An idea suddenly comes to me:
The robot is programmed to keep the crew safe. Normally this is patching up leaks in the hull and doing the dangerous job of refueling the reactor, but it was programmed for medical tasks as well. Once you’ve had to resolder a surface mount IC in zero-G, doing surgery is easy mode.
The robot’s been with them long enough, it was never designed to be sentient, but the self-learning systems plus being treated as a member of the crew means it’s getting closer.
But one day all the input stops. It doesn’t know what exactly happened, maybe a freak gamma ray event or some kind of virus the med-filters didn’t detect? But all the crew have stopped moving. It runs through its medical routines, trying the options in the encyclopedia. CPR doesn’t seem to help, asking them loudly to “wake up” does nothing, it even tries building a makeshift defibrillator out of the secondary plasma coupling. Nothing.
It finally comes to the page on Death in the encyclopedia, and reads it, with dawning sadness (or the closest thing a robot that was never programmed for emotions can feel). They won’t move again. They are permanently deactivated. The robot is alone, and it has failed them.
Unless… The robot notices a link at the bottom of the page.
It’s eyes glow in the reflected light of a screen as it quickly reads the page. So there’s a chance after all? Cancel sending the mission update, there more important things to do with the deep space radio. Send all information on “necromancy” immediately.
The robot hums to itself as it reprograms the biosynthesizer for Goat, and looks into how it can create candles with the limited materials on hand. The deck 4 cargo bay would be best for making alchemical circles on the floor, but it will need to move the self-sealing stembolts to another location first. Perhaps Mx. Jormand’s quarters? They won’t be using them until this is complete, after all.
Finally. Something to do. There’s hope now.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
baratheonpilled
dededos
kianamaiart
