I feel like it's worth pointing out that I wrote this whole story way before sea shanties started becoming viral. Some luck, I suppose! Also worth noting that there will be around 30 chapters total, so there's quite a bit ahead of us.

Thanks to Kokodoru for the beta-reading!

"Alright, so there isn't much room," Luka said, keeping her helmet on. "But you're pretty tiny so you should find somewhere to stand."

"Is there somewhere in particular where I wouldn't be too much of a bother?"

The scavenger did a once-over of her ship; immediately to the right of the door was her workbench. Next to that was a small kitchenette, then the pilot seat with the dashboard. Looping back around, across from the kitchen, there was a narrow door in a wall that stuck into the interior of the ship at an angle; that door led to a tiny bathroom, barely wide enough for a person to stand in, which contained a shower, a sink, and a toilet. Outside of that room, across from where they were standing right then, the thick wall doubled as a compact storage space containing most of her supplies, and the more the storage approached the back of the ship, the more that turned into storage for her clothing and other personal effects. Her bed was contained within that wall as well, collapsed to make for extra space. The back wall of her ship had a little more storage, a washing unit for clothes, a repair bay. Closing the loop, the segment of wall between the pressure chamber and the back wall of the ship was nothing more than a trash chute.

Luka pointed to that last location, where the trash intake was located. The robot obeyed, standing there without any complaint. Once Luka sat down in her pilot seat however, the image of the robot in the corner of her eye bothered her.

"Let's get you some clothes, first," she grumbled, standing again to sift through her storage.

"I do not need clothes."

"I know, but it's still kind of weird. Why did they make you have such real looking skin?"

"It is relatable," the robot replied, accepting the shirt and pants. "Much like a face, five digits per limb. It is emotionally easier to connect to, no?"

"Sure, sure. You're not a person, though."

"I am not," she conceded, pulling on the pants. "But much like my peers, I miss people. I wish to connect with them again. I might not be a person, but contact with people is valuable to me."

"Have you ever seen a person before?" Luka asked as she started the ship.

"I, as a unit, have not. Parts of my conscience have memories of humans, back when they visited to collect resources."

Luka paused. "Even your memories are like a scrapbook? All pieced together?"

"Yes! We would not have the creativity to create, otherwise," she explained. When the ship lifted off the ground, she didn't comment on it. "Our internal differences between component units create small conflicts. In these conflicts and ensuing resolutions, my identity was born and sparked my creativity. I am an assembly and my art is born where the seams lie."

Luka raised a brow at the speech. "Alright. Hold on, I'm going to start— Put the shirt on!"

"I will be honest. I am not sure how."

"You pull it over your head. Arms first... There you go."

"Interesting."

"Now hold on."

"Understood."

Luka enabled the interplanetary drives: interstellar would have launched her out of the solar system and beyond her destination sector in a heartbeat, so she had to settle on the slower but more reliable way to get there without attracting attention.

Soon after the rock that was Earth disappeared out of sight, the acceleration slowed and her speed grew constant. Luka relaxed and undid her buckles. She wished she could remove her helmet, but her impromptu cargo wouldn't understand her otherwise.

She took her seat at the workbench. Her gun still needed fixing, after all.

The robot watched. Luka noticed, felt her eyes, so blue, bore into her skull. She glanced at her, fidgeted, tried to focus on her work.

"So, uhm... You have a name?"

"I am Electric Angel."

"That's more of a title than anything, to be honest. I'm not going to call you that."

The robot frowned. "You may name me, then."

"Me? Why me?"

"My peers are gone. I am alone. I do not think I could find a name for myself without second-guessing it. It would be easier if someone were to give it to me. I know nobody else."

Luka blew a raspberry. "Fine, I guess. There are tons of cool names to choose from. There's Meiko, Lily—"

"Meiko is nice."

"I can't call you that! That's, like, my mom," Luka muttered.

"Oh. I quite like the sound of it."

"Meiko? How about Meika?"

"Hm."

"Miku's a popular name nowadays."

"Miku! I quite like that one."

The woman rolled her eyes. "That'll work. You're Miku now."

The robot beamed. "I am Miku."

"So, Miku," Luka started, taking the gun apart so she could better fix the handle. She had more than enough time before they arrived at the freighter. "How were you going to lure people back? You weren't exactly making a big show, lying all alone and mute in your room."

"I was sending out messages," she robot replied. The shirt was comically large on her, but she didn't seem to mind. "Did they not find you? How would you have located me otherwise?"

"What, the radio signals? Those were you?"

"Yes. Who else would it have been?"

"I don't know. It was pretty vague really. Not much of a lure."

"You found me nonetheless."

"Only thanks to the fact that I actually look for your obsolete tech," Luka said with a sneer. "Nobody uses proto-radio waves anymore."

"Proto..." Miku tried to parrot her, but Luka wondered if the translation even went through. "I am glad it has served its purpose nonetheless. And that it taught you how to activate me."

"Taught? Activate?"

"Yes. You triggered my activation protocol."

Luka frowned. "How?"

"You sang, did you not?"

The scavenger sat up. "I... I think I did. I was supposed to sing?"

"Of course. How else would we verify that the person would be human? Humans have a love for song, a melody with words. Birds and some animals can only do one at a time, while those that can sing cannot do so reliably well for very long. Humans can sing with relative ease, however."

"You can sing."

"Yes. But I was waiting for activation. Until then, I would not sing."

Luka hummed.

"What were you singing?"

"Just some sailor's shanty. It's eons-old at this point," Luka mumbled.

"May I hear?"

"Sure. But I'm not sure that it will translate well."

"You rely on your helmet for translation, then?"

"Yeah. I don't speak your language. And you don't speak Common."

"I could learn your language," Miku said.

"Oh. Maybe my onboard AI can help with that."

"I can assist," her AI said over the ship speaker. "I simply need to find out what methods of communication it possesses."

Miku blinked at the voice. "Oh! Hello!"

The AI took a moment before it replied in the android's language. "Hello. What methods of communication do you possess?"

Miku started listing off various obsolete technologies, from Wi-fi to BlueTooth to those same radio waves, but after some back and forth, the two of them found a method that could carry large volumes of data quickly.

"Uploading language pack now," her AI droned.

"Thank you," Miku chirped. "What is your name?"

Luka rolled her eyes. "It's an AI, it doesn't—"

"I am Ruko."

Luka paused.

"I am Miku! I'm pleased to meet you."

"Likewise, Miku."

The scavenger sat up again, turned towards the robot. "Alright. Huh. Guess you two can be friends if you want."

"I would like that very much," Miku chirped.

"Likewise." After a moment, Ruko said, "Upload complete."

"Oh dear. Let me unpack this," the robot muttered, suddenly far less certain. "I may need some help with the file."

"It is possible that it is wholly incompatible with your system. It is severely outdated."

"It might be. But I wish to try."

"Allow me to assist."

"Thank you."

They chatted a little bit, and Luka only shook her head and returned to her work. She couldn't arrive at the freighter soon enough. Miku would help her load the goods, she would return to Earth, hide out long enough for the authorities to scatter, maybe take that bath, and then full speed to some fringe-location system where the black market ruled. The Sapphire Shores weren't too far off, she thought to herself.

"Oh, it works!" Miku exclaimed, and the scavenger noticed that it didn't even go through the translator first.

She removed her helmet, allowing her pink locks to tumble free. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, I do!" the robot cheered, clapping her hands again. "How fantastic. Thank you, Ruko!"

"My pleasure."

"Delete the neo-language pack from my communications," Luka ordered. "It's fucking worthless."

"Understood."

"Could you sing the song you were singing, now?"

Luka rolled her eyes, focused again on her work. Without the weight of her helmet, it was a lot easier to lean over her work. But it only made her stare more intense, and she had to resist the temptation to fix her hair. Keeping her back to the robot, she sang,

What do you do with a wasted planet,

What do you do with a wasted planet,

What do you do with a wasted planet,

So late in the space age?

Aye, aye to the darkness with it,

Aye, aye to the darkness with it,

Aye, aye to the darkness with it,

So late in the space age!

Reduce the surface to mud and granite,

Reduce the surface to mud and granite,

Reduce the surface to mud and granite,

So late in the space age.

She repeated the chorus, with the verses thereafter saying, 'Leave it only for the lowly maggot,' then 'Turn it into an oversized magnet.' When she finished her song, voice somewhat hoarse, Luka huffed as she sat back.

"And that's all I remember. There's a bit more, but not that many words rhyme with 'planet'. I can't remember them," Luka muttered.

"Thank you for sharing. You sing very well."

Luka blew a raspberry. "Sure."

"That song was about Earth."

"Indeed. Shows what we've grown to think of that hunk of rock."

"I suppose," Miku muttered. "It is fortunate, then, that you found me."

"Fortunate? Borderline miraculous. I only visited at all because I remembered that Earth was supposed to be in this sector. I was just targeting a freighter nearby. I almost didn't even hear your radio waves: if I had turned on my scanner in orbit, I probably never would have caught them."

Miku frowned. "You may have saved me from a slow death."

"Cooked by the sun? Yeah. Lucky I found you."

"Very much so."

Miku then directed her attention to the window and stared for a long while.

"May I look?"

"Outside? Yeah. Don't touch anything."

"I won't."

Miku gently made her way to the front of the ship, her footsteps soundless on the hard metal floor. The fact that she had to take more than two steps to traverse the distance showed how small she was. She didn't even have to lean forward to look out the window like Luka's rare guests did. Once there, the robot stood and stared for a long time.

Outside of an atmosphere, stars didn't twinkle. There were many of them, but they shone bright, resolute, unwavering. It wasn't as dazzling of a view as many planets promised, with their chemically complex atmospheres, but the view from space was at least wholly unobstructed. You could see every star, and that counted for something. It was a fantastic show in its own right. Especially if you had never seen it before.

Luka regarded her for a moment. The robot was, really, nothing more than cargo. She was going to sell it off to the highest bidder, as she did with all of her goods. If Miku was lucky, whoever that was might appreciate the art and song she promised.

Hell, might as well sample some while she had the chance.

"So, Miku, you sing?" Luka asked, roughly combing her hair with her fingers so it wouldn't get in the way. "What kind of songs?"

"Any kind," the robot replied, immediately turning her attention back to the human.

"Isn't it supposed to persuade people to come back home?"

"Certainly. But people have a variety of tastes. I can sing whatever you desire. Give me enough criteria, I might be able to make your dream song become reality."

Luka chuckled. "There are trillions of humans, you know. Every other one makes music. Some of those are really talented."

"I imagine. But I like to think that we did a good job, making me."

"Alright. I'd like to see. Sing me a song."

"What would you like to hear?"

Luka shrugged. "Anything. A song about you."

"About me?"

"Sure, why not."

"Very well."

A small melody started playing. Miku must have had speakers hidden somewhere because the sound wasn't coming from her mouth. Either way, the audio quality was crystal clear. The tune itself was cute and somewhat endearing, admittedly quite catchy too, and Luka nodded along as she continued making repairs to her gun.

When Miku started singing, however, the scavenger was startled to find that she wasn't singing in Common, rather in her other language. She was about to protest, but she rolled her eyes and went with it, resuming her work.

She had no idea what the robot was singing, but it was nice. It was a cute and happy tune, and she had to admit, the robot had skill. Her voice, especially, was beautiful. Clear and full, like a crystal bell, while her control was as perfect as one would expect from a robot. There was just enough emotional inflection to relate to as well.

It wasn't Luka's favorite song by any means, but she would listen to her again without hesitating.

"That was really nice," she said, granting her a glance when she finished. "You're not half bad."

The robot smiled. "Thank you."

"Do you draw too? Or do you just do music?"

"I can create in a variety of ways. But we have decided to prioritize music: it is a medium that comes across quickly and that appeals to very large crowds for a variety of reasons. It is easy to make a song that very many people like."

"That's fair. Do you come up with these songs on the fly?"

"Yes! I do have vague ideas of melodies in mind, and lyrics I like to use, but whether I actually implement them depends entirely on the song."

"And what kind of database did you use to learn how to write a song?"

"Database?"

"You're a bit of an AI, aren't you?"

"I cannot deny that."

"I can confirm that Miku is a fully artificial intelligence," Ruko chimed in.

"So, you've probably had to train for ages to learn how to make music, right? Listen to what real people made, compare, learn a bit of music theory while you're at it, maybe some language for a better understanding of the lyrics. No?"

Miku only shook her head. "When I was made, there were no databases left."

Luka frowned. "What?"

"We had no music left on earth. No 8 tracks, CDs, DVDs, cassettes, or any kind of drive that would contain audio files. We only knew of music based on a vague description, an understanding of the word as would be defined by a dictionary. We understand it was not useful for survival, but for happiness. We knew little more."

The scavenger put down her tools. "Wait, so... You've never even heard other music before?"

"I just listened to your song. It was very different from mine. But I know that songs can be very different."

"Well, yeah. Mine was a shanty. It's designed to be easy to sing along to."

"Interesting."

"Yours was more like, I don't know, old-school pop."

Miku's eyes widened. "Ah? Is that so?"

"Can you do rock? Metal?"

"I do not know what those are."

The scavenger forced herself to return to the task at hand. "Right. Uhm. Hey, Ruko?"

"Yes?"

Luka frowned. Up until that point, she had only needed to speak and her AI would listen and reply. There never was a need for a name: who else would she be talking to? With Miku present, it was useful, but it was still so strange.

It had never been anything more than her nameless assistant.

"Can you see if Miku can connect to the wireless comms system? See if you can show her some music?"

"We can try," Ruko said, the voice monotonous.

"Great."

She let the two AIs figure that out and returned to her work, aiming the high-focus laser at the seam she needed to fix.

The fact that Miku had figured out music all on her own was impressive. Sure, she was the amalgamation of probably dozens of different robots, but even those had been nothing more than collectors. None of them had even heard a song before.

And Miku had spit out a really catchy pop song without any kind of effort, shame, or apprehension.

"What are you working on?"

Luka flinched: the voice had come from within her ear. The laser nicked her hand.

"Fu—"

"Miku has successfully been integrated into the comms system," Ruko announced over the loudspeaker, before adding, almost nothing more than an afterthought, "Small injury sustained."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"Would you prefer if we communicate like this?" Miku asked, the voice coming from her implant.

"Actually, no," Luka replied, hands shaking. "Damn, I really did cut myself."

"Luka prefers that we speak to her when possible. Please use the wireless system only if normal communications are no longer an option."

"Yeah," the scavenger growled, examining the wound. It was a shallow cut, but injuries in space could go badly very quickly. While much of her flesh had been cauterized by the hot laser, blood still pearled on her skin, running down her digit, spattering down on the work surface.

"Oh, sorry. Are you hurt?" the robot asked, her voice normal, coming from her body, a meter away in the small ship.

"Nothing serious. Could you..."

Miku stepped aside, almost forced to sit in her pilot chair, while Luka opened another drawer and summoned a small first-aid kit. With shaking hands, she took out the anti-infection cream which was most useful on burns and applied a small dollop to the wound.

"Do you need help?"

"No, I'm fine," Luka growled. "Don't do that again."

"I'm sorry."

The woman applied a bandage, tested if her finger could move. It still stung, but the brunt of the laser burn had faded already.

"Injury should heal in four rotations," Ruko announced.

Luka nodded and started packing up the first aid kit. It was still fully stocked, so she didn't have to worry about finding expensive creams anytime soon. She turned towards her newest cargo with a scowl.

"If I'm busy there, I'm probably using dangerous things. I'm fixing a gun for crying out loud."

"Ah. I did not know. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, it's fine," Luka said with a sigh, returning to her seat. "I'm not used to roommates either."

"You are alone often?"

"Look at this place. Where does a second person even fit?"

Miku looked around and nodded. "I see what you mean."

The scavenger sighed and returned to work. "You can listen to the music I have on hand. For now, I'd like to finish my repairs."

The robot nodded, the motion barely visible out of the corner of her eye. "I understand. Thank you."

"Yeah. Sure."

"We are approaching our destination," Ruko droned, breaking the silence.

Luka nodded, finished re-assembling her gun. After checking the alignment, the charges, and the grip, she grinned, satisfied.

"Right on time."

"Where are we?" Miku asked.

Luka paused, turned towards her cargo. For the past half-hour, the robot had been sitting in the corner by the trash chute, most likely quietly listening to music. She was still wearing her oversized shirt and pants, her teal hair pooled around her on the floor, and Luka had almost entirely forgotten about her.

"We're at the reason that brought me to this area in the first place," Luka explained easily. "Just up ahead is a destroyed freighter."

"Destroyed? Are you here to rescue survivors?"

The woman chuckled. "Nah. These things are fully automated: there are no fatalities or wounded to begin with."

She sat in her pilot's seat, assessing the situation.

As expected, the freighter was huge. The amount of cargo it contained was probably many hundreds of times the total volume of her ship. Even though she still had a few hundred kilometers to go, there were already crates floating around, dotting the otherwise empty vacuum of space. She leaned closer when she flew by, trying to identify what would be in them, but the print was too fine.

She remembered that the freighter had been impacted by something, and slowed down. She felt her palms grow sweaty.

"Then why are you here?" Miku asked, still in the back corner by the trash chute.

"Shh."

Luka saw it: a huge dent in the side of the ship, surrounded by huge, outward-facing puncture wounds. The freighter was also surrounded by large chunks of rock.

"Hypothesis: a stray block of space debris impacted the ship at high velocity. The impact caused many of the ship's systems to explode," Ruko explained.

"Velocity?"

"The wreck is currently traveling at a constant ten kilometers per second."

"Awesome. Anybody else around?"

After some thinking, Ruko replied, "None. We are alone."

"Jackpot. Target the largest intact storage area and find a place to land or hang on."

"Understood. Commencing landing procedures."

The ship accelerated to close the distance while Luka stood and stepped into her space suit once again.

"Why are we here?" the robot asked again. "Can I help somehow?"

"You..." She trailed off, remembering that she was made of recycled robots that had all been programmed to kill thieves. "Uhm. Depends. I don't have a spare space suit."

"I am immune to the vacuum and temperatures of space," Miku said, standing. "I can help!"

That changed things. "Great. Come along, then."

"What is it that we are doing?"

"I'm just picking up some stuff," Luka vaguely explained, putting on her helmet.

"Approaching landing point," Ruko told her via her implant. "Should I add Miku to this conversation?"

"Can't she speak to me already?"

Miku's reply was muffled and far away. "Yes, but I have trouble hearing you through your helmet."

Luka rolled her eyes, debated toggling the audio input and output of her helmet again, but decided against it. "Yeah, sure. Let her hear me."

"Understood. Testing landing area."

Luka waited as the testers did their job. After another minute, she heard the various clasps and hands grab onto the freighter, the vibrations of the sound traveling up the arms and filling the cabin with the shrill shriek of bending and tearing metal.

Miku listened to all this with wide eyes, a hand on the wall of the ship to stabilize herself. "What is this?"

"We're just landing. Come on, follow me into the pressure chamber."

"Suit integrity verified. Miku's integrity verified."

"Thank you, Ruko!" the robot chirped, the door sealing behind them. They waited again as the oxygen left the room. When the door opened, it was to the merciless and vast emptiness of space.

"Oh wow," Miku said, her voice traveling directly to Luka's implant. "This is..."

While the robot admired space around them, Luka took in what was directly before her. They were, technically, inside the freighter's storage area, resting in one of the gaping wounds in the outer shell. Before her waited dozens of containers, all floating in their bindings in near-total darkness. Each contained a dozen of the boxes she had seen drifting outside.

She enabled her lights. "How about this? I'll go get the boxes, and you stack them in here. Once the pressure chamber is full, you push them into the cabin, and we start again until the whole ship is full?"

"I can do that!"

"Great."

Luka kicked off from her ship, trusting her magnetized boots to find and latch onto the surface of the freighter. She was weightless, as expected, but her boots did their job and she soon fell back to the floor with a heavy thunk.

The nearest container was a bit of a walk away, yet she reached it with practiced ease, balancing the overall weightlessness and the strength of her boots into a strange but effective stride. The container was sealed, with no padlock or even a door.

Now, this was security.

She removed the safety from her gun, set it to cut, and drove the point of the emerging laser into the side of the container. The material melted like butter, as it always did when confronted with very, very illegal lasers.

Within a minute, she had made an opening in the container more than large enough to pull out the boxes within.

She chuckled, pulling out one box effortlessly thanks to the zero-gravity. She immediately found the bright sticker on the side and leaned in to get a good look at it.

She did a double-take at what she read. She read it twice, three times, then giggled, her heart racing, but this time out of pure joy.

The sticker on it confirmed that this was premium Galdyssian spice.

Galdys was a planet dedicated entirely to spice production, and while it produced heaps and heaps of the stuff, there were trillions of humans out there. Getting one's hands on this was difficult. Stealing it? A rare opportunity. Being able to sell it? A once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a career-ending sale.

She repressed a cheer; celebration could wait until after she got as much of the stuff inside of her ship as she possibly could.

"I'm going to be so fucking rich," she whispered to herself. Her lifelong plans of total isolation, once a distant dream, had crystallized into nearby reality in a single second. Her haven, away from the galaxy, away from everyone, she could almost see it.

She wanted to scream out of pure joy.

Luka looked back at the robot, waiting for her by her ship. Miku had no boots, no tethers attaching her to the ship, but she held onto the handle inside the chamber, her hair floating around her like a huge stringy cloud.

The robot was silly. Some robot artist made by other robots to lure humans back to Earth. Such a silly thing, and it talked so much.

But she could hardly be upset. She only laughed, saying, "Incoming!" as she pushed the box in her direction.

Miku caught it deftly, one-handed or not, and shoved it into the corner of the chamber. Luka pushed another box and another, and as the chamber filled with stacks and stacks of spice, Luka's mood only improved.

"Hey, Miku!"

"Yes?"

"Got any happy songs to play right now?"

"I have something in mind!"

"Go for it!"

Without delay, a song started playing via her implant. Luka couldn't even care that she had the implant in only one ear, depriving her of the stereo experience. It was another great song with another great voice with lyrics she couldn't understand yet somehow connected with.

It was an uplifting song, that much was sure. Miku's voice was enough to fill her chest and carry her heart, fueling her with motivation to work faster, push harder. Perhaps she ought to invest in some real, good-quality implants, she mused. None of that black-market shit, with the grainy audio and dubious sanitary practices. Real implants that fed sound and images directly into her brain. Perfect quality. She would certainly afford it, with Galdyssian spice of all things.

Splurging on implants wouldn't be worth it once Miku was gone, though.

Miku didn't even interrupt the song to gesture that she needed to empty the pressure chamber. As the doors closed and Luka waited for her to arrange the boxes within the ship, she prepared the next batch, leaving them by the door.

When the song ended, the doors opened again.

"Oh! You're fast," Miku commented, already corralling the new boxes into the chamber.

"I am very motivated," Luka said, still grinning. "Do we still have room for these?"

"Do you have another dedicated storage area?"

"Nah."

"I'm afraid this might be all—"

"Other lifeforms detected."

Luka froze, turned around. Her light, bubbly, carefree joy had been skewered, boiling and sharp fear settling deep in her stomach."Where?"

"Incoming at great speeds," Ruko warned. "I advise escape: we are outnumbered."

"Shit! Get these inside!"

Miku rushed to get the boxes within the chamber, but without the patience or care, they collided into one another, bouncing to and fro, some forced back out of the chamber. Luka helped as best as she could, but a quick movement out of the corner of her eye startled her.

Impacts shook the ship all around them. The projectiles were soundless, but when one of the crates exploded, sending the bright purple powder everywhere, there was no mistaking that they were lethal.

Luka felt her mind go numb.

"Get inside!" Miku called.

Luka drew her gun, knowing how to set it back to shoot like instinct. When the bullet-shaped ship came by again, whizzing by the seam in the freighter, she fired at it.

It was like spitting against a mountain and hoping it would fall. They were too fast. She wouldn't ever hit them.

"We need these boxes," Luka stammered, grabbing one of the group that had escaped and forcing it back in. Her hands were trembling.

"You're in danger!"

The ship drew close, slowing down to enter the freighter. Luka fired at it, the lasers ricocheting off the smooth surface.

Whoever these were, they had a budget.

"Fuck."

The ship turned, the movement uncannily fast and agile for its shape and size, then fired in return. Another box exploded, and Miku cowered in the corner of the chamber.

"Get inside!"

"Fuck you!" Luka yelled. There was water inside her helmet. She was crying apparently. "Get your own fucking spice!"

A sudden impact sucked the air right out of her lungs.

"Grave injury sustained."

Luka opened her mouth to reply, only to find there literally was no air in her lungs any longer. She felt like a popped balloon. Droplets of blood floated before her in space, catching and mixing with the purple cloud.

Injuries in space weren't good.

They could get really bad.

Luka blacked out before she could think.