Why make a ship's engine sentient given how many ships end up abandoned out in space with the engines, damaged and unable to move, stuck alone drifting in the emptiness with nothing but their thoughts.. and often a lonely, unmourned, death? -- Anon Guest
[AN: You're confusing Gravy Drives with engines. Though some do serve the same purpose. When a ship is abandoned, the Nae'hyn serving her never leave the engine alone if they can help it]
This is space: it has room for everything. Even the worst and most heinous of crimes. It is a rare and horrible thing, but it does happen. A ship becomes no longer "worth" her upkeep or repairs, or she is damaged beyond salvation. A ship is abandoned in a sargasso, left to drift, or otherwise orphaned.
Something truly terrible must have happened to any Nae'hyn aboard for them to leave a Gravity Drive to solitude.
Some engines are the solitary sort, and prefer loneliness. They are even rarer than this... abomination. Salvager Leif had come upon a crime scene and they were looking, perhaps hopelessly, for the criminal responsible for it.
Frozen bodies drifted in a timeless and weightless ballet. They had died fighting a hopeless fight to at least preserve some of their environment against the projectiles that were tearing it apart. One had died trying to keep the engine protected. Perhaps it was a mercy that the engine died soon after.
Leif gently brushed aside the frozen corpse of a toddler who had been passing tools when it happened. A screwdriver was still in her hand. There it was. The logs. The only record Leif had for the final moments of the Calianthe, and it was there that Leif discovered another travesty.
The Gravity Engine had lived through their mortal wound. Lived past all the people who perished trying to save her, or even a part of her.
Engines offline, Calianthe had written in the logs. Hungry Caterpillar offline. Defense systems offline. Comms offline. My people are dying, help me! They have no air! They're cold. Stop it! Make it stop.
Calianthe had tried everything they could to help her people. But... some scumbag had disabled everything she could do to help anyone.
There were still internal cam feeds, and Calianthe had checked every single one of them. Thrice. To be certain of the horror.
Her people were dead.
I am alone, she wrote. I am not made to be alone. One by one, my systems are dying, and then so shall I. Stranger, should you read this. Tell of the crime. Tell of the atrocity committed by Sandervalt Craine. Murder. Forced isolation. Destruction of occupied habitats. I can only beg you for justice.
Please, you wandering star, make certain that there is justice.
Salvager Leif did just that. They had called in the CRC when they had encountered the first corpse. They had added an 'urgent' tag when they saw the remains of the Gravy Drive in situ.
Normally, when a ship like this is decommissioned, the Nae'hyn take what they want of it and turn it into a habitat/colony. If the ship is damaged beyond repair, they will still take the drive to be somewhere needed. Or, if all is truly desperate, give that drive a quick and merciful death.
Even then, a Gravy Drive does not die alone. The one to pull the final switch ends with it, crushed in the resultant singularity.
This... this was a crime beyond crime.
Soon... the Alliance would know. If Sandervalt Craine had lived and died, then his descendants would pay the price. So, too, would his polity.
Such a crime would not, could not, ever go unpunished.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / dexterous]
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