We have nothing to do while in hyperspace. We’re in the middle of a job, but I’m using the nap room I made in the cockpit. When they find out I’ve not been sleeping, Saratha and Kori tend to prod me about it and play pranks. Especially Saratha.
Most of the time I take breaks every three hours, and when I’ve been on alert for nine hours, I go to sleep on a bed. And we all eat when I wake up.
But we have so much free time that we just end up chatting, and that’s part of the fun.
“<So he’s grassland three and already building a harem!?>”
“Yes~. And since there wasn’t much potential for earnings in Zadar, we’re going to Akul~.”
“<Yes, there’s only mining work there, so there aren’t a lot of space pirates…>”
“And the ones that were there tried to take over a station. It was on the news too~!”
“<What!? I didn’t hear about that! Ah, did you, captain?>”
Kori keeps chatting with their communications officer. It never ends either, and this is our third day in that hyperspace lane thing.
Hyperspace is also called the fairy road, because we’re borrowing their place. So what’s that lane? Apparently fairy roads connected by the fairies for the purposes of interstellar travel.
Yes yes, there’s a magic energy cost when using hyperspace.
So what about the magic energy? Apparently it’s provided by the hyperdrive, which transforms electricity into magic energy.
So sunflowers dance in a field, a fairy that’s fire in humanoid form waves, and we go through rings of mushrooms. It’s like the dreams I had when I had a cold.
I’m a little curious, so I have Kori ask if those small ships are all they have for an escort.
“<Hnu? Yes, only those two have hyperdrives, but there are ten more small ships inside this one. And twenty-five armors. That’s why we were recruiting mercenaries with hyperdrives>.”
She says, but what happens to those small ships inside it in an emergency…
▽▽▽
It’s our sixth day on this job, and eleven at night according to the standard time of the Galactic Credit Union Alliance. That credit union reaches wide.
They feel like a low authority game master or game system of an MMORPG. But thanks to them, this galaxy has been thriving despite its wars and destroyed planets.
“<Hey… Oh? Kori and Saratha aren’t there?>”
“Sorry, sometimes their resting times coincide.”
Suzuri opened a private channel, but they’re sleeping. Saratha is sleeping like a log in the living room, because the exhaustion had been piling up.
“<I see. Mu… I have nothing to do at this time…>”
“Can’t you play games or read a book?”
“<I can’t do that during work hours.>”
“The sorrows of being an employee. But why is a communications officer on duty?”
“<I have a class three spaceship piloting license, so I’ve been entrusted with the bridge since I was hired three years ago.>”
“Ah, I see.”
Yes, she has those qualifications. Sometimes it’s a bit inconvenient, because I’m the only one who has them here. Even if it’s just an implant.
“<Hm, I’m bored, so I want to hear something interesting. You’re a mercenary, so you must have a lot of experience, right?>”
“Interesting… I guess I’ve only been a mercenary for a month, so there’s a lot I haven’t experienced.”
“<Were you in the military before that?>”
“I was an electrician.”
“<That’s not right. Can I call you a scrapper?>”
“No, I really was an electrician. I went around places like apartment buildings and commercial complexes setting up electric cables and communication cables.”
“<Eh… I really don’t get it. So how did you become a mercenary?>
I actually haven’t been hiding my origins. Even with other mercenaries, I say I was abducted from a primitive planet, picked up a spaceship after being left floating in space, and a laflotty had me in a lewd way. It’s a pretty good story.
I feel like it does a good job at breaking the ice too.
“<Eh? Mine?>”
“Isn’t it unfair that I’m the only one talking about myself? And you’re laughing at other’s misfortunes.”
“<Mu… You know, it’s late at night, so I get excited in a weird way and laugh.>”
“It’s fine, but I want to hear about you.”
“<Are you making a move on me?>”
“Just passing the time.”
“<Really!?>”
If I talk, I won’t be as sleepy. The food printer can make caffeinated drinks, and I have cans, but it’s better to not use them if I can. And it’s fun to tease her because she’s small and talks in an old fashioned way.
“I-I’m not interesting. I was doing things like working part time at a dining hall in the colony. Just a sixty-eight year old who never really thought about what she wanted to do and scraped by…>”
“Eh, but you’re a communications officer. And you must’ve studied a lot to earn that third class spaceship piloting license.”
“<Hnu, you know, I started thinking I should study and get a proper job…>”
“But that’s great. I know you had the life extension procedure, but putting your mind into studying at that age is great.”
“I see, maybe… I have never been told such a thing… Sniff.”
Well, I only got an implant, so I’m really moved by someone who actually put in the work and studied for her qualifications. Wait, isn’t she way too easy?
▽▽▽
It’s our eighth day, and it looks like we’re reaching the outer edges of To Akul Prime. When the girls are up, they’re talking to Suzuri and other female employees, and I’m so bored that I’ve been passing the time in the nap area playing a card game on my smartphone with other guys hired for this job. It’s like poker, and we’ve been chatting too.
It’s pretty nerve-racking talking about vulgar stuff in front of girls.
Eh? There’s an alert going off in the cockpit.
“<Ah? Eh? A-all hands! We were caught by a hyperspace capture!! We will be pulled out in ten seconds!>”
“Dammit! Saratha, hang on! AI! Initiate combat mode!”
Hyperspace captures are military hardware that drag people out of hyperspace. They’re supposed to be mostly used in defensive positions!
And it has to happen when I kicked my shoes off and I’m lying down! I race to the pilot seat, and I’m a bit scared to step on the pedals with my bare feet, but then we are suddenly in normal space.
There’s a missile warning, so I immediately push forward, as the defensive lasers start firing. I also take control of the big laser cannon turret to shoot down approaching missiles in its spread mode.
Friendlies not included, there’s sixty-one… Among them, fifty are five meter tall standard bipedal weapons, but the biggest issue is the ship big enough to be a frigate. I took out a corvette in one shot during the station defense, but frigates are twice as big.
In this galaxy, frigates are between a hundred and two meter sized ships. That one’s an armed large size transport ship, the same space pirate model as always. I can’t get careless, but at least it’s not a military model.
Then more attacks fly from around us, and I fire up the engines while moving in a random pattern. I don’t take much damage, but Tamani Oishi No. 3 in the distance is hit by a missile.
“Shield at 90%! Genma! We’re being shot by nearby armor!”
“No problem!”
“<There’s one firing chunky shots!>”
“<Get behind it! Surround surround!>”
“<I can’t fire when they got the transport ship as a shield!>”
“<Fire at the transport ship! Let’s get a bonus!>”
There are space pirates on the open channel. I activate the friend or foe device, and have the support AI target power armors with one guided missile each. It takes ten seconds to reload. And the defensive lasers are shooting down most missiles coming at us.
I take aim at the frigate with the main cannon. It’s easy to hit it from twenty kilometers away, so I fire a focused shot, but it bounces off the shield without breaking it.
But the frigate that was flying around casually now senses danger, as it activates its subthrusters to take evasive maneuvers. It would’ve been easy if the first shot broke the shield.
The large transport ship I’m defending is still fine. The shield is active, but it just took another missile. I’m sure the output of their nuclear fusion reactor is being poured into the shield and defensive systems, but it being so big means there’s bound to be holes in their defense.
The two ships accompanying the transport ship have disappeared from the radar, but small ships and power armors exit the ship’s stomach like someone hit a hornet’s nest. They’re thirty-five in total.
“<Dammit! What’s with that thing!? Fire at the big one!>”
“<Escort ships are exiting the transport ship!>”
“<This was supposed to be an easy job!!!!>”
But they don’t have catapults, and the armors are mainly used to work inside the transport ship, so their combat equipment is lacking. Only two small ships can come out at once, so I need to back them up, but I have to also fire at the frigate to keep it in check.
In the middle of this confusion, Kori, who was asleep in the living room, runs to the cockpit. But has her non slip pilot suit on.
“Sorry darling, I’m here now~~!”
“Call the transport ship, I want to coordinate!”
“Got it~!”
I give the support AI instructions to target the frigate with the main cannon, while I target the small ships around the escorts with the secondary cannon. And once the guided missiles are reloaded, I fire those too.
“<That thing has two main cannons!?>”
“<Two cannons? What a pervert!>”
“He doesn’t have confidence in his own so he got that huge one installed!>”
“<He must be a femboy! Get him!>”
“<Now I’m excited!!!!>”
“Genma, the frigate switched to deflector shields! They’re focusing their defense on the front.”
“What a pain! Switch the main cannon to spread mode and target the approaching small ones! Saratha! Can you tell how fast the frigate is going!?”
“Three hundred meters per second!”
“We really are slow!”
“Yeah~, we know~!”
I’m sure the frigate won’t get close, because it doesn’t want the small ships and power armors to stick to it. But with shots about on par or stronger than my secondary cannon flying periodically, I’m worried about my shield. It’s still blocking.
“The transport ship sent out a distress signal! It looks like there aren’t an responses from near here~! Eh!? Ah! An armor holding a shield attached itself to the bottom of the transport ship~!”
“Tch, we’re going in! Contact the transport ship and tell them we’re firing one smart missile! Load it!”
“This is Tortilla Double. We are going to hit the armor attached to you with a missile~. I repeat, in ten seconds, a smart missile will hit the armor stuck to the bottom of your ship~!”
A shield-wielding armor is trying to attach itself to us too, and one is firing what looks like a rocket launcher, but my random movements means it can’t hit us. Space pirates are pretty bad… Or maybe mercenaries are pretty good…
“Launch smart missile!”
“Smart missile launched~. Direct hit! The armor was blown clean off~!”
“Genma! The frigate is moving forward and increased its speed to four hundred meters per second! Distance of sixteen kilometers! We’ll be passing each other in forty seconds!”
“Ah!? Is it coming to ram us? Why?”
“Darling, I’m detecting several small heat sources in the frigate~. Armors! There are armors stuck to it~!”
Ah? Tank desant? Is it going for a frigate desant? Using the electronic telescope, I see the armors are holding tower shields with one hand, and close range weapons like axes and clubs with the other.
The transport ship and… Oh, the shield? Are they going to use the shield to protect the armors until the last moment?
Do whatever you have to, just get away.
“Send them a message! Get away from the frigate! It’s a landing! This ship will attack the frigate head on!”
“The frigate wants to capture your ship~. I repeat, the frigate…~”
“<Ora ora! Get hard you guys! Get ready to plow! Whoever’s there first gets to use a girl for a night!!>”
“<Hyu, how generous!”>”
“<I like big tits! Ones with four nipples!>”
“<I’m an ass man! A guy is fine too!>”
“<Uooo uooo uooo!!>”
We change course, kicking around the power armors and small ships with guided missiles and lasers as we face the frigate. Ah geez! This again!!
The deflector shield is completely shutting out the main cannon. Is it even being scraped!? I keep moving in a random pattern while shooting the secondary cannon.
Thankfully, I guess, being a mid sized ship means we’re more agile than that frigate. That means their attacks almost never hit, and the shield is holding steady.
We’re two kilometers away from the frigate, and we’d be there already if we were faster.
I switch to spread mode, and fire it along with the secondary cannon and guided missiles into the frigate. And I launch two torpedoes.
Then I pass from the right, grazing it. I see a blast from the side of the cockpit. I assume a torpedo was shot down, and I quickly turn the main cannon to the left.
“<Aaaah! Torpedo in front! Someone shoot it!!! Please!!! Stooooo!!>”
“Torpedo hit! Frigate’s shields are down!”
The torpedo destroyed its shield generator, so I fire the main cannon at its side. The laser’s power has weakened, but its range is wider, so the frigate’s hull is pierced like a lotus root and bursts after expelling fire.
“Tell the transport ship the frigate is down!”
“Tortilla Double shot down the frigate~! Tortilla Double shot down the frigate~!”
Armors are blown away with pieces, but most are caught in the explosion. Let’s ignore that and change course towards the transport ship.
It seems safe, and the small enemy ships are flying in different directions.
The armors that were around it look like they’re desperately trying to swim, but the small ships that flew out of the transport ship put them down.
“That frigate looks tasty, but the agreement stated we can’t do it…”
“Let’s tag it and save the coordinates. I’m sure we’ll be leaving here right away.”
“I asked just in case, but they said no~. And those torpedoes are expensive too~.”
“Let’s get more used ones… We should’ve bought more just in case. Ah, how much is the frigate’s bounty?”
“Ah~… One hundred fifty thousand puni. Nice, but this sum is scary~.”
What did they do to deserve that bounty? That corvette was five thousand. And how come those pirates had a hyperspace capture?
“Darling~. A patrol from To Akul Prime picked up the distress signal and will be here in thirty seconds~.”
“Ahh, should’ve been here a minute earlier.”
“But that means we got the bounty, so it’s fine.”
She has a point.
Thanks for the treat.