Port calls were always a bittersweet time for Mattie. Of course she had a chassis with which she could walk the various stations and planets they visited, but she never quite got to experience shore leave the same way as the crew. There was always something there that couldn’t help but set her apart from the plethora of organics that had called her shipself home throughout the years. While the rest of the crew could mentally disconnect themselves and fully live in their time away from the ship, Mattie could not. She was, for lack of a better term, tethered to her ship body at all times.
That’s not to say that shore leave was an unenjoyable time for Mattie; quite the opposite, in fact. She adored her crew, and knowing that they were able to take some time and enjoy some much-needed R&R and enrichment time brought her no end of joy. Hearing them share their memories in the weeks and months after they put back out to the black emptiness of space was a delight for her and the crewmates recounting the tale. Still though, shore leave still came with its own set of discomfort and unpleasantness. She loved watching the expressions and body language of her crew as it changed while they relived treasured memories with their beloved friends and family. It was through these little moments that for a brief little while, Mattie could feel what it must have been like for her crew, laughing, smiling, loving one another…
With the ship down to the few hands on the currently active duty shift, those on bedrest or in med bays, or anyone that simply felt like staying on board, she was mostly empty. Mattie hadn’t been truly alone for far too long, but shore leave came closest. Ever since her core had come to life, she had always had a crew; even when hostilities against the Stellar Orthodoxy were at their worst, not only was she regularly fully crewed, she was frequently overcrowded with rescued spacers and refugees fleeing the planets that were being ravaged. It was a point of pride to her that through over 150 years of prolonged combat cruises, she had not lost one single piece of her precious cargo. Astonishingly, she was one of the few ships that could claim a net positive in terms of refugees picked up; she had assisted with 38 live births on the med decks and overseen 13 emergency deliveries in her cargo holds and hangar spaces, for a total of 51 new souls that took their first breaths within her hull.
She disliked this feeling the most. She could handle the violence and danger of space; her armor was thick, resistant and designed to protect the crew living within her hull, and her screens strengthened and evolved over centuries of living in the harsh cold of space. She felt the emptiness of the crew being off-ship. It was a twinge she felt in her core; her crew was exposed beyond the confines of her hull and the reaches of her shipself’s electronics suite. She couldn’t protect them unless they were onboard or within a certain range while docked. They were vulnerable and exposed, and she was powerless to do anything about it. As a result, She was vulnerable, and that was one of the scariest things a warship like her could feel.
