Hi y'all.
Go watch Steins;gate 0. It's fuckin' AWESOME.
A sea of blue.
Cool, but comforting. Somehow both the perfect temperature and too hot, too cold.
Movement is impossible, but why would I want to move? All my aches and worries fall away.
Closing my eyes does nothing. The sea of blue permeates everything.
I don't remember why I'm here.
How I got here.
The blue expanse comforts me.
It asks me questions.
"Oh god..." Dita says in Tarak.
Apparently, she's been hanging around "Mister Alien" long enough to pick up some of his exclamations.
I, for one, have to concur with Dita's assessment.
Stretching out in front of us is a colossal ship. It feels like it can block off a whole section of the galaxy all by itself, despite how illogical that is.
"Jura," Dolor asks me calmly. "We seem to have reached the coordinates that your subordinate's beacon stopped working."
"This what you've been fighting?" I ask, trying to drag my eyes away from the monstrous flagship. "No wonder you've been having trouble."
"Where are they?" Del asks frantically. "I don't see their ship anywhere. Or two ships. Or even parts!"
"Calm down, Del." I order. "We need to search for them carefully. Let's not draw the attention of the massive ship."
"Right!" Dita says. "I'll be careful."
"...We should keep comm chatter to a minimum them." Dolor says. "If I may make a suggestion, we should meet back up in an hour in this sector of space. In the meantime, we keep silent to avoid detection."
"Good idea." I say. "Meet back up here in an hour. Be careful, and don't get yourself blown up. I'd never hear the end of it."
"What are you seeking?"
"The one I love."
Mister Alien sure is hard to find.
It looks like he had a really awesome space battle here. There's lots of junk floating around, lots of it recognizable as broken robots. The bad aliens must have found them at some point.
But, I can't seem to find anything that belongs to Mister Alien or Meia. No Dread parts or Vanguard parts. It means one of two things. Either they got blown to bits too small for me to see, or they got out of this area successfully. Or, maybe I just haven't found any chunks yet. Even just circling this big ship takes a good ten minutes if I'm flying slowly to be undetected.
They should be alright. They're both survivors. They'll get through this.
I rub my sleeve across my eyes to get rid of the tears that make my vision all screwy. I've got to find them. They're all right, they've got to be.
Something darts closer to me, and I barely catch it out of the corner of my eye. I quickly shut down my engine and hold my breath.
A small patrol drone drifts past, inspecting various bits of debris floating around. It doesn't scan me, thankfully, but it came awfully close. I could have reached out and smacked it if I was combined with Mister Alien.
I wait for it to pass by, and then wait another minute to make sure it's really gone. I slowly thrust out of there, looking over my shoulder constantly.
"Dita."
I jump in my seat. Up and too my right is Del's ship, painted the same color as her eyes and hair. It's one of the easier ships to spot, so I guess these bad aliens don't use cameras or we'd already be caught.
"H-hi Del. Jura said not to use comms-"
"I turned the power of my radio down. Only receivers within a few hundred feet will be able to get it."
"Oh."
"You should do the same."
"Right." I lean over and start fiddling with the settings on the radio until I find the power setting, which I set as low as it can go without the signal completely being lost. "What's going on?"
"Have you found anything?" Del asks, not quite hiding the hope in her voice.
"...No, sorry." I hang my head.
"Oh. Well, keep looking. We need to keep looking." Del seems to be talking more to herself than me.
"Don't worry, Meia and Mister Alien are gonna be fine."
I wonder if I sound as reassuring as I hope I am.
"What do you need to seek this 'love'?"
"I need to control my ship. I need to be a pilot."
It's refreshing, seeing thee Mejare Ladies looking out for their own.
Back on Melanos- Ah, we're pretending it's Us-Nore for now- people haven't looked out for their fellow man for quite some time. Most of my people act as if the only important person to them is the person their set to be with at birth.
I got lucky with Seran. She's funny, happy and outgoing. She's not one of the people that narrows their own personal universe to the one person set in front of them. The rest of the crew of my home ship is pretty outgoing as well, some of the few that are willing to go out to save the others. It's why we were out there preparing to defend the colonies with our lives.
Still, Seran's tendency to have her heart bleed for anyone who needs help, and she knows just how to turn up her eyes to get me to do what she wants. That is why I'm out here, more so than my captain's orders.
I still think it's ridiculous that we decided to change what name our planet is. I don't know how that would help us against the hordes of robots. Though, I did recognize that these women are most likely pirates, due to their lack of martial discipline. They also tried to hide some facts from us, but due to Dita's excitability we were able to learn much of what they initially wished kept hidden.
Still, we're already at war with Earth. No reason to piss off a bunch of pirates who ostensibly are willing to help us with that goal.
Hell, given the pirate's ability to fight as told through Dita's stories, they might be just what we need to end this war. Somehow, despite being warped quite far away from their home systems, they've managed to hold together, even thrive.
Seran apparently asked specifically and they said they've yet to lose a single pilot out here. Either they have the luck of the devil, or god himself is intervening on their behalf.
Another piece of wreckage floats by. I examine it briefly, but I have no idea what we're actually looking for. I assume it looks either like my fellow pilot's ships or maybe like that ship that was fighting us back at our home ship.
Suddenly, the debris changes course.
I blink and rub my eyes, but I start seeing more small bits seeming to bounce away from the ship. Each time they do, a small flash of light highlights some sort of point of impact.
I should go report this. There's only about ten minutes left before we're supposed to meet up anyway.
Another bit of debris bounces off the invisible wall, and-
A gold and white head turns to track me. The head is attached to a roughly man-shaped frame, which is clinging onto a white Dread.
And one of them is pointing weapons my way.
"You seek control."
"Yes."
With one hand, I point my sword at the new ship. With the other, I grip Meia's Dread.
Just my luck, someone had shown up when it was her turn to sleep. we've been using this method to take turns without accidentally drifting apart for the past... how many days has it been? I can't even remember.
I'm starting to get twitchy from the lack of sleep too. I'm glad I'm not holding a projectile weapon of some kind, because I'm not sure I would have been stable enough not to pull the trigger.
Thinking back, I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea to attack the Flagship. I have no idea why Meia agreed. She's probably tired out of my mind just like me.
Oh, yeah, there's someone right there.
A man's voice hits my ears for the first time in a while. "Excuse me, but could the two ships in front of me identify themselves?"
"You first." I grumble at the microphone. "Are you with Earth?"
"Hardly. I'm currently helping some... new acquaintances find their lost pilots. One Meia and one John."
God, it's getting hard to think. "Well, you found us." I point the sword at the bulbous cockpit. "What are you going to do about it?"
There's a brief silence on the radio. "Jura told us to meet up with her in seven minutes. She, Dita, and Del are all out here looking for you. If you'd like, you can follow me to the rendezvous point."
I grunt. "That would be swell, but I can't exactly maneuver right now. Thrusters got damaged, along with some other systems. Not quite sure what." Oh, this guy might be an enemy-
No, he's not.
Shut up, me.
Only once you come back to your senses, idiot.
"Hello?" The man's voice now sounds genuinely concerned.
"Ah, yes." I rub my face. "I'm awake."
"... I'm going to go get some help."
"Then, control is what you will get."
White light floods the blue, and my skin starts crawling from my body.
Mister Alien! Meia! Dolor found them!
I could barely stop myself from jetting over as fast as I could. Del is also chomping at the bit.
Dolor also said that there was some sort of invisible wall near them, but he had no idea what it was.
As I flew around what he told us he observed, I noticed that some of the debris is bouncing off of what looks like VanDread Jura's shield mode, but invisible. Well, invisible until something hits it, and then it starts glowing faintly. Without Mister Alien, Jura can't make a shield like that though, so I'm a bit confused. The confusion doesn't hold my attention for long though.
After all, Mister Alien is alive! Meia is alive!
Once Dolor and Jura manage to drag the two craft out towards our meeting zone far away from the flagship, they open comms-
...I don't know what I was expecting, but they look really tired and beat up. Mister Aliens's clothes are hugging his form like our pilot uniforms, and he has some hair growing out of his chin for some reason. He also seems to be having a hard time staying awake. Meia's hair is a mess and she has bags under her eyes.
"Meia?" Jura asks.
"Yes." Meia's voice is hoarse, but she puts a small smile on her face. "Thanks for finding us."
"Thank Del. She's the one that put the tracking device on John."
"Oh, that'zzz wh're that came fr'mm." Mister Alien slurs. "S'meone telll 'er that i'll... do s'mthin' if she tries thaaa 'gain."
He's talking in Tarak. He doesn't usually... "Um, Jura? I don't think Mister Alien's alright."
"Alright." Jura claps her hands together. "Meia, can you give Dolor a rundown of the situation? I'm going to link up with John and see what's up."
Del slowly starts her craft spinning to look around. "We should have brought that weird doctor with us."
Meia dutifully starts reporting to Dolor, and I switch to a different frequency. There's no immediate danger. Meia's alright, Mister Alien's probably alright. the bad aliens aren't attacking us, yet.
...What now?
"Phew. You stink!" As our two spaceships combine, John practically flops into the shared space bring with him the musk of someone cramped into a tiny space for five days. Though, I suppose it could be worse.
The Vanguards the Paksis didn't touch don't have bathroom facilities of any kind. Still, I would have been gratefully if he had been able to take at least a shower.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a warning pop up on the central globe. "Low oxygen." The air scrubbers kick into overdrive bringing the overbearing stench down a bit.
John's eyes start to focus and he starts looking around. "Jura."
I sigh. "Well, you're awake, so can we all go home now?"
He slaps himself across the face, creating a nice meaty smack. "Okay, I'm awake."
"Are you okay?" I slide over and star stretching his eyelids open. Not sure why, but Paiway always does this so I figure it can't hurt.
"Eh, I'm fine." He looks out of the cockpit window. "How did you escape?"
"Escape from who?" Well, he's stable for now... probably. I should check out how his Vanguard is doing.
"Those... that fleet of white ships."
"Oh, the Us-Nore? Those guys are on our side."
John gives me a look. "But... they were boarding you. Us. You." He shakes his head violently. "Sorry, I can't think right now."
"We invited them. The Harvesters are after them as well."
"...Oh. Well." His shoulders slump. "Man, I need some sleep."
The report comes back from his Vanguard. "...I don't even recognize half of this. Dita?"
A second or so goes by and Dita comes back online. "Is Mister Alien alright?"
"He's... a bit spacey. I think it might have been oxygen deprivation, but I can't exactly tell what's wrong with his Vanguard."
"Why not?"
"Well..." I select a few things and forward the report to Dita's ship.
"...Oh." Dita pours over the documents for a few seconds before crying out. "His air scrubber is broken! No wonder he was falling asleep, he wasn't actually getting any oxygen. And that's not all, two of his thrusters are out-"
John leans over to look at the report himself, but his eyes glaze over before long. "We only took one hit, it shouldn't be that damaged."
Dita's voice relaxes quite obviously once she hear's John's voice. "Mister Alien, it almost looks like you tried to ram something with this much damage to the ship. I'm surprised it held together as much as it did."
John looks like he's about to say something, but shuts up and scratches his throat.
"Don't tell me you actually tried to ram something." I glare at the smelly man sitting in my cockpit.
"To be fair," He holds up one finger. "It was trying to ram us first."
I can feel it.
The ship, humming right under my feet.
"What.. happened to her?"
Electricity flows through the ship like lifeblood.
It sings a fast chorus. I... I could probably mute the chorus.
I could mute it with my voice.
So, I sing.
And the world goes dark.
I suppose it would be too much to ask to get a break.
As soon as I finish giving my report to this Dolor guy, nothing less than the Nirvana pops out into existence.
For a moment, the lights flicker, then die.
Moments behind them, The fleet of white ship comes cascading into view.
It's always an interesting sight, watching ships come out of lightspeed. The ships pop into existence and then appear to stretch backwards and the light catches up.
Of course, the spectacle is ruined somewhat by the Harvester fleet reacting to the new presences. The tube starts rotating towards us, the front end with the canon already starting to glow as it swings around.
I've seen that cannon fire and wipe out the entire fleet behind me with that cannon, even if it was a poor 3D rendition.
We have to stop it. I quash the small panicking part of my brain and open comms to the Nirvana. "This is Meia, all ships scatter! It's going to fire a giant laser!"
Every ship splits off of the center of the line of fire, moving up and around aside from one ship-
The Nirvana sits right where it arrived, some of the lights still flickering. It must be having some more growing pains, but what a time to have them. Though, there wasn't anything like that in the show...
Which John has repeatedly and at length told me to throw out the window, since everything is different now.
I should strangle the boy for how irritating he has been this last week. If I could I'd throw him in a cell, but he already sleeps in one anyway.
But first, we need to clear that superweapon. "Nirvana, move!"
Bart's panicked voice comes through the comms. "I can't! I'm not in control! The ship is moving on it's own!"
One of the Reg crew's voice comes over the radio. "We have a Dread launching! Someone stop it, it doesn't have any weapons and has barely any fuel!"
"Scramble all fighters, we're making our stand." Dolors says. Fifty voices respond in affirmatives. Great, we're on the same frequency. This is going to get very confusing.
The white ships starts leaking fighters out of every opening in their hulls, looking almost like missiles while they tilt to head straight for the Flagship.
The Flagship stops rotating, corrects a bit, and aims for the Nirvana.
"It's out! It's out!, Who's piloting that?" Comes Gascogne's voice. A Dread leaves the hanger and accelerates towards the enemy ship.
"All forces, open fire!" A barrage of lasers lights up the space around us, glaring off of every reflective surface. Lasers hit the shield provided by the VanDread Jura clone. The lone Dread continues straight towards the laser.
The Nirvana is still in the path of the weapon.
A dozen plans flow through my mind faster than I can reach out to grab them, and all of them slip away due to the one limiting factor that crushes all plans: Time.
There's no time left.
The laser head brightens noticeably even against the barrage. The shield drops, and the lasers from the Melanos group find their way to the hull of the Flagship.
They hardly seem to have any effect.
The lone Dread gets to about halfway between The Nirvana and the harvest Flagship, and then-
I wonder, with all these harmonies around me, if interrupting it it is as easy as screaming into the void?
The lights go out.
The lasers stop firing.
The Flagship's main weapon starts to fade away.
Ships start drifting away, no longer under their own power.
There is no sound, aside from my own breathing.
The air system is quiet, which is honestly a lot more disturbing than everything else, because I need that to breath, and if it's this quiet it means it's broken, just like Mister Alien's.
I'm on a collision course with the Nirvana, which has also gone dark.
For ten terrifying seconds, there is no sound.
No light.
The gravity unit failed, so I'm drifting.
Comms are dead, there's nobody else.
For ten seconds, I'm all there is in the world.
A blue light washes over me, and the the ten seconds are over.
The Nirvana comes back online. A shining beacon to rescue me from oblivion. Gravity kicks back in and drops me into my seat.
Then my air filter come back, and Meia's voice comes over the radio. "-you read? I repeat, Nirvana, do you read?"
"What was that?" Magno's voice comes over the speakers. The Captain's okay!
BC's voice also comes over the speakers. "Looks like we've been hit with an EMP, but then our ship shouldn't have recovered-"
"Mayday, mayday!" An unknown voice comes over the radio. "All of our ships have lost power!"
It must be one of the Us-Nore. Meia responds before I can even get my radio. "Roger, Our ship seems to be fine. Get everyone with a working radio to go grab people and get them all oxygen tanks."
Captain seems to have caught Meia's plan, because she immediately picks up where she left off. "We'll accept your crew onto our ship for the time being. Engineering has said that we have plenty of additional O2 capacity."
"Thank you, Ma'am." The voice says, and one of the white ships opens up to reveal a man with a heavy mask attached to his face. Several other quickly follow suit, and they all start exchanging hand signs.
My ship still works... I should figure out what I can do to help! Maybe I can help get people to oxygenated environments!
"Nirvana, this is Jura. We have a problem."
"Can it wait?" BC's voice is strained.
"Well, I've never seen someone start bleeding to death and losing large chunks of skin before, but I'd say John only has another few minutes to live at this rate."
Ow.
I can feel my lungs.
I shouldn't be able to feel my lungs. That's not something you normally feel. Kind of like how you can always see your nose, but your brain ignores it. Brains ignore extra and unnecessary information.
My lungs hurt like someone made me breathe sand. Lots and lots of sand, enough to choke me to death.
I open my eyes, but immediately something else is wrong. Only my left eye sees anything. My right eye sees only black.
I'm back in the Nirvana's medical bay. As my senses continue to come back to me, I start picking up sounds. Sounds that gather into a steadily growing roar.
I eventually get some motor control back, and I turn my head to the side to find that the entire med bay is completely full. Not only that, but it's completely full of people I don't recognize. Say what you will about how bad I am at names, but I remember faces fine. I don't recognize any of these people.
Well, until Duelo walks into view.
"John, you survived." He states.
"Don't gush on me now." I grunt, and realize I can't really sit up. "What happened?"
"EMP." Duelo informs. "We're... not quite sure what happened. We we're hoping you could tell us."
"Huh? How would I kn-" Oh... the DVD. "A-ah, I don't..." There's a lot of people around. "I don't think I should talk here."
"Understood. I'll inform the others that you're awake." He grabs my arm, which I now notice has been heavily bandaged. "But first, you've got to take a shower. We've been getting complaints."
I sniff at myself and suddenly, whole-heartedly agree.
Someone once said that Modesty was the first casualty of war.
Wait, no, that was innocence.
Well, anyway, It only slightly catches me off guard that once we head over to the showers adjoining the medical ward, We're not exactly alone.
Much like the classic anime bathhouse, this facility has rows of showerheads and people at roughly every other fixture. Many of them are accompanied by someone else who is giving them a hand with soaping up.
I do notice that it seems to be opposite gender pairs, but Duelo sits me down and starts undoing the bandages before I can really get a good look around.
"Holy fuck." I breath, once I see the state of my arms. It looks like someone took an ice cream scoop to my arms. As I continue to un-mummy myself with Duelo's help, I find that the rest of me isn't that much better. Holes everywhere, exposing bone at some points.
Strangely, it doesn't hurt that much.
"What the hell happened?" I demand.
"Like I said, an EMP-" Duelo starts,
"Don't give me that bullshit." i say, pointing to my wounds. "EMP's don't hurt humans! Something else must have happened, or else you wouldn't have this many people to treat!"
"Look around." Duelo says, still calm despite my outburst. "You're the only one with these symptoms. Everyone else here is either here because of oxygen deprivation or because the sudden power loss cause an accident. You're the only one it physically hurt directly."
I do look around, and realize that a nice looking woman about my age is sitting at the faucet two seats over. I quickly look away. "Alright, then why did an EMP, a device that only affects electronics, take chunks out of my skin?"
Duelo holds up a bottle of tan dust. "If you recall, you had at one point been fused with some nanorobots. The missing mass of you body is because there were quite a few of the robots integrated with your body. Roughly fifty percent of you was robot, and is now so much metal dust floating around inside of you."
...Holy shit. "Er, thanks, Duelo. I'm sorry for yelling. I..."
"You're still hopped up on adrenaline, and there's that attitude problem you've been working on."
I nod. "Yeah, let's go with that. So, am I going to live?"
"You would have been triaged if not." Duelo says, the barest hint of a smile on his face.
Wait, that was a joke. Duelo told a joke.
"Mister Alien!"
A bar of soap falls to the floor next to me, and... Sigh... "Hi, Dita. Fine weather we're having today."
A soft, and alarming naked body wraps itself around my shoulders gently, obviously wary of the gouges cut out of my body.
"I-" Dita starts sniffing, like her nose is clogging. "I thought you were- I wasn't sure I'd ever get to talk to you again!"
Her breasts are pressing in on me. It's hard to get past that, but i force my brain forward. "It'll take more than that to kill me."
Duelo starts ticking items off on his fingers. "Internal bleeding caused by ruptured organs: Heart, both lungs, pancreas, one kidney, gallbladder-"
I laugh awkwardly. "Okay, so, it takes about that much to kill me, and it takes master doctor Duelo to save me."
He coughs. "I have other patients to attend to. Dita, would you please assist John?"
"Sure!"
I can hear warning bells in my head, but when I try to protest, some water washes right into one of the scoops that cuts right into the bone and suddenly the pain is too great to think for a moment.
Dita edges into the edge of my vision, and it takes all my willpower to not look away... or look down a bit. "John. are you alright?"
"Just... in a lot of pain..." I glance away, losing the willpower to maintain eye contact. "Why are there so many couples in here?"
"Well, on Melanos, a boy and a girl are assigned to each other at birth." Dita says, picking up my arm gingerly and then grabbing a washcloth. "They do almost everything together, including taking care of each other's skin. They get their skin harvested, if you didn't know." She adds helpfully.
"Ah, these guys." I hiss inadvertently when some soap from the washcloth ends up inside another wound. I seriously look and feel like swiss cheese right now. "So, why are you here?"
"...I thought I could help?"
"You wanted to see what a naked guy looks like."
Dita hangs her head a bit, just enough that I can see the crown of her head in my peripheral vision. "Maybe."
"Has it been all you ever hoped for?" I ask gritting my teeth as she continues carefully scrubbing around my... Uh, I'm missing two fingers on my left hand. That's... how am I going to type?
"Well, boys just seem to have a sack and and a tube hanging from their crotch instead of a hole." She says. "It's not so special now, for some reason."
"Hah."
I start testing the body parts not currently being washed by Dita. My legs still move when I tell them to, but they're both significantly weaker. Walking is going to be hard. My right arm can barely move, and it's quite possibly the air flowing through the room that's moving it rather than my nerves. My saliva is tinged tan-pink, and I keep spitting large quantities down the drain. My lungs still feel heavy, which is worrying. I know that having a lot of foreign stuff in there is practically a death sentence right there.
"Hey, Dita."
She leans over and makes eye contact- Ahg, your boobs are pressing into me- "Yes?"
"Duelo said an EMP went off, but-"
"It did! It was super scary! All the electronics cut out, but the stuff the Paksis modified all came back, so the Nirvana's fine and so are all of our Dreads. And your Vanguard, but that needs repairs so it's out of commission for a while."
"And the reason everyone else is here on the Nirvana is...?"
"Their ships all lost power completely, so the Nirvana is the only thing generating oxygen right now. All the mechanics from the Nirvana and the Melanos fleet are hard at work restoring their capital ship to working order."
"What about the harvesters?"
"All completely gone!" Dita says.
I smile slightly. "That's great." I close my eyes, and I find I'm really tired. It's been a long week. For now, there's no immediate threat, the pain isn't completely unbearable, Dita's doing a surprisingly good job of gently cleaning my back...
Slowly, everything starts fading away...
Slightly longer chapter. I would say that it's to compensated for the delay, but it's just because that's how long the chapter ended up being.