Announcement: I dropped this for now and rebooted the story. I never got to posting the last five chapters here, but I feel I should so those that have stuck with it so far can at least read everything there is.

For my reasons, here is a message I sent to a reader that explains my decision:

Spoiler

Thanks for the message. I agree with a lot of what you said about my characters, but it's not just because of this that I decided to do a rewrite with new characters. For example, I made no preparations when I started last time. Like, I knew the shape of the ship and what I wanted it to have, but how big was it? How many hallways were there, and where were they in relation to everything? There were times I found myself going, wait, how long does it take to get from here to there? How many closed bulkheads will they have to go through that will slow them down?

There are several other reasons I wanted to do a rewrite:

Their bodies: I didn't decide to make them robots until several chapters into the story and went in on making them human at first. Sure, it's easy to say they were designed to be as human as possible, but I felt like it was a lost opportunity for character reactions other than, "oh I guess we're robots." Like, why don't they need to sleep? Can they just charge themselves at a charging station rather than eating? When one of them gets cut before they realize they're robots, why isn't their blood red and how are they healing so fast?

Drones. I don't know why I didn't think about them earlier. They're a perfect answer to helping with repairs.

Resources. I feel I pulled a Star Trek: Voyager with this one. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no easy way to get resources. ...and they never run out. I started the story by saying they were low on resources, but they always have what they need, which I feel took away from the urgency of the situation.

Experimenting. I did some experimenting with my writing that I ended up hating, namely using **** for Christiane's swearing and Roty's accent. Granted, this isn't hard to fix, like I did on the Royal Road version for the swearing.

Readers. The three of the highest rated reviews read like this:

Spoiler

Yes, there are good reviews, but most of them have many more thumbs down than not. Sure, I can ignore the bad reviews, but by chapter 15, even some readers that loved it at first stopped caring about everyone but Mayu. There's also the fact that many potential readers won't even try to read once they see the reviews. It's a shame because I really wanted to make characters that would react realistically, but I guess it hits too close to home for a lot of people? I always wonder how many of the people who hate Christiane hate her because they know deep down they'd be just as bad.

To be honest, I ended up not liking Christiane and Plank too. If I had kept going, I probably would have written them out at the first opportunity. I would have also dropped Roty's fake accent. It worked fine in my head, but that's because I knew how to decode everything. Granted, she never was meant to be easy to understand.

Well... I'll see how the reboot does. If it doesn't do well, I can always go back to the original. I was almost to the second arc where I could switch out characters, but that still wouldn't solve the problem of readers dropping it because they hate early Christiane so much. 

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Ryan moved the now finished drone to the usual breach, “Kinda slow, next time we should use the ship’s thrusters instead of the space suit’s or figure out how to miniaturize the FTL.”

Roty, Christiane, and Plank followed the drone.

Christiane groaned, “Yeah, that, but what it really needs is another gun on it, I mean there’s four hard points.”

Christiane looked at the rather plain looking drone which had a plasma rifle, cutting torch, robotic arm, and makeshift hacking tool mounted on it.

Roty waved her hand dismissively, “Tools’r more important. If tha aliens ah mean, weh can send tha drone onto a ship and steal some tech or do some sabotage or hack tha computer.”

Christiane groaned again, “That’s so boring.”

Ryan brought up the hologram for the external camera, the drone’s camera, and the sensors, “Are you sure you guys want to be here? One shot through the breach and you’re dead.”

Christiane folded her arms, “Just wanna see our baby off.”

Roty turned to Christiane, “Need ta make sure someone doesn’t swap stuff last minute.”

Christiane raised her hands defensively, “Whoa there! No way an extra gun on my baby’s worth getting an earful from you.”

Ryan focused on Plank. He’d expected the man to interrupt conversations constantly, but most of the time he watched. He was in his armored space suit now, so he couldn’t see his face, but the other times his eyes seemed like they were studying the others.

It was nearly time, “Ready?”

The three each expressed their readiness.

“Mayu?” Ryan didn’t want to leave her out as she’d stayed in the med bay.

Mayu looked up from the tool she was studying, “Yes, Ryan?”

“We’re about to start. Want to watch?”

Mayu nodded, “Yes, I am grateful.”

Ryan pulled up the relevant holograms, “Be ready, just in case.”

Mayu pursed her lips, “I will do my best.”

A few more seconds passed before Ryan jumped to the aliens, “Here we go!”

Space warped around them for a moment before returning to normal.

Just like he’d wanted, the alien space station sat five light seconds away. Close enough for easy communication, but far enough away he’d have some time to react.

Of the eight ships he’d counted earlier, four remained. If everything went to plan, they’d be checking the places Ryan had been, but it’d be awhile before even the closest found out what was going on.

Ryan pointed the sensor at the station. The sensor used radar, so he hoped he could use it as a radio too.

“Hello, I hope we can talk,” Ryan said, and the sensor converted his speech to radio waves.

The four ships disappeared even before Ryan finished speaking, and at nearly the same instant one appeared in front of him and another at the edge of the range of the barely functional sensor next to the wormhole FTL.

Ryan looked at the ship and saw it was cylindrical, with a rounded point at one end with antenna protruding from it, and four engines on the other. Other than that, the ship looked pretty boring.

The stars distorted around the ship he was watching, but instead of jumping to FTL, the ripple spread from it until it reached him.

He felt himself shake four times, as if he’d just gone over a wave in the ocean.

Christiane swore, “Gun! Pull up the gun holo!”

Roty grabbed Christiane’s arm, “We’re goin’ back to tha food room!”

Ryan turned off the holograms at the breach and moved them and the gunnery holo to the food room, “I’ll try…”

Six holes opened along the length of the ship. Four looked like turrets.

Ryan spun himself. He needed to see where the other ship was.

He found it only to find out they surrounded him, with each ship equidistant from each other with him in the center.

“Bad news! We’re surrounded and I’m pretty sure their weapons just popped out!”

Another round of swearing from everyone but Mayu.

Roty rounded a corner, “They didn’t wanna chat?”

Christiane swore some more.

“Nope, they jumped as soon as they saw me. I’ll try agai...”

The ship opened fire. Two of the turrets fired metal projectiles with the other two launching plasma. Two missiles launched from the remaining two holes.

Chances were the other two ships had done the same.

Ryan spun himself again to confirm, “Guys, they just fired!”

Another round of swearing as the group turned into the hallway with the food room.

He only had moments until the plasma hit, then the projectiles, followed by the missiles.

It was now time to get out of here, so he put full power to the FTL.

Instead of the now familiar FTL effects, he moved as if stuck in some sort of sticky mess. He moved fast enough to get out of the way of the projectiles and plasma, but the missiles turned to follow.

“Umm… guys… FTL isn’t working! Gonna try the wormhole FTL instead!”

Ryan couldn’t wait for Christiane to control the weapons, so he aimed at the closest missile and fired with the basic plasma shot. From Christiane’s tests, he knew this fired fastest.

The missile went to move out of the way, but it didn’t have enough time to dodge and went up in a ball of flame.

Ryan aimed at the next missile, but the next shot wouldn’t be ready in time, so he fired the weapon only partially charged.

A tenuous ball of plasma left the weapon.

At this range, the missile didn’t have time to react and took the plasma directly and despite the plasma being weaker, the front of the missile melted and then veered off course before exploding. It was close enough that he shook from the shock wave.

A warning appeared from the wormhole FTL and the image of a damaged cable appeared. He couldn’t be sure what a damaged cable would do, but he needed to worry about the alien ships before that. He’d also need to be more careful about the breaches. If he’d only turned a little, this wouldn’t have happened, probably.

He couldn’t see the remaining missiles, but judging by their speed and distance, they’d hit before he had time to bring the weapon to bear on them.

He noticed a gap between the missiles following him and reversed course, and, thanks to how the engine worked, almost instantly reversed his course and speed.

A missile flashed past his sensor, only a kilometer away.

He turned again and saw that his move had barely caused the missiles to miss him and were now speeding off into the abyss.

Ryan turned his attention to the nearest ship.

It was now moving towards him and had fired missiles again, something he assumed the other ships did too.

The surrounding stars warped again, though only slightly.

He felt himself slow.

Roty and Christiane entered the food room.

Roty stopped in front of the holos showing the sensor data and camera feed, “Ah felt some shakin’, we get hit?”

Christiane stopped in front of the weapon controls, but didn’t use it, “Good! Ya didn’t wait for me!”

Plank stood behind the two and watched, a grim expression on his face.

Ryan moved so that a missile was between him and the ship, then fired a Type 2 plasma shot at the missile, then switched to the particle beam mode and loaded hydrogen into it, “I blew up two missiles. One blew up close and the shock wave hit us. Dodged everything else. Shock wave damaged a cable in the wormhole FTL.”

The plasma hit a missile, causing it to explode, and continued to the ship, although much weaker.

The ship moved to the side and the plasma shot missed the antenna he’d aimed at and impacted next to it, leaving a small crater from the ammo and a glowing hot spot from the plasma on the hull.

Christiane jumped, “Yeah, ya got it!”

Ryan moved so the next missile was between him and the ship and fired.

The particle beam penetrated the missile, destroying it, before impacting on the exact spot the previous attack landed.

A small explosion resulted from the hit, which deformed the antenna as shrapnel rained over it.

Once the explosion cleared, a hole became visible and Ryan could see more than halfway to the other end of the alien ship.

Ryan felt his speed increase as if some weight lifted off of him.

The alien ship turned away.

Christiane and Plank both cheered.

Roty smiled but still looked grim, “Still have three ta go!”

Ryan spun to the next ship.

The ship’s guns weren’t deployed anymore, but the missile ports were still open and it had fired another salvo.

Both it and the ship were travelling slower than Ryan, but they were speeding up. Even if they could go faster than he could, he’d gained enough distance that he’d have tens of seconds to react now, rather than seconds.

Ryan realized the alien ships were using conventional engines at the moment, so if he reversed course they’d have to turn around and deal with that annoyance called inertia before they could try playing catch up again, but by then he’d be gone.

Ryan reversed course and felt relief when the ships zoomed past him and the sluggishness went away letting him go leave the area.

Ryan relayed the news, “Got away. Jumped us about a light hour away.”

Roty sighed in relief, “Tha’s good. Good.”

Christiane’s hand itched by the gunnery controls, “They had some kinda thing stoppin’ us from leavin’?”

Ryan thought about the fight, “I think so. Got faster after I damaged the alien’s ship. Lucky whatever they were using wasn’t strong enough to stop us completely. Wouldn’t have survived that first salvo.”

Roty tapped her foot, “Weh got lucky, but Ah’m worried about tha wormhole FTL. Yeh said a cable got damaged?”

Ryan tried looking through the camera in the room in question, but only saw white, “Yeah, I’m still getting a warning from it.”

Mayu entered the room.

Roty picked up a tool, “Ah’m gonna see if Ah can fix it, can ya let meh in? Tha cables should be safe ta replace if weh can do it before it fires.”

Christiane took a tool from her belt, “I’ll go to.”

Plank grabbed a tool, “The Plank will help!”

Ryan reduced the power charging the device, “You’ve got a little over four minutes. Can’t slow it down more than that.”

Mayu stepped to the side to let the others pass, “Do you want help?”

Roty smiled at Mayu, “Yeh stay here. Shouldn’t take long.”

Mayu nodded, but didn’t look happy, “Okay.”

The three left the room and reached the door to the wormhole device in less than thirty seconds.

Ryan went to open the door but got a warning like last time, “I’m getting that warning again!”

Christiane swiped at the door, “Just get it open. Ya might blow us up if we don’t get in there.”

Roty pulled Christiane back, “Mehbeh weh should step back in case. It’s mad for a reason.”

Christiane didn’t resist, “Should have repaired the repair arms in there…”

Ryan opened the door when the others stopped about four meters back and took shelter in the door frame for tool room 2.

Ryan immediately lost contact with the front third of the ship on that deck, including the wormhole FTL drive.

The rest of the ship experienced power issues and Mayu collapsed, but thanks to his cameras also having issues, he couldn’t tell if she was still conscious. Only the plasma/particle beam cannon, reactor room, FTL, and himself seemed unaffected.

He wondered why he wasn’t being affected by whatever happened, but he wasn’t complaining.

Ryan tried calling out to her, but his voice came out garbled.

Mayu got to her feet with some effort and had to hold onto a chair to keep herself from falling over, “Mr. ..an. ...t ha...ned?”

Ryan wasn’t sure what she said, “Sorry. Can’t hear you. I opened a door and something happened.”

Mayu looked up and from her reaction, she couldn’t understand him either.

Ryan tried using a hologram to communicate with her, but only got a flickering garbled blob.

Next he opened the door. Maybe they could talk if she went to the reactor room.

Mayu looked at the door, then nodded.

When she left the room, he flashed the lights down the hallway more than they already were, towards the reactor.

Mayu still seemed out of sorts, but soon picked up on the lights and followed them slowly, using the wall to help her stand.

Ryan could tell she wouldn’t make it before the wormhole FTL charged, but felt getting her as far away from it as she could might help her.

Mayu was halfway down the hall with the tool room and main reactor when the FTL finished charging.

Ryan felt a minor explosion as the wormhole FTL did its thing.

A wormhole appeared behind Ryan that was about two-thirds the normal size.

What Ryan saw was exactly like the data he’d seen for that brief instant when he went through. Countless marbles filled with countless… His data from the first time wasn’t enough to see inside the marble things, but now he saw that the points of light inside were galaxies.

Systems came back to normal as he watched the wormhole, except for those nearest the door he’d opened and everything past it, including the wormhole FTL device.

Mayu seemed to get her strength back, “I will find Roty’s group.”

Ryan checked to see if their cameras came back on, but didn’t get a response. He tried their comms too, but got the same thing.

Thankfully, Mayu’s suit worked just fine, “Last I saw them, they were by the second tool room. They’re not responding when I call them...”

Mayu took off in a sprint.

Ryan moved the drone towards the wormhole device room from where it floated near the breach. It was closer, so it would make it there before Mayu. He also vented the atmosphere everywhere on him to make it easier to move between sections for Mayu.

As he did this, he noticed something strange about his sensor readings coming from the wormhole. Some things were causing the background stars to shift, and it looked like there were a lot of them.

This reminded Ryan about Christiane’s comment the last time they’d used the wormhole FTL. She’d seen something too.

The wormhole was moments away from collapsing when he noticed a bright white light inside it. It then flashed red several times, making Ryan think it was trying to say something to him.

The wormhole closed.

Ryan checked for signs something had come out of the wormhole but saw nothing unusual.

The drone reached the hallway he’d last seen the others and found them floating. None of them moved.

Mayu turned the corner moments later and saw them, “Ms. Roty!”

Mayu stopped next to Roty, grabbed her wrist, and tried checking her vitals.

Mayu moved from Roty’s wrist to her legs and grabbed them, “I am taking them back.” She then grabbed the other two by their legs and headed towards the livable section.

Ryan turned off the artificial gravity where it worked to make it easier for her to move them.

As Mayu left, he turned his attention to the wormhole device and saw it was mostly undamaged. The only thing out of the ordinary was the cable nearest the breach looked like it had exploded, leaving shards of metal floating in the room and embedded into the walls. Some even made it into the hallway, but not close enough to where the others took cover.

Ryan followed Mayu with the drone. He doubted it could help, but it would give him another angle to watch from.

Mayu made it to the med bay and put Roty over a bed, “Mr. Ryan, need weight!”

Ryan turned the gravity back on in the med bay and restored the air back to the usual places.

The drone dropped to the floor, making Mayu jump at the noise.

Mayu pulled off Roty’s helmet and checked for vitals again, and after a moment, said something in Japanese that sounded like a curse. She then opened a drawer at the base of the bed and pulled out a mask that she then put on Roty’s face and started doing CPR.

While Mayu did this, Ryan used the thrusters on the drone to move onto Christiane’s bed. Luckily, Roty had gotten her way and put a robotic arm on the drone, so he could take off Christiane’s helmet.

He couldn’t check vitals with the robotic arm, so moved to Plank’s bed and removed his helmet too.

Mayu stepped back from Roty, tears streaming down her face, and turned to Christiane, then to Plank, and checked their vitals too.

Mayu wiped the tears off her face, “I can’t help them.”

Ryan swore. Had he killed three people just by opening a door?

Mayu walked back to Roty and started stripping the space suit off her, “Mr. Ryan, I… I have been keeping secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“Mr. Ryan sees what the tools see?”

Ryan thought back to Mayu’s tests with the tools, “Yeah a lot of them, but I still have no idea what some do.”

Mayu looked to the wall as she pulled off a boot, “Can Mr. Ryan use the machine in the wall?”

Ryan remembered they hadn’t tested the machine yet. Mayu didn’t seem comfortable testing it until they knew what it did. They didn’t have any test subjects either and weren’t in a hurry so had thought little about it.

Ryan turned the machine on and an arm with a rod that looked like a scanner came out of the wall.

Mayu looked at it, “I think this shows inside the body. I… did not want to use it. I am scared what it shows about us.”

Ryan got nervous, “What do you think?”

Mayu clenched her fists, “It is better to see.”

“You want me to turn on the machine?”

Mayu nodded, “Please, Mr. Ryan. I do not think Roty and the others are dead, but I do not know what is wrong.”

Ryan turned on the machine when Mayu took off Roty’s last piece of space suit.

The machine’s arm moved to just above Roty’s head and extended the rod.

An image appeared in Ryan’s consciousness as the rod started moving over Roty, and it didn’t take long for him to realize the machine was sending him a very detailed scan of her body.

Ryan showed the image to Mayu, and as soon as she saw it, her countenance fell.

By the time the scanner finished with Roty’s head, Ryan already knew something was wrong. He was no doctor, but even he knew what a brain looked like, and whatever was in Roty’s head wasn’t the kind of brain he was familiar with. Even the eyes and ears looked odd, though he wasn’t sure why.

Mayu studied the image closely so Ryan said nothing so she could concentrate.

By the time the scan finished he could say one thing, this was not a normal body. Many organs were missing, not where they should be, or entirely different. Roty’s heart looked no bigger than a thumb, her digestive tract went straight from her mouth to her butt without a single bend or curve, and she had no ovaries or uterus.

Mayu pointed to Roty’s heart, “Mr. Ryan, can you make this bigger?”

Ryan zoomed in on the heart.

Mayu shook her head and pointed to something else.

It wasn’t until Mayu looked at Roty’s blood and saw it filled with nanites, that Ryan spoke up, “Is this what you saw when you checked your blood a few days ago?”

Ryan had thought Mayu hadn’t been able to see anything when she’d tried several tools on her blood, but the look of recognition on her face told him otherwise.

Mayu nodded, “Yes, Mr. Ryan. I did not understand if it was correct, so I did not say.”

Ryan felt it wasn’t that. She’d talked to him about things she wasn’t sure about before, “Mayu, I understand. If I thought I was human only to find out I wasn’t normal… I’d be scared too.”

Mayu nodded and turned to the other two, “We should look at Ms. Christiane and Mr. Plank too.”

Ryan moved the drone away and waited for Mayu to remove their space suits. To his surprise, she removed her space suit too, and lay on an empty bed.

Mayu swallowed hard, “Mr. Ryan.”

Ryan turned on the scanners for the three beds, moved the holograms of the scanning data over Mayu’s bed, and both of them watched as the data appeared.

Mayu’s scan immediately showed differences compared to the other three, showing activity in her ‘brain’ almost exactly like a normal brain.

Next, Mayu pointed out a mass below the ‘heart’ and just above and behind the ‘stomach,’ “Mr. Ryan, do you know what that is?”

Ryan studied the object and noticed it gave off readings. Readings similar to the reactor core, though slightly different, “I… I think it’s a reactor, but it’s different than mine.” He focused on the ‘reactor’ and saw something startling, “It’s… it looks like meat, or whatever, but… it’s not like normal stuff…” he studied Roty’s scans, and noticed something, “It’s all metal. The skin, the organs, the brain. They’re all made of metal alloys, and unlike the others, I can see power readings from you Mayu.”

Mayu squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again, “I… I know. I was scared. I kept it secret.”

A part of Ryan wasn’t surprised, “It… all this makes sense. We’re nowhere near Earth, so how did it make human bodies? It made you like this because I designed you guys and because I didn’t think about what you should be like inside…”

Mayu reached her hand to the hologram above her, “So… something guessed?”

Ryan thought to the birthing tubes, “Probably. It would make sense they’d be able to do something like that, though it looks like it used some of my memories.”

Mayu nodded, “It made things less trouble… uh… messy… eto…”

Ryan agreed, “Yeah, it looks like it used only what you needed. I guess if you’re… uh… robots, you wouldn’t need so many organs.”

Mayu passed her hand through the reactor in her hologram, “If we are robots… can we turn it on?”

Ryan studied the reactor again and zoomed in for Mayu, “It looks like whatever happened, it did a lot of damage.” He then highlighted some structures that looked like microscopic wires, “Like they got fried.”

Mayu got up from the bed and walked to a nearby table filled with medical tools, “What can I do? I do not know robots?”

Ryan studied the scans again. Other than Mayu’s, the scans showed no activity.

Ryan noticed something in Mayu’s scan. It was a nanite, and it was repairing a piece of damaged skin. Then he focused on the nanites only and saw them repairing or replacing bits of minor damage here and there.

Ryan showed Mayu the nanites, “I think I know what to do!”

Mayu studied the nanites and understanding appeared on her face, “The small machines!” She grabbed a futuristic syringe and held it to her arm, “I can give them some of mine.”

Ryan turned off the holograms, “I have a better idea.”

Mayu stopped and looked up.

“The birthing tubes. Roty and I are pretty sure they used nanites to make your bodies. If they can do that, then maybe they can repair you too.”

Mayu put the syringe down and looked at the others, “What if it is too long?” She pointed to her head, “Do robots lose memories when like this? What if they are gone?”

The thought had crossed Ryan’s mind too. It wasn’t because they’d gone so long without power, but that whatever had hit them had wiped their memories, “I… don’t know, but we’re all supposed to be dead, anyway, so if they really are gone then at least they got to have a few more weeks of life before moving on.”

Mayu looked at each of the bodies, “I like to think they will be okay.”

“Me too.”

Mayu moved to Roty and picked her up.

Ryan turned the gravity off.

Mayu left the room with Roty, and Ryan followed her with Christiane after grabbing her with the drone.

Ryan left Christiane floating outside the birthing chamber, while Mayu put Roty in a birthing tube, and got Plank.

A minute later, Ryan closed Plank’s birthing tube and turned all three on.

Ryan told the three tubes to start repairs, and with no fuss, they did.