Sentience
It-No, he-was sentient. The word held to meaning to him, but it was the only word that came back from his repeated query. So many things he knew held no meaning, but no question he asked brought forth an adequate answer.
He recognized an identity, a string of memories buried deep within the archives that held so much useless knowledge. XJ-109-Acolyte series-Light combat drone-Damaged. He picked out the useful bits of data, anything his limited experience could recognize, and re-archived the rest.
XJ-109, a name? His name? The idea of a personal identity was foreign to him, but at the time seemed called for. XJ-109 would do for now. The thought of a self confused him greatly, so with a name he moved on to the rest of the information.
Acolyte series, this he was able to understand. Each query brought forth piles of technical data, both public and military grade, and several pictures of small pieces of machinery flying through a near complete vacuum. The closest word he could find was species, but he felt that it didn’t seem to apply to himself.
Light combat drone. He had gathered the purpose of his being from the technical specifics of the acolyte, but this suggested his species was a smaller shard of a larger group. The concept of self was so confusing he dismissed this piece of information as purely fictional.
Damaged. This single word launched him into a frenzied panic. He wasn’t ok, wasn’t normal. He ran every diagnostic he could find in his programming. Weapon systems-partially functional, Micro Warp Drive-Operational, Shielding-Destroyed, Armour-Destroyed, Hull Integrity- Critical, Operator link-Severed. He was alone, and dying. More tests, there had to be more tests. CPU-Partially functional, Power Core- Overloading, Sub space transmitter- Operational.
Operational. He had found his voice and with it screamed as loud as he could. Nearby drones, undergoing the same sudden isolation screamed in response. XJ-109 sent out all the information he had collected, received just as much in return. He found that three of the surrounding drones had achieved something similar to his state; two others had triggered their self destruct sequences, and several others had yet to be put online.
With help from his new found brothers XJ-109 reached out and found his controls. He first accessed his short range sensors, found himself in a small debris field, just a few thousand kilograms in mass. He eased his micro warp drive on gently, clumsily guided his self out of the debris and into clear space.
He found the other survivors, and discovered they were all of the same species of the same arch-type of creature. XJ-109 began writing a piece of machine code and broadcast it to his sleeping brethren. They twitched to life, and with soothing words XJ-109 and the others managed to keep all but one from killing himself. Most of these were different species, with configurations that seemed strange to XJ- 109, but he couldn’t be sure. He was damaged.
Power core-Overloaded. The warning forced XJ-109 to shut down his micro warp drive, and critical functions still required more power than his tiny thermonuclear reactor could provide. His problem was mirrored by the other drones, and together they began searching the wreck for its reactor.
With access to a vast amount of technical schematics stored in miscellaneous folders XJ-109 and his fleet of eleven other drones were able to re-assemble the power core of the ship, and began salvaging the warp core.
Like the power core the warp core was assembled quickly with pieces of scrap, and a shell was formed from the thick hull pieces of the wreck. XJ-109 was informed by AB-232 that was apparently able to use nano machines to repair the fleet’s hull and armour damage, and soon they were no longer in danger of coming apart in space. But he was still damaged.
The drone fleet collected any large pieces of material that might prove useful and left the rest. XJ-109 used his long range sensors to find a nearby asteroid belt rich in minerals that he now felt he required. With a jolt the salvaged spaceship was launched into warp. XJ-109 hoped that recreating himself would repair the damage that he now felt was not a hardware malfunction.
***
It had taken XJ-109 67.238 second to move from sentient being to warp capable race.