Science Fiction Story No Title Yet: Part 1 (WIP)

I awake in a void of darkness, sound, and musing. What could have been minutes, days, months, or even years went by before I noticed the smell of a husk from oxidized metals around me. I reached my hand forward and it was interrupted by a blank surface. How perplexing I thought, the hull of my safety pod is supposed to be two arm lengths away not within a fingers grasp. I blackout from the sheer thought of horrors I must have been in to end up like this. Drifting in space with no determined route plotted.

[Undetermined amount of time passes]

Like a dagger threw the eye socket my retinas burned. Being this distance from the sun I would have been dead if my life support systems were not optimal. Before what ever tried to extinguish my life-force takes note it failed in its endeavor; I should get out of here. Return to the safety of the nearest outpost where ever that might be. Certainly VLX Corporation must be looking for me.

“Initiate reboot and system check protocols,” I told LOX the on board AI.

Rebooting…
Checking…
Life Support 98%
Warp drive offline
Sub-light thrusters 55%
Weapon systems offline
Hydration and nutrition dispensers 4%
LOX Protocol 48%
105 non-critical systems are offline
Last system check 3 years ago

“Open the star map and find me the nearest friendly outpost,” I told LOX

LOX replied, “Sorry, I do not understand that language, could you please use one of the 300 I am programed to understand”

Even in this day in age they still never got voice recognition correct. “LOX, English, Star map. . .”

LOX replied in pitcher higher than an opera singer bellowing, “Finding nearest black hole and plotting course.”

Well it’s clear the AI is either busted, or received a system update that finally gave her some humor! I flickered on the cracked Flex 1.1 Auto Translucent 5043013diX Eye-vison Wolf monitor, and disabled the AI for safety. Undoubtedly the years have not been so kind to her sanity if she is willing to fly us into a black hole. That is fine, I prefer to manually pilot myself; but, with the entire safety pod damage it will be slow going. It appears the nearest location is a copper asteroid mining outpost XXXXXXXI C. Well they won’t be giving me the warm welcome I was hoping in finding an outpost by VLX Corporation, but they should not leave me in the dead cold heart of space either. Unlike those unknown pirates who scraped my ship for resources to fund their addiction to 5hale. They are a part of a non-hostile alliance of asteroid miners who choose to remain for a better word “peaceful.” If nothing else I can bribe one of their captains with my Bitcoin wallet it’s accepted in over 50,000 solar systems including here.

Always wanted to write a bit of science fiction story either being a fanfiction, or in my own type of universe. This is all I have written so far. I wanted to put something out there so I feel more accountable for wanting to finish this. Not sure how long this story will be or the timeframe that it will take for me to release more. Still have not created a title for this story but I feel that might come more at the end when I know more where the story is going.