[BSMS Lady Luck] Flight of the Valkyries

To be placed under load, tasks, and stress was a workaholic's bread and butter. Lacking the motor-neurons, endocrines and adrenalines to cloud processed thought. Sal stood before the captain as they watched the concern flow - the on-fly astral navigation calculus being off and the ship adrift in unknown territory would be an ongoing source of anxiety.

From what Messina and Skarsgard had pulled apart of the stricken ring, all the exotic components were there: Specially cast metacrystals didn't grow on trees on issue forth from spare parts shelves willy nilly. SALVO made note of this specific material - hoping it could be reverse engineered or fabricated in time.

SALVO, while incapable of feeling the specific pangs of mortal dread, did flag some serious concerns with their immediate wellbeing, even though work had been progressing at a steady clip. If the ship faltered and fell apart beneath SALVO's feet again, what could they do? Drift through space for another undisclosed interval until the kindness of strangers rescued their chassis again?

BlackStar: Hangar Query

ACV-001 - Standby, Unfuelled
ACV-002 - Standby, Unfuelled

Sure, the captain was planning to gather local resources and Sal was aboard with the logic, but the plan to spin up the spare ACV and use it in place of the Lady Luck's stricken sensors made Sal's fans whirr. "Sir, you're equal parts a genius and a fool. Will this be a common occurrence?" The ACVs were not connected to the grid, and therefore shouldn't have suffered any damage - unless something around them went off. "Sic Second Platoon on that, stat."

Sal was listening in the event logs for when Second Platoon would get their hand-built spacecraft - hand-built? Seriously? No machining? thought SALVO - connected and transmitting in place of the Lady Luck's stricken components. The whole thing sounded idiotic on paper and risky with hand-built spaceships, but with the Lady Luck's back against the proverbial, it had no choice but to go on ahead with it. These humans placed perhaps too much trust in each other, but they were trained to do so - just as SALVO had been programmed to salvage.

While SALVO continued making instructions to his engineering staff to reconnect and restore the ship in the meantime, a new order came over the communications as SALVO received instructions. Excursion? Outside? Cutting rocks up? "Do you want Sal or Ten aboard, captain?" Sal queried. "I believe Ten is better suited to rock cutting, and I'm still needed here." The nurse present had laid Klem in a recovery position and kept their head and neck straight, flashing a light in the marine's eyes for a response. Eye dilation was good, but they were definitely concussed.

Sight unseen, Ten was still skittering through the maintenance passages beneath the Lady Luck, doing its damndest to resuscitate the ship. It had time for breaking a rock once these tasks had wrapped up - because to SALVO, a spaceship when you really thought about it, was just a hollowed, complex, cultivated rock.