Lukira Azhan, Captain of Subfleet Seven under the Magnocracy’s third expedition-class fleet, kicked down the sliding door that separated her private quarters and her bath, sending it careening into the opposite wall. As it clattered violently to the floor, still glittering with a silver constellation of star-like lights where her foot had impacted, a red alert signal began pulsing from above.

The room was immediately shaded in an unpleasant and maddening red. Before her, a vaguely opaque female figure shimmered into being, already bowed at the waist.

“Captain Azhan, may I suggest—”

“Shut the fuck up, Mina! And turn that shit off.” The holographic image blinked once and the lights returned to normal. She remained motionless as her Captain stalked past her, eyes overflowing with silver energies. Suddenly, her clothes seemed to violently remove themselves as if by unseen hands, and were left discarded unceremoniously on the floor.

By the time she reached the edge of the tub, she was entirely nude. It was a trick she had learned carefully over the years to help train her control in a desperate bid to overthrow her infamously wanton dismay of delicacy. Presently however, she couldn’t care less about her image or the state of her clothes.

“Now turn on the water. I want it scalding.” As the tub silently filled from below, Lukira clicked her tongue. With an absentminded wave of her hand, the brutalized door first floated into the air, and then began hammering itself back into shape. Once serviceable, she sent it floating gently back into place before slamming it ruthlessly into its slot. A hack-job, no doubt, but enough to keep the heat contained in the room.

Mostly.

Once filled, the tub reached a semi-vigorous boil before Lukira nodded her head and stepped in. Even as steam filled the room and the ambient temperature skyrocketed, neither of the two present made a comment as the human woman lowered herself into a boiling bowl, more fit for stew than relaxation.

Even as the liquid enveloped Lukira’s body, only the vaguest of flushes spread across her face. A content sigh escaped her lips as the pleasure of incredible heat wormed its way through her taut nerves. Minutes passed before either said a word.

The holographic image of a young woman, whom Lukira had referred to as Mina, stood in stoic silence. As it were, she understood it was unbecoming of a subordinate to broach conversation with their Captain. And so, she waited for the explanation she knew would soon come.

‘Command says this, command says that’, Mina wondered how her human master ever put up with it.

“Water this hot would have killed me 40 years ago.” Lukira stated blandly. Mina cocked her head at the sudden and honestly random sentence from her Captain’s mouth. Of course there was no way a normal human from some sub-third-rate planet could survive bathing in boiling waters, let alone enjoy it. Normal humans were naturally fragile after all.

Her Captain, however, was far from normal.

“Indeed, Captain.” Nevertheless she dutifully indulged, curious as to the nature of their sudden conversation.

“And yet now, I barely feel anything. I’ve come a long way from that backwater dump of a planet in the Dixie Cluster.” In Mina’s view, her Captain was ultimate. Of course she had come a long way from base mortality. Boiling waters? Sub-zero temperatures? The vacuum of space? The Captain managed all with a smile, ever sanguine.

Nostalgia over bathwater? Surely not.

“Are you not satisfied with the temperature? I can raise it if you like.” She attempted to reason her Captain’s attitude coolly as ever. Introspection and intuition were human games, ones which often led to failure. As such, Mina curbed her growing suspicions with impunity.

“No, not that. It’s just, I feel like I’ve improved so much I hardly know myself.” Lukira’s voice grew distant, and tapered into a near whisper at the end.

If she had the lungs to do so, Mina would have sighed. Luckily, such learned human compulsions were easily suppressed. Her response instead came measured and with barely a hint to her inner emotional state.

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“As have we all, Captain. Thanks to you.” Her voice was almost robotic, but not quite. The human crafted AI could never get quite as personal as she, though there were boundaries she would never cross even without extensive programming. Her gaze flickered to her Captain’s submersed form.

“And yet! Despite coming so far, we’re still stuck out here. I thought by now we would all be living it up in the Inner Sectors.” Lukira responded dourly.

The Inner Sectors. The phrase alone threatened to blow Mina’s professional attitude with the longing even she felt. Tied to the ship as she was, her only chance of journeying into the Divine Fields of the Inner Sectors was her Captain’s ascendency.

“And soon, Captain, I am sure we will be.” Even as a hologram, Mina’s eyes flickered with conviction. Under their illustrious Captain Azhan, the Silver Destroyer of the Magnocracy, the Subfleet had flourished.

Despite her Captain's dubious beginnings, Lukira had with time managed to shed her infamy as the Brute of Dixie and was now reborn as the Silver Destroyer. After all, who would dare insult the woman whose fighting style consisted of the violent manipulation of pure cosmic force? Those higher-born fools of the Magnocracy had been cowed for years.

Achievement after achievement had piled upon themselves to form a veritable mountain that not even those diplomats of the Inner Sectors could ignore. There was no doubt in her mind that they would soon be at the forefront of the Multiverse’s development, fighting Demi-Astral creatures and refitting with top of the line ship enhancements. Which made her Captain’s current emotional state all the stranger.

A glittering nebula was held static within Lukira’s hand, distracting Mina from her whimsical visions of the future. As rivulets of bubbling silver water fell from her slender fingers, Lukira shook her head silently. The collection of stars floated weightlessly to her assistant.

“A starmap? Captain, this location is not in our libraries.” Mina’s confusion masked her immediate understanding. An unmapped location could mean a few things, but her Captain’s reaction narrowed down the possible outcomes considerably.

With a sigh, Lukira closed her eyes and sunk further into the water until only her face remained.

“We have been assigned a newly reintegrated Seed of an unknown Progenitor. Archaeon or something, it doesn’t really matter. Forget the Inner Sector, Mina. We’re headed to the Frontier.” She said while she considered plunging the rest of her face below the scalding waters.

For a long time, neither said a word. Lukira wondered if she could sense Mina’s reluctance, but that was unlikely. After all, as far as she knew, ‘Mina’ was just a representation of the starship itself. A dutiful, respectful, and entirely forthcoming cosmic elemental made subordinate and fully integrated with the ship’s core infrastructure.

As such, cosmic elementals were beholden to the missions delegated by the Captain, in this case herself, and would only offer advice pertaining to mission success and methods to circumvent risks.

“Potential to reject mission, Captain?” Typically only offer advice pertaining to mission success and methods to circumvent risks.

Lukira sighed as her ever growing list of worries increased yet again. Not that she worried Mina would prove insubordinate— no, she in fact quite liked the ship’s emergent personality.

Especially when she failed to hide it.

However, the fact yet remained that there was yet another anomaly under her care. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for herself. If the researchers of the Tower knew of her thoughts they’d be furious.

“Zero, my dear Mina. Command worked hard to get this from the other factions, and part of the deal was to send us away. Start charting the course. I want a full briefing in two hours.” With a normal ship’s elemental, she would have ended the conversation with that. Considering her newfound circumstances however, she entertained the idea of being a little more inviting.

“For what it’s worth, Mina, I am sorry.” Lukira added with an awkward cough when the hologram failed to respond quickly. ‘Inviting’ really wasn’t her thing. When the silence persisted, she almost turned to make sure Mina was still present when she caught the slightest of whispers with her enhanced ears.

“... Fuck.” Mina’s hologram form flashed briefly, then vanished, taking the starmap with her. Likely to the ship’s core for analysis.

“Keep the water hot!” Lukira yelled at the wall before her, certain that Mina would at least keep an ear on her if not a few eyes. Hopelessly, she sighed for the upteenth time this evening. Where had her innocent and professional Mina gone, she wondered.

Could cosmic elementals that integrated with starships even learn to swear? She wasn’t certain of the precedent for that. Yet another mystery to hide from the greedy bastards at Command.

More importantly, how was she going to face the rest of her crew if she struggled with Mina, her single most trusted and longstanding subordinate?

For the first time since she entered the boiling hot water, Captain Lukira Azhan, the Silver Destroyer of the Magnocracy and three time champion of the mid-division’s inter-universal void beast hunt, began to sweat. No number of accolades could protect her from the disappointment of her crew.

Archaeon’s planet had better be worth it.