Watching Nara’s face as she was introduced to Bleyk was a truly priceless moment, have you ever seen somebody meeting a stranger, and trying their level best not to offend them while dancing around any potentially offensive things to say?

Now imagine that, and remember that she had literally zero ideas about the culture, or species the individual came from. Try tiptoeing around that, and remember the species in question has cloven hooves and has probably never seen a foot, much less a toe on a living creature in their life, that should give you a pretty good idea of how adorably flustered she looked.

Still, they seemed to get on pretty well, once they got to know each other they were soon asking each other questions about culture, food, environment, and tech. I made a note that from now on Nara was officially our ship's xenobiologist. Sure the title wasn’t official in a prim and proper way, but since there hadn’t actually been a single first contact incident since the flotilla collapsed that didn't involve a major firefight or extinction event I figured that anybody giving lectures on the subject at any education facility out there was either going entirely from notes or talking out of their ass anyway.

It was so adorable when she got all excited and enthusiastic like this. Once over when she’d gotten like this she would suddenly shut herself down, then APOLOGISE. Like enthusiasm was some kind of crime in her eyes. It had taken us ages to get her to this point, and in my eyes, it was worth every second. Her eyes really sparkled when she was like this, She got so cute and babbly. Did I understand a word she was saying when she was like this? Not normally. Did I give a toss about whether I understood or not? HELL NO. It meant the world to her, the least I could do is appreciate that energy, and I adored our little mad scientist so damn much that if I ever got my hands on the scumbag who had conditioned her to clam up on her interests I was at the very least breaking their damn legs.

While they talked things through I listened, learning as much as I could in order to make the alterations that would be needed to accommodate our strange guest. (OK OK asking Relly to note the specs on the environment suit may have been cheating a little, I didn’t have all the time in the world so sue me.) Still, it gave me the idea that maybe when I had made that offer to Bleyk earlier I had absolutely no clue what the hell I was letting myself in for because despite what sci-fi had implied in the past adapting a ship to a completely alien species while still keeping it usable to a human crew was not an easy task. To be honest my inner mechanical nerd quite appreciated the challenge though and was probably bouncing around somewhere in my skull making happy squeeing noises. I was literally engineering a livable habitat for a species we had never even seen before, how cool is that?

As it turns out the reason for Bleyk’s unique looking environment suit was actually kinda cool. Their entire species were actually mostly aquatic, the framework reinforced them so they didn’t die horribly due to the pressure difference on the surface, and to pull atmospheric hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen that could be used to mist them whenever they started to dry out.

So to add to the ever-growing to-do list there was the problem of setting up a microgravity generator in their living area. On an independent power supply with at least two backups. As in the case of gravitational generator failure, the last thing we want is a giant bubble of water floating around the ship. That wasn’t a feature most ships even considered, but it was one we definitely had to consider now. I don’t mind adjusting for Bleyk’s like support, but I sure as hell object if it going wrong is likely to doom us all.

Oh and the reason for their surprise at our treatment of mechs? That was simple. Bleyk’s entire species were biomechanoid who had been self-enhancing with nanites since Thog back on earth realised bashing two rocks together would make a spark, and that really pointy stick was actually really really nifty. To them, the idea of separation between the biological and mechanical would be as unthinkable as us suddenly deciding that lungs were an optional extra, and deciding to prove it by voluntarily taking ours out without a replacement. Also, they were capable of communication via magnetic field manipulation, hence the robovac incident, they had taken the electromagnetic signal from the cleaning drone’s pings as an attempt to communicate. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that our point of view may be extremely strange from an outside perspective.

Well, food was definitely going to be an interesting issue too. Bleyk’s species apparently didn’t need a mouth as they were osmotic feeders. Feeding on selectively bred microorganisms, kinda like a whale eats krill. It did mean that environmental salt levels had to be kept constant. A fact that had apparently been used as a plausible assassination tactic back on their homeworld in the past. Want somebody dead? Just supply them with dodgy filters and they’d be dead within the week. Had to remember to adjust for that, and remember, unlike starfish they favored fresh water. At least medical care would be easy though, as apparently, they were capable of regrowing any bits they lost. Though it would take a few weeks at the least to heal anything too substantial.

This all meant a serious change in the design for repairs to Relly as well because from what I was hearing here Bleyk’s entire ship was essentially a flying aquarium on a massive scale. Their pressure suit would suffice for now but was at the best a stopgap measure if we wanted them to survive.

Still, talks went off without a hitch, and Bleyk scuttled off to explore Reliance, carefully monitored by Relly’s avatar of course. Leaving me to figure out the logistics of the massive undertaking I had apparently volunteered myself for. (Me and my big mouth.)

Once all that planning was done I headed back off into the heaps, if we were going to restore Reliance to working condition we were going to need considerably more strength than a few human bodies could ever muster. Surely they must have some kind of tools around here, cranes at the very least. The question was where were they.

Then I saw it, a massive fenced-in area. Any salvager can tell you when you find a fence, you’ve probably found the good shit. I threw a few things at it to make sure it wasn’t electrified. Unlikely given how long the place had stood empty. But given that some of the holosigns were still working I figured it was best to be cautious. Then once I was sure I wasn’t going to end up getting zapped for my troubles I grabbed a set of bolt cutters and went to town on the razor wire on the top of the fence. I could in theory have just draped a carpet over it. But given that I had about as much chance of finding a rug that big as I did of getting my hands on a tolerable flavour of dehydrasnax I gave up on that and settled for snipping my way in.

What was waiting in there was definitely once over the good stuff. Nowadays after a few centuries of neglect, it was just slightly less crappy crap for the most part. Still, I’d take it.

Thus after a few hours of exploration, I found the most beautiful thing you could imagine.

Have you ever seen the Alien series? Think the phrase “Get away from her you bitch,” and you’ll probably understand what I’m talking about. These ones were quadrupedal, and their legs were built like a series of massive metal blobs that had clearly been welded back together more times than I care to count, but they were still several tonnes of lifty, crushy beauty. Hell, they even had the massive pinchy arms, it was so beautiful I almost shed tears right then and there. WE HAD POWERLIFTERS. I couldn’t help but list the many uses we could have for these things. Wondering if once we finally left this planet we could fit them on board. If we could then it would make salvage work from here on out so much easier, and hopefully more profitable. Because right now I could practically feel our debts increasing while we were stuck here, and I would not put it past our debt collector to somehow figure out a way to get through the blockade just to collect. He was seriously that determined when it came to screwing us over.

Only one problem with the powerlifter plan really. They’d been immobile for a few centuries, so WD40 and duct tape really weren’t sufficient to get them moving, yes engineers despite whatever else you may have been told WD40 and duct tape do not fix everything and self-sealing stem bolts will only take you so far. So I began to prepare for the longest few weeks of our life, fix the components to repair the lifters, use the lifters to salvage the scrap, and use the scrap to patch the ship. (I don’t know why she swallowed the fly, perhaps she’ll die.) This to-do list was getting longer by the second. But knowing we had lifters was a really big leg up on the process.

Also we definitely no longer have a shortage of cleaning drones, as Bleyk wouldn’t even consider abandoning their newfound pets.