5. Moving Forward

"Finally." The text to speech modulator of the S.A.S. Abyssal voiced out.

Today was truly a glorious day for Abyssal. The discovery of her Living Core's capabilities, the nanomachines, allowed her to break down the door to her heart— the engine room. The creation of nanomachines required the consumption of roughly any type of alloy. Luckily for her, there was one part of herself that she can do without.

The dreaded door that was in between her and the nuclear reactor.

Sure it would have been useful for Kapitan who wanted to be safe from the radiation of the nuclear core, but for Abyssal, that was of no concern! Screw the door! Kapitan will surely forgive her. Her captain was kind and never complained about anything!

She ordered herself, the collective swarm of nanomachines, to eat through the door. She started absorbing the door from the lock, then the handle, and eventually dissolved the frame. It was like watching a wooden door being eaten by termites.

Although faster than termites, the process was slower than she thought. It took her several days to create a hole within the door for the drone to pass through— five days to be exact. The slow process was probably due to her lack of skill and the lack of Nanomachines available to her. She assumed as she gets better at being a Self Aware Machine, the process would be much smoother. She didn't mind it as much though, she has already waited a year, what is a few more days?

'But that is for later! I've got better things to focus on for now!' Abyssal yelled out internally.

It was finally time for her to explore the part of herself that has long eluded her. She could only see it through the night-vision camera so far, but now she gets to explore it! How exciting!

'Alright, Drone number one, time to do your job! Go Kaon!' Abyssal gave the orders to her only functional drone, now nicknamed as Kaon.

"I. Have. Control." Abyssal's text to speech program voiced out as the small drone made its way through the small hole in the door.

Slowly but surely, the drone glided past the hole and soon enough, she entered the engine room. The first thing that entered her sight was her glorious heart, the nuclear reactor. It was a spherical core within a cylinder with a bunch of large wires attached to it. She took a look at it before touching the glass wall of her heart. Even though it shouldn't be possible, she could feel her heart throbbing. She felt herself alive.

'Does this count as touching myself?' Despite the serious moment, only stupid thoughts filled up Abyssal's mind.

Having enough of her broken heart, she shifted her attention to the real deal. The energy storage tank, EST for short. It was a collection of large rectangular batteries of sorts, all scattered around the reactor. If her knowledge was right, this would allow her to store enough energy to power her systems for a short while.

This was her only hope for a way out of her terrible fate and situation. She used the drone and scoured every inch of the EST, checking for loose cables and the condition of the tanks in general. Once done, she made her way to the control panel in the engine room to make sure that it was fine as well. She took her time and paid full attention to the task, her emotional and logical part of her systems working together in tandem.

She didn't want to make any silly mistakes. The best case was that she would be wasting time, the worst-case scenario would be the destruction of the EST due to a slip-up. If that happened, then she would truly be stuck in space forever. Abyssal needed to put forth her absolute best. She even shut down all her other systems other than this one drone in order to make sure that there were no other distractions that could potentially screw her over.

One hour passed.Two hours passed.Three hours passed.…...

'The system seems alright… there seemed to be no damage and everything is connected to the system…'

This was great news to Abyssal who let out a sigh of relief. However, for some reason, the EST was not within her list of systems nor could she sense it. Unlike the other systems where she knew was part of her, the EST was foreign.

'Is it because it's broken?' Abyssal doubted herself.

There was no way she would know anything about advanced technologies such as this. She was no mechanical engineer back during her days as a human, after all. But, she was sure of it. She knew the EST was fine and functional, her machine-self— her instincts say that it was.

'Then… is this the few parts of the ship that I have yet to assimilate?'

It was plausible, her assimilation stopped at 74% after all. There were probably parts of the ship that have yet to be assimilated. It could be that the EST was one of those. Perhaps... she had yet to obtain full control of it?

'I should have enough nanomachines created to assimilate the EST.' Abyssal thought to herself.

Seeing no downsides to trying, Abyssal flew the drone over to the control panel in the engine room. She put her arm on top of the console and gave herself, or more specifically her nanomachines, orders to assimilate the console and the EST.

From the drone, swarms of small black microscopic dust appeared and moved to the console. The cloud of dust entered the console through tiny cracks on the component. It wasn't long before all the nanomachines entered the EST system.

'Ah!' Abyssal gasped internally as she felt a weird sensation.

It felt good. It felt like she was eating something. Her imaginary stomach filled up and she felt satisfied— happy even.

'It tastes like chicken. So this is what assimilation feels like.' She thought to herself.

It was then a sudden rush of information filled her brain. All sort of knowledge was injected into her consciousness. Knowledge like how to use the EST, what it is used for, knowledge to repair the machine, and even blueprints so that she may replicate the EST.

"Lancetech Energy Storage Facility Mk.1 assimilated successfully. System at 89% capacity.

Energy stored: 0/10680 MJ

Ship at 85% assimilation."

'Oooooooooohhhhhh. It's working! It's working!' Abyssal celebrated, jumping and flailing around. Metaphorically.

"Energy stored: 33/10680 MJ"

'It's going up! It's going up!' Abyssal celebrated further, watching the counter for the energy storage slowly go up, bit by bit.

As the energy stored went up, so did Abyssal's feeling of joy. She never felt so elated watching numbers go up. By her calculations, at the rate the EST was storing excess energy, she would be at full capacity in roughly seventeen minutes.

"Energy Stored: 343/10680 MJ."

'Alright! That should be enough energy! Let's test this baby out! All powers to thrusters!' Just unfortunate that there was no way Abyssal could wait another sixteen more minutes to finally taste her freedom. Not in this extreme state of joy at the very least. Her emotional circuits overpower her logical circuits after all.

"Power redirecting to thrusters."

The moment she did so, she could feel the pressure of acceleration acting upon her. The ancient thrusters ignited and shot out photons of energy that caused the ship to move. For the first time in her (new) life, she was actually moving forward. She felt even more excited.

'It's working! It's working! Woooo—'

Though that excitement only lasted a short while as she soon blacked out after a second or two. A similar fate, much like the first time she engaged her thrusters, fell upon her.

…...

"Insufficient energy. Energy redirected. 4/15 MJ/s used.Energy storage capacity:10680/10680 MJ."

'Urghhh… I blacked out again…'

Abyssal woke up to the sight of a new message. Even though she was just a machine at this point, she felt very sluggish and her head was aching. It felt like she had been hit by a truck. Abyssal tried to bring her hands to massage her head, but then she realised that she didn’t have any hands, nor a head.

'I need to stop doing that…' Abyssal thought to herself as she analysed the message.

It wasn't long before she noticed that her energy storage capacity was at max. The number was at zero just a moment ago, why was it now full after a short blackout?

'Huh, wait a minute... How long have I blacked out?' She asked herself.

"Unable to calculate time inactive. No external clock to compare point of reference. Internal clock not accurate. Minimum time expected to be at 16.16 minutes." Her machine-self answered back.

It seemed that blacking-out put her in a non-active state longer than she originally thought. She had to be more careful with her energy usage in the future. Don’t want to be caught blacking-out during a dangerous situation.

At least she managed to get her thrusters working though.