《Vermillion Front》


 One

    ¡°Arm torpedoes,¡± Wallace said, ¡°Breath a hole then fire.¡±


    ¡°Do you intend to scare them?¡± Chal asked.


    ¡°I intend to do much more than that!¡± Wallace scoffed, ¡°Maybe taking a blow to the neck or head will teach them a lesson!¡±


    Chal sighed. He immediately fired a neuron pulse from his computer, just a few seconds later, a deep groan reverberated throughout the ship. There was a whoosh, the ship taking a deep breath, then the faint sound of metal. ¡°Hit,¡± The ship whispered in his ear. He couldn¡¯t tell if it was a man or a woman¡¯s voice, he imagined it to be neither. Perhaps a text to speech voice. He would likely never know for sure.


    Wallace¡¯s grin took up most of his face, ¡°Go back to the hell you came from,¡± He mumbled.


    What a waste, Thought Chal. But Wallace was the captain, and Chal was to follow his commands.


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    ¡°Y¡¯know, back in my day, we didn¡¯t have any compound-eye missiles. We used the ol¡¯ tracker remotes,¡± Wallace said. He sighed, turning around.


    ¡°What¡¯s our Hydrogen pull today?¡±


    ¡°Uhh¡­¡± Chal checked his monitor. He preferred to not have any whispering in his ears.


    ¡°Around four-hundred kilograms, sir.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good enough, We¡¯ll dock in a few hours 4320 beats to be exact, why don¡¯t you go get some sleep Chal?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Chal strongly disliked the living parts of the ship. He, like most cadets, instinctively feared anything that moved and functioned in an organic manner, even if it posed zero danger to him.


    Still, he did his best to avoid part of the ship that he considered to be fleshy, opting for solid metal and carbon fiber surfaces and corridors.


    And it was because of this, that Chal had done everything he could to ensure that he was stationed on deck and not below.


    The front part of the endoskeleton served as the ¡°head¡± and was the most spacious part of the inner structure. From the head, was a sort of metal spine that acted as a hallway, and the ribs acted as more rooms.


    But the endoskeleton only made up around 10% of the entire ship, the other 90% consisted of living organs and flesh.


    He was not as lucky at the beginning, however. At the beginning, he had to go through a procedure called ¡°familiarization¡± in which the staff of the ship would allow the ship to be aware of their presence. Cadets would stand in an olfactory room, where the ship would get used to their scent. Then they would take a tour of the inside of the ship, in case they needed to go down.