“Then we’ll plan to meet tomorrow at the AC in the early evening?”
Her teammates nodded and Kaiden glanced at the others. “How're your tests going so far?”
“Pretty well, all things considered,” Jaxon told him.
“That’s it?” Kaiden asked.
“He’s being modest,” Silas answered. “He’s done most of the work. We started in a cave and would probably still be stuck there if he hadn’t been able to find the exit using a droid’s internal pathing system.” He looked at Izzy. “It sounds like something a scout would come up with, but what do I know?”
She threw her hands up and rolled eyes as she walked over to Silas. Julius coughed to clear his throat. “Mack, Otto, and I are have progressed well. I would say possibly over halfway complete, but Otto is a little reluctant to continue.”
“Why’s that?” Kaiden asked.
“We’re on a space station looking for a specific specimen to recover. Otto thought he’d found it but it turned out to be some sort of fungal growth that attached to his arm. I was able to remove it, but they started to implement allotted timeslots to deal with all the influx and we were kicked out before I could administer the pain relievers and all that. Since we were saved in that position, he’ll still have to deal with it when we first get back in. He’s worried I won’t be able to heal it fast enough once we start.”
Kaiden chuckled at the image. “Most people prefer to not know when the pain will hit. It makes them more anxious when they know it’s coming.”
“Well, I won’t fail because of his white-coat syndrome,” Julius huffed. “We’ll go back in tomorrow as well.”
“Maybe we’ll see you guys there.”
“Well, that could have been more thrilling. It was all right but I’m not one for sappy friendship episodes,” Chief muttered.
“You don’t wanna come out and say ‘hi?’” Kaiden asked.
“Considering that I am the one who handles your messages? I’m sure Chiyo might have some words for me, so no,” Chief stated flatly. “But if you don’t wanna fall behind any more than you already have, I suggest you finish eating and get to your Ace workshop. It begins in fifteen minutes.”
“Ah, right.” Kaiden looked at his meal and began to wolf it down. “Sorry, guys. I gotta get going soon and I’m famished.”
“It’s about time we all went to our next workshop,” Jaxon agreed as he turned away. Silas and Izzy followed. “Good to see you back once again. Hopefully, we can go on another mission together once we complete these tests.”
“We’re in the same Ace class, Jaxon. Where are you going?” Kaiden called after him.
The Tsuna stopped and turned. “To the workshop. I can take my time setting up,” he explained. “See you there, Kaiden.”
“Brown-noser,” he muttered and flashed a quick glance at Genos. “Although Tsuna don’t technically have noses. What would be the equivalent?”
Genos stared at him in bewilderment. “I do not know.”
The two regarded one another somewhat awkwardly for a moment. “Uh…sorry, Genos, it was kind of a rhetorical question,” Kaiden admitted.
“All right, then. I hope you find your answer eventually.” Genos nodded. “Today is a free day for me. I’ll head to the library for now.”
“Same here. Do you mind if I accompany you?” Julius asked.
“Certainly. Perhaps we can become friends. That’s where I became friends with Chiyo,” Genos explained as the two walked off.
“Uhm, neat. I would like that.” Julius continued to chat as they set off.
Kaiden smirked at the pair as Chiyo picked her tray up. “I’ll head off as well.” She looked quietly at him for a moment. “I’m happy you are safe and that my upgrade was helpful. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you— Hey Chiyo!” he called as she began to walk away. She paused and looked back. “I’m…sorry if I worried you.”
She gave him a small smile. “You did, but apology accepted. Get some rest and be ready. We should be able to complete our mission soon if all goes well.”
“I thought the same thing,” Kaiden agreed. “I’ll be ready.”
“I hope so. We have to make up for your lost time,” she reminded him before she walked away.
Kaiden sat quietly for a moment. “Is it just me, or has she gotten a lot more snarky lately?”
“I dig it,” the EI responded with real approval.
Chapter Thirteen
The trio opened their eyes as the last trails of light faded away and the ship’s interior took shape within the Animus. Genos took a few moments to blink and regain his composure before he looked at his teammates. “Has everyone adjusted?”
Kaiden nodded but tilted his head and pointed commandingly at the Tsuna. “I’m all right, but I’d be better if you would take control of the ship right quick.”
Genos’ eyes widened slightly behind his helmet before he spun in his chair and grasped the flight stick. “Right. Yes. Controls before manners is probably a solid piece of advice.”
“Well, considering that the first time we booted in we were in the aftermath of a crash, it’s nice to be back to normal flying for a change.” Kaiden watched through the cockpit window as the ship left the final traces of the planet’s atmosphere. He glanced down at one of the screens as numbers changed to indicate that the interior of the ship adjusted to being in free space. “But please, don’t crash into any asteroids or debris. Otherwise, you’ll prove the system right.”
Genos responded with a disjointed mutter along the lines of the Animus not taking ingenuity into account or potentially offering to allow Kaiden to fly. Chiyo patted his shoulder before his reaction distracted him too much.
“You are a great pilot, Genos. Kaiden simply tried to deflect the fact that we are already supposed to have made greater progress than we have because he was too busy killing brain cells over the last few days.”
“After taking out a killer droid that took down most of a gang,” he defended. “Although, yes, some brain cells gave their life in the aftermath, but that was better than me going down instead, right?”
“Personally, I don’t mind really. It makes more room in here,” Chief chirped and appeared in the center of the cockpit. “I’ve thought of adding a patio.”
“See, Chief is happy,” Kaiden pointed out. “And he’s never happy.”
“I look at it as making the best of a bad situation,” the EI countered. “But we can play it your way. Hopefully, we don’t learn that SXP gains are lowered by cell count. Otherwise, you’ll need the extra gains simply to be at normal capacity.”
The ace nodded, silent for a moment in thought. “You know, I have a couple of talent points left. I was saving them to get the final point in mutant knowledge, but considering that we’re about to raid a pirate station on our lonesome, perhaps I could stick them in one of the more martial talents?”
“That is a possibility,” Genos agreed and glanced over his shoulder slightly. “Although I would like to add that you are quite skilled with guns and explosives. I can’t see how being able to replicate moves and actions from those martial arts films I have seen would be of great benefit to you—or us really.”
“Style points?” Kaiden responded jokingly. “Fair point. I’ll look and see how my weapons talents are. I could probably get more use out of my blade or gauntlet.”
“You should always keep your talents up, certainly, but for now, I recommend keeping them. When we have a better look at the station or anything else along the way, it would be an advantage if at least one of us has the chance to take a skill that may help us surmount a potential obstacle.”
“Sounds good— Wait, neither of you have spare points?” Kaiden inquired.
“Not personally, no,” Genos said with a shake of his head and returned his attention to the front of the ship. “As I have taken on the designation of pilot more and more, I have had to use more points to make up for the lack of skill so that I can pilot any pot
ential craft we may need to use.” He took a moment to glance at his gauntlet. “And, of course, as an engineer, the rest go to furthering my class skills.”
“And I’m the only hacker in our whole group, outside of Otto,” Chiyo added. “I may be gifted, but I can always be better. I developed a list of required talents and have followed it since last year.” She looked at Kaiden and made a “zero” with her hand. “I’m fresh out. I was able to get barely enough SXP to have three points and add another tier to my sabotage talent.”
The Tsuna pressed a couple of buttons on the console. “Chief, would you mind returning to your device?”
Chief shrank down, floated to Genos, and widened his eye. “Too much glory to behold, periwinkle?”
“I’m not sure I can comment on that,” Genos responded in an honestly curious tone. “But in this case, it’s because I activated the admittedly meager stealth functions on the ship since we will now fly directly into enemy territory. Therefore, we need to lower any energy signatures we can, and while you use your holographic form, you do give off an energy signal. It’s quite weak but it is unique so we could be compromised.”
“What a fair and balanced argument you made there, Jean Genie. It’s quite refreshing.” Chief looked at Kaiden. “I’m used to having orders barked at me, sometimes followed by not-as-witty-as-he-thinks insults.”
Kaiden raised a hand and beckoned Chief with a finger. “Get back in the box, smartass.”
The EI rolled his eye before he vanished and loaded into Kaiden’s visor shortly after.
“Did we actually take the time to look around the ship before de-syncing last time?” Chiyo asked.
“We didn’t even wait to break the atmosphere,” Kaiden mused. “Do you think there are any goodies lying around?”
“Potentially, this is more of a shipping cruiser than a combat craft. If we procured it before they made a delivery or after they stocked it for any reason for trips, there could be some items of value on board,” Genos reasoned.
“Well, I’m not doing anything at the moment and leaning against this wall is makes my arm fall asleep, so I’ll scout around.” Kaiden stood, stretched, and turned to walk away before Chiyo called to him,
“Kaiden, take this.” She tossed him a small drive. “It’s a device you can use to unlock any doors or activate anything that you think might contain something interesting. I loaded Kaitō into it so he’ll assist with anything that has a safety rating of five or higher.”
Kaiden looked at the device before he flipped it and caught it in the air a couple times. “That’s neat— What’s that? Chief says he can handle anything up to a safety rating of six.”
“I understand, but this is Kaito’s main function and he requested to help with anything he can on the mission. Right now, I have nothing for him,” Chiyo explained. “I should also point out that Kaitō can deal with devices with a safety rating up to eleven on his own.”
“Eleven? I thought the highest rating was ten,” Kaiden questioned.
“That’s what most corporations like people to think. It’s a trap, actually, because currently, the unofficial rating scale goes up to about twenty.”
“Damn. How high do you think you can go when it comes to breaking into a system?”
Chiyo pondered it for a moment. “On my own, comfortably around twelve. With Kaitō, I would say maybe sixteen? I haven’t had to do so under stressful situations, only during training games and simulations. The highest I had to do in a mission so far is ten.”
“That certainly ain’t bad— What? No, I won’t put my points into remote hacking right now. It’s not even a necessary skill. The highest we’ve run into is five. I thought you were over your one-sided squabble… The fox isn’t saying anything. He’s in the drive, not my helmet!” Kaiden sighed and waved at his teammates. “I’m off. The bright light is getting into his feelings.” He turned and walked out of the cockpit, bickering with Chief as he walked away.
“You know, as much as I am in awe of Chief’s technology, I’m not sure I would trade Viola for him,” Genos stated and glanced at Chiyo. “She is much more…agreeable.”
“Were Tsuna given a choice of their EI’s personality or were you all given pre-mades?” she asked.
“We went through the setup process, although from my understanding, it was not as in-depth as what you went through,” he recalled. “We had fewer options, although it was only a couple of years prior that they could actually get the EI’s to function for us.”
“Why did it take so long? Not all EIs are like Kaiden’s. They are simply a piece of software within a device, not integrated like Chief.”
“It mostly came down to language,” Genos clarified. “As you probably know, Tsuna speak in a dialect that is more unique sounds that words. After first contact between humans and Tsuna and the establishment of the galactic nations, translators were one of the first things worked on for both species. From what I was told, the Mirus were quite vital in the early days due to their ability to communicate to any species.”
“Interesting, but what does that have to do with the EIs?” Chiyo asked and tried to keep Genos from going off on a tangent.
“Oh, it was only that the translation software was a little slow at the beginning. As the EIs were a human creation, they were only programmed to correspond to human languages. Any Tsuna or Sauren who used an EI had a delay between their commands and them being executed, not ideal in a battlefield.”
“It certainly doesn’t sound that way,” she agreed, “Couldn’t they have developed the EI software to adapt to the races language until the translators were updated?”
“That’s actually what they ended up doing.” Genos nodded. “Though it took some time, and from there, they were able to use the information collected by the EIs to further improve the translation software. It’s almost one-to-one now.”
“I see.” Chiyo looked out the window and back to the screen on the console. “We should hopefully be there soon. At our current speed, it should be a little over two hours, but that’s not factoring in any problems.”
Genos didn’t respond but remained focused ahead.
“Genos?” Chiyo asked, “Are you all right?”
He twitched slightly and glanced at her. “Hmm? I’m sorry. I was lost in thought, as you might say.”
“Thinking about EIs and translation software?” she asked playfully.
“I thought about Chief, which made me think of Kaiden,” Genos explained. “He is an…interesting character.”
“You’ve said as much several times before. But you’ve never seemed so pensive.”
“Chiyo, might I ask something of a…dark, question?”
“In what way?”
“Do you think Kaiden will live to see graduation?”
A silence fell over them. Chiyo looked away as he looked out the window. “I ask because last night, I corresponded with Kaiden about his mission. He had Chief send me a message containing the details. When I looked at them—the kind of missions that he goes on—they would be operated by half-marked warriors or greater on Abisalo. I’ll go over the details at another time, but those who are half-marked are warriors who have seen combat for at least the equivalent of twenty of your years or distinguished themselves by defeating a great enemy.”
She remained silent but gave a brief nod.
“I don’t doubt Kaiden’s abilities. He has proven himself, certainly, so I don’t mean for this to come off as thinking him weak, but it’s—”
“I understand,” Chiyo muttered. “You’re worried about a friend.”
“That certainly, but I suppose I also wonder if I worry about him more than he worries about himself.”
She laughed weakly and nodded once again. “You said you weren’t a part of the warrior clan on your planet, right? But that you had close ties to it?”
“Yes, I trained in the ways of the warrior, but it was not my forte. I was part of what you would consider to be the ‘science’ or ‘alchemis
t’ clan.”
“But you trained to be a warrior as well. That’s what led to your designation as a mechanist here, right?”
The Tsuna nodded. “Indeed, something I was rather concerned about, although Kaiden helped calm my doubts back then.”
Chiyo folded her legs onto the chair and drew them against her chest. “It was a similar situation for me. I spent most of my life training for one thing, for a position of power in a place I thought would welcome me, before I had to look for a different path once I came of age.”
Genos glanced at her for a moment before he returned his attention to the blackness of space ahead of them. “I don’t recall you telling me much about your past.”
“I don’t believe I have.” She opened her visor. “Sorry. You’ve been so open with your life, and I never reciprocated.”
“I never wanted to pry,” he assured her. “Although I suppose I do wish to know what this has to do with my question about Kaiden.”
She sighed and focused on the stars ahead of them. “Kaiden did the same thing for me as he did for you—helped me feel that the choice I made was the right one. When I think about him as a person, I see as much stubbornness and confidence, but also someone with a good heart, if not a right mind.” She chuckled lightly. “I guess I bring this up because unlike you or me, he doesn’t see other choices. He was also like us in a way. His life took a turn and he adapted, and he will seize it for all it’s worth.”
She took a deep breath. “Do I think he’ll die before graduation? It’s a possibility, but when I think of how high or low that chance is and how lucky he was to live after that one mission—he told me a bit more about it later, how Gin was the first opponent he felt was too far above him. I remember him saying that he felt that he didn’t care about dying in the field if he took as many people with him as possible if it came to that. But with Gin, he felt it was the first time he fought someone he couldn’t even touch—like he wasn’t a soldier anymore, more like someone desperately firing at whatever came out of the darkness.”
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