Chapter 9: Elma

Chapter 9:
Elma

 

WE PREPARED an early dinner that night. Elma hadn’t had a substantial meal in a few days.

“Strange…” Elma mused.

“What, you don’t like it?” I asked. “This dinner is special, y’know. It’s made with food cartridges and artificial meat.”

“Not that! I mean, everything is strange!” Elma jumped up from her chair, knocking it down in the process. “Why is a mercenary ship this luxurious?!” She jabbed a finger at our shiny new cooking equipment. Well, that was rude.

“I just think it’s important to have a nice living space,” I said. “Good food, tidy room, clean and spiffy bed. That will positively affect your mental health while living here.”

“I get the logic, okay?! But it’s like we’re in a luxury liner or something!”

“I’m just using the money I earned. In my opinion, we got some good bargains thanks to Mimi here.”

“Tee hee!” Mimi swelled with pride.

“Nngh!” Elma pouted and frowned.

“Elma,” I said, putting an edge in my voice.

“What?”

“Forget what you’re used to and get used to this. You live here now.”

“Urk. Okay.” She went on muttering for a moment (something about tarnishing the image of a true mercenary) but eventually settled down and dug in alongside me and Mimi.

The Steel Chef 5 was truly an impressive beast of a machine. High-quality food cartridges didn’t hurt either. Even though we were eating the same artificial meat I’d prepared in the old cooker, it was noticeably better now. The right equipment really could make a huge difference.

“Good, right?” I asked.

“It’s so good that it makes me wonder what I’ve been eating all my life,” Elma said.

“I agree,” I said.

“Me too,” Mimi added.

Thus was the power of the Steel Chef. What a machine. Part of me worried I’d never be able to stomach anything else, like I’d get spoiled and accept no other artificial steak. Everything from the seasoning to the spices to the cooking itself was just perfect. How could I ever again settle for less?

After the scrumptious meal, we took turns using the bath.

“Mimi, show Elma how to use it,” I said. “If you want, heck, you could just bathe together.”

“Hmm, true. Shall we?” Mimi offered.

“How to use it…? Um, sure, I don’t mind.” Three baths could end up using a lot of water, except that this bath had an efficient water purifier built in so it could reuse water and waste far less. I got through my own bath and then threw on a T-shirt and shorts. I found Mimi and Elma back in the dining area, heads close together as they whispered conspiratorially.

“I’m done,” I said. “You can go ahead.”

“Eep!”

“Eagh?!” Elma yelped as she startled up out of her seat. What was her problem?! She sounded like a frightened bird. “Th-that was fast!”

“Not really. Hey, are you okay? You look pale.”

“Y-yes, I’m fine! No problems at all!”

“A-all right.” I looked to Mimi for help, but all I got was a vague smile. What is going on here? An uneasy feeling gnawed at me. There’s a major misunderstanding here; I can feel it.

“Master Hiro, Elma and I are going to take a bath.”

“Oh, yeah. Have fun.” I watched them leave, searching for clues, but I was left utterly perplexed. Why did Elma seem so scared? Even Mimi wasn’t her usual bubbly self.

No sense in wasting energy on it. I wasn’t going to crack this mystery. All I could do was move forward. I pushed the weirdness aside and focused on the situation at hand as I returned to my room. After today, we were super low on cash. Given how much damage a ship could take in battle, I’d feel far better having 1,000,000 Ener on hand, at least. I needed to start earning money.

“Hmm…” I hemmed and hawed as I scrolled through the jobs available from the guild. Nothing too promising there. Most of them required a transport ship, a resource I obviously lacked. It was a shame. Looked like you could make between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 Ener just by moving goods from Tarmein Prime to dangerous sectors two or three star systems away. Sadly, the Krishna couldn’t carry much at all. The ship just didn’t have the cargo space to make this a worthwhile venture.

“Gotta farm bounties, I guess…” In the aftermath of a raid like the one we just conducted, a lot of folks would be looking to take advantage of the decreased police presence here, especially smaller clusters of pirates. Pirates weren’t exactly a coherent organization; opportunists were sure to sweep in now.

“I should go for the asteroid belt.” That was where the resources were, so that was where the pirates would go. Tomorrow, I could look there for pirates with bounties on their heads.

Okay, next problem: which asteroid? The Belbellum Federation had a heavy police presence even in peacetime; no pirates to be found there. The police here were still picking through the ships we’d destroyed on our mission, so I didn’t want to go near that battlefield either.

“Hmm, here? Or there? Or maybe here?” I narrowed down the places they would frequent, but places they would frequent and places with an easy score for a pirate were two different things. They didn’t just want a place lacking police; they also wanted a place with some mining ships worth hitting. Wherever we went hunting for pirates, it needed to have both.

“This is rough.” I opened the map of the Tarmein System and searched, but I struggled to narrow down useful mining spots. Maybe a blind guess was my best chance. Couldn’t be much worse odds than what I faced now.

I was still puzzling it out when my bedroom door creaked open.

“Hm? What’s up? You could at least knock,” I said. Elma entered wearing something very casual—and very thin. Whoa. Did she even have underwear on? I gaped and Elma blushed, covering her chest with her arms.

“H-here I am,” she said.

“Huh?” I raised an eyebrow, but Elma just kept staring at me through the heat lighting up her face. No, seriously, what is going on? Did she come here just to stare at me?

“So that’s your plan, is it?” she said.

“Umm…?”

Elma heaved a sigh, sauntered past me at my desk, and sat on my bed. The bed that had plenty of space for me, Mimi, and more. Y’know, I don’t appreciate her making this so weird.

“Go on. Do it,” she commanded.

“Bwuh?”

“I said, do it! Do what you’re gonna do to me!”

“What?!”

“You said you wanted me, right?! That’s why you paid 3,000,000 to have me on your crew, isn’t it?! I knew that was all you wanted!”

“Uhhh…” Suddenly her strange reactions all day flashed through my mind. Okay, I did say I wanted Elma. Those were words that were said. But I also said I wanted her to teach Mimi and support me, right? Maybe she thought I meant that in a weird, sexual way?

At least now I kind of understood all of Elma’s strange behavior.

I looked her up and down again as she trembled on my bed. I mean, she was definitely beautiful. Fine skin. A slender form with small, perky breasts pushing at her showy dress. Her elfin face had lovely, delicate features, and her hair framed her face in silky strands. Still, Elma and I clearly had different ideas about what was going on here. Would it be rude to say no?

“All right, then. I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t regret this,” I said.

“Ulp! G-gently though, okay?” she said.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, stroking Elma’s hair to ease her jitters. Then, I joined the slender girl in bed…

***

 

“Beast.”

“…”

“Brute. Philanderer.”

“You consented.”

“Ngh…” Elma battered my chest with her little hands. Cute. “I’m not even worth being with, am I?”

“Nonsense,” I said. “That was incredible. I loved it.”

“You beast.”

“I’d say it’s the rabbit’s fault for misunderstanding and coming to offer herself up to the wolf… Oww! Don’t pinch me there.”

Puffing up her cheeks as she lay on my chest, Elma pinched me hard.

“I think it’s more honest to come out and say it, don’t you think?” I said.

“An honest person would’ve said something before it came to this,” she said.

“If I did that, I would’ve embarrassed the heck out of you. Would you really want that?”

“You have an answer for everything, huh? Meanie,” Elma said, pressing a bruising kiss against my mouth.

“Ow!” I yelped.

“Hmph.” I could really do without the biting that accompanied every kiss. It hurt! “Well, what’s done is done. There’s no point in me being indecisive now.”

“I enjoyed it! Seriously, I’m really satisfied.” I studied her, eager to see if she’d enjoyed it as well.

She blushed and looked away. “…It wasn’t bad. You were gentle, I’ll give you that.”

“Nice.”

“Nice what?” This time, her vicious pinches targeted my side.

“Ow, ow, ouchie!” Stop hurting me, dang it! “Keep teasing me and I’ll fight back.”

“Try it, see what happens.”

“Is that a threat or an invitation?” Maybe all this teasing was just foreplay for her. I might as well meet the challenge.

 

***

 

I slipped out of bed the next morning, leaving Elma there to sleep. After a bath, I found Mimi at the table in the dining room.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

“Morning.” She was just sitting there, stationary and empty-eyed. Uh-oh.

“…”

Mimi stared down at her hands, which lay folded in her lap. What was going on? Oh, shoot. Was she scared of being abandoned again?

“H-hey, um…” she began.

“Now, now.” I got her up out of her chair and encouraged her along to the bathroom. It looked like she needed a little love and attention. Gotta take care of the people we care about, right?

 

***

 

“Beast.”

“Hey, thanks. You can count on me any time.”

“That wasn’t a compliment!” Elma yelled from where she was sitting across from me. Mimi sat beside me in the dining room, nestled under my arm.

“After all we did yesterday, you’re all over Mimi this morning! You’ve got some nerve, bub!” Elma said.

“I value equality,” I said.

“Equa—?!” Elma was not buying it.

“We’re all crewmates, so let’s get along. What’s the problem with that?” I asked.

“Y-you’re one to talk, buddy.”

“Do you hate Mimi, Elma?”

“Huh?! N-no, I don’t.”

“Then I’d say we’re all good,” I said. “Besides, you knew about my relationship with Mimi before you came aboard. Kinda weird to make a big deal out of it now.”

“But! Ngh, you’re right, but…” Elma said.

“We can all get along and be happy. That’s all we need.”

“It feels kinda like you’re toying with me.”

“Pssh, not at all!” I flashed a smile. If Mimi and I were okay with it, then Elma should be, too. It was only the three of us living here, after all.

“Anyway, that’s enough of that,” I said.

“Anyway? Eh, whatever. I don’t need to waste my breath arguing with you. So what now?”

“I’d like to discuss our plans for the future.”

“Sounds like a serious topic.”

“It is, a little. First, we need to start making money as soon as possible. I still have savings, but if the ship gets damaged or destroyed, we’re in deep crap.”

“Well…” Elma started to say something but clammed up fast. We all knew paying off her debt had depleted my funds.

“So we have two choices,” I said. “First, we could leave this star system to find some profitable work.”

“We can’t find anything here?” Mimi asked.

“There’s less work here with the pirates gone, and this place just smells fishy in general. I think it’d be better to try a different system.”

“Agreed,” Elma said. “Tensions between the Empire and the Federation are getting worse these days, so systems near the border could get caught up in it. If we want to be safe, then moving is definitely the right call.”

“Yeah. But here’s our other option,” I said. “We stay in this system, hunt the pirate stragglers in the asteroid belt, and wait for war to break out. Demand for pirates will skyrocket during a war. It’ll be dangerous since we’ll be up against a real enemy fleet, but the pay will be enormous.”

“It is true that the pirate stragglers should be a lot more active now, since police are more lax after a large-scale pirate extermination,” Elma said. “But they’ll also be harder to find and have better gear, which means their bounties should be a lot bigger. Adding in the possibility of war, that makes this one high-risk, high-reward strategy.”

“Both sound feasible,” Mimi said. “What should we do?”

“Well, I was thinking we should talk about that now. Mimi, what are your thoughts?” I said.

Mimi pondered in silence for a moment. “I think staying in this system is a good idea.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“With your skill and the Krishna’s capabilities, slightly stronger pirates won’t pose a threat. And if we get caught up in a war we can’t win, we can always flee.”

“Very good points,” I agreed. “A war starting doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to fight in it.” She was right; we could absolutely choose to run instead of fight. Pirates would be wreaking havoc during a war. We could either stay and fight them or tuck our tail and run.

“I’d suggest staying in this system, too,” Elma added. “Your skill ought to bring us success if we go to war. The pirates won’t even stand a chance.”

“Wow. You too, Elma?”

“Yes. Me too,” Elma stated bluntly. It was nice to hear a veteran like her compliment my skill like that.

“Well, it sounds like it’s decided,” I said.

“Do you agree, too, Master Hiro?” Mimi said.

“My perspective is a little different, but yes,” I said. “If we were planning to travel, I would prefer to have more cash on hand first. You never know what might happen during long-distance travel, and we haven’t even decided where to go yet.”

“Fair enough. How much do you have now?” Elma asked.

“About 300,000.”

“Yeah, that’s a little precarious. Well, let’s get out there and make some money.”

With nods all around, we prepared for departure.