12: REPAIR

When my senior comrade left, I considered the idea of dismantling his invention when he takes in his resting period.

To become a human, even mimicking the guise of one–That must be treason against the birth queen! Rather, the True Mother must have a rule against this… Possibly?

My senior comrade morphed into such an… Such an unusual tone covered with… Fibers. So many… Fibers.

Did humans look like that? All of them? I had never seen one in any caregiving reference that appeared that way.

Was my comrade incorrect in execution? Or perhaps his invention failed to incorporate the true human skin, the kind with growths of flashing mechanical additions…?

Humans I had seen had a large cranium, with a singular optic. They often carried tools that would be used to disintegrate their enemies!

…But my senior comrade looked nothing of the sort.

Humans were sexless beings, were they not? Replication of their species was alike to Foliorum, I assumed, since there were no visible appendages for mating, yet…

He clearly had a component with a similar likeness to our own, though there was only one of them.

… I am unable to resist the idea of wondering if it were a fabricated model of an average human’s, or perhaps it was modeled after his…

Actual…

A pipe bursts from beside me, and my thoughts were halted–I should not be idling to think of senseless things.

I open the control panel of my suit, examining the ill-maintained circuits. When my senior comrade returns and examines my suit, he would likely suffer an infarction from the state of it.

I decide to prioritize repairing what I could of my suit before I take note of which parts of the ship are completely depreciated.

If my mind were to idle for longer, I would not be able to get any work done. Although his disappointment is clearly within my imminent future, I… I hoped my temporary pedagogue would sustain from being disappointed in me until a reasonable amount of time had passed.

I appreciate his temporary attentiveness, and I hope I am able to bask in it for a little while longer.

After I had taken extra measures to keep my emotive blocker stable, I equipped my designated visor and began taking note of the damage done as I tidied the loose gravel from our ship.

Being sub-Foliorum made menial tasks like this easier than most, yet I struggle still; Each rotation of my wrists emit pain since incident #29, when I had, once again, sustained a fall due to my own wretched fate.

Most would believe incident #6 and incident #8 would have been enough, yet my mangled body would prove otherwise…

The hull was undoubtedly destroyed from the crash, but repair should not difficult. We still have our tools to repair the exterior without any problems…

However, the considerably worrying issue is the fact that our primary engine has been completely destroyed, showcased with the image of our fuel trickling down the mountain we collided with earlier.

It had taken a direct blow from the craft we encountered… And now the remnants were completely obliterated after our collision.

Due to this peculiar ship model’s primary objective of sample return missions, it was not built for long-distance travel, or sustain severe damage.

The ship that attacked us was a similar Sixamian Iphides-class support research vessel…

…But the damage done to our engine was not the kind supported by an Iphides-class vessel.

If I may rely on my faulty memories of ship classes, an Iphides-class vessel such as ours could not generate enough power to take out our own with a singular shot; Two or more consecutive attacks against the same origin would be reasonable… Yet the attacks were sporadic and uncontrolled.

I walk to the deck and see my fallen comrade, the distaste of jealousy burning from the back of my throat.

I did not have use for distraction; I must have something to report to my senior comrade other than theories.

I retrieve the body of my comrade to bring into an isolation chamber; Perhaps when my senior comrade goes back to Sixam, our fallen comrade’s physical body can be disposed of correctly into the plasma waves of Sutheon…

I return to the deck to obtain the flight logs and recordings to analyze; The mysterious attack began to grow from the crevices of my mind. If I were to successfully obtain information regarding this encounter, will my temporary pedagogue be satisfied with me…?

As I booted up the main computer to run a diagnostic scan on the rest of the ship’s components, it was not long until the scan notified me of an unusual reading:

A bio-sign… Approaching our settlement at a steady pace.

It was not Sixamian, so it could not possibly be my comrade; It was something else.

Something… Unknown.

My fix on my emotive blocker did not last against my emotions, and I soon felt my hearts increase in pace as I found myself automatically moving toward the source.

If humans are the champions of the planet notorious for the death of many Sixamian rebels, could this unknown creature be an asset to their mode of mutilation?

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< 11: NAME

13: TERRITORY >

[ Chapter Index ]

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Note:

Nico: “I gotta stop being such a pain in the ass and work on the ship”
Also Nico: ” *ditches everything* omg I hope this random creature is hostile”