Wheeze licked its paws while wondering what the hell was wrong with Shusag. It was sure that Shusag knew Tu Ba—from the looks of it, they might even be fairly close acquaintances—but his reaction was unusually extreme. So weird.
“Were you comrade-in-arms with Tu Ba?” Wheeze cocked its head as if it couldn’t sense the enmity coming from Shusag at all.
Shusag didn’t say anything. He had suffered so much in the past that he felt a bit like a rat in a trap even to this day. He was reluctant to speak carelessly before he figured out what was going on.
“Fine, I’ll change the question.” Wheeze curled its tail as it ruminated its next question. It wanted to figure about Shusag’s background, but there were also some things it needed to keep quiet about. It didn’t contact Cillin because it wanted to figure this out itself, and to prove to Cillin and Moon that it was really a thoughtful cat.
“I know Tu Ba. We were teammates in the past. Too bad he wasn’t very good, and he just barely avoided being a burden.”
Shusag’s face contorted abruptly. Tu Ba “wasn’t very good”? Liar! Back in the company, Tu Ba was the only one who managed to hold out for a bit before losing, and knowing the guy he could only have grown stronger than before.
Shusag examined Wheeze’s eyes carefully for a moment before removing his claws. “How is he doing now?”
“You don’t know? Tu Ba was sent to a close security prison.”
“Close security prison?! How could this be?” Shusag couldn’t believe his ears.
“If I remember correctly… he was accused of plotting treason. It was a life imprisonment too.”
Wheeze didn’t tell Shusag about Black Viper. For starters, Shusag had no way to contact Tu Ba. Second, it was the truth. If Tu Ba hadn’t been recruited by Black Viper, he would still be rotting inside a close security prison right now.
Bang!
The table was collapsed after it was carved into several pieces.
Shusag produced a cigarette with his unchanged hand. One only needed to look at his shaking hands to know how shaken he was.
Shusag dropped on his chair and teared up a bit. His entire person was wrapped in a feeling of doom and gloom. Wheeze couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad on Tu Ba’s behalf. Human emotions were too complicated for it to identify.
The doorbell suddenly rang without morning. Seeing as his father wasn’t reacting at all, Tesoro glanced at the culprit who dropped a bomb and acted like nothing had happened at all before giving up and walking toward the front door. His presence was necessary because their door took “technique” to open.
He kicked the door twice before opening it. The visitor was none other than Cillin.
Wheeze complained before Tesoro could say anything, “Why are you guys here so quickly?”
Cillin gave the wary Tesoro a smile before apologizing, “Sorry. It must have given you a lot of trouble.”
This made Tesoro realize that Cillin was the fat cat’s master.
The moment Cillin walked in, he immediately sensed the odd atmosphere lingering inside the house and looked at Shusag. The half-alien with his unchanged hand as if he was completely separated from the world. The sharp claws made of finger bones gleamed menacingly under the light.
Tesoro had been observing Cillin since the moment he stepped into the house, but he was surprised to see that the young man barely reacted to his father’s transformed hand at all. This caused him to relax a lot. In this world, anyone with even a drop of alien blood in their veins were to be shunned and discriminated against because they were “inferior”.
Cillin turned toward Wheeze with an inquiring look, and it explained everything proudly and boastfully in the machine language.
“Good job.” Cillin gave Wheeze’s round head a rub. Although the gray cat’s method was a little rough, it wasn’t beyond his ability to repair.
Shusag’s profile on this planet was as plain as any common resident’s on this planet, but Cillin knew that it was really a forgery. This man would never leave behind his or his son’s real info in the residential system.
Shusag was Tu Ba’s comrade-in-arms, so that must mean that he was a former member of the Imperial United Guards as well. He must be considerably skilled to be able to serve the military as a half-alien.
“I want to know more about Tu Ba?” Shusag finally broke his silence.
Cillin pulled a chair for himself before answering, “I don’t know too much myself. All I know is that he was sentenced to life imprisonment at a close security prison for plotting treason, not long after he was made a first lieutenant.”
“First lieutenant… heh. That boy went further than me.” Shusag rubbed his reddened eyes before bowing his head and waving his hand. “Please leave.”
Cillin obliged. He grabbed Wheeze by the back of its neck, bid Tesoro goodbye and left.
After they returned to the spaceplane, Cillin performed a more in-depth investigation on Shusag. With his current clearance, he had the power to look into some of the data inside the Imperial United Guard’s human resource database. However, he was careful not to leave any trace because he didn’t want people to find out that he was investigating Shusag.
“Why are you investigating him so closely, Cillin? It’s good enough that we know that he was an acquaintance of Tu Ba, right? If you have time for this, you might as well spend it on finding the black box and returning to GAL as soon as possible,” Wheeze said beside him.
“I have my plans. You should focus on losing your own weight. Just look at yourself!” Cillin poked a finger at Wheeze’s fat. The saying “curled into a ball” had never been truer for Wheeze.
Shusag hadn’t used a false name, but some of his records were altered, and much of his data was purged completely. He would have to contact Tu Ba if he wished to know more. A lengthy conversation later, Cillin found out why Tu Ba was really imprisoned. As it turned out, Shusag was part of the reason.
As a half-alien, Shusag had to fight long and hard just to climb to a lieutenant position. However, he was framed and expelled from the military because he got in the way of a minor noble. Worse, his own wife had betrayed and set him up for death. Not wanting to die to the minor noble’s men, Shusag was forced to leave his hometown and escape to this ordinary planet with his five-year-old son. He was forced to restart from zero while still living under oppression.
In search for a better life, Shusag even melted down his precious Platinum Medal for Merit and sold it just to gather more funds to make his escape.
It wasn’t like Shusag didn’t have friends in the military, but the number of his enemies was even greater, especially those who discriminated against aliens. These people repeatedly kicked Shusag when he was down, and when one of them was stopped by Tu Ba, the first lieutenant was thrown into a close security prison for “plotting treason”. Tu Ba was a good soldier, but he was a terrible conspirator.
Shusag was a second lieutenant. If he hadn’t been expelled from the military, he would’ve become a ranked officer by now. That was just how good he was, especially considering that he was an alien with no backer at all. Back in the days, Shusag was the best fighter in his company, and Tu Ba was the second best.
Judging from what Tu Ba told him, Shusag was definitely an exceptional person. Cillin was planning to bring a couple of good seeds back with him to GAL—especially those who were oppressed because they have alien blood in their veins—so this suited him just fine. Sha Rou and Shi Tang, and now Shusag and his son.
That being said, the final judgment must be made after he inspected their character himself.
The next day early morning, a terribly sleep-deprived Shusag was awakened by the door bell. The moment he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of Cillin, Wheeze and Moon.
“You want to rent a room at my place?” Shusag scratched his messy hair for a bit. God knows how long it had been since he trimmed his beard.
“Yes. The rent can be negotiated.”
Shusag mulled over the request for a moment before replying, “I don’t know why you’re here, but you will not involve us in your business no matter what. Are we clear?”
“Of course. We’re here to research samples, and we don’t want to reveal our true identities. That is why we want to use your place as a cover.”
Cillin even produced a written contract and passed it to Shusag. The former soldier gave it a look and signed it, but he didn’t really care about it at all. In his opinion, contracts were worth less than a person’s fart if the parties involved simply refused to acknowledge it. That being said, Shusag wanted to get to know Cillin’s group better, so he permitted them to stay at his house.
And so Cillin assumed the identity of Shusag’s distant relative temporarily. He, Moon and Wheeze spent most of their time looking for residues of the black box in person and sending humanoid probes all over the planet, but the results were abysmal. Despite working for days, all they got were black box residues from different times.
Besides this, Cillin also got to know the father and son, Shusag and Tesoro a bit better. One of them was in his rebellious phase, and the other didn’t know how to express his fatherly love. On the surface, it looked like they were in constant argument with each other, but in reality both of them understood that the other person just wanted the best for them.
Shusag often addressed his son as “little brat” or “little rascal”, but Cillin knew that he cared deeply for him. Tesoro meant “treasure” in the slang of a certain alien language.
A couple of days passed, and the occupants and the landlords shared a fairly cordial relationship with each other. Wheeze got to eat fish balls every day, and Cillin got to try out Shusag’s homemade pickled vegetables. Although the pickling process produced a terrible smell, it got better over time and it tasted pretty good. At least, that was what Cillin thought.
Cillin prepared to leave after he had collected all the data he could collect from the planet. Before he left, he asked Tu Ba to contact Shusag. Of course, he didn’t say anything about Black Viper and certain key information, and Shusag was smart enough not to ask the impossible. After the call, Shusag felt considerably less guilty, and it showed on his sleep quality and his attitude toward Cillin.
Shusang prepared a great dinner today. Cillin was going to leave the next day, so this was their farewell dinner.
Tomorrow also happened to be the start of a school holiday for Tesoro. When he came back, he immediately shared a piece of news with everyone.
“I heard there’s a meteor shower tonight. You guys can watch it if you want to. A lot of people are talking about it at school, and some are even using it as a date opportunity,” Tesoro said at the dining table.
“So what? It’s not like you’re going to bring a girl back home,” Shusag attacked his son mercilessly.
Tesoro curled his lips but said nothing. The way the girls at school looked at him alone made him feel like running up to them and slapping them left and right. He knew they talked shit about him behind his back, in fact he heard one such conversation himself when he was skipping class and taking a nap near a flower bush. Tesoro still remembered the line, “even his blood is dirty” as clear as yesterday. Tesoro’s propensity for violence was famed throughout the school, so they dared not say it to his face. But behind his back? Hah. Tesoro had given up on his so-called schoolmates since a long time ago. In school, he was a lone wolf through and through.
Seemingly realizing that he had made a mistake, Shusag fell quiet and dug into his meal. However, it didn’t help the awkward atmosphere one bit. Cillin decided to break the awkwardness by shooting a question, “Where might we view this meteor shower?”
“We can view it right here. Of course, it would be better if we move to the grassland a bit further from here. It’ll be clearer, and it’ll be quieter. If we stay in town it’ll probably be very noisy.”
Cillin nodded. “Let’s do that. It’s not like we have anything to do tonight.”
“Okay!” Tesoro was very happy with this. Wheeze didn’t understand his excitement and expectation though. It’s just a meteor shower. What’s so nice about it? Sleeping at home would be a better choice… was what Wheeze thought, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t follow the group to watch the meteor shower at the grassland he first met Tesoro.
The meteor shower arrived in the wee hours; the rocks turning bright white and fiery as soon as the atmosphere rubbed against its surface. A lot of youngsters were excited by the beautiful scenery, and even from the grassland the group could hear their distant roars.
Of course, everyone else except Tesoro had exactly zero romantic feelings to share regarding the meteor shower. They were there only because Tesoro wanted to see the scenery he had never seen before in his life.
Beep beep beep bepp—
A sudden beeping surprised Cillin. His expression changed when he saw the data his humanoid probes sent to his communicator.
Moon had also noticed something amiss. The moment the meteor shower showed up, he immediately started picking up signals of the black box’s residue. Although it wasn’t clear from where they were, it was definitely not a mistake.
The residue did come from outside the planet, from the meteor shower to be exact…
Meteor shower…
Cillin shivered visibly as he stared at the bright lights streaking across the sky like raindrops. He looked at the yawning Wheeze and calculating Moon and said, “Check the comets orbiting this star system!”
Having no idea what the trio were busying with, Tesoro gave his father a push before asking, “Old man, what are they investigating the comets for?”
“How do I know? I’m just an uncultured old man. Why are you asking me when you’re the one who’s studying in a middle school?”
Tesoro: “..”
“Cillin, here’s the result you want.” Moon created a hologram of the star system, all the periodic comets’ current location, their orbits and the planet’s orbit.
“Let’s leave the humanoid probes to collect the black box residue from this meteor shower and return to the spaceplane right away!” Cillin said to Moon before facing toward Shusag and Tesoro.
“Sorry, but we gotta go earlier than expected! But don’t go anywhere, okay? We may contact you again very soon.” Cillin smiled.
A meteor shower was formed when a big comet shattered into many pieces. If the residue came from a fragment of a comet, then the black box itself might very well be on a comet that crossed paths with this planet!