Phantom Star

“Kathy! There you are!” I looked up from my Tab, food half in my mouth and blinked at the familiar figures.

I couldn’t quite say anything but I threw up a hand in hello and started chewing.

“You’ve been gone so much! I haven’t seen you for more than a second or two in forever!” Marie whined and I just shrugged as I continued swallowing,

“Marie, don’t whine. You know what Mom says. Kat, nice to see you not running for the black.” Heather said. She was Marie’s younger sister. A few years younger than me, but nice enough.

“You too.” I said and then blinked because that was dumb. Ugh. I had done the you too thing. Uuuuu.

“So tell me something Kat, because I heard a rumor.”

“I didn’t do it. Simon is lying, a lying liar who lies.” I denied instantly and completely truthfully.

“Moving on from whatever that is, we’ll talk about that later.” Heather said then pointed at me. “You have a ship?”

“I have an old super structure that has absolutely zero internals… Who squealed?” I demanded looking between the two and then when neither responded I stood up. Time to loom.

But I was instantly defeated by Marie pointing at herself poking her purple lips with an impish grin.

“Logistics.” I grumbled, and sat back down.

“Hehe! There is nothing that happens on this station that I don’t find out about!” She proclaimed and a few of the travelers at a nearby table looked up at her words but then went back to eating.

“Can I see it?” Heather asked and I shook my head.

“It’s in the scrap field, inside an old super freighter that I’m using as a repair bay, and there isn’t anything to see.” I lied, but I didn’t want anyone to see the Diamond Core. Even if it was shut down and stable it still would instantly be a weird object people wanted to know about.

“Heather here wants to-”

“Shut up Marie! I don’t want to travel! I just like ships. I mean, more than just shuttles. I’ve always wanted to be able to really look around one, that’s all.”

“I’m sure I’ll end up docking it at the station when it’s repaired, and I’ll be around. I’m not planning on leaving, leaving.” I admitted and Heather looked pleased.

“Speaking of your audacious plans… I’m going to be denying your request.” Marie suddenly said and I looked up.

“What why? It’s just cabling and-”

“And a dozen other things. All of which are being sent off station as soon as we get it.” Marie whispered and very sneakily looked around making sure no one was listening as she leaned in. “Something is going on. Every request for scrap parts has been surging and all of them are coming from the same place. L1T-Z Station.”

“War?” I mouthed more than said. L1T-Z Station was another scrap and reclamation station. Much closer to the capital of the Duchy though. Normally it acted very similarly to our own work, but if they were buying parts instead of just scrapping them, its secondary function had been activated. It was the station a refurbished fleet would be gathered in during war time.

L1T-Z was the best repair station in the entire sector after all. Or at least the most expensive, and modern.

From their location they would be sending out second line ships to take over defensive positions as front line ships moved out to whatever warzone was happening.

Marie just shrugged, but I could tell that was her assumption as well.

Damn… Damn, damn damn!

“That… Will push back my timetables.” I said bitterly. There was a lot a ship needed that wasn’t very easy for me to produce myself. Plasma cabling for one. Nanopaste could do plastics, and things, but not super well, and only if I had the materials to deconstruct, and cabling was one of the valuable bits in ships.

And there were dozens of other things. Minor components that I’d now have to design myself and basically fabricate which was just more work to do.

And worse than that? War meant pirates. It was inevitable. Pirates were everywhere, always. Usually kept mostly in check with duchy ships flying patrols through space. But during war the number of patrols would drop, and those ships that did still patrol were weaker and in smaller patrols.

No one would go against a battleship. But a Corvette, or Frigate that is out of date and manned by green troops? That's an opportunity.

“Is our security-?” I trailed off quietly and Marie just smiled and did her best to look confident, but I could tell she wasn’t.

“Of course it is! We have plenty of shields! The Station won’t be threatened by pirates!” Marie chattered on, and I smiled and nodded for Heather's sake.

We barely had any real security, relying on military patrols and the fact we sold to the military to keep any pirates from wanting to be anywhere near us.

It was one thing to raid some civilian convoy. It was another to hit one of the scrappers that supplied the military.

One was a nuisance, the other was a threat to the country's war effort.

But during a war? That changed things. Changed everything.

I waved the two goodbye, as I rose up, and my face fell. Instantly I was on my feet and hurrying off. There were plenty of people I could get an answer from, but there was only one that I was sure would be actually honest with me.

Mostly because if I was out in the Scrap Field I would need to know.

“Aunt Sheila!” I called out as I entered her little shop floor, Aunt Sheila was sitting at her counter, cheek in her palm as she looked bored at nothing. As I rushed in, she looked up and sighed, and her Babbit, which was floating behind her, looked at me and gave me a very small wave.

I waved back, but it was Aunt Sheila that spoke first.

“Who told you?” She asked instantly.

“Marie. When she told me my requisition requests were denied.”

“Damn. Should have thought of that.” She muttered and I grumbled, because that meant it had been kept from me on purpose.

“I should have been told. What if I was out there and we were attacked by pirates or something?”

“Kid, I'll be honest with you. It’s too early for you to worry about pirates, and you’d be told eventually." She offered and then frowned a bit as she considered something. “But for the future, if a Pirate group attacks us to steal some of the Scrap Field or worse. Your best bet is to hide and hope they don’t want the ship you're in. Trying to run with a shuttle would just make you a target…”

“If there are any worries about pirates, I would have liked to have been told.”

“Like I said, I was planning on bringing it up later. When things got a bit more serious. For now… Well it’s just an assumption.” Aunt Sheila explained, a hand running through her auburn hair, something she only did when she was nervous. More nervous than she wanted to let on.

“Pretty damn good one I think.” I replied and she nodded, waving me over. I walked over to the counter and turned with a little hop sitting on top of it earning a huff from her.

“I think I heard my poor counter creak.”

“Did not!” I denied and she just laughed. But then slowly grew somber.

“Things are going to be rough if a war breaks out, kid. I know the last war was before your time, but I was around your age when it happened… Just. We’ll go through some policy changes about being out in the Scrap Field. Do some maintenance on your suit's shield emitter.”

“I will.”

“Good… Good. At least you got your Babbit Drones turned in before all this happened. If a war breaks out we’re going to all be spending a lot of time in the scrap field getting things ready.” She said, trying to lighten the mood, but I was much more focused on the actual issue.

This could be bad. Like really bad. It was one thing to joke about pirates when we could send a message to the sector patrol vessels and have a battleship or at least a cruiser pop in to check on things.

It was another to know that help might not be coming.

My ship needed to be put together. Soon. I’d have to cut some corners I needed to get her semi operational. If I could get some main guns working.

I winced. Some of the parts I needed were the focusing arrays for the Thermal Lance. Should I switch guns? Ballistic? No, I don’t have easy access to propellant. Nanopaste wasn’t safe with unstable materials like that.

Plasma? I could just do a Plasma Cannon? I considered it, but tossed it out for the same reason I had tossed out the idea in the first place. They were bulky and it would cut into large chunks of the ship.

“You got a serious face.”

“I’m thinking about how quickly I could get a weapon system operational.” I told her. Being a bit more honest than I normally would have.

She gave me a gentle smile, maybe a bit sad as she reached up and brushed her auburn hair out of her eyes. The little bun she kept it in always left hair trailing around her especially if she’d been working.

“You won’t be getting any Iris Drives big enough for a long time kid. Unless you want to set up a missile platform, which would only make you a target. Just drop it. Hiding is better than trying to pick a fight. They probably won’t get too close to the station, pirates are more interested in our scrap hulls. So we just need to be careful.” She said nonchalantly, but I knew that was a lie.

Pirates brave enough to hit us, wouldn’t stop at the scrap field.

I nodded at her words anyways. She was wrong though. I didn’t need an Iris Drive to get a weapon system going. I had my Diamond Drive, but I couldn’t tell her that.

Not yet. I needed some sort of functional ship before I ever revealed that.

“I need… I still need those parts, Aunt Sheila.”

She gave off a harsh sigh. “I know, kid. But unfortunately the big boss is going to be cracking down on our skiving off the top.”

“What?” I jerked up, because I needed skiving off the top!

“Heh. You’re a riot. I told you kid. Things just changed. We’ll likely be seeing requests to move out the old hulls soon. So everything is going to be slowing down. As we’ll have someone coming to make sure the orders are being sent on time.”

“I understand.” I said firmly, because what she had just told me was, get what I needed now because soon restrictions would stop me from getting what I needed.

“I don’t think you do, but just… Listen kid. The moment I say drop everything, I mean drop everything. You’ll have to switch to going by the books exactly. No messing around. You don’t want some administrator thinking you are stealing from them, or worse. A Noble.”

“I got it Aunt Sheila. I have to go. Cover for me?”

“Sure brat. Go on. You’re ahead on work as usual anyways.”

—--

It had been months since the hint of war had come, and it was unfortunately looking more and more likely as time went on. Too many odd coincidences all climbing on top of one another, and so my work with my ship had sped up, trying to get it done as rapidly as I could with just myself overseeing probably a hundred or more Crabbits.

My hands blurred, as I was putting together a plasma pump, everything around me was a frantic mess of action. The Crabbit had all been given their orders. While they came flying in and out of the hangar carrying parts from dozens of wrecks out in the scrap field I was working to get at least one of the guns of my ship functional.

Sure it was sort of the only gun on the ship, but that was details.

Unfortunately weapons were complicated. I’d managed to grab some old targeting computers from some of the hulks that had weapon systems before being scrapped, so I wasn’t forced to code an entire fire control system from scratch, but that was only a part of the problem.

The other was trying to design a massive weapon system from scratch. If I was making any other type of weapon, I’d have given up on it.

Trying to build a railgun or something would have been impossible with the scrap and tools I had on hand, but thankfully, while powerful, this particular weapon was surprisingly simple when you get down to it.

I looked over where the barrels of the Thermal Lance was already completed and just floated around waiting for their final components. Each barrel was actually three barrels that all attached, each of those three was a laser system, and that had been pretty easy to finish.

The Kenish Duchy loved their laser weapons, and most ships came with lasers already attached. I had found plenty of components to make six lasers for the sides of the barrels.

No, the problem came with the other side of the weapon.

“Check!” I called out hefting up the plasma pump. The circular device was finicky and the Crabbit had put it together, but something had been off.

“Yes yes! System check! Check the system!” Chanted back as a Crabbit floated over and grabbed it up and then buzzed off, to place it into the beginnings of the plasma relay system for the Thermal Lance.

With that part done I walked over to another piece.

Hands buzzed across an old console. While the targeting software was functional, it wasn’t designed for a Thermal Lance battery. So I was relying on the song to modify the code.

“Error!” A voice called out and I looked up, stepping away and hurrying over. The Crabbit throwing the error was looking at one of my most recent creations. It was a compress that was trying to make the focusing arrays I needed.

They were basically a sort of pseudo super diamond that would focus the blast of plasma into a linear beam of power.

Without them I might as well call it a plasma flamethrower and it wouldn’t be better than a fly swatter against anything but maybe cheap missiles.

The problem was the crystal glass that made up the arrays was usually produced in advanced factories because of the exacting procedure needed to produce them.

They weren’t even that expensive really. So making my own was a waste of time and effort.

I looked at the readings and cursed. I had tried to cheat a bit by using cheaper materials because it was all I had on hand, but it looks like it had warped and then stress fractured the array.

“I’m going to have to make a process just to get the materials. I need to make the arrays.” I told myself knowing that it would take weeks, if not months for a part that I could just buy!

“Error?”

“Sorry.” I told the Crabbit that had been working on this. “You didn’t do anything wrong. The error was with the materials. Not the process.”

“Error.” It glumly repeated and I reached out and pulled it into a hug more for my own comfort than hers.

“Error?” Another voice called and I looked up and sighed.

“Switch to assisting with the hull.” I told the Crabbit in my arms, and she bobbed into a nod, buzzing off the failure already forgotten now that she had a new task.

I hurried over to the hull and found the error immediately.

The conversion of material from the freighter hull to more advanced materials and being joined together to make a new ship superstructure was a constant string of issues. The song helped a lot, but Crabbits can’t hear it, so if they made a mistake I’d have to check it and get things back in order.

In this case there was something wrong with the girder forming this section of the superstructure.

It was basically pointing off in the wrong direction.

I pulled up my tab and started accessing the Nanopaste connection and started checking the data… Okay it looks like the nanomachines had gotten confused due to a slow down of material.

“Reclaim this section, we’ll start over. I’ll check on the materials that are missing.” I told the Crabbit and it would relay my orders to the nanopaste. I moved to do just that and stopped, despite the mess all around me. I wiped a gloved hand over my forehead and winced at just how wet it was.

I was running around so much I was sweating like crazy. I grabbed my water bottle and took a long pull.

This was wearing me out, but I had to get something going! I didn’t want to be trapped on station for years!

Wars could last a long time when it came to space conflicts, and I didn’t even know if this was against another state, a Pirate faction, aliens, or something else! This could be a civil war for all I knew!

I took a deep exhale, and capped my water bottle before looking over the frantic pace of my hangar.

Time to get back to work.

—--

I was nervous. There had been a full staff call, which wasn’t unusual, but the really pretty Frigate that had docked a few hours ago meant that something was up. Everyone was here, standing on the Hab where Great Uncle Kyle was standing on a small stage that was used for this sort of thing.

“Thank you all for arriving promptly.” He called out, but everyone's eyes weren't on him, but the young man that was standing beside him.

A white suit, with gold trim. A large hat with the four pointed star of the Kenish Duchy pinned to the front. A very expensive laser pistol that sang to me of good maintenance was at his hip which wasn’t unusual, but the quality of it was.

The shield emitter he wore was a beautiful compact device that looked like some sort of medal he wore tightly at his throat that integrated into his uniform, I only noticed it because it’s song was just as harmonious as the laser pistol.

Quality equipment.

“This is Baron Cyger Elrick Ritz. He will be managing our deliveries ensuring there aren't any problems. As of this moment, all outside communication is going to be locked and only allowed for official duties. This will not impact our normal operations, other than less civilian traffic. Yes, that does mean any packages will likely take some time to be delivered.” Uncle Kyle added while side eyeing a few specific people.

“Now Baron Ritz would like a few words.”

“Thank you Station Manager Ferrous. I am Baron Ritz, I will be acting within this system for some time, to ensure prompt and safe transfer of the war supplies from this station. Yes, that is what you heard, as of yesterday the Kenish Duchy considers itself in a state of war. Orders will be handed down for the delivery of some ship hulls that will assist in the war effort. I expect nothing but the utmost effort from all of you. For the future of the stars! For Duke Kenish!”

There was a momentary silence before Great Uncle Kyle spoke. “For Duke Kenish!” He repeated and we all quickly repeated it as well, even if some of the voices were pretty weak.

From there the Baron talked. A lot. But it was all rhetoric for us to embrace our Kenish roots, and how our work was imperative to the Kenish victory and blah blah blah.

I didn’t care much, but the pit in my stomach only grew. My ship was still too far from completion. Making an entire spaceship, especially one as large as what I wanted from scratch took time. Time and effort, and both my time and effort was about to be taken from me.

—--

It actually surprised me how little really changed at first. Sure, instead of bringing in new ships our little Tug shuttles were out in the scrap field, removing old hulls from the web, and there were more of us repair techs out on the ships making sure that there wasn’t anything wrong with the superstructure after sitting around for so long.

It honestly was a breeze thanks to the Type 4 sensors on the Crabbits and Babbits.

So work was pretty peaceful. But there was always this extra bit. We were scanned as we returned to the Station now. Like Aunt Sheila had said everyone stopped taking some bits and pieces for themselves. It just wasn’t worth the risk anymore.

Not that the Crabbit stopped, but they weren’t getting me nearly as much material as I needed. The few times I’d get a couple hours off that I could spend in the Hangar was mostly fixing issues the Crabbit had come across, but the actual construction had slowed to a crawl.

The freighter was still slowly disappearing as its material converted to the super structure of my ship, but that was about all that was proceeding.

I wasn’t even able to work on tools at the station and take them out with me, as the scanners and crew that the Baron had left on board the station were keeping a close eye out on things.

I had almost gotten busted with my Crabbit, if not for the records of me building the drones and so sometimes I’d have an ‘extra’ or two around me.

So instead all I could really do is design and code.

My ship would have a pretty nasty targeting system when I actually managed to get a gun working.

Otherwise, mostly I theory crafted for the Crabbit although I couldn’t even properly communicate with them from inside the station as outbound signals were being locked down and monitored as well.

The truth was, as I learned. Most of the Duchy didn’t realize we were at war yet. Yep, the bastards had put us under martial law to get their refurbished ships up and running as soon as possible, but didn’t actually tell the rest of the sector so they could surprise their enemies.

The Idric Dominion. The fact it was the Dominion which was a star civilization on our galactic north and was probably the second biggest in the entire sector made me really nervous. Sure it meant that with us being on the farthest ‘western’ edge of the Sector we were pretty far from any reprisals, but Pirates…

But Pirates.

I shook it off. And wiped at my face. I was at the hab looking over my Tab for what we’d managed to cobble together for the Thermal Lance. The stupid Focusing Arrays were still giving me trouble.

Trying to increase the quality of the materials I have, in a hail mary pass to make the Crystal needed for the arrays was difficult when I couldn’t spend the time I needed in the lab area building the machines to refine the material, to build the processor to make the crystals form correctly.

“Uuuuu.” I whined and then shook myself off. It wasn’t time for whining. It was time for doing. For the future of Kat’s space exploration plan! Which sounded much better than the Kenish Duchy.

Because I didn’t give a shit about this war, or the Duchy, especially since it sounded like we were the aggressors this time.

“Hey, there’s little Kathy.”

“Hello.”

I looked up and smiled at the little Babbit drone that was waving its arm at me.

“Hello Babbit. Hi Carter.” I greeted the boy who smiled and then slipped into the seat across from me.

“Kat, can you check over Babbit for me? She’s been…” He started, but I already reached up and grabbed her and brought her down to my lap as I started poking and prodding her. “A little off. Heh.”

“Yeah, you need to replace her coupling here. This shouldn’t have worn out though.” I said giving him a pointed look but he just shrugged.

“We’ve been working on something too. You aren’t the only one with secret projects. So can you?”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” I said as I helped Babbit disengage her arm and then replace the ending plastic coupling that had cracked… Extreme cold and stress? What was Carter doing out in space? He worked in the office.

But I didn’t ask. Just quickly replacing it with one that I had in my hip pouch. Then I replaced the arm and Babbit floated up.

“Fully repaired.” She said blandly without a lot of the personality of my Crabbit, but I smiled as it floated back to Carter to hover over his shoulder. They weren’t very exuberant but they were still loyal to their person.

“Thanks Kat. You doing okay? I heard from the rumor mill that you aren’t getting much time to work on that ship of yours.”

“Can’t do much since I can’t get parts.” I admitted and he gave me an apologetic smile.

“Yeah. Things are tough with our new protector.” He said, and I had to give him credit, he didn’t sound sarcastic when he said protector despite definitely meaning it sarcastically.

“Ah. There you are.” Another voice called out and I wanted to say, speak of the devil, but kept myself from it. “Adjunct.” He said looking at Carter.

Baron Ritz was there walking across the food court, a couple of what I could only assume was his officers following after.

“Baron Ritz! How can I help you?” Carter asked, rising up instantly and offering a bow which I joined him in following.

Carter would know the proper way to greet a Baron better than I could.

“You can ensure you are on time for all meetings in the future. The Station Head did assign you to me as an adjunct.”

“I am sorry Sir. It won’t happen again.” He offered, but the noble's eyes fell on me, and I felt a bit nervous about it.

—--

Baron Cyger Ritz

Cyger was irritated. The boy that had been assigned to him was competent but a little lazy. As many heirs ended up being. But the boy did know the answer to any question he had, when he arrived at the meetings on time. Finding him in the eatery with a girl made his blood boil.

Did this fool not understand that the entire Duchy was at war? That at any time pirates, or even worse Dominion Ships could warp in?

Cyger shook it off, anger was the enemy of competent logical thought. And as he looked again. He doubted the boy was attracted to the girl. Not least because they were probably related, although whether that would actually stop backwater frontiersmen was rather relative to the location.

But also because she wasn’t the sort that the heir to a station would have any interest in.

Gene mods were evident right away, she was twice the size of even Cyger himself.

She wasn’t the soldier type though. He could sniff that out with a glance. No, she was obviously a Flash-Gene. Some poor girl whose father or grandfather or some other relative had the nanomachine gene modification and had them activate years after they should have been flushed out.

It was actually an accident when it happened. They were supposed to be one use only to keep entire clusters of untrusted gene modded soldiers from appearing in the frontier and becoming mini kings through strength of arms.

But not all nanomachine production was made equal, and sometimes they remained, never shutting down.

“Ah. There you are. Adjunct.” Cyger called out startling the boy and the girl both as they both looked up at him.

“Baron Ritz! How can I help you?” The boy asked as he rose into a bow.

“You can ensure you are on time for all meetings in the future. The Station Head did assign you to me as an adjunct.” Cyger offered and he appreciated the look of sudden realization on the boy's face.

Good. Accepting you made a mistake was the first step to resolving it.

“I am sorry Sir. It won’t happen again.” Cyger nodded dismissing the apology.

The girl on the other hand joined Carter in his greetings and Cyger had to take a moment to take her in.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a soldier gene mod before of course. His own guards were taller still but…

Was she soft in the head?

Her eyes were a sort of pale blue that looked everywhere but at him, while her hands twisted and shifted in front of her chest. Hands that could probably pop his head off his neck were moving so anxiously almost to a rhythm but it was an awkward motion.

She was hunched over a bit making her almost his own height and not a good bit taller. Matched with her jumpsuit that was off her shoulders and had the arms tied at her waist showing off a plain white shirt that stretched across her body. She looked like a worker without the intelligence to back it up.

He turned away from her as she wasn’t important as he browbeat his ‘adjunct’ really there was just no getting good help these days.

“How goes the task?” He asked purposefully, keeping it vague.

“Completed it. Everything is in place.” The boy offered back instantly and Cyger blinked in surprise.

“Already?” He asked despite himself, and he took a moment to smooth his face and control his emotions.

“Yes Sir. Our Babbit drones were a big help.”

“Ah yes. The worker drones I’ve been seeing.” He said looking over the oval shaped Drone that had a single arm sticking out of the bottom. The fact its assistance was able to place all of the sensor beacons in place around the system already was… Impressive. “I’ve been seeing them around. What company made them?”

“I did.” The girl spoke her voice surprisingly chipper and he looked over and her face had shifted into a happy smile. “The Babbit are a derivative of my Crabbit. Just a basic version. ” She said and yes, her drone did look far more advanced than the others.

“You made them?” He demanded, wanting confirmation.

“Yep!”

“Yes Sir. Kat, Ah, I mean Katherine is one of our best techs. She made all of the drones we use. They’re her… Project.”

The girl with the gormless look on her face? That girl? Very well. Perhaps her looks hid something more. “I’d like to have a look at one of them. My own complement of FR33Ds aren’t as mobile as these.”

“Oh!” She said and then went silent and he waited as she seemed to drift off into her own head as her fingers tapped more and more rapidly before she stilled. Seeming to realize he was still looking at her. He did his best to keep a glare off his face, but instead was using his ‘I am a disappointed superior’ look.

“I-I can send an Babbit over?”

“Do so. Adjunct. Take care of that. Later. Come along, we’re already unacceptably late.”

“Yes sir!” He said and only slowed to give a small wave away to the girl who nodded and then the boy was focused.

Good. Perhaps he’d forgive the tardiness considering his quick completion of the sensor beacons.

—--

I stood well back as I watched. The nanopaste was currently floating through the entire hangar, controlled by the army of Crabbits to make sure it didn’t float off. The massive pool of gray goo looked like a monster, come alive to devour ships, because that’s what it was doing right now.

Breaking down more of the old freighter as we needed more material.

It happened in waves, the nanopaste would be released to devour a large chunk of the ship to make more of itself, and then the nanomachines would be brought over to the chunk of ship we had already built to form more of it.

Slowly my ship was coming together, but I was only here for a short time.

It had taken a lot of work to even get away, even for a bit. I’d had to start overseeing the work on my ship through the eyes of my Crabbits just to get something done daily, because heading out on my own was becoming harder and harder.

The Baron was making everything extremely complicated. Aunt Sheila had been right. Everything was suddenly under much closer examination, and any hope for grabbing extra material off the top had gone away.

The Baron had a lot of people keeping an eye on things, and everyone on UNK-L was acting seriously.

There was a real undercurrent of fear whenever anyone talked about how we all had to stop grabbing a bit extra for ourselves.

“Watch that right side, I think it’s eating a bit far.” I said suddenly, and my shoulder Crabbit sent out word, letting the controllers shift the nanopaste swarm.

I didn’t like being away for so long, but thankfully the Crabbits had done a good job of learning the work. Only a few issues had cropped up that I had needed to fix.

I slowly relaxed as I confirmed the Crabbits had this. “How’s the material for the focusing arrays coming?” I asked, looking at the Crabbit gripped onto my shirt.

“Uuuu.” It whined at me, which told me what I wanted to know. I sighed and headed over to that section of the hangar. Instantly I noticed the problem. One it was a mess of broken focusing arrays that hadn’t formed correctly. I’d make them clean that up later, and second…

The process was still not working.

“Alright. I’m going to work on this while I have a chance.” I said and the Crabbit bumped up and down as I sat down cross legged and started grabbing the parts, and my Tab. Something about the process was off. I’d have to double check what I had come up with.

As I started hammering my head into that. I heard it, and looked up.

My secret weapon called to me. Still just sitting there on the floor of the hangar, half completed. To a normal set of eyes it didn’t look like much.

Its exterior wasn’t that complicated. Just an upgrade on a common device, but it was the programming that was driving me mad.

Maybe literally if the joke held out. I was using a mix of my programming skills, and just listening to the song, as it helped guide me in letting the device become what it wanted to become. What it was always meant to be.

I mean it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Diamond Drive, but still obscenely complicated. Weeks of work just hammering at code.

I turned away from it, while it was important too, I could program anywhere. Even if the eldritch song was tempting me with its potential.

So much work to do, and with the Baron hovering so little time to do it.

Suddenly I felt a tug, and looked down. One of the Crabbits was tugging on the sleeve of my jumpsuit.

“What is it?”

“Synchronization requested.” It said, after a bit like it was being shy.

“Sure, what’s your question?” I asked back, smiling at the drone that looked up at me.

“Purpose? What is… My purpose?”

I went still at the sudden question, because it wasn’t normal. That’s not a question they should be asking, especially not yet. They didn’t have the… I looked around.

“Hmm? What is my purpose?” The Crabbit at my shoulder asked as well, and at that, like a virus, it spread through the crowd, any of the Crabbit that heard the question turned to ask it as well.

The crowd… How many Crabbits were in this room? A hundred? How many Iris Drives had they stolen out of things without me noticing?

Huh. Had they just reached enough processing power to gain awareness? I smiled and reached down, pulled the Crabbit that first asked the question into my lap.

“That’s a tough question, and it’s not one that even I can answer for you. Purpose doesn’t come from someone else telling you what you are for, it’s for discovering it for yourself.”

“Hmm? Are we not helpers?” Another Crabbit asked, and I shook my head.

“That’s your job, not your purpose.” I explained gently patting the Crabbit in my lap. “It’s easy to think they’re the same thing, but even for you little ones, it’s not true.”

“Hmm.” The Crabbit in my lap muttered as it tapped a little claw to its face cutely. Where did it even find that motion? TV? “Purpose… Unknown. Uuuu.” It whined and I couldn’t help but fight back a snort at the poor thing.

“I don’t know what my purpose is either.” I told her. “But someday I’ll have an answer, and so will you. It’s okay not to know.” I told her, continuing to tap her shell. It was a deep question, purpose. Was I reborn in this world for a reason? Some cosmic destiny, or just a mistake, a random blip of spacedust interacting with whatever soul I had?

“We’ll keep living, and someday we’ll find our purpose together, okay?”

“Together. Together.” It repeated back to me, settled in to seemingly quite happily rest in my lap.