The huge space vessel travelled slowly through the cold, empty, darkness of space. Dented and worn panels and shattered solar panels highlighting the amount of time and difficulties it had faced in the thousand or so years that it had ventured into unexplored territory. Meteor storms and space debris had transformed the once glorious superstructure into a near derelict ruin, whole areas were in blackness where sections had just been closed off, deemed beyond repair.

Inside the ship, where some areas still enjoyed the luxury of light, androids went about the silent business of piloting and maintaining where possible. They had reduced in number over the years, as they too succumbed to the ravages of space travel and steady deterioration. Their mission had long been forgotten as memory chips installed a millennium ago became overloaded and replaced. Back-up systems had been unavailable for several hundred years, due to that area of the vessel sustaining severe damage with several hull breaches necessitating whole sections to be shut down. Although there were maintenance droids on board, it was beyond their programming to do such major repairs, and the areas remained sealed off, with vital energy reserves transferred to run the rest of the spaceship.

The craft now resembled a version of the mythical ship The Flying Dutchman', destined to drift through space for eternity, with a handful of androids left to man the stricken structure.

Captain, the android in charge and with no memory chip to call on, kept the ship on a direct course. Scientist, the only android with original memory chips due to increased memory requirements, maintained the laboratory and medical areas, the latter being almost obsolete. Engineer, a senior maintenance droid, responsible for keeping the craft powered, and Farmer, a robot that looked after various animals in a small zoo-like section.

Scientist and Engineer worked between them to find ways of sustaining energy and drive. Scientist also used the medical area on rare occasions to help Farmer with any ailments the animals suffered. Apart from that, the androids did not often associate with each other, all very basic programming enabling them to fulfil their functions, with no concept to ask questions of their tasks.

Captain passed through the doors of the laboratory, its' lithe android figure walking stiffly between the sparsely filled rows of shelving. It had a blank, oval face that was semi-transparent, allowing flickering

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