Zosma Nova

Pairing: ZhangKuga & Others
Rating: M
Genre: Action/Romance/Sci-Fic



Perhaps she had always known this was going to be a somewhat tiring day? But in all acceptance; she wasn’t entirely sure, after all, it wasn’t she who did the actual mathematics for controlling the ship. All of those nuts and bolts... they honestly did confuse her at times.

Begrudgingly, Juliet Nao Zhang, space pirate, the Venomous Claw of the Julia strode briskly to the centre of the ship. They would be arriving at their next checkpoint soon, an old abandoned fort in the middle of, let’s say... nowhere.

“How long shall it be until we reach the next destination?” She uttered over to the monotone woman beside her, once she reached the railings of the deck. “We’re going to need to refuel soon.”

“By reports of sightings in the past, six hours,” the crimson-eyed woman replied levelly, features ever sullen as she scanned her hawking orbs over the redhead.

“Hm,” the shorter woman in response grinned, “Then that is good!”

The Julia was in desperate need of refuelling, ever since their small tiff with a fellow pirate ship they had also been undergoing problems concerning repairs. You see, their engineer worker, Midori was... ah, somewhat ill you could say. Or in other words when it came to Midori’s ‘language’, ‘the art of alcohol’ had once again sunken her ability of commonsense.

Tck, it wasn’t like the spiky bandit-like woman ever did much anyhow! Usually Midori would only prance around after Yohko and Aoi, the Julia’s medics hyperactively.

But Midori was a good fighter... so was there honestly any arguing with the situation? Although they did seriously require a new engineer-where ever the hell they were going to get one of those anyway. Nao had secretly been hoping to find one eventually, but so far she had been searching for a good year and a half.

Motioning herself away from Miyu, the redhead lowly sighed, soon situating herself atop a local barrel which was close by. Maybe she was ready for a rest? Nao could honestly not be sure right now, it wasn’t unknown information that her second-in-command, Nina Wáng had to take on her duties as captain sometimes. In fact, Nina had suggested doing so again a mere day back.

“Really... that girl,” so thoughtful and dedicated with her work, it amused Nao at times.

With a wandering gaze, the captain scurried her gaze across the deck, eyeing the crew members of the Julia as they went about their duties. Of course, considering they were in space, they wore warmer clothes, the dark, tunic jackets reaching to the waist to fray out behind them a little; smartly buttoned, with a slightly lighter shading of thick cotton covering the chest.

These clothes were the colours of deep azures and blacks, except the higher-up pirates such as herself, Miyu and Nina had the famous armband of The Stripes-a symbol which had been passed down for generations in the Zhang family.

She had utterly no clue where the tradition of the armband had come from, to be honest. But the classic pink and white stripes had fascinated her at an early stage, so she decided to bring it back into production for the Julia.

But for the abandoned fort... it was reported for having a rich supply of ores, gemstones and oils. The fort was a little... odd, she could say, since it was literally a gigantic satellite with tunnels running deep within the structure of its crust; the world having ceased long ago, to merely stray the cosmos idly without the replenishment of a star or gravitational force.

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t there another satellite similar to this one in her own solar system, but manmade? It was called the... Alyssa or something, considering the ancient world had mystifying beams of golden metal sprouting from its crust, having been placed there centuries ago, or even before her home-world was even developed.

The only difference for the fort and golden world however, was that one was still captured within the firm grasp of gravity, whilst the other was absently trailing through the cosmos of outer-space.

Rubbing at a lime-emerald eye, the other having been protectively covered due to injury years back, Nao grumbled. Nothing was very simple anymore, was it? In fact, it was ridiculously complex to the degree of becoming impossible to get around barely a day without someone complaining unnecessarily about something or other.

Oh, well, she may as well see what Haruka and Yukino were doing; she had the raging suspicion that the boisterous blonde was giving the mousy helmswoman hell right now. Although that wouldn’t be very surprising at all, now wouldn’t it?

She was... well... somewhat passionate over her views, you could say.

Yes... she would do this; there were a few things which needed discussing with the two women anyway.

Eventually, she reached the back of the ship, the large dials, gears, and screens indicating how close they were to their desired location. Unlike the deck, which had a protective dome going around it, in order to keep the oxygen and gravity inside the ship, this section of the Julia was instead boxed in.

“Yukino! Yukino?” Searching around, the captain quickly took note that the helmswoman wasn’t there. “Hm...” She grumbled lightly under her breath. Surely they were around here? It wasn’t very often that the glasses-clad woman of all people would leave Julia on auto-drive of all things-even if it was just for a break.

Normally Yukino would make sure either Nina or Chie had control before leaving for a few minutes.

“Ufh, whatever,” it wasn’t like she had anything better to do, she was waiting on the two women, so she may as well stay here and make sure they wouldn’t crash into anything. Nao wasn’t about to let Julia become a piece of waste in space floating about until it got sucked into a planet’s gravitational pull.

Now that wouldn’t be very intelligent whatsoever, would it?

Idly, she took a hold of the wheel, the screen automatically switching itself on as her hands grasped hold of the wooden handles. Space didn’t seem all that crowded today; yesterday they had bypassed a few hours’ worth of debris from a shipwreck.

The ship had been old, but ridiculously large, it had probably been one of the Galactic Federation’s battle bases during its time a few centuries back. Nao had just wished they had got to search the place, but alas, fellow pirates were roaming the area, so they couldn’t risk Julia being damaged any further.

Hopefully they’d manage to repair her when they arrived at the abandoned fort? If the correct supplies were there anyway, but there would most likely be deposits of fuel floating about.

“Yukino, when are the west wing engines being shut off for tuning?” Sounded by the microphone adjacent to her by the control panel; Irina? Wasn’t it her break now?

Lifting a brow in curiosity, she clicked a button on the device, flowing a connection back to the younger woman’s own, “It is me, Nao,” she uttered nonchalantly.

“Ah! The captain?” Came the reply, somewhat surprised. What would Nao be doing in the helmswoman’s room anyway? Where was Yukino, even? The technician could never have known Nao could control Julia. All of those buttons... even she had difficulty with it.

“Yes,” the redhead drawled, flicking a switch to brighten the room slightly. Although she enjoyed the darkness, she didn’t really want to end up pressing the wrong button, some of the controls here could easily set off the weapons Julia housed.

Which were quite deadly, to tell the truth, but this was a pirate ship.

“So where is Yukino?” Irina asked, absenty scanning the report of the engines which required checking and tuning for the month. She could easily do this when the others were searching the abandoned space station, fort, but she found that it would save time for everyone by doing so right now instead.

“I have no idea.”

“Hm... that’s strange.”

Where could they honestly be? Perhaps they had gotten lost in the old corridors of the ship? Julia was known for her many secrets after all, the ship wasn’t brand new, in fact, and she was rather ancient for a spacecraft; at least by a few centuries.

These days it was simply too expensive and difficult to get a hold of a shining new ship, even if you was a pirate it would still be highly unlikely you’d manage to get your hands on one.

Julia just... needed care and attention, which was all Julia wanted.

Especially now that she was in a dire need of refurbishing and repair.

But for whatever was about to happen for the future, they would merely have to wait and see.

“... Captain?” A voice meekly spoke from the entrance of the room, tearing Nao’s attention from the screen.

“Ah, you’re back,” Nao murmured, cutting her eyes away from the screen to the shorter woman, “Where were you?”

Shuffling to her side to allow Haruka to follow after her, she cleared her throat lightly, glancing up to the blonde momentarily before giving out her answer. “There were a few problems concerning Shizuru, I still don’t quite understand why she wanted both of our attention though.”

Shizuru? Nao arched a brow, moving away from the ship’s wheel so Yukino could take her place back there finally. “Don’t tell me,” she rolled her eyes, “She’s been in the gardens again and wanted to have the keys to the temple in order to get away from the fan-girls screeching after her?”

“Something... similar to that.”


The fortress was obviously gigantic, Nao noted, having to tilt her head backwards in order to marvel the gleaming metals of lightning-greys, silvers, and blacks.

No wonder it was feared... it had a very... worn and haunting sensation to it, and not to mention, it was the perfect landmark for when journeying through this rift of the universe.

The galaxy of the Spinning Spiral Serpentine...

Perhaps it put her off that they were doing this? Nao pondered, but it wasn’t like they had any choice in the matter anyway, was it? They needed to refuel and get more supplies. This was their best chance in the situation as of yet.

For whatever the hulking fortress held for them, anyway.

It was orbiting around an ancient satellite, she noticed. Though the natural moon was shattered, the material and debris scattered across the fort as if it had rings.

How had this happened? She wondered.

Maybe there had been an unlikely meeting of planetary collision? The fort having been close by so it was dragged along with the broken up satellite ever since?

She wouldn’t know, of course she wouldn’t.

But anyhow, they’d better start getting ready; the Julia would need to scan the area to make sure there wasn’t any danger around before they set out.

Turning away from the screen which she had been standing before in the helms room, she brought her attention back to Yukino, and Haruka, finally. “You are up to staying here and guarding Julia, aren’t you? We’ll only need to take about ten of the crew.”
“Of course,” Yukino replied softly, glancing over to Haruka who had her back facing them, her gaze on the table which held documents, and other such things-a frown marring her features delicately.
“Haruka?”

“Eh?” The blonde peered over her shoulder, a brow risen, “What?”

“We’ll be staying here,” the helmswoman repeated, a faint smile making its way across her lips. Really now, it sometimes amazed Yukino how this woman could be so... distant to the world sometimes. Well, if they were on a planet, after all. Since at the moment, they were floating around in space in a ship.

“Ah, right!” The boisterous weapons expert propped her hands onto her hips, firing her full attention over to them, “Then go! Have guts!”

If only... Nao rolled her eyes, passing along one final smirk before walking out of the room.