Working Order

After things settled down and Carbon had departed again, autosurgeon still latched on to her abdomen, Alex managed to get some sleep.

Then he woke up hungry.

Given that his injuries didn’t extend much beyond his limbs, the mediboard should have extruded a feeding tube into his nose and been squirting a food-like substance directly into his stomach. Not exactly a pleasant thing to consider, but it took care of the issue of starvation.

“What did they do here?” Carbon uttered a burst of Tsla then trailed off and sighed. She was somewhere under the mediboard, attempting to figure out why it wasn’t feeding him.

“What did who do to what?” Alex had his entire face back under his command and pulled his lips back into a grimace that only stuck around for a moment. Feeling again, even that little bit, curled the corners of his mouth up in a smirk.

“The engineer who modified this did... I do not know exactly what he did to the hardware.” She hissed through clenched teeth and shut the access panel with no small amount of force. “There are protocols to follow. You leave clear and thorough notation of all changes made. He did not and now I do not dare try to fix this.”

Alex had thought he’d pissed her off before, but he’d never managed to get her this worked up. “Any idea what they did?”

“Too much.” She waved the tablet she had been using as she floated back up into view, her face carved with an unprecedented level of annoyance. “They removed the primary AI and nutrition pod as well as a few other parts. The AI is the most distressing alteration.”

“Then how the hell is this thing working?” He found himself suddenly not wanting to be on the mediboard anymore, despite how bad his injuries were.

“The secondary AI is taking care of your repairs. It is a very small unit, very simple. From the description, I do not think feeding is even included in its programming.”

“Oh.” Alex puzzled over that for a moment. The AI was powerful enough to handle superluminal navigation, so running a mediboard shouldn’t be a problem. “Ship’s AI was shut down safely, right?”

“Yes. The coolant system was partially vented in the dead-hand sequence, everything attached to it was successfully shut down before any thermal damage occurred.” The sharp tone in her voice dialed back as she started talking about something other than what angered her in the first place “Offloading the mediboard’s workload so it could handle both of our biologies was not a bad idea, though I believe it was not thoroughly considered.”

“Seems to be a mixed bag.” Alex wanted to slouch, heave a huge sigh and generally act dramatic. He wasn’t sure if it was because he couldn’t or if he actually was and hadn’t realized it until now. He settled for a frown.

“Certainly.” The fire in her blue eyes died down as she rubbed them and slicked back her antennae. “I could fabricate another nutrition pod for this unit, but I do not believe that it would work.”

“Shouldn’t those parts be like new?” That was his understanding of a fabrication matrix, anyway. They had two of the best humanity made in the engineering bay, those should be able to turn out just about any part they needed.

“I am sorry. While it should function normally, it would require code to be spliced into its programming.” She nodded at him, eyes closed. “As well as a full system reboot. In your current state that would not be fatal, but it would likely be excruciating, as long as it worked as intended.”

The apology stunned him. Just a little bit, but it kept him silent for several seconds. He hadn’t expected to hear something like that from her, ever, but she had been unspecific. “But it would be fatal if it didn’t, right?”

“That is the likely outcome.” Carbon’s antennae perked up a little bit as she continued, the act of problem solving almost instantly improving her mood. “If that did occur, I could have the secondary AI restored to its original settings within a few hours. Between the trauma surgeon and a few select amputations, I am almost certain you could survive that long.”

“No that’s fine.” Alex blurted out the words as fast as they’d go. “I’m willing to entertain pretty much any other ideas you’ve got, though.”

“That is perhaps best left as a final option.” She deflated slightly, clicking her claws on the tablet as she thought. “I believe the most simple answer may be the best, in this situation.”

“What’s that?”

“I will take care of this myself.” She sighed, resigned, and slipped the tablet under her arm. “What would you like to eat?”