Chapter 102: A Good Defense Was A Good Offense
"Mei Xing?" called Jun Li softly, waking me up out of dead sleep. Maybe he could at least send my bed with me the next time he decided to dump me on an unknown planet. It would make it much more bearable, that was for sure.
"Yeah?" I asked as I sat up and stretched. My spine seemed to pop in several places as I loosened up the tense muscles. I was starting to wonder if my warranty on my body was starting to expire now that I was 25. I could have sworn that that only happened once I turned 30.
"We are here," said the ship, and I could tell that something wasn’t settling well with him.
"What’s going on? Talk to me," I said, getting out of bed and heading to my wardrobe. Pulling out my badass work uniform, I quickly got dressed.
"I am talking to you," hedged Jun Li, causing me to smile.
"Was I right?" I asked, already knowing the answer. If there was nothing wrong, Jun Li would be the first to tell me that I was wrong, and he was, of course, right.
"I can’t determine whether you are correct with any sense of certainty above a 92%. However, I have detected multiple ripples within the space around our meeting point," he responded.
"And for those of us that don’t speak ship?" I asked as I started to zip up my corset. I reached down to try and put on my boots next. However, it was practically impossible. The boning in the corset was keeping my posture perfect, but it also meant that I couldn’t bend over to save my life.
Sighing, I loosened the strings at the back and then unzipped myself. Once I got my boots on properly, my skirt in the correct place, and the long sleeves and gloves just so, I once again struggled into the corset.
"I’m sorry, did you say something? I couldn’t hear anything," I said as I zipped up the side and then began to lace up the corset in the back.
"It means that a bunch of ships have hyper-jumped into this sector within the last few chwila, disturbing the space around them," said Jun Li.
"What is a chwila?" I asked, confused. I would get back to the fact that we would have been surrounded in just a minute.
"A chwila is a unit of measurement according to the Alliance standard language, which means 60 clicks," said Jun Li. I wish I could slap him upside the head now, but since he was my ship, that was a little hard to do.
"I am going to go with clicks being seconds and chwila being minutes. Am I at all close?" I demanded as I finished the last knot. I refused to have the corset so tight that it would impact my breathing or movement. Well, side-to-side motion. Touching my toes was very much an impossibility.
"You are correct," grumbled Jun Li.
"Just like I am also correct that we are walking into a trap," I smiled, forcing Jun Li to admit what he never wanted to admit.
"You are correct," the AI acknowledged.
"And if I was correct, and you had an opinion contrary to that, what would that make you?" I put on the balaclava and tucked it into the neck of my dress. This was not the typical balaclava in that it had three smaller holes in the face for eyes and mouth, or even just one large hole. Instead, it completely covered my face making it opaque from the outside, but I could easily see out of it.
Ah, fabric in space really was extraordinary.
"It would make me wrong," grumbled Jun Li, and I laughed good naturedly.
"No worries, we are all wrong on occasion. The main thing right now is to make sure that we can turn this situation to our advantage," I said as I picked up my crown helmet with the overlaying veil.
"And how do you suggest we do that?" asked Jun Li as I left my room and proceeded to the command bridge.
"Are you set up with all the Sisalik identifiers?" I asked a question of my own.
"I am," he said with confidence. "It wasn’t too hard because I am technically a Sisalik L-Series ship. Everyone knows that. But the communication codes and identifying addresses change every few hours, so those took me a bit longer to find and assign to myself."
"Good," I said with a nod as I sat down in the captain’s chair. "Can you identify where all the ambush points are?" I continued as the plan started to form in my mind. I don’t know who said it, but I was a firm believer in the idea that a good defense was a good offense.
"I can," said Jun Li slowly. "But I don’t understand."
"It’s okay, you will," I said, unconcerned. He had me to think about things in a way that he never would. And if he couldn’t think of them, chances are, others wouldn’t consider them either.
"How many ships?" I asked as I leaned back in my chair and tapped my clawed nails against the armrest.
"Fifteen," said Jun Li, starting to sound a lot more like his old self.
"Do you have the ability to lock on each and every one of those ships?" I continued with a smile. If you wanted my head, you first had to ask permission. Otherwise, well, I could get a little cranky.
"I do," said Jun Li. "Target acquired. Locking on to target. Done," he said as his body came walking into the command bridge and went to sit at his regular station.
"Good. Now, pull up Wolfman. If we can’t reach him, we’ll call the rat," I said as I put on my helmet and sat up straighter. Not like the frigging corset would allow me to do anything but sit up straight.
"Attempting communication with the wolfman," repeated Jun Li as his body started to quickly type something into the consul in front of him.
"Hey," said a very confused Midnight. "Aren’t we meeting a few hours from now? What’s up?"
