Juia_Darkcrest

  As John materialized in his quarters on the Phoenix Hawk, the tension in his body began to release a bit. It was not as significant as when he used the Auto-Doc machine the st time he was here, showing him exactly how much his body had improved since his st visit. He took a quick look at himself, trying to jog his memory about what he was doing the st time he was here.

  Right... I just dressed down that officer... now I am waiting for her to provide a better pn. I wish there were somewhere I could have learned space warfare tactics, but I guess I will have to wing it.

  He was dressed in his bck suit, this world's pistol in its shoulder holster, the gatcha 'Sword of Truth' at his side. His leathers were folded neatly on top of his bag that was sitting beside him. A note on top of them had a simple "Good Luck! - ? Xao! ? ' with a lipstick kiss mark. He just smiled at that. The tiger dy always found new ways to flirt with him.

  Stuffing the note into one of the pockets of his leather jacket, he pulled out the Substance X box from the jacket's other inner pocket. He popped a pill in his mouth, then began rooting around his backpack, inventorying what he actually had in it right now.

  Other than the sex toys, all his tomes were in it, a box of chocote bars Saya stuffed in there as he was departing the manor that morning, and a coin pouch he left in there from The Great Cleric. In a side pouch were the extra bullets for the revolver, but the gun itself was nowhere to be seen.

  So with that revolver not here, that confirms that if I want to bring something that wasn't from the gatcha with me, it needs to be in the bag. So... if it was part of the gatcha, as long as I am holding it, it comes. If it's not, it needs to be in the bag...

  Putting that experiment aside, he stood up and took his bag over to the armoire on the side of the room and dumped all the sex toys into one of the drawers. The cabinet was already partially full of the toys, it might as well hold the rest of them. He shuddered at the crops, cuffs and ropes already packed away in it.

  Once he finished doing that, he debated about clothing. He loved his suits he had here, but his leathers were really starting to grow on him. In the end, he stayed in his suit. While the leathers would make him look more the part of the mercenary, the suit made him feel more professional.

  "Now... training? Or should I go grab some of the weapons from this world before I forget about it?" He mused to himself. He didn't have that much room in the bag, the tomes taking the vast majority of the space. He would have to take another look at the armoury to see what he could even fit in there.

  "Hell, I don't even know how much kick these weapons have. If they are as bad as that pistol from StarCraft, they will be useless for me anywhere but this world right now. I'll worry about what I want to borrow from this world ter, I have training to do." He nodded to himself, then started making his way to the cockpit.

  When he stepped out into the hallway, he stumbled and nearly collided with something, bringing his hands up reflexively to stop from falling.

  "Whoa! Careful there." He said as his eyes met a set of sharp green eyes looking up at him, a panicked look on the elf's face. He noticed that his hands were on her chest, and he quickly pulled them back. "Sorry about that, you startled me. You are one of the mercs, right? Did you need something?"

  The elf jumped back, crossing her arms across her chest. "Yes... No... Ahh, it can wait. Sorry for disturbing you, Captain." She said while blushing deeply, her words rushing out of her mouth as she ran to one of the other bedrooms.

  John just scratched his head, confused at her reaction to his questions, but quickly put it out of his mind. He had no idea how elves think, nor did he want to waste energy on trying to figure it out right now. She was very pretty, though.

  I wonder if there were elves in The Great Cleric? I will have to ask Nanael when I get back.

  He continued to the cockpit, his thoughts returning to the task at hand. He might not get the gunnery skill by tomorrow, but he would get as good at it as possible. He would do his best to pull that lieutenant's ass out of this fire she found herself in.

  A few hours ter, John's Link vibrated, an incoming call from Lieutenant Eligan coming in. He paused the simution he was running and accepted the call.

  "Did you come up with a better pn?" He asked without preamble. Sitting in the command chair reminded him of how annoyed he was with her and this pn her superiors had saddled her with. He had even programmed the simution to look like the pirate base intel she had provided him, and he was trying out a few different ideas. It wasn't going well.

  If we could only draw out their fighters from the cover of the fixed gun empcements. The empcements all have anti-missile capabilities and heavier shielding that their fighters can duck behind, almost like a trench. It would be much easier if we could get them away from the base.

  "Not really. Short of doing some hit and run tactics and trying to thin their numbers down, they will still be too much for us. But if we take too long doing that, they will be able to evacuate the base. That will slow their operations down for a bit, but they will just pop up again elsewhere. We need to take that base quickly if we want to have any chance of finding out who is backing them." She said, looking crestfallen.

  Right, I threatened to kick her off my ship if she didn't have a better pn.

  "Come up to the cockpit, Lieutenant. Let's see if we can work something else out." He said, looking over his gunnery simution again. He had an idea.

  "Yes, Captain." She said, then severed their connection.

  These are not soldiers, or even mercenaries. They are pirates, and pirates have different motivations than people defending their homes.

  The Lieutenant showed up shortly afterwards, the chocote beauty still in her flight suit. John let her in, and after a short greeting, they had a lengthy discussion about his idea. She was skeptical if it would even work, but without a truly better option, she agreed to it.

  "You know, Captain, if this works, I might need to lean on you more for future operations." She said, still standing beside his chair like she was addressing her commanding officer.

  Isn't she supposed to be his boss? Frig, what was her first name again? Kathy? Kathrine? Kat something?

  "That is fine, though you need to figure out who is trying to discredit or outright kill you and your team. I know in the military you can sometimes get some questionable orders, but this one doesn't make any sense. Unless this is a test of some sort... anyways, Kat, just make sure your team is squared away. I'll be here if you need me for anything, running simutions." He said, using a nickname for her.

  "Thank you... John. Do you want to join me for a te dinner?" She asked, switching from work mode to her more rexed persona.

  "Not today, I have some snacks here if I get hungry." He replied, pulling out one of the chocote bars from his pocket. "Want one?"

  "What is this?" She asked, taking the bar. "I can't read this nguage."

  "Ahh, it's some confectionery that was in my quarters." He said, not sure how to expin the foreign writing on the wrapper. He smacked himself for not thinking of that.

  "I see. I will try it ter." She replied, putting it in one of her pockets. "I am sorry for dragging you into this. It wasn't how I expected our first operation to turn out."

  "It is fine, just next time let's try and spread stuff out a bit. I probably need to hire some crew now that I am getting more settled in here."

  "I am sure I can find some engineers and officers if you need them."

  "I will think about it." He said, not committing to that. It would work for the short term, but after his contract was up, he didn't want to be stuck needing to resign with the INP just to keep his crew.

  I really don't know enough about this world yet. I mean, I have a ship that can travel across the gaxy, so why would I want to be stuck here in one system? I could literally go explore where no one has gone before.

  With that, the Lieutenant left, leaving John to his thoughts. He reset the simution again, this time changing his ship's starting point.

  It will work.

  "Tanya! I messed up again!" Ash said, crashing face first into the bed beside the dwarf woman.

  "Ya were just going there to apologize to him. How did ya mess up?" Tanya asked, closing the holonovel she was reading and turning her attention to the mopey elf beside her.

  "I was going to, but I hesitated at the door too long. I was about to leave when the door opened, and he walked into me."

  "Lemme guess, he tripped and fell on ya, and ya both ended up tangled up on the floor, kissin' like some romcom manga?" She replied, rubbing her friend's back.

  "No... but he groped my chest again by accident when he stumbled into me... and just said sorry." She said, holding back her tears.

  "Ya know, Ash, that's a pretty reasonable thing to do if ya accidentally touch someone. I don't know why ya 're so obsessed with the fact that he didn't compliment your boobs. It sounds more like he 'ad sumthin' else on his mind again." The dwarf said, shaking her head at how silly her friend was being.

  "It's twice now he has touched me, though! You know we elves are not as promiscuous as humans. Something like that is meant for our husbands only."

  "Yes, and ya left home to get away from all that nonsense, didn't ya?"

  "Biology isn't nonsense, you twit. I don't want my mind to imprint on him accidentally!" She said, looking up at the dwarf.

  "The way ya are obsessing over this, ya would think ya have already. Just sleep on it tonight, and tell 'em tomorrow. And in the extremely unlikely event ya do imprint from accidents, ya just 'ave ta go to the auto-doc ta clear that up." Tanya replied, pulling up her holonovel again.

  Demi-Humans like them all tended to bond with their partners a lot more permanently than humans, a biological function that was activated through intimacy. It made both partners dependent on the other, nearly to the point that if one of them died, the other would follow suit from heartbreak. It was the cause of much misery in the past, mainly during times of war.

  The advent of more advanced medical technology that could 'Cure' that biological dependency was implemented centuries ago, but many households still held on to the traditional ways, particurly the noble houses.

  "Argh, Tanya... that is not the point. Whatever, shift over, I am going to sleep."

  "Ack! Git out! Go sleep in ya own bed ya git!"

  "I can't! Your sister is in it, and she still smells like coont. Besides, I don't feel like getting thrashed while she sleeps."

  "Fine. But I am reading, no compining about the light, eh?"

  "Will you two shut up! And Ash, I had a shower, thank you very much! If you actually spent your money on a newer, more reliable ship, I wouldn't get drenched in as much grease and coont. I don't care how good it handles in combat, with the amount of time that thing is in my shop, it's a damn money pit. If you didn't get my friends' discount rate, you could hardly afford to fly it!" Another voice said on the bunk above them.

  "The Tengu is the pinnacle of elven design! Just because your family can't replicate its greatness, doesn't mean you can put it down, Chris!" Ash said, snapping at her other friend and mechanic on the top bunk, her mencholy forgotten.

  "Bah, even if I made a copy of the design, the old man would call me home and ground me for another fifty years if I suggested we started building slop like that." The other woman said, looking over the edge of the bed. She was almost an exact copy of Tanya in looks, with the only difference being that her hair was dyed a dark blue. The sisters both took pills that dyed their hair, their natural colour was bck, like their brothers.

  The three women bickered good naturedly for a bit, then settled down to sleep for the night, the issues Ash had with this new captain forgotten about for now.

  Katrina paced around the room, contempting the refugee turned merc she had hired. It was suspicious when he showed up alone in the system with an unmarked military prototype ship, supposedly losing his memories, but she was willing to let that part slide. Now, she was confronted with another problem. A sweet, chocotey brown problem.

  "Are you sure, Ma'am? I mean, it tastes amazing, but you mean it is real chocote? Not just something from a food synth?" Her second in command said, holding up what remained of the chocote bar that they had just sampled.

  "Positive. That and the royal script on the packaging leads me to believe the Captain might be of royal blood from a neighbouring nation. Which begs the question, what is he doing here?" Katrina replied, deep in thought. Real food was hard to come by these days if you didn't live on the surface of a farm world. In space, almost everything was made from the algae cartridges in a food synth machine.

  And the writing on the package was something only used by the royal families. She wasn't even sure exactly what it said, she just recognized the script from one of the history lessons she received in her youth.

  "Go down to the galley and check the synth, see if these are in it. If I were a betting woman, I would put money down on it not being there." She ordered.

  "Yes, Ma'am." The woman said, giving her a salute before leaving the room.

  Katrina looked out the window at the hangar outside, contempting what to do with this hypothesis if hers.

  It wouldn't be the first time a royal came to Parrax to hide and start a new life, or even the second. He might have given her the chocote as a subtle hint at who he actually was.

  If he is a royal, it might not be a good idea to get closer to him. It would draw even more attention if he were seen getting closer to the Earl's daughter. I need to be careful going forward until I figure out exactly who he is and which nation he belongs to.

  She stood there for a while, her thoughts on this supposed refugee she accepted into the empire.

  Juia_Darkcrest