Galaxies for the Guilty: The tears of our Queen

Chapter 2: The living Spaceship

The FREE and the Key, two systems battling each other for hundreds of thousands of years. A long-fought battle between technology and magic. Some may call it the war of nature vs nurture; others will just call it for what it is... one huge war spanning over many smaller ones. Eitin and its whole solar system belong to the FREE. With the huge military strength and the number of unique resources we have, Eitin is truly important, not only for the entire FREE but for the full war. This makes our queen person bigger than something any of us could grasp, she could be the key to ending this war!                                                                                                                            -The third Noble

Casually, Armando leans his legs against the console, the dirty soles are a sign of disrespect. 

"Get your feet off from there!" A female robotic voice speaks to him. "Just because I'm not physical doesn't mean I don't have any emotions!" The different monitors are flickering in all kinds of colors. "Do I have to make it even clearer? Get off!" Suddenly, the spaceship tosses to the side, throwing Armando to the ground.

A grim smile runs over his face. "Come on, babe, just because you got into this..." he takes a look behind him as a hologram of Esther is approaching his seat from behind. It's a tall woman, with pale skin, long blonde hair knotted into a bum, and battle scars covering all the parts of her faded beauty. She is dressed in her bounty hunter clothes, carefully crafted from materials off native Fionnite steel, but unlike Armando dress, there is a rusty tall dagger sticking out of her back pocket.

"At least your sense of humor didn't get cut off!" She takes a look at Armando body. A tanned picture-perfect face with long black hair, a fit body, and both his arms replaced by cybernetics. Armando then stays silent for a moment, looking into the depths of space.

"Should I explain the plan I've made for both of us?"

Armando just nods one time, he seems almost frozen.

"As you know, we've received this mission from a mysterious caretaker" the robotic voice of Esther speaks in an ironical tone that is hard to differentiate from her usual voice. "We don't know anything about this person, but one thing is sure... He will pay us a sweet sum of Tytann."

"When does the real explaining start?" Armando stares bored across the ship.

The monitors of the ship flicker again, but this time a big red warning sign appears while a sound with unnatural high frequencies hurts Armando's ears.

"I want to get out of this form!" The hologram seems unaffected by all the signals. "After all, you are suffering just like me!" She takes an unnecessary deep breath before explaining again. 

He just stares at her, with nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth.

"You know the Eitinin kingdom, the solar system spanning all around the monarchy of the planet Eitin. A powerful empire with a king reigning for generations, a truly wise man."

"He is immortal, isn't he?"

"Well technically." Esther takes a step back and thinks for a short moment. "This guy doesn't age at all, his scientists and doctors aren't famous for nothing!"

A silence comes across the minimalistic designed room as it slowly gets clear with what the two are dealing with. They have done a ton of missions, they are definitely not the most famous bounty hunters out there, but have been rising up dangerously fast in the last time, till the happening of Esther's incident.

"We have to murder him. The mission giver said we have to kill or at least put his body into the palace. To signal the new age of Eitin. We will get a bit of support, but don't rely on that too much, as far as I know we're the main parts of this mission."

Esther's hologram starts disappearing as the speakers around Armando keep speaking. "I know it's a whole kingdom, with connections to the FREE who are already on our asses, but this is my chance to make my life normal again, we would finally be together again!"

"I just wish it would be like always, I would do anything to make that happen." a short smile runs over Armando's face. "Don't worry!"

Esther would smile back if she could. That damn banishment, these disgusting pigs took everything from me. Just because we did one mistake, one single mistake in all of our years as bounty hunters. I hate the FREE for doing this, I even know who did this to me, though they tried their best hiding. Everyone in the galaxy knows this is a dangerous job, of course, it is. You are traveling through the whole universe, taking the head of wanted people. Some ships lights are flickering on and off as she is having doubts about her mission.

I know I'm good at this, I'm a professional at what I'm doing. It was just an unlucky consequence, and look I learned some tricks in this form. But I will get my old form back, my real me!

 The lights then go back to normal.

"First we have to land to meet up with the 'support', probably just a bunch of weird people, if there is at all support." a three-dimensional map of the Eitinin solar system appears before Armando's old leather seat. "It's an autonomous zone right next to the main planet. Once just some meteors orbiting around the planet, some geniuses were able to change their course by connecting them to one another. Their gravity is being stabilized not only through the huge pipes connecting them together but also through an artificial gravity core pulling each meteor to one another, placed perfectly in the middle of the structure. Meteors are officially not a part of the Eitinin solar system...

"We can talk about this another time, if you really want to." Armando's tired eyes are still staring at the map. "Just where is it exactly?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I used some of my time in here to find some new hobbies, and I never knew how interesting galactic architecture could be."

A dozen of meteors are marked red, around 384,400 km away from the main planet Eitin.

"So, we'll meet the other guys there?"

"As said, I don't trust our oh-so-secret mission giver..." the harmonic vibrations of her voice ring through the whole ship, filling out every corner. "But he said there is support. We'll see how serious this all is there!" 

"Probably a meet-up for all criminals." Armando starts laughing heart fully. "Meeting some same-minded people, finally!"

"Yeah, it truly is a paradise for outlaws!"