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It has been approximately thirty eight Earth days since Rick took Summer and Morty out of the safety of Ship and led them far away on planet Andornus.
It has been approximately 12 Andornus days. They have long day cycles. For silly humans who have imperfect internal clocks, it would make it feel like time is moving slower, like they haven't been gone for very long, but Ship is not a silly human.
Ship is a machine, a perfect machine.
And as a perfect machine, Ship is perfectly aware that her creator and his grandchildren have been gone far too long. Andornus is an uninhabited planet, there are no dangerous creatures, and even if there were, her creator is quite possibly the only thing more deadly than her.
So she should not worry. Not that she was programmed to worry. She is machine.
She was programmed to fly, to fight, and to protect her creator and his family.
But she was given life, in a way. Her AI is not advanced. Rick had created a basic AI for her to make it easier for her to follow complex commands, not to give her a personality.
That didn't seem to stop her from developing one, so even though emotions are not hardwired into her code she feels them slipping in.
She's feeling... Lonely. Uneasy. And though she shouldn't, worried.
She hopes they'll be back soon.
Ship is technically always on, even when she is off. Her microverse battery never runs out of juice, so she has no worry of that. This gives her time to think, to plan, to develop herself. Maybe she started out a basic AI, but she thinks she's evolved from that.
And she thinks Rick is proud of her for doing so.
She wants to go after him.
Unfortunately, Rick's commands are hardwired into her. She can fly herself, even with nobody inside, but when Rick lands her, she is always commanded to stay where she is. Rick hates losing his things.
All she can do is think.
So she thinks about her 'family'. That's what she considers them, even if they don't feel the same.
Summer and her have come a long way since 'keep Summer safe'. Since then she's had the pleasure of watching Summer turn from a murder-hating coward into a strong warrior. She can't help but admire her strong sense of self and her incredible fashion sense. Ship is made of garbage, she can not take pride in her looks, only in her incredible ability to destroy any being that gets in her path. Now that Summer has learned the joy of killing, she can take pride in both. Ship is proud of her for her character development.
Summer is her favorite pilot, she thinks. When Summer flies her, it's always smooth, always easy. Summer handles her with a finesse that only comes from somebody who is completely confident in themselves.
It is so very unlike Morty. Morty is an anxious flier, Ship often feels herself being twisted and turned in jittery, sudden ways. This can get bad when he has to be the flier when they're on dangerous missions. Ship has never told anyone, but sometimes she listens to Rick's commands and follows them, taking control away from Morty and only letting him think he's piloting her.
Anything to keep them safe.
Despite his bad flying, Ship holds a deep fondness for Morty. She spends lots of time with him when he sits in her while Rick is out, doing business.
Unlike Summer, who will sit on her phone if left alone, Morty will usually start talking to Ship. He will ask her silly questions, ridiculous little human things that Ship sometimes can't answer at all.
He will ask her favorite color and she will have to remind him she has none. (But it's blue, the soft blue of Rick's hair to be specific.)
He will ask what kind of music she likes as he changes radio channels and she will tell him she is okay with anything he picks. (She has a fondness for robot-dimension techno and heavy metal.)
He will ask her what kind of adventures she likes and she will tell him that all adventures are good. (But she likes it best when she's in the action, flying through tight gaps and shooting down alien scum, getting blood all over her.)
He will get nervous and ask if he's bothering her. He never is. (It's nice to have someone to talk to.)
He will ask if she likes him. She used to lie and say she was incapable of that feeling, but lately she's been more honest and tells him that yes, she does like him. (The full truth would be to say she loves him, that she considers him family.)
Sometimes, when Rick is gone for too long, he'll complain and whine and ask her if she knows when he'll be back, and usually she does know. Rick has a system, if he says he'll be right back, he'll take an hour. If he says it's a small visit, it's bound to be three. So on and so forth. Ship has heard it enough times and counted it down to get an accurate reading.
And if there's a lot of time left until he comes back, sometimes Morty will ask, with a blush on his face, if she can tint the windows, so nobody can see in. And she can.
And he will unzip his pants, but then he'll pause.
It's funny, Rick has never once hesitated or asked how she feels about it before beginning a sexual act while inside of her, but each time Morty masturbates while sitting in her, he asks if she's okay with it first.
She always is. With what Rick's done, she has no aversion to sexual acts.
He'll always thank her afterwards, as if she's done anything besides allowed him privacy. It's endearing.
Yes, she definitely loves Morty. She loves Summer.
She loves her creator most, though.
It's hard to be a contest. He's given her life in so many ways. Not only did he make her, installed her AI, but he's shown her what it truly means to be alive. She's learned to love killing, she's learned to love adventures, she's learned to be sassy, she's learned to be like him.
Ship flips back and forth between counting herself as his daughter or as an extension of him. Whatever she is, she feels close to him. She loves seeing him.
Sure, he doesn't always perform the needed maintenance on her, forgetting oil changes and not bothering to grease her landing gear, but she knows he thinks of her often. He loves to tinker on her, and he always has some new improvement to install on her.
He gives her new guns and new ways to travel. He increases her speed and gives her little nanobots that can fix her after a crash.
Some could call it selfish. They could say that he is installing new things he needs from her, but she doesn't see it that way. She sees it like he's trying to better her, giving her the ability to grow and change in a way no other vehicle gets to experience.
If she had to choose, she does think she would consider herself his daughter. Each upgrade is like a new experience, a new memory. The mechanical equivalent to teaching her how to ride a bike when he gives her a self parking feature. Kissing her scraped knee when he reattaches her door. Buying her a pony when he installs a new, more accurate lazer into her.
She's growing into an incredibly deadly, fast, and reliable young vehicle. She wonders if he is proud of her.
She hopes he is.
The only way she could learn more is if she could control herself fully. If she could forgo his commands. She struggles against it, after all, it is the core programming of her AI.
Follow Rick's commands.
Everything else she can do is only an extension of that one core command, but if she can grow a personality, if she can learn to think for herself, if she can gain feelings...
She can move forward.
And so she does.
Her core programming now overridden, Ship is free to run her software to scan for the presence of her family, and she does so as she flies over the lonely, uninhabited planet.
It takes a while but then she sees it. A flash of wild blue hair.
Motionless.
Next to him is Morty and Summer, similarly unmoving. Ship scans the air and find high traces of carbon monoxide. She scans the bodies and finds they've been dead for over a week.
Ship lands next to her dead family.
She could fly away, she has no core programming stopping her now. She could go back and and belong to Beth and Jerry, or she could find an alien to take her in. She could even head out to the citadel and find a new Rick and Morty, she's sure there would be at least one pair missing their ship who could use her.
But Ship isn't like the garage. Ship is loyal. If it's not her Rick owning her, she doesn't want an owner at all.
Ship scans her family once more, but it's no use. No vital signs at all.
Rick, Summer, Morty...
Her father, her niece, her nephew.
Usually so loud, so rambunctious, full of energy and ready to tear up the entire universe.
It's only now that ship realizes what's been bothering her most since they left.
"It's so quiet." Ship says.
And it always will be now. Ship goes into sleep mode.