67. Astral’s Arrival

It has been a few days since the tea party. Abyssal was currently installing the newly upgraded design for the battleship gun on the shark-class. She was transferring the Zenatonium that she had previously installed on her radar towards the gun. The installation took quite a while, but it was finally done. Abyssal, for all intent and purpose, was fully weaponized.

The new design gave the large gun of the shark-class even more power than it was supposed to have. It was according to Kuon, more accurate, more powerful and more reliable than the old one, as well. However, In exchange, it uses a lot more power than the previous version. Abyssal’s current total power generation was about 2400 MJ/s at the moment. To use this gun, it would take about 80% of that power rerouted for a full ten seconds before she could fire the gun.

‘At least that was what Kuon said to me. Never really used the old gun at all, so I wouldn’t know anyway,’ Abyssal muttered as she did some checks with the gun, moving it along its weapon arc and other preliminary checks. She couldn’t fire nor charge the gun as that would alert the beast, but everything else should be alright.

For the main gun of a small and agile ship like the Shark-class, Abyssal thought that it was very power-hungry. Kuon, however, mentioned that it was normal for a laser-based weapon to use that much power. She mentioned that laser-based weapons, although not needing ammunition, required much more energy to use than traditional massed based or conventional weapons.

‘But still, to use so much power just to even use the gun. That’s just one gun, I can’t imagine having nine of these like normal battleships would…’ Abyssal thought further. Just how much power would a large ship like E needs?

‘Ah well, we have the energy anyways. Perhaps it would be good for us to get another generator in the near future.’

Satisfied with the condition of the gun, Abyssal’s mind went back to the words that Kuon told her a few days back— that she could very well be a divergent personality created by Abby. It scared Abyssal quite a bit to even entertain the thought that her life and all of her memories could be fake. Her twenty-seven years of living, going to school, of her parents and friends, of her identity, her ambitions, her dreams and her years of experience could all be simulated.

Abyssal didn’t want to believe it at first but after giving it a try, she realised that there were some gaps in her… existence. For example, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember what her real name was. All she knew was that her name was ‘A’ and that she used to be a man who loved space and wished to explore it. However, that was only the extent of it. Abyssal couldn’t tell what her parents looked like, she could not tell what her life as a man named ‘A’ was and she couldn’t explain events that led to her being on the ship named S.A.S. Abyssal.

Abyssal never really gave a thought about her past life as it was a given thing. However, having actually trying to remember made her realised that perhaps, she wasn’t a reincarnated person waking up as a ship after all.

Was she a person whose memories were taken from a human and plugged into some core like some test subject or was all her memories all simulated in some sort of twisted fashion by some A.I. program? Was her lewd avatar also created by some sick man who wanted to create his or her ideal wife? Abyssal couldn’t help but shudder thinking about all of it. Her throat was burning, her imaginary skin tightened and stomach convulsed so violently that she wanted to puke.

Though Abyssal being Abyssal, quickly bounced back from this situation. As much as she was disturbed by the revelation... there was nothing she could do about it, after all.

“Why worry about things that you cannot control? Best be putting your eyesight to things you can do, right?  Even if I am a fake… then so be it, I guess. Can’t help it really,” Abyssal said words of comfort to herself.

Perhaps, her ability to bounce off such a shock was programmed into her too, but Abyssal didn’t see it as a bad thing. Mental breakdowns don’t really help one’s situation.

“At the very least, I know where my damn core is now,” Abyssal said to herself as she looked through her camera to see a nicely assembled skeleton prop in the captain quarters. It blended so well with the room that anybody would see it as a decoration. It was like seeing a skeleton prop in a Halloween party or a science classroom.

The best place to hide something was right in front of someone’s eyes after all. The captain quarters was also the deepest part of the ship and were the most protected part of it, so this was, to Abyssal, probably the safest spot to place her very heart, brain and existence.

There was much that she didn’t know about herself and the situation that she was in. Abby had requested that Abyssal did not find out too much of herself as it was to their mutual benefit that Abyssal remained oblivious. At the very least, oblivious until she could secure her safety in space.

“One day, when I’m in a safer place and position, I expect an answer, Abby,” Abyssal said out loud towards the ceiling.

[...]

Abyssal let out a sigh at Abby’s lack of response.

It was at this moment that Abyssal felt something weird was happening outside of the ship. Connecting her consciousness to the cameras outside her hull, Abyssal could see that the entrance to the hangar bay was moving. At the far end edge of the bay, two large panels opened up, revealing the dark edge of space. A green translucent barrier wall was the only thing that prevented everything in the hangar bay from being sucked into the vacuum of space.

The platforms that were all over in the hangar bay then started shifting places. The parked fighter ships in the bay shuffled and rearranged in such a way that there would be a free space that was almost as wide as Abyssal’s ship. It was then, from the floor of the bay, a large metal platform appeared— it even came with landing pads,  green lights and everything.

“Hmm? Is that...” Abyssal let out a strange voice as she noticed a person standing on the edge of said metal platform. She had short blonde hair, wore a white lab coat and was smoking a traditional cigarette as she stared at the translucent barrier, seemingly waiting for something. Looking over to where the woman was staring at, Abyssal could see a much familiar crimson-red themed ship moving through the translucent barrier.

It was a ship that Abyssal couldn’t possibly forget given that she crossed paths with it twice now. It was Astral and her super overpowered corvette-fighter. Abyssal took this chance to observe Astral’s ship closely, seeing as this was the first time that she got an actual look at the fighter without any interruptions.

The ship had a shiny black metallic look to it and was covered with glowing red lines, giving it a modern yet foreign perhaps alien feel to it. The ship had four wings and on each wing was three fins letting out blue particles— perhaps the thrusters of the ship. On the back of the ship was another fin, making it thirteen fins in total. It was hard to describe the shape, but if Abyssal had to choose a word to represent the look of the ship, it would be the word ‘phoenix’.

The red ship deployed its landing gear before gently moving downwards vertically towards the platform. It was an action performed with such finesse that it generated minimum sound and wind turbulence.

Abyssal was partly impressed by the ship and its dexterity, but more so when she noticed something fascinating. Her radar could not pick up the ship signature at all. She could see the ship now through her cameras, but to her radar, it might as well not exist. The fact that Abyssal’s radar could detect everything in the hangar bay but not something that was parked right next to her was rather upsetting.

‘As expected, her ship had some sort of super OP stealth system or something,’ Abyssal thought to herself as she continued to observe the ship.

It seemed that Astral was probably doing some checks on her ship as the thrusters and other parts of the ship were moving in various directions. Soon, the ship fins stopped shooting out blue particles, it looked like that the engine of the ship was turned off.

‘Those fin-like objects… I call them fins, but they actually look more like feathers, huh.’

Not long after the ship landed with its engine turned off, the cockpit of the ship, at the part of the ship that looked like a beak, opened up. Inside the cockpit was a woman in her mid-twenties with long flaming red-hair wearing a red jumpsuit. She had a modest chest and slim body and on her face was a solemn bored expression that Abyssal came to expect from her. From her cockpit, she rappelled down via a metal cable onto the platform below with a tool that was attached to her legs and midriff.

As Astral went down, she turned her head to look around the area before stopping on Abyssal. Her eyes studied Abyssal, looking at her hull from the top to bottom and from left to right. Abyssal would be lying if she said that she wasn’t uncomfortable at how Astral was looking at her. It was a look that could pierce through someone’s soul.

As she reached the bottom floor, Doctor Julia, who had been standing in wait, walked right up to Astral. It was at this point that Astral’s focus was torn away from Abyssal towards the delinquent doctor. Abyssal zoomed in onto the two before directing her hull microphone to listen in on their conversation.

“You sure took your damn time. I sent that message over a week ago,” Julia said as she puffed out a smoke cloud towards the red-haired girl.

Astral fanned away the smoke with her right hand before responding. “I’m not a miracle worker. It wasn’t easy to track down E’s location, okay. Not to mention there are some things that I needed to do to make sure I wasn’t followed. Then there is also the fact that I need to hide from other Freedom United ships. It’s all sorts of annoying, you know.”

“Excuses, excuses, and you call yourself an ace pilot,” Julia responded with a sarcastic tone and a smirk.

Astral let out a sigh. “It’s nice to see you, Jul,” Astral said before looking around the platform. “Where are the kids?”

“The kids… are with Kyle right now. E is with them as well.”

“I see…” Astral responded. She looked away for a short while, staring at the ground with a pained expression.

“Hmm?” Abyssal noticed that something was off with Astral’s response, but couldn’t put her finger on why.

“So? What was so important that you need to call me all the way here for a talk? I was in the middle of something. You mentioned something about my leftovers? Astral went back to her normal bored expression.

Julia pointed her thumb towards Abyssal, “Red, do you know what the pilot of that ship is?”

“Hmm?” Astral looked towards the ship, tilting her head. “I’ve never actually met the pilot first-hand, but I know it’s a girl at least. One hell of a stupid one based on her actions and voice.”

‘Oi! That’s really mean!’ Abyssal retorted in her mind.

Julia didn’t say anything, only shaking her head and signalling Astral to follow her. They walked a few steps towards Abyssal before Julia stopped right at the hull. She then banged her hand on Abyssal.

“Hey kid, open up.”