So here we are. Our destination will be the Meklar Sector, a frivolous kingdom. It's constantly in a state of civil war as everyone tries to overthrow its queen. A truly evil and vile woman. The hope is, if the mission goes well, she'll never know what happened, but I doubt it. My focus anyway will be the ship, so that's all that matters. If I am going to get to the bottom of this, Gridlock will hold the answers, somewhere.
We lift off in the prince's shuttle, flying into the sky toward our first destination. Stella sits next to me, as always, and pulls out a large stack of papers and begins reading. Dillion sits across, watching out the window with a smile. We pass through the cloud layer and arrive at our destination, Cadence's Starfire project. The Stellar Flare. A fitting name for a ship in my opinion. A large battle cruise similar in size to the Boseman. I don't know much about this ship. Cadence didn't tell me anything about it, so I am going in blind on this one. The ship consisted of a pure white paint job. It definitely is not a battleship but considering the weapons mounted on its bottom, it seems to fit the same role as the Luther as a siege ship. There are five in total and each about 30 inches long from what it looks like. The shuttle arrives at the hanger bay which is on the back of the ship. An area is cleared below us and the shuttle touches down. It's not as formal of a landing as on the Boseman or Rosa. Our ships have designated landing zones. It seems they just kind of opened a spot up for us.
The shuttle doors open and we are greeted by a group of six men standing in formation at the edge of the doors landing. One turns to the front and bows his head.
"Greetings." He says. "Prince Dillon, Princess Estelle, and Demi Nassa. Cadence extends her welcome to the Stellar Flare."
"Thank you." says Stella.
"Commander Nassa?" He says turning to me.
"Yes?" I ask.
"I understand you are in need of arms, follow us to the armory, we will get you sorted. Cadence requests the prince and princess head to the war room for final briefing."
"Excuse me?" Stella asks, raising her hand for his attention like we are in a classroom or something.
"Can I go with Demi? I kind of read the briefing on the way here."
His head jumps back for a moment, like he didn't expect someone to just blast through all the briefing material.
"The whole thing?" He asks.
"Yeah. I wanna practice more shooting anyway."
"Again?"
She turns to Dillon who smiles and nods his head. She jumps with glee and grabs onto my right arm.
"It's fine." Dillon says. "Make sure she's safe, Demi. I'm holding you to it."
A bit confused by what's going on, I just nod to him and he leaves with the soldiers. The soldiers remaining gather together and lead us to a tram waiting for us at the far end of the hangar. We enter the tram and take off, flying down the tracks toward the center of the ship. Stella stands next to me then turns to me and smiles before returning back to looking out the window.
I don't get it. What is her deal? She seems so desperate to hang out with me. What is it about me that she likes so much? What warrants her wanting to be around me? I mean, it's one thing to save someone's life and feel in debt, but this is a little-.
"-Are you ok?" She asks.
Her sudden interruption makes me jump a little, clearly my deep thought seems to be taking me out of the moment a little.
"What?" I ask
"Are you ok? You seem a little…out of it."
"Sorry I just…have a lot on my mind right now. You know, with Cadence and this ship."
"I know what you mean."
"I see. Why come with me? All I am doing is getting a weapon."
She smiles a little.
"Because I want to. I am the princess after all. I am required to know things, and I want to know you."
"But why?"
"Cadence is interested in you, so by default I am too. You seem to question a lot of things about yourself. I see it in how you carry yourself. How you talk to others. There is this sense of uncertainty.
"You act like you know me, like you know who I am already."
This is sounding all too familiar.
"Not quite, but we do have some similarities."
"Like what?"
"Well. We both come from important families. We have shoes to fill that are so large we start to doubt if we ever had a chance to fill them in the first place."
"Oh, yeah I guess so."
She bends down and starts to whisper into my ear. "See? You wanna know a secret?"
"What?"
"My first name is not Estelle."
"What?" I yell out loud.
"Yeah. My actual first name is literally Princess."
I didn't even know how to react to that revelation. I sit there stunned as she laughs to herself, thinking about it.
"It was my father's idea." She continues. "They wanted me to have innate respect as I grew up, knowing full well that they already ran a famous communications company. I was made fun of for years."
"You were?"
"Yeah, being called a princess when I wasn't one. Everyone thought I was pretentious or something."
"Then I have to ask. Where did Estelle come from?"
"That? Oh that's my middle name."
We had a long stretch of silence. I didn't even know what to say, how to react. Not until Stella bursts out laughing.
"Ha! You should see your face right now!" She says.
Everyone stares at her as she falls against the wall and finally calms down. The tram comes to a stop at the armory and she stands back to her feet.
"Come on." She continues, "Let's have some fun."
At behest to the guards, she leaves first, pulling me in tow. I have never seen her this excited before. She has always been more reserved when speaking with others. At least when I see her. We arrive in a large central hub area at the end of the hall. This clearly had to be the crew deck of the ship, considering the sheer amount of people passing up and down the halls. That and also "crew deck" was written on the back wall. The hub had halls leading in all directions and the familiar smell of recycled air fills my lungs again. We head down the hall on our left. Most of everyone either stops and stares or moves out of the way as we arrive at a door at the end of the hall. Inside was the armory. The walls on all sides were mounted from top to bottom with guns of all kinds. High caliber, small arms, anti tank, everything. A man approaches us. He looks sad, and his eyes wander in different directions clearly not noticing what's going on until he is in our faces and jumps back in surprise upon seeing us.
"Princess Stella?" He says.
"Hey Marvin."
"Wh-what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" she jokingly said.
"Cadence asked me to come along and man this station."
"Oh, well I am here for other reasons."
She stands behind me and places her hands on both my shoulders.
"I am here for her."
He bends down and takes a good look at me.
"Have I seen you before?" He asks.
I have never seen this man in my life. I am not sure where he got this idea that we have met somewhere. He stares at me for a little longer before looking back up at Stella for a second, then back down to me. At that moment, something clicks. In one fell swoop, his eyes pop out of his head and he smiles from end to end.
"I have seen you before. You were at the helm of the RNS Boseman during the cloud incident."
"That's the one." Stella says.
He grabs my hand and bows his head.
"You saved my little girl. I don't know what to say. I am forever in your debt."
He became so excited talking to us. Like his spirits suddenly exploded and his entire world opened up. He then turns to Stella.
"So what do we need today?"
"Cadence's orders. She wants Demi armed for our trip to Meklar."
"The works, then?"
"What are you trained in?"
"Nekomon standard issue small arms."
"Very good. Follow me ladies."
He waves his hand and leads us to the back of the room. He gives us two metal suction cups. Stella places them on both of her ears, blocking out the sound. I follow suit. He then leads us to a firing range through another door on the side. The range was long with reinforced walls on all ends of the room, including the back. There were a couple of people already in the shooting range. I could feel the impact of air from the rounds being fired against my hair and cheeks. He places us in the booth midway down the room. He then leaves through a door directly behind us.
"So, you seem to know this Marvin guy pretty well. What's his story?"
"Oh him? I am not like the siblings. Cadence has her hand to hand combat and strength, Dillon is an expert with high speed ships for quick escapes, what do I have? Nothing really. So I train with firearms."
"I see."
"Plus it's really fun."
Marvin re-enters through the door carrying a variety of small weapons and places them on a table next to us. He takes out the first one and places it on the table in front of me. He opens a side panel on our booth and presses a few buttons before closing it again. The ground ahead of us shakes and a metal cut out of a target appears ahead of us. Marvin then picks up the weapon.
"This is the M2011. Lightweight, strong, and fires 22 mm rounds."
He loads a clip and places it on the table next to the gun.
"Do you know how to use them?" He asks.
"Yeah. I do."
I think back to my training and everything I was taught. I pick up the pistol and load in a mag. An old familiar feeling returns to me. Sometimes as you climb the ranks, you don't have to pick up a rifle as often, but I felt right at home. I spread my feet into a wide stance and Marvin places his hand on my back.
"Clear!" He yells.
"Clear!" says everyone else echoing through the hall.
I took a deep breath, slowed my breathing, and aimed.
"Ready when you are."
I pull the trigger and fire. Bang! A brief flash and moments later, a little flies out of the barrel. I look at the target down the hall. A single shot, not in the center but very close. A satisfying shot. A huge grin grows across my face. Oh yeah. I felt right at home. I took my stance again and unloaded the rest of the clip into the target. Afterward, I unloaded the clip and placed it on the table.
"How did it feel?"
"Good. Let's move onto the next one."
We cycle through the next couple of weapons until we finish through all of them. A good 30 minutes have passed at this point. Marvin collects the weapons and takes them back into the room. At the same moment, Stella walks through the door carrying a car with several large rifles and places it next to me? She smiles with excitement, jumping around and egging me to pick one up. They all look like what I would consider standard rifles. Long barrels that fire higher caliber rounds. I look through the selection. They were all pretty boring with the exception of one I haven't seen before. It was tucked at the bottom of the pile.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Pick it up."
I sigh and examine the rifle further. It's nothing I have ever seen before. The overall size of the weapon was bulky and thick. The entire gun was painted white. The barrel was long but skinny. As I pick it up, I notice it's lighter than at first glance. It fits easily into my hands and is balanced almost perfectly. Despite the size difference from front to back, I don't notice a thing. How is this even possible? Marvin walks through the door with another cart of pistols but is caught off guard by my surveying of the weapon. He turns to Stella who is smiling and approaches me.
"Where did you get that?" He asks.
"Stella gave it to me."
"Stella?" He turns back to her as she looks away to avoid eye contact.
"What is it?"
He sighs.
"A prototype. The AX-412. Our soldiers don't even have this yet. It comes with two firing modes, semi and automatic. It also has two different firing stages. May I?"
He sticks out his hands and I pass him the gun. He then proceeds to demonstrate its second ability. He grabs a lever toward the barrel and pulls it toward him, then he pushes it up the gun slightly and then away from him. At that moment, something engages on the gun. Two flaps open on both sides of the weapon and a cylindrical object could be seen spinning at extremely high speeds. At the same time, a light bar starts to climb along the barrel toward the tip, like it's filling up with something. The bar eventually hits the tip of the barrel and a ping plays on the gun. He pulls back the lever but doesn't push it back to its original position. Instead another holographic sight emerges and is displayed on the side of the weapon.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Remember I told you this gun has two stages? This is the second stage. When the lever is put into this position, the rail gun singles out its next round and places it into an electromagnetic field, generated by the portable generator and the metal rods inside the weapon. When the trigger is pulled, the round is released and accelerated by the field, allowing it to travel at great speeds."
"Wow. Can I take it?"
"No!" He yells, disengaging the function. "This thing is still dangerous. It's a prototype and still in development."
Stella approaches him and lays her hand on the gun.
"How about we don't allow her to use that function then."
"But ma'am."
"It's by the order of the royal family. I'll keep an eye on her. I know you have more anyway."
She gently pulls the weapon from him and gives it to me. He looks at me for a moment, then back to her, then nods his head.
"Come on Demi, I think we have what we need."
She thanks Marvin and leads me to the end of the range and out to the main lobby. We head up a set of stairs toward a long tunnel with a glass roof. We walk down the long hall, absorbing the beautiful sights above us. The ship sat just at the height where the stars could be seen but the atmosphere of the moon still took up some of the empty space. D arrives behind me and walks in unison staring into the stars.
"Wow, it's beautiful." He says.
"Hmm, that's the nicest thing you have said so far."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Well don't hold your breath."
"Why are you always this angry and annoying?"
"Because sometimes I want to be."
I stop walking for a moment and he follows suit. He stands there, looking at me with a crooked smile on his face.
"I don't understand you."
"Do you need a reminder?"
"That's not what I mean!"
"Oh?"
"You are me, but you are inconsistent. You talk about your plans with me but then sit down and watch a failing inauguration. You insult me but admire the stars. You are half of me but you are like a whole other person, too. You are not me, you are something else."
"So I ask the question. Who am I?"
"I…I don't know."
Disappointed he shakes his head and walks away.
"You better figure that answer out quickly, because soon that answer will be made for you."
Before I get the chance to say anything further, I find Stella standing before me. There were no guards around and the rest of the hall was clear. It was only us. I felt disorientated, and confused. It's as if each time I talk to D I start falling further and further out of consciousness. Shit, is this what he was talking about?
"W-what happened?" I asked.
"I should be asking you that question." she says.
"Oh…I."
"Demi, what's wrong?"
"What?"
"What's wrong? You haven't been yourself as of late. And you feel hot."
I didn't answer her. She walks me to a bench to sit down. I place my hand on my head and hold it for a few moments before Stella intervenes and moves her shoulder toward me, allowing my head to rest on it. I try to resist but she places a headband on me and suddenly I feel cold. My body instinctively moves toward her to keep warm.
"What's going on?" I ask, shivering next to her.
"You froze in place. Honestly it scared the crap out of me. Thank the father we had a cooling band."
"Oh."
"So what happened?"
"Huh?"
"Don't give me that. I am the princess, Demi. I am supposed to know everything. I have been watching you all week. You seem so…unsure of yourself, like you don't trust your own judgment. And it seems on and off with you. Some days it's completely taken you over, others it's just all you."
I don't respond, but I do nod my head while still leaning on her shoulder.
"You don't have to tell me anything." She continues, "but if you do need a friend, know that I am here, ok? Don't let my title fool you. You can always come to me."
I nod on her shoulder again, but still not say anything. She gets the picture however and after a few more moments, I lift my head off her shoulder and we exit the bench.
"One piece of advice that I had to learn." Stella says, stopping me from walking. "The biggest liar you will ever meet is yourself. If it comes from you, you will believe anything. Whatever demon is haunting you right now, know that it has no power over you. Don't let it control you, ok?"
"Ok." I say, nodding my head again.
She smiles and strokes my hair as she starts to walk away. D appears as she disappears down the staircase ahead. He is very angry..
As he curses her, I stare at him from behind. The princesses' thoughts bury themselves into my head. He has to go, and soon.