Nebulax Starship, C9-Loborum, 1558 N.E

Loborum was an entire cluster of galaxies that gathered in a huge area of deep space, and C9-Loborum was one of them. In the C9-Loborum galaxy itself were numerous planets such as Mepta, Ipus, Ciorus etc. After the Xeptis left the galaxy, the planets and races in C9-Loborum were generally peaceful with each other.

As the Nebulax Starship drifted through space, Ji-Yon walked behind the three young women with his arms folded. His eyes darted around as he followed after them, studying the ship and wondering how his life was going to turn out from now on.

The three young women had introduced themselves when he entered the ship earlier. The pilot was a red-headed woman who called herself Ar-Ris; she had a voluptuous figure and seductive smile, reminding Ji-Yon about a few of his past ex-girlfriends. Ar-Ris exerted an air of dominance and spoke with a confident and powerful voice, and while the other two females remained quiet after they introduced themselves, Ar-Ris proceeded to inform Ji-Yon about the interior and workings of the spaceship as they headed to the cockpit.

While Ji-Yon listened, he cast his gaze on the other two for a moment. Yu-Yun was the cook; a seemingly soft and good-natured girl, she walked with her head lowered, her eyes fixed on her feet. Ji-Yon immediately knew she was the shy sort of girl, and he thought she looked beautiful. Just like some of his other past lovers, he mused. 

As for the last one, she was different from the rest of the crew - Hudieh was a butterfly variant of the native race of Mepta, the Insectoids. They had cute big eyes and small bodies in general, carrying insect features and appearances belonging to the variant of their race. For Hudieh, she had three pairs of thin crystalline wings and two yellow butterfly antennae sprouting from her head. Her wings flapped furiously in colours of purple and green, her body hovering high above the ground as she flew behind Ar-Ris and Yu-Yun.

Ji-Yon knew Hudieh well - she was a former maidservant in his father’s mansion. A week ago she broke one of his father’s most precious artefacts by accident; Ji-Yon assumed she was punished to serve him in exile to pay back the debts. A little too harsh for a punishment, but Mei-Yon could be cruel at times when it came to his precious artefact collections.

The light from the nearest sun shone through the transparent walls as the crew walked along one of the ship’s outer corridors, bathing them in orange light. The interior of the ship was covered in black marble with glowing blue lines all over the walls and floor, making most of the windowless hallways and rooms a dim blue.

After walking for half an hour, they reached a huge black door and stopped. Ar-Ris had just finished telling Ji-Yon all he needed to know about the Nebulax Starship and turned around to face the young man, a playful smile on her lips.

 “We’re about to enter the Bridge. While the ship is on auto-pilot right now, I advice you to not touch anything when I’m not around. You don’t want to break anything by accident.” 

Ji-Yon scoffed and rolled his eyes. He wasn’t so stupid as to go and mess around with the controls and try to fly back to Mepta with zero knowledge on piloting a huge starship like this. Seeing his reaction, Ar-Ris was satisfied enough and the doors opened, revealing the biggest room in the starship.

Covered in black marble, a circular room with a huge glass panel greeted them. The Bridge had two decks, with the top level overlooking the entire lower level and the glass panel before the room. The ship was moving at a slow pace; the stars outside the glass panel twinkled about. While it was the Bridge room, it felt rather empty for being the most important place in the ship. There was a huge red chair in the center of the top deck, obviously meant for the pilot. Meanwhile at the bottom level a few chairs lined two rows of desks and a few spacesuits hung from the walls.

Ji-Yon narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the Bridge. The main controls and yoke were at the desk before the pilot seat, so even if he were to try and steer the ship, he couldn’t possibly do it under Ar-Ris’s eyes. 

“Like what you see?” Ar-Ris asked, her gaze fixed on Ji-Yon. He nodded slightly, having nothing proper to say. So far the ship was beautiful and had enough features and rooms to please him. Ar-Ris smiled and said, “That’s good. Now let’s get down to business, Ji-Yon.” Her tone turned serious.

“Oh?” Ji-Yon lifted an eyebrow, looking at his pilot. He unfolded his arms and put them on his hips, curiosity looming.

Yu-Yun and Hudieh looked at Ar-Ris as she spoke, “First things first. I would like to remind you that you’re the exiled brat here-“ she lifted a finger and waved it at him “-and no one else here is. Meaning we are independent and we have no obligation to help you. We can also leave you at anytime, especially if you put our lives in danger.”

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Ji-Yon gave her a smug expression; her mentioning of his banishment did no great effect on him.

“That’s understandable, considering you’re all just here because my father doesn’t want me to die in less than a year,” Ji-Yon sneered. Then he caught sight of Hudieh and pointed at the Insectoid. “What about her? She’s forced to work here to repay her debts, she can’t just run away.”

Hudieh raised her eyebrows. Ar-Ris laughed, “Well Hudieh can leave too, but only if her life is at risk. That’s what her contract stated.” Before she could say any more, Hudieh flew before Ji-Yon and said in a high pitched voice, “And don’t you dare think you can order me around, you useless worm! You may have been the young master back in the house, but that’s different here!”

Ji-Yon was taken aback by Hudieh’s sudden squeaks; she acted way more proper in the mansion. “Alright, I get it.” He pushed Hudieh away easily. “I lead the crew by name but I’m not really your boss, you’re all just around by my father’s request or something.”

Ar-Ris nodded in a satisfied manner, walking to her pilot seat. “Of course, you get to pick the location you wish to go to as long as it’s a reasonable request. I’m sure you were told that my advice should be greatly heeded, to increase your chance of survival in the galaxy.” She started swiping away at the controls, the systems beeping at her touch. Hudieh flew away with a hmph! and settled on a chair at the deck below. Yu-Yun however, turned to Ji-Yon with a gentle smile. “Umm, while you can’t order us around, if there’s anything you like to eat, just ask and I can try to make it whenever you want.” Her voice was soft and pretty, her big eyes twinkling. 

Ji-Yon gave her a nod in response and strode over to Ar-Ris, a question forming in his mind. “So where are we headed to right now?” He questioned. He could see the screens on her desk forming a destination line, but he was not sure. Ji-Yon knew little about space travel, in all honesty. He was never allowed to leave Mepta before this happened; Mei-Yon had wanted him to stay put in the planet like a good boy, and while Ji-Yon had read up some books about the other planets and galaxies when he was younger, he lacked the interest in leaving anyway. Why would he want to leave Mepta when he had such a good life in his home planet?

“Well,” Ar-Ris started. “I’m setting a course for the nearest planet, Ipus. It’s a human-inhabited planet, and there are plenty of resources there. It’ll take us about a week to get there. We obviously can’t stay floating in space forever, we’d need to refuel and restock, don’t we?”

With a click, she set the engines whirring and the starship started turning towards the left. Ji-Yon frowned. “Why Ipus though? It’s so far away.”

“Do you have any ideas on where you want to go now, Ji-Yon?” Ar-Ris waited for his answer, but when he had none she threw him a look and replied, “Since you don’t have a destination, I’m heading to Ipus by the Archon’s request. I have something I need to do there.”

The young man groaned in his mind when she mentioned his father. “Well whatever, I’m going to walk around.” He had not seen the entire ship yet. This caught Yu-Yun’s attention and she came over to him. “Ji-Yon, would you like me to show you the way? I’ve been in this ship for a few days, and…”

“Yeah, sure.” Ji-Yon shot a charming smile at Yu-Yun, making her blush a little. Then Hudieh looked up at them, shouting, “Careful Yu-Yun, that guy’s a pervert!” This only earned the butterfly woman a hard glare before Ji-Yon stormed out of the Bridge with the shy Yu-Yun trailing after him.

Ar-Ris stared after Ji-Yon’s back, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

— 

“This is the dining room! And that small room over there is the kitchen, and then beyond that would be the food storage room. We stocked up a lot of food before we left, so we should be able to last two months straight in space.”

Yu-Yun was running around excitedly, her flowing dress flapping in the air as she showed Ji-Yon a grand room that sparkled in yellow light. The dining room was decorated lavishly, the long and black marble table in the center of the room lined with soft blue chairs. A small candelabra hung from the ceiling, and the floor was draped with red velvet carpet and beautiful paintings hung on the walls. It was definitely one of the brighter and more beautiful rooms in the ship and Ji-Yon was impressed. Guess that old geezer designed this ship himself, he mused.

Yu-Yun spun around to face him. “Well that’s the last place the ship has to show you. Now that we’ve been to the arcade room, gym, library and dining room, I suppose you’d want to head to your own room?”

Ji-Yon nodded, his hands on his hips. Now that he knew he wasn’t going to die of boredom while in space, he felt more optimistic than ever. Maybe being banished from Mepta wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It was definitely not hell.

As he followed Yu-Yun through the ship, he racked his brains and tried to think of a place he would’ve liked to go to. When he was younger, all the planets in C9-Loborum seemed amazing. They had their own native alien species and different cultures and creations, different environments and histories. But now…

Ipus is boring, Ji-Yon thought. It was just a normal average planet dominated by mundane humans and had nothing different from Mepta. What about Ciorus? It’s the biggest planet and the trading port of C9-Loborum. They have everything and they accept everyone into the planet including the big bad guys, he wondered again. But he quickly shook his head. If he ever landed in Ciorus, he might just see a certain person he did not want to meet…