Page 53 of Tanin's Treasure
Goldie holed herself up in the medbay, trying to learn what everything was and organizing all the supplies out of the boxes. That alone was at least a two-man job. The rest of the ship was meant for a full crew to clean.
But Garnet was all by herself. She made the commitment to take care of this ship, and she wasn’t going to back down from challenge that even if it was hard. She found the discarded remains of the cleaning bots and was making attempts to Frankenstein them back into one functioning robot. It didn’t need to be specialized in cleaning anything specific. If she could get it to clean the halls, at least, that would cut her workload in half easily.
But this was advanced alien tech. Even if it was basically a little robot vacuum, it was beyond her capabilities. But she’d once been hired to gut and clean a computer, and she’d done that without breaking anything using a combination of terror sweat and videos online. She could certainly try to cobble something together here and hope it magically became functional.
Alred was actually invaluable in this endeavor. He knew quite a bit about machines – which made sense, seeing as he practically was one. He’d once had to operate a fleet of such robots, which he told her when she came to him with her plan to do this, asking for help. Alred’s body right now was the ship, but that wasn’t always true. He could be transplanted into other machines if they had AI capabilities or even just a big enough storage slot for his core. He once ran an entire starship recycling facility. Fixing a cleaning bot would be easy for him if he just had a pair of hands to do it.
With his know-how and her determination, they were making some progress. The real problem was that Vytln had taken so much from the three robots in order to repair the ship itself, there wasn’t much left that was useful.
But she was determined. And it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. They’d started their swing this morning. Thanks to the pills she and Goldie started today as well, she no longer had any symptoms of subspace sickness, which was a huge relief. The fact that Tanin made sure to get some from that annoying Captain Ikvar before they left just made her more determined to do a good job.
She may just be a cleaning lady, but she had her pride. She’d promised to do this and damn it, she was going to make sure it was a job well done.
“I feel I should tell you, it’s past time for third meal.”
“What? Already?” Garnet’s head popped up from the body of the robot. It was about the size and shape of a medium sized shop vac, without the long tube or cord. She had the tank off and cleaned already. Now, the top was open, and she was digging around the internals. Her hands and overalls were covered in grease and dust. This outfit was quickly becoming unsalvageable.
“Indeed,” Alred bobbed his featureless head. “And I believe that you biological creatures need to eat at least every few marks. And you skipped second meal. So, you should probably get some food before you pass out.”
Garnet snickered, grabbing a rag to wipe her hands as she stood. “Didn’t you used to be a biological creature at one point, Mr. Fancy-No-Pants?”
“I have been a tech based life form far longer than I was ever bio-illogical. I don’t even use the memories of what it was like to be squishy and bound to a singular form anymore. However, I am still aware that you bios eat. So, go eat. I don’t want to hear it from the captain if you collapse.”
“I’m not going to pass out that quickly,” she chuckled, stepping from the storage room she had been working in. Vytln had all the tools and spare parts in his workroom, but she was warned not to go in there. Vytln very much liked his privacy. Which she could believe, seeing as he was the only crew member she could go an entire day without seeing. But it was also really hot in there. His workroom was right beside the engines, and the shielding in there was terrible. Vytln could tolerate it, but Alred assured her that she could be cooked alive if she stayed in there too long or went too deep.
So, she had to work with whatever she found around the ship that he hadn’t already claimed. She was going to have to hide whatever she managed to scavenge, however, so Vytln didn’t get them.
Before she went to the galley, she stopped by her room to wash up a bit. Tanin promised he would buy her and Goldie new clothes once they arrived at the next space station, but until then, she was stuck in this one outfit.
As fresh and clean as she could get, she then went to grab some food. She wasn’t surprised to find the galley empty. From what she observed of the others, it seemed like everyone on the ship just kind of wandered by whenever they were hungry, got some food, then returned to their rooms or workstations. Garnet could hardly condemn them for it since she was doing the same herself, but she did wish she had some company as she sat at the little table and quickly ate her farasie style porridge – it was the best meal that the food synthesizer created. Kind of fruity. Did well at covering the heavily artificial taste that infected everything the cheap machine made.
The food really wasn’t good. The synthesizer used this nutrition powder stuff to create the food, same as any other synthesizer, it just did it badly. She had no idea how, and part of her really didn’t want to know. But according to Alred, it frequently became clogged or dirty, so she’d have to figure it out sooner or later.
The powder was the cheapest brand. The machine itself was far past its functional lifespan and was therefore prone to glitching, sometimes not fully synthesizing the powder, and its memory could only hold so many recipes. At least the dish dispenser worked fine. It had a storage space in its back for the plates and bowls it deposited the food into, and a little return spot so it could clean and sanitize them afterwards. That whole system worked just fine.
But that was only because Vytln had been forced to fix it. It had apparently once stopped setting dishes down before the food and the mess had been wasteful and an awful job to clean. Apparently, the food tasting bad was more tolerable a problem because that’s where he’d stopped.
Her belly satisfied and her dirty dishes placed in the washer for cleaning, she left the room-
-only to come up short when she found herself nearly running into Trove.
“Watch it,” he chuckled, stepped back, his long tail sweeping around. “Almost knocked you out there, little lady.”
“Who’s little?” Garnet grinned, popping a hip. “Coming to get some grub?”
“Grub?” He looked confused before shaking his head. “I don’t eat grubs. You humans are odd.”
“That’s not… You know what, never mind. Let me get out of your way.”
“Oh, no. I wasn’t coming to eat. I was looking for you. Got a present for you.”
“Huh?”
Before Garnet could fully comprehend what he said, he was already pulling something off his belt and handing it to her. She took it without thinking. Before she even had a chance to identify the sleek, silver metallic body. Its shape wasn’t totally familiar, but it wasn’t alien either. Rounded in some places where she expected harsh lines while the front was spiral in shape, but she recognized a gun when she saw one.
She stilled, her hand going flat, as she looked at it in surprise. Had he seriously just handed her a weapon just like that?! Where was the trigger? What if she set this thing off somehow?!
“Don’t worry,” Trove chuckled, as though reading her alarm. “It’s on safety mode right now. You can’t shoot it by accident.”
