The Arkania

[Drakaisyl]

The Arkania

The Arkania was the first ship of a line of nine ships which weren't build for the Police or Military, instead it was sold to a private person. The Ship was purchased by a rich business man who used the ship for smuggling slaves from the border worlds into the core systems, mainly Liberty and Kusari, by putting them in between to the Prisoners who he shipped in Order for the Police or Military from the Prisons on the planet to the Prison Stations. One day, while making the tour from Manhattan to Sugarland, the ship was attacked by a small force of Outcast, which damaged the ship badly and killed the Captain and a huge amount of the crew. While the old ship was badly damaged, the Leading Engineer Rachel Morgan tried her best to prevent the ship from becoming a wreck.

Because of the Nanobot technology wasn't as high developed as today it was always a risk of using them. While Rachel was programming on of them to close a breach in the hull she made some mistake and the Nanobot in her hands became active. Thinking she was the hull breach, it putted his Nanites into the Body of Rachel. Rachel now began a slowly and painful transformation. At the end, several hours after her infection she was no longer a human...former a hybrid of Human and Technology.

At first, Rachel was disappointed and did nothing. The other members of the repair teams looked at her and were scared. They had never seen something like that what happened to Rachel. But as Rachel spoke to them and they heard her Voice and Orders to continue the Repairs of the ship, they moved back to work. Rachel left the engines room when nobody was there and went directly, controlled by the Machines now, to the bridge where all the dead bodies of the killed crew laid around. But she didn't care about them. Instead she moved to the ship main computer and activated from there the remaining Nanobots. The Nanobots finished their duties but instead of remaining powered down, they all went to the bridge and to Rachel. After Rachel changed the program of the Nanobots these bots began to rebuild the Bridge. But not like the old one was. Instead they created a complete new one. With a ring in the Middle where data links to the main computer were build in.

All the former consoles were removed and the deck and the ceiling was now full of cables and other links to the ring. The transformation took around a week but when it was completed, a whole new bridge was created. At the end, Rachel moved in the middle of the new bridge and the ring came down, being now around her. Then the remaining Nanobots putted all the cables in the Ring and the ports on Rachel. Rachel screamed when the cables were put in the ports but it quickly was turned off when the Nanites in her body took the control. Right shortly after Rachel was linked into the ring she was surprised about all the Data in the Main computer. Unable to handle all the data, Rachel made some mistakes and the ship plotted curse to the Coronado System where the flight ended for a long time. While being in the Orbit around the planet the rest of the crew died and so the ship drifted around in the system. When Rachel learned how to use the specific systems she set course to gain knowledge about the Universe what have changed...

Rachel on her new created Bridge,studying the Nav Map

[Friday]

When Rachel learned how to use the specific systems she set course to gain knowledge about the Universe what have changed...

Exploring the Universe doesnt come cheap. After spending what little was in the ship's Neural Account, Rachel took up with the Slaver's Union - by now it was all she knew how to do.



***GMG Paramilitary Incident Report***

Sender: Lt. Colonel Sum Yungai
Subject: "The Arkania"

Konnichiwa Guild Master Katsuo,

At approximately 2300 hours, I intercepted an old Prison Liner registered under the name "Arkania". Cardamine sniffers off the charts, ship not responding to initial hails, poor comprehension when it did finally respond. Very much a normal day!

My initial demand was to impose a standard fine, though when backup arrived some of the other pilots were more keen on seizing the contraband. Ultimately I defer to your decision on the matter.

What happened next was unexpected. During my communications with the ship, I began to form the opinion that I was in fact talking to the on-board AI. To be sure, I couldnt pin down the data stream as human or computer - but everyone present could tell whatever mind was at the helm was damaged. There was little comprehension where the ship was, or what it was doing.

The ship was eventually stopped in the oxygen pocket, after a final demand was made I ordered the shield to be taken down. I hoped that some exposure to the explosive gases would get a reaction from the Arkania - I was not wrong!

There were screams heard over the comms, and the ship took extensive surface damage. A single crew member pleaded for a rescue - and I convinced the ship to be towed by our gunboat the Tsukai, to Gas Miner Naha.

Once at Naha, a rescue and engineering team boarded the ship, and found only a single crew member alive. Preliminary accounts suggest the crew member 'Rachel' had been interfacing with the ship with some kind of nanite. Both human and AI brains were damaged, and would require attention.

This 'Rachel' indicated that she once worked for the Slaver's Union, but that entity no longer existed. I believe there is a genuine prospect for rehabilitating this criminal, there are signs of exploitation at the hands of the Outcasts here. We could well have this Freelance ship working for us!

I have recommended Rachel and the Arkania be sent to Okinawa, the ship to be decontaminated, and its Data Core assessed. Rachel is to be assessed by our Rehab Officers on Miura, perhaps one of the ZAS consultants will also take an interest. I would recommend Rachel not be taken out of scanner range of the ship, as I do not know what reaction the nanites might have to being out of sensor range.

We shall see what comes of it Guild Master.

***End Report***

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[Drakaisyl]

The "new" Arkania

After spending a few Years with the GMG in which Rachel as well as the old Arkania were examined and tested. As a result due to the examinations the "old" Arkania was now nothing more as a few hull pannels atteached to a rusty sceleton of the Prison Liner. Together with the ship the greatest part of the knowledge Rachel had gained from her travel through the Sirius Sector had been lost.

Her Chance to actually flee from the tortue of the testing came in form of a Freelancer captain from Rheinland who did visit the research facility on regular basis. Having lured the research teams in false security by doing all of their test without any restraint - with lower security measures in place due to this - she slipped away and boarded the ship - a Civilian Carrier named Rauer Pfad. When the research teams noticed about her escape the "Rauer Pfad" was already at the other end of Rheinland. During the flight Rachel got herself knowledge of the ship's systems – although it was a long process due to the fact that so many had changed and was different to the systems she knew from the old Arkania.

After heaving learned about the systems she overtook the ship step by step. The hardest task was to break into the AI of the ship to either enslave or delete it. After many weeks of subtile manipulation and a final assault on the AI finally gave Rachel the control over the ship systems In the following days the original crew was killed as the whole ship lost life support. With Rachel now beeing the only human or nearly human beeing left on the ship, she began to rebuild the bridge in the same way as it was on the orginial Arkania.


Due to the loss of the Datacore she set course for the Sirius Sector once more to learn what changed...