And inside there was a memory crystal, almost unprotected against scanning. Of course, I just had to take a peek into it out of scientific curiosity.

Aside personal materials and records of our commander which I took no notice at, there was the collection itself. Can you imagine my joy? Now that I got an opportunity, after a difficult and sometimes dangerous watch on the bridge, to retire into my tiny corner and enjoy the projection of anime art masterpieces. Believe me, it’s incredibly boring to live attached to a bulkhead or illuminator if you are not a chewing gum.

Now that I can watch anime I am happy with my life and stay in full harmony with my alter ego. Both of you see your Cyborg Dreams after watch duty, don’t you? Why don’t you tell me just once what’s going on there?”

Oma was taken aback by the isomorph’s inartificial behavior. Raju was looking at them both with a smile.

“Flop, how did the cabin of the captain’s second mate come to be your “tiny corner”? Besides, you turned it into a warehouse and a workshop. I saw with my own eyes some small electronic beings ceaselessly scurrying from the cabin that you had occupied and running along the whole ship,” at these words Flop became rather nervous. He slowly flew up to the wall and made an attempt to fade into it.

And what are you cyber cockroaches are doing?” Raju asked, looking perplexedly around to spot the isomorph.

“Let me explain everything!” Flop got unstuck from the wall and appeared in front of the commander’s face.

“I’ll begin with the cabin: upon logical reflection, I realized that the position of captain’s second mate remained vacant and, therefore, I decided to take it together with the cabin which I am entitled to by virtue of this post. In fact, it’s a little massy now, but thing is, our ship-based warehouse became too small for me and so I relocated some of my developments to my new cabin.”

“What sort of developments?” the captain’s voice sounded rather surprised than angry.

“What developments? Technical, intellectual ones, in the first place. I have designed small cyber assistants to conduct control over all systems of the spacecraft. And mind you, they are not scurrying, as you’ve put it, but doing their watch and each of them has an assignment.”

“Aria,” Raju turned to the cruiser’s AI with barely repressed laughter, “What do you think about these cockroaches?”

“I am in favor of Flop’s initiative. There are plenty of places uncovered by my sensors,” replied the spacecraft’s AI and ironic notes were heard in her voice.

“Commander, can I come up with a new initiative?” Flop turned to Raju and stared at him, “Why don’t we together watch some interesting ancient movie form the collection! And another suggestion: let’s project the movie not inside the crew cabin but directly in front of the spacecraft with the largest possible screen size!

Perplexed by the scale of isomorph’s idea, the captain at first didn’t know what to say, and while he was groping for words, Oma exclaimed:

“Commander!”

All of a sudden, a hologram appeared in front of her.

“I’ve got a signal from one of our “Hanumans”. Looks like we are not alone here.”

Chapter 7

“You’d better spend your life, Johnny, on doing what you like, or else you’ll be receiving blows from fate”

(words from a country song)

“Have you finished orbit rimming, Piggy? Why can’t you stop that damned rotation, you know, it drives me mad! Check the oxygen! Turn it warmer, at least here, in the crew cabin. I need a full scan of this orbit, and right now!” hoarse, irritable cry was heard throughout the cabin.

Commander of “Tyrant”, a heavy shuttle of the Coalition’s outer space reconnaissance unit, Steven Hook was on duty on that day and therefore was out of sorts. The sure sign of his annoyance at the whole crew and outer space itself was his referring to the stuff by nicknames he himself invented, which, in his opinion, helped maintain discipline onboard.

Chief assistant commander, Edward Gray, round-shouldered, short man with constantly disheveled dark hair, was staring at the spacecraft’s operating indicators and the new orbit’s characteristics. At such moments, he would leave the captain’s words without reply, fully concentrated on maneuvering the heavy “Tyrant” and nervously biting his lip.

The crew cabin was wide open, and beside the door one could see a chair of the onboard engineer Hagan Lange, a tall, gangly young with dark-blue, badly cut tumbled hair and bright-green eyes. At the moment, he was focused on the data received from surveillance satellites.

Right from the very start, he had been unhappy with the choice of that orbit, which was known as the “trash belt” and stretched from the height of 160 to 750 kilometers. But he kept his opinion to himself for fear of the captain’s scathing retorts. What he disliked about that duty was the constantly annoyed voice of the “hysteric lady”, as he and Edward called the captain among themselves.

Hagan had long been expecting a transfer to ground service and therefore, tried not to get in the way so as to ensure that was his last watch in Outer Space, after which he would enjoy a calm job at the headquarters.

Meanwhile, “Tyrant” was being put on a new orbit and its flight position was being stabilized.

The silent Hagan was known for good intuition, which he trusted, and now there was something that made him worry, and he thoroughly studied the scanning results and report of the surveillance satellite.

The first thing he realized was that there were not enough satellites to create a full picture of the orbit and the space surrounding the spacecraft. And that uncertainty was fraught with threat.

One could never know for sure what was hiding among the piles of perished ships’ debris. There could be sleeping mines, surveillance satellites bedangled with weapons, and even a compact yet highly maneuverable powerful cruiser.

The height of 500 kilometer is the most trash-strewn” Hagan thought and, without waiting for the captain’s cry, shifted all data to the first mate’s monitor. “Maybe I should tell Hysteric that we are badly exposed here? A good target. He has so stupidly positioned the spacecraft. Right in the center of a vast area free of debris. I guess I’d rather keep silent. Or else he would be making fun of me. On the other hand, the scanner has not detected living beings. It’s not an easy task to hide a spacecraft even among big debris, so there is no reason to worry.” Hagan silently closed the door to the crew cabin, tipped back in his chair and began adjusting instruments for reconnaissance purposes.

Hagan had a passion for spacecraft engines. His brain fit out with nano-chips could easily model thermal processes and energy schemes of engines intended for flights to other planets. Sometimes, when he was carried away with his job, he would talk to his creatures, bringing his calculations to perfection. Creating ships for far-off space travel was his favorite job and the only passion. But was it possible to realize that dream while sitting in a tiny on-board engineer’s compartment?

At the moment, he was trying to push along current protocol of instruments operation so as to return to his favorite job and to plunge into his own world, the world of stunning powerful machines.

Meanwhile, the reconnaissance satellite “Hanuman-12” in close proximity of “Tyrant”, hastily adjusted the orbit, put weapons on alert and continued drifting amidst piles of debris, remaining unseen and unwinking.

In that way, by a twist of fate, “Ares” and “Tyrant” found themselves located at a mid-range distance between each other. “Ares” like a beast was watchfully observing its victim without giving itself away by means of dozens of scanners and surveillance satellites that “Tyrant” had unhappily come in sight of.