Chapter 5: Chapter 3 Bis: The Art of Information Gathering

Once I got up the stairs and halfway through the terminal to the ship, my stomach started growling. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast… I really don’t want to interact with anyone right now” My stomach grumbled again. “...But I really need some food.” 

I looked around for a minute until I found a notice board with directions. It probably would’ve been best if I studied the layout of this base a bit more, but I got too distracted with other things. According to the map, the closest place to get some food was cafeteria B, it was just down one of the staircases on the right.

Luckily the cafeteria was almost completely deserted apart from a couple of NCO’s who were playing some kind of card game. When they saw me they froze for a second until they noticed I didn’t really pay any attention to them. I guess they were breaking some kind of rule, but I really couldn’t be bothered to make a scene. 

I took one of the food trays and walked over to one of the robots that were standing ready to take people’s orders.

“Today’s most popular dish is pizza, what would you like to order?” The robot spoke to me with a friendly voice. Robots were a lot less intimidating to talk to than actual humans. 

“Hmm. Could you let me think for a second?” 

“Of course ma’am.” A smile showed up on the robot’s face display. 

Pizza was tempting, it was one of those human foodstuffs that really surprised me when I came to earth the first time, but I had relied on it a bit too much the last couple of days to provide me sustenance, so I was somewhat craving something else. 

“Uhh… Do you have any recommendations?” 

The robot processed my question for a second before replying. “People rate cafeteria B’s Croquettes de crevettes highly. It is served with fries and a fresh salad including cherry tomatoes, lettuce and red onion. Be assured that all food is scanned for radiation before serving. If you have seafood allergies, it is however strongly recommended to avoid this dish.” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever had that dish before, so I’d like to try it.” 

The foodbot nodded slowly. “Your food will be served momentarily.”

I heard some buzzing and a couple of seconds later the foodbot opened its chest and presented me a plate with some very interesting looking food. “Have a nice meal.” It put the plate on my tray together with some utensils. 

“Thank you.” I looked around and decided to take a seat at one of the tables at the far corner of the room. The meal’s rich taste surprised me, and I was happy I hadn’t taken the pizza. It was a peaceful meal as the cafeteria stayed quiet even though it was approximately lunchtime back at the shuttle launch back on earth.  It did make me wonder where all the people were. Even the NCO’s who’d finally finished their card game, left, leaving me completely alone, except for the foodbots who were just patiently standing there to receive customers.

 

When I was done I put my tray in the designated area and left the completely empty cafeteria. I somehow felt a little sad for the food robots who were just standing there all by themselves, but I had work to do. I still had areas of the ship to check out and sent reports on before we left for our mission. 

Walking back to the ship should have been a relatively short trip until something caught my attention in the corner of my eye. A holographic pylon was having an advertisement for plushies. “What!? They have a store like that on this base!?” I rushed towards it and looked at the map that was being shown. Plushies and other toys were forbidden on my home planet because they were apparently too distracting for children and were in the way of their intellectual growth. But they were just so cute, I couldn’t help but buy a couple for my small room they provided me. It was so cozy to cuddle up with them in bed. 

I looked at my watch and decided a little detour to the store wouldn’t hurt my plans that much, and quickly headed in its direction. The store window was just incredible. The moment I had turned the corner into the hallway the store was situated in, my eyes were just completely fixated on it. 

“Awh. It looks so cute.” I cooed at the big plushie that was displayed in the window. I remember from a nature documentary that the humans called these things ‘sharks’. Although I couldn’t really remember any that looked as cute as this. 

The price was relatively cheap for a plushie this size, but the second I checked my bank account on my holostick, I froze with doubt. 

“It’s really big though…” All the plushies I owned were relatively small, so finding a place for them wasn’t that hard, but this one was probably the size of half my collection. “Hmmmm.” I groaned. “Won’t people think that’s strange?” I put my holostick away. “But I already have a lot of them… urgh.” I groaned once more. “I should maybe think about this for a bit longer. I still have time to come back here if I want to.” 

I kept staring at it for a little while longer before I finally decided that work did indeed have to be done, and I left for the ship. The shark plushie did keep biting at the back of my mind, though. 

 

I flashed my ID and scanned my palm at the ship’s airlock, after which it opened without a hitch. The ship’s interior was still dark as it was saving energy. 

“Computer, lights please.” With the voice command I read in the manual, the lighting flipped on. “Okay.” I then checked the document on my holostick. “Engine room and weapon systems were high priority.” I mumbled to myself. “The engine room should be down a couple of decks…” 

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I looked around and quickly found my way to the ship’s main elevators, which took me down to the engineering deck with a low humming sound. The engine room was behind a couple of large blast doors, which I easily opened with my badge. It was a bit intriguing the engine room didn’t have any cameras or additional security at all, especially since the online documents were kept that secret, but I guess bureaucracy can sometimes be a bit weird. 

I used the camera function of my holostick to take pictures of the entire engine room. These were your standard Deuterium fusion engines, although their FTL drive did look somewhat interesting. Compared to the examples I’d seen when I was studying, this one seemed way bigger than usual. I’d never seen anything like it before, but that wasn’t really my job either. I was just here to collect intel so people who are a lot smarter than me could figure this all out. 

Having the pictures of everything in the room, it was time to take a look at the weapon systems. Weapon systems were situated below the bridge on the complete opposite side of the ship, where I was at right now.

 

It took me quite a while to get there, but again I could enter the designated room without many issues. You could tell from the walls and doors that this room was also of vital importance to the ship, especially with the bridge being right above it. It was not uncommon for exploration ships of other races to have weapon systems, but this one did take it away, by far, when it came to firepower and effort spent. 

“I guess humans like to be prepared to fight back…I suppose it makes sense after fighting a big war like that not that long ago…” I tapped on one of the fire control systems and took a picture of the user interface. “I think they could even take an imperial cruiser or two with all the weaponry on board.” In all honesty, it probably wasn’t a bad idea to be this prepared. The last civilization I know of that discovered FTL travel, left their exploration missions to private enterprises. They went profit margins over precaution and ultimately paid the price when the empire caught wind of them. Earth is, however, pretty far from where the Empire had last been sighted, so their exploration missions should be relatively safe. 

I took a couple more pictures of the systems and then left the room, making sure I didn’t leave anything behind. 

“Where to now?” I checked my holostick again. The only thing I’d left to do was write up a report and send the pictures to Kt. As there was one part of the ship I was still curious about, I decided to write up my report there. My cabin. 

My cabin was situated on the far end of the officer deck, right next to the cabin of the Commander. However, calling the room I saw when I opened the door a cabin. Would be a very big compliment for the name. The room I entered was huge. Way bigger than the room I had lived in for 2 years on Earth. Apart from a bed, a wardrobe and desk, the room was still pretty much empty though. I’d need to decorate it with my plushies to make it a lot less empty, the sight of the room also made my doubts about the shark plushie disappear completely. I definitely had to buy it now. 

“But first…” I switched the wallpaper of my room to a salmon pink. “And now I can do the report.” I smiled and sat down at my new desk, popping out my silence bubble. 

 

I’d finally finished my report and deleted everything incriminating on me as I suddenly heard a knock on the door. It surprised me so much I almost fell off the chair. I quickly put the silence bubble inside of one of the drawers and ran to the door. 

When I opened it, my heart almost stopped. 

“C-c-c-commander!” I stuttered -Fuck- and saluted her.

Her baret was slightly askew on her head as she was leaning against the wall. She clearly smelled of alcohol, but together with her perfume that actually didn’t bother me much. 

“Ah, LC… at ease. I was hoping you’d be here.” She leaned to her left to grab something next to her, making the pistol on her hip sway a little before she stood upright again. She presented me with a familiar face, the face of a shark plushie. 

“W-w-w… Uh…” My mind blanked. 

“I… well, the Gunnery Sergeant and I saw you looking at the store and I thought it would be a fun welcome present because you looked a bit… stressed.” She offered the shark to me, my body accepted it on autopilot while I was still trying to figure out what was happening. 

“And I also got it a couple of hats…” She reached next to her again and handed me a plastic bag too. “I hope you don’t mind it…”

My mind finally caught up so I could answer. “U-uh, n-no! T-thank you, Commander!” 

“Good.” She smiled. “Now, please excuse me… I think I drank a bit too much… Good night, LC.” 

“G-good night.” 

She saluted me and walked to her room, which was at the end of the hallway. I did peek after her just to make sure she made it to her cabin safely, and then closed the door. Still a bit dazed and with a shark plushie in my arms. 

“D-did I completely misjudge her?” I walked over to my bed and sat down, the plastic bag still by the door. I hugged the shark close to me. “It smells of her perfume…”   

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