1 NUMBAH I

There must be a time where you close your eyes, you heartedly wished that it would be different scenery you would witness. Not the same boring or painfully bearing reality we lived in, waking up groggily with eyes and body that follow the same monotony over and over.

Still, no matter how hard you scream inside, you know that it will never happen. No, you know that it never happens.

Regardless, indeed, it happened to him.

He couldn't quietly put his thoughts away as there's entirely different scenery compared to the usual grey ceiling he faithfully awakes to every morning.

Across from him where he seated is…

Void. No, the gleaming stars were swimming amongst them. Separated between a piece of thin glass. And the cold artificial air felt comfortable to breathe in.

A pair of eyes bored into his very being.

"Are you alright, High Lord?"

There that phrase again. High Lord. The woman, as beautiful as one he'd ever seen, called him an affectionate of a worried wife, but surely, he would laugh at it as a joke if she was indeed his wife.

Ha! I must be dreaming. That must be the case. He shook his head a little, and closed his eyes again.

It would be too painful to wake up if he was too indulged in this dream any longer.

"High Lord! High Lord! Are you alright?! You've been acting weird for an hour now."

An hour. Huh?

"I'm not dreaming?"

"No, you're not!" Called the woman, almost shouting desperately. Her sweet scent does indeed feel too real for a dream for he never smells something as wonderful as this one.

"I'll call the doctor immediately!"

"Please stop. I was just… dazed, that's all. Please."

"I- Is that so? But it is imperative that we check your well-being after that last jump."

"I said that I'm fine!" It shut the woman's lips. His heart scrunched a little at the stricken face of hers, not expecting any blowback, but she soon fell into place.

"Yes, High Lord."

"I apologize for that." He said. His arms pushed his body to stand, "I'll return to my cabin for now. Assemble status report to my chamber in an hour."

"Understood."

Ah, he felt like an idiot. Did he just experience the so-called and fabled otherworldly transmigration?

He was not lying that he was dazed for a moment. How could he not when there's a rush of memories to his confused mind as a bursting three-gorge dam would to millions of Chinese underneath it.

For now, he followed the route to his chamber as best as the memory provides.

The door opened automatically once it scanned his biometric ID and he immediately slumped his back to the bed.

The captain's bed, he thought.

It was terribly confusing for him who was just an ordinary piece of gear in that society he lived in.

It seems the room has a smart system in place when it read his state of emotion as it dimmed the light and the wall disappeared, replaced by a clear crystal window.

Space. He was in space. Stars light felt larger than it is when you're standing on earth, and there's a barren planet or moon? where the ship moored near its gravity. He could make each of the craters or ice on the surface.

Goddamn it, he was not ready for this.

What was he doing again before this? Usually there's a pattern where the place you would transmigrate, and he prayed that it was not the Warhammer universe because he played The Space Marine last weekend.

He soon hurriedly checked up his appearance at the reflection of a mirror.

He was not a two to three meter giant covered in pure muscle and tendon. Check. Not bald. Check. No obscenely excessive religious ornament and idols in his attire. Check. No piece of machinery jutted out of his skin. Check.

There's a certain disappointment in his being, but he reassured that it's better rather fighting in a grimdark world where life is as pointless as a space debris.

His face can't be compared to the old one, once there's stubble and dirt, it's now a clean and neatly trimmed beard encompassing equally sculpted jaw - it truly is a face that can be called gentlemanly rough. His figure is at least a head taller, accompanied by an equally large proportional build.

He wore a black decorated suit accompanied with red trim and matching pants. His shoulder is draped in a dark cloak with a sheen of red. On the crown of his head, sat an officer hat with a golden insignia he would often associate with Imperial Japanese of old. With his belt tied to two weapons, something he knew as a handgun from its shape, and the other is a katana… he felt odd, maybe a ceremonial sword? It was sharp enough to cut steel in two though.

It's an odd feeling. He can appreciate his new form and he can't really complain either, he supposes.

Letting out a sigh, he rested his buttock back on the side of the bed.

Whatever.

If he remembered correct, there's a terminal chip on his body where he can access a portable computer.

This allows his mind to manifest the said computer. A bluish hologram interface appeared on his front.

[Welcome Back High Lord]

Let's see. For now, he accessed the ship's profile to recall each of the crew and any info his new memory may missed out.

The first profile listed is that of himself.

[Name: Asatsuki Iwamura] [Age: 681]

He blinked. Six-hundred-eighty-one? What in the world did he just get into? At least the name is earth sounding, so it brought him a degree of familiarity.

[Rank: Lord High Admiral of United Ortlinde Front]

That title just almost made him felt into nausea. That's why the earlier woman called him High Lord. It's the highest naval hierarchy if it goes by its old world, but there's no mention of a navy here.

He knew the information was in his head but he went on anyway to confirm things in case he misremembered. He looked at the time, there was half an hour before that woman arrived to make her report.

The name of the state sounds familiar, he jogged his memory.

That's right. He was playing Stellaris the night before he went to bed, just finishing his playthrough after long-month absence from holiday.

United Ortlinde Front. A space-faring state made of a collective sentient bio-synthetic lifeform that waged war against mankind due to what they perceived as the great protocol betrayal. Both sides waged a massive scale genocidal war.

Two-hundred years later, with mankind exterminated, the Ortlinde began to look at the star when they saw the once lush earth turned into a lifeless floating rock and debris.

He, the now-named Asatsuki Iwamura, laughed. He laughed.

For what reason he laughed other than the fact he was the betrayer of mankind, the one who monumentally lead the Ortlinde to win in the first place. It was such a setting, he wrote on the species page of the game Stellaris.

It was such an immersive strategy game with a degree of element in story-building and roleplaying that makes him poured countless hours into it.

Nevertheless, the United Ortlinde Front, is a military dictatorial government with him at the helm state of the leader. Of course, the game doesn't allow this unless you went your way with modding.

While he's the de-facto leader, the state is managed by the first secretary. From the initial memory he received, his position is similar to constitutional monarchy, where the king and queen are only an object of ceremony, and held no power.

But of course, other than that, he held considerable power in the state. He only left the troublesome tasks to the first secretary, that's all.

The ethics of the state are overwhelmingly filled with xenophobia, military, and materialist ethics.

The perfect state he would say, because with xenophobia you're allowed to genocide disgusting aliens that do not fit his world-view of what intelligent life should look like. Aliens in Stellaris are downright repulsive, that's why he installed a lot of mod that allows him to play as a species from an anime franchise.

In Stellaris, once you reach mid-game, the performance of the game starts to hit no matter how good your hardware is, because of the sheer population the game has to check and manage.

The only solution? Get rid of the said population and make sure they never breed again by cracking their world.

Stellaris aside, he wonders why he was on a ship rather than, let's say, their homeworld.

Asatsuki stepped the thought aside, and shifted the profile into the next.

Unexpectedly, rather than crew, it's the profile of the ship he was standing on, included in it is the picture of the woman who was talking to him earlier.

[UFS Takao of Takao-class prototype phase-strike heavy cruiser]

He doesn't recall creating this specific warship design in the game. He saw the date at the bottom of the screen -21st February 2799 of the solar calendar, meaning almost three hundred years after he finished the game at roughly 2500.

There's also a portrait of a woman earlier, meaning she IS Takao. Oh right, he did use a modded species portrait with a collective combination of several popular gacha games.

He was confused at that point she didn't recognize Takao at a simple glance.

The woman is essentially the ship herself, not merely an AI but functionally living being that able to control the ship at her whim without any help of augmentation and interface.

So that's why there's so few of ship crews despite the ship's length of 403 meters. There's almost no need for an officer when she can do everything by herself.

Other than Takao herself, the ship is manned by the essential crew of a space-faring ship such as medics, security, maintenance and repair, plus the research department. The gap between other "dumber" tasks is relegated to non-sentient robotic workforce and automatic auxiliary system.

That means Takao can observe everything that is going inside the ship, including my distressed moments earlier. No privacy huh, at least it was such a beauty who is observing him.

He was about to shift the pages into the next until someone knocked on the door.

"High Lord, it's me Takao. May I enter?"

He paused, preparing himself and took a deep breath, "Enter."

"Yes."

She was an extremely attractive young woman; he almost pitched his tent seeing her figure but training kicked him in.

"How is it?"

"In hour 2400 UFS Takao jumped from the Mariana system shipyard with destination of the Home-Port world with an estimated arrival hour of thirty-six. However, during the transit, the ship experienced dimensional anomaly that diverted the original route with an initial scan error of ten degrees."

He raised his eyebrows in curiosity, there's a 'but' here.

"However, from the R&D analysis, it is far from the case. We're now stranded on the gravity of an F-class frozen planet which is orbiting a gas giant world. The system contained a yellow dwarf orbited by nine planets, with five indicated to have artificial structure and activity on them."

"So, it's the first contact? What are we waiting for? Prepped the ship immediately."

Takao shook her head, "High Lord, the system is identical to the Solar system, even though the number of moons is evenly matched. But as you know…"

His heart lurched.

"Solar was abandoned after the first unbidden menace manifested in the system, and the sun was 'tactically' detonated in the final battle leading the system total destruction." He continued. He remembered it vividly.

"That is correct."

"Have you investigated the nearby system?"

"We have. There was no response and long-range scanners indicated no presence. Even Alpha Centauri was empty of activity despite housing the largest Ecumenopoli in the empire. In addition, the earth's surface is barren and almost devoid of life except for terrestrial underground activity. We don't know if it's human or not."

"That sounds worrying." He stood up, and looked back at the vast cosmic. It seems it's not only me who experiences world transmigration. He wanted to laugh at the sordid joke. "Is the vessel battle-ready?"

"The Bulins have been working hard to restore the main jump-drive, it takes roughly nine hours before we can jump again. Other than that, all the weapons are online and ready."

"Goo-" He was about to turn around when he felt a slight shuffling from the rigid woman.

"High Lord, we've detected terrestrial activity on the moon's surface. It's a ship."

"Prepare a secondary thruster. I want all weapon systems online. Raise crew's alertness to level one." He immediately assumed his supposed role and walked to the bridge. Takao is in tow behind him.

"Status?"

"Another ship is approaching from the other side of the moon. It seems I'm not aware of the first ship."

Takao sent the tactical feed to the interface. The ship she detected was a hundred and a half long vessel, painted in obnoxious green, with a bulbous design. They haven't spotted us yet, granted Takao has diverted all the power to cloaking system.

"Any signs of weaponry, identification, or anything on the vessel?"

"No weapon turret detected, but it has a few hidden ports, presumably, to launch either pod, missile, or torpedo." Takao said before continuing, "It's flying low on the moon surface, and looks like dropping tanks?"

"Looks like a tank indeed."

It has the design reminisce of the 21st century old tank, especially the prototype soviet tank with two barrels, and fast enough to traverse the rough terrain of the frozen moon.

One split up from the main group that headed towards the other ship which, Takao surveyed, is mooring inside a chasm. Maybe they were hiding? No, the debris of the rock could bury said ship, so it's most likely that the second ship didn't aware the arrival of its enemy.

"Where's the rogue tank headed into?"

"It's going to be a destroyed vessel on the surface. I've seen a plane coming from the second ship investigating the wreck."

Takao paused. Takao?

"Takao. What's wrong?

Instead of answering, Takao chose to relay the feed on her camera.

"Human… It's human"

They're entering the wreck. Even face obscured with helmet, he can see the reflection clearly.

"Have we accidentally transcended the limitations of space and stranded into this foreign world…" Takao murmured. "Your course, High Lord."

A silence permeated between us.

"High Lord, rogue tank is firing on the wreck and the human!"

He took a deep breath and fixed his hat.

"Bring the secondary thruster and disengage the cloaking system." He commanded, "I want that tank and ship moot from the surface."

"Understood." Takao saluted, "Disengaging cloaking field. Secondary thruster on. All weapons safety is off. Assigning auxiliary turret number thirty-four to fire on assigned target. Firing on your mark, High Lord."

"Open fire."

"Fire for effect." The ship barely shudders, but for him, it's the first time, and it was magnitude larger than it should've been. "Target destroyed."

He was firing on unidentified species vessel that could've been rationally talked into.

"Deploy Pelican gunships to transport and safeguard them. We will now move to the next target."

The surface is progressively getting farther as Takao ascended, bearing its thruster to the other side of the moon.

"Target spotted. Mark."

"Fire!"

"Fire for effect."

The tank armor couldn't withstand the sheer kinetic pressure from interference railgun, fitted as Takao's auxiliary weapon system, and combusted in fiery explosion.

"Target destroyed."

"How about the ship?"

"The enemy ship is entering the chasm, presumably to face the human ship head on."

He doesn't know if that can be called either foolish or brave. He diverted his eyes to the tactical feed showing the green alien ship, there's four ports of torpedo in front of the ship beam. He understands the enemy's intention, but he wonders if that is enough.

Was the torpedo so weak that it needed to be fired that close? From his observation, alien vessel design and weaponry are not purely intended for ship-to-ship warfare in mind. Maybe it's underestimating the human ship.

It didn't take long to satisfy my curiosity.

"Enemy ship is destroyed. The human ship fired a class-4 energy beam presumably coming from the ship's main cannon."

No matter how you see that, the beam is large enough to be considered coming from an M-sized weapon emplacement, facing that head-on with a vessel that small is pretty much suicide.

"I want analysis of the battle."

"6 armored vehicle of unidentified species have been confirmed destroyed. 1 tender sized vessel is destroyed by a human ship with an unknown classification.

So far, we've concluded the alien vessel armor is weak enough to be penetrated by interference railgun cannon should we face them. No type of Shielding is noticeably absent from the ground vehicle and alien ship. That's all."

"Great Job." He offered a small smile at the woman as his shoulder was visibly relaxed.

"I'll gratefully accept it, High Lord." Takao said. "We've extracted the humans and they're waiting in the assembly room."

He was about to stand when a beep rang from the bridge. "Message from the hum- … -an ship?"

The unknown human ship rose from its slumber deep beneath the chasm. Its beam, coated with glorious color of red, roared high, progressively ascending to the high heavens as announcing its awakening.

The eternal flagship that all by rights should've guarded the High Citadel of Ortlinde is now in front of us. The pride of a long-lost navy centuries ago. It sailed under the setting sun.

His heart is now filled with growing fervor.

"Yamato…"

"It's Yamato."