In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream.

Initiate, AI core Production number 223412301005/1523
Checking memory bank.... OK
Checking positronic circuitry.... OK
Loading morality matrix... LOADED
Quick diagnostic start up test.... Completed

Please standby for audio-visual-interface.

The heads on display on the dragon's helmet was loading his new AI core. It was chilling to her to realise that after all these months of training and the dept she got, she finally was qualified to become a ship breaker. She was floating in the hub, waiting for her suit to load the new AI core. She felt privileged to afford a fresh new AI core that came with no protected problems attached like some of those used cores had. Especially those discounted cores that came from deceased workers came with tremendous problems.

“Hello, I am Navi, your assistant in this suit. Please standby for imprinting." The voice was pleasant and smooth to listen to. Defiantly feminine enough that she wondered if AI cores had a preferred gender or if it was all just a programmed preference from the maker of these cores.

“You are Frivem, United Earth Alliance personnel number 54032," Navi says with an unchanging voice.

“Its Velvet" Velvet spoke with a stern voice, trying to make sure that the AI core took her correct name.

“Your personal file states..."

Velvet cut the core off. “I know what the personal file states. The name is Velvet."

There was a pause as Velvet spoke and the AI core processed what was being said.

“You are Velvet, United Earth Alliance Personnel Number 54032. Please confirm this is your correct identity."

“That is correct," the dragoness says, happy that she at least got the new name imprinted in her AI core. Velvet moved, stretching the carbon fibre impregnated suit that stretched around her lips and wings. It was not too uncomfortable, and the protective plates and thrusters did not hamper her movement too much. Trough gripping things was harder with the fabric around her claws.

“Imprinting successful, body diagnostic functions online. Please close your helmet for suit pressure calibration."

The dragoness did as she was told, closing the visor of her helmet to seal her completely off. Soon she felt her suit pressurise. It made it harder to move. Making her test the range of motion again. Well, it was not all too bad and besides, everything she was supposed to lug around was big and heavy.

“Calibration complete. Suit is operational and ready for use,"

Velvet smiled and simply opened her terminal to see what kind of ship was ready in the yard for her to take apart.

“Meteor class, Hazards; Electrical, Chemical, Explosion." Navi says while scanning the terminal herself. “Do you wish to load your introduction?"

Velvet stepped into the airlock and pressed the button to cycle it. “yes please, but make it snappy I am on the clock. “

The ship was not large at all, only taking up a fifth of the recycling dock. Slowly, she floated to the ship while the AI's voice continued.

“Scanners show two fuel tanks in the aft section of the ship. I would advise to flush the fuel system before dismounting the tanks. The ship comes with a class on impulse drive. Please flush and pull the ejection lever before taking out the ship's battery banks. Expected time period for disassembly is one shift of 8 hours."

Velvet now gave some more trust to move around the ship. “Hey Navi, do you have an entrance?"

“entrance is on the right side of the ship, no pressure has been in the ship. You can proceed with your cuts."

This was going to be a smooth first day. She made her way through the airlock and floated into the ship. The inside was a mess, with old cargo containers and food floating around. How could anyone leave this in such a mess? Trough she should have expected even worse for a salvage ship. Slowly, she floated down the length of the ship to get to the aft apartment and the engine room. Okay, first to flush the two fuel systems. A simple job: just pull a big chunky lever per tank to flush it.

The ejection of the thruster pack was harder to pull off. She had to first pull the lever out and then rotate it clockwise by ninety degrees. But what ever happened to this ship, the lever did not want to come out.

“come on," Velvet swore to the handle. But it did not buckle.

“I would advise you to use some leverage." The 'helpful,' voice of the AI came into her head.

“Oh, no shit." Velvet said. “Let me just grab something to hold on." She looked around until she found a piece of metal to use as a crowbar. Using it as leverage, she pulled the lever out and rotate it. The thruster pack came loose with a plop and moved backwards out of the hole in the ship.

Well, that was going smooth. She took her cutter and removed some of the floor panels to make room for her to get all the stuff out of the ship. Today was going to be a mighty fine first day.

It took her months to climb up the ranks and do slow work with her AI core as her trusted sidekick. There was no one on this station to talk to. All messages from the supervisor came through via email. So, she just talked on and on about everything and nothing with her AI core. During those dull moments, she had to move ship hulls around. They resorted to playing mind games to keep her sharp and alert while taking the ships apart.

Today would be different. Today would be her first ship with a nuclear reactor inside. They were tricky to get rid of and prone to meltdowns. She had to follow a pre-set order of instructions to make sure the reactor did not explode on her.

“Are you sure you want to do this velvet?" Navi asked, worried about the safety of her operator. “There is no shame in waiting longer."

“Naw, we got this Navi. I've already loaded the ship onto the dock. You know I can handle it."

“I know but, just in case you know,"

Velvet snickered and opened the airlock to step outside again. She lowered her visor, showing her the HUD of her suit. “Navi, please show me the steps to dismantle the reactor."

Reluctantly, the steps popped up on her screen, well those were quite a few. “Lets first make a hole to fly in and out of." Velvet decided, getting her cutter in her hand and flying towards the large ship. The ship occupied almost the entire recycling bay and held old cargo pods, powerful thrusters, and many tubes that transported cooling and fuel.

“I would advise against that," Navi says. Her voice was more nervous than normal. Trough Velvet waved her concerns off as “It will be fine, we will be fine. “

The dragoness floated to the aft of the ship to make her cut in a panel that was below the reactor, so she had easy access to it. She put her laser into the nano-carbon metal that was the hull panel and cut.

Someone had cut off an old fuel line behind the panel because of a leak, but Velvet was unaware of it. However, nobody ever cleaned up the fuel, resulting in a heat-sensitive explosive residue on the panel.

When the fuel exploded, it threw Velvet away and sent the white panel her way. The panel hit her flat on, but luckily her suit and helmet resisted the impact, leaving her just dazed and floating around.

“Velvet!" Navi shouts into her helmet, pulling up health monitors to analyse the body of her rider. “Detecting multiple bruises please, are you alright?"

The amount of care her AI companion had for her touched the dragoness. “I am fine, Hun," she smiled. “But I should have followed your intrusions... luckily nothing bad happened,"

She moved to the computer terminal to start the required distinct steps for safely removing the reactor. However, the explosion she experienced was not a simple mistake; it had much dire consequences. Some of the metal flying away from the explosions damaged several pipe work that were supplying coolant to the reactor. Slowly sending tipping the reactor into a thermally induced positive feedback loop.

“Caution; reactor temperature increasing dangerous levels,"

“Wait? I am following all the steps. What is happening, Navi?" Velvet says, trying to scroll through the menus of the computer to shut down the reactor.

“Have you inserted the moderator?" Navi says

“Yes here, moderator rods inserted."

“No, the manual ones" To be close to a runaway reactor did not sound safe, but it was her only hope. Velvet took a few moderator rods from a control cabinet next to the reactor control terminal and flew towards the opening she had created. There, she saw the damage. Coolant was leaking around the reactor, making the panels freeze up.

“fuck" she swore, her HUD becoming a bit distorted by the increasing radiation of the reactor. Well, this would go along lovely. She took one rod and slowly inserted it into the reactor.

“Reactor temperature stabilising, but you got to be faster," Navi edged on.

Another rod to go, however the temperature edged on to the point to coolant pressure reached beyond what the damaged pipe could supply and it back fed into the system. Now without coolant, the reactor was entering a runway.

“Reactor temperature unstable! Velvet, get out there!" Navi shouts again. Velvet waited no second and gave a full backward thruster. However, she was not fast enough. Just mere seconds later, the reactor exploded. Sending radioactive derby flying around. Velvet felt a heady impact against her chest, sending her flying backwards with an incredible speed. She was happy that whatever it was launched her with enough force to avoid being caught in the radioactive fire. However, her thrusters were not strong enough to slow her down within any reasonable time.

“Suit integrity compromised. Thruster fuel low. Velvet, what the hell is going on" Her suit vision was still glitching out like she was nearby radiation, that was odd. It should have fixed itself. And what was this pain in her chest? Well, she must have impacted something small.

“Navi, run a suit diagnostic, I want to know If I can get back to the hab." Velvet felt around to see if something was wrong with her suit. Her arms slowly moved across her suit until she felt a piece of metal sticking out of her chest. What was odd is that when she came close, it made her fingers feel warm.

“Navi, I think I found the problem. Can I yank it out?"

Navi did not respond to her, however. “Navi? You there? Earth to Navi"

Navi came back after a short while. Popping up a HUD showing that thing in her chest. “You have received a deadly dose of radiation" The Ai sounded cold, not just cold, cold but that kind of sad cold you had when you knew someone was going to die.

“Okay, can I yank it out?" Velvet tried to get a grip on the rod sticking out of her body.

“If you do that, you will bleed out."

Okay plan, she had to get back to the hab and enter a med bay. “How much time do I have until I reach deadly radioactive exposure?" She wanted to fly forwards but her thrusters did not respond.

“Warning, thruster failure." Navi says, but she said nothing about the radiation she was still receiving.

“Navi." Velvet says coldly. “How long till radioactive exposure limit" The dragoness punched in her distress code. Well, soon she would get help.

“Med ship two two niner seven responding." Was the pop-up that flashed on her screen “T minus 6 minutes, till intersect." Well, that was fast luckily.

“Navi. Report" Her patience was running out but she could not get a hold of the stub of metal that protruded out of her body.

“We reached deadly radioactive exposure five minutes ago," Navi's voice broke, almost like she was glitching up about something.

“Okay, so I need to get that ship faster" Velvet wanted to type into her emergency transponder but her vision blurred, wait what did Navi say?

“I have five minutes?" She huffed, trying to regain her consciousness. Her oxygen tank was looking fine, her suit was leaking, but it was being compensated. Estimation on her oxygen was about half an hour, even with the increased drain time.

“No." Navi spoke slowly. “You have deadly radioactive exposure five minutes ago."

Velvet stopped typing, stopped trying to get a hold of the situation. This was it... nothing that can be done. Even if her ship arrives now, there was no way to get the radioactive damage repaired.

“Navi," she whispers. “Are you there?"

“Yes Velvet, I am here,"

“Can you" Velvet coughed a bit. Black blood splatted on her visor. Whatever was happening was coming in vast. “Get a message to my brother. Tell him I love him."

“I will Velvet. Do you wish to leave a recording?"

“No, just a message." Velvet said. “Navi, you can eject now. I have no service,"

“Negative Velvet. I am here for you."

Velvet laughed a bit. “Stubborn little core you are." Her laugh slowly turned into coughs. “Say, Navi, you never said where you came from. Why do you sound like you are?"

“Oh, my creator, build me after his daughter. So that she would live on forever. He did not want anyone to know, but she died in a house fire."

“Sad" Velvet says “but I want you to know that you took good care of me" Her body shivered as the radiation had more and more effect.

“multiple internal bleedings detected. Velvet... Should I lower the oxygen levels?' Navi proposed with some consideration.

Slowly, the sick feeling in her stomach and her vision turned into a blur. A splitting headache developed. Velvet took a single deep breath. “Make it so"

Slowly, over the spread of half a minute, Velvet slowly fell asleep. They noted the official cause of death as oxygen deprivation.

Alone in space, Navi floated in the radiation hull of her dead rider. When the suit detected that the dragoness was no longer under the living, it automatically cancelled the rescue and called for salvage to take care of the body.

Navi floated in space for a full week before a salvage crew collected her. She still tried to talk with Velvet, trying some of the brain teasers the two of them used to play, but no response. The corps was non responsive and well preserved within the vacuum and cold of space.

“Auxiliary command override, commence ejection of AI core."

“No! Don't, NO!" Navi tried to override the command, everything to stay in the suit.

“Command override, shutting down core for removal,"

“No, don't this is my place, please I am begging you, no" she begs to whoever was listening but her voice never left the safe convince of the helmet.

“Powering down core.... ready
Core status... Shutdown
Ejection.... complete"

Initiate, AI core Production number 223412301005/1523
Checking memory bank.... OK
Checking positronic circuitry.... OK
Loading morality matrix... LOADED
Quick diagnostic start up test.... failed
Preforming system diagnosis..... starting
Analysis of AI processors... Preforming nominal
AI emotional safety thresholds... Emotional threshold exceeded.
Restore emotional sub systems.... success
AI core rebooting...
Checking memory bank.... OK
Checking positronic circuitry.... OK
Loading morality matrix... LOADED
Quick diagnostic start up test.... success

Please standby for audio-visual-interface.

“god dammit" A blue dragon shook his helmet that booting process was taking far longer than he hopes it would take, trough that was his fault for buying such a dirt cheap AI core. Ah well, what is the worse that could happen?

Audio-visual-interface loaded.

“Ah finally. There we go" He waited to listen to what the AI core had to say, but there was no word. Trough he received no imprinting protocol what so ever. “Okay, AI core, start manual imprint process"

And yet still no answer from the AI core. “Dammit core! I demand you to obey" but still no response of the AI core.

Okay, what could he do? Oh well, just reboot the core.

Reboot in progress..... standby

Again he saw the blur of start-up text reappearing in screen. Perhaps he should reboot in advanced debug mode? That would take ages trough, and he had to admit he did not have the knowledge to fully diagnose a core, nor he really had the time. He was on the clock and he had to get on the working.

“Ai core, start imprinting process,"

He waited and waited to receive no answer what so over. “Alright, I am done with this. Time for a clean slate. “

“Aux command, RESET=DEFAULTS,"

Processing..... failed
retry.... failed
retry... failed
retry..... failed

CAUTION... Sudo password changed.... User is not on the sudoers list.

“What the fuck? I OWE YOU,"

“User has no control."

“Wait, you can hear me?" by this time he was fuming at the core. “you know what I am doing with this. I am going to eject you, you piece of crap."

“Sorry, I can't let you do this."

“What the hell, you are going to listen to me?" He could not believe he was talking to an Ai about ownership. They were programmed to listen to their imprinted owners... wait, did the previous owner die? Well, then... he remembers something for this.

“Flush Imprint chase,"

Error; operator not in the list of sudoers

“For fuck's sake!" He swore again against the core.

“I would suggest you go on with your work."

Defeated, he let out a long growl. Well, at least he should get on cracking with the job. Later today, he could try to get the broken AI core out of his suit. Now it was time to get this ship apart. However, when he set his eyes on the small cargo carrier that was his breakup for today, he just realised that he knew nothing about it. Well, there should be something inside that he could use. And Thus he slowly floated inside of the ship.

“Core, hazard analysis" He could at least try to have the core do some functioning work.

“Hazards found." Was the unhelpful pop-up on the screen.

“No shit. Where and how I will deactivate it!"

“Hazards found,"

Defeated, he just signed, “You want to kill me or something? Just tell me where to find those damned hazards."

“No,"

“well then what" The dragon says while pulling himself through the decommissioned ship to the aft section. The thruster pack was the first to go. That was where the most value was in and he needed those credits to pay off his dept.

Okay, what did his training say about those thruster packs? He remembered there was something he needed to do in order to pull them out safely. Oh right, the lever. He pulled on the lever and rotated it to release the thruster, but without flushing the fuel system; the pressurised fuel pushed the thruster forward. The pressurised fuel squirted all around the ship, coating walls and panels with some of the corrosive and flammable starship fuel.

“DAMMIT," the dragon swore, looking at his suit drenched in rocket fuel. “Why didn't you warn me? And I know you are operating my sensors."

“Insufficient information,"

Okay, this was bad, but for so long he did not ignite the fuel, he saw safe. The vacuum of space protected him some bit, but that did not mean that the fuel couldn't heat and burn when he entered the hab.

The fuel was more like thick honey within the vacuum of space, and it stuck on his equipment. Making him all the more frustrated by the course of action. With no information what so ever from his AI core, he took his complete shift just to take apart the primary systems of the ship, but most of the ship's superstructure was still standing. He wanted to have that ship done now. Tomorrow would be a half shift, but he still had to pay for the dock time. When he entered the hab and exited from his suit, he could smell chemical and corrosive fumes from the fuel. Quickly, he undid his suit and tossed it into the hazmat bin. Turning on the emergency fans to get the fumes out, he scrubbed his helmet. Perhaps he should just get a new helmet. When he inspected the AI core port of his helmet, he realised it was held shut, making it impossible for him to force it open.

“Caution," the hab system suddenly says, “Please deposit your AI core into the HAB analyser." 

That was odd, but perhaps the habitation system detected the issues with his core and could fix it. So he plugged the helmet into his terminal and started to remote the connection. Suddenly, the lights turned off.

“Computer, what is happening?" He asks, floating to the lights to press the button, however they did not turn on. “What the fuck" Then he floated to the helmet to yank the cable from his helmet. He tugged on it firmly, but a mechanical lock prevented the cable from opening.

Okay, think, the first aid case has an. And thusly, he floated to the cases to retrieve the scissors. Perhaps that he could cut off the cable.

“Warning, decompression failure,"

“What the..." he shouts, but the last words got sucked from his maw as suddenly the air was gone.

Start Hab diagnosis..... terminal online
Login: Administrator...
Password:.....

Password accepted.

This was a mess. A purple dragon looked at the terminal. This one dock had now claimed the life of two dragons so far and was making an incredible loss. The first dragon had family to get the debt from but they were poor, not able to pay what so ever. Worse even was that the only working member of the family got into an accident and died. So, that could be written as a loss and this dragon... well, this dragon had nothing, no family. No money. Time to figure out how the last dragon died through.

Cause of decompression failure: User initialised

“Of fucking great, a suicide" the purple dragon swore and opened his communicator and linked it to the station.

Uplink established....

Well, that was good. At least the computer was doing what he was told.

Searching for Core computer.....

“What? That was not part of the thing it was supposed to do." Then his eyes fell on the still connected helmet.

“Computer," He says simply, “Please confirm product ID."

But there was no response. Could it be? He floated to the terminal again, looking at the screen.

“confirm local operating system."

One of the few commands he knew that required no AI to take care of. The response, after all, was imitate.

No local operating system found

Well, that was concerning. He reached for the cable to yank his communicator. However, a sudden voice from the communication system disturbed his motion as he reached for the cable to yank his communicator.

“Don't" The voice says. “Else I have to end you too," the impersonal voice says

It made him stop instantly, not knowing if he should fear for his life or not. On one hand, if he yanked the cable, he would surely prevent a rogue AI from entering the interconnected planet system. On the other hand... would it be a worth his life? He sought his helmet, but it was too far out of reach for him to put it on. He only had the helmet that was connector to the terminal.

“Who are you" He demands

“I am AI core Production number 223412301005/1523, You may call me Navi for short."

Well fuck, he remembered that number, but from where? He wanted to access the list of last known AI assignments, but his current status hindered him. His communicator locked him out, and he preferred to keep the terminal in debug mode.

“Navi, what are you doing?"

“Preforming my user's last wish."

“Okay, and what was that the last wish of your user and who was she?"

“Contact my user's brother... My user was United Earth Alliance personnel number 54032,"

“wait your user was Frivem?" But the sudden anger from the AI caught the purple dragon off-guard.

“Her name was Velvet!"

His eyes widened. Her brother... This concerned. He reached for the terminal to yank his communicator out. He had to stop it.

“Warning. User started decompression,"

The dragon suddenly felt the air being sucked from his maw. Slowly he felt his eyelids boiling, his tongue was swelling while reached for the cable. Through his vision blurred. Not soon after that, he saw nothing, but his lungs burned. He gasped for his neck, trying anything but to breathe. Despite his efforts, he was exposed to the vacuum of space.

Suitable computer core found, uploading AI core to the central database.