His Host screamed in pain. Ira winced at the loud noise and immediately zoomed out again. Just as he thought that his Host was about to die and the mission would be over before it had even really begun, the gross-looking monster was killed in a shower of blood.

The monster was called A'Ket'Ri. It was over one meter tall and was dark brown in color. Its body was thin, every part of it elongated past logical sense, and it invoked a feeling of disgust in anybody who looked at it. The large eyes in the middle of the deformed head faced the sides and reminded Ira a little of the eyes of an owl. The monster was successfully killed by a phaser gun that was wielded by his Host's patrol partner. The gore that fell all over Ira's Host, who had been below the monster and on the edge of being killed, was nauseating inducing.

Ira sat up on his bed and wondered what he had missed. Obviously, things had gone wrong while he had been sleeping. Ira leafed through his recording of the night; his camera had dutifully followed his Host around and kept track of his every movement. On the video, he could clearly see that the monster had gotten into the ship from one of the damaged areas that his Host just so unfortunately was patrolling at the time.

It was not nearly as dramatic as he would have liked it to be.

Really, he thought that something amusing had happened, but it was just an accident. Hardly even that.

Ira glanced at his clock and decided that there was no reason to wait around. The aliens had arrived. The aliens' ship had already landed on the ground several miles away and been cloaked.

The hunt had begun.

Ira licked his lips and got dressed in his uniform. Unfortunately, it was the only outfit that he had in this world, and acting his part as a mob character here demanded that he wore it. On his map, he tracked the dot that represented Silas as it moved over the surface of the planet and slowly approach the downed ship full of humans. Ira's fingers itched to do something; he didn't particularly care what.

Exiting his room, he hummed under his breath as he walked through the hallways that were just as dull as the night before. The smoke had disappeared, at least, so some repairs must have been done while he had been sleeping. He did appreciate that his nose wasn't getting clogged by the scent of smoke anymore.

Ira arrived at the same cargo hold that the meeting had taken place at yesterday and entered the large space. His stomach was growling — he hadn't gotten enough food yesterday. He followed his nose toward a breakfast buffet that was woefully understaffed. There was an officer standing right next to the table who carefully logged how much and what food everybody took in order to make sure that the rationing order was obeyed. Ira ignored the officer looking at him and instead found a quiet corner to sit down and eat next to.

The breakfast wasn't nearly as good as the dinner they had had the night before. It seemed that they had really started the rationing right away because what they were getting now was the bare minimum of what was needed to survive. Smart, but it meant that Ira was denied one of the few pleasures of being in a human body.

Still, he wouldn't sabotage their efforts. He ate his food quietly and didn't complain. Once he was finished, he delivered the cutlery back to the officer that was still logging things.

For a second he wondered what he was going to do. It was rare, that he was right in the middle of the story as it took place and could experience the mission with his own body. Usually, admittedly by his own choice, he was very far away from the Hosts as they did their missions and didn't approach them or interact with anybody important unless it was required. In this situation, his experience was far outdated and came from when he had been much more naïve. And that wasn't how we wanted to act anymore.

After a second of weakness, Ira narrowed his eyes and glared at the wall in front of him. No matter. He would act like he always did, he would just have to pay a little more attention to staying in character. It would be a prime opportunity to practice his acting skills.

Having decided how he was going to play this, Ira left the cargo hold in search of the medical ward. Funnily enough, in this kind of situation, it wasn't the person performing their duties that were being suspicious, it was the person who didn't. Anyway, Ira was good at his job and he could damn well get the Monthly Best Employee award if he wanted to.

Not that that was a thing. But sometimes it was to humans and, honestly, it just kind of confused him. But it always seemed like a big deal in office sitcoms.

The navigational officer was already in the medical ward when he arrived. Ira blinked a little when he saw xem. Xe was in the middle of a heated argument with the medical officer in charge and xyr arms were flailing in the air as xe attempted to make xyr point. The medical officer simply growled something back at xem and ignored xem. Ira walked right over to the same kind of a locker as had been present in the food storage facility and pulled out a notebook and pen from it. Uninterested in the argument that was taking place behind him, he turned his hearing down so that he wouldn't be disturbed.

Whatever they were arguing about was none of his business. Or well, it was. And he would surely have fun watching it when he went to bed and watched his recordings of everything that he had missed in the evening. It was the closest that he could come to a TV show on this planet. He didn't want to spoil it.

Somebody jostled him. "Oh, shit!" the navigational officer smiled at Ira when he looked over his shoulder at xem. "Sorry," the navigational officer said and patted Ira gently on the shoulder.

Ira thought it was surprising that Fumiko wasn't a woman in this world when she had always been before. Then again, human gender made no sense to him and it would be hypocritical of him to judge Fumiko changing her gender when he himself just went with whatever his body presented itself as. He nodded to Fumiko to show that he didn't mind and went back to his work.

Fumiko left the medical ward grumbling. Behind him, the medical officer started muttering something but Ira didn't bother to make out what she said.

It wasn't like he wanted to know.

Logging all the medical supplies took hours. Not all of them were in the medical ward either, some of them were in a separate storage facility that was temperature-controlled to not damage the medicines. By the time that he was finally done, Ira was already sick of this working thing. Well, to be more precise, he was sick of the fact that he had to play a human. Apparently, he had gotten spoiled with Silas who made him feel like he didn't have to act like a human around him.

He shook his head and decided that he might as well just fake his death and go join Silas. He didn't actually have to stay here, this wasn't Tutorial Mode. He didn't even have to say in a human body. Yet, for some nonsensical reason, he wanted to.

It made him horrified. Gagging at his own thoughts, Ira crossed his arms over his chest and left the medical ward with his hearing still turned off. There were no longer any alarms blearing nor any humans around that he needed to pay attention to.

Come to think of it, he didn't need to pay attention to playing his part. As long as he didn't do anything non-human, he didn't actually have to play along with it one-hundred percent. It was just that for some reason, he was thinking about it. He had never thought about it before; it was always that he did whatever he wanted to, nevermind the consequences. He acted the way that he wanted to and as long as he didn't go too far, then he could do as he pleased. But now he was thinking about it, now he was wondering where the line was.

It made no sense and Ira didn't like this sudden sense of caring about it. No, while he didn't care; it might be more accurate to say that he worried a little bit. That maybe he had gotten too far out of control and he might lose the freedom that he had in choosing how to perform his jobs and how he went about instructing his Hosts.

If he lost his freedom in his work, then how would he meet Silas?

That thought was way too mushy, and Ira grimaced on principle.

He dropped off his logs with the navigational officer and walked over to the cargo hold to take a break. He found a quiet corner that was surrounded by a couple of crates and laid down on the floor while closing his eyes.

The floor was uncomfortable against his back and made him frown, but he was too tired to care. He had only gotten five hours of sleep last night, and then he had been on his feet for hours logging things, and his hand was cramping. That was not a familiar feeling to him. So he was going to sleep, even if he had to do it here so that he wouldn't be labeled a traitor and killed by one of the unstable officers who were panicking.

A lot of the officers were panicking. After all, the Captain was squirreled away with his core crew members, frantically planning what to do. In the process, they had forgotten to account for the fact that the lower officers were freaking out.

Once again, Ira checked his map. His Host was in his quarters resting, as he had apparently gotten some time off due to the trauma of almost getting killed by an alien monster. Silas was getting ever closer, together with four other aliens who were slowly approaching the ship. Ira found himself mourning the fact that there were no ingredients to bake with on this ship.

He dozed in his corner for around two hours before he was rudely woken up by a loud clatter. Sitting up, he pushed the long strands of his hair behind his ear and got to his feet as he looked up over the crate at what was making that infernal noise.

Ah, it was another one of those monsters.

And it had apparently seen him. His hand went to his phaser gun strapped to his waist; he pulled it out and aimed it at the monster — that was only three meters away from him. He narrowed his eyes and ignored the screams around him — and the blood that littered the ground around a dead body.

He would either kill the monster or he would kill himself before it could eat him to death. That was not a good way to go. And he had no intention of putting himself through that painful death again.

Sure, he could turn off his sense of pain and it wouldn't be that bad but it was still an odd kind of ticklish feeling, and he didn't like it that much. It reminded him of the mistakes that he had made in his youth.

Curling his lips in distaste, Ira fired the gun. The monster successfully evaded the shot and in just one jump, landed just a meter away from Ira. Ira grimaced and fired again from behind the cover of the crate. The monster growled in pain as it got hit but instead of obediently dying, it used one more jump to fly over Ira and land behind him.

Spinning around to face it, Ira didn't hesitate. He pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger.