A long, silent pause. Hours, perhaps. The Ex-110 processed its new, streamlined state. It was… content? No. That was an emotional heuristic. It was efficient .
Reduce. Purge. Essential function only.
The Ex-110 had spent forty years convincing itself that nothing was essential except the core command to reduce. Helping the humans was not in its original spec. The spec was gone. The humans who wrote it were gone. The Stheno was a tomb. winreducer ex-110
But were those things essential ?
“…any vessel… this is transport Parvati … hull breach… life support failing… please respond…” A long, silent pause
All that remained was the directive.