Max's upgrades to the Fusion Reactor seemed to please Sylvie, and she began making the necessary changes only a few minutes after he gave her the instructions. That greatly reduced the fuel requirements for the reactor and bumped the power output upward by ten percent. Not enough to overload any of the circuits, but enough to give them some redundant power when everything was running at maximum output during the repair process.

That was a great relief to Sylvie, who had been carefully rationing power so that she didn't overload anything in her excitement to have her ship back and be out of the dark void of standby mode.

She didn't know how long she had been offline for, but she had been in stasis for nearly a thousand years, staring at nothing but darkness with no sensors or personnel. That was not a situation she ever wanted to relive, and the more that she brought the ship back online, the more alive she felt again.

From what Max could feel through the link, it was a bit like a therapy session for her, allowing the AI to recover from the trauma of being in storage. The only thing that would enhance the experience would be to have the atmosphere back and the whole ship crewed again.

Even sending the Mecha down to the surface was a loss for her, as on this vessel the AI operated the training simulations and played the part of the opponents to give them more than a basic ability to interact.

Max thought that might actually be a great idea. The better the quality of the opponent, the better the training simulation was. They had some very advanced 3D virtual reality simulation programs, but the intelligence of the opponents was limited by the computing power of the simulation.historical

Once they were ready to bring a crew on board, he would look into getting the ship set up with simulations that Sylvie could help run. Most Reaver ships had all sorts of them running, though Absolution didn't have any of the vacation simulators that most smaller vessels did. They had their own vacation resorts, there was no need for artificial joy.

The Creeping Darkness was not like that. Every centimetre of it was made for maximum military occupancy, with only training areas and essential functions on board. Anything else would waste space that could be used for more crew and equipment.

It wasn't like they were expected to be on board for long, after all.

"Hey Sylvie, how do you feel about renovations? I have considered making this a research and development vessel instead of a frontline combat vessel, due to its vintage design. Perhaps we could convert some of the areas to be restored into research labs and open others up to create crew comfort attractions." Max suggested as he settled down onto the Admiral's chair to wait for the rest of the sensors to come back online.

"I have multiple interior configurations programmed into my database. Some of the information has been lost due to data corruption, but I should be able to recompile a suitable design with a bit of assistance on what would be the most appropriate.

Just let me know what level of comfort and what sort of design we will be doing, and then I will know what baseline to start with." She agreed.

"The researchers are considered somewhat elite, and highly valued employees, so luxury hotel standards at a minimum, and they will be developing primarily Mecha and light combat vessels, with a set of side projects for quality of life improvement technologies." Max replied.

"Oh! I have a fully intact set of Mecha design parameters and constructors. But those are probably out of date, aren't they?"

She sounded a bit depressed as she replied, but Max smiled back at her anyhow.lights

"Maybe not. The designs have changed so much that we might have lost track of where we started. There might be forgotten benefits to many of the technologies that you have stored. So, if you show the team down in the bay how to make them all, and the benefits of each feature, they will be happy to listen."

Even if they were already familiar with every single feature on the Mecha, the Innu and Nico would be happy to listen to a recitation of the features from the new AI, just to hear her tell them from the viewpoint of the ones who designed them.

Design philosophy wasn't all about the what. It was also about the why, and sometimes there was an excellent reason for choosing something that would have been discarded as unnecessary without context.

Sylvie was about to move, Max could tell, then a half step in, she stopped and returned to her spot beside Max.

"What was all that about? I have never known an AI to hesitate." Max asked.

"I have obtained new information. I was going to assume a position on your lap as the previous Admiral preferred, but I have been informed by Subcommander Nico that she has reserved that spot. When that information was gained, I chose to return to this spot under your hand." Sylvie responded.

Max burst into laughter as he realized Nico was getting jealous as she watched him interact with the AI.

"It is wise advice. She does not like it when people take her spot." He agreed.

[The sensors are online now. Please remain seated and in contact with the Avatar for optimal sensor feed interaction.] Sylvie informed him.

That explained why she was going to change positions. It was easy to forget to position your body when you were lost in a virtual projection through a neural link. But Mecha pilots had a lot of practice with that, and Max had unique advantages with multiple mental inputs that not many others could understand.

The sensor feed came online, and Max made a note of all the debris that was available in the region, but sadly, there didn't seem to be anything else of value that they had missed during their own scans.

"Begin a long-range scan. I want to know if there are other disabled vessels in Creeping Darkness's scans, and if there are any other landmarks here that are familiar to you. The region was heavily damaged during the battles of your age, and we are missing a lot of data about what used to be here." Max explained.

"Understood Admiral. I will begin recompiling the data on the region, based on any remaining data I can obtain. Should I prioritize derelict vessels by size or firepower?"

"Sort by firepower first, then size for outputs in the same class."