Episode 150

Marl knew right away she was dreaming.

For one thing, her left arm was actually attached to her body, and she could even move it if she focused hard enough.

"Well, this is a gloomy one," she muttered.

Marl scanned her pitch-black surroundings, realizing she was trapped inside a cramped iron box. The fact that she could see anything at all despite the total lack of light only confirmed her suspicions. She was currently slumped on the floor, using the wall as a makeshift backrest.

"If I’m going to dream, the least my brain could do is give me a little more legroom."

She let out a heavy sigh, thinking of the mess her real self was in. This dream-box was technically roomier than her actual escape Capsule, but that wasn't saying much.

"I wonder if this is it. Am I dying?"

Marl knew better than anyone that her body was on its last legs. She’d mobilized every scrap of knowledge she possessed to overhaul the escape Capsule, but even those "miracle" upgrades had only bought her a pittance of time. Ten hours, maybe. If she was lucky.

"If I was going to kick the bucket anyway... I should’ve at least tried to look pretty for the occasion."

If Teiro found her corpse, the sheer carnage of her "self-repair" would probably traumatize the poor guy for life. Thinking about it now, she regretted being so... thorough.

To keep oxygen flowing, she’d shoved a tube directly down her own throat. Since there wasn’t enough juice for the air conditioning, she’d sealed her nose and mouth shut with tape to hold the tube in place. Ideally, I’d be in suspended animation right now, but I’m fresh out of drugs and spare parts. She’d manually clamped off a few of her own arteries, but she couldn't stop her internal organs from failing. Technically, she only needed her heart, lungs, and brain to stay "alive," but reality wasn't that convenient. She really didn't want to calculate what percentage of her body was currently rotting away.

"...So heavy."

She tried to lift her nonexistent left arm, only to let it drop. The exhaustion was staggering. There was no pain, just a crushing, soul-deep lethality. She tilted her head back—the only part of her that still moved easily—and pressed it against the cold wall. It felt slightly better, though that was probably just her imagination.

"............I’m so tired."

A thick, suffocating fatigue wrapped around her. Her arm, which had been mobile just a second ago, was now as stiff as a boulder. Her limbs felt like foreign objects that just happened to be lying near her. Marl felt a pang of disappointment that her final dream had to be such a dark, lonely affair. She just wanted it to be over. She didn't even want to think about what was waiting for her on the other side of the finish line.

"It’s dark... and it’s so cold..."

Her vision tunneled until only a tiny pinprick of focus remained. The walls had already vanished into the gloom. She wanted to curl into a ball to escape the freezing chill, but she couldn't even manage that. She hissed out a few curses, but eventually, even opening her mouth was too much effort. She fell silent and let her body go limp.

(............What’s that?)

A faint light flickered on the ceiling. A hole had opened up in the heavy iron overhead. The light felt gentle, warm, and strangely nostalgic. She felt certain that if she could just reach it, everything would be okay.

(I want to go there.)

Lured by the glow, Marl tried to reach out. But her rock-solid arm wouldn't budge. Nothing would. She tried again and again, but the effort was exhausting. It would be so much easier to just close her eyes and go to sleep. Striving for hope was all well and good, but it was just too much work right now.

(It’s no use... I’m done. I’m really, really done.)

Her eyelids felt like lead. She couldn't fight them anymore. As they slowly drifted shut, Marl managed a tiny, lopsided smile at the absurdity of falling asleep inside a dream.

(Bye-bye, Teiro. Bye, Koume. You guys better find Earth, okay?)

Her consciousness drifted. Even breathing felt like a chore she didn't want to finish. Marl sensed the end approaching and, in the deepening gloom, she let herself remember the frantic, happy days.

She used to be all alone, Salvaging for scraps to survive. She’d shut herself away in her own little world, never meeting a soul. She’d thought that was normal, but deep down, she’d always been looking for a spark of warmth. She’d been waiting for a reason to fly out of her lonely, unadorned cradle.

And then a rowdy man and a genius AI had crashed into her life. The days that followed were hopelessly busy, frantic, dangerous, and more precious than anything. The weight of protecting lives was a heavy burden, and the pain of taking them was unbearable. But even so, those days had been brilliant.

They were her treasure.

"............Ah."

The sound was a ragged squeeze of air. Marl summoned every last ounce of her will, desperate to move her arm. Just an inch. Her hand rose a fraction, her fingertips twitching in a spasm.

"---I’m... right here."

A surge of white-hot pain—pain that shouldn't have been possible—raced through her arm and into her entire body. Tears flooded her eyes as her survival instinct screamed at her to stop, to just let go and be at peace. Invisible steel chains seemed to bind her. But Marl fought back.

"---Please!"

The tears blurred her vision, turning the light into a flickering, ephemeral ghost. Maybe it was just a hallucination. Maybe her eyes had already stopped working. She didn't care. She could see a clear silhouette now, and nothing else mattered. That glowing, human shape was the only thing in the universe.

"---HELP ME, TEIRO!"

She screamed and lunged upward.

Her hand didn't reach the distant ceiling.

But it didn't have to.

The silhouette of light caught her hand in a crushing grip and yanked her upward with terrifying strength.

In the Cargo Bay, a man and a woman stood before a pair of machines: a Medical Capsule and a... well, "cryogenic sleep device" was a generous term for the jagged, DIY monstrosity sitting next to it. The man looked like he was trying to solve a math problem with his teeth, while the woman remained perfectly serene.

"Koume. Give it to me straight. How are they?"

Mr. Alan asked the question through a permanent scowl. He’d been making that face for so long that the wrinkles between his eyebrows looked like they’d been carved with a chisel.

"Their lives are no longer in danger, Mr. Alan. Brain waves and vitals are stable across the board. It truly is a marvelous piece of engineering, considering the circumstances."

Koume gestured to the Cargo Bay of the Plum, which looked like it had been hit by a localized hurricane. Walls and equipment had been torn apart; the floor was a literal minefield of loose components and scrap metal.

"Right... I guess we won't know if their brains are fried until they wake up."

Alan looked a fraction less stressed. Koume gave a non-committal "Indeed," and peered through a window on the device holding Marl. Teiro had even been thoughtful enough to install a viewing pane so they could see her sleeping face.

"But seriously, what the hell happened here? The outside of the ship gave me a heart attack, but the inside is even worse... WIND would probably have a heart attack from pure excitement if he saw this."

Alan shrugged, looking completely defeated by the sheer absurdity of the room.

"Mr. Teiro utilized every spare part on the ship to construct that life-support unit. Miss Marl’s injuries were catastrophic; without this device, she would undoubtedly be dead."

"And he made it out of this? That sliding Linear Catapult is a Railgun component, isn't it? And the Collection Arm... is that just a bundle of cables? You two did all this yourselves?"

"Negative, Mr. Alan. Mr. Teiro did this entirely on his own."

"............Of course he did. And the outside?"

"Yes. Though the motivation was different. For the exterior, he prioritized speed. By lightening the ship’s mass, he was able to achieve maximum acceleration."

"Lightening the mass? Kid, this isn't 'lightening,' this is a lobotomy."

Alan’s face twitched. Koume gave a dry "Is that so?" though she understood his shock. The Plum was currently a flying skeleton. Aside from the main engines and the Bridge, the ship had been stripped to the bone.

"It was a very thorough weight-reduction program. Even I didn't expect him to go quite this far."

When Teiro had started jettisoning sections of the ship without warning, even Koume had panicked. He’d opened airlocks so haphazardly she’d nearly been sucked into the vacuum along with the venting atmosphere. Her favorite outfit had been shredded and lost to the void, which was a tragedy, but a minor one compared to saving two lives.

"I wouldn't believe it if I weren't looking at it. If anyone but the General told me this happened, I’d laugh in their face. It’s just a damn shame the Hull Data was lost."

Alan turned a flat, suspicious gaze toward Koume. She matched his expressionless stare with her own, inwardly impressed by his intuition. As he suspected, Koume had "accidentally" deleted the ship’s logs. The entire situation was so bizarre that she couldn't predict how the higher-ups would react to the data.

"I can provide you with a full verbal report based on my memory, Mr. Alan............ Oh, look. He appears to be smiling."

Koume leaned over the Medical Capsule where Teiro was resting. There was a faint, unmistakable curve to his lips.

"Don't be stupid. He’s in suspended animation," Alan grunted, dismissing it as a bad joke. "It’s just a muscle twitch."

"Perhaps you're right," Koume replied calmly. She looked back and forth between the two viewing windows.

To Koume, it looked like they were both smiling.