We have arrived at the Pokapoka Flower Field Prime, which ignores the vacuum and extremely low temperature.
This is a strange place, where plants grow on certain crafted asteroids.
“Let’s go down to the colony and visit the Mercenary Guild… Where’s the colony?”
“Wait a second. It’s about three hundred kilometers away, I’ll mark the direction.”
Saratha checks the reaction on the radar, and since it’s about three hundred kilometers away, I take us there at cruising speed.
Everyone’s strapped in, and we’re all checking the windows and monitors.
Most asteroids have plants, but apparently they maintain their environment with natural star shields.
Fungi that exists around this area takes root, and the fluids they secret deflect the vacuum, low temperatures, and radiation. They also hold gases like oxygen, and evaporated water, not letting them go outside.
Over billions of years, these fungi created a shield that protects not only themselves, but then dozens of centimeters, then a whole area, then a whole asteroid.
The Alliance, or rather, the whole galaxy uses this technique, and the technology to prevent air from escaping ships was based on these fungi’s fluids.
Nowadays mechanical star shields are safer and larger scale than natural fluids, but apparently many people live using this natural technique.
“It’s strange to see plants growing in space. I might go crazy.”
“It’s like hyperspace, but I guess that’s still better.”
“Like hyperspace… Come to think of it, what would you see if you used magic energy sight?”
“I don’t sense magic energy, Suzuri. But you can see with your artificial eyes, right boss?”
“Won’t you collapse if you do~?”
“I recommend starting from the colony and going from there.”
I’m not doing it while piloting. Just because I did it once… What? I can hear we’re getting a distress signal.
“Attacked by space pirates. Requesting help. Confirm coordinates. A minute away through short jump.”
“Let’s go rescue them. Everyone, get ready for combat. Coordinates set, jumping to hyperspace in three, two, one. Exiting in sixty seconds!”
“Tortilla Double is in combat mode! Combat operation time is forty minutes!”
“No issues on radar! Everything working as intended!”
“Vasilisa, be on stand by and take out anything that sticks to us with magic.”
“Understood! But I’m sure your ship will be fine unless something crazy happens.”
“The issue is that we do indeed come across such crazy situations.”
“We received a response! They are space pirates! Three medium combat ships, eight small combat ships, and twenty armors! The ship that sent the distress signal is a large transport ship that looks like a bottle! No other mercenaries responded~. They’re sending IFF codes!”
If I can start with the medium combat ships, that’s what I’ll do…
“Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one, zero!”
We end up close to an asteroid with blue flower fields, and there really is a large bottle shaped ship. It’s highlighted on the monitor with a faint blue color. And the ships flying around it are marked red.
I put my right hand on the turret control that’s like a trackball mouse, and point the large laser cannon at a medium combat ship. Turret output is at eighty percent.
The rectangular box shaped medium combat ship fires what looks like a missile at the ship that asked for help, and doesn’t show signs of moving. It’s a fixed missile battery, and they’re fifteen kilometers away.
It’s not particularly difficult, so I fire.
Their shield doesn’t hold, and they’re flung away after a hit right in the middle. The rectangular box splits in two and explodes.
“Open channel. This is the Grassland one mercenary Genma. Pirates, if you surrender, you can live a little longer.”
“<Drop dead!>”
“<Keep dreamin’ moron!>”
“<Grasslands are weaklings!>”
“<Go pluck grass! Isn’t that what you do!?>”
“<Wait? Is one ship gone?>”
“<Ah? Where’s number two…>”
I fire the laser cannon in spread mode and get lucky, because I hit two small ships.
I fire it at the other medium combat ships… and they go down. I go around moving randomly at combat speed to dodge, but don’t forget to approach the ship that sent the distress signal. Smart missiles are loaded, and while torpedoes are always loaded, I doubt I’ll use them.
I don’t know if they’re aware that the three medium combat ships are down, but the small combat ships are all charging at me, and I take one down with the spread laser cannon.
They come without fear and fire lasers and missiles, and an attack I don’t really get, but everything except solid projectiles is blocked by the shield.
“Shield at ninety-six percent.”
“I am holding off the missiles.”
“Take care of that, Iris.”
They’re faster, and it’s sad how they take ten seconds to pass by me and get on my ass. But I fire four smart missiles as they pass, taking down two small combat ships, and two more stop moving after explosions.
So there are three ships behind us, blabbering on an open channel. I turn the laser cannon a hundred eighty degrees to target them, and two ships explode without any issues.
The last one tries to run, but can’t escape the large laser cannon, and disappears.
“All that’s left is the armors…”
It’s pretty much over at this point, but I’m still moving randomly to dodge. As we were exiting hyperspace, we were hit with a small projectile that pierced the shield and hit the ship. But it only dented the armor.
Half the armors around the bottle shaped large transport ship turn this way, but most of their attacks are deflected by the shield.
They’re now in range of the defensive lasers, so Iris is shooting them. I stop the turret, and instead use the secondary guns’ pulse laser to start shooting them down. The armors go down without much effort.
“It’s over. Kori, check if the transport ship is safe. Suzuri, start self maintenance to check for damage to equipment. Saratha, continue watching our surroundings. Vasilisa… Can you calculate the reward for shooting them down? Iris, send out salvage drones to collect scrap.”
Everyone responds, and Suzuri turns to a monitor to check the self maintenance.
This level of space pirates isn’t a threat eighty percent of the time, but we still need to be careful about solid ammunition like missiles and torpedoes. Other attacks aren’t a threat.
“Darling~! The transport ship is asking us to wait until they repair the hatch~! Apparently the cargo bay door was done in right at the start!”
“Then tell them Tortilla Double will begin salvaging. And if they’re still repairing after we’re done, we’ll charge them.”
“Got it~!”
“Boss, they were all small fry, so the total is thirteen thousand six hundred. The medium ships were all worth two thousand.”
“That’s more than I expected. The rest depends on the salvage… But the laser cannon’s firepower is too high.”
“It makes sense to prioritize safety.”
“And we accepted the quest to destroy comets because of it. It’s a give and take.”
The salvage is worth more than I expected. The entries in the list of goods we found today we have on the intranet keeps growing.
We pick up a lot of chuuzoku rare metal from the space pirates we destroyed, but interestingly enough, quite a bit of wood too. Logs.
They’re called blue horizon, and I can see through the ship’s camera drones bringing in cylinders that are clear like a summer sky.
“They’re really blue. Are they really wood…?”
“Ah!? Blue lumber!?”
“Suzuri broke again.”
“We’re the second most delicate and easy to break items, aren’t we?”
“Who’s the first?”
“Darling~~~~.”
Don’t look at me with those fishy eyes, Vasilisa. It’s not like I like to break.
“A blue horizon log is worth at least a hundred thousand puni!! Like!! Kyuu!! Hin!!”
We got something good. But is this okay? Is it contraband? Iris?
“Generally speaking, things picked up from space pirates are the property of who picked them. Unless we find a tag, and we did not.”
Well, I wasn’t worried about that…But it’s fine.
Join my patreon to support me and read ahead.
