8. The Mimics of Science Fiction

'Today is a great day, Kaon.' Abyssal said to the drone, Kaon, who stood in front of Abyssal's night-vision cameras. It was in a stiff pose and put one of its robo-arms above its body— giving out the impression of a salute.

‘I’ve watched you serve me well this past year. Through thick and thin, you’ve never once broken my trust in you. Despite being made from the dreaded company known as Lancetech, you have proven yourself above and beyond in terms of quality,’  Abyssal continued.

‘If this was any other situation or any other time, I would be content to just let you roam around Abyssal in relative safety, just droning around and doing whatever it is that drones do… But once again, I ask for your services! To venture into this largely abandoned cruiser.’

Yes indeed, Abyssal had decided to explore the space hulk. She had debated long and hard about this decision and decided that this might be her only chance to find more scraps and improve herself. Of course, to do this she would need to send out her only working drone.

This was a very concerning thing for Abyssal who treated the drone like her own pair of arms. But in the end, she decided to go ahead with the plan. If exploring the cruiser meant the destruction of Kaon, then so be it. It just simply means that she lacked the skill and luck regarding the matter— that she doesn’t have what it takes to explore space.

This, of course, didn’t mean that she took zero steps to ensure the safety of the drone and subsequently, her future. She spent a long week just moving around the hulk and observing every single part that could be observed from the ship. She searched for any open parts or even the slightest hints of life, anything that could pose a threat to the drone. Sending the drone in was a decision that she took after great deliberation and with all caution.

‘I wish the best of luck, Kaon! Now go forth! Fulfil your duties!’

“I. Have. Control.” Abyssal’s monotone voice rang out within the drone and it started moving towards an airlock.

‘Hmm, hmm.’ Abyssal nodded to herself. ‘What do you think about that speech? Pretty cool huh?’ Abyssal asked her machine-self.

“Sanity levels at 24%. Subject Kaon, not alive. Advising self-diagnostics of the system.” Her machine-self replied.

‘You know, Abby, you are starting to feel more mean and sarcastic as time goes on, you know that?’  Abyssal remarked towards her machine-self, now nicknamed as Abby, but her machine-self didn’t reply.

During all of this, Kaon made its way towards the airtight hallway and locked the bulkhead behind itself. It was a hallway made to pressurise and depressurise the air within to match either the ship or space. Depending on the pressure, either the entrance to space or the entrance to the cargo room can be opened. The room slowly depressurised to almost vacuum state before the bulkhead, the entrance to the cold void of space, made a weird noise, signalling that it can be opened.

Making an imaginary gulp, Abyssal controlled her drone and slowly moved it to the entrance, using its robotic arms in order to open the large bulky door.

All the preparations have been done. Abyssal had done her research and checked out every possible entrance to the space hulk. She ended up deciding on a large clearing through the hull of the cruiser, a place where she could easily move herself, the ship, around and monitor the drone. Abyssal’s weapon system was primed and ready to go just in case she needed the extra firepower.

‘Let’s do this.’

The door was opened and Kaon was, for the first time, free to travel outside of Abyssal. Using its gravitational thrusters, Kaon slowly drifted its way towards the opening of the cruiser. During this moment, Abyssal’s imaginary heart beat rapidly as she monitored the progress from her night-vision cameras. She took in every sight along with the feeling of excitement, fear, and nervousness. After a certain distance had passed, Abby sent out a message to Abyssal.

“Drone detached from ship Abyssal. Wireless transmission of energy will halt. Kaon will run on inbuilt energy tanks. Estimate operation time: 9 hours.”

‘Got it. Set a timer to notify me after five hours. And make sure that the ship's weapons system is ready to fire at all times,’ Abyssal gave her orders as she continued to control the drone to reach the space hulk.

“Setting timer for 5 hours. Starting now.”

Nodding to the message from her machine-self, Abyssal moved towards her destination. It didn’t take long before Kaon arrived at where it needed to be, towards a small hole within the cruiser’s hull. Abyssal could tell that there used to be a door that covered this hole, but god knows where that thing was at now.

Once the drone went beyond this point it would be completely out of Abyssal’s ship cameras and depending on how deep it goes, probably out of the safety of her guns. She played it safe, however, slowly using the drone to peek within the cruiser, all while making sure that the drone can escape at any time.

Taking her first look into another ship, Abyssal could see long corridors with nothing but floating debris within them. The metallic alloy used to construct this cruiser still looked as if it was brand new from the factory. There were scratches and damage here and there, but overall little to no corrosion could be seen on it. The hallway itself looked empty with nothing much going on, but upon further inspection, Abyssal could see a few pieces of furniture and accessories within the cruiser just floating around. Things like chairs and cups. There hadn't been signs of dead bodies, nor anything dangerous floating around just yet.

Deeming it was safe enough, Abyssal moved the drone deeper into the cruiser. Before she did that, however, she took out an imaginary blank paper and pushed it to the top of her consciousness. She then drew two long lines, representing the hallway that the drone was in. On the map was Kaon, represented as a small black blip on the paper.

Abyssal was drawing a map for the exploration of the cruiser. The last thing she wanted to happen was getting the drone lost within the hulk after all. It was a trick that she learned to do when she was still figuring out herself. And unlike other normal maps, this one was fully animated with nice lines, proportions and a live representation of the drone’s location. She was basically a (very) advanced computer now. Doing such a thing like this was second nature to her. One of the nice perks of being a self-aware ship.

‘Alright! Let’s do this!’

Kaon made its way towards one end of the hallway. During which, Abyssal saw a few open doors and decided to explore the things within. Most of them were bedrooms— actual bedrooms which used to have people living within them. She could tell that these weren’t just unused rooms. Most of the beds were messy and the rooms themselves were decorated with things like photos, books and clothing. Though, no actual person could be found, dead or alive.

‘This place looks to be either a barracks or the living quarters for the cruiser.’

One of the last rooms that she explored was some sort of cleaning room. A bunch of high tech cleaning accessories and buckets were placed within. She did spot a few liquid containers, but the contents within were long gone.

It was interesting to explore the rooms… but ultimately nothing very useful. Nothing useful for the human now turned ship at least. Abyssal has very little use for beds, clothing and food. The books were valuable to her though, she made a note to herself to grab them when she’s done exploring the rest of the hulk.

‘So far so good… I hope this keeps up as I explore the rest of the ship.’ Abyssal reassured herself as she made her way outside of the living quarters.

The end of the corridor brought her into a large hallway. Large enough to fit her entire ship within. It seemed to be the main hallway of the cruiser as she could see a few broken drones along the sides of it. Some of the drones were like Kaon, just oval in shape and multi-purpose. Some of the others have quad legs and very specific arms, probably meant for repair.

It was unfortunate that every single drone that Abyssal could see was broken beyond repair. It was disappointing, but what can you expect? She would just have to keep her eyes open for a working drone. Having it assimilated to her systems would be a great boon.

She was tempted to go near one and assimilate them to see if she could see what could be salvaged from the broken parts, but decided not to. For all she knew, these drones weren’t broken at all, just deactivated. If any of these were fighting drones, then it would just be the end of her exploration.

She travelled along the corridor, navigating her way through the broken debris and salvage. It was then that she saw something very interesting to her. A sign. A sign with directions to different parts of the ship. Directions to the cruiser’s most important parts.

One of them was an arrow pointing towards the engine room.