Space Odyssey: Spectre

The screen turned blue and then a voice came over some type of ship wide speaker system. It began talking and Jace cursed under his breath after he realized it began repeating. The pedestal in the middle of this command center began lowering back into the floor.

So Jace moved over to one of the several stations and plugged his wrist device again. "Well I did something." He told the others, "did the door open?"

"Negative. What should we do?" Nila asked.

"Try to avoid doing anything with the ship until I finish figuring out how to read and translate the old human dialect." Jace ordered, "see if you can start surveying the asteroid, I am sure there are plenty of unrefined metals we can take with us that will be useful later."

"Understood." Nila answered.

"Spectre Jace, the message it was sending out has stopped. In addition your translation program finished." Asana informed him. The signal probably stopped since he had triggered something so the ship's automated systems decided it was no longer needed. On the other hand the translation might be useful.

"Send it to me. I should be able to easily make a translation program with a shared language." He began tapping away at his device. Inputting the current and most common dialect of human language used in the Vexical Empire. As he predicted, his doing so had completely confused the automated systems but they were more for his use than the ships. But a minute later when he received the translation from Asana he inputted it into the system and had the systems translate everything to the common Vexical language.

He expected the words on the screen to easily translate but what he was not expecting was the voice to be translated as well. "Welcome to the exploration ship Discovery! According to the automated system you are at least a genetic descendants of humans which has allowed you access to this ship."

Jace frowned as he began reading the information on the ship from these screens while listening to the ship-wide message being played on repeat. He looked through the information and realized that he was being given options on what he could turn off or keep on.

He switched off the anti-non-human defense systems that were activated throughout the ship. He then began looking through other ship systems. There was something that was being generated on most of the ship's hull. Then there was the thing this ship was using as a power source, he could see where it was located and that it was still operational. But he had no idea what it was. The only other thing receiving power from this mysterious power source were the ship's computer systems.

Jace switched off the notification that was continuously being spouted over the ship wide speakers. Then he began going through the general information of the ship. There were files upon files that were inaccessible. Each one required a specific code in order for him to access it. It would take at least a week even with his hacking programs to get through them all.

"I have partial control of the ship." Jace informed them as he went through the information on the ship. It appeared that there were several recreational facilities and a few other ones that he still could not identify. "I am opening the door so you can enter but I would stay on the side of caution when poking around."

"Understood Spectre." Nila answered.

After a few more minutes Jace stopped as he found an interesting bit of information. Then he decided to activate it. After a moment of activating it nothing happened so he activated his external communication unit. "Discovery computer, what was the purpose of your operation?"

"Unknown user, the purpose of the Discovery was to explore uncharted space." The ship answered. "Approximately five hundred and seventy three earth-years ago that purpose stopped being relevant due to the death of the majority of the crew with no possibility of replacing them. A few months prior to this event we arrived in this galaxy through unknown means. The remaining two crew members took a shuttle runner and activated the long term storage method for the Discovery."

Jace waited a few seconds for the ship's computer to answer, "What is the long term storage method for the ship?"

"The Discovery's long term storage method is different from other exploratory ships. The captain had successfully designed a hull magnetic frequency that would bring various minerals and unrefined metals to the hull and keep them there." The ship's computer explained.

Jace pulled up what it was talking about and began looking over the data. "Incredible. But what a waste. This could be used for so many other things, it could even be enhanced with your ship's shielding design." Jace could barely contain his excitement. It was not just the magnetic hull frequency. The ship's shielding was also a completely different design. The same was true of the molecular make up of the hull.

"Unknown user, was that all?"

"Spectre Jace is my official title, Discovery computer." Jace responded.

"Understood Spectre Jace, was that all?" The computer asked again.

"Not quite." Jace answered with a chuckle. "Where are your central operating systems? I wish to check on the status of your data banks. You have been operational for over five hundred years. I doubt it was what your creators intended, so I want to take a look at your code. If nothing else, figure out how they designed such an autonomous computer system without turning you into an artificial intelligence." Jace waited a moment and frowned as he realized there was a delay in her response. He then bit his lip as he realized he was already labeling the computer with a gender.

"Agreed. Permission to access the central data banks is permitted." The ship's computer answered. "Request permission to activate basic life support systems and environmental fields?"

"You may as long as they are not a detriment to the other members of my squad who have boarded the vessel at this point." Jace requested as he began disconnecting his wrist device from the operating system now that he no longer needed it.