Everyone in the small combat ship has been moved over here. Six of them tried to take over, but the others are passive, wanting to hide here because there’s food and water.
Would a torpedo work? Is what I was thinking, when suddenly I was hit with the big revelation that there’s a nuclear torpedo aboard the small combat ship.
The Galactic Credit Union Alliance really doesn’t like nuclear weapons. After all, humans have fired a lot of them inside atmospheres like they would in space, killing many precious planets capable of sustaining life.
How precious were they? They’re generally a one in ten thousand miracle. There are plenty of planets orbiting stars, but a lot of coincidences have to happen for them to have an environment capable of sustaining life.
Because of this, the Alliance gets really pissed about possession of nuclear weapons, whether it’s by a nation or not. And this leads to organizations of the Alliance, like the Mercenary Guild and Mining Guild, pulling out.
So, nuclear torpedo. It must have the power of conventional explosives times several thousand. The problem is that I really don’t want to use it, and if I do, I don’t even know what kind of penalty I can expect from the Alliance.
“Ah, are you worried about a penalty from the Alliance if you use it? This is an emergency evacuation, so at most you will receive a penalty of a million puni. An up-and-coming mercenary can afford that much, right?”
“Being able to avoid a sentence by just paying a fine pisses me off, so be quiet.”
Peacitt is surrounded himself with disk battle drones, so I tell a few to go stand watch, and they leave him.
“Master, if you do use it, there truly is a chance you will only have to pay a fine due to this being an emergency evacuation, but…”
“I want to avoid using it if possible, but I want to have it ready as a last resort. And record stuff to use as an excuse for the Alliance.”
“Very well… Then we should bring it aboard as soon as possible.”
“Yes… Kori, can you do that?”
I don’t really understand why the army of Mishun Prime had that.
“Come to think of it, the Alliance forbids star system nations from having nuclear weapons, but are federations of star system planets also banned?”
“It is not in the contract, but it is like common sense.”
“Does Mishun Prime need it? Does the army? Are these people just selling it in something like a black market…”
I see Peacitt motioning for me out of the corner of my eye.
“If it’s a black market dealing, leave it to me. Oh? You look pretty sullen.”
“You might find it surprising, but I’m actually a mercenary with a clean record.”
“A good mercenary has to keep an open mind. That nuclear weapon is a way for the soldiers to make some pocket money. Or I guess a pension. It just sort of fell on their laps.”
He’s saying that like it was a simple mistake anyone could make, but don’t talk about nuclear weapons like it’s something you just find yourself having.
“You’d think the Alliance would find out immediately.”
“The black market deals in rare metals… Anyway, can you move the disk battle drone somewhere else?”
“Fine. But don’t say anything you shouldn’t if you want to go back soon.”
“Of course. I don’t want to waste a single second. If my employees back on the planet put their hands on my funds as severance pay… Ooh, I don’t want to imagine it.”
He theatrically trembles, and old man Peacitt goes back to the old man dining hall.
“How much of that was true?”
“I think he was truthful about the severance pay. But the Alliance is particularly harsh when nuclear weapons are involved…”
“If it’s simple possession, there’s a prior record.”
It’s possible to keep one unless someone scans you. I don’t know how it would be in a space port, but I think a big ship like Tamani Oishi Nº3 would be safe.
Actually, I don’t know when it got a nuclear weapon, so maybe stopping at a port would be bad.
I tell Kori there’s a nuclear torpedo in the small combat ship… And she goes with Iris to secure it. I realized there might be traps in a combat ship, and that’d be bad.
Especially with a nuclear torpedo on board.
“Hey, army men. We scanned your ship and found a nuclear torpedo. Do you have anything to say about that?”
“We found it discarded in space and retrieved it to prepare it for safe disposal. Is that a problem?”
“So I assume it won’t be a problem if I dispose of it?”
Well then, let’s ignore the wailing coming from the makeshift prison, let’s contact Iris and Kori to prepare to load the nuclear torpedo.
I turn to Saratha and ask her to take care of the old guys. She has free reign over the ones locked up.
I leave the cargo bay, and go back to the cockpit with bean tea and a snack.
“Any changes with the ship crab, Suzuri?”
“It moves a little from time to time. Also, I should report that I believe it has legs missing. It is hard to see from this distance, but the number of legs does not seem even left and right.”
“I heard downstairs that they broke a leg with a torpedo. Also, guided missiles hit, but weren’t effective.”
I leave the warm bean tea and a tray with a food printed ham sandwich in front of her.
“Eat something. It’s tough down there.”
“I heard from Saratha some has-been soldiers attempted to hijack the ship.”
“And there’s a nuclear torpedo being retrieved by Kori and Saratha.”
“Mu… I imagine if we were to use it, one shot could do the trick…”
“On a personal level, I don’t want to use it, but I don’t know what the Alliance will do. And if the nuclear weapon doesn’t work, the ship crab might move out clad in strong radiation.”
“The issue is that it may be treated as a minor rank up event… Also, we do not know If the ships on the ship crab won’t shoot it down.”
There is that… For better or worse, torpedoes aren’t fast. Actually, something meant for fast ships to throw using their propulsion really isn’t ideal for a slow turtle of a ship like this one.
Honestly, what I really want to do is fly outside the range of the hyperspace jammer and disengage, but the ship crab will respond if I try.
I’m worried about lasers too, but wouldn’t the ship be able to withstand those? On the other hand, the large laser cannon of the abandoned destroyer might go into business.
“I don’t want to have to talk to those military people again…”
“Have you given up on that already…”
“I guess I’ll go ask again. Can you mark the turrets you can see from here?”
“Understood.”
▽▽▽
“You want to ask about the ship crab? In this situation?”
“Who created this situation?”
There’s a thick iron plate with iron poles at fifteen centimeter intervals, attached to another iron plate on the ceiling. And in this crude cell fit for one person, Captain Hasselback is glaring with resentment. I didn’t do anything wrong. And unlike the guys that tried to take over the ship, he has a toilet out of view from the outside.
“Well, I’m grateful for the food and water, but surely you could have done more.”
“Like throw you out the airlock?”
This is going to be more of a back and forth that I’d hoped. Ahh, is there any footage left in the small combat ship… I take out a small information device, and call Iris.
“Iris, Captain Hasselback is being uncooperative, so I want to pull up footage from the combat ship. Can you do that? I want footage of ships being attacked when they tried to escape this sector. I think we might be able to leave without fighting.”
“Hey, stop it. If the ship goes down, we go down with it.”
“<Understood… The exterior ship camera is broken… There is only footage of the inside.>”
“Captain, it seems your ship camera is broken.”
“That ship was among the scrap.”
Hm, did they destroy the camera because they had a nuclear torpedo? Iris and Kori are done, so let’s get the crew together and discuss this.
▽▽▽
About an hour later, everyone except Iris is in the living room. Iris recommended making a temporary guest room in the cargo bay, so the alchemist crafter is hard at work.
Other than the prisoners, the guests are in a large room like in a health spa, with somewhat hard recliners and blankets. That’s all our resources can muster. We don’t have soft materials.
That said, Iris is also taking part in the discussion from there.
“Firstly, I have compiled information Iris stored locally.”
Ship crab is a term used to describe space crustaceans that hide inside scrap ships. They are mostly omnivores.
They rip space plants and other living beings with their big claws, and bring food into their mouths what with they call feeding arms. They move by using scrap or asteroids as footing to jump, or pushing themselves with magic energy.
Their eggs are about the size of a basketball, and they’re pretty tough, even if there’s nothing to hide them. They’ve been confirmed to have grown to the size of battleship scrap by the end. There was even an article that said one grew to the size of a destroyer after about four centuries, but it ended up being shot and killed when it escaped.
“<If we captured this one alive, we might earn enough money to purchase a newly built destroyer or two.>”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“How would we haul it back~?”
“Money can only blind you to a certain extent.”
“Is there perhaps something to its materials?”
It’s their shells. Their shed skins are good too, but like space turtles, they serve as a material for a structure preserving field that allows the hull to withstand impacts to a certain extent.
Also, apparently it can be mixed with a certain metal to create an organic self-repairing alloy. By giving it time and electricity, it can even reattach broken off pieces by itself. Apparently it’s used to reinforce external armor.
And the bigger the ship crab, the more of it there is. Money money.
“It’s worth a lot, but let’s not think about that too much. We need to focus on escaping.”
“We’ll be lucky to get the salvage that’s left~!”
“Do ship crabs themselves have something that jams hyperdrives?”
“I cannot look that up, since I cannot use the net, but probably not. I assume it is using a feature of a ship.”
“<It is very rare that a support AI confuses a ship crab for a passenger, but there have been reports. Of course, this happened with small ship crabs.>”
Let’s assume the support AI is in collusion with the ship crab.
“About the turrets, I assume they are all mounted at the top. There is only so much I can see from the cockpit, so I recommend sending out a scouting drone with a camera.”
“If there are only turrets at the top, we might be able to pull something off. There’s even a report of a leg being blown off by a torpedo. And I think scouting is a good idea.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Also, we need to look into if it really attacks when people try to leave~! Try sending out a retrieval drone and see how it reacts~!”
“<If it is within bearable distance for Tortilla Double, I believe running away would be safer option.>”
I agree.
“And… Would laser cannons even work? I heard they don’t.”
“<A ship crabs’ fighting ability is in its claws. There is no report of such a peculiarity for ship crabs. Perhaps it is simply a variant, or it might be using a ship’s shield.>”
“So in the end, the problem is the ships it’s borrowing.”
“Even if we defeat the ship crab from below, the pieces of destroyer will attack us.”
“Well, can’t we take it easy there~? The plasma engine is dead, so it can’t move, right~?”
It’ll be bad if it does…
“After that, we’ll have to deal with problems as they come. Kori, scout with a drone. Suzuri, stand by in the cockpit. Saratha, help Iris in the cargo bay. Iris, keep building. I’m going down to the cargo bay too.”
““““Understood.””””
Well then, how will the ship crab operation go?
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