Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Offer to the Silent [ANGEL]

Chapter 14: Offer to the Silent [ANGEL]

 

"Are you ok?"

Jack blinked away his forming tears and looked down at the little hand tugging on his shirt.

"Y-yea. Yea, I'm ok." Jack replied, drawing a look from Captain Skirita and several members of the command deck.

"Never seen the sky before lad?" Skirita asked softly, his hands buzzing around his terminal as he looked over at the boy with tears in his eyes.

"No... No I haven't... It's just. A lot to take in is all." Jack partially lied. While it was true that he was amazed by the expanse of blue, It wasn't his emotions he was feeling but Sahaqiel's and… something else. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but it felt as if there were two of her rather than one.

Are you ok?

Jack asked, concerned about the Angel’s emotional wellbeing, yet Sahaqiel didn't respond.

Hello?

Still no response.

He tried again but the angel seemed muted, as if she were so stunned by the expansive of sea of white and blue that it had finally gotten her to shut up.

"Lad, if you need to take a breather you're free to leave the command deck." Skirita offered, beckoning to Lieutenant Belfusa and drawing Jack from his inner monologue. “The Lieutenant here can escort you and your sister to your quarters if you want.”

Jack took a deep breath and composed himself.

“Uhm. Yea, I think that would be nice. Jill are you ok to go?” Jack asked to his sister.

“Sure! Auntie Eleanor said she would show me her mechframe! I've been wanting to see it all day!” Jill yelled excitedly, drawing a smile from the Lieutenant as well as Jack.

Auntie? Jack raised an eyebrow at the remark.

“Uh yea, why don’t we go check out the Mechframe?” Jack coaxed, his curiosity also piqued as he’d never seen a Mechframe before. He attempted to talk to Sahaqiel again, yet the Angel remained deaf to his questioning. So Jack decided to give her space.

With Lieutenant Belfusa leading the way, the trio quietly left the bridge, entering an elevator that brought them down to a long narrow hallway pocketed by multiple doors.

"Where is everyone?" Jack asked, looking left and right down the empty hall that seemed to expand endlessly in either direction.

"Good Question. The HMS Monarch is operating under a skeleton crew. Only essential personnel and a couple of passengers. You'll pretty much have free roam of the ship. Just don't go into any areas with labels on them unattended." The Lieutenant explained, happily pushing Jill's wheelchair along as they went.

"Wait, why? I thought the ship could hold hundreds of people?"

Blood Silver? Jack was about to ask, but then realized she was talking about Captain Domino, so instead, he asked a different question, one that had been bugging him.

"What's it like in the Empire?"

"Pretty sunny about now. About seventy-eight degrees or… oh you mean living there." The officer said, furrowing her eyebrows. "Hmm, that's a hard question to answer. It's vastly different from the Corporate Alliance or the Theocracy. Unlike the other two nations, we're the only ones that take an active militarial stance on the Demonspawn. In some ways we're ahead of the other countries but in other ways…"

The Lieutenant trailed off, not finishing her sentence. From the way she was eyeing Jack up and down, he thought it might have to do with the male to female ratio.

"Our mother was from the Empire!" Jill added before producing a candy bar from her coat and attempting to unwrap the crinkly paper with her teeth. Jack reached over and booped the girl's head, causing her to drop the wrapped edible from her mouth and into his outstretched palm where he unwrapped it and handed it back to her.

"So I've heard." The Lieutenant replied stoically, her expression suddenly reverting back to its usual blank façade. "Do you remember her?"

"Mmmmh no. I never met her, but Jack did." Jill replied, looking up at her brother. "I was told she was pretty and that she liked green."

"She was." Jack affirmed. A sudden image of a motherly green-haired woman appearing in his mind's eye. Jack never knew if her hair color was natural, but looking down at Jill, she was a spitting image of their mother. "Pretty, I mean. I don't remember much, but she was a green haired woman whose favorite color was Emerald."

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It was subtle, but the lieutenant's left eye twitched at the words green hair, drawing Jack's interest. First the thing with Mike and now this? Maybe his mother was secretly famous or something? Or some kind of wanted criminal. Jack didn't know but it was something he'd pursue when Jill wasn't around. He didn't want to besmirch their mother's name in front of Jill.

After taking another elevator, the trio arrived on a closed runway, where several ladders, trolleys, and stacks of crates littered the launch bay. In the middle of all the disorderly materials lay a familiar white-haired man, taking a nap on a kneeling eight meter tall red humanoid machine that was cradling him in its metallic black hands.

"Blood Silver!" Lieutenant Belfusa angrily barked, causing the Captain to wake in a jolt and roll onto the metallic flooring with a loud thud.

"I'm up! I'm up!" Mi'shka yelled, bouncing back up and pretending to be tinkering on the machine with a wrench now in his hand.

“I told you to get all these boxes stowed away before we casted off! And stop using Lovelace as a bed!” The woman’s impassive mask broke once again as she yelled angrily at the white-haired man to get to work.

“Yes, yes, yes. I’m moving, I’m moving.” The Captain said.

Lieutenant Belfusa rolled Jill next to the Mech where the girl stared dreamy eyed at the crimson metal bipedal.

“Check this out.” The Lieutenant smiled before clearing her throat. “Voice activation Command. Lovelace, stand to!”

Suddenly the Humanoid being began to shift, standing up from its kneeling position and causing the entire ground to vibrate in response to the hulking machine’s simple movements.

“Jill, meet Lovelace, My Mechframe.”

The Crimson automaton stood roughly eight meters tall, with a narrow head and Lovelace-01 stenciled on the side of cockpit doors as they parted ways on the chest to reveal a narrow interior. Jack had a sudden urge to jump into the seat and try piloting it. He had never seen such a machine before and his boyish fascination almost mirrored Jill’s excitement to the T.

“Whoa! So cool!” Jill squealed, wheeling herself up to the side of the mechframe where one of two massive blades hung inside of their scabbards.

“Does it fly? Where’s the flight unit?” Jill asked excitedly, eyeing the boxy back of the machine.

“And how do you know about flight units little missy?” Lieutenant Belfusa responded, to which Jill held up one of her Mechframe action figures. The woman smiled before explaining to Jill that it did indeed have a flight unit and pointed to what looked like a set of thrusters suspended in the air under an enclosure nearby that read Bay-One.

While the two girls became enraptured with their love of Mechframes, a sudden “Psst” drew Jack away from the pair.

“Hey friend, have you given any more thought to my offer?”

“Are you still going on about that?” Jack replied in annoyance. “I told you no. No one is going to experiment on my sister.”

“Oh come now pal! I’m technically a doctor, plus! Plus, I promise I won’t put your sister in any kind of danger I wouldn’t put myself in.” The man begged, dragging Jack off to the side behind some drab green crates, away from his sister. “Just let me run a few diagnostic spells, they’re harmless, I swear! I’ll even pay you a decent amount.”

At the mention of payment, Jack felt himself waver slightly. If what the man was offering WAS truly harmless, and he WAS willing to pay, maybe Jack could afford to buy Jill a new wheelchair.

Jacked mulled it over, peeking over at the excited little girl now sitting in the Lieutenant’s lap inside of the cockpit of the Machine.

Well, they're getting along nicely. Jack sighed to himself.

“I’ll give it some thought ok?” Jack relented.

“Yes! Please, you won’t regret it!” Mi’shka immediately smiled with joy. Before Jack could tell the officer to calm down he was already shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Think of it as helping to pioneer a way forward for ongoing research that benefits all of mankind!”

“Hey! Don’t hide Blood Silver! I see you attempting to skirt work again! And don’t use the recruit as an excuse not to work!” Lieutenant Belfusa called out from her inside her Mech.

“Yes! Yes I heard you the first time!” Mi’shka replied back with a snort.

Before the man could walk away Jack asked him a question that he had been curious about since he had first seen the duo’s first interaction.

“Hey sorry if this is rude, but aren’t you a Captain? Why is a Lieutenant bossing you around?”

At Jack’s question, the man turned and gave a toothy grin. “Oh, well that's because I’m a slave.”

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