Computer Core
As the computer core's door was opened a nightmare vision of a housecat sized spider's nest. there were torn strips of sheets and bedign streached from wall to wall, cables and wires were strung about, all to give Crash better access to the different techs with in the core. Amelia had no time to take that in, since that as soon as she opened the door she was greeted with a wave of hot heat to her face. Almost instantly, she shielded with a gloved hand. Something had probably busted the heat exchangers in the room, since it didn't seem to be cooling off.
Once the astrogator got acclimatised with the heat emanating from inside, she lowered her hand and peered inside the room.
On the floor below from It's data port, laid Crash twitching and smoking. The bot would be quite hot to the touch, almost enough to burn a ungloved hand. Poor Crash was in a deep nightmare of data and heat dreams. Spotting the spiderbot, Amelia moved inside the oven of a room. More than once, her feet caught on one loose cable or stripped patch of cloth, and she had to grab onto something to keep from falling. The way the room was barely illuminated didn't help in the least either.
She finally wrapped her hand around of of the spiderbot's leg, not even registering the heat thanks to the suit's insulation, although her unprotected face was visibly breaking into a sweat. Slowly, she pulled the deactivated bot closer and picked it up, wrapping one arm around it before moving back out.
Taking care to see if any of the crew were nearby, Amelia stared down at the empty hallway, and then towards the closed cockpit door. She could feel how hot the bot was just by holding it next to her, so it was probably a good idea to cool it off before Crash could 'reboot.'
With the plan formed in her head, she started moving.
Concordia Veil - Lavatory
The room looked like it had been at any other time, with the exception that every small object was strewn around the floor, as if two professional wrestlers had been fighting inside it for a whole day, and the housecat sized spiderbot lying down on the sink, still visibly hot, and with Amelia grasping the handle of the tap right above it.
The astrogator hesitated for a moment, wondering if perhaps the bot's water-proofness was still there, but then discarded it, turning the tap on and watching as the water sizzled once it came into contact with the hot metal of the bot.
The water steamed and hissed a bit, as it washed over the spider bot. Slowly the tempature started to go down. It wasn't long before the bot chimed and started humming. Thirty seconds of humming were followed by a tone and a female's voice speaking up. "Tempature normalizing, reboot expected in thirty three seconds. Please have a nice day."
Amelia stepped back from the sink, rubbing her forehead. The pained expression that she had on her face a few moments before eased and she sighed in relief as she waited for the spiderbot to reactivate.
With a chime and a jerk, Crash started screaming loudly and tossing about. Water splashed up, splattering everything. "No!!! NO!!!" The little crew members tried to push Itself into the corner of the sink counter, while still screaming bloody murder, and startling the astrogator.
Amelia stepped forward quickly, turning the flow of water off. "Crash! You're safe, it's alright!" she exclaimed as she tried to grab for the spiderbot.
The bot quieted down, but didn't stop trying to push It's self through the wall. "You're dead... We're all dead... DEAD!" It coughed out, (that is if a bot could cough words...) Crash wasn't sure what was real anymore. There had been hundreads of loops, hundreds of times seeing the crew murdered and the ship crashed.
"You must think I'm really bad at piloting a ship," she commented, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"But.. But..." Crash stopped pushing back and slumped. "I saw you all die... I was in hell... Watching it all happen over and over and over again." The bot curled it's legs in tight under itself, it's normaly vibrient colored volumetrics weren't even on.
Heavy, running bootsteps outside the lavatory quickly grew louder just before the door flew open, revealing Sienna standing there, an alarmed expression on her face as she stood in the doorway with both hands on the frame. "What the hell is going on in here?" She exclaimed in a hushed voice, glancing around her.
Crash twitched and jerked at the sound of Sienna's voice, trying to skitter away the bot fell off the counter, bounced off the toliet and ended up in the shower stall.
"Nothing!" Amelia answered before turning around at where the spiderbot had gone. "Crash, what are you doing!?" she asked, following the freespacer towards the shower stall.
"What happned.... I had the ship going into orbit... Then I had to disconnect from the core..." Crash paused as if It was was trying to gather up thoughts that were running about loose. "I disconnected and then... then hell came." The bot shivered.
Sienna remained in the doorway, cautiously watching the slowly simmering-down insanity with tired, baggy eyes veiling her hawklike gaze. She sighed in visible relief when she realized that Amelia had the situation, relatively, under control, and said nothing further.
"Everything is fine, Crash, you have nothing to worry about," Amelia said, standing in front of the stall. She turned her head to regard Sienna for a moment. "Isn't that right, captain?" she asked, looking for some confirmation.
"Huh?" the captain replied, oblivious for a brief second, before appearing to catch her senses. "Oh. Oh, yeah, everything's fine," she said, nodding a bit more enthusiastically than was necessary, still gripping the edges of the door frame. "All aboard and in orbit."
Crash turned from Amelia to Sienna, eyeing each in turn. Its voice was almost tearful. "But I saw... The nightmares..." Crash slumped again and pulled its legs under Its body. "I can't retreive the data... It's not there... But I remember it..."
It was obvious that Amelia had no clear idea of what the bot was talking about, her face bore a puzzled expression, although she could detect the distress in the way Crash talked. "Everything is all right," she repeated.
"But it isn't..." Crash spoke quitely and looked up to Amelia. "How can I remember things without them being in my memory storage? I watched you all get attacked over and over, the whole crew. killed by me... the spider drones..." He slowly crept forward and reached out to poke Amelia's leg.
"I'm here, and I'm all right," the astrogator answered, looking down at the spiderbot. She glanced around at where Sienna was again, wondering why the captain was just standing there and watching the whole thing.
The captain's eyes flicked to Amelia's as the astrogator looked back at her, and immediately her face and shoulders changed to a "What?" expression, as if the young woman were tersely asking her what she expected her to do, and yet admitting utter helplessness at the same time. Of course, the fact that the captain still looked as if she could happily curl up right there on the floor and take a nap on the metal decking wasn't helping.
Moving slowly, Crash moved forward to Amelia's feet, and reaching out from there poked the captain's leg next. While Sienna managed to restrain herself from kicking the spiderbot across the room in response, she still jerked her leg away at the unwelcome touch, staring coolly down at the robot. Crash, however, wasn't so sure it was all real yet, but at least it was a repreve from the nightmares.
"Is there anything you want to make you feel better?" the astrogator asked as she watched the Freespacer move around the room.
"Maybe a swift kick in the robot ass," Sienna muttered under her breath.
Crash looked up at the captain. "I'm going crazy... Not deaf." Crash pulled back the leg and leaned against Amelia. "I got the ship clear of the drones and almost wiped them from the hull, and you're still being mean."
The shorter woman stared back at the captain, resting her hands on her hips so that they would stop shaking. That still didn't stop her from staring venom at Sienna's comment. "I'm pretty tired, are you two still gonna go at each other?" she asked
Sienna held her hands up in front of her, sighing and shaking her head. It was more than apparent that the captain was too exhausted and mentally drained to continue any sort of fight she could avoid. "All right, all right," she breathed, and turned her gaze to Crash, sighing again. "You obviously remember the important stuff, anyway. You--" she continued, pausing for a moment, as if not sure what to say next. Finally, she folded her arms and leaned her shoulder against the door frame. "You did save our hides back there."
"I put the ship in orbit too," Amelia chimed in.
"Oh for Feth Sake I Knew I Was Dead!!! The Captain Said A Nice Thing!!!" Crash chittered a little, almost sounding like It's old self. Though it did slump a bit more against Amelia's leg, "Plus I'm not going to go at her.. She doesn't have the right ports."
The astrogator sighed, and the captain's eyes flared momentarily. "My 'ports' ain't no concern of yours, robot," she said tersely.
"You're just upset cause you couldn't handle my plug and play." Crash spoke before slumping again, though this time lopsidedly.
There was a brief pause, before Sienna responded with an annoyed sigh. "Are you done?" she responded.
"Nope, never," Crash spoke but the voice seems to slow and lower tones as It wore out. "I seem to need some time to run a full diagnosis of my systems..."
Sienna rapped on the door frame and stood back up to her full height. "You do that," she intoned indifferently. "I'm gonna go see how our 'guest' is holding up, make sure we didn't kill anyone on that ascent. Amelia, you help Bozo here get his shit together, and I'll call you when we're ready to plot an FTL course."
Amelia gave a mock salute to Sienna in response, then turned to regard Crash.
The captain was either too distracted or too tired to acknowledge the "salute," and simply turned to leave. "Call me if you need me," she said over her shoulder. "And make sure he cleans my sheets out of the damn computer room."
Crash continued leaning agianst Amelia's leg, and chittered. There wasn't any way It was going to do that. It was all there so Crash could access everything It needed to.
With a digital sigh Crash looked up to Amelia. "Umm.. i'm sorry to ask, but I don't seem to trust my locomotion systems... Could you carry me back to the core or somewhere... I need to take time to go over everything, and figure out what is wrong."
Smiling faintly, the astrogator crouched down and grasped the sides of the spiderbot, lifting it up. "Yeah, sure," she said, stepping towards the door, nudging the panel with her elbow to open it.
The door hissed and slid open, revealing the main halway in front of her. At first, the astrogator only poked her head out, wary of anyone that might be outside. Upon seeing that it was seemingly empty, she started to make her way to the computer core.
Tensing up It's legs under itself, Crash tired not to move as Amelia picked It up and hauled It off to the computer core. Crash started the diagnostics for the legs and what not as she strode towards the computer room.
Computer Room
Eventually, the duo arrived in front of the computer core. The door was still slightly ajar like Amelia had left it, and she could also feel the hot air wafting from inside, as well as the ship's heat exchangers struggling to cool off the excess of temperature. The astrogator turned sideways and squeezed herself through the half-open door and into the warmer room, no longer almost oven hot like it had been before and pressed the pannel with her elbow again to close it.
"Where should I, uh... set you up?" She asked, still holding Crash.
"A hot oil bath... With bubbles and a juicy data feed." Crash spoke half distracted with the data running though It. It seemed It's legs were fine along with the actuators and the data lines to them. So next he focused on the drivers. "Honestly I don't want to be stuck here all by myself after what I've seen..." It's voice was small and child like, though it was It's real voice.
The astrogator pressed her back against a nearby walll and slowly started to sit down, crossing her legs and setting the bot on her lap. She smiled reassuringly at Crash's comment; to see him like that was somewhat saddening. "I can stay here," she said, resting her head against the wall and brushing aside some strands of torn bedsheet that had stuck to her suit.
The bot didn't move as It worked through the diffrent systems. "I... I..." Crash tried to start but kept failing in coming up with the words to try to explain what It felt right then.
A new report popped up giving all of the bot's drivers were fine. Next Crash started on the memory storage, bit by bit the scan started, both looking for damage and for the data that was not there.
"Hm?" Amelia asked. "You what?"
"Broken..." Crash replied feeling more and more concerned. "The heat did something to me, but I can't find any evedince of damage. I have memories of something, something horrific, but I can find any data for it."
"It just sounds like you had a nightmare then," the astrogator replied. It was, at least, the best analogy that she could come up with, although assuming machines dreamt was something far fetched were it not for Crash.
"It defently was nightmaric, I saw brutal things. I saw the drones attacking the crew..." It shyed away from mentioning her in particular. "The drones slowly changed into copies of me. I saw hundreads of loops of this. Each slightly different then the last. More horrific and detailed."
"Just try to stop thinking about it and it will go away," Amelia suggested.
"How do you turn them off. I..." Crash fell silent. It didn't want to tell her about what bothered It most.
"Forget I said anything.." Crash got the report from the memory scans, all green. There wasn't a damned thing wrong with It. not a damned thing. This just made Crash worry even more.
"I need to set up a liquid cooling system for myself when I plug in. Controling the whole ship like that really overheated me."
Sighing, Amelia nodded, although still curious about the hesitant demeanor of the Freespacer. "I'll talk to the captain next time we dock," she said. "You have to stop pissing her off," she added.
"Don't she'll just bitch about cost... I have some liquid nitrogen that I can get my hands on..."
"Don't change the subject. She is trying to do right, and you go and rip up her room," she said, looking down at the bot.
"I apologized for it, but she had banished me to here like I was just some peice of equipment. I'll get her new bedding once we hit a port next." Crash carefully started rolling over to It's back so It could work slowly through flexing each joint and verifying they were still working.
"No, Crash..." Amelia said, rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration. "She just didn't want you in the bathroom whenever people were there," she explained.
"And cabins... So I was stuck here or in the cockpit. Like a good little drone." Crash was just being pissy because of how tired and upset It still was over the nightmare.
"You two need to talk things out," the astrogator concluded.
"Or I'll just replace the bedding and avoid her like a plague," Crash chittered softly as the legs continued to shift about. "On the other leg, I could just give up, stay plugged into the ship and just be another component to the machine."
"But then," Amelia started to say, her voice somewhat pained from the suggestion. "Who would I talk to?" she asked.
"Missy prissy captain pants?" Crash chittered again, but the flash of the Crash clones attacking Amelia ran through again. This caused a shutter to run through the bot. "Fine, no hot wiring. Back to the plague idea."
"That's so unlike you. I don't know what happened to make you sound so bitter like that when all she's doing is trying to command the ship, even though she's not good at it," she said.
Crash froze and looked at Amelia. It wasn't but a half second before It started seeing her being filleted before It's optics. Tensing, Crash looked away and let out a digital sigh. "I'm..." It fell silent again.
"You're what?" the astrogator insisted.
"I'm... I saw myself in those drones... What are they... Who are they?" Crash spoke trying to dodge away again from the dream.
"It was just a nightmare, Crash. Those things happen with people," Amelia said again.
"They do see themselves killing, horrifically, people they care for?" Crash fell silent after just shy of yelling that at her.
Amelia stood silent. Despite being a machine, the distress was still quite clear in the spiderbot's demeanor. "I'm sorry I have upset you," she eventually said.
"You haven't..." Crash flipped back over and cautiously crawled out of her lap and onto one of the sheet webbing, balancing just so. "I saw myself hurting you... All of you like I did to that hijacker... Over and over again..."
"So? I'm alright, am I not?" the astrogator asked, raising both of her hands as she shrugged at the notion. "That doesn't make you a crazy psycho, except when you keep sending me all those pictures."
"I wish i could send you these... then maybe i wouldn't be the only one with a loose screw somewhere..." Crash sighed and started rocking back and forth on the webbing. "I didn't like it. With hope the cooling system would solve the problem and I won't deal with this ever again."
"Hm," was all the Amelia replied, drawing her knees close to her chest and hugging her legs. Only then did she notice how truly she had been tired. Before, she really didn't feel like resting, but then she was actively fighting to stay awake.
Reaching forward tenderly with a leg/claw, Crash ran it down her cheek. "You're fall down tired. Why don't you go and grab some rack time?"
"Because the ship is going to be ready for a jump in twenty minutes," Amelia answered. Surprisingly, she didn't flinch away from the touch that time.
"Rack! I can screw around some numbers and get us close to the destination. You need rest. I had a nap already, apparently." Crash continued to rock back and forth on the webbing.
"I'm alright. I can do that once the course is plotted, and I don't want you jumping us into a planet," she said, smiling.
"But at least it's would be a fun experiment."
"Right," Amelia answered, resting her head on her knees and turning it to regard the spiderbot. "How did the room overheat, by the way?" she asked.
"Me. I was quite over heated... I radiated the room." Crash spoke thinking it all through. "I was running every process and command funtion for the ship's flight and weapons systems through myself. When I got the ship to a safe place, I was close to burning out and was overriding the shutdown protocol, so I unhooked and tried to get to a cooler place. Must have shutdown, that's when the dreams hit and the nightmares took over."
"Oh," the astrogator said, regretting bringing the subject over. "At least it's over," she added.
"For now... Until the thoughts flow back through." Crash's voice grew soft again.
"Oh come on..." Amelia complained.
"What? I'm not like you guys anymore, dreams and the like aren't something I should be dealing with anymore... No fleashy meats for them to brew within." Crash chittered a little, almost sounding normal.
"But you're still Crash," she added.
"Yes I am. You people are the ones so worried about keeping your original bodies. Like a tee shirt that keeps getting more and more smelly." This time It chittered so hard that Crash nearly fell off It's perch.
"Very funny," Amelia said, resting her head and closing her eyes. "I'm just gonna close my eyes for a second until the captain calls me," she said.
"You do that..." Crash reached out again and patted her on the head, before climbing back down to her lap and settling in. It felt weird for it to be sitting here after the nightmares. Though Crash planned on trying to ignoring it all and relaxing, and above all else keep the Captain from waking Amelia for a bit.
