Are you a Robot?

[James Greed]

Livadia Shipyard.

The concept of a night shift was absurd to say the least. A remnant of an old habit, just to keep a semblance of normalcy. No proper day and night cycle was to be had on a space station, especially not in a densely packed asteroid field. Even so, the night shift somehow seemed to last longer.

Hours passed by with painful sluggishness, while we waited for the previous patrol to reach the station. Most of the time they got back within two hours of the expected timeframe. In the event of an incident the patrol leader sent back a message, to which the patrol dispatch usually sent out a second set of fighters to help or relieve said patrol.

The incidents could be easily categorized:
• Freight vessel in distress. Lack of fuel/Engine damage
• Freight vessel under attack. Nomad scouts/AI drones/Core harassers
• Clashing with another patrol. Usually Core/Corsairs.
• Escort of a friendly capital asset returning for refit.

These were the most common incidents. Sure, at times there were raids or larger concentrations of aliens, but these were few and far in between. The Core had a tendency of handling whenever this happened, in hopes of salvaging technology. Most everything they salvaged either blew up in their faces, or melted away the moment they tried to hoard it away.