The chandelier spirit… No, Luca, is apparently an electricity spirit. And after ten hours with it in the spaceship, we head to Pokapoka Flower Field Prime.
“Come to think of it, the arrival locations in Pokapoka Flower Field Prime are a little different compared to a colony, but are calculations okay? They’ll be mad if we get too close.”
<No problem. Advance according to the calculations of your cradle.>
All right then. We can exit in a safe area five minutes from now. I send out a ship wide message, and call everyone to the cockpit. We’ll do proper repairs in the colony.
“Leaving in five, four, three, two, one, zero~!!”
We leave the purple space into a strange one where richly colored lasers fly around.
“Suzuri! Full power to the shield!! Saratha! How is the radar!? Where are we!?”
“Pokapoka colony! Unclear who is friend or foe! Over two hundred! Two destroyers!”
“Pokapoka Flower Field Prime is at war!! War was declared on the Federation of Star Systems!! The Mercenary Guild is sending out requests to participate! There is an emergency announcement! Pokapoka Flower Field Prime is under attack!”
“Shield is at full power!”
“Boss! Five missiles are coming!!”
“<Did someone exit hyperspace!?>”
“You’re seeing things idiot! Fight if you don’t wanna die!>”
“What!? There’s someone without affiliation!?>”
“<Call sign is Tortilla Double? I’ve seen that, it’s a mercenary ship! Don’t fire yet!>”
“<Standby, standby.>”
I raise the defensive lasers and fire up the engines! Two missiles fly off the mark, we intercept two, and one hits us on the side.
“Damage control! Suzuri! Status report!”
“Only one plate was hit! No effect on battle!”
“The quest to join the battle has a period of twelve hours! Defend Pokapoka! If not, you’ll be blown away, it says! The conditions are those of a state of emergency!”
“<They were hit by a stray missile.>”
“<Join the battle if you don’t wanna die, rookies!>”
The Mercenary Guild have rules about these emergency situations. The conditions aren’t great, but it only happens when a colony is on the verge of being blown away.
Hm, yes, no good. If I don’t accept, Pokapoka will fire at us too and we’ll be blown apart. I want to run away, but can I enter hyperspace?
“Luca, can we perhaps escape into hyperspace!?”
<No, used up all my energy.>
“We’re accepting the quest!”
“IFF signal received!”
“Signal on radar! The two destroyers are enemies! Oh no!”
“This is the ship of Highway three mercenary Genma~! Tortilla Double is joining the battle~!!”
“<Welcome to hell! Have fun!>”
I peek at the radar, and I feel like most ships are enemies. Like four friendlies to six enemies.
The enemy destroyers have an ⊿ shape, with six turrets on top, and it looks like they’re all about focus fire.
“Everyone, I’m charging into the fireworks! It’s time to giant kill!”
<Uih! Ah!>
“Luca is so bright!”
<It’s fun.>
Let’s leave the spinning shining chandelier alone.
“Iris! Who is the Federation of Star Systems fighting!?”
“The Church of Yakumo Stargate. They suddenly appeared and attacked after hyperspace travel was cut off!”
What is that!?
“Isn’t that the monotheistic one that worships humanity like a god!? Is it a power struggle in this area!?”
I’ve heard about that, but I don’t remember hearing the name!
Leaving that aside, we exited about three hundred kilometers away from the Pokapoka colony, but there are a lot of battleships going at it around here.
The main battlefield is probably about thirty kilometers away from the colony. Groups led by corvettes and battleships are going at it.
The colony is returning fire, but… The colony looked like an urchin, but it’s been scraped a lot. They’re targeting turret positions.
The destroyers are on the move, and are far from the colony, but pretty close to us. About fifty kilometers away.
They also have their backs to us. Defensive lasers fire in all directions, but the six large turrets are bombarding the colony. Can we reach them… Probably?
There’s about ten seconds between shots, and they seem different from our large laser cannon turret.
“This is the Pokapoka colony, everyone get it together, our shield is down to fifty percent dammit! Do you want to not have a place to return!?>”
“<Shut up! Destroyers should be going against destroyers! What can we do!?>”
First… Torpedoes.
“We’re going to head straight to an enemy destroyer and fire torpedoes up close! Iris! Fire volleys of guided missiles! Shoot down the escorts!”
“Understood.”
“This is Tortilla Double~. We are going to attack an enemy destroyer with missiles~. We welcome direct support~!”
Don’t get careless. I switch the large laser cannon to spread mode, and start firing at approaching combat ships.
I should be firing it at the destroyer in focused mode, but I feel like despite the battle going on for what I assume is a while, its shield is holding.
“Iris, how long has this battle been going?”
“It seems to be fifteen minutes.”
“Hm, seems like it’s tough. I want to hit it with a torpedo before tortilla Double grabs its attention. And then hit it with the large laser cannon.
“<Don’t approach the destroyers! You’ll be food for the anti-air turrets!>”
“<Then how do we take them down!?>”
“<At least bring one of them down!>”
I fire up the engines to go straight towards the destroyer, but I can see on the right window three enemy frigates turning this way.
Isn’t the escort moving fast?
I fire a shot in concentrated mode, but miss. They scatter, and I hear a lock on warning.
I turn, showing them the ship’s stomach, and intercept missiles. Then I focus fire the large laser cannon on one ship, and the second shot is a direct hit. It pierces the shield… and it holds. No way! But it’s like it’s staggering, and the next shot explodes it.
“<If you lose your shield, run behind the colony!>”
“<Doesn’t Pokapoka at least have a shield ship!?>”
“<Of course not! Run behind an asteroid if you can’t do that!>”
The remaining two ships are right behind us, so I turn the turret… and they run and evade! It’s annoying, they’re faster than space pirates!
But I focus on one and… can you stop doing barrel rolls? I can’t beat them on mobility.
Then spread laser…
We move randomly too, and fire the laser cannon in a spread at the dodging frigate, until we peel off its shield. After shooting it a few times just to be sure, it explodes.
I’ve been ignoring them, but he ones Iris has been keeping at bay with missiles… are gone! They ran away!
“Enemy above!”
Says Saratha, so I turn the turret above and fire it multiple times in spread mode. I see a big explosion, maybe a frigate, but probably a combat ship.
“They’re firing torpedoes! Watch out!”
“I don’t think they’ll hit if I move randomly, but they keep doing the same kind of attack!”
<Leave it to me.>
Luca!? No, what are you… The area around the plasma nozzle starts shining brighter than a star.
“Luca, what is…!?”
<It just looks flashy.>
“I see!!”
“<What is that shiny idiot!?>”
“<I wanna shoot it, but it’s a friendly!!>”
<What are you doing!? Is he trying to get good footage!?>”
But I can see combat ships tailing us dispersing. Is it because it’s too bright for their machines’ compensation? It must be bright in the cockpit windows.
We’re ten kilometers away from a destroyer, and the battlefield is too dazzling. It must be tough without implants. I want sugar.
They must know I’m close to a destroyer, but combat ships start shooting lasers. Shield down to eighty percent, and if we’re hit with torpedoes, we might have to hide somewhere.
“<Hey Tortilla Double! I’ll cover you!>”
“Anders~! Thanks~!”
I can see out of the corner of my eye Anders’ horseshoe shaped combat ship focus firing and blowing away a combat ship.
“By the way, do you have torpedoes~?”
“<Of course we already used ours! We took down a destroyer before you got here!>”
So there were three destroyers. Scrap… Ah, it hit an asteroid.
“It’s time for torpedoes!”
“This is Tortilla Double~. Firing torpedoes~.”
“<Ah!? You have torpedoes!?>”
“<Seriously!? Cover them!>”
“<So what have you been doing!?>”
“<I’m gonna use time sale missiles to confuse the anti-air turrets!>”
“<A bomber? A fighter? That has some power!>”
We keep them in check with guided missiles, and fire the large laser cannon in spread mode in a way that it doesn’t hit friendlies. If they get close, we fire pulse lasers to drive them away.
They’re ones with tough shields that manage to hang on.
One kilometer to the destroyer, and I fire torpedoes just as our shields are about to touch. Then I move up hard with the controls.
The lasers can’t meet the torpedoes, and the destroyer’s plasma engine takes two hits at once.
I see through the lower monitor a big explosion happening on the back of the enemy ship, but it probably won’t go down, so I draw an arc to get behind it again.
I can see its large turrets turning this way, but not quite in time.
“Torpedoes reloaded. Launching.”
“<There they go! The plasma engine exploded!>”
“Uoh! He did it!>”
“Once it’s tattered, I want to board that ass!>”
There’s a big hole on the back of the destroyer, and I launch two more torpedoes at it. Then I fire up the engine to run away from next to it.
I can see through the rear monitor as the torpedoes are sucked into the destroyed part, and there’s a big explosion in the middle of the destroyer seconds later.
“<Yes! That makes it fewer turrets!>”
“<One destroyer is nothing but fodder!>”
“<Encircle it!>”
“Hyaha!!”
One destroyer left, I think as various combat ships and power armors swarm it from all directions, launching missiles in a saturation attack.
The second destroyer is five kilometers away. I probably don’t need to fire torpedoes. Oh, light.
“<The third enemy destroyer has gone down! Only small ones remain! Mop them up!!>”
Twenty minutes later, the defense of the Pokapoka colony is done.
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