>>5258415As it turns out, SHODAN already has the cubesat design not just thought out, but optimized to reduce the volume and required materials as much as possible.
That speeds up the printing time quite a bit, which is good.
Each batch of cubesats comes out, and SHODAN tests them one by one. You can see the optical camera aperture spin as it focuses on a target.
After they all pass QC, you load them up into the airlock and carefully nudge them into open space by hand. As soon as they're free of the airlock, you see them twitch to life and momentarily fire their engines to reposition themselves.
They all cluster up into one big ball, which SHODAN can then nudge around using the gravity generator.
"Alright, you ready?" You ask, pulling your suit hood down after stepping back into the ship.
<span class="mu-i">"Ready as i'll ever be, Captain."</span>
"Then let's get to it."
...
As soon as you're back in the pilot seat, you partially engage the ship's heatsinks to match the background temperature of the nebula and lower your reactor output to minimum.
Although you can only move at sublight speeds while at minimum output, you're virtually undetectable while doing so. And when you're really close, you engage the ship's cloaking system to reduce your subspace signature to near-zero.
"Just don't look out your window, you slimy bastards."
<span class="mu-i">"How do you know they're slimy? They could be scaly instead."</span>
"Then maybe they'll go better on a grill." You joke.
Once you're in SHODAN's estimated area, the cubesats disperse with a momentary pulse from their engines and slowly spread out in a big, expanding shell. You can see them on the monitor, twitching and rotating around using their reaction wheels as they scans various objects.
Every once in a while, one of the satellites will pulse it's engine to alter it's course ever so slightly, allowing it to line up one object behind another. Or, you'd assume, the most possible objects over a given period.
The searching, honestly speaking, goes slow. If it weren't for SHODAN's suggestion you'd have been here quite a long time. You personally can't tell apart one wrecked ship from another, and many are obscured by debris that makes it hard to tell if they're damaged or not.
But SHODAN can see. From dozens of angles, in dozens of places. She scans, identifies and categorizes faster than you could ever hope to. And within a couple of hours, after moving position several times, she finds one.
<span class="mu-i">"There. I think i've found one."</span> She informs you.
Your eyes have been glued to the monitor for so long now that your vision has gone blurry, but SHODAN doesn't sound tired at all.
"Heat signature?"
<span class="mu-i">"Slightly elevated. Ever so slightly, but more than just some old LED fixtures could produce."</span>
SHODAN brings it up on screen for you, and you see... a scrap-heap, like everything else out here.
"Hey, wait a minute..."
Taking control of the ship's observation telescope, you zoom in on the battle-damaged ship she marked.
