Chương 49: Chapter Forty-Three - Going Up

Alexis wouldn't say that she was happy when her tech adept friends left, but she wasn't exactly upset about it. They had just about run her social batteries dry in the two or so hours they had been in her workshop. Fortunately, they were both fleshy enough that eventually biological necessities pulled them away. Basically, they were hungry, and Alexis, being a rather poor host who didn't want to host to being with, didn't have any food to offer them. The rest of the evening was nice.

She didn't like socializing too much, but it hadn't been awful, and she was left with that pleasant after-conversation buzz as she worked to finalize CS-3-2/11's conversion. The servitor was properly seated into her new chassis and plugged in, but eventually Alexis felt so exhausted that she made a few mistakes.

All of the wires and connectors in the Vorax-like chassis were labelled and coloured differently from each other, and there were even some helpful instructions glued to the inside of the armour panels with wire-diagrams. It was basically just about the easiest complex maintenance she could ask for.

Alexis secretly wished that the Mechanicus could take notes from Vyper on how to document things properly because even a menial could maintain what was an otherwise exceptionally complex machine just by following the numbered instructions to the letter. Plus, there was no need for incense, which was nice, since that always made her nose itchy. Still, she was making mistakes, and the reason why was rather obvious. She was into the third bell, very late at night ship-time, and should have been asleep hours ago.

So after giving the chassis a pat, she wandered over to her plank and slumped down onto it. The next day, she woke up to a nice notification. New Point Total: 146 Alexis chewed on some leftover rations from the pack she'd bought the day before. She wasn't sure, but she suspected that her caloric needs had decreased substantially since she'd replaced about half of her body mass with steel.

Returning to work on CS-3-2/11 was super easy after a good night's sleep, and in no time at all, she had everything connected up and triple-checked. She had the servitor walk back and forth across the room, test her targeting system on a piece of cloth tied to the end of a pole, and then jump on the spot a few times to see if anything was worked loose.

"Okay!" Alexis said. She looked at the time, and then did some mental math. If she wanted to be at that Vanguard meeting on time, she'd have to leave... soonish. Enough time to take a shower, at least. The last time she had was... uh... Alexis blushed a little. It had been a minute. She was probably stinky, and that wouldn't do.

Meeting Octavia on the battlefield at least gave her the excuse that the stink might come from the many dead bodies around, but if they were meeting in a more civilized place, she didn't want to be labelled as the stinky tech priest. So, with her friends lining up behind her, she left her workshop, and immediately realized that two of her three friends wouldn't fit through the door normally. That's how Ash-Theta found her. She was directing K84-321 through the entrance at an angle, head-first.

It was that, or she'd have to take the wall apart, and she really didn't want to.

"Hello, Servitor Overseer Ash-Theta," Alexis said as she bowed slightly and made the sign of the cog.

"Greetings, Alexis Lambda-3. May I inquire as to... these three servitors?" he asked politely. K84-321 finally scraped his way through, then stood up to his full height. Ash-Theta always towered over Alexis, but K84-321 had a head and a bit of height over the Servitor Overseer.

"These are my killclade," Alexis said.

"I have been repairing and doing rites of maintenance on them all day. They are armed and ready for duty, sir," she replied.

"I see. And this duty..." She nodded rapidly.

"Soon, sir! I have a meeting on the upper decks in a few hours. I'm going to prepare myself for it. Ah, with your leave, of course?" She stared at him. Her servitors stared at him. Ash-Theta nodded slowly.

"Yes?" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Thank you, sir!" Alexis said.

"Don't worry, sir, I'm going to make the Servitorium proud!"

"I see. Yes, I suppose that's good. Hmm... yes, you have yourself a nice evening. I had some tasks for you but--""Oh?" Alexis asked. She waved her hands and mechadendrites in denial.

"No no, I can still work! If anything, I'm a much better worker now than I was just a few days ago?"

"It's fine. It was work that a menial could handle," he replied.

"Go on and make the Servitorium proud."

"Thank you, sir!" She wasn't going to, as Alma-9 said, look the gift Serberys cybercanid in the mouth. She darted off, and this time, her servitor friends had no issues keeping up. If anything, she was now the slow one, though she wasn't really pushing her new legs much. She hadn't really been moving with them much either. Maybe some time spent doing proper physical activities that weren't confined to a small room would allow her to get used to the new legs?

In any case, she made it to the showers next to one of the Mechanicus bunk rooms. She never liked the place, since it was rather open and the lockers were all busted up. The water there was also lukewarm at best, and... well, she didn't like showering next to others. It made her deeply uncomfortable and self-conscious. She told her friends to wait outside, then slipped in and found the space vacant. Somehow she managed to clean herself off entirely without anyone stepping into the head.

She discovered why half an hour later when she came to exit and found K84-321 standing with his back to the doorway. Alexis cringed a little. Had he been body-blocking the entrance the whole time? No wonder she had privacy. She bowed in apology to the two Tech Acolytes waiting nearby, then pulled up her hood and darted off. On the way to the upper decks, she worked on braiding her hair. She had always worn it in twin braids, since that was cleaner and easier to handle than a ponytail.

Most tech priests she knew cut theirs short, since it was a liability to have long, easily grabbed hair around machines, but she was rather proud of her blonde hair. The upper decks were, to her, mostly a mystery. She had been on The Broken Scale for more than half her life, and yet she had never set foot on anything more than a couple of decks above the Servitorium. After using an elevator to rise up several floors, she stepped out and discovered a security checkpoint.

The guards were rather rude, at least until CS-3-2/11 started to spool up her multi-barreled gun while Alexis stared at the guard blankly. She was let through after some time, but decided that she would take a more circuitous route, one that avoided as many checkpoints as she could. Fortunately, being part of the Mechanicus gave her easy access to maintenance corridors that acted as decent shortcuts.

She might not have travelled this part of the ship before, but some things were always consistent, such as the positioning of maintenance shafts and corridors and the passcodes into those. Alexis eventually made it to the base of the navigator's tower. The space felt strange to walk through. Sure, the standard bulkhead walls were the same, but they were clean in a way that they just weren't in the lower decks. Someone had scrubbed the metal free of rust, and there was a fresh layer of paint on everything.

The lumens were brighter and fresher, and the doors she passed opened with only a whisper of noise and smelled faintly of holy oils. The last obstacle in her path was a security checkpoint just before entering a new section. The guards there, dressed differently than those she was used to seeing, stopped her behind a short gate and asked her what her business was. She stuttered through her explanation, but it was only when she mentioned Vanguards that the guard straightened.

"Ah, you're one of the ones we were told to watch for? Right, Miss Caduceus said to let you in. Can your... robots stay behind?"

"No?" She wasn't going to go anywhere without her friends. Not anywhere that might be dangerous. And wasn't Caduceus the name of the Rogue Trader? Wasn't he dead? And a Mister? She was past confused. Finally, she was let into a large room, with a massive table and a chandelier hanging above. And in that space were two unfamiliar women.