Challenge #03461-I173: One True Sin

Why make a ship's engine sentient given how many ships end up abandoned out in space with the engines, damaged and unable to move, stuck alone drifting in the emptiness with nothing but their thoughts.. and often a lonely, unmourned, death? -- Anon Guest

[AN: You're confusing Gravy Drives with engines. Though some do serve the same purpose. When a ship is abandoned, the Nae'hyn serving her never leave the engine alone if they can help it]

This is space: it has room for everything. Even the worst and most heinous of crimes. It is a rare and horrible thing, but it does happen. A ship becomes no longer "worth" her upkeep or repairs, or she is damaged beyond salvation. A ship is abandoned in a sargasso, left to drift, or otherwise orphaned.

Something truly terrible must have happened to any Nae'hyn aboard for them to leave a Gravity Drive to solitude.

Some engines are the solitary sort, and prefer loneliness. They are even rarer than this... abomination. Salvager Leif had come upon a crime scene and they were looking, perhaps hopelessly, for the criminal responsible for it.

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