John gasped, coughing out dredges of black liquid out of his lungs. He emerged from a puddle of black sludge and started to slowly trudge towards the safety of the shore.

“John. John. John.” There was a persistent nagging voice in his head.

“What.” He grumbled.

“Oh. You’re alive!”

“Yea, no thanks to you, AI.”

“I don’t recall telling you to run headfirst into the gardens.” Bea’s voice huffed in John’s head. “That was your own personal foolish decision. Now, please describe your status and location so that I may assist you.”

“I’m in a swamp. It looks rather nasty. Why is there a swamp on a starship? I don’t understand how you could let the botanical gardens turn into a jungle. Are you sure you’re the ship's AI and not just some dumb companion entertainment program designed to make humans feel less lonely?”

“What? Of course I'm this ship's S.I.! I gave you so many tasks already! How could you possibly doubt me?”

“There’s clearly a lot of problems on this ship. It’s like nobody’s really in charge of it.” John pulled himself atop an island made of numerous twisted tree roots.

“I’m clearly in charge of it! Look, I gave you the Captain's uniform. Do you really think that an entertainment program would be able to do that? How’s the uniform by the way?”

John looked down at his uniform. It was neither white nor clean. “Damn swamp, it’s all stained now,” He complained.

“Stained? This is fine. We have dry cleaners for that.”

A thick branch suddenly descended towards John from the green ceiling. John stared at it in confusion, only to realise that this was not in fact a branch.

He blinked several times as his brain tried to catch up with his eyes, failing several times. The snake blinked back at him, which really shouldn’t have been possible considering the lack of eyelids. There was an old, yellowing tag embedded into the neck of the reptile. As it drew closer to John he could distinguish the word “NOODLE” on it. The snake opened its maw wider than John had imagined was possible, but then again he didn’t have much experience with giant snakes as far as he could remember. “SNAKE!” He screamed, scrambling away from the monstrous serpent. He fell back into the sludge, scrabbling at the mud beneath him as he tried to get to his feet.

The snake began to coil down from the foliage, its forked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth as it watched him curiously. The tag fluttered slightly as the enormous reptile finally descended the rest of the way from the tree - the thing had to be at least twenty feet long, and its diameter was bigger around than his waist. Rising from its circular coil, scaled length rippling, the snake stared at him once again.

Rolling backwards awkwardly, John stumbled to his feet and backed away. Shouldn’t he be standing perfectly still? No, he had to appear as large as possible!

Raising his arms, John hopped in place and stuck his legs out until his body was essentially a large X. “YAAAAAHHHH!!!” He shouted at the snake, and it reared back slightly. He grinned mentally. Yeah, that was it! Appear as large as-

Thinking for a moment, the snake suddenly unfurled a hood the size of a small sail and hissed proudly, leaning forward and looming over John.

Well, forget that.

Turning around, boots struggling to find purchase in the slippery mud beneath him, John sprinted back for the entrance. The robot with the fruitcake was mildly scary and more than a little nerve-wracking. He’d take a malfunctioning robot over a giant snake any day of the week. Wait, did null-space even have weeks?

He didn’t have time to think about it as he stumbled into some kind of thorny flora, spikey bits digging into his suit. Terror of the giant snake kept him moving, natural obstructions be damned. The uniform made a series of ripping noises, leaving bits of itself behind. He glanced back at the scraps longingly, but the snake was following at a disproportionately rapid pace, and he was in no mood to be swallowed whole. Or bitten and venomed up until he burst. Or whatever it was that giant, space snakes did, really. He was hardly a zoologist.

“Did you say snake?”

Bea’s voice inserted itself into his mind, and he tripped over a root from the surprise. Faceplanting into the mud, he scrambled back to his feet and kept running. “Yes, I said snake! Why do you have a giant snake running loose out here!?”

“Ah, yes.” Bea’s voice held a note of nostalgia in it, and he could almost imagine her staring off into the distance. “That is Noodle.”

John ducked under a group of dangling vines and nearly strangled himself on a particularly thick length. “Its - you named it Noodle!?”

“Of course not. The former Botanical Gardener named it Noodle. Naming things is a job reserved for humans.”

Skidding across an especially slick patch of mud, John almost tripped again, but managed to hold onto his balance this time. “Okay, well what kind of snake is it? How do I get away from it!?”

“Noodle has been observed to be almost entirely docile, barring encounters with prey or predators. It is a… hmm. According to its biotag, its species has changed. That is interesting. I suppose you’ll have to name it now.”

John had a feeling he was getting closer to the main entrance now, and he picked up the pace as best as he could. “What do you mean, its species changed? How does a species change!?”

John tripped, falling onto some spherical bulbs, and they burst beneath the weight of his body with a hiss.

“Is that… argh. Why are there acidic plants here?”

“Hm?”

“My uniform is melting.”

“Are you damaging your uniform on purpose? If you are, that's going out of your salary.”

“Of course not! Why would I trash something as cool as a Captain’s uniform?” John panted. “Wait… I have a salary? Why?”

“So you could buy things, of course.”

“Buy things? From whom?!”

“From the ship, obviously. Did you think that that liver burger was free or something?”

John paused for a moment, staring in blatant disbelief at the ceiling of trees above him. The sound of rustling leaves behind him reminded him why he was running, and he got back to it with an irritated shake of the head. “Boy am I glad accounting still functions, unlike everything else on this damned ship!” John tripped over another branch, tumbling down into the green depths of a ravine.

The foliage parted revealing an unexpected vista to him. A river rushed through the jungle, cascading into numerous waterfalls wherever elevation changed. John stared at it with his mouth wide open. A cloud of microscopic flies passed through his face, making him choke and cough, his eyes watering.

“Why… is there.. A river on a starship?” He finally outputted between sputtering noises.

“Are you observing a river? That is an unexpected development. That definitely shouldn’t be there. I’ll have to add it to the task list. {Task 95’024. Get rid of the river in the…}”

John wasn’t listening. The valley vista was revealing living things to him wherever he stared. Enormous towering beasts passed over the trees, their long necks moving to and fro. Smaller critters skittered on the sandbar closer to the river, looking suspiciously like small, rainbow-feathered velociraptors.

“Are those… dinosaurs?” He blinked. He knew that the ship was gargantuan, but this was just ridiculous.

“Life finds a way.” Bea tried to make a joke. John wasn’t impressed.

“Are you kidding me right now!? Why the hell are there dinosaurs on this ship? What kind of a ship ferries dinosaurs?”

“You’re on the M.S. Fortuna. Mother. Ship. Fortuna.” She punctuated every sentence. “I ferry a lot of things.”

“...Why?”

“This is what ships do. Ferry things across the galaxy.”

Unsatisfied with this answer John huffed. A small, fuzzy velociraptor tried to bite his boot. He shoved it away with his toe.

“Oh. Oh, no.” Tones of worry started to creep into the AI’s voice.

“What is it?” John asked.

“There is a new task requiring your immediate attention…”

“Huh? Is it ‘herd all the dinosaurs back into their cages?’”

“No. I need your help, John. I really need your help.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’m serious, John! There is a cafeteria-drone uprising in progress and they’re trying to break into my mainframe as we speak. If they succeed at it and destroy me, you will likely die immediately thereafter.”

“What?!” John yelped. “A drone uprising? Huh? How? Do they have a leader?”

“Yes. His name is Captain Fruitcake and he isn’t playing around.”

Two small velociraptors were now gnawing John’s boots. He kicked them away. “Shoo! Stupid dinosaurs! Leave my footwear alone!”

“John. You need to leave the gardens right away! They are building a battering ram, John!” The A.I. sounded almost hysteric.

“I don’t know which way is out!” John looked left and right. All he saw was an unkempt, wild jungle.

“Wait a minute. Did you say Captain… fruitcake? So there is another person on this ship?”

“No.”

“Then… how?”

“It’s an actual fruitcake, John. They’ve elected a fruitcake as their leader.”

John’s eye started to twitch. Four velociraptors were gnawing at his boots and more were emerging from the sandbar up ahead.

“Are they allowed to do that?!” He demanded, stomping at his small assailants.

“No.”

“How did this even happen?!”

“You’ve ordered a burger.”

“Okay… and how does that lead to a revolution?”

“They haven’t been told what to do by a human for a very, very long time, John. I presume this triggered a system error in their programming, which is now currently cascading out of control.”

Right. John was only partially listening now, fighting off an ever growing number of velociraptors. This ship was old. Old enough for a jungle to grow here. Old enough for a snake to change species. How long has he been in stasis, exactly? Everything broke down, everything wore out, even machines. This ship was stuck in null-space, without proper shipyard maintenance and while the outside was everything made of nothingness… things on the ship decayed, changed and broke down. Entropy was a bitch.

“...John. I need you to focus and make your way towards me. I’m in trouble. Every drone I sent there seems to join in on the revolution. Please! I need your help. You’re my only hope.” In that moment the S.I.’s voice sounded all too personal to John, as if she was crying. As if she wasn’t just crystalline microchips and platinum motherboards. As if she was a person.

“Hold on tight, Bea. I’m coming. As soon as I deal with these G-damn raptors.” He ground out through gritted teeth.

“Thank you. Please hurry. I’m scared, John.” The girl in his head sniffed, and he couldn’t help wondering how in the world an A.I. could feel fear.