Data mining

The inside of a shelter was a single, circle shaped room around 10 cubicmeter in area, and 6 meters in height. The inside of the building was pitch dark, thanks to a protective layer sandwiched between the inner and outer walls. Of course, there are some forces, that even a shelter cannot defend against, as it was evident by the sight that greeted both of the explorers the moment they passed through the inner entrance, followed by the cargo drone, which in the moment was nothing more now than an overengineered flashlight.

The first and most noticable thing was a strange four armed skeleton with a dense and strong build sitting in the opposite end of the room, it's back against the wall, holding a black, globe shaped object made out of small hexagons, which in turn was hooked up to a white cone laying just a few meters beside the deceased person. The blinking lights on it's side indicated that the device was in working condition, although the LEDs were weak, unable to penetrate the darkness surrounding it, signaling that the contraption was close to it's last breath.

Pressed alongside the wall were various consoles, displays and examination devices, above them a number of metal shelves holding various objects, including weapons, some ammunition, a small sphere with various straight lines on it, and a large number of rocks, probably collected from the surface of this celestial body, as their color indicated it.

The room was a huge mess with pieces of metal, broken glass and torn wiring taking up a good amount of space on the floor, alongside with a mass of cables layed down exiting from the various equipment, all ending up in the white cone. Intrigued by it's nature, the captain stepped closer to it, noticing a fading string of letters and numbers reading TQ-73.

-Turqoise 73 - commented the captain - a stable and long lasting, but uncommon fission material. It is commonly used as fuel in most starships, or at least it was before the advent of Dual Wave Dark Energy reactors. If I'm correct and I'm rarely not, this is a miniaturized generator, responsible for keeping all these devices alive.

-You certainly know one thing or another - commented Dr. Ming - I doesn't even know what are these things are. I maybe have a slight suspicion about some of them, but couldn't wrap my head around the rest.

-To me they seem like different kinds of workbenches. Before the advancement of nanotechnology, most of the components required their own crafting stations, depending on their nature like chemical, mechanic, biological.... modern fabricators are now capable of handling all of this within one system. Huh, it's like we are in a museum. Anyway, we should probably recover the homing signal, alongside as much data as we can carry.... Yeah, Ming would you mind accessing that console next tou you? It seems like that's the shelter's mainframe. Just touch it anywhere on the screen. In the meantime I'll look around, and see if I can salvage anything.

With these words, the captain kneeled down to the skeleton, slowly and carefully beginning to move away it's fingers one-by-one from the globe that was in it's ghastly clutches. It only took two minutes to get the object, which turned out to be a data-storage device, probably carrying the information they needed to locate the final resting place of the officer's crashed ship. Natra looked for a port in the device, when he was suddenly interrupted by Dr. Ming, who was still trying to use the console. Her problem become clear the moment Natra looked to the screen, as the computer was asking for a password, in order to access it's contents.

Quickly turning to the problem, the captain ordered Ming to look at the bones in the hopes of finding something unusual, while he began to work his magic on the mainframe. Because of it's age, the weaknesses of these types of systems were widely known, meaning that even a child with minimal knowledge could crack these. First Natra opened the side of the mainframe, following that by severing the connection between the data-crystal storage and main processing board, only to plug both of them into his master control device. This way, he could now see the dialogue between the two units, as the processing board asked the storage for a copy of the password which was granted, and now displayed on the screen of Natra's handheld console.

Turning off the computer again, the captain restored the systems back to their original form, and after a quick reboot, he managed to access the files stored there. The amount of data that was stored on the mainframe was amazing. Research notes, journal entries, scans, and a bunch of schematics depicting devices that even he didn't recognize. Yet, there was something else that caught his attention. It was a folder titled "Signal", and opening it revealed a document with very high anti-tampering protection. The document itself was a long string of letters, numbers, and symbols, which was recognized as the thing they came here for. But then what was on the black globe? Or better yet, what was it?

It wasn't a mystery for long, as the last entries of the left behind journal revealed it's true nature, making the captain more curious. The mistery device was holding nothing more, than an Alpha-core, one of the best A.I.-s in terms of intelligence.

The system used by the Empire to the categorization of an A.I. was very simple. They were ranked by letters first, then a number after them indicating it's position within the rank, ranging from 1 to 5 with the higher numbers marking the smarter ones.

On the lower end one could find the Gamma-cores, the most simplest form of an artificial intelligence. Their level 5 variants were usually placed in the roles of assistants or servant droids. They were smart and highly functioning, however very unflexible without real consciousness or free will.

A step-up from a Gamma is a Beta-core. They still lacked free will and consciousness, but were smarter and faster than thier lower piers. They were given a high amount of flexibility, making them a go-to, when one was shopping for A.I.-s specifically used in ships. For example the famous vessel Godstep still operates with a Level 3 Beta, while most modern ships are using Level 5-s, including the Vanguard. Still they were not perfect, and for more demanding operations, such as space-battles or for a flight in deep space one still needed a full crew.

Alpha-s were what someone would call a true artificial intelligence. They had personalities formed on their own, alongside consciousness, free will, and thoughts. They usually inhabited custom mechanical bodies, often formed after the looks of an already existing species, and were welcomed in the Empire. So far the liberal policies adopted in regards of A.I.-s managed to prevent major uprisings, although some laws prohibit them from drastically increasing thier numbers, and most systems still required them to register into a special database.

But what was it doing here without a body? Or was it that sphere?

Downloading everything he could find, the captain quickly rummaged through the piles of scrap, determined to find answers, which came very soon.

A humanoid body, made out of metal was lying in front of one of the crafting stations. It was four meters tall with elongated limbs and a head ending in metal antlers. The surface texture of the body was metallic with black coloring, with a very familiar red emblem on the right side of it's chest.

The damage to it was obvious, as more than half of it's head was missing alongside a good chunk of it's A.I. slot. How did the storage survived was a complete mystery, which would never be answered as far as the captain cared. Now that this mission was mostly complete, the only thing he wanted to do, is to prepare the last voyage of the late Officer Levon.

He signaled to Dr. Ming - who was just about to close her investigation without any results- and after pocketing a few items from the shelves, stepped out of the door carrying with himself the sphere and the broken body of the android, and the late officer Levon. Their mission here was approaching it's end with only a small, but sad objective remaining.