3. New Gender, New Name

'I wonder what gender I am…' 'A' asked himself.

'I am a ship now, right? No longer human, so maybe it will be better to call myself an it?' It gave another thought.

'Wait… back on earth ships are always pronounced as Her right? Maybe I should call myself a She then?'

'A' was currently debating with itself on what its appropriate gender would be now that it has turned into a ship. It was something that it has to decide for itself before making contact with another sentient being. A truly important decision to make!

'Yeah! What the hell. Why not?! I'll just call myself a female now. I am a ship with a feminine text to speech! Besides, I always wanted to be a girl. A ship is technically a female right? That's how it is in certain games where they call the ship a She. Games like K*ncolle and Az** La**.'

And so 'A' decided on her new gender.

"What. Do. You. Think. About. It? Kapitan?" 'A' asked the dead person sitting in her cockpit. The person now nicknamed 'Kapitan' by the bored spaceship.

Kapitan only stared blankly at the screen without any expression.

'I knew you would support me! You always supported me during my time of need!'

It has been several months since 'A' awakened. Since then, she's been moving through the void at a steady two kilometre per second. She has her omni-directional cameras turned on in case she spots something, but no luck so far. Months of eternal silence with nothing but herself.

She couldn't sleep, so she was forced to live out every single second staring at the darkness of space. Now after the long voyage, she has finally lost it and started talking to herself. It was the only thing she could do to prevent herself from going further down the road of madness.

She has basically checked out almost every single system and object within herself. Two things were of note, the captains' quarters and the second drone within the cargo hold.

Firstly, the drone. Simply put, it's not functional. The AI chip or core within the drone was busted and will need to be replaced before it could operate again. So 'A' was only left with one all-purpose drone. From the hated company of Lancetech, no less.

A ridiculously cheap and low-quality drone that uses tons of energy to operate. Though she was mad, it was her only drone, she had to take care of it. It was the only thing she could use to maintain herself or even do anything. Not wanting to risk it being broken, it's currently left alone to charge on standby within its dock.

The Kapitan's room was rather exciting though. It was a room full of maps and charts. How unfortunate that there was no point to finding the maps as 'A' could not read it, nor was there a way to find out where she currently is. Although useless, the map in itself, however, proved to be a truly interesting thing for someone who was interested in space like 'A'.

It contains the locations of star systems, space stations and secret asteroid belts. It even has optimal trade routes lined out properly between the systems. That wasn't just it, the map even showed dust clouds, location of space hulks, location of wormholes and even the location of an object called a 'gateway'.

It was all that 'A' could ever hope for! A world where she gets to be inside a spaceship and explore the bounties of space!

'If only I didn't start off in hardcore mode with crappy Lancetech products.' She thought to herself.

The room also contained something else that was interesting to 'A'.  It contained several books that 'A' used to pass time. Admittedly, it was hard for 'A' to use the drone to flip the pages of these books, but she was bored and time was something she had plenty of.

The books ranged from Space Operas such as the Space Battleship Ya****, Cr*st of the Stars and Outl*w St**. Not only that, there seemed to be some fantasy stories as well. One of her favourites was a story named 'The 7th Demon Lord'. It is about a strong and smart demon who rose up to be a great leader.

But most of all, the most interesting book was Kapitan's journal. 'A' wasted no time and immediately went over to read it. Within it was a record of her life from when she started her space career to the end of it. It was then that 'A' found out that her captain was actually a veteran space trader.

'She's a female?! So badass!'

Her book and the date of her writing seemed very old, so 'A' can assume that Kapitan lived and died a loooooong time ago, though she had no real way of confirming it. She also could not find any name that Kapitan would use to refer to herself, so in the end, 'A' couldn't figure out her name either.

Kapitan had gone through a lot with this spaceship. It was nicknamed by her as 'Abyssal' due to its jet black colour of its hull and the ability for it to drag ships into the abyss. It had incredible stealth capabilities for a ship of that time, good cargo capacity and excellent manoeuvrability and speed.

'Incredible, Kapitan was living a life that I could only dream of… I'm so jealous...'

Kapitan seemed to be an incredible and invincible person. She pursued and caught many people who had bounties on their heads, secured trade deals that many corporations were jealous of— and she did it all on her own! Just herself and her trusty Abyssal.

Her end came when the only thing she ever trusted failed. Abyssal's reactor was partially damaged and it leaked out precious energy and fuel. Kapitan died during a trip between systems. The ship was not able to finish its journey in time due to it running out of energy. Kapitan tried to send out a distress signal, but the Abyssal's communications system was also damaged. Kapitan eventually died off when she ran out of supplies.

Reading this part, 'A' went ahead and checked her systems. She could confirm that her communications system was indeed unusable.

'What a tragedy…'

Before Kapitan died, she wrote down her last words, including a final wish. Her final wish being that she would be buried alongside her ship so she may be together with her forever. Or if they must use the Abyssal, for whatever purpose, she requested that they keep the namesake 'Abyssal'.

'A' was now sad. Sad at her captain's fate due to a failure on Abyssal's part. Sad at not being able to live the life as her captain did. Sad at not being able to do anything in this situation. Sad that she has to drift around in space for god knows how long until someone or something finds her.

She could feel her emotions welling up again and was on the brink of tears. She then gave herself a metaphorical slap to the cheeks.

'No no no! I have to avoid being sad! I don't want to be sad! I need to be positive! Yeah!'

'A' pushed away her sorrow and imagined happy thoughts.

'My life isn't over yet! It has only begun! I am going to push on! For myself and Kapitan! This is my dream come true! I should be happy, not sad!'

'I am going to continue your legacy, Kapitan! The name Abyssal shall be known to the entire galaxy, I promise you!'

But wouldn't that mean she would have to call herself Abyssal now? Then again, she never really liked her old name. It's a new life, and she even changed her official gender. What's wrong with a new name, right?

'That's right! Screw my old name! 'A' was such a lame name anyways. I'm sorry mother and father, from now on my name shall be Abyssal!'

And thus Abyssal changed her name as well.

'Hmm, but I feel like just Abyssal is rather lacking. Cool ships should have tags in front of it,  right? Like the U.S.S. Enter***** or the H.M.S. H**d.'

Abyssal took a long time to think hard about her new tag.

'I am… a ship core right? A machine? Or perhaps I am actually an AI? A very advanced one. Hmmm… Wait! I know what I am! I am a Self Aware Ship! So my tag should just be S.A.S.!"

Abyssal nodded to herself metaphorically as she congratulated herself on a job well done.

"What. Do. You. Think. Kapitan?" She asked Kapitan with her text to speech device.

For some reason, she could somewhat see the skeleton moving and giving her a thumbs up. It was all an illusion, of course. An illusion that was caused by her failing sanity, but she didn't care anyway. The most successful people are often insane!

'Thanks, Kapitan! I knew you would understand me! I'm glad to have been able to meet and know you!' Abyssal said out loud in her mind.

And thus, began the adventures of the S.A.S. Abyssal. (Self Aware Ship Abyssal)