"Hey you, no sneaking off", Ylona immediately stops the drone from leaving the bridge, "I have some questions. You stay here until they're answered."
Then, she turns to Valorum and begins explaining: "Laudmas just sent me the anomaly scan data. We have some life forms and a ruin on Tanye II, and something under the surface of Tanye I's moon. And apparently some odd coloration on Tanye II that he wants to check out. We've sent probes to all those things, but given the robot's insistence, I'd guess unless those are sloth crabs and an empty room, we'll be sending somebody down on Tanye II. If we start now, we'll already be nearly there by the time we get the probe telemetry."
The robot stopped by itself as the pilot demaned it to. It was unsure if it should react to her order , would a drone understand what she said? Then it realised that by stopping it already reacted .
The mention of life-forms gets Valorum to tilt his head with curiosity, but he visibly perks up at the mention of a ruin.
"A ruin? That warrants further investigation. Take us in, and I'll construct the away party."
With that, he moves to the captain's seat, sits down and brings up the interface, cycling through the crew roster to find the best of his crew for the away party.
"Ruins are usually worth investigating in my experience," Alice agreed from a darkened corner of the bridge, only visible to the unaided eye due to the glow of her cigarette, "Risky ventures, however. If you don't come prepared...well, you may end up making sacrifices..." For emphasis, she tapped a particular pattern on the palm of her left hand. With a low metallic whir, her fingers seemed to elongate, showing obvious mechanical conduits in the joints, "I got this little souvenir from what we thought was an abandoned endless station. Turns out some little acid-blooded buggers had taken residence."
A devilish smile was visible in the flickering embers. "All I'm saying is...take care with such adventures."
"Right. Care", Ylona answered hesitantly, "We can do that, sure. Just don't ... do that again without a warning. Sure, I have a few implants, too, but showing them off like that is creepy." Creepier than the Craver even, whom people more opposed to cybernetics would have called a metallocancerous abomination.
"Anyway", she quickly changed topic, looking at the drone to see if it had tried to sneak away again. It hadn't, although it managed to convey in its stance that it wanted to. "Decius, given that you're the one who said it's obvious, how about you share your theory with the Captain about 'this unit'?", she offered, doing air quotes around the chosen moniker of the drone.
((I've got a PM from BlackBird, he wants to join back in. Just FYI))
Stumbling slightly as he entered the bridge, Rolak took stock of the discussion taking place before him. Taking a seat nearby he then looked towards Valorum and grimaced a little bit as he explained himself.
"Sorry boss. I think that the so called delicacy I was fed on the colony before we left...disagreed with me for a bit. I fine now though."
Adjusting himself to be seated more professionally he then moved on to a more important question with a noticeable glint in his eye
"So, what's this I'm hearing about a ruin that needs exploring?"
((This was the best I could come up with to come back on. Hopefully it is amusing.))
Crimson eyes drill straight through the droid's sensors and into his circuits, boring a hole deep into a nonexistent soul. Decius pauses slightly, and then turns to Rolak.
"Forgive me, Sir, if we postpone the discussion of the ruins; there is a matter of greater importance at hand. It appears that this 'repair droid' is not simply a repair droid. The robot has begun following protocols non-compliant with the programming of the ship's own integrated repair bots. There have been no records on the manifest of such a drone, unless my programming has missed an obscure detail. The behaviors suggest that it could be working for an agenda separate to that of the ship, or even have sentience."
The Craver turns his head again towards the floating robot. The ineptness it exhibited was characteristic of a perfectly controlled drone, yet there was an air of childishness around it that said otherwise. He again raises his voice, a menacing tone seeming to shake the thin air around him.
The Robot did not move a inch , it wasn´t impressed by the craver , as it know cravers are agressive , but it trusts in its chassis to hold out anything what is not a weapon shot
"The captain has all needed information about this unit "
<So many people ! If I dont get this situation under control ...> That situation was to hard for it to process , it doesn´t even has any data about the persons the room .
almost imperceptible it started to shake , moving slighty forward back , left and right.
"Really now? Is that so?" Rolak smirks as the drone starts to shiver.
'At least I think its shivering? is that a good word for what this thing is doing? Ah screw it whatever'
Rolak stands up slowly, ignoring the remnant discomfort in his gut. "Well droid? You going to explain yourself or am I going to have to hand you over to the ship's science and engineering teams?
"The captain has all needed information about this unit" its hovering module has not enough energy for the fraction of a second , letting the robot fall and then rise again to reach its normal height .One of its many thinking patterns was stuck in a loop.
<I need to tell it , everything else is suspicious anyway , but 4 more knowing ? I need to tell it , everything else is suspicious anyway , but 4 more knowing ?>
"Th-.... This unit-"
As he mentioned the engineer and science teams a subroutine jumps to life , despite beeing dust infected it still has these remnants of its old mind active.
<They could try to reverse engineer me ! I am not allowed to let this happen >
"No science and engineer teams . No dismantling "
((i think your message got cut off , it ends at "or am I going to have to"))
"Hey now, I said 'explain', not 'browbeat'!", Ylona intervened when she saw this turning towards psychological torture. Turning to Valorum, she asked: "Well, you're supposed to have all the information, so don't keep us in the dark. Is this thing a Sower or what?"
Valorum was looking past his screen at this discussion/interrogation when Ylona asked her question. Calmly, Valorum replied:
"Yes, Sister Ylona, 7-4-1-N-7-3-D is a Sower. What I don't understand is why everyone is so concerned. Sower units always list themselves as cargo, even on all-Sower ships."
That's when the Vodyani notices the miscellaneous bridge crew staring at him in disbelief.
"...none of you have ever travelled with a Sower, have you?"
The sower stops its shivering , its thought patterns slow down . <The captain seems to be on my side , he better can communicate with the others than I>
It turns in the direction of the Valorum and waits for the rest of the crew to respond.
"I've flown cargo for them once", Ylona answered, "Real cargo, that it. Loads of metal and polymers. Anyway, they might call themselves cargo to save on the shipping, but that doesn't change that this one is a stowaway and we need to decide what to do with it."
"This Unit is no stowaway , this unit was sold to be part of the ships cargo and supports the mission . "
<Is that really true ? The deal with the lumeris trader was that he sells me to the ship , but he also could just have smuggled me. I was deactivated while he was doing that , i activated in the charging spot just before the ship started >
"This Unit will support the mission , in all possible ways .This Unit will follow the orders of the captain."
Valorum shifts in his chair to be more comfortable and opens up the cargo manifest on his screen, typing the keyword 'crew' into the search bar. As he does so, he explains:
"The fact that our Sower friend here isn't on the crew manifest is...a cultural phenomenon, to put it simply. Sowers are a religious race and a key aspect of that religion is that the individual must be humble so it can serve the group and speed the Calling. This leads to them to renounce much of they joys of other races, with citizenship and 'personhood', as we call it back in the galactic North, being the most prevalent. So long as they continue to serve the Calling, Sowers are mostly content with being treated more like objects than people because that's what they consider themselves; objects. As for the Sower in question, it's true he's not listed in the crew manifest..."
Valorum seems to find what he's looking for, hits a button, and the central holographic display on the bridge changes.
"...but that doesn't mean he's not listed as crew."
Sure enough, the file Valorum's displayed is from the cargo manifest, but it reads almost like a crewman's file. It depicts 7-1-4-N-7-3-D in an isometric picture, like any other maintenance drone in the cargo bay, and it's specifications are outlined:
Serial ID: 7-1-4-N-7-3-D
Function: Supplementary Crew; Engineering and Reconnaissance Drone
Specifications: Sower Construction (Whatever his other technical specs are, Pixelfreak can post them)
Valorum leans back in his seat, and looks at the rest of the group, explaining:
"The Vodyani live with the Sowers in the same constellation in the galactic north, and we've been in an alliance for the better part of 80 years now, so there used to be cases like this one on Vodyani ships all the time. It became so common, Vodyani guards in my fleet were just given access to the cargo manifest so they could ask the Sower for its serial number and double-check the manifest. I figured this happened just as often here in the south-east, given that Sowers trade with the Vaulters and Lumeris more than the Church."
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