I’m going with a big ship big gun doctrine! Take aim at a slow life! ~I was thrown out into space, but I took over a spaceship by coincidence, so I’ll work as a mercenary while playing with the dirt.~ – Chapter 1 – Don’t get drunk and write a certificate of absence

I believe I’m relatively lucky. In economic hard times, I found a job as an apprentice electrician with a pay rise and bonuses. The problem is that being too busy means I’m now thirty and a step away from missing my marriageable age. People say that’s still fine for a guy, but I heard the same thing ten years ago.

But the biggest issue is that I have to go out by car a lot, and I’ve had to move three times because of my work.

But even if I’m an otaku, I want to settle down and at least have a pet, so I started going to matchmaking parties aimed at otaku.

There I met a woman, and talked to her while eating a tortilla. I was recommended something called a coca bomb, an energy drink mixed with strong alcohol, and I signed something when my consciousness was hazy.

▽▽▽

My head hurts and it’s a little hard to breathe. I felt that way the whole time during the party because I’m not used to wearing a necktie, as I normally wear work clothes. I try to loosen my tie, but my hand slips on something. What?

I try to bring my hand to my face, but I hear a light bonk when it hits something hard. Why am I wearing gloves? I shake my head a little, and realize I’m facing a starry sky.

Ah, I drank too much. I haven’t drank outside in a while. I can feel I’m laying on something hard, so I must have blacked out in the middle of the road. I muster up my strength to get up, but I hit something with another light bonk.

I feel blood rushing to my dazed head. Now that I get a good look, I see the gloves are connected to the clothes I’m wearing. And isn’t this a transparent panel in front of me? I try to tap my head with my finger, and feel the impact on my chin and forehead. This is like when I wear a protective outfit.

I try to turn my toes, and I can feel a firm core, like I do when I wear safety boots with my bare feet.

“What cough cough!?”

I start choking like I inhaled dust, and I try to send saliva down my throat to moisten it as much as I can. I was trying to ask what happened, but my throat is dry.

“What happened?”

My voice is really muffled. Also, I’m now noticing that there’s a starry sky, but I’m not on a road, I’m inside something tight like a locker. And in front of me is something that looks like a tough acrylic board. It’s curved.

Another issue, my feet are floating. Also, the saliva I coughed is hovering in front of me. No gravity? Am I in space? I look around, not getting it.

I look up, look down, look right, look left, like I’m doing a tutorial in an FPS game. I’m so incredibly confused.

On the upper left it says I have eighty-nine minutes of oxygen, in both Japanese and Arabic numerals. Is this about the worst position I’ve ever been in my life?

<Detecting test subject has awoken.>

I suddenly hear from outside of my protective gear.

<Test subject Genma Narumi has suddenly awoken. Please step away from cold sleep capsule.>

Wait, that’s me.

<Releasing cold sleep capsule.>

I wasn’t asking for an even worse situation.

<Goood morning…>

I quickly put my arms in front of my face, and protect myself in time. The cold sleep capsule opens upward from my feet, and my arms crash into the lid, sending it and me into space.

I probably look like a spinning top after being thrown out like that. I feel all the liquid in my body in the frontal half of it. There’s practically no air friction in space, so if I keep going like this I’ll be churned worse than butter.

I’ve never taken a safety course on space dammit! I don’t want to die like this. No. Is there something I can…

I remember what that astronaut in the International Space Station said… I’m huddled to protect myself, but I should instead spread my arms and stretch my body. I do that, and the spinning softens a little. As a result, I calm down a little, and realize I’m not spinning as hard as I thought.

Wait, where did the lid go? I hunker down and look around, but I can’t see it. Wait. If I really focus, I can see something other than stars. Is that a pole? A box? It’s too dim to see.

Then a wall starts coming in and out of view. I have to grab it. If I don’t, I’ll never stop spinning.

“Gubeh!? Ehogeho. I-I stopped… What…”

I get lucky, really lucky, and manage to stick to the wall. No, it’s not luck, the tips of the fingers on the protective gear are sticking to the wall. Can I take them off? I can. It’s like I’m sticking to the wall with magnets or something, like in a spy movie.

But why is there a wall in space?

The surface seems mostly sleek. There are no welding lines or bolts, nothing that would hold it in place. I start crawling on the surface, until I feel something odd on my feet. My soles are trying to stick to the wall.

After checking that my hands are firmly stuck to the wall, I bend my legs and change my position to see if my feet will stick to the wall. And with a clunking sound, they do. Can I let go with my hands?

I do, and now I can walk on the wall.

My heart is finally feeling calmer, so I look around… And approach something that seems odd. It’s like a one meter long square gap. There’s a handle that’s like the Greek theta on it (this Θ), so I grab it and try to pull it, but nothing happens.

But looking at it more closely, I see there’s an arrow pointing right. I do what it says, then pull it, and now I can go inside.

I’m careful not to open it too much so it doesn’t close, and slip inside. And as I wonder how to close it now that I’m inside, it closes on its own.

It’s dark in here.

Suddenly it gets bright, and I hear a loud sound like air is being let out. My body feels heavy and I fall to the left. Is that where the gravity is, I ask while grimacing, and then the sound stops.

<Airflow restored. Welcome, new pilot.>

I get up, and see my protective gear shows I have eighty minutes of oxygen left. I shudder as I think all of that happened in just eight minutes, and walk through what looks like a passage that’s been lit.

I want to take this suit off, but I don’t know if I should. There’s a zipper in front, and when I pull it down to my belly button, fresh air enters. It stinks of server room. Of ozone.

I take it all off, and feel refreshed. It’s a little chilly, and there’s next to no humidity. Then again, I’m only wearing my gray boxers. I consider putting my protective gear back on, but stop because it’s pretty heavy.

The hall I’m currently walking through has a paper that says exit. The hall is two meters tall and wide, and less than five meters deep. There’s a dead end, but after walking to it on my bare feet, the wall opens. It’s an automatic sliding door.

I see a big room. The ceiling is about as tall as a gymnasium’s, and it’s pretty long, at least twenty-five meters. And wide too. It feels like a warehouse of a distribution center. And I see there are what looks like containers in a corner.

But it looks like that’s not where I’m supposed to go. The lights show me where I should go, and it’s a vertical box. It looks like an elevator, and sure enough, when I get close, I see that’s exactly what it is. When I get in, the door closes and it moves without me touching a button.

A sound signals it reached its destination. It looks like this area was designed for customers to move in a fast food restaurant. There’s a counter to the left, and round folding chairs spread around. There’s a shelf on the other side of the counter too. Is there a mini bar?

To the right there is plain folding furniture. Four tables with four chairs each.

There are also six doors to the right placed at regular intervals, and two on the side of the counter. Oh, there are three on each side of the elevator too, making it a total of fourteen.

But the light is leading me to none of them, it wants me to go straight ahead. There’s a four meter long corridor after this room, with one door at the end, which opens automatically when I reach it.

It leads me to a semicircular room with a hard looking chair and a desk filled with machinery. When I sit on the chair, it slides automatically to meet the height of the desk.

This feels like a desk with three monitors. There’s something that resembles a keyboard in front of a monitor, but the keys are clearly different, so I don’t know what they’d input if I pressed them. Actually, why was that paper in Japanese? And why is the voice I hear Japanese too?

There’s too much stuff on the desk. A regular optical mouse, what appears to be a trackball mouse, what looks like a flight simulator controller between my legs, and what seems like a gaming controller.

There’s also something like a car accelerator and a brake pedal under the desk. There’s no shift lever, but there is a handbrake to my left. Actually, I have no idea if that’s what it is.

<Welcome, new pilot. This machine has a support AI onboard. Servant Model N.8 Kyuryukan. Voice recognition is active. Please record the pilot’s name.>

“My name is… Genma.”

My name is Genma Narumi but… Wait Servant Model eight… And what does that mean? Gurwa? That’s not how I read it.

<Please set your call sign.>

“Call sign… This really is a spaceship, right? Can it show me the exterior?”

The monitor in the middle lights up and shows me some images.

This thing is forty meters long, forty meters wide, and forty meters tall. A mid-size combat ship… Mid-size?

About half its size is taken by the big laser cannon turret. It says it’s the main cannon of a destroyer class ship, but apparently they basically forced it on top of this.

Is this a forty meter tall and long gun battery…

The images I see of the exterior of the ship are amazing. It’s like a tortoise. Where the head would be there’s the cockpit with transparent armor, and then there’s eight places where legs protrude.

It’s a tortoise with eight legs, but turtle or tortoise would be boring. I ate a tortilla yesterday. And I want a double cheeseburger.

“Let’s go with the call sign Tortilla Double.”

<Call sign Tortilla Double registered. Welcome, pilot.>

Okay, now I want a manual! No, I need food and water first, or I’ll die. And how much air do I have left? Hum… Twenty years worth. No problem there… Ah, and I’m in my boxers so I want clothes. All the necessities of life!!

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