Back when I was on Earth, I understood hyperspace as something like a higher dimension where FTL travel was used. A useful place present in sci-fi stories.
But in reality? People call fairy paths hyperspace, and we can rent it to move at FTL speeds by providing magic energy.
I guess it’s still a higher dimension?
Tortilla Double is currently in hyperspace on its way to another star system. These things we call hyperlanes are fairy paths.
When I was on Earth, I thought hyperlanes would be like highways constructed in hyperspace.
So what’s the difference between hyperlanes and hyperspace? These are what spirits use to go visit other star systems, so their structure is different.
But what we can see in hyperspace and hyperlanes is the same, so I don’t think there’s a difference between fairies and spirits. I haven’t heard anything about fairies becoming spirits when they grow up.
Also, just as an aside, I heard from Van, someone who reincarnated from another world, that souls use hyperlanes when moving between Earth and other planets. It really is another world if you’re trillions of light years away.
As I idly think about these things, I look outside from Tortilla Double’s cockpit.
“Master, I can look after the cockpit, so why not go to the living room?”
“It’s hard to go in there because Suzuri is setting up dominoes.”
“What is Miss Suzuri up to…”
She started it just because it looked fun. But then I hear her yelling.
“They have fallen. I saw through the security camera that Miss Vasilisa walked out half asleep and toppled them with her tentacles.”
“The person who set up dominoes in the living room, and the one who entered without a care. Who is at fault…”
“I would say it is ten percent Miss Suzuri.”
In this space age, we can use hyperspace to move, but we’re bored most of the time. We can use the time to improve ourselves, but the ship isn’t big enough to really go at it and exercise.
There’s a limit to indoor sports, and we have four power armors in the cargo bay, so playing basketball or tennis isn’t going to work.
We’re not using them as much as I thought, so we could sell a couple…
“What?”
“What is the matter… What is that?”
There are fire people that look like walkers floating and dancing outside, and what I assume are lightning people, who also look like walkers, suddenly making crosses with their arms.
What does this mean?
They bend their arms and start motioning like they’re pushing something. They look a little flustered. If only I could use telepathy…
I leave the control to Iris… but there’s very little I can do in hyperspace or a hyperlane.
Combat operations in particular are prohibited by the spirits and fairies. If one tries, they could very well be forcibly ejected and prohibited from entering again. I learned this when I had the third class ship piloting license implanted into my head.
But those gestures, it’s like they’re telling us to leave hyperspace… I’m floating.
I can feel that there’s gravity on the floor, so this… The highest level alarm echoes in the ship.
“We are being ejected from hyperspace!! Hang on to something!!!”
Iris yells, and I hang on to the cockpit and fasten my seat belt.
“Iris! Two of them are sleeping!”
“They have been knocked awake! Miss Vasilisa is clinging to a wall and Miss Suzuri is secure!”
My body is pulled to the right.
Is Tortilla Double rotating so much that the inertia control device and gravity generating device can’t keep up?
Suddenly, the outside goes from purple to deep black, and we’re back in normal space.
“Controlling attitude! Twenty-seven seconds until recovery!”
It’s a kind of strange reaction to being caught by a hyperspace catcher. Even the nature of the alert is different. And there aren’t space pirate ships on the radar.
But there is one big ship. We receive a signal from the ship, and its name is displayed.
Pickaxe.
I feel like I’ve seen this before, but let’s leave that in a corner of my mind. The attitude control is back, and I’m no longer being pulled to the side.
“Can we move?”
“Everyone is alive. Assist Miss Saratha.”
I undo the seat belt and go out, rushing into the living room. There I see Vasilisa clinging to the ceiling with her octopus tentacles and Suzuri.
“Boss! Suzuri is fine, but watch where you step, the cold storage case and the hydroponic planter were destroyed!”
“Have the lil’ killers clean them! Iris told me Saratha needs help!”
I hear ‘hey’ behind me as I knock on Saratha’s door hard.
“Saratha! Are you okay!? I’m coming in!”
I go in without hearing a response, and see her belongings all over the place. Come to think of it, the pillows in the living room are a mess.
“I got hit all over… Can you bring me a basic potion?”
“Okay, be right back.”
As I leave Saratha’s room, a viscous liquid clings to my right side, making me feel chilly.
“Darling~~! What happened~~!?”
“Saratha got hit all over, so can you cool her?”
“Sara~!?”
“Vasilisa! I’m taking a potion!”
“Fine, but I don’t know if any survived!”
“There should be reserves in a space expansion container in the cargo bay!”
I step into Vasilisa’s mixing room next to the elevator, but it’s in an awful state. Forty percent are broken, and the strawberry alcohol made a while back is all gone.
But the mid level potions Vasilisa made are okay. They’re in glass bottles, but they’re wrapped in cushioning material like the one to protect peaches, so while they fell, they’re all right.
I take a few, and hand two to Vasilisa, who is walking in the living room carefully like she’s on thin ice.
“Drink them if you need to!”
“I will, because I cut my tentacles quite a bit.”
“I am fine thanks to Vasilisa.”
I go back to Saratha’s room, and see Kori on top of her undulating like the medipod when it performs a scan.
“Saratha, drink this potion.”
“Can you get Kori off me?”
“No~! You’re bleeding~!!”
I have Saratha drink the potion, and try to have Kori drink one too, but she keeps saying no. So I open it and splash it in her.
It reminds me of when Kori didn’t take the ship’s inertia control seriously when I faced the Herald of Autumn.
“We need to throw Saratha in the simple medipod… And Vasilisa too?”
“What happened~?”
“I know the room suddenly lost gravity and I was knocked awake…”
I take an information device to check the current situation, and Iris…
“It doesn’t show the location.”
“It happens a lot~… Oh? It’s not connected to the net.”
“Hnn? That can happen when we have FTL communications? Is the server broken? Are we in a remote area?”
There’s too much to check… I open the door and breathe in.
“First, Saratha and Vasilisa need to go in the simple medipod! Kori and Suzuri, clean up the living room! I want us to be able to walk barefoot on it again! I’ll clean too once I’m done checking some things. Iris, have Tortilla Double perform a self maintenance! Can you hear me?”
“<Yes master.>”
Mid level potions can heal broken bones and internal damage. I don’t know if they need the medipod, or if they should’ve gone in it first, but I want to avoid a situation where their brains hemorrhage and they die.
“Are you really all right, Kori?”
“Yes~! I was in bed wrapped up in a blanket, so I wasn’t hurt~!”
“Check yourself in the medipod later.”
Anyway, recovering is the priority, but what happened here?
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