The water planet.

As far as I recall, they never named these planets in canon, so it makes sense that we don't have real names for them either. However, it is a bit irritating to keep calling it "the water planet" a hundred times.

I vote we name it Rodrigo.

It's been another week since my big reveal, and we've finally reached Rodrigo. The ship's mostly settled down, but there's still some individuals who aren't too happy with how things are going. Specifically, those who think the men should just be spaced and be done with it (led by Cel) and a certain group of females that I hesitatingly call my harem. As a joke. Because I refuse to actually accept being the center point of a harem.

"When we go to investigate that planet, John, you and I are finally going to combine!" Jura bangs her fist down on the table in front of me.

Recently, I was given access to the controls for my cell, which meant that I was allowed to go where I please, and lock out whoever I please. I had immediately started taking my meals in the cafeteria like a normal person, though Dita still tends to cook for me more often than not. Nowadays, she watches me eat it with such intensity too, which is a little creepy.

I glance up at my disturbed meal to see Barnette is holding a video camera and pointing it at the two of us as if we were going to combine right then and there and I don't particularly want to continue this thought. Jura is proudly standing there, waiting for me to react, I guess. Next to where Jura stands, but seated across from me herself, Meia colors slightly at the mention of combining.

"Jura..." I sigh. "I told you-"

"All your talk is a bunch of lies! It's my Dread, so how could it be less than the most magnificent? It will shine like I do!"

I take another bite of my food, some sort of meat substitute slathered in so much sauce that I can't tell what the meat's supposed to be. Which, now that I think about it, Dita's usually pretty good at cooking. I turn to the red head at my side, pointedly ignoring the loud blond. "Dita, are you feeling okay?"

She tilts her head to the side. "I''m fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well..." I look back down at my food. How do I put this?

However, before I can figure out a polite way to say "You botched your cooking" I notice that Zan is blushing, her face turned away from me. As I focus on her, she shrinks away.

Dita pipes up. "Oh! Zan wanted to make you lunch, so I helped her make it for you."

Zan manages to curl into herself even more, almost disappearing under the table.

"Well, it's still miles better than anything I could do." I say. "Thank you, Zan." At least she's not a lethal joke chef like you see in anime. No, out of the crew of this ship, that honor falls to me. You'd never guess how many ways I can screw up scrambled eggs.

Anyway, my bit of encouragement brings the singer out from under the table. Meia looks at the Reg crew member with an amused smile.

From what I'd gathered from other conversations, the pilots and the Reg crew didn't really mingle together that much. Sure, they talked to each other, but the Reg crews treat pilots like customers at a maid cafe and the pilots treat the Reg crew like backstage crew. I think Gascogne had something to do with that. So, the two blue haired women really didn't know each other.

At least, until we all started eating together. Meia's become more open to everyone since the Paksis decided to screw with her head, and because of that, the other pirates are starting to talk to her on more friendly terms. Zan's hanging around near me more often than not, so the two end up talking. It's fairly interesting to listen to the two talk about how loadouts should be chosen, since their individual perspectives are so different. Meia's all about utility, where Zan thinks there should be a theme to a loadout.

Right now though, Meia's too busy smirking at Zan to discuss anything of any import.

Jura smacks her hand down again, and my plate jumps an inch off the table. "Don't ignore me!"

Meia turns to Jura with an exasperated look and starts explaining for the fifth time since we discovered Rodrigo about how the operation is suppose to go. It doesn't include crabs with shields, though I have the sneaking suspicion that that's not going to last long.

Instead of paying attention to the words, I look between Zan and Meia. It's too bad blue isn't a natural hair color back on earth. Meia's is a light, sky blue, but Zan's is a dark, almost dull blue in comparison. It makes a kind of sense, Meia's a main character and Zan's a background one, and less time goes into designing background characters. Still, I wish that there was names for their hair colors aside from "light blue" and "dark blue," the way that we have blond, and brunette, and auburn, and so on. Blunette is kind of a catch all term for people with blue hair, but it's like saying someone has dark hair. There's so many subtle variations-

Dita shakes my shoulder, drawing me out of my thoughts. "Mister Alien? Are you alright?"

I blink. "Yeah." I scoop up another bite of the veritable teriyaki soup and place it in my mouth. "Hey, so, do you two dye your hair?" I point at the two across the table.

Zan shakes her head, and Meia shoots me a look. Right, Meia wouldn't bother. So blue actually can be a natural color. Probably green and purple too. I wonder how that works?

"Why do you ask?" Zan inquires.

"Oh, where I come from, hair colors tend to stay in reds, blacks, browns and blonds. Blue, green and purple are unusual." I respond.

Dita pulls her hair over her shoulder to examine it. "So, mine isn't anything special?"

"Well, I've never seen anyone with hair quite that shade of burgundy, so we'll go with yes." I attempt to placate the girl. I still hadn't figured out a way to reject her gently, so I've been doing my best to treat her nicely, but not more than the others.

Oh god, I'm trying to balance my harem. Quick, I need to do something else! "Er, so, when is the mission launching?" I ask.

"Two days." Meia responds after a momentary pause. "We're waiting for a few more atmospheric tests to clear before we risk landing there."

"And we're just going to go down and investigate that city?" I ask.

Meia nods. "We'll see if they're willing to trade, and restock some essentials."

I stare out the window at the stars. The cafeteria window is on the wrong side of the Nirvana to see the planet. "I wonder if I'll get the chance to swim while we're down there?" I murmur to myself.

"I want to go swimming!" Dita says, sparkles in her eyes.

Zan stands up and leans over the table, slamming her arms down in a fair approximation of Jura. "Hey, if you go swimming, I want to also!"

A green haired pilot named Isra who was walking past our table turns towards us. "We're swimming?"

Like a rock in a pond, the ripples spread out incredibly fast. Soon, the lunchtime chatter had redoubled, the earlier excitement over meeting new people overshadowed by the chance to indulge in a sport.

Or, I think to myself as the crowd around me immediately starts discussing swimsuits, maybe they all just want to have an excuse to put on swimsuits.

I hunch over and start wolfing down my food. I want out of here, preferably before I can get dragged into anything.

"Johnny, will you help me pick out a swimsuit?" Zan asks, cementing just exactly where this whole situation was heading. I curse my big mouth.

"No. I refuse to participate in the beach episode." I say flatly, scoop the last of the meal into my mouth, and stand up abruptly. I have to prepare myself for the coming event. Thankfully, an actual beach episode is highly unlikely. BC and Magno probably won't give everyone shore leave just because, but that doesn't mean I don't have to mentally prepare. After all, Jura's still on the prowl.

Once Johnny left, Zan turns back to the three other girls at the table. Jura had taken John's spot. "What was he saying about a beach?"

Meia shrugs. "He said beach episode, but I'm not sure what he's referring too."

Dita holds up a finger. "Maybe he means like in my cartoons!" She says excitedly. "It doesn't matter what series it is, it always has a beach and everyone tries on swimsuits and goes swimming!"

"Dita, John wouldn't watch something like cartoons." Jura laughs proudly. "He's obviously too high class for that."

Meia and Zan both temporarily wonder what planet Jura was currently on, and Meia bit her tongue as she recalled just exactly what John said their universe had been. "Dita, what happens in these beach episodes?" Zan asks.

"Well, usually there's one girl who everyone else has a crush on." Dita starts poking the table in different areas to mark the points of her speech. "So, they always have a contest over who looks best in a swimsuit, and the shy character always ends up in something really skimpy. They eat flavored ice, and smash watermelons." She thinks for a second. "Sometimes the make big deals out of rubbing suntan lotion on."

Zan and Jura had become a lot more interested all of a sudden. Meia notes mentally that the two's eyes had started sparkling. Something told her that she would need to keep an eye on those three.

Zan spoke next. "Dita, do you have any of those shows with you?"

Dita nods vigorously. "Yeah!"

Jura narrows her eyes with a calculating expression. "We should watch some of those. For research."

Yes, Meia thinks, she'd better keep an eye on all of them. But first, she had to go talk to the captain about shore leave.

Less than ten minutes after I had gotten back to my room, Gascogne's face appears out of thin air. Thankfully, the Reg's leader doesn't have any direct problems with me, so when I need something to do she'll give me a job. This is the first time she's called me over herself instead of waiting for me to ask her though.

"Hey, kid, you think you can help with a few extra shifts at the Reg?"

I close my laptop and look at the suspended light representing her face. "I guess. Why, did something break?"

Gascogne shakes her head, an amused smile spreading across her face. "No, we've just been getting a lot of orders." She looks down at something, presumably a list, and starts reading. "So far, we've gotten custom orders for fifteen bikinis, twelve one-piece swimsuits, three tankinis-" Her smile turns into a grin as she notes that look of horror on my face. "Since it looks like my entire staff is going to be designing suits before long, I figured I'd enlist your help to stave off the inevitable flood of requests."

I swallow the lump in my throat. I'm not really in a position to refuse, I'm a prisoner and it's my fault the swimsuit orders are coming in. "What do you need me to do?"

Her toothy smile drains any motivation I had to help.

Grudgingly, I snag my headphones and cell before treading down to the Reg to find a swimsuit modeling competition going on. At least, that's what it looks like. Already, three of the Reg crew (I recognized both Yola and Endoa) had switched to swimsuits. Some changing booths had been set up, and there are groups of women crowding around one terminal or another, selecting options and discussing the results.

I peek at one of the terminals to see that some sort of clothes designing program is set up, and the women are creating new suits on the fly.

Gascogne gestures for me to head over to her, and I take a roundabout path to reach her. "Kid, you could have just walked straight over here." The metal stick in her mouth swaps sides absently.

"Actually, no I couldn't." I gesture towards the changing stalls. "If I walked past those, I'd either have a concussion, or I'd be abducted."

She looks at me askance for a minute, but shrugs and gestures for me to follow her. "You have some strange thoughts in that head."

"If you only knew." I reply. "So, what am I supposed to do?"

Gascogne opens a door, waves me through, and I follow after. She gestures for me to sit down in front of a computer which is hooked up to what looks like a torture device. "That's our fabricator. When a design gets sent in, you decide whether or not it's good, and if it is, you send it through the machine, which will make the article of clothing." She points to my left, at a box stuffed with what looks like spools of plastic. "If you need a refill, put one of those spools in here."

She shows me how to load a new spool, then leaves me to start accepting swimsuits. At first, the amount coming through is manageable. I'm no clothing designer, but I can at least tell when something will fall apart before it sees any use. The first designs are very conservative, mostly one-piece suits that fit better than the standard swimsuits. After about ten minutes, a sudden burst of sloppily made, skimpy suits go through, which I reject out of hand, barely even glancing at the last few before removing them from the clothing printer queue.

It wasn't until I got a suit with "Is this hot, John?" written on it that I figured out Gascogne had told the crowd outside who was working in here.

In the end, it wasn't really that exciting a task. Behind a closed door as I was, I didn't get to see any of the swimsuits actually on anyone: All I got was a 3D model I could look at and evaluate. For the most part, the swimsuits were sensible, at least to the point where they would stay on whoever was wearing them. Anything Jura sent in...

I knew which suits were from Jura because the word "Combine!" was written on at least six different designs. I caught one right before it could be made when the printer ran out of plastic thread to weave the suits out of. Her suits also universally didn't pass any sort of modesty check, with two of the designs literally being nothing but a support structure to keep her breasts up, but not cover them. We're not making underwear here, I thought.

When Gascogne finally returned to relieve me, my eyes had glazed over and I was pushing the delete key mechanically as I sort through the last batch. I was barely registering the music playing in my headphones.

"You're free to go." The Reg leader says casually. "I kicked everyone else out, and we'll make sure everything's in order for tomorrow."

I sit back in the chair and heave a sigh. "Thank god. Okay, I'm going back to my room and I'm not coming out unless we get attacked." A heavy hand lands on my shoulder. I look up to find that Gascogne has planted her hand on me... and she's putting quite a bit of force down on it. I can't budge from my chair. "What's the matter?"

"You haven't made yourself a swimsuit yet." Gascogne says, a devious grin spread across her face. "The rest of us have one, so you need to join in."

I glare at her. "Bart and Duelo don't have any either." I point out. "So, none of us will have-"

Gascogne leans over me, pressing her breasts into the back of my head to type on the keyboard. She brings up two swimsuits, both of which are very, distressingly brief. I think we call them banana pouches back home, but I don't know. I also don't WANT to know. EVER.

I quickly remove the things from the screen. "Not wearing one of those if you gave me control of the ship." I say plainly.

She shifts the metal stick around in her mouth. "Really? Not for even for the ship? Embarrassed?"

I shake my head. I don't get embarrassed. "Those are what people wear to get attention. That's not my goal, and besides I don't think I'd like the attention I'd get when wearing it..." Dita in particular might decide to see what's under it... "Besides, I don't want to be captain."

"Not even for one day?" Gascogne wheedles.

I bring up the design interface on the terminal and bring up a pair of loose swim shorts without any fancy inner linings, then resize them to my waist, and plaster a random pattern onto it. I idly note that the base color ends up being pink, but I decide I don't much care. "There. Can I go now?"

Gascogne frowns slightly, but releases her grip, her prey slipping out of her grasp at the last second. Then, her eyes light up, and she looks back at the monitor with a calculating expression.

She isn't able to react before I snatch the metal stick from her mouth and squeeze it in my left hand. I hand the now-key shaped metal stick back to a surprised Gascogne. "And if you decide to alter my order..." I gesture to the key, and walk out without another word.

Hopefully, that vague threat will hold her at bay. It's not like I can actually remember the contents of the box, or even what the box looks like.

Whatever, I'm fairly confident that I'm not going to be wearing anything banana related when we head down to the surface of Rodrigo in, let me think, thirty six hours? sounds right.

"How did you know about my key?" Gascogne asks, her hand clutching the small object. "Nobody knows about it. Not even the captain."

I glance back at her face, set in stone with eyes that seem to be piercing my soul.

I smile at her, my general, polite smile. "Why, Miss Gascogne, if I told you it wouldn't be useful as blackmail."

My watch reads midnight-thirty as I leave the Reg, having eaten lunch at around noon. I missed dinner, that's for sure.

At least I have a decent stock of food pills. They're bland, but they give you a burst of energy unlike any energy drink you've ever had. In fact, I ran the numbers. three hundred hours per food pill means twelve and a half days of energy. A standard diet says two thousand kilo-calories a day, for a total of twenty five thousand kilo-calories. This energy is packed into a pill that fits in the palm of my hand. I guess that each pill weighs about two grams.

This means the pills have very high energy densities, 52 billion joules per kilogram if I didn't mess up my scientific notation. By the way, this mean that it's about two thousand times more energy in it than the fuel rods in nuclear reactors.

I could power our planet for a year with a bucket of the stuff, I swear. Maybe. I don't actually recall usage statistics, and I don't know how well we could harness the pills to generate electricity. Still, this stuff is scary powerful.

And unfortunately for my hungry belly, not very filling either.

I pull out my headphones and place them back over my ears.

A song I haven't heard before is playing, which is unusual since I hadn't gotten any new music since coming from home.

"Oh, yeah, that new Jacob Tillberg song." I mutter out loud to myself. "What was it? Broken?"

Oh, every night is like a daze
But oh, I'm feeling raise
Yes, I know I'm running late
Let's wait just one more day
I know I'm running
Away from romance
What am I becoming?
I guess something's broken

I guess something's broken
I guess something's broken
What am I becoming?
I guess something's broken
I guess something's broken

Heh. I like it.

I put it on repeat, and start stepping to the beat. Despite the lateness of the hour, I'm not really tired. Must be because how close to sleep I was during the whole swimsuit appraisal. Maybe I'll go to that great forest garden thing they have going on?

Something to note, it's impossible to get to the bridge area, including the garden, without passing by the briefing room. It's a design feature, since the room is thus central and anyone can easily reach it during an emergency. It makes for a great meeting spot. Right now, there appears to be a meeting. judging by how loud everyone is, there's something major going on.

I decide to peek my head in to see what's going on.

I'm sure almost everyone knows the old idiom, "curiosity killed the cat." I've never felt it was valid, since my curiosity is what drove me to find out about all sorts of things. I have had to use my own fair share of eyebleach though, as anyone who hangs out on the internet too long has. I wish I still had some left.

Inside the room, packed with the younger pirates (fifteen to seventeen, by my mark), all watching a large screen normally reserved for tactical displays. Instead of it's normal showing, someone had hooked up an anime. At first, I didn't recognize it. How could I? Mejare wouldn't air something with guys and girls working together, and I have a hard time thinking of any that fit the bill. Maybe with a bit of editing, Senran Kagura would pass, and a lot of small slice of life shows like Girlfriend(Kari) would get by as well. Oh! and Keijo. That one would need a lot more editing though.

You know, given how much perverted anime I watch, it's surprising that I'm this calm around females. Please tell me 3D isn't ruined for me. I don't think I'd be able to handle it.

Slowly, I begin to recognize the show. There's no subtitles, but I still understand what's being said thanks to the Paksis. There's two girls on screen, the first one scrawny and short, reddish-purple hair made into twin braids and a cat shaped clip near the front, and orange eyes. Oh, and big boobs. She's talking with a tall lady, one with blond hair, a dour look on her face, and larger boobs. It slowly starts dawning on me, once I look past the characters and to the background, a nice sandy beach.

"Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid?"

The travesty of a show, one only surpassed by Seikon no Qwaser, had left deep psychological scars. Why in the hell did this of all shows end up sticking around?

I hadn't notice I had spoken aloud until Dita turns around in her seat and spots me. "Mister Alien! Did you come to join in the research?"

"Research?" I ask before I can stop my mouth from forming the words.

"Uh-huh! You mentioned beach episodes earlier, and I thought I'd show everyone what you meant. Since Valkyrie Drive is mostly on a beach, I thought it would be the best choice." She stops for a second, as the eyes of the other occupants are torn away from the screen and towards , I was having a hard time of it myself, since the blond is currently molesting the redhead to turn her into a weapon. "Wait, how did you know what this was called?"

A shiver runs down my spine. "I, ah-"

Zan pops up beside me. "Do they have anime on other planets?"

"Anime about Tarak?"

"Wow, d'you think Duelo has any?"

The crowd had started to chatter.

I don't have much anime on my laptop. No, that's relegated to my four terabyte hard drive hooked up to my desktop. My almost full four terabyte hard drive. I have a lot of anime, only about ninety-three percent of it illegal. And for the first time since getting here, I was glad I didn't have it. I have a feeling it might have gotten confiscated right about now for "educational purposes."

Instead of answering any questions, I edge backwards towards the door. I might be able to make my escape, but only if I can sprint back to my room and hit the plasma bars before anyone gets me. There's not much confidence in my thoughts as I see some of the security personnel already limbering up to get me. Some of those girls can run quick.

Still, I decide to run. I bolt out the door, legs pumping, shoes slipping slightly against the shiny metal floor.

Two sets of arms wrap around me seconds later, dragging me down to the ground, my forehead bouncing off the floor.

And then there was nothing.

A breather episode! Nothing of any note happens! Next time! More swimsuits and exclamation points!