The blue light blinks above his head. Gottlieb stands there, his eyes warily staring up towards his adversary. His stance is wide and defensive, his posture is stiff and ready for a fight. His fingers twitch, getting ready to move.
— Kai does nothing.
The water in the shower runs out, his ten-second allotment having come to an end.
Gottlieb spins around, striking the button in the shower as quickly and as hard as he can. The clacking of the metal pressing down, the spring being compressed, the casing of the button striking against its casing, all ring out at once, echoing down the empty rooms and corridors of the orbital station.
Gottlieb stands there, waiting to see if he managed to beat Kai this time.
The shower stops.
No water comes out of it.
“Damn it!” hisses Gottlieb, looking back at the blue light that is adorned to the doorway above the showers. “Seriously, Kai?” he asks, pointing at the nozzle. “This place has water for forty-nine people, right?”
Kai does not respond.
“So, hear me out here -” asks Gottlieb, placing his mildly damp hands together before his lips, as he stands there, buck naked, staring at the glass eye above himself. “- If everyone else is gone, why can’t I just have their allotment of water?” he asks, pointing back at the shower. “Hell. Just give me ten seconds more at least, you hard-ass.”
Kai does not respond.
Gottlieb groans. The shower is dry. He walks out, grabbing a towel, but not to dry himself off with, as he hardly considers himself washed enough for that to be worth the effort. Instead, he throws it against Kai’s eye and walks off, as it flops back down to the ground below a moment later.
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Gottlieb buttons up his shirt, half-way at least, and ruffles through his slightly damp hair with his hands in an effort to at least do… anything with it.
Stupid Kai. God. Kai is such a dick.
The man stands out in the corridor, turning his gaze to look at his choice of directions. He could go back down to the gunner’s station. There are things to shoot and Auxiliary Gunner Grunheide is still down there.
Although, she’s tied to the chair. So barring the event that she gnaws her way through the ropes, the goblin isn’t going anywhere.
Instead, Gottlieb turns his head towards the other directions, towards the door to hydroponics.
He gets an idea.
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He lays there, floating on his back. Gottlieb smiles a smug smile, looking up towards the blue light above his head.
“Well, well, well,” says Gottlieb, stretching out his arm and pushing through a tub of water that he had broken into. Sure, he had just showered. But he’s found his solution to the problems of not only how to properly clean himself, after months up in space, but more importantly, how to stick it to Kai. “Look at what I found,” says Gottlieb coyly.
He had entered into hydroponics again. After all, if there are forty-six less people on this station than intended, then one of these hydroponic containers can certainly be spared for him.
Gottlieb leans back in his makeshift bathtub.
“Boy, this water sure is refreshing,” says Gottlieb. “I sure am glad that I’m a human and not some dumb robot.” He nods in content, his unbuttoned shirt that he hadn’t bothered to take off, clinging to his body with the open flaps floating next to himself.
Water.
He hasn’t had access to this much water ever since leaving the planet and coming up to this sardine can.
Gottlieb smiles.
He has won. Not only in body, but his victory is also contained in the realms of spirit. It is absolute.
“Tough luck, Kai,” says Gottlieb, closing his eyes to relax for a while. “Better luck next time you’re born. Maybe you’ll get a body then?”
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The man swings his wet shirt around, water dripping down his body as he parades back to the gunner’s station.
He makes a break off towards the canteen, grabbing some rations from the machine, before heading down to the tube. Gottlieb grabs hold of the pole and slides down it, making an effort to swing himself around the rod, as he floats down the anti-gravity shaft.
“I’m home!” calls Gottlieb, reaching the bottom and staring into the gunner’s bay.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The heavy-particle-cannon hums above his head, bringing a warmth to his heart. It’s like she’s greeting him.
‘She’ being the gun, of course.
Gottlieb’s eyes wander down the length of the room towards the u-shaped console of the gunner’s position, where he can already see his screen full of messages that are guaranteed to be nothing but nagging from Kai. To the left, on the other seat, the goblin is spinning around on the chair as she attempts to break free from her binds. Although it seems that she is wildly unsuccessful in doing so, as every time she struggles, she spins the chair around on its pivot. She doesn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of a swivel chair and, given the extra greenness of her face, it’s taking its toll.
Gottlieb rubs his head. Other people really are a lot of trouble, aren’t they?
He blinks, realizing that he just classified Kai as a person.
What a terrible mistake to have made.
Gottlieb walks to his seat, planting himself down and first exhaling a deep breath, before feeling ready to look at the barrage of messages awaiting him. It feels like he’s come home to a nagging partner.
[Reprimand issued]
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Orbital Gunner Gottlieb - Wasting resources
Context: (Orbital Gunner Gottlieb has wasted water and endangered station operational functionality)
- Notifying the captain
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Suggestion: Immediate restraint and execution.
“God damn, Kai,” says Gottlieb, raising an eyebrow and swiping the rest of them away. “You sure have gotten cranky these days.” He peels open his nutri-ration bar, looking at the foil. This is a green one, that means that this one… has salt?
Or was it the blue ones that had salt?
Honestly, he doesn’t remember and he isn’t really sure if it matters in the least, as both of them taste exactly the same. Like ass.
He shrugs and bites into the bland ration bar, not even having the desire to wince anymore at the poor taste.
It is what it is. This is his life.
(Gottlieb) ate: [Nutri-Ration{Green}] (Gottlieb) has recovered 10 STAMINA
The bland texture and taste fills his mouth with the same breed of quiet, dull numbness that finds itself present in his eyes. Gottlieb doesn’t have the energy to sigh. He needs to shoot something to pep himself up a bit.
Space really is the worst.
The man chews another mouthful of the bar and then looks to his side, at the snarling goblin that is still spinning around in her chair in a continued, still failing attempt to escape. He sighs, rolling his eyes and gets up.
Gottlieb grabs the back of her chair, facing her forward towards the console and then bends down, grabbing the lever mechanism beneath the seat to lock it into place. He pulls on it, a heavy ‘clack’ resonating through his arm. Auxiliary gunner Grunheide snarls and snaps her sharp teeth at him, trying to bite into his side while he is down there. Gottlieb straightens himself back upright, doing his best to simply not think about why his hand is wet now. He grabs the nutri-ration and essentially shoves it into the goblin’s mouth, before wiping his hands on his pants and returning to his seat.
“Kai. I have the blues,” says Gottlieb. “Give me something big to shoot,” he orders. “I don’t care what you got. Giant chickens. A mutant pirate. I’ll take another dragon too, that was pretty cool.”
Hearing a beep coming from in front of himself, he immediately swipes away the new window that had appeared, without even bothering to read it.
“Yeah. I know, Kai,” he says. “It wasn’t a dragon, it was a drake. Nobody gives a fuck.” He snaps his fingers. “- Let’s go. Chop-chop.”
The vision on the monitors shifts and changes as the cameras attached to the exterior of the station zoom around the landscape below themselves.
This world seems to have around seven continents, if he’s counted right so far. Although he’s lost track of who he’s seen so far and of what happened where. He wonders how the chicken-lady is doing? That orc? She seemed to be in kind of a weird life situation because of him.
Ah, well. It’s probably fine.
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Azimuth gulps nervously as she walks down the aisle, a procession at her sides.
Guardsmen and priests follow after her like a group of birds would after their flock-leader. Women and men of the cloth run in and out of the many corridors in the palace, carrying baskets full of all sorts of items that she can’t make heads or tails of. Tailors run after her as she walks, even right now, making adjustments on the fly as she moves towards the most powerful person that she’s probably ever met.
A hair-dresser runs in from the side, walking backwards to match pace with her as he trims a few strands of her hair from her forehead in mid-stride and then quickly vanishes again into the crowds.
She reaches the end of the aisle.
Everyone steps back, scattering away into rows of people off to the sides of the grand, ornate throne-room. Azimuth’s eyes rise up, following the white marble floors as she lifts her vision towards the old man, sitting on the throne at the very top of a set of stairs. Royal guardsmen stand at his sides.
A horn blows, echoing around the room with a shrill squawking, as if there were anyone left who hadn’t noticed her arrival yet.
The people around herself fall down to their knees as the man on the throne rises to his feet, together with many high-priests and people of great power at his side.
Azimuth looks around the room, unsure of what to do or how she got here.
— She just wants to be back with her chickens.
The lord of the region falls down himself onto a knee, from up on his platform and the others around him follow his actions to do the same.
Azimuth looks around the room.
There isn’t a single chicken for as far as the eye can see. Just people.
This is the worst.
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Gottlieb moves the control-stick. The camera zooms along the landscape and then leaves it, following a great shadow that lurks beneath the azure ocean that covers the world.
Ships of wood with regal sails and crews of presumably hundreds of people shoot across the waters, being pushed onward by the heavy trade-winds of the region. However, things seem to have gone awry and the ships appear to be drifting away from the predestined routes, as some great monstrosity hides beneath their hulls, guiding them to deeper waters.
From where they are, close to the ocean, the waters of the ocean might just appear darker than they usually are.
However, from higher up in the sky, from up where he is, Gottlieb can tell that this isn’t just a tinge of darker water where there is a much more significant depth.
There is something there, not far below the surface.
Something so large and so massive, that from down on the water’s surface, it would simply be impossible to notice.
He whistles, glad that he’s nowhere near the ocean.
It was always scary enough in his old life, in the ‘real’ world and, as far as he knows, there were only ever some super weird fish and maybe an odd shark here or there. But here? In this world? In a place that has such abstract things as magic and monsters?
— Honestly, he doesn’t even want to know what’s beneath the surface of the water.
He aims the gun towards the area behind the ships, having learned his lesson after the whole lighthouse-incident. This time, he isn’t going to aim anywhere near them. Even with a low-powered blast.
He turns his head, looking at the goblin, who, despite not having her hands free to use, is making an admirable effort of eating the nutri-ration.
Gottlieb shrugs and presses the button.
The control-stick rattles, shaking as the coils in the gun wind up. The machinery above his head shakes and vibrates as electricity pours through the systems. The cameras reduce their colors and contrast in order to compensate with the glow, forming around the head of the gun.
— Then, a moment later, it releases.
A spear of light flings down towards the surface of the world, connecting it to the lightless void for only a brief moment; like the finger of god, reaching down to touch the planet just once before parting.
It makes contact with the ocean, causing at first not as much as expected to happen.
The water quivers, like the body of a snake, shedding its old, dead skin. But then, an instant later, something shifts.
The impact site, where the beam collides, sinks inward, creating a hole straight down through the ocean, reaching so deeply that it feels as if the surface of the world could be seen down through it for only a brief moment.
The water around the hole boils, great splashes shooting up through the air, creating a fine mist. It crashes back down into itself, water filling the void as the pressure from the blast releases. It collides with itself and then, a great wave shoots out in all directions, towering high, far above the nearby landmasses and the ships too.
Gottlieb clears his throat, pulling on his still damp collar as he watches the shadow of the tsunami grow over the many vessels at sea.
— He quickly swipes away the screen.
The room is quiet.
Gottlieb turns his head to the side, looking at the goblin. She sits there with horrified eyes, staring at the blank screen and then towards him.
“…So, those rations sure are something, huh?” asks Gottlieb, looking at Auxiliary Gunner Grunheide.
She does not reply.