CH 11

At around six the next morning, Lui’s biological clock was woken up by the automated light on the ceiling. 

Lui’s eyes were used to the darkness, so when the room was filled with light, Lui involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut until they adjusted to the change a while later. 

She slowly opened her eyes. She nudged Angel’s arm off from where it was slung over her body, but when she went to push the other person away, she met Angel’s hazy gaze. 

Her rust-colored irises were filmed with a faint sheen. Lui’s consciousness was absorbed in that moment, but she regained possession of her senses soon after. 

Since she was already awake, there was no need to be so careful. 

Lui pushed her way without any reservation and took the chance to jump out of bed before Angel started moving. 

Lui’s mind wandered slightly as she pulled on her military uniform again. She really didn’t know what meaning there was in dressing so properly if she hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. 

“Good morning.”

Angel chirped a greeting. 

Lui was in the process of straightening her collar. She paused for a moment before soon resuming.

“Morning.”

However, it seemed that this place had no intention of letting them have any time for greetings. A sharp whistle sounded from the decrepit loudspeaker installed in one of the ceiling corners. 

Lui was dumbfounded. In her capacity as a student of the military academy, she was no stranger to this noise. 

It was…a wakeup call?

Where else in the universe could such ancient, monotonous means exist, aside from AIMA?

“All individuals must wash up and dress within the next fifteen minutes. In twenty minutes, you will be brought to the outer space port to be transferred to the main base. Do not be late.”

It was the automated message that followed the wake up call, played using an artificially generated female voice. 

As they were being blessed by the old-fashioned loudspeaker, the crackling of static likewise sounded occasionally but luckily did not disrupt the message. 

Lui’s movements instinctively hastened. 

As a matter of fact, she did not consider ten minutes to be that short a time frame; if necessary, she could be in formation in three. But, taking into account a ‘roommate’ like Angel, who had a rather low ability to care for herself, she could not ensure that they would not go over time. 

“Lui, have you thought about what punishments there are if the rules here are violated?”

Angel jumped off the bed, barefooted. Her bloodstained clothes hung down to her knees. She looked like an injured spirit lost in the woods. Her entire body emitted a sense of purity and innocence. 

“If you want to find out, try it yourself. Don’t drag me into it like you did yesterday.”

This was the longest sentence she had uttered today. 

Lui had come on an assignment while Angel had ended up here by accident; their circumstances were completely different. 

A soldier’s duty was compliance. Lui had neither the interest nor occasion to break with the principles instilled in her since childhood. Not to mention, that drop of Almian blood that still ran through her veins made her lack these rule-breaking types of thoughts. 

“Ah, that’s too bad.” Angel walked into the bathroom unhappily. Her long hair was tangled into a mess, so she started to look for a comb to straighten it out. 

Lui looked on coldly at Angel’s sluggish movements and could not help but press. 

“Hurry up.”

Having been forcefully woken up by the lights, Angel was clearly in a bad mood. 

She made a fierce face at Lui. Evidently, she wasn’t used to a time crunch. Her waist-length hair needed a long time to take care of. Even though she didn’t need to change, the allotted time was not enough. 

“You can come help me if you disapprove.” Angel pouted at Lui, then suddenly cracked a repellant grin. 

Lui watched Angel perform her little scheme indifferently, not speaking a word. 

She stood in place, her arms crossed in front of her chest, not moving a muscle. 

Even a six year old would know to adjust their timing and comportment. Someone who had survived a turbulent encounter with a Kunpeng was beneath mention. 

Angel saw Lui’s unfazed expression and glared at her fiercely, but the motions of her hands sped up. 

The instant the door clicked open from the outside, Angel put down the towel she had just been using to wipe her mouth. 

See, time can be managed, can’t it. 

Lui couldn’t refrain from thinking as she cast a sidelong look at Angel. 

Old Wang was the one who opened the door. His partner seemed to have gone to debug the transfer equipment. After drinking the wine he’d invested so much into, he seemed to be in a good mood. 

He led them on their way with a pep in his step, not saying much. 

“It’s the New Year, so we’re a little lax now…usually, according to regulation, there is no conversation.”

Lui’s brow furrowed slightly. 

She had an instinctive aversion to any behaviors or groups that ‘break the rules.’

“Transport vessels leave every month. We usually get about seven or eight people per month, sometimes as much as a few dozen, but it’s rare that there’s only you two.”

The route was different from the one they had taken on their way in. The walls were painted in a uniform white without windows. Aside from the corridors in each of the four cardinal directions, there was no way to tell the direction. 

Soon, Lui gave up trying to remember the route. 

They must have walked for over an hour, likely so it was impossible to remember the direction. Even if she had received specialized drilling, Lui could not remember the over one hundred or so turns they took. 

After an unknown amount of time, they finally saw the exit. 

The outside was bathed in early morning light, the blanched yellow sun just visible in the sky. 

The surroundings here were different from the calm, serene environment on-planet. Even at quite a distance from the exit, Lui could hear the fierce howling of the wind as it passed through the opening. 

The inky black uniform was pulled taut in the wind, whipping against her skin. 

In comparison to Lui’s unflappable demeanor, Angel was having a far worse time. 

She was covered in injuries, her clothes long torn to shreds in the turbulence. Her current, temporary ‘smock’ was disturbingly oversized, and with the violent winds, the temperature dropped rapidly. Her pink lips turned pale. 

They passed through the exit into the wider world. 

Not only was the space port equipment outdated, but it could also only be used one at a time. 

There were only two transport vessels, one of which was a spare in case the main vessel broke down. 

Angel shivered involuntarily. 

“I’m just responsible for bringing you both to the main planet. I don’t know anything else…However, of the people I’ve transported in the past, no one has ever returned. I really don’t know what’s over there.”

Old Wang rubbed his hands together, his expression melancholic, “I’ve worked here for most of my life, but in the end, I’ve never been able to leave this space port.”

As he spoke, he suddenly saw Lui start to unbutton her jacket, “Hey, what’re you doing?”

The next second, Lui’s jacket, still carrying her body heat, was draped onto Angel’s shoulders. 

Angel subconsciously grabbed it and almost tossed the foreign object away 

But when she realized that it was Lui’s jacket, she slowly broke out into a grin, saying in a coquettish way, “See, I knew you liked me.”

Without her jacket, Lui was only wearing a white blouse. 

The top button was unfastened and the collar fluttered to and fro, flicking her on the chin intermittently. The collar silhouetted her jawline, the sight radiating an unspeakable magnetism. 

“It is the duty of each military cadet to protect civilians.”

Angel only felt that Lui’s voice as she made this explanation was lovely to hear. She tugged the jacket closer to herself with decisive movements, “Sure, sure, we all know you’re just a tsundere[1].”

Old Wang broke out in a full-body shiver. He thought that both of them looked thorny on their own, but who could’ve known that when stuck together they would be so…in-tune. 

Needless to say, the manufacturing process of her military uniform was unlike that of civilian clothing. 

Even though it was just a jacket, Angel felt that it managed to entirely block the wind during the half hour while they waited for the transport. The thermal protection and insulation were great, so as she wore it, she did not feel the cold at all. 

Old Wang and his partner had a high level of tacit understanding between them. 

Just as they boarded the transport vessel and had not even had the chance to view the controls, the partner’s voice came through the intercoms, “Everything is ready.”

Truth be told, the transport carrier was also automatic. Old Wang’s only purpose was to prevent the passengers from messing with the route via the master console. 

…Even though Lui thought that the self-destruction protocol was far more reliable than Old Wang’s protection. 

The power cell started to hum and the carrier ascended. 

Lui and Angel were assigned a room to rest in. Its fixings were the same as their previous room. There was no window, so they couldn’t even watch the passing objects floating in space to wile away the time. 

“Give it back.”

Lui stretched out a hand. 

Angel clutched the jacket like a chick protecting its food, “No! You gave it to me! It’s a present!”

Lui completely ignored her and corrected: “It’s a loan.”

“I can’t have it? Really?” Angel asked pitifully. 

“If you could be a little more circumspect in checking the pockets, then perhaps.”

Lui called out Angel’s small maneuvers and plucked her jacket out of Angel’s hands. 

At some point, the pockets had been completely turned inside out by Angel, creasing folds into the surrounding fabric. 

Lui frowned. Now these spots were an insult to the tidiness of the rest of the garment. 

“Find anything?” She asked evenly. 

Angel smiled and shook her head, “No.”

“Happy now?”

Head nod. 

“Disappointed?”

Head shake. 

Lui put her jacket back on. She couldn’t be bothered to waste words on a looney. 

It really was boring without Star Link. 

Lui then rested her eyes for the whole journey. She did not respond to Angel’s occasional harassment beyond a few words of refusal. 

Angel struggled with her boredom for a while then quieted down too. 

The old transport vessel was not as steady during the docking process as newer ships. 

Upon sensing the noticeable tremor, Lui opened her eyes. 

“Three hours, twenty-eight minutes, and nine seconds.”

Angel spoke the number in Lui’s mind as a matter of course, as if she was a mind reader, “That’s the time it takes to get from the space port to the main planet.”

She smiled as she asked: “I’m very curious. How did you time your breathing to once a second?”

Lui answered a question with a question, “Then tell me, how did you synchronize your heartbeat with my breathing?”

Unfazed, Angel grabbed Lui’s hand and pressed it against her own chest. She beamed, “It’s super simple. I’ll teach you, ‘kay?”