Tortilla Double’s interior is perfect.
We bought the alcohol Saratha wanted, and I was wondering if I could sell it, so I bought it in barrels and had an escort drone load it into the cargo bay. And we did a few short jumps.
A short jump means entering hyperspace for a few seconds. That’s all, but we have to watch out for the strain it puts on the hyperdrive, and observe it to see if it doesn’t break.
There are no problems with the cargo, so we enter hyperspace and go into a two day journey to the metalworking station. This would take years without a hyperdrive.
There are no problems, only fields of flowers, rings of mushrooms, and winged fairies with flowers on their heads. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m going crazy, but Kori and Saratha can see them too.
“I feel like I’m seeing more…”
“Cute~.”
“Those are fairies, so they won’t do anything weird. They’ll draw closer if you leave milk and cookies near a window, so watch where you leave food.”
“I heard about them possessing ships~.”
“I’ll be careful.”
▽▽▽
As soon as we exit this strange hyperspace, I can see the Zadar metalworking station among the starry sky. I could say it looks like a butterfly.
There’s a giant pillar in the middle, and when Kori asks for permission to dock, a guiding beacon appears and a hole opens right in the middle. Other than that, I don’t know what else is there.
It’s like there are two wings on each side of the pillar. Once I get a better look, I can see they’re covered in solar panels.
The pillar is five kilometers tall, and if I look closely, the power armor that maintains the energy generation facilities like in the Zadar commercials… Can’t be seen? They’re probably on break.
They use this massive power generation to operate a giant alchemist crafter that turns scrap and crushed ore into all sorts of ingots.
The stone they can’t turn into metal is crushed, processed to kill bacteria and viruses, and turned into gravel or sand. This is then used to make concrete or it’s shipped to colonies in this star system, starting with Zadar.
Apparently this colony is saturated with stone materials, so they’re shipped to the homeworld of this star system.
In this space age, they refrain from harvesting natural resources like gravel and sand from blue planets. Apparently they use a space elevator to bring those things down to make concrete. It makes sense, because I heard on Earth that over harvesting of those things was having an impact on the environment.
It could be said that it’s a national enterprise with slim profits other than metals, but it’s no exaggeration to say that the Zadar colony and the resource refining stations under it exist to protect the natural environment of the homeworld.
Because of this, there are a lot of commercials on the Zadar colony about how in this space age where the population skyrocketed, people have to be conscious of the environment, or they’ll be living on a red sand planet in a few centuries.
I watched those things kind of in a daze. I’m pretty sure Earth tackled that problem too.
In this star system, tens of kilometers long cylindrical colonies were built and filled with water just to create seaweed and animal plankton. The future is interesting.
With the request to dock clear, we leave the AI to land and wait. We didn’t do much in hyperspace either. Played games we bought in Zadar, played board games together, enjoyed the bath, read while lying on the rug… It was a lot of free time.
Tortilla Double is just a turtle with a big main cannon turret on top, so the two of them learned how to operate it pretty quickly.
I had mostly given up on being conscious of the accelerator and brake, using the flight stick and game controller to move its nose and body in every direction, and changing the main cannon’s direction manually.
Can we have the support AI control the main cannon’s turret? Was what they asked, and I guess we could. It already operates the defensive lasers. I’m going to have to practice in space.
And I need time to practice with stuff like the defensive system we bought at the last minute.
“Oh?”
“Station, this is Tortilla Double. You guided us to a dock that’s not big enough. The auto pilot stopped.”
“<This is the station. Seriously? Hold on a second… Sorry, we issued a new beacon.>”
“Be careful, station. Tortilla Double out.”
Saratha and Kori are sitting in front of me, one on each side. I can always see the sides of their faces, and their expressions. And both are frowning.
“That was terrible~. They need to reeducate that new employee~.”
“No doubt… We should issue a complaint when we get back to the Mining Guild in Zadar.”
“Is that necessary? I guess so, we could’ve broken the station if we collided.”
I imagine the station is worth over a trillion puni, so I wonder.
“It is~. Every higher up here could lose their head~.”
“There are several metalworking stations in this star system, so that wouldn’t be a problem.”
As I hear them grumbling and think it just sounds mean, I see the ship finish docking. I don’t think there are many people in this station, and I doubt it goes over three digits.
It’s quiet compared to the Zadar colony, to the point where it feels lonely.
Tortilla Double’s tortoise feet land on the floor, the sub thruster’s power output goes down, and we’re done.
Well then, I want to see metal prices of this universe. I wonder how much I should load for that five percent profit. I want trading information. I’m sure I’ll do it at some point.
“<Tortilla Double, this is the station administrative bureau. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but can you all disembark?>”
“Station, this is Tortilla Double. Is there trouble?”
“<That’s not it, we want to welcome you. We’re tired of seeing the same faces, so can we talk face-to-face?>”
All three of us frown. I just watched a movie where trouble started like this.
“We just left hyperspace, and the girls need to get ready. I’ll come down. Tortilla Double out.”
I get ready, open the rear hatch of the cargo bay, and go down with a cargo transportation drone and a container.
Five men come out from the station’s side, all with friendly expressions but… That was fast, I already have guns pointed at me.
“That’s not how it goes, think about it for a second.”
“Hehehe, just surrender and we’re not gonna kill you! Not kill anyway!”
I activate the personal shield. A visible blue energy shield rises from the transportation drone, and the barrier is built in front of me.
I throw a shock grenade, step back, and hide behind the container I brought to shield myself and the transportation slash defense drone.
“Why!? This wasn’t supposed to happen!!”
“Stop this stupid resistance! The Herald of Autumn’s gonna be here in a few hours with thousands of troops! It ain’t your lucky day, idiot!”
Nah, that’s not coming. I don’t need that crappy information. So that’s why I sold so much burnt protein to be used as fertilizer for alchemist craft.
I hear a metallic sound echo from the rear hatch of Tortilla Double, and ten roomba shaped battle drones called lil’ killers come out. Turns out those weren’t roombas at all.
That’s not their official name, and they can actually clean like regular roombas when they’re horizontal. But when necessary, some strange power makes them stand up and roll around, turning them into disk-shaped battle drones.
Also, a spherical escort drone comes rolling down until it’s right in front of me. Then it starts turning and deploys a personal shield on the dome. This one also doesn’t let bullets through, so move further back behind it.
“Uoooh it’s a horde of disks!!”
“Stop! I’m not good with round things!!!”
“Dammit! Why did this guy come!? Use cleaning robots to clean!!”
“I’m gonna clean you!!”
The lil’ killers move out, encircling and shooting who I assume are space pirates.
Didn’t they say the Herald of Autumn was rumbling around in a neighboring star system? The guy from the mercenary guild was grumbling about why it was here.
As I think that, they all go down. Ahh, what now? I had to put them down, but I don’t even know what the people of this station actually look like…
Thanks for the treat.