SWWAE Chapter 4: I Might Be A Little Scared Of Space

Two hours, forty-seven minutes, fifty-six seconds, and seven hundred eighty-two milliseconds was how long it took before she moved again. It did not sit well with her that she could tell exactly how much time passed with potentially perfect accuracy. That ability made her feel more machine than human.

Amber hued vision returned as she turned away from the corner. Though her emotions didn’t want to move on yet, her logic told her it was time to get to work on finding her way home. Her vision landed on the floating bracer; the screen now off because of none use. That didn’t bother her, but what did was that the battery on the gizmo hadn’t gone down at all. Just like her android body, it was considered being in a state of charging. Even at a distance from her physical body, she was still powering it fully. She felt no sort of exchange of energy or even some sort of output from this body that would be projecting to the gizmo. It was just powered by her having commandeered it.

That seems way too overpowered. Granted, I don’t know how much power I’m generating nor if there are any restrictions on power transfer. Still, that could be way too powerful. Isn’t that a massive subgenre of isekai though? The MC having an extremely overpowered ability, but always encountering challenges that managed to subvert that power, only to think of a new way to use that ability that just makes them even more overpowered.

There was an immense desire to sigh, and a drive in the back of her mind to find a way to have a body that would let her do that.

I don’t want to put stock in isekai narratives yet, but I guess it would be useful to be overpowered.

With a gentle push, she guided herself back over to the gizmo and the primary controls. Her vision glanced down at the previous captain’s body again, and she almost spiraled for a second time. Those feelings weren’t going to help her, though. She did, however, listen to the feelings of compassion and vow to give this person a proper resting place.

I’ll get you home, don’t you worry.

She looked at the control panel again, but decided to turn away from it. In the back of the room, there did look to be a few cabinet like panels and even a few small cubbies. Nodding to herself, she made her way over and started to search through them. It took a little over twenty minutes of searching through all the nooks and crannies before she found what she was looking for. A first aid kit, complete with potential Geneva Convention symbol violation[1] of a red cross with a white background. Opening it up she found what she needed.

Even in space they have emergency blankets.

Feeling please, she went back over to the captain’s body. Before she got start she nervously tried searching the body for anything else of use. There wasn’t much, but the few things were interesting, and very much felt like environmental storytelling like one might find in a game. A small dried-up fountain pen, a pocket sized crimson notebook, a beaded purple crystal bracelet, a surprisingly ornate small key, a locket that when opened revealed a small black-and-white photo of presumably the captain and her mom (the likenesses of which were now permanently remembered in perfect detail in her mind), and a worry stone made of some sort of green stone.

Alright, I understand why archeologist love what they do. Maybe that’s what I should have been in another life. This is another life… Ignoring that scary thought for now, I apologize; I’m going to be taking what isn’t jewelry. Thank you for the worry stone, I really need it.

With that out of the way, she unfolded the blanket. Searching and taking from the body had been one thing, but it felt a lot more emotionally heavy to wrap the curled up body as best she could. Doing so respectfully and with gentle care, of course. Once done, she gently maneuvered the wrapped body into the right-hand copilot’s seat. Thankfully, there was a harness like seatbelt that she could gingerly wrap around the body to secure it in place.

Taking a ‘step’ back, she studied her work. It did feel strange to have a dead body in the seat, but there was no other respectable place to put it. At least not until she searched the rest of the ship, and even then the poor captain might have to stay in the chair till she made it to civilization.

Pushing herself back over, she grabbed the gizmo and strapped it to her own arm. Then, finally, after hours of being on this dead ship, she sat herself down in the captain’s chair. When she managed to get a body that could actually feel, she knew she was going to appreciate how comfy this chair really was. With a little fiddling, she managed adjust the panels and controls into a comfortable position. This felt like it should be some big emotional moment, or at least would be betrayed that way in a movie with an epic soundtrack in the background. She didn’t get that epic feeling, though. All she got was the urge to get this done.

Hitting a number of buttons, including one that said Power, yielded no results. There had been a little hope that now that the sphere was no longer function that maybe some power might have returned. It wasn’t disappointing, because as she had already learned, she could power the controls herself. With no more than a gentle touch on the side of a panel, she starting to commandeer the helm. She didn’t even need to keep physical contact to continue her takeover. As soon as some part of her commandeered the wiring inside the panel, the entire thing lit up like Christmas.

Now that’s the epic feeling I was looking for.

If only she could have smirked.

There was another boot logo on the screens, and this time it was not alliterative; Stargazer. It was only a second before it then lit up with a list of hundreds of error messages. All saying something along the lines of no power or connections broken. As her awareness spread more throughout the controls, it also become apparent that though all controls could rout through this chair, this wasn’t the hub for all the systems that ran this ship.

So, basically, I’m turning on the display without turning on the computer. I’m going to get some control over the panels, but not the ship. Of course, it wasn’t going to be as simple as flipping a switch.

The more control she gained, the more she realized her power output was starting to power other parts of the cockpit. For instance, gentle lights suddenly flicked on and gone was her amber vision. Color had returned to her world. It was a strange relief to look around her and actually perceive the colors of the ship’s interior, even if she still somehow knew what colors were what with amber tinted night-vision.

 Some new instinct inside of her did tell her that she couldn’t give power to most of the ship from having just commandeered the captain’s chair. The circuits of the controls simply weren’t built to transfer the power that was needed to get everything up and running. She was either going to have to get the ships power source running, or commandeer the primary power lines and power it herself. If she could put out enough power, of course.

Well, that has undermined the epic feeling I was getting from the idea of doing everything from here. Arguably, I could get everything done from here if I was willing to wait while I slowly commandeer the entire ship circuit by circuit. I don’t have that patients for that.

With power returned to the chair and a mental command, the panels moved out of her way on their own. She was about to float over to the door, but something else came to her mind. The previous captain had said she plugged the sphere into a table, but it was just plugged into the floor. Though there was a circular line that on the surrounding floor that would be about the size of a table. Curiously, she looked down at the gizmo. The vast majority of options were still offline, but some were active again.

She really wasn’t enjoying the fact that since she had commandeered the gizmo that some part of her now implicitly understood where all settings were, even one she hadn’t searched for yet. There was also a part of her that knew she didn’t need to use the buttons to navigate on the gizmo now that she was in control, but she still did use them, not yet willing to give up on the human actions of physical inputs. Within a few seconds she found the activation for the table in the cockpit and selected it. The floor around the sphere juddered a bit as it tried to raise, but stopped after only lifting a few centimeters. An error appeared on the gizmo informing her that there was a mechanical issue with the table, not an electrical failure.

I have a feeling the sphere is responsible for that. Well, onto the door then.

Floating her way over to the door, she could see through the window that the lights of the rest of the ship hadn’t turned on. That would change in a moment though, she was sure of it. How did she want to do this? There was surely a manual release for the door in case of emergency. She did eventually plan on commandeering the entire ship, so why not go for the panel to the side and see if she could power it from there. As with the chair, all it took was one touch before she felt those veins of quicksilver spread. She didn’t like the feeling…

Though the controls turned on, she had to wait a solid thirty seconds before she got to a wire that could send enough power to the door mechanism. In that time she did get to watch the hall lights turn on, revealing a straight wall to her right with a number of doors, and on her left there was a moderately sized outcropping in the middle with a few doors either side. Then, before she knew it, the door opened up. She expected there to be a swooshing sound, as all sci-fi pocket doors had, but alas there was no sound.

I guess I’m just going to have to search room by room.

First she decided to give a peek into what the outcropping was and was surprised to find a cute little kitchenette and a comfy corner booth with a small round table of its own. Then she came to the open hatch in the floor. Looking down through it there was a small tunnel with a ladder that led to another pane of glass looking out into space. That was a strange thing to have, especially when it looked like the ladder was broken and sticking out into space.

Oh, that’s the airlock, and that is just open space…

Though her body wasn’t organic, she still shivered at the sight of no barrier into space. It was like looking into the water of an ocean miles from shore. It was an honestly terrifying sight to experience. Her metal hand gripped hard at the hatch, suddenly terrified some force would pull her out there. That she would be helpless in the void of space with nothing around her. Her body began to shake and not just shiver, as her vision was locked on the open void.

Without her even trying, and far faster than any other thing she had commandeered so far, her control spread from her touch of the hatch down to its controls and joints. It then slammed itself shut with such speed and force that it honestly scared her. The wheel handle on the top spun on its own, locking the hatch tight and with a perfect airtight seal before recessing into the door for a flat smooth walking surface.

I might be a little scared of space…

With that terrifying moment over, she decided to distract herself from the terror of space and go back to the door closest to the cockpit on the left side of the ship. This time she didn’t need to commandeer the door as it was already getting power being so close to the cockpit. With a simple button press, the door slid open, releasing a torrent of air and objects so forceful it slammed her back against the other side of the hall.

“Ow…”

[1] This is a real law that many video games break. Famously I think of Stardew Valley.

[Four chapters in already. How are you guys feeling about this story so far? I'm enjoying it. That being said I still think I'm going to take my actual scheduled break from writing, since I have been uploading for six weeks now. With my writing's I used to be really far ahead of schedule and I'm hoping to get back to that. I hope you guys aren't too disappointed.]