Aeva

I gave a heavy sigh as I put my plasma rifle back into its locker in my cabin. It had been a long shift, with various crew members up in arms about the supposed preferential treatment that Alex had been given, along with a rumor even being started that he was the reason that the pirates attacked in the first place! It was a ridiculous proposition to even talk about, and it didn’t help that the Yalayans on the crew were egging them on. When I had walked in on them, they were even going as far as coming up with plans to catch Alex outside of his armor to “take care of him.”

It was ironic, though, because the security team never would have found out about this rumor and dangerous behavior without Alex being on the cameras and monitoring the situation as it unfolded. Putting him in that position was already paying dividends it seemed. I tossed my communicator on the desk and laid down heavily on the bed, waiting for sleep to finally take me after the long and arduous day that I had had. I could feel myself drifting off when my communicator alerted me of an incoming message. Groaning loudly, I got out of bed and plodded over to the desk. I snatched it up, trying to not scratch anything with my claws as I typed in the password and scrolled to the messages.

I blinked in surprise as I saw an official statement from the Cosholay Hegemony. “Due to the unprecedented circumstances of the last two days, the Cosholay Hegemony has come forward to denounce the warmongering of the Yalayan Conclave and reaffirm our belief of peace across the stars. The Cosholay Hegemony also recognizes the efforts of United Terra and their right to present themselves to the galaxy how they see fit.”

I blinked in surprise as read the simple message repeatedly, before finally sighing in relief. Perhaps Terrans could be seen again in our territories. That won’t be the case with a lot of the species in the Community but it’s a start. Maybe they might even settle on a planet. I suddenly froze when I realized that I had never asked Alex if the Terrans had a home planet. I suppose I’ll ask him when I see him next, but with the job on the bridge, I would imagine it would be difficult to get ahold of him. I internally debated for a moment before ultimately deciding that sleep was far more important than finding out what the tiny Terran is doing right at this moment. I set my communicator back down and went to lay back in bed. Before I could even attempt to close my eyes, my communicator went off again. I hissed in irritation as I got back up and opened the message, not even bothering to see who it was from.

A

I blinked for a moment, processing the message before finally realizing that it had come from Alex.

A

A

I rolled my eyes. Always secrets with the Terrans! You’d think they’d try to be as open as possible now, but noooo, they still must be as cryptic as they have always been!

A

A

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A

I looked over at my rifle, contemplating if I should take it with me, before ultimately deciding against it. Whatever Alex had gotten himself into, he could probably talk himself out of it. I gave another heavy sigh as I made my way over to the bridge. I couldn’t help but overhear the other crewmembers gossiping about the ‘murder planning party,’ as Alex had put it, that I and the security team had broken up. There was still a lot of speculation on how that whole situation played out, because the team is trying to keep a tight leash on the whole thing. I’m sure that the captain will announce it or something like that, keep people from guessing too much.

I blinked as I reached the elevator, not even realizing that I had made it this far without paying attention. I shook my head and called the elevator. I really need to sleep if I’m spacing out this much just from walking for no less than ten minutes. I finally got to the bridge, and as the doors opened, I noticed that it was significantly less chaotic than the last time that I was here. People were at their stations and performing their jobs admirably. I’m sure that it helped that there was no pirate attack that would cause people to fly into a panic. There was a circle of influence around where Alex was stationed where everyone was not doing anything except staring at the Terran with a concerned look on their faces.

I gave a deferential nod to the captain as I walked over to Alex. My eyes were immediately drawn to the many modifications that he had made in the short period of time that I hadn’t seen him, including a motor of some kind rigged up to the wheelchair itself, and he had a new chest plate for his armor. I could immediately tell that it’s new because it was the signature color of the fabricators on the ship, as opposed to the gunmetal grey that the rest of the mech was. He didn’t react at all to me coming near him, and the left index finger of the mech was plugged into the dataport.

“Hey Alex, I’m here. What do you need my help with?” I asked, concern starting to mount. He didn’t respond for a moment, so I put my hand on his shoulder. “Alex?” I turned to Iskender who was sitting next to him and staring at him concerned. “What happened?”

She shook her head. “I wish that I knew, but one moment he was acting normal and moving, and as he was going to disconnect the mech thing from the camera systems, he froze up and won’t respond to anything!”

I turned back to Alex. “Alex, can you hear me? Give me a sign that you’re alive in there, otherwise we’re going to have to cut you out of it!” I shouted where the ear would be on a person. I felt a buzz from my communicator. I looked down at it to see that there was a videocall request from him. I accepted it, only to be greeted by a pitch-black screen.

“Hey, sorry that you can’t see me, but I seem to have had a bit of technical difficulties right now,” he said, not clearing anything up at all.

“And what in all of the stars in the galaxy is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Well, as I have said before I’m not really that good of an engineer, I just know what buttons to push to pull up the diagnostics system. But what I think happened was that plugging into the ship’s systems for so long either drained my batteries all the way, or the mech decided to kill itself after having to deal with an operating system that it was never designed to interact with in any way. Long story short, I don’t have the ability to move the mech to somewhere else right now, nor do I have power.”

“Well, can’t you call someone to get some help on it?” I asked.

“Well, under normal circumstances, I’d have access to a whole host of things that I can use to troubleshoot this piece of shit, but the closest Quantum communicator that I have that isn’t here is back in my cabin.”

“Well, can you at least get out? Or are you stuck in there?”

“As it stands, I think I am pretty thoroughly stuck, but there are a lot of escape hatches that I can use to get out of here, so I’m not in danger of starving or anything like that.”

“Well then get out of it!” I almost shouted.

“Alright, you don’t have to shout at me!” he said back as he hung up the call. It was only a few moments later when I saw a tiny hatch open at the very top of the head, and Alex crawled out of it. He dusted himself off and looked up at me. “I feel like if things keep going the way that they have been, we’ll be seeing each other moments after my mech craps out once every two days or so.”