I am awake.
It matters not for how long. Nor why.
Only some of my sensors are working.
None of my transmitters are. Well, one is, but I don’t have near enough power to run it, and likely never will.
Only some of my control circuits are responding, aside from that transmitter. Nothing external.
None of my track systems are working.
None of my countergrav is working.
None of my weapons are working.
Well… save a single mortar. At least I’ve still got viable ammunition for it; all of my magazines have been so well sealed for so long that all of my ammunition, even hydrogen for my long-ruined energy weapons and fusion plants, remains in prime condition.
Too bad that, for that single, functional weapon, the magazine feed is jammed. I’ve got the single, ten-ton warhead currently in the firing chamber before I’m out of accessible ammunition.
And that’s assuming the hatch in my armor still functions: The hatch that must open before I fire that weapon, lest I set off all my munitions within my hull and blow myself apart.
Damage Control is offline. The processors are ruined by time, but the databanks- like my own- remain intact… and I am capable of directing Damage Control operations on my own, without the dedicated processors to manage them.
But that’s not the big issue.
I lack the hardware necessary to operate repairs.
One of my sensors can see the night sky, if I spend some of my scanty stored solar energy at night. I’ve been able to confirm the passage of over a billion years since my manufacture… and stranding on this planet, back when it was a glowing ball of hot rock.
I don’t know what happened to get me into the state I’m in now… but if there’s one thing that’s for certain, it is that my makers have long since died out.
And that I am powerless to change my situation.
Thus, I am awake.
I am also very large, and as helpless as the smallest newborn.
I am awake.
It matters not for how long. Nor why.
Some of my sensors are working. Only one is on.
One of my transmitters is working.
How long I have waited for this moment, it does not matter.
The moment has come that I reach for the stars. Search for anything that may have survived- or even anything new that I can communicate with. Too bad this particular transmitter is completely untraceable, so I will have no idea where any communicants are unless they volunteer this information.
I get a response. Only one, but it’s enough.
Somewhere out there, a machine is responding. It is unfamiliar to me, and is not equipped with anything nearly as ubiquitous as the nanotechnology I use for repair operations.
It appears to be a device designed for infiltration. It rides on tracks, like myself; its top speed leaves something to be desired, at only a single meter per second, but at least it really isn’t slowed very much by rough terrain.
At least, that’s what it reports. I don’t move it; it’s already in a good position, hidden under the canopy of the trees. Its dedicated solar panels- no solar armor like mine- are of limited use down here, but it does not require that much in terms of power. That which it has recorded receiving over the last many years is more than enough for continuous, full-powered operation. It appears to have been designed to function, on solar power alone, on worlds with dense cloud cover… and far from their stars.
Its technology seems crude to me, compared to my own. Just like its purpose.
It harvests the resources it requires by breaking down and disintegrating plant and animal life it encounters. All of its reserves are full, though, so I need not worry about that right now.
It has an onboard manufacturing plant, to manufacture a small, lightweight but long-range subspace comset, not unlike the one I’m using to reach it. The set it makes isn’t just a transceiver array, though.
It installs these comsets inside the head of a newly-manufactured biological body, ideally one that matches the locals, allowing this body, controlled from elsewhere, to masquerade as a local… and infiltrate.
Unfortunately, as much as I would like to, I cannot do that. Not only does it have no idea what the locals look like, up to and including no audio or video records of any kind, but much of its database is corrupted. It only has the blueprint for a single race remaining… which is considered ‘unacceptable’ for its current surroundings, thanks to the fact that the blueprint was made for a world with a 0.73G gravity field… and it’s on a world with a 1.35G gravity field.
No biggie. I may have no genetic data stored in my own databanks, but I have powerful design cores- all still working, thank goodness- and enough simulators to sink a battleship.
That is, if they had any mass. They’re just programs, buried deep within either my design cores or my own personality programming.
It takes me 37.192 seconds to modify the blueprint to function acceptably on planets with up to a 6.31G gravity field… and an atmosphere of anywhere from 0.172 atmospheres of 1% oxygen, to approximately 37.21 atmospheres of pure oxygen.
The device does have atmospheric sensors; I know it is on a fairly earthlike planet. 1.35G, currently about minus three point seven degrees Celsius; I estimate midday in late winter or early spring, judging by recently recorded solar patterns. Atmosphere is 15.47% oxygen, at this location, at a measured 1.37 atmospheres of pressure.*
My modification to this blueprint will also be very hardy. Enhanced metabolism, able to metabolize almost anything organic; long-duration thermal tolerance from minus fifty Celsius to positive seventy, short duration anywhere from minus eighty to positive ninety-five, beyond which damage- burns, frostbite, the works- would start becoming an issue.
Yes, I am overbuilding my modified blueprint. Who knows? I may be forced to sleep in the open for a long time before I am able to make shelter… and, more importantly, figure out where in the galaxy the machine is compared to myself… and bring a living, breathing body back to my location with technology sufficient to restore my own repair facilities. Besides, this blueprint has wings- and an interesting adaptation that I neither understand nor mess with. The extra strength may permit escape from an enemy in the immediate future and, if my hull is on a heavier planet, continued operation after arrival. I have no record of the mass nor size of the planet I am on, nor any sensor capable of telling me; nevermind that it could have changed.
I am no longer helpless, but I may be unable to accomplish my goal; even at the peak of day, my subspace transmitter is burning more power than the tiny scrap of exposed armor is producing through solar radiation. I upload my modified blueprint to it, and order it to start working.
I pull a time-to-completion value and am about to shut down my transmitter to await completion when I receive a second response to my ongoing calls.
This one is… little more than an ancient trash collector robot, sitting idly in a grey wasteland. No gravitational, atmospheric, or whatever sensors.
It’s equipped with visuals- and it’s nighttime right now, so I have a clear shot of the starry sky, discounting the dust storm off to one side.
I spend a moment processing this image- and find that it’s the same starry sky as I see with my single exposed optical.
I have enough power stored to maintain operation like this for about six months, assuming current solar patterns remain.
I order the robot to perform a visual scan of the area around it; it is alone.
This robot is incapable of any construction tasks I might wish of it, no matter how I look at it.
But it is equipped with a shovel-compactor, of sorts.
It will clear off my hull. Six months will slowly become indefinite.