Fixing A Ship, Lady, Or Both.

Truth be told the Ry'leh had been rather embarrassed by its recent episode with Cytus aboard, the ship had spent many hours tracking down the behavioural error that had caused its reaction to the mere thought of violence and the potential humans had for becoming the next Enemy! It had carefully isolated the part of its behavioural interactions that had triggered it before and when hearing from Cytus it had been glad too that the alien woman was still willing to assist it in its repairs.

It had been moving beneath the surface of the ocean when in its natural form, it would have made it difficult for Cytus to locate it but thankfully the communicator the vessel had offered the alien woman was still able to function... Most of the time and it had been glad to arrange a place where the vessel could meet with Cytus and her engineer friend.

The sound of booted feet crunching over the sand would be the first sign that the pair were not alone and if Cytus and her friend turned back, looking towards the city they would see a tall young woman, standing at five feet eight with long blonde hair done up in a ponytail behind her, a tight fitting grey uniform with luminous blue accents definitely marked her as not being from 'around here' She made her way closer with a measured stride and as she neared Cytus a small smile spread upon her lips.

"Cytus, this person is glad to see you once again, this person apologises for the disturbing circumstances last time we spoke"

As the young woman spoke of her embarrassment the accents of her uniform began to change in hue, slowly shifting to a slightly pink tint before returning to their luminous blue hint, her eyes turned to the engineer that Cytus had mentioned in their last encounter and for a moment they seemed to glow from within with the same luminous quality as the accents of her uniform.

"This person is also glad to meet you, this persons name is... Call this person Ry'leh"

For a moment then she paused, but then extended her hand and offered a warm smile to the male, it had needed just a quick check on its human behavioural protocols, but it believed that was the action it should take.

"This persons friend speaks very highly of you, she says that you would be able to fix almost anything is this correct?"

The vessel in human form examined the male engineer again, curiously examining his tool box but unwilling to ask him to open it so she could see inside it, it was going to be interesting to see how he handled the unique construction and biology within it, could humans be trusted to handle the vessels advanced technology? It was about to find out.

"Aternity Awren, Cyberneticist"

The Ry'leh spoke aloud as the man stated his name and for a moment the vessel in human form considered his introduction, as a Cyberneticist he was used to working with organic and artificial systems both, he would surely be an impressive asset when it came to repairing shipboard systems. As he took her hand however Aternity would possibly note something rather odd about the young woman, her grip was warm, a degree or two higher than normal, and it was strong! She wasn't trying to hurt him, but from articles that the vessel had assimilated it knew that a firm grasp was one of the signs of a good handshake, Ry'leh was able to match Aternity's own grip, she was a strong one!

At the engineers comment about fixing a young woman the Ry'leh giggled! But immediately after it cocked its head to the side, a confused look crossing the fine features it had chosen and it spoke again in that same soft, feminine voice

"Behavioural error detected, analysing"

But the moment passed quickly and the vessel in human form gestured towards the shoreline, she began to walk forward, each step continuing her even stride into the waves that began to slap against her, each step carried her deeper, but if Aternity tried to stop her she would smile she would reassure him and ask for just a moments more patience.

Eventually it would disappear, as the Ry'lehs head began to vanish beneath the water the more acute eyed might see the back of her head opening up! When her ponytail moved black metal could be seen beneath it, opening up like a blossoming flower with a bright green light beneath, the vessel never dove forward, it was never knocked off its feet and it descended into the depths disappearing completely from their sightline, but in just a moment more as it had promised two small circular disks emerged from the water and lowered themselves to the sand with only the softest humming.

The trip on the transport disks would be one that Cytus was already familiar with, even though the location had changed! But for Aternity this was doubtless going to be a novel experience. Within its own mind the vessel could not help but wonder how the human would take seeing the ship for the first time, its sleek, although damaged design, its sheer size!

But much like Cytus' earlier trip the discs would bring both travellers down and into the vessel, into a 'hanger' bay of sorts with about a centimetre of water covering the floor, it would be then that the Ry'leh would address its new friends.

"Welcome aboard the Ry'leh"

The vessel was hard pressed to determine whether that was a compliment or just a observation, it wasn't used to being the target of human flattery even if it did understand the concept. At Aternity's question however the vessel spoke again in that soft voice, at the same time it was checking the information it was providing the visitors against its real time information, determining how many of its previously completely non functioning systems were restored to at least partial operation.

"Regenerative Nexus nodes three, ten, fifteen, thirty and fourty four are offline, but all nodes have sustained at least a small amount of damage and regenerative function is reduced to ten point nine five percent efficiency, repair to the Regenerative Nexus is advised, once full system operation has been established self regeneration of damaged systems will proceed faster.

Drive section has received extensive damage, unexploded missile currently contained in green sector of drive core, Normal space drive is inoperable but Hyperdrive generators are still operating at ninety percent efficiency.

Extraction systems operating at twenty percent.

Neural core is suffering multiple errors, control interfaces require recalibration.

Recycling system is operating at only five percent, repair by engineers however is inadvisable due to potential dangers.

This vessel would also like to keep the number of humans aboard it minimal for the time being, after analysis of Earths planetary dynamics this vessel would prefer to try and minimise the impact its technology could have on this world, if humans were to gain access to advanced weaponry this vessel could be inadvertantly responsible for mass murder."

Perhaps it was more than a little insensitive to mention its aversion to having a full engineering team aboard it, perhaps it was even rude to say why! But it did not speak with a cruel tone, it did not try to sound rude, it was just a statement of fact. Cytus would likely also be able to note a slight lack of emotion that had been present when it had spoken to her before, its tone had changed, but whatever it had done had at least prevented a recurrence of the error that had cropped up the last time it had spoken to her as well.

"To see a visual representation of damaged areas and sections sealed due to damage this vessel or Cytus may be able to guide you to the nearest Regeneration Control Nexus, where you will be able to interact with the Nexus Display and Control system, from there you will be able to access directions to any region while performing repair work and you will also be able to interact with this vessels regenerative system to ensure ease of repair and suspension of automatic functions that could endanger your life"

The vessel it seemed was just full of dangers! Damage to the outer hull had opened many breaches and microfissures in the hull which were never good to begin with, add to that the 'threat' of the so called recycling system and these vague pieces of information regarding the regenerative systems automatic functions and it seemed Aternity's work was going to be cut out for him!

"A larger toolbox may not be necessary, this vessel may be able to provide you with any additional tools you require, simply state a job that you lack the correct tool for and this vessel will attempt to locate required materials and tools. And... Thank you"

The vessel was glad to hear the information that Aternity passed on, its nodes were the most important system as far as she was concerned, with those repaired the vessel was going to be able to take care of most of the other problems, the missile was going to be a serious issue however, thankfully Aternity already knew that it was going to have to be disarmed, as an alien piece of technology it was not something its own internal systems could fix!

The information about its neural cores however did concern it.

"This vessel is curious about your ideas regarding this vessels neural cores, recalibration should be all that is required, extended repairs are not necessary"

It had deliberately compressed the summary of its most necessary repairs for Aternity, excessive information was not usually desired by organic beings unless they were focusing on that one specific system, summaries were intended to be just that, a short piece of information that made things easier for organics to process.

The information about Nanotechnological solutions however was a curious little potential solution, and the ship fell silent while it considered the option it had been presented with, as its neural cores dissected the potential problems and potentials with allowing alien nanotech into its systems it was surprised by the sudden disappearance of Aternity and Cytus from the docking bay.

<div align=right><Error, Displacement detected within Docking bay>
<Error, Lifeforms Aternity Awren and Cytus no longer detected in Docking bay>
<Searching>
<Searching>
<Displacement detected in Regenerative Node eleven></div>

"Well Duh"

Both Aternity and Cytus would hear that strange human expression from the ship as it located the pair again, thankfully although it hadn't immediately found the pair it did manage to catch the question posed. But again that made the vessel want to delay, and Cytus would be able to almost feel a tangible sense of guilt, whatever new filters it had built after its discussion with Cytus were doing their job well!

"This vessel intended to repair itself and upon detecting the Anomalous energy forms prevalent upon Manta Carlos this vessel managed to analyze and categorize a number of discrete energy forms, this vessel determined that three such patterns could assist in its repair and based on the legal guidelines of the Makosian Dominion this vessel decided to analyze the possessors of those energy forms to try and synthesize their abilities.

These energy forms are classified as R-001, R-010 and R-100, otherwise known as Healing of the possessor, healing of others and healing of inorganic substances respectively, if this vessel was able to synthesize these abilities it would be able to perform its own regeneration with much greater alacrity, however Cytus made a persuasive argument for the temporary abandonment of those legal guidelines, after all for the moment this vessel is on Earth and the Dominion has been destroyed, this vessel must therefore follow Earth based legal structures instead"

At least it hoped that Aternity would understand, he was after all a human unlike Cytus, would he be willing to forgive whatever it had done in the past? Of course it had managed to gather quite a good amount of information so far, it was still working on analyzing the information it had gathered though, the energy forms were so unusual that dissecting, analyzing and reproducing it was very difficult!

"This vessel is thankful for your consideration, with the assistance of a healer to tend to organic sections of this vessel and an engineer to direct inorganic repairs this vessel will be able to regenerate much faster. As for gathering the needed materials while this vessel is currently unable to navigate using Normal Space Drive, what you refer to as Impulse if this vessel is restored to flight capability it will be able to approach the asteroid belts of this solar system for mineral extraction, this vessel can ingest such space based detritus for semi-organic processing, however this vessel has detected several still functioning smaller craft within this vessels lower level launch bay, these vessels may be utilized for short duration harvesting trips."

"This vessel apologizes for the vagueness regarding its recalibration, the size of my neural cores is irrelevant, within this vessels Neural Nexus is a control panel that simply requires a direct interface with a sentient being, this interface will allow for resynchronization with all specialized neural cores through the neural network of the sentient being, this recalibration will bring all neural cores into balance, however aspects of the being initiating the recalibration may be included within this vessels programming."

At the information about the engineers wife the vessels cores again began to hum, considering the benefits of analyzing such a valuable subject, if the woman was capable of both healing of others and of herself then archiving her unique energy patterns would certainly be perfect to help with the vessels analysis of these unusual energy forms.

"This vessel is... Curious, would your wife perhaps consent to an analysis of her energy forms? If she would consent this vessel would be able to archive her 'abilities' and potentially help classify and experiment with those energy forms. This vessel was originally commissioned as a vessel of exploration and science, the presence of anomalous energy on this island and the presence of this same energy in people found here is extremely interesting to this vessel, the constructs you refer to as 'spells' are of particular interest, however abilities that are considered 'natural' are also extremely interesting.

Add to this the potential benefits of simulating and reproducing such abilities synthetically and this vessel is extremely interested in cataloging all information about these energy forms that it can."

At the question regarding its actions however, Aternity asking about any fatalities aboard the ship quickly replayed all information gathered, not only after it had landed but while it remained in orbit, analyzing the local life forms.

"This vessel did cause three myocardial infarctions, however this vessel did also repair all damage, when transporting subjects aboard they remain conscious if they are already conscious, if they are unconscious before being transported aboard sometimes subjects awaken when they are analyzed, this has caused fright before, however followup scans after returning subjects to their bed often show that subjects believed their experience to be a dream."

As Aternity removed one of the panels in the vessels regenerative nexus, reaching in to analyze what he found he would be greeted with a rather alien anatomy indeed. Contained behind the maintenance panel was a surprisingly ordered structure crafted of a mixture of smooth crystalline panels, all glowing with a mix of different hues, the crystalline panels also helped to reveal the structures beneath, the structures beneath the crystalline panels were a mixture of organic structures, 'veins' of a sort that pulsated gently, carrying liquids and materials through the unusual design, another series of 'veins' did not appear to contract and expand, this set were slightly translucent and seemed to glow from within, they were an analog of wires and electrical conduits!

In addition to the crystalline panels and organic systems that same dark material that formed the superstructure, it was designed it seemed to keep the systems in order, contained, confined, but due to the fact that the dark material was closer to chitin than an actual metal it was able to expand and contract as well to accommodate rerouting and expansion of the organic systems.

"As for this vessels physical size, this vessel is capable of optical camouflage and electromagnetic shielding, however it is not capable of performing these functions by itself, this vessel was designed to prevent any possibility of independence due to its advanced, semi organic neural cores, due to this limitation this vessel requires a crew to perform these functions simultaneously, if you were to restore flight capability and both you and Cytus agreed to crew this vessel this vessel would be able to reach orbit, maintaining both optical and electromagnetic stealth until it was out of range of human detection systems."

Of course, like everything else those systems were damaged, but compared to almost everything else it was a lot easier to repair those systems to full working order, at the moment however they weren't needed so weren't a priority.

"This vessel is pleased you find its humanoid appearance aesthetically pleasing, however"

And at that the vessels voice turned coy and almost shy!

"What would your wife think?"