Deepspace: Elber and Orin (Ea)(Com)

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After she finished healing, Elber, using the image of the map saved in her memory, made her way towards the inner parts of Zeta-13, eventually arriving at the SES Bay, that being the Specialized Equipment Storage Bay.

Inside should house a massive starship along with several other valuable supplies, which may prove useful, assuming the anomalies hadn’t gotten to them yet. Elber goes over to the door's keypad and tries to unlock it, but it flashes red and says access denied.

Elber then tried to hack it, but even for a hundred-year-old lock, it was still quite advanced and hard to crack. Elber stopped trying, knowing it was useless, and tried to come up with another plan, but her thoughts were interrupted by an anomaly.

A large steel ball, about the size of Elber, appeared, and somehow it was bouncing around her. Worse than that, each time it hit something, it got faster. Elber was able to dodge it a bit at first, but as it got quicker and quicker, it started hitting her over and over again.

She needed to come up with a plan to stop it, or at the very least get it away from her. The first thought was to hit it as far away from her as possible. So she used her power to make her right arm several times bigger and more powerful.

She then waited for the right moment and transferred all her processing power to her strength, then she hit the steel ball, sending it flying upward, out of sight and hopefully out of mind. At least she was hoping.

Suddenly a piece of metal hit the ground behind her, and she thought the ball was coming back, but instead, Elber heard a woman yelling, followed by seeing Orin falling from the ceiling, bound for the floor and to get very injured.

Thinking quickly, Elber jumped into the air and caught her before she hit the ground. Elber was then the one to take all the damage when the two of them landed, which was fine, as she knew she could recover from it, but this other woman might not have.

Orin quickly got up and checked on Elber, who was a bit damaged at the moment. Elber told Orin not to worry about her and that she’d be able to recover from these injuries in a minute or two. She then used her healing ability and set all her processing power to do it.

Orin was amazed to watch Elber completely recover before her very eyes. Orin then reached her hand down and helped Elber up, thanking her for the save. Orin then looked up and said she wasn’t really sure what happened.

One moment she was wandering in the dark in the ventilation system, and the next it felt like something was at the bottom of it, and then the ground below her fell out, and that’s when she started to fall down here.

Elber apologized and said that was likely her fault, as she was trying to get rid of an anomaly. Orin let out an awkward laugh and said it was okay; she knew how annoying they could be. Elber and Orin then took a moment to catch their breath and look at each other.

They were both some sort of robot girl now, so it was clear that they were both affected by the anomaly that fused them with their ships. The two reintroduced each other, then Elber asked Orin for help getting into the SES Bay.

Orin looked at the door and said she had no idea how to get through the keypad, but she did have the ability to make drones, some of which could drill through the door. The only problem was that she didn’t have the supplies to make more at the moment.

Elber got silent and started to think; she then asked Orin what supplies she needed to create the drones she needed. Orin said it depended on the drones, but she could make some low-quality ones out of some pieces of metal and circuitry if she could get her hands on them.

Elber said she could provide that; she then ripped her arm off and handed it to Orin, who just stood there looking a bit concerned. Elber told Orin there was no need to worry, that with her new abilities, she could replace it.

Orin was still skeptical and asked how that was possible since that part of her arm was fully robotic. Elber shrugged and said she wasn’t really sure how it worked, and she wasn’t really going to question it.

Orin sighed and said she supposed with these anomalies lots of things don’t make sense. Orin then took Elber’s arm and stored it inside herself. Orin’s AI assassins got to work breaking it down and repurposing the parts.

Then a few minutes later three mining drones came flying out. Orin then ordered them to get to work on the door. Elber watched as the drones flew over and started drilling through. She even admitted that was quite handy.

Since it was going to take a few minutes, the two of them started talking about their experiences here on Zeta-13 up until this point, and it seems things have been quite crazy for both of them, and although the anomalies have gotten smaller, it seems they were becoming more frequent.

Elber suggests they stick together from here on out, which was a bit unorthodox for situations where captains are trying to claim something, but she said she’d rather make it out alive than claim this place, and their odds of doing so were better together.

Orin agreed, saying that if the two of them fused with their ships, then it was likely they all did, and that meant no one had a ship for them to use to leave here. So working together to find a ship was a solid plan.

After agreeing to team up, they waited for the mining drones to finish while they watched out for anomalies. Once the drones finished, a large chunk of metal came falling out, opening up a hole for them to use to get inside.

Orin then recalled her drones and had them changed into scout drones, which she then sent inside to check the area out to make sure it was safe. Inside she finds several anomalies, things like a box teleporting around, minerals floating in the air, and a small cloud raining out small candy.

Orin tells Elber about what she was seeing, and Elber says it seems safe enough. So the two of them head inside, and of course Elber is proved wrong immediately. Suddenly the floor started to sink, leaving them stuck in a thirty-foot hole.

Making things worse, the walls went straight up, and there was nothing to use to climb out. Had they still been their normal selves, they’d be trapped, but with their new abilities, the two of them could easily get out.

Elber used her powers to make a set of wings, which she used to fly out. Orin, on the other hand, had her drones, so she had all three grab her and pull her out, which was a bit slow but still worked. Once they were both out, the two of them split up and started looking around.

Orin went over to the minerals and started to collect them, along with random tech that she could use for circuitry. Elber, on the other hand, went around inspecting the shelves. On them were a ton of ship parts, but they were all useless; none of them could be used.

Elber gave up looking at the shelves and went over to the ship storage part of the bay. She wanted to find a spaceship waiting for them, but there wasn’t one; instead, there were a bunch of large ship parts hanging on chains, as if they were about to be installed in a ship.

Elber walked over to those parts and started to inspect them, and while most were completely unusable, one of them was in pristine condition. Elber had found an X23-Klendophere warp engine, which was a bit strange.

It was strange because that type of engine was for large battleships, and it was brand new, so how a place that had been abandoned for a hundred years had one could only be explained by the anomalies.

Elber shook her head and said there was probably an angry mechanic somewhere missing it, but she didn’t care; it was possibly something they could use to get out of here. They just needed to find more parts and a mechanic to build the ship.

As Elber sat there looking at it, she suddenly had a bad feeling. Without hesitation, she jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a small mini attack robot armed with mini guns that appeared out of nowhere.

It continually fires at Elber, forcing her to continue dodging. It didn’t seem to have the need to reload, and it didn’t seem it was running out of bullets anytime soon. Elber needed to come up with a plan to beat it without letting it destroy the engine, which may be hard.

It didn’t help that she was still missing an arm, as she had only been using her normal healing rate up until now, as she was worried something like this would pop up and put her in danger. So right now she was at a disadvantage.

At least she would have been, but now she has a partner, one who heard the bullets being fired and got right to work creating attack drones to go and fight the small robot. They managed to distract the robot long enough for Elber to make her arm bigger and transfer processing power to strength.

She then went in for an attack and hit the robot as hard as she could, sending it flying into the wall. As that happened, Orin had gotten to the scene of the fight and started cheering for Elber’s successful attack; however, it was far from successful.

The robot was unaffected and went right back to attacking, starting with Orin’s drones. Orin started to tear up, but she knew she couldn’t let it get to her right now, as the robot was once again going after Elber.

Orin went over to the shelves and started looking through the items. Most of them were ship tools, things like a phasma hammer and hover pads that attach to anything and make it float for easier transport.

Then Orin found something quite interesting. It was a Floirt-2 complete coverage shield. Orin looked at the items and quickly came up with a plan. She made three more mining drones since they could hold things, and then she had each one grab one of each item.

She then instructed one to bring the wrench to Elber, the second to drop the shield on the robot, and the last to swoop in and drop the hover pad on the shield moments later. Orin then ran back out and shouted her plan at Elber.

She was going to open the hangar door; one of the drones would give her the hammer, while the other two trapped the robot in the shield and made it float. Then Elber, using her max strength, needed to hit it out, sending it flying into space.

Elber nodded and grabbed the hammer and waited for the first robot to drop the shield. Orin ran over and hit the button to open up the hangar. The first robot then came flying in to drop the shield, but the robot could tell it was in danger and focused on that drone.

It fired a ton of bullets into it, reducing it to pieces. Orin put her hands over her face and was starting to tear up, but her little guy still managed to do his job; the shield fell down and activated when it hit the robot.

That gave Elber the chance to get close to it while the second drone came in to drop off the hover pad. The robot then started to float into the air. Elber then got right next to it and sent all her processing power to her arm, and then, using the hammer, she hit it as hard as possible.

The shield with the robot inside it went flying out faster than Orin could even see, and Elber and Orin ran to the hangar door to try and see it, and sure enough, Elber had managed to hit it hard enough to send it high enough that gravity no longer affected it.

Elber then took a deep breath and said that was close. She then looked at Orin to thank her but found her crying. Elber was a bit confused about Orin crying. Though she herself had her emotions dimmed thanks to her changes, she was sure they would both be happy about winning.

Elber walked over to Orin and patted her on the back, asking her if she was okay or injured in any way. Orin wiped her tears as best she could and said she was alright. She was only crying because her drone had gotten destroyed.

She said that while her abilities allowed her to make the drones, it also caused her to care for them, as if she were their mother, and so when one breaks, it feels like her heart breaks as well. Elber was still a little confused but understood that Orin was upset, so it was obviously important to her.

Elber continued to pat her back until she stopped crying, and Orin thanked her for the comfort. She then said she wished she could be as in control of her emotions as Elber. Elber shook her head and said that she probably wouldn’t like it.

She mentioned that while she’s calm and collected, she mostly thinks logically since her emotions are dimmed. So she works her emotions manually using logic. Orin seemed surprised and said that made a lot of sense with the way she just ripped her arm off before.

Orin then laughed and said they were total opposites when it came to the emotional spectrum, which was ironic. She then hoped this pairing up would be good and not another punishment from the will of Zeta-13.

Elber shook her head and said she believed it would be fine, especially after seeing their teamwork in action. Orin agreed with that, saying they were totally awesome, then she smiled, which got Elber to mimic her and smile back.

Now the two needed to find a mechanic, which one of the captains was. So it seems they’ll be going deeper into the center of Zeta-13 and hope to find said captain. They’ll also have to hope the engine doesn’t get destroyed by the anomalies.