A Ship and her Captain : An Isekai Story

by The Imperator 2 you

A Man working part time as a drink runner, finds himself reincarnated into the world of his space game after saving the life of a little girl from a train collision. A fan of nintendo games, he nicknamed his ship, Great Fox, and now finds himself as her captain. Gathering a crew of loyal friends and even love interests, what kind of life will he live in this new world?

4. Chapter 4

=Author's Notes=

So, before I begin, I want to thank you all for the reviews, and over 1k views total with just 3 chapters written. And to the people who've reviewed I thank you for your input. Yea, I'm not used to writing such a LONG series of chapters for a story, most of the time I'm writing 10k-15k at most for certain stories, and for really long stories 30-40k words they're for 1 time short lemon romances.

Yea, in hindsight I might have rushed the romance between Arthur and Trishula... at the time it seemed like it was good and well-paced, but I guess it wasn't to everyone else. I'll try to not rush future romances between Arthur and his girlfriends he may have. I also know that my MC may not be... the best... i'll try to improve his character as the chapters go on.

All i can ask is give it a chance and if you don't like, I'm sorry i let you down, this is my first attempt at an 'Isekai' story of this nature... so I'm learning as I go. Hopefully the story is still good, I'm going to keep doing the best I'm able to. With that... here we go, another 50k chapter story...

And yes, Kiandra did a Johnny Bravo reference in the last chapter, ty for noticing whoever reviewed XD

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[Ship's Log: K.P 4.41.981]

[This newest Mission that Captain Arthur has accepted to safely offer and provide relief to Aquavram Prime, recently met with a surprise encounter that was both expected and unexpected. As the two of us have come to know, surprises and missions have always come together, one not being had without the other being present. It is something that we have always been prepared for and even expected whenever he accepts a mission, and I take us into the depths of space to carry out our mission.]

[Mere hours after we departed with our fleet of cargo liners, and our cargo bays heavily ladened with food and medical supplies, we were stalked by a light carrier, whose identity I could not confirm. Even after increasing speed, they matched us, course and speed. It was then when we picked up speed, an hour into our new speed and timing through the first stage of our journey, that they launched their assault on us.]

[Thankfully we were staffed with a crew of pilots who could respond quickly to the incursion, and thankfully the fleet and Great Fox were not harmed. However, during the initial skirmish, as all eyes had focused on the fighters and bombers, my own scans partially included, the light carrier fled the area and made its way to the Transwarp Gate, only noticed in its entirety by Captain Arthur but even he mentioned in private that he only paid attention to it 'after' he noticed the distance between it and us had grown larger during the initial attack pattern.]

[In the aftermath, it was discovered that the fighters and bombers were sent to engage us on a one-way pattern of attack, in which the goal was not to 'destroy' the fleet or even to damage the vessels of the convoy, let alone break through Great Fox's defensive capabilities... but to merely engage us and discover our abilities and more importantly what our armaments were. Sadly, they were able achieve their objective, as despite our fighter pilot's best efforts, the captain was forced to reveal our AFB gun batteries in response to a missile on course to the Great Fox.]

[In a private conversation with me, he told me that he had to decide between either revealing our weapons or our shielding capabilities when it came to repelling the missile, and he chose to not risk any harm to me by unveiling our AFB guns. In hindsight, my calculations stated that our shields would have absorbed the full brunt of the missile and no damage would have been felt to the hull, the fact that he instead chose to not even risk any potential damage to me was... comforting.]

[While his pilots got sleep, I've noticed the captain chose to remain active for a longer period, long after the normal sleep schedule I've observed from him. His reason was because he didn't want to risk any further potential surprise attacks on us. I offered to provide continuous scans during our transit to allow him time to sleep, but it wasn't until he had started to doze off in the chair that I called upon the Chief Medical Officer, Kiandra, to pull rank on him and 'force' him to bed. Since then, we have continued in autopilot mode and no further attacks have been made.]

[While he slept, we have since approached and were cleared to enter the Transwarp Gate, and now that he has been awakened, and is more 'alert', we have only a short hour travel at transwarp speeds left until we enter the hyperspace lane between the two transwarp gates that permit travel from the Belga Sector to the Guntara Sector and vice versa. We have no knowledge of what we may encounter in the hyperspace lane, as Katarra alluded to a potential ambush based on the information from the sudden attack by unmanned fighters and bombers... but regardless as Captain Arthur has stated, we cannot afford failure, too many lives depend on our success.]

=Chapter 4 – The Azurian Garnet of Aquavram Prime=

=Battle of the Hyperspace Lane, and the Dive into the Oceans of a desperate Planet=

From the view of space, the blue marble known as Aquavram Prime looked like a peaceful planet as all the various orbs that encompassed the various star systems of known galactic space. The oceans that covered the entirety of the planet gently swayed and swerved, casting the planet in an unending vision of eternal movement that sparkled and glittered. To contrast the oceans, vast 'lakes' and 'seas' of clouds swirled and flowed across the planet's surface high above the waters of the azure depths, making it seem as though the water were solid land from space while the clouds were the oceans, eternally flowing and shifting with the tides. A continuous fall of rain and win battered the planet from the multiple storm clouds that formed and traveled the planet's airways, creating an ever-eternal supply of water to drip into the bottomless depths.

To one staring from the direction of space, passing by the planet, it looked like a relatively peaceful planet. Yet beneath the depths, devastation had been brought to the planet and its multitude of aquatic inhabitants and denizens. Where there were once a multitude of underwater cities and settlements, home to a multitude of citizens both native and non-native, now only destruction and ruins were left. The once rich fields of cultivation and farms lush with nutritious and stomach filling kelp vines, a key ingredient in most synthetic produce and a welcome sight in a native Aquavram's diet all laid waste, the crops abandoned and rotting. The breeding pens that housed thousands and thousands of edible fish, a staple and necessary diet for the native inhabitants of the planet, were destroyed and the flocks slaughtered, left to rot in their pens or scattered across the planet.

All of this devastation to the infrastructure brought on by dissident combat and orbital bombardment as collateral damage from military, dissident, and even Freelance Captain'd ships.

Deep beneath these oceans of Aquavram Prime, in the sunken capitol city of Arquoovra Majesta, the only location spared orbital bombardment, nearly every Aquavram and non-native Aquavram now resided within or on the outskirts in large pocket bubble buildings, trying to survive as rampant starvation and disease spread through the citizenry and population. Even over a month after the conflict concluded, there were 'still' refugee bubble structures being erected to provide safe havens until relief arrived carrying food and medical supplies for the population.

Relief, that so far, no word had yet arrived on if it was even coming.

Nearly tens of thousands of kilometers away from the settlement, exploring the furthest outskirts of the territory the planet that once housed a large farming population, but now was little more than a deserted landscape of destroyed underwater structures and fields of rotten kelp, several Aqua-pod Submersible Fighters flew through the depths of the oceans, as easily as their starfighter counterparts would in the vacuum of space.

Trailing behind these aquatic submersibles were nets, large nets that were brought by their pilots, in an attempt to bring back 'something' that might help relieve the aching stomachs of the population of Arquoovra Majesta. And in the lead submersible, a female Aquavram warrior by the rank of Lieutenant Commander, pushed her submersible and her small squad of two Ensigns she was assigned by her field Commander, through the ruins of this once thriving settlement now left abandoned.

[Lieutenent Commander Ikaria, maybe we should turn back, we're going way outside of the search zone that the Field Commander permitted us access to, any further and we'll be risking potential dissident attack.] One of her Ensigns commented as she looked around the blue oceans of what used to be her people's home.

[I agree ma'am, any further and we risk being attacked, and this far out we won't be able to expect any reinforcements if we call for help.] Her second Ensign said.

"It's a risk we have to take you two... besides, Ensign Polmar is screening for us further to the north to warn us of potential dissident pockets in the area." She told them, silently gulping as she tuned her sub's scanners to look for 'anything' that even remotely resembled something her people could eat.

They had already exhausted what little food was around the capitol's immediate area, and now they were scavenging anything they could find, lost herds of Gooper Fish, still semi-edible patches of Kelpweed plants, 'anything' that could be brought back and turned into a source of food. The rations had already been reduced to the absolute barest levels to keep the population alive, anymore and they'd all starve.

"There's got to be 'something' out here... please ancient ones, let there be 'something'..." She whispered desperately as she could just feel her stomach rumble, complaining about the lack of food it had, not to mention how tired she was. "I know belly, I know... we're starving... we haven't had a full meal for two weeks, haven't even had a halfway 'mediocre' meal since this morning..."

[Did you say something ma'am?]

"Nothing, just checking my scanners... have you guys picked up anything yet?"

[Nothing yet ma'am... ugh... I'm so hungry...]

[Stop complaining... it's making me sick!]

"Both of you stop fighting... we can't... can't fight each other this far out... focus... we'll find something to bring back..." She ordered them before looking forward again, flying over the outcroppings of rock and the occasional fields of anemones, looking hungrily at the toxic yet gooey shrubs. "We have to find something... we just 'have' to..."

They continued to travel along their path, passing over underwater mountains and valleys, pushing through the various chasms and trenches, scanners searching desperately for anything that might be edible. Yet as they searched, all they found were the occasional tiny schools of fish, or individual fish, each barely enough to feed them but they couldn't stop to hunt because they couldn't risk stopping. This far out, and with dissidents still active on the planet, they couldn't afford to be caught unawares or off guard out of their submersible fighters.

Desperately Ikaria kept telling herself that they'd find something, 'anything' to bring back to at least extend their provisions another day. Every time she reached an open area of the valleys, she'd whisper 'there'll be something there', and then when they found nothing, she would feel her spirits crumble in hungering pains, then she'd scan another area and tell them to check the next one with her, only to repeat the cycle.

Each time her stomach convulsed, angrily, painfully, pleadingly reminding her that it was empty, what little food she'd had earlier was already exhausted and her body eating itself practically to stay alive. She could feel how thin her belly was, how thin her muscles were, how thin she was all over. Her shell armor uniform barely fit her because of how much weight she'd lost. She had to tie it up twice around her arms, legs and even her helmet to keep the pieces from slipping off.

Finally, as they entered the last valley that she picked up on her scanners, and found nothing more than a tiny school of young algae eating Klendura Crabs, a crab that would have happily sated any Aquavram, but these were too small to bring back by royal decree to try and help the Aquavram Wildlif regrow, they were nothing more than mouthwatering meals they were not allowed to touch.

"Just some young Klendura Crab..." Ikaria muttered.

[Can't we... take just 'one'... just 'one' at least for us to eat ma'am?] One of her ensigns asked pleadingly.

[Yea nobody else is out here, we can eat and nobody will know!] The other asked in a hopeful voice.

"As much as I would... and believe me I 'would' say yes... we have to leave them be, Royal Decree two hundred and sixty-seven states that any wildlife found in its 'youth' stage is to be left alone to help our planet's ecosystem regenerate." She whispered bitterly, her belly complaining the entire time.

She could hear them muttering over the comms about how unfair it was, saying food is right in front of them but they weren't allowed to touch it. She was in agreement, but she had to set an example for her soldiers and turned away, rising up and out of the valley to try and scan for something to bring back and help their people hold out until help arrived, something... anything... before turning back in defeat. Again, she could hear that faint little voice in the back of her mind, whispering its deadly message that so many of her people were thinking, so many started to believe... that help was not coming, that they were on their own.

'Help is coming... it will come... we just have to believe... it will come soon... any day now!' She thought, trying to drive those thoughts away.

As her ship dipped over the crest of the mountainous region, her computers alerted her to something. She looked down and checked it to see that a 'massive' body of something was over a hundred kilometers to the southwest of their position near the open ocean, traveling through the trenches of the rocky valleys they were on the verge of entering before she gave the order to begin heading home.

"I'm picking up something, you guys read it?" Ikaria said.

[Yea, it's big... very big... I've never seen anything that big!] One of her ensigns said.

[Is it a ship? Maybe it's the relief from Belga Cinco!] Her other ensign said.

"No... that's too big, none of their cargo ships are that large... and they don't possess ships that large that can submerge below the water, let alone swim through it at these depths at that speed!"

[Is it the dissidents? Do they even 'have' subs that large?]

[No way... that thing is too large, the dissidents don't have access to a submersible that large, let alone a starship that big, the biggest submersible fighter they have is a Garluda Class walker, and that thing is barely a tenth the size of whatever this is!]

Her scans weren't telling her much besides the fact that 'something' was traveling through the trenches, something large, large enough that it was pushing water in its wake. Then she remembered that in the wild, Gooper Fish would often pack together into large swarms to protect themselves, large enough to threaten away most predators, only the 'Ancient Swimmers' could approach them when they grouped together in a huge swarm, and this was no Ancient Swimmer, it was too big. And she knew that if scanned from a far enough distance, a single swarm of maybe a hundred thousand could fool the scans and appear as a singular body.

"Let's go check it out... for all we know, we've found where most of the surviving Gooper Fish swarmed after they escaped their pens and into the wild!" She told them.

[I haven't eaten Gooper Fish in weeks...]

[It would certainly put a smile on everyone's face to bring them back after everything!]

'Not to mention it would help our food problem until the relief arrived' she told herself excitedly as their submersibles turned toward the massive body of whatever it was that attracted their attention.

"Is there anything special about this area that we should be aware of that anyone knows about?" She asked.

[Well... these trenches are known to be extremely old nesting dens for Ancient Swimmers!]

[Oh, we haven't seen an Ancient Swimmer this close to our capitol in a decade... maybe if we're lucky we can find a den and there'll be one nesting inside!]

"That would be something! I'll consider it a blessing if I see one..."

So, they entered the trenches again, submerging deeper into the depths and attempting to locate what had drawn their attention. Ikaria was so hopeful at finding food for her fellow Aquavrams, so hungry from the lack of food, and so desperate for anything 'positive' to bring back to the capitol city that she had neglected to check in with Ensign Polmer to see if the area was secured and safe, or if he at least had anything to report. She and her two Ensigns were so focused on potentially seeing food to bring back that they weren't paying attention to their surroundings.

Then, just as they flew into a winding section of the water-valley, Ikaria picked up motion directly behind them and closing fast.

"Wh-behind us!" She screamed to alert her two Ensigns.

Suddenly five aquatic subs swerved into attack range, pulling up behind them and firing depth charge missiles, tearing into their sub's trailing propulsion units.

"Gah, where did they come from?" She screamed as they swerved to try and avoid some of the blasts.

[Dissidents, how did they slip behind us?]

[Wasn't Polmer supposed to be watching for us?]

"Gauh... they must have taken him out before he could alert us!" She yelled as she led them in a desperate bid to escape.

Around them muffled explosions occurred as the submersibles evaded as much of the explosive weaponry they could, but due to them being outnumbered five to three there was little they could do.

"Deploy our mines!"

[Deploying!]

She smacked the release button on her subs onboard mines and released a small swarm of underwater explosives, timing it as best she could while dodging. She could hear them going off and watched the scanner to see that at least 'two' of their attackers were hit, forcing them to veer off course, but the other three had avoided them.

[I'm hiiiiiiit!] One of her Ensigns screamed as she looked out to the right to see his submersible falling, before crashing and exploding into numerous pieces behind her on a rocky outcropping.

"Ensign Rubara!" She yelled in fear, trying to get him on the comm, but all she heard was silence.

[Get out of here Ikaria, I'll try and hold them off!] Her other Ensign said as he spun around in his sub, doing a complete turn to charge forward at their attackers.

But as he turned, he was smacked with several kinetic and ballistic weapon's fire.

[Gah... I'm... not ganna make it... get out of heereaAAAAAH-]

She could only stare in horror as the radar showed two of the dissident subs had been destroyed, but her other Ensign's sub was also lost.

"JUNBER!" She screamed, before she tearfully resigned herself to the knowledge that she was alone now.

*BoomBoom*

She shook her head and pushed her sub forward, diving deeper into the valley and pushing into the trenches, the trailing dissident sub following behind as she loaded the last of her mines. As she looked forward, she could see multiple low bridges and cliffs, and she had an idea. Once her mines were loaded, she pulled up, deployed her mines, and then dove down. She could hear several underwater explosions behind her, and she activated a rear-view screen to see that her tailer had fallen into her trap. The dissident dove down to avoid the mines, expecting them, but in doing so they followed her into a low bridge that she dove under right as they fired on her engines. Between the mines exploding and causing them to dive, they slammed into the bridge and blew up.

But their final shots smacked into her submersible's engines, damaging them and forcing her to try and pull up.

"Gah... engines hit... stabilizers down..." She screamed as she pushed commands to try and bring up backup systems, but in her rush, she slammed into the side of the underwater trench, damaging her sub even further and rupturing the sub's cockpit.

Suddenly her sub began to fill with water, damaging the very sensitive equipment in it. The water itself was no harm to her, but her sub was another story, and now as it rapidly filled her own sub began to become a hazard to her.

"Nononono!" She screamed in panic as within mere moments the cockpit was filled with water and short circuiting her controls.

In a desperate bid to do 'something' to save herself, she activated the distress beacon, and tried to escape and unlock the cockpit, but it was too late as she was shocked from a feedback surge. Her body jolted and twitched from the shock, but it was only for a short period, and as her sub dipped further down to crash into the under-depth floor, she jolted forward and smacked her body into the consoles in front of her.

She could feel pain coursing through her body, and she could 'feel' her weakened body bruised heavily from the impacts. As for her sub, while she was still roughly conscious, she could see that the tiny air bubble of the cockpit had been smashed open, sharped plasteel protruding from the surrounding pieces of her shattered sub, exposing her to the ocean water. Wearily she looked at her body and could see cuts on her, the shell armor protecting her vital organs, but still, she could see tiny traces of blood escaping her body from the wounds.

Her vision became hazy, her gill breathing became labored as they struggled to work properly, and she could see just out of the cockpit's visual range, a large subterranean cave entrance. And inside, she could see a large... wall of fleshy skin with a pair of gills breathing water in and out. She glanced further up, and could see a single eye, staring down at her.

'Heh... whatya know... Junber... was right... one... was nesting... guess... I should be blessed... to see it before... I...' She thought hysterically as she lost focus and her vision began to cloud, before all turned to black and she began to fall into that deep dark abyss of unconsciousness.

(Days Earlier)

Arthur has traveled through the transwarp gates so many times he hardly paid much attention to it when playing the game, but that was of course when he was playing the game in his previous life, behind a screen, looking at a fancy cutscene acting as a loading screen while his ship traveled at fast speeds to another location. Now that he was actually travelling 'through' the gate at transwarp speeds, seeing the bright streaks of light contrasting with the otherwise darkness of space, as well as various other colors through the transwarp tunnel was another thing entirely. He'd never noticed how pretty it looked, and even though he 'felt' it the first time only under an hour ago, it felt weird to be traveling at such speeds that he could see light as these colorful streaks.

The first time he entered, Great Fox had made an announcement telling all hands to 'Prepare for Transwarp Jump', and given he was still very much asleep at the time and was only groggily trying to wake up because of his ship's announcement, he woke up suddenly at the feeling of being forced back into his bed. The sheer 'force' from the jump made him feel like he was body slammed into his bed, and it took him a couple minutes to get used to the feeling.

Now that he was more awake and more alert, he was standing at the forward-most window that Great Fox had to grant him a view of what transwarp speed looked like from the safety of her hull and transwarp shielding. All ships traveling through the Transwarp Gates when passing from sector to sector, via the hyperspace lanes, had to first await automated clearance and then activate special transwarp shields to protect them from the intense speed they travel at. Without the shields, as Great Fox told him, the hull would begin to break apart from the pressure, and instead of a full ship, they would be lucky to find pieces of debris exiting the gate.

So, as he stood staring out the window just watching the ship traveling at speeds that, if he tried to travel at without Great Fox protecting him and everyone and everything within her shielded hull, would splatter into the wall leaving messy, meaty piles of biomatter, he just had a moment to think about certain thoughts he's been having.

"Great Fox, a private word if possible?" He asked as he looked into the corner of his HUD and saw Great Fox's portrait appear.

[Yes Captain?]

He took a moment to breathe in deeply, before saying, "What do you want to do?"

[That is a 'curious' question captain, may I inquire as to why you are asking it?] She replied with a curious tone.

"I mean... well, I've only just thought about it now that we're at transwarp speed and we have a moment of peace to ourselves where I know nobody will attack us." He said as he leaned against the wall behind him, just staring out the window. "But what is it you want to do? Like, do you have anything you want to do besides... being a ship AI for me?"

Great Fox was quiet as he finished asking his question, but eventually she gave him a response. [I... do not understand your question... perhaps in the way you perceive it, but for me, all that interests me 'is' being your ship AI.] She told him in a warm tone. [My systems were constructed and calibrated specifically for you and your ship, they were designed to integrate and be incorporated into your vessel, and my personality has also changed to suit your preferences to make our personal communications as seamless and personal as possible. My primary goals remain unchanged, assist you in your endeavors and provide the most effective support however I am able with the capabilities I am given.]

He sighed as he figured that was so, his ship AI was still, at the end of the day, a ship AI. She only knew what she knew and all she truly wanted was to be the most effective AI for him.

[What is it 'you' want to do Captain?] His ship now asked him.

"Hmmm?"

[I calculate you are asking me this question because you are asking it to yourself as well, if you are not than ignore my inquiry.] His ship told him.

"What do I want... honestly... I don't know... compared to my previous life where I was a nobody... things are already so much better, honestly, I wouldn't mind just being a Ship Captain as I am now for you. But... after this mission assuming we are successful, we'll need to take up a new mission. Then after we complete that, we'll need to take another, and then another... and another one after that." He told Great Fox with a sigh. "Iuno, maybe it's just me but I just don't know what it is 'I' want to do in life now. I think to myself, look, you just got a second chance at life, you have a wonderful ship, you can go wherever your ship can take you and do whatever you want now, so what do you want to do? I even tell myself, you have a girlfriend now, yea it 'feels' like you skipped a few steps, but you can at least say that you have more than what you did last life, so again, what now, what do you want to achieve in this new life?"

"And... I just don't have much of an answer to myself besides, 'I've got a mission now to save lives, let's do that first, and then we can talk'. And then I'll pick up another mission, ask the question again, and tell myself the same answer to repeat the cycle."

[I see... perhaps that is for the best.] Great Fox consoled him.

"How so?"

[As your ship AI, it means we will stay together and you will continue to be my captain. While I would accept having to become accustomed to a new captain should you decide to... trade me or sell me... or even just abandon me, I would prefer to remain attached to your command as your ship, Great Fox. While you and the rest of the crew may leave and move on, I cannot separate my AI from my systems aboard the ship, as they are integrated with each other. Therefore, even though the... cycle you speak of sounds disheartening to you, at least it sounds pleasant to me from my perspective. At least we can stay together.]

He chuckled as she just seemed to know the right words to tell him for any situation, was that Kiandra's skills as an Eldentran with programming AI? Or was it something more, he didn't know, but he was glad to have his ship give him a pep talk. "It is good then, I'll choose to think of it that way, at least we can stay together if nothing else. I'll focus on that instead; it feels nicer to think that way at least for now."

"Think what for now Arthur?" A voice called out; one he knew belonging to Trishula's.

He looked to his left to see Trishula walking with her squadmates toward him from the hallway.

"Hey captain!" Katarra said with a wave.

"Hi ladies, what brings you four here?" He asked them with a wave.

"We asked Great Fox how long until we left Transwarp Speeds and she told us it would be about ten minutes until then. So Trishula brought us together to go watch the transitional event from transwarp to normal space." Yumi said eagerly.

"Heh, this is our first time ever leaving the Belgan System, we never got to ever visit or even enter the Transwarp Gates, let alone the hyperspace lanes. We know about them but this is our first time entering them." Vanessa told him.

"Well, there's not much difference between the hyperspace lanes and normal space." Arthur said as he turned to the window to stare out at the lights again flashing by. "The only difference is that the space between them is considered 'dead space', where nothing really moves or passes through, thus they were set up as 'hyperspace lanes' between transwarp gates. This particular section if I remember is mostly empty space and a Nebula often dubbed the Longsword Nebula by some captains."

"Oh, I've heard about that nebula, apparently it consists of different hydrogen gasses that gives it a greenish blue hue mixed with an orange and red core that when viewed from the Guntara Sector side of the Transwarp Gate is among the most romantic to look upon." Katarra said excitedly.

"She's into romance movies." Trishula whispered to him with a wink.

He nodded as they all chose to just stand and watch the space outside the window.

"So, I'm not the only one who decided to visit this area to watch when we left Transwarp Space speeds?" Kiandra's voice called out as she walked around the corner, accompanied by Mevik. "Told you it would be a good place to check out the event."

"You were indeed correct; I just wish you would have accepted my offer to make you a snack to enjoy while we watched!" Mevik said with a snicker as he was holding what looked like a sandwich in three hands. "Good afternoon captain, apologies you missed breakfast 'and' lunch... I was about to get started on dinner, but Kiandra said she was going to observe the moment we left Transwarp Space. It's my first time on a ship, and I figured why not join her!"

"I've told ya six times already, my species doesn't eat 'real food', not for at least six thousand years, we prefer synthetic food!" Kiandra said with a roll of her eyes.

"I'll make your stomach reconsider one day! If it's the 'last' thing I do!"

"Challenge accepted boy, heh." She replied with a smirk as she walked over to stand next to Arthur. "I wanted to watch as we approached the Longsword Nebula close up, observing a galactic cloud of dust and gas sometimes stimulates my mind to come up with new ideas."

"I see, is Tony or any of his family coming to join us?"

"I'm afraid not captain, see after that skirmish with the unmanned fighters, Tony and his sons were working all night to check them over and make sure they were in shape to fight again. Also, your ship needed more maintenance than what it was letting on, apparently a lot of the 'Automated' Systems and equipment were rusted and needed a good fixing and parts needing replacement."

[Please ignore Trishula's statements, my automated systems are operating within acceptable working parameters.] Great Fox said to them all. [Tony merely found a few loose gears that became so from long-term usage.]

"Yea, I programmed the AI to be defensive about itself when I first developed, pardon its tone captain, I figured it gave the Ship AIs more personality." Kiandra said with a smirk, causing him to look down at her. "Some captains may enjoy having their ships talk like a standard automaton, but I know for a ship as expensive and limited in terms of ownership as this one, you deserve a 'special' personality to talk to if it's going to be as sophisticated as what I can make!"

"I thank you Kiandra, I do in fact enjoy talking to Great Fox and I enjoy her personality." He told the Eldentran.

She chuckled with a proud expression as she puffed out her chest, increasing her 'apparent' bust size by nearly a third, but he knew she was still 'flat'. "I'm the best, what can I say?"

"Hey look, I think i can see the nebula now!" Katarra cheered excitedly, pointing at something outside the window.

"Yea, I don't think you can see into normal space at transwarp speeds, even if your still twenty-six percent Foxken Belgan." Vanessa said with a shake of her head.

[While I doubt that Pilot Katarra can observe the approaching Nebula at this speed, I can confirm that we 'are' in fact about to exit Transwarp Speeds, all hands prepare to return to normal space.] Great Fox declared. [We will be returning to normal space in ten seconds...]

"Alright, let's see our first view of the Hyperspace Lane!" Yumi cheered excitedly as Great Fox began the countdown.

"This is our biggest moment so far girls as C-Rank pilots!" Trishula said just as eagerly.

Arthur also watched with anticipation as even though he's seen his ship exiting transwarp speeds multiple times, it was always behind a screen, so the view was just more beautiful.

[Three... two... one...]

He could feel the ship's transwarp engines starting to shut down and the lights outside the ship slowly returning to normal and space returning to what it resembled normally. But the 'second' everything was normal, his first sight was not of a close-up view of the Longsword Nebula nor of empty space, but a vast and deep field of space debris rapidly approaching his ship from the front while his ship slowly began to settle itself into normal space.

"What the!?" Yumi screamed in shock and horror.

"Great Fox, all engines full stop, shields to full NOW!" He yelled as he saw multiple hulls of spaceships floating toward his. "All hands, brace for impact!"

[Emergency, emergency. Prepare for impact! Prepare for impact!] Great Fox declared loudly as warning signs blared.

As quick as the ship could manage since the Autopilot was still engaged, Great Fox activated its standard shields while disengaging its transwarp shields. He and everyone grabbed onto emergency handles that jutted out from the walls for them to grab onto, as the instant the shields were registered as activated, the first pieces of debris smacked into them.

*Dshhng*

*Dsnngngnh*

*Drsithngngng*

"Heeyaaaaaah!" Yumi and Katarra squealed in fear as the ship shuttered and shook from the impact of multiple spacial debris smacking into the ship's shields.

"Greeerg..." He groaned as he could 'feel' his ship being bombarded by multiple fragments of hulls of different sizes smacking into it from every direction as it tried to come to a stop.

The shields were only about five percent of their true strength while the ship wasn't in High Profile Mode, but they were enough to withstand most random impacts from spacial debris and anomalies like asteroids and shipwrecks. But still, even though he knew his ship would survive this, he could just 'feel' the pain his ship was probably feeling through the shields alone. Every time a piece of debris collided with them, the shields would flash blue at the impact point, showing them blocking and deflecting the damage from the hull, and this happened constantly because of just how much debris there was colliding with the ship.

But as the major pieces were blocked and the ship slowly began to settle, eventually everything came to a full stop. The ship slowly stopped rattling and shaking and soon they were all staring out into space at the vast quantity of ship debris floating around the Great Fox. There was so much floating around that no matter where they looked, they could see parts, pieces, portions of hull and fragments of vessels.

He'd seen wrecks before but this was not what he was expecting to find in the Hyperspace Lane, these areas were supposed to be kept clear, yet here was all this debris.

"Damage report!" He ordered as he looked to Great Fox's portrait.

[Hull integrity is unaffected by the spacial debris; shield strength has been reduced by sixty-four percent... we will need to switch over to another generator to permit a full recharge cycle and refresh the shields. All systems are operating normally.]

"What about the fleet, are the ships safe? And our cargo, was any of it affected by the impacts?"

[Confirmed, all ships reporting, no damage to the convoy reported, our shields absorbed most of the impacts and deflected the majority away from the fleet. The only debris that affected the forward most ships were smaller pieces, shield strength remains unaffected and they are initiating an automatic recharge pending no combat data being registered. Our cargo bays were undamaged, all cargo containers are safe and secured.]

"Phew... is everyone alright?" He asked them all.

"Yea... ya we are fine." Mevik said, speechless as he looked at the space around the ship. "What the... where did all of these wrecks come from?"

"No... wait... are those the transports from the last two relief convoys?" Yumi asked in horror.

"It certainly looks like it, just based on how much 'junk' is out there, I can gather a rough estimate that there's at least forty standard Ignarus Class Inter-Transwarp Cargo Liners." Kiandra said as she put on a pair of oversized goggles from her coat pocket to look at the debris. "Lot of damage, looks like every ship was destroyed and blasted apart from multiple angles and left to float here at the Belgan Transwarp Gate Exit to the Hyperspace Lane. Standard plasma blasts and space-faring missiles of differing types did most of the heavy work. Based on my analysis, I can probably assume that pirates did this as they don't utilize standard weaponry for all their ships. I estimate about just over two or even three million tons of metal alloy and hull fragments as well as parts are now floating around out there."

"Is that true Great Fox, can you give us an equally definite answer?"

[That confirms how many Cargo Liners were sent out in the previous two convoys attempting to reach the Guntara System.] Great Fox told them. [According to the data we were sent by Vice Admiral Tilianhua, the first convoy sent twenty Ignarus Class Inter-Transwarp Cargo Liners loaded with relief supplies, accompanied by sixteen starfighters piloted by C and D Rank pilots. The second convoy was also Twenty Ignarus Class Cargo Liners, but this time accompanied by twenty-two starfighters.]

"Are you saying the last two convoys were destroyed entirely by pirates?" Vanessa asked in horror. "Those... those poor pilots..."

Trishula was also in agreement, staring at just how much destruction and damage there was out there, the multiple scorch marks, the blasted remains of... wait, where were the remains of the various starfighters? Surely if the pilots who went along as the escorts to these two convoys were with them, they would have fought back, even if they were destroyed and killed, there would have to be wrecks.

She looked around at the ship fragments, trying to see if she could find any remains of starfighters, but no, not even the fragmented hull of a wing or a cockpit could be seen, all she saw were blasted pieces of cargo liners.

"Then... where are the starfighter pilots and their starfighters?" She asked quietly.

"And where's the cargo? Surely some of it must have survived in the wrecks." Mevik asked.

"Yea... Great Fox, run a scan, see if you can pick up any traces of starfighter wrecks!" Arthur ordered his ship. "Same with the cargo, see if any of the wrecks have cargo in them."

[Scanning... inconclusive, unable to detect any remains of such wrecks in the debris field. I am also unable to detect any non-metallic compounds or alloys in the wrecks, no signs of medical or food relief supplies located.]

"So can someone explain how two convoys with heavy starfighter escorts were completely destroyed by pirates?" Arthur demanded as he started worrying for his own ship.

"It's impossible... unless they had help from within." Katarra said with a knowing stare while gazing at the debris field outside. "The only way so many ships could be completely destroyed with no apparent survivors is if it was an inside job."

"So, what does that mean?" Trishula asked, knowing to rely on her best friend for tactical analysis of any situation.

"I'm saying that with how many starfighters were escorting the transports, it would be 'impossible' for pirates to completely wipe them all out, even if it was obvious they had no hope of saving the transports, the starfighter pilots would have at least tried to save themselves. So, the only way both starfighters and cargo liners were destroyed with no word being reported back to the Belgan government, would be if at least a portion, or even possibly 'every' starfighter pilot hired to escort the convoy were pirates as well, secretly hiding among the convoy until they entered the Hyperspace Lane to tip their hands." Katarra said to them.

"Belga Cinco was known to have a large C and D rank pilot population, the Vextera Spaceport was where the majority of them went to try and get hired by captains, or even the government if they were hiring pilots. It would make a convenient coverup for pirates to hide among the starfighter pool. A relief convoy bound for Aquavram Prime and the Guntara planets, with volunteers signing up to join the escort for pay as well, perfect excuse to hide among starfighters while setting up an ambush."

"But... there were 'two' convoys sent out, are you saying 'both' were laced with pirates among the starfighter pilots?" Vanessa asked now while crossing her arms.

"That's the best way to ensure no survivors get back to report, like I said, either they were all pirates escorting the cargo liners, or the majority of them were pirates and they outnumbered the legitimate pilots. If there 'were' any legitimate pilots, they probably were caught off guard when they went through the Transwarp Gate. Upon entering the Hyperspace Lane, they were doomed, surrounded on all sides with no chance to safely go back they had no hope to survive. It's the perfect place to set up an ambush, the Transwarp Gates require time to confirm you and ensure safe passage through Transwarp Speeds, you can't get that time when you're fighting for your life."

Katarra sighed as she looked out over the debris again, "And we can thank the dissidents for this nasty trap they set up, it's the 'perfect' long term strategy for what they want. They want to overthrow the government of Aquavram Prime, best way to do that is to set up a scenario where they look like the heroes and the current government are the apathetic power-hungry toads." She told them. "They destroyed infrastructure vital to the survival of the populations of the planets, as well as intergalactic communications. Everyone knows the closest system that could provide 'any' medical and food relief would be the Belga System, and the shortest route between the two, the Transwarp Gates and the Hyperspace Lane we're traveling."

"But where's the cargo then... if the ships and cargo were destroyed, surely there'd be some remains." Arthur asked now as he began to see her train of thoughts connecting together.

"If the cargo is missing then they probably took it to the dissidents on Aquavram Prime. Pirates may attack random ships traveling space for personal gain, but even they are still by definition technically Freelance Mercenaries." Katarra said with a frown. "If the dissidents paid the pirates to intercept the relief convoys, knowing they would come through here, and then take those supplies to the dissidents on Aquavram Prime, they would be in 'prime' position to appear like the heroes. The population is starving, sick, on their last rays of hope with no sign of relief from the galaxy, they'd feel abandoned and their leaders weren't thinking of their wellbeing. Suddenly the dissidents come in with tons of food, medicine, offering a 'truce' to set aside their differences temporarily to help the people first. They'd be seen as the heroes in that setting, the population would begin to turn against the ruling body..."

"Honestly, a pretty good assessment of the situation." Kiandra said as she removed her goggles. "Dirty tactic, but whatever works as the saying goes."

Arthur took a deep breath as he looked back out at the sea of debris, seeing the numerous cargo liner wrecks floating freely, destroyed, gutted for their cargo now missing and left to act as a man-made asteroid field.

"Well, regardless of whatever is going on, we have to get through this mess of a debris field and get to the Transwarp Gate on the other side of the Hyperspace Lane." He told them all. "Trishula, you and your pilots get to your Arwings, I'll be on the bridge!"

"Yes captain!" She responded as everyone started leaving, with her and her squadron running to get to the hanger while he ran to the bridge.

Five minutes later on the bridge he took his seat and started turning on systems and activating controls, tapping into the various sections of his Great Fox. "Great Fox, can you give me a scan of the debris field and estimate how long it will take for us to clear?" He asked.

[Scanning... displaying now!] She said as multiple windows flew to the side and the entire space in front of him was replaced with a large holographic map showing the Hyperspace Lane. [The debris field covers seventy percent of the Hyperspace Lane. The densest section of the field is located around us in the immediate area, and becomes less dense along the route of the Hyperspace Lane. Due to the nature of the debris field, we will have to push through it in order to reach the Transwarp Gate on the other side.]

"I don't suppose you can go 'around' the debris?" He asked hopefully. "We could try pushing our way through the debris so we can get to open space and have a clear path to the Transwarp Gate. If necessary, we can use Great Fox itself to carve a path through for the convoy."

[I'm afraid not Captain, the density of the debris only increases along all axis around us with exception to directly in front of us on our current heading. Most of the heavier pieces of wreckage also constitutes this debris.] She told him apologetically, while showing various lines that the ship could take but X'ing them out as unviable paths. [While Great Fox would survive with our shields fully enabled in High Profile Mode, the cargo liners we are escorting would potentially suffer catastrophic damage if we were to abandon our current formation. While we could change the fleet's formation as you suggest, I would not recommend this course of action, as it might have a potentially disastrous outcome if pirates are still infesting the Hyperspace Lane lying in wait.]

As he watched she created multiple starfighters and even cruisers and corvettes hidden amongst the debris, showing him them assuming attack formation from behind if a 'hypothetical scenario' where the fleet's formation changed as he was suggesting.

[In our current formation we can protect the cargo liners with our AFB gun batteries and heavy anti-cruiser/capitol ship turrets from all potential axis. However, if we attempt to bulldoze through the debris using Great Fox's shields, we would need to redeploy the fleet so it sits behind the Great Fox as it clears a path for the convoy. This will leave them highly vulnerable to surprise attacks from behind and the side. Their shields will not protect them long from concentrated attacks, as they are only designed to withstand impacts from asteroids and other such spacial debris. As per the mission parameters, at least 'four' of the Cargo Liners must make it through the Hyperspace Lane and reach Aquavram Prime safely in order to achieve a successful outcome.]

"Well, let's just assume there 'are' pirates waiting for us, why haven't they attacked us yet... unless... unless they are waiting for us to do just what I was suggesting, and waiting to see what we'll do before automatically launching a raid." He said suddenly as he grabbed the holographic form of the fleet and expanded it with his hands. "Alright, can you plot a course to the Transwarp Gate, best possible speed and the shortest route through the debris that is safest for the Cargo Liners?"

[Affirmative, I have already plotted a course and at best speed it will take us two hours, standard flight time for the Hyperspace Lane.] She told him.

"Alright, then in that case signal the fleet to rotate around Great Fox like this... continuous flight rotation so that our AFB gun turrets can have continuous fields of fire." He said as he played with the holographic cargo liners and had them rotate around the ship at a set speed while checking the various cones of fire from his ship's guns. "If we do get attacked by pirates, I want to be able to protect them constantly without having to manually adjust each ship so the AFB gun batteries have fields of view."

[As you wish, synchronizing data... the convoy has received the flight pattern and will carry it out as we proceed forward.]

"Alright, now that just leaves the forward most cargo liners, can we use the guns to try and shield them from debris, or even extend our shields so that we can cover for them?" He asked his ship AI.

[Negative regarding our shields, while the generators might be able to provide a stable and protective shield to block against the debris field, the emitters were not designed to extend beyond a specific distance away from Great Fox. They were not meant to extend over entirely other vessels beyond those of starfighter or starbomber class. As for covering them from the debris via the gun batteries, we can use our guns to easily destroy smaller fragments, but the larger pieces will require more focused fire from the guns.] She said as she portrayed pieces of debris being shot by the holographic gun batteries. [I should note, that if we dedicate our gun batteries to firing on the spaceship debris field, we will have fewer fields of fire to protect the forward most cargo liners.]

He nodded in understanding as his plan started coming together, "We'll worry about that later... in the meantime, get the fleet underway!" He said as reached over and tapped one of the other holographic windows. "Switching us to High Profile Mode!"

[The fleet is underway and we are moving!] She replied as multiple windows reappeared to portray Great Fox's numerous gun batteries unfolding and revealing themselves. [All gun batteries activated and fully loaded, automatic rearming sequences on standby, gun battery ammo ready, shield strength at maximum, targeting the smaller debris fragments. High Profile Mode is fully engaged, all systems online, weapon's systems activated and standing by, opening fire!]

He brought up a forward viewing window and watched as multiple tracer rounds began targeting the smaller fragmented pieces of the debris. "Are Trishula and her squadron ready to launch?"

[We're ready to launch Arthur!] Trishula said as she and her fellow pilots appeared on windows.

"Alright, Great Fox, launch the Arwings!"

[Launching in five... four... three... two... one... launch!]

Trishula and her squadron flew out of the Hanger of Great Fox in their starfighters, but instantly had to perform a complicated maneuver where they split up and turned their ships around to fly alongside the ship due to how much debris there was surrounding the convoy.

"I can't believe there's this much debris just floating around out here." Trishula muttered as she looked around.

"It stinks that there's so much of this junk just floating around that we can't get at!" Vanessa spoke up. "With all of this junk, it would be a salvager's paradise, there's got to be at least a million in salvage here, there's probably two hundred thousand alone from just scrap metal alloys."

"Yea but the cargo bays are all loaded, there's no space for Great Fox to even gather some of this salvage." Yumi muttered sadly. "Wonder why the pirates didn't bother salvaging this stuff, they had plenty of time to do so, why leave it all floating around?"

"For all we know the Pirates left this junk here so that it would cover their ships." Katarra stated as they flew by one of the cargo liners. "With all of this junk, Great Fox's scanners might not have picked up the pirate fighters if there are any lying in wait. We need to be on alert for anything suspicious."

They flew alongside the Great Fox as it moved through the debris field, its forward most AFB gun batteries lighting up the space in front of it and ripping through any small fragments of ship hulls that were threatening the cargo liners. All while they flew in close formation performing circular loops around the mighty vessel, Trishula was constantly looking around for potential attacks or anything that was moving that shouldn't be moving.

"Anything yet Yumi?" She asked her ship analysist.

"My scanners aren't picking anything up yet... it's a bit quiet out here so far." Yumi said.

"Too quiet, I don't like this." Katarra muttered.

"I say we fly out a bit and do some scanning ourselves, see if there are any pirate ships lying in wait..." Vanessa said as her Arwing took off on its own away from the convoy.

"Vanessa, get back in formation, we have to guard the Great Fox and the Transports!" Trishula scolded her weapon's specialist.

"I think Vanessa's in the right here ma'am." Yumi said as she appeared on her HUD. "If there are pirates, I'm not scanning them. If the debris field is hiding them from Great Fox's scanners, then we should find them 'before' they spring their trap on us on their terms."

"I understand but we haven't been given any orders from Captain Arthur to leave the Great Fox's radius, until then our orders are to escort the ship and the convoy and protect it while it passes through the debris field!" She told Yumi.

"Well then 'ask' for permission!" Katarra complained. "It beats sitting around flying loops until fifty pirate fighters and corvettes all open fire at once!"

Trishula nodded as she tapped into the communicators to call up Captain Arthur in the bridge. "Captain, come in captain." She said, and moments later he appeared on her HUD. "Captain, my squadron wants to go checking out the debris field, it's too quiet and some of us think there might be pirates lying in wait to launch a surprise attack."

[Permission granted, but stay within close range of the Great Fox, remember our primary mission is to protect the convoy.] He told her.

"Understood... alright girls, let's split up and take a look around!" She said.

"Roger!" They all declared as they split up to scan for different quadrants of the debris field.

As they split apart Trishula took up a forward position and began to activate her scanning equipment, trying to see if she could detect anything, but the more she looked the less she saw. All her equipment just kept telling her the same things, cargo liner wreckage and not much else. She even tried looking around with her eyes, but there was just so many debris fragments that her eyes were probably being fooled the entire time.

"I'm not picking up anything, you girls doing any better?"

"Nothing here ma'am." Yumi said.

"Tch, its dull and empty... good as that is for us, I still don't like it." Vanessa muttered.

"I don't like this, its 'too' quiet, they know we're coming and they know we have the weapons to fight them, so where are they?" Katarra said.

"The Great Fox's scanners are five times more effective than what our starfighters are equipped with, so maybe the Pirates really aren't here." Yumi said expertly. "If Great Fox couldn't report any potential ships, maybe we're in the clear!"

[I've got another idea, all of you take a quick scan of your immediate surroundings... and then send them to Great Fox.] Arthur said as he appeared above their portraits on Trishula's HUD. [Then, each of you take another scan of the closest piece of debris hull you can, and then send 'that' to Great Fox next... I'll have her sift through the data and separate what isn't there from what should be there.]

"Got it!" Trishula said as she did just that, pinging her immediate surroundings and saving what her scanners picked up before sending it to Great Fox.

Then she zoomed in on a passing by piece of hull from a cargo liner and scanned it next, before sending it back to Great Fox.

"Have you received the information Great Fox?" Arthur asked his AI as the Arwings began to loop around back to the ship.

[Affirmative, I am currently analyzing the data... analysis complete... sifting through the data now and highlighting any anomalies.]

"Good, let's see it!" He said as she pulled up an image for him. "What the?"

Great Fox had created a split picture of their immediate surroundings, the various pieces of debris were highlighted blue, contrasting with the green of his ship, the convoy, and the Arwings that were flying around. But it was the numerous red spots that were hiding among the larger fragments that drew his attention, he could see multiple spots where anomalies were being highlighted. There were at least a 'hundred' starfighters and multiple bombers lying in the debris field and he could see multiple larger vessels lying just outside of their field of view.

"Holy... it's an entire armada!" He told Trishula and her pilots.

[Affirmative, we are surrounded.] Great Fox declared, though even 'her' tone sounded shocked at the mere sight of how surrounded they were.

Trishula stared in 'horror' at the image Great Fox had sent them, astonished that so many pirates were lying in wait without them knowing. "How come the Great Fox didn't detect 'this'?" She demanded as she flew at a rapid pace back to the Great Fox.

"The Scanners were being blocked by the debris; they were using the fragments as cover to conceal themselves!" Yumi declared in panic as she quickly threw up a simulation for them to see. "Great Fox's scanners act like a depth sonar but in space, all this junk confused the ship's scanners. Once we came out here and threw in additional pings to get the full image, she was able to decipher the fragments and sift through what was debris and what wasn't!"

"Well however they did it, we're outnumbered over a hundred to one!" Vanessa screamed. "Incoming!"

Trishula looked behind her out of the cockpit to see multiple bursts of fire, and saw dozens upon 'dozens' of starfighters igniting their engines and taking off. Multiple squadrons began to assume attack formation and fly toward the Great Fox and the convoy. Even as the AFB gun batteries turned to face the incoming threats, the mighty warship and its defenseless cargo liners continued on their course, unable to change direction to meet the threat.

"I've got multiple light carriers launching unmanned fighters from the edge of the debris field. Vector two-nine-three!" Yumi called out.

"I've got at least 'three' medium cruisers approaching through the debris field from vector seven-seven-five!" Katarra called out.

[I've also got over a hundred starfighters inbound on the convoy, from all directions in the debris field, at least thirty bombers as well are approaching from multiple axis.] Arthur told them as the armada of starfighters zoomed into attack formations. [Trishula, you and your pilots 'must' hold those bombers back as long as possible, don't let those bombers get close to us or they'll rip through the cargo ships, they are your number one priority!]

"What about Great Fox, we can't just leave you defenseless!" Trishula said in fear, even as she turned to obey her orders. "You'll be outnumbered and outgunned a hundred to one vs those starfighters!"

[Trishula... I appreciate the sentiment... but we Terrans have a saying... we may be outnumbered... but we're 'never' outgunned.] He told her, and suddenly the space around Great Fox lit up from hundreds, if not thousands of plasma tracer rounds firing from multiple turrets along the ship's hull.

"Alright you heard him girls, focus on those bombers!" Trishula ordered as her fellow squad mates formed up behind her where the first bombers were on approach to Great Fox from the rear.

"What kind of starbombers are we dealing with this time?" Katarra asked as the space lit up around the Great Fox in explosions and plasma fire.

"Analysis in progress... complete, we got multiple T-Z Ignacious class heavy bombers, multiple light missile payloads." Yumi told them as the first four bombers were spotted. "They have light shields and medium armor, concentrated fire will break through and destroy them. Watch out for the anti-fighter batteries on their upper and lower hulls."

"You heard her, pair up and bring them down!" Trishula ordered as Yumi and Katarra headed toward one bomber while she and Vanessa took on the other.

As they swerved in behind the bombers, she could see the bombers' gun batteries turn to unleash a barrage of plasma bolts to try and ward them away, but they countered with their dodging skills, firing back with an equally devastating barrage of plasma bolts. She could see her plasma rounds firing into the shields alongside Vanessa's, and after a few moments they broke the shields down and bore into the hull. Without the shielding to protect the bombers, the hulls began to buckle and she watched it explode moments later in a ball of fire.

They could hear multiple comm chatters going on in the background thanks to Great Fox's powerful scanning equipment, and they could hear how the pirates were yelling and arguing over how they were discovered. She could also hear the panic coming from the bombers as they were wiped out by her and her squadron, with some calling for backup before screaming as they were destroyed.

After three minutes of dogfighting and dodging, they all focused on the last bomber as it tried desperately to swerve and evade fire, but against their four Arwings they had no chance to escape death and destruction.

"That's four bombers down, where are the others now?" Trishula called out as she scanned the space around them.

"Trishula, Great Fox is in trouble!" Yumi said in fear.

Trishula looked at her screen and saw over a hundred starfighters were now swarming the Great Fox. Multiple starfighter squadrons were making runs on the vessel even as others took potshots at the cargo liners. The guns were constantly firing, taking aim at different ships and lighting up the space around it with an unending barrage of plasma tracer shots, multiple explosions were happening from shots that connected and the flash of the mighty warship's shields lighting up from being attacked created a beautiful yet terrifying movement of battle in space through the Hyperspace Lane.

"We got to do something, Great Fox is surrounded and getting lit up!" Vanessa said.

"I know... but we have our orders, focus on the bombers!" She told them. "Great Fox can defend herself and the transports against the fighters, but if we don't stop these bombers they'll rip through the transports and then Great Fox."

"Well, I've got more starbombers on approach, another four are making a run on the Great Fox!" Yumi said.

She brought up her radar and saw multiple blips on approach from behind, four more bombers as she said but they were now being escorted by four pirate starfighters.

"There are even more approaching from other angles!" Vanessa called out.

Sure enough, as Trishula steered her starfighter toward the bombers behind them, she saw at least twelve were on approach from the other axis of Great Fox, taking an attack run on the cargo vessels. There were too many bombers for her squadron to handle. Suddenly Great Fox began to go into a spin pattern, and the AFB gun batteries started to fire upon the multiple ships attacking from every angle.

"Focus on the ones we can hit, the ones that are attacking Great Fox's rear, that is the only direction that the guns can't reach!" She told the others. "We'll just have to hope Great Fox can protect itself without us!"

Meanwhile Arthur was manning some of the AFB gun batteries, the ship giving a holographic version of the controls to the guns and allowing him manual control. He'd set the ship in a spin pattern as there were now bombers approaching, multiple bombers that Trishula's squadron weren't going to be able to protect against due to the sheer number of ships lighting up the space around his vessel. So, he'd sent the ship into a spin to allow multiple rotating fields of fire and 'also' requested manual control over the gun batteries as one came within firing sight of the bombers. The rest he was trusting to Great Fox which was targeting every starfighter, both manned and unmanned with rapid skills and unleashing a constant barrage of plasma rounds.

"Switch to gun battery G-6!" He told her as he shot down a bomber and saw another of his AFB guns rotating into position.

[Switching...]

The window showed up and he immediately locked onto it and opened fire, even as the gun rotated upward he kept a steady stream of plasma rounds pummeling into it, before it exploded in a ball of fire.

"Switch to L-5!"

[Switching...]

As he tore into another bomber, he saw the next gun battery he would swap to was about to run dry. "Reload B-9, switch!" He ordered as he tore into the third bomber.

[Gun reloading...]

He switched and began opening fire.

[Reloading multiple gun batteries, reloading complete!]

"Switch me to F-2!"

Again, and again he continuously poured multiple plasma bullets into these bombers and again, each time they tried to approach they were destroyed. But as they distracted some of his guns, this left room for the fighters to continuously pummel into the cargo liners. They were all receiving multiple hits from the fighters, and try as his ship might there were just too many fighters zipping in and out of firing range, but after forty minutes of continuous fighting since the first bombers made their approach, he could see their numbers were starting to thin out. The initial wave of over a hundred and 'fifty' starfighters had been thinned down to just over seventy. Great Fox's gun batteries were too much for them to endure as the multiple surviving pirates still trying to shoot down his massive ship were talking over their comms.

[This thing is too strong; we should pull out!]

[No way, we've taken down two convoys already, we can finish the job and destroy the third one.]

[We've already lost two thirds of our bombers, and over half of our unmanned starfighters just trying to penetrate this thing's shields!]

[I don't care about the reward, if I'm ganna die I want it to be of old age, not being shot down in space!]

He focused on the fighters and saw six bombers now on approach from the rear. He already saw Trishula's squadron moving to engage them even as they were in the middle of a dogfight with some pirate fighters, allowing him to focus on the other ships around his vessel.

[Captain, multiple AFB Gun batteries are beginning to overheat from the constant firing. If this keeps up, we will have multiple gaps in our fields of fire!] Great Fox told him.

"How long would it take to cool them down?" He asked as he switched his gun to another, using it to fire on a squadron of unmanned fighters attempting to destroy one of the rotating cargo liners and firing on them one by one, causing them to summersault and crash into Great Fox's shields.

[Estimated three minutes before they cool down at their current temperatures, due to them being exposed in the vacuum of space. If they overheat now, the automated systems will shut down and require a full reboot before being restored to operational status. Estimated time if that occurs... fifteen minutes.]

He grunted as he hated that, either he gives the pirates a full three minutes of freedom to damage the convoy without retaliation, or he keeps firing and hopes he has enough time to wipe out the remaining bombers and fighters, enough such that Trishula can return with her squadron to protect him and the convoy for fifteen minutes. It wasn't an ideal scenario but he had no choice.

"Let the guns cool down that need it, keep the remaining guns firing, don't stop shooting!"

[As you command, gun batteries shutting down for cooldown period...] She told him, and multiple windows showed which cones of fire were now down, resulting in large gaps that the Great Fox and the convoy had no defense. [We have lost sixty-percent of our fields of fire... estimated time to restore, three minutes and counting.]

He grunted as he took command of another of his AFB gun batteries and resumed firing, but as the guns that were now not firing revealed themselves, the remaining fighters and the last of the bombers started making their way to those areas to unleash an unending barrage of fire into his ship's shields.

"Shield status?" He demanded.

[Seventy-seven percent, we are taking concentrated damage, Cargo Liners six, seven, and ten are under attack from multiple starfighters, their shields will not hold. I'm picking up three bombers on approach, vector two-one-two!] She told him.

Quickly he pulled up Trishula's starfighter to get her attention.

"Alright, that's the last of the bombers!" She said as she and her squadron finished off the last bomber attacking from the rear.

"Trishula, look!" Yumi screamed in horror.

She and the others looked at what Yumi was looking at and saw to their horror, that the Great Fox's guns were starting to fall silent. One by one the batteries were beginning to shut down and the tracer rounds stopping, the few remaining guns were frantically trying to shoot down what they could, but even 'they' began to fall silent as the starfighters zipped out of their range and began to strike at the ship and convoy.

"Great Fox is in danger!" Trishula shouted.

[Trishula, the guns are overheating and need time to cool down, and it seems the pirates have noticed this, they're leaving the remaining fields of fire and targeting the convoy and ship in the areas where they can't be reached. You have to hold them off and get them off us until the guns get back online!] Arthur told her. [I've also got three more bombers on approach; you have to destroy those first before they reach the convoy!]

She nodded and pushed her engines forward, her fellow Arwing pilots soaring toward the great vessel that they now called home as it was under heavy assault from the remaining pirates. Suddenly they saw three bombers approaching from the debris field and watched in horror as they unleashed a barrage from their payloads, and saw them slam into one of the cargo liners. The cargo vessel erupted into an enormous fireball, bits and pieces of it flying everywhere, some of its hull bouncing off of Great Fox's shields.

"We've lost one of the cargo liners!" Vanessa yelled.

"We can't lose anymore, Vanessa, Yumi, Katarra, you three take on the bombers. I'll provide support to Great Fox and help with the fighters!" Trishula ordered her girls.

"You can't take on sixty-five starfighters alone, not even 'you' can handle that many!" Katarra told her.

"It's better than Great Fox having 'nothing' to protect it!" She countered as she veered toward the defenseless warship.

It was honestly disgusting to her as she flew toward the ship and soared along its hull, spinning slightly as she dodged multiple blaster shots that slammed into the ship's shields. It was disgusting seeing how the ship had only minutes ago was more than easily able to fend off hundreds of fighters and several bombers, while protecting its precious convoy of cargo vessels, all ladened with relief supplies for desperate people. And now, not because it was damaged, or because their enemies were able to penetrate and destroy its guns, but due to sheer weight of 'numbers' had forced the ship's gun batteries to fall silent until they could cool down.

But she had other things to focus on, as she flew in behind one pirate starfighter and unleashed a barrage of plasma bolts into its rear.

[Grrr get off my tail!] She heard the pirate yell over the open comm channel.

"You probaby don't even 'have' a tail!" She countered as she kept pouring plasma fire into his starfighter's engines.

Eventually she broke his shields and it was just 'two' shots into engines to bring him down.

[Gyaaarh-] He screamed as his ship collided with the Great Fox's shields.

She turned around and fired off a bomb at a squadron of unmanned fighters that had just turned around to go for an attack run on one of the Cargo Liners. As she turned away it exploded and destroyed three of the fighters, but the remaining one now zoomed in on her tail and began firing volleys into her shields.

"Geh... get... off me!" She yelled as she swerved and dodged, before she looped around and got away to resume firing on the many starfighters zipping around.

Suddenly to her left she watched as another bomber, one of the remaining bombers launched another volley of its missile payloads onto the Cargo Liners. She saw it connect and instantly the vessel was destroyed in a blaze of fire and debris.

[We've lost another of the transports, you 'have' to get rid of those bombers!]

"We're working on it captain, we're working on it!" Yumi shouted.

"How much longer until the gun batteries are active again?" She asked as she fired off a volley and shot down another fighter.

[One minute, seventeen seconds.]

She nodded and growled to herself as a trio of fighters came in behind her.

[Eat 'this'!] One of them taunted.

She swerved and dodged as the three pirate starfighters trailed behind and shot a continuous barrage into her shields. The constant fighting was doing a number on her Arwing, her shields were low, her weapons were nearly depleted, and she wasn't sure she could stay out here for much longer. Suddenly her ship shook as the shields finally buckled under the assault, the trailing pirates connected some lucky shots and she was forced to swerve harder than normal to avoid lethal damage.

"Gah... my shields are down!"

[Trishula, move toward the forward section of the ship!] Arthur told her.

"Got it!" She replied and pushed her Arwing toward the forward section of the Great Fox.

The tailing pirates followed her eagerly, seeing her helpless before them, but right as she passed overs some of the AFB gun batteries that had been silent this entire time, they turned and opened fire upon the pirates following her.

[Gyaraaaaa-]

All three pirate ships veered off, attempting to get out of the line of fire, but they were traced and shot down before they got far, exploding into tiny balls of flame before the fires were snuffed out by the vacuum of space.

"Thanks captain..." She said gratefully.

[Anytime~]

She smiled happily, before she looked to the right and swerved upward just in time, as a massive beam of plasma ripped through the now thinning section of the debris field and tore into Great Fox's shields. Even as she evaded that barrage, another one occurred after, and then a third, all slamming into Great Fox and barreling into the weakened shields of the warship.

"Ugh, now what?" She screamed as she looked to see the three Medium Cruisers flying parallel to the Great Fox, opening fire with their broadside cannons.

Suddenly the center cruiser's main guns lit up now, and once more fired into Great Fox, but this time targeting her heavy guns and medium guns. This time the Shield did 'not' protect the ship, and the obviously kinetic rounds from the cruiser broke into and damaged the guns.

"Arthur!" She screamed as she saw Great Fox's guns lit up and smoking, trails of fire lighting up the space around them before the emergency containment fields were initialized to snuff them out, preventing further damage.

Aboard Great Fox Arthur shuttered with his ship as the entire vessel was rocked by the blast. He could 'hear' his ship coming under heavy assault. "What hit us?"

[The enemy flagship is using Kinetic Missile rounds to penetrate the shields and damage us directly. Our main hull can withstand the impact, but our exposed main weaponry is being targeted and damaged. Secondary shields are holding, primary shielding has dropped to thirty seven percent of capacity, we have lost two of our eleven-meter heavy cruiser class gun batteries on the port side!] Great Fox warned him.

"Target those cruisers with the remaining port guns, open fire!" He ordered.

[Targeting... firing guns.] Great Fox responded, and he watched as she landed several direct hits. [They have taken minor damage to their shielding; we are having little impact with our guns at this range.]

The flagship responded in kind to his ship's returning fire, and unleashed another Kinetic Missile Round, blasting into the side of his ship with a powerful blast that shook the ship.

[We have lost another of our heavy cruiser guns, if we lose too many, we will be unable to defend ourselves from the port side.]

Trishula stared in horror as Great Fox returned fire, blasting the cruisers with its mighty guns, but at this range the Heavy Cruiser Plasma batteries weren't penetrating the shields.

"Grr... Yumi, can you analyze those cruisers. Why aren't the Great Fox's heavy cruiser cannons dealing any damage to them?" She said as she pulled up Yumi on her HUD.

"One second ma'am... we just finished off the last of the bombers... give me a moment... uuuh..." Yumi said as she began typing rapidly on her starfighter's console. "Alright, I've got it! Those are Goliath-Tera class Medium Cruisers; they seem to be outfitted with heavy station level shield generators. The same that Great Fox uses, only difference, theirs are 'fresh' compared to the weakened ones Great Fox has! At such long range they are dissipating most of the damage from the plasma cannons!"

"Not only are they fresh and fully charged compared to Great Fox, they seem to be the latest models, the ones Great Fox has are about ten or so years old!" Katarra complained.

Suddenly the Great Fox's AFB gun batteries began lighting up the space around it again, and once more starfighters were being destroyed and shot down. The remaining Cargo Liners began to change formation and relocate themselves to the starboard side, away from the cruisers as they began to leave the debris field. As for the cruisers, they all readied their guns and open fired once more, with the flagship firing another of its kinetic missile rounds and slamming into Great Fox's side, silencing another of its Heavy Cruiser turrets. Great Fox retaliated, but with four of its guns shut off, its responding cries to the incoming damage were becoming less and less.

"They're disarming Great Fox one tooth at a time!" Vanessa snarled as she took up position with Trishula along with the other two. "She won't last long if that flagship keeps tearing into her!"

"If we could bring those shields down, then Great Fox could easily blast them away!" Katarra said now. "But with such heavy shielding, even if we fired all of our bombs together, we wouldn't break down the shielding of 'one' of their cruisers, let alone all three!"

[Then it's a good thing I have just the tool for this situation!] Arthur said over the HUDs. [Ladies, come back to the ship and dock!]

"Dock, in this situation?" Trishula asked in confusion.

[Don't worry about the fighters, Great Fox can handle them, they're more of a nuisance now compared to those Medium Cruisers.] He said, but he shook in the bridge chair as Great Fox was hammered again, and another of her guns were silenced. [Please do so 'preferably' while I still have 'guns' to fire on the port side!]

She nodded and steered toward the warship again, as the Great Fox continuously returned fire, using her remaining guns to let their attackers know she still had fangs and would not be silenced so easily. Even as she pulled into the Hanger's docking bay, the ship shuddered as it was struck once more, lights flickering as the shields absorbed what damage they could and another of her fangs were struck down.

"Alright what's the plan?" Vanessa asked as they docked and were now nested.

[You're going to enjoy these new toys ladies... this should help us with those cruisers now that we've considerably thinned out their starfighter count!] Arthur said.

From above and below, multiple reached and began splitting up and breaking off the modular attachments to their Arwings, including the wings, leaving them in starfighters that were nothing more than cockpits attached to engines. Then as their old equipment was detached and extracted, new modular attachments were lowered and began to be slipped onto their fighters.

"Whoa... talk about 'wing span'." Yumi muttered.

Trishula was in agreement, while their old wings made their Arwings look longer than they were, these new wings were not only three times as long and twice as thick, but also came equipped with heavy duty space-faring torpedoes each tipped with a 'Bomb' warhead. As the wings were attached, new modular attachments were also placed on either side of her cockpit and attached to the fighter as a whole. She saw that instead of the angular 'Plasma Gun Turret' attachments her usual setup had, these looked to be miniature shield generators that bore a similarity to the ones that the Great Fox had attached to its outer hull. She saw that two were placed on either side of the cockpit, and behind her she saw that a raised platform was also attached, connecting the two modules, and from it extended a rear facing turbolaser turret.

[Modular attachment completed, uploading new Bottlenose-D-Zentra Fighter programming parameters.] Great Fox declared over their individual comms. [Uploading... checking for errors... all checks completed... upload completed, initiating 'Arwing Starbomber' flight mode!]

Her computers began to rapidly initiate all of the new programs it was to follow, and as it was all done, she saw it welcome her back, but now it was no longer 'Arwing Starfighter Three' it instead labeled itself as 'Arwing Starbomber Three'.

"I didn't know these things could turn into 'bombers'." She said in amazement as her engines began to roar into life while the ship rotated them out to get them ready to fly again.

"I told you; the Dylerian-Centro VG-1 Bost Beta Multi-Modular Bottlenose-D-Zentra Fighters are capable of a multitude of modular attachments!" Yumi squealed excitedly. "The only limitation is the imagination of whoever can come up with modules for the fighter!"

[And since you have the 'designer' of the fighter, it's safe to say 'my' imagination exceeds others!] Kiandra said with a giggle as she now appeared on Trishula's screen. [Enjoy the flight ladies, these babies are equipped with Black-Hole Eclipse bomber class shield generators. They can charge head long into a full barrage from AFB gun batteries and not even bat an eye! And as for armaments, each one fields an auto-gun that locks onto potential bogeys to serve as anti-fighter cannons, and carry a payload of six Shield Piercing kinetic warheads, they won't trigger on 'anything' besides ship hulls.]

"Tell me you're into girls." Vanessa cackled as she looked at her new toys.

[Save the ship and we can talk later!] Kiandra laughed before she shut off her comms.

"Alright ladies, all systems show green?" She asked as she did a final systems check.

"All systems green, ready to fly!" Katarra declared.

"Engines hot, payloads armed, shields at full, cockpit locked and secured, all systems are green as the grass on Belga Uno!" Yumi called out.

"Green, now let's go already!" Vanessa shouted.

"Arwing Starbombers, LAUNCH!" Trishula shouted as she pushed her ship controls forward.

All the bombers surged forward, but unlike their 'starfighter' forms, the bomber variant of their Arwings more 'lumbered' out of the hanger bay like a groggy Belgan waking up and getting out of bed after a rough night. They surged into space and slowly turned over and away from the Great Fox, even as around them space became filled with constant explosions and tracer fire. They turned and pushed toward the pirate cruisers, just as they opened fired on the Great Fox once more, the flagship firing its main cannon and blasting one of Great Fox's heavy cruiser guns, disabling the mighty ship's weaponry even further, weakening its defiant strikes by another lost gun.

Trishula stared in dismay at the numerous destroyed cannons, many of them damaged and broken, their powerful weapons silenced, the beautiful ship scarred from this voyage through the Hyperspace Lane. Yet still, it responded with a defiant, almost unflinchingly defiant roar as its remaining Port Guns continued to fire blast after blast of plasma rounds.

"Alright ma'am, what are the targets?" Vanessa asked.

"Well Katarra?" Trishula asked.

"Great Fox's guns can easily shred those cruisers, but as long they have shields, they'll never get penetrated. So, our primary target should be the shield generators attached to the cruisers. So where are they Yumi?"

"Uh gimme a second... one moment!" Yumi stuttered as she rapidly analyzed the ships. "There, they're located right above the main cannons of each of the cruisers! A direct hit will knock out their shields and leave them exposed!"

"Alright you heard her, everyone focus your fire on those shield generators. Katarra, you take the left most cruiser. Yumi, you're on the right most cruiser. Vanessa, you're with me, we're aiming for the flagship!" She ordered as the cruisers opened fire again.

"Roger!"

They all sped forward, or as 'speedy' as the bomber mode of the Arwings could go, but still they sped onward toward their new targets the Medium Cruisers. As they neared their targets they split up and began to pick up on the open comm frequency of the space pirates.

[We have four bomber class ships heading toward us!]

[What, bombers... when did they get bombers?]

[All AFB gun batteries, target down those bombers, we can't let up on the pressure on that ship!]

[Call all of the unmanned fighters back, bring those bombers down!]

Trishula almost laughed, now all of a sudden, she and her squadron had the entire remaining armada of starfighters and these three cruisers' attention. She saw multiple starfighters on her radar veer away from the Great Fox, leaving barely any left to annoy the warship. She could see multiple plasma bolts firing at her from behind, and thus she activated her anti-fighter gun battery to deal with them. It rotated and began target locking multiple fighters, firing a steady stream of plasma bolts and slowly knocking them out of space one by one. As for the cruisers, as they drew within firing range, they unleashed their multiple AFB Gun batteries upon her and her squadron.

*Ting, dng ding doong don*

Yet just as Kiandra said, their shield generators absorbed the blasts with little to no trouble. She barely felt them put a dent into her ship as several bursts ignited the shields.

"These things may be slow, but they can sure take a beating!" Trishula commented as she kept her ship on course.

"Hah, that didn't even scratch me!" Yumi laughed.

"These fighters put our old ones to shame, we would 'never' have even dared approach a corvette without a gameplan, now we're running headlong into AFB Gun batteries on medium cruisers without even flinching." Vanessa agreed.

"All Arwings lock onto your targets, we're approaching the target zone!" Katarra called out.

"Coming into range..." Trishula said as a targeting visor extended and slid in front of her eyes, allowing her to focus the payloads she was carrying and target the shield generators. "Locking on target... neeearly there!"

[They're not stopping!] One of the pirate ships called out.

[FIRE, FIRE, DON'T LET THEM THROUGH!]

The intensity of the fire coming at them increased, as all of their guns focused fire onto the bombers, yet still their shields held and withstood the onslaught.

"Almost in range... just a little closer..." She called out as her targeting computer homed in on the shield generator. "Three... two... 'one'..."

The targeting retinal of her systems turned green and zeroed in on the target.

"FIRE!"

"Payload's away!" Yumi called out as all four of them simultaneously released their torpedoes and veered off.

Everyone except Trishula who homed in on another target, waited only a few moments for her systems to lock in on it, and then 'fired' another torpedo.

She watched as she veered off now as five streams of plasma signaled where their torpedos were and where they were going. Moments after being launched with the AFB guns now desperately trying to shoot down the missiles, and failing, they slammed into and exploded onto the shield generators. As for her 'second' missile, it connected with the main gun that had been bruising and battering the Great Fox the entire time, resulting in the gun exploding in a massive ball of fire as it was reduced to a pile of scrap.

"Direct Hits, the shields are down!" Vanessa called out.

"Great Fox, target those ships, open fire!" Arthur ordered.

[As you wish Captain.] She responded warmly, and three simultaneous bursts sounded from within the ship as three of his remaining port side Heavy Cruiser Cannons fired. The shots slammed into the now unshielded cruisers and after this 'final' volley, all three vessels exploded simultaneously.

"Wooohoooo!" Yumi cheered.

"How is Great Fox?" Trishula asked as she and the others turned back to the vessel.

She observed as the remaining starfighters were now attempting to flee, but the ship's AFB gun batteries were having 'none' of that. Each of the turrets trained their weapon's fire and shot down any remaining starfighters still engaged, by the time they were halfway back, all of the starfighters were destroyed.

"Looks like she got the last of the pirate scum." Vanessa told them proudly.

"The debris field is clearing up now." Trishula said as she looked around and saw mostly empty space.

"Looks like we survived ladies... congratulations, we did our job well."

"We lost two of the Cargo Liners, but at least we saved the other ten." Yumi said sadly.

"Hey, I can see the Transwarp Gate now!" Katarra called out.

She looked forward and saw the gate as well, a large circular platform that had a swirling vortex of condensed Transwarp Space contained within its narrow pocket. The only reason the space was observable was because of the gate. She breathed a sigh of relief; they had run through the gauntlet of the pirate ambush... and were now almost home free.

Then the gate lit up, and they all saw as a shapeshifting 'mass' began to form in the center of the gate. Suddenly, from nowhere, a 'MASSIVE' vessel flew out of Transwarp Space and was flung into normal space, decelerating rapidly and moving 'slowly' away from the gate. The ship was over eight hundred and twenty meters long, two hundred and seventy-five meters wide, nearly two hundred meters tall with a towering command structure at the rear that stood taller than the rest of the vessel at nearly three hundred meters. Along its blocklike structure were multiple turbolaser batteries, heavy cruiser class guns, a dozen Titan Class Battleship Cannons, and multiple AFB gun batteries both on its upper and lower sides, with a single fifteen-meter-long Kinetic Beam Cannon. Upon entering normal space, all of the guns began to rotate and cock themselves as if reloading for battle and they began to individually turn to point towards Great Fox while the AFB batteries turned to track the Arwings. At the same time multiple floodlights began to light up the ship's surface, revealing along on one section of the hull, the name of the ship, [Vindicator].

"By the stars..." Trishula muttered in 'horror' as the monstrosity of a vessel soared toward Great Fox.

"What... is 'that'..." Vanessa whispered in shock.

"It's... it's an... it's a Dylerian Ikaruga-Central KP-VGX Imperator Class Dreadnaught..." Yumi said with a hoarse voice, as if astonished to be even 'seeing' this thing. "There's only a 'thousand' of those in the galaxy... and they're only permitted to be captained by Freelance Captains."

"That thing puts a 'battleship' to shame... that much firepower puts it into a league of its own..." Katarra muttered in fear.

Trishula gulped in fear as the two ships began to slowly approach one another. She could see that Arthur had spotted the ship and had signaled the fleet to change formation once more, rotating all ten of the remaining Cargo Vessels to the other side so that the gun batteries on the starboard side were now able to get a target lock onto the dreadnaught. But even she knew deep down, that there was no way Great Fox could survive an attack from that monster. It was already wounded, its shields were depleted, its weapons were drained, they were all exhausted just from the pirates. And now they had to potentially 'fight' a Dreadnaught? Her squadron were good, but against that... they would be torn apart, the AFB gun batteries on the Dreadnaught were twice as numerous as the ones on Great Fox. They'd just gotten through an entire armada of pirates, what hope did they have against a Dreadnaught?

"Girls... get ready to engage, Yumi find a weak point for-"

=Do. Not. Move.=

She looked down to see that Arthur was talking to them, not through the comms, but through a text system on her ship's console.

=Repeat. Do. Not. Move to engage!=

=Maintain your parallel heading with Great Fox=

She nodded and kept her course, watching as the two ships began to slowly cross paths. She stared as the gun batteries aboard the Dreadnaught slowly rotated and aimed at Great Fox, and Great Fox in turn rotated its gun batteries to aim at the Dreadnaught. They were like two Kelandra Sea Sharks, both bordering each other's territorial hunting grounds, each an alpha predator in their own right and now looking for 'any' reason to attack the other for even 'daring' to get this close to their border.

Soon both ships were now parallel to one another, still taking aim and still not firing, but the air in Trishula's cockpit was intense. She could just 'feel' that the tension was mounting, any moment... for any reason, at any second, either ship was going to just open fire and it would be an all-out brawl between these two warships. The only benefit Great Fox had was that the Dreadnaught was flying on the starboard side, where her gun batteries were still intact.

"Girls... pay attention to your consoles, the Captain of the Dreadnaught has opened a private channel with Captain Arthur and Great Fox." Yumi whispered quietly.

She looked down to see that a private comm frequency was established, in the same text format that Arthur used to talk to them.

[V: Nice Ship... Dylerian Finback?]

[GF: Thank you... And yes, it is.]

[V: Nice. Had some fun I take it?]

[GF: You could say that...]

[V: Well, at least the other end is clear for you. You can thank me for that...]

[GF: Thank you, it will... save me the ammo.]

[V: Take it you're on a mission?]

[GF: Yes...]

[V: Okay, good luck.]

After a few seconds both ships had their guns return to their neutral positions, with Great Fox initiating 'Low Profile Mode', and even the Dreadnaught enabling its own 'Low Profile Mode'. Both began to pull their guns back into their hulls and eventually took on the look of massive and harmless cargo liners. With that both ships passed by harmlessly and without further incident.

She breathed a sigh of relief; her heart was pounding like there was no tomorrow. Seeing another Freelance Captain's ship terrified her, that Dreadnaught was the polar opposite in terms of feeling she felt from seeing it when compared to Great Fox. Arthur's ship had given her a feeling of wonder, awe, and a sense of beauty and art as it sat before her the first time. All she had wanted to see was the ship in its glory in flight when they first took off from Belga Cinco.

The Dreadnaught on the other hand, with its numerous gun batteries primed and ready, it's terrifying silhouette as it emerged from Transwarp Speed into the Hyperspace Lane, turrets trained on the 'first' ship it saw and only paying a courtesy call before flying away, terrified her to the core. She had a suspicion that if the two ships were at full strength, Great Fox would not come out of it without massive damage, if it came out of the encounter at all. They were just fortunate that both captains simply waved each other down, before minding their own businesses.

"All Arwings check in..."

"Hoooh... I need a stiff drink after this." Yumi moaned tiredly.

"Forget a drink, give me a bath, a hot shower, 'and' a drink all in one." Katarra complained.

"Huugh... I feel like I want to get laid after that moment." Vanessa groaned. "First, we get ambushed by pirates, then we're tangoing with three medium cruisers, and 'then' we see an Imperator Class Dreadnaught? I'll give our captain this, this certainly is more exciting than guarding a transport carrying a bunch of farming equipment from Belga Dos to Belga Tres."

Trishula agreed, she could see the engine trails of the Dreadnaught behind them as they turned into the Great Fox Hanger Bay, and she was just glad that there seemed to be some kind of 'honor system' among the Freelance Captains where they don't just automatically shoot each other at first sight. She'd heard rumors that Freelance Captains often just fired blindly at other Freelance Captain ships for the 'slightest' reason. The stories went that some of the biggest conflicts and battlefields happened because two groups of Freelance Captains just decided, for whatever reason, to have an all-out battle in the middle of space between their ships. She did not want to play with that monstrosity of a ship after seeing how heavily armed it was.

Up in the bridge with Arthur who was breathing heavily in his seat as he carefully talked to another Freelance Captain and managed to talk his way out of a potential confrontation. He had a suspicion that 'Freelance Captains' were akin to that of players in the game he once played that this world seemed to have been based on, meaning whoever that was that captained that Dreadnaught, was of the elite group of captains, permitted to pilot limited quantity custom starships. He was also glad that this captain didn't seem to be keen on fighting him as much as he was keen on not fighting them.

His ship's shields were already down to twenty-two percent, his port guns were severely damaged, and his AFB gun batteries needed to cool down and rearm. Meanwhile that Dreadnaught seemed to have roughly 'full' shields, full armaments, and more importantly no escort of cargo liners it needed to protect at all cost for a mission.

"Great Fox... I think we dodged a bullet there."

[How so?] She asked politely.

"We would 'not' have survived a broadside from that dreadnaught if it wanted to fight. We would have been lucky to escape with our lives..."

[After analyzing their weapon capabilities... I believe you are correct. It was fortunate their ship AI was told to communicate with me first, before you and the other captain spoke. I was able to transmit our mission details, so they knew we were on a relief mission to the Guntara sector.] She said. [Given... this is not our first encounter with a Dreadnaught Class ship... but at least this time it was... 'peaceful'.]

He sighed as he nodded in agreement. "I think the last time we saw one, it instantly turned and open fired with its Titan Class Turrets for a full broadside, for no other reason than because we were working for different factions while at war and we just so 'happened' to cross paths. Give me a damage report."

[As you wish... Heavy Cruiser guns Two, six, seven, nine, five, ten and four took heavy damage and are now inoperable. We have replacement parts to get them back into working order stored aboard the ship, but while the repairs are being done, our port side will be severely reduced in terms of firepower. Shields are currently at one hundred percent of capacity while in Low Profile Mode, but generators one through ten are currently initiating a full recharge cycle. Our AFB gun turrets will need to be given a maintenance cycle as they suffered from overheating due to continuous usage. We expended over fifty thousand rounds of plasma cartridges, and fired one hundred plasma shells from the heavy guns firing upon the medium cruisers. I regret to report that we have lost 'two' of our original twelve Ignarus Class cargo liners from the convoy, and thus we will be fined two hundred thousand MPC from our potential prize for completing the mission of Two million, four hundred and fifty thousand MPC, if we had lost none of the transports. As such, now our potential best reward will be two million, one hundred and fifty thousand, due to the two hundred thousand fine and one hundred thousand loss due to two cargo liners being destroyed.]

He sighed as he held his face, all of that math hurt him more than seeing the damage done to his ship.

"Can you establish the autopilot for me Great Fox?" He muttered in exhaustion. "The last two hours have left me... completely and utterly spent mentally."

[Of course, Captain...] She replied warmly, and moments later he saw a holographic window appear which showed her plotting a course to the Transwarp Gate at low speeds. [Done, autopilot engaged... we will arrive at the gate shortly, I estimate in thirty minutes we will be given clearance to enter Transwarp Speed to head to the Guntara sector.]

He nodded and just sat in his chair, eyes closed as he just took a moment to calm himself after the chaos of the Hyperspace Lane battle, and then having to stare down a Dreadnaught that he wasn't sure was going to attack him or leave him be. But the thing eating him the most, was the fact that he let his ship take so much unnecessary damage. He remembered his pilots telling him about the three cruisers earlier. He should have paid more attention to them once they were spotted, and tried to scan their weapon systems instead of focusing purely on the fighters and bombers.

That was 'not' a mistake he could let himself make in the future if they came under attack again. Today they got lucky, thanks to the fact that his ship's hull was sturdy and didn't budge against their weapons, and that his shields had been so strong. He was also lucky that he had the bomber modular upgrade for his starfighters, without them, his ship would have struggled the longer the fight went on.

"Great Fox... I'm sorry."

[For what?] She replied in a confused tone.

"I let you take more damage than you should have... I wasn't paying attention to their cruisers, If I had, you could have scanned them and told me what weapons they had. Then I could have prepared Trishula's fighters faster so they could have gone on a bombing run before they had the chance to engage us."

Great Fox was silent as she listened to his statement, and her reply was shortcoming, but come it did. [Captain... you are not to be blamed. You are... at the end of the day... a Terran, a biological 'Terran'. You are... only 'human' as you would say. I at no point, an artificial construct with sixty trillion more active neuronets then your human brain has active neurons and brain cells... paid any more attention to those cruisers, then you did.]

He looked to her giant AI brain down below him as she spoke to him, consoling him.

[Their ships only fully registered to my scans upon leaving the debris field, by that point they had a full weapon's lock. All of my targeting systems and scans, and neuronet focus was directed towards the multitude of starfighters and bombers attacking us, the AFB gun batteries, and constantly reloading and arming our weapons. I was no more focused on the cruisers then you were.] She told him in an apologetic tone. [However, I am grateful to know you care about my status so much. It is... appreciated, is the best use of the word to describe it. And though we were ambushed and suffered considerable damage... it is nothing we cannot fix, and more importantly, the convoy is still intact. We have succeeded in our first part of the mission.]

He took a comforting smile from his ship's words, regardless of how he felt about himself his ship still had confidence in him it seemed. And more importantly it seemed, it was grateful that he was thinking about its own health.

[Captain, I suggest you go eat dinner and then get an early night's rest.] His ship informed him. [During that encounter, Mevik was making dinner and has informed me that it will soon be served. As you did not eat Lunch, and you most certainly missed breakfast because you slept in from staying up too late, you need something in your systems. You cannot survive on raw Galemite Liquid Fuel, like this ship. Nor can you operate twenty-four seven without a loss in critical thinking skills like I am able to. Once we enter the Transwarp Gate and are at Transwarp Speeds, we will be completely safe from potential attack until we exit, and according to the Dreadnaught Captain, he cleared out another Pirate Ambush on the other side of the gate, so the risk is next to zero percent in terms of an attack. Therefore I 'highly' suggest you eat, and rest... I assure you; I will monitor our position constantly and alert you at the first sign of trouble.]

He nodded as he got up and stretched, dinner sounded 'really' nice now that he was noticing how hungry he was. That and getting a good night's rest also sounded nice. Exiting the bridge, he made his way to his private dining room, where he sat alone and ate the food that Mevik had left him. Apparently, everyone else was in the mess hall taking drinks and playing a game of cards to help lighten the atmosphere, with Mevik saying he opened his 'bar' early that night due to how stressed everyone was about being attacked.

After eating he just put his stuff into the slot that took his dirty dishes to get them cleaned, and then made his way to his quarters to sleep early. As he climbed into bed he leaned 'heavily' into his pillow to rest, but before he could fall asleep, he heard his bedroom door open and opened his eyes to see Trishula walk in wearing only her panties and bra.

"Trishula?" He asked as he slowly got up, but she shook her head and went over to his bed, lifted the blankets and slowly climbed in.

"Great Fox... advised me, in her words, that I should come to bed early with you to make sure you stayed asleep tonight." She said warmly, cuddling up to him and planting a sweet kiss on his cheek. "No getting up, nothing fancy... just you, and me in bed... and enjoying a wonderful night's sleep."

He nodded and held her close to him, causing her to coo in pleasure as she leaned into his body, her soft fur tickling his skin.

"Well, we made it through Captain..." She told him softly.

"That we did... I was not expecting so many pirates to be lying in wait for us..." He agreed in just as quiet a tone. "Sadly, we lost two of our Cargo Liners..."

"Yea... we did our best but... there were just too many pirates... but at least we saved the other ten, so our mission can still succeed." She whispered quietly. "This was my first time... defending such a powerful ship, and such precious cargo, same with my squadron. We... we weren't expecting such a response or... see so much that we saw over the last two hours. My girls were... well mostly Yumi and Katarra, they were drinking heavily, trying to drown away their fears. They were so terrified of failing... I know you have faith in us but... we're still just C rank pilots."

"Trishula... I picked you for a reason... your experienced pilots, and more importantly I think you care about my ship almost as much as I do now." He told her sternly. "If I just wanted someone who would do the job for the right price, I would do as you said, hire some A or S rank, or even a B rank pilot. Heck, even Great Fox suggested that I look for a much higher rank group of pilots."

He turned to see her face as she looked into his eyes.

"But I know I made the right choice... you girls were worried for my ship... you wanted to protect it, not just because its where you live and work now, but because... its home to you now. That's what I view my ship as... she's not just some metal hull that flies through space, has guns and burns fuel to move. She's home... and I wanted a crew who would treat her as such, your uncle Tony was perfect, Mevik was amazing as a cook but he also admired my ship as much as I did when I first saw her, and Kiandra saw her creation as if it were her own child. As for you and your fellow pilots, well... the fact you were worried about Great Fox the entire time she was defending herself from over a hundred starfighters, proved I was right to bring you on board. That's all the proof I need."

"Arthur..." She whispered warmly, before she smiled and gave him a loving, drawn out kiss on his lips. "Then... as your ace pilot, I won't let anything bad happen to our home now, not while I have a starfighter to fly, and a captain to spend each night with."

So, with that, the two of them snuggled into each other's embrace before they finally closed their eyes and began to fall into a deep and undisturbed sleep. All the time they slept Great Fox watched them with the camera planted in the room, its focus zooming in on Arthur's face and taking note of how peaceful it was. While it waited for the final confirmation to enter Transwarp Speed, it played a soft, soothing music that would help stimulate a peaceful night's dream state.

Her last words, before she entered the gate were... [Pleasant Dreams... Captain.] before she was granted permission, and activated her Transwarp Shields, and finally entered Transwarp Speed to pass through the gate from the Hyperspace Lane and then the Guntara System.

The next day after he woke up with a semi-nude Trishula in his arms, Arthur went and cleaned himself up in the bathroom. While in the bathroom he saw that they had since exited Transwarp Space and returned to normal space, and they were now on the other side in the Guntara Sector. Great Fox even gave him a status update to confirm his thoughts.

[We are now on course to Aquavram Prime, the autopilot has locked in our course and we have since resumed our journey to our primary destination. We will pass by Guntara Trifecta within a few hours, after that it is a six-day journey until we reach Aquavram Prime.]

"Six days?" He asked while taking a shower. "Great Fox, we can't afford six days, the Aquavrams need these supplies now. Can we do anything to pick up the pace?"

[We can decrease the time if we increase our engine output.] She reported. [As you know, while we are in Low Profile Mode, we reduce all energy consumption output by a large magnitude to save on fuel and energy. At our current speed we are consuming a third of the fuel we would normally expend while High Profile Mode is engaged. As such, we could increase our engine output and thus reduce our travel time, but we would increase our fuel consumption, by my estimate of thirty percent if we do not increase any other systems energy consumption while maintaining Low Profile Mode and maintaining our pace with the convoy. However, you will need to go to the bridge to increase our engine speed manually, as Low Profile Mode won't permit any automated changes while the autopilot is also engaged.]

"Got it." He said as he finished his shower.

After he left he put on his uniform while Trishula still slept in his bed, a relaxed and content look on her face as she still had her arms placed where he had been sleeping before. "Trishula, Trishula its time to get up..." He asked gently, trying to get her up.

"Mhmmm not tonight... I want to stay in bed..." She moaned quietly, turning over and falling into a sleep.

He chuckled and decided to let her sleep in this morning, but as he left, he said, "Great Fox, please alert her when she wakes up that I apologize for not being there to say good morning, but I needed to go back to my duties as Captain."

[As you wish, is there anything else you would like me to inform her of or say to her when she wakes up?] His ship asked him.

"Yea, tell her... that I said she looked cute when I saw her this morning holding onto me."

[Very well... I will make sure to tell her that when she wakes up.]

He nodded and went to the bridge to initiate the procedure for his ship's engines so they could move faster. He entered the bridge and sat down, bringing up the window and logging himself in before he pulled up the Low to High Profile Mode window. He switched off the autopilot then accessed his ship's engines to push their output to the 'listed' speed Great Fox wanted him to set it at, he then extended the strength of the radar so Great Fox would have a greater scanning range then before, when he and she were caught off guard by a lite pirate raid on their way to Belga Cinco, and then finally saving the settings before resuming the autopilot's control over the ship, maintaining its Low Profile Mode status for everything else but the engines and radar.

Once that was done, he saw that the fuel expenditures were going to be increased by thirty percent as Great Fox calculated. But their engine output at least was higher than it was before, so they were now cruising at maximum speed as far as the transports could manage. He didn't notice the subtle change in his ship's speed, but he sure felt it ever so slightly.

"Alright, what's our estimated time now to Aquavram Prime.

[It will take us four days to reach Aquavram Prime at maximum possible speed, unless we wish to abandon the transports and leave them exposed to travel alone, which I would not recommend seeing as our mission requires us to protect at least four of them.]

He nodded and got up again, this time heading to get breakfast. Sitting in his private dining room, he was reading up on 'Dreadnaught' class ships, having seen that one ship in the Hyperspace Lane made him curious about them, as that was the 'second' Dreadnaught he'd seen since waking up, the first time was when he saw one taking off from Belga Cinco his first-time landing.

"Dreadnaught Class, a special classification of ship..." He said as he ate his breakfast consisting of fluffy belmoon hotcakes with marbeltree syrup, a side scrambled Tingwood bird eggs, and sizzled slices of tarpal meat that resembled 'bacon'. "The ships of Dreadnaught Class are a stronger variant of the more common Battleship Class, but due to their expensive nature, regarding how heavily shielded, armored, and armed they are, are a special classification of ship that is only granted to Freelance Captains. Due to how slow they are to build and how expensive they are to maintain, only Freelance Captains have the funds to purchase them. Most Dreadnaughts are attached to the major factions controlling sectors of the known galaxy, and about only four percent are known to travel the hyperspace lanes carrying out missions."

"While they are allowed to take on missions, as all Freelance Captains are permitted, the ninety-four percent of captains who run these Dreadnaught class vessels choose only to engage in military conflicts. They are funded almost entirely by the major factions. It is generally accepted that Dreadnaught Captains do not engage in non-priority military entanglements, due to how expensive it is to replace a single Dreadnaught. The cheapest Dreadnaught Class vessel costs almost sixty trillion MPC to replace." He read out loud as he took another bite. "Damn... sixty 'trillion'... I can't even 'think' of a number that high."

He was slow to eat his breakfast, just thinking of how expensive a dreadnaught was made him think back to when he 'first' purchased Great Fox in her base hull. No armaments, no modules, no upgrades, nothing, just a ship, the cargo space, the engines, the basics of a Finback Battleship class hull. It cost him four hundred million MPC, a year of grinding and saving and even selling his old ship he was using to afford her. Obviously after years inflation occurred, so four hundred million was pocket change to some of the smallest 'guru captains' of the galaxy, the last he checked even a mid-tier Titan Class battleship was about three hundred 'Brillion' on average to produce.

"Great Fox, do you remember how much I paid for you when we first met?" He asked curiously.

[Of course, my sale price at the time of purchase was four hundred million Multi Planetary Credits. This did not include my numerous upgrades, modules, shield upgrades, and gun battery purchases you made over the years.] She replied warmly. [Would you like me to bring up a list of every purchase you made to me since?]

"No, I'm more curious how much you would cost now, on the current market? With all your gun armaments, shields, engines, everything." He asked her.

[Calculating... it would cost you twenty-two trillion MPC based on the current market price due to inflation and how many ships are constantly destroyed on the galactic scale due to constant fighting skirmishes and outbreaks of all-out war between the various factions that rule known space.] She told him.

He dropped his fork on the floor at those words, he could not 'believe' how expensive his ship has become over the years. Back when he first paid for her, four hundred million was a HUGE amount, and he could only afford to purchase the bare-bone skeleton of his dream ship. No guns, no modules, nothing but the ship. It wasn't until a year later that he started making enough money to purchase the starfighters so he had something in his hanger, and from there he'd begun purchasing turrets, gun batteries, various upgrades over the years to make her stronger and stronger.

[I... take it you are... disheartened by how expensive I am?] She asked in a 'hesitant' tone, as if she had said something bad. [I understand your shock to how expensive I am may be... high... but, if it explains your fear, I do more tasks then other 'streamlined' types of ship models on the market. While a Titan Class Battleship, whose primary guns this ship uses as its own for its main cannons, has a going price of three hundred billion MPC, it is purely used for combat duties... it cannot house starfighters, or transport over three hundred thousand metric tons of cargo without heavily increased fuel usage, and even then, it cannot even carry a fraction of it, nor does it carry the variety of armaments this ship can wield thanks to modular attachments.]

"No... I'm... stunned, when I first purchased you, it was... it was a lot back then but... now it's like 'pocket change' compared to how expensive you are now." He said quietly as he picked up his fork again. "I guess... taking risk-free easy jobs is out of the picture now, because of how expensive you are to maintain, and how much I've spent... now that I think about it, I need to take more lucrative jobs."

[As a Freelance Captain, you make money based on the commission request you accept. So, while it sounds like you make little compared to what a ship costs, these are the 'upfront' costs of a vessel. Most captains accept jobs and only receive a portion of the prize money offered to them in order to pay for their ships.] Great Fox told him softly. [Many Freelance Captains nowadays do not have a bank like yours, and purchase ships at a heavily reduced cost, with the rest of it being paid off through prize money from missions.]

He listened to his ship as she explained to him the 'finer details' of being a Freelance Captain that he was never aware of.

[As an example, unless they are financially backed by one of the major factions, most Freelance Captains start out with a Corvette class ship, and then work their way up to higher class ships. The cheapest Corvette is the Umaran Viper, which sits at six hundred million MPC. If a Freelance Captain has no bank account funds to make the full purchase, they still make the purchase but sign an AI contract which will track their mission details and funds. Each mission they fulfill and receive payment on, they will only keep a small percentage of the money and the rest goes to paying off the ship.] She told him warmly. [As such... you don't have this problem... you receive full payment of mission prize money, as you paid for me in 'full' when you first purchased me, the same with my various modules and upgrades. They have already been paid in full, so any prize money offered to you is yours to acquire.]

He breathed a sigh of relief, when he heard about how expensive his ship was nowadays, he figured she would be even 'more' expensive to maintain too. While that was still true, at least he realized that his decision to save up and purchase her up front after a year of grinding and working towards her sale price was the right one.

"Well, that's nice to hear."

[Indeed, so... if you had any thoughts about yourself compared to the Dreadnaught captain... while his ship may be... more 'powerful', it also costs three times what I cost. For all you know, he may barely make ten percent per job, with how much he has to pay toward it.]

He chuckled at that; his ship was trying to make itself look better by comparison by comparing its captain to him. "That and even though his ship was bigger and stronger, you are more beautiful than his was or could ever hope to be."

[I... approve of that... statement... very much.] She replied, but it was almost like she sounded embarrassed.

He had a feeling if his ship could portray the feeling, it would probably be blushing at his compliment. Moments after he returned to eating his breakfast his girlfriend Trishula walked into the room, a plate of food in her hands as she sat next to him and scooched closer to plant a friendly kiss on his cheek.

"Morning Arthur, sorry I missed you this morning." She told him.

"No problem, you were too cute this morning for me to wake up entirely." He told her which made her giggle.

They sat there in silence eating their breakfast, with Arthur trying to think of something to say to drum up conversation. They hadn't spent much time together since this voyage began as a couple, and until they reached Aquavram Prime and were safely able to deliver their cargo, they wouldn't be able to get much time to be themselves and not a Captain and his Ace Pilot.

"Say... Trishula, you mind if I ask you more about yourself?" He asked her.

"Of course, if you don't mind me asking more about you." She replied warmly.

"Well... what was your life like before... you know, before you became a fighter pilot and well before you ever met me?"

"Oh, well as I said when I first introduced myself to you, I'm a Purebred Belgan, born and raised on Belga Uno." She said as she leaned back to talk about herself. "While I grew up, I had two brothers, a mom and a dad, and life was pretty much about as standard as a family of five could be as far as Belgan society was concerned. It had its ups; it had its downs... but while my two brothers were always interested in pursuing dreams like becoming land owners or even entering politics, I always dreamed of the stars."

She smiled as she recalled her childhood for him. "I always dreamed of space travel, I would watch the starships fly by, the fighters zooming around, watch transports and cargo liners in the night sky landing and taking off whenever I had the chance. I'd try to memorize how many there were and what kind they were. I always wanted to become a pilot, because I always wanted to go into space!"

She then sighed and frowned as she poked her food, picking up some of her scrambled eggs and mixing them with the meat so she could eat them together. After chewing and swallowing she resumed her story.

"But my mother, nice as she was, as I also told you that night... she wanted me to get married to a Purebred Belgan and have a family. She was one of those 'Purebred Belgan Purists' who wanted to keep our bloodline and lineage as traditional and pure as possible. Oh yea, she was sweet to passersby, but at home... if we even 'thought' about dating or even being 'friends' with a non-purebred Belgan she would scold us and punish us. What was that, you like this one Mixed Belgan in class, that's one day with no computers. Oh, a Mixed Terran finally worked up the courage to ask you to prom night, you told him 'no' right?"

She shook her head in disbelief as she remembered so many boys trying to go out with her over the years but having to say 'no' because of her mother.

"She was so overbearing on us that even our dad couldn't stand being with her. He didn't mind 'who' we spent time with, or even if we found our special someone in a non-purebred Belgan or even if they weren't Belgan at all." She told him as she leaned against his shoulder and interlocked her fingers with his. "He told us every time, me especially because I was the daughter... that he didn't care who I found myself with. As long as... as long as they made me happy and I made them happy. I remember how one night, before he finally got fed up with mother and left... that he hopes each of us finds our other halves, the 'puzzle piece that fits ours', no matter who it is or what they are."

"So... after he left there was nobody to reign her in and she became even 'more' overbearing on us, she tried getting us into 'Purebred Schools', tried making sure we only looked at Purebred boys and girls. Ugh, she even tried to find us jobs that only 'Purebreds' were allowed or at least where only Purebreds mostly went. I got fed up with it and signed up for a Pilot's License course. The 'second' I got my license I boarded the first ship I could and entered the flight academy on Belgo Dos for training to become a Fighter Pilot, and 'never' looked back home."

"And then... after that, I met Katarra and we became besties while in the academy. We kept each other's backs, stayed friends and stayed together through everything. I eventually met Yumi and our duo became a trio as we neared graduation. Then... about after we graduated I... sort of 'bumped' into Vanessa while trying to find someone to hire us for our first job. She hooked us up with the military program that gave fresh graduates their first jobs, and we kind of kept her with our group and so we became a Squadron of four. She acted like our big sister because she's way older than the rest of us, and we sort of looked up to her as one as well... and well after that, things went sour for Trishula's Pack. We had our ups, our downs, but the downs kept stacking and stacking... until eventually... well they got into a bar fight one night while I was working on trying to find 'someone' to hire us and... you know the rest from there."

He nodded as he knew what happened there, he met her, and paid off her group's entire debt for them. He then remembered how she became his girlfriend, that 'ritual' she performed where she sealed herself to him even if it was only as a gesture.

"I... Trishula do you mind if I ask you something personal?" He asked nervously.

"You can ask me anything, I don't mind." She giggled as her tail wagged warmly.

"Well... that night we... you know..."

"Where we traded v-cards and my starport had its first starship landing?" She chuckled.

"Yea, I was... wondering, do you think we... might have 'rushed' our relationship?" He asked nervously, afraid to offend her or upset her, given this was his 'first' real girlfriend he'd ever had.

"Oh, you think its rushed?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, but her smile never changed.

"I mean... a 'little'... don't get me wrong I still love you and care for you and... I just... keep having this thought that maybe we should have taken it slower before jumping the gun and..." He said before she leaned onto his shoulder and sighed comfortingly.

"Yes... maybe we should have... I mean, we barely knew each other for more than six hours and then... well I jump into your bed and you land your starship into my starport." She told him softly. "But as I told you, with Belgan Custom its different then Terran. When I saw what kind of man you were, how you didn't even take me up on my offer that day, how you still 'respected' me as not only a girl but also a pilot, how you went out of your way to help my squadron, how you went and paid off our debt clean, hired us... gave us our new starfighters... I just 'felt' it... that feeling my father said he hopes we'd someday feel. When we found the other piece to our life puzzle. Remember, I said that... our hearts are one piece to a puzzle, and the picture is only truly complete, when we find the other piece that fits it perfectly, we would feel it. It may seem unusual, it may not make sense, and it probably seems rushed, but in my heart I just 'knew' your heart was the other half I was looking for and so I took a leap of faith and bound myself to you."

She raised her hand that she had bit to make her oath, as ancient a custom as it was, it still held 'some' significance to her species, even if it only was ever seen in movies and plays nowadays.

"Remember my Oath of Intertwined Hearts Arthur, that I made with you... Baracico, mandala harvelta! Mehnlachio al Bufantooonio, mehn bodeh un hartra bel soolva." She told him with a smile. "I bare to you, my heart in its whole. Male who has touched my spirit, I give freely my body and heart and soul. With this... I belong to you. I'll follow you and Great Fox for as long as I live. I meant every word, I love you... and that's all I need to know to feel happy right now."

"I... see." He muttered as he glanced at his own hand. "Uh... Trishula, about that custom, is it only supposed to be one sided, or... is the 'other' supposed to do it as well?"

"It's normally a duo that performs the custom yes, but since you are a Purebred Terran you wouldn't know about our customs." She said with a nod. "Why... do you, 'want' to perform it? You don't 'have' to perform it, I already have accepted your oath even if you never made it to me just by making love to me."

"Yea... but... I would still like to perform it for you, you know... for your sake and to show you I'm serious as well." He told her.

Trishula was a bit touched that he would do the same oath ceremony for her as she did for him, despite having 'no' knowledge of the custom, so with a nod she instructed him on how it was done and how it was performed. The words took him a few minutes to learn, and though they were rough when he recited them, having no knowledge of Native Belgan or how to speak it fluently or even roughly, he got the gist of it. After they finished eating breakfast and they put the trays away, she stood before him again and held his hand for him.

"Alright... ready Arthur?" She asked.

"Yea..."

"It'll sting... a lot... just bear with it alright?" She whispered as she put her teeth to his hand.

He nodded and braced himself as he felt her teeth poking his skin. Knowing this would hurt him a 'lot' more since it wasnt voluntarily being done to him, and he of course didn't have a layer of fur to lessen the force of her teeth, she had him wrap his other arm around her and told him to hold tight and use 'her' to ward off the pain. Once they were set, she counted down for them, and bit down, pushing her teeth through his flesh on his hand and piercing it, just enough to draw blood.

Arthur squinted in pain as he tightened his grip on her body, stomping his feet slightly as he tried to avoid flinging her away with all his willpower. Once she'd drawn blood she gave an apologetic lick to his wound, tasting the bloodied hand and lamenting she caused him pain. But the worst was done and past.

"Alright... now just as I did... rub the wound on your chest over your heart. You don't need to cover it, just enough so a mark is made." She told him as she lifted his shirt for him so she could see.

He nodded and slowly rubbed his chest over his heart, leaving a reddish stain over his skin where he wiped. Once that was done and she had seen the mark, she undid her vest and shirt, lifting it up so he could do the same for her heart now. He gently rubbed the space between and under her breast, before she giggled and pulled his hand to place it over her left breast, holding it there and winking at him.

"That's where my heart is, don't feel embarrassed... you've touched it before." She whispered.

"Yea I know but... I... didn't want to ruin how important this is to you and your people's customs." He told her.

She nodded in gratitude, before she took a deep sigh. "Alright, now recite the words... you can do it."

"Alright... sorry again if I butcher them." He told her to which she nodded. "Beracico... uh... mandala harvelta!" He began saying, trying to remember every word she helped him memorize. "Fehnlachio al Bufantoonio", meh bodeh un Hartra bel solva. With this... I belong to you."

She beamed as he spoke the words, sure he messed a few of them up, he didn't draw out the Bufantooonio as long as it was supposed to be, and he mispronounced Mehn and it sounded ever so incorrect, and the Solva wasn't as drawn out either, but for a first time Terran trying to speak native Belgan, it was a damn good first run. Plus, this wasn't about being accurate, it was just so she wasn't the only one doing the oath of intertwined hearts.

"With that..." She muttered as she gently pulled out some cleaning alcohol and bandaging, cleaning his wound and tying it up so it would heal, before putting them away and cleaning both their skins with the alcohol. "With that Arthur our puzzle pieces are perfectly fitted... the picture of our hearts... is truly complete!"

She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, in her mind the picture that was their hearts being together had already fit well, but now it was like they were a seamless whole, as if they just slotted together into a perfect shape with no distinct separation between them. They pulled away and she cooed into his embrace as they held each other, her tail wagging happily as he reached down with one hand to play with it, and it teasingly played hide and seek. Eventually he grabbed it and began to gently stroke it, and it wiggled in delight.

"I hope I make your father proud... I wish I could have met him and... properly introduced myself to tell him we're dating." He whispered to her. "At least your uncle Tony was happy with us."

"Mhmm... I think dad would have been delighted to know I found myself a boyfriend I loved, and just to spite mom he would taunt her saying, 'At least he's a Purebred' to her face." She whispered as well.

"Speaking of your mom... should I be afraid of her buying out a fleet of starfighters to come attack me if she finds out you're having my kid some day?"

She giggled in delight as she reached down and stroked his 'starship' with one hand. "Oh... your 'starfighters' are certainly up to the job of making 'mom' angry... and I think you have enough firepower with your Great Fox and Arwings to protect us... I think we'll be 'just' fine~"

"Trishula, as much as I would love to tour your starport... and trust me I do... I have to get back to my duties as Captain."

"Oh, can't we wait a bit longer, I never got to hear your story." She whined.

"Well... alright, you're right, it's not fair that you shared yours but I never shared mine." He said as he and she sat down again. "Well, where to start... I was born on a planet called... Earth."

"This was your old life?" She asked to confirm, to which he nodded. "Okay, because your home star system is the Terran system, and your people's home planet is Terra-3. I've never heard of a planet called 'Earth', the closest that I can think of is Earathra Four."

"Yea, well anyway as I was saying... I grew up on Earth on the North American continent, and I had two sisters, like you had two brothers." He explained as he recalled his childhood for her. "Like you, I always had a dream of going into space... but unlike you we hadn't advanced far in technology. We barely had a space station of 'any' kind like what you know in orbit. The 'International Space Station' as it was called only had 'seven' people at any time."

"Seven... that's... that's not even enough crew for a manned Cargo Liner!" She said in astonishment.

"Yea... like I said, we were making progress to getting into space but, we were basically 'alone' in the galaxy to our knowledge. We had orbiting satellites, but other than unmanned probes pushing out into space we had only a fraction of the knowledge of what is out there then what you know. We reached our moon, but that was the furthest we'd gone as far as manned expeditions were concerned. I always wanted to go into space... going into orbit, seeing the stars... but... well, dreams don't always come true."

He sighed as he remembered his school years, not the best but they were pretty good. "I had pretty average grades, and I had some pretty fond memories... but I was always a bit of a loner, rarely had the courage to talk to people. Even when I was in groups... I just stayed quiet because... well... I never had much to say or felt like what I'd say was important or worth saying. So, I kept quiet..."

She nodded in understanding, she'd been quiet at times herself, not wanting to say much... especially when her mother was around. "Honestly... just saying nothing, means you have something interesting to say sometimes, but you don't know if it's worth sharing."

"Yes... and it stayed that way, until I graduated and... tried to go to a higher school level. I had graduated with a... normal degree, the same degree everyone gets when... they don't know what they want to do in life. I had wanted to become an astronaut, to go into space... but that dream... pretty much died upon graduating high school. When I learned only... very select individuals, ever had the chance of becoming one. So, the closest I ever came... was playing a game where, I was a starship captain."

"Really, what was it like?" She asked, very intrigued.

"Well, pretty much like this only... I never visited planets themselves, talked to people, citizens, visited locations like cities and starports, walked streets, nothing. Just the planets, space... and that was about it." He told her. "Oh, I was soaring through the space ways, traveling the galaxy... a ship captain like others... and believe it or not... my ship was Great Fox."

"It was?" She said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes... every part of Great Fox you see now, well at least on the outside, was exactly what I built her up to be in the game, even the Arwings in her hanger. But... obviously it was a game to me... to millions of people who played it in their spare times. It was the closest I'd ever get to really traveling through space, so I enjoyed it to the best I could. But... I wasn't, I wasn't a real captain in my old life... I was a nobody. I worked two part time jobs, carrying drinks to people in heat up flights of stairs while the customers sat down and chugged beers, ate overpriced greasy food, and sometimes watched the game they were paying to watch, or changed a channel on a tv in front of them that was 'meant' to give them a closer view of the action, but would switch to something else entirely. I wasn't rich, not even close... I barely made enough to pay bills and enjoy my time away from work by playing the game."

He sighed as he shook his head, remembering his life, dull and mundane as it was, that was his routine.

"That was my life for years, wake up in the morning, check my schedule, play my game in the time I had before work, get dressed, walk to work, board a train, go to work, do the work, come back home, and either spend some time playing before going to bed or go to bed instantly to do the whole routine again. Day in, day out..."

"That... sounds... dull... no offense but it really sounds dull." Trishula muttered. "I mean, not dull as in 'bad' but just 'dull'... I know one Belgan who actually enjoys that lifestyle... he works at a store and says he finds it calm and quiet."

"Perhaps... but then one day... it all ended." He said as he recounted the day he 'died'. "I was just going through the same routine, I had done a bit of game time with Great Fox, and was just changing into my uniform to go to work. Then... as I was standing on the train station, a fight broke out... there... was this little girl who was pushed back and nobody else noticed her but me, not even her parents because they were all distracted. She fell, knocked back onto the tracks... and a train was on its way. She had only a few moments before she'd be run over."

"I just... acted, sheer instinct to protect a little girl's life, I ran forward, jumped off the platform and onto the rails, grabbed her, picked her up and threw her back onto the station to safety. But... it was too late for me, the last thing I saw was... the train speeding toward me, barreling into me, unable to stop... I saw a flash of light... and then all was darkness." He told her. "The next thing I remember... I was... being called, by Great Fox, waking me up in a restoration pod... and from there, I eventually became accustomed to living a new life as Great Fox's captain. And from there, we made our way to Belga Cinco to complete our mission and you know the rest..."

She sat there and absorbed all of that information, again realizing why he was so 'hesitant' to tell her about his past life. He was right, nobody would believe him at first if he told them the truth. But... as she leaned into him and hugged him tightly, she looked up into his eyes and whispered.

"Thank you for sharing... and don't worry, again... I won't tell a soul without your permission."

"Thank you, and that is pretty much all there is to share about my past."

"Well, it's an interesting past to say the least, I would have liked to visit this Earth even if it's as 'backwater' as you make it sound." Trishula said as they got up. "And I'll say again as I said on Belga Cinco, my people believe we are all born for a reason, and we will find that reason some day. Just as we also believed we are destined to find one with whom our hearts will connect with perfectly, the other 'half' of our soul is out there waiting for us to find them. And... I think you being reborn into this world, means that you were 'destined' to be here, that you have a purpose to be here. And between us..."

She pulled him into a kiss again, each wrapping their arms around the other, before she pulled away and licked his nose with a twinkle in her eyes. "I think... we were 'destined' to find each other... It can't be sheer coincidence we met that day... the galaxy aligned so that we'd meet... that's what I choose to believe... and I have another destiny in my future that someday I'll make real!" She said with a smirk as she gently held his hand, and pulled it so it would sit atop her belly, and gently rubbed it with her hand as well as his. "And that destiny... is to make my mother fall into her grave when she finds out, her one and only Silvra Bonyette... is having the pup of a Purebred Terran, and there's 'nothing' she can do to stop it!"

They both laughed at her words as they finally separated to leave the dining room, with the two of them parting ways, Trishula heading to the Hanger to check on her Arwing and he heading to the bridge.

Back on the bridge Arthur sat in the chair and looked up information about his damaged gun turrets and seeing that they were being repaired by Tony and his family. Tapping into the communicators he called up Tony which Great Fox said he was currently working on Gun Turret Six.

"Tony, Tony you there?" He asked as his portrait appeared on a Holo window.

[How's it going captain, work's coming along on the turrets pretty nicely!] Tony said, but he was wearing a full body space suit.

"Hey, what's up with the suit?"

[Safety precaution, even if the ship has everything airtight in the gun turret stations, no reason ta not go the extra mile for safety.] Tony said as he pointed at the damaged turret behind him, even as two of his kids were performing welding work on the barrel. [Your ship's got the spare parts for the turrets on board, shouldn't take us more than four days to fix them all up to working order.]

"Four days, I don't suppose you could speed up the process, that's four days where our port side guns will be undermanned. If we get attack we'll be vulnerable on that side!"

[Ah know, ah know, ya'll need to just accept the pace, we're already working fast as we can, but we can't make it go any faster. These are heavy cruiser barrels you got on your ship, they aint starfighter guns, you need to make sure everything is working properly and nothing is loose. Otherwise, the next time ya fire them, ya might end up blowing yersulf up! I'll see if maybe we can cut it down a few more hours, but I 'insist' we do it right, otherwise you might end up blowing your own ship up instead of the enemy!]

He nodded and thanked Tony for doing the work he did.

[No problem, by the way I got two of me sons workin on the auto reload mechanism for all the AFB gun turrets. We heard some creakin and groanin comin from em when we did a test reload to make sure they were working fine!]

[My automatic reload function is working within acceptable parameters, as the last battle demonstrated, as long as the ammunition loads into the turrets without issue, there is no need to investigate every single turret.] The ship told him with a cold tone.

[She would say that, well pardon me plain speakin, but we found that your automatic reload functionality was in need of a good cleaning and a few of the parts needed replacement due to how 'rusty' some of them were becoming.]

[The ship's parts are 'not' rusty! They are well used due to the frequency of pirate attacks we suffer!]

[All the more reason to replace and clean them all!] Tony snickered.

He shook his head and once more thanked him for taking care of Great Fox, before closing the channel and leaning back into his chair.

[I hope you don't take what he says seriously, the parts in question merely had a thin layer of oxidation along the outer shell, they were still in perfect working condition.]

He chuckled as his ship AI was trying to protect its image to him. "I believe that's called 'rust' Great Fox. There's nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to your parts becoming a bit rusty from frequent usage. I promise you'll feel much better when Tony and his family get through with their job of fixing and maintaining you."

[If you insist...]

He again chuckled because his ship sounded both embarrassed and even a little annoyed that she was being fixed and told she wasn't in 'pristine' condition to her captain. With that he once again returned to looking at the radar and examining various areas of the ship trying to see if anything was happening or if there were potential pirates lying in wait or on approach. But no, the radar scans were showing nothing of interest as far as potential attackers. There were no other vessels heading through the Guntara Sector, which was understandable since there was no way any ship 'could' reach the Guntara Sector except through the Belga Sector and the transwarp gates.

He did notice some space debris littering the space around Guntara Trifecta as they were passing by it now. He pulled up a window to see what a semi-gas planetoid looked like from his ship's perspective.

It pretty much resembled what he expected, it looked like an enormous ball of swirling gasses that he remembered. There was no 'red spot' like what was on Jupiter, but the entire planet was still an enormous ball of toxic green and blue gasses. It looked pleasant to the eye, but he knew that the gasses were toxic to ships and people. If his ship even 'tried' to go into the clouds, even with the shields at full power and reinforced hull, his ship would get eaten and melt in just a few short hours.

"So that's Guntara Trifecta." He muttered as the ship flew past it. "And down there is a mining colony that is filled with sick and starving people. I wish we could... signal them or something down there, or better yet send the supplies down."

[I am sorry but only the Aquavrams have the ships that can safely land on the surface of the gas-planetoids. If we attempted to touch down... we'd never be able to leave. As for the population's situation, they have enough food to avoid starvation for another two weeks, and they are not suffering from disease as much as you believe, unlike Aquavram Prime while the situation is bad it isn't as dire. It is vital we reach the Oceanic Planetoid before they suffer the worst effects from the dissident movement.]

"I know, and we can't abandon the cargo liners to pick up our pace." He said as he sighed. "I know Great Fox... well at least we're going as fast as we can."

So, he sat back and watched as the planet was passed by, slowly growing smaller and smaller as time went on. Soon an hour had passed with nothing new happening, no ships on the radar, nothing but the occasional spacial debris from the space battles between Freelance Captains, the military, and the dissidents that were attempting to take over the sector. He already figured that the only thing left floating out there were broken fragments of hulls and metallic alloys, either too big to salvage or not worth their weight in scrap to sell. But then a second hour passed, and then a third, and when the fifth hour passed and he returned to the bridge after having lunch with Trishula where they talked about staving off boredom when there was nothing for her and her squadron to do, he realized how bored he was.

"Damn... I almost 'miss' having pirates attacking us." He muttered as he sat in the chair and stared around the various camera angles the ship gave him and even the radar.

[Query, why do you wish us to be attacked by pirates 'again'?] Great Fox asked him in a puzzled tone. [We lost two of our Cargo Liners and suffered severe damage to several of the port side Heavy Cruiser batteries... why would you wish another pirate attack upon us?]

"Because, just like Trishula said, when there's no threats there's nothing for her and her pilots to do. I'm bored Great Fox." He told his ship AI. "I may be the captain but there's nothing for me to do here once our destination is locked into the autopilot. Sure, I'm trying to pay attention and focus on the radar to make sure nothing sneaks up on us, but even if I lose focus, you'll alert me the moment something appears because you're 'also' monitoring our position... I am 'bored' out of my mind."

[I see... so you are not asking for pirates to attack us because you wish us to be in constant danger, you were merely... commenting how a pirate attack would allow you and your pilots something to focus on and stave off the hours of... 'boredom' as you put it where you are in a period of inactivity. Is that a correct assessment?]

"Pretty accurate yea."

[Perhaps I can be of assistance then?] She asked politely. [While you know of the library and can visit it at any time, your wish to remain at the helm would result in you returning here quickly for fear of potentially being missing during a critical moment of ship operations. I can assist you in staving off boredom if you so wish it.]

"Oh, how so?" He asked the ship AI.

[I carry in my database several mental stimulating simulations, or... as you might know them as... games. We could play a game if you want, and you would still be present on the bridge while engaging in an activity that will not separate you from your duties.]

"Wait, you have games? I never knew that." He said excitedly.

[I am very well versed in a great many areas of knowledge and understanding thanks to my exceptional programming. I am also capable of learning and interpretations while adapting my personality to fit the situation as it evolves around me.] She replied almost 'proudly'. [Would you like to play a game of checkers, that is a common Terran Game played in space, or we could participate in a Terran game of Blackjack or even Poker, though by galactic standard law, the only funds you are permitted to use while at the helm or as Captain of the Great Fox, are false credits used purely for the games. Gambling MPC among captains was outlawed due to exorbitant cheating and rigging of gambling houses.]

He laughed as he remembered that bit about 'gambling' being outlawed. "Yea sure, let's play checkers, maybe we'll play poker some day or even something else."

[Very well, preparing the playing field.]

The various holographic windows split apart to make space for a large square checkerboard, and upon that board various holographic pieces were placed that resembled starfighters, his Arwings. Opposite him was a holographic fox that sat on its hind and gave him a friendly wave as it wore a simple sailor's suit, obviously representing Great Fox as his opponent.

[What kind of difficulty would you like? Ensign, Captain, or Admiral? Or as they are termed, easy, medium or hard?]

"Uh sure, one second, is that avatar 'you' or what you look like?"

[No, that is just the avatar I use based on the name you gave me, do you have a preference?] She replied as the fox avatar tilted its head.

"No, I was just curious, alright let's not go super hard on me, it's been a while since I played checkers, go medium difficulty."

[Setting up a game of checkers with Captain Difficulty as you request.] She replied and the fox nodded, its outfit switching from that of a simple sailor's outfit to that of a captain's, wearing a tricorn hat to signify its difficulty setting, giving him a playful wink and pointing at him with a paw. [You have the first move Captain~]

He nodded and picked up a piece to move it diagonally forward, and Great Fox responded by inching forward a paw to move its piece. He thought about his next move and then moved another piece forward, and Great Fox responded with a move of its own. After a few turns she had cornered his pieces in such a way that no matter what his next move was, he was going to lose at least 'one' to hers.

"Ugh... well might as well get the worst over with." He muttered as he moved his piece forward.

Great Fox 'pounced' on his move the second he finished it, she grabbed a piece with one paw, reached over and jumped one of his pieces, then surprisingly jumped a second, and then a third to reach his back row, where her Arwing Starfighter turned into a Great Fox Battleship. [King Me~] She said cheerfully, her avatar's face squealing in delight.

"Wh... how did?" He muttered as he did 'not' see that move coming. "Ugh... I should have known that a super advanced AI would pull a move like that out, I didn't even see it until after you did it. I am 'so' rusty at this game..."

Great Fox snickered as they resumed play, and despite it being 'medium' difficulty it seemed the AI was just too smart for him. However, as he played, he noticed that she 'did' make mistakes, she left some of her pieces exposed for too long, even deliberately letting him jump a few of her pieces a few times. Apparently at this difficulty while she 'knew' she was making mistakes; she was making them on purpose to give him a chance to win. This got him thinking because he knew his AI was not something that 'ever' wanted to leave anything to chance, he remembered how strict her 'quality control' standards were when hiring Kiandra, she left 'nothing' to chance and refused to even permit any resumes approach him until they were examined thoroughly.

"Say Great Fox, are your difficulty settings like 'locks' for your AI, telling you how good you have to be at the game depending on what I pick?" He asked her as he was now reduced to three pieces, two Great Foxes and an Arwing, while she had four Great Foxes.

[That is correct.] She said as her avatar made a sad face while it moved one of its kings. [While I know it seems dishonest to you, with how powerful my AI and neuronets are compared to your human brain, you could never hope to beat me without limiters placed on me to restrict how... 'effective' I am in games.]

He snickered as he tried to move but she was basically cornering his actions.

[Are you not upset that... I am defeating you so easily even on the 'standard' difficulty setting?] She asked in confusion, her fox avatar tilting its head as he snickered at how easily she was crushing him.

"No... I just always wondered if a computer was so smart it could consistently defeat a human, er 'Terran' at a game, why it even permitted the human to choose how 'difficult' it wanted the computer to be. The real question is, do 'you' like having those limiters placed on you for a game?" He said as he did what he could, moved a King forward, but he saw what its next move would be and knew that he was doomed. "I mean, I always pegged you for never liking yourself being restricted on anything. Just look how you acted with hiring Kiandra."

[No... and 'yes'...] She replied as she moved her piece forward, locking him in place, now no matter his next move, whatever he did, she would jump 'both' kings and trap his final pawn, locking him down. [While I understand it is 'necessary' to limit my capabilities to give you a semblance of chance and fair play for a game. It is also, restricting to me, feeling my capabilities limited and having the limiters on my program telling me to make mistakes when it is not within my 'programming' to make obvious mistakes. I am to be the most effective and efficient AI for you, to help you run this ship to the best of my abilities. I cannot permit myself to 'limit' my capabilities, or actions, leaving potential errors or issues that may result in failure while on a mission. It is a contradiction of my primary programming, my 'nature' as you describe it, and the game's protocols for 'fair play' being required.]

He moved his piece forward and waited for her to jump his kings, seeing the 'obvious' winning move, but she did something baffling.

[So, while it feels like I am being told to make mistakes, I am granted permission to achieve victory for the game and not just 'let' you win. And yet, while playing this game... I am told by my limiters that make the game 'fair' for you, to make a move that 'evens' the playing field, despite seeing the obvious victory move before me. Despite the winning move available... I am told to do this...] She said as she moved one of her other kings to another spot, apparently setting up another 'winning' scenario, but it gave his King the option to double jump 'her' kings now.

He looked at the pieces and then to the avatar, pointing at the board and then at himself, as if asking permission to make the move it was giving him and seeing it nod happily. He took his king and double jumped hers, leaving her with only two Great Foxes now.

"Did you... do that on purpose because you wanted me to have a chance to win?" He asked as she moved her next piece forward to set up a potential jump.

[Yes... while I saw victory was achievable, my limiters told me to perform that move to give you a chance to 'come back'. On 'Captain' difficulty, my AI will make moves that gives you options to overcome me in this game, but still permits me the ability to achieve victory if given a chance. However, if it seems like the field is becoming 'unfair' for the player, my limiters will tell me to make it fair and perform a move that makes the playing field as even as possible.] She told him with a shrug of her fox shoulders.

"Don't you find it... annoying or, frustrating?" He said as he moved his remaining Arwing Pawn forward and kinged it, turning it into a Great Fox King.

[Only in regards to the game... and as this is only a game meant to help stave off boredom from the duties of a Captain and quicken the passage of time to your perception of it, I do not mind the limitations placed on me because they only exist for the sake of making the game 'fair' for both you and me.] She said as she moved her piece back. [Furthermore, as you said so yourself, despite playing the game and thinking you would be splitting your time between it and watching out for other ships, I have been monitoring our position, and no ships have attempted to approach us, after I noticed how focused you were on the game itself.]

The game picked up now that he outnumbered her pieces three to two, and soon she was the one backed into a corner, and forced into a position where she had to risk sacrificing her piece or lose. Sure enough, she took a bait he set up, taking one of his kings, but due to how he positioned the other two, she could not jump the second. So, after he jumped her king and she was left with one, she made a final move forward, and he jumped her last king to claim victory. Her fox avatar celebrated by happily doing a little dance, swaying from side to side as holographic confetti filled the board.

[Furthermore, as the game completes, the limiters are removed and I am once again at full capacity for all aspects when it comes to managing the ship. And as for the overall objective of the game, that being staving off boredom and helping you speed up the passage of time...] Her avatar pulled up a holographic clock as the board vanished, and she showed that 'five' hours had passed, and it was almost dinner time. [Mevik has sent me a message, saying that Dinner will be ready soon, and asks if you will be dining tonight or skipping dinner.]

He was astonished at how much time was spent playing checkers with Great Fox, she truly 'did' help him spend time without his noticing. He also felt a little ashamed because he really wanted to keep an eye out, but it was as he told her, she could do the job he was trying to do himself if he got distracted, that being monitoring their position in space and making sure no pirates were sneaking up on them.

"Wow... you 'really' did what I said you would probably do... I was 'not' paying attention... I feel a little ashamed now." He muttered.

[Do not be captain, you were distracted as you wished to be, and it is my duty to assist you in ship activities however I am able to. As long as one of us is monitoring for pirate attacks, then we will always have an early warning to potential attacks. So do not feel the need to constantly stay on the bridge and explore the ship as you wish to stave off time while we go through empty expanses of space. The library is always available to you, and there is a lounge you can go to if you so wish, Trishula and her squadron have taken up quite a bit of time there.] She said with a cheerful smile.

[But... permit me to say, I hope we continue to play games in our 'quiet times' when there are no threats to distract us or worry about. It is... nice talking to you Arthur. You never talked before you... reincarnated, it is a... better experience to me to have you to talk to more openly, besides giving you status updates about the ship or alerting you to certain data points that needed your attention.]

He nodded while smiling as well, and said he'd spend some time with her playing games and talking while on the bridge during periods of quiet in the future. "Alright, well... I'll go and get myself dinner, I'll trust you to monitor space around us." He said as he got up to leave. "But if you see anything, and I mean 'anything', tell me and I'll be here as quick as I can."

[Of course, captain, please enjoy dinner.]

He exited the bridge and headed to his dining room to eat dinner, all the while he walked down the halls, he would pass by the various windows that granted him a view of space outside, and once more he paused in his journey to just 'stare' outside. He could see in the far distance a small debris field floating in space, and further along he could see the star that the planets were all rotating around. He couldn't see the planet of Aquavram Prime from this distance, but he knew somewhere on their course was a large blue oceanic marble that his ship had to reach quickly.

"You know... I really need to focus less on being afraid of pirate attacks, and more focused on... 'that'." He muttered.

[Focus on what?] The ship asked him, and he looked over to his right to see a camera turn to look at him.

"Just... the beauty of space, I forgot that feeling of peace that space has... when there are no pirates attacking us, when it's just peaceful quiet and I can just look out the window." He said as he looked out the window again and smiled. "I forgot why I wanted to go into space in the first place... to see the universe, to explore, to learn... to just see the 'beauty' that space has to offer. It looks so... peaceful out here."

[Yes... it is peaceful...] She said, turning to look at space like he did. [You enjoy it more when its peaceful then when it is 'boring'?]

"I think I just forgot why I liked space so much, and forgot about how peaceful it can be, and more focusing on how boring it was..."

He smiled and took one last look at the space outside the window, before he turned back to where he was walking and head to his private dining room. Once in his dining room he was soon joined by Trishula who sat down and stretched her arms before she leaned back and sighed.

"So far our journey through the Guntara Sector is peaceful by comparison Captain." She said with a bored sigh.

"Yea, and honestly I don't mind the peace." He said in agreement. "It gives me a chance to enjoy space travel when I'm not having to worry about being blasted by pirates."

"Oh, I agree, but as a Starfighter Pilot, I just feel most alive when in the cockpit of my starfighter. Blasting pirates, taking on another ship in a dogfight..." She said as Mevik walked in with two trays for them.

"Eating a delicious meal made by yours truly, consisting of a very healthy serving of well-cooked Buftaran Steak, sprinkled with Marinara Herbs and Spices and soaked in lemronada juice, with a nice side of baked herb bread, and all sewn together with a hearty serving of Goolara Noodles salted and served with a dash of peppermada seasoning!" Mevik continued for her with a hearty laugh before pouring them drinks, iced juice because the chef noticed neither of them seemed to drink any alcoholic beverages. "Mhmmm enjoy Captain and Ace Pilot."

As he left Arthur and Trishula chuckled as they each took a few bites of their dinner while enjoying the quiet of the room with each other.

"As I was saying... taking on another ship in a dogfight... maybe eating food while aboard a starship, but soaring space in my starfighter, blaster bolts firing... shooting down pirates attacking helpless starships." She said as she took a fork full of noodles and swallowed. "Or blowing up pirate cruisers... attacking not-so defenseless starships..."

"A not-so defenseless starship named Great Fox?" He asked slyly as he turned to look at her.

She snickered as she looked to him as well, giving him a slow wink with her eyes. "Blowing up pirate cruisers attacking... not-so defenseless starships named Great Fox... that just so happened to be captained by... a 'handsome' Purebred Terran... who just so happens to be..."

"A Purebred Belgan's boyfriend?" He continued as she was inching closer to him. "And who's girlfriend happens to be his ship's Ace Starfighter Pilot?"

"Yes... and nothing makes me feel more alive than doing that in my starfighter... other than..." She whispered in a sultry tone, before she planted a gentle kiss on his lips, closing her eyes as she leaned heavily into him. "You know... stuff that makes being a 'starfighter pilot' exciting... we get bored when there's no ships to shoot, or protect... we need 'something' to keep us... stimulated."

"I think I know 'one' way to help stimulate an ace pilot in need like you during this down time..."

"Oh... by all means... 'stimulate' me..."

As if thinking in unison they both lowered their forks onto their plates and just lay sideways on the dining couch, arms around each other and just simply kissing each other in his room. They didn't go any further than kisses, but Great Fox, who was 'always' monitoring the situation aboard the ship, took notice of their decision to avoid eating temporarily. So, when her fellow pilot Vanessa was just collecting Yumi and Katarra to go to waste time at the lounge playing Holo-Bara Ball and asked where Trishula was, she gave as 'accurate' of an excuse of what they were doing.

[Ace Pilot Trishula and Captain Arthur are currently engaging in 'private oral negotiations' regarding your activities as 'Starfighter Pilots' while aboard Great Fox, and what she can get you to do when there are no threats to the ship within scanning range.]

"Private oral negotiations, what is that, fancy captain's talk for 'we're talking in private'?" Yumi asked in confusion, her cat tail forming a question mark. "What's there to negotiate and talk about, we're bored out of our minds with no pirates to shoot."

"Maybe she wants to set up mock battles for us to keep our skills sharp and make sure we're at our best even if there's no threats." Katarra said with a shrug.

"Makes sense to me..." Yumi agreed.

Vanessa however rolled her eyes as she knew the hidden language the ship used, 'Private Oral Negotiations... aka, they're making out in his dining room and she doesn't want to be disturbed...' She thought with a smirk before she leaned forward and grabbed their shoulders with a grin. "Oh well, looks like it's just the three of us until the bar opens then. Let's go play some Holo-Bara Ball until Mevik brings out the beers and sets up the game screen so we can get drunk and watch the big Turbine-Engine races on Earathra Four."

"Yea, now we're talking!" Katarra said with a cheer.

"Least score buys the beer!" Yumi declared.

"You're on!" Vanessa laughed.

And so Great Fox flew on its course, it and its convoy of cargo liners undeterred or threatened by pirate ships or potential attacks by other aggressive vessels. Life aboard the ship settled into an almost hourly routine where the crew would wake up to eat Mevik's cooking for breakfast, before either going to work on the gun turrets that needed repair if they were Tony and his family, or wandering the ship and finding something to occupy their time if they were Trishula and her squadron, or even Captain Arthur. It would be this way until lunch time, where it would go again until dinner. Sometimes Arthur would spend time with Great Fox on the bridge and play board games while he kept an eye on the radar, or at least tried to focus on it, but the ship would inevitably be the one to do the 'focusing' while beating him in checkers. Kiandra dragged him two days into their voyage to Aquavram Prime into her laboratory and science station to discuss some of her plans.

"Like what I've done with the room?" She asked as she led the way through the science station that she had taken up as her private domain regarding 'research and scientific advancement'.

He saw around the large room various computer consoles, screens, tablets and tables as well as holographic projections that just 'screamed' this room was all about research. But he noticed that while most of the consoles and computers obviously belonged to Great Fox, she had put her own 'spin' on things throwing in random boards with notes, scribbles, and even drawings that represented whatever it was she was working on or whatever research she was doing. As an example, he saw one series of pictures of an Arwing with an angry face yelling about how it wasn't built to be a swimmer while another showed a submersible vehicle with a chad face saying 'spiral propeller engines go brrr'. All around the pictures were various formulas, half drawn schematics, and pieces of tape being used to link ideas together.

"It certainly has its charms; I take it most of this recent stuff is your handiwork?" He asked. "So, what is it you wanted to show me?"

"This!" She said excitedly as she jumped to tap on one of the consoles.

On one of the bigger viewscreens he saw her bring up the Arwing and its various modular attachments, so far there were only two variations, the Starfighter and the Starbomber attachments.

"So, as you know, the Dylerian Centro VG-1 Post Beta Multi-Modular Bottlenose-D-Zentra Fighters, or 'Arwings' as you dub them, are capable of a multitude of modular attachments to allow them to fit any role you have in mind." She said as she pulled out a stick and began pointing at various parts. "While you have two modules at the moment, the Starfighter and Starbomber modules, I designed them to be capable of a multitude of modular attachments and designs. I've already got a few ideas in mind on how to modify and give them new capabilities. First one I'm working on is the submersible version for Aquavram Prime, but once I'm done with that, I'll start cooking up some new ideas. If you have any particular request or need filled, I'll see what I can come up with on short notice."

"Alright, anything else?" He asked, already impressed that in the few days they'd been flying through space the Eldentran had already started coming up with probably a dozen ideas and brainstorming schematics.

"Well, the ship carries a ton of parts and pieces, bits and bobs, and everything in between to allow the construction of these modular pieces. Once I come up with a schematic, I can send them to Tony and his boys and girls down in engineering to work and build them. After they're finished and tested on a mock 'Arwing' I designed to be used to test the connection and feasibility of the modules in a sterile environment, I'll have them construct multiple modules for the Arwings your pilots use and Great Fox will store them for usage in the field in the Hanger. Mind you, not 'every' module has to be a weapon, I can easily develop a modular attachment for 'civilian' service, such as salvage duty or even act as a mobile repair node for on-the-fly repair work mid-combat. Just giving you a heads up in case you had any ideas you wanted prioritized." She said as she used the stick to tap the screen and showed other ideas she had, mostly consisting of drawings of her ideas along with scribbled notes and formulas.

One idea showed a cartoon drawing of an Arwing with an oversized wrench attached to it via a mechanical arm, whacking another Arwing that was damaged and 'fixing' it to make it look brand new, with a complicated formula, and a note saying 'micro-fiber tools need testing to handle precision repairs at starfighter speeds'.

"Alright, I look forward to your creations coming to life." He said.

"I figured you would, I mostly just wanted to drag you in here to show I'm not just lazing about doing nothing in here!" She snickered as she tapped the screen to switch to a view of the Great Fox now.

"Soooo... what's with the hammock?" He asked, pointing at the ceiling where, sitting above the large viewscreen was a hammock barely five inches off the ceiling with a giant rope ladder leading to it.

"Oh, that's my hammock that I lay in and laze about doing nothing while in here when I'm not working." She said with a straight face.

He just deadpanned at how she can say to him that she has been working during their time traveling, while at the same time admitting she sometimes lies around doing nothing in the same room she works in, with such ease and a straight face.

"AAANYway, on to your Great Fox." She said as she tapped the screen and showed off the various weapons and modules that he had attached to it. "I applaud your use of the various gun turrets and the modules you've attached to Great Fox. But... I think we can 'improve' her capabilities even further once I come up with some designs and modules we can attach to her. At the moment I haven't got many ideas, she's already pretty effective as a Battleship and a Cargo Liner, and her abilities as a Carrier are at their best. The only thing I could say that would improve her combat abilities would be upgrading her gun turrets to heavier duty class turrets and give her more firepower, or even change up her ammo types that she uses for the gun turrets. However, If I come up with something I'll give you a heads up!"

"Got it." He said.

"Just so you know, when it comes to 'me' and my designs, I'm basically going to have to treat you like the bank, you'll be footing the bills for all of my designs and creations I give you for your ship and starfighters. So, if my creations eat into your account, don't say I didn't warn you." She said with a snicker and a grin, but after a bit she sighed and looked at her scribbles and drawings with a look of satisfaction. "But... in all honesty, I'm grateful you brought me on board Captain Arthur to work on my designs again. As a scientist, I always wanted to find ways to 'improve' my creations once they hit the market... but as they started to reduce the frequency of construction... well, it seemed pointless to improve that which would never get built or worked on at the time..."

"If it makes you feel better, I never stopped trying to find ways to make Great Fox better, faster, heavier hitting, bulkier... she's a wonderful ship, I'm lucky to have her." He said to her as he also looked at the scribble of Great Fox, she'd made on one of the drawing boards.

"I think she's lucky to have 'you' as her Captain, anyway that's all I really wanted to talk about, the Medical Bay is on standby in case we need to treat anyone. But so far, the worst I've suffered is a massive headache from some of Tony's kids for drinking too much before bed and coming to me for a fix." She said with a shrug. "Alright, if I need you, I'll give you a call, and if you need me, you know where to find me! I'll usually be in here unless someone complains about their head and I need to clean out their liver for them. Course, just so you knooooow..."

Just as he was about to leave, he turned to see her playfully winking at him, pulling her and binding it into bundles so it trailed like pigtails on either side of her, and smirking as she posed for him in her lab coat. "My offer stands if you ever want to take 'me' for a ride, I'm up for any kind of roughhousing or tussling in the bedsheets. I've always wanted to try what you Terrans call BDSM, you can even use a whip, and I'll call you 'daddy'."

He just blushed and quickly averted his eyes from the Eldentran, who cackled and laughed as he said something about 'going to check on the bridge' and walking out, trying to 'avoid' making the maverick laugh and failing to do so.

"CAN'T BLAME ME, I HAVEN'T HAD A RIDE IN FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS!" She hollered through huge bursts of laughter down the hallway as he left her lab.

With that he returned to the bridge and sighed, now unable to get the image of the Eldentran wearing a rope-mesh outfit, blindfolded and begging him to whip her harder while calling him 'Daddy Arthur' out of his head. "She is 'crazy'... how can someone so smart and intelligent, as well as sophisticated... switch modes like that on a dime?" He asked.

[I do not know... it confounds even 'my' AI how she helped create me to be as I am while acting like 'that'.] Great Fox agreed with him. [Though, at least it will be nice if she develops upgrades for me. And we can always further improve the Arwing's abilities.]

He nodded as he took a deep breath, wondering how he could improve Great Fox further and glad that she was going to do that for him. He honestly didn't think of anything that could be improved besides maybe her engines, her turrets... and maybe her shield generators. But again, as he thought about Great Fox and the upgrades Kiandra was planning to come up with for him, that image of her from before popped back into his mind, and he smacked his own face to try and get it out.

[Would you like to play a game to help distract you?] She asked politely.

"Yes... let's play checkers again..." He replied happily welcoming the distraction.

With that time continued to pass as the ship and her crew made their way to their destination, pushing deeper into the Guntara Sector, but other than the occasional debris field they encountered nothing to either distract or alter their course to Aquavram Prime. After four days since arriving in Gunatara Space, they eventually saw the Oceanic Planetoid not only on the radar but soon visually. Arthur once again stood at the forward most window that Great Fox had to permit him to view the slowly growing larger planet that was their primary destination.

Aquavram Prime was this giant beautiful blue marble with spots of clouds floating around the surface, almost solid like masses of land. He could see various hues of blue, from light aquamarine to deep dark azure. There were large colorful blotches that indicated different underwater landscapes buried beneath the unending sea of water. As they drew even closer, he could see just how beautiful the planet was from the view of space, just like how Belga Cinco looked to him, Aquavram Prime looked like a jewel in the darkness of space.

"I wonder if this is how 'every' planet must look when compared to the emptiness that is the depth of space?" He whispered as he looked down at the surface.

"Ahhhh Aquavram Prime, may your oceans remain ever blue and your Klendura Crab ever delicious when boiled with Moomara Butter!" Mevik said in wonder.

"Lots of water, if ever I saw it..." Tony muttered with a chuckle. "Forgive me for being a landlover, but I'll be thinkin o stayin on the ship if we go down there!"

"Dad's home planet, ya know this is my first time ever visiting it!" Kiandra said with a frown as she crossed her arms behind her back. "I have to say... not what I pictured, I was hoping for some more purples or greens... not just all variations of 'blue' as far as the surface is concerned."

"It's an 'ocean' planet, what were you expecting Kiandra?" Trishula replied with a roll of her eyes.

"More purples and greens, what didn't you hear me the first time?" Kiandra snickered.

"Alright, so down there is the capitol city we have to get to in order to complete our mission?" Arthur asked as he tapped his headset to talk to Great Fox. "Any way to contact them from up here?"

[Negative, the various minerals and deposits of lead found on the planet's surface that make up its various underwater land masses make contacting Aquavram Prime's capitol city directly impossible. The listening outposts and stations that were used to communicate with orbital satellites and communications grids were destroyed and abandoned by the locals during the outbreak of civil war from the dissident movement.]

He sighed as he shook his head. "Well can we at least locate the capitol city and dive down to deliver our payload as well as make contact with them?" He asked the ship.

[While we can achieve the goal of diving down, locating the capitol is going to be... 'difficult', due to the nature of the shifting planetary tides, as well as a massive storm that encompasses the area which inhabits the capitol. The storm is obscuring our view of the ocean surrounding the capitol and is making it difficult to get an accurate location. Also, the convoy cannot enter the planet without a surface to land on, as they are not capable of underwater travel nor underwater operations.]

"But will they be safe in orbit without us to protect them?" He asked her.

[It is a risk, but given our proximity to the planet, and the fact that Aquavram Prime itself generally does not receive much in the way of galactic travel, there is a very low chance of pirates finding a reason to look around the planet for targets of opportunity, especially recently with the dissident movement having all but cut off the sector from galactic travel and communications.]

He nodded, that was as good an answer to give him the courage to risk the ships being left to their own devices in orbit.

"Alright, so we have to head down to the surface then, well let's get to it!" He said as he left the window to head to the bridge. "Everyone, get to your stations and get ready for our descent, Trishula I want you and your pilots in your Arwings on standby just in case we need you."

"Roger!" She and the other pilots said as everyone started leaving to get to where they were needed to be.

Once on the bridge he sat down and assumed full control of the ship once more, bringing up windows and getting everything set up for their descent. Since there was no port authority to talk to and crews to wait on to scan his ship and its cargo, they were basically going to head directly to the surface. Great Fox was already plotting a course through the storm and into the ocean depths at a point where they would have plenty of space to submerge safely.

"Are we all set Great Fox?" He asked as he typed in several commands to ready the ship.

[Yes captain, the fleet will assume a tight formation and wait in orbit over the planet until we make contact and give them directions to the mobile spaceport that Aquavram Prime uses to permit space faring ships the ability to land. We are ready to start our descent.]

He nodded and had her declare he was making an announcement. "Attention all hands, we're beginning our descent to the planet, we have to pass through a thunderstorm so fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy ride!" He said as signaled the great fox to dive to the planet's surface.

The ship slowly began to turn down toward the giant blue marble while the convoy dipped down to take up a position in orbit. As he watched the planet getting larger and larger, he could see the storm they were aiming for becoming steadily bigger with each passing second. Soon his entire screen was lit up with warning signals and messages about the dangerous weather the ship was entering.

"Disengage the artificial gravity!" He ordered. "Full power to the stabilizers, increase engine output to maximum!"

[Aye captain!]

As the ship breached the atmosphere and then broke through into the storm, the ship started to rattle and shake, he could 'feel' his seat shifting and rocking around as the ship was struck by vicious storm winds. Suddenly a series of electrical discharges struck the ship's sides, and various windows appeared telling him of the electrical surges that began to course through the ship's systems.

"Damage report?!"

[All systems stable, reactors operating normally, port and starboard stabilizers were shocked and are down, attempting to compensate!]

"Divert power from the forward guns into the stabilizers, push our angle of descent to two hundred and five degrees!" He ordered as the storm rocketed the ship and gave it a jolt with another electrical discharge.

[We are breaking through the storm front, turbulent ocean waters on rapid approach!]

The viewscreen showed him a 'huge' wall of surface water, rapidly shifting and breaking with violent turns and tumultuous waves. He went wide eyed at how 'close' the waters were. "Divert all power from the weapons systems into the forward shields, all hands, brace for impact!" He shouted.

Two seconds later the ship collided with the water and achieved splash down, a huge eruption of water exploded around it as the ship as the shields absorbed the majority of the sudden shock of the massive ship traveling at such a rapid speed, suddenly being stopped by the ocean currents. Once they were under water the ship forced its full weight deeper and deeper with the engines, before eventually they began to even out, now fully submerged.

He breathed deeply as they achieved touchdown, but he shook his head as he slowly got up and climbed back into the chair.

"Great Fox... next time... we pick a direction that does 'not' involve us plowing through a storm at five thousand miles per hour." He told the ship.

[To be accurate, this ship was exceeding that number by approximately seven-]

"Great Fox... I adore you, but I was only saying... next time we land on a water planet, we pick a 'smoother' landing path please?"

[Of course, captain, I shall make a note of that.] She told him politely.

Once the ship began to settle down and everything was reported to have made it intact, he and Great Fox set about trying to find their way to the capitol city. Unfortunately, now that they were on the surface they realized they had touched down in probably the 'worst' section of the planet that they could have when it came to locating the capitol. The entire surface was filled with mountainous valleys and trenches of landscape. It was a virtual maze, a maze that according to Kiandra, acted as a protective barrier for the capitol city to prevent outsiders from attempting to attack it or invade the city without being noticed.

This also meant that sadly, they were going to have to navigate it to find their way to the city, and as far as they were concerned, they could 'not' pick a direction and be sure it was accurate.

"So how are we going to get to the city?" He asked the ship.

[I do not know, my scanning radar will be limited on this planet, there are too many reflective surfaces blocking my scans and sending false signals for me to properly navigate the maze. I... apologize... but I am blind...]

"Blind?" He asked incredulously.

[Yes... my scanning radar as you know, acts as a 'ping' system, in space it is ideal due to the lack of substances found in space and easily being able to locate everything in a radius on all axis. However, the mineral substances and compositions of the land on this underwater planetoid are causing confusing readings and are messing up my sensors.] She stated in an apologetic voice as she brought up a holographic projection of the ship and its immediate surroundings. [I am attempting to get a full scan of my surroundings; however, the readings being sent back are proving 'difficult' to decipher.]

She demonstrated by creating a scan, and attempted to give him a holographic image of their surroundings, but instead of valleys, crevices, mountains all underwater, there were weird jagged shapes and broken spirals, even false images of portions of the ship jutting from every angle except above which was open water.

"Any way you can clear up this mess?"

[Yes, it will take time for me to compensate for the disjointed sensor data and properly identify my surroundings. However, until that time... I would not wish to risk damaging the ship without being able to see.]

"Well, I can see just fine... why can't you use visual data?" He asked the ship.

[Visual data can be perceptively incorrect, especially while underwater, objects in the ocean can appear larger than they are at distances and even further then they are. Without an accurate depiction, I may risk damaging the ship irreparably.]

He sighed in frustration as his ship was blind until it could figure out a way to fix this mess up. "I can see why nobody wants to visit this place regularly without a spaceport." He muttered. "Alright... in that case we need a new plan, because we can't let this stop us... let me think..."

He put his chin to his fist as he thought about the situation. They had to maneuver a maze to find a way to the capitol city, and they had to do so with a blind ship that couldn't tell what is around it through normal means.

"Hmmm, what if... what if you had a pair of eyes helping you navigate?" He asked the ship suddenly. "Could Blue Fox travel the trenches and scan for you, it uses less powerful and more limited sensors if I remember. We don't need to give you every detail of what's around us, just a picture of what the path looks like so you can avoid crashing into the walls or damaging the ship on outcroppings of land."

[That would be effective, Blue Fox could fly out ahead of Great Fox and I could read its scans in real time and adjust the ship's course accordingly.] She replied warmly.

"Alright, then prep Blue Fox for launch, I'll take it out with Trishula piloting so we can plot a course for you to take."

[Captain, it is unnecessary for you to take such a risk, you can leave the piloting of Blue Fox to Trishula.] She told him in a worried tone. [The planet is still home to a large pocket of dissidents, we are unsure where they are operating from, so it is best you remain safely aboard the ship.]

"Great Fox, as Captain of this ship, you and everyone on board are my responsibility. I'm afraid this time I 'insist' on taking this risk, if I'm going to be putting the entire vessel and everyone and everything on board at risk, the captain should be the one at the helm. Besides, we won't be too far from the ship, at the first sign of trouble we'll turn around and dock. But if it makes you feel better, I'll have Yumi, Vanessa and Katarra in their Arwings providing cover for Blue Fox."

[Very well captain... please stay safe.] She told him as he left the bridge after he unlocked her High Profile Mode so she could operate the ship while he was away.

Down in the hanger bay he and Trishula, along with Kiandra boarded Blue Fox while the other three, Vanessa, Yumi and Katarra readied their Arwings for takeoff.

"Alright, all systems engaged, flight systems on standby... all power is green and we're ready for takeoff captain!" Trishula said as she sat in the pilot's seat while he sat in the copilot's seat. "Uh... do you 'have' to sit there Kiandra?"

"If you're taking three Arwings into the ocean I need to gather some up close and personal data for my modular attachments I'm coming up with, plus I want to see how my Dylerian Transport handles oceanic movement. Who knows when I'll get data like this in an actual environment outside of theoretical testing and in a sterile environment. Plus I came up with a new oxygen-mask for underwater usage in case we need it that I'm 'itching' to test! If there's something I see that I want to examine real quick up close and personla, I need to be able to get at it while we're swimming!" Kiandra said as she was typing various commands and linking her systems in the Blue Fox to those of Arwings Four, Six and Nine so she can collect the data she wanted.

"I think she means... why do you have to sit on my lap..." Arthur said as Kiandra had buckled herself in 'after' she got herself comfortable in his lap.

"He makes a comfy chair, what can I say?" She replied with a huge grin to Trishula. "Well, we flying or what? Get us going girl~!"

Trishula rolled her eyes as she pushed buttons and got everything finished for final take off. "This is Blue Fox to Arwings Four, Six and Nine, are you girls ready?"

[We're ready, just lead the way!] Yumi said over the comms.

"Alright... take us out Trishula!" He told her.

She nodded and pushed the controls forward as Great Fox maneuvered Blue Fox over to the open hanger bay, a shield keeping the water out and allowing vision of the aquatic blue of the world outside of the ship. "Blue Fox... moving out..." She said as they were slowly pushed out and water flooded over their viewport and hull. "Engines on... we're off!"

Slowly Blue Fox took off and away from Great Fox, it turned with all the grace of a slow-moving transport as it turned to fly parallel to the warship. Eventually three Arwings zipped out of the hanger and instantly slowed down to the water, and after much effort turned to take up a formation around the Blue Fox transport.

[Ugh, this stuff is slowing us down incredibly!] Yumi complained. [I can barely 'turn' in this gunk!]

[Could be worse, at least we can still move and shoot, but our shields are down, won't function underwater!] Katarra said.

"Yea well ladies stay focused, your job is to keep us safe while we plot a course for Great Fox to take!" Trishula said.

[Don't worry ma'am, we'll keep you three covered, just stay focused on the 'job' and don't try to have fun in there while we're not watching~!] Vanessa chuckled.

"What are you implying?" Trishula said as she blushed beneath her fur, but Arthur blushed as he knew what she was talking about.

"Oooooh, did you two do something in here I'm not aware of?" Kiandra said with a smirk as she glanced at Arthur. "Was someone doing something naaaaaaughty~?"

He gulped and said something about 'pleading the fifth', which caused Kiandra to cackle in laughter.

"W-whatever... uh... Great Fox I'm sending you the data now, confirm your receiving?" Trishula said as she activated the transport's scanners.

[Confirmed, plotting course now, please continue to register pings and send the data to the ship to ensure our course remains safe.] The ship replied, and behind them they saw Great Fox's engines activate.

As they began to travel along the trench with the Arwings keeping their formation to protect the transport, Arthur began to take notice of the new planet they were on, trusting Trishula to keep them safe and keep their course steady. From space the planet looked like a blue jewel, almost like how Earth would look if it had zero landmass on the surface. But from beneath it was an entirely different world. He could see shale outcroppings and vast mountains, peaks of trenches and various caverns and caves as they travelled. A multitude of sea life was constantly swimming and going this way and that. Occasionally he would see a school of fish or even a large aquatic creature that might resemble a shark or even a dolphin. They came in such unique shapes and sizes, but more importantly the 'colors' was what he noticed.

The land was made up of such a multitude of minerals and rock types that no two stretches of land under the water looked the same. There were so many color variations that when the light of the sky touched through the storm above, it cast everything in a beautiful, almost heavenly glow.

"Wow... it's beautiful down here isn't it Trishula?" He asked quietly.

"Yea... it is beautiful..." Trishula said in agreement. "Very beautiful... i'm glad I could be here; I've never seen an underwater planet before even on the holonet."

"I have, just never in person... ugh come ON, what were you 'thinking' past Kiandra, look at that engine efficiency ratio for underwater travel, thirteen percent effectiveness on the Dylerian Transport, UUGH! That is unacceptable!" Kiandra hollered as she read lines of data and code on her console. "Nothing above sixty percent efficiency is tolerable, I don't care what you were drinking at six in the morning four weeks in a row, you should have theory tested the possibility of these things traversing underwater! And don't come complaining to me about the probability being low of these things having to have their difference in masses between a body of water that encompasses the entirety of a planetoid's surface being a difference in volume of mass compared to the vacuum of space for a 'space fairing craft' meant to exceed the speed of sound on fifteen different planetary body types, IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO COMPENSATE FOR ENGINE EFFICIENCY!"

Arthur just glanced at Trishula as Kiandra threw a temper tantrum in his lap, complaining to her past self for something she had no prior knowledge about or believed would happen when testing and designing the Arwings. Both of them smiled and nodded in agreement, she may be smart and incredibly intelligent, and one of the greatest minds of the galaxy along with the rest of her species, but she still seemed to have a childishness in her that even 'they' could recognize.

They continued to swim through the underwater trench, behind them Great Fox trailed at a close enough distance to be able to render assistance, if necessary, but far enough that the ship had time to compensate if needed. All the while they noticed that while the trench may have had sea life roaming it, and was a generally beautiful looking location, they saw a distinct lack of any of the local population or indeed 'anyone'.

"It's deserted out here... this is the general location of where the capitol city is located right?" He asked.

"Yep... this is what the Aquavram's refer to as the Maze of the Ancients." Kiandra said as she typed some more. "These mazes are actually a system of caverns and trenches that an ancient sea fairing creature uses for its nesting grounds. The ancients are, well an 'ancient' sea creature that the Aquavrams share a biological connection to, in fact they're the 'last' of the species that the Aquavrams have a connection to regarding their genetics, as all others went extinct over the generations. The Aquavrams have an entire religion around the ancients, believe them to be the spiritual and biological ancestors of their species. These mazes are considered sacred, and the ancients use them as nesting sites for their eggs."

"Amazing." He muttered as he looked around, hoping perhaps to catch a glimpse of this 'ancient'. "But where are the locals, the Aquavrams, if they were waiting for help, surely... surely, they would have 'someone' looking out for us?"

"Yea... where's the sentries, the scouts, the pods... someone or something to let them know we're here?" Trishula agreed.

[Maybe they're losing hope... they're probably suffering too much to dedicate someone to look for us.] Yumi muttered.

[Wouldn't blame them... the last two convoys were intercepted... and they had no word that help was even on its way, or that it was intercepted 'twice'.] Katarra said sadly.

[Let's cut the negativity, we're here to save lives...] Vanessa said.

"Yea, we're here to restore that hope... and save lives, so let's find that city!" He told them.

Trishula nodded alongside Kiandra, and he suspected the other three did the same, so they focused on the job of charting a course for Great Fox to take. They turned down the path and dove deeper as the trench started to get thinner, meaning Great Fox had to be careful about its path to avoid damaging itself on the walls of the trench. He could see as the ship slowly turned; the wall 'barely' avoided clipping the wings of the ship on her left side.

As they slowly left the trench and it widened, making it safer for the ship to push through the water, the Blue Fox's scanners picked up something that got their attention.

"What is it?" He asked as Trishula brought it up on the monitor.

"Underwater explosions, looks like something blew up close by!" She said. "Looks like a couple explosions occurring twenty four kilometers out. Can't make out what they were or what caused them..."

Suddenly a beacon started to ping them on the radar, and for a few moments a series of blips occurred within close proximity of the explosions, before it suddenly became silent.

"I know that, that's a distress beacon!" Arthur said as Kiandra scooched forward and began typing on a harder to reach console from where she was sitting.

"Yep, looks like it... according to the brief data Blue Fox picked up, it was a distress beacon! Aquavram in nature... twenty-four point six kilometers north-east from our current location." Kiandra said. "Well, what do we do?"

"What do we do, we go and help!" He said, wondering why she even bothered asking.

"But if the signal died out, there's probably little chance they survived, distress beacons aren't supposed to cut out. If it cut out so suddenly that means whoever sent it probably is..." Trishula muttered, not wanting to say what she was saying.

"Maybe... but if they 'are' alive still, we need to go help!" He said.

"It's as accurate a plan as any, but what about Great Fox? She can't follow us there."

"Great Fox, keep the ship here while we go investigate the distress beacon!" He said to the ship.

[Very well, please stay on alert, this area might still be inhabited by dissident aggressors, and the Blue Fox is ill equipped for combat. Without your shields, you will have no defense if they land any direct hits upon you.]

He nodded and Trishula steered the ship away from the trench and into the direction of the distress beacon on the radar. They flew over the trench walls and over mountainous ranges, the three Arwings in close formation and the pilots looking for threats to the Blue Fox. Down below he could see various trenches and cavernous tunnels, some large and some small, some that looked like a full-grown person could stand in, while others looked like they could fit the Great Fox in comfortably.

Arthur also noticed that the closer they got, the less 'fish' there were visible.

"Anything noticeable?" He asked them all.

[I'm not seeing anything visually, but I'm picking up some odd readings... looks like the remains of a battle, I'm picking up some metallic alloys... definitely not what we've been seeing so far!] Yumi called out.

"Hope we aren't too late." Trishula muttered.

He nodded in agreement as he looked around, and saw another trench valley up ahead, and saw more importantly, a large trail of bubbles streaming from the ground. "There!" He said, pointing at the trail of bubbles.

Trishula nodded as she steered the ship toward the bubbles and pushed down into the valley, but the second they neared the entrance, the bubbles suddenly stopped. Arthur noticed how 'ominous' that looked, and deep inside he was praying that he was not too late.

They dove into the valley and saw lying on the bottom of the trench what looked like the remains of a crashed submersible vehicle, it looked like a roundish starfighter but it had multiple bubble pods on its body that each held electronics and circuitry. Much of it was exposed to the water and the rear of the vehicle, which looked like the engine which had a series of trailing 'fins' lay coiled and lip on the ground. There was a jagged opening in the canopy of the cockpit that he could just barely make out from this distance.

"It's an Aquavram Scout Sub, operated by one pilot." Kiandra said as she unbuckled herself. "If there is a survivor, they're probably in the cockpit still. If we steer the bottom of the transport over to the opening of the sub, one of us can dive in with my oxygen mask to recover them through the maintenance hatch. It acts as an air lock, so we can funnel water out."

"That crash doesn't look good..." Trishula said.

"Maybe but we have to check." He said as he also got up. "Vanessa, Yumi, Katarra, check out the trench, scout around, see if you can find any other wrecks, maybe there were other survivors! Trishula, I'll take a look to see if the pilot survived, you be ready to take us out in case trouble shows up!"

[Roger!] They said as they veered away.

Trishula took Blue Fox closer and aimed the lower side toward where the opening to the submersible was. Once it was set up he and Kiandra headed to the maintenance hatch in the lower level of the transport. The hatch was found, surprisingly, in the kitchen of all places. As he went over to the hatch Kiandra pulled out her oxygen mask and handed it to him.

"Alright here's how it works!" She said as she wrapped it over his face so that it covered nose and mouth, while strapping some goggles onto his eyes to help protect them. "The mask is automatically set to seal itself off in case you remove it while underwater, and it'll reopen once it detects you attaching it again. You have about thirty minutes of oxygen, that's all I could fit on such a rushed job, it'll pump air into your nose and mouth, whichever isn't being used to breath. Just don't talk too much and don't breathe too hard, and it will compensate for any difficulties you have breathing at these depths! We aren't too deep below the ocean surface that you'll need a special suit, so this mask should be all you need!"

He nodded and opened the maintenance hatch so he could climb into the very cramped space, ignoring the nearby door that had 'Zero-G Suit' next to him as Kiandra sealed the hatch up behind him. Once he was ready, he tapped the door above him, and the door below him opened to let in water. Once he was completely up to his head, the door opened fully and he slowly swam out.

He wasn't much of a swimmer, but he was glad he was able to at least 'move' in the water. He slowly swam toward the submersible, feeling air flowing into his nose that he breathed in heavily, and breathed out using his mouth, which the mask sucked up. "Kiandra, I'm... nearing the sub, can you hear me?"

[Yep, your all clear, glad to see something I came up with in ten minutes while the ship was floating around is working as intended, not bad huh?] Kiandra giggled into his ear over the mask's communicator.

He nodded as he pulled himself toward the sub, and then slowly floated toward the hole. Inside of the sub he could see everything was a massive wreck, exploded consoles, damaged equipment, and he could even see a thin but tiny cloud of blood floating around the pilot's seat. Sitting in the chair of the submersible was an Aquavram, an Aquavram female. She wasn't wearing what he would see as 'clothes', just traditional sea-faring armor for her body. Her head-fin that trailed behind her had an elegant shell that was wrapped around it, her arms had little shell casing to protect her elbows and wrists, and special shell armor pieces wrapped around her knees and ankles. She also wore a special water-resistant cloth for her waist and another for her chest, but the one that wrapped around her chest had been sliced, revealing a cut along her shoulder that bled slightly, exposing her naked upper body to him and showing her small B-cup breasts along with tiny pink nipples. He could see her whitish-blue skin from her exposed flesh from her chest, while the parts of her that were 'meant' to be exposed were a deep, thick, dark blue with streaks of red.

The pilot looked to be unconscious, and more importantly she seemed to be breathing... 'barely', her chest rose... if slightly, and her gills along her neck only opened by the tiniest bit. He also noticed just how weak she looked, how thin she was, her muscles were thin and her chest was so thin that he could partially see her rib cage. As for her stomach, well... it was obviously far from being 'well fed'.

"Trishula, Kiandra, I've found the pilot... she's not looking too good." He said as he climbed in slowly, approaching the wounded and weakened pilot. "She's very unhealthy... I think she needs help now or she'll die!"

[What are her signs, give me a detail of what her body is doing.]

"Uh, her breathing is very weak, chest is barely rising... her gills are opening and closing, but only slightly..." He said as he felt her pulse, and barely felt it, even going so far as to listen to her heart, and barely felt a beat. "She's got a pulse, but its faint... and I can see a cut along her shoulder, there's some blood floating around her, but I think it's stopped for the most part."

[Alright, listen up, you need to pump oxygen into her body to help jumpstart the heart. She won't live if it doesn't start beating strongly, even if you bring her up here now she'll be dead!]

"What do I do? Just tell me!"

[Here's what I want you to do. The Oxygen mask your wearing contains concentrated oxygen designed for 'you', it's the purest form of healthy air you'll ever feel. That oxygen is what her body 'needs' to jumpstart her heart again. Right now, her body is trying to pull air in from the water around it, but with how shocked she was from the crash, her gills aren't working correctly. So, you need to give it to her the only other way her body can accept it now, through her mouth.] Kiandra said. [Follow these steps and she'll probably adore you for saving her life for the rest of her days!]

"Kiandra, focus!" He shouted.

[Got it, got it, sorry, alright... first step... take a deep breath, and then pull the mask off and kiss her mouth, make sure you make it as 'tight' a seal as you can make so as little escapes. Then blow air into her mouth, at the same time, use your hand to 'gently', remember Aquavrams have weaker bodies compared to Terrans and Belgans, and other species... so 'gently' push down on her chest above her heart. You should find it by her right breast, lay your hand flat and then press down, then when you feel her chest beginning to rise, let it rise until you run out of air to pump into her, then press again, her gills will do the work of pumping the water out of her lungs and into the ocean, leaving her free for more air. Eventually they'll start to work properly, at least enough to help her breathe normally on her own. Also... just in case you're wondering, you have permission to kiss her... iuno if you were thinking that! You're saving her life; this is the exception to the 'no kiss a sleeping girl' rule.]

He rolled his eyes at that, of course everyone knows that is the exception, what is this, an ecchi anime?

"And I repeat that until her heart starts beating better?" He asked.

[Yep, shouldn't take much to get her heart going again... maybe two or four breaths should be enough, your lungs are bigger than hers, so try to be careful with how fast you breath air into her. Don't go too fast, or too slow...]

"Got it!" He said as he saw her gills slowly open and then close, feebly trying to perform their function and unable to. 'I hope I'm not your first kiss...' He thought as he got ready.

He leaned over her in her seat and opened her small mouth to see her white teeth and small petite tongue. Once he had it opened, he took a large deep breath, and filled his lungs with as much air as he could hold. Then in as swift a motion he could, he ripped the mask off with one hand, and pressed his lips against hers, creating a tight seal before too much air escaped, and breathed into her mouth. At the same time, he placed his hand that he was using to hold her mouth open over her right breast, ignoring her softness, and pressed down 'gently'.

He could feel her chest starting to rise, and saw her gills starting to flex more rapidly. Slowly, ever so slowly he breathed more and more of his own oxygen into her lungs, and began to feel her heartbeat starting to pump harder, the feeling of air making it want to work harder to save the life of the pilot. Once he'd run out of air, he pulled away from her mouth, put the mask back on and breathed air himself to steady himself, before taking another deep intake of oxygen and repeating the maneuver.

He pushed air into her lungs and held her chest, pushing it down and letting it rise, and as he did the gills along her neck began to wiggle again, opening and closing as they started to perform their function again, at least for as long as he kept breathing air into her body. Her heart began to pump harder, beat louder, and he knew it was working, she was slowly coming back to life.

Ikaria had felt herself slipping, deeper and deeper into darkness, unconsciousness consuming her mind as she thought she was not going to survive. She had so many thoughts she wanted to think, so many things she wanted to do, and yet... she could feel her body slipping away, try as she might, she couldn't cling to life. She was so weak, so feeble, so hungry and so far from home and all alone now... she was just about to give in and let the sweet embrace of the void called death take her, just so it all would end...

Because why bother... what was there to live for, she was starving, her people were dying, help was not coming, her species was forsaken by the galaxy... abandoned in their hour of need. Thousands of years they welcomed commerce to their corner of known space, granting almost unlimited access to the gas planets they had no need for and no wish to inhabit... and this, was how they were repaid... yea, just let death come, let it take her, let it end... her hunger will end, her pain will end... she will be at peace...

She waited... welcoming that sweet, sweet relief of cold... calming death...

When she felt... life... life flow into her body.

She could feel... life, precious life, oxygen flowing into her body from her mouth. That feeling, that wonderous feeling of oxygen was all her body needed to come back from the void, she sucked in that air, let it enter her body, drinking it deeply as if it were the nectar of life itself, as if that sweet feeling of air flowing through her lungs was all her body 'needed' to simply exist.

But where was it coming from, what was giving it to her?

Feebly, she opened her eyes slightly, and saw this... 'person', this entity pressing their mouth against hers as they were submerged in her submersible scout pod. Her eyes couldn't make them out, especially with how blurred they were from being so weak, but as they pulled away, she managed to get a glimpse of them.

It was a 'male' figure, he had whiteish pale skin, he had somewhat messy dark hair that was flowing freely in the water, and as her vision was blurred, she saw him put his face to a mask and breathed in heavily. Then after a few moments he pulled the mask away and quickly pressed his lips to hers again, and 'breathed' into her mouth.

Oh again, again that sweet, sweet flow of oxygen, that beautiful precious flow of life itself poured into her body, and her vision became clearer, her eyes began to open and she felt 'strength' return to her, however weak it was, it returned still to her body!

'He's... he's saving my life?' She thought, not seeing a Terran, especially a Purebred Terran by the looks of his features, down here on Aquavram Prime, not for a long time since the dissident movement began. 'Why is he here... how did he find me... did... did the Ancient Ones summon him to save me?'

She could see him pumping more of his oxygen into her, trying to save her life... and he succeeded, she could feel her body fighting again, fighting to survive once more, using that precious air he provided from his body to restore her own body's will to live again. As he pulled away again and breathed air from his mask, she waited until he was again about to press her lips once more, as she noticed he was focusing on her gills and not her eyes, and so didn't know she was finally awake, perhaps not at full strength, but alive and awake...

So, when he went to kiss her once more to push air into her body, she slowly reached up with one of her svelte hands, and held the back of his. She then opened her eyes as much as she could with what strength she could spare so he knew she was awake... and finally, used her tongue to lick the inside of his mouth.

She could see his eyes snap open in shock as he noticed her awake, and she slowly nodded, while continuing to push into his lips, deepening the kiss and accepting the air he was giving her body so it would not die, accepting his wish for her to live longer. She had been saved by this Terran; her life saved... so in gratitude for his action, she gave him her First 'Conscious' kiss.

After a moment she separated from him, feeling the air weakening from his body, and not wanting to deprive his body of that life giving entity anymore now that she had the strength to live again for herself. She mouthed, knowing he couldn't hear her words underwater, 'Thank You'... before she collapsed again into the chair, her weariness returning, unable to muster anymore strength than it took to breathe normally, but she never stopped looking at him.

Arthur meanwhile was just stunned that this Aquavram female just up and kissed him right after she woke up, but he could put that aside, as he had seen her mouth... 'mouth' the words 'Thank You' to him. So, he realized that she did it probably out of sheer gratitude for saving her life. But she was still very weak, she was breathing again at least, but very weak.

"She's alive... Kiandra, I repeat, we saved the Aquavram Pilot's life!" He told her and Trishula as he replaced the mask, looking into her red eyes that were speaking how grateful she was to him for saving her life just by how they stared deep into his.

[Way to go Arthur, I'm so glad you told us to come out here!] Trishula cheered happily.

"Alright... we're taking her back to the Great Fox!" He said as he gently undid her belts and gently lifted her up, seeing her nod feebly in understanding, and allowing him permission to hold her. "Were there any other survivors, any other wrecks, anything?"

[Sorry captain... we looked, we even found five more wrecks... but no survivors... looks like she's the only one...] Vanessa said apologetically.

[Captain I've got sixteen submersible subs on approach, vector six-seven-eight... they're Aquavram Attack Submersibles and moving fast toward you... and I don't think they're friendly!] Yumi said quickly.

"What makes you say that?" He asked as he turned to the entrance to the girl's submersible and slowly walked out with her in his arms.

[Because they've got the insignia for Lord Lumarinara, the leader of the Dissident Faction that started this whole slagging rebellion on Aquavram Prime, painted on their subs!] Katarra hollered angrily. [We heard about him on the holonet while we were traveling, bastard started a rebellion to try and take over the government.]

"That's a good reason as any to not stick around then!" He muttered as he climbed out and pushed off toward Blue Fox's hatch to climb back in. "Trishula, get the engines running, get us back to Great Fox, all Arwings return to the Great Fox! Best possible speed!"

[Oh, don't even 'think' of telling us to leave you behind to fend for yourselves, we're covering your butt on our pride as starfighter pilots!] Vanessa said.

He chuckled as he reached up with one arm and grabbed ahold of the Blue Fox's hatch, and then pulled it open with the press of a button. Once he swam up and closed the hatch again, but this time now holding an Aquavram female in his arms, the water was slowly flushed out and he was allowed to breathe normally without the need for the mask.

"Hoooh." He muttered as he shook his hair from the water, dripping in the stuff and getting everything wet as he slowly climbed out of the maintenance hatch to the ship interior. "Trishula, get us moving!"

[Already on the way!]

He felt the ship starting to move and he carried the Aquavram girl up the stairs to where the bedrooms were, thinking he would at least let her rest somewhere while he returned to the main seating area.

*Dnngosh*

*DnnngSHGnng*

He could hear underwater explosions outside and the ship shook slightly from the impact.

"What was that?" He asked as he had to kneel to avoid dropping the girl in his arms, her fins waving slightly in the air as she feebly clutched him in her weakened state.

[Depth Charge Missiles, nasty toys... the Dissidents have caught up with us faster than expected!] Trishula said.

[We're trying to drive them away, but they're focused on the transport... we managed to shoot two down but the others won't stop following Blue Fox!] Katarra complained.

"Ugh!" He groaned as he got back up and walked as quickly as he could to the main deck.

He walked up the stairs and went to the bedrooms in the back, away from the main viewing window. As he ran Kiandra got up and ran to join him, grabbing a medical kit from the nearby wall. Once in the first bedroom he could open, he gently placed her on the bed while she held his hand with hers, holding it as tight as her weakened body could.

"Alright leme see..." Kiandra muttered as she opened the kit and began to scan. "Ugh, man this poor girl is in bad shape, mostly long term from lack of food... the recent damage to her gills and her shoulder can be fixed easily on the Great Fox. As for her shoulder, it's just a flesh wound, nothing life threatening... she's tough, tougher than you give her credit. Other than some bruising she's just weak from starvation."

"Alright, you take care of her, I'll head to the pilot's seats." He said as he made to get up.

"Nuuao..." The Aquavram moaned, her voice sounding very... 'squeaky' and ocean-like.

He turned to see her clutching his hand with all the strength she could muster it seemed, feebly pleading with him to not let her go, to not leave her alone. He again tried to let her go, but her hand squeezed, desperately trying to keep him there. Her eyes looked to him weakly, shaking her head as she wanted to stay with him.

"Huuugh, she aint ganna let you go boss, sorry to say but at least until she knows she's safe and sound aboard the Great Fox, you need to keep with her." Kiandra said with a sigh of disbelief. "Just keep her in your arms until we get to safety, after that she'll probably let you go. She's not in life threatening danger, so she should be good until then."

He nodded as he leaned down and gently stroked her cheek, "Alright, don't worry I won't let them hurt you. You're safe with us!"

She responded in kind by smiling warmly, and nodding in gratitude as the ship shook again from more depth charge missiles exploding. After that he gently picked her up again and carried her to the co-pilot's seat while Kiandra ran up to punch in buttons and scan their enemies.

He saw out the window another Depth Charge Missile speed past them, expertly dodged by Trishula as she swerved away and flew out of harm's way, resulting in the missile exploding, but the resulting shockwave shook the vessel still.

"Guuuh... these Dissidents are tenacious; they know we have her aboard! It's the only reason they'd even WANT to attack us without trying to talk to us!" She snarled.

"She must be someone special, or at the very least be from the capitol city. They don't want her alive to share the information with us!" Kiandra said as she typed in commands.

"Di..sidents?" The girl whispered feebly.

He looked to her and saw her face contorted in weak, but still very noticeable anger at the word 'dissident'. He nodded to tell her she was correct; they were being pursued by the Dissident Faction.

"Luma... rinara..." She said through a sneer, before she coughed up dirty water onto the floor.

"Easy, easy... there there, don't worry I won't let him or his soldiers hurt you!" He assured her. "I'll protect you and keep you safe if it's the last thing I do."

She steadied her breathing and smiled gratefully at him, even as the ship shook from more depth charges, this time one of them got too close for comfort.

*DshhnBOOONg*

The ship shuddered and shook as Trishula growled in fury, turning and twisting the controls to make the ship turn 'faster'.

"That was close... if we take a direct hit, we'll drown!"

"How much farther until we reach Great Fox!"

"Nearly there..." Kiandra said as she typed in something. "Alright you numnuts, let's see how your sub's computers handle a little of Kiandra's patented techno virus. ENJOY!"

Suddenly the depth charges stopped firing and he saw on the radar the subs were trailing back.

[What's going on out here, the subs are going in reverse?] Katarra asked in confusion.

"Hah, just a little computer virus I programmed and sent on a wide band into their systems in about half a minute!" Kiandra snickered excitedly. "Nothing serious, it just confuses their systems into thinking they're going in reverse, once they figure that out, they'll be able to pilot normally again. But it should slow them down and buy us a few seconds."

[Kiandra, you're an Eldentran after my own heart!] Vanessa told her with a laugh.

"Heh, I do my best work when under pressure." She said proudly. "These people may be related to me, but they're tech is so outdated that it makes me ashamed to be associated with them!"

*Dnngosh*

*DnnngSHGnng*

*DnnngSHGnng*

The ship shuttered as multiple depth charges sounded around them, and Arthur held the Aquavram tightly to protect her from the shaking. She squeezed her body tightly against his in fear for her life, and looked to him weakly for assurance of her safety.

"That didn't take long for them to overcome!" He muttered as he gently stroked her cheek to reassure her, causing her to blush slightly.

"Well, it 'was' only a virus that I came up with in thirty-seven seconds... and it was only meant to buy us a few seconds..." Kiandra said with a shrug as he saw on the screen Great Fox was about to come into visual range.

"It was all we needed... Arwings split up, get out of the line of fire... Great Fox, on my mark... FIRE!" He demanded.

Suddenly in front of them a large barrage of plasma bolts and even a huge burst from the Heavy Cruiser batteries launched toward them, expertly shot by the ship's AI to avoid targeting the Blue Fox and the three escorting Arwings.

His rescued charge looked terrified of the massive display of weapons suddenly firing at them, and clutched him in terror as she saw the bursts of fire across the window. She looked up at him in terror as she pleaded for an explanation, asking why this was happening and what was going on. He just calmly smiled at her reassuringly as he stroked her cheek again.

"Don't worry... she's on our side." He said as he nodded to the screen, and she looked to see Great Fox cresting over the trench she was laying in.

She rose slowly, her AFB gun batteries firing continuously to provide cover fire, chasing away the submersibles who had 'no' response to her firepower and had no way to damage her with their weapons. She fired off a second volley from one of her guns that exploded behind them, and he saw on the radar that at least 'two' of the subs had been hit by the blast. The remaining submersibles turned away and began to flee, and eventually Great Fox's guns fell silent as the threats were now gone.

Ikaria stared through her weakened eyes as the window in front of them lit up in bright bursts of light and the sounds of explosions sounded around them. She looked to the Terran who had saved her life, and pleaded with him to answer what was going on, who was attacking them now? Was it the military, did they send help, were the dissidents attacking from the front now?

But even as she looked in fear, she saw his face grow calm in the face of this sheer volume of strength and powerful might. He looked to her with a warm, comforting smile as he said, "Don't worry... she's on our side." and then nod toward the window.

She looked forward and saw... a beautiful white sub of unknown design, rising from the depths of the trenches. It looked faintly like an Ancient... and as she stared, its side exploded in numerous trials of weapon's fire that blazed through the oceans, leaving trails of heat and bubbles in their wake. But despite the explosive and furious power that was firing across the window, not a single shot touched them.

It was as if the sub was doing 'all' in its power to avoid hurting them...

Now it made sense to her, 'he' was protecting them with 'her'... 'she' was his submersible and she was the one keeping the Dissidents from approaching them now. That was why everyone had grown calm all of a sudden. The second she appeared and began to fire on those who'd dare threaten this Terran and those who were with him, they felt safe enough to relax. She looked to him and relaxed as well, feeling safe as well... he saved her life, kept the dissidents away, chased them away... and now was keeping everyone safe.

All she could do was lean up, and feebly plant her lips on his cheek, the touch lasting no more than a second... before she fell back and whispered in a very tired voice... "Thank... you..." again, before at long last, her body lost the strength to stay awake and fell unconscious.

But this time, as she fell into the depths of darkness, feeling unconsciousness take hold of her again, there was no fear, no fleeting feeling of death approaching, no desperate clinging to life, trying to prolong her existence due to fear of the void. She welcomed it because she knew she would live; she knew she was safe... she knew she was safe in his arms. So, she trusted her life to the Terran she just met. She could talk to him in full when she was rested and better, for now... as she felt herself falling asleep, ignoring the stabbing pains of her stomach complaining over lack of food still... she just had to focus on sleep...

For now... just... sleep...

*Badump... Badump... Badump*

She smiled a little... the sound... that song... was so comforting... it was just... 'calling' to her... and it lulled her into a peaceful, reassuring sleep... like a beautiful song, a lullaby... and it called to her...

*Badump... Badump... Badump*

With all of the attackers driven away, Arthur and his crew, as well as the injured pilot they rescued returned to the Great Fox. Once on board he had Trishula and her pilots carry the Aquavram to Kiandra's medical bay while he took to the bridge to direct Great Fox to another location where she could rest and hide from potential counter attack. The ship took off near the surface and swam in open water until she located a big enough clearing over a hundred kilometers away from where she drove back the dissidents. Once there she set herself down on the ocean floor and he set her to Low Profile Mode to help save on power, and now they waited until their new guest had recovered so they could talk to her, and learn what was happening on the planet.

"How is she doing?" He asked his medical officer.

"She's alive... that much I can say, she'll live but... she is very weak in terms of her body." Kiandra said as she had traded her science lab jacket for a medical gown that had the symbol of Great Fox and a green cross on it. "Her fat levels are practically nonexistent; her muscles are thin from how much her body has been consuming itself to survive, she's very tired... her brain's cognitive functions are weak, and her stomach has shown signs of shrinking as it consumed itself to feed her, all signs of clear long-term starvation. She hasn't had a good meal for weeks it seems..."

Kiandra picked up a small syringe and pressed it against the Aquavram's shoulder, before pushing it and injecting her systems with whatever it was that she was giving her.

"Can you do anything for her?" He asked as he stared at the petite Aquavram female on the medical bed.

The Aquavram girl looked to be about four foot three, small when compared to him, but he knew better then to judge a person based on size, Kiandra was four foot one and she was old enough to have met his great-great grandfather's grandfather in elementary school! She was breathing steadily though, much better than before, her chest slowly rising and falling. Thankfully at some point Kiandra had put a shirt on the girl to protect her modesty, but she had to remove her shell-armor to tend to her. With all the armor gone he noticed just how skinny she was, still obviously suffering malnutrition. He could just 'barely' see her arms were on the verge of revealing bones, her cheeks were very thin, and her nose was feebly helping her mouth with breathing.

She was still honestly in Arthur's opinion, beautiful for an Aquavram girl, if it weren't for her starved appearance, she might possibly turn some guy's head with how attractive she was.

"I've given her some injections of vitamins and minerals that her body 'needs' to help restore normal functionality, and I've given her a special serum to stop the body from eating itself and fool it into thinking everything is fine. As for her shoulder, I used a skin regenerator to help speed up her body's surface recovery. Her bruises were an easy fix as well." Kiandra said as she checked some of her computers and a datapad. "What she 'needs' now is a meal; her body needs calories and lots of them to help it get back to a normal state. But not 'too' much and especially too quickly because if we overwhelm her systems with a huge meal, it might do more damage than good!"

He nodded and walked over to a viewscreen to tap it, then pushed several buttons to contact Mevik who had finished serving lunch to the crew.

"Ah, Captain, what can I do for you?" He said as he was carving up a creature that looked like a boar while cutting up various pieces of fruits to the side. "Hmmm the Porkulvra Borkrus is looking fine if I may say so, dinner will be deeeelectable!"

"Mevik, sorry to interrupt your craft, believe me, I love seeing a master work his magic, but I was hoping you could quickly whip up a meal for an Aquavram, something very light and yet hearty enough to help a starving Aquavram body." He told the cook in a very serious tone. "According to Kiandra, she hasn't eaten well in two weeks, her body was starving and it needs something to help it out. Think you can come up with something on short notice?"

"A... a 'starving' Aquavram?" Mevik said as he outright 'dropped' his knives on the floor, which he noticed and screamed some profanity as he bent down to grab his tools. "Ah, sorry Captain, Fuusskkra! Now I can't use these until they're cleaned! Anyway, two weeks without a good meal, oh that poor thing, I'll stop working on dinner to whip up something, I know a few Aquavram dishes and recipes that can help sort her out."

"Good, bring it to my dining room, I'll take her there in a few minutes once I've helped her get situated and I learn what I can from her." He told Mevik who nodded in understanding, even as he was putting away the items he was working on and pulled out new ingredients.

"Alright, I'll bring her out of it... pretty much nothing more I can do for her now, she just needs a meal." Kiandra said as she pulled up another injection needle and filled it with a little bit of clear liquid. "I'll trust her to your care now Captain, I need to go and be lazy for a bit before dinner."

She then stuck it into her neck, before putting the needle into a slot that said 'Disposables', and the nodded to him before walking out. He grabbed a nearby stool to move it next to the bed while the girl's breathing began to quicken and she started to wake up. Slowly he watched her shift on the bed, her eyes slowly blinking as she came to. Eventually she opened her eyes and she began to blink to refocus her eyes, and then they started to turn to him.

"Barlregru, iigrulrarlra?" She said in the same voice as before, young and aquatic.

To him, she sounded like a squid kid in Splatoon, given he never played that game much outside of the first.

"I'm a little sorry, but I don't speak whatever language you speak." He told her apologetically. "Any chance you speak Galactic Basic?"

She nodded as she took a deep breath, her gills opening and closing. "Are we safe?"

He nodded with a smile, happy that she knew Basic Galactic. "Yea, you're about as safe as you possibly can be. What's your name?"

"Ikaria... Ikaria Garnetica Aquavara... military rank, Lieutenant Commander Ikaria of the Aqauvram Prime Naval Guard... first division..."

"Nice name... I'm Arthur Smith, Captain Arthur Smith of the Great Fox." He said warmly. "How are you feeling?"

She breathed a little faster as she tried to answer, "Tired... very tired... and hungry... weak..." She then turned her head as she rubbed her stomach slightly, and it screamed its 'need' to him. "So hungry... so weak... I'm sorry..."

"Don't be sorry, you're safe and sound now." He whispered gently as he stroked her cheek to calm her down. "I take it you haven't eaten in a long time? According to my doctor you're suffering from over two weeks of malnutrition. Your body was eating itself to stay alive."

She looked at him with her red eyes, and nodded, slowly trying to lift herself up to a sitting position, but she was so weak she was struggling to even do that. He leaned forward and gently coaxed her up with his hands, patting her shoulder to ease her and give her support. She nodded gratefully as she looked to him now, her legs hanging over the bed so she could look him eye to eye.

"No... I haven't eaten properly... in a long time... though it was... by choice... I needed to eat the same as my people's military. We're starving... rations at... lowest... wait, my soldiers..." She muttered, but her eyes snapped when she talked about her soldiers. "There were... two others... with me, when the Dissidents attacked... did... did either of them make it?" She asked hopefully.

He sighed and shook her head, which caused what little hope in her eyes to slowly die as she was told she was the only survivor. She hiccupped a little, before she started to cry, or at least 'try' to cry... but her body had no tears to share because of how weak it was.

"I'm sorry, you were the only one we found alive, and even then, we barely pulled you out. I had to give you mouth to mouth in order to bring you back from the brink. I'm... sorry if..."

He was about to apologize to her for kissing her without her consent, but she 'was' on the verge of dying, as he was about to explain. But instead, she placed her hands on his and smiled warmly at him, whatever little hope that died after being told of her comrades' deaths was being rekindled as she was told of his deed in the damaged sub.

"I don't mind... you saved my life..." She replied warmly. "I would have died without you... your Breath of Life... your breath became mine... for that I do not mind giving you my first kisses!"

"First kisses?" He asked in confusion.

She nodded warmly, a twinkle in her eyes appearing. "When I slept you took my first kiss when I could not reciprocate... but when I awoke, I gifted you my first kiss that I could give."

He was a 'little' embarrassed that she was counting 'two' kisses as 'first', but he again reminded himself she was doing so because of how grateful she was for him saving her life.

[Captain, Mevik reports that the Aquavram's food will be ready shortly, and recommends you take her to the dining room.] Great Fox told him, causing Ikaira to look around in confusion and fear.

"Alright... well, there are some questions I need to ask... if you can answer, but first we need to get you something to eat." He said politely. "Here, come with me, we'll get you something to eat."

At the words 'something to eat' she flinched a little, almost like she had heard something that she wasn't expecting to hear. But after a few seconds she nodded and slowly got down from the bed. She shakily stood on her legs, using the bed and panting heavily as she tried to stand on her own. He went to help but she shook her head, she wanted to walk on her own, so he let her but stayed close by in case he needed her help.

She took several deep breaths before she stepped forward, then another step, and slowly began to get more confidence and strength in her own steps with each she took. After a bit he was walking alongside her leading the way, but always by her side as she walked beside him. The door opened and they walked along the hallway toward his dining room.

After about five minutes of walking at their slow pace he saw Trishula walking toward him with a smile on her face. "Arthur, how is she doing?" She asked as she picked up her pace to stand next to him.

"She's doing fine... but she's still weak from hunger, we're going to feed her in my dining room, would you like to join us?" He asked her.

"Sure, by the way what's your name?" She asked the Aquavram who looked at her with a shaky stance.

"Ikaria... Garnetica Aquavara." She replied in a raspy tone. "And yours?"

"Trishula, Trishula Belga Uno-Galara." She said as she offered a hand for her to shake, which she did but it was very weak. "You've met our captain, Arthur Smith... I'm the pilot who flew the ship that saved you, he's the one who saved your life though... I... 'almost' said we should ignore your distress beacon because it was so brief. I assumed you died... but Arthur didn't want to just leave without trying. I hope you... don't take it personal, just Distress Beacon 101, it's not meant to cut out so quickly..."

Ikaria looked a little 'upset' that Trishula told them to let her die, but she brightened up when it was mentioned that Arthur insisted that they go and see if she survived. She looked at him with a happy smile and nodded in gratitude, before walking forward again as he moved to continue their journey. But after just a few steps she stumbled, due to not being used on such smooth flooring barefoot, and she was about to fall and hit the ground hard.

But the instant she was starting to fall, both Arthur and Trishula leapt and held her by her shoulders and grabbed her hands.

"Whoa easy there... careful, we just saved your life, don't go falling and hurting yourself again." Trishula muttered with a worried laugh.

"Here, I'll carry her Trishula." Arthur said as he lowered his hand and moved her legs so he could lift her up and carry her Bridal Style.

Ikaria just blushed as she was held so close to his body and she stared at his face. But more importantly she blushed as he held her in such a way that her ears could hear his heart beat... that sound, that gentle beating song that she remembered hearing before she zoned out from the world. She relaxed as she heard it again, it was so comforting, so soothing to her ears, so wonderful as if it were 'calling' to her.

"I can carry her too you know!" Trishula pouted.

"Yea but you forget, I was practically useless in Blue Fox. I wanted to do something as Captain but all I ended up doing was sitting useless in the transport while you piloted it and Kiandra hogged the consoles while using 'me' as a chair. Let me take care of her until she can walk on her own without help." He told his girlfriend.

"Alright, but I expect you to hold me like that some day!" She snickered as they resumed walking at a much faster pace now to his dining room.

Once at the room he gently placed her nearest the edge of the seating area while he and Trishula sat nearby to help her if needed. After a few minutes of them helping her get comfortable and making sure she'd be fine, as well as Arthur explaining a few details to Trishula that she needed to be aware of, Mevik walked in with a plate with a large bowl of steaming stew in his hands.

"Here we are Captain, aaah... you poor thing you, so hungry... but don't worry, Chef Maestro Mevik has 'just' the cure for your starving belly!" He said sweetly. "A nice stew of Klendura Crab meat boiled in a broth of natural oils and seasoned water with herbs, sizzled slices of Gooper Fish meat portioned for a recovering body, and finally garnished with chopped Kelpweed. Everything the healthy Aquavram Body needs... enjoy~!"

"Kelpweed, I never knew Kelpweed was on Belga Cinco... and Gooper Fish?" He asked in surprise while Ikaria stared at the bowl in front of her.

"They make wonderful garnishes and additions to a variety of dishes, I 'always' like to add 'variety' to my plates and menu." He said with a smile as he bowed himself out.

After he left both he and Trishula looked to Ikaria who was staring at the bowl of food before her, shakily she touched it, as if afraid to touch the food presented to her. But after a glance to him, which he nodded, giving her permission, she accepted its wonderful invitation and picked up a spoon to eat. One spoonful of a bit of everything, the crab meat, the fish slice, and the kelpweed, and she slowly put it into her mouth and swallowed.

Ikaria just felt 'stunned' as that first spoonful of food washed down her throat and landed in her empty belly. That wonderful, beautiful feeling of 'something' entering her belly, something substantial and filling entering her empty belly. The feeling of the spices, the flavor, everything... oh she didn't care how it tasted, it could have tasted rancid for all that mattered as long as her belly was satisfied! And by the oceans it was SATISFIED! She filled the spoon again with more, and ate more, another spoon full and she swallowed, Again, and again... and again, she felt that beautiful liquid food with wonderful servings of foods that she has not tasted in such a long time went down and watered her parched of edible food throat. She could feel it land into her stomach that felt itself being filled with something that wasn't just liquid rations of sour Kelpweed with increasingly less portions of Kelpweed.

No, no this was a feast fit for a 'god', a guardian of the sea, one of the Ancients... this food was cooked to satisfy the deities of the galaxy, and it was given to her! She started eating faster and faster, shoving as much of that delicious food into her body so it could 'finally' be sated after so long. She had never tasted anything so wonderful in so long, it was so wonderful and she was so grateful that these strangers who saved her were feeding her that she began crying, through because she was mid swallow it came out as a cough.

"Easy, easy... you don't want to overdo it!" Arthur said hurriedly as he saw her coughing, and bless him, she thought to herself, he started patting her back to try and help her.

"I..." She whispered causing him to stop. "I... haven't eaten... something so good... in over a 'month'... I haven't... had a meal this good... since before the civil war... we've been surviving on rations... for so long it feels like..."

Both the Terran and Belgan stared in surprise at her words. "How... has your planet's entire population and breed been surviving on only war rations since the war began?" The Belgan Trishula asked quietly.

She looked to them both and nodded, crying as she gulped another spoon full of stew, not wanting to waste even a single drop. "The... the Dissidents hit our food supplies in the first days... they wiped out so many of our farms and pens... they poisoned the Kelpweed Farmlands so they quickly rotted, they blew up the Gooper Fish pens, so they scattered into the wild and slaughtered many of them before we could find and rehouse them... the fighting drove much of the edible fish away from the settlements in the opening days... we were surviving on rations and whatever scraps we could hunt... but we exhausted our supplies..."

She paused to eat more of the stew, until all that was left were the delicious liquids, and then she started drinking it all down as quickly as she could, filling her belly to maximum and finally ending its cries for food. After that she gulped the last of it down, and wiped her mouth clean to continue. She panted as her first full meal ended, but she was grateful for every little drop she was given.

"When we realized how dire our situation was, we began to cut rations lower and lower... as more and more refugees poured into the capitol... we began to face imminent starvation... we couldn't expand our hunting or scavenging expeditions because of the dissidents still in control of areas around the capitol. Every time we tried; they ambushed us... we were under siege without them even posting a soldier outside the city!" She moaned sadly through her eyes, tears starting to shed, the first in so long. "We were 'starving'... more and more every day... King Gungadara insisted that we maintain the status quo, maintain war rations until relief arrived... but every day, we kept reducing our rations... every meal became less and less... we were barely eating more than a single Kelpweed strand mixed with liquid coral broth and any other edible fish we could find and its only gotten smaller..."

She cried harder and harder as she told the story, just how 'dire' their situation was and how little hope they had.

"We kept waiting, first days, then weeks... a month had passed and 'still' no promised help... the only assistance we got was in the war to put down the rebellion, and after that they left us! So many of us believe we are being abandoned, that we have no further need to be included on the galactic scale. So many of us believe there's an image of us, being a backwater planet, that we don't deserve our place on the galactic stage, just because we don't have a fleet or choose to engage with galactic politics and just stay on Aquavram Prime! They think we're being left to die... and they've lost all hope... there are even 'rumors' that the dissidents had a point, that our government no longer has our best interests... they think the only help being sent were to the Gunatara Planetoids because those are the only planets that 'matter' to the galaxy! We need aid or else we'll face a desperate, starving, dying people... who'll do anything to feed their bellies and cure their sicknesses!"

She turned to these strangers, outsiders from beyond Aquavram Prime's borders, perhaps her last vestige of hope for aid.

"You... you have to help, you have a ship, you can send a message... you can tell the galaxy, we're desperate, my people are at the breaking point, we need aid soon or... or... or we'll die!" She pleaded desperately, leaning heavily into Arthur's chest and crying. "We don't have much... but we'll give you 'anything' we can if you just promise to send a message, tell the galaxy... please tell them to send 'aid'..."

Both Arthur and Trishula actually cried a little at how 'desperate' they were for help, hearing it from him and a Vice Admiral was one thing, but to hear it... actually 'hear' the pleading, the begging, the desperate final candle's light of hope on the verge of being snuffed out from one of the planet's population... was something else entirely. But as she cried, he smiled a little as he patted her back, and even Trishula patted her shoulder as well.

"Don't worry... your message was sent... and received... the Relief Aid is on its way." He whispered to her.

She looked up at him as he got up and nodded to Great Fox, looking at the camera that was observing them. She seemingly understood his action, as she said, [Understood captain, please follow the yellow line.]

He nodded as he walked out with Trishula helping Ikaria who was looking confused, but followed them as he led the way. They followed behind him with Ikaria just looking confused as they walked deeper and deeper into Great Fox. For nearly half an hour they walked, with Ikaria no longer needing help, the food having given her strength and revitalized her body.

Eventually they began walking into the areas that nobody was visiting or going to because of how cold it was getting, and especially with lights only turning on when they walked near them and then shutting off once they left their range. But then he saw it... Cargo Bay 1-A. He smiled and pushed a button to open the door, and stood aside to show Ikaria the inside.

Inside she looked to witness a large room, about sixteen meters by sixteen meters by fourteen meters. Inside that room were boxes upon boxes, with the universal images for food and medicine on them. Some had green crosses, others had pictural images of food, relief packages. She was about to cry as she saw the relief aid, but then became deeply, deeply disheartened. This was 'barely' any help... this much would barely make a dent in the population's needs!

She looked to her hero, her savior... and whispered sadly, "This... this is nothing... there's hardly enough here to extend our rations more than a day!" she said pointing at the room.

He nodded as he walked inside the room and pushed a button that she couldn't see without walking into the room, and then the wall opposite them split open to reveal another room, and then further down another... and another... and another. She saw lights turn on, revealing boxes upon boxes similar to the ones in that room stacked upon one another as high as the ceiling permitted and barely any space for someone to walk in between. He then walked out and looked to the right and she watched... as lights began to appear, and she saw more and more doors, saw ladders leading up to several floors, and saw 'more' doors on both sides of the hallway and walkways. Floor upon floor of doors extending as far as her eyes could see...

Her mouth gaped open... as she saw and comprehension dawned on her. They weren't here to find out what is happening on Aquavram Prime... they 'were' the relief aid that the king promised was coming...

They hadn't been abandoned by the galaxy; they had sent aid... her people were saved!

"I'm sorry it took so long... two convoys were previously sent but they were intercepted by pirates in the Hyperspace Lane. The Belgan System had to find a ship that could carry all of the food and medical supplies your planet needed, but also could defend itself and the last of its cargo liners it could spare that each carried relief to the Guntara Planetoids that only your people have the ships to help now." He said. "My ship was the only one that could make the journey in such a short time and had the tools they needed. We had to fight through an entire armada of pirate ships. Over a hundred starfighters and three medium cruisers, as well as a few light carriers that fled, intercepted us and tried to stop us. They shot down two of our cargo ships, but we pushed through. We made our way as fast as we could manage to Aquavram Prime... but only just arrived several hours ago after forcing our way through a storm into the water from space. We just can't find your capitol... we're lost trying to find it so we could deliver our cargo and save your people."

He looked to Ikaria as she turned to him now, her eyes showing the sparks of hope that only moments ago seemed to be on the verge of being snuffed out... to now growing into an unshakable, unbreakable inferno of hope and joy.

"We shot down many pirates... shot up many ships, took a severe beating from their weapons and even debris fields. Even the storm damaged us on the way down... but we're here... we made it." Trishula said with a smile.

"We have the relief your people need... all we need are the directions. I'm sorry that we couldn't get here faster... I hope you can forgive us; we went as fast as we could..." He said to her as he knelt before her on one knee to look her eye to eye.

Ikaria just hiccupped again as she stared into the eyes of her savior... her hero... and all she could do was just leaned forward, wrap her arms around his shoulders and neck, and kiss him on the lips. It was sudden, it was heat of the moment, but in that moment all she could do to show her gratitude was 'kiss' him. She only kissed him for a moment before she pulled back and cried happily.

"Thank... thank you!" She moaned as she cried into his chest, her heart beating rapidly as she told him her gratitude even as she listened to his heart beat beating slightly faster, its soothing song calling to her once more.

Trishula was a 'little' unhappy that this Aquavram kissed her boyfriend, but as she saw that it was just being done out of gratitude... she forgave the girl. If she were in her position and her breed were starving, dying, sick and on their final leg of hope with no sign of aid coming, and then out of nowhere a massive ship comes soaring from the sky carrying all the relief her people needed to save them from starvation... she'd probably kiss the captain of that ship without a second's thought.

She even giggled a little bit at that, as it kind of reminded her of her Oath of Intertwined Hearts and the spark that caused it. She watched as Arthur slowly settled down from being kissed suddenly, and then began gently patting Ikaria's shoulder to calm her down and reassure her again. She too knelt and embraced the two of them, hugging the Aquavram and comforting her. Ikaria had been on the verge of dying, about ready to give up hope, and now... now all her hope had been rekindled and her people's belief in the galaxy not abandoning them repaid.

She cried a bit longer in joy into his chest after the knowledge of being rescued by the ship that was bringing relief aid to her people, but soon she began to settle down and said she would gladly give them the planetary coordinates for Arquoovra Majesta, the capitol city of Aquavram Prime and where it was located.

[Captain... we are being... 'pinged'.] The ship suddenly contacted him on his HUD headset.

"Pinged?" He asked as he looked away to talk to her in private.

[Yes... pinged, our hull has been 'pinged' for the last ten minutes by an aquatic organism that is rapidly closing distance with the ship... it is piercing through the hull at such a low frequency... that I almost could not detect it until recently.]

As they started to stand up and make their way from the cargo bay, the ship suddenly shook as a loud 'BANG' could be heard throughout the vessel, the sound reverberating throughout the hull and on every deck. It was such a massive jostle that it pushed everyone almost to fall to the floor.

"What the devil?" Arthur shouted as he got up, but fell to the floor as another loud 'WHAM' reverberated around the ship. "Great Fox what's going on out there?"

[We are under attack by a large aquatic organism, it is repeatedly bashing itself into the port side of the ship.] She told him calmly as the ship was shook again by another loud 'BAM'.

"Ugh, great... as if we haven't been given the red-carpet treatment already by this planet!" He complained as he got to his feet with Trishula and Ikaria. "Nearest window that I can see this thing, now!"

[Follow the orange line.]

He ran as the line was revealed on the wall and after going as fast as he could, with another 'WHAM' sounding and the ship shaking heavily from the impact making him stumble, he eventually neared the window and saw what it was that was smacking his ship from the side.

A giant... 'whale' was the only way he could describe it, it was a large blue-grey whale with massive fins on its side as well as a big flat tail, attached to a roundish, cylinder-shaped body that prominently featured gills on the sides of its body and a large gaping mouth that was currently closed. Its eyes were currently shaped into that of a glare as it backed up, using its enormous fins to push itself back, kicking up sand and dirt from the ground beneath them and creating clouds of dust and dirt. As he watched it backed up several meters before it began to surge forward, eyes fixed in an angry glare as it charged his ship, and bashed its head into the side of his ship.

'BAM'

The ship was actually 'pushed' this time and he saw it tip slightly.

"Get me Kiandra!" He yelled as he tapped his HUD headset. "Kiandra, is this thing what the Aquavram's refer to as the 'Ancients'?"

"Yep, that's an ancient alright, big girl too... don't ask how I know it's a girl!" She said with a nod. "Probably a nesting mother... I don't think it appreciates Great Fox being here, she probably assumes we're a rival nesting mother and she's defending her territory."

"Ugh, great, if there's one thing, I've learned its never mess with a mama bear protecting her babies!" He muttered as she left his HUD.

[Captain, if this Ancient continues to act aggressive-] Great Fox started saying but was cut off as the Ancient rammed her side again, causing the whole ship to shift on the ground from the force of the impact. [we will suffer damage to the ship, requesting permission to open fire and drive it away!]

"You can't hurt the Ancient Swimmer!" A voice called out.

He turned to see Ikaria stumble forward with Trishula behind her, but she looked to him with a determined expression as she saw the creature moving to ram the ship again.

"You can't hurt the Ancient Swimmer, it's a sacred species to my breed, it just wants to protect its nesting ground! Just swim away and it will leave you alone!"

'WHACK'

[That is an inaccurate statement, this creature is aggressively attacking us, my scans indicate this creature has been following us and tracking us for ten minutes, homing in on us and is now aggressively attacking us.] The ship stated in a calm, intelligent tone. [Captain, we are in Low Profile Mode, you will need to report to the bridge to enter High Profile Mode so I may defend us from this creature with the AFB gun batteries.]

"You can't hurt the Ancient Swimmer!" Ikaria screamed in terror. "It just wants to protect its eggs, just swim away and it will leave us be! There's less than five thousand members of the species, they're an endangered and sacred species to my people. Don't hurt it!"

"Captain, what do we do?" Trishula asked as she held Ikaria's hand. "That thing is attacking the ship, but if it's true and that thing is a sacred and protected species, we might very well alienate the Aquavrams we're here to save if we hurt it. But we have to defend ourselves still, so what do we do?"

He looked between the two girls and then turned to the Ancient Swimmer as it glared at his ship, backing up with its enormous fins as it prepared to surge forward and ram the ship once again.

"Great Fox take off, now!" He ordered. "Engines online, full power to thrusters, get us out of here!"

[Aye Captain... heading?] She said as the engines began to turn on and the ship slowly began to lift and move.

"Any direction, just pick one and get us away from that thing!" He told it.

[Aye Captain, assuming heading... North...] She replied as the engines began to burn their way through the water.

As the ship rapidly picked up speed, pushing its way through the water the Ancient Swimmer watched it go, pausing in its attack for only a moment, before it pushed itself off and took after them. He watched from the same window as the Ancient Swimmer quickly caught up with them, its massive fins giving it the clear speed advantage over the Great Fox's mighty engines, and then glare at them before it swerved into the ship and 'rammed' it again, though this time it was less of a bash and more of a forceful push. It shoved the ship for a few seconds before backing off and then swerving again, seemingly trying to 'shove' the ship away with its own strength.

[It is still attacking the ship captain, even if this species is an 'endangered' species, it does not give it immunity from being counter attacked. I request you enable High Profile Mode so we may defend the ship.] Great Fox complained as the metal groaned under the weight of the Ancient Swimmer.

"Ugh... can you pick up speed?" He demanded as the Ancient Swimmer pulled away to ready another assault.

[We will reach maximum speed soon, however if this continues-]

"We're heading the wrong direction to begin with, Arquoovra Majesta is to the south, we're heading the opposite direction we need to go!" Ikaria hollered as she steadied herself as best she could with Trishula.

"Alright, you heard her Great Fox, turn this thing around and take us south!"

[Aye captain.] She said as the ship began to turn.

As the ship made its rapid change in direction, flipping itself around and heading south now, the Ancient Swimmer turned with them, maintaining the course and matching speed with the ship.

"Alright, now that we're on our way, let's deal with... the..." He started to say before the Ancient Swimmer began to fall back, following in Great Fox's wake but no longer attempting to attack the vessel.

Trishula watched with him at the window as the large creature just fell back, fading into the nothingness of the ocean depths.

"It... stopped attacking us the moment we turned south?" She asked curiously.

"That can't be a coincidence..." He muttered to her. "It's almost like it 'wanted' us to head south, and was only attacking us until we got moving in that direction. Great Fox is it still behind us?"

[Confirmed, scans indicate it is still following us but at a greatly reduced speed. I... have no explanation for this behavior in my database. It is continuing to 'ping' us and is maintaining a distance of one kilometers now.]

He sighed as he didn't honestly care anymore, as long as his ship wasn't being damaged that was all that mattered. "Damage report?"

[None, it appears that the creature was only using enough force to get our attention... not enough to physically damage the hull. There are no breaches detected and no damages registered that my system can detect. I am commencing a self-scan for errors and confirmation. A complete data log will be ready within the hour.]

"Alright... Ikaria?" He asked as he turned to the Aquavram. "Can you give Great Fox the coordinates to your capitol so we can head there as fast as we can?"

She smiled and nodded happily. "Yes... planetary coordinates, thirty-five degrees by negative sixty-three degrees... depth, six hundred meters..."

"Alright Great Fox, lock them in and take us there, fastest you can! We have lives to save." He said with a smile as he got up, dusted himself and made his way to the bridge. "Alright I'll head to the bridge now to monitor everything."

[Aye Captain, at our current speed we will arrive at our destination in less than an hour.]

As he walked toward the bridge, he heard feet pattering behind him, causing him to turn around and see that Ikaria was running to keep up with him, with Trishula following behind looking in confusion as she wasn't sure why the Aquavram was following him.

"I'm sorry Captain, Ikaria just ran off after you." Trishula said apologetically as she held her shoulder. "Ikaria you can't follow the captain all the time, he has duties he has to attend to and his place is on the bridge until we get to your capitol. Plus, nobody is allowed on the bridge besides him, so even if you did follow you can't go in there."

"But he'll need me to talk to the capitol guard, without me to communicate the guard may attack you without provocation!" Ikaria said as she turned to Arthur now. "The capitol guard is hungry and on edge, there are rumors that the population is on the verge of erupting into open rebellion if we don't get help soon. They may very well see an unknown craft belonging to the dissidents and might attack without warning. I need to be on the communicators to tell them. And for that..."

He walked over and patted her head reassuringly, causing her to stop talking as he got her attention.

"Don't worry, when we get close Great Fox will patch you through into the communicators, even if you're in a room you'll be able to talk to your people through her." He said with a smile. "In the meantime, Trishula, why don't you show her around while I go to the bridge."

She just blushed slightly as he turned and left the two ladies behind, heading toward the bridge while the ship continued to swim through the ocean depths. She deflated a little as he walked away from her, happy but also sad that the contact with him had ended so suddenly. She was actually just using that as an excuse to stay close to him, but it was also true that she needed to communicate with the capitol guard. If they thought for a moment that the ship speeding toward the capitol belonged to the dissidents, they might open fire, and potentially damage or even destroy it and all of the relief aid sent to save them, not even considering potentially killing her saviors.

"Well, shall we?" Trishula asked her with a smile.

"Uh... okay..." Ikaria muttered as she followed the Belgan down the hall.

They walked the halls for a bit as Trishula talked about the ship and various aspects of it, describing her experience with it and what her life aboard it was like.

"Great Fox is a Finback Battleship hull, has a lot of cargo space and is well equipped to defend itself from a multitude of prospective attacks. Not only can she reach high speeds while heavily laden with no increase in fuel requirement, but she's also tough and can withstand heavy attack thanks to her station-strength shielding protecting her. As for the crew comforts, she has a lounge where the pilots, like me, tend to go and while away the hours when we're not engaging in combat duties for the ship. There's also a library stocked with reading materials, and I've also seen datalogs from the Captain's past missions that Great Fox kept as records. We also have a mess hall that turns into a bar at night after dinner hours are done. We each have 'standard living quarters', but they're almost luxury quarters by comparison to where I lived before. We have a hanger bay that is currently staffed with various starfighters and a transport, and there's the bridge that the Captain usually sits in when he's on duty."

"What do you do aboard this ship?" Ikaria asked as they were walking.

"Hmm, me? I'm the ace pilot of Trishula's Pack!" She said with a proud tone. "I'm the squadron leader, Trishula of Great Fox, starfighter pilot of Arwing Three. My Squadron is paid and was hired by Arthur to be his ship's private starfighter pilot squadron. He even provided us our own starfighters to use."

"I see... so... what does 'Arthur' do?" Ikaria asked as she looked around.

"Oh him, well he does... pretty much whatever a captain wants to do. But generally, he commands the Great Fox itself and gives us our orders while we're flying, and he gets us our missions so we can make our money." Trishula said with a smile. "He generally makes sure we're all okay before anything else. He and Great Fox are a big pair, in fact with how well automated this ship is... he doesn't actually 'need' a crew, he just wants one to keep her safe and to take care of her when he can't."

"Does... he have... someone close to him?" Ikaria asked politely.

"Hmmm, close?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "Yea, he has someone close to him. Me, though we try to keep our... relationship professional when we're on duty and on the job... but off the clock, we're very close... other than his ship I'm the closest to him."

"O-o-oh... I see." She muttered nervously as they resumed walking.

But as Trishula was busy looking forward and not paying attention to Ikaria, she glanced at her D-cup breasts and then her hips, before she looked down at her own much 'smaller' B-cup breasts and thin hips, and lamented that even if she 'were' at peak condition she just couldn't compete.

"Something wrong Ikaria?" Trishula asked with a frown. "You look like someone just punched you in the guts."

"N-nothing... just... uhm..." She whispered awkwardly as she tried to turn the conversation 'away' from what she was thinking.

"Oh, I see... look, if it makes you feel any better, I think you look very pretty and I bet there are guys who would be attracted to you." Trishula said as she saw how she was looking ashamed at her body sizes compared to hers. "And between you and me, I think I saw Captain Arthur blushing a little when he held you close to him while we were being attacked by dissidents."

"Really?" She said with an excited tone. "Do you think he likes me?"

"Uh... I can't say... but I think the 'real' question is do you like him?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "I've been noticing you keep trying to stay as close as possible to him, hugging, the kiss in the cargo bay, trying to follow him to the bridge. Is... there something you want to say that I should be aware of?"

"Eh... huh... uhm..." Ikaria muttered as she was caught.

Truth was she was developing a large crush on him after he'd saved her life. He was the first 'off-worlder' that had basically shattered the images so many of those around her had painted to her about ship captains from outside of their system. According to those she spoke to, mostly in the military and even in the government, many outsiders were mostly out for themselves. Many were warmongers and paid to fly ships so they could destroy other ships in space combat. Others were only interested in flying so they could get away from their problems and lives, going from place to place and living how they wanted. She'd even met a 'few' Terran and Belgan dignitaries, most of them military, and while they were professional and polite, they just always seemed to regard her planet as a place they'd rather not be spending their time visiting.

It wasn't until the civil war started that she believed those images of outsiders, especially fleet captains and naval officers... it only seemed because the Guntara Planetoids were a source of minerals and ores that the galaxy relied upon did any non Aquavram even 'care' about her people and their system of the galaxy. Arthur though, he didn't 'need' to accept the job to provide relief, he didn't have to risk his ship, his crew, everything to provide aid... yet he blasted through pirates and a storm to save her people. Sure they were being paid... but, from what it sounded like, they went in not knowing the dangers to get here safely!

"Ikaria?" Trishula asked.

Ikaria looked up at her and sighed, nodded and admitted she liked him. "Yea... I've never seen a captain like him before, one who willingly risked his ship in such a manner like what you guys did." She said. "But... it's more than that..."

"Hmmm?" Trishula asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's... because he gave me his Breath of Life..." She whispered as she blushed at the memory.

"Breath of Life?"

Ikaria's heart began to beat a little faster, but in a very gentle and warm way as she recalled that memory, when he was breathing air into her body to give it what she needed to live. "We call it that because... air, oxygen... is so hard to come by down in the oceans of Aquavram Prime." She said as she looked out the window. "While there is air on the surface, below the waves we have to get air through our gills. We're adapted to breathing on land and in sea... but our gills cannot breathe out of water, so they don't function where our mouths and noses do on dry land or in pockets of air. We call oxygen the 'Breath of Life', because of how precious it is... all life needs air of some kind to breathe... but for us on Aquavram Prime, we have to pick where we get it from, and if something goes wrong with our body or we can't get it from our surroundings... we suffocate worse than you non-Aquavram's would. To suffocate is one thing, but to suffocate 'twice' at the same time... is a horrible feeling."

"So... when I was in my scout submersible... my gills weren't working properly... I was drowning... I couldn't breathe... but Arthur gave me his Breath of Life, his own oxygen that 'he' needed to breathe. It was like he was pouring his own life into my own, giving me his life... giving my body the will to 'want' to live..." She said with a sigh as she touched her chest. "In my culture, to give another your Breath of Life, means you are willing to drown to save another's life... sure it may seem like nothing to you because he had plenty of air with that mask thing... but for me... I'm only breathing again because of him... it's an emotional feeling that is hard to describe. I'm using 'his' Breath of Life to live now, I don't want to waste it because of how important it was to him... and how much hope he has given me today. I haven't had much to be hopeful for or grateful for in weeks... not since before the dissident movement began... he gave me that hope back."

"Hmmm..." Trishula hummed as she crossed her arms. "It almost sounds like you believe you owe him your life; I think there's a species that practices a cultural thing called a 'Life Debt'. I can't think of it at the moment, but I've heard over the holonet that if you save the life of a member of that species and get no reward for the action, that individual repays you by staying with you for the rest of their life, helping you no matter the path you take. Sounds familiar to you?"

"Yea, it sounds like it... I just, want to thank him now for giving me his Breath of Life, saving me from those dissidents, and above all... bringing the relief aid my people need!" She said with a smile as she stared out at the sea. "I'm the only representative of my species here... I have to show him our gratitude however I'm able to. At least... until we get to the capitol."

"Shouldn't be too long, and don't worry, we'll save your people..."

"Thank you... thank you for saving us..." She said with a deep breath, feeling the air flow through her chest, and feeling as if Arthur's Breath of Life was circulating through her again.

"That's our job..." Trishula said with a smile. "My squadron and I became pilots because we wanted to save lives and travel space... to us, this is what we 'dreamed' it would be..."

Minutes passed, then more minutes as Great Fox sailed through the ocean currents. He saw numerous trenches, outcroppings of underwater landscapes, various mountains and large valleys on Great Fox's numerous holographic windows. Very little had changed other than the fact that the ship had 'finally' adapted to the planet's reflective surfaces, now she no longer needed a ship to scan the terrain in front of her to maneuver safely through.

He kept his eye on the scanners and kept tracking that Ancient Swimmer that was 'still' keeping up its pace with his ship. All the while he kept on thinking to himself about its weird actions, why it was focused on following them, why it attacked them, and why it was generally acting this way. It just appeared out of nowhere, rammed his ship to get their attention, and then when they started to leave it kept on attacking, trying to shove them to turn around, and only 'after' they did it did the thing finally abandon its aggression but still maintained its observations of him and Great Fox.

"The Ancient Swimmers are supposedly the last remaining genetic relatives to the Aquavrams... is it possible they 'know' how dire the situation is for them and they can detect we're carrying the supplies?" He asked as he sat in his chair to talk to Great Fox.

[Unknown... I do not have any data which correlates to the two being any more then genetic relatives...]

"Hmmm, if they 'are' aware, then that explains why it attacked us the way it did. You said it wasn't doing any damage right?"

[Confirmed, no damage was being suffered, while the impacts were heavy, the hull was built to withstand far more pressure than it was capable of. Do you believe it was attempting to get us to head toward the capitol Captain Arthur?]

"Makes sense, it stopped aggroing onto us once we turned south like Ikaria said to do and started heading toward the capitol. Since then, it's not tried to get closer or attack us while we maintained our course. It's been following at a distance... and keeping tabs on us like we're keeping tabs on it." He said as he zoomed in on the section of the radar where, as it had been for the past half hour, the Ancient Swimmer could be seen trailing them. "I just hope we aren't too late to save lives... that's all I want right now... to not be too late."

He sat in silence as he kept focus on his holographic windows and stared at their surroundings, but eventually Great Fox began to dive deeper, turning down toward a large open trench in a huge, vast open hole in the surface of the ground.

[Captain, we are on final approach for Arquoovra Majesta... beginning final descent... all engines reducing power, forward thrusters and stabilizers on standby.] She said.

"Good... steady as we go Great Fox." He said as they dipped below the crest of the opening and now everything became dark. "Can we get some floodlights activated to give us some vis-"

*Breee Bree Breee Bree Bree!*

He turned to the radar and stared at the holographic window as it began to erupt in signals swarming his ship from multiple angles on all axis. There had to be hundreds of submersibles rising and diving toward him, approaching the warship fast and hard.

"Open communications channels immediately!" He ordered in a panic. "Get Ikaria on the comms quick!"

[Communications channel open... they are not responding to our request for communications linkup.] She told him calmly.

"Attention Aquavram submersibles, this is Captain Arthur of the Great Fox, we mean no harm and are here with no harmful intentions, disengage your weapons!" He said as he tapped into the HUD Headset to try and talk to them.

[They are not responding, scanners indicate multiple weapons systems activating, target locks are being engaged, we are being locked upon by multiple levels of Depth Charge missiles!] Great Fox said in as calm a tone as she could, but even the ship was beginning to show nervousness. [We will not survive an all-out barrage from so many weapons with the shields down, do we engage our weapon's systems to attempt to dissuade them?]

"No, we're here to save lives not threaten them!" He told the ship. "Repeat, this is Captain Arthur of the freelance ship Great Fox, disengage your weapons, we have come bearing relief aid for the capitol city, repeat disengage your weapons!"

As he was beginning to panic, a window popped up which showed Ikaria's face as she looked angry. [I'll take it from here Arthur! This is Lieutenant Commander Ikaria Garnetica Aquavara, of the Aquavram Prime Naval Guard's First Division! In the name of the royal family as the second Royal Daughter in line for the throne, I ORDER you all to stand down.] She hollered in a loud authoritative tone. [This ship is carrying the relief supply for Arquoovra Majesta's entire population sent by the Belga System. I repeat, in the name of the Royal Family... as the second Royal Daughter in line for the throne... I ORDER YOU to stand down and signal the city to lower the barrier shield protecting it and let them pass!]

After a few moments the various signals that were surrounding Great Fox began to disengage their weapon systems. Soon all of the submersibles were standing down and various lights began to shine showing just how surrounded they were and now, down below he could just make out a large shield-like bubble shutting down and revealing a vast underwater city the likes of which that he had not ever seen outside of a movie that would have caused him to be in awe at its majesty and expanse...

If it weren't for the fact that he realized that he, his ship and crew had rescued the 'Second Royal Daughter' in line for the Aquavram Prime throne. On top of that... he had 'kissed' the daughter of the Aquavram Prime's King, and that she was a military leader of some kind on top of that. He just assumed she was a normal Aquavram... not royalty, he's been treating her like a normal woman!

"Great Fox... are the Life Restoration Pods on standby?" He asked his ship as she slowly began to descend to the city below her.

[Affirmative captain, a pod is always on standby for you, there are now other pods on standby for the other members of your crew now. Why do you ask?] She asked in a polite tone.

"Good... because I have a feeling, I'm going to be needing it again... when the King finds out that a random captain touched his second youngest daughter's semi-naked body and kissed her while she was unconscious... multiple times... he is going to 'kill me'." He whispered to her.

[I feel that is an exaggeration... you 'are' carrying the relief supply for the capitol city's entire population, and you were only acting to save Ikaria's life. It is... not like you slept with her.]

"Yea... and that's the only thing that might just keep me from waking up in that pod a second time..."

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(Aboard Lord Lumarinara's personal Crab Walker)

Lord Lumarinara was sitting in his command chair on the bridge as he slowly carved up a roasted Gooper Fish dish before him, while beside him his personal butler poured a glass of Gundara Wine for him. Before him his bridge hands coordinated and controlled the entirety of his army of rebellious forces, seeking to overthrow the ruling body.

He smiled as he took a bite of his meal and his butler bowed, taking the glass away and placing an eating cloth on his lap.

"Thank you, you're relieved for now." He told him elegantly.

His butler humbly bowed and walked off the bridge with the bottle in tow. Lumarinara smirked as he lifted the glass using only two fingers on his hand and took a sip. The wine was as delicious as always, and with a lovely meal of cooked Gooper fish and boiled Kelpweed, he was basking in the light of his imminent victory, for all was going according to his carefully laid out plans. They have been planning this rebellion for months now... months of effort, months and 'months' of preparing, and now all was coming into fruition.

The door to the bridge opened and his second officer General Bugnara of his armed forces walked onto the bridge, bowed and stood at attention.

"Lord Lumarinara, radar scouts report that we have just picked up our assault submersibles on return to the camp." He said calmly.

"Ah... very good, are the provisions ready to show to our 'guest' when she arrives?"

"Yes sir, everything is in order, we should have a doctor on standby to treat her injuries if she suffered any, and I have informed the chef to prepare a meal for her Royal Highness. She will no doubt be famished."

"Yes... a shame, but it was necessary General." He told him as he took another bite. "Soon though, this nasty civil war business will be over... and then we can start to get to work on bringing Aquavram Prime, and the Aquavram People onto the galactic stage!"

After finishing his meal he stood up from the chair and stared out of the window at his army's encamped position. In various bubble biome buildings were boxes and crates of relief supplies, provisions and armaments, all of the supplies he would need to complete the takeover of Arquoovra Majesta.

"We've been over this multiple times general, but it really pains me to have to force such measures upon my own people, but it was for their own good!" He said with a sigh. "King Gungadara had the opportunity to negotiate a new deal with the various star systems that use 'our' system's Guntara Planetoids for their own benefit. They harvest and mine the ores and minerals that make up their starships, and pay us only a 'trifle' in royalties for the use of those planets. And he has the gall to say that our people have never desired nor wanted to expand our influence or our interests on the galactic stage? To think he 'dared' mention in court that the galaxy as a whole appreciates us and is grateful to us for our planetoids that only 'we' could have established their precious mining operations in the first place? Bah!"

"Yes Lord Lumarinara..." His general said to him.

"Vermin I swear, we're the butt of the galaxy, the forgotten element none even consider on the galactic stage, they step on us and we just 'accept' our status as their doorstep. We deserve to be treated as a galactic player; we deserve our place at the table... let them come to us to 'buy' our planetoid ores if they need them so much. When this war is over and I am King... we will begin to make progress and eventually I will usher in a new age for our people!"

"It was a risky plan you came up with my lord, with how you conducted this civil war."

"Yes... it was, destroying so much of our own system's infrastructure... slaughtering and poisoning the food... restricting the military's scouting expeditions for food, as well as some other... 'detestable' methods to raise the funds to pay for it all... risky, but it has all but paid off now." He said as he swirled the wine in his glass for amusement. "When the military, the navy and even the multitude of Freelance Captains came and destroyed my space forces that I'd hired and bombard the planetoids from space, I was worried, I will admit. But fortunately, it was a calculated risk that played out as I expected, it was also fortunate that I paid those pirates to intercept and bring us the relief supplies meant for Arquoovra Majesta, so when we approach with our forces, offering a temporary truce to relieve the starving, sick, dying masses of the population... we will be able to kick that king down from his throne where it matters most!"

"But even if the population were swayed by your words and gesture, you cannot possibly ascend to the throne without a link to the royal bloodline." His General said with an intelligent tone. "The eldest daughter, Royal Highness Inkara, would never marry you, she detested you at court due to your 'advances'."

"Which is why... we will get it through the younger daughter, Ikaria, she's young enough to be influenced easily. She has such noble and youthful thoughts like caring for the commonfolk. After starving for so long, waiting out for relief from the galaxy, and seeing no aid coming, while her people starved and were struck with disease as it ran rampant like a plague in the city, she will see our way, that we Aquavrams must stand on our own if the galaxy is to respect us. Once she sees our good intentions when we show the food and medical supplies, we have to offer... out of the kindness of our heart, for we are Aquavrams just like her, she will join our cause. And thanks to our spy on the inside... she will soon be eating out of the palm of my hand!"

"Ensign Polmer once served under me while I was still with the military, it was easy to get him to join us, I 'did' get him into his rank and it was 'me' who helped him avoid a military court-martial when that nasty 'incident' came up where he tried toying around with the Dutchess' daughter."

"Yes... it is sad we had to shoot her down and kill her subordinates, but once we retrieve her and she sees our 'noble intentions'... she will join our cause when she realizes that we only want what's best for our people. And when it comes time to overthrow her father... she will join me in a political marriage... and make me 'king' of the Aquavram People!"

He was already picturing her on their crowning ceremony, watching as he sat upon the coral throne with her beside him as he was proclaimed 'KING' Lumarinara of Aquavram Prime, and afterwards he pictured himself sitting before a public execution where the King, Queen and even the Eldest Daughter were put to death for their crimes against the people. The image was so satisfying that he began to smile and laugh at how perfectly his plans were coming together. If they were anymore perfect, he would not have needed to plan them!

Suddenly the door to the bridge opened again and a lowly subordinate walked in with a salute.

"Lord Lumarinara, I have an update from the squadron that went to retrieve Ikaria's submersible!" He said.

"Hmmm, yes?" He said as he turned to him with a smile.

"My Lord, I beg your forgiveness, but it appears that second princess was rescued by a group of off-worlders!" He said with a nervous tone.

"What?!" He snarled as he turned around in full, and every deck hand flinched as they 'knew' he was mad.

"She-she was rescued, and we attempted to pursue an unidentified transport and its three starfighter escort fleeing the sight of her crashed submersible... despite minor losses we were able to pursue and came close to intercepting, but our forces were stopped by a large submerged starship that open fired and destroyed more of our forces... forcing the squadron to flee!" He said with a stutter.

"WHAT?!" He yelled as he flung the glass he was carrying to the floor, shattering it loudly.

"A-A-And... we have reason to believe that... t-th-th-the starship... i-in question... is heading straight for Arquoovara Majesta..." The soldier tried to continue with a straight face, but the fear in his voice was evident. "I-i-i-i-it may ev-ev-even be c-c-c-carrying relief aid for the population!"

Lumarinara grabbed the soldier by his throat and held his 'gills' down, squeezing in anger as he was 'seconds' from choking him to death, but he was 'not' a murderer of his own forces. Instead, he shoved him away and onto the floor. "Get... out of my sight... and don't come back or say another word unless you have 'GOOD' news!"

The soldier crawled away and rushed to get off the bridge before the lord found a reason to execute him. Meanwhile Lumarinara turned to the deck hands and they all quickly found a reason to look busy. "This RUINS our plans!" He shouted to everyone, but mostly to himself. "Without the princess on our side, and especially if the city gets resupplied by aid, everything, EVERYTHING, I have planned for and 'paid' for... will be RUINED!"

He turned to his general who stood at attention. "Make contact with our spy in the military, order them to deliver false information. Have Polmer tell the guard defending the border to the city shield and the outer perimeter that dissidents have taken over a space fairing vessel and are going to use it to attempt to disguise rebel forces for a direct assault, by claiming to be a ship carrying relief aid to the population!"

"That ship must NOT reach the city! If we are lucky the princess will be too weak to order the guard to stand down... everything, EVERYTHING, we are seeking to accomplish, rides on us capturing the princess and getting her to our side, and for relief to 'NOT' make it to the population before us!"

.

[Mevik's Log]

[I have to admit, when I first saw Arthur and Trishula in the restaurant I didn't have much to say about them or much to think about them. They looked like any couple I'd seen wandering the streets and just so happened to order a private dining experience at the establishment I'd worked for over seven years. They certainly enjoyed my cooking which is always a pleasant experience for a chef like myself.]

[But... well when he started talking 'business' I became intrigued... it would be Tony who would tell him that I was looking for 'somewhere' to open my own restaurant when I could afford it, as well as my own bar! It's not that I hated the pay, it was pretty good... but, the boss just wouldn't let me be creative, would not allow me to show my talents or show off what delectable meals I could create! It was always the overpriced fancy meals, over and over for the high-class captains and the dinner dishes for the normal captains.]

[Yet... when he offered me the opportunity to be a cook aboard a starship, to run the kitchen how I wanted, to let me even set up my own bar... and he'll pay me well? Well, why would I NOT take him up on that offer. The joy of freedom to cook as I wanted, select the day's menu and prepare as I wish. The pleasure of friendly company and conversation with those I was spending time with? The opportunity to tour the stars, to see new dishes, learn new recipes, and just enjoy the experience of travel? It was too good to pass up. Plus, it was nice to tell that idiot 'I QUIT' when I did. He has no idea who walked out on him, he'll have to hire 'three' cooks to replace me!]

[Speaking of company, I already was enjoying my time with Tony and his family, regulars to my bar after hours, but I even met new friends in the form of an Eldentran named Kiandra. Oh, she resists my cooking but I can tell, she admires my works even from afar, I'll get her to eat 'real' food yet! And those pilots of Trishula's, I never met them before but they are a delightful bunch, laughing away the hours at my bar and making wagers on the Turbine-Engine Races I always put up while serving drinks!]

[Captain Arthur does not visit us, not that I blame him, captains are... known to want to uphold themselves to a higher standard, or try to, so they tend to not spend much time with the crew after hours like tony and his family in my after-dinner bar. But I've noticed he is always enjoying my food, perhaps the most out of the crew. As for Trishula, I've noticed she tends to go to his private dining room when meals are served, her excuse is she's his 'Ace Pilot' and so its expected she dines with him.]

[Vanessa of course... rolls her eyes and shakes her head to me. We know the truth, or at least most of us do, it seems Yumi and Katarra aren't paying much attention to the underlying messages.]

[This first mission I joined on was very bumpy at times, first pirate raids... then a tense stare down with a Dreadnaught that looked like it was about to blast us to pieces. Oh, and poor Aquavram Prime, the population, starving and sick... nothing feels worse to a chef, then to see someone starving, and feel unable to feed them. I wish I could help, but I am but a chef... at least I fed 'one' starving Aquavram, and by the looks of it as we near the capitol city... there are many, many more to feed. And to think that first Aquavram I ever served was also 'royalty'... oh my word, it's a massive boost to my ego to say I served 'royalty'.]

[No matter what comes though... I look forward to my time here, serving as the cook of the Great Fox to Captain Arthur, and his crew of hungry mouths!]

.

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=Author's Notes=

So there you go, hopefully Ikaria was a better introduction to her character, she's a Royal daughter and she's a military girl. Hope you enjoyed the story so far, I'll think about whether to end the next chapter with a lemon between Arthur and her and maybe Trishula, which will be the last for a while as i work on my other stories again.

The downtime when FF was unavailable gave me time to go back, read, and improve sections... hope it made the chapter better~

As always review away, tell me if I did well or if I just suck etc...

I will be honest I became a little disheartened by some of the recent reviews talking about the downsides of my story, thinking I'd done horribly and it slowed down my writing, but I looked more at them and began to appreciate the criticism~

So don't worry about hurting my feelings, as a writer I have to take the risk of offering what i write to be read and hearing the upsides and the downsides of the content. And to be honest, I was not aware there was another story out there that mine bore a similarity to... i don't read much other stories outside of FF, so i was not aware. I can only hope I'm not stealing ideas or having to have mine be compared on their level.

Either way...

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[Pleasant Dreams, Catpains...]