It’s been an hour since something happened to me that you wouldn’t think would happen in 2024.
Firstly, I found food and water. It’s not very good, but I have about half a year worth of hard blocks that taste like rice and cover all my nutritional needs. And five years worth of water.
I’ve tried chatting with the support AI of Tortilla Double, but I can’t. It’s pretty smart compared to the AI I know, but it’s like a really well made chatbot that only responds to things about the ship and what’s in it.
I’m going back to the living quarters for a bit. This is a shared room that has direct access to the cockpit and elevator. It’s like a living room.
I then pass through the cockpit and enter the room to my left. This is a bedroom, and it has simple clothes in vacuum sealed packs. I quickly get dressed and go back to the cockpit.
My daily necessities are sorted, so I sit on the hard cockpit chair and sigh.
I have a living room and bedroom, but the furniture is all very simple, or cheap. A folding chair lifestyle isn’t the best kind of life. Having to sit there drains my spirit too.
The bed is also just covered with what I assume is artificial leather, and it’s in a pretty rough condition too. Can I sleep on it? I really don’t know. I think a sleeping bag would be better.
I don’t know everything about where I am, so I don’t know if the techniques I learned in Japan will do me any good. Forget everything…
Let’s approach it like it’s that space sandbox game I poured over a thousand hours into.
I need to look for places with people, where I can trade, work as a mercenary, and overall just pick what I want to do. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll think about it again.
Thankfully, Tortilla Double was a battleship. From what I can see on an electronic catalog, it’s a gunship that serves as mobile firepower for carriers, large supply ships, and shield ships (I don’t really understand this one), so ships lacking in armament.
It was made with the intention to serve along with large ships, but there’s a lot that can be done with it. Probably.
It says it can store up to three thousand tons of cargo. I have no idea what the standards for the volume of goods are in this spaceship age, but I assume I’ll be fine.
To be honest, I’m excited. I was always on business trips, so I can’t remember enjoying traveling. Even buying gifts to take back became routine.
But it’s not all fun and games. This is space. And remembering that round core yelling and longing for space makes it so I can’t contain myself.
“Spaaaaaaaace!!!!! It’s space!!! What’s out there!? I wanna go! Let’s go! Let’s enjoy this crazy situation!”
Yelling makes me feel better, but what awaits me isn’t fun. Tortilla Double has two nuclear fusion reactors, but they aren’t moving. Is it using a battery to do the least it can to maintain itself? And was that what immediately turned on life support when I came in?
The AI recommends activating both nuclear fusion cores. That way the drones can operate, I can produce missiles through the alchemist crafter, supply power to the shield, among other things. And the moving ship would be visible to others.
The words space pirates pop into my head. But there aren’t any, right!!!!? But the army could find me! Gahaha!
“Activate the main engine and maintain cruise mode.”
I could use the touch panel in front of me, but the AI supports voice recognition.
Now that the ship is moving, it shows multiple spots that need repairs, so I send out maintenance drones. In the meantime, I should get a feel for the ship and check its armament. Also, this ship’s cruising speed is two hundred meters per second. I don’t think it exceeds the speed of sound.
As for armament, I try shooting an asteroid with the big laser cannon turret above, and it ends up looking like a sata andagi that got a bite taken out of it. But the secondary guns on either side of the cockpit only scratch it. The difference in power is pretty great.
Thirty minutes pass as I do some light exercises like this, and with the repairs done, it’s time to see how I can go to where people are. I could use the hyperdrive, but where should I go?
And as I think about that, there’s a warning.
I’m being scanned by five ships, and a beeping noise echoes in the cockpit.
“<Hey chief! What are you doing out here all alone? Did you get called here too?>”
A red faced middle aged man with a vulgar grin appears on my monitor. I haven’t authorized transmission, so he can’t see mine. But this is…
“I’m not doing anything.”
“<Don’t be so cold!>”
All of a sudden, the radar shows a medium size ship and four small ones thirty kilometers from here. It shows their names too, but that doesn’t matter. Ah, they’re in range of my main cannon. That’s bad news, sir. You can’t get near it. Ah.
What are the rules of engagement here?
I feel like I can’t just open fire. I’ll just scan them back.
Hum, so the medium sized one is an armed transport ship, and the small ones are transport ships too. Wait, they have bounties on their heads? Five hundred puni each. Puni???????
“<Don’t go ’round scanning everything! Gettin’ pretty cocky for a little civilian ship, aren’t you!? We’re gonna have to kill you!>”
Wah, they’re firing. And the shield has gone down to 99%. Eh… Let’s cut communications. And kill them.
“Take main systems to combat mode.”
The generator rises from 40% to 80%, and if I press the accelerator pedal, it gives me more speed than before. I use the sub thrusters to move around randomly, take aim at the medium sized ship with my large turret, and switch from focus firing to spread shot.
“Fire the main cannon.”
Light that’s weaker than when I fired before illuminates a larger area. I guess I could call this laser shotgun. I feel like I hit all five, but two of the small ones have their shields penetrated and explode.
Of the remaining three, I only scraped the medium one’s shield, but the monitor on my desk says the others lost their shields. Handy.
“<Number two! Number three! Dammit! How did that weird ship!?>”
“<Dammit, isn’t that a battleship!?>”
“<Wah? The scan didn’t even show a mercenary affiliation, let alone military…>”
Apparently this area of effect weapon can be fired in succession. Let’s hit them again. Fire!
“<Number four got blown away! Damn it all!>”
“<Number five! I’m charging close to it! Hey! Damn you! It’s my turn!>”
Shut up already! Can’t I cut this off!?
But by the time I’m about to fire my third shot, they’ve figured it out. The laser cannon turret can fire in 360º horizontally, but only 180º vertically. If they can get under my ship, I can only use weak defensive weapons and missiles. But this is space, so I can turn.
I turn the ship so it’s upside down, and the way my body gets turned in a weird direction makes me miss both my timing and my shot. This is actually a lot harder than I thought!
The enemy is coming at me at nine hundred meters per second. That means despite being thirty meters away before, it can pass by me in twenty seconds. I fire the pulse laser before it can reach it, but it flies in the wrong direction. Damn, it’s all about practice, but are there more dots on my radar!?
I make the quick decision to use my sub thrusters and rapidly ascend straight up. And that decision is correct, as I see the dots on the radar coming for the bottom of my ship in the form of colored lines from the window of the cockpit.
I can see through the cameras on the lower exterior of the ship that they are eight bipedal weapons. The radar calls them power armor.
Ah, this isn’t good. I just heard clunking sounds.
Three are attached to my ship, so I use eight defensive lasers on the bottom of the ship to fire at them with AI control.
One is silently blown away, but the remaining two block with what look like tower shields.
How did they even make it past the shield to reach the ship!? The manual said it deflects stuff like debris too! And what’s even the relative velocity considering how fast I’m going!?
Tortilla Double is maintaining a speed of four hundred meters per second, but those two manage to hang on to it, and one gives its shield to the other to pick up what looks like an axe.
“Dammit! Missiles, small, small…”
Bam! Bam! I hear a noise echoing through the whole ship. Are you trying to brute force your way in!? I turn my ship right to try to pry them off with centrifugal force, but they’re still there. And the medium and small ships are firing, along with the five power armors that didn’t manage to grab onto me.
The shield is deflecting the lasers. That’s good for now, and the monitor shows smart missiles have been loaded into the four bottom VLS. Two for each power armor. I’ll go straight forward for a bit and fire.
The ports open, and the missiles are fired by the catapults. A few seconds later, they use their propellant to hit both power armors from the front and back, leaving only their legs.
“Load more missiles. They can be normal guided missiles.”
I leave the AI to use the defensive lasers on the ones getting close. I should’ve done this from the start.
I turn the ship 180º, the G’s hit me like I’m on a roller coaster, and I aim and fire the secondary cannon. The small ship’s shield is pierced, and it explodes. Uwa, I actually hit it.
“<Uoo! I-I surrender! I surrender!>”
The defensive lasers are doing work, because there are only three power armors left. Apparently they get blown away if it hits them in the torso. Those shields were really strong…
I confirm that the main cannon’s reticle is on the medium sized ship, and fire in its spread mode. He says something, but I can’t hear it.
The medium sized ship is pierced and explodes. The power armors are also caught by the main cannon and disappear.
“Ahh! I need more practice.”
I didn’t even realize I stopped breathing at some point, and my body is begging for air. I take a deep breath, check if my pants are wet, and I’m relieved to see they look dry.
I could have the missile production equipment replace the ones I used, but I don’t have materials. That leaves me with two unguided torpedoes and twelve guided missiles.
The ship’s hull wasn’t breached, but there’s a big tear. I want to have the repair drones fix it, but… I don’t have the materials to swap the armor either, so the diagnostic is to do emergency repairs.
It won’t affect my performance in combat, but the diagnostic still recommends changing it.
Ahh… Oh yeah, Tortilla Double is loaded with retrieval drones.
I shoot them out of the exit, and have them scavenge the pirates I shot down. I hang my head, still on the pilot seat, when suddenly, an electric beeping noise echoes. Another message?
“<Hey~! You there! Hey~! Please! I’m stranded~! Help me~!>”
A female voice echoes in the cockpit. The reaction is pretty far away, on the scrap two hundred fifty kilometers away.
Is that friend or foe?
Thanks for the treat.