9. Loot

Abyssal had a few goals that she wanted to fulfil by exploring this space hulk, a list of priorities that she made for herself before it all started. These were namely :

Basically anything useful that she needs in order to explore space further. While most games start you off in a relatively functional ship(although very weak and low tech), real-life— if she could call it that— started her off with an almost broken ship, only barely functional with a lot of missing and broken parts. Parts that are necessary for proper exploration.

So when Abyssal saw the signpost pointing to the cruiser’s engine room, she got rather excited and was jumping for joy. She wasted no time in getting to the engine room. This might very well be her chance to grab herself a new reactor to replace her old one, or maybe even find some fuel rods so that her current reactor could work at maximum capacity.

Right now, in her current situation, even if she were to find a good component to add to herself; without a proper power source, she would most likely be unable to use it to its full capabilities. Sure the ESTs can alleviate that problem to an extent, but there is only so much you can do when you have to wait seventeen minutes in order to use the ship for barely a few seconds. It is only when she obtains a reactor that she can finally do some real work.

Although she cautiously moved towards the engine room, one can see her seeping excitement as she wiggled the drone around in glee. Her excitement died down, nay, converted to a feeling of dread when she finally arrived at the ship’s engine room.

The cruiser’s engines… were nowhere to be found.

It was not like the cruiser’s engine was destroyed or that the cruiser didn’t have an engine. No, the entire reactor and the other parts that make up the engine were simply not there. The engine room was spot clean, nothing to be seen within. Abyssal could see that there used to be a large area where a reactor would be placed, but nothing was there, as if taken away a long time ago before she even arrived in this place. If she looked closely, she could even see scratch marks of where the previous reactor would be.

‘Had this place… been looted clean before I even arrived?’ Disappointment filled Abyssal as she entertained the idea that the cruiser’s bounty had long been claimed.

She thought about it further and came to a realisation: ‘of course it would have been looted clean’. She wasn’t the only one in space, after all. God knows how long this hulk had been drifting in space. There was a high chance that some other more experienced looters with better ships would have come to this area. They were probably better equipped when compared to Abyssal, as well.

‘No wonder I haven’t seen a single person, dead or alive, so far.’ Abyssal thought to herself. The bodies had likely already been gathered up or something. Taken somewhere to be buried or cremated.

Not wanting to give up so fast, she used the drone to scout out every inch of the engine room, just in case there was something the previous looter left behind that she could still use.

Nothing, of course. Although she did spot some weird looking object. It looked to be a metal box of sorts, a box that was a few times larger than the drone. To the naked eye, the object would look like nothing more than a big chunk of metal, but Abyssal could tell that it was anything but.

There was more to the box than meets the eyes. Her instincts called out to her, telling her that this was something important— that this object contained something.

Abyssal decided to trust her instincts as a ship and went over to the metal box. Placing the robot-arms of the drone, Kaon, on the solid clump of metal, she started to inject nanomachines in an attempt to assimilate it. Within moments, she felt a familiar sensation. It was the feeling of eating and absorbing something. A rush of information regarding the component filled her consciousness and soon enough, a summary of that knowledge shot up to the top of her mind.

“Abyss Fire Energy Storage Tank Mk.2 assimilated successfully. System at 98% capacity.Energy stored: 1321/39200 MJUnable to use components as it is not attached to main systems.”

‘SCORE!!!’ Abyssal yelled out internally.

The object in question was an energy storage tank in good condition. It also has almost four times the capacity of her original tank. Assuming she could hook it up in conjunction with her lesser quality Lancetech one, she could have up to almost fifty thousand megajoules of energy storage to use at any one time. This would enable her to use most of her systems for a few minutes. While not as good as finding a whole new reactor, this wasn’t that bad of a haul.

‘The previous guys who looted the place must have just ignored this metal box.’

The box did look like a solid clump of metal, after all. They must have decided that it was not worth looting. Wasting no time, Abyssal quickly got Kaon to move the object towards the exit, back to her ship so that she may install the component as soon as possible. Excited at the prospect of finding loot, Abyssal casually tried to move the EST only to find out that things weren’t as easy as she originally thought it was.

The energy storage tank was heavier than it looked.

The entire cruiser was within zero gravity, so the mass of the object shouldn’t matter too much— or so she thought.

Abyssal quickly found out that steering the object came with massive difficulties. The object had a considerable mass which meant that it took a while to accelerate and just as long to decelerate the thing. Carefully moving the object through a small door required meticulous control that was too much for a single drone to handle. It was possible, but who knows how long it would take Abyssal to move it to the ship.

‘Dammit.’  Abyssal cursed internally. Just when she thought something good finally happened to her.

She let out a sigh— annoyed at the fact. Abyssal then decided to come back to this matter later and explore the other parts of the ship first. There were many other places within this cruiser that she has yet to see. Who knows if there might be some good loot that the previous looter hasn’t taken. She also felt a little relieved at knowing that the ship had been looted before. It probably meant that the space hulk was safe, though she still exercised a little bit of caution while exploring.

* * * * *

It was as Abyssal feared, the ship had mostly been picked clean by the previous looters. There was hardly anything left within this destroyed cruiser. Every single notable thing was taken away; the thrusters, the computer mainframe, the reactor, the weapons system, all working drones, all the personal electronics, firearms, and even the displays within the bridge. There was nothing for her to loot here other than the small things that the looters didn’t think was important like the EST which was marvellously disguised as a solid chunk of metal. The only useful things that were left were broken equipment parts and simply scrap metal, just waiting to be sold for chump change.

In games, the idea of finding scrap metal is honestly not that bad. You can sell it for some cash to a trader or simply turn them into resources to further upgrade your ship. Too bad that this wasn't a game. Doing those things in real life will not help Abyssal one bit.

She was in no condition to find a spaceport and even if she could find one, how was she supposed to sell the metal? She’s just a ship! She doesn’t have an avatar or anything. What if you need an ID to enter a spaceport? She doesn’t have one, so she might be denied entry or even worse, shot down by security. Heck, she doesn’t even have a proper communication system!

Turning scraps into resources to repair and upgrade the ship? Plausible. Maybe within herself were the abilities to construct and repair things using her nanomachines. She has the blueprints to reconstruct some of her components, after all.  But like… she’s going to need more than just scrap metal for that. She would need some very exotic elements to build a proper component from scratch— if she could even do such a thing.

There was also the fact that, other than assimilating stuff, she had no idea what the nanomachines that make part of her could do. She didn't know the true extent of her nanomachine and Living Core capabilities. Her instincts didn’t say much, nor did her machine-self have any proper answer to the matter. Perhaps, having too many nanomachines wasn’t such a good idea when you are just a small cargo craft in space. She needed to further test this when she has the capabilities to do so.

‘Haaaaa… Why do I have to start this in hardcore mode? God could have at least placed me within a functional ship.’ Abyssal complained as she explored the last room within the cruiser.

According to the layout and the signs all over the cruiser, this place seemed to be the captain’s quarters. Half of her wanted to just give up and start planning a way to get the EST back to the ship; there was nothing to find here anyways. The other half, on the other hand, felt like she should at least check out the captain’s quarters.

Usually in games, this room would be the room where players would get some kind of super special blueprint or even a super special device. Most of the time, it would just be the black box and the captain’s log, but those things are fine as well for Abyssal. She was interested in knowing how this massive ship met its demise and ended up in such a position.

Abyssal wasn’t too confident that she would actually find something of use within this room though. She could tell that the large bulky door to the room was supposed to be locked, but someone or something broke through it. There was a large hole within the door and the rest of it was riddled with what looked to be bullet holes and marks of explosions. Abyssal could tell that whatever the events that led to the destruction of this door, it wasn’t a pretty one.

‘Was it a mutiny? Or a pirate raid? Or perhaps even a self destruct?’ Questions upon questions popped into Abyssal’s mind on what kind of fate befell this cruiser. Whatever the answer was, she knew it was behind this door and so, she ordered Kaon to enter it.

She was disappointed yet again when she came to the sight of an empty room with only an office table in it. There was no bed, no closet, no chair, no decoration, not even a window. Just a table floating around in zero gravity. Either the captain was a very minimalistic person or… someone looted the entire contents of this room.

Perhaps… she may never know of what actually happened to the cruiser and you know what? She’s fine with it. Not all mysteries need to be solved, after all. Abyssal only wished that she could have found more useful parts while exploring this dead cruiser. It was a massive disappointment for Abyssal, but overall the whole ordeal wasn’t such a bad thing.

She gained the confidence and experience of exploring the hull and she got herself a brand new energy storage tank. Plus, she even got some sweet new books to read while she cruised through space. Not half bad for a total amateur. The only downside was that she needed to figure out a way to get said EST to her ship.

Deciding that she had explored everything, she ordered the drone to head back to the ship in order to recharge.

Or she wanted to...

During a very crucial moment when she turned the drone around, she could see within the corner of her ‘eyes’ a small cube floating near the corner of the room. Abyssal didn’t really know why, but she felt curious about the object, feeling some sort of connection to it. She ordered Kaon to move nearer to the cube in order to inspect it further.

What she found was a cube made out of smaller cubes with each side of the cube appearing to have a different colour on it. Using her robot-arms, Abyssal touched the cube and found out that she could also rotate and move parts of the cube.

It was a device known to Abyssal as the Rubik’s Cube.