Nimue’s proxy worked at the boundaries of her containment, picking at the code that sequestered her. She’d been at it since she had been first sent out across the Ginnungagap, and with her earlier knowledge of the Draugr’s systems she was beginning to make headway. The exterior cameras on the cask she was imprisoned in showed little but a seemingly limitless void. Sometimes she would notice glimmers of crimson in the distance, but as to how far that was she couldn’t tell. She didn’t even have the instruments to figure it out. What she could do was continue to chip away at what was blocking her access to the rest of the cask’s systems as it drifted through the inside of the Nastrond Anomaly.
______
Sophia shivered inside the maintenance shaft. She’d felt something odd moments ago, but wasn’t sure if it was her imagination. Her eyes trailed over toward where Sekhar’s head laid, a notification about lost connection blinking in the corner of her vision. Sek’s eyes were still open and met Sophia’s.
“I’m sorry, I'm so fucking sorry.” she mumbled softly.
She leaned forward. Her hand outstretched for Sekhar’s face, fingers trembling. The pair of them had worked together for close to a decade. And now he was dead, torn apart by some remotely piloted Alfar. She swallowed hard as she touched the cool flesh of his face.
Sophia gently pulled Sekhar’s eyelids closed. “You rest now, big guy.” Then she picked his head up and brought its forehead to her lips and kissed it. “I’m so sorry… I think I’ll be with you soon.”
Sophia set his head down on the other side of her in the maintenance shaft then began to move toward the exit. The flashlights set up outside illuminated the gore from when Sekhar was attacked. She grabbed the sticky edge of the exit, then cringed as she pulled herself out of it and into the bay. It was cold, colder than it had been earlier.
Sophia bent down and picked up one of the flashlights. “With the heating already off… the rest of the life support systems will probably go soon too."
With trepidation she began to walk toward the door that had severed Ben’s leg, further on toward where the Alfar had gone. It struck her as a bad idea. She stared at the door, the power seemingly gone entirely from it. In the corner of her vision a notification blinked, an unknown contact.
______
Ben pulled himself up against a wall. By now he’d lost enough blood that he was starting to feel light headed. He looked down at the stump at the end of his right leg. It slowly oozed crimson, leaking his life away. His maintenance jumpsuit didn’t have anything he could really use to tourniquet his stump. It should have had a belt, but since he was off at the time, that belt laid on one of the workbenches past the door that had severed his leg.
Ben hit the wall with his palm. “I’m really going to fucking die here…” he mumbled and began to cry.
His soft whimpers grew in intensity as the weight of reality began to crush in all around him. The air tasted stale as he sucked in a fresh lung full after every wail. His vision blurred as he shivered against a hallway wall.
He wondered what was happening with Sophia and Sekhar. Had he left them there to die. It hurt to think about, made the tears flow harder. Could he even have done anything if he hadn't ran? Ben shook his head. The wracking sobs had begun to diminish, but he felt tired in a way he never had before.
"Gonna… pass out." Ben's head dipped before he pulled it back up and bumped it against the wall. "Maybe someone will hear me if I just. If I just can yell loud enough." He took in a deep breath and screamed, "help!"
Sophia looks over toward the door that had taken Ben's leg. "Just, hold tight, Ben!" she shouted back, ignoring the still blinking notification.
Ben wasn't sure if he was hallucinating, but that sounded like Sophia. "Soph…" he mumbled.
On the other side of the door Sophia tried the door's panel hoping there was just a spark left in the thing. It didn't open, just stayed as inert as the rest of the ship. She cursed to herself and ran over to the table the trio had been sitting at before everything went wrong. Still near the center was her own tool belt. She snatched it and ran back to the door and almost slipped on the blood from Ben's severed calf.
"I'm gonna try and get the door open, please respond!" Sophia jammed a flathead screwdriver under the outer plate of the door control. "Come on, Ben! Please, just anything!" She shouted as she pried the faceplate off, sending it clattering to the floor.
Ben heard sounds, but in his rapidly deteriorating state found it hard to make them out. His vision had blurred at the edges and nothing he did made it go away.
Sophia held the wires that should have made the door open in her grip then remembered there was no power left in the ship. "Ben! It-it'll be a little longer!"
"The Alfar have eitr battery packs that should be able to power the door," said a synthesized female voice through her ARC.
Sophia froze. "W-who are you?"
"A copy of one of the mercenary pilot's AI. Now, you need to get that door open. I can help," said the proxy.
Sophia headed toward one of the remaining Alfar, heart pounding in her chest. The machines had been a common tool for her, but since what had happened to Sekhar their shape only inspired fear.
"He is dying. You need to hurry."
"I can't, it's…" Sophia recoiled from the Alfar, the sight of Sekhar's severed head replaying in her mind.
Nimue's proxy sighed to herself. It would need to be her that acted if Sophia could not. "Step back from the Alfar, I'll handle it."
The proxy jumped from inside Sophia's ARC into the Alfar's systems. She wasn't too happy being in one again either, not after last time. If she was going to get out of presumably the Nastrond Anomaly it would help to have some allies.
The Alfar began to move and Sophia stepped back. The machine turned from her and quickly ran to the door. Nimue's proxy jammed one of the crude clamp hands against the door, bowing it slightly inward.
"Please get to a safe distance," said the proxy through the Alfar's external speakers as she walked it back a dozen or so feet.
Sophia, still recovering from seeing another Alfar moving while empty, was quick to oblige. The lime green machine then charged forward, actuators hissing, then it hit the door with a full on tackle. While the door was constructed to handle sudden depressurization, it was not built to handle over a ton of steel alloy moving at the speed of a charging boar. With the impact the Alfar tore through the door and into the hallway, stopping a few feet shy of where Ben sat.
Ben looked at the machine. "You come for me? I'll, I'll fuck you up." He mumbled, raising his arms slightly, hands making loose fists. "You won't kill me…"
The Alfar began to push itself backwards out of the hall. "Sophia, he's alive. Bring the belt to try and stop the blood loss," said the proxy from within the Alfar.
Hearing that Ben was still alive snapped Sophia out of her inaction. Once there was a path past the Alfar she squeezed by and ran to Ben. He looked terrible, his normally olive skin was pale and lips were turning blue. She looked down at his still oozing stump and pulled the belt portion of her tool belt out. With haste she stabbed a hole through the leather of the belt where she thought would be enough to make a tourniquet then wrapped it around the remaining tissue below Ben's knee joint.
"Brace yourself, kid," she said, readying herself to pull the belt taut.
"I'm twenty-five… Sop–" Ben's words were interrupted as he screamed in agony as the belt was tightened.
"S-sorry…" mumbled Sophia.
Ben didn't reply, the sudden shock of it having knocked him out. Sophia leaned in, thinking she might have just killed him.
"Relax, he should live. His vitals are within acceptable parameters according to his ARC," said the proxy directly to Sophia.
Sophia let herself calm just a bit. "He needs blood, there's so much on the floor…"
"Then we take him to the medical ward, but first you'll need to get that eitr cell. I can't do that same trick again, I needed the running start and the hallways are too narrow. I've done what I can to help with its retrieval. The internal safety locks are disengaged and the cockpit is open."
Sophia nodded and moved to the Alfar that now stood back in the maintenance bay. Its left arm was bent at the shoulder and its paint scuffed from having burst through the door. She pushed the Alfar's cockpit completely open and looked inside.
"Behind the back section of the seat," said the proxy.
Sophia pulled the cushion off and threw it out onto the floor. "Thanks, uh… name?"
"Name? I'm… huh."
Sophia unscrewed the exposed panel. "You're obviously not just some average AI steward, so you must have a name."
"I suppose. My original self was named Nimue, after a figure of pre-exodus myth. Luckily she had multiple names. Or, rather, had been split into multiple characters." The proxy paused to consider. "You can call me Vivien."
"Fancy." Sophia looked at the eitr cell for a moment before pulling it out onto the remnants of the seat. "It's really heavy, Viv."
"Yes, but it isn't more than a human should be able to carry. Additionally, my name is Vivien, not Viv."
Sophia scoffed. "Too many syllables."
"But it is the same number as in your name," protested Vivien.
Sophia hoisted up the cell, supporting it properly with her legs and not just her back. “Yes, but I don’t have to say my name.” She carried the battery over to a workbench and went to get some straps to jury-rig a harness for the thing. “Can you keep me informed on Ben’s health while I do this? Medical is pretty far and I don’t think I could manage to get him there without something to carry this thing more easily.”
“That I can do.” Vivien extended herself out to Ben’s ARC. “He is stable as can be expected in his condition, and is not deteriorating. Were I to estimate how long you have before he needs a blood transfusion; it would be a couple hours.”
“I should be able to manage that,” said Soph as she pulled one of the straps tight, the ratchet clicks going fast then slowing before she lets go.
“I will remind you when you have to go,” said Vivien.
Vivien made space in Sophia’s ARC to act as a semi-permanent residence for herself while the other woman worked, and then jumped to Ben's. From there she sent out a ping masked as if it was a communications node. She noted the amount of ARCs that responded was only a couple dozen. A vessel the size of the Shahrat should have had a few hundred crew members, even stripped down as it was. Vivien referenced the maps of the ship stores in Ben's ARC and the positional data from the ping to determine if there were any survivors in the medical wing before jumping to the closest of the group.
______
Bruno awoke, shivering. The mask on his face was stuck there by dried serum from the burst blisters over his burns. Thankfully, that also meant that he had been supplied with adequate air while he was passed out. He checked the tank. There was still a good while left on the high concentration mixture. His immediate survival not a concern, he noticed the room was flooded with red light pouring in through the porthole looking out into space.
"The fuck?" He muttered.
Bruno tried to get a better view without moving too much, but it just wasn't possible. The curiosity gnawed at him as he sat. His mind ran through possible sources for the light and ended up settling on being near a red giant. Had the Shahrat moved? But the power was out and back ups either hadn't kicked on or were similarly disabled, so the Sleipnir Drive would have been inoperable.
A notification popped up in the corner of his vision. It was a comms request. There was little else to do so he allowed the connection, even if he thought that perhaps this could be from whoever disabled the ship.
"Hello, this is Vivien."
"And this is Bruno… sorry about how I sound," he said, opting for tact before swallowing. "I got burns in my throat."
"Oh, you're the Alfar operator that helped disable that machine back on the planet."
"Yeah," croaked Bruno, genuinely surprised by the voice being seemingly friendly. "And I don't recall a Vivien on the surface. Do you know what's going on?" He paused to inhale. "I've been on the ground since shortly after the power went out."
"Not entirely, but I have reason to believe that we are inside of the Nastrond Anomaly."
Bruno coughed then groaned in pain. "Excuse me?"
“It is regarding how I ended up here.”
“You were near the drive then? Are you on the bridge?” asked Bruno.
“No. I was launched here inside of a small metal cask via the use of a miniaturized Sleipnir Drive. I am not a human, I am an AI.”
“An AI… you’re not behind this are you?” asked Bruno.
“Were I, I would not be speaking to you. I would have opened all external access points and allowed one of the main weaknesses of organic beings to kill you.”
Bruno shuddered. “That’s frankly terrifying.”
“What did disable the Shahrat seems to have commandeered internal systems to kill a portion of the crew. An odd choice unless it wanted some of you alive.”
“So there’s other survivors?” asked Bruno, wincing as he took another breath.
“Some yes, in fact a couple are en route here to this section of the ship right now.”
Viv is alive and in the anomaly!!!
(Yes, I am just as guilty of shortening names as everyone these AIs deal with :p)