Chương 66: Volume Two - Chapter Three - Void Travel

The next couple of days were rather strange. The day they finished their warp translation into real space was surprisingly busy. Alexis remained on the bridge for a good part of that day, and while she expected to be entirely bored or left alone, that proved to not be the case. A few hours after the transition was completed, she was approached by an enginseer who made the sign of the cog before addressing her.

"Tech Adept. Greetings. Blessing of the Omnissiah be upon you. Inquiry permitted?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." She made the sign in return and bowed her head lower. He was several ranks above her, even if he was on an entirely different track. The fact that this enginseer was on the bridge alone meant a lot.

"Appreciation. Enquiry as follows: State of engine near-optimal, but without an Enginseer Prime, the rites of maintenance cannot proceed apace. A new Enginseer Prime must be elected. This is being processed. But as the Sitting Lord Captain, Temporary Lord Captain Caduceus' opinion on the matter would possibly impact the weighing of the data for the new position." Alexis blinked, then made the sign of the cog and bowed once more.

"Of course. I can do so as soon as the Lord Captain has the time." It didn't take very long; all she had to do was linger close, and then Clarice waved her over and she relayed the request. The reply was more complex than she expected. Clarice told her that she didn't know, and that was unacceptable.

So she gave Alexis homework: find out about every enginseer that was a possible candidate for the position and write a report on all of them, their faction allegiances, and experience, as well as Alexis' personal opinion about who would fit in the role well. Then Alexis was dismissed. She returned to the enginseer that had asked and placed a data-request, then she went onto the Noosphere and did the same. That was a mistake. The…

rather unglamorous shit-talking started almost immediately, and she noticed that some of the data she received painted some candidates in a poor light while showing others in a better one. Worse was the poorly disguised back-chatter that suggested that they weren't happy that she was involved at all. It took her six hours to solve it all, with some help from Vyper. At the end, she presented a report to Clarice who skimmed it, then chose the three least contentious candidates.

Alexis forwarded that choice back to the enginseers who entered a conclave. The final choice would be made in several weeks, with interruptions to the process only allowed for routine maintenance and other important tasks. The next day something similar happened when the Genetor Prime sent her a message. The Magos Biologis was one of the people on Vena's lower-tier suspect list, and the Genetor Prime wanted the magos excised from his position. He wanted the Lord Captain's support in the act.

Alexis had a headache by mid-morning trying to sort through all of that, but Vena came over and helped her. The request was denied, but in soft, polite terms, with a caveat that the Magos Biologis would be investigated in full and that investigation would be on record. A minor victory for the Genetor Prime… apparently. She discovered that she had no talent for politicking. She could understand someone, sure, but she was far too empathetic according to Vena.

Alexis found herself agreeing with whoever presented their case, then being disappointed when she learned that the data presented was presented with a slant. Still, it wasn't all bad. It was nice feeling wanted and being part of the cogs of the great machine that was a fully-functional warship, even if it was just to relay messages. Vena suggested that she 'lean into her charm' and work hard to be friendly to people to their face and deny them later.

It was apparently one of the sorts of political positions that were relatively common and that meant that it was one that the various factions on the ship would understand. Alexis did understand, but she wasn't sure she liked it. Still, it was a part to play. Like fitting a new part onto a complex machine, one didn't want to add something that didn't have the right fittings.

Playing that role meant that others would know how to act around her, and the functioning of the ship would remain optimal as everyone was certain of their parts to play. A chaotic element on the bridge was unacceptable, and for very good reason. Vena also suggested turning down all gifts from all people, even tiny ones and especially anything like a favour. That made more sense to Alexis, even if some of the gifts seemed mightily tempting. She could always get better from Vyper.

That evening, she finally had some time to continue setting up her workshop. With 664 points to spend, she could have bought a lot of tools and gear, but for the moment she refrained. The ordinary tools she had access to were more than enough to move workbenches around and paint the walls. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

She was considering adding a new servitor to her killclade, but now that she was in a position of relative power, she could look at the numbers, and they were a little grim. A full thirteen percent of the ship's servitors had died in the last week. Four percent of the total crew was lost as well. That didn't put them at anything approaching critical levels, but it did mean that they were forcing some people to work double shifts, including many servitors.

The maintenance cost down the line was going to be staggering. She compiled a report while her friends painted the walls, basically letting Clarice know that this was an issue and that in addition to other supplies obtained on Chrysis, the ship's leaders should consider purchasing a good number of servitors, or conscripting prisoners from the planet to bolster their numbers. The report was posted on the Noosphere, where she read many comments and refined it.

Interestingly, it helped cement her position a little more. At least, she thought so? There was a discussion thread about her that she was spying upon, and the report made the commenters there place her in a neat little box. She was the inexperienced but not entirely inept Tech Adept pet of the new Rogue Trader. She was mostly unaffiliated with any of the major factions, but was friendly and on good terms with the Militerists, and was probably the former apprentice of Ash-Theta, the Servitor Overseer.

It wasn't a bad spot to be in, she supposed. The next day, she woke up to 674 points, which was nice! She refrained from buying any food or supplies, and instead spent a few hours tidying up. Alexis eventually came to stand in the middle of her workshop. All of her tools were neatly lined up, and it… didn't look all that impressive, actually. She had very little to show off. But the space was well-organized, at least.

"Hmm, so, I was thinking, Machine Spirit Vyper, what kind of stuff should I get here?" Alexis asked.

"There are nearly an infinite number of answers to that. But seeing as how you're likely to want to further your speciality, I can see two broad paths you can go down, with some potential overlap if you desire it."

"Oh? Yeah, go on, please!" Alexis said.

"The first is to purchase blueprints for some of the items that you might want to produce in greater numbers. Notably, some of the droid parts that are more commonly used. Then you could purchase fabrication tools and start small-scale production. Given some time and raw materials, you could output several servitors of a specific type per day." Alexis gulped. The prospect of her own army was… a lot. Even if it was just an army of murder servitors.

With the quality of goods Vyper produced, she imagined that even the blueprint-created items would be strong. And that was saying nothing about the idea of blueprints to begin with, and fabricators for those. That was STC territory.

"What's that other option?"

"Specialization and maintenance. You could turn your workshop into a space for upgrading and repairing your existing killclade and adding new members to it with greater ease and efficiency, with each member being specialised for their own task. This could also include fabrication stations and a wider range of usable blueprints, though fewer, initially, than a shop designed to fully create a single type of servitor." Alexis hummed.

An army of similar, probably weaker servitors that were nonetheless better than average. Or, a smaller force of specialists, like what she currently had, but extrapolated, with more members. She honestly favoured the second option a lot more. The first felt even more dehumanizing than servitors already were. That was kind of the beauty of servitors. Even after everything, they were still people. They should be allowed to express themselves a little.

"Let's start with the very basics," she said.

"How good of a maintenance setup can I get for… say, two hundred points?" As it turned out, the result was pretty good indeed. New Purchase: Combat Droid Maintenance Bay Points Reduced to: 464 The bay came in a very large box, and had several sections that needed to be assembled and fit into place. That required moving some of her benches out of the way, but that was fine! The main sections of the bay were a nice gunmetal, with some deep red accents and even the occasional white-black checker pattern.

Oh, and skulls! Cute little ones dotted the bay here and there. She was halfway through installing it when she received a message over the Noosphere from Vena. There was a meeting going on, about Chrysis and what they knew of the world, and she was invited to attend.