When Mark arrived back at his pirate hangar, he found 6 cargo containers waiting for him, on the side of one were a sticky note with a hand-drawn fairy making a silly face
"...Thanks Luna"
Ripping open the side of the first container Mark found what he had expected, the bulkheads and outer armor sections of his new ship
"Nice, time to get to work…"
Sure Luna had arrived with the Sparrow, but that didn't mean Mark was just going to let his project ship just sit abandoned in a private hanger while he flew off into the stars with his oldest friend
'Now that would be a real waste'
Moving the bulkhead section he had picked up into the skeletonized frame of his new ship Mark held the pieces in place as a third arm spurted out of his chest and quickly warped into a single focused point that quickly heated up effectively welding the two pieces together, after applying atmosphere seal he continued onto the next internal bulkhead
'Alright, now to do that another 400 or so times and I should have a functioning ship and hopefully airtight ship…'
-
While Mark busied himself with ship assembly Luna had arrived at Alissa's apartment, Luna had extended the same invitation her and her sister had to hundreds of peoples over the century since they had blinded their very own star, no matter what, talent was always in demand and Alissa was without a doubt one of the most talented Ficer network hackers Luna had ever headhunted
'... Right, I should send a message to sister'
Working some subroutines in the back of her mind, Luna knocked on the door twice and waited only for a moment before the door unlocked and opened automatically. No one were there to greet her as the door itself were automatic for accessibility reasons, stepping into the apartment Luna found it in better conditions than she had expected
'It's clean and tidy… Well, only where a cleaner robot can reach… But it's still better than I expected'
Walking into the living room Luna was momentarily taken aback by the sheer quantity of Ficer server and other hardware that was stashed around the room, all quietly humming with power with large bundles of Ficer wires connecting them to each other, in the middle of the room was a single large desk with 12 monitors and a person in a wheelchair
"What? Have you never seen a mute bitch in a wheelchair before?"
The voice that echoed out from the center of the room wasn't robotic, however it had the clear telltale patterns of a text-to-speech system
"No, that wasn't what impressed me though"
Walking up behind Alissa Luna reached out and carefully touched her long pale white hair which elicited a squirm from Alissa who soon complained
"Don't just touch me without saying anything!"
Luna casually brushed off Alissa's complaints as she continued casually playing with her hair
"Come on now, don't be like that"
As words had no effect, Alissa's wheelchair abruptly backed into Luna in a silent complaint a few times before she stopped struggling against Luna, who clearly wasn't going to stop. And so for a few minutes the room was silent as Luna continued braiding Alissa's hair until she had turned the white straight hair into an elaborate braided pattern
"There, now you don't have to worry about meeting Mark face-to-face, seeing how cute I made your hair and all"
Alissa remained still for a while longer before her voice program spoke
"Thank you"
Luna took two steps back before she spoke
"Good. Now will you get a look at you, Alissa?"
Alissa remained silent, as Luna waited patiently, about a minute later, the wheelchair back up from the table and spun around, Alissa's skin was pale and her body was thin, bordering on malnourished, however, the most striking thing about her was her silver irises, which made her eyes look entirely white at first glace
"It's nice to finally meet you, Alissa"
Alissa's face blushed as she turned her head to the side
"...Sure, you too I guess"
Luna showed a smile, she was eternally thankful to Alissa for being Mark's friend, so she treated her with great care. This naturally extended to her physical state, which wasn't great. Luna kneeled down in front of Alissa and carefully touched her lower leg, ignoring the kick she retrieved in return Luna remained focused as Alissa's embarrassment eventually turned nonviolent
"I see, a neurological issue… Don't worry Alissa, given a few weeks treatment we'll have you walking"
Alissa's eyes widened with disbelief. She had been born with a rare neurological defect that had fried most of her nerves, which had left her without the use of both her legs and her left hand. Even her own family had eventually found her enough of a nuisance that they had sent her off to live alone, wealthy as they were, a treatment for their disabled, immature, abrasive, 3rd daughter
It was simply cheaper and less embarrassing to send her a few systems away to live by herself
"Really?"
Luna nodded before she opened her hand, a holographic image displayed directly from her hand as she explained
"Yes, this type of neurological regeneration is a problem I've solved before, stimulating the natural development of nerves is way easier than growing them from scratch"
Alissa looked at the diagram of different treatment programs, which detailed complex cell regeneration down to the very minute details in shock as her breathing quickened, unconsciously, her deepest desire leaked out though the text-to-speech translator connected to the back of her neck
"My voice, what about my voice?"
Luna closed her hand as the hologram disappeared, she showed a smile as she spoke
"We can fix that right now"
Alissa nodded without hesitation, Luna rose to her feet and embraced Alissa carefully as a series of thin wires extended out from her wrists and quickly dug into Alissa's neck, Alissa felt a few pricks before she felt her body grow numb, before she could worry too much Luna spoke, easing her fear
"Easy now dear, you will only be under for a few hours"
-
"---You spin me right round, baby right round~"
Singing completely off tune with a dumb smile plastered on his face Mark felt his ship go through the motions as it spun at a steady 2 revolutions per second around its center of gravity, needless to say, the agility was unmatched in any other craft with a flesh-and-blood pilot onboard for obvious reasons
"Alright, maneuver thrusters tuned, let's get this baby up to speed…"
Almost instantly Mark stopped his ship from spinning and opened the throttle fully and sent the ship screaming ahead, after he had finished assembling the craft he had patiently waited for Luna to contact him for exactly 3 minutes before deciding to take it out for spin instead of waiting, so now here he was just off a common shipping lane a few light-minutes away from Towo station putting his still unnamed craft though its paces as he put the final touches on the
fine-tuning
'Acceleration is good, left main thruster is burning slightly brighter than the right one… There, that should fix it'
Screaming ahead with almost 800m/s Mark abruptly changed his direction, shooting the craft upwards vertically a few meters before sending it back down, then side to side, if any shipborne sensor had picked up his movement, it wouldn't even have registered, as it would be filtered out from the final sensor picture due to the impossibility of the maneuvers
'Kick is good… Time to shock test the weapon mounts…'
Flipping over craft 180 degrees Mark gradually lowered the main thruster burn as he came to a sudden and complete halt before deploying the crafts 6 hardpoints, on the belly of the craft were a central mounted size 2 rail cannon, the one that had been on the original Dart Mark had based his new ship off along with 2 size 2 laser cannons mounted on opposite sides of the rail cannon a bit further out on the craft
'Weapon deployment is good…'
On the top of the ship a single size 3 multi-cannon was revealed from its half-buried mount, the monster 30-millimeter 8-barreled autocannon didn't as much extend outwards from the craft as much as the surrounding hull plates shifted and moved aside to reveal it and allow thermal venting. Further mounted on the top of the craft were two gimbaled size 1 beam lasers, these served double duty as Mark had intended them cut apart unshielded weapon mounts and serve as a forward point defence, cutting missiles, rockets and torpedoes apart to lessen the burden on the traditional closer range point defence
'Alright, let's start light with 6 G's'
With the hardpoints deployed Mark began testing how much he could maneuver the craft without ripping anything in the extended weapon mounts. Naturally, he had redesigned the mounts to be more sturdy against maneuver stress, however, simulations only got him so far so naturally he had to test it out for himself and after about half an hour of careful and gradual testing, he confirmed his initial design philosophy
'So the beam lasers last up to 8 G, with their gimbals locked I can push them a little further, the laser cannons also top out around 8,5 G and the rail cannon at a little over 9 G while the main multi-cannon is good as far as I can push it… Turns out designing an entire craft around a central cannon isn't all that bad of an idea. Who knew? Well, besides uncle Sam…'
With the highly increased maneuverability of the craft and study-mounted multi-cannon capable of chewing though most small and medium-sized ships with a few tens of shots, Mark had ensured his most powerful weapon would always be available for deployment no matter how roughly he maneuvered the craft around to dodge incoming fire
'Alright, now for the final test…'
Mark returned his senses to himself as the front of the cockpit opened up to the void, Mark floated out as his body transformed to alleviate his proximity to the star Towo, Mark looked at the crafts' cockpit as it closed again and focused on a part of himself that had long since been permanently parted from his body
'...'
As his focus held the craft soon began moving, inside the cockpit his sword sat secured in a Ficer crystal sheath which enabled his control over the ship, control the ship like this took some time, however soon Mark regained his full finesse over the maneuvering and targeting controls. That's when the radio lit up and a familiar voice echoed out
"There you are Mark"
'Luna'
Mark flew back towards his ship as the Sparrow punched out a few hundred meters away from him, Mark stopped flying and waved towards the Sparrow as he instead maneuvered his ship towards himself and soon entered the cockpit again. After repressurization, Mark spoke to Luna
"Sorry, I couldn't wait to test fly my new baby, did you pick up Alissa?"
A few moments passed before another voice echoed out through the radio
"What the fuck was that? Why does your skin look like glass!? And how were you even surviving in a hard vacuum, let alone fucking flying without propulsion!?"
Mark showed a smile as he took that as a yes
"Come on now, did you really expect me to be a squishy meatbag like you, Alissa?"
"I.. I guess not? So you're a psycho and an alien, huh? D-Don't tell me you are going to implant me with eggs or some shit!"
Mark let out a deep sigh before he shot back
"Ew, don't project your thinly veiled fetish on me just because I lack the need to breathe"