“You found a nuclear weapon?”
So he’s saying they scanned Tamani Oishi No. 3 and found a nuclear weapon. And possession of nuclear weapons, even by planetary states or star systems, is a serious violation of an agreement, that will make the Alliance send battleships.
Suffice to say, a situation like this can only be bad economically. Trust plummets, and interstellar corporations may consider leaving the star system altogether.
This is terrible for a country. In this space era, interstellar companies that are strong in the field of transportation between planets pulling out will cause a recession on par with a bubble bursting.
And so, militaries are very sensitive to anything that might violate the agreement. It might affect their salaries, pensions, and booze money. And I assume their scanner is more precise than Tortilla Double’s.
As for me, I didn’t scan Tamani Oishi No. 3 when I accepted the quest. A mercenary scanning a ship is understood as them checking for a bounty. Not something you do to the person who hired you.
“Yes. We asked for an explanation, and they opened fire.”
“So you moved to forcibly strip them of their weaponry and board them?”
“We followed procedure.”
It’s not a problem if we have a nuclear weapon, right~? It’s fine to have it, right? These aren’t hoodlums, they’re proper soldiers, aren’t they?
“<Genma!! The radar picked up two corvettes approaching!>”
Saratha is making a ship-wide announcement. I didn’t think about equipment to communicate in the ship. I don’t like moving around with a smartphone in hand…
“Kori, stay here with the lieutenant commander, I’m going back to the cockpit.”
“Wait, I will also go.”
“People can’t enter the cockpit wearing shoes.”
“What about the inspection!?”
“Isn’t your business with the cargo bay?”
I run, but the lieutenant commander follows me, and Kori’s behind him with an expressionless face. Scary. Fine, come along.
“Please take off your shoes and put on slippers when you exit the elevator. I have pairs for guests.”
“Are you actually serious about that rule?”
“It’s connected to the living spaces.”
“You’re not telling me a mercenary fights with house slippers on, right?”
“I was resting when the last battle broke out, so I was barefoot… Are you listening, Saratha?”
Only being able to communicate through smartphone is so inconvenient. Maybe I should buy a small communications device that hangs from my ear.
“Only two corvettes, and no response to hails.”
“Enough, scan them.”
“Got it. Both have bounties. They’re pirates.”
“Okay, switch the shield to full spherical shape, activate defensive lasers, have the AI control the turret and fire at the right? Or the corvette above.”
“Switching shields, activating defensive lasers, main cannon firing. Hit! Corvette down.”
The elevator stops, I throw my outdoor shoes and dash through the living room, and Kori puts her hand on her gun to urge the lieutenant commander to take off his shoes. No no, you need to stop that.
“Second shot missed!”
“I’m here, fire again.”
“<That pissy attack’s not gonna hit!!>”
It hit your friends. The enemy corvette is fifteen kilometers away, and has deflector shields in front. And it does a good job dodging another shot of the big laser cannon.
“I’ll take the controls. Saratha, tell the patrol we’re engaging the two, I mean, the corvette, and we’re not going to shoot them.”
“Got it. This is Tortilla Double, we are engaged in battle with a space pirate corvette, and we are not hostile to the patrol. I repeat, this vessel is not hostile…”
What’s that patrol doing? Ah, they left Tamani Oishi No. 3 and the three ships took formation.
The guided missiles are loaded, so I fire up the engine and approach the corvette. Its main gun is attacking, but it’s not strong enough to break our shield, and the missiles are being intercepted by the defensive lasers.
I adjust the trajectory so I sort of glide by the side of the corvette, and keep it in check with the secondary gun. Once I’m one kilometer away from it, I fire four guided missiles at its belly.
I immediately change course to attack again, but it looks like the guided missiles hit. Pretty badly actually, and there’s a big explosion.
“Hey! Mercenary! Status!?”
“Lieutenant commander, can you at least knock? The cockpit is holier than a maiden’s flower garden.”
“Are you mocking me you little…!?”
“As you can see, both reactions disappeared from the radar. But I want to stop your friends from approaching to salvage them.”
The mid-sized ships are approaching the wreck of the corvette, so I move the large laser cannon and take aim at the patrol with the secondary cannon.
“What are you a mad dog!? Do you know what will happen if you shoot in this situation!?”
“A dog is a dog, but a dog that’s been made to wait in front of its food. Saratha, give him the communications device.”
“Dammit, commander! This is Klaus! Mercenaries overreact when you steal their remains! Step away!”
“<Klaus, there are pirate survivors. We are going to retrieve them, not steal the remains.>”
“You heard it, can you point that away?”
I will. Not that I was going to shoot, I turned it off before pointing. I just wanted to rile them up so they wouldn’t look down on me… I see a light through the corner of my eye.
“Genma, Tamani Oishi No. 3 disappeared from the radar!”
“Ah? What happened, lieutenant commander!? Step in front please! Wait, you’re already here.”
“Hey, point the camera at the transport ship. It self-destructed…”
Ah? It’s easily visible from the bow, so I turn the ship towards it… And see the ship that looked like three boxes in a row is now in nine pieces.
I rush Tortilla Double towards it.
“S-Suzuri~!?”
“Genma! That’s bad! It’s definitely leaking air!”
It didn’t explode or anything, so I can only assume it self-destructed. Zooming with the electronic telescope shows defensive armor and small ships thrown into zero gravity. I try to give more power to the engine to get there faster, but a mid-sized ship blocks our path.
“Lieutenant commander, we want to go rescue them, but can you do something about that?”
“A-ah, communications device… Commander! The mercenary ship is following the guild contract and headed to rescue! Please step aside!”
This is so annoying.
▽▽▽
They didn’t need my rescue, because everyone was in armor or small ships. The large patrol ship is fine, so everyone’s on board as a temporary measure. And Lieutenant Commander Klaus is still here. Oh right, he was here for an inspection.
Suzuri and the others aboard there are okay, but the lieutenant commander says they were immediately arrested.
“Looks like it’s over for now. Since you’re involved, you have a right to hear about it, but will you exercise it or abandon it?”
“Tell us what we can hear.”
“Tamani Oishi No. 3 built trust as a company over ten years, biding its time before doing smuggling operations. The captain and vice-captain told us after being administered with truth serum that it was a front for space pirates.”
I should’ve just said no.
“What are you talking about~?”
“Apparently they found it in the scrap belt of Mishun Prime. They say interesting things can be found lying there sometimes.”
“Are~ they~ stupid~?”
Can’t you see his weird expression? But I guess there are interesting things there!
“So that was the testimony of the captain of Tamani Oishi No. 3, next will be from the survivors of the corvette… Ah…”
He frowns.
“Apparently it was space people who were going to buy that smuggled nuclear weapon. They said word got out to space pirates with a hyperspace capture, so they figured if it was stolen and they stole it back, it was basically free, so they came here.”
“So we got involved in a banquet of idiocy.”
“But what was the nuclear weapon for?”
“Ah… We have information about that too. Apparently they were going to use it for an attack on a station in To Akul Prime.”
“That sounds familiar~…”
He looks confused, so we tell him about the attack on the station in Mishun Prime.
“That happened…”
“But if they were making money smuggling, they could’ve just done that.”
“Yes. Apparently only higher ups like the captain and vice-captain were involved in smuggling. The rest of the staff and escorts were not involved. We got that confession.”
“Ah~. So that includes Suzuri~. Thank goodness~. I talked to her a lot, so I was shocked to hear about smuggling a nuclear weapon.”
“She said she joined three years ago… Poor thing, the company’s going under.”
“Oh? But why did the ship self-destruct?”
“Apparently it was out of desperation. The plan was to get in an escort ship and run while the transport ship self-destructed. They were expecting the other escorts and patrols to be destroyed by the corvettes.”
Well, corvettes are big. They’re twice the size of combat ships, so they’re much stronger.
“And they would have gotten away if it wasn’t for our Tortilla Double.”
“By the way, they stored the contraband in containers that blocked our scans. So why did our scan pick it up? Because it was destroyed in combat. Don’t worry, I will testify that you are not guilty.”
Why do all this nonsense… Seriously.
▽▽▽
We’re staying here for the next forty-eight hours, so the lieutenant commander leaves, and then we exercise our right to salvage. We scrap every bit of iron we can from those two corvettes and the frigate. However, we don’t have permission to salvage the big transport ship.
After the restrictions are lifted, we head to the Akul colony with the patrol unit, which now has more ships, we stop by the Mercenary Guild to report on what happened, so we’re really tired.
Their investigation takes three days, and I feel sorry for their inspector, who looks even more tired than us.
“About the cancellation of the quest… Can you wait a little?”
“Eh? Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just that in this case, you can demand to receive reparations from the Tamani Oishi corporation.”
“I see? Then…?”
“We might be able to compensate you for the quest reward. There are precedents, so it will depend on the negotiations.”
I strike a pose without thinking. The pieces of Tamani Oishi No. 3 have been seized by To Akul Prime, and I’m sure the armors and small ships will be taken by the company as their property. But being under the Galactic Credit Union Alliance means the Mercenary Guild is strong.
“Please don’t get your hopes up, it might not work out.”
“Well, it’s still big, because I had given up on those twenty thousand puni. I got seventeen thousand in space pirate bounties, but I wasn’t expecting to fire torpedoes, so our expenses are a bit harsh too…”
“It makes sense, if a mid-size ship shot down a frigate. Ah, can I please have your physical card?”
Hn? I look for the card, as I’m told I’m now grassland two.
“Wasn’t that fast?”
“What did you expect after taking down an infamous frigate with a mid-size ship? We, the guild, hope you accept more quests.”
Ah… So it’s like I had the points but was missing something. I hand the card, the inspector takes it behind a reception desk, and returns right away. It looks the same.
“That will be all. Welcome to the Akul colony, grassland two rank mercenary Genma.”
“Thank you. I’ll be accepting work here, so please look after me.”
After exchanging greetings, I leave the reception desk and hear an announcement, and a guy holding a ticket that looks like a mercenary sits where I was.
The Mercenary Guild here is thriving. Compared to the mostly bored employees in Zadar, here it’s like the waiting room of a town doctor or a general hospital of a prefecture.
After leaving the guild, I’m greeted by a townscape that curves upward. This colony is a cylinder, and its rotation generates a cylindrical force that creates gravity.
This means that half of it is a city, and half is a sky projected by screens and an artificial sun. I understand this in theory, but it feels weird to me that as things go up, they don’t fall from towns.
Also, I was curious, so I asked in the guild what the most common method of generating gravity is, magic or rotation, and apparently it’s the latter.
In theory, it’s possible to use magic to generate gravity with the same level of technology used to dig holes in asteroids, but it’s not very popular because if there’s a malfunction that causes an interruption in the supply of magic energy, everything will become weightless.
The Zadar colony was an asteroid that was dug, so it became diamond shaped.
Being a very high tech colony means Akul can use rotation, but that in itself is proof of its prowess. Also, the many transport ships coming here means the economy is booming, and it’s safe enough to maintain that.
There are slums, but… I guess that can’t be helped. Not everyone can keep walking, not everyone can reach with a helping hand, and not everyone will take one.
And so, well, I’m troubled when I find her.
“Suzuri…?”
“Hnu, Genma…”
I see a mouse beast person in a back alley of the main road, wearing a dirty suit.
The Tamani Oishi corporation is in the process of falling apart… Come to think of it, where does she live? Maybe she can’t make it back to the colony where she lived. Her clothes are dirty, so I assume she can’t use magic.
“Plea.”
“Plea?”
“Please hire me! I’ll do anything!!”
That’s an excellent dogeza.
Another harem member. 😄
Thanks for the treat.
I do not like dogeza. It offends every nerve I have. The stench of the powerful over the powerless with their faux need to feel good about themselves with a hand out but not a hand up. Just now every xtian’s hand is out to ensconse the powerless in jebus goo so I’m a bit disgusted at the display.
But it is “notaslave” even if it’s groveling in the muck starving /sarc. I did expect this to devolve to a loli harem, if it does I’ll will be pissed, not the translators fault but I will pull funding if it does. Same as for the LN this has borrowed the concept from.
I hope the mouse girl isn’t dolled up like a pedophiles toy but that will most likely happen. There are no legal lolis just unredacted pedophiles who squall that they.