Echo shut down all of her running lights and moved forward towards Fury’s deck one access corridor. There were blast marks on the bulkheads and a small fire was still burning inside one of the circuit relay access bays on the far side of the opening. There was enough light in the corridor to see beyond the hatch. Alert indicators were blinking various shades of red and yellow all along the far bulkhead.

The small vehicle pulled forward just far enough to train her visual pickups on the hatch. From the bridge it would have looked like a small ambulance was peeking around the bulkhead edge. There were several bodies on the deck. The hatch itself was torn and scorched and hanging from a single hinge. There was just enough room for Echo’s chassis to get through to the bridge.

Echo did a micro-second sensor sweep of all visible space between her position and the forward bulkhead of Fury’s bridge. She detected life signs but no movement. All of the electronic wavelengths were dark except for the ever-present jamming energy that was being broadcast from outside of Fury’s hull. She still could not detect any of her minibot companions’ transponders.

Nevertheless, there were life signs on the bridge, and that meant someone might need help. Echo knew Acey was here somewhere. She pulled forward carefully, turning to avoid the splayed limbs of the bodies in the corridor. She kept her lights off, maneuvering by visuals alone. Finally she reached the hatch and did a full sweep of the bridge. Two life signs.

Echo rolled on to the bridge of DSS Fury. Acey had reminded her time and time again that although she was authorized to communicate with the other ships in the Perseus fleet, and although she could alert the other officers in Commander Hunter’s Task Force to danger, she and the other bots must never never enter the bridge without special permission from Acey herself. This was ostensibly to prevent a possible safety incident where bridge personnel could potentially stumble over the minibots. Ultimately, however, the regulations were rather specific with regard to bridge personnel. Anyone aboard would need permission from Jayce to be on the bridge in the first place. Hunter just formalized the instructions as far as the minibots were concerned. There was only one directive in Echo’s command table that could override the restrictions on entering the bridge: If something is wrong, go to Acey.

As Echo pulled up alongside her creator, she realized just how wrong things actually were. The little trauma unit went straight to work. Her medical sensor sleeve extended and wrapped around Hunter’s arm and her little probes extended to positions in front of and beside Jayce’s head. The consoles on her dorsal section rotated to display her patient’s vital signs. Inside Echo’s chassis, powerful chemical synthesis facilities began analyzing Jayce’s blood. Sophisticated circuitry started to diagnose her patient’s condition. New plasma and blood were synthesized and added to Jayce’s intravenous circulation. Filtering systems kicked in. Small doses of epinephrine, pain medication, folic acid and thiamine were added at regular intervals. Echo didn’t detect any internal injuries, so she elected not to add clotting agents.

Jayce’s pulse strengthened. Her respiration followed. Echo waited patiently. She performed another micro-second sweep of the nearby area. No movement. No sound. She knew Fury was tumbling and adrift, but even though many of the ship’s power systems were down, life support seemed to be functional, if erratic.

Commander Hunter’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hi.”

Jayce moved a little. Her eyes finally focused. “Echo.” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“I think you got a concussion. You should stay for a minute.”

“How did you get all the way up here?” Jayce coughed and tried to move her arm. She stopped when she noticed the pressure sleeve. “Your battery level is down to eleven percent! What happened?”

“I told the nurse I would get help “cause all we had in sickbay was a little generator and my batteries didn’t have enough power for all the intensive care machines. I tried to keep them all going but I couldn’t.”

“You drained your reserves trying to run all of sickbay on just your own batteries?”

“Uh huh. It would have worked too but Fury’s power is out so I couldn’t get any more and I couldn’t find the others, so I had to find you instead. Do you know where I can get more power to make the intensive care work again?”

Acey smiled. “You don’t have to run all of sickbay by yourself, Echo. The ship will help you.”

"‘Cause it has bigger batteries, huh?”

“Yeah. Am I well enough to sit up yet?”

“I think so but we gotta find a doctor for the concussion.”

“We’ll do that next. Can you help Lieutenant Mallory for me?”

“Okay.” Echo retrieved all of her treatment sensors and backed up a few feet so Acey could sit up. She rolled around the Commander’s feet and started treating Lieutenant Mallory, following the same steps as before.

Jayce felt a wave of dizziness as she got to her feet. She used the tactical console for support and tried to access the ship’s command computer. All the consoles remained dark. She keyed her personal commlink. It activated, but dimly.

“Hunter to engineering.”

Static. Then a faint signal. Jayce keyed the filter controls. “Bridge. Hunter. Identify yourself.”

“Commander? This is Lieutenant Walter Owens, DSS Argent Search and Rescue. We are on deck 18 starboard side aft. What is your condition?”

“Good to hear your voice, lieutenant. I have the conn. We have several casualties here but that isn’t our top priority. There are hostiles aboard. I need a damage control party to engineering to restore battery power so we can recover maneuvering control. Can you assist us?”

“Affirmative, Commander. We have two of Argent’s engineering crew aboard. Coordinate with Nightwing One on emergency channel C-5. Stand by.”

“Skipper?”

Hunter knelt by her CIC Officer. “Sabrina. How do you feel?”

“Like I fell out of bed–about two stories. What’s our status?” Mallory coughed.

Jayce looked over at Echo. She was completely dark and not moving. Mallory sat up.

“Echo?”

No response.

Hunter put her hand on the little ambulance and sighed. “She did it again. Ran herself completely dark trying to save my crew. I’ll never understand this little creature I made.”

“But you built her, didn’t you? Isn’t that part of her design?”

“I built her to stop and go to minimal operation at five percent battery charge. She can keep running for hours in that state on five percent power. I built that in to her programming so she wouldn’t leave herself completely defenseless like this.”

“But she does it anyway.”

Hunter nodded. “She’s been doing this since I got my command. I’ve run thousands of tests, and I’ll never understand how she does it. She just won’t let anything stand between her and her duty. Even her own programming.”