Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is the eighth chapter of the Astra Lost in Space manga. It is the first chapter of the Shummoor arc and, in the compiled volumes, the first chapter of the second volume.

Synopsis
As the Astra begins the eighteen-day journey to Shummoor, the crew goes about their days with a sense of normalcy. Narrating, Aries writes in her diary about the happenings on the ship: they have adopted a 24-hour day, meet for breakfast at seven o'clock in the morning, do chores, and turn the lights out at ten o'clock every night. She also mentions that while Quitterie has made strides in her relationship with Funicia and the others, but that Ulgar and Yun-Hua continue to keep their distance from the others, while Kanata has begun having spells in which he stares into space, though she is unaware of why.

The knowledge that someone in the group is responsible for sabotaging their communications has begun to occupy most of Kanata's thoughts. The only one in the crew he is not immediately suspicious of is Aries, who was floating in space when the comm system was ruined; as for the others, he resolves to study them further before making any judgments about them and walks the ship to see them all in turn. He finds Quitterie assessing Yun-Hua for a potential illness (which the former believes is only stress), and also happens across Ulgar, who is carrying a small case with him. When Kanata asks about its contents, Ulgar becomes defensive and pushes past him, asserting that no rule they've made prohibits him from keeping things he finds and that he has no intention of befriending anyone in the group. Rejecting Kanata's pointed offer of friendship, Ulgar returns to his room and opens the case, revealing that it contains a pistol and a small amount of ammunition.

Kanata returns to his own room, deciding to stop worrying about things he does not know and to focus on finishing the journey instead. Eighteen days later, the Astra drops out of faster-than-light travel and approaches Shummoor, while the crew, sans Zack, discusses their lives before their stranding. Aries mentions she had abruptly been issued a scholarship to Caird High School, prompting her to transfer immediately, and Funicia reveals she spent a marginal amount of time at an orphanage following her mother's death before being adopted by Quitterie's mother. Luca expresses curiosity at being told this, and Funicia elaborates that on the first night of her stay at the orphanage, she overheard a conversation between the man in charge of the orphanage and a man in a suit and dark sunglasses. The words "B-5" caught her ear; she believed it to be a reference to the show her Beego doll is from (Animaroid B-5), so she listened intently to them.

She cheerfully shares a sentence from the talk with everybody: "Put her in B-5, and we'll illuminate them all." The nonsensical sentence catches Kanata's ear, and he quickly makes two connections that stun him, leading him to share them with the group: he believes the man in the suit is part of a broader conspiracy to intentionally place "Group B-5" together and, rather than "illuminate", to "eliminate" all of them and portray their loss as an accident.

Characters

 * Aries Spring
 * Zack Walker
 * Kanata Hoshijima
 * Funicia Raffaeli
 * Yun-Hua Lu
 * Charce Lacroix
 * Luca Esposito
 * Quitterie Raffaeli
 * Ulgar Zweig