" Yes. I had a direct order to not go down with the ship." He recognized that voice as Kieren Miller, one of the new mechanic and robotics programmers that had ben working on his body. Kieren was on of the mechanics that called him by the name KES. Now as a program he shouldn't be able to have preferences to what he was addressed as but he was an S series he was far more advanced. He did have preferences and he found he enjoyed being called KES.


The escape pod was still much smaller then the Nexis but it was connected to all of the other surviving pods so it gave him room to stretch. H-8 had suffered damage to the right side but nothing that was simply cosmetic damage. By his calculation they had landed a good two days travel from where the other pods would land. If the crew traveled by foot and left any of the injured behind. Taking over for the frankly outdated system that was currently running the ship he used the pods sensors to scan the surrounding area.

"Thank you Mr. Miller. I have to do a more in-depth scan but I do believe I have lost some programing." It was hard to fill in the missing pieces of his programing to figure out what it is he had lost. KES just registered that there was pieces missing. "The scan of the planet shows that the air is breathable. Gravity is 9.78 m/s² and the temperature is 15.5555556 Celsius. It closely resembles several planets in our solar system."



--
On a normal day where Melee Burett hadn't felt like she had just lost everything she would have been in Greenly's face spiting out that KES had more intelligence then he held in his pinky finger. KES was not just some science fair project she made over night. This was not a normal day.She was separated from her husband and had thought that KES was lost with the Nexis Blue. All she felt was relief.

Pushing the commander out of the way she stared past the faces of the two you crewmen, they looked like they were barely out of training, to the young man in the background holding up the data pad she assumed KES was on.
"KES?! Are you there?"
Using the communication connection KES spoke right through the speakers if the H-1 pod."Hello Mrs. Burett. I am glade to see that you made it off the ship unharmed. On pod H-1."
A relived laugh bubbled from her chest and she had to smile at the AI's own personal form of reprimand. " Yes KES I'm fine. So is Orin. What about you? That escape pod and data pad aren't designed to hold your programing?"
She could feel the commander beside her shifting at the conversation. She understood that some people didn't recognized KES and a living being and thought her worry was unwarranted.
"It is better then the data pad but...no I'm not very comfortable. I may have to eject some of my more un necessary functions to remain working at optimal capacity."

Running a hand thorough her hair Melee thought over that. KES wouldn't delete anything important but it felt so wrong to ask him to dumb himself down just to survive. Focusing on the red haired young man holding the data pad she made her decision.
" Mr. Miller. My husband spoke highly of you and your talents. I need to ask, how good are you at following directions?" This was not the optimum solution. But neither she nor Orin would be able to get to pod H-8 in time before the confinement had negative effects on KES system. She had read through each of the mechanic's files and helped hand select them. If she couldn't be there to do this herself she was going to have to trust a kid almost twenty years her junior to do it for her.