Astrid tuned out the Party Puppet’s voice in case ‘asshole’ was transmissible by sound. He reminded her all too much of her previous job. Well, except the ridiculous getup, that was new. As they ventured deeper into the docks, Astrid started to recognize some ship classes, and even two or three specific ships she’s worked on in the past, getting lost in memories of the past.

"Meet your A.I...cake…”

Those words somehow penetrated her consciousness, and were enough to tear her away from her trip down memory lane and actually get her a little excited. She’s worked with shipboard AIs before whenever she felt too lazy to scour a ship’s logs for damage reports, which if she were to be honest was all the time, and so looked forward to having her workload somewhat lessened. In ideal conditions, of course. There was always the small chance they were given this particular unit because of some defect, and either way it would probably place the value of the ship above that of its crew. She certainly wouldn’t put that past the Party.

Much to Astrid’s dismay, they weren’t given much, or rather any information at all, about the ships they were choosing from. Even she expected more of the Party. Then again, at least there was a choice. “So what’s the hidden reason seemingly good ships like the Lucy and the Harpoon are being offered to us and what exactly doesn’t work on the Angel Dust? Insufficient power core shielding? Faulty maneuvering gyros? Maybe it got hit by a solar flare?” she racked her brain for the worst scenarios she’s seen. She didn’t expect the Puppet to answer, probably because he knew less about ships than she knew about microbiology, but it was worth a try. Maybe the AI would know, if it had time to properly wake up.