Chapter 123: A Boost For What Was To Come
In a matter of moments, a bot came in, dragging my white fur on the ground behind it. I narrowed my eyes on the robot, not at all impressed that it dragged my favorite fur on the floor like that.
"Your floors had better be spotless," I said through clenched teeth as the bot struggled to hold up the fur for me to grab. "Thank you," I continued, looking at the bot. It was not its fault that it was too small for the task Jun Li had asked it to do.
Quickly inspecting the fur, even going as far as smelling it to make sure that the smell hadn’t changed, I sighed as it covered my lap and legs with it.
"No one has ever accused me of being dirty," growled Jun Li, not impressed that I was questioning him on the maintenance of the ship. Taking a step back, not willing to get into a fight over such a small issue, I nodded my head. "That is very true. This is a huge ship, and you do keep it nice and clean," I conceded. I mean, I didn’t want to have to keep this whole thing clean by myself. "But next time, could you send a larger robot that wouldn’t have to drag my fur over the floor?"
"Will do," he replied, willing to meet me in the middle. "I have sent Pippa a message saying that you are eating breakfast and will get back to her as soon as you are done. It seemed to have calmed her down a bit. But how the hell can she be calling at all hours of the night like that?"
"Probably too many energy drinks," I responded with a snort of my own. "Which reminds me, I’ll have to ask the waiter if he has any energy drinks. Something tells me I am going to need the extra caffeine boost if I need to deal with her again."
"I’ll send him out with one. Any preference?" asked Jun Li, and I shook my head no. The best part of getting all of the supplies was that I only got the ones I liked.
"Will we have enough to last us for a while?" I asked, curious. I wasn’t opposed to dropping in on Earth to grab some more things, but I also didn’t want to have to go back every 30 to 60 days. I had an empire to build, after all.
There was a pause as the waiter bot came out with a plate of bacon and eggs and an energy drink in its other hand. It rose up, its legs extending as far as they could, to put its burdens on the table in front of me.
"Enjoy," he said, and I smiled back at him.
"Thank you, it looks delicious," I answered. Truthfully, it did. The bacon was cooked to the perfect level of crispiness, and the eggs were fluffy.
"According to my calculations, we have enough energy drinks that you could drink two every 24 hours for the next five years, and we would not run out," said Jun Li after I had started digging into my breakfast.
"Perfect," I grunted in happiness. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to ration my energy drinks.
I put away my phone and concentrated on eating. As much as I didn’t want to deal with the cheerleader from hell, I knew I couldn’t put it off forever.
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"Alright, can you tell me why you felt the need to call me almost 120 times?" I asked as I got myself comfortable in the captain’s chair, draping the fur over my lap.
"Oh my God! Is that fur?!? Like real fur! How could you possibly do something like that?!?" screeched the perfectly perky person in front of me.
"I don’t recall doing anything," I snorted in reply. Hell, I hadn’t even paid for them, so it was not like I could even claim that I had bought them. "They simply appeared one day."
"Them?!? You have more than one?!? Oh my God, I knew that you were heartless and cruel, but I didn’t think you would go as far as to actually kill poor, defenseless creatures to... to..."
"I could always hunt you down, skin you, and put your hide on my floor somewhere to walk over every day," I suggested with a bored sigh. That reaction was why I could not satisfy my obsession with furs for the first 19 years of my life. However, I was more than making up for it now. "And I didn’t kill anything. They were gifts."
"Still, who the hell would give gifts in such poor taste as animal fur? Unless it is faux fur, then that is acceptable," said Pippa, standing beside the captain’s chair of her own ship, sipping on a drink of some kind.
"I can assure you; there is nothing fake about these furs," I replied with a smile as I rubbed my hand over the top of my blanket. "But I am assuming that you didn’t call me so many times to yell about me over my choices. What do you want, Pippa?"
"I have fought long and hard on your behalf with the Alliance, and they have agreed that as long as you take your daily medicine, they don’t really care where you are going," sniffed Pippa, clearly expecting me to get on my knees and thanking her for all of her work on my behalf.
And if you believed anything that came out of her mouth, I had a bridge in City B to sell you.
"I am not one for medicine," I said with a tight smile, wondering what new angle Pippa and the Alliance were trying to push.
"Yes, but humans are not designed to be in space for long periods of time. The medicine is just a daily drink designed to help us maintain our health and reduce the loss of bone density. What else does it do?" asked Pippa, and I could only assume that she was talking to Stargazer because I certainly didn’t have a clue what this magical concoction did.
"It restores nutrients, helps to balance the electrolytes inside of the body, acts as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and helps to maintain proper weight while improving skin texture and resiliency," came the deep voice of Stargazer.
