III. An Interesting Find

After the entire dog fight we warped out of the colony. Since our destination is not yet determined solely because Garner hadn't called us yet, we decided to rest and drink at Gold Ducks. Well we can't directly warp jump from Floating Sin to Pangea because jumping through multiple warp points can't be good on the engine and the crew of any ship. So we decided to let C.H.R.I.S. handle the course to take.

Because we leave the bulk of piloting to the AI we get time to rest and recharge. Since we just came out of a fight, the three of us laid back calmly on our respective bunk bed. On times however where we're not tired due to a previous job each one of us can be seen in different parts of the ship. Celestine is either in the cockpit or the shower, Strife is stuck at the lab and engine room doing maintenance, and I would be still on my bunk bed either playing games or asleep.

"Incoming transmission. Garner." C.H.R.I.S. informed us all.

We gathered at the center table with Celestine in front.

"Put him through." Celestine ordered.

The screen showed Garner on the other end. His long shoulder length hair and scruffy beard gives him a bad boy look. His right eye is covered with an eyepatch, but trust me, he still has a 20/20 vision. The patch is either a cosmetic thing or some high-tech gadget.

"Hello Celestine, Hi everyone." Garner greeted us with a smile.

"Garner." Celestine replied. I gave an eyebrow flash and Strife lightly growled.

"I heard someone died near Floating Sin, for a moment there I thought it was you three that kicked the bucket."

"Please, if it was just Rover then surely he could be dead. But you're talking to me. And Strife." Celestine sharply responded.

"Can I see the item?"

Celestine looked over to Strife. He went to the shelf and took the knife out of the box, he then handed it to Celestine. She showed the knife at Garner, she also moved her hand around to make sure Garner gets a good look at the knife.

"Well knowing you I don't need to ask if that's the real thing right."

"Precisely." Celestine smiled.

"The buyer's here so I'll send you my location for the pick-up and I could ask you to wait for your payment. I expect you to be here in forty eight hours."

"Understood. We'll call when we get off the final warp point."

"Alright, take care." Garner then ended the call.

Right after he hung up Garner sent us the coordinates of where he is right now. Apparently he's on some moon or something. Our ship passed about three warp points from Floating Sin so there was still a chance to change our bearings. CHRIS recalculated our course. He informed us of the altered warp point that is far from our current location. The warp point is an hour away. C.H.R.I.S. automatically navigated us to the warp point leaving us more free time to do something.

"You guys wanna eat something?" Celestine asked us.

Both of us said yes. She then went to the kitchen, Strife went down to the engine room to do his routine and I went back to my sleeping pod.

I laid down and opened my holowatch. I browsed through it until I found what I'm looking for, a game on my holowatch, Me Magical. I moved the display so that the game screen hovers above my palms. Honestly this game is the only feature of my holowatch that I rarely use because this game requires your time and commitment. This is an action-adventure, beat-em-up with a dash visual novel kind of game.

This was made by an indie developer and I know that because I know the developer, I mean I worked with him one time. He's alien with a fascination with earth stuff. He hired me to find some Blu-ray's about magical girls anime that he said are for research purposes. Which I found, obviously.

Anyways back to the game. The story is about a human girl who got transported to another world and can transform into a magical girl. I can control the game with one hand. The movements are linked to my thumbs and I could press my fingers to do designated actions.

I waited patiently for the game to load my previous save, but before I could read the first line of the cutscene The Swift sounded a series of beeps. Before CHRIS had the time to tell us what the beeps meant we already knew it. It was a distress call from a lifepod which everyone who pilots any spaceship should know.

The three of us gathered at the cockpit. Everyone had no time to tidy us as evident of Celestine still wearing an apron and Strife with a wrench and toolbelt on him.

"Lifepod detected. Heading 143°, angle 39°" C.H.R.I.S. informed and showed us the pod.

Strife sat down on the controls and carefully piloted it near the life pod. As we got closer to the pod the three of us looked at each other.

"Not it." Celestine said.

"Not it." Strife also said just at the same time Celestine did.

"Damn it." I simply said as I realize the job I have to do.

I walked out near the exit door and picked one of the compact spacesuits on the side of the wall. They looked like small silver neck braces. I placed it around my neck and activated the thing. It immediately released something that looked like a kinetic sand and formed a spacesuit around me.

I moved towards the towing cable. It had a sign below saying 'For Towing Use' that is painted in and beside it said 'or for deep space bungee jumps' written in a faded marker. I connected the cable to my belt. I opened the door as it slowly opened, a shielding field prevented the leak of oxygen out of the ship.

"Happy trails Rover." Celestine said with a smile.

"Just tell me if you're ready to be pulled in." Strife instructed.

I nodded as I jumped out into the void of space. I used my suit's built in thrusters to travel near the pod. As I arrived I looked around for the towing latch and attached the tow in there. I then held tight on the cable and radioed in Strife. Within a few seconds I felt the cable move as it slowly brought us back to the ship.

We successfully docked the pod inside our ship. I closed the hangar doors and Strife prepared a decoder. He plugged in the decoder and waited for it to give him the access code. Celestine, still wearing an apron, aimed her gun at the pod's door.

"You know we should probably build a holding cell or something." I suggested.

"You think this is set to stun?" Celestine replied.

"Fair enough."

Strife's decoder beeped. It gave him the code which he then entered. As the pod's doors slowly opened a small doll rolled towards Celestine. She was puzzled by what she saw, she now had an idea who was inside the pod.

"Fluff don't go!" A childish scream got out of the pod.

As the pod doors opened a little girl with what I could assume are cat ears stepped out. She was wearing a fancy dress. She picked up her doll and looked at the three of us dazed and confused.

"Cat girls. And here I thought I'd seen everything this galaxy has to offer." I said as I scoffed.