As the machine next to Horatio engaged it was clear that their relationship was owner and owned... or maybe allies? But 7-4-1-N-7-3-D was sure the machine would try to deactivate or steal it. Before the drone could do more than just moving backward, away from the arms, it got asked a weird question.

<Not alive but thinking?  Odd classification. It is a machine too. It wants samples.Research assistant? Conclusion:  Definetifely sophon. Query : would it work with a human ?>

"Unit was with away team, only ... substance with fitting designation: 'Yellow' were hazardous dust found in the ruins. Unit assumes none was retrieved"

The Drone was surely in a dangerous situation, it was aware of that, but it wasn't sure if crewmembers are allowed to simply harm automatons like it is classified as, so it tried to simply answer and not prepare for a fight of any kind.

"Any additional queries?"

<'Not alike us'. Is it not a machine? Maybe something like the captain? Like Vodyani. The human seems to teach it. Intend is not a direct attack, probably it would cause too much trouble. Conclusion: Data inconclusive, more data needed.>

The confused drone checked for possible ways to fly past them without being caught, but the arms of that non-human made it an impossible task. Any indication of that which any observant could have seen was the sphere spinning left, right and in many other directions to get a better view with its main sensor array. After 'facing' them again directly it answered.

"Unit is not aware of any findings fitting the term 'yellow' or 'The yellow'. Maybe yellow colored intestines reside in the captured worm larvae. Only other recovered object was a data-core, not yellow"

Ylona waited silently during the briefing, looking at Laudmas, waiting for him to speak. But it ended without the robot saying a word. Instead, he'd just let Dhanyl do the talking, which was probably fine from a scientific point of view, but Ylona couldn't say she liked the Sophon trying to boss them all around. It set a bad precedent, and he was the last person you wanted in charge of dangerous projects. The whole debacle with the infrared cloud had shown how little he cared about safety.

When Valorum called the end of the briefing, she busied herself for a while at her console, downloading the newest set of navigation data. The Saviour automatic systems had been busy while she'd been away, using the idle time to track and scan all nearby stars to resolve their nature better than the telescopes out side nebula could. While it would in a few hours, or possibly days, depending on the Captain's decision about that moon, be relevant for plotting a new course, right now Ylona wanted the data just for her own purposes.

Therefore, she had been busy when that diplomatic crisis began to unfold itself, but as soon as it was done, she jumped out of her chair and marched over. "Hey ィ", she said loudly, replacing λ's unpronounceable name by an off-key whistle, "back down. 7-4 is crew, and gets treated as such. And especially you shouldn't go around telling people if they're alive or not."

"If you want access to the samples, ask Dhanyl", she added because she was feeling vindictive, "If he wants to be in charge, he can have you, too." Hopefully, it would teach the Sophon that you couldn't just boss people around without dealing with their problems in return as well.

"Now, please move out of the door. There's a bunch of us hoping to get our R'n'R." She pointed at the rest of the away team behind her, some of whom were waiting around the blocked door, too, while others had wisely decided to take the other one.

"Chassis has not been compromised by grabbing attempt. The requested information was not classified. And unit is not a living organism. But it would prefer to continue its scheduled tasks. if queries towards this unit remain utilizing the data exchange and communication system that is employed on this ship"

As the Riftborn moved to leave it left enough of a gap for the sower to dash past Horatio and head to engineering, where its charger and maybe a checkup awaits it. As it moved there it thought about how weird this incident was, but then decided to better not guess the human's intentions as that would at best probably lead to nothing, only a waste of power.

Arriving in engineering it heads for the rechargers. Most were the size of the decontamination showers. The chargers opening lack doors and their inside is also kept very simplistic, multiple plugs and outlets for the most common galactic models, but the sower would not be able to use any of these, so it had to rely on the slower but reliant wireless power transfer. A small lamp outside its charger turned on indicating that it was in use (although everyone walking past could see the sower inside easily anyway). And as the drone notes its battery filling again it started to turn down most unneeded computational processes, only letting low-consumption filter programmes run to process the expedition events one final time before they could be saved as a compressed data-file.

As λ floated away again, apparently satisfied with her answer, Ylona took stock of what was still going on on the bridge. With both Valorum and Alice around, there was enough brass for decisions, so on that count she was in the clear, and there were no situations requiring immediate attention. So she said: "I'm off for some rest. Captian, you have the conn. I guess we'll keep orbiting until we can make a decision about that moon. If you need me for anything, I'm in my bunk."

Not thinking about anything in particular, she slowly ambled through the corridors towards the crew quarters. Once there, she uploaded the stellar data to a small projector that she had installed on the side of her bed. When she switched it on, it illuminated the top of the bunk and the walls with little pinpoints of light, which from the viewpoint of her head on the pillows formed a starry sky, as it would appear to somebody down on the planet (minus thick cloudy atmosphere and endless blizzards). It was an impressive view, with many strong glittering points from all the other stars in the cluster, and she idly picked out constellations as a primitive race could have done, if they had found a livable habitat in this star system. With a happy sigh, Ylona let her eyes fall half closed and her mind relax. As long as the Captain hadn't determined a new destination for her to set a course to, she couldn't allow herself to sleep, but this was a good enough rest for the time being.

((Ylona is explicitly available for conversations. We should definetly try to get some more character interactions done before letting everything bog down with some planetside business again))

The Riftborn was answered with a soft hum. After a few seconds the 'charging' lamp turned off and the sphere twisted a bit, still floating in the same place.

"Current assignments: None. New assignment fitting to abilities? : Positive. Assigner part of the crew? . . . Positive. Unit assigned for EVA mission. Unit will follow orders and requests specifications once arriving at maintenance site."

It quickly hovered out of the charging station, 2 arms, not that different from the many small ones the Riftborn had but more simplistic, grabbing for some of its equipment that appeared to give λ problems.

<They will do it this way then? The human and his machine want to act somewhere more remote, logical. . . My offer for assistance was publicly though, could it be honest? Unknown, too many variables, conclusion: Sensors to the max, following assigned task> 

"Excellent. 'Urgency' is of the essence!"

λ surrendered the larger welding torch, glad to be rid of its awkward weight. He whipped back towards the door and began leading The Unit through the corridors, reaching the far edge of ship. The elegant Sophon-designed central passages gave way to the cramped maintance corridors. Reaching the exterior airlock, λ extended a delicate hand towards the not-alive-alive-but-thinking machine on the wall. 

"... The Unit 7-4. Is oxygen a necessity for you? How will you fare without gravity?"

The sphere followed its temporary 'boss' quickly and was pleased it didn't seem to care for small talk or realized its uselessness facing a drone.

"Oxygen, other gases or pressure in general not needed. Gravity not needed. Lack of both increases Units maneuverability by grav-engine, ready to deploy. Current battery charge should allow for at least 2 hours of operation." 


The machine was visibly opening some hatches around its surface, not wide enough to show what's behind, mostly to make sure no gases get trapped inside its chassis where they shouldn't.

As the airlock opened the drone flew towards the exit. Without the artificial gravity taking its toll on the drone's systems, it flew past λ  swiftly. Some starlight was reflected off the metal sphere. The thought that this was its first time seeing space by itself only lasted a few milliseconds, too irrelevant, space was not a familiar area, but as a new one that was quickly analyzed and categorized. Like all the other places it was before.

It curiously watched as λ typed in and showed its message. 7-4-1 was confused why its colleague would so though, didn't it have any sort of integrated comm that is still connected with the ship's network? Whatever the reason was, 7-4-1 decided to not investigate it until it would become an issue, maybe some other automatics show such odd behavior as all the organics it met.


Obedient to λ`s orders the machine would follow it closely in the vacuum of space.

Following the other machine to the projector, it was disappointed once more, exactly what it could have downloaded.

<Odd behavior, is it not having wireless features to be safer against cyber-intrusion? Maybe it is the human's guard of sorts?- Silence is sacred? Sacred: Word used by organics for illogical reasoning ... Assessment: Illogical, unpredictable, potentially dangerous. Conclusion: Carry out orders with the inefficient specifics given.>

As the drone never had to type before it decided to roll its body from up to down and then reverse, a poor attempt of a nod. It grabbed the tools (which it would not need necessarily , but wouldn't leave in space all alone either) and followed the riftborn at first, but changed its own route so it would still be quite afar from λ.

Reaching a rather big (in dimensions of micro-debris) impact and starts to welding it with a laser-welder from its tool-arm , but also grabbing whatever could be used as a welding tool in each of its spare hands , trying to utilise all to speed up the process and allow multiple angles to be worked of at once.

The flash of plasma disappeared, the once jagged scrape now sealed. {This ship will be built too soft.} λ checked the not-alive-but-thinking machine fused to his arm. The projection was showing now further damage on this area of the bow. He noted that other dots had been winking out as well, The Unit's work. 

The Unit was... a puzzle. It was obviously not-alive-but-thinking, yet it was also crew? Similar to The Laudmus and The Zeros? Actually, all of these 'lifeforms' confused λ. Machine life he understood. He was life in a mechanical body. Yet, these 'lifeforms' were different. Not Hemmed to a Frame like him. They do not exist without their frame. Or do they? Complex... He knew they were fabricated somehow... Perhaps this is what The Mantovani had spoken of. Reproduction or something.

Perhaps the unit could clarify. As he headed towards the next cluster of damage, he sent a message towards The Unit. 

"The Unit. Is it alive? The Mantonavi and The Ylona request I treat The Unit as alive. But it is machine? How was it made? Who birthed it?"  

As an afterthought, λ added another question.  

"Was being born painful?"