"Nothing excites my tits more than interplanetary warfare." – Me, just now
It had been 19 months since the attack at the United Forces of Earth headquarters, where the casualties ranged to the thousands while the fatalities had to be measured with decimals. While victorious, the Earth forces found themselves splintered thanks to a constant assault of customized mecha. Take one robot down, and another one just pops up. No one ever factors in the costs of making the damn machines. They get shipped and blown up as often as the CEO on his way to Bangkok. Maybe there will be a family mourning the dear loss of a pilot, but as previous tales show, "family man" and "robot pilot" seldom mix. A sad pattern, but it makes the expendability of these soldiers all the more routine.
Let us see this triviality in action at the Satellite Belt, where three Andalusian soldiers have been patrolling in their Kataphrakts for the past few hours.
"I've got a joke," Andalusia 11 said. "How many eggs does a chicken lay to avoid getting cooked in a pie?"
Andalusia 22 and 33 bared little of a response to their captain.
"A baker's dozen. Come on, you guys get it?"
"We got it," Andalusia 22 said. "Doesn't mean it was funny."
"But jokes are funny if you get them."
"Only if they're smart jokes."
"That was smart."
"Number jokes aren't always smart," Andalusia 33 said. "You can't just use wordplay any kid can do in their head. You have to aim higher than that. You've got to do it stealthily."
"But I was stealthy. Baker's dozen is thirteen, and thirteen's unlucky, so—"
"No, I get that. But why does the chicken avoid getting baked in a pie if it lays an unlucky number? Shouldn't it be doomed if it lays 13?"
Andalusia 11 groaned. "See, space is hard enough as it is to deal with. I get stuck here with you two for hours on minimum wage, and this is the shit I deal with. Can't a guy unstress himself with some jokes without playing to a tough crowd?"
"Then come up with something funny," Andalusia 22 said while attempting to stretch his legs in whatever space his cockpit allowed.
Andalusia 11 stared through the window of his Kataphrakt. "Okay, what about sex jokes?"
"Sex jokes?"
"Commander," Andalusia 33 said. "You don't need to go that route."
"No, sex as in gender, like 'when women buy shoes, it's a picnic, when men buy shoes, it's a death march' jokes—"
"Commander, I don't want to hear death march jokes when we're still in the middle of a war."
"But I'm not doing that, I was just using an example."
"Fuck examples," Andalusia 22 said. "Just do it or don't."
"And I can't do jokes without you two mouthing off! Now here it goes. I'm remembering what 33 said a second ago, about the chicken laying the egg, and I can remember his mouth refer to chickens as 'it' instead of 'she'."
"So?"
"So usually, it's only the lady chickens that lay eggs. Male chickens, they only have the equipment to fertilize those eggs instead of making their own. Don't need to be a schoolteacher with their head in a biology textbook to know that. But I heard a story about one male chicken who could lay eggs, and you two may know him, because—"
In that interruption, the Andalusia pilots received a signal from their cockpits, showing an enemy speeding to their location. Andalusia 11 sighed and took his guns out to prepare for attack. 22 and 33 were covering each other's backs while also loading up their arms. Perhaps they could use the Satellite Belt to their advantage, 11 thought. They knew how to fly through asteroids better than anyone, so they could throw their enemy straight into a collision course that way.
Before they could enact that plan, a barrage of shots went through Andalusia 33, killing him instantly. Andalusia 11 grit his teeth, both at losing a comrade and not being able to spell out his joke for his subordinate. More rounds went into 33, reducing his armor into a great dust cloud. The debris from 33's Kataphrakt spread and fogged 11 and 22's vision, forcing them to rely on their radars to see. They could detect the enemy nearby, circling them like a vulture taunting its prey. He moved too fast on the radar, making 11 hesitate shooting back for fear of revealing themselves. 22, on the other hand, shot where he thought the enemy went, trying to predict the right point for which he'll reveal himself.
The dust cleared to reveal the enemy, shinier than a fresh swiss army knife. Covered with armor and golden highlights, it looked more at home inside a tycoon's mansion than out on the battlefield. The price of ten, maybe even twenty, of the Andalusia Kataphrakts probably wouldn't match this machine. The instrument's beauty was matched by its savagery, tearing 22 apart with a close-range gun. Andalusia 11 looked back and fired wildly, trying to do as much damage as he could to the enemy to make up for the loss of his forces. The shields on the enemy Kataphrakt's arms blocked some of the shots, and without a hint of damage on either piece of armor. The remains of 22's armor took the brunt of the hits. 11 kept firing, but such an assault couldn't keep the enemy from striking him down as quickly as his friends. Maybe these shots could slow him down a little, giving Andalusia 11 at least a few more seconds of life. The enemy used the shield on his right arm to pierce 11's cockpit, shredding through it like paper. Andalusia 11 could not even get a breath's moment to react to the strike. One move, and his senses were all blacked out. With no reinforcements in sight, the enemy Kataphrakt flew back to its fleet. And so was the death of Andalusia 11 plus two.
Like I said, expendable.
x x x
"I like blue skies because of how blue they are, and you can't tell why…"
This rambling was broadcast throughout both worlds to promote solidarity for the Martians in their conquest of whatever remained of Earth. One day out of the week, a sedated princess in her wheelchair would go up on a panel and speak on how pretty the Earth is, and why it's so valuable that the Vers Empire has to take it for themselves. Wanting to conquer a planet because blue is a prettier color than red may seem to be a delirious reason for warfare, but try saying that next time your city gets bombed because a terrorist doesn't like the color yellow.
The princess' broadcast elicited reactions ranging from "Change the channel" to "Would she feel it if I sucked on her toes?" One group of watchers took a shot every time she mentioned the word "blue". There was one person watching it with utmost attention, trying to look through the princess' wording as evidence for something far grimmer. She normally wouldn't do this with any official broadcast, but this girl had been her friend. Seeing a friend propped up on a podium and made to speak propaganda chilled her more than the sight of any other stoic, pseudo-German dictating their next campaign.
Inko decided she had seen enough and turned off the video on her phone. After months of watching, that feeling of personal betrayal dimmed into a bit of one-sided loathing, then into something to keep herself awake, then into something to watch because nothing else was on. Due to the war, luxuries had been on an all-time low. No longer could you enjoy fine dining while seeing your favorite internet celebrity talk about their private parts. Now, it was all scratching and surviving.
"Yo, Inko?" Rayet said behind her. "Pass me some of that caviar."
Inko rolled her eyes as she gave Rayet the whole can. Didn't matter to her, since they had those by the bulk back at the ship anyway. Rayet took a chunk of the fish eggs and guzzled it all down. Truly, these girls were living in the new Depression.
Inko and Rayet were spending time at Kalaku Beach, the wonderland for those wanting to soak those toes in lukewarm water. Kalaku Beach features such fascinations as sand, rocks, and more sand. This hotspot used to cater to the local schoolchildren before the war tensed up again. A little boy could dog paddle in the water as Kataphrakts gunned each other down just a few blocks away. Rumors say that the sand from this beach is actually the ash of the children who tried to have a last skinny dip before being nuked by the Martians, so that sandcastle you're making could really be the remains of a simple-minded toddler.
"I still don't get why we're doing this," Inko said. "This whole beach stuff."
"To relax," Rayet said while wiggling her toes in the ocean.
"After almost dying for the last two years?"
"A bitch can't get time to stretch?"
"Hey, I want to relax just as much as you, but not when killer robots keep attacking us. I can't even take a moment to breathe without some guy in a giant purple suit trying to blow us up."
"But we survived."
"…may I remind you of that one robot with the giant hands? We would have died if it weren't for that one guy."
"But we didn't die, so that's all right."
"But what if we do one day?"
"Stop thinking about dying, Ink. If you didn't die the last twenty times we got attacked by Kataphrakts, what makes you think we'll die the next time? We've got luck on our side, luck and your emotionally stunted boyfriend watching our backs."
"But maybe it'll be like with New Orleans. One day, you're celebrating Mardi Gras. The next, you're nothing about but a Hiroshima lover wannabe."
Rayet leaned back to let the sun's rays on her body. "They didn't die because they were partying, they died because they were too stupid to get backup. We, Inko, have backup. Now just this once, calm your tits and enjoy the beach. We're not gonna get more days than this soon after, you know?"
Inko growled, at Rayet for her nonchalance and at herself for expecting any more. "Says you. I wasn't the one who tried to strangle the princess."
"Hey! I changed. And may I remind you that my strangling her probably did us a favor in the Aldnoah department?"
"But you didn't mean to do that?"
"Gotta think mindfulness, Ink. Can't live life thinking there's some plan. Sometimes, life's like happy accidents."
"And happy accidents are why you tried to kill Asseylum?"
"Happy at the time, sure. Mindfulness, Inko."
"Do you even know what mindfulness is? Or is it just going to be something you're going to hawk at me until I stop talking?"
"Not like the dictionary definition, if you keep insisting on the specifics, and don't even try looking the meaning up on your phone. Mindfulness is what you feel, not what it means. That philosophical mumbo-jumbo's what separates us from the Martians."
"But you are a Martian."
Rayet stood up from the water and walked to Inko, looking at her eye-to-eye. For a second, Inko was nervous as to what Rayet might do to her. "Don't go on about what might happen, because it's not right now. We're not dying, or cornered, or running away. We're on the beach."
Inko sighed and took a sip out of her soda. She took her time drinking so she wouldn't have to talk to Rayet for a while. Maybe she shouldn't be paranoid when she's managed to survive the last two years. But in her mind, it was like a coin flip. You could toss the coin and get heads ten times in a row, but there will always be that encroaching realization that it'll be tails eventually. That was what she thought about these battles. They could win ten consecutive times, but one loss was all that it took to become nothing but a blood splatter.
That thought process was interrupted when Inko heard something crunch.
"Huh. Inko, I think I just stepped on a tooth."
Inko groaned and stared out into the open, as Rayet plucked a clod shaped like a molar out of her foot.
x x x
The Kataphrakt that spread Andalusian blood flew into the Vers ship, landing on a hangar bay lined to the teeth with other Kataphrakts waiting to be sued for battle. If not for the turbines, it could be confused for a shining knight in armor making its return while the serfs and vassals celebrate his conquest. Maybe after killing some deadbeat warriors, he could come back home to celebrate with a feast and pretend it's all Valhalla from here on out. But it's not those times. Serfs and vassals have been replaced with a count, a lieutenant, and a figurehead. Armor has been done away with in favor of mechanical arms. And the shining knight can certainly not be used to describe the pilot himself.
The Kataphrakt kneeled as the cockpit opened. The pilot came out, giving a few seconds of fanfare before the grim realization that it was little Slaine Troyard who became the special pilot of the Martian fleet. It would be like a child expecting a Happy Meal from their parents, but only to receive a cabbage instead. And not even a cooked cabbage too, but a raw one the child would be expected to gnaw on like some kind of rabbit. Just think of the stone cold expression on that child's face, and paint that on your dear narrator as Slaine appears. He even does a bow for his count as if he just pulled off a stunt at the Olympics. Bastard.
"You're back," Count Saazbaum said, wrinkles on his face appearing as he attempted to smile. "Sir Slaine, I'm here to introduce you to our new friends."
"Please," Slaine said. "You don't need to call me 'sir'. Just call me 'Slaine' like my friends do."
"If you had any friends," Saazbaum whispered.
"I heard that."
"Well in place of calling you 'Sir Slaine', I could always call you 'Kentucky Fried Slaine'."
"Count—"
"Or Raising Slaine's."
"Count—"
"Or Slaine Fil-A—"
"Sir! I get it!"
"One of the few luxuries I'm allowed, Sir Slaine."
Slaine noticed the man next to Saazbaum, beady-eyed and in that blue suit Slaine used to wear all those years ago. He could even smell his odor on that uniform, pardon for the readers who now have to imagine what Slaine smells like.
"A pleasure to meet you," he said. "I'm Harklight, your new lieutenant."
"And a pleasure to—"
"Oh gosh! I've been collecting things on the Internet about you. Enough to fill a Russian novel, one of those old Russian novels, not the new ones you can find as e-books, like the really old ones that can cause brain damage if they fell on your head, and it's such a fricking honor to finally meet numero uno in person!"
Another way for the Count to taunt me, Slaine thought. He could have gotten any competent ensign to serve his will, and Saazbaum just had to hire the loon who will quite literally ride Slaine's coattails. Just because they were allies didn't mean they had to be friends after all. But a young man need not decline the offer of a willing servant, as long as they are housebroken. Slaine did wonder why they couldn't hire a more attractive lieutenant, like someone with darling blue eyes and long locks of blonde hair. He desired the kind of person who could take several bullets if he so wanted them to. Alas, it's hard to find another person like that in so short a lifetime.
"But that's not all," Saazbaum said. "I want to introduce you to a little lady who's been aching to see you."
Being a knight didn't always mean acquiring a harem, but it was appreciated. Slaine, Harklight, and Saazbaum walked through the halls of the ship, full of windows revealing the images of outer space. They could look out and see the Alpha Centauri, the Kuiper Belt, the rings of Saturn, some comets a bunch of cultists claimed as their own, and Wheatley. It was truly an astronomer's dream, and an astrologist's wet dream.
"Who am I meeting?" Slaine asked.
"Oh, a lady."
"What kind of lady?"
They met the lady.
"Oh, that kind of lady."
Wheelchair-bound and requiring assistance from her predecessor's servant, the princess greeted the three with her presence, clasping her hands and showing no hint of a smile.
"May I introduce you to the lovely Princess Lemrina?" Saazbaum said.
"Wait, I thought Asseylum didn't have sisters?"
"We didn't know either, but she just popped up, and since we've been needing a way to rally the soldier, it proved a nice gift."
"It?" Lemrina asked.
"Okay, she. You don't have to be so uptight just because you can't stand upright."
Slaine wanted to leave to avoid further discussions on disabilities, but that would just worsen the situation. He just stand there and take Saazbaum's handling on physical condition, for better or worse.
"You spend tons of money making stupid robots that get blown up in a week, but you can't make my legs work again?"
"Them's the breaks of military funding," Saazbaum said, his eyes looking through the window to show how much he valued this girl's words. "Besides, cyborg technology is so… on the fritz lately. We can't just go willy-nilly on a teenage girl's legs, or the public will get the wrong idea."
"The same public you killed with chunks of the moon?"
"Just because we kill them doesn't mean we don't care what they think."
The light in Lemrina's eyes further dimmed. "Uh-huh."
She knew the real reason why they couldn't let her walk again, because a girl in a wheelchair making speeches just has that extra spark to tug everyone's heartstrings. They even designed her wheelchair specifically to get that perfect Louisa May Alcott look. Next, they could give her a little puppy with three legs, and a thousand monkeys on a typewriter wouldn't be able to capture that amount of emotional manipulation. "Fuck my life" was a thought that resonated in her body as much as breathing.
"Uh," Slaine said. "Hey."
"What do you want?"
"I, uh, just came here to meet you, and—"
"And what?"
"So, hello?"
"Just get out of my face. Get me away from here, El Dorito."
"Her name's Eddelrittuo."
"Like that name's any less stupid."
Cold as ice, Slaine thought, showing as much care to her as Saazbaum did. He definitely earned the name "Sir" at that moment.
x x x
"Captain, we got an ice robot on our tail!"
The Wadatsumi assault ship focused on their latest trouble, a Kataphrakt shaped like an upside-down lily while standing on sticks. It wasn't exactly something you could imagine on the battlefield without toppling over. The designer must have been watching another show this season to have come up with the idea, and the cold mist surrounding the mecha just gives off the wrong idea. Are you trying to kill your enemies or romance them as if you're the White Witch off to give her followers some Turkish delight?
"So an ice robot," Captain Magbaredge said. "Fire the heat missiles."
"We don't have heat missiles," her bridge crewmember Nina said.
"Fire the submachine guns."
"We gave them to the Kataphrakts."
"Then invent submachine guns!"
"What? Captain, how do I 'invent' something that's already made?"
"You know what I said."
"No, Captain. I don't."
"Well to be more specific, like dismantle parts of the ship and alchemize them into bullets to shoot at the robot."
"Captain, how are we supposed to do that?"
"With the Aldnoah drive."
"That's not how the Aldnoah works, Captain."
"I thought Aldnoah drives were magic!"
"Not that kind of magic, Captain."
"They can make giant robots that say 'fuck you' to global warming, but we can't even get a fancy new gun."
"Sorry to say, Captain."
"But can we at least use something like a laser cannon or whate—"
"Captain… no."
"What about ramming into the guy? Ramming always works, doesn't it?"
Nina shook her head like she was looking at a child who wet herself. "Just no."
Not wanting to lose in a conversation, Magbaredge decide to nitpick on Nina's clothes. "Well… at least I'm not the one wearing a schoolgirl uniform."
"I can't help it. My legs like the breeze that comes from impending doom that an asshat captain started."
"You want me to throw you out the ship? You want to?"
Knowing this was far from the first time her captain said this, Nina replied, "And who do you have to replace me?"
Magbaredge grimaced and said no more.
"So how do we stop it?" Inko asked on the communication signal, firing at the enemy while in an outdated, yet presumably more practical Kataphrakt.
"We have to destroy it," Rayet said as she was also in Inko's situation.
"Well, that's what I implied."
"Can't destroy it at this range though, Ink. Specs say that this fancy machine has something called Entropy Dilution."
"Which is?"
"Something that saps the molecular motion of all matter inside a field one kilometer in radius."
"So it can stop bullets?"
"Yeah."
"Shit."
"Also, it can freeze stuff, because why have one power when you can have two?"
"It's become I'm that well endowed," the enemy Count Yacoym said on the relay. "There's nothing you can do to stop my Frozen Elysium."
"Frozen Elysium? What's next? You guys send the Tangled Chappie at us? If you're going to kill us, at least send a robot with a less stupid name."
Inko squirmed. "Rayet, don't taunt him when he's about to kill us."
"What did I say about how we're not going to die, Ink? If Grimace and Fisty couldn't kill us, how can this guy?"
"Well he's freezing the guy next to us."
The Kataphrakt unit beside Inko and Rayet stood dead as ice covered every centimeter of its armor. The subzero cold pierced right through the exterior and into every single confine of the mecha, with all joints and gears clogged with ice. Even further, the chill went into the cockpit. The soldier couldn't do anything but scream as his communications turned off, his computers shut down, and his the ice formed around his hands to create instant frostbite. It reached all the way into his suit no matter how many layers he was wearing today, freezing his heart and stopping any blood from flowing. And all this from a single ice robot? Central heating be damned!
"So how do we destroy it?" Inko asked.
"Stop," Rayet corrected. "We can only stop it at this point."
"But you just said—"
"I say lots of things I don't fully believe, Ink. Once I said your head wasn't too big."
"Well those will be some fine fucking last words."
Another Kataphrakt joined the battle, same as the ones Inko and Rayet were piloting. It fired a few shots at the Frozen Elysium before stopping, as the pilot contemplated a plan in his head.
"The warheads entered a superconductive state—an event of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic fields occurring in certain materials when cooled below a critical temperature—and were deflected by the Meissner Effect—an expulsion of a magnetic field from its superconductor. The batter in the warhead froze and the processor locked up, but where does the heat go? Is it shunting the molecular movement energy somewhere else in our dimension? Flight distance for the warheads' electronic timer fuse, about fifty meters should do it. Radius of the field, one kilometer. Yes, twenty rounds."
Count Yacoym called on the relay. "What are you trying to say, newbie?"
"What I'm trying to say is that you're about to die."
Using the brilliant strategy of running and shooting until it works, the Kataphrakt charged and fired a warhead, each one stopping, but conveniently also canceling out the adjective for Count Yacoym's mecha. How unfortunate that he couldn't ask the designer for some arms beforehand to shoot back, or even backup shields. One would believe that testing would have ironed that problem out, but whatever. Defenseless thanks to that flaw, all he could do was sit as the upstart was only a few feet in front of him and shot a warhead point blank.
"And I couldn't even make an ice pun," was Yacoym's last thought before the warhead hit. Where his mecha was originally had become a field of fire, with only the victor distinguishable between the flames. What a showoff.
x x x
After the fire cleared, and any of Yacoym's remains unceremoniously dumped into a nearby lake, the surviving Kataphrakts sat as Magbaredge and her crew landed nearby. Inko ran out of her cockpit and hugged the young dull-eyed man who saved her life.
"You don't listen to me when I say you won't die," Rayet yelled as she tried to catch up. "But you hug Tin Man over here like it's his first time."
"Don't ruin the moment," Inko said under her breath. "Besides, you'll hurt Inaho's feelings."
"What feelings?"
"Ensign Inaho Kaizuka," Inaho said, Inko still grabbing onto him. "Reporting for duty."
"See?"
Inko laughed. "Oh, that's what he always does."
"And you complain when I screw with you."
"That's because you intentionally do that. Inaho can't help it."
Inaho's right eye glowed red, with a spark near his pupil flying out. "Ensign Inaho Kaizuka. Reporting for duty."
"It's his way of saying 'I've missed you.' It's so sweet."
Rayet looked at Inko blushing and did a half-hearted scoff to react. "If you're into knockoff greeting cards."
To be fair to Inaho, he wasn't always like this, and could handle conversations if forced into the job. It's just that he chooses not to. A very thorough explanation about how you have missed your friends and are thankful to see them alive and well takes effort to formulate on the spot, so why not suffice with an automatic phrase? He's already a friend to these people, and with the rare exception they're used to it, so they'll just laugh it off instead of judge him accordingly. Not to mention that they would have died if not for him rushing in, so a young man like that can be allowed to talk to friends as if they were sergeants. Perhaps wartime can also be used to excuse social faux pas, but a few Imperial Japanese soldiers decided that was the case, and look where they ended up.
"So," Inko said to Inaho while twiddling her thumbs. "Seems like you've healed well after the surgery."
"Only because he smooched the Princess," Rayet said while turning her head to look at some of the ice on the ground that still hadn't melted.
"It was only to save her life."
"And save his social life."
"Oh, don't go off at him. You're the reason he was stuck in that mess to begin with."
"And thanks to that, Ink," Rayet raised her arms as if she won an award. "I'm the reason why he's still alive. So I get nitpicking rights."
"But you almost got him killed!"
"Almost, Ink."
"And he saved you just now, and before, and before that too. If anything, you owe him!"
"It is okay," Inaho said. "We are all still alive, and that is what matters."
Rayet spit on the ground. "Oh look, someone updated his random sentence generator."
Inaho chose to ignore that and focus his attention on Inko. "The incident nineteen months ago has still been something I cannot fully get past, and the physical and mental damage is still within clear memory, but… it could have been worse."
"Yeah, just because you're a robot doesn't mean you're artificial in all of the body regions."
"Rayet!" Inko yelled.
"Hey, I said what you've been thinking. Not my fault you can't let your brain say what it wants to."
"Rayet, I thought I told you a year ago to stop with the 'brain' talk."
"Nothing personal. Besides, a round of whiskey could probably do more damage than that headshot. If he's still suffering from some brain surgery, he certainly ain't showing it."
"I am trying to maintain my composure," Inaho said.
"And good for you. If I got shot in the head and lived, I would be eating painkillers like candy."
All of Inaho's nerves tried to focus the muscles in his face to create something resembling a scowl, with the amount of neurotransmitters required to dodge a bullet being used to make a simple facial expression. He failed to say the least. If it was any consolation toward Inaho, his right eye twitched a little. Although, that did not show a sign of disapproval toward Rayet's words as much as it just showed him having a mild eye irritation. Facial communication can be hard when you're not used to the full details. For some people, making the right facial reaction is like toddlers trying to pilot a plane all by themselves. To one person, choosing to smile is a simple action. To others, it's like being in a room full of hundreds of buttons asking you genuinely smile, or half-heartedly smile, or sarcastically smile. And that struggle to react doesn't even factor verbal communication, which is like being forced to solve a thousand equations in a single second if you're not used to it. However, you could always go at it like the great pioneers of human conversation and do whatever comes to mind, like greeting your grandparents by spaying a monkey.
But that pondering on the struggles to speak with others must subside, because Captain Magbaredge ran to the three pilots.
"Kids," she said. "Turn on your phone videos or portable TVs or whatever, because we've got another broadcast."
"Her again?" Inko asked.
"Yeah, also you need to rein Nina in. She's trying to act cute to get away with being a bitch on my ship, and I can't take it anymore."
"She seems okay."
"Bitch. On my ship."
Inko pulled out her phone and went to the video app. "You're not going to get over this?"
"My. Ship."
Inko rolled her eyes, comforting herself with the belief that the Captain will probably die in the next attack. "Fine, fine. I'll talk to her, then."
"Yay. Now phone. Streamy. Now."
On her phone, Inko went to the Vers site and checked the stream. "So why aren't we watching on the screen at the ship?"
"Big screens scare me."
Inko let out a slow breath as the live cast played. Just imagine the fire, she thought. Imagine the fire covering the Captain as she's screaming for help.
"—And the reason why these skies are blue is because of the magic of the wonders of the Earth," the Princess said while continuing to sit at a podium like she was some kind of political pundit, but with slightly more intelligence in her words. "The color blue is the mortal enemy of the color orange, which is the color of the Kataphrakt pilot who ended the use of my legs and made me into what I am now. Let us remember what Italian Prime Minister Eiffel the 65th said about the color blue. I would say them, but I forgot his entire speech. Nevertheless, his words rang true. That brings my attention to the topic of skies. Mars does not have skies, because the sky gods forgot to make a sky for us. That is why Angie and the kids will never be able to experience bright skies on Mars. We need to conquer Earth for their precious blue-sky resource. Otherwise, we will be doomed to over-sachur—
"Saturation," an off-screen voice said to Asseylum as a means to correct her pronunciation.
"Over-saturation of the colors red, yellow, and especially orange. Do you forsake us like you forsook the Plutonians, Earth? I think not. If you do, you will burn like how the nerves in my legs burned into non-existence. That is all."
The video went offline, showing a picture of a puppy wearing earmuffs in its place.
"Why do they always mention blue skies?" Rayet asked. "Like, skies are always blue. That's like saying waxing lyrical about how green grass is."
"The more important question is why she's like this." Magbaredge said. "I thought she was cool with us, not want to conquer us."
"Maybe she was brainwashed," Inko said. "Or lobotomized."
"Like a little Rosemary Kennedy dealio."
"Who's Rosemary Kennedy?"
"An imaginary friend I made up in my head. She serves tea on Sundays."
Hey, after a single tear can resurrect a man, nothing is too stupid.
"Eitherway," Rayet said. "I can see why she fancied Inaho over here. Having them talk to each other now, can't tell who would give up and leave first, if at all."
"Shut up for once," Inko said with her fists clenched.
"It is okay," Inaho said as he continued staring at the phone screen long after everyone stopped paying attention. "What annoys me more is the Princess's assumption regarding blue skies."
"Hmm?"
"It is thanks to the particles in our atmosphere, and human perception of colors that cause the sky to look blue. Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves, causing them to more easily seen by the naked eye. Because it travels as shorter and smaller waves, it is more scattered throughout the sky, making it more easily seen than any other light waves in our atmosphere."
"…Okay."
"I thought I had told the Princess this the last time we had met."
x x x
After the broadcast ended, Sir Slaine Troyard walked to his quarters. Soldiers walked by and occasionally saluted him, and he returned what would look like a salute if a penguin did it. His heart wasn't into that. Instead, it was into what was lying in his room.
He opened the door and turned on the lights, taking a huge whiff of the place to get rid of that outside smell stuck in his nose. This was his territory, away from all that war and bickering and especially that Saazbaum. Rather, he had his princess in a tube.
"Good afternoon, Princess Asseylum," Slaine said to the stasis tube containing the Princess, her mouth covered by a respiration mask and the rest of her body layered in a jumpsuit. "Was today good for you too?"
In his head, he could hear her give detailed memories of what happened, about how she doesn't need to live vicariously through anyone else but Slaine now. In that moment, he felt a wet bulge in his pants, specifically at his backside.
