I walked up the stairs and felt a rush of relief that the blast doors were still open, and I was able to move past them. I turned and gently pushed the panel back into place to hide the entrance, and then turned to look around the weapons systems room, I let out a sigh at the sight.

"The ship already had so much damage, and now I have to add an engine to the list of shit that needs repairing or replacing."

I eventually found my way up to the top floor and found Brendan sitting on the deck with his back resting against the blast doors blocking him from accessing the bridge. I waved to him as I approached. He smiled and waved back before letting out a sigh and tossing his terminal device on the ground next to him.

"Well, she is officially dead, until a brand-new engine can be built and installed." he sadly said.

"Ah, it will be fine, don't look so down, now that I have disconnected from the ship I can just use my HUD's radio to call up the orbital station and have them start making one."

"You can't"

I frowned and looked at him with a bit of confusion before turning to look at my HUD, after fiddling with it for a bit and finding the thing dead as a doornail I turned back to Brendan.

"What do you mean I can't? Why isn't it working?"

Our HUD's use the ships, stations or nearest radio beacons to operate on what you would call an internet level, with the ship dead, our radios have no power to transmit so they are useless to us. However, there is a bright side.

"What's the bright side?" I asked slowly.

"Uh, well the system doesn't require the ship to work, or people would die of starvation and stuff, making the uplink life pods kinda pointless."

"We can still disconnect" I said, interrupting him.

"Yes, we can still disconnect and report the issue, you would disconnect to your body over there on the station and be able to organise a tug boat to come pull this… well I guess it would be classified as a derelict ship now, into your dry dock so you can perform repairs, and you know… rescue my ass." he chuckled for a bit before looking up at me sheepishly.

"Why can't you disconnect and connect to a new body somewhere else… why does your ass need saving?" I asked curiously.

"Uh, well, it's because my consciousness is stored in this ship, if I disconnect the only place it can reconnect is back here. It's why a lot of ships have life banks that they eject when the ships go down, so people don't get trapped in an endless void of nothing slowly driving them insane. Instead, after a lot of research and a bit of help from my clan the life banks were invented and when you uplink to them in these sorts of situations, you end up in a sort of day spa. NPCs bring you food, do massages, fetch alcohol, you can also watch movies, play video or board games, even sports are an option, whatever you want. As for the life banks, they are programmed to sort of drift towards the nearest gate and then once in range they transfer their data banks to a life bank receiver on the selected home station of the ship's Captain. Unless, you know, they are rescued by another ship or the enemy catches and imprisons them.

He made a blah face and then laughed. He then looked around himself at all the damage the ship was displaying for a minute before focusing back on me.

"I think I will disconnect, take a shower, get some food in me, once you disconnect you will be able to send a letter to me through the orbital station, and I'll log back in, just make sure you do that after you rescue the ship." He chuckled.

I gave him a soft smile and nodded my head, showing I definitely would, a second later he slumped over like he had fallen asleep. His body slowly slid to the left until it was lying on the ground.

"Is that what we look like when we log out? Makes you wonder what they do with our discarded bodies that we leave behind on military ships or planets after we transfer to another posting." I mumbled as I sat down near Brendan and took one last look around the hallway before thinking, 'Disconnect' I swear I felt my body slump before I found myself standing in my uplink pod. I quickly moved around the arm and exited the pod, as I did, I nearly walked into a woman that was glaring at me.

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"It's about damn time! I have been waiting three hours for you to get the hell out of my pod, next time find your own damn pod and don't mess with someone's lucky pod again!" She all but yelled as she shoved past me and entered the uplink pod.

"The hell was that about?" I mumbled as I stumbled a few feet away.

I saw some guy I didn't recognise walking towards me, laughing his handsome face off.

"You stole Clara's pod, she will remember that, you might want to sleep with an eye open for a few weeks" he told me as he chuckled.

"The pods are not individually owned, they are for anyone to use." I replied as I gave him a weird look.

"Well, yea, but everyone got tired of wandering around looking for an empty pod, so we put these sheets up next to the pods and people selected the times they wanted to use them, that way they would not have to go looking for an empty pod-"

"Because one should be waiting for them already" I finished for him as I sighed and looked at the piece of paper next to the pods' door. I let out a sigh as I read the first and only name on the paper. 'CLARA MACKENZIE: Noon till Midnight' I turned back to look at the man as I frowned.

"This was not here when I entered the pod, so she can't be mad at me for still using it when she decided to use it." I stated simply as I turned to walk away.

"Oh, but she can, and she will be, she was in a rush so she brushed you off, but when she comes out she is going to be as mad as a wet cat in a sack. Plus, she has this chip on her shoulder and struts around like she is all that because her dad is the clan leader's adviser." he stated as he shrugged, still watching me.

I felt a smile tug at the corner of my lips as I turned back to look at the man and slowly processed what he said. Finally coming up with a way to give him a little clue as to who I was.

"Well, when she gets out and wants to take her revenge, tell her she can find me in the command room of the Blossoming Terranova Guild." with that I turned and waved at him as I walked off.

I hurried through the guild to the command office and quickly moved to the command table. I had questions and I needed a tug boat to rescue my personal ship. However, most of that died on my lips when I entered the command room and found my uncles, aunts, and a few others standing around the map like vultures talking about salvage rights on a derelict ship.

"I don't think we should salvage it, it came through the gate and blossom says it has Admin Access, so there has to be someone important on board."

"Nonsense it is a derelict, dead, and scans show it doesn't even have an engine. Besides, no one has even responded to hails. I say we salvage it."

"But it came through damaged, maybe the radio is damaged, and they can't call for help."

"Yea, and maybe it's an army hell-bent on seizing any ship that goes near it so it can invade and seize control of our castle!"

"Jeez, Edgar, we are in the twenty-first century now, and in space! Are you okay?"

What? Oh, right, well I say we blow it up just to be sure."

"Will all of you just relax, are you forgetting the reward we got for completing that Guild Level up mission, allowing us to advance to level 2, was an AI station core. Let's just ask Blossom what our options are."

I froze and curiously watched. One of the things I wanted to know was how the guild got to level 3, at this point I was also fairly sure no one had noticed me yet.

"Alright, alright, Blossom, what can you tell us about this derelict ship and what are the best options for dealing with it?" My uncle asked as he turned to look at the command table.

My mouth fell open as a digital Japanese looking woman wearing a traditional kimono appeared standing on the edge of the table. Her appearance morphed until she looked like a shield maiden from the Viking era, before morphing again, this time it settled on a young woman in shorts and a tank top with thongs on her feet.

"She is still having trouble with her look, I thought you had gotten that solved, Joseph?"

"What? No, I said I had narrowed it down to four options, I'm trying to get her to settle on the Scottish one, but she keeps bucking it."

The woman waved off Joseph's reply as she made a dismissive sound and turned back to facing Blossom.

"Tell us, Blossom, we don't have all day."

"G'day council, I have finished analysing the derelict ship and have already found the necessary licences and blueprints required to build a tug boat to collect the ship, as well as the blueprint to begin its repairs." She said with an Australian accent.

She then turned to face me and bowed almost ninety degrees. As her appearance morphed back to the Japanese woman, and she spoke with a Japanese accent.

"I am the orbital station AI core, Blossom. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu, I am happy to greet and welcome the Guild Mistress, and rightful owner of the disputed derelict ship, home."

The old crone who had been having a go at Joseph spun around, and suddenly glared at me as she started screaming.

"How dare you interrupt the Blossoming Terranova Guild Council's meeting! You will be severely punished, also you will be severely punished for stealing the rightful property of the Blossoming Terranova guild! Now tell me quickly, who are you?"

I blinked slowly before turning my head to look at Joseph, my hand raised up, and my thumb pointed at the old crone as I asked.

"Who is the crazy woman?"

I saw him chuckle and mouth crazy woman at her before he turned to me to respond.

"Guild and Clan Mistress Kenna Mackenzie I welcome you back as well, this crazy woman, as you put it, is Vanessa English the representative of the England clan, and holds a seat on your council."

I saw her face pale slightly as she straightened her back, I could have sworn she almost looked like she wanted to turn away and pretend she wasn't involved, but she stood her ground and faced me. My respect for her increased slightly, and I suppose I was actually interrupting their meeting, had I been anyone else she would have been in the right to respond like that. Therefore, I put the entire thing out of my mind and instead focused on the AI standing on my command table.

"Alright, so who is this? How did we get her? And how did the guild reach level 3?" I asked curiously.

"Uh, well, that is a bit of a long story."

"I have time, I do have time, right, Blossom?"

The little AI Morphed again, turning into someone that looked almost like myself, wearing jeans and a shirt and nodded her head and spoke with a Scottish accent.

"Aye, Guild Mistress, the tug boat will take twelve hours to construct on the level 2 dry dock."

I nodded my head to the little AI and then looked at my HUD, sending off a quick message to Brendan letting him know the tug boat will be ready in twelve hours, and then I'll come rescue his ass. Once I had finished that, I turned back to Joseph. "I have time," I said simply.

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