"Aren't you such a damned loser?"

My own voice…

No…shut up. I…why? Why did it all have to come to this?

"Judgment? You dare to defer judgment as a sinful being?" Its white smirk grew. The shadow of myself disappeared in front of me and seemed to reappear behind me. It whispered in my ear. "How can an outlaw who killed, robbed, murdered, scammed, swindled, and tricked…judge?"

No…I did not. I simply…he deserved to die. That's all there is to it. He was a threat. He was a criminal.

"And you don't?" One after another, I watched as each and every sin, crime, and wrongdoing that I had committed was played for my eyes to see. For me to judge. For me to come to a conclusion…

The conclusion of shooting him in the neck, and dropping him from the decks like a ragged doll.

Who am I to do that?

The shouts of the damned souls that I had taken turned into a painful chorus, as I started laughing. I felt as if my eyes were bulging, my body turning to mush. I wanted to vomit, yet I couldn't. I merely laughed as they laughed at me.

Hypocrite.

Scammer.

Loan shark.

Con man.

Swindler.

Robber.

Murderer.

I laughed and laughed, as each accusation was levied to me. Wasn't it so ironic that I now killed those same people? Pirates, criminal syndicates, and more? Judgment? Why did I look at Lord Preussen with fury? Why did I call those pirates scum? Why had I blasted their ships out of "justice"?

Why was I searching for justice? Revenge? Who was I to deserve revenge and answers?

Why did I kill the Count so cold-heartedly?

Was I even a moral agent?

Why am I with them? Why am I with her?

Who was I to taint them with my presence?

"They're going to leave you alone, eventually," the figure continued to mock me. "They will. They see you as nothing. As a shady, aimless man. And once they find out who you are…"

Juliett…Louise…even Harold…

I tried to chase them, but all of them looked down on me. Even Harold, who had been a part of the Von Wicht Gang before it turned depraved… turned around and left. Louise scoffed at me, and she almost seemed as if she wanted to spit on me.

And Juliett…Juliett, her empathetic, angelic face that always looked at me with kindness, cried tears, as she turned around in disappointment.

"They'll leave you alone." I dropped to my knees, as their figures became smaller and smaller. "Alone again."

I continued laughing, as tears went down on my cheeks. All as I looked down on my palms. It wasn't clean. It was red. Blood. Bloodied of all the crimes I had committed.

The hands of a dirty outlaw, who could do nothing but laugh at himself like a lunatic.

"Just as you deserve, [REDACTED] Spring."

Not even a change of name would let me escape who I was.

A dead man, who deserved to be dead…yet with the audacity to continue living.

Judge me.

Kill me.

Just as I deserve.

I looked up at the man before me. His face was obscured. Yet I knew who he was.

Father—

"Son, you disappoint me. You have no excuses. The path you chose, just to stupidly avenge me, destroyed you and those around you." He scoffed. "And I don't want scum to avenge me."

In the end, I could only laugh at myself.

Perhaps, it was true. I was beyond salvation.

Beyond redemption.

Yet…a distant, faint voice whispered softly to my ears. Not my voice. All as I felt a warm embrace behind me that stopped my deranged laughter.

"Whatever monster you're battling in your mind…please don't lose to it…Jon."

And I could only mutter one faint response to her.

Please…help…

+++

+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Jahellios System

New Krakow

My eyes opened up.

"You're awake, Jon," her blue eyes stared at me with great concern. Juliett…Juliett, once again, seemed to be tending to me. I was covered in countless bandages, almost completely immobilized. There were two circular white drones as well that flew beside Juliett, both scanning me as I awakened. "Tell me, is there pain?"

"Heh…no, tin can. I feel mighty fine. I think I'm bursting with energy even." She pouted at me in annoyance as she crossed her arms, turning red at my sudden nonsense.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"There you are again with your sarcasm! Hmph, this is why no one would take care of you." She looked away, as I laughed. I tried to stand up, but that was a mistake. I wouldn't even describe the snap I felt in my back, as I just whimpered like a kicked puppy beside her. "H-hey! What the hell are you doing?!" She panicked, trying to hold me and stabilize me back in my sitting position. "Don't move, stupid!"

"Damn…this sucks…ouch, don't touch that!"

"I'm just checking, you big baby."

"That's not checking! That's touching! It's a bruise, you don't need to touch it to know if it's bad or not!"

"I'm just scanning it! I still haven't even checked everything. For all I know, you have broken bones, internal bleeding, or whatever after your stupid stunt." She breathed out in exasperation. "You know, you're the most difficult patient one can find."

I smirked at her, even through the pain. "Yeah? I'm proud of it."

"Hah…you just never change." She gave up, merely taking one of my arms, and continuing to apply these…whatever medical gel on a few of my burns. I hissed at what she was doing, but she held my arm tightly. "Just don't move too much, okay?"

Reluctantly, she fished out something from a medical kit beside us and injected me with some painkillers. Within seconds, everything became cooler, and I felt most of the pain disappear. Well, at least the background ones. I bet if I tried to run, I'd be mewling like a kicked puppy again.

"So tell me, Juliett…why are we still on this ship?" It seemed that we were still in the Zoeker, which was barely floating, alongside the other burning ships around us, still attached to each other. "Weren't we sinking?"

She shook her head. "No, Foxtrot fixed the flooding. Temporarily at least. We're still dead in the water. At least the Jukebox arrived."

I looked up. The Jukebox seemed to be hovering a few hundred meters above us, its grayish, sleek hull designed for spaceflight barely visible through the night and the pouring rain, save for the powerful searchlights it seemed to be shining on us.

Heh, I guess that's just one of the perks of the Reaper-Class. It was small enough for gravitational stabilizers to be installed on it, allowing it to fly and hover in the atmosphere. I mean, outside of scouting duty, fleet harassment, and other applications in space warfare, militarily, frigates and corvettes almost always served as landing ships and for close orbital support.

Because unlike lumbering destroyers, cruisers, or god forbid, battleships and carriers, ships like the Jukebox would almost always be small enough to be a difficult target for ground-based defenses (that, if used by ground forces, even capital warship, would absolutely obliterate them by virtue of the sheer scale of power supply that could be placed on ground-based railguns) that they were the most practical space warships that were designed to get into atmosphere.

And I think I would appreciate that a lot. At least, we wouldn't have to worry about going to Artowisz City anymore. We could just board the Jukebox to evacuate to New Krakow station. That seemed a better option than going to Artowisz and finding ourselves in potential trouble again.

"What about André?" I asked. "Did he and Louise finally reunite or something?"

"They're on the enemy ship," Juliett said. "They said they needed to retrieve something. Something that the Count stole. Family property."

"Yeah, I heard that. Wasn't that why André attacked? He was hunting for something?"

"Yeah," Juliett sighed. "It seemed that they needed it for something critical. He said it would threaten their safety if it fell into the wrong hands."

"I see…" I breathed out, as Juliett finally finished her first aid treatment of me. It seemed that she did well, as I could stand up a bit. I guess…we really did it then. Louise and André were now safe. The enemy was liquidated. Ms. Kalista should now be happy to hand us the rewards.

Hah…I didn't know a damned rescue mission could be this hard. I looked up at the stars. Damn…

"Hey…Jonathan…" Juliett's voice was tiny. "I…I'm going to be serious this time. You're…you're alright, right?"

"..."

"You were laughing after you beat him," she said. "Almost…in pain. Same when you were knocked down for the last few minutes. It was like—"

"Maybe I'm not, Juliett," she looked at me, concern once again bubbling in her eyes. I really wondered why this peculiar, righteous, and noble AI would care for me. A tiny, dirty, and, in the bigger picture, just a mere nobody who managed to help her out.

Why do I even matter to her?

Seriously, this AI must be having quite the screwed priorities. Perhaps her logical functions were starting to break down after three centuries of no proper maintenance. I really wondered.

And I wonder why I still treat her as if she's just a piece of code. The audacity of my own self. Truly…

"But look, I can take care of it. It's nothing. We have worse problems to worry about." I laughed, tiredly. "It's nothing. Nothing at all."

"Well, I suppose there's a lot of other more pressing issues for us to worry about."

"Money. Twenty-eight thousand SCs is a lot, but trust me, that's just a few months of supplies and fuel for the Jukebox." I already made the calculations whenever we had free time. Normally, the Jukebox required a lot of replacements and repairs whenever we ventured into space.

Combat, the inevitable wear and tear whenever we would go to hyperspace storms, the usage of specialized equipment whenever I used the Jukebox to scavenge…the list went on.

Food. Fuel. Fuel was extremely expensive for one as well. And of course again, the replacement parts. All of it could quickly cut into one's margins. Spaceflight, after all, was an expensive affair.

"We gotta keep finding money if we want to keep this whole racket going."

"Yeah…I suppose we have a lot of money problems…" Juliett muttered. "And then, we'd have to worry about paying Harold and his men. Then the fuel and maintenance of Louise's ships."

"She's coming with us?"

"The two of them."

"Dang…" I thought they'd peel off after this. Well, I wouldn't mind having two youngsters with potential with us, I suppose. The more the merrier, and all that. I think Juliett would benefit from more talent supporting her. "I guess there's that too."

"But the point is, that doesn't mean we'd ignore you."

"Yeah, sure…" I laughed. "At this rate, I'm practically becoming the most useless member of this group. The Jukebox's just a Corvette. I can't do System Arts. I have no men serving under me. I'm almost always borderline broke. I'm just…me."

Juliett covered her mouth and giggled. I frowned at her. "You really don't understand, do you?" She said, "You know, think about it this way. Who the hell saved me and my ship when I was disabled? Who led us in the Escuardo debacle? Who led us in this rescue mission?"

"Yeah, well, I bet you're just playing dumb anyway. You're a powerful AI. You're definitely a million times smarter than me."

"I'm designed to be an assistant to a human officer, you know?" She said, "The Radiant is supposed to be the flagship of the Void Fleet, a specialized Federation fleet that would be autonomous. That doesn't mean I'm supposed to not have a commanding officer that would direct me."

"I'm not an officer of the Federation Navy. I already told you, I'm not becoming your commander or anything. I'm not even a military man. Or someone commissioned by a dead Federation to, err, 'salvage the Sector' and whatever."

"But you are already acting that part," Juliett said. "And sure, you're not perfect. I can make a perfect list of each and every screw-up you made."

I grumbled. "Thanks for reminding me of that, tin can."

"But again, I think you're doing well, given the circumstances. And again, you helped a lot. Why shouldn't we return the favor?" She smiled. "I already made a decision. Let's team up."

"Oh…that…" She did say that she would be the one making the decision whether we should be "partners" in her grand mission. Quite frankly…"You're stupid, tin can. That's the wrong decision."

She crossed her arms. "But I have the right to make that decision. Now…that means, from now on, you're my responsibility too. And that includes your well-being."

"Oh for fu—"

"And since you're badly injured, and your mind isn't in the right."

"As I've said I'm perfectly sta—"

"I think you need some rest." I was unable to resist, as she pulled out another ominous syringe, and gently applied it to me. I tried moving myself, but damn it, my muscles were too sore. I started feeling my consciousness fade. "Rest easy now."

And as my eyelids closed…

"You did well…Jonathan."