Two Hopes
‘Why don’t you date, Sera? You got confessed to just the other day, didn’t you?’
‘Because I have not applied for family berth assignment or reproductive rights, Hailey.’
Back in their military academy days.
Sera would never forget the look on her friend’s face — as if she’d walked into a bakery, asked for a baguette, and gotten cracked over the head with it instead.
‘Uh… I was asking why you don’t have a boyfriend?’
‘I already answered that. Forming a romantic relationship requires a marriage vow, and once you become a couple, you are expected to produce a second generation.’
The voyage to their destination would take a long time, so every resource aboard the Hermes was controlled under rigorous calculation.
Not just munitions and food — population, too.
Of course, Sera’s peculiar way of thinking had little to do with the Empire’s human-rights consciousness or social climate.
She was simply that old-fashioned.
‘I still have a great deal of work to do for the Empire.’
The moment she said it, Hailey looked as if the baguette that had just smashed into the back of her skull had gone straight down her throat. Her hands, gripping the cutlery, began to tremble — and then her whole field of vision seemed to warp.
‘Sera, keep this up and you’ll die alone. I knew you were serious, but a girl with a face like yours — what the hell is wrong with you?! Huh?!’
‘Pleash shtop! Hiley’sh worry ish unnesheshary…!’
Having finally wrestled her cheek free from Hailey’s grip, Sera shot her a resentful look.
Hailey paid it no mind, muttering with the pity of someone who’d just found a stray cat that hadn’t eaten in three days.
‘God really is fair. If this girl could just loosen her face a little — throw in even a scrap of charm — forget that sadistic instructor, even Primavera would fall for her completely.’
‘You mean the combat-training AI from CSJ Company? Please don’t say such foolish things.’
‘Why not? If you talk to it enough, it goes a little easier on you. Lowers the shooting difficulty and stuff.’
Sera still remembered exactly what she’d said that day, tearing into a piece of stale bread.
‘An AI has no emotions. Even if it feels like it does, that would only be your imagination, Hailey.’
‘I…’
“Th-that’s right! JIN is an AI, so of course he couldn’t make that kind of judgment!”
Sera hastily cut him off.
Primitive desire, personal preference, likes and dislikes — none of that was territory an artificial intelligence could answer for.
Even the sense of relational emptiness she was feeling right now simply did not exist for JIN.
Of course, he could give whatever answer a user wanted to hear.
JIN was an exceptionally sophisticated AI — for all she knew, he was already searching for the optimal response for this exact moment.
“I’ll pass on this one!”
‘Sera…’
“W-we need to get some sleep before it gets any later! I’ll turn in first!”
But Sera didn’t want to hear even that kind of considerate answer.
She didn’t want to open a door she’d kept shut out of longing for warmth — only to discover that the presence she’d been talking to on the other side wasn’t a person at all, but a speaker sitting on a table.
‘…Understood. I’ll wake you when the time comes.’
True to form as an AI, JIN made no attempt to stop her.
He simply waited a long while, then delivered a mechanical reply.
Sync Rate with Sera Robini has risen from D → C.
Due to the innate ability <Evolution Algorithm>, two options to enhance unit performance are now available.
1.Voice Control Module Lv.1
2.Interstellar Communication Module Lv.1
Before I could even begin to unpack Sera’s complicated feelings, something else threw me into a panic: the status window, back again.
Alongside the familiar message that our Sync Rate had risen, two choices appeared.
At least the conversation-training program hadn’t shown up this time — maybe all that progress was finally paying off. The reappearance of the Voice Control Module was a little disappointing, but the moment I checked the option beneath it, that disappointment evaporated completely.
It was real?!
Until now, I’d been typing out whatever I wanted to say with the sensation of tapping a keyboard. The input would get converted once and appear as a system message — which meant weird information sometimes got mixed in.
— This unit is not equipped with interstellar communication capability. The relevant module requires individual evolution.
That was the message that had popped up the first time we met, the moment I’d told her I couldn’t do anything like communications. After that, I’d started putting more care into my sentences, and communication itself had improved a little — but I’d never imagined it hadn’t just been empty noise.
Thanks to your help, Sera has begun to look beyond mere temporary survival toward a slightly more distant future — and she has come to realize something. Restoring a bridge capable of transmitting a signal to the Empire is a remote prospect at best.
One look at your battered, scar-riddled frame would suggest her judgment isn’t wrong. Maybe you should have fought a little better?
Activating this module will allow you to establish a communications link with Imperial headquarters — wherever in the cosmos it may be.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean salvation.
Setting aside the still-irritating tone of the message, this was a function we absolutely needed for survival.
It felt like a single ray of light cutting through the dark, hopeless future that had stretched out before us until now.
I was about to upgrade the Interstellar Communication Module on the spot when something in the status window’s message made me pause.
Doesn’t necessarily mean salvation? Why not?
In the quiet darkness that had settled over the shattered grid tiles, I propped up an arm in a thinking pose and calmly mulled it over, face-to-face with a mannequin.
Feeling the steady, rhythmic thump of Sera’s heartbeat, I found myself growing a little more responsible.
Same as with every other function — as a liberal-arts major, I was a complete amateur when it came to communications. Even if I’d been a specialist, I still wouldn’t have known how far an interstellar signal could actually reach.
What mattered was this: the Hermes had already been underway for more than ten years.
If warp technology were sufficiently advanced, would it really take this long to reach a planet destined for colonization?
Even if a signal gets through, a rescue team might not be able to come right away.
The moment that realization hit, every drop of coolant in my body seemed to go cold.
Coolant is cold to begin with, but still.
I’ll put it on hold for now.
A distress signal delayed by a few days wasn’t a major problem. Our immediate goal was to confirm the safety of other sectors and expand our footholds toward them. Adding unnecessary chaos could only scatter our focus — so for now, I decided to keep pushing forward.
Our second outpost — the broadcasting station — had been the first place the rebels hit.
Every coup in history puts seizing the media at the top of its priority list.
Stepping into the building, scorched marks everywhere, we found dried bloodstains and an overwhelming number of corpses strewn about. Before the rebellion could be fully put down, the mutants had stormed the sector — and the bodies had been left behind, never properly recovered.
“…It’s devastating.”
On the way to the records room, Sera carefully collected the dog tags hanging from the necks of those still in uniform. Corpses that looked like rebels were scattered among them as well — green and blue cloth mixed together, draped over shoulders or pulled from inside jackets, like a field and a sky stitched into fabric.
‘Sera, what are the rebels?’
After searching several floors, we ducked into a supply closet for a short rest, and I asked her about them.
Sera thought for a moment, then answered while staring at the bloodstains that had seeped through the door crack and hardened.
“The term Lie-bang — the Allied Nations — doesn’t refer to any single entity. It means many countries: all nations. Before opening new colonies through interstellar travel, the Empire waged war against other countries, pursuing the expansion-and-separation policies typical of a great power.”
Expansion meant seizing territory and claiming land. Separation meant tearing apart the people who had lived on that land and scattering them.
“A large number of ethnic minorities assigned to Class 4 and 5 berths were aboard this ship as well. The radical faction among them is the one that staged the uprising.”
For an assessment of the people responsible for everything — the ones who’d driven her comrades into a death trap — it was remarkably measured. Sera must have read the curiosity on my face, because she frowned slightly as she continued.
“I hold no fond feelings toward them whatsoever. I’m simply trying to convey this as neutrally as possible because I’m speaking to you, JIN.”
‘Why is that?’
“You’re like an oversized child. For a high-performance AI, you haven’t even been implanted with basic knowledge — and the only living person you’ve seen is me.”
She’d been a bit curt ever since that night at the shopping center, but in short, it was consideration — concern about biased information.
The more I saw of her, the more her humanity left me in awe.
Was she an angel? This was another world — it was possible.
“Eek?! What are you doing all of a sudden?!”
‘Looking for wings.’
“Wh-what on earth are you talking about…! Hyaah?!”
As the round beads along the inside of the suit began vibrating along her shoulder blades and spine, Sera shuddered as if electricity had shot through her entire body.
From air purifier to laundry dryer — and now, a full career change into massage chair.
I’d have to charge at least 150,000 won a month in rental fees for this on a home-shopping channel. It’d sell like crazy, no question.
“Ah — you can’t… wait. My strength is—! There, ahh…!”
I was just getting serious about working the tension out of Sera’s rigidly locked shoulders — elevating my own market value for no particular reason — when a faint, unidentifiable noise drifted from the far end of the corridor.
“JIN! You heard that just now, didn’t you?!”
‘No life signs detected.’
I dropped the playfulness instantly and answered at once. From the moment we’d entered the building, I’d had the life-sign detector running at maximum range. Whether mutant or human, nothing living was out there.
We carefully left the supply closet and advanced toward the source of the sound. Broken ceiling lights flickered like flashbulbs, casting a grim atmosphere over everything around us.
At last we found the origin — a noise-garbled voice coming from beyond a door. The door was locked.
“If you would, JIN.”
With a powered suit, you didn’t need door-breaching equipment. I crumpled the handle like aluminum foil and tore it free; the door groaned open on its hinges.
No one was inside.
Instead, a transmission caught by the broadcast tower on the station’s roof was looping endlessly through a receiver that had never been powered off.
The half-crushed waveform of a voice tangled with static was a shape I knew intimately.
Human. Male.
An unmistakable signal that other survivors still lived aboard this ship.