Jacob had to pause. He was pretty sure the AI had just taken a dig at the U.S. for not adopting the metric system. Honestly, it was probably justified. The whole imperial units of measure were dumb. He had grown up learning them in school, and he couldn’t even recall half of them. Like, how long was a mile in feet?

  He shook his head. Those were thoughts for another time. “Melody, please have the drones repair themselves and get started on the fabrication center.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot carry out those orders,” Melody said in a flat tone.

  Jacob sighed. “Why? No, wait,” he held up his hand. “Let me guess. The information on how to do that was in your missing archives?”

  “No, Captain. I could give the units their orders, and they would attempt to carry them out. The drones are perfectly capable of the order you requested, if they were in peak condition. With their systems being degraded as far as they are, they would only further damage themselves. Manual intervention is needed to repair them before operations can proceed.”

  “Can you handle the manual portion?” Jacob asked, realizing he probably already knew the answer since the AI rejected the order.

  “I am capable of moving the units, but my programming prevents me from doing any direct repairs. I can only provide the units with an order from a qualified crew member.”

  Jacob’s eyes widened slightly, and he finally thought he caught the AI in a lie. “If that’s the case, how did you order the science thingy that came and got me?”

  “Are you referring to the science drone that brought you aboard?” Melody asked.

  Jacob nodded enthusiastically. “What else would I be referring to?”

  “When the ship is not under combat alert or underway, part of my duties include specimen collection. That is how I was able to command the science drones.”

  That sounded feasible, but Jacob didn’t entirely trust the AI. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about that, so he decided to drop the questions for now. He suspected that if he didn’t get repairs moving, something was going to fail, and it would be lights out for him. Maybe even permanently.

  “You said they would need to be operated manually. I assume I would have to do that then?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  An odd-tracked robot seemed to build itself within Jacob’s digital space. The thing had certainly seen better days. One of the tracks was missing completely, and the other looked to be half gone, with wires protruding from whatever material made up the tracks. It wasn’t black, so he assumed it wasn’t rubber, but he could be wrong. One of the arms on the upper portion was broken as well, and hanging by a tangle of wires as it dangled against the ground. A cluster of lenses or cameras poked out of the top of the unit, the lights within them flickering fitfully as if the thing could die at any moment.

  “Um… Are you sure this one is even worth fixing?” Jacob asked as he looked at the unit.

  “This one is the least damaged of the two. The other is immobile,” Melody helpfully provided.

  “What the hell did I get myself into?” Jacob muttered under his breath. With no other option, he turned to the floating orb of light that represented the AI. “So, are you going to guide me on how to fix it, or do I have to figure it out myself?”

  “I have the knowledge and could guide you, but that would be inefficient. A better way would be to provide you with the necessary data to carry out the task.”

  “Like with the language?” Jacob asked hesitantly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to experience that sort of pain again anytime soon. “I think I’ll pass. It did not feel good to have knowledge shoved into my mind.”

  “Your fear is illogical, Captain. The data transfer is painless.”

  “I beg to differ,” Jacob said as he stared at the broken drone.

  Melody was silent for a bit, maybe searching its databanks for an answer. When it dragged on a bit too long, Jacob got worried. He may not trust the AI, but he definitely needed it if he wanted to live.

  “Melody?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Why did you go silent?”

  “I was attempting to find a solution to the dilemma you presented me with.”

  “What dilemma?”

  “My programming states that I must protect the crew, but that I must also carry out my directive as quickly and efficiently as possible. Because you have stated that the data transfer causes you pain, I must find an alternative solution that is more efficient than passing an unqualified individual such as yourself directions and hoping for the best, as you humans like to say.”

  Wow! Not only had the AI shit on Jacob’s capabilities with that response, but it also shit on humanity as a whole.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jacob replied, hoping to get the reticent computer to move forward.

  “You are mistaken, Captain. I estimate that it would take you three Earth years to repair one drone with me guiding you.”

  Jacob chuckled nervously. “I’m sure your estimates are off. How could it take that long to repair one drone?”

  “My estimates are accurate, Captain. Only qualified individuals are allowed to do manually assisted maintenance tasks. To train you properly would take two years and eleven months, and I have estimated that the drone repair would take a month.”

  Jacob rubbed his head in annoyance. Of course, the stupid AI was a stickler for rules.

  He glanced back at the flickering lights in the drone’s eyes. He wasn’t certain, but he could swear the light looked slightly dimmer than it had before. He doubted he had more than a week, let alone a month, to fix the dumb thing.

  “Fine,” he said. “Give me whatever engineering information I need. Not just for the drone, but for everything. If I’m going to do this, I only want to have to do it once.”

  Melody gave no warning; it simply shoved the data into his mind. The pain that shot through his head was ten times worse than before, and when he finally regained his senses, he found himself lying on the floor, digital tears and drool pooling below him.

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  As soon as that realization hit him, the liquids vanished, and he stood up, feeling slightly wrung out.

  Jacob picked at his memories and found that he now knew exactly how to operate the drones, as well as a whole host of other ship systems. He still didn’t understand the underlying technology behind most of them, but he didn’t need that knowledge to fix something. He assumed that the more in-depth knowledge was either not in the data packet or that Melody didn’t have it to give him.

  He could ask about it, but that last memory implant had him shying away from wanting to know.

  After picking himself up off the ground, Jacob stepped up to the image of the robot within his digital prison and placed his hand on it as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was looking out through the sensors of the drone.

  He knew that would happen thanks to the info packet, but the data didn’t mention what it would feel like. It was a weird sensation. It felt like he had a broken arm, a broken leg, eyes that could barely focus, and he was tired. So tired.

  Jacob assumed that the last one was due to the failing power supply on the unit.

  “Excellent work, Captain. According to my existing data logs, it can take some technicians days or weeks to successfully merge with a drone, but you did it on the first try with a damaged unit.”

  “Thanks,” Jacob responded flatly. “Can you provide me with a map of where I can locate a working power supply? The one in this unit appears to be damaged or nearly out of power.”

  A helpful line popped up, leading off into the dark bowels of the ship. It reminded Jacob of those augmented reality glasses that tech companies back on Earth kept trying to make happen. He tried a pair out at some convention once, and while neat, they weren’t worth the cost.

  Jacob tried to get the unit to move forward, but it wasn’t going very well. The drone instantly started shifting toward the side with the broken tread.

  Jacob sighed. He had his work cut out for him. Before he got too far, a thought struck him. “Melody, couldn’t you have moved the drones yourself?”

  “I can only give them general commands to go to certain parts of the ship, Captain. With some effort, I might be able to get them near their target, but there is a risk of them damaging themselves even further. That is why one of the drones is stuck, and the one you are in is in such rough shape. My efforts to get them to the bridge nearly rendered all the maintenance drones inoperable. They simply aren’t equipped to handle complex commands outside their scope of work. Since there is only one functioning drone left that isn’t stuck, I determined that continuing might render any attempts at repair impossible, so I stopped and waited until a biological operator could do the work.”

  Jacob thought the damage had more to do with the AI simply not understanding the drone’s limitations, but he kept that thought to himself. He also didn’t miss the AI using the word ‘biological’ instead of human. He suspected the damaged AI wasn’t picky about who could help it.

  After an hour of repeatedly shimmying forward, then lifting his broken side with his good arm to turn himself so he could do it all again, he finally reached the end of the projected line. The drone it was pointing to had been partially crushed under a falling beam of metal.

  Luckily, the main chassis area was undamaged and unburied. Jacob reached out with his good robot arm and ejected the power core from the crushed unit. The thing looked like a battery that you might put in a TV remote, only ten times larger, and with a whole lot of electronic wizardry encasing it.

  Jacob really wished he knew how they were made. A power supply like that could change the entire world.

  He gently pried it from the dead machine and held it up in triumph. Then he realized he had a problem. He only had one arm. He looked at the damaged unit in front of him, but both its arms were little more than scrap metal.

  Jacob sighed and set the power core down on the floor gently. Then he reached up to his own chest, but stopped and searched his newfound memories. One thing Melody had failed to mention was that the implanted memories weren’t like his own. He had the knowledge, but it wasn’t like he had suddenly spent years being an engineer. He had to actively search for the information he wanted. After spending a few minutes fruitlessly digging through the new data, he decided to ask.

  “Melody, how long can a maintenance drone remain active if its core is ejected?”

  “As a safety feature, it would power down immediately.”

  “Of course, it would,” Jacob grumbled. “Melody, I need a map to the other operational drone.”

  A new line appeared, and it curved back the way he came.

  Frustration bubbled up from within him, but then he glanced down at the broken drone. He tilted the robot’s head and chuckled. No sound came from the damaged machine’s audio processor, but if it had, he would have sounded demented. Jacob didn’t care. The partially crushed drone had a pair of perfectly good tracks.

  It was the first good thing that had happened to him since he woke up.

  After tucking the power core out of the way so it was safe from damage, Jacob got to work removing the tracks from the dead unit. At first, he tried to be gentle about it, but he quickly realized how futile that was.

  After some furious swearing, he took a step back and assessed his options. Luckily, his good arm contained a laser cutter.

  It wouldn’t be Jacob’s luck if it had worked flawlessly from the get-go. The beam was intermittent and weak, but he made it work and eventually cut through the part that held the front wheel to the dead unit’s chassis. From there, it was easy to remove the track.

  Getting it on was relatively straightforward. He retracted the tightening wheel, slipped the belt over the other wheels rather awkwardly, then adjusted the slack so it wouldn’t fall off. That was good enough, and he could have stopped there, but he didn’t want to make a second trip over here for nothing, so he powered up the quickly fading laser and did it again.

  Jacob was gambling that the time saved by having two tracks that were in good condition would be worth the fading power, but he wouldn’t know if the gamble paid off until he made it to the other unit.

  The second track was pulled off and stuck on in record time, and Jacob spun the unit around. He picked up the power core and held it carefully as he pushed as much speed as he could through the failing maintenance drone.

  “Melody, provide me a range from my target, please.”

  A number popped up above the line, and Jacob watched it slowly shrink as he trundled along. He was not going as fast as he had hoped.

  About halfway to the other unit, his drive wheels started to stutter intermittently. He searched his memory for a cause and found it was most likely from insufficient power getting to the motors.

  Jacob set the core down in a little pocket on his unit and shut the arm servos down to try and save power. That got him another quarter of the way to his destination before the tracks started to stall again.

  Panicking, Jacob shut down all nonessential systems aboard the drone and continued on. He could see the other robot now, and it was indeed in worse condition. Both of its tracks were missing, and it had gotten stuck in a broken section of the floor with its drive wheels, which were not designed to move the heavy machine without tracks.

  He was twenty feet from the unit when his motors stalled out again. Jacob tried everything he could think of to get them moving once more, but the only system still draining power was the sensors.

  Then he got an idea. “Melody, can you bring up the other unit for me?”

  “Yes, Captain, but it will not be able to make it to you.”

  “It won’t have to,” he said. “I plan on controlling both units.”

  “I would advise against that, Captain. Your human mind is not evolved enough to handle the strain.”

  We’ll see about that.

  “Just bring it up.”

  “The unit is waiting for a connection,” Melody replied.

  Jacob was pretty sure he heard a hint of skepticism in the AI’s tone, but that could just be him projecting. He popped out of the mobile unit and had to blink and adjust to being human again for a moment before he walked over and placed a hand on both units simultaneously.

  It was not a comfortable sensation. At first, he was seeing double, and it felt like his head was about to split apart, but he quickly cut the power to the mobile unit’s sensor cluster and guided it forward by watching it through the other unit.

  Inch by agonizing inch, he managed to push the drone closer to his target, aware that the power on the stuck unit was dangerously low as well. It was more awkward and nerve-wracking than he realized, but he eventually crashed into the immobile unit. It was a gentle crash, but it got him what he needed. He reached out and ejected the core from the mobile unit and put the new one in. Then he pulled his mind from the immobile unit and hopped back into the other one to reboot all of its systems.

  It had worked.

  “That was very impressive, Captain,” Melody praised him.

  “I guess my human mind is more evolved than you thought,” he replied smugly while barely managing to remain standing.

  Melody didn’t respond, and Jacob didn’t bother waiting for one. The first step was complete, but he had a lot of work ahead of him before he no longer felt an executioner’s axe hanging over his head.