Adventures of the Space Pizza Delivery Guy

Chapter 7: The Captain

Chronna was delighted, it was scary, but she was laughing.

Ethan replied, “I thought about it too, but then again, I remembered, I’m a space pizza delivery guy. It’s my job to get this pizza across to my beloved customer, and that is the captain.”

Chronna smirked, “Are you trying to show off to your junior?”

“Why? Are you impressed?” Ethan asked with a raised brow and a playful smile. 

Chronna  snorted and she replied while looking at him with a grin, “Maybe.” 

Ethan thought that she looked even more pretty when she was smiling wide. Since he was thinking that way, he did not realize that he was already staring at her dazedly. 

“What’s wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?” She asked curiously. 

“No. I was looking at something behind you,” Ethan hurriedly said. His face felt hotter as he blushed and looked away. 

He added immediately, “Well, anyway, I figured Watt would give me a pretty long scolding for interfering with the timeline again this time, but well, being irregulars has its perks.”

“We can volunteer to help since the captain won’t remember us anyway as soon as we leave.” Ethan added, “Well, isn’t this exciting for your first day of work?”

She nodded and then said with a complicated tone, “Very.”

Ethan and Chronna flew their way to the shipwreck. The closer they got to the asteroid belt, the more pressure they felt as if it was sucking them inside. 

Ethan noticed this and acted quickly. He used one of his gadgets inside his backpack and anchored the ship.

They both stumbled inside the ship, with almost half of it consumed by the asteroid belt. 

Ethan helped Chronna up and tied a rope around her waist and his, connected to another one of his gadgets, the flying backpack.

Ethan removed the flying backpack to help pull the two of them out in case the asteroid belt sucked them in completely. 

“I anchored the ship, but it’s still getting sucked in. The asteroid belt will soon devour it whole, and even my gadgets won’t hold that long,” Ethan remarked. 

“How long?” Chronna asked while looking at him seriously, “How long do you reckon it will hold?”

Ethan took a deep breath. He thought for a moment before he replied, “I give it 30 minutes at its best given the momentum of the asteroid belt.”

“Then we have to hurry.”

The ship was quite large and spacious. Ethan and Chronna ran back and forth to look for the captain of the ship, but it was too tedious. Soon enough, Ethan and Chronna bumped into each other along the way.

“It’s pointless. At this rate, we won’t find the captain,” Chronna remarked. 

And just then, Ethan thought of a solution, and he pulled out a bug-like gadget from his pocket. The gadget multiplied into a dozen more bug-like robots. 

Ethan tinkered with them a little and commanded, “Go find the captain for us.”

The tiny robots soon dispersed and did as he ordered. 

Chronna looked at him and asked him with unmasked disbelief, “Really? You had those the whole time?”

“Hey, I can’t think straight when I feel the pressure, so I forgot, okay?” Ethan protested. He even gave a look as if he was treated unfairly. 

Chronna then glanced at the asteroid belt, she felt the pressure getting stronger and they were running out of time.

She stated, “We’ve already lost 7 minutes, give or take just searching for the captain.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find the captain,” he replied with a smile, leaking with so much confidence. 

Chronna rolled her eyes at him and remained silent as she watched what he was doing. Ethan was clearly more knowledgeable with such things, unlike her. 

And soon enough, Ethan was pinged by one of his robots, who found the captain. 

He casually said, “Chronna, we found him.”

Ethan projected the location of the captain in the ship and where they were currently at,thanks to the help of his robots. 

They immediately went to the said location and found the captain who was lying on the floor.

The captain had a strong build and four huge arms, his bluish complexion looked terrifying given his tall height, and he didn’t look humane at all. 

Chronna was taken aback as she saw the captain’s odd physique.

The captain’s bottom half looked like a snake’s with its scales. It slithered towards them as it groaned in pain and coughed out blood. The captain was badly wounded.

As they saw the captain’s condition, Ethan and Chronna knew the captain would not survive without their help, so Ethan rushed to help the captain. He pulled out a couple more gadgets from his pocket to heal him. 

He was using some sort of blue light-emitting gadget, the captain’s wounds closed up quite neatly, but the pain was still there. 

Ethan explained, “I fixed mostly the exterior, but you will continue feeling the pain like a phantom pain.”

The captain groaned as it tried to stand up. He said with a serious expression, “It’s fine, thank you, but I told everyone to evacuate the ship and stay as far away as possible.”

“Why would you do that?” Chronna asked, eyes wide with disbelief. She asked further, “Why would you stay here when you asked everyone to leave?”

“A captain is always the last to leave,” The captain replied with a wide smile as he took pride in his badge. He continued, “Thank you for healing me, but you have to leave, I bought enough time for everyone, but if you don’t leave now, you’ll get killed too.”

“Killed? We’re here to save you. We still have time. Let’s abandon the ship―” Ethan suggested, but then the captain cut him off and firmly stated, “No.”

At that moment, Ethan snapped. He was furious at how the captain was stupid and reckless. 

Ethan was baffled at how the captain would prioritize staying there when the asteroid belt is clearly sucking it in with no hope of surviving.

Ethan remarked, “Look, half the ship is almost destroyed, what’s the point of staying―”

“Kid,” The captain looked at Ethan firmly as he continued, “You’re an Irregular, aren’t you? I heard your conversation with the time guardian. We have very keen ears.”

At that moment, Ethan and Chronna flinched; they looked at each other in confusion.

They knew they were in deep trouble because of that. Ethan especially knew what the higher-ups would do to them, but the captain just continued, “In a few minutes, you’ll leave, and I will forget about you and how you helped me and you know that too, but still, you stayed to help me.”

The captain walked towards the ship’s deck and pointed out at the horizon. Ethan and Chronna squinted their eyes and saw a bunch of creatures walking their way as far away as possible from the ship. 

Ethan remarked, “They’re… They didn’t abandon you. Then you… You’re sacrificing yourself here?”

The captain nodded in agreement and answered with a smirk, “No, they didn’t. I’m not staying here because I have a death wish or because I’d rather die on my ship. I’m staying here because I wanted to give them a head start. I needed to buy them as much time as possible.”