Julia, having her meal taken from her let out a sigh. She rested her head on her fist and looked at Meica with a displeased face. Meica, on the other hand, was busy stuffing her mouth with the can of sardines. Julia wanted to say some mean things to the disrespectful Nekomi, but couldn’t find it within herself to scold such an innocent-looking teenager.
“How long are ya guys going to be in this ship?” Julia asked with a disgruntled tone, looking to find a topic to talk about.
“How long… I can’t say for sure, but hopefully not for long. Maybe we might leave after our ship is repaired,” Abyssal replied.
Julia responded by letting out a hum. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in the question or the answer given by Abyssal. Her tone was much more uncaring than the hidden inquisitive tone that E used. It was more like she was just asking for the sake of asking instead of finding more information out of them.
The room went into an awkward silence with nobody talking so Abyssal decided to blast a question of her own.
“Um, I want to ask. Are you like the ship’s head doctor or something?”
“Hmph. I’m not even close. I’m just some random civilian doctor for the people on-board in case the medical bay is overrun. Either that or people come to me for small problems. Then again, most people would just go to the medical bay anyways,” Julia said as she took out a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up.
‘Again with the smoking,’ Abyssal thought to herself.
“Are you truly a practitioner of the medical arts? I’ve not seen any doctor who would smoke right in front of their patients,” Kuon asked, seeing the so-called doctor smoking a cigarette.
Julia, who can be seen visibly ticked off by Kuon’s comment, let out a puff of smoke right onto the maid-drone. “Trust me. I’m more of a doctor than most doctors on this ship will ever be.”
‘Wow… If she’s the better doctor on this ship, then I don’t want to know what’s the worst one.’
Julia then clicked her tongue on annoyance before scratching the back of her head. “Dammit, what the hell am I even doing. Here kid, suck on this,” Julia said as she brought a stick out of her pocket and stuck it into Meica’s mouth.
“Mugya!” Meica let out a small cry.
A few seconds later, the stick let out some beeping noise and Julia pulled it out of Meica. If Abyssal had to guess, the device looked like a small thermometer. Julia inspected the device before saying out: “Your temperature is alright, no signs of fever or anything. You are free to leave, I'll handle the paperwork and collect the check from the captain.”
“Eh? You are chasing us out? Shouldn’t we at least stay here until morning or something?” Abyssal asked.
“Yes, I’m chasing you out. I need to grab something to eat since the kid took my dinner. Hurry up, I need to close up the place,” Julia went towards the door and opened the door for them.
‘Wow… talk about hospitality…’ Abyssal thought to herself.
* * * * *
Abyssal oversaw the repairs of her ship. It was going to take a while before she would be back to 100% again, but at the very least it was progressing. Her main critical systems like her transmitter, her energy routing system and her warp drives were now functional. However, her other systems like her new weapon systems and her hull would still take a while to be fully functional. Still, she could technically be out there in space at this very moment and be fine.
Whether or not she was better off outside the belly of the beast or not was another question altogether. Due to being chased away by Julia, Abyssal, Kuon and Meica were now gathering in the bridge, standing in a circle around the hologram table. A discussion between the crew was very much needed at this moment.
Kuon was the first to open up the conversation between the crew of the S.A.S. Abyssal.
“I am sure we are all aware of our situation. Let’s just say that we are rather lucky that our captor is rather... Unique,” Kuon said as she threw a glance towards Abyssal.
“Why do you feel the need to look at me like that when talking about her, my dear maid?” Abyssal commented on Kuon’s behaviour.
Kuon, however, ignored the remark from her master before proceeding with her small talk. “The question now is, what are going to do moving forward? This situation that we are in is quite the complex one and I thought it would be best to have a discussion. I, for one, think we should minimize our contact with these people and try to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Eh? Why leave, nyaa? These people don’t mean us harm, right?” Meica responded.
“I simply don’t trust her,” Kuon answered.
“Her?”
“Abigail E. Eternity. She’s so far above us, it would be best if we just stayed away from this person and whatever agenda she comes with.”
“Agenda, nyaa? What kind of agenda would she have?” Meica tilted her head.
“Who knows. Secret big army people in the top brass always have an agenda. I doubt she would be any different,” Kuon paused for a while before taking a look at Meica.
“I’m not sure if she had found out about your identity yet, but do remember the position that we are in. Imagine the leverage she would have over us and your family if she knew. Do try to understand that she is not on our side. Big army ship finds the heir of Nipon Steel. A piece of big news that would be,” Kuon gave her argument.
Meica nodded slowly before looking towards the ground, her ears swooped downwards. “Right…”
“Wait… Army ship?” Abyssal asked.
“Hmm? Yes. Is there anything about it, Master?”
“No, you just made me think of something. This is a military ship, right?”
“I guess it would be. Big hulking ships like this are often owned by an army or the government. I guess there could be a chance it could be owned by a private entity or a person but it is highly unlikely that would be the case. Such a thing would require huge funding.”
“But she’s a living core, right? It’s not like there is a need for an actual huge dockyard or construction workers to build this ship. I can’t imagine it would be that expensive of an endeavour.”
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“That may be true, but you must account for the need for raw resources and the blueprints. Normal people will simply not have some of the materials or technology required to even construct something of this scale. Living core or not, ” Kuon answered.
“Well, I guess that’s right.”
“Not to shoot your argument down as there is a chance for a ship like this to be a rogue ship, but that is highly disproven during the last battle. Remember that squeaky voice controlling the swarm of fighters? She did say that she was from Freedom United. I think it pretty much confirms that she is of a highly ranked military ship.”
“Ah, right! There was that too, huh.”
“Indeed.”
“Hmm… then that would be weird then,” Abyssal furrowed her brows internally.
“What is?”
“Why would there be kids and civilians on a military ship like this?”
A short silence occurred in the room once Abyssal brought up the question.
“...Maybe people are family members of the crew?” Meica gave her best answer.
“Could be. Also. it’s not exactly uncommon for military ships to harbour civilians during peacetime,” Kuon responded.
“But why are they on this ship? E said that this is the toughest part in space, why would a ship containing civilians be here? This place is basically a warzone, right? I just feel like something is off…”
“Regardless, we are not here to care about the circumstances of the carrier. We are here to discuss the circumstances of THIS ship,” Kuon said, trying to prevent the topic from veering away. “What is our plan?”
“Right, our plan, huh…” Abyssal folded her robotic arms.
“My opinion, but I do not trust E nor her captain. I don’t feel safe here and I suggest we leave as soon as possible. Being out there would probably be better. Staying here would not advance our goals,” Kuon gave her suggestion.
‘Our goals? Did we even have a goal?’ Abyssal thought to herself but decided to keep that thought to herself.
“I don’t know about that, Kuon. Being out there… hasn’t worked out for us ever since the beginning. Maybe some of the problems we’ve met out there are because of my horrible decisions or horrible luck. But I just can’t help but feel that no matter what I do, I’ll just find trouble anyways. It’s like this zone is way too high level for the current me…” Abyssal said as she remembered all the events that had happened ever since she started exploring this zone.
“High-level? I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Kuon asked.
“You know, like in games, where you entered a place that is clearly out of your league. Anything you do, no matter how smart or stupid would just end up with you getting clobbered by some high powered mob.”
“Mob? What’s that nyaa?” Meica asked. Both Kuon and Meica gave a confused worried look towards Abyssal.
‘They don’t get the reference? Do games not exist in this world? Oh wait, right, Kuon was technically a maid slave and Meica is just a weirdo mistress of some big company. It would make sense that they haven’t played a video game before,’ Abyssal thought to herself.
“Forget about that. Let’s just say if we went out there again, I have no doubt that destiny would bring some new problem towards us. Maybe Astral would come and beat me up again, maybe Jinko would track me. Heck, maybe a pirate ship or sorts will just blow me up or something. I just know it’s going to happen.”
“I see…”
“O-oh….”
Kuon and Meica responded.
“Either way, if we are leaving, then we are leaving outside of the Lawless Maw Zone. We got E’s offer where she said she would drop us off right? Let’s just take it and get her to drop us off in Freedom United Territory. She’s our gateway here. As a matter of fact, she might be our only gateway into the nation all things considered.”
“We don’t necessarily have to enter Freedom united. We can always go to another neutral zone. Plenty others out there than this one. Every single one of them are very likely to be safer than the Lawless Maw Zone,” Kuon touched the hologram table before projecting a star map. Highlighted on the map were various other neutral zones in the galaxy map.
“Why not stay in ship, nyaa? Build up good-will and get rewards? Become like mercenary! Do jobs get paid!” Meica suggested.
“No, I’m with Kuon on this. I don’t think we should stay on this ship any longer than we need to,” Abyssal replied.
“Oh? I’m surprised. Given your attitude and your previous response, master, I expected you would be in agreement with Meica.”
“The passive aggressiveness on this maid…’ Abyssal thought to herself.
“...As much as I like E and all. I just don’t trust her. There are so many things wrong with her.”
“Is she really that bad, nyaa?” Meica asked.
“Well, you were kinda out when it all happened. Simply put, I don’t like the way she smiles.”
“Her smile? That’s the reason you don’t trust her?” Kuon asked.
“It’s not natural. It’s like she learned to smile from a textbook. Besides, don’t you guys feel that it is weird that she is harbouring us in the first place? Why is she making that decision and not the captain? Does the captain even know about us? Who is truly in control of the ship? There are just so many things…”
“...”
“...”
“I just say we repair and finish the construction of the ship, avoid going outside as much as possible and just get her to drop us off. Preferably not in the Lawless Maw Zone if possible. That’s the plan,” Abyssal announced.
Kuon gave her a bow. “Understood.”
Meica, on the other hand, gave Abyssal a salute. “Aye aye!”
And so began Abyssal's short life on the Abigail E. Eternity.