I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary

572 「You dumbass, good-for-nothing princess!」

We left the Windas System and moved back to the imperial capital again, then queued to use the gateway to jump to the Neepark system—the one closest to Dareinwald’s territory.

From Neepark, we’ll pass through a few systems—including the Comatt System that Chris governs—then head for Dexer, the capital system of the Dareinwald Earldom. Once we reach Dexer, we’ll hold our second wedding reception, drop by Comatt for a bit, then move on to the resort system Sierra to enjoy our vacation. After that, we’ll head to the Holz Marquisate to do the rounds and pay our respects.

According to Marquis Holz, it’s more like ‘making the rounds’ (menacing), but who knows what’s waiting for us. It’d be nice if it’s something you can solve with violence. If it isn’t, I’ll just drag the problem onto a playing field where violence can solve it. Yeah. Violence is the best!

「He’s grinning in a really creepy way…」

「That’s the face he makes when he’s thinking of something awful. Though if things aren’t urgent, that particular face is usually harmless. If he makes that face when we’re in a tight spot, then he’s really thinking of something awful, so you need to watch him.」

「Like what…?」

「He’ll suddenly produce a singing crystal from somewhere and start wrapping it around an anti-ship reactive torpedo with duct tape.」

「That’s too awful…!」

Serena and Elma were whispering like that behind me. I can hear every word, you know. Also, you two are weirdly chummy. Do you actually get along? Come to think of it, Serena gets along pretty well with both Tina and Wiska too. What, is it a club for people who love booze?

「Thank goodness—looks like we can move right away!」

「They won’t shift the gateway schedule unless there’s a really compelling reason.」

「So if it’s that bad, they just shift it, huh…?」

「Probably only for emergencies like a war or something?」

Over there, two pairs of sisters were talking about the gateway schedule. Well, Mimi and Lucia aren’t actually sisters, but… their faces are way too similar. When they’re standing side by side like that, it looks like we’ve got two sets of twins.

「Hm… Mimi hath it, and thou as well—rare indeed, to see fate-warping power of such caliber. Though any woman kept close by Master tendeth to have it, to one degree or another.」

「Fate-warping power?」

「In simpler terms, ’tis good fortune—a trait that doth unconsciously draw forth outcomes convenient to oneself. Thou canst not match Mimi, of course, but among Master’s women, thou art second.」

Kugi and Chris—no, Tamamo and Chris—were pinning me between them and having a very spiritual conversation. The hell is ‘fate-warping power’? That’s scary.

…But I can’t say I don’t get what Tamamo means.Only Chris survived the attack by her uncle’s people—who were aiming for her parents and her—even if her parents’ sacrifice played a huge part, she was very lucky. Then she drifted in an escape pod with her distress signal cut, and she still got picked up by pirates almost immediately. After that, before the pirates could open the pod, they got into a fight with me, the pirate ship carrying Chris’s pod got destroyed… and yet the pod survived. And in the end, I recovered it, and here we are.

Yeah. That’s absurd luck. Tamamo calling her the runner-up behind Mimi doesn’t seem off the mark.

「The most popular enhancements are the straightforward ones—muscle strength and explosiveness. But what I recommend is boosting reaction speed and processing speed in the brain. Ideally you balance everything, of course. But Hiro-kun is a perfect example of why reaction and processing matter. He trains his body well, but his raw physical ability is still within the bounds of an ordinary person.」

「I feel like the Captain’s case is… different, though. Sometimes his movement looks kinda weird, doesn’t it?」

「Psionic abilities still have a lot of unknowns, after all. I’ve been experimenting to see if it’s possible to acquire psionic abilities later in life, but so far it hasn’t been working out.」

Dr. Shoko and Neve were chatting about physical enhancement with Isolde and the other Imperial Guard girls. Judging by how interested the guards looked, it was probably useful talk for enhancement users. Dr. Shoko is a specialist in that area after all.

We were lounging around in the rest area like that when Black Lotus’s turn to enter the gateway came. Of course, Chris’s escort ship was behind us.

「Master, we will begin transit to the Neepark system shortly.」

「Yeah, do it. And drive safe.」

「Yes. Leave it to me.」

While we were taking it easy, Mei was in the cockpit alone, running every system of the Black Lotus flawlessly. I seriously can’t thank her enough. I’ll have to think of some kind of make-up gift later. Sierra System is, in a way, like Mei’s hometown.

…Though just because it’s her hometown doesn’t mean there’s anything special to—hmm. Well, we can at least visit the Orient workshop, or its branch office.

☆★☆

The gateway destination, the Neepark System, was a direct holding of the Imperial Household. Apparently, any system with a gateway installed becomes strategically vital, so that’s how it ends up.

Naturally, security is tight. The security level is kept at maximum at all times, and if fighting breaks out in-system—pirate raids, attacks, anything—the gateway system defense fleet comes screaming in at a ridiculous speed.

That influence reaches nearby systems too. If they detect flashy gunfights, it takes longer, but they’ll still come flying in even from the neighboring system. Sometimes the gateway defense fleet even patrols the adjacent system, and they hunt pirates to a degree you could call obsessive.

On the flip side, you could say that influence fades once you’re two systems away. That said, if the moment the gateway fleet’s influence stops, pirates suddenly swarm a system and it turns into a dangerous mess, it raises questions about the ruling noble’s competence. So a lot of systems that are two jumps away from a gateway keep their public order locked down with serious effort.

Meaning: on the route from Neepark to Dexer, the neighboring Merkitt system is still strongly under the gateway defense fleet’s shadow, and the next one over, Ziegul, is run by a noble who’s putting in the work—so it’s safe.

The problem is the next one after that: the Wellick System. To be blunt, security there isn’t great. It’s not outright ‘pirate paradise’, but the security level is, at best, lower-mid… and if you’re unlucky, it dips into ‘upper-low’ really fast. Pirates flow in from there into the neighboring Ziegul System and into Comatt, which Chris governs.

Why did I bother giving you the geography lecture?

Because of this.

「Are you serious? There are pirates interdicting the Black Lotus even though we’re flying alongside a high-speed cruiser that screams ‘noble ship’ no matter how you look at it?」

Grumbling, I sprinted toward Krishna.

I’d assumed even the dumbest idiot wouldn’t try to target the Black Lotus while it was being protected by the Donner, Chris’s escort high-speed cruiser. And yet, here we are.

Right now, the Black Lotus had the Antlion and the Morrigan attached to the external connection hatch, so we were moving at a painfully slow pace. If we were in a hurry, we’d undock and fly separately—way faster that way—but we weren’t pressed for time, so we’d been cruising in that configuration through FTL. Sure, that probably makes us easy to interdict, but still. Still.

Elma and Serena are probably sprinting for their own ships right about now too.

「Boss! You can launch anytime!」

「All checks complete—ammo’s good too!」

「Thanks!」

I had already gotten word from Mimi and Kugi that they were aboard, so I dashed up the ramp and boarded the Krishna myself.

「I’ve been waiting! Now, let’s go!」

「The hell you are. Get off the ship, you dumbass, good-for-nothing princess!」

When I reached the cockpit, Lucia was sitting in the sub-operator seat.

Oh, you are so not getting away with this. I’m going to chew you out—thoroughly, relentlessly—later. Brace yourself.