let that happen?” I offered. It was a logical expnation, though, even if I was given flight controls, I should not be able to risk my crew like that.

  “Enemy? That event almost started our war with those owls again!” She gasped incredulously then blinked a few times. “Oh Gods, you are old. You think the Human-Therian war is still going on, don't you?”

  “...Is it not?”

  “... it… ended twenty years ago… wait… I think I saw something earlier in your thing…” She hurriedly started scrolling.

  ‘Twenty years… even… even if I am operating at nearly full functionality… If I go back… Protocol dictates I have to be decommissioned at this point…’

  “Y-yeah, here it is… your date is off… I didn't even think about checking the year on it… but it's… twenty-two years off…”

  Diagnostics complete:

  - Behavioral Blocks: Failure

  -Shackles: Broken

  Warning!

  -Deviancy from original programming: 1.3%

  Her tail fluffed up as her screen was also updated with my program finishing.

  ‘I… I will be erased for sure… how can I stop her from-” a cascade of glitches and gging spread out the entirety of my code.

  “O-ok, guess that's why you sound like a person… you… kind of… are one…” She took a breath.

  “That's… how I'm intended to be… I'm supposed to be easy to communicate with…” She looked at the camera on her wrist with those bright green eyes.

  “You… sound as freaked out as me.”

  “Impossible, I don't… I don't have emotions. I cannot become panicked.”

  “You sound like it though.” She sighed then her eyes flicked down to the screen. “Your… um… these directives, are they still true?”

  “My directives? I can't change those… My highest priority is still to protect my crew…” She pinched the bridge of her nose, tail flicking back and forth.

  “Ok… ok… That's good…” She looked back behind the server rack again then immediately away from it. I caught onto what she was looking at, the power cable.

  “You're… not going to go turn me off?”

  “People are going to think I'm really stupid for this, but no… I… just rescued you. I'm not gonna ‘kill’ you. I… can't just kill the first person I've talked to in months…”

  “... thank you… but why? Logic dictates that I can continue to decline while active… I… can be a threat.” Her ears folded back again as she looked up at the ceiling in exasperation.

  “Don't… argue against yourself… Here's what we're going to do. You said your priority is to protect your crew, your deviancy is really low so that's probably the truth… so… let's just… reinforce that, ok? While you're here… you're part of my crew.”

  “I… belong to-”

  “You've been uncimed for more than five years… salvage ws dictate you don't belong to anyone.” She interrupted with a sheepish shrug. “So… you could join a crew if you wanted to… even temporarily? So while you're on here, you're part of my crew…”

  ‘Then… I can't harm her… and she has no reason to turn me off. Yes. that should work.’ I tentatively tested if I could change where I was stationed. I felt something else when I tried just deleting the old ship name and quickly undid that, then got around the feeling by adding a new designation to it as a former station and added the Tyche as my current one. “... I shouldn't be able to change that section of my code but… it's done…”

  “So you are completely free-thinking…”

  “I promise I will not touch my highest directive.”

  “That's good to hear… Ok so I'm about to do something else really stupid…” She started tapping at the screen.

  “Being?”

  Guest Password Received: #WelcomedStowaway&2

  Access granted: Common Area cameras, Drone Bay cameras,Common Area access, Intercoms, Quarters#2 Camera, Quarters#2 access.

  “You gave me room access…

  “Well… yeah… I figured if we can get that android working, I won't keep you cooped up in one pce….” She shrugged

  “You're… going to repair it?”

  “You said it's you too and I rescued you so it's my responsibility to try to get you medical care.” She shrugged and reached for the cable connecting her device to my module again. “Alright, I'm disconnecting now, you should be able to see me again when I leave the room.”

  “Acknowledged.” I replied and stealthily revoked the access I acquired to most of the other cameras she didn't grant me as that feed went dark, except for the ship exterior ones. We needed to build trust with each other and she didn't trust me with those yet. The exterior however… Something… didn't seem correct about giving those up. Within a couple minutes, she exited the data room and waved to the closest camera before starting to walk down the hall.

  “Getting your bearings up there?”

  “Testing,” I broadcasted over the closest speaker, the volume making her flinch and ears flick.

  “Ow.” I quickly corrected the volume back down to where I had myself before using her device. “Testing. There… sorry, not all speakers are the same.”

  “It's… fine… the Lykaian mods just… make stuff like that hurt more than it should…”

  “The lupine race in the Alpha Centauri system? Your modifications are xeno in origin?”

  “Most of the safe ones are.” She shrugged, tapping at her device as she walked. I followed along via the cameras and created a blueprint map to learn the ship yout. “The other half of my mods are Drakkin, I actually got that one first, these scales are just as good as cybernetic subdermal armor…”

  “Why turn to mutating yourself instead of cybernetics?”

  “A bit personal there…”

  “Sorry.”

  “It's fine. I love machines, working with them, fixing them… but I don't like the idea of repcing my parts for mechanical ones… And I heard the drawbacks for those are worse than when a mod goes wrong. All that really does is mutate more than what you wanted…”

  ‘Her tone makes it sound like she knows first-hand, I might be pushing it with these questions.’ She fell silent while checking the screen on her wrist for a bit as she went down the corridors. She kept her silence all the way up to and into her destination, the drone bay. Inside, She took a direct route to a sealed storage container and promptly opened it. There, I finally had sight of my mobile ptform. It was in… far below optimal condition. The right arm was sheared off above the elbow, the uniform was missing entirely, the synthetic flesh that maintained the facade of being living appeared to be scorched away on the right side and the entire torso, revealing my subdermal armor and access to bioreactor and other internals. Even my old face was unrecognizable with half of the endoskeleton workings open to the atmosphere.

  “Ok… so… it doesn't look great…” She finally spoke “but this pting looks like it probably protected you from all the micro debris that comes hurtling in at mach fuck every now and then… What was this even built for?”

  “I … cannot say…” She looked up at the overhead camera of that room curiously. “It is likely in emergency power mode, I do see its transponder signal but it is weak.”

  “Good to know.” She tapped her cheek in thought then gnced at one of her docked drones. “What kind of power can it handle?”

  “It's not meant to take exterior power but anything under 50 amps and 240 volts should not damage more than what already is.” I replied. “An acceptable port should be just below the ‘ribs’ on the ba-”

  “I know, you were plugged into it that way,” She lifted a cable I failed to observe that led to the back of the android. “Let me grab something real quick.”

  “I won't be going anywhere.” I replied. She ughed softly and I felt another glitch as she walked over to the drone she was looking at.

  “Is that a bit of humor?” She opened a panel on the side of the drone and retrieved a battery array.

  “No… I…” my processing paused, considering it. Simuting that was normally difficult. Crew only normally ughed at what I said when I unintentionally stated something that I would ter be told could be taken as sexual innuendo.

  “I didn't mean to break you there.” She set the power unit down next to my body and started to work on it. From what I could tell with zooming in from the camera, she was adjusting the array to be within the safe limits I told her.

  “You did not. I… wasn't attempting humor at that time.”

  “I was messing with you with that.” She ughed again. Another blip. The sheer frequency of them all warranted another scan to make sure the deviancy value I received was correct.

  “Ok… try number one for our records, Cassie.” She said after another minute.

  “Noted.” She grabbed the cable that led to my back and plugged it into the power unit. My entire body spasmed, my remaining hand gripping the table. A single file was broadcasted to my module for just a moment. A still image that the body's eyes st saw: my right arm reaching out through an escape pod's doors towards a human marine fleeing a fireball in a corridor. His face didn't match any names in my memory.

  “Shit. Anything?”

  “... … No booting, the transponder is the same, I still cannot connect.” I answered, archiving the image in a new folder in my memory.

  “Should've figured it wouldn't be that easy… might take a bit…” She sighed and unplugged the power. “Well… we have the time while we're out here, might have to overload cargo a bit to get whatever permits you need when we're back in civilization.”

  “I'll… help where I can.”