In the hangar where the ships S.A.S. Abyssal(Shark-class) and the Phoenix was docked, were four strange individuals— Abyssal, Astral, Julia and Abigail E. Eternity. They stood right at the edge of a platform, having a small conversation with each other. Other than the usual drones and fighter ships, the hangar itself seemed to be empty with only the four people there. Kuon and Meica were both within the shark looking outwards from the entrance, monitoring the conversation from a distance. Though they will be hard-pressed to hear anything as Julia was holding a jamming device in her hand.
"Astral, Astral, you just barged in here one day, made all sorts of trouble and demanded all sorts of things from me, stayed here for not even a day then you are going to leave without even telling me? Why would you do this? I thought we were friends?" E said nonchalantly towards Astral. On her face was just the usual smug.
"I'd rather not get complacent and stay here any longer than I have to. Next thing I know, the whole Freedom United fleet is here. Can't risk having you coughing me up to the cops."
"No way. I won't do that. Just how little do you trust me? I am disheartened hearing that come out of your mouth," E shrugged. Though she didn't look one bit disturbed by Astral's words.
"Quit it. You of all people don't get to say that, you cunning fox grandma."
"Aaaah!" E did a melodramatic pose before falling to the floor, shedding fake tears.
Julia, who was just chewing a piece of bubblegum, looked at E's antic before letting out a sigh. "By the way, I got the drones to drop off the supplies last night. Did you receive it?" Julia asked Abyssal.
"Yeah, I got all of it. My crew is loading them in right now," Abyssal replied, peaking a glance towards the cat and the maid at the entrance of her ship.
She recalled herself letting out a sigh of relief at the moment she received the container the previous night. It was a container containing much-needed food supplies and warp fuel. The constant running away had mostly depleted her warp fuel reserves so having a resupply of it reassured her. As a side note, the container contained tons of food, mainly fish, for the Nekomi.
"Thanks for the help, Julia. I really appreciate it," said Abyssal. She told herself that she needed to re-evaluate how she viewed Julia as a person. First impressions aside, she wasn't all that bad, all things considered. She had been very helpful to Abyssal so far.
Julia nodded, continuing to chew her bubblegum. "Good, I guess."
'She makes it look like she doesn't give two crap, does she? Still went out of her way to help though…'
"Don't you go thanking her. It's my warp fuel that you are taking! High-quality ones too. I'm the one who has to explain to the dear captain about its disappearance," E retorted before quickly standing up from her crying pose.
Abyssal gave a wry laugh to E before thanking her as well. "Thank you too, E. For letting me stay in the ship and all while I do repairs and other stuff."
'Also thanks for not dismantling me....' was what Abyssal wanted to say, but kept to herself.
"Are you guys sure you want to leave here? I don't mind bringing you to a safer place. I don't have to remind you but it's still quite a warzone out there, ya know?"
"Yeah, we are," Astral interjected, replying in place of Abyssal, giving her no room to even answer.
E shrugged her shoulders again. "Then this is goodbye then. It was nice knowing you. A strange person in a strange part of space. I don't know how you came to be, but you better be grateful for the kind of freedom that you currently have."
"..." Abyssal didn't reply. More like she didn't even know how to even respond to that.
"What's with that dejected look? I'm sure we will meet again. That time may come sooner than you know."
"Ye-yeah."
"I hope when the time comes, you would be more of an opponent."
"Huh? What?" Abyssal did a double-take.
"Man, you were waaayyy too easy. It's so simple to dig information out of you! The way you react to things, the questions you ask, the questions you answer and even the way you act. All of it screams inexperienced, it's like taking candy from a baby. The fact that Kyle couldn't see through your dumb act makes me feel embarrassed having him as my captain."
"And don't get me started on the state of your ship. It ain't something to hit home. No shields, no functional radar. No way to counter tractor weapons. Two of you and all those tools available yet that is the best you can do? I know you guys are pretty much newborn but damn. Look, here's a piece of advice. Invest in decoys, it will do you wonders."
E said in quick succession, proving Abyssal's theory that E was pretty much trying to squeeze as much information out of Abyssal as possible during their first meeting.
'Just so you know, my radar works okay… You monsters just have some ridiculous stealth technology or something.' Abyssal thought to herself.
"I'll heed that advice…" Abyssal replied, actually disheartened from hearing criticism from E.
"That too, don't just follow my words so blindly. Do whatever it is that you want to do. Just don't be doing it here. Get what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, I get it."
"Somehow, I feel like you don't really, but whatever. Here take this with you as well," E said as she snapped her fingers.
A black drone came by with a metal crate in its grappling arms. The crate was about 2 meters wide and was dropped off right at Abyssal's front entrance, right next to Kuon and Meica. The two could be seen rather looking at the package with curious eyes.
"I saw you eyeing on it. So I thought I'll just give one of these to you. As a sign of our friendship."
E gave Abyssal a thumbs up. "Open it up later, you are going to like it."
"Oh… th-thanks," Abyssal replied hesitantly. She was reluctant to receive the gift for obvious reasons.
"What is that lame response? It's not a tracker, ya know. Trust me, if I did put one, you wouldn't know about it till the end of next year."
"...I'll take your word for it," Abyssal replied sheepishly.
E nodded twice before looking towards Astral. "So whatcha' going to do after escorting this girl? Planning to go radio silent for another few months again?"
"Why do you want to know? It's not your concern what I do," Astral replied.
"Nothing really. Can't a friend ask another friend about their well being?"
"A friend can. But you aren't exactly the type to do such a thing without an ulterior motive."
"Uwahh, you are such a meanie, Astral. Julia, she's bullying me!" E said as she hugged the sides of the doctor. Julia only let out a big sigh at her antics.
*Boom
All of a sudden as the group were talking, the muffled sound of an explosion was heard and just seconds after that a huge rumble occurred in the hangar bay, shocking everyone momentarily. Before things could calm down, another explosion was heard and the ship started to rumble again. Right after the second rumble, a loud alarm could be heard throughout the hangar and the entire place went from brightly lit with white light to flashing red. Hearing closely, one could hear E's voice from the speakers saying "Red Alert, Red Alert," in a robotic tone.
"Wh-wha-wha what's going on?!" Abyssal yelled out at the sudden event.
"What does it look like? We are probably under attack," Julia said as she looked around the place. Various drones and platforms in the hangar were scrambling around to prepare the fighters for launch.
"How many ships are there?" Astral asked, looking very calm despite the situation.
E looked to the side towards nowhere in particular. She then started pointing at the air and counted. "Four. Cruisers, a battlecruiser and a battleship. A few fighters as well. Strong ones. They are shelling me from a distance."
"Tsk. What a shitty timing. E open up the hangar doors. Abyssal, start up your engines, we are leaving now."
"Eh?! We are leaving right now?!" Abyssal shouted.
"I think I know who is attacking us. Their aim is this ship most probably. We are safer if we escape during the confusion of battle."
"What do you mean safer?!"
"Just listen to me kid. I'll explain to you later once we get out. E, the doors!" Astral yelled out and started walking hurriedly towards her ship.
"Alright, alright. I need to get to the bridge asap. I'll leave her to you." E said before disappearing into a cloud of nanites. The hangar bay door started opening up, revealing space behind a translucent green barrier.
"Oh my god, oh my god," Abyssal mumbled as she too started flying towards her ship.
Julia being the only person left on the platform, yelled at the two as they walked towards their ship, ship engines starting to ignite. "Take care of yourself. I'll see you all again!"
She then ran towards the elevator, probably seeking a safer place in the ship.
* * * * *
Within the Shark-class' bridge was Abyssal and her crew. They secured themselves in the safest place in the ship and fastened themselves to the hull as best they could. In the corner of the room was the crate that E gave to Abyssal, sealed tightly to the hull. Abyssal was at the helm of the ship doing some final health checks to ensure that her ship was running at full capacity. She diverted full powers towards her radar, her new shields system and also her warp drives. Just in case, any left-over power was sent to her weapons system, charging up her gun.
"Master, are we really going out in this situation?" Kuon asked, a slight panic in her voice.
"Yeah! We are really leaving, nyaa?! Isn't it too dangerous?" Meica yelled out.
"Yeah. Astral said that it would be safer to escape during the confusion. Not sure how it would work though," Abyssal replied in a hurry, putting most of her attention in her health-checks.
"Can we trust her? Are you sure that this is the best option?"
"I don't know," Abyssal replied.
"You don't know?!"
"Yeah, I'm so kept in the dark, I don't even know what's going on any more. But Astral looks like she knows what she's doing. If the enemy's aim is truly the carrier, then we wouldn't be safe in here anyways," Abyssal replied before pausing a moment.
"Besides, she saved me a few times already. I kinda owe her. The least I could do is follow her instructions. "
"...understood," Kuon nodded before keeping quiet, leaving Abyssal to do her checks.
As Abyssal did the final check, a request for a private communication channel came in from the ship next to her. It was Astral in a video call, her face was displayed in the large monitors of the bridge as Abyssal accepted the call. Long flaming hair and red eyes stared right at her.
"Abyssal, can you hear me? Making sure that your communications are working."
"Yeah, we can read you."
"Good. I'll be keeping in touch. Do NOT turn off communications for god's sake and keep the public channel open. Anyway, I'm sending you some coordinates right now. Once we are out there, I want you to immediately begin warp calculations. There will be quite a disturbance out there, so I want you to focus fully on getting there. That means shields and thrusters. Charge up your weapons just in case but don't bother firing back. We want to get out there without drawing too much attention to ourselves."
As soon as she said that, Abyssal received another message from Astral containing said coordinates. It was a set of coordinates leading to an unknown place in the galaxy map, near but outside of the Lawless Maw Zone. Abyssal felt it was strange that it was in a place not registered in the galaxy map, but didn't ask too many questions.
Although, it seemed that Astral noticed her confusion and gave her an answer anyways. "It is a place called The Cove. It's one of my numerous hideouts."
"I see. Noted. But wait, what if the enemy starts aiming for me?" Abyssal asked.
"You don't need to care about that. I'll handle it."
"Oh, okay…"
"I'm exiting first. I'll let you know when it's safe to exit. Astral, Phoenix launching!"
And so, the crimson red ship named the Phoenix blitzed out of the hangar bay, leaving Abyssal in the dust.