Chapter 14: 12. Working Together

"What. Are. You?" Abyssal asked the newly awakened Kuon once introductions are out of the way. Kuon here is a Living Core, so she might have the answers to Abyssal's identity. It was the number one question that Abyssal wanted to be answered.

Said Living Core, however, didn't respond. She bowed down to Abyssal, doing a forty-five degrees tilt forward. She then rotated to the left and right.

'Hmm?' Abyssal was confused by her actions. She didn't think much about it though, only pushing the thoughts to the back of her mind. Abyssal then decided to ask a few other questions to her.

"Why. Were. You. On. The. Cruiser? What. Happened. To. It?"

Again, she didn't give any response other than continuing her bow and rotating left and right.

'Oh right! I'm such a dummy. Her voice modulator is broken. She has no proper way to answer me, huh…' 

Abyssal furrowed her (imaginary) brows and tried to come up with a different way to ask questions to Kuon. It needed to be phrased in a way that only provides 'Yes', 'No' and 'Maybe' for answers.

"Do. You. Know. What. You. Are?" Abyssal asked.

This time Kuon did respond to Abyssal— raising her right robotic arm and waving it. This meant that Kuon was saying yes to Abyssal.

'Ohhh, so she does know that she's a Living Core.'

"How. Long. Have. You. Been. In. That. Cruiser? Were. You. Awake. The. Entire. Time?" Abyssal asked.

Kuon couldn't really tell Abyssal exactly how long, but she waved her right arm, signifying that she was indeed awake that entire time on the cruiser.

'Oh… you poor thing.'

"Do. You. Know. Where. You. Are?" Abyssal asked just in case. She did have a map in the Captain's quarters, this might finally solve her location problem.

Unfortunately, Kuon only responded by waving her left arm to Abyssal. This meant that she was saying no. Abyssal felt a little bit disappointed but proceeded to ask the next question.

"Do. You. Have. Any. Friends. Or. Family? Someone. You. Can. Trust?"

Kuon took a bit of time to give a response, but ultimately she waved her left hand. 

'So she doesn't have anybody huh…' Abyssal thought to herself. 

"Do. You. Have. Any. Place. To. Go?" Abyssal asked another question to Kuon.

Kuon waved her left hand to the question. It was unlike the other waves that she did, this one was much less energetic. Her robotic arm lethargically moved left and right. Abyssal could not see her expression but deep inside, she could feel her sadness and sorrow. Seeing this, even Abyssal felt a little down. She felt pity for the lonely drone who has nowhere to go. 

In a way, her circumstances were very much like Abyssal. It's worse if one looked closer at it. She was stuck in a cruiser for god knows how long without any interaction. Abyssal at least has the ship, Abby and Kapitan.

Nevermind the fact that one of them is basically herself and the other two were not living beings, of course.

"Do. You. Want. To. Stay. With. Me? Tag. Along. With. Me. To. Figure. Out. Our. Place. In. The. Galaxy?" Abyssal asked.

Kuon who was lethargically waving her hands perked up. She nods up and down and waves her right hand energetically.

"You. Sure? I. Don't. Really. Have. That. Good. Of. A. Ship. Right. Now. And. There. Is. No. Telling. What. Kind. Of. Dangers. Lies. Ahead. Of. Us." Abyssal warned Kuon.

Though that warning was ignored by her. She only continued to wave her right hand with vigour before giving a respectful bow.

'Well, I guess there is that. Ah right. If she’s going to join the crew then I will need to give her a rank,' Abyssal thought to herself. Usually, in games, new crew members can be assigned positions and ranks. Kuon's induction should be no different.

"Your. Position. In. The. Fleet. Will. Be. My. First. Mate." Abyssal said Kuon who only responded by giving a deeper 'bow' towards Abyssal. She was already tilted forward forty-five degrees before, now she's tilted by ninety.

A First Mate is basically the second in command of a ship or fleet. The second most important person in a ship or fleet that is not considered a navy. In the unlikely event that Abyssal is unable to lead or command the crew, it will be up to Kuon to handle things. Such a position and responsibility should only be given to the most capable and trusted people. A bad First Mate can often lead to a quick mutiny.

One may ask: was the newly awakened Kuon trustable enough to be appointed First Mate? It was a hard question to answer alright, but Abyssal could somehow feel within herself that she could trust Kuon. At the very least, she's willing to give Kuon a chance to prove herself. And technically speaking, other than Abyssal herself, Kuon was— by default— the most capable and trusted of people within the ship.

'Besides! She's a Living Core just like me! A maid type at that! Who else better to be a First Mate! Or should I say… First Maid!' Abyssal thought as she let out a small laugh at her own silly pun.

And thus, Kuon was officially recruited into the crew. An event that didn't seem to mind the Living Core as she continued to bow towards Abyssal with respect.

"Follow. Me." Abyssal gave her first order to Kuon, which she promptly responded by following Abyssal— no questions asked. Not like she can even question Abyssal though.

In order to get Kuon up to speed about the circumstances, Abyssal decided to teach her the ropes about being a crew member of the S.A.S. Abyssal. What better way to introduce a new recruit to the ship than a tour of the ship itself? Abyssal started by bringing her into the engine room, deciding that it was the best place to start.

"This. Here. Is. My. Heart. My. Reactor." Abyssal said to Kuon, pointing at the cylinder which contains her mini nuclear reactor. Kuon only stared at the reactor and committed the image to her mind.

"It's. Not. Really. Working. That. Well. But. This. Is. What. I. Got. Feel. Free. To. Use. The. Energy. From. The. Charging. Station. As. You. Wish. Just. Make. Sure. Not. To. Overuse. It."  Abyssal added as she turned around to observe Kuon's response. 

Kuon's response was simple. She put her two robotic arms forward before giving a curt bow. Kuon's text to speech modulator doesn't seem to be working, so body actions were the only way for her to respond to Abyssal. It seemed like Kuon really likes bowing down in a respectful way.

Giving a (imaginary) satisfied nod, Abyssal went ahead and introduced the other things within the ship. From all the other stuff in the engine room like the EST, the thrusters, the cargo room, the drone charging ports and the objects within the captain’s quarters; she introduced everything to Kuon and she, like a very obedient and loyal maid, just took it in without a single objection. Everything Abyssal showed to her, she had no problems with. 

All except one thing though.

She had a problem with one thing that Abyssal introduced, or rather, didn’t introduce and could be seen to be rather disturbed by it. This was evident of her body language when she kept turning her view back and forth between the drone that Abyssal was using and the object in the seat of the cockpit— unable to find within herself the courage to object to the excited Abyssal who was explaining the functions of the control panel of the ship.

Yes, she was disturbed by Kapitan’s skeleton remains. Or rather, the pile of bones that were just floating around in the cockpit.

Kuon’s confusion became more apparent when Abyssal basically skipped Kapitan’s introduction and moved on to the next thing— her current situation and the existence of an EST that Abyssal wanted to bring to the ship. It was a task that Abyssal admitted would take her a long time to complete if she had to do it alone. 

“Thus. I. Am. Counting. On. Your. Assistance. For. This. Consider. This. Your. First. Mission.” Abyssal said to Kuon at the end of the tour. 

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Kuon was still rather confused and disturbed by the seemingly random skeleton within the ship but quickly recomposed herself and gave Abyssal a salute. It seemed that she has decided to forget about Kapitan’s existence for the moment.

“Good. Follow. Me.” Abyssal said to Kuon as she made her way to the airlock of the ship.

* * * * *

Abyssal had long wished for a second drone in order to make her life easier. That wish kinda came true with Kuon coming into her life. Although she could not control Kuon like a part of her system, her existence was still a great help to Abyssal. The process of moving the storage tanks required precise application of acceleration and deceleration in order to prevent accidents. With one drone, Abyssal found it hard to do, but two drones made the whole process much smoother and easier.

As a result, the new EST was easily carried over to the ship. In fact, it was done in a much faster time frame than Abyssal expected. It seemed that Abyssal and Kuon were quite in sync with each other despite having only met. 

‘I wonder if this is because our personality matches each other, or is it because I tried assimilating her earlier?’ Abyssal thought to herself.

Though as usual, that thought was pushed to the back of her mind as she got excited at the prospect of plugging the brand new Abyss Fire Energy Storage Facility into her list of systems. She carefully brought the tank into a compartment within the engine room before using the numerous metal wires around in order to tie the EST in place. Wouldn’t want the storage tank to flail around as she navigated space. Kuon, who saw what Abyssal was trying to do, immediately went over to assist her.

‘Awww. Thanks Kuon!’ Abyssal thanked Kuon within her mind. She then set a reminder to herself to one day get a proper voice modulator for herself and Kuon so that she may one day give her thanks properly to the maid Living Core.

Within a few hours, the process of installing the EST was completed. The tank was firmly secured to the hull and the numerous wires and cables were in place. All Abyssal needed to do was to activate the component.

‘Abby, please do the honours.’ 

“Adding component to list of systems and parameters.

…

…

…

Completed. Abyss Fire Energy Storage Tank Mk.2 successfully added.

Total Energy Reserves: 49 880 MJ.”

‘Yaaay!’ Abyssal celebrated internally. Although not the best thing she could have gotten, this was still a pretty significant upgrade for her. This event also signifies the success of her first exploration. Kaon, the drone that she was controlling, raised her arms as if praising the sun. Kuon saw this and repeated after the actions of her fleet master. 

A few minutes passed before Abyssal went back to her usual self. With this, there was basically nothing else to loot from the cruiser. Usually, Abyssal would call this a disappointing loot, but all things considered, she’s gotten some pretty good stuff. Her best discovery would be the existence of another Living Core such as herself. She now knows that she wasn’t the only one that exists in the universe.

“Kuon. We. Will. Be. Taking. Another. Look. At. The. Cruiser. To. See. If. We. Missed. Anything. We. Will. Also. Be. Creating. As. Many. Nanomachines. As. We. Can. Before. Leaving.” Abyssal gave her orders to Kuon. Said drone only replied with a bow.

And thus, the two Living Cores scoured every part of the cruiser in order to find anything else that they could have missed, salvaging and scrapping anything that they could. This proved to be the right choice, as Abyssal almost forgot to bring in all the books from the cruiser to the ship. It was unfortunate that they found nothing else of value. Abyssal had wanted to find more, but she'd take what she could. 

On the other hand, Abyssal learned something new about Kuon. It turned out that she can, in fact, turn metal and alloys into Nanomachines. She seemed to have her own reserves of Nanomachines to use— just like Abyssal. It looks like the nanomachines were stored within the drone and showed itself as a cloud of dust. Interestingly, unlike Abyssal whose nanomachine cloud was abyssal blue with a hint of black, Kuon’s nanomachine cloud was grey.

The two Living Core then created as many Nanomachines as they could before getting back into the ship. The drones and any other useful-looking parts of the cruiser were deconstructed into their basic elements and carried over to the ship. By the end of it, the hulk was nothing more than a pile of metal floating around in space. With a final salute to the corpse of the cruiser, Abyssal activated her thrusters and left the place.

Living Core Summary:

Name: S.A.S. Abyssal.

Consciousness: Active

Current Setting: Emotion > Logic

Computational Usage at 0.8% (Power insufficient)

Assimilation/Control of Ship: 100%

Nanomachine Usage: 512m³ Nanomachines in total (Current maximum) (15.97% of Nanomachines Used. 84.03% in reserve)

Living Core Kuon, Known Summary:

Name: S.A.S. Kuon.

Consciousness: Active

Current Setting: Unknown.

Computational Usage: Unknown.

Assimilation/Control of Ship: 0%. (100% control of Kuon)

Nanomachine Usage: Unknown. Estimated Nanomachines Controlled: 32m³

List of New Inventory and Systems:

Abyss Fire Private Limited Atomic Clock System

Abyss Fire Energy Storage Facility Mk.2 (98% Capacity)

Energy Storage Capacity: 49 880 MJ

Kotohood

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