The more I look around this fascinating grave and then turn to watch Leroy work, the more it hits me. The only connection I have to a race that, until now, has been a bedtime story is this flesh. The same flesh that no longer exists on these corpses, if you can call them that. After completing my first order of business and gathering all the "bodies" I could find and moving them here in the engineering bay, I got a bit worried. Bits of metal that used to be probably fascinating implants are the only remnants of these people and their history. A history that will be lost if I don't get this heap fixed. What were they called, the ones who split off and melded with their ships? It's only been 30-some years since I've heard the stories. So appalled by the destruction our superiority caused to a practically unarmed society, they completely abandoned the flesh and became one with their ships then just left. The more I sit here, the harder it is to remember why that was supposed to be wrong. Something about the flesh makes us humble, or some such bullshit. Maybe if Leroy were smaller, I could find a way to implant him with my conscious. Maybe there's something in the memory banks of this ship that can clue me in to how the "Outcasts" permanently melded with their ships. Project #2 will have to be building a new body for me, just in case. Well, with that in mind, it's time to get back to work...

Between Leroy and I, it wasn't too hard to get this chunk of ship sealed off. We got it tethered to the command deck and have been slowly pulling the pieces together. The "no thrusters" thing puts a dampener on doing anything quickly. Get the pun? Heh heh. Thrusters and dampeners, get it? Have to make sure my new self has a sense of humor, sheesh. The engineering bay has proven to be a bit useless on back up power. Through some sick blessing, the sunlight shines aplenty on the wreck, so I've been taking short trips around to see if there's any solar cells still functioning. I'm kind of leary about hooking back up to the main reactor until I get a better grasp on where the conduits go. Last thing I need is for this giant hulk to suddenly get motivated to move when I've barely started getting the pieces together. Weee!

Bigger picture: getting this mess back to a working ship isn't happening. There are enough materials to make a working satellite and possibly a little mobile scrap hauler boat thingy. I wonder how much Angel Eye would charge to give me a hand once I get power and comms up. It certainly wouldn't hurt me to see her again, anyway.