Without warning two great oak paneled doors redundantly fly open to make way for a single maid holding a cheap looking grey device in her hands. A mixture of past and future combined into one it looks as though an ancient device had been converted to work with the fleet’s latest technology in small quantity. This is made evident by sporty embedded logos, a combination of rough and smooth smoky plastics and very few if any glowing photon lines running through the creases. As a girl of slick white hair who happened to occupy the room screeches through the brief moment the two solid blocks of finely crafted wood halt at a ninety degree angle, fold onto the wall and slide back into place. The hefty lock is muffled as the cry of fright melds into wonder when topaz gaze meets a recently repaired camcorder.
“Claudia, how many times have I told you that it is rude to barge in while I am changing? And what is so important that you must bring this . . . rubbish . . . into my room? It looks like it has been in the mud for weeks.”
Claudia is a human woman of brown hair and similarly brown eyes. Having served the newmen family since childhood she had developed keen insight of the younger girl’s interests and despairs along with the rest of her siblings. Slightly taller in height than her mistress she bows deeper than usual as a halfhearted apology before setting the device down. “It was not easy finding the parts that could restore this . . . rubbish . . . of the past to working order. However you may be pleased to know that this may be of great importance to you.” Claudia smiles slyly with anticipation of her mistresses’ reaction.
As predicted the newman girl tosses her head aside. She rolls her eyes in disbelief and resumes her changing. After all she’s heard this song and dance before. Every time her human maid brings something of great importance to her, it would turn out to be nothing but a waste of time and she would not be falling for this again. Without any hesitation in her voice and a forceful pull of a glove, the newmen girl of white replies, “Incinerate it. Get it out of my sight immediately.”
“Oh?” Claudia cries falsely. “But I worked so hard to fix it. Surely you must wonder what is contained within the deep confines of this camera? Maybe even just a little?” When the human looks up she is answered with a steely glare. “I will do so at once then,” she says. Just when the oak doors slide to opposite sides to let the maid though, the human woman presses the play button and peeks to her right, over her shoulder.
At that moment the screen of the camcorder glows with life and the voice of a rowdy sounding girl shouting at the top of her lungs echoes in the room. Judging by the sound of the accompanying harsh wind in the recording this girl was running at a full sprint as well. “This is awesome— have you seen the size of that thing?”
In an instant the newmen stops before putting on her second sock and snaps her head upright with recognition. “Wait, wait, wait is that Yadira?”
“Yes, Yadira,” responds the voice of Kreszentia, Yadira’s newmen friend in the recording. “It is not like the Fang Banther is chasing us this very moment. I too have these things called eyeballs.”
“Too bad Atia isn’t here to see this. Think I should knock a tooth out to show how big it is?”
The newmen girl’s eyes sparkle and grow wide now. “Claudia, wait,” she pleads. “Stop. Don’t burn it. I need to see that device. Please.”
“Are you sure, Atia? You did tell me to burn this rubbish.”
“No, that is not rubbish. It is a sacred relic and I demand it be handed over to me this instant.” Atia watches nervously as Claudia dangles the camcorder by the strap with her finger. Worried that it might fall the white hair newmen braces herself to leap for it at a moment’s notice.
“What’s the magic word?”
“I am sorry.”
Claudia pouts as she forks over the giggling camcorder. “You’re no fun.” Though as she looks back to her mistress to smile at all the glee, a concern expression takes hold instead. She has forgotten how Atia can be sometimes when it comes to Yadira. Claudia watches as the newmen sits on her knees drooling and breathing heavily. As the newmen holds the camera closer to her head she presses the rewind button over and over. By the sixth time Claudia takes out a handkerchief to clean off the drool. By the tenth time a fresh one unfolds to wipe off the mistresses’ tears. By then a chair is pulled aside for the maid to sit down in.
“Think of all the treasure in here. I must go through all of it.” Atia rubs the rougher parts of the camcorder and taps on the smother bits. “This . . . this must go into the shrine at once. Every morning from now on I will listen to her voice so that she may bless me with strength. For one—no two hours. I have to make time in my planner. Where is my planner? Wait, but this belongs to Yadira. She would be greatly torn if she were to find out her belongings had gone astray. I must return it at once. But . . . but the prize. I can’t just let it go. Ohhh why must this be so hard. Why does fate torment me so?!” she screams shaking both hands towards the sky.
Claudia lets off a sigh and hangs her head in disbelief. She grasps Atia firmly by the shoulder and leans forward to say, “Have you considered making a copy of the data, and then giving it back to Yadira?”
“Brilliant. I will make a copy of this post haste and return it to her so that she will be so happy we will spend the day together and do . . . great things. Yes. Where is she anyways?” Not giving Claudia a chance to answer Atia waves her hand through the air to summon a large screen nearly at tall as her. Expecting to see a happy dark skin newmen running in the fields of Naberius, they are instead taken just above its orbit to the sight of a ship with one working thruster spinning wildly out of control. Upon closer inspection they could also see the dark skin newmen herself using her earthly powers to cling on for dear life as she makes her way to the working thruster with an oversized tool in hand.
“Claudia,” Atia panics while she violently shakes an unamused human in her chair. “Yadira is in trouble. We have to help her or she’ll die. Tell Dimitiri I’m jumping over there this instant.”
The human woman chops Atia on the head. “Not so fast, young mistress,” she scolds. “Think this through before you get yourself stuck in the same situation and prove you are no help at all. Besides, Yadira will be fine. After all is this not the same girl who took down a Fang Banther with her own bare hands? Is she not the girl who broke Quartz Dragon’s nose with her strong thighs? Is this not the same Yadira who knocked a Vol Dragon senseless with just the power of her delectable posterior?”
“Okay, okay, enough,” Atia cries in embarrassment. “Stop making me blush to my own praises.”
“In any case here is what I propose. We will rescue Yadira and her friends with one of the family campships. While we wait for them to arrive you are copy everything on that camera so that you may return to Yadira what is hers. Then you will proceed to have an unforgettable date carefully planned by yours truly.”
“Claudia, that is brilliant. You are the greatest maid one could ever ask for.”
“Yes I know,” responds the smug maid. “What would you ever do without me?”
In a span of a half an hour all the data was copied and their overly decorated campship arrives. Before long they arrive at their destination where Atia and her maid rush straight to the docking bay to make their grand entrance. Atia wanted to witness the joy on Yadira’s face personally. Or at least that was what Atia had hoped for. By the time they reached the broken vessel and opened the campship’s bay doors, where Atia stood proudly before blinding light with a great smile on her face, they are instead greeted by the small crew of four all standing on the top of the small vessel’s hull huddling around a small grill. With Yadira on active cooking duty she could be seen carefully working a tong under a hamburger patty to flip it over and hopefully not send it flying into space.
“Yadira for the last time use your head and grab the meat with the tongs already,” says the ever monotonous Kreszentia.
“I am,” replies Yadira.
“No, you are not. You are flipping it like an idiot. Stop trying to knock it over and just grab it already.”
“Who’s the chief right now? That’s right me, not you. So stop telling me how to do my job.”
“Give me the tongs, Yadira.”
“No these are my tongs get your own. Help, Kris is preforming mutiny, help.”
“Hahaha,” Atia finally intervenes. With a small hop she boards the roof of their small space craft and folds her arms proudly. “Be grateful for I, the mighty Atia Guliano, have come to rescue you poor peasants from your arguably much deserved suffering.”
“Oh great, it’s her again,” says Kreszentia.
“Oh, hey Atia,” greets the smiling Yadira. “Wanna burger?”
Boastfully does Atia start before sheepishly breaking down, “Ha, like I would eat something from a tiny grill such as that. Why not come to my vessel and feast from a— yes, I would love one.” She then shyly hunches over to pull out the camcorder and offer it to Yadira, quietly adding, “Also I believe this is yours.”
“Oh hey so that’s where I left it. Thanks for holding onto it for me,” Yadira says, gladly taking it back. “Awesome we can start filming this moment right now. Hey everyone get over here, and give me back my tongs, Kris!”
