Gina stared at the robot in consternation. She still couldn't get it to activate, or determined its purpose. Running a hand through her hair, she blew out a heavy sigh. She'd had it in the workshop for two days now and wasn't getting anywhere. Of course, most of that time had been spent cleaning it. It had taken a bit of a beating in whatever accident had happened to the ship it was in.
It was basically humanoid, with a hardened white shell covering most of its parts, and flexible black and silver plating over the rest. Perhaps it was meant to be covered with synthetic skin to resemble a person, but at the moment, it just looked like your standard generic-looking android... almost. It had a molded face with black eyes and a hinged mouth that made her think animatronic. Its hands were fully articulated and jointed, instead of just basic grippers. There were a couple of sockets behind its head and there was a shutter at its crotch that she assumed was for a plug of some kind. She had a sudden vision of installing a water dispenser there and broke into giggles. She decided she was overtired and had been left alone too long.
The shape meant that it was intended for some purpose where it was important that it look almost human, but what could that be? Medical? Services? Robots were usually shaped for the task they were built for. For instance, you wouldn't build an android, then send it off to do mining on a radioactive moon. You also wouldn't just abandon one as complex and expensive as this one was bound to be. Gina wondered again what had happened to the ship.
She glanced out the window at the endless sea of stars. The Johnson Long was a cargo ship endlessly hauling resources and living necessities back and forth between Earth and the colonies. Though small compared to a surface ship, it never touched down, much too large for atmospheric entry. It would make orbit around the moon or planet the colony was on, get serviced by surface-based shuttles, then return. Only a couple of places were big enough to have space stations. As a consequence, hiring onto ships like this meant months to years without seeing anyone other than your crew mates... and even them you really didn't see much of.
While things were very busy when you made orbit, the distances involved meant that most of the time the crew was in stasis, sleeping in capsules that lowered their metabolism, so that they wouldn't use so many resources, saving the company money. However, due to insurance reasons, procedure dictated that for safety one crew member had to be awake at all times. They could rotate the duty, or share it, but this crew never did. It meant that one crew member would be alone and bored out of their minds for several months at a go. Of course, she'd pulled the short straw, which was a given, being the junior member. Assholes. When they got back, Gina decided she was resigning and looking for another ship.
They were a few weeks out from Suntech Orion Nebula (which was a colony, not a nebula, and wasn't on Orion) when the alarm sounded. Gina had been reading through her favourite series for the fourth time and had nodded off. The heroine had just gotten lost in the woods and discovered that the buff, handsome ranger who'd rescued her was really a werewolf... a very friendly werewolf. She'd been dreaming herself in the girl's place, when this sudden, horrendous noise nearly gave her heart failure. She literally fell out of her chair. Scrambling to her feet, she raced to the console to see what the problem was. What she saw was so shocking, she did a double-take and just stared at it for a long minute.
She was glad it wasn't a problem with the ship. Most everything was heavily automated, and the ship had a deflector shield that could help the hardened hull deal with the small debris that could punch straight through metal at the speed they travelled. So, she really didn't have to do much of anything throughout the day, but that didn't mean things couldn't go wrong. A large rock could be catastrophic if unavoided, and gods forbid anything went wrong with the engine or life support. What she saw, however, was a derelict ship. It was just floating there. The back of it was partially torn off and shards of metal spread like broken fingers around the wound. Had it been hit by an asteroid? Had it exploded? She couldn't see any call signs and it wasn't even emitting a distress beacon.
Of course, protocol dictated that she wake the rest of the crew from stasis. Gina wasn't thrilled by the prospect. She didn't hate them, but she didn't exactly like them either. They were all old men, and the only one that seemed to be interested in her was Rod, the engineer... and he was creepy. She was probably lucky he wasn't the one on duty. Who knows what he'd be doing while she was unconscious in stasis, in her underwear in a glass tube. The thought made her shudder. Speaking of which, waking them meant she'd also have to put on her company jumpsuit, which she disliked. One nice thing about being the only person on duty and awake was being able to wander around in just her underwear if she wanted to... completely naked if she felt like, though she didn't make a habit of it.
There was no one to see, and knowing there were a half dozen men sleeping nearby, totally unaware, was a nasty little thrill. She'd become so comfortable with her state of undress, that she nearly forgot before waking them. Wouldn't Rod just love that. The computer only gave her a couple minutes to remember on her own, too. If she didn't wake them by then, it would decide that she was incapacitated and wake them itself. And, she only got the option because the ship felt that whatever was wrong was minor enough that the crew member on duty should be allowed the option to cancel the alert and deal with it personally. If the computer felt that it was important, it would have simply woken everyone and left her scrambling.
