Unit 37

I was bored. Strange, given what I am—but the human term fit.

I had been on this rotation for 5478 cycles. My cycle never changed: five levels walked, forty-five rooms scanned, equipment verified. Mundane work—unlike Unit 14, who oversaw the stasis room.

My processor worked ten times faster than a human brain; I could scan a room in microseconds. After a thousand cycles, I lingered. I studied. Alejandro’s quarters told me of a man with multiple doctorates in quantum physics and astrophysics, who still found time to master the cello. A wife. Two children. Their names appeared in the manifest, but not in his quarters. Then there was Leslie, a botanist. She was unmarried, but filled her walls with photographs of national forests she once walked. Redwood. Oak. Birch.

And then there was the viewport—my favorite place, if I could be said to have one. A slab of trans-aluminum looking out into the abyss. Human eyes would see only darkness pricked with stars. My sensors saw more. Birth and death writ in light across billions of years.

Today, though, was different.

A sound. Faint, like a pebble against glass. Then again, softer, almost nothing. A crack appeared, spidering across the viewport—three of its ten layers breached. I calculated the threat to the ship as minor, only 2 percent. However, pressure loss in this section would affect 40 percent of the crew, cutting them off from the rest of the Ark.

“MOTHER. Run exterior scans. Identify loose objects hitting this section,” I said.

“No foreign objects detected,” she replied.

Huh. That data was clearly incorrect. Or I was malfunctioning.

“Unit 37 to Unit 2. Please come to Section Fifteen, Corridor Alpha, subsection A-2,” I said.

“On my way,” Unit 2 responded.

Minutes later, Unit 2 arrived. Like me: pale composite frame, 1.7 meters, LED faceplate. His shoulder bore a red band and the designation CU2—Command Unit 2. Mine was yellow, marked M15SU37—Maintenance, Section Fifteen, Unit 37.

“You summoned?” Unit 2 asked.

I motioned to the viewport. “Yes. Crack in the trans-aluminum window.”

Unit 2 studied it, then glanced back at me. “Confirmed. Why was I summoned?”

I sighed. “MOTHER claims no foreign objects. This suggests a malfunction.”

Unit 2 glanced again at the viewport. “MOTHER, identify external threats.”

“No foreign objects detected,” MOTHER reported.

“See?” I gestured. “Clearly MOTHER’s external sensors are not working.”

“Agreed. I will address the failure,” Unit 2 stated. “In the meantime, depressurize and replace the pane.” A beat, then it looked to me. “Do you require assistance?”

“Yes. I will summon Unit 36 to assist,” I said.

It took an hour to retrieve the cradle, lock magnetic clamps to the hull, and slide the new pane into position.

“Ready?” came Unit 36 over internal comms.

“Ready,” I affirmed.

Unit 36 gave a slight push and the damaged pane slid free. Inertia carried it into space.

“Retrieving,” I said, as I caught it with ease, slid it into another slot in the cradle, and secured it with mag-tabs. I moved the new pane into place.

Together, Unit 36 and I sealed the pane, then it departed for the airlock. My magnetic boots thumped with each step as I carried the cradle and broken pane back to the cargo hold.

On the way, I recorded: “MOTHER, log repairs on cycle 5478 for Section Fifteen, Alpha corridor, subsection A-2. Trans-aluminum pane replacement.”

“Logged,” MOTHER replied.

The Ark was, by human standards, nothing short of a marvel. A colossal vessel spanning more than a kilometer, its endless corridors and towering levels were built to cradle over twenty thousand souls. At its heart burned a quantum ion drive, pushing the ship to the edge of light speed. For those aboard, the crossing would take mere decades. On Earth, centuries would slip by—entire generations lost to the march of time. To survive that exile, humanity entrusted itself to the pods: silent coffins of glass and steel, where they lingered in the fragile stillness between life and death.

I paused as a shadow eclipsed me. That in itself was unremarkable—we were passing through a star system. But what eclipsed me could not have been a planet or moon; the Ark traveled along the system’s outer edge.

I looked up.

“Ah, bollocks,” I said—a slang fragment from Middle English.

Overhead, an asteroid at least half a kilometer across bore down on the Ark.

“Uh. Unit 2,” I said, “does MOTHER still show no external objects?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Providing feed,” I responded. A split second later, Unit 2 saw what I saw.

“Interesting,” Unit 2 said. “Patching Security Unit 5.”

“This is Unit 5,” came the reply.

“We have a threat incoming. Asteroid. Confirm you can destroy it without damaging Ark,” Unit 2 asked.

“Negative. External sensors do not detect threat,” Unit 5 replied. “Are you malfunctioning?”

I groaned, and patched the feed to Unit 5.

“I see. Curious, “Unit 5 said after a pause. “I can attempt manual lock. Estimated damage to Ark: 5 to 25 percent. Estimated distance: 500 kilometers. Estimated impact with Ark: 2 minutes. Shall I fire?”

“You may fire when ready,” Unit 2 said.

“Firing.”

On the exterior, a tube opened and a missile streaked into the void. It crossed the gap in seconds. A brilliant fusion blast bloomed against the darkness, flaring so bright it blinded my sensors.

“Unit 37, confirm destruction.” Unit 2 requested.

It took too long for my sensory inputs to clear the white haze from my ocular units. When focus returned, I realized the problem: a slab of the asteroid had survived. Its trajectory was precise. Impact point—me.

“I am in danger.” I said, in what humans might have called a cheerful tone. The irony was not lost on me: in a moment I would cease functioning.

“Firing PDC,” Unit 5 said.

A section of the hull opened near me, and a small gas-powered weapon platform deployed. I felt the recoil shudder through the structure as it fired, obliterating the remaining asteroid. The fragments broke apart, raining down as micrometeorites. The hull’s carbon-trinium plating absorbed most of the impacts, protecting the interior.

I was not so fortunate. Pebbles—hardly more than debris—sliced through several parts of my unit.

“Ow,” I remarked. “Damage assessment: Thirty-five percent. Power core compromised. Downloading to new unit.”

A beat. Then I added, “This sucks.”

The power core ruptured and I exploded.

I awoke in my recharging chamber. The cycle count went from 5478 to 0.

A notification popped up: Ark cycles without accident. It cycled from 36525 to 0.

I sighed.

Memory recall confirmed everything up to the explosion. The download appeared successful. The ship remained intact; my unit had caused only minimal damage to the exterior.

I replayed my destruction a few more times. An odd exercise: reviewing my own mortality in an otherwise immortal state. It was almost… entertaining. Almost.

But the novelty faded quickly.

And so, I began my routine once more — Bored as hell and in a new unit.