23. Flustered Maid

Abyssal mentioned to Kuon that a freighter, about the size of a small frigate or a large corvette, had just warped in above them from out of nowhere. A freighter that Abyssal estimated to be about two hundred meters in length and about over sixty meters in height. If Abyssal was asked to describe the shape of the freighter, her reply would be that it looked like a tailless mechanical grey whale wearing a jetpack on its back. There were no obvious logos on the ship that Abyssal could spot.

Just like Abyssal and Kuon, the freighter must have come to the area to answer the distress signal. The two girls were now discussing with each other about their next step— or they were supposed to if Kuon would stop panicking.

“What?! Master! Wh-what do we do now?” Kuon asked in a rare bout of panic, her drone moved frantically left and right.

‘Woah, that calm and collected maid is actually flustered right now,’ Abyssal thought to herself as she observed her maid. She thought it was a little bit endearing how a stoic person like Kuon can actually panic like that. ‘Didn’t she fight in a war? Why is she freaking out right now?’

"Calm down, Kuon. We've talked about this before, haven't we?"

"Talked about..? Ah! The plan!"

Indeed, the two girls have spoken before about the matter. A plan for a certain event Kuon hoped would not happen.

"Yup, the plan. We are going to act like we are a stranded ship with a dead crew. Quick, make the place look messy before they board us!” Abyssal said to Kuon.

“Understood,” Kuon gave a fast reply before moving to the cargo bay.

Abyssal nodded to Kuon before moving to the cockpit to secure her beloved captain. Her drone glided over to the seat before grabbing the lockbox that Kapitan was in. However, just before Abyssal went to bring the box away to safety, she thought up a great idea.

‘Oh right, it will look more convincing if there is an actual dead body huh…’ Abyssal thought to herself as she stared at the lockbox that contained Kapitan’s remains. Maybe she shouldn't have asked Kuon to jettison the handsome man so soon. She could have used his corpse to fake it instead.

"Ah well. Kapitan will do. Do you mind? It might be dangerous, Kapitan," Abyssal asked the deceased captain.

"..."  Kapitan only remained quiet .

"Got it! Make sure to give them a super convincing act, Kapitan!" Abyssal said to Kapitan.

Giving a nod to the imaginary captain, Abyssal opened the lockbox before placing the remains onto the seat of the cockpit. She tried arranging the bones as best she could to mimic a person sitting down but that attempt ended in failure when she realised she didn’t know which bone part goes to which part of the body. Deciding not to waste any more time, she just grabbed the skull and placed it on the control panel and scattered her remains on the seat of the cockpit before floating away to meet up with Kuon. She carried the empty lockbox with her of course.

“My preparations are done, Kuon. Let’s hide in the secre—” Abyssal imaginary jaws dropped when she saw the internal state of the ship.

In the short time that Abyssal went over to set up the remains, Kuon had somehow managed to trash the place to an unrecognisable state. Resources and scrap metals that were previously neatly arranged and tied to the hull were untied and sent flying. Wires and cables that were meticulously sorted out by Kuon reverted back to their chaotic and disorderly state. Peaking into the captain’s quarters, Abyssal could see that the place was trashed with books and furniture were all over the place as well.

“What the…” Abyssal muttered, unable to believe that the neat-freak would be able to do such a thing in that short amount of time. Perhaps Kuon was a much more destructive person than Abyssal thought. Or maybe Kuon just doesn't do well in stressful situations.

“Master, my preparations are also done. What is our next move?” Kuon said in rapid motion to Abyssal once she threw the last book on the bookshelf to the air. 

“Oh… um... we hide. I’ve made a secret room behind the bookshelf. It used to be the bathroom of the captain’s quarters,” Abyssal said before moving over to the bookshelf to reveal a secret door.

“I see, brilliant! Wait… when did you… create this?” Kuon asked.

“Around the time I made that statue,” Abyssal answered as she viewed the floating statue in the corner of her ‘eyes’. 

‘We should probably get rid of that, huh,’ Abyssal thought to herself.

And so, the two Living Cores quickly deconstructed the statue before moving to hide within the secret compartment of the ship. It was like watching two children hiding from their parents.

* * * * *

It wasn’t long before they were completely hidden from view. The two drones were now waiting in silence in the small dark room. Once settled in place, Abyssal told Abby to turn off all systems except the omni-directional camera which Abyssal used to monitor the freighter for any movements. 

So far, the freighter hasn’t done anything strange. It just stayed above Abyssal as if waiting for something. The two stayed in silence for quite a while, waiting for whoever it was in the freighter to perform some sort of action. It was as Abyssal said in the past, either they leave the ship alone or attempt to salvage the ship.

The silence was broken when the spaceship deployed and pointed a radar dish towards Abyssal. It was then that Abyssal could feel some sort of weird sensation. An eerie uncomfortable feeling that made Abyssal want to cover herself up. It was akin to the feeling of being watched as one takes a shower. The sensation was followed by loud weird pings that penetrated the ship.

“Wh-what’s going on?” Kuon asked Abyssal.

“I’m not sure… I think…. I am being scanned or something,” Abyssal replied, still looking over to the freighter with her cameras.

“Do you think they suspect us, Master?”

“I’m not sure…” Abyssal replied and the two went silent again.

The scan went on for about twenty seconds before the freighter retracted the radar dish back into itself. It was then, a full ten seconds later, that another device was deployed in its place. 

It was a tractor beam. Much larger than the one Abyssal has.

The device pointed at Abyssal and suddenly she could feel herself moving towards the freighter. As Abyssal got closer, the bottom of the freighter opened up to reveal a bay of sorts. There was a thin layer of green that seemed to prevent the pressurized air inside of the ship from escaping. Through this green layer, Abyssal could see a well-lit area with plenty of cargo crates.

Abyssal was beamed through this green layer before being held in place within the room. It was then that a large grabber arm locked onto her, holding her in place. A weird feeling of someone touching, or rather, grabbing her waist could be felt. Once Abyssal was secured to the hull of the freighter, the bottom part of the ship closed.

*Thud

Just as the floor beneath her closed, Abyssal suddenly felt a downward force acting upon her, causing her to fall to the floor of her own ship with a loud thud.

‘Eh? What just happened?’ Abyssal asked herself in confusion. She entered the freighter and suddenly she felt ‘heavy’ and her floating drone dropped down to the floor.

“Freighter is generating a field of artificial gravity. Gravity power estimated to be at 0.97g. Activating drone’s non-zero gravity setting,” Abby responded to the question and suddenly Abyssal could feel herself floating again. 

‘Thanks, Abby. But still… artificial gravity, huh. Never thought I would see one so casually like this.’ Abyssal thought to herself.

Using her night-vision cameras to view the interior of herself, Abyssal could see that all the other objects that were previously floating around were now on the floor. This included the pile of bones which were now scattered all over the cockpit’s floor.

“Master, are we… in the ship now?” Kuon asked.

Abyssal turned to face Kuon, only to see that she was floating as well. The drone was now floating via controlled propulsion from its thrusters. 

“Yeah, we are in. The infiltration has begun,” Abyssal said. Kuon could not see it, but Abyssal was giving out a mischievous smile in her virtual realm.

Kotohood

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