Crossed wires

<snip>
He watched the full scenario, and realized that something else was missing - "Oh, right, air. I believe that you would be more comfortable in the newly reformed Mess Hall."
</snip>

“What?”

“The Mess Hall?”

“I can’t hear you.” Cass tapped the side of her helmet in what she hoped was a universally recognised sign ”We’re in a vacuum. There’s no medium for sound to propagate.”

“I couldn’t agree more”

“Do you have a comms unit installed?”

“How about a nice rough enema?” the mechanoid looked quite pleased with itself.

Uncomprehending, Cass shook her head, disappointed that the first sign of life that she’d seen in weeks, was a with a mechanoid who seemed to be taking the piss.

“Come” Belvedyr turned and motioned for her to follow.

“Can you help me?”

“Come”

Hesitating for a moment, Cass eventually chose to follow. She had around three hours of air left before she needed to head back to where she knew she could get more, but she could do without expending too much energy - It had been just over a week since she had last eaten anything and was feeling weak and spacey as a result; food was scarce and what she'd found had made her sick, so she’d cut back on anything she didn’t recognise for fear of being poisoned.

“Come along now, miss”

How was this mechanoid even here, Cass wondered.

From the look of it, it was a 4000 series model; she had seen a few of them aboard the Dwarf, out and about, running errands for their rich and powerful owners. They were manufactured by DivaDroid, an alien owned company that specialised in servants and companions approximating the physiology of a number of different species, and while they seemed pretty primitive by her standards, she hadn’t had the opportunity to take one apart to see.

“Come, come”

This was getting irritating.

“I’m sure you’ll like this” Belvedyr motioned for Cass to follow him down some stairs, into an area of the ship she hadn’t yet explored.

“What’s down there?” she hesitated at the top, the lights from her vaccsuit throwing crazy shadows around the darkened stairwell. Going down wasn’t the issue, but climbing back up would be exhausting unless she could deactivate the grav-plates in the area.

“Why, nothing but disappointment miss”

The mechanoid seemed to understand her reticence and performed a mime that made little sense to Cass.

“A kitten?” she tried ”Elementary particles? Gynecological laparoscopy?” This was stupid.

“Please do follow me, miss”

“Nuhuh” Cass shook her head and held up a hand, fingers splayed “Five minutes” she repeated it again in Trade, on the off-chance the mechanoid could lip read the language, and lowered herself down, to sit on the top step while she set a psi-scan running.

Belvedyr felt a flicker or annoyance at this - What was her problem!?

He couldn’t quite place the woman’s species, which could easily be due to his degrading nega-drive, but he had to wonder if they were all as much as a pain in the arse as this?

Exasperating as it was not to be able to show the woman the reformatted Mess Hall as quickly as he’d have liked, he kept his amusingly shaped face in a neutral expression and waited patiently while she finished whatever it was that she was doing.

Eventually, apparently satisfied, she stood and motioned for him to continue, leaving him to turn and resume walking down the stairs “Bloody sentients” he grumbled to himself.


It took four flights of stairs and another twenty minutes before they arrived at the Mess Hall; the wide corridor they had been walking down, suddenly opening out into a large, dark room, littered with debris.

Something at the back of the room glittered in the torchlight. “There” Belvedyr strode proudly towards it “Et Voila. What do you think of that, young miss?”

Incorporating a low bow into the movement, he gestured expansively towards a gleaming canteen table with integrated chairs, all polished to such a high sheen, that it almost hurt to look at it.

“What the fuck?”

Even without the benefit of being able to hear the woman, something about her told Belvedyr that she wasn’t entirely impressed. That table had taken years to polish up like that.

Years!

Some people just had no appreciation for art.

He was about to come back with the sort of witty and horribly cruel rejoinder that would have had her comfort eating and sobbing herself to sleep for weeks when her HUD blazed to life with a proximity alert.

Cass whipped around. “Whoa...” she staggered a little as the dizzy spaciness caught up with her and had to take a moment to steady herself.

Not one but two ships!

“Help me” she gabbled across the open comms channel “Oxygen’s running low. I’m trapped here with a crazy mechanoid”

“I’m thrilled to hear it.” a voice drifted back over the ether ”I hope your sperm count is good too...”

<tag>
Someone come and rescue us
Does anything weird happen when the rescue party ventures forth?
How does Belvedyr feel about this philistines apparent disinterest in his hard work - Does have any other interesting treasures to show off?
</tag>