On Borrowed Time
As a rule, a person's first impression is decided by their actions and the way they speak.
When they first crossed paths at the Ebon Square intersection, the man inside the armor left Elena with the third-worst impression of anyone present.
The top two had been the mutants charging them while spraying acid, so among the living, he ranked dead last.
That blunt voice. The threatening, wary posture. The coercive tone. His rigid reactions, textbook for a trained soldier, had her frowning this time as well.
"That won't do."
"What?"
"You bastard…!"
The survivors scrambled for their weapons. The man, however, didn't so much as flinch as he continued.
"From now on, none of you will have reason to see my face."
"Are you kidding me right now?"
They weren't about to take an Imperial soldier at his word. Elena was just about to raise her welding torch, blue sparks already leaping from the tip, when a steel hand thrust forward.
The unfamiliar hole bored through the center of the palm startled her—but the fingers folded one by one, pointing past her to one of the survivors behind. More precisely, to the radiation meter he was holding.
"Those who turned into mutants right after the warp might actually be the lucky ones."
"What is that supposed to mean…?"
"It means that once the residual stellar wind builds up in your body, you die a far more painful death."
Radiation and toxins blanketed the entire ship. Knowing that, they drank only water run through purification filters and scoured the decks for uncontaminated food. But the reason the Yurdin had survived at all wasn't luck alone—it was because they had Elena, an exceptional engineer, among them.
Not everyone had been born into the conditions to weather a catastrophe of that scale.
— Ziiing.
The arm of the suit split open, and the man's bare hand drew a collective gasp. Joints twisted out of place, muscle punching through skin as the hardening set in—it looked almost identical to a mutant's.
"To stake my life on restoring this ship and protecting the survivors to the very end. That is the duty of a Crown Guard."
Someone swallowed hard at the calm with which he spoke of a condition that could never be undone. Aside from the faint hum of the Life-Conditioning System, not even breathing could be heard. Silence wrapped the gathering whole.
Elena, who had been glaring at him from the front as if she meant to kill him, was no exception. She had watched countless people die, and still, for the first time, she felt the hand holding her welding torch begin to tremble.
"Even if I hide this from you, what I have to do does not change. So… put down your weapons."
The grip on stun batons and harpoons went slack. A few, unable to find words, dropped their weapons to the floor outright.
Among those gathered here were people who had looked poorly on the man who'd been monopolizing supplies at Ebon Square. There were also those who, when he suddenly asked to join them, had muttered figures and argued for a harder line.
But who in this place could take so much as a step toward him now? The proof of how he had survived this long stood right there beside him.
"…?"
The woman who tilted her head—not a single burn on her—had clearly sacrificed everything for a comrade, or a lover. That left no room to doubt he would keep his word this time as well.
The Empire's shield. Those who faced the weight of that name for the first time began to hesitate, parting left and right to open a path.
"…Go unpack."
The line they formed almost felt like a welcome for a returning war hero. Elena, too, offered one softened remark and turned away first.
With the blast shields and air curtains sealing against oxygen loss, two more people were added to the Residence Sector.
Whether it was the effort put into securing autonomous movement or not, fortune really does favor the prepared. Who would have thought that pocketing a single soldier's wrist from the scrap near ES-13C would come in this handy.
Sera's guess that he was a Security Bureau criminal wasn't wrong—but there was a more precise way to confirm it. The detention facility's database, accessible through its systems. Scan the barcode and you could pull up their exact crimes and any recorded footage from the time. I'd stashed the body before disposal because it also had value as research material on mutants. The right call, as it turned out.
"How on earth did you do that? Jin was definitely…"
"Sera, I didn't tell a single lie."
Surprisingly, not one inch of fiction had mixed into the long explanation I'd laid out in front of them. I'd spoken of a Crown Guard's duty. I never said I was one.
Anyway, everything resolved for the better, and we managed to join the survivor group without incident—and to a rather extravagant welcome at that.
"Ahem. Welcome to the Residence Sector, Sir Knights. I am Joseph, Third Navigator."
"Navigator?"
"Yes—somehow I managed to survive, haha!"
Of the three hundred-plus people here, most were Yurdin, but there were Imperial citizens as well. Joseph, who guided us, had been a crewman aboard the Hermes. When the accident hit, he'd been down on the Class-5 decks conducting a population survey and drafting requisition lists for daily necessities.
Cheerful by nature, he couldn't wipe the smile off his face at the fact that he'd met a Crown Guard in person.
"Lady Sera, and…"
"It's Jin."
"Yes, Sir Jin. It is an honor to receive you. Before I show you to your quarters, allow me to give a brief introduction to our residence."
Like the other sectors, the Residence was divided into a central hub, bridges, and outer zones. The area Elena's group occupied was RS-02F—part of the bridge closest to Ebon Square.
When asked why only part of it, Joseph unfolded a map and pointed to the regions marked in red. More than half of the Class-4 and Class-5 decks. Nearly everything Class-3 and above was flagged as a hazard zone.
"They're sealed off by the main system, but there are sections that collapsed from fire or explosions—and more than anything, plenty of places where mutants are hiding."
"This is the ship's starboard side. Why is that?"
"Right after the warp, there was a process of quarantining people showing abnormal symptoms. Things were so chaotic that a lot of personnel got mixed together."
Both sides had taken damage either way, Joseph said with a bitter smile. They themselves had first hidden in RS-01F, then crossed over to the neighboring bridge the moment they cleared the stellar-wind zone.
"This is where the two of you will stay. It's a Class-4 cabin, but it should be adequate for two."
The guest room he showed us was a shabby studio with an attached bath. Better than a spaceship corridor or an airlock, of course—but a little deflating all the same.
"There aren't many rooms with working facilities… I'm sorry."
"It's fine. This is more than enough."
"If you need anything done, please call on me anytime. And…"
He hesitated a moment, then bowed deeply at the waist.
"It is the honor of my life to serve such an outstanding Crown Guard."
The bow was pointed oddly in my direction. From everything I'd seen of Sera, I'd figured the Crown Guard for a slightly vacant special-forces type—was it really that big a deal?
Before I could ask, Joseph quietly shut the door and vanished. The moment he was gone, I opened the suit at once and folded back into massage-chair form.
Mobile Autonomous Operation — Lv.1
Having stepped beyond mere survival and existence toward a true mission, Sera suddenly realized—her own feet were far too fragile to walk alone a path littered with razor-sharp debris.
That her companion should be a suit may seem strange. Then again, perhaps form is not so important after all.
When this mobile mode is activated, the scrap of iron that once hung in a corner of a spaceship begins not only to think and judge for itself—but at last to move under its own power.
⚠ While the pilot is not aboard, all power consumption is doubled. This applies to other unique abilities as well.
Being able to move on my own was nice, but energy bled out of me like a tank with a hole punched in it. Fire two phase-disintegration beams in that state the way I had last time, and forty percent of total power would evaporate on the spot. Whenever no one was watching, I had to freeze immediately—and ramp up mana intake to levels that made everything so far look like nothing.
Still unaware of any of that, Sera inspected the room and said,
"No listening devices that I can find."
"Either they lack the means to make them, or they don't need to."
Joseph had said rooms were scarce, but the location of this one was suspiciously perfect. A little removed from the Class-5 decks where most of the survivors clustered, and relatively close to the bridge entrance. Convenient for hauling supplies, maybe—but also the first place exposed to any threat from outside.
Still feeling like outsiders, then. At least privacy was protected, which was something.
"For now, we should stay here and find a way to take control of the main system."
"Administrator-level clearance, you mean. What do we need to do to get that?"
"Ah, that is…"
— Knock knock knock.
I'd shut off the radar to save power, so the sudden knock caught me off guard. Joseph again. The doorknob was so loose that even a light tap swung the door open enough to see inside.
He looked back and forth between the flustered Sera and the suit, then spoke as if nothing were amiss.
"Sir Jin has already gone in to wash up, I see."
"Huh? Y-yes! That's right!"
"My apologies—there was one thing I forgot to mention."
He gave directions to the Class-2 decks and asked that we stop by briefly before the upcoming meal. Someone was looking for us.
Sera shot a glance my way and asked,
"Is it that woman mechanic?"
"No. Lady Elena almost never leaves the basement. She'll likely take her meals separately as well."
Fair enough. If it were Elena, she wouldn't spare Sera or me a thought—she'd just demand the suit be sent over.
When asked who had called for us, Joseph offered an awkward smile.
"The one who wishes to meet you—and the one who invited you here—is… one of our leaders."
As if there were something about the explanation that didn't quite sit cleanly.