Chapter 1: Our New Crew Member is a Maidroid!

Chapter 1:
Our New Crew Member is a Maidroid!

 

“THE RESORT WAS NICE, but I’m never calmer than when I’m in the Krishna,” I said with a sigh.

“That so?” Elma’s voice came through the speakers of the cockpit.

“Yep! The comforts of home, sweet home.”

“I feel the same,” Mimi agreed. “It’s lovely how I always feel safe and sound here.”

“But…” I continued, “I’m sure it’s a bit cramped for your tastes, Chris.”

“Yes…a little bit.”

The day after we spoke with Serena, we went on the Krishna to meet up with our ward-slash-living bait, the private carrier ship Pelican IV, and began bodyguard duty.

I call it bodyguard duty, but honestly, it was a pretty cushy gig. We spent most of our time riding around in FTL, occasionally visiting trading and mining stations in other systems to avoid suspicion. If the Pelican IV had to stay somewhere long to resupply or unload, we could just follow the Flying Tortoise around for a while.

But you never know when space pirates might attack, so we couldn’t relax too much—that went double for any assassins sent by Chris’ uncle.

Since it would be too exhausting to be on guard constantly, Elma and I were taking shifts in the cockpit, guarding the Pelican IV and keeping watch for enemies. Meanwhile, everyone else was resting in the cafeteria. Well, I say “everyone,” but the only formal crew members here were us and Mimi, while Chris was just our ward and—

“Master, I have brought refreshments.” Interrupting my thoughts, our Maidroid, Mei, came into the cockpit with drinks.

Mei had long, straight, black hair adorned with a pristine, white maid’s brim. She wore traditional maid’s clothing, complete with a skirt that fell to her knees. Her slightly emotionless, reserved features were decorated with red-framed fashion glasses. Truly, she was perfect. Indeed, she was the last person to join our crew.

“Thanks.” I accepted a drink and attached it to a nearby gravity sphere—which was basically an absurdly high-tech, spherical drink bottle. “Just so you know, I promise I’ll upgrade you as soon as I can, Mei.”

“You do not need worry, Master. I will always prioritize your safety. Though I cannot perform complex calculations, my current body is more than satisfactory.”

“Really? Milo did say that your functionality would decrease, but I can’t tell the difference myself.”

“Correct. At this time, it poses no issue for everyday service.” Mei remained expressionless as she looked my way. I had set her emotion value almost to minimum in order to keep her robo-girl charm intact, suiting both my ego and my personal tastes. But I had to wonder how she felt about it.

I was a little scared to ask.

“Well, if you want to change anything about yourself during your upgrade, just let me know. We have enough room in the budget to buy several more of you, so don’t hesitate to break the bank a little.”

“I take no issue with the settings you prepared for me, Master. Thank you for your consideration. I will consult you should I wish to change anything.”

“Awesome. You do that.” I continued guard duty as we talked, though that really only entailed keeping pace in FTL drive with the supply ship, so I wasn’t doing much. Basically, I just had to keep an eye on the compound sensor for sudden interdictions that might pull us out of FTL.

This compound sensor could see everything: minute changes in gravity near other spaceships and asteroids, the vibrations in space that happened when someone entered FTL drive or hyperdrive, and even the paths of ships that moved through space.

Mimi had studied it and did her best to explain it to me, but I didn’t even understand a quarter of it. Basically, I just know that it’s a sensor you can use like radar when you’re in FTL drive or hyperdrive.

Faster-than-light travel falls under one umbrella for the most part, but also, different ships go at different speeds. Put simply, huge ships could only do like, two or three times the speed of light, while smaller, high-speed crafts could go more than ten times as fast. The fastest ships could go over twenty times the speed of light.

So, what happens with the Urashima effect, or time dilation, or whatever? Well, I don’t really get it, but apparently, FTL drive and hyperdrive means either entering a state where the flow of time is different—or travelling in a totally different space altogether, so you’re supposedly free from the theory of relativity. Honestly, I really don’t get advanced physics. My brain just isn’t built to understand faster-than-light technology. Or maybe I’m just not interested enough.

As long as I can use the thing, I’m fine. It’s like how in my old universe, I didn’t understand how smartphones or PCs worked, but I used them just fine. Same deal here.

“Awfully boring day, given all that happened yesterday,” I said to Mei.

“Yes, it seems so. Perhaps Balthazar was forced to regather his forces after losing so many space pirates.”

“I did destroy around two hundred ships.” The numbers involved in the Cierra III attack were unprecedented. But in the end, once the planet’s defense system came back to life and Serena’s Pirate-Hunting Unit jumped in, the pirates suffered major losses. “As long as nothing crazy happens, it’s smooth sailing from here.”

If the Pelican IV were attacked, then Serena’s Pirate-Hunting Unit could arrive within twenty to thirty minutes. All the Krishna would have to do is buy time. The Pelican IV, with its single bodyguard, no doubt looked like easy prey to pirates, but it was actually a clever trap. If pirates attacked, they’d be surrounded and destroyed. Quite the dirty trick, isn’t it? And guess who taught Serena this devious trap? No doubt he was twisted, whoever he was.

Spoiler alert: me. It was me. I did it. Call me dirty, and I’ll say thank you. Especially if you’re space-trash like pirates.

“Do you have connections with the imperial fleet, Master?” Mei asked me.

“Yep, though it’s really all thanks to luck.” My relationship with Serena was a…complex one. I didn’t particularly like her, but we somehow kept ending up together. I guess fate works even in the endless expanse of space.

Serena was a blonde-haired, drop-dead beauty, the daughter of Marquess Holz, and she was a lieutenant commander of the imperial fleet—despite her youth. Truly, a perfect superhuman. But peel back a layer or two, and she’s actually an awful alcoholic who easily gets jealous. I had to admit, the contrast was kind of hot.

But…Serena was a noblewoman: one high-class enough that I should probably be calling her “Lady.” I would be totally trapped if I got involved with her. If nothing else, I would have to say goodbye to my freedom as a mercenary. As such, I’ve been careful to keep things all business between us. No matter how vulnerable she made herself, I was totally hands-off.

“Incidentally,” Mei began, “the Krishna is a kind of ship that I have never seen.”

“Oh, yeah. It kinda has a wild history…”

“I wish to know more about you, Master,” Mei urged.

“Hmm…” How much could I tell her? I didn’t think I could give her a good explanation of where the Krishna came from. If I told her I’d just ended up here with it, she would think I was a total wack job. Besides, I was hesitant to tell her everything for many reasons. If machine intelligence was especially curious, then telling it more about myself would be particularly dangerous.

“Master, my information security may not be perfect, but it is extremely secure.”

“O-oh…?”

“I swear to you that my memories are mine and mine alone. I am naturally willing to engage in gossip, but your secrets will never find their way to anyone or anything other than myself.” Mei stared at me, obstinate willpower in her eyes.

If you want to keep a secret, then you need to keep the number of people who know about it to be as low as possible. The more people who know, the higher the risk of it getting out. From that perspective, I shouldn’t tell Mei.

But whenever I got around to upgrading her with the body I’d designed, her capabilities for electronic and information warfare would drastically increase. Mei would be key to protecting info about the Krishna—and its crew. In that case, maybe it would be best for her to know. I just had to wonder if she would even believe me.

“To put it bluntly, I’m not a normal guy. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t even know about myself. But I think it would cause a lot of trouble if the truth about me got out, so I need you to keep what I’m about to say a secret.”

“Yes. Thank you, Master. I will not speak a word of it.”

“I sure hope not.”

Mei looked at me solemnly—though she did have resting serious face—as I explained how I woke up in this universe: how I was in the cockpit of the powered-off Krishna. I told her about my perception of my origin, everything that had happened until Tarmein Prime, about my encounter with then-Lieutenant Serena, how this universe was just like Stella Online, how I met Elma and Mimi and registered as a mercenary, and about the fight in the Tarmein System.

“In short, you perceive this universe as the setting of a video game that you played in your world.”

“That’s what it feels like, but there are a lot of things I don’t know from the game. For example, I didn’t know of any Grakkan or Belbellum Empires. The Galaxy Map doesn’t show any star systems I know of, either. But a lot of the ships and gear I’ve seen around are just like the ones from Stella Online.”

“I see… Strange, indeed. Master, do you happen to know of simulation theory?”

“Simulation theory? Never heard of it.” I raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar phrase.

“The theory proposes that you, myself, nature, and all the rest of the universe are a computer simulation created by some sort of incredible technology.”

“That’s a scary theory. I bet some people would take that theory to the extreme and decide they can do whatever they want. I mean, what’s the meaning of life at that point?”

“Yes, you are quite correct. But… Does it not seem to coincide with your perspective?”

“Hmm…” I thought about it for a second. “It’d be a lie to say I’ve never felt like that before, but given my contact with Mimi and Elma, I can hardly imagine this universe being a simulation. I mean, my old planet’s technology was way inferior to this universe’s. Honestly…it sounds more likely that instead of somehow entering a video game universe, I came out of a video game or some other universe that’s simulated inside this one.”

It sounded more realistic to me that some super-advanced technological experiment or something had accidentally created me and the Krishna from a fake universe. But that meant that the gap between my self-awareness and reality would be a pretty big deal. Basically, I had no idea what to make of it.

“For real, though? I don’t think worrying about it is productive. Maybe if I went around begging people for help, we might eventually find the answer. But most people would probably think I was losing it, or worse. In my opinion, it’s best to just forget about my origins and enjoy my life as it is now.”

It had been a good strategy so far. I was glad that the mercenary guild existed, and especially glad that the Krishna had come here with me. Without the Krishna, I might’ve ended up even worse off than Mimi.

“Hmm…I see. If that is your decision, then I see no problem with it.”

“It might be a problem I have to confront someday, but today’s not that day… Hopefully.”

I had no pressing reason to return to my old world, after all. I was curious how people were reacting to my absence, but it wouldn’t exactly be easy to go back. I might have given it a try if I’d had a girlfriend or family, but I had neither—fortunately, or otherwise. In fact, I much preferred being here with Mimi and Elma.

“Anyway, we’ve pretty much worn out that subject,” I decided. “Any other questions?”

“In that case…”

Thus, I answered all of Mei’s questions to help her gather data about me.