DeepSpace: Elber Captain of the Nu Falcon (Ea)(Com)

A commission for last_of_workers.

Elber was sitting in his chambers looking over the schematics that he had recently managed to make. See, he commands the ship Nu Falcon, which is a inorganogenesis, and an absolutely incredible type of ship.

In terms of technology, it’s hard to beat; of course, that also means in terms of maintenance it’s the exact opposite and extremely hard to manage. Normally a ship like this requires a top-notch commander and a genius-level technician to manage.

Luckily Elber is both of those things, so he can manage the ship alone, which is great, as it’s hard to find someone who is one of those things in deep space. Of course, finding a ship like this anywhere was even rarer.

Of course, from an outside perspective, you’d hear about what this ship can do and assume it’s super easy to manage. After all, it’s one of the only types of ships that can develop itself independently without need of a repair station.

It also does this without being an organic ship or one that uses nanobots. Instead, it’s capable of creating new parts and building itself from within, even if the ship itself is floating through space at the time.

When it comes to developing things, it requires three main components: the first being sources of energy, the second being the proper materials, and the third simply being time, as it can’t create things instantly.

For example, Elber had managed to get the schematic for a new set of thrusters after a lot of work, and when he put them into the ship’s computer. It told him it would require fourteen days, a hundred and fifty tons of steel, and a power source consisting of at least three thousand terawatts.

It took him some time to acquire all of that and put them into the ship's storage in order to make them. Then he had to float around in space for two weeks waiting as the ship built them, then installed them, but it was worth it.

Now the real reason these ships are hard to maintain and upgrade comes down to the fact that you can’t simply repair things by hand or install new parts and modules. The ship itself would simply reject it and tear apart whatever you did and turn it into extra parts.

In order to do anything on the ship, you need schematics, and not just any schematics, but socially designed ones for the Nu Falcon, which are next to impossible to acquire thanks to the ship itself being quite rare.

The schematics also have to be perfect or else the ship won’t use them. Now that doesn’t make it impossible to do anything, as the ship itself is capable of creating the schematics it needs; it’s just annoying and expensive to do.

In order to create a schematic based on an already existing item, you need to acquire several of those items and put them in the ship. The ship's AI would then take each one apart, scan it, and try to understand how they work.

With each one it goes through, it creates a better and better schematic. Now, someone who doesn’t know the ship that well would say it’s a total waste to do that, as you could just have a normal ship and upgrade it normally for a fraction of the price.

However, this method ultimately turns out better than that, as the ship is capable of creating as many of the items in the schematic as needed, which is great for trading with other captains or clans in deepspace.

The ship is also able to expand the schematics and create more advanced versions, which is what makes it truly worth all the resources and effort it takes to create schematics and get them installed on the ship.

The schematics in Elber’s hands right now was one that took a lot of effort to acquire. It was based on the newest hyperdrive, and it took Elber a year to earn enough money to buy enough of them to get the schematic.

He was about to have it installed, but before he started, he got a distress signal from Zeta 13 and decided to go check it out. Upon arriving in the same sector as Zeta 13, the NU Falcon started to sound its alarms.

There were dangerous anomalies everywhere, not to mention other ships also flying towards Zeta 13. Elber took manual control of the ship and began to avoid asteroids being shot at him by portals opening up.

Away from black holes that appeared out of nowhere and even a giant ball of water the size of a planet filled with sea life. Somehow Elber made it to the space station about Zeta 13 and managed to land the Nu Falcon.

He wasn’t alone though; several others made it before him, while a few made it seconds after him. After meeting in the square and talking, everyone who arrived agreed to a fair race and headed towards the orbital elevator.

As they were going down, the first real problem hit them: the space stations vanished, and they all started to fall. The Nu Falcon started up and caught Elber before it was too late, but something happened that caused Elber to pass out.

Elber sat up and looked around. She expected to be on her ship, but she was simply lying on the surface of Zeta 13, with her ship and none of the other captains anywhere to be found. She stood up and pressed the button to connect with her ship when she realized something was wrong.

Her arm was different, like it was made of metal and tech. Elber looked herself over and found her entire body was different. It looked as though she was part human and part machine, but the parts of her that were machines resembled the look of her ship.

Elber found it strange, not only that her body was completely different and a girl, but that she didn’t feel anything about it. No emotions, no surprise, no anger, or even a sense of panic. It was like her emotions were locked away, yet she knew they should be there.

Elber was able to scan herself and came to one conclusion based on the information it gave her plus what she observed around her. It seems she had somehow been merged with her ship by one of the anomalies.

That would explain why her body changed so much and why her emotions were now locked away. Elber was one of those that believed the artificial intelligence on a ship was merely a tool, so wasting processing power on a personality was a waste.

So he designed her to be emotionless; that way, her operations would be slightly more efficient. So while she didn’t currently feel anything about her situation, she knew she should, but she is unable to do anything about it.

Now thinking much more logically than ever, Elber determines it would be the best course of action for her to leave Zeta 13 and return to the main territory and perhaps settle on one of the planets. As she was about to see if she could fly off this planet as she was, something drew her focus.

She looked towards the center of Zeta 13. Despite her emotions being locked away, it seemed her personality itself hadn’t. The thought of a long peaceful life on a planet sounded awful to her, and her desire for adventure and challenges remained fully intact.

Elber looked down at her hands and went over the finished scan to see the condition of her body. She found she had some new abilities, which seem to be based on the abilities of the Nu Falcon she merged with.

She has complete control over her body and is able to make upgrades to it. So if she wanted, she could make herself taller, create a tail, or even give herself a bunch of arms and legs, even eyes on the back of her head.

Using this ability, she can even heal herself as needed, even if she has damage down to her DNA.

So if an arm, leg, or anything breaks or is removed, she can simply create a new one. She can also increase and decrease her own recovery speed.

For instance, she can reduce it to zero in order to transfer that processing power into strength. Or if she has a critical injury that needs healing immediately, she can put all of her processing power into that in order to heal in seconds.

These new abilities would give her quite the advantage if she were to proceed further into Zeta 13 and try to claim it as her own. Knowing that, it became more logical to stay here and proceed further in, which also satisfied her desire for adventure and a challenge to overcome.