6. Assimilation 100%

“La. La. La. Exploring. The. Galaxy. La. La. La.” Abyssal sang in a monotone voice, thanks to her text to speech modulator.

If there was one word to describe her mood, it would be the word ‘Happy’. Even then, that was kind of an understatement. After a long and very lonesome year, she was finally able to begin her new life. There was also the fact that this was her dream— piloting a spaceship to traverse space. It was such a shame that she has so few ways to describe or express her joy.

The energy storage tank that she recently assimilated proved to be her saving grace. With a capacity of 10680 megajoules, she was able to power the thrusters for a good thirty seconds or so before she had to recharge the tank again. More than enough time for her to accelerate and turn around in space. Being able to traverse around like this in space was key in exploring it.

Since it was space and all, she had thought that it would be possible to just keep accelerating until she reached the speed of light, or at least half of that. It was such a shame that she couldn’t go more than 300 km/s. There was some sort of safety feature on the directional propulsion system that automatically caps her max speed. There was also a cap on how fast she could accelerate or decelerate at any given time.

As of this moment in time, she has yet to find a way to disable said safety feature. She had assumed it had something to do with her life support system, or maybe even the hull integrity of the ship itself (moving very fast in space could have bad consequences), but no concrete answer could be found.

Not like she cared that much about it anyway— 300km/s was a good enough speed for her. It was fast enough for her to reach somewhere without taking years. Plus, it was fun that she could control herself now. Watching the small twinkles in the skies move around as she did space manoeuvres was kinda hypnotizing for her.

“La. La. La. Exploring. The. Galaxy. La. La. La.” Abyssal hummed joyfully as she cruised through space, making silly turns as she pleased. She didn’t have a human form, but she could feel the pressure hit her as she turned left or right. It was like riding a roller coaster, except all you could see is black and there was no danger of crashing at all.

Other than her silly way of piloting herself, Abyssal had also completely converted the large bulky door into nanomachines and fully assimilated the ship.  It was then she found out that she has three more systems that have yet to be added to her list of system parameters. These are namely:-

-Lancetech Standard Tractor beam x 1-Lancetech(obsolete) Twin Mass Drivers Mk. 1-Lancetech Comercial Use Space-time Folder (Destroyed)

‘Kapitan sure likes her Lancetech stuff, huh?’ Abyssal thought to herself as she inspected the rest of the assimilated systems. She wondered about the old Kapitan’s taste on inferior tech from a shitty company like Lancetech, but who is she to question her beloved Captain? Silly Abyssal. She put those disparaging thoughts to the back of her mind and started to inspect the new system components.

The tractor beam is standard stuff for any ship. You got things floating around in space and there will be a need to pick them up manually from time to time. Things like cargo and sometimes even stranded humans or ships in space. The tractor beam on Abyssal was a small and compact one made for personal use, so she could only beam up small objects; which honestly speaking, was enough for her.

Now comes the best part of her system— the Lancetech Twin Mass Drivers— a kinetic based weapon. This was currently Abyssal’s one and only weapon system. It is a system that shoots large mass-based projectiles at a target. Speeds of the projectile can go up to 1400 km/s. And the best part of it? She actually has ammunition within herself. Sufficient enough to shoot for a good ten seconds before running out. The only problem, however, was the energy usage required to use the weapon.

It requires a whooping 600MJ to fire a single gun for a second. If you paid attention to the namesake of the weapon, Twin Mass Drivers, you will find out that this energy usage is actually double. To fire this gun for a second will take Abyssal 10% of her energy reserves, a total of 1200MJ.

That’s a pretty big yikes for Abyssal, but a fair one. What can you expect out of futuristic weapons after all?

Truthfully speaking, Abyssal was tempted to try out her weapon systems— her metaphorical finger constantly at the weapon trigger. It’s a space weapon! A real one! The urge within her to shoot the damn thing was high and kept rising. The only thing preventing her from actually doing so was her logical side which was actively restraining her.

If she used the weapons now, she might potentially go overboard and blackout again. There was also the matter of running out of precious ammunition. There was no telling what awaits her in the void of space, she needed to make sure when the time comes, she would be ready for it.

And thus comes the last system that she assimilated— the Commercial Use Space-time Folder. Originally, Abyssal was confused as to what contraption this was. Assimilation of the object only provided limited information as it was destroyed with massive chunks of the components missing. It took her a while of thinking and consulting with her machine-self before she understood what the system was for.

‘This is basically a warp drive, isn’t it? That’s how it works, right? You just bend the spacetime around you to make it seem that you are travelling faster than light when you are not,’ she asked herself.

There could be a chance that it is not, but everything would make sense if it was. How else would Kapitan travel through space if she’s stuck travelling at 300km/s? Travelling for months in space with nothing to see must have been boring as heck if that’s the case— but more importantly, taking months to travel from one space station to another was not that good of a prospect for a well-known trader like Kapitan. The warp drive must have been how Kapitan got around between systems in the galaxy.

‘I wonder what had caused it to be destroyed in such a way? It doesn’t look like it was damaged from natural causes…’

‘Was Kapitan’s death not due to an accident?’ Abyssal felt a little bit angry thinking of her Captain’s demise.

Abyssal let out a sigh before pushing the matter to the back of her head. There was no way for her to find out now. Besides, the space-time folder was damaged beyond repair, there was nothing she could do about it. No point in looking into it any further than this. She’ll just have to inquire more about the matter when the time comes.

But for now, all Abyssal did was just relax and cruise in the depth of space at a steady speed of 300km/s. She didn’t know where she was heading nor did she know when the time would come for her to find something, but she had to eventually hit something right?

Living Core Summary:Name: S.A.S. Abyssal.Consciousness: ActiveCurrent Setting: Emotion > LogicComputational usage at 0.8% (Power insufficient)Assimilation/Control of Ship: 100%Nanomachine Usage: 87m³ Nanomachines in total (94% of nanomachines used. 6% in reserve)

Body -Fierca Class, Small 2 Passenger Corvette(Fighter size)-Cargo Hold: 0t / 17t

List of inventory and systems:-Mini Nuclear Reactor (uranium rods have been spent, on decay energy, very low energy output)(15MJ/s)-Lancetech Antique Thrusters Mk1-Lancetech Omni Camera(350° view)-Old and cheap (Lancetech) Night-Vision Cameras x 3-Lancetech All-purpose drone x2(Night vision equipped)(Drone 2 unusable)-Robotic Old Text to Speech Modulator(Female)-Old radar. (Damaged, Non-Functional)-Standard Life Support system for 2 humans-Directional Propulsion System(Damaged, limited manoeuvrability) (Maximum Speed = 300km/s)-Lancetech Standard Tractor beam x 1-Lancetech(obsolete) Twin Mass Drivers Mk.1 x 1-Lancetech Comercial use Space-time Folder (Destroyed)

Energy Storage Capacity: 10680 MJ-Lancetech Energy Storage Facility Mk.1 (89% Capacity)

Current Energy Usage: -Lancetech Omni Camera(350° view), low energy mode = 6 MJ/s-Living Core = ???????? energy usage

Offline Systems:-Lancetech All-purpose drone x 1(Night vision equipped) = 4 MJ/s-Lancetech Antique Thrusters Mk1 = 300MJ/s-Lancetech(obsolete) Twin Mass Drivers = 1200MJ/s-Lancetech Standard Tractor beam x 1 = 15 MJ/s-Old and cheap (Lancetech) Night-Vision Cameras x 3 = 2MJ/s x 3-Standard Life Support system(Low Energy Mode) = 5MJ/s