“A little to the left!” Hortur called out as he clung to the top of our ship that was in desperate need of a new paint job. Aesthetics would come later, for now we had to get the last of our new plasma cannons installed in my little murder boat. With hands on the controls of the lifter currently holding the last of our new cannons, I inched to the left. Being able to disable gravity in a hangar made replacing heavy, expensive components a breeze.
“Too far! A little to the right!” The snake man called out.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ Aya huffed in my mind.
‘Aya, the last time I let you drive you almost killed me. No different than any other woman whose driven for me, but still.’
“Alright good! Bring it down steady!”
‘I’d like to remind you that without my superior driving you’d be dead right now.’
‘You can remind me all you like, still doesn’t change the fact that every time a woman takes the wheel I almost end up dead.’
“You can release it now!” The second I let the cannon go, the sound of welding echoed through the hangar. Wires would have to be run through, and the guns would have to be tested, but it felt so good having a fully armed ship. With the exception of the torpedo launcher of course. Apparently torpedoes were a big deal and needed military approval to receive, which made me wonder exactly how those pirates got their hands on one. And where there was one, there was sure to be more.
‘Data points towards them having a supporter with connections.’
‘Yeah that always seems to be the case with pirates.’ I watched Hortur weld the cannon onto the hull, sparks falling like tiny skydivers. ‘Hey, since we’ve got our ship all decked out now, how about we go find those pirates and blow them out of the sky?’
‘That would be inadvisable. We don’t even know where their base of operations would be. Not to mention that the ETA of our “friends” is another hour and a half away.’
I sighed, ‘Buncha bullshit Aya. It should have been just you and me out there in the stars, kicking ass and taking names. After we got Avon to come with us of course.’
‘From what I’ve seen of Aevalonis from your memories, the chances of that happening are microscopic.’
‘Wow, way to have faith in me Aya. You wait, someday we’ll find her and she’ll fall right into my arms like in the Disney movies.’
‘The vast majority of those films stem from novels that end in tragedy.’
‘Killjoy.’
The doors to the hangar opened, revealing Princess Egyle driving a small anti-grav cart filled with shopping bags. Once the doors to the hangar closed behind her, she began to float up into the air. Gravity was still disabled in our workspace, and she was driving something anti-grav. In total, that was like no-gravity squared…or something.
‘Idiot.’
‘Wow, harsh words Aya. Math is hard okay?’
“Wah! Help me!” Princess Egyle cried out.
“Gravity on.” I commanded, sending Egyle, and all her floating bags, falling back down to earth. Clothing gracefully wafted through the air while cleaning supplies clacked against the ground. With nothing better to do, I exited the lifter and began to help pick up the scattered clothes.
“Don’t touch those!” Egyle yelled at me with a beet-red face as I stuffed her selection of unmentionables into the shopping bag nearest me.
“Relax you prude. They aren’t even the good lacy kind.” I rolled my eyes and handed the bag of underwear back to her. “You remembered to buy me some this time, right?”
Pale skin burned a deep crimson as she slammed another bag into my hands and stormed off onto the ship, leaving the remaining bags of supplies on the ground. I took a look inside the bag and smiled. She did remember. Guess it was up to me to finish clean up duty.
“You have no idea how embarrassing it was buying those!” Princess Egyle yelled over our implants while Hortur and I watched the now installed turrets on the outside of the ship. Egyle was currently inside the ship at the gunnery station, controlling said turrets while we made sure they had a free range of motion.
“Yeah yeah, now you know how men feel going into the women’s products aisle. Aim to the left.” The turrets that could, followed my command promptly. Earlier, Aya had spoken to me all about firing arcs, range of motion, and other technical mumbo jumbo. In the end, all it meant that if we wanted to shoot all six cannons at once, we’d have to face our target with the nose of the ship pointed slightly downward. That way the two turrets on the aft, the two on starboard, and the two atop of the ship could all hit their target. Otherwise, only the few that could hit our target would fire when given the command.
“Looking good over here Captain.” Hortur called from his side of the ship.
“Alright, try rolling them around in a circle.” Without a word, the cannons moved in a circular pattern. “Nice, nice. We’re looking good. All right, try turning them around now.”
———————————————————————
Princess Egyle grumbled while sitting in at the gunnery station inside the bridge of the ship. The targeting interface helmet sat snug atop her head as she spun the cannons around to face the rear of the ship. In perfect sync, the felt the cannons turn towards wherever she aimed the reticule in her vision.
“Alright, good!” Chet called over the implant connection. “You can relax now, we’ll be heading out within the hour.”
“Affirmative.” She sighed and pulled the helmet off her head, sending golden hair tumbling down below her shoulders. A faint beep confirmed that their connection had ended. “Idiot.” She whispered, staring at her reflection on the helmet.
“My, what a thing to say about your Captain.” Yvael spoke as she leaned against the bridge doorway, sucking on a slice of lemon.
“How did you-” Princess Egyle cut off as Yvael pointed towards her elongated ears.
“Sensitive hearing dear. But don’t worry, I won’t tell him what you said.”
“I wasn’t saying that about him.” The Princess looked away in shame. “It was about myself.”
“Oh? And why do you consider yourself an idiot, hmmm?”
“None of your business Demon.” Egyle attempted to shoulder past the loitering woman, only to have her wrist grabbed by a strong hand. “Let go!” she growled.
“Thats a slave tiara, isn’t it?” Yvael smiled, her golden eyes burning into the Princess’. “Are you the Captain’s then? I didn’t think humans used those on one another.”
“Get your hand off of me, Demon.” Egyle smacked Yvael’s hand from her wrist. “I have nothing to say to you.” She then pushed her way past Yvael and walked towards her quarters.
“I can help you get that tiara off. You can be free again.” Yvael spoke as she followed behind. Egyle stopped in her tracks, her eyes closed in consideration.
‘Free? Free to go back home to my family?’ Princess Egyle clenched her teeth. ‘Free to be kept under lock and key by my Father again? To not even be able to go shopping for myself? I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to set foot in another starship after all this!’
In silence, the two stood alone in the hallway of the ship. With her mind set, Egyle turned to regard the smiling Yvael. And laughed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What? But-” Confusion was clearly written all over Yvael’s face.
“I’m wearing this thing because I’m an idiot.” Egyle admitted with a self-derisive laugh. Her thoughts going back to when she had followed Chet hoping to capture him, only to wind up captured herself. “If I weren’t an idiot, I could be home right now. If I weren’t an idiot, the Captain wouldn’t be forced into running away constantly. But if I weren’t an idiot, I wouldn’t be here doing something I actually enjoy! I like being on this ship! I love hearing the sounds of the engines as we blast off. I love the feeling of the metal clanking underfoot as I walk from room to room. I love going to far away systems I’d never even heard of before!”
Egyle laughed happily, “Even if I have to scrub this ship from top to bottom everyday, even if I’m asked to run simple errands like buying clothing, these past few days have made me realize that this-” she pointed to the tiara locked onto her head, “-is the best thing to ever happen to me. And so, it doesn’t matter to me if I have to wear it or not. Just so long as I don’t have to go back to being some sort of accessory instead of an actual person.”
Without another word, Princess Egyle entered her room and closed the door behind her.
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For a moment, Yvael stood there before the door in a state of total surprise. Shaking her head, she walked away from Egyle’s room and sighed, “What kind of life must she have lived to feel that way?”
————————————————————————————
“Alrighty everybody, looks like we’ll be getting out of a system without any hiccups for once.” As soon as I said those words, metal shutters closed down over the exit to the hangar.
“As you were saying?” Egyle spoke with a smile while sitting at the gunnery station, rolling the helmet interface around in her hands.
“Attention crew members of the Boatsy. You are hereby under arrest by Salyzan law. You are to turn off your ship and surrender peacefully. Any further actions will be held against you in a court of law.” The person on the other side of the communicator spoke.
‘Captain, I’m reading multiple vessels leaving hyperspace.’
‘You know what to do Aya.’
‘Affirmative Captain. Raising shutters in a second.’
“Captain,” Yvael spoke from the tactical station, “multiple vessels approaching the station at massive speed.”
“Pretty late with the news there, Yvael.”
She stared directly at me with a curious expression, “Just what exactly did you do? These readings are from top of the line Kingdom ships!”
“Oh you know. A bit of this, a bit of that.” The shutters retracted, giving us an outing. “Attention passengers, please fasten your seat belts. We’re about to experience some minor turbulence.”
“What do you-wahh!” Yvael cried out as I blasted the engines to full power, sending us hurtling out of the station at break-your-entire-body speeds.
“Wooohooooo!” Princess Egyle whooped from her seat as ship shook from the force of our acceleration. Like a streak of light, we burned a trail into space. Aggravated snarls sounded over the global communication channel from ships that we had almost swapped paint with.
“You’re in a good mood Princess.” Hortur spoke. His eyes widened, “Oops.”
“Princess?” Yvael asked and looked towards Egyle then towards me curiously.
“It wasn’t much of a secret.” I shrugged, “I did call her a spoiled princess when we met. And her name is Egyle. Its your own fault for not connecting the dots.”
“You enslaved the Princess?!”
“Not by choice!” I held up my hands defensively. “Events beyond my control forced me to act!”
“Hero.” A familiar voice spoke over the comms. A view-screen appeared in the middle of the window. King Lavian in all his bulky glory, stood and regarded us with a critical eye.
“Hey Lavian. You’re looking good, you been working out?” I asked. “I see you’ve ditched the chair. Good on you.”
“Hero?” Yvael asked and then gasped, “I knew I recognized you! From the video!”
“Skip the pleasantries, Hero. Where is my daughter?”
“Here Father.” Princess Egyle spoke as she stood beside me.
“You will not escape me again, Hero.” King Lavian vowed with a clenched fist. “Make it easy on yourself and surrender.”
“I don’t need you to save me, Father!” Princess Egyle shouted. “I don’t want to go back to being some sort of porcelain doll you keep locked up in the palace!”
“To think you would force my daughter to say such things.” Lavian growled, “I’ll end you myself, Hero.”
“Ugh. You aren’t even listening to me!”
Without another word, I stood up and pulled the tiara off Egyle’s head. With a flourish, I showed it to King Lavian as he stared on in shock. Both hands gripped the thin piece of metal, and snapped it in half.
“What…” King Lavian gasped.
“I believe the ball is in the Princess’ court now.” I stepped off to the side and let Egyle take the center stage.
“Egyle…”
“I’m not coming back Father.” She spoke firmly. “I’d rather scrub the floors of this ship for another thousand years than be forced to stay within the palace, only being allowed to leave when you deem it to be fine.”
“Hero?” the King asked with smoldering eyes.
“Yes?” I hid my hand behind my back. I wasn’t picking my nose, I swear.
“You had my daughter cleaning floors?”
“Hard work breeds character.”
“He also let me go shopping by myself!” Egyle pipped up.
“Enough! You will be coming home now!” Lavian roared.
‘Captain, massive energy signature detected.’
‘What is it Aya?’
‘By my calculations, it should be an Electrical Discharge Torpedo.’
‘Sounds bad.’
‘It would be if I were still a box below the controls. They’re designed to overload AI cores and render ships immobile. As it is, it will only shut down our systems for a little over a minute before the ship comes back online. By then we’ll have flown out of the system through sheer momentum and will be able to enter warp immediately.’
‘So they’re accomplishing nothing.’
‘Other than a few fried capacitors, affirmative.’
“Captain! Massive energy signature detected!” Yvael cried out from tactical.
‘I advise you act surprised Captain. If you don’t, Lavian may launch multiple EDTs. We can’t warp if we don’t get power back.’
“What?!” I cried out.
“It appears to be-”
“An electrical Discharge Torpedo!” King Lavian butted in. “Your systems will be rendered inoperable and your ship’s AI will be fried. Soon I will have my daughter back and your head, Hero!”
“No!” I cried out and smashed my hand against my chair.
“I’ll be seeing you soon.” Lavian smiled and cut communications between us.
“Alright everyone back to your seats.” I stated simply and sat down in my chair as if nothing were wrong.
“Captain, we’re in big trouble! How can you be so nonchalant about this?” Yvael cried out.
“Don’t worry about it Yvael. Its all good.” I yawned and leaned back in the chair.
“Wha-bu-” Yvael stammered as she look from me to Egyle to Hortur. They just shrugged,
“”We’re used to this.”” They spoke at the same time and returned to their seats.
“This is insane! I can’t believe you all think that everything is going to be fine! When that torpedo hits the AI core will fry and we’ll be captured!” She was being hysteric. With a sigh, I got up from my seat.
“Come here Yvael.” I commanded.
Reluctantly, Yvael walked over to where I was currently pulling out a metal panel below the ship’s main controls. The same panel that housed the AI core. Yvael watched me with wild eyes when I took the panel away.
“Take a look.” Curious, she knelt down and stared. Only to scream in my ear the next moment.
“Why are you flying a ship without an AI core?! Do you have a death wish?!”
“They can’t fry what we don’t have. Besides, we sold it the first stop we made. It was just dead weight.”
Without another word, Yvael walked back to the tactical station, sat down, and put her head in her hands groaning audibly.
‘She is being illogical.’
‘Most women are, Aya.’
‘I’m glad I am not most women.’
‘Me too. I don’t think I’d be able to put up with a normal woman inside my head.’
‘Thank you Captain.’
‘I wonder how she will react when she finds out I’ve got you in my head.’
‘Lets save that revelation for another day Captain. It is important to keep the mental health of your crew stable.’
The second of the two massive gas giants sailed by as we blasted through the Jochtek system a little under light speed. Yvael had been counting down the seconds to our doom out loud from her tactical screens. The way she was putting it, we were thirty seconds from our impending capture. Honestly, you’d think she’d take note from our demeanor that everything was going to be fine. I mean, a captain such as myself should never appear worried before his or her crew. That’s just begging for morale issues.
But we were still going to be fine.
“Ten seconds.” Yvael spoke dreadfully from her station.
“So whats Araxium Vos like?”
“Nine seconds.”
“From what I remember, it’s said to have a few shipyards from the abundance of metals in system.” Egyle spoke informatively.
“Eight seconds.”
“Yes, marvels of engineering! I saw the shipyards once when I was beginning my qualifications for my engineering degree. Araxium Vos I is actually a very hospitable world despite being so close to the sun.” Hortur smiled as his tail thumped against the deck. “It will be nice to see it again.”
“Five seconds.”
“Close to the sun eh? Sounds like a nice place to get a tan.”
“Two seconds.”
“Yvael.” She stared at me blankly.
“One second.”
“Its going to be fine.”
In an instant, everything shut off. The lights, the air processors, the engines, everything. We didn’t have to put on our suits for this, as even without air processors working, we still had enough air aboard for a few hours of regular breathing. And even without our engines, good old Newton came through as we hurtled further towards the edge of the solar system. Nearly two minutes later, the lights came back on. And so did the view screen with King Lavian’s smug face staring straight at us.
“We’ll catch up to you soon Hero. Any last pleas for your life?”
“Lavian buddy, in your haste to capture your daughter and kill me you’ve forgotten one very major thing.” I grinned.
“Oh?” he crossed his flabby arms, “enlighten me.”
“You forgot that Egyle mentioned that I had merged with my original de-limited AI.” At my words, color left his face.
“YOU DID WHAT?!” Yvael screeched from her station.
“Fire another torpedo!” Lavian cried out on the view screen.
“Catch ya later Lavian. And keep working out too man, its really working for you.” I waved.
“Bye Father!” Egyle shouted.
In a flash of light, we were gone.