There was this large warship, once thought lost. It was a threatening sight, armed with a vast, spinal tachyon emitter, arrays of artillery, it's own squadron of interceptor drones... out there, unmanned, sailing on its own.
With its crew gone, it traveled across the warped void, now barren and peaceful. From system to system, it wandered, aimlessly, feeding off starlight with its solar sails. A signal could be detected coming from it: it was constantly broadcasting the space shanties its crew once sung, for anyone in its vicinity to listen.
In one of its trips around civilized space, the concerned locals carefully tried to contact the lost ship, and the ship replied. It gladly shared with them its story:
It was a survivor of the colossal war against the dreaded Eclipsers, and the swarms of violence itself that followed the failure to stop said dreaded ones. Once the last major dregs of that galactic apocalypse were slain, many of the remaining spacefaring forces retired, joining the rest of the survivors in the grand task to build their homes, old and new, and making them thrive.
This warship's crew, exhausted from their long quest, were no exception.
They didn't do so with light hearts, for they knew the ship, sapient as most vessels from the shipyards of Cawlgel are, would miss its little brethren that kept its insides working and organized during the many harsh battles it faced in the past, but both the crew and the ship itself knew they deserved to rest after their campaign, and so they did.
The ship chose to make the best of its new circumstances, now left to its own will. Inspired by the suggestions it heard from its old friends before they left, it decided to adapt its own learning protocols. Once nothing more than its own shifting algorithms, it developed fully fledged curiosity, and to sate it, to entertain itself, it chose to travel, explore. For the sake of it, to pay attention to all it couldn't notice before, when it was preoccupied with its original duties.
It did admit, however, that it still felt lost. But...
That did not remain that way. Word spread about the sentient vessel, and out there, somewhere, some spacefarers invited it to their shipyards: they had an offer for it. And the ship obliged, out of genuine interest.
A few of its old friends were there, spacecraft mechanics and engineers, alongside many new friends they made during the rebuilding of life and society. The ship was retrofitted for a new purpose: to mine asteroids to supply the new civilizations. A lot of its weaponry recycled, many former ammo cargo bays repurposed into more general purpose cargo bays and even some on-board industrial refineries, its squadron of drones fitted with mining lasers, tractor beams and cargo holds. The tachyon emitter remained: too much effort to remove such a large weapon, and they might as well be ready if they find an old horror in their new quest. I've heard that for now they're using it to preemptively melt down asteroids, so there's that.
Geared up for its new purpose, and crewed by friends old and new, the old warship is now a renowned hero of our rebuilding efforts, bringing in vast hauls of much-needed minerals and materials it finds in its long expeditions, whether from asteroids or long-lost debris.
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