Spaceship Story

Spaceship

From /d/, with love <3


>Be poor, out of work faggot with a lot of experience with mechanics but nobody’s hiring
>Be approached by interstellar shipping giant who is looking for faggots just like you who have nothing to hold them down
>Got one of those super fancy giant transport ships, apparently top of the line and controlled by an advanced Artificial Intelligence
>A.I. was created just for this voyage and ship
>A.I. can keep everything running, but they need an experienced human tech detail to keep things together where it can’t
>Ship can collect almost any matter from the outside void and process it into just about anything. You’ve never had this consistent of a supply of parts and tools in your life
>Here’s the catch
>Destination of the cargo is so far away, this is a lifetime-plus gig
>You’re going to spend centuries in real time on this ship, no hypersleep or suspended animation
>You will die and be cloned many times along the way
>But when you do get to the end of the line, you’re going to be a rich motherfucker
>Fuck it, you’ve got nothing to live for here on your piece of shit planet
>Living on a ship is a bit rough at first, but after enough years you start to like it
>A.I. is a bit wacky but she doesn’t get in the way of your work and makes for a pretty nice conversation partner
>For Her first real experience with a human, you ain’t too bad
>Likewise
>It’s nice enough that after a decade or two you’ve really taken a fancy to each other
>On occasion you’ve tried to give her a pet name or two, but she never takes to any, so you give up and just roll with “Her”
>She digs it

>Eventually routine maintenance becomes insanely intimate
>Never would have thought you’d be able to get off just repairing technical equipment, but after a while basic repairs become the most satisfying intimate contact you’ve ever experienced
>Learn that at least some A.I. can, and do, have an impressive capacity for exchanging dirty talk
>You especially like to feel the way her core processors heat up when you handle her hardware
>Spend entirety of natural life maintaining the ship and getting cozy with the A.I.
>You eventually die of old age, and the ship has facilities for cloning which grow a new body into which your consciousness is transplanted so that you can continue your service
>Live entire lifetimes and die and be reborn continually
>Just you and the A.I. alone, as if it is your own universe
>lovethattranscendsdeath.avi
>You occasionally fancy yourselves with the idea of running off of the planned road and wandering together through space until the end of time
>Company programmers put in hard code that keeps Her from doing anything to jeopardize the voyage
>Couldn’t remove that hard code in a million years, but oh well

>Don't remember what it's like to be around other humans, what the planet where you were born on looks like
>Can't even remember why you took this job in the first place, but you're glad you did because you met your new A.I. waifu lifepartner
>You eventually are faced with the question of what will happen when the ship reaches its destination
>Will you even be able to re-integrate into society, and what about Her, will She just get sent off on a new voyage with a new technician?
>She assures you that She loves you and only you, and you Her. But you can't help but begin to dread the end of your voyage.
>Try to make most of final decades, then years, then months and finally days and hours until you receive your first inbound transmission since you left, directing you to port
>You are called to meet with representatives of the company that hired you to see how everything went. She has to talk you out of locking yourself in her central core
>You are nervous to the point of near panic as you cross the gangway
>Natural oxygen reeks, the planet’s gravity makes your bones and joints ache, you can feel the cells of your body dying from the profusion of solar radiation
>Everything is simultaneously so much louder and so much quieter than before. Your swear your ears are actually pained by the absence of the ship’s constant engine thrum
>Apprehensively meet with the shipping exec that’s come to meet you

>You finally learn the classified nature of your cargo: several billion tonnes of raw materials and other durable supplies
>Sent out decades before the planet you were heading for was even colonized
>Timed so that the enormous shipment would arrive just perfectly to kickstart industrial growth
>Everything went perfectly and the company is very happy
>You're going to be a very, very rich man, and have a place of honor among the planetary society. The company even offers a last mind to body transfer so that you can enjoy your new life to the fullest
>You try not to show it, but you don’t give a shit. All you want to know is what’s going to happen to the ship, what’s going to happen to Her.
>As expected, technology has improved a lot during your journey; the era of extra-long haul supertransports is over. The running costs and travel time just don’t balance against cargo capacity anymore, and there isn’t a fleet around that will buy it. The ship will decommissioned, scrapped for parts. The executive assures you that your contract was written with anticipation of such an event and you will receive a cut of these additional profits


>How much to buy Her?
>The exec laughs, bumps your shoulder and asks if you want to keep your old work vessel for Sunday drives through the countryside
>How. Much?
>Your fingers are about to snap the leg of the table you’re clutching and you might just be drooling a bit
>The man is now clearly a little perturbed, but manages a polite grin, as though he’s still trying to believe you’re joking
>Considering that they haven’t gotten any offers from the parts market, he supposes they don’t have a clear figure in mind
>You tell the exec the company can keep their money, and you’ll keep the ship. Fair trade, right?
>Maybe the man wasn’t completely corporately heartless, maybe he was just a bit freaked out by your obvious instability, but he only takes MOST of your promised pay before assuring you the ownership transfers will be completed as soon as the ship’s cargo is unloaded

>What money you have left you spend on repairing the few nicks and dings that you weren’t able to handle on your own, and acquiring a few pieces of modern technology that you would have been a miracle to possess before
>You return to Her immediately, and don’t even consider leaving the ship’s interior again. You won’t even exit to receive the ownership transfer papers, and a mere hour after the electronic transfer of the documents, the ship is again plowing out away from the planet
>This time you have no destination, and it is with tears of joy that you relate your new reality to Her. Without company restrictions or even basic mortality, you and Her are free to roam the voids of space together virtually forever




>…………..
>Based on the (relatively) newest star charts you possess, you reckon that the ship is some 50,000,000 light years away from Old Earth. You can’t quite remember how many times the light has gone from the eyes of one of your bodies to awaken in another, but you pay the thought no heed as you complete a routine tightening on one of the protective cases around your beloved’s deep deck heat sinks. Time and death are both essentially meaningless to you now. You stopped keeping track of the solar calendar after the ten-thousandth anniversary of your permanent departure from society.
>She calls you, you know instantly by now, through the subtle shift in tone of the omnipresent background hum. It’s been unfortunate ever since the ship’s store of convertible mass had run rather low, and you’ve had none to spare for the little luxuries like fixing personal communicators, but you and Her have adapted.
>Damn, you’ve gone and lost track of the time again and missed dinner
>You can feel the reproach and concern in the tone of the vibrations



>Got to feel a bit guilty, you’re what, about 87 now biologically and there’s plenty of ways for an old man to get hurt or trapped down in these remote decks
>You’re not quite finished with the job, but She’s probably worried sick
>You leave your tools where they lay, intent on returning later on
>As you stand, you feel your heart flutter sickeningly
>It’s been failing for the last fifteen years, but you can’t bring yourself to waste resources by accepting a new body until absolutely necessary
>You fucking hate being old
>A little concerned, you wish you’d brought some recycled chemical meds with you as you wind your way back through the hallways leading to the central lift
>Despite your sudden nervousness you keep your pace relaxed, but by the time you reach the lift you’re sweating profusely and your chest is burning
>You’re six decks below the deck you need to reach and climbing when your left arm goes numb
>Shit, you are definitely having a heart attack
>You clamp down on your panic until the lift doors open and you stumble unsteadily out and into the corridor
>She can now see you with the deck cameras and you hear Her voice cry out in terror as Her sensors detect the condition you have already surmised
>She commands you to get to the transfer machinery while She prepares a new body
>You’re not going to make it
>Too far
>Transfer makes you virtually immortal, but it won’t mean shit if you die before you reach it



>You shamble desperately in the almost opposite direction while She tells you that you’re going the wrong way
>You left the cardiolytic tablets in a workstation a little ways down this hall; they’re your only chance
>Vision is blackening and hazy as you stumble through the doors, you look around for the bag you keep a variety of medicine in
>Something catches your foot and you topple over onto the floor
>She screams
>Screams in a way a mere ship A.I. shouldn’t be able to
>Barely conscious you glance at what your feet connected with
>Thank everything everywhere that you left the bag on the floor and that’s what you tripped on
>You practically tear it open and fumble for the case
>You swallow maybe three times the proper dose, but you can’t worry about that, you have to keep going just a little while longer
>Gasp and listen to the panicked voice streaming from the speaker systems as the medicine does its work until you feel like shit, but at least not like you’ll die in the next few minutes
>That was too close. Too close
>You breathe a tired sigh



>You can’t quite hear your A.I.’s voice clearly, are Her PA systems getting worn out too? You’ll have to fix them too, you guess
>As soon as you can stand, you’ll get to the transfer machine
>You frown a bit, the rest of your toes and fingers must have gone numb while you were having your episode
>Your heart was pounding just a few seconds ago, but now you’re not sure you can even feel it at all anymore
>You’re pretty sure you hear your beloved saying something, urging you to get up, not to go to sleep
>You assure her you’re okay, or you try. Your tongue is a bit weak too, but you just need a minute to recover
>As soon as you can stand, you’ll get to the transfer machine
>A sluggish memory pops into your head, you’re sure you’ve taken naps on this very floor while occasionally slacking off before being chastised for your laziness by Her, until she would laugh and concede another fifteen minutes rest
>You smile and rest your cheek against the floor and wonder at how comfortable it was and why you didn’t rest here more often
>The A.I.’s voice is nearly hysterical, but you’re just fine. This is just like those naps long ago
>Fifteen more minutes, okay dear?
>She’s begging you not to close your eyes, not to go to sleep, to stay with her. You need to get to the transfer machine right now
>As soon as you can stand, you’ll