We’re doing interstellar travel again, this time from To Akul Prime to Mishun Prime, where I was found.
We’re landing on the Zadar colony, and it looks like things have gotten a bit tense lately. But in this vast space, could it have to do with us?
“Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one, zero!”
“Uoh~! We’re here~!! Is it really here~?”
“It is pretty different, but it should be here. Where the Herald of Autumn was destroyed, and where master awakened.”
Iris sounds uncertain because scrap also revolves through the star’s gravitational pull. Nothing we can do about that. And it took a day to get here.
“The radar shows a lot of scrap iron, so it’s definitely the scrap belt.”
“We are here, but did Kori not collect the most valuable scrap already?”
“And I’m sure scavengers came here since then~.”
“There could still be things related to me here. But that’s it, so we’re spending half a day here at most.”
“Then let’s release the scavenger drones to collect scrap iron.”
Kori and Iris scramble for control as they release the drones. You really should’ve discussed this beforehand…
Well, I figured there would be nothing here. I knew the cold sleep pod where I was got flung away when I was ejected, but we’ve been salvaging scrap for three hours now, as per Kori and Iris’ suggestion.
“Well, this is what we expected… But we are indeed finding nothing but titanium and scrap iron.”
“That’s it uh… At least there was five hundred puni worth of titanium.”
“Yes~…”
“There was nothing of note, sadly.”
“We figured that was the case, so let’s move on to the next place instead of feeling down. Iris, coordinates please.”
Iris punches in the coordinates, and we head to the main target, the area with the scrap held by space pirates. The Herald of Autumn got here through hyperspace, after all.
It’s just a couple of hours in hyperspace, so I figured I’d stay in the cockpit, but Iris chops me and throws me out.
“I’m the pilot, the captain…”
“You need to rest~.”
“I know how you feel Genma, but Iris is right.”
“Would you like some bean tea as you rest? The cookies are done!”
“I’ll take them…”
I get that I need to rest so I can give it my all, but it’s still sad to be thrown out of my own cockpit. They’re all telling me to just leave but… An alarm!?
“<We have been caught by a catcher! Ejection in nine seconds!>”
“Dammit! In this vast space!?”
There’s a ship-wide announcement, and I snatch two cookies from Suzuri before sitting on my seat in the cockpit.
I crunch them, drink some water from the bottle in the cockpit, and with my caloric intake and hydration taken care of, I raise the shield output to ninety percent.
Meanwhile, Kori panics, Saratha rushes in, and Suzuri follows with a drink in hand.
“Three, two, one, we’re being pulled!”
We’re dragged out of hyperspace, and after checking that there’s nothing in front of us, I fire up the plasma engine to start maneuvering. I also dodge in random patterns as I look at the radar… But I don’t see the reaction of a ship.
“Checking radar! Something’s weird! There’s nothing!”
“No ship reactions, just scrap!”
“I also see mostly reactions from scrap, and no asteroids. Master, watch out for behind the scrap.”
“We can only assume they are hiding… I have a very bad feeling about this.”
If we can’t see them, we only assume they’re luring us. I stop moving randomly, take the plasma engine to combat speed, and move straight forward. Still, nothing.
These aren’t the right coordinates, but it’s like a scrap belt. But since someone used a hyperspace catcher for some sort of trap, I want to get out of here if I can.
“Activating hyperdrive, same coordinates.”
“Confirming activation of hyperdrive… It’s not moving?”
“Is this a hyperdrive jammer~~!? Again~!?”
“Check the radar! You too, Suzuri!”
What is this? I can’t see them… Would I if I watched for magic energy? Wait…
“Ah? Dammit, something’s here!”
“What!? The radar doesn’t show anything!”
“Geez! I’m pinging the monitor. Here!”
It looks like just a scrap graveyard. It’s weird. This is space, there’s no gravity, and we’re supposedly moving around a star. The universe is too vast and fast for anything to gather in one place like this.
But I see waves of purple magic energy like an aurora, big enough for it to look like a mountain range for a second.
Luckily, there’s scrap bigger than Tortilla Double, so I hide behind it.
I’m mostly moving according to my gut, but I stop the engine. I leave the structure preserving field working at minimum capacity, and the generator just barely maintain life support. I hear complaints around me, but I yell back.
“It’s gonna find us!!”
The scrap being used as a shield must’ve been hit by debris a lot, because there are a lot of gaps. And I can see it through the cockpit window.
It’s big, to the point where I can’t get a grasp on the distance between us. The moving scrap is most likely a destroyer class. I use the electronic telescope, and see a few big turrets attached.
I keep observing, and see what looks like a thick pillar with a black globe popping up and looking around.
“Ship crab…”
Says Suzuri, because it really looks like a hermit crab wearing a ship as a shell. Two huge claws sever scrap metal, what I assume was a corvette class ship, and bring it to the mountain of scrap on its back.
The body I see peeking from the scrap is covered in a blue shell, like a crustacean.
It drops what I assume are its eyes, and it buries its huge body inside the mountain of scrap. The scrap is probably interfering with the life sign detector, because it shows no reactions.
“I assume there was a ship with a hyperspace catcher and jammer among the ships the ship crab destroyed. And there is a big problem, the service drones are repairing and welding that giant mass of scrap.”
Says Iris as she shows images on the sub monitor. I do see what looks like service drones hard at work. Unlike before, they are showing up on radar.
“This is too much for us. We gotta send a distress signal to the Alliance. It’s gonna be a long battle, and we need at least a destroyer.”
“Distress signal… It’s not reaching them. This can happen!?”
“I assume some sort of jamming device is being used…”
“Are you implying we cannot get away?”
“In theory~. If we fly away normally and get super far away from here, we’ll be able to use the hyperdrive~. But that will take days~…”
There’s a reaction in the communications device, in an open channel. Then three ships suddenly appear on radar.
▽▽▽
“Look at that scrap! How many puni do you think that is!?”
“I was worried when we got booted out of hyperspace, but look at that huge thing! Is there a catcher?”
“Ah? Is that moving…”
▽▽▽
So are the open channels working?
“Communications… I guess FTL communications, or rather, everything related to hyperspace is being jammed.”
“It’s likely that FTL communications are a technology that uses hyperspace.”
They appear to be space pirates aboard armed transport ships. They try attacking the ship crab, but it doesn’t work at all, and they run away. The ship crab doesn’t move, but I see lasers flying from its shell, and the communications go quiet.
They were pirates, but they did provide us valuable information, so let us say a prayer.
“Is… Someone on board perhaps?”
“No, I think the support AI is firing back automatically.”
“Catcher, jammer, and communications jammer. And an AI that fights on its own? Did no one teach them not to feed wild animals?”
“If we can’t send a distress signal, is this what happened to the missing people…”
“Right~… I wonder if there are any survivors around here~.”
Kori’s words make the cockpit go silent. Maybe there are.
“Should we use an open channel to call out around here? Iris, do you know how a support AI would respond to open channel communications?”
“I assume it would do nothing. The attack on the space pirates was most likely just a counterattack.”
I give Kori instructions, and she spreads out communications.
“This is Grassland two… Ah, one, Tortilla Double~. Are there any survivors capable of responding~? Respond through the open channel~!”
My attention is on the ship crab, but I can’t see it moving. Does it really ignore communications? Maybe it can’t hear them at all.
“Ooh! A ship? A functioning ship! This is Vasilisa, and I am with several survivors. Wait. You know that ship? Really? Tortilla Double, do you know the Peacitt company?”
Wah, that’s a lot of information.
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