“I… this is all a bit confusing for me.” She sighed with frustration. “But one station using that much power? That can’t be good for the Initiative. Why don’t we move on for now? After all that’s happened today… I don’t have much of an appetite.”
{If I might make a suggestion.} Adrianna’s voice arose. {I would personally quite like to see the accommodation area. That would be the next most important place here, I should imagine.}
[Alright, I will.] Aegis replied over the private channel.
One benefit of being a Titan was having incredible strength, far above even the rest of the shipgirls. So it was with ease that Aegis scooped up the sobbing Tempest in her arms.
Carefully, the Titan maneuvered her way back to the lounge area of Tempest’s quarters. What had Adrianna created with the replicator, she wondered?
Waiting for them on the replicator tray was an ornate gold pocketwatch, mechanically powered just like the ones popular on old Earth.
Tempest, her despair interrupted by being picked up, noticed it straight away. Adrianna was right; her tears had dried up almost immediately, replaced instead with a look of shock. She timidly reached out and grabbed it, holding it tightly to her chest. Her breathing even started to synchronise with the gentle ticking.
Once more on the private channel, Adrianna decided to give some background information.
{This is a replica of the pocketwatch carried by our last captain. By all accounts, a truly outstanding man.} She explained. {I know I don’t fully understand to processes at play here, but it seems her standing orders have not changed. She still wants to do what she was made to do.}
“… Thank you, Adrianna…” Tempest whispered. “I know this was you. Aegis, could you… put me down please?”
“Alright.” Aegis replied, setting Tempest down gently on the sofa before sitting down beside the carrier.
She glanced at the pocketwatch with a gentle smile. The Titan knew many captains and other commanding officers had their own favorite items.
Admiral Red, for instance, had his self-constructed and enhanced Sangheili energy sword. A curious design, since the plasma blade of his version ran along the curved hilt’s direction like a normal lightsaber, rather than the usual perpendicular-to-hilt direction of all Sangheili blades.
A pocketwatch like what Tempest held, especially a mechanical one, was a work of art. Few had survived from the 21st century, and after First Contact in 2063 very few had managed to carry on the tradition of watchmaking.
Ah, but her thoughts were digressing. Hearing Tempest calming down, Aegis laid a hand on her shoulder. “Are you feeling better?”
She looked up at the Titan. “No.” She answered simply. Despite having a smile on her face, there was still sadness in her eyes.
“But I’ll manage. I have to, to protect their memory. Right?”
She looked down at the watch she cradled so delicately in her hands. “… Give this design to Serina, and tell her to upload it to every database she can.” Tempest instructed her partner. “I don’t want to lose this. At least it can live on forever in the cybersphere.”
{Understood, upload commencing.} The AI responded.
“Aegis… please, you won’t tell the Fleet Admiral about any of this, will you?” She asked timidly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him.” Aegis assured her with a soft smile. What happened here would not go beyond these proverbial walls.
The Titan fell silent afterwards, patting Tempest’s shoulder gently as she listened to the soft, regular ticking of the carrier’s pocketwatch.
After what felt like eternity, Aegis voiced out a thought that had occurred to her. “You know, Tempest…you remind me a lot of another shipgirl I know.”
“She’s a cruiser, Advent-class. She came back 11 years ago as part of the Second Wave. Her name is Luminous Horizon, or Lumi for short. I have a feeling you and her would get along.”
“Lumi…well, in her previous life she perished along with Battlegroup Jericho at the Battle of Coruscant. She…didn’t forgive herself for that. Not for a long time. It’s caused a few incidents between her and the Admiralty, so to speak.”
Aegis took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “She’s a lot better now, but if you ever want to talk to a fellow shipgirl aside from me about your experiences, you could always look for Lumi. Her quarters is…about six floors down from here.”
The Titan chuckled then, a soft sound of mirth. “Do know, though, that Lumi shares her quarters with one of her sister ships. Hope Eternal, we just call her Hope. She and Lumi have a special reputation around here.”
At the look of curiosity Tempest gave her, Aegis smiled softly. “Why, you might ask? Well, ever since they came back under the Second Wave, Hope has had quite the strong attraction for dear Lumi. They finally got together a few months back. Those two have been the talk of the base ever since.”
Initiative Archival Network 