Despite the little accident, life tree fruit does work. We’re all full of energy.
We’re done listening to Van too, so there’s no reason to just hang out here. We’ll take off after confirming that they left the dock.
“Don’t you think that elf guy was looking down on us?”
“Well, he put out the quest, but still…”
“I do not think he was quite looking down on us. I mean… It felt different than when people look down on me…”
“I think he was being friendly~! And arrogant~?”
Arrogant… He can cut a small combat ship and move in the vacuum of space. I didn’t ask how he did it, but he’s the ruler of a planet, and created one, maybe two, automata that resemble mechanical intelligence to the point where the Alliance granted them citizenship. And he might have stuff you’d expect from isekai works. Storage Magic? Skills?
“Maybe that’s just how planet rulers are.”
“Yes… It felt like he thought attacking the space pirate base was just a matter of being able to get there too.”
“Perhaps he became a ruler through physical strength alone…”
“Maybe~. I wonder what the people of his planet are like~. There were only automata in the station~.”
I feel like we shouldn’t think about it. An otherworlder who was fourteen when he died. He said he’s fifty here, but he didn’t feel like it at all. In fact, it felt more like he was still a kid. How did he come to rule a planet?
“There’s no point in us worrying about that. Okay, Sumire just contacted us. Tortilla Double, taking off.”
As I hear their responses, I fire up the takeoff engines. This planet’s orbital position has already been calculated by the mechanical intelligence with a positronic brain capable of calculations, so we can come back any time. The dock is also in perfect operation, so I take the manual controls and leave.
▽▽▽
There’s an asteroid belt near Mishyltia, about twice the distance between the Earth and the Moon. If I could see this with an astronomical telescope, I would see what looks like a very packed together ring.
From that distance, it must look like a river of stars from the planet. How romantic.
But we have work to do. Tortilla Double is like a tortoise that’s said to be short and stout, and it approaches a big asteroid.
It looks strangely tinged in blue from the cockpit window. It reflects the light of the sun very brightly, but it’s not a jewel or anything. This is an asteroid with a lot of ice.
“I had my suspicions when I heard pirates and refugees settled here, but it has ice…”
“I feel like things work out as long as there’s water~~.”
“I would not be surprised if they produce the contents of food cartridges.”
“Most asteroids around here have ice… Doesn’t it evaporate?”
I remember hearing that ice instantly evaporates in the vacuum of space, but I’ve never heard of ice being shaped into what looks like an asteroid. I’ve never really studied space… Only in games.
“Hn? It’s pretty common. People wouldn’t have gone up into space and lived there if it wasn’t like that.”
“It might be easy to establish a star system here if there are ice asteroids, but it seems difficult without ore.”
“Water is a lot cheaper than metal by weight~~~. People tend to buy it if it’s available, but they can bring the price down a lot~.”
“I see…”
I step on the accelerator and go through the asteroid belt at cruising speed. I’m moving behind asteroids so the space pirate base right in front of us doesn’t pick us up with their radar, as we move to the designated spot.
If we were spotted the moment we dropped out of hyperspace, we’d have to use the asteroids as shields.
“But this is unexpected, ice asteroids…”
“Yes~. It would have been better if they were just rocks~. But if it’s ice, there’s a good chance they’re mining it~.”
“I’m focusing on the radar, so focus on movement, Genma.”
“Yes, I’ll be careful not to graze it… How much would it cost if I grazed the armor?”
I doubt it’d be the seventy thousand puni course, but we’d have to leave it in the dock for repairs.
“I said focus! Stop thinking weird! Grazing is one thing, but if you hit one you’re going to be paying for welding!”
“Okay.”
“Well, if it’s just panel repairs, you can just throw out maintenance drones, so you don’t need to use a dock~~.”
“Gah, was it that obvious I was thinking about that?”
“If you’re going to break something, please make it something cheap. The ham cost a lot of money…”
“This will take long enough for me to get peckish, so don’t talk about food.”
I feel like having a ham and cheese sandwich… We’re totally getting off track, but that translation implant really works great. Everything from a hamburger, sandwich, beef stroganoff, napolitan, or marguerita is translated perfectly. It really is a nice thing to have.
“…There was also melon ham where I come from.”
“Now you are the one talking about food!!! And did you not try that yesterday!!!?”
“Stop stop!! Are you going to eat that again!?”
“He said it was fine if it wasn’t too much~.”
He did, but it’s so good, that it’s easy to end up eating a lot… I say a lot, but it was like a melon slice.
“Someone. Someone please make the sacrifice with me.”
“Stop being stupid.”
“Yes~! I’ll do it~!”
“I would prefer if you focused on piloting…”
This is easier than driving through downtown Nagoya… The asteroids move in predictable ways, so there’s no need to be scared. I’ll stay vigilant but… Hn?
“Saratha, are you watching the radar?”
“Ah? I am, even in the middle of this nonsense.”
Yes, I don’t see anything strange on the radar either…
“There’s something behind that asteroid. Everyone, get ready for combat.”
Only the sound of Saratha clicking her tongue echoes in the cockpit, as I fire a secondary cannon towards that suspicious place. And there’s an explosion.
“I see an arm in the debris, it was armor. The radar didn’t pick it up because it was hiding behind the asteroid.”
“At times like these armors are annoying because they’re small and stick to asteroids.”
“The open channel is becoming quite noisy!”
They found us! Is what I hear from a cliche old guy with a throat burned by alcohol… But whatever.
“Saratha, do they have any big ones?”
“Nope… I guess that’s all they’ve got.”
“I do believe they possess small ships.”
I fire up the subthrusters, and check if there are any enemies above while slowly going up to combat speed. There are defensive lasers at the bottom so… I’ll have Suzuri keep an eye there, Tortilla Double is weaker the closer enemies get to the big turret on top.
We’ve been going towards the space pirate base for about five minutes now, and we’ve taken down our fourth armor hiding behind an asteroid. But there’s no sign that anything will come out of the space pirate base in front.
It’d be nice for us if nothing came out, but even if we have a medium size combat ship, you’d think they would try to intercept us… Hn?
I think I saw a light. I move right with the subthrusters… Did it graze us?
“Shields down to seventy percent! It’s probably a solid projectile!”
“Dammit! They do more damage than lasers! Distance to the space pirate base!?”
“Estimated distance of two hundred kilometers! How can they target us!? Can they see us!?”
“The way they missed tells me it’s manual targeting~!”
I think about switching to deflector shields and focusing them in front, but there are still asteroids around us. If there are armors hidden that are equipped with laser cannons that can penetrate armor, they could sink us. I’m keeping the shield in full sphere mode as I use the subthrusters to dodge in random patterns to get close to weapons range.
“Can you disperse chaff to fool the radar!?”
“Deploying chaff!”
“Okay, let’s stay hidden and keep going… Is that working?”
“They’re probably using their eyes and not a radar~.”
“They can do something silly like that? If it works, maybe it’s not that bad.”
Evasive maneuvers, hide behind asteroids… Is what we keep doing as we advance, but solid projectiles keep coming at us periodically. None of them grazed us again, but still…
I didn’t expect to be fired on by a big cannon. I didn’t even consider they’d have one. Why not attack the protective observation station then?
Then again, it’s been fifteen days since the space pirates visited Van.
“Theoretically, we could do something similar with torpedoes…”
“They would get intercepted in front of the base.”
“Calm down~. The detonators might self-destruct anyway~.”
“It makes me wish we had an attack that could hit a target a hundred kilometers in front…”
“I feel as though the large laser cannon could, in theory.”
It would probably decay, and neither I or Tortilla Double can see from this distance… But I didn’t think this would be a problem. Maybe I should reject attacking space pirate bases from now on.
“Fifty kilometers! Isn’t it within range of the laser cannon!?”
“If we have asteroids to act as shields, we just have to move like a servant type. Saratha, watch the radar for attacks from behind.”
The concept behind the servant-type number eight is to act as a large turret for large ships. They’re supposed to fight while taking cover.
And so, we’re starting a game where a large laser cannon turret pops up from behind asteroids and fires, like whack-a-mole.
Of course, we withdraw after each shot, and use the subthrusters to hide somewhere else. If we try to fire again from the same place, we’ll probably be hit by one of those physical projectiles.
We shoot from above an obstacle, then right. From there, we turn the ship a hundred eighty degrees to say hello from the left. Then we pop up at random and fire at the space pirate base. Whether we hit or miss, we’re putting pressure on them.
“Hn? Whoa! I can confirm an explosion!”
“Yes~! One more~!”
“Don’t get careless.”
This whack-a-mole from hell doesn’t last a minute until we land a nice hit. We’re running as soon as we fire, so we can’t hit the same spot… But after repeating this three more times, there’s a bigger explosion than before.
“Hn~. No more solid projectiles~.”
“Did they stop? Is it a trap? Let’s fire some more.”
With that in mind, I fire again, and see another explosion. Another nice hit?”
“I don’t think it’s a trap. Let’s focus the deflector shield in front to approach it and destroy it. Any enemies behind us, Saratha?”
“No!”
“Let’s charge in then!!”
I give more power to the generator, and move forward at combat speed. The solid projectiles that were flying before are gone, and I can now see the space pirate hideout. It was probably dug into an asteroid, where they created a living space.
But it’s just a rock now.
“The space pirate base is pretty screwed. Even if you let mice nibble on a rice cracker, it wouldn’t turn out like this.”
“You nibbled on it.”
“It looks like there are still internal explosions happening~. You got it good~.”
“There are no transmissions. I believe it is mostly destroyed.”
All right, one more.
“…Ah, it went through.”
“This large laser cannon truly is scary.”
“The quest was about destroying the space pirate base~. Air is venting and the dock is destroyed~.”
“Hold on. We can go back if there’s no sign they’ll send out armors, but where’s that cannon that was firing physical projectiles?”
“Ah… Isn’t that it? It got blown away.”
There’s a pipe that looks like it could be it rolling. I’m glad there wasn’t a gunboat with one of those.
We don’t have permission to salvage, and there’s a lot of scorched protein, so let’s go already. I’m tired.
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