Please Take Me

Hermes could house tens of thousands, and it was enormous — yet set against a nation or a continent, it was little more than a small city.

Narrow the scope to the commercial district, a mere sixth of the total area, and the familiar places only multiplied.

Having grown up aboard the ship for over a decade, Sera knew most of the shops in Ebon Square inside and out.

When she opened the door to a particular store at Jin's request, childhood nostalgia and old memories came flooding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back.

The glass windows were shattered, but the fact that the place still held nearly its original shape meant it offered little in the way of survival supplies.

After confirming there were no mutants, she stepped inside and found herself replaying the conversation she'd just had with Jin.

I don't understand Jin anymore.

"I can't understand Sera's catastrophic sense of artistry either."

What does capturing military personnel have to do with stopping by a stationery shop?

"I need tools to build traps. And if we're going to do this, I figured it'd be better if Sera made them herself."

"What kind of impressive trap can you even make with junk from a hole-in-the-wall like this…"

She grumbled, but dutifully gathered everything Jin had asked for and returned to the spacecraft.

Then, leaning against him as he still slept, she began snipping away with her scissors.

— Snip, snip.

As Sera worked intently, one of the mechanical arms crept over. It slid down her arm and nestled suggestively into her collar — what it wanted was obvious.

"I'm busy, so make do with this."

Having gotten the hang of it to some degree, she lightly dabbed a finger to her lips and sent the fluid-demanding little pest packing.

It wasn't all that different from the crafts she'd done as a child, but this was still work Jin had assigned her. Without slacking off, she even engraved lettering with a marker, then stood and stretched.

The diligent mechanical arms were busy brushing sand and mud from the chassis. Jin, still unconscious, knelt like a loyal knight.

"……"

Smaller than a typical powered suit, their eye levels roughly matched when he was seated. If she wrapped her arms around his neck and rose onto her tiptoes, their faces would nearly touch.

— Whirr.

Perhaps because she'd unconsciously closed the distance, drawn by that sudden fantasy. The mechanical arm that had taken her saliva earlier poked its head in again.

"I'm not giving you any more of this."

She gave the clingy one a sharp word, unlike its hardworking companions.

"This is only for… Jin."

It was a feeling that had bloomed from the moment he'd held out his hand — an unfamiliar emotion she'd never felt before, coloring her cheeks red.

Danger lurked in every corner of the Empire's flagship, drifting through the dark of space like an ark. The absence of water and air. An unstable hull that could explode at any moment. Mutants that struck without warning.

Exploring a ship upon which ruin had settled was like entering a pitch-black dungeon with nothing but a single torch. And the treasure you found behind a firmly locked door was the only reason you kept putting one foot in front of the other.

Water and food to prolong life. Batteries essential to every machine. Gunpowder that could be turned into weapons. Among all the things you risked your life to obtain, what was the most valuable?

Something like this can't possibly be here. It might be someone's trap.

Even those who lived by constant suspicion for the sake of survival would have their eyes roll back in their heads at the sight of one particular piece of equipment.

Namely, me.

"This is… a suit?"

"What!?"

A powered suit, packed into a large cardboard box beneath the words Please Take Me—.

Two soldiers who had split up to loot the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shops pulled off their masks and stared in disbelief.

"……"

"……"

They exchanged hand signals. One stood watch outside while the other searched the room — checking for booby traps, for enemies lying in ambush. Only after a thorough safety sweep did they begin examining the suit in earnest.

"Huh. To think something like this was still left. Weren't they all deployed to the armory?"

"No — there was a call from Residence. One of the idiots headed that way must've left it behind."

"Residence… Suppression Division and Guard Division?"

"Yeah. Either way, the boss is gonna love this."

One of the chatting soldiers climbed into the suit's cockpit. No Circle visible — an ordinary person, not an ability user. Just in case, I absorbed the sweat from the back of his head, and a warning message blared across the status window alongside a taste so foul I could barely stand it.

Hemocytes — mutants. I'd learned something new about them. And about how these people had managed to survive on the ship's port side, where proper food no longer existed.

"Hold on — this thing's got some wear on it. There's mud, too."

"Isn't that from the mutant that died around here not long ago?"

"You're saying that explosion came from a powered suit? Then the pilot…"

"If we're lucky, we'll get to tear into some fresh meat for the first time in a while."

Judging by the conversation, there was no need to go easy on them. If they'd discovered Sera's existence — just thinking about it made my skin crawl.

"Anyway, let's haul it back. Next time we run into a live one around here…"

"Sorry, but there won't be a next time for you."

"Huh?"

"Who's there!!"

At the voice ringing through the room, both of them swung their muzzles wildly. A few rifle rounds weren't particularly threatening, and with no spare magazines in sight, I doubted the guns would even fire properly.

"It's nearby…!"

"Show yourself! We are soldiers of the Imperial Security Bureau!"

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠liked to watch their ridiculous performance a little longer, but if this dragged on, Sera would start to worry. I engaged power and simply shut the suit's hatch.

— Whiiirrr!

"Huh? Why'd it do that all of a sudden?"

"I didn't do anything! The suit's moving on its own…!"

— Crunch! Crack!

I locked restraints onto the soldier inside. I'd used something similar on Sera before — a light embrace — but this was on an entirely different level. Metal rings clamped down on his waist, arms, legs, and neck, crushing the breath from him. He couldn't move. His joints twisted, bones fracturing, and even his crushed vocal cords couldn't manage a scream.

"Ghhk…!"

"What the hell is this…!"

They never would have imagined being caught like this. No humans nearby, no mutants — they must have been certain they were safe.

I connected electrodes from the mechanical arms to the muscles throughout his body and forced him upright. Swallowing back the urge to vomit, I produced a voice — and the remaining soldier, too pale to even think of raising his gun, stumbled backward.

"A human mid-mutation… sturdy, I'll give him that. Should've controlled my strength better."

"Eek!!"

"It's fine. One will be enough."

The powered suit's helmet settled over the face of his blood-vomiting comrade.

"I have a great many questions for you."

When the steel giant opened its eyes in the dark, the man wet himself and collapsed where he stood.

Thirty minutes later, Sera entered the room carefully, oxygen tank on her back. I'd worried she might faint at the brutal scene, but what I got instead was a reproachful look.

"Why did Jin handle this himself? If it was an interrogation, I could have done it better."

"Different affiliation or not, these men are from the military — and more importantly, they still possess a human sense of self."

"I don't consider monsters who eat mutants to be comrades. Right now, my only comrade is Jin."

Neither her expression nor her voice wavered. Watching her efficiently collect their weapons and check them for malfunctions, I thought she seemed to have matured another step mentally.

"If they'd had communications equipment, our information could have been exposed. I wanted to handle it on my end as much as possible."

"Well… that much I can understand. So how much did you learn about them?"

I told her everything the soldier named Peter had spilled before he died.

"An armed group of roughly thirty, led by a Colonel Nation. The contents of that transmission were a lie — meant to lure survivors."

"I see."

"As for why they didn't immediately become mutants after exposure to the stellar winds, or when the mutation began — they didn't seem to remember."

"Hmm…"

Sera approached the soldiers' corpses, which she'd shoved into a corner. She took hold of a hand that had begun to twist grotesquely and harden, then rolled up the sleeve to reveal a strange tattoo.

"If they belonged to the Security Bureau, I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Their original duty was to search for and monitor the Empire's enemies, and to prevent terrorism and subversion."

But the military had known nothing until the Heatwave faction infiltrated deep into the ship. Counterintelligence had been such a shambles that they'd only scrambled to grasp the threat after the coup had already begun.

"The results of that complacency were catastrophic, so they would have been detained in a holding facility the moment the rebellion broke out. This barcode is a mark assigned to prisoners."

Now Elena's final words made sense. The reason these men hadn't been able to open the gate was that they were no longer soldiers. Even knowing the security console's password, they'd only been able to move after Ebon Square's hazard rating climbed to Level Three.

"Why didn't they turn into mutants? Both of them were ordinary people with no superhuman abilities."

"The detention facilities in the Residence Sector are built beneath the water tanks, same as a Grade-5 quarantine ward. That's how they avoided the catastrophe."

Thirty trained combat personnel hunting for human flesh. If they ever learned the identity of the survivor group, they'd come running with fire in their eyes. Ideally, I'd have preferred to march straight to their base and wipe them out — but it wouldn't be easy. Sera was injured, and I was broken in more places than one.

"Let's head back. Just take the spacecraft."

"Will you be all right?"

"Yes. Jin needs repairs, and this time I need to meet the survivors myself."

"Planning to warn them of the danger?"

"That's part of it, but I also intend to work toward normalizing the ship. Without the military's help, the difficulty goes up — but then again, I have Jin."

From the beginning, there had only been one goal. Joining the military, cooperating with the survivors — those were merely steps along the way.

Sera shoved the corpses into the sewer drain, collected their dog tags, and spoke.

"I need Super Administrator privileges — the kind that exists for only one person per sector. Seize the main system, and we could eject the entire bridge they're sitting on into space."