After confirming there weren’t any other survivors waiting in ambush, me and Fir began to run through the ship looking for useful things. We returned to the second compartment first.

  Starship compartments were typically sold as a whole unit, with some level of modular customization. A good example of this would be the cockpit, which could be equipped with different control panel models, and there would be docks for a certain number of seats, which could also be replaced with fancier or cheaper ones. However, some things would be impossible to adjust, such as the space the thrusters took in the engine room.

  This compartment was a living space. To the right side (with the cockpit being north) was a sofa that could unfold into a double bed. The mattress looked comfortable, but the design itself was rather spartan. This piece of furniture was one such “module,” securely attached to the ship’s hull, thus preventing it from flying off during space combat.

  Above it, a shelf module with multiple features was installed. There was a minifridge, a holoprojector, a minuscule kitchenette with a microwave oven and a tiny sink, and lastly a row of sturdy magnetic docks to place decorations like figurines. I remember hearing about how absurdly strict the regulations for space-grade figures were from one of my nerdiest high school friends.

  I recognized one of the characters: a slender girl with blue hair, fox ears, and a cyber-ninja-priestess outfit, wielding a sword. I took a moment to check if my friends’ words were true — and indeed, the construction was sturdy, and even though it looked like resin or plastic, the material was as hard as space-grade alloy steel.

  “Mark. Why?” To Fir, however, it must have seemed as if I was looking up the figure’s skirt. I made an awkward smile, knowing the language barrier would never allow me to explain this. I’d just have to swallow my pride. She shook her head slightly and then giggled.

  Opposite, there was a cozy dining room-like space, with two bench-type chairs against the walls and a small table in between. The faux fruit bowl docked at its center was an unexpectedly tasteful decoration for a mercenary combat ship.

  Lastly, mounted on the wall beside the table — opposite the bed— there was a glassy sheet of refractive alloy. I’d seen these in a few of my friends’ houses: they were a way to improve the quality and color depth of cheaper holoprojector models by setting them to emit 2D images onto them. That would make them lose the tri-dimensional depth, but that was a healthy compromise to make when you weren’t planning on moving your head much anyway.

  I opened the minifridge and found a few drinks. Hopefully, this wasn’t the only edible thing on the starship. However, having drunk nothing but recycled tap water recently, I felt relieved holding a can of non-carbonated cola.

  “What?” Fir indicated her curiosity, looking over my shoulder. “Sweet, water.” I explained it as simply as I could. Her eyes sparkled with interest, and I silently promised to let her try it while loading the minifridge’s contents into the cargo bot. There were a couple of other soda flavors, a refillable water bottle, and…

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  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I opened a compartment in the minifridge to find myself face to face with a SpaceCake. Really? Really! The pilot of this starship liked SpaceCakes so much, he kept one beside the bed for easy access? I blame this entire situation on you! I wish you were still alive so you could see how annoying it is to eat nothing but those things!

  “What a Lady-damned coincidence.” I swore and would’ve spit in despise if I wasn’t wearing a helmet. But I stopped myself from ranting any further because Fir looked terribly confused by my mood shift. I took a deep breath, gave her helmet a light pat and moved on.

  Speaking of that, it’s the second time I pat her head. The fact that she hasn’t complained about it makes me worry about whether I’m the weird one for treating her like a cat and she’s been silently tolerating it, or if I just happened to correctly guess what skinship looks like for her people... Either way, I feel like I have been conned into participating into some sort of fursuit subculture.

  We moved on to the storage bay where Fir’s battle with the android had taken place. I began by taking a second look at her. The black-and-white outfit she wore was quite obviously a maid's dress. I couldn’t quite place the origin of them, but I knew it was a tradition from before the Information Age that had been kept alive until this day as a sort of cosplay fetish.

  I vaguely remembered hearing about a dude from my class who broke up with his girlfriend after dropping his entire college fund on a robot maid. I can only wonder how life’s going for him. I hope he didn’t have to sell her. I’d be sad… for the maid.

  Perhaps it was because I majored in robotics engineering, but I tended to hold a lot of sympathy for machines. Especially for cool or adorable ones. Perhaps it began when I drew a cute face on my family’s cleaning robot and treated it like a pet for the rest of my childhood.

  “In the end, you’re just a useless machine?” I quoted what the last words the robot had uttered before losing power. Some oddly dramatic ones. Sentry robots didn’t tend to transmit last words to their enemies in the first place. Even if they did, it’d be something like “Your likeness and location have been uploaded to the [COMPANY NAME] database. Consider your lives forfeit.” I’d seen that a couple of times in movies.

  I checked a few spots until I found some subtle paneling lines on the android′s nape. I had expected some complicated security device like a fingerprint scanner, but it opened after pressing inward as one would with a memory card slot. I found a standard, terminal-sized data port, and a larger-format power plug with a cable that could be pulled from a reel compartment somewhere on the android’s back.

  Perhaps I would be able to access its memory files via my terminal. With some luck, it would automatically offer to install the necessary companion app. However, the real question was whether a mercenary would bother to cipher the data on his personal android... I had a feeling I knew the answer was a yes.

  Putting that aside, I turned to a door opposite the storage bay’s entrance. Its plating was obviously thicker than any other section of the starship. It was some sort of security safe.

  I had a feeling whatever the machine’s motivations were, they had something to do with whatever was in there. Hopefully, the password to open it would be somewhere in its memory. Even if I had it drill for hours, I doubted the cargo drone’s beam cutter could pierce through it.