"Piece of JUNK!!" Seraph punched the computer console. She slumped
forward in her seat and sighed. "I'm never gonna get into the academy at
this rate."
"The jump error appears to have been caused by a lack of recent starmap
data."
"What does that mean?" Seraph sat up slightly, propping up her head with
her hand.
"All starmap information on this sector was speculated by the Hunter's
guild using astronomical extrapolation. However it appears that whoever ran
the calculations forgot to compensate for light delay between the two
systems."
Seraph gritted her teeth, "So just how far are we off course?"
"Fifteen point two light years."
Seraph picked up her rifle and stood up, "Excuse me Danvall." She turned
and walked towards the back of the ship, into the cargo area. For a short
moment the bridge was drowned in silence. Which rapidly dissolved to the
sound of gunfire and cursing. A few moments later Seraph wandered back onto
the bridge and again took her seat in front of the console.
"So... do we have fuel to jump to or destination?"
The computer clicked for a second and then responded, "No we do not, we
will require at least seventy-five more blocks of Trivylyptite fuel."
"WHAT!?" Seraph darted to her feet and slammed her fists into the console.
"What? What do you--"
"How the hell did we burn off so much TVT?"
The command room fell silent for a few moments. Seraph slumped back
into her seat and rose her hand to her forehead.
"It appears that the TVT was burned off by an engine leak. The infusion
coils must've backfired. That would've punched a hole in the exhaust port
and blown plasma exhaust directly into the fuel chamber. Sounds like a case
of poor design to me."
Seraph glanced up at the viewport and examined her reflection. Her light
blue complexion, narrow flare red eyes and silver hair were as they had
always been. She stood up slowly.
"Do we have enough fuel to reach a refuel point?"
Danvall clicked for a second, the shutter on his camera eye shut most of
the way, "No we do not, but my sensors show a pre-warp planet in this
system, we can reach it with a minor jump."
Seraph rose her finger, "And send a distress call to the guild you dolt."
She once again took her seat. "How the hell am I gonna handle this, it
would cost more than I've ever had over my entire life to buy seventy-five
blocks of TVT."
Danvall clicked again for a few seconds. "I think you might find it of
interest that I'm picking up a resonance trail near the third planet... the
inhabited one. The trail matches that of the Khaza."
The young hunter's eyes immediately lit up. "You mean--"
"That's right, Betamu's ship. You realize if you were to catch her you
could buy a small planet, and enough slaves to populate the entire planet."
Seraph's eyes opened wide exposing her flare coloring. "Hold off on that
distress signal. Say, aren't we carrying some old Leer Hunting Gear?"
"A hell of a coincidence Seraph, we are carrying two Nullifier Rifles
and a Nullification Jumpsuit... which will sort of fit you."
"Danvall, refresh our neural connection and plot a landing course for the
third planet."
(And now we cut to Betamu)
*BETAMU..... I thought you might like to know that I just detected a jump
signature, guild type.*
Betamu stoop up slowly, *Eve, why must you always tell me these things.*
As she stood she briefly stepped back bumping into the wall of the dojo.
*I thought you might also like to know that I recently received minor
interference from an unknown computer source. I back traced the signature
and managed to download about a third of the informational data contained in
it's matrix.*
"I feel a lot better now... the temperature seems to have increased." As
Betamu's vision adjusted to the visible light spectrum prominant on Earth
once again she glanced up and noticed a couple of people staring at her.
*Tell me more about this interference, Eve*
*Well the data is fragmented, the computer stopped interfering during my
download and I couldn't quite piece everything together. I'm running an
extrapolation algorithim now to reconstruct everything.*
*And...*
*Seems that the interference was caused by a computer called, NOC, or NUC
or something like that. The middle letter is corrupt. Seems the computer
has a relationship with it's owner "Akusami," or "Akesamo," or something like
that, similar to our relationship, but this "NUC" is a good bit less advanced
than the IGF standard neural link computer. Apparently this "NUC" scanned
you.*
Betamu's attention turned from Eve's rantings to a young woman standing
by her. "Yes?"
The young girl met Betamu's eyes with a kind of fire. "Well you're just
standing out here, can I help you with something."
"I'm hungry, but I don't have any money or anything."
*Eve, do you know where this Akusambi and his NUC went? They can't be
bounty hunters, not with such a low grade computer and there's no way they
wouldn't have recognized me.*
*I have a residual trace, I mean that is... if you really want to find
him I can track him pretty easily. My reconstruction should be complete
within a few hours, maybe one if you could find out this fellow's name, It
would provide an index for deciphering the corruption.*
The young girl looked back into the dojo "You work for what you eat here,
and if you like, I'll help you solve that 'no money' problem... I'm good at
that."
"I can handle the work." Betamu replied. The girl turned her attention
away for a moment. "Oh, one more thing."
"Yes?" the girl replied.
"This is a dojo right? You train soldiers here?"
The young girl smiled fighting back laughter, "Well... not really
'soldiers', more like fools. But they are strong."
"Good cause I think someone might come after me."
*Betamu, don't you find it odd that this girl seems totally averse to
your appearance?*
"Yeah," the words escaped Betamu's mouth much to her surprise.
"What?" the young girl retorted.
"Doesn't my appearance bother you?"
"I've seen stranger..." the girl started off towards the dojo "Follow
me." Betamu started to follow when the young black-haired girl wheeled
around. "And by the way, what's your name?"
"My name?"
*Betamu stupid, your name is Betamu*
*I know that, it's just I really need food.*
"I'm Betamu"
The girl turned back around "That's a wierd name. I'm Nabiki."
Betamu started to follow, taking particular note of the large panda
sitting inside. "This planet just gets wierder and wierder" she thought to
herself.
(
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