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After a while of aimlessly walking around the ship and being greeted by a few random elves, I got tired of not knowing where I was going. Remembering something that Talia had mentioned, I pulled up the Ship Management Window. Hopefully, there should be a map in here somewhere!

Ship ManagementMapReportsUpgradesCrew

Oh good, there is a map… Opening it up, I was surprised by just how large the ship was. The ship itself was just over a thousand meters long, almost a hundred meters wide, and roughly a hundred and fifty meters tall. There were several different levels within the ship, with various elevators between them. On the map, there was clearly labeled areas such as the hydroponics bay, the medbay, the canteen, and several crew quarters. However, there were also several areas that were greyed out.

The greyed out areas included things like a secondary bar, a lounge, and even a sauna. When I selected one of them, it pulled up with information about who was working in which section. Apparently, the greyed out areas, deemed as nonessential, were unstaffed. Looks like two hundred and fifty elves don’t really cover everything.

I shrugged, and looked through for the captain’s quarters, using the map to guide me. This was a far better option than aimlessly running about. Though, I may have overreacted a bit due to my embarrassment.

While I was walking, I took a look at the ship upgrade options. With Celeste here, getting the plans needed for the upgrades shouldn’t be too hard. Though, maybe the advanced upgrades won’t be possible without slowly working our way up there first.

Improved SensorsImproved ShieldsImproved GeneratorImproved WeaponsImproved HullImproved EnginesImproved SecurityAdditional Features and Facilities

For some reason, the Additional Features and Facilities option was grayed out. When I tried to select it, I got the following error message.

Minimum requirements not met. Must have all current facilities staffed before more may be added.

So I really do need more crew. Well, maybe they only got this many people with that in mind, so that I can bring in more from the planets I visit in the future. There’s also the animals from Sharon’s grove that could evolve and take over the nonessential areas.

Looking in the reports section, I found various stats about the ship, as well as reports filed from engineering, medical, navigation, and security. How is this so convenient!? And why didn’t I have it before? Was it because I was just a figurehead captain? It’s got to be that, right?

As I was thinking about this, I finally arrived at the room that had been labeled as the captain’s quarters. When I opened it up, I found a wide circular bed, large enough that I was ready to mentally curse a certain AI who probably set it up like that to tease me. The rest of the room was fairly normal though, with a dresser built into the wall, a walk-in closet, and a personal bathroom.

Laying down on the bed, I closed my eyes and let myself drift away for a few moments, until there was a knock on my door. “Huh? Wha? I’m awake! I mean… come in.”

The door opened, and Yin walked through the door, giving me a slight smile in her human form. “Enjoying the new home, John?” She asks, sitting down in a chair on the far side of the room, a bit surprised at how comfortable it was. This was probably one of her first times ever actually sitting in a chair, so I can’t blame her.

“Ah… yeah. You’re not with Yang right now?” I looked over to Yin, doing my utmost to keep my thoughts pure and professional.

“No, Yang is in the gardens right now. She seems to like it there, and the one in charge was happy for the company. While it is not as comfortable as your… grove? It is still better for her than the rest of the ship, and I managed to talk her into it.”

I was still amazed at how mentally mature Yin was after evolving. Was this the effect of manually evolving a creature the long way, rather than taking the shortcut and turning into a demi like Yang? “Thanks. I was worried she’d get lonely, since our next trip will be a long one.”

Yin nodded to me, smiling slightly. “The queens wanted me to apologize on their behalf for ‘springing this on you’ so suddenly, but they felt that our previous home was not up to the task we had set for it.”

I couldn’t really fault their logic there. We had to save power at quite a few times, which became inconvenient. Still… a bit of warning next time! “So, what are you going to do?”

“Well… Not sure.” Now that she didn’t actually know what to say, it seemed like Yin had gone back to being a taciturn. Maybe Celeste had offered her advice on those first few lines? I can’t keep up with these women! “What about you..?”

“I was thinking about just sleeping until we get to the next world. That sounds like fun. No training, no emergencies, just me and a pillow, and lots of pleasant dreams.” I began to fantasize about being able to do just that. Before this whole thing started, I was a proud NEET… and now I’m a captain of a starship out to save the various races of the galaxy.

Yin smiled slightly, but didn’t say anything about that. “I see… Where next..?”

“Honestly… that’s a good question. Celeste said that we were heading to another world that is several months away, but didn’t mention which one it is. We’ve also got several stops along the way, to other planets that I know really nothing about…”

At this point, Celeste chimes in over the mental link. “Ah, sorry. The next big stop is for a cybernetic race. I’m not sure at what point there history is at in this time, but in the future they were the ones to originally invent the Deus Ex.”

I relayed that information to Yin, who didn’t seem to really understand. She was mentally mature, yes, but that didn’t mean that she automatically knew what cybernetic meant. I explained that they were robots like Celeste, and she seemed to understand with that. “Ahh.. I’ll leave you alone for now, John.” She gave me a warm smile before she headed for the door. “Call me… if you want some company?”

I nodded my head, and she stepped out the door. I could hear her say to someone in the hall. “Your turn.” Before she walked away. What is going on now?

Sure enough, there was another knock on my door a few moments later, and Sharon came in. She sat down in a huff, in the same seat that Yin had just vacated. “Ooh… this is soft. Wait, wait, that’s not why I’m here.” She quickly shook her head as she tried to gather her thoughts. I gave her a moment, before she started again. “So, new ship, new crew, new position. How you handling it?”

“You know I used to be a NEET right?”

She looked at me blankly for a moment. “What’s a NEET?”

“.... To put it simply, a lazy bum. I was quite proud of being a NEET…”

Sharon covered her mouth with a hand and laughed lightly. “And now this, right?”

“And now this… I would really like to just lie down and pretend it’s all been a crazy, messed up dream. That I’ll wake up at home, slightly overweight and need to worry about bills again. But nope! I wake up, and see the stars flying by, or go out and see a bunch of strangers that are apparently now following my orders.”

“Well… if it helps, those aren’t really stars that flash by in subspace. Those lights are a residual effect caused by the exotic mana bouncing off the shields. That’s how Celeste described it to me when I asked. There aren’t any planets or stars known to exist in subspace, so there is nothing for you to see fly by.”

“...That… did not help, no.” I shook my head and sighed. “How are your animals coming along?”

She smiled brightly at that. “Pretty good! I managed to get a few more to learn how to cultivate, and some of the evolved ones have begun breeding. I’m expecting to need to expand my grove even more here soon, to support all of the new species. After that, I guess I’ll see what I get when we get to our next planet.”

I nodded my head to her. “That’s good. At this rate, you’ve probably got a small army in there now.”

She chuckled lightly, nodding back to me. “Probably, I never counted them all. But my Wild Voice has been progressing pretty steadily. I think that, soon I’ll be able to carry a conversation with it on all the time. I’m not really sure what the more advanced effects of the power could be, but this much is already pretty good.”

“Yeah… my Toybox is… still a pain to use… It’s great for sending a small rock halfway across the room, but anything more than that takes quite a bit of focus.”

“This is the part where I’m supposed to come up with some profound advice that suddenly helps you break through a bottleneck in training and unleash your full potential, right?” I saw a wry smile on her face when she asked that. “Well… my profound advice for the day is… that I want icecream. That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

With that, she laughed again, jumping out of the chair and running to the door. What is with these girls… At least the elf crew is not all female. It’s not all female, right?! Those queens wouldn’t do that to me! I hastily pulled up the management window, and saw that there were actually more men than women in the elf crew. I’m saved… I don’t have to worry about a massive harem ship.

While I have the window up, I go back and select the upgrades. From there, I select to improve the ship’s engines, so that we can maybe get through this trip faster.

You have chosen to upgrade the engines of the Ariadne.This action will take 7 days to complete, which may be influenced by various crew members.

Do you wish to continue?

“Yes…”

Ship Alert!Captain John of the Ariadne has chosen to upgrade the engines of the Ariadne!

This process will take 7 days, unless influenced by qualified personell.

Qualified positions: Engineering, Miscellaneous

“Oh, nice! Finally, my time to shine!” I heard Celeste over the mental chatter, and she seemed quite happy for this news. “Alright, John. I’ve got a schematic right here for you to look over.”

As she said that, she downloaded the schematic for stronger engines into my mind, which would nearly double our current speed… if I understood this right.

This ship does not currently qualify for this upgrade.

“Eh? Okay… how about this one!” With that, I got yet another schematic download, this time for a slightly less powerful engine.

This ship does not currently qualify for this upgrade.

“...Okay, okay...fine…” The next one she sent was an engine which only increased our speed by a small margin.

Vice-Captain Celeste has submitted the plans to upgrade the ship to a Binary Ion Drive with secondary Pulse Thrusters.This will increase the upgrade time from 7 days to 20.

Do you wish to accept this upgrade?

“Great.. yes… sure.” I said while holding my head to recover from the three rapid schematic downloads.

Captain John of the Ariadne has chosen an upgrade model for the ship engines.The upgrade time remaining has increased to 19:23:59:21

“Finally.. I hope we don’t have to go through that with every upgrade…” I grumbled under my breath, lying back in the bed. “When are we going to subspace?”

“Huh? Oh, we’re already in subspace. We took care of that while you were napping earlier. Don’t worry, the inertial dampeners on this are well beyond what the Seraglio had.” The AI replied in my head again.

“Oh… how long was I out?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Oh….” Well, that was much longer than I thought. “This bed is very comfortable.”

“I know.” Celeste giggled in my head, and I grudgingly sat up to do my training. “Don’t forget to take time to meet the crew over the next few days. You can’t be the hidden captain forever.”

“Watch me…”