Now that was an adventure. I wasn't sure, if I would have ever found an exit, out of that "system of doom". Day 39 started like any other previous day. Frequently changing the ship's position in that large asteroid field, to avoid any patrols of those weird beings. We were really running low on supplies. And yesterday my last surviving engineer went suicide, driven by the daily pressure which pulls my crews hope down into a lake of desperation. Besides, we were suffering several random attacks by lucky patrols. In the last days, our cruise systems got critically hit, which made it even worse to find any hint, on how to get out of there. Our situatuin was hopeless. None of our system wide emergency calls got answered.
Under attack.
Until this day. We were just busy with a bunch of those agressors, when suddendly a large vessel uncloaked next to us. Cruiser class. One, that I've never seen before in my lifetime. It wasn't human nor organic. Which left the only explanation, that it was controled by an artificial intelligence. First we thought that it was another evil trap of that unknown force. But when it engaged our enemies, and started talking to us, the hope was finally back.
Last-minute rescue.
It was a quite helpful AI unit. Named; "Occam Razor", carrying an identification tag of the "Haimen Alliance". It so happened, that it was exploring "Wild systems" - whatever that is. But still, it was unbelieveable, that he found me just in time. I got told, that we found ourselfes in "Tau-117", and that there's a jumphole, which leads us to Newcastle. Furthermore, its calculations said, that my chance of survival was under 0.01 percent. Incredible.
Somehow, Melosa, my love, didn't trust that robot. I wasn't sure, if she had bad experiences with AI units, but her saying: "How can you put all our lifes into that false brains, made of tin cans and scrap metal, hands?!" made clear, that she had a specific dislike towards robots. Anyways, I had no other choice. It knew an exit to Newcastle. And I'd have trusted anyone, just to get out of this nightmare, before more men die.
Passing Newcastle.
No sooner said than done. It lead us to Newcastle, Scarborough Station, where I did some major repairs, such as fixing the shield systems, which went offline during the last fight. And of course refilling our supplies. Driven by curiosity, I checked for my defect cloaking device, those creatures were talking about. It appeared like they were trying to repair it. I've found some weird tools I've never seen before, as well as a broken sphere, which reminds me of these "Derelict Nomad Artifacts" I used to sell to researchers when I was still running my equipment store. Whatever, apparently they didn't manage to finish the repair, and must have disabled that alien power source, before they died.
Anyhow, since I didn't felt save on corporation bases, the Haimen unit and I went for Freeport 6 in the Taus, where we were able to have a private talk. It offered us so-called "augmentations" and other automated systems for my ship... and myself! Si, for my human body. Technical improvements on organic lifeforms. Sounds sick, but useful together. Melosa almost freaked out when she saw my eyes glittering.
"Dare you, hun. I won't ******* touch a ***** with ********* robot parts, which are ******* *** ***** ******, comprende?. I'd more be willing to ****** **** a ******* alien, into its ******* ******* and **** the **** out of this ************!" She shouted.
That's why I love her. She always finds the correct words to describe her feelings. But still, I found that Occam Razor's offer quite attractive, and I'm surely going to think about it. If not for myself, but my ship, or even partly for my crew. And in return, he asked for an examination of the Narcotic. Should be a fair deal in my opinion. I'll better have slept on it for a night. I just can't wait for it, to finally sleep undisturbed. Although. There's nothing better to have a raging women... stop. I'll better keep my thoughts for myself.