Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered

"No. The inheritance framework is extremely strict."

That sounded exactly like something a paranoid old power would design, something built to last even when everything else failed.

Aurelian leaned back a little and looked out through the side panel as the vehicle carried them onward, letting the motion fill the silence for a moment.

"So you’ve all just been waiting here."

Seris’s smile dimmed, though it did not vanish, holding in place but softer now.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"A very long time," she said. "Long enough that some of us stopped counting just so we can stay here without going mad."

That answer addressed a few of his questions, even if it raised others.

Then he asked the next question, keeping his tone simple.

"If you were waiting for a human this whole time, why didn’t you leave to look for one?"

That made Seris turn her head toward him more fully, her expression settling into something more serious.

"Because we were forbidden to leave."

Aurelian said nothing, so she went on, filling the space without needing to be pushed.

"There were awakened units before my generation. Some of them did try to solve the problem by leaving the bastion and bringing back a suitable claimant. That ended badly. There was conflict here afterward, and after that, a strict restriction was imposed. No awakened unit was allowed to depart the bastion again."

"Civil conflict," Lysara said quietly.

Seris nodded.

"Yes."

That explained some things, even if the details were still missing.

Not everything, but enough to sketch the shape of it. Aurelian could easily imagine a place like this turning in on itself after centuries of waiting, with half-awakened loyalties and orders too old to make sense, rules clashing with reality.

He asked another question instead, moving forward.

"How many awakened units are still here?"

"Three hundred and fifty-one," Seris said. "Most awakened after the conflict, not before it. Those who came earlier either vanished, shut down, or left records that were not always clear."

Three hundred and fifty-one.

That was not a trivial population. Not in a base like this, and not for something that had been left alone for so long.

Aurelian kept his expression calm, but he filed the number away immediately, knowing it would matter later.

He had seen self-aware machines before, only in fragments, in stories, in controlled records. Never a whole community still holding together in a dead stellar fort, still functioning despite everything.

Without meaning to, his thoughts drifted for a second to Yelena’s message again, to the unknown person who had come asking after him through his family channels.

The timing still bothered him, but he didn’t know why; it wasn’t anything special or dangerous, yet it felt like there was something wrong.

Whoever it was had wanted him badly enough that his parents had passed word through family hands, which meant it was not something small.

He pushed that aside again. One thing at a time.

Beside him, Lysara was studying Seris with a kind of careful curiosity, not just listening but watching.

"You speak very naturally," Lysara said. "More naturally than most old military assistants I’ve seen."

Seris laughed softly, the sound light but not forced.

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

"It was one."

For the first time since entering the base, the tension eased a little, just enough to make the air feel less tight.

Aurelian decided to use that, not letting the moment pass.

"If I do take control here," he said, "what exactly are you expecting from me?"

Seris was quiet for a short moment, not answering right away.

That silence felt different from the others, more deliberate, as if she were choosing her words carefully now, instead of simply answering from stored protocol, thinking rather than recalling.

Finally, she said, "That depends on what kind of man you are."

Aurelian watched her without speaking, letting her continue.

She continued in the same calm tone, steady and clear.

"We have been alone for a very long time. We still function. We still maintain the bastion. We still obey the inheritance law. But obedience does not erase awareness. If a human took command and chose to treat us as disposable tools, that would matter to us."

There it was.

Not just protocol, not just access.

Fear.

Or at least caution shaped into something close to it, something built over time.

Aurelian understood then why she had been so willing to talk.

She was measuring him while he measured the base, trying to understand what kind of future might follow.

That, strangely enough, made him trust her more, not less.

He answered plainly, without trying to soften it too much.

"If you’re awake, then you’re people," he said. "Maybe not human people, but that doesn’t change the important part. I have no interest in butchering a working population just because it was built instead of born."

Seris stared at him for a second, her expression still.

Then she let out a slow breath she did not technically need, as if something had settled.

"I hoped you would say something like that."

Aurelian’s tone stayed level.

"I didn’t say you’d get everything you want. I said I wouldn’t treat you like scrap."

"That is already more than some would offer," Seris replied, her voice quieter.

The vehicle turned through one final transit corridor, and ahead of them, a larger chamber began to open, one built on a scale far beyond routine station traffic.

Even from a distance, Aurelian could tell that this had to be part of the base’s real heart, something central.

As they approached, Seris looked at him again, and this time when she spoke, her voice had dropped a little, more serious than before.

"I need to tell you something before we enter the control hall," she said.

The lightness from earlier was gone, replaced by something heavier.

Lysara straightened beside him, her attention sharpening.

Aurelian did not move, but his focus narrowed at once.

"What is it?"

Seris held his gaze and answered in a low, steady voice.

"If you activate the highest authority, you will not only inherit Helion Bastion Twelve. You will also inherit the things buried beneath the Directorate’s silence, and not all of them are simple."

She paused for a fraction, then added quietly, "Some of them were the reason this place was sealed in the first place."

That was the point where the vehicle finally came to a stop.