《Vermillion Front》 Zero Now take into account there are no stars. Look around you. You see them, but they aren''t there. They died long ago, but we keep seeing their light anyways. We will sooner drive each other to extinction than watch these lights dim. It is strange, really. We are constantly surrounded by ghosts. There is nothing alive in this universe. All the stars have become black holes, and all the stars that hadn¡¯t, eventually became part of one anyways. All the planets eaten and spat out into useless radiation and gamma bursts, ending even more life. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. All except for this planet. It continues to baffle us. It cannot be mapped, conquered, or tamed. It is even tougher than aquatic planets. Because at least we know that water holds life as much as death. But gas giants hold no life, they hold nothing that can hold life, and they hold no love for you or for itself. Parvum was quite literally a ghost. Made up of only gas, and maybe at the very center, some solid. And for the longest time, we looked at Parvum with fear and respect. We could travel anywhere, do anything. But our biggest enemies were ourselves. Now this simple planet laughed at us. It hated us with every fiber of its being. It humiliated us every day to look at it. But these ghosts helped us fuel our civilizations, and soon, Parvum would too. We would grow to hate the hand that fed us, for it was the same hand that beat us. One ¡°Arm torpedoes,¡± Wallace said, ¡°Breath a hole then fire.¡± ¡°Do you intend to scare them?¡± Chal asked. ¡°I intend to do much more than that!¡± Wallace scoffed, ¡°Maybe taking a blow to the neck or head will teach them a lesson!¡± Chal sighed. He immediately fired a neuron pulse from his computer, just a few seconds later, a deep groan reverberated throughout the ship. There was a whoosh, the ship taking a deep breath, then the faint sound of metal. ¡°Hit,¡± The ship whispered in his ear. He couldn¡¯t tell if it was a man or a woman¡¯s voice, he imagined it to be neither. Perhaps a text to speech voice. He would likely never know for sure. Wallace¡¯s grin took up most of his face, ¡°Go back to the hell you came from,¡± He mumbled. What a waste, Thought Chal. But Wallace was the captain, and Chal was to follow his commands. ¡°Y¡¯know, back in my day, we didn¡¯t have any compound-eye missiles. We used the ol¡¯ tracker remotes,¡± Wallace said. He sighed, turning around. ¡°What¡¯s our Hydrogen pull today?¡± ¡°Uhh¡­¡± Chal checked his monitor. He preferred to not have any whispering in his ears. ¡°Around four-hundred kilograms, sir.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good enough, We¡¯ll dock in a few hours 4320 beats to be exact, why don¡¯t you go get some sleep Chal?¡± ¡°Yes sir.¡± Chal strongly disliked the living parts of the ship. He, like most cadets, instinctively feared anything that moved and functioned in an organic manner, even if it posed zero danger to him. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Still, he did his best to avoid part of the ship that he considered to be fleshy, opting for solid metal and carbon fiber surfaces and corridors. And it was because of this, that Chal had done everything he could to ensure that he was stationed on deck and not below. The front part of the endoskeleton served as the ¡°head¡± and was the most spacious part of the inner structure. From the head, was a sort of metal spine that acted as a hallway, and the ribs acted as more rooms. But the endoskeleton made up around 75% of the entire ship, the other 25% consisted of living organs and flesh. He was not as lucky at the beginning, however. At the beginning, he had to go through a procedure called ¡°familiarization¡± in which the staff of the ship would allow the ship to be aware of their presence. Cadets would stand in an olfactory room, where the ship would get used to their scent. Then they would take a tour of the inside of the ship, in case they needed to go down. Chal called for a lift. When the doors opened, two men, both wearing exosuits, rushed out, almost knocking him over. These two men were part of the deeper areas of the ship. Chal assumed they were the ones responsible for being in the areas without gravity reduction. One of the men changed his mind, however. For he stopped for a bit, as if in thought, then he cursed. ¡°Dammit!¡± He swore. Chal had finger on the lift control panel, trying to figure out if the man was planning to return to the lift, or leave whatever he had behind. Chal did eventually make his decision, which was to let the door slide shut, but the man had other ideas. The other guy turned around for a brief moment, ¡°What?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t mind fetching a power cell for me, do you?¡± The first guy asked hopefully, ¡°I forgot my tool.¡± The other maintenance member turned to look at the hallway, then back at the first guy. ¡°Yeah¡­ I guess.¡± Chal stuck his foot in the sight of the compound sensors. Sure enough, it detected his limb and immediately opened again. The man stumbled inside incredibly quickly. In fact, his exosuit stopped mere inches from Chal. Chal didn¡¯t flinch. He trusted technology too much for that. Human error and inorganic machinery divorced a long time ago. Once L-I models were able to determine who was fit and who was unfit, and then eventually to have such an amount of control over the operator, that unless an operator was actively trying to wreak havoc or disable the overrides. The man grunted and adjusted himself in the lift. The small screen in the wall flashed a warning. Warning, You are leaving the anti-grav spine, Proceed? ¡°Hey,¡± Chal finally called, ¡°Take me to where I need to go first, then you can head back.¡± The guy tapped his wrist implant and spoke into it, ¡°Captain¡­ I need to override the system.¡± ¡°Well, what for?¡± Wallace''s voice came back though the transmitter. ¡°Left some unfinished business downstairs,¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a suit,¡± Chal blurted.