After a short break and looking out the window to enjoy the Earth's beauty, everyone is gathered in the main hall to pick another job. Money doesn't grow in trees, as the saying goes.
As they look at the bounty hunting site, the crew votes for their next target or targets depending on the location, ability, influence, etc. People with power or great influence can be tricky occasionally and force bounty hunters to make a deal with the employer, which is risky and only leads to imprisonment or death.
Ah, double cross cliché or any cliché happens more than you think. -Old Guy
"Illegal traffickers, more drugs, nya... Psycho people, missing space whale?" Sylvia lazily reads the list while playing with a floating ball toy.
Yu: What about these space pirates?
"One Piece!!!" K-13 shouts in excitement.
°Pirates? SPACE PIRATES?°
"Interested?" Sylvia asks K-13 and continues, "Did someone tell you about pirates and stuff?"
°Perhaps the Old Guy told him stories about pirates and stuff°
Yu: ...
(Searching the database and internet, trying to find a way to understand K-13's words, and apparently, Luffy and his crew are still looking for the "One Piece")
"Yu, what can you tell about the Space Pirate?" Sylvia asks Yu.
Yu: The group is named "Space Rock Pirates" and is somewhere hiding the "Asteroid Belt." They ambush merchant spaceships and leave no survivors.
"My belt will teach them a lesson!" K-13 shouts.
°Thats close to Marz! This should be quick and easy!°
The more civilization discovers faster means of travel, the smaller the universe seems to be in people's minds.
Since K-13 is naturally curious, he learns how to operate the ship's computer, and sometimes makes Yu curious about how he can read and type complete and polite sentences, surfing the Internet. In this time and age, people would ask the A.I. and instantly obtain an answer without typing anything into any computer device.
"We should get supplies first and gas before we go," Sylvia states.
Yu: I listed everything we need, and we need to resupply fuel orbs.
"Dark orbs of destruction!?" K-13 looks at Sylvia and at the speaker that Yu uses.
°Another type of fuel?°
"Already? (*Hiss*) Those orbs are expensive!" Sylvia protests and continues, "Why? Just why?"
Yu: All you want to buy are clothes and useless stuff.
"Goddess of Greed!" K-13 shouts.
°As long as I have everything I need, I'm good°
Yu: Thank you, 13! It's nice to be on someone's side for once!
"..." Sylvia is not impressed as she looks at the list they need before they depart.
Yu: Anything you want to add or remove?
"Hmmm, we can reduce..." Sylvia let out until Yu cut her off.
Yu: No! Not the rocket fuel. Remember what happened?
"Dead Space!?" K-13 loudly voices.
°That sounded bad°
Yu: Yes! Oh wow, I think I'm slowly understanding 13.
"..." Sylvia looks at K-13 and continues, "Everything's good."
Yu: Alright! I'll go order it now, so when we get to the building, we can just pick it up and refuel.
"Sounds good to me!" Sylvia let out.
K-13, with a keyboard, walks to Sylvia and opens a search tab for old movies about a galaxy far away.
"You want to watch this movie?" Sylvia asks, "Go ahead; I'll let you know if we need your help picking up our stuff."
K-13 happily skips to his room while Sylvia stays with Yu.
"So now you show your hologram?" Sylvia questions her A.I. friend, Yu.
Yu: You know I'm a little shy.
"I know that, but it's really weird for an A.I. Nya?" Sylvia let out.
Yu: You know not all A.I. are built the same. Tell me, Vi, why are you treating 13 differently?
"I don't know. My Tabi kind is loving, strong, and, most importantly, deadly. This system knows little about my kind, and I can freely roam around, and Kay reminds me of my people," Sylvia freely shares.
Yu: I see... Anyway, would you like to play Ruvic Chess while we wait?
"Sounds good to me!" Sylvia happily answers.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Docking at the market station, Yu calls K-13 to pick up everything they order and Sylvia to sign the receipt while Yu refuel the ship and handles the Energy Orbs.
Energy Orb is a crucial ingredient to travel space faster than light and provides shields to the spacecraft. They can use something similar or rocket fuel alone, but it will cost them greatly.
The distance between every planet or floating rock to each other is extraordinary, but faster space travel makes it looks so closer than ever before. Humanity thought they were alone in this infinite universe, not until aliens finally revealed themselves.
Yu: Let's go hunting!
"Now we're talking!" Sylvia lets out.
"Hunt! Hunt! Hunt!" K-13 shouts as the armor-like weapon from Rex-42 transforms into a blaster.
°Oh wow! My body is itching for action!°
Since the Asteroid Belt is around the corner, it takes them approximately two and a half hours to prepare before reaching their destination. Even if they reach the area, the crew must still look for the pirate's base.
Since K-13 only requires his weapon and space suit to survive the cold vacuum of space, he waits in the training room.
The training room has one level; however, Yu's help can produce holographic scenarios for the crew to train their bodies and minds or the current mission to fully prepare themselves.
The Asteroid Belt contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets. The average distance between the asteroids or/and clusters would be about 100,000 miles. But there are likely to be lots of smaller objects too.
Finding the pirate base is next to impossible, but the crew can use the same signal all trade ships must use for insurance purposes. It sounded stupid, but many corporations don't mind sacrificing one or two ships to find a safe route.
Yu: And so we wait.
"My... My... My thirst for blood is immeasurable!" K-13 madly shouts with his face slowly sliding down the glass window.
°Understandable, but my body can't wait... Funny°
"Don't worry, Kay. The ship is a perfect target even if it's not a trade ship," Sylvia reassures K-13.
Yu: It's a basic knowledge that Pirates are greedy. This ship would help them greatly, but can they take it from me?
"The space beast has spoken!" K-13 happily let out.
°I feel safer already, but that's boring!°
Running from window to window, Yu complains to Sylvia about K-13's primitive tendencies, but Sylvia ignores her and looks at her armor and space suits just in case something happens. Yu had it enough and started closing the windows, and every time K-13 reached the next window, Yu closed it to annoy him and as a payback.
"What sorcery is this!" K-13 shouts as he tries to open the window forcefully.
°Yu! You know I sometimes can't control my action?°
"Kay, you know you can just press the close/open switch," Sylvia said as she smirked.
Yu: ...
K-13 smiles, looking at the cameras, and presses the switch, opening the window's metallic plate. Sylvia heartily chuckles, but Yu doesn't give up yet and closes the same window.
It went on for another hot minute with different windows until Yu had enough, which she started, revealing her hologram to K-13.
Yu: Why don't you stop!
With great reaction, K-13's hand armor immediately turned into a blaster but didn't shoots and put it back to a normal-looking armor.
"GHOST!" K-13 shouts
°So that's Yu's avatar! Not bad, not bad°
K-13 looks at Yu's avatar, smiling as he runs away from her and opens the windows he passes through. Yu chases K-13 with her holographic avatar and "touches" the switch to close the window like she is actually doing it, even though she is remotely doing it.
Sylvia notices Yu's responses and is happy that K-13 treats her like a living being and everyone enjoys their time.
After a long wait and messing with Yu, their patients were finally awarded with multiple "Approximately Alerts." Checking who's approaching the ship, Sylvia looks at the monitor in horror since it's ten Cirrinapods.
Cirrinapod- a meter-long space invertebrate that looks like an octopus. They produce EMP, which makes them dangerous, and they eat metals from asteroids. Their body is armored with the type of metal available around their home or nest.
Pirates from the opposite side of the Solar system train this species to disable merchant ships, but what are they doing in this part of the galaxy?
Sylvia calls K-13 to suit up and defend the ship while Yu finds where they come from and proceeds to take the pirates out as planned.
Before they get out to protect the ship, three Cirrinapods already attached themselves to the ship's hull and released an EMP, disabling all outside electronics, such as sensors for navigation.
"COME TO PAPA, BABY SPACE KRAKENS! SPACE HENTAI! SPACE SUSHI!" K-13 shouts, trying to get the enemies' attention.
°What are they called again?°
"We need to take them fast! Nya? They will eat the ship hull if we're not fast enough!" Sylvia let out as she saw K-13 deactivate his gravity shoes, jumping to the closes enemy.
Missing his target, Sylvia panics, but K-13 quickly uses his grappling hook like he planned it from the beginning.
Since shooting is only fifty percent effective, Sylvia uses her blade to kill the Cirrinapod as she gets closer to one. Checking on K-13, she saw him trying to ride a Cirrinapod as it shook him off and eventually tamed it.
Yu to Sylvia: Did you just see what I saw?
"That's badass!" Sylvia replies as she slices a Cirrinapod.
"I'm a space cowboy!" K-13 happily shouts.
°Let's go!!!°
Controlling the Cirrinapod, K-13 cuts the enemies as he shouts, "I'M THE MOTHERFUCKING CAVALRY!"
°Better make it quick!°
After a while, the remaining Cirrinapods noticed they were being killed individually and decided to retreat.
"Bye, bye Space Doggo!" K-13 let out as he lets his ride go along with the rest of the Cirrinapod.
°It was fun, my friend°
"You know we're going to track them going back to their owner, right?" Sylvia let out.
"An enemy of mine is a friend of mine," K-13 replies in a serious tone.
°Hopefully it won't come to that..°
Yu to the crew: Minor damages around the ship should be an easy fix! And tracking our targets!
"'STALKING..." K-13 happily expresses.
°Space pirate! Hell yeah! Here we come!°
"Thank you, Yu. And just now, our bet expires!" Sylvia enthusiastically announces and continues, "No more cat sound for me!"
Yu to the crew: But it was so cuteee! Why stop now?
Sylvia ignores Yu's remarks while K-13 looks at her trying to figure out what's happening.
Looking around the ship while Yu's mini bots fix everything, the two head back inside to be greeted by Yu in her holographic avatar.
Yu: It will take me a while to restore everything, but the ship is ready, and GPS will track both of you when the main ship is fixed and be there ready to pick you up.
"That's good!" Sylvia said as she got a new set of suits for K-13 and herself.
Yu: Be advised that you're not wearing your exoskeleton armor, okay?
"Worried about your friend all of a sudden?" Sylvia playfully let out.
"I'LL DEVOUR THAT COMES IN OUR WAY!!!" K-13 shouts from the top of his lung.
°I'll do my best to protect her°
Yu: You fought one time in space, ONE TIME!
"I mean, you saw him fight earlier," Sylvia said in K-13's defense.
"LIKE WALKING IN HELL," K-13 replies.
°Low gravity, high gravity, you named it! I did all those training before!°
Yu: The GPS is slightly weak to protect it from the EMPs. We only know a little information about the group that controls the Cirrinapods, and we don't know how capable the pirates... Be careful.
"Wish us luck!" Sylvia said and continued, "Thank you, Yu."
On the ship en route to the pirate base, "Kay, have you watched a movie about space and dangerous aliens?" Sylvia asks
"Not know a demon's name!" K-13 answers.
°Nope, I'll put that on my mental list!°
"Ah, I see," Sylvia nods.
Yu to everyone: The fuck is that answer?
Tracking the Cirrinapod, they eventually reach a cluster forcing them to land and search the pirates' base on foot. Jumping from rock to rock, K-13 looks like he's having fun like a kid without any worry.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" K-13 laugh like a madman while Sylvia watches jumps all over the place.
°I'm here and here and now here°
Yu to Sylvia: I would never trust your safety to that moron.
"You worry too much, Mom," Sylvia replies.
As they go deeper into the cluster, Sylvia notices the rocks that K-13 jumped from, slightly move and slowly return to their original position. Before she can process what's happening or where they are, a swarm starts coming from every direction to eliminate the intruders.
"FUCK! Yu, we're in a nest! By how fuck we are, we might as well go to the center and kill the Queen," Sylvia let out as she updates their situation to Yu.
Yu: Copy that! Wait, are you...
Communication went down before Yu finished her response, and Sylvia told K-13 to head deeper to kill the Queen.
"THERE'S NO OTHER QUEEN THAN MY QUEEN OF PAIN!" K-13 shouts, leaping forward and leading the way.
°Sounds like a good plan!°
Sylvia never thought of another species better than her kind as she watched K-13 skillfully take the enemies in his way, which reminded her home world's custom. Without her exoskeleton, her performance reduces, making survival more challenging.
Slashing and shooting through the nest, the swarms get larger coming from every direction like it has no end, but Sylvia eventually notices that the swarms get smaller and has a bad feeling like something is about to happen.
An elite Cirrinapods with lesser body armor but with pointy and razor-sharp blades in every limb perfectly fit to deter intruders. Their space suit only has a few metal-plated areas, so they both know how grave the situation is. A quick or a slow air leaks to an avoidable death thought lingers in their mind.
"HELLO, MR. SAMURAI!" K-13 lets out as he takes two dead Cirrinapods as weapons and looks at Sylvia.
°Whuhahaha, I know this is mad. I hope she got my back!°
"Are you crazy?" Sylvia questioned K-13's action of taunting the enemies.
Seeing your kind getting disrespected after death boils your blood, which is what the elite Cirrinapods feel as they focus their attack on K-13. Surrounded by the enemies, K-13 blocks all the deadly tentacles with dead like a professional fire performer without the fire part.
When K-13's neck is about to be slashed by the Cirrinapod, Sylvia shoots it like he knows and has been fighting together for a decade to trust each other's life in any situation.
"I'm DEATH, and say Hello to Goddess Life!" K-13 shouts, killing the enemy one by one.
°Cringe!°
Sylvia chuckles and follows K-13's lead going deeper into the nest.
Yu: Can you hear me? Hello? Anybody?
"What happened to you back there?" Sylvia asks Yu.
Yu to everyone: A minor inconvenience, but KILLING THE QUEEN WON'T DO A THING!
"Stop shouting! My God. And what do you mean?" Sylvia let out as she asked K-13 to stop for now after she noticed their back where they met the new variant.
Yu to everyone: After searching about the Cirrinapods, killing the Queen won't stop them since they can create or appoints a new Queen.
"I see, but the main problem right now is that we're lost," Sylvia said, hoping Yu knew the way.
Yu: Don't worry. I scanned the place and apologized for the delay. Sending now.
"Thank you!" Sylvia happily replies as K-13 fights the coming Cirrinapods in their way.
To be continued,