Lets see how this goes
Starbound is owned by Chucklefish
Mass Effect is owned by Bioware
I own a nice pair of socks...and the OC I guess
For those who know about my other story (Very little I'm sure) I'm not giving up on that one but felt like giving another story a try
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"Time to wake, Stonewire." A feminine synthetic voice noted.
"Drowsy. I would rather not." A robotic voice replied.
Most would say that the voice was deadpan, that it held no emotion, but in reality that is the way of the Glitch.
"Turning on lights." The female voice on the other hand, held an annoyed tone.
As the lights filled the room the glitch attempted to cover his head with his blanket to block out the light. Unfortunately his optics still picked up the light, forcing him to stay awake.
"Frustrated. I'm up, I'm up." Stonewire stated.
The glitch pulled himself from his sheets and sat at the side of his bed. He stretched his arms above his head releasing an audible groan that sounded like air through speakers.
"Inquire. Sail, status report?" Stonewire asked as he slipped his shoes from the side of his bed onto his feet.
Stonewire stood and looked around his room. A simple wooden queen sized bed took up the back part with a night stand on both sides across from his bed is a just as simple table with a chair underneath, a single door next to the table and another door across from it. A single screen on the side turned on with a featureless digitized red face.
"The Avians of this planet have taken note of their Messiah's 'disappearance' and have begun to overthrow the few loyalists that remain." Sail explained.
Stonewire made his way to the second automated door in his room and entered his bathroom with all the bathroom essentials. He stood next to the sink and turned on the water and splashed some on his face.
"Surprised. Only a few?" He expected there to be more who would follow the false prophet.
He looked above the sink to see a familiar face staring back at him. A silver dome and a slit with two blue pixelated lights, on the side of his head are small black plates. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face dry before tossing it into a basket.
"Before the Messiah's 'departure' it seemed most only served in fear." The AI informed.
Sounded about right, not that he could blame them, he was all too familiar with the sting of a ruler's unrelenting show of strength. Still, it did unsettle him how easy it was to 'take care' of the dictator. Guess it's easy when they think that they have everything and everyone under their thumb.
Stonewire quickly got dressed in his casual attire, button up T-shirt, tan jeans with a gold leather belt, and a pair of brown boots. He then made his way to the elevator and went to the first floor. At the bottom he found himself in the kitchen/recreational room, but decided against eating until they've left the system.
As he was about to leave he stopped at the door and moved his lower arms up and down. Small squeaks escaped his joints. 'Coffee wouldn't hurt.' He thought to himself.
"Inform. Sail, I'm going to make something to drink. Eager. You mind setting a course for a new system?" He asked as he made his way to the coffee machine.
"Of course Stonewire, where do you wish to go?" Sail asked, sounding quite curious as to what her creator had in mind.
"Absorbed. I don't really know, how about you surprise me." He said as he added coffee beans to the machine.
"Warning, low fuel. Only enough for two jumps." Sail warned.
That got Stonewire's attention, but only for a second. "Carefree. I'm sure wherever you jump us will have some fuel for sell. Excited. Jump us some place far." Stonewire added.
"A far jump could take an estimate of two to three days. Chances of finding someone who sells fuel is seventy-three point four percent." Sail carefully informed.
"Witty. With two jumps that leaves us at a total of two-hundred percent with a one-hundred and forty-six point eight chance. Pleased. That leaves us with a fifty-three point two percent margin for error, I'm sure we'll be fine." Stonewire quickly retorted as he poured his freshly brewed coffee into his mug.
"Fine, but if we get stuck, you will have to find fuel." Stone was about to interject before Sail continued, "I know you hate mining but it will have to be done if you do not find someone who's selling what you need." Sail said as if scolding a child.
"Baffled. Okay, okay, there was no need for that." He quickly responded.
Stonewire could hear the engines kick to life as a sign that the jump was about to commence. As he brought his mug up to the place a mouth would be, a small slit opened allowing the warm liquid to flow into his chassis. He could already feel the liquid being broken down to be used as lubricant and cooling, of course the taste was just as good. Being self aware and an advanced AI had its perks.
Stonewire always had something to do. If there was someone with pixels and a good reason for wanting someone to wind up dead, He's your glitch. That was his last job and now he's been on his ship for about one day and he already wished he had someone that wanted him dead just to kill the boredom, why did he have to have emotions?
He had Sail and while she is what he considered a friend, they know each other inside and out, literally.
Noticing that Stonewire was sprawled out on the floor looking all so pathetic, Sail decide that maybe he could use a distraction.
"Stonewire, weren't you working on some things. I'm sure that the cargo hold workshop could use your attention." Sail advised.
Stonewire immediately sat up "Recall. Yes, Thank you Sail. Excited. Maybe I can finish one of them today."
With that Stonewire made his way to the cargo hold to get started on his projects.
The cargo hold was meant to hold his vehicles but slowly over time and with upgrades it became that and more. The only real vehicle he has is his mech that he still needs to fix, but for now he needed to work on something else.
The first thing he wanted to finish was the wrist mounted matter manipulator. Well, it wouldn't be a matter manipulator when he was done. He, as stated by Sail, hates mining, but he still needed to carry the damn thing around if he wanted to scan and hack into things. If he builds it right he should have a reliable tool that didn't weigh more than his armor.
Going through one of the crates in the hold he found what he was looking for. He's gone through about three different matter manipulators but he was so close to finishing the job. He went over to his workbench with the objects of interest in hand and dumped them on the table.
Before he got to work he quickly grabbed a pair of gloves, an apron, goggles, and a mask with tinted lens. He already had the screen in place for input but he still had to work on the wiring. This took him little over six hours to do but in the end he completed it. Well, he thought he completed it. He would have to take it on a test run before he could really see if it worked.
He mounted the device to his wrist and locked the metal straps in place.
"Anxious. Sail, I could use some help testing this out." Stonewire called out as he lifted the mask.
A screen above his workbench lit up displaying the AI.
"Kindly. If you could please interface with this-" He raised his wrist,"-and give it a once over, I would appreciate it."
"Understood." As she said this the screen went dark.
Stonewire turned on the device and synced it on the same network he built for Sail. A few seconds passed before the screen flickered then changed from green to red. A message bubble popped up from the bottom right of the screen and he quickly opened it.
"Is it safe to have it connected to the same network as me? If it or I was to be compromised both would fail - From Sail."
Stonewire instantly sent a message back through the two small buttons labeled as '1' and '0' as only his kind and few others knew binary and with his robotic fingers he could easily send a long message this way within thirty seconds.
"I know this and have already accounted for it. I will be changing it so that you can transfer between both but for now I needed you to be able to access it. P.S. you don't have to add your name to the end. You and I will be the only ones connected to this device. P.S.S. Can you access both simultaneously, might cut the downtime?"
A message quickly pushed his up out of view on the screen.
"I should be able to handle multiple stations as that is what you built me for." Stone could feel the sass, "Other than not being able to mine with this, it should have all the other functions. I would recommend adding on functions and software when needed."
The image on the device flickered again but nothing changed. The screen above his workbench turned back on as a familiar face took up the space and then turned back off. He felt the device buzz and looked to see a new message.
"That was kind of fun, can't wait to be out on the field with you :). But I'm sure there is one more thing you were working on."
He almost forgot. He hastily pushed all his junk into a crate near by and ran over to a much larger metal crate. He lifted it easily enough and put it next to his bench. He pulled out what looked to be a rifle.
He's been developing the thing for over two years, but he was sure he had it this time. He has all the parts to makes this weapon perfect. He set the rifle part down before reaching back into the crate pulling out a pair of metal crossbow limbs. Now, if he was careful he could have a fully functional adaptable crossbow.
The ammo was probably the easiest of all the parts to collect. In the end he had a small slim cylinder, by itself it was completely harmless, but if he gets the crossbow part working he could have a 'built for any situation' weapon.
He has never had something blow up in his face more than a weapon he was trying to build.
Another day has passed and he feels his patience running thin. First the charging mechanic overloaded and nearly took his arm off, so he implemented a safety that kept it from reaching the overcharge point. Then it decided that it was underpowered and sent whatever power it gathered back into the cylinder causing it to explode.
When it was finally not blowing up, it was the recoil trying to kill him. The whole reason for the crossbow limbs was to evenly disperse the recoil but instead it sent him flying back into a pile of crates. More adjustment and this time he thought he had it, until there was no recoil at all and the bolt limped out of the rifle a foot from him, exploding and sent him into a wall instead.
After the last adjustment he was able to fire it without being sent across the room. Only thing he had to do now was see if he could switch the ammo type. On the side of the barrel was seven buttons all labeled with different symbols.
At the moment the cylinder attached behind the front grip was glowing yellow. So he decided to switch to the snowflake. He pressed the button and the color of the cylinder started turning blue. Stonewire was ecstatic until it started turning red.
Stonewire instantaneously undid the cylinder and threw it across the room as it exploded. He stood, arms at his sides for what felt like hours before he saw one of the monitors turn on.
"Not going so well is it?" Sail asked, genuinely concerned.
"Infuriated! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, every time I get close something new goes wrong!" He still sounded emotionless but the volume of his voice filled the empty spaces of his hanger.
"You did get it to fire the basic energy bolt. That in itself is commendable." she said calmly.
"Furious! Any moron with half a brain could build a crossbow! Explanation. What I'm trying to make would change how my missions went, I can't carry an arsenal to make sure I have the right weapon for the right job." His volume lowered as he continued to talk "Upset. If I don't see another explosion in my life, it will be too soon." He said, putting the crossbow on the table.
There was a long silence as Stonewire made his way to the front of the ship. He sat back in his chair and just looked out the window as the stars passed by, leaving stretched lines of white across the dark abyss that quickly faded, Sail broke the silence.
"Do you remember the day you built me? I remember it well, it's the first memory I ever made. You thought you had failed, that you created nothing but a screensaver."
"Reminisce. I didn't want to buy an AI, I really wanted to make something. Amused. Even before my awakening I loved building things. Guilty. If I didn't notice the defective speaker I'm afraid I would have thrown you away."
"You didn't. I remember those frustrating weeks you looked over me, determined to figure out a solution. The day you did I was still nothing more than an expensive calculator." Sail said nostalgically.
"Whimsical. At least you didn't blow up in my face fifty-seven times." Stonewire joked.
"Yes, that is the sad side of not being a weapon." Sail sarcastically said.
"Genuine. I still think we need to give you a proper name."
"I like Sail." She reassured.
A comfortable silence filled the ship as Stonewire enjoyed the passing stars, comfortable in his captain's chair. He wonders if this is all worth it. Going around, being a hired killer. It was what he was when he was sleeping and he stayed that way after the fact. He could have been anything after his awakening. With his tech skills he could have been someone else. Instead all he did was turn the blade onto someone more deserving.
"Are you thinking of changing careers again?" Sail asked.
Sail always knew what he was thinking about. Not because they are robots, Glitch don't have any online tech so connecting to other tech was impossible. No, she just knows what kind of person Stonewire is.
"Joyful. Think about it, we could be the owners of a nice little shop on an outer system. Daydream. We could call it 'Scrap into tech: we put the drive into jump drive. Wistful. What do you think?"
"Whatever the name, I will be there." Sail replied.
Sail has had this same talk with him many times since her coming into being. She always gave the same answer, but Stonewire always had a new name and slogan. Maybe someday his dream would become reality, but there was always other work to be done.
"five minutes till we..." Sail suddenly cut off.
"Worried. Something wrong Sail?"
"Something has changed about our destination. Long range scanners detecting multiple cruisers in the drop zone."
"Concern. That can't be possible, it's impossible to know where someone will jump unless you are in the same area when the former jumps. Understanding. Unless they aren't there for us."
"Correct, but the chances of any ship running into an ongoing conflict is more unlikely." Sail stated.
"Bitter. Well it seems we are just that lucky. Order. Get the cannons fired up, don't want to be there too long and if it's between any of my kind I don't want to be caught in the middle of it. Worry. Time to test how long it would take to jump after a jump. Inquire. Need estimates of how long till we can jump again." Stonewire said while pressing a button on his armrest moving him over to a new set of consoles.
"Estimating... need ten minutes. Eight minutes to cool the warp drive and two more to charge it. Weapons are primed and ready."
"Pleased. I shoot, you fly. Anxious. Let the show begin." He said as he pushed a few buttons before a pair of joysticks raised out of the console and the screen above it turned on.
The once pleasant sound of leaving a jump was replaced with eagerness to enter the next jump to escape whatever conflict they were about to interrupt. As the blur of the jump finally faded, they could see things clearly and it was a bit of a surprise.
It was a battle between Avian and Floran. Stone hoped that one of them would have been Glitch, as that would have meant that only one side would shoot at him. The worst news was that they jumped right into the middle of the fighting and were immediately fired upon.
"They don't seem happy to see us." Sail pointed out.
Most would say they were unlucky to be flying a frigate of the Glitch fleet up against a space filled with at least thirty or more cruisers on each side. Good news was that Stonewire had been working on his ship since it was scrap. Unlike most space faring frigates his ship wasn't just fast, it had the firepower to go with it.
With Sail at the helm and Stonewire on the guns they made themselves the hardest target to hit and they retaliated with their own volley at the attacking parties. Stonewire doesn't know who is right or who is wrong, but at that moment it didn't matter both had opened fire on him without even trying to contact him. To Stonewire that meant war.
By the time eight minutes passed Stonewire and Sail had a kill count of sixteen ships. They didn't come out unscathed but they were looking better than a lot of the other guys. Things were running smoothly until a flash of light revealed a Avian pyramid Dreadnought.
Stonewire really hoped that backup would have arrived a little later when he was gone. Nothing he could do now but try to stay out of the way.
That probably would have worked if it didn't look like it was gunning for him.
"It seems we got more attention than hoped." Sail stated.
"Annoyed. Just keep us functional until we are ready to jump."
"With how it's pursuing it will most likely jump after us." Sail said with a hint of concern.
"Confident. If you can get me behind it I'll take care of that. Calm. Just be ready to jump."
"Understood."
Sail dodged and weaved through the constant firing from both the new arrival and what was left of the cruisers. Of course Stonewire was doing his part in finishing what was coming after them with the two double barrel cannons that sat above the front and back and the one at the bottom front of his ship.
As planned, Sail got them behind the Dreadnought. Only thing is that it has plasma cannons on just about every possible angle. He still needed to make his shot, so Stonewire turned all of the cannons to port and sent a barrage onto the enemy's engines.
"The warp drive is set and ready for escape. T minus thirty seconds." Sail announced.
What Stonewire didn't anticipate was a large explosion from within the Dreadnought, sending large pieces of heated shrapnel at unbelievable speeds.
The explosion sent enough force by itself to throw Stonewire from his seat and onto the cold metal floor.
"Panic! We need to jump now Sail!" He said at higher volume as he pushed himself from the floor.
"The warp drive is damaged, if we jump now there is a high proba-"
"Frantic! We need to jump now or we'll be torn apart!" Stonewire interrupted.
"Initiating jump."
With that the Glitch ship disappeared from the battlefield, but not in the usual flash of blue light. Instead it was replaced with a red explosion and an electromagnetic pulse. As the pulse traveled it fried every other still functioning ship's engines in the dead of space with no way of contact.
What was left of the Dreadnought soon chained into multiple explosions, destroying whatever was too close.
"Stonewire, wake up!"
This seemed very familiar to Stonewire. Like he had already gone through this, except his soft bed was replaced with the feeling of metal and still feeling as if he just got thrown into several walls.
"Stone, are you okay!?" Why was Sail yelling?
"Groggy. I'm up, no need to yell."
"You've been unconscious for three hours, twenty-two minutes and forty-nine seconds. I was afraid you might have shattered something." Sail said, expressing her concern.
"Confused. What happened?" He asked, getting up as he felt a pain in his shoulder. From what he could tell his joint was just dislocated and not broken. Good, last thing he needed was a repairman when he considered himself better at it.
"From speculation it is probable that when you destroyed the engines it sent an energy feedback loop to their reactor. If we didn't jump I suspect we would have been caught in a chain explosion."
Stonewire decided that he would solve one of their problems right there and rammed his bad shoulder into the frame of the door. With a resounding pop he rolled his shoulder a few times to make sure everything was in place. Stonewire turned around to see that they were just now exiting warp.
"Inquire. damage report?" He asked as he made his way out the control room.
He soon found himself in the recreational room and noticed it wasn't at all that bad. Some tables and chairs were not locked properly because of timing but for the most part things like the fridge and cooking stations were unharmed.
"As you can see, the recreational room is unharmed but there is multiple tasks that need your attention starting with the most critical. The reactor was hit and is leaking but is stable for the meantime, next would be the teleportal as it has suffered multiple beatings and the diamond core needs replacing, last is the cargo hold. It was breached and at the moment the gravity generator is keeping what wasn't spaced to the floor." Sail listed.
"Nervous. Is that all?" He said as he tugged on the collar of his shirt.
"No, that is not all. There are is software that was damaged that I will have to backup and restore. One of those systems has stopped me from checking inventory in the cargo hold so you'll have to manually go through it. Another system was the galactic maps we've collected so until that is fixed I cannot triangulate our position, so in other words we are lost."
"Suggestion. If communication is functional, we could send a distress message. Concern. Not right now of course, I will fix what's physical and you will work on other systems and we can only hope that I'm as good an engineer as I say." Stonewire didn't like to rely on others but a helping hand is never looked past.
"Noted, Some facilities will be offline due to the reactor leak, good luck." She said as the screen she was displayed on switched off.
The first thing Stonewire did was head down to the cargo hold. He knew he needed to get to the reactor but without the proper tools to seal the leak all he would do is look at a hole.
One of the first things he noticed was the lack of air. Only the awaken knew they didn't need to breath, so the reason he knew there was no air was because he could simulate breathing without the need.
The other thing he noticed was the large hole and a lot of crates on their sides. He would worry about inventory later. Stonewire quickly found the crate he needed for reactor repairs and made for the reactor room.
Entering the reactors room Stonewire saw the problem almost immediately. Other species would say that the problem was that Glitch reactors look a lot like furnaces but just like a Glitch, they may look simple or outdated on the outside but on the inside are a marvel of technical genius.
Stonewire made quick work of the leak so they wouldn't be blowing up anytime soon. Meanwhile Sail finished restoring the backups for the maps and started trying to find out where they landed.
Stonewire was working on sealing the breach using an emergency escape hatch and a grappling hook to seal it from outside. Once that was done, he made sure to rewire what was disconnect in the wall before finishing the seal on the inside. As soon as he finished one of the screens on the wall turned on.
"Stonewire, I've finished all the required backups and have done proper inventory inspection. It seems that many of the crates that were spaced were your building materials. There's one more bit of bad news that I feel you will need to sit down for."
"Confused. What about the teleporter, I haven't fixed it yet." He asked as he put his tools and leftover scrap into an empty crate.
"No point, replacement parts were spaced like many other things." She said the last part in a whisper.
"Worry. What other things?"
"It seems that a large supply of your pixels were also spaced. Seventy-three point five to be precise."
"Confused. Why would you think that would bother me. Joyful. You know that I keep a stash of pixels on our planet." Stonewire informed.
"Just go to the kitchen." She said before her avatar disappeared.
'This can't be good.' He thought.
"Stunned. So, no way home." Stonewire said at a low volume.
"Not exactly. Some of the systems we've been to are the same, but there are anomalies, stars that are off or have completely changed and the few planets I can reach with the scanner don't have the fuel sources we seek. At the moment though, it seems we will need to activate the distress beacon" She explained, trying her best to keep her creator from being discouraged.
"Distraught. I'm going to stay in the cargo hold. Hurt. I'll try not to blow myself up, let me know when someone comes along." He said, still at low volume as he walked out.
She hated seeing him like that, a feeling she's rarely felt only when he almost seemed broken. She knew it wasn't about the pixels. It was his home and with them both being AI's they were still so different. Home for Sail was always by her creator's side but for him it was a galaxy he was changing for the better so that others after him could live a better life.
Now he was someplace that was not his home, that he never made a difference in. She tried to soften the blow of not knowing where they were, but he knew her to well and got the truth out of her. The truth was even with the scanner having a short range she could still use the star map, but no matter how far or which direction she went the similarities were close but not enough.
In the end she hoped that someone was around. Maybe a human, they always seemed to cheer Stonewire up.
With that last thought she activated the beacon.
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Boom done with that
now to see how the readers like it
most chapters won't be this long (most will be 2,000 or more)
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