01-18-2017, 02:58 PM
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s a pirates life for meeeee!” McGee sang out of tune for the umpteenth time and Christa was past the point of rubbing her aching temples for clarity. “Yo hoooo, yo hooo!”
“Is there... Any chance... I could get some quiet? I’d like to rest or at least think, before we get there,” she asked, and the captain nodded his head in an agreement that would only last five minutes. The sniper considered drowning herself in the ocean a few feet below.
“I have to summon some weapons. Do you want any food, Captain McGee?” maybe if he did, he’d shut up at least as she made it, “I can make you-”
“POISON!!!!!” he shrieked and Christa was almost so flustered she nearly fell overboard, “POISON! Only evil beings eat the food made out of Ommmmmmmiillliiiumm! I can’ even imagine injestin’ that, I’d die!”
“Should I inform him that his body is made out of Omnilium as well as the land that grows his food?” Bot asked her quietly.
Christa pondered this, imagining him jumping overboard, or pressing the self-destruct button on the ship, “No, I suppose not, never know what he might do. Best to let him dream.”
“Are you hungry, Miss Adams?” her machine asked, and she glared at him.
“I’m hungry for some peace and quiet, we’re close to my sister, I can feel it, how is our progress on navigating, you got his directions, right? It was a little muffled but he said we have to pass ten islands before taking a left, and this is while we are going north. Right?” Christa sighed and looked down at her hands, avoiding the sight of the new horizon and the rising sun. “How long will it take?”
“According to my calculations, at the rate we are going, it will take us three days.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she growled.
“No no, I’m really Captain McGee! Hehe!” the senile captain giggled at his rhyme.
Christa held her head in her hands, “UGH, just tell me when we’ve passed the last island.”
...
The onset of wind, waves, and the vast width of the empty ocean came and passed with each rising moon. The weather had been on their side, for not even a drop of rain had dared to stamp their ship with its mark. Instead, the time ebbed and flowed with McGee’s ferocious snoring. That old man, something was seriously wrong with him, and the robot, Christa didn’t know which one was worse. The old man, she decided, but while he was snoring, he wasn’t singing, and she summoned all the weapons she could use, and many, she didn’t know if she could. The robot came with his own weapons, but if he lost a battery or something, he’d be out of commission. Christa worried about if the enemy had some way to hack into enhanced technology and eyed the machine with some skepticism. In her old world, machine and man lived side by side, and even some had personalities, all, however, weren’t trustworthy, for an enemy could recalibrate their programs in a single instant and all the information they once stored could be taken and used against her. In war, this was a death sentence, so Christa never worked with droids of any kind.
They had one pro, and that was being replaced when obsolete or dying without the cost of real life, only innovation which had been reproduced in a model form. Clones, copies, that’s all robots seemed to be, the simplicity, she liked, as well as the feather-like weight feeling on her conscience when her robot might die in this battle. Zero casualties. Far from the many she’d lost in the wars of the past, deaths of people like Katia, daughters, sisters, the only family anyone had left...
Christa sighed and looked far across the night air, out past the ocean waves and onto the moon lingering on the horizon. She wondered if she had any service to call Abner or Red, but quickly shook away the notion. Hoonnnnnkkkk--gsshhh Mcgee snored, but Christa was too busy warring with herself to bother tipping the captain overboard... For now.
The robot was staring at her, with his bright flashlights for eyes, finally, upon reading her weary expression, he asked, “Are you alright, Christa?”
“Excuse me? Aren’t you supposed to say asking those things are obsolete, just like my petty human emotions?” Christa whipped back.
“Well, they are why we’re here, aren’t they?” the bot wagered, matter-of-factly.
Christa bit her lip, and looked back out to the ocean, so vast and wide and kissing the edges of the horizon with the shine of moonlight. She thought of all she had, which wasn’t much, but spanning throughout her life, she’d had a family, a job, a sister when her family died, a platoon who respected her, with her enemies had come more friends, a dog even, more experiences... And still, more setbacks.
Immortality.
One of the many things Katia didn’t have, she should’ve asked Omni, but was... Thrilled, stupefied beyond means to have met him in the first place. This place, she wasn’t sure she belonged anymore. Everything she’d done was a fuck up, almost. Pity, too, there were possibilities here. Abner, Darkshire, a decent sense of community at least in some places, and well, rebellion, which the sniper always liked the taste of. Still, what was the point of it all? Death would come to her eventually, but now, it just had to be delivered in a certain way, and the talk of banishment to this place’s Hell? Seems like a bad place to spend immortality. Without all of the things she had just previously considered.
It all meant nothing without her sister, so why had Christa left her in the first place? Delusion, false-hope, those things that pansies get just before they run into no-man’s-land and don’t come back. Fake everything, fake reason to live, fake reason to die, fake reason to die for a country or nation that had sent them there in the first place. It left her bitter, and unmoved, and then there was that ghost, called itself a reaper or something and promised to get her, well, Christa wasn’t one to back down to a challenge, but she might have to be, if Katia made it through. No more battling, no more risks, it was time to fill those categories with sacrifices that families make. Proof of -no- just simply, to show Katia what importance she had, at least, in her sister’s world.
You look like you’re drowning, Christa heard a whisper, which pulled her out of her sisterly sorrows, her eyes darted across the small, empty boat, “Did you hear that?” she asked to bot, and looked suspiciously at Mcgee, who was still sleeping.
“He’s been snoring for approximately six hours and forty-nine minutes, yes, I hear him,” the bot incorporated some sass, which Christa cut through.
“No, there was a voice,” Christa was determined, “Scan the vessel for lifeforms now, as well as any frequencies that can carry a thought.”
The scans were complete, and “Inconclusive,” he informed her.
“No, I’m sure I heard something, ugh, you probably need a new hard-drive or something, I didn’t make you to track down things like this, you’re sure you didn’t hear it?” She looked at the steel bot, of course he hadn’t, it hadn’t been a sound but some sort of thought.
“You should get some rest, we’re almost there, you want to be on top of your game when we face your sister’s captors,” the bot lifelessly warned.
“I know what I heart, you’re just not alive, so you didn’t hear it, no, we’re in danger, very bad danger...” Christa stood up, and readied her rifle in her hands, just as she did, the entire boat checked, and the Prime was thrown to the boat’s deck. Her skull slammed into a hard rod, meant to do something with the anchor, while in the dim back round noises, she heard a man scream.
Well, it wasn’t the robot, logic deduced and Christa forced herself up and with the gust of pressure her head spun, rattling the winds of reality and illusion. She fervently blinked this away, and the robot had been adjusting himself too, but had gone over to the captain who was still in his bunk. By the way the bot’s head turned at her, it was almost grim, in the droid’s metallic hands, lay the captain’s cold, lifeless body.
“He’s dead,” her conclusion confirmed by the bot’s emotionless confirmation.
“How, how did he die? Did you see anything?” Christa cursed herself and blinked the pain away, trying to remember that moment, to slow it down in her mind, and perpetuate the facts, but it was all too dim, she hadn’t been looking at the captain.
“I thought I saw something, here, let me show you,” its breastplate was released and revealed a small projector, which enabled a hologram, Christa’s eyes widened, “I record everything I witness, and can analyze it through many different algorithms per second. “Analyzing now, starting playback now.”
The light projected on the deck dimly, as, she supposed, it was indeed nighttime. Perhaps that Death being had come back to steal her away, and taken the wrong man. Well, the recording, or whatever you wanted to call a playback in holographic fields, would tell. Christa leaned in closely, her nose even smudged the light, until she learned to back up a few inches.
The recording played, showing the trace outline of the deck, the bot had zoomed in on Christa’s face, little lights came from his analysis as he computed her expression, then, it changed to one that was ready to meet an enemy, she stood up, and tripped on nothing but air. The observing, non hologram gasped in surprise, she had thought the boat had collided with something, “What was that, had to be some sort of glitch right?”
The film kept playing, and she watched for the captain’s corner earnestly, without blinking. His scream played on, but nothing had woken him from his slumber, nothing had even touched him, while she saw his appendages quiver for a second, before suddenly, the life was gone, and his chest was motionless. Christa blinked, “Did he... die of natural causes? He was pretty old..”
“That would be an apt assumption, but signs point to no, something scared him to death, in his dream,” the bot spoke.
“Or, in his mind.”
“Is there... Any chance... I could get some quiet? I’d like to rest or at least think, before we get there,” she asked, and the captain nodded his head in an agreement that would only last five minutes. The sniper considered drowning herself in the ocean a few feet below.
“I have to summon some weapons. Do you want any food, Captain McGee?” maybe if he did, he’d shut up at least as she made it, “I can make you-”
“POISON!!!!!” he shrieked and Christa was almost so flustered she nearly fell overboard, “POISON! Only evil beings eat the food made out of Ommmmmmmiillliiiumm! I can’ even imagine injestin’ that, I’d die!”
“Should I inform him that his body is made out of Omnilium as well as the land that grows his food?” Bot asked her quietly.
Christa pondered this, imagining him jumping overboard, or pressing the self-destruct button on the ship, “No, I suppose not, never know what he might do. Best to let him dream.”
“Are you hungry, Miss Adams?” her machine asked, and she glared at him.
“I’m hungry for some peace and quiet, we’re close to my sister, I can feel it, how is our progress on navigating, you got his directions, right? It was a little muffled but he said we have to pass ten islands before taking a left, and this is while we are going north. Right?” Christa sighed and looked down at her hands, avoiding the sight of the new horizon and the rising sun. “How long will it take?”
“According to my calculations, at the rate we are going, it will take us three days.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she growled.
“No no, I’m really Captain McGee! Hehe!” the senile captain giggled at his rhyme.
Christa held her head in her hands, “UGH, just tell me when we’ve passed the last island.”
...
The onset of wind, waves, and the vast width of the empty ocean came and passed with each rising moon. The weather had been on their side, for not even a drop of rain had dared to stamp their ship with its mark. Instead, the time ebbed and flowed with McGee’s ferocious snoring. That old man, something was seriously wrong with him, and the robot, Christa didn’t know which one was worse. The old man, she decided, but while he was snoring, he wasn’t singing, and she summoned all the weapons she could use, and many, she didn’t know if she could. The robot came with his own weapons, but if he lost a battery or something, he’d be out of commission. Christa worried about if the enemy had some way to hack into enhanced technology and eyed the machine with some skepticism. In her old world, machine and man lived side by side, and even some had personalities, all, however, weren’t trustworthy, for an enemy could recalibrate their programs in a single instant and all the information they once stored could be taken and used against her. In war, this was a death sentence, so Christa never worked with droids of any kind.
They had one pro, and that was being replaced when obsolete or dying without the cost of real life, only innovation which had been reproduced in a model form. Clones, copies, that’s all robots seemed to be, the simplicity, she liked, as well as the feather-like weight feeling on her conscience when her robot might die in this battle. Zero casualties. Far from the many she’d lost in the wars of the past, deaths of people like Katia, daughters, sisters, the only family anyone had left...
Christa sighed and looked far across the night air, out past the ocean waves and onto the moon lingering on the horizon. She wondered if she had any service to call Abner or Red, but quickly shook away the notion. Hoonnnnnkkkk--gsshhh Mcgee snored, but Christa was too busy warring with herself to bother tipping the captain overboard... For now.
The robot was staring at her, with his bright flashlights for eyes, finally, upon reading her weary expression, he asked, “Are you alright, Christa?”
“Excuse me? Aren’t you supposed to say asking those things are obsolete, just like my petty human emotions?” Christa whipped back.
“Well, they are why we’re here, aren’t they?” the bot wagered, matter-of-factly.
Christa bit her lip, and looked back out to the ocean, so vast and wide and kissing the edges of the horizon with the shine of moonlight. She thought of all she had, which wasn’t much, but spanning throughout her life, she’d had a family, a job, a sister when her family died, a platoon who respected her, with her enemies had come more friends, a dog even, more experiences... And still, more setbacks.
Immortality.
One of the many things Katia didn’t have, she should’ve asked Omni, but was... Thrilled, stupefied beyond means to have met him in the first place. This place, she wasn’t sure she belonged anymore. Everything she’d done was a fuck up, almost. Pity, too, there were possibilities here. Abner, Darkshire, a decent sense of community at least in some places, and well, rebellion, which the sniper always liked the taste of. Still, what was the point of it all? Death would come to her eventually, but now, it just had to be delivered in a certain way, and the talk of banishment to this place’s Hell? Seems like a bad place to spend immortality. Without all of the things she had just previously considered.
It all meant nothing without her sister, so why had Christa left her in the first place? Delusion, false-hope, those things that pansies get just before they run into no-man’s-land and don’t come back. Fake everything, fake reason to live, fake reason to die, fake reason to die for a country or nation that had sent them there in the first place. It left her bitter, and unmoved, and then there was that ghost, called itself a reaper or something and promised to get her, well, Christa wasn’t one to back down to a challenge, but she might have to be, if Katia made it through. No more battling, no more risks, it was time to fill those categories with sacrifices that families make. Proof of -no- just simply, to show Katia what importance she had, at least, in her sister’s world.
You look like you’re drowning, Christa heard a whisper, which pulled her out of her sisterly sorrows, her eyes darted across the small, empty boat, “Did you hear that?” she asked to bot, and looked suspiciously at Mcgee, who was still sleeping.
“He’s been snoring for approximately six hours and forty-nine minutes, yes, I hear him,” the bot incorporated some sass, which Christa cut through.
“No, there was a voice,” Christa was determined, “Scan the vessel for lifeforms now, as well as any frequencies that can carry a thought.”
The scans were complete, and “Inconclusive,” he informed her.
“No, I’m sure I heard something, ugh, you probably need a new hard-drive or something, I didn’t make you to track down things like this, you’re sure you didn’t hear it?” She looked at the steel bot, of course he hadn’t, it hadn’t been a sound but some sort of thought.
“You should get some rest, we’re almost there, you want to be on top of your game when we face your sister’s captors,” the bot lifelessly warned.
“I know what I heart, you’re just not alive, so you didn’t hear it, no, we’re in danger, very bad danger...” Christa stood up, and readied her rifle in her hands, just as she did, the entire boat checked, and the Prime was thrown to the boat’s deck. Her skull slammed into a hard rod, meant to do something with the anchor, while in the dim back round noises, she heard a man scream.
Well, it wasn’t the robot, logic deduced and Christa forced herself up and with the gust of pressure her head spun, rattling the winds of reality and illusion. She fervently blinked this away, and the robot had been adjusting himself too, but had gone over to the captain who was still in his bunk. By the way the bot’s head turned at her, it was almost grim, in the droid’s metallic hands, lay the captain’s cold, lifeless body.
“He’s dead,” her conclusion confirmed by the bot’s emotionless confirmation.
“How, how did he die? Did you see anything?” Christa cursed herself and blinked the pain away, trying to remember that moment, to slow it down in her mind, and perpetuate the facts, but it was all too dim, she hadn’t been looking at the captain.
“I thought I saw something, here, let me show you,” its breastplate was released and revealed a small projector, which enabled a hologram, Christa’s eyes widened, “I record everything I witness, and can analyze it through many different algorithms per second. “Analyzing now, starting playback now.”
The light projected on the deck dimly, as, she supposed, it was indeed nighttime. Perhaps that Death being had come back to steal her away, and taken the wrong man. Well, the recording, or whatever you wanted to call a playback in holographic fields, would tell. Christa leaned in closely, her nose even smudged the light, until she learned to back up a few inches.
The recording played, showing the trace outline of the deck, the bot had zoomed in on Christa’s face, little lights came from his analysis as he computed her expression, then, it changed to one that was ready to meet an enemy, she stood up, and tripped on nothing but air. The observing, non hologram gasped in surprise, she had thought the boat had collided with something, “What was that, had to be some sort of glitch right?”
The film kept playing, and she watched for the captain’s corner earnestly, without blinking. His scream played on, but nothing had woken him from his slumber, nothing had even touched him, while she saw his appendages quiver for a second, before suddenly, the life was gone, and his chest was motionless. Christa blinked, “Did he... die of natural causes? He was pretty old..”
“That would be an apt assumption, but signs point to no, something scared him to death, in his dream,” the bot spoke.
“Or, in his mind.”
![[Image: -Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif]](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/-Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif)
"I have never met a strong person with an easy past." -Atticus