NOVEL NEXT 13. Back in Endless Space
Chapter 13: Back in Endless Space
It has been a few weeks since Abyssal left the space hulk. Nothing much had happened during this time, just Abyssal travelling the endless ocean at a steady 300km/s. She had no idea where she was headed nor did she care. Her navigation system wasn’t working and despite having a star map of the area, it wasn’t that useful to her as she couldn’t tell where she was on the map. All she knew was that she’s bound to reach somewhere or something eventually if she keeps going in a straight line.
Admittedly, these past three weeks were much more bearable than the one whole year she’s been stuck in space alone. Having someone else to spend time with was infinitely better than talking to yourself. There was a lot of downtimes to be had in space and it was very very boring. Sure, seeing space for the first time was cool and all, but the novelty wears off fast. Didn’t help that there’s nothing much to do on the ship too.
Abyssal used this time to ask various questions to Kuon about her identity. She carefully picked and chose her questions —questions that can only end with a yes, no, and maybe— trying to figure out as much as she could from her new crew member. It was here that Abyssal found out that Kuon wasn’t actually from the earth. Heck, she didn’t even know what Earth even was.
Abyssal also found out that the maid that she saw in the vision was indeed the avatar of the said Living Core. Through a series of specific questions and descriptions, Abyssal managed to dig deeper into the matter. According to Kuon, her core was constructed with the elegance of a Victorian Maid in mind.
‘Do I… have an avatar just like Kuon? Is it something that a Living Core creates or is it something already inbuilt in the Living Core?’ Hearing this information made Abyssal wonder about what she looks like. If it’s something that she cannot customise then she hoped that it was a cute looking one.
Other than that, Kuon also mentioned that she did indeed know what nanomachines are and the ways the Living Cores can use them, but when asked to demonstrate, she only shook her body left and right.
It seemed that Kuon was much more knowledgeable about being a Living Core than Abyssal. Though, there weren’t many ways that Abyssal can extract that information from Kuon. On the third day, Abyssal had pretty much given up on asking questions. There was only so much you can do with a yes or no question and Abyssal didn’t have that sharp of a mind, to begin with. Plus, she was a lazy ship girl.
She didn’t really mind though. Eventually, there will come a point where she can ask the maid all that she wants. For now, all she has to do was enjoy her slow life in space, slowly but surely getting to know herself and her purpose in this endless frontier. For now, her goal was simply to get a functional reactor and a new voice modulator. Seems like a good goal as any for now.
Thus, for the next few weeks, the two Living Core did whatever they wanted on the ship. Abyssal and Kuon were each doing their own separate things— Kuon still trying to orient herself within the ship and Abyssal reading the new books that she got from the cruiser.
Although Kuon and Abyssal often leave each other to do whatever they want in this time frame, they would at times communicate and even play a few mini-games here and there. This includes card games and self-made games like rock paper scissors. With lots of creativity, they even managed to create board games like checkers and chess.
With a partner to endure the hardships of space, things weren’t all that bad. She had managed to bond quite a bit with Kuon all things considered. You could say that the two were comrade in robotic arms. Plus, due to having a companion on the ship, Abyssal has started to talk less to Abby. The end result was that Abyssal’s sanity levels have risen to thirty per cent!
Though, not everything was all sunshine and rainbows.
The Living Core, Kuon, turned out to have quite a curious and stubborn personality. She was a little bit rebellious, as well. It hasn't been that long since her awakening and she could already be found walking around the interior of the ship, touching and observing every little thing that she could. The list of things she touches are but not limited to: the buttons on the control panel, the charging ports for the drones, the assorted metal scrap within the cargo room and last but not least, Abyssal's own beloved Kapitan.
Now, touching the control buttons were permissible. It tickled Abyssal as Kuon pressed the buttons but overall she didn't really mind. It was like watching a kitten adjusting and learning new things. She understood the feeling of waking up in the middle of nowhere. The feeling of being lost and confused about the situation. Abyssal is a kind ship that is willing to let her new crew member explore as much as they want. She sees no problem in that.
As long as they don't cause any trouble that is.
Her Captain was obviously off-limits and Abyssal was having a hard time trying to prevent Kuon from disposing of poor old Kapitan. Perhaps, it was Kuon's instinct as a maid or something, but whenever Kuon sees something untidy or dirty, she would immediately try to clean or tidy it up. Anything dirty will be made clean. Anything out of place would be placed back to where it belongs— neatly arranged and ordered in a way that was easy on the eyes while also maintaining functionality.
This included the piles of bones in the seat of the cockpit. Kuon, much to Abyssal's dismay, sees her old captain as nothing more than trash and has attempted, multiple times, to take Kapitan's poor defenceless body and toss her out of the ship. A thing that Abyssal has warned Kuon not to do so. A request that has repeatedly been disobeyed by the maid Living Core.
‘Nooo, Kuon! Stop that!’ Abyssal yelled out internally as Kuon once again tried to gather Kapitan’s remains in an attempt to dispose of them. This time, however, Kuon was serious and refused to back down. Abyssal tried her best to pull Kuon away from the cockpit but found it hard to do so.
One by one, bone by bone, Kuon gathered the remains up and put them in a compartment within herself. Once inside, Abyssal has no other way to get the remains out from Kuon. No other way other than to hit Kuon and force it out of course.
“Stop! That’s. An. Order.” Abyssal’s text to speech device called out monotonously.
Kuon however, didn’t heed the orders to stop and continued to gather up all the bones and pieces— easily overwhelming Abyssal’s feeble attempts to stop her. Abyssal didn’t know how or why, but the second drone which was being controlled by Kuon was much more powerful than Kaon, the first drone.
‘Oh no! At this rate, Kapitan will get flushed out to space!’ Abyssal panicked.
In such a distressed state, she immediately went and picked up all the bones as she could and hid them away from Kuon. Her agile drone glided around the cockpit in an attempt to safeguard her deceased captain. Her thought patterns were simple: Kuon won't be able to dispose of Kapitan if she can't collect all the remains.
'Kuon is a perfectionist! She won't be satisfied until she gathers up all of the remains.' Abyssal thought to herself. During the past few weeks, she has seen how much of a meticulous care keeper she is. Someone like that can't possibly be satisfied by just gathering up half of the remains, right?
The two drones fought against each other as they tried to collect every single last bone of the deceased captain. Each drone gliding all over the cockpit to find and collect each part into their drone compartments. The final piece, the skull, was fought over with great zeal, but ultimately won by Abyssal who had better dexterity with the drone than Kuon.
'Phew. Now she can't collect any more bones!' Abyssal thought to herself as she let out a sigh of relief. She has successfully protected (half) her captain against the Victorian Maid.
Her moment of relief was short-lived as Kuon started to glide over to the trash chute of the ship. It seemed that Kuon has decided to toss away all the bones she has collected so far.
'Ehh? Wait wait wait!' Abyssal saw this and immediately went over to drag Kuon away from the chute.
Though, as proven earlier, Kuon was much stronger than Kaon for some reason. Abyssal was unable to stop Kuon from approaching the chute.
"Stooooooooooopppppp." Abyssal's text to speech modulator voiced out during all of this.
A few minutes of struggling later, Kuon managed to reach the trash chute. She then opened up her compartment in order to take out the remains and jettison them out of the ship. Now in a much more panicked state, Abyssal resorted to extreme measures.
'Abby! Engage the thrusters! Stop the ship as fast as possible! I want the ship to be at zero speed!'
"Danger present. Drones not secured to the hull. Sudden deceleration may—" Abby gave out a warning.
However, before Abby could finish her sentence, Abyssal yelled out: 'Just do it!'
Upon confirmation from Abyssal, the ship forward thrusters engaged and the ship immediately decelerated. The sudden deceleration caused the two drones to fly straight to the front of the ship— the two drones knocking over the other objects and hitting the ship's walls with a loud thud. The drones stayed there as if being plastered to the wall as the ship decelerated to zero speed.
A good half a minute passed when the drones were finally released from the walls. Both Abyssal and Kuon checked their own drone for any damage. During this time, Kuon just observed Abyssal from the corners of her cameras. Abyssal knew the inertia would cause the drone to fling forward, but she didn't expect that she would be flung that hard. She checked every part to make sure that her very important drone wasn’t damaged.
Seeing an opening, Kuon slipped past Abyssal who was checking herself and immediately went over to the trash chute.
‘Ahh! No! Stop that!’ Abyssal yelled out internally as the two continued to tug at each other.
The fight climaxed with Abyssal resorting to violence— hitting Kuon with her robotic arms and forcefully opening her compartment in order to confiscate the remains. Although Kuon had managed to chute out some of the remains, it was quickly retrieved back by Abyssal who immediately activated her tractor beam. They were moving at zero speed, the remains can only go so far in space.
The fight ended with Abyssal’s total victory, with every single bone of Kapitan successfully retrieved and stored within her compartment. Kuon stared in disbelief as Abyssal locked herself within the ship’s cockpit in order to prevent Kuon from forcefully taking the remains from Abyssal.
From that day onwards, Kuon stopped trying to touch Kapitan’s remains as she decided that it was not worth degrading her relationship with Abyssal over a pile of bones. Although, they were wary of each other for a short while due to the incident. Kuon essentially gave up. How does one not give up after being shown the lengths Abyssal would go for Kapitan? Clearly, Kuon had not expected such a powerful resistance.
There was a high chance that Abyssal herself didn’t realise how protective she was of her deceased captain. Or maybe she did, she probably didn’t want to admit it. That and the fact that she did promise to fulfil Kapitan’s last words to be with her forever.
