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.
Gina had just got her zipper pulled up when the men began filing in. There was the obligatory banter on waking, confusion over what was going on (during which, of course, they refused to simply take her word for it and had to verify there really was the hulk of a ship out there), and naturally she was teased about having somehow arranged for it to be there just so she could have some company. Then came the executive decision to explore the ship. This actually took a long time to reach. The medic argued about the dangers of space walking, and the fact that no one knew what had destroyed the ship. Most of the rest of them argued that there could be valuables on there... and clues as to what happened (of course, their primary concern). Nobody pointed out that any valuables found would probably be quarantined upon return to Earth, and would be considered looting if anyone was actually still alive over there—it wasn't unheard of for salvage crews to murder any survivors of a disaster in order to loot the ship. Captain Peters waffled through all this, but eventually decided to explore the hulk, just in case anyone was still alive, in a spacesuit, or in stasis. The medic reluctantly agreed. Naturally, Gina would stay behind, since she was a girl and the junior crew member. She was so going to drop them like a rock the moment they got back to port.
The ship had been more or less empty. They'd found some crates of supplies, the android, one spacesuit, and a few other odds and ends, but no indication of who the ship belonged to or what had happened to it. The part of the ship that was missing held the engine, computer, and most of the hold. Captain Peters surmised that it was hit by an asteroid or suffered an explosion in the engine and had then torn apart. He made a note in his log, marked the ship's position on his map, along with direction of drift and an estimation of speed, and that was that. With little of interest in the salvage but the robot, the rest of the crew soon got bored and went back to stasis, leaving her alone once again.
So, here she was. She'd been tasked with cataloguing what they'd recovered, which seemed fairly idiotic, given everyone had already poked around in the crates, despite the medic's warnings about radiation and alien bacteria. Gina decided to leave that exciting job for when she was well and truly bored out of her mind. When she couldn't find an on switch, Gina contented herself with disinfecting and polishing the plastic man. It was a little tedious, but it gave her a good reason to look over every nook and cranny, and it had needed to be done. She'd then had a shower and a bite to eat before returning to try again.
With a heavy sigh, she considered her next step. Her experience was more in fixing the ship's electronics and small gear, than in robotics. She could just start poking things, but she was wary of accidentally breaking it and turning it into a really expensive paperweight. She wondered if she looked properly professional standing there in her underwear, holding a spanner, with no idea what to do with it. She considered taking a selfie with the droid to show when she got home. "Look, here's me, the master robotics specialist and Brucie. No, he functions, honestly. He's brilliant." Perhaps it needed recharging, but did it get plugged in through the head plugs in the back, or through the shutter in the front?
