Table of Contents

Color Inserts

Table of Contents Page

Title Page

Copyrights and Credits

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Arein System’s Trading Colony

Chapter 2: Shopping with Mimi

Chapter 3: Medical Exams

Chapter 4: Factory Tours

Chapter 5: Two Trouble-Magnets Attract

Chapter 6: The Pirate Hunting Unit

Chapter 7: Lieutenants Have Layers

Chapter 8: The Second Great Pirate Cleanup

Chapter 9: A Colony Under Attack

Chapter 10: Lieutenant Cute-but-Annoying

Epilogue

Afterword

About the Author

Newsletter

Prologue

 

DAZZLING LIGHT AWOKE ME. A glowing, technicolor hallway stretched out into the distance. Far ahead lay our destination—no more than a fragile, tiny gleam. A single star on the horizon.

“Hey. You’re not asleep, are you?” someone grumbled behind me.

Whose voice was that? Where even am I?

A holographic display contained information about this strange flight. A steering column sat before me, equipped with more buttons and gauges than I could wrap my head around. I studied that crazy light corridor outside the windows. It seemed to go on forever, but maybe it was just a display too? Nah, it looked way too realistic to be a video.

“Master Hiro?” The next voice was more worried than angry.

Master Hiro? My name is Satou Takahiro. Still, why does that voice sound so familiar?

Footsteps padded toward me.

“Ouch?!” Something smacked me in the head.

“You’ve got some nerve, napping in the cockpit.”

“E-Elma, violence is bad.”

I turned, holding my aching head. Two women stood before me—one angry, one worried, just like their voices.

“Oh!” I gasped. “Now I remember.”

“Remember what?”

Elma. That was the pissed-off one. Long, tapered elf ears poked up out of her fine, silver hair. Those pale locks accentuated her fair skin, slim figure, and modest chest. Despite her elfin appearance, she was decked out in high-tech merc gear from head to toe and kept a laser gun on her hip. Really, the ears were the most elf-like thing about Elma.

She’d ended up on this ship through an unfortunate accident. During a large-scale pirate crackdown, her ship had gone on a rampage and had almost destroyed itself crashing into an imperial vessel. I’d paid off the steep penalty she faced, but it left her so deeply in debt to me that she was working on my ship to pay it off.

“I remember…stuff about you two…and other stuff,” I answered.

“Did you forget about us?” the girl hiding behind Elma asked, looking crestfallen.

“No, no, I’m just too sleepy to think,” I said.

The other girl was Mimi, a bubbly woman with light-brown hair and eyes. She hid adorably behind Elma, which sadly meant I couldn’t see much of her impressive chest. If Elma was modest in that area, Mimi was downright outrageous, like a light cruiser compared to a battleship.

Like Elma, Mimi had fallen on some hard times before becoming a member of this crew. She too had ended up in debt, but in her case, it was due to her parents’ unfortunate deaths. I paid her debt to the colony and gave the poor girl a place on my ship, where she could be safe from life on the streets.

Mimi’s debt didn’t really seem like her fault. Something about the outrageous fees stank of bureaucracy. The colony blamed her parents, but that didn’t check out with me. After silencing a nasty public servant with a wad of cash, I spirited her away from her colony. The whole thing was an unpleasant affair, and I was glad to get Mimi out of there. With the money I earned as a mercenary, I could have easily just supported Mimi on my own, but it didn’t hurt to give her a job on the ship. Thus, she was training to be an operator in charge of our communications.

“Sleepy or not, it’s just plain cruel to forget your own crewmates,” Elma said. “Especially after you keep taking turns with us.”

“Taking turns? That’s not a nice way of describing it,” I said.

“It’s true, though.”

“Well, I can’t deny that.”

I had a…certain kind of relationship with Elma and Mimi.

There was a lot about this universe I didn’t quite get: customs, habits, laws, and so on. So much remained inscrutable to me as a Japanese man. One of the weirdest customs I’d learned was that women on a man’s ship were instantly seen as his mistresses.

Weird, right? It was weird to me too, but what could I do? I was still learning about this place and all its customs, so for now, I had to just go with the flow.

Besides, both Mimi and Elma had joined my crew knowing full well what it meant. I was their best option, and it wasn’t like I’d offered to help just to get in their pants. I truly did want to rescue both of them and build up my crew in the meantime.

Little did I know my kind offers were basically propositions. It didn’t matter what I intended—that was what they heard, and they were both in such dire straits that refusing my offer would leave their lives and bodies in grave danger. Mimi would have been stuck in the slums, passed around by thugs like a toy until she was discarded in some miserable back alley. Elma wouldn’t have fared much better. If she failed to pay her debt, they would have sent her to a prison colony full of former space pirates eager to get their hands on a pretty little mercenary like her.

So, really, they didn’t have many appealing options when I made my offers. That was how we kind of all ended up in a relationship together. You might accuse me of being a monster just trying to use them for sex and, well, I can’t entirely disagree. But hey, they offered themselves freely to me. Would anyone really say no to a cute little shorty and a fiery elf?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

I was no saint. I tended to think with my junk at times like these; no monuments would be erected to honor my pure intentions. I was the kind of guy who always picked the sexy options in video games. Sorry, not sorry.

I began, “Well, if you don’t like being with me—”

“Nobody said that,” Elma interrupted. She turned away, but not quickly enough to hide the flush in her cheeks.

Chapter 1:
The Arein System’s Trading Colony

 

“HM, LET’S SEE,” Mimi said. “The Arein System contains two habitable planets, three research colonies, and one trading colony.”

She went on to describe how the system thrived thanks to export of its high-tech goods, made possible by its large-scale import of materials. This produced a steady stream of merchant ships, which, in turn, brought about a steady stream of space pirates. Even with the Empire protecting them, the Arein System was simply too large to shield completely. After all, it didn’t have large asteroid belts like the Tarmein System did. A few of those pirates always slipped through, and that was where we’d find our mercenary work.

“And that’s a summary of the Arein System,” Mimi concluded.

“Bravo!” She blushed furiously as I applauded. “So, what colony should we go to?”

“Research colonies typically do not admit people other than researchers and management, so we should go to the trading colony,” she said.

“If we ordered stuff at a trading colony,” Elma chimed in, “then we could visit a research colony while it’s delivered. It’s not exactly a party, though. Not much sightseeing to do in those places.”

“Sounds stuffy to me,” I grumped. “Do the people who live there hate fun or something?”

“Stations like that are full of brainiacs who enjoy researching,” Elma said.

“Eww.” I felt bored just imagining all those workaholics who saw research as a hobby. I wouldn’t last a day in a dull place like that. “Elma, let’s set our sights on the trading colony instead.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” Elma, sitting in the copilot’s seat, wheeled the Krishna around to face the trading colony. “It’ll be about fifteen minutes until we’re there.”

“Gotcha. Let’s stay on guard. Mimi, keep an eye out for any strange signals on the radar.”

“Yes, sir!”

Mimi trained her sights on the hyperspace sensors. They kept working during FTL travel, unlike normal sensors. Don’t ask me how it worked; I didn’t really understand any of this hyperspace stuff. All that mattered to me was that those sensors gave us a good view of everything around us. We could pick up other ships, bits of debris, or even distress signals.

Which was exactly what Mimi found. “Excuse me, Master Hiro? I’ve located a distress signal.”

“Whoa, seriously?” I cried. “That’s super rare.”

“We need to go help them,” Elma said.

It might be fine to ignore mini events like this in Stella Online, but that wouldn’t fly here. We had a duty to rush to the rescue and a reputation to maintain.

“Right. Turn us toward the source of the signal,” I ordered. “We might have to fight, so make sure you’re ready.”

“Yes, sir!” Mimi shouted.

“Gotcha,” Elma said.

We pointed the Krishna right at the distress signal. I had no idea what we’d find. Such signals were extremely unusual and usually only used when a ship had a major malfunction or was under attack. We could be heading toward a simple tow job…or a full-on shoot-out.

“We’ll make contact soon,” Elma said. “Disabling FTL drive in five, four, three, two, one… Now!”

Boom! A roar rippled out as Elma shut down the FTL drive and eased the ship into normal space. Immediately, five ships popped up on the radar, one medium-sized with four smaller ones chasing it down. Welp, it looked like we had our answer.

“They’re under attack,” Elma reported. “It looks like the victim is a medium passenger ship.”

“That one sent the signal,” I said. “Let’s intervene. Mimi, scan them and make contact.”

“Yes, sir!” she replied. “This is the mercenary battleship Krishna. We’ve received your distress signal. To the ships of unknown affiliation attacking the passenger ship, we demand you stop at once.”

“They’re targeting us,” Elma said.

That was one way to respond to Mimi’s command. The unknown ships already had their weapon systems powered up. All they had to do was lock on to us, and we’d be toast.

“They’re definitely hostile,” I muttered. “Bring weapon systems online and increase generator output to battle mode.”

“Aye-aye,” Mimi said. “Weapon systems online. Increasing output.”

“Let’s go!” I shouted.

The ship whirred and shifted around us, deploying four weapon arms bearing heavy laser cannons. Two more cannons extended from either side of the cockpit, gleaming dully in the light from the other ships.

“All four of those small ships have bounties,” Mimi said.

“Then we can crush them without hesitation,” I said.

Two of the four small craft peeled off to charge our way. I launched the Krishna right at them, accelerating as we went.

“This guy’s fast!” one of them cried.

The second we got in range, I unleashed all four heavy laser cannons at the ships. They didn’t even get a chance to fire before their shields faltered.

“Gah? My shields?!”

I started my count. “One down.”

As I swept past the first ship, I unloaded my flak cannons, punching through that unshielded ship. The high-speed, small debris of the flak cannons worked best at close range like this, turning the enemy into Swiss cheese after one brutal round of firing.

Elma shuddered. “Those shard cannons are as terrifying as ever.”

“Shard cannon is such a fancy way to say it,” I said.

“Fancy? What?”

Even while we chatted, I turned the ship to point all four cannons at the next unfortunate enemy to cross our path.

“Fire, fiiire!”

Lasers sliced through the pirate ship, melting its shields and thrusters.

“C-cut it out!” the enemy yelped.

“No.” Maybe they went on begging, but I wasn’t listening. Space pirates like these stole from transport ships, hijacked passenger vessels, slaughtered entire crews, and sometimes even dabbled in the slave trade. Trash like them didn’t deserve any mercy. I showered the pirate in heavy laser fire. Within moments, his ship exploded in a fiery bloom.

“That’s two. Next!” This was getting downright fun.

“Two ships left. Looks to me like they’re running away, though,” came Elma’s report. They must have gotten spooked by seeing their comrades so swiftly dispatched.

“Hey, you! Get back here!” I barked.

“Nah, I ain’t gettin’ near a monster like you!” one of the pirates snapped, beating a hasty retreat. He’d already put a good amount of distance between me and his ship.

“Space pirate ships have activated faster-than-light drive!” Mimi said.

“We’ve gotta catch them!” I punched the acceleration, dashing after the fleeing pirates. Just a little farther and they’ll be in laser range!

“Later!” the pirates said.

Boom! The pirate ships flashed into streaks of pure light. We could potentially still chase them, but it would leave that passenger ship stranded.

“Dammit!” I cursed. “They’re fast.”

“They sure knew when to quit,” Elma said. “I guess some of them aren’t complete idiots.”

“Well, I’d prefer if they were idiots.” If only they’d been in shooting range, I could have still dropped them. A longer-range gun, like an electromagnetic railgun, would have kept me on their tails. “Whatever. Get us connected to the passenger ship. If they think they’ll be fine on their voyage, we can start rummaging for loot.”

“We don’t have to escort them,” Elma reminded me.

Cold, but true. They hadn’t asked for an escort, just a rescue. We’d get a reward either way at this point. Receiving that distress signal obligated us to them, but it also meant they owed us our due reward. How much? Well, that depended on what they were carrying and who they were. Typically, a medium-sized ship like this one was a decent payout. Not two minutes in this system and already, we were making money. Nice!

A voice crackled over the communication line Mimi had opened. “We are a passenger ship under Inagawa Technologies: the Koueimaru. Thank you for saving us.”

Inagawa Technologies and the Koueimaru, huh? They sound like a Japanese firm. I wonder how you would write that name in kanji.

“I’m just glad to see you’re safe, Koueimaru. I’m Captain Hiro, mercenary. How’s your ship doing?”

“Our life support systems are safe, but our undercarriage is ruined. I’m sorry to ask you this, but could you protect us until imperial ships arrive?”

Protect them, huh? We might have been able to tow a smaller ship, but not one this size. Guess we were on guard duty now.

“Can we call that an official request?” I asked. “Do I get a reward?”

“Yes, of course. Inagawa Technologies will compensate you. We can negotiate the exact amount back at headquarters. I don’t have the authority to make that kind of decision.”

So he was the captain, but his power was still pretty limited. I glanced over at Elma, who nodded. Done deal.

“Understood. We will now begin guarding your ship, and we will be done once the imperial ships arrive. Inagawa Technologies will pay the rescue and protection rewards. Does that sound all right?”

“Yes, that will do.”

“Sounds good to us. Mimi, log that conversation just in case.”

“Yes, sir!”

I guess we might as well fish around in those wrecked ships, then. Though I doubt I’ll get much, since I crushed them before they could steal anything.

 

***

 

“Wooow, it’s so big!” Mimi marveled.

“That it is,” I agreed. “How many Tarmein Primes could fit in here, do you think?”

Elma scratched her head. “Um, I think they say five times as many people can live here? That doesn’t tell you much about the size, though.”

An enormous colony loomed ahead. The cuboctahedron rotated slowly, perhaps to create artificial gravity within that massive structure.

This big boy’s name was Arein Tertius. We’d traveled all the way out here for this colony in particular, just the third one ever built in the Arein System.

“Mimi, send a docking request,” I said.

“Oh! Yes, sir. I’ll send it now.” Mimi worked the console, providing our ship’s name, captain’s name, and reason for arriving. “We’ve been granted permission! They want us to go to the seventy-second hangar.”

“Gotcha.”

I switched on the auto-docking function and let the ship follow the guide beacons to our designated hangar. Such an enormous colony saw a ton of traffic, meaning any little collision could turn into a major disaster. Better to just let the Krishna handle this one.

“Jeez, auto-docking? That’s just heresy,” Elma said.

“I like things to be easy,” I said. Sure, I could show off, but why bother right now? With the auto-docking installed on the ship, the only real concern was some idiot barreling into us.

We eased into the dock and I switched our generator to anchored mode. No need to waste the power supply now that we were there.

“Well, here we are!” I said. “Now what? Should we go out for some grub first?”

“It’s a little early for that,” Elma replied. “I think we should just finish our routine tasks first.”

“Okay. So we sell our loot, visit Inagawa Technologies, and grab our bounties at the Imperial Fleet’s office?”

“I will take care of selling the loot.” Mimi clenched her fists eagerly. She’d become an expert on how to navigate her terminal and find the best prices by comparing markets.

“Cool, so Mimi can sell off our loot. Next, Inagawa Technologies.”

“We might be better off waiting for them to contact us first,” Elma said. “We have no need to rush.”

Fair enough; they knew how to contact us and our affiliation, after all.

“Then how about we go to the Imperial Fleet’s office to grab those bounties?” I proposed.

“Want me to go instead?” Elma said. I had no doubt she could handle the task, but it might go smoother if I did it just because I was the registered captain of this ship.

“Nah. It’s best if the captain goes,” I said.

“I’ll at least go with you,” she pressed. “It’s dangerous to go alone.”

“I’m not a kid…”

I don’t really know anything about this place, though. It could be risky to walk around on my own. Plus, two guns are better than one.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go together. We can take a look around the city too. Mimi, stay in the ship; this is the safest place for you to be.”

“Is this colony that dangerous?” Mimi asked.

“They have a lot of security,” I said, “but we don’t really know how safe this place is. There are clearly a ton of people coming and going. No guarantee they’re all good guys.”

“Yep,” Elma chimed in. “Typically, districts with more outsiders are inconsistent when it comes to safety. That’s all a part of gathering info.”

Mimi nodded. “I see.”

Elma and I would be fine when it came to self-defense, but little Mimi didn’t have experience in that area. She kept a laser gun with her, but she’d never had to use it in the heat of the moment.

“That settles it,” I said. “Elma and I will take care of this. We’ll call you if we think it’ll take a while, but if we do, you’re free to eat without us.”

“Okay. Be careful, you two.”

“Of course,” I replied.

“Yup,” Elma said. “See ya.”

Thus, Elma and I left the ship and headed into Arein Tertius.

 

***

 

I let out a laugh. “Ha ha. It seems a little different here.”

“Yeah, this place is way more urban than Tarmein Prime.”

A jungle of skyscrapers awaited us on Arein Tertius. High-rises packed the colony, streetlights marching down the alleyways between them. They provided all of the light for the colony. Due to Arein Tertius’s design, no natural light pierced this city of eternal night.

“It can’t be good for your health to have so little light,” I mused.

“I hear the people here take regular artificial sun baths,” Elma said.

“That sounds…well, actually, no. I guess we do that every day too.”

“Yep, in our medical pod.”

Living on a ship meant most mercs didn’t get much natural sunlight. Our medical pods not only performed vitals checks but also provided us with artificial sun baths. I assumed it was some sort of fancy ultraviolet light.

“Seems like it’d be a pain to walk on foot everywhere. How do people get around?”

“Look over there.” Elma gestured at an entrance that led downward. “There’s an underground transportation system that can take you anywhere in the colony. Remember the distribution system on Tarmein Prime? This is that, but on a large scale.”

“Oh, I get it.” Any time we went to a shop back on Tarmein Prime, our purchases always made it back to the ship before we did, thanks to that distribution system Elma mentioned. I had to wonder what it felt like to zip through that network of tubes. “Do we need to use it right now?”

“Nope. The Imperial Fleet’s post is very close by.”

“That’s a shame. Maybe I’ll get the chance later.” How close was Inagawa Technologies? Failing that, we’d need groceries and other essentials eventually. There’s still a chance!

“There. The imperial post.” Elma waved at a building flying the flags of the Empire and its fleet. It looked more like an office building than any kind of military post.

“Not very imposing,” I commented.

“Yeah, this one’s pretty plain. Some posts have a bit more going on. When the colony can spare the land, they’ll even set up training grounds.”

This was definitely not one such post. There wasn’t even a guard at the door, just a turret-slash-security camera. I guess the Imperial Fleet likes to automate labor where they can.

A security gate stopped us the moment we entered the building. A bulky macho man stood imposingly before it with a laser turret behind him as backup.

“We do not allow visitors to bring weapons into this military post,” the clerk said. “Please leave them here before you enter.”

“Sure.”

“Already on it,” Elma said.

Elma and I handed over our laser guns and backup energy packs. The clerk put us through a full-body scan nonetheless and checked our identities on our handheld terminals.

“The check is complete,” the clerk said. “If you wish to collect bounties, head to that counter. If you need anything else, try the next one over.”

“Thanks.”

We headed to the counter. I was used to this kind of thing from my time on Tarmein Prime, but this time, there were no sentries with lasers at every entrance.

“Welcome to Arein Tertius. You seem to be new here.” A gentle-looking man greeted us at the counter. I guessed he was a bit older than me—maybe in his late thirties or early forties.

“Yeah, we just landed. I’m Captain Hiro, and this is my crew member, Elma. We have another crewmate named Mimi back at the ship.”

“Hiro and Elma, got it. I’m Sergeant Daniel, but my rank is of little importance to mercenaries, so Daniel or even Danny is perfectly fine.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I think I’ll go with Sergeant Daniel. Never hurts to be polite, right?”

“Sergeant Daniel sounds good to me,” Elma added.

“Is that so? Well, that’s perfectly acceptable,” Sergeant Daniel said. “Now, you must be here to collect bounties, yes? Quite the diligent workers you are, to come here immediately after landing.”

“We actually received a distress signal on our way to this colony,” I explained. “When we went to check it out, it was a ship from Inagawa Technologies being attacked by space pirates. We couldn’t let them get hurt.”

“Really? Inagawa Technologies? Is the crew safe?”

“We made it just in time. My ship couldn’t tow them, so we called some imperial ships in to do it. Since we got here first, we figured we’d have to wait a while.”

“I see. Well, as long as our ships are with them, they have nothing to fear. You’ve done well, Hiro.”

Sergeant Daniel’s pursed lips lifted into a smile as I spoke. I could already tell this guy could worm his way into anyone’s heart over time.

“Yeah. I’m just glad someone could help them. So, about those bounties…” I said.

“Oh, yes, of course. Hold on just a moment. You will receive…15,000 Ener for the two ships.”

“Jeez, that’s a lot,” I said.

“Those four ships have been terrorizing private crafts lately,” Sergeant Daniel said. “They like to hit and run, so we’ve had a tough time pinning them down. Now that you’ve taken out two of them, they may just lie low for a while.”

“I see…” This wasn’t quite adding up. The cargo of those pirate ships was pretty barren for such prolific pests—nothing but food and alcohol. Maybe they had a base nearby?

“The bounty transfer is complete,” Sergeant Daniel informed me. “Will you be staying here for a while?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan. A thriving colony like this has plenty of stuff to see, I bet.”

“It does, sir. We have high-tech businesses all over the place, and merchants stop by often. You won’t find any lack of recreation.”

“Really? Sounds like fun. Well, I guess we should get going.”

“Very well. Enjoy your stay.”

It seemed like we were well on our way to finding success in this colony. We recovered our lasers at the security gate and left the imperial post behind.

I turned to Elma as we headed back. “That guy was pretty pleasant, wasn’t he?”

“He didn’t look like the military type at all. Maybe he trained to have a job like that instead of being a soldier.”

“Really? So the military will actually train support staff?”

In my limited experience, the military’s organizational structure was utterly incomprehensible. In this universe, there was no need for armies suited to land, air, or sea. Every battle was fought in space, which probably meant a lot of reorganization from those older ways of waging war. I couldn’t begin to fathom how it all worked, let alone how support staff factored into the whole equation.

“Anyway,” Elma said, “you really have to wonder about what he said.”

“About the pirates we finished off? Their cargo was a little lacking, wasn’t it?”

“Definitely. They must have stashed the real goods somewhere else.”

“Yeah. But a four-ship squad…”

“They’re a small operation. I doubt we’ll find them.” Elma grinned wryly and shrugged. We might be able to ferret out a pirate base on an asteroid or something, but it was just as likely they threw their loot in a sturdy container and let it float somewhere in the vastness of space. That kind of thing was impossible to find without coordinates. “Meh, I say we forget about it. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Next time, they’re not getting away.”

“That’s the spirit. Wanna go back to the ship and eat? Mimi’s waiting for us.”

I was down for that. “Sure.”

We strolled back at a leisurely pace. We didn’t face any urgent need for work, money, or supplies. In fact, we could spend the next day or two just kicking back before we had to worry about work again at all.

 

***

 

“Welcome back!” Mimi greeted us.

“Yep,” I replied. “Back we are.”

“Hey, Mimi,” Elma said.

Mimi perked up from where she sat with her tablet in hand.

“Studying something?” I asked.

“Yes. I was looking for the medical center with the best reputation.”

“Gotcha. Did you find anything?”

“I’ve only just started searching, so not yet,” she said. “I’m trying to avoid thinking that more expensive equals better. Considering your situation, I was wondering if we should look for one that focuses on the nervous system or the mind.”

Ah, right, my “memory loss.” I was perfectly healthy aside from that little quirk. Well, probably. Unless my body back home in Japan was stuck in some sort of coma and that was how I’d come here. I still thought and felt like the Satou Takahiro of Japan. The Krishna should have been a figment of my imagination, a dream that humanity might someday achieve as we explored space.

“Sticking with that memory loss story, huh?” Elma twisted her lips in an expression of pure skepticism. In her mind, I was a spoiled rich kid just running away from home.

That belief was pretty much my fault. At some point, I’d asked Elma if there were any “normal” meat and veggies we could buy. You see, most people here ate synthetic food made of algae and krill. “Normal” meat and veggies were a luxury enjoyed by super-rich aristocrats, so it was only natural that she’d doubt me after that. I couldn’t exactly prove her wrong either. I had no idea how I ended up here, after all. Yes, it was like Stella Online, but it wasn’t the same. I just had too few memories to go by.

“Since my memories are all screwed up, I say we should get a comprehensive medical exam,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m missing vaccines or anything, so we should probably get everything checked out.”

“That is a good idea,” Mimi agreed.

“I’m fine,” Elma chimed in, “but you should get examined while we’re there, Mimi. There are lethal diseases out there that only affect humans. You both might need more vaccines.”

“Are you sure you’ll be fine, Elma?” I said.

“I already have all of my vaccinations,” she said with a shrug.

But I shook my head and insisted. “I’ll pay, so let’s get you an exam too. It’s a captain’s duty to keep track of his crew’s health. Same goes for you, Mimi.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You sure?” Elma asked. “Well, if you’re paying, why not?”

Good. We can all get checked out this way.

It would be less lonely going as a group. Not that I was scared of hospitals or anything. Besides, like I said, it was my job to keep my crew members safe. If I could reduce their health risks just by spending a little bit of money, that was well worth the price.

“How much do you think it’ll cost?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Elma said. “One person probably wouldn’t cost more than 1,000,000 Ener, I guess.”

“All right. That sounds okay to me.” Even if it cost 1,000,000 per person, I had 10,000,000 in savings. A painful expense, but one I could endure for the sake of everyone’s health. Still, that was something like 100,000,000 yen back in Japan. The fact that I thought of that as cheap kinda scared me.

“Master Hiro, 1,000,000 Ener is…” Mimi protested.

“You can’t just brush off 1,000,000 Ener with ‘sounds okay to me,’ y’know,” Elma said.

“Yeah, I know. As soon as I spoke, I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.”

“Good,” Elma replied.

Whatever the cost, I would be mentally prepared for it.

 

***

 

With the medical stuff aside, it was time for a good ol’ lazy day. We set up the Steel Chef 5 to whip us up a delicious meal, took turns in the bath, and just relaxed. Normally, I might have worked out before my bath, but today was for resting.

“Sooo sleepy…” I groaned.

Elma scoffed. “You’re such a lazybones.”

“That’s quite the thing to say when you’re resting on me.” I was lying on my back in bed while Elma leaned against me, toying with her terminal. A real battle of the laziest.

“Fair enough. I guess it’s not bad to rest once in a while.”

“Absolutely.”

To be honest, it was more than “once in a while” for Elma. She almost treated me like a big dog. If I sat down, she’d put her head in my lap. If I was lying around, she’d come snuggle up beside me, always seeking that casual affection.

I had to admit, I liked it. Elma seemed calm at those times, more relaxed. It felt nice just having her there at my side.

“Looks like we’ve got a buyer for the stuff Mimi put up for sale,” she announced.

“Ooh, nice. How much did we get?” I said.

“Subtract the handling fee, and we get 4,500 Ener. Adding that to the bounties makes a total profit of 19,500 Ener.”

“Okay. 3 percent of that makes your portion…585 Ener?”

“And Mimi gets 98 Ener.”

“Dang, that’s not much.”

“That’s just how it is,” Elma said. “We’re not gonna rake in 8,000,000 Ener every battle. Your cut is 18,817 Ener.”

“Nice. By the way, don’t worry about rushing to pay me back.”

Elma blinked down at me. “Aren’t you supposed to want it back as soon as possible?”

“Meh. I’d really prefer having you here over the money.”

I really did value having Elma around, and not just thanks to her beauty. She helped round out the Krishna’s crew and provided much-needed support when I was in the captain’s chair. Plus, she and Mimi had grown close as well.

“Don’t worry about that,” Elma reassured me. “We’re in this for the long haul, buddy. I gotta pay you back, and I need the money to buy a whole new ship.” She flopped onto my stomach.

Nice try, but I’ve been hitting the training room every day. You might be expecting squish, but there’s a six-pack under there.

“Hey, I feel you flexing,” she grumbled. “I can’t sleep here if your muscles are hard.”

“Oh, my bad.”

“Mm, there you go. That’s good.” Evidently, Elma wasn’t a fan of rock-hard abs. She snuggled in closer, content with the softness. “For real, though…”

“Hm?”

“You’re lying about the memory loss, right?”

“Nooope.”

“Jeez, you’re not even trying anymore.” She shook with laughter. “I’m not gonna pry if you don’t want me to. Should I stop asking?”

“Hm… It’s not like that. More like, you’d think I was insane.”

“What’s that mean?”

I guess it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not like telling Elma I came from another universe would make anything bad happen. She might think I’m a little crazy, but surely she won’t send me off to get vivisected or whatever.

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you,” I said. “Just be warned that this gets weird.”

“This is starting to sound scary… But sure. I wanna know.”

“Really? Okay, well, where do I begin? Do you know about parallel universes and junk?”

“The concepts, sure. Beats me whether they actually exist or not, though.” Elma shrugged, still using my stomach as her pillow.

“Yeah, so, I think I came from one of those. Same with the Krishna. At least, that’s how it seems to me.”

Elma went very still and very quiet.

I hurriedly continued, “Do you remember when we went to the mercenary guild for the first time, and the guy said I had no docking history? It makes sense now, right? Tarmein Prime was the first place I docked after I came to this universe.”

“He did say that, didn’t he? But that’s still just… A parallel universe? Is that even possible?”

“What do you mean? Like in terms of the Krishna’s parts being compatible with things found here?”

“Yeah,” she said. “If you came from another universe, then it’s kinda weird that the Krishna is compatible with equipment made with this universe’s tech. I guess technology could’ve progressed in the same way in both universes, but I’ve never seen any other ships like this here. Plus, based on your skills in battle, you’re a top-notch mercenary, not some random newbie who just showed up here.”

My face flushed at the praise. “I’m tickled to hear you say that.”

Elma barreled on. “This doesn’t explain your complete lack of common sense, though. If your universe has similar battleships and mercenaries, shouldn’t the shared wisdom be similar? It doesn’t add up.”

“Well, yeah, maybe,” I said. “This might confuse you even more, but…I’m not even a mercenary in my universe. I’m just a company employee—a salaryman—with a love for video games.”

“A salaryman? So you just work for some corporation? Did you at least work in their battle department or something?”

“Nope. I’d never even shot a gun before coming here. I was a totally normal person. Not a whiff of violence.”

“Huh?” Elma sat up and cocked her head.

I guess never shooting a gun sounds pretty crazy from her perspective.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “You said you won that gun in a shooting tournament somewhere, right? That didn’t sound like a lie. I’ve seen you fire a gun too—you don’t look like an amateur.”

“That’s true, but…okay, I’m just gonna say it. Me getting the Krishna, me getting that gun, me having my skills as a merc…all of that happened in a video game. From my perspective, it’s like I just dove straight into a video game universe.”

“Like a virtual reality video game?”

“Do they have those here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “but not a lot of people play them since you need to have a port installed near your spine. They’re more for medical use, anyway.” Elma shrugged. “Though there are some people who get really into the full-immersion VR stuff. Maybe you’re one of those people. Apparently, if you experience battle in virtual reality, it affects your real-life capabilities as well.”

“Nah. My universe is way behind this one. The games I played were on a stationary console, if that makes sense. Maybe that’s like an antique in this universe? We didn’t have interstellar travel either; in fact, we hadn’t even colonized other planets yet.”

“You hadn’t? Jeez, you might as well have been barbarians. Well, it does sound like a crazy adventure. Jumping into a video game world is like something out of a classic novel.”

Were transported-into-another-world novels classics in this universe? Was I experiencing their equivalent of Gilgamesh?

I laughed. “Yeah, sure. It’d almost be more realistic if I did lose my memories in an accident and made up the memories I just told you about.”

“But all of that was the truth, right?”

“From my perspective, yes. I guess we can’t know if it’s true without sucking my memories out and taking a look inside.”

“Nothing’s impossible, but I don’t think we have to go that far.”

“Nothing’s impossible? That is mildly terrifying. Is it actually worth it to try something like that?”

“If you’re worried, you might be better off doing it. Do you have any big questions or problems right now?” Elma said.

“Not especially.” I mean, sure, I wanted to know what happened and how I’d ended up here, but I wasn’t desperate for the information. It wasn’t like I was champing at the bit to go home.

“Then what’s the problem?” Elma asked. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

She nodded firmly. “I am.”

“Oh, is that so? You don’t have anything else to say?”

“Not really. No matter what you think of yourself, it doesn’t change how I see you. Well, except for the fact that ‘cringey teenager who kept being cringey into adulthood’ just got added to my mental description of you.”

“Hey, stop that. That’s way too close to the truth.”

Elma giggled. I could feel the little vibrations of her laughter from where she reclined against me.

“Y’know, you’re a good woman,” I said.

“Yeah, duh. Who did you think I was?”

“A sad little space elf.”

“Okay, buddy, you’re on.”

“Whoa, cut it out!”

Elma launched into a tickle attack and we scuffled on my bed, fighting for dominance. Heh heh heh. Do you think your tiny little arms can beat my trained muscles?

“Grah?! You know the ude-hishigi-juji-gatame arm lock?!” I blurted.

Elma outmaneuvered me, pinning me down and tickling me until I cried from laughter. It’d be nice to have some tender, loving affection here. Seriously…

 

***

 

Elma and I spent the rest of the night roughhousing and counterattacking. In the morning, I headed straight for a bath and then hit the training room for a workout. After that, I washed off again. Even when I’d finished all that, Elma was still sleeping peacefully in my bed.

I found Mimi in the cafeteria in workout clothes.

“Good morning, Master Hiro,” she said. Her skin was already slick with sweat.

“Morning, Mimi,” I said. “Did you just finish working out?”

“Yes. I was just about to take a bath.”

“Good timing. I’ll go ahead and get breakfast ready while you wash up.”

“Sure, thanks! I’ll be right back.” Mimi grinned and trotted off to her bath. She could have just come in while I was washing, though I suppose our baths would have taken a lot longer that way…

Elma finally poked her sleepy head into the kitchen while I was still preparing breakfast. “Mooorning…”

“Hey, good morning,” I said. “What the heck are you wearing?”

“I just wanted to try on one of your shirts.” She padded out, dressed in one of my T-shirts. Although it hung large on her, it barely covered her butt.

Definitely distracting.

Chapter 2:
Shopping with Mimi

 

“THIS PLACE is quite different from Tarmein Prime,” Mimi said as we walked the streets of Arein Tertius. It was no longer the city of eternal night; today, everything was illuminated.

“That it is,” I said. “It feels a lot livelier here, and the people walking around have a different aura to them.”

No two people we passed were alike. People in Tarmein Prime, especially the Third Division, tended to dress similarly. However, here in the Underground Division of Arein Tertius, variety ruled the day. We passed people in suits just as often as folks wearing full-on gothic lolita dresses. Skintight body tights contrasted with bulky robotic attire—though I wondered if they were secretly the robots that Elma had mentioned and not people at all.

It wasn’t just the clothes either. Even among the strictly humanoid beings we saw, there were more amphibian, reptilian, and mammalian features than I’d ever thought possible. Animal ears poked out of people’s hair. A blue-skinned girl with horns caught my eye as she strutted past. I certainly wanted to get familiar with somebody like that, if you know what I mean.

Then there were the outright monsters: flying jellyfish with lightbulb-tipped appendages, tentacle monsters like something out of a hentai game, and so much more. How should a man even react to that? Could they even understand me if I tried to speak to them?

No. Don’t think about it too hard or you’ve already lost. I shoved the questions aside. Dwelling on it would endanger my sanity.

“I can’t believe it’s brighter underground,” I said to divert my whirling thoughts.

“The aboveground area is called the Surface District,” Mimi explained, “and it’s always kept as dark as night. Underground districts such as these are where people typically live. The lighting inside changes to mimic morning, midday, evening, and night.”

Mimi offered all this without so much as a glance at the aliens striding past us. Was this normal for her?

“That building goes all the way up to the ceiling,” she said.

I craned my neck to peer up a high-rise, still trying to clear my mind. That’s huge. How many floors is it?

“It also works as a pillar to support the overall structure of the colony,” Mimi explained. “The lowest floor sticks out into space.”

“Oh, yeah. I do remember buildings sticking out of the colony’s outer walls.” I’d spotted them when we’d first docked. The colony wasn’t a flat structure, but rather a multidimensional cuboctahedron with protrusions like this building. “What is that even for?”

“They have a lot of different tenants! Restaurants, shops, clinics, and even company offices and hotels.”

“Wow, that’s a lot for one building. Could be fun to wander around in there.”

“Yeah,” Mimi agreed. “We could spend the whole day in there and still not see all of it, I bet.”

We continued our amicable chat as we walked through town. Since we’d just eaten breakfast, neither of us was hungry. What to do, then?

“Hey, Mimi. Wanna look for some new clothes?” I proposed.

“Hmm. We could, but I think my current clothes should be enough for me.”

“C’mon, let’s get you something fashionable just for fun,” I said. “I’d love to see you in one of those dresses.” I gestured toward a girl in one of those gothic lolita dresses, and Mimi instantly went red. “What? Did I say something weird?”

“Oh, no. I just, um, I’m not sure if I could pull it off.” Mimi flicked furtive glances between the girl and her own feet, pointedly ignoring me.

“Pssh, no way,” I said. “You’ll look great. Come on, let’s give it a try.”

“Umm…”

“You did the research. Do any of the shops in there have stuff like that?”

“Yes, but…”

I grinned. Mimi’s smile turned into a tight wince. Give it up, Mimi. You’re gonna look great!

 

***

 

“Is this it?” I asked as we stepped into a shop named Atelier Pure.

“Yes,” Mimi said.

The moment we entered the store, I regretted pushing so hard to come here. To be honest, I’d forgotten what lolita fashion retailers tended to be like. It was not exactly my thing, what with all the frills and lace everywhere. I stood out instantly, like soot on a fancy white doily. We beings known as men did not belong in places like this; the anti-male energy here was palpable.

I turned to Mimi. “You can’t go in alone, huh?”

“R-right…”

“Then let’s do this!”

“Y-you don’t have to force yourself.”

I took Mimi’s hand, and we plunged into the forbidden garden. Instantly, all three employees swiveled toward us, their very first customers of the day. They were identically outfitted, and I gulped at their intense, watchful gazes.

“Welcome!”

“Is this your first time here? Thank you for coming to see us.”

“We’re honored that you’ve chosen us. Our staff will do all that we can to drag you into the swamp. We aim for your satisfaction!”

The employees circled around us like sharks going in for the kill.

What was that about a swamp? These people are scary!

“Huh? Uh, th-thanks?” I stammered as Mimi clung to me in terror. Ooh, there’s that lovely yet evil chest. I, for one, feel better already. “You know what we’re here for, right?”

“Absolutely!” All three employees replied in unison, flashing customer-service smiles. At least it seemed my aims were aligned with theirs, though maybe for different reasons. Glad they’re making this easy, I thought.

“Honestly, I don’t know how much these getups usually cost, but we do have a budget,” I said.

“Mm? How much is it?”

I tried to come up with a number, but even back in Japan, I’d never shopped for this sort of thing. I was totally in the dark.

“How much does the average full outfit cost?” I said.

“Hmm. It depends on the manufacturer, but on average, it costs about 1,000 Ener,” an employee said.

“Okay, then ten… No, 20,000 is our budget,” I said. “Could you find something you think would look good on her?”

I flashed my current funds at the employees via my terminal. They blinked, stiffening up straight before sharing mischievous smiles.

“Might I also show you some things outside of your budget?” one offered.

“Sure,” I said, “as long as you don’t go too overboard. If you only show us the expensive stuff, we’re going somewhere else.”

“You can trust me. Come right this way.”

Two employees had started measuring Mimi, but they stopped when the third bent down to confer quietly with them. Every eye then turned to Mimi.

“Huh? Um, wh-what’s the matter?” Mimi said.

Two of the employees whisked her away while she was still babbling adorably. The last one led me to a waiting room at the back of the store.

“Male customers spoil the ambience,” the employee said, “so we would appreciate your waiting here. I’ll bring you a drink.”

“Thanks.” I definitely didn’t mind stepping back and letting the experts work. A fancy, frilly place like this was a high-difficulty environment for yours truly.

“Just leave her to us,” the employee said. “I swear that we will find her the perfect outfit.”

“I’ll trust you pros.”

The employee grinned before sliding away. Seriously, what is that walk? She didn’t step so much as disappear entirely. A moment later, she slid back into view and poured milk and sugar into a coffee cup. Wait, where did she come from? Is this supernatural stuff? Horror? I’m actually shaking.

I shuddered but sat there quietly sipping my coffee. Back on Tarmein Prime, we’d gone to a cosplay shop that offered a virtual dressing room app. I fiddled with it here too, to test out Mimi in various outfits.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” an employee chirped.

“U-umm…” Mimi stammered.

An angel descended before me. Mimi now wore a soft, white dress fringed with light-pink frills. A large ribbon adorned her hair, and white stockings smoothed her legs. Her light-pink shoes matched the faint tinge of her frills.

Mimi fidgeted, her pink cheeks the perfect accessory to her ensemble. I, however, was in heaven. Somehow, Mimi had become even cuter.

Chapter 3:
Medical Exams

 

MY LOVELY DATE with Mimi ended with lunch at the place the guild receptionist had recommended. It was, uh, quite the experience.

What was their specialty, you may ask? First, let me say that a lot of people insist you’ll never take to another culture’s specialties like you do your own, but I don’t really buy that crap. After all, how could a specialty be bad? It’s their specialty!

Or so I thought.

Here, you couldn’t really taste the contents of a freshly made food cartridge unless you were dining at the place it was made. Frankly, it might not have been the best idea for the establishment to take the ingredients and turn them into a paste for our consumption.

It was filling, yes, and it was savory. Kind of like a big, savory milkshake. Nutritional paste might be the best way to put it. Mimi and I couldn’t help but scrunch up our faces like Tibetan foxes when we ate it. I had to wonder if the receptionist lady had it out for us.

In any case, by the time we returned, Inagawa Technologies sent us a message with a referral for their general hospital. We headed there the next day for our checkups.

“What’s wrong?” Elma asked. “You don’t look too happy.”

“Sorry. I just can’t stand that stall over there.”

As fate would have it, we had to pass that horrible nutritional-paste milkshake place on our way to the hospital. Mimi looked just as nauseated by the proximity as I did. Incidentally, she was wearing a simple athletic outfit with a jacket on top so it would be easy to undress for our medical exams—Elma and I were dressed similarly. Naturally, we all had our laser guns too.

“Was it gross?” Elma asked.

“The lady at the guild recommended it, but yeah, it was awful,” I said.

“It was…a valuable experience,” Mimi commented.

I still couldn’t believe they considered this their “specialty,” though I supposed it was true that I wouldn’t find anything like it anywhere else in the universe. At least it was cheap and filling. I certainly wasn’t looking to be a repeat customer, though.

Mimi and I went on ranting about the horrible milkshakes until we reached a large building with the Inagawa Technologies logo painted on the wall.

“They made it easy to find, huh?” I muttered.

“It was certainly easy to spot from a distance.” Mimi craned her neck to gawk up at the building. Elma, on the other hand, didn’t seem too interested.

“How many floors is it?” I murmured on our way inside.

“They’ve gotta have guide robots here,” Elma said.

What the heck is a guide robot? I wondered as I followed after Elma. She pressed her terminal against a console on the wall. It beeped, then an orb the size of a fist rolled out of a hole in the wall.

“Welcome!” the orb said. “I am navigation unit N-34. Elma, I will be your guide to your destination.”

“Whoa, now that is high-tech,” I said.

“It’s not really…” Elma said. “But I guess it would be to you, huh?”

“Heh. Yeah, I guess.”

“Is it?” Mimi said.

“It is, trust me,” I assured her.

Mimi cocked her head to one side. Right, I’d never actually told her about my past as I had with Elma. She didn’t seem to suspect anything about me, though, so perhaps I’d see what Elma thought before taking that risk.

The N-34 navigation unit rolled down the hall, leading us toward the elevators.

“Heh heh.” I chuckled. “This thing’s kinda cute.”

“Really? You have interesting taste,” Elma drawled.

“It’s like a cute little animal.”

“I guess I can see that… It’s like it’s doing its best, despite being tiny.”

The navigation unit picked a floor, and the elevator began to rise. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but the elevators in this universe never needed to stop to let people on and off. You just went directly where you needed to go.

The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and the navigation unit rolled on toward our destination. It made a little clicking noise as it went—a clever design element, since it made it so easy to follow.

“Looks like we’re here,” I said. A room opened out before us. Doctors and nurses in white coats bustled past under the bright lights. Everything was blindingly white, clean, and sterile.

The robot rolled right up to someone’s foot. “Hello and welcome,” the person said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She stood about as tall as me, dark hair braided all the way down to her hips. Her sleepy eyes appraised us from behind thick glasses as she watched us with her hands in the pockets of her long white coat. Even with that heavy lab coat on, her chest looked like it could rival even Mimi’s. How excellent.

“The name’s Shouko,” she said. “I’m the one in charge of your medical exam. A doctor, y’know. Nice to meet you.” Her smile proved surprisingly sweet.

“I’m Captain Hiro, and these are my crew members, Elma and Mimi. We’re in your hands, Dr. Shouko.”

“Aww, c’mon,” she said. “You don’t have to be so stiff. Let’s all be friends, okay?”

“Oh, really? Works for me.”

I’m sure a lot of people tense up when they see a doctor who looks like that.

“So you’re here for a full medical exam, right?” Dr. Shouko asked, pulling out a tablet. Where’d she get that from? Weren’t her hands in her pockets before?

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’m especially interested in which vaccinations I have and don’t have yet. Mimi here should only have the most common ones from Tarmein Prime too. We’ll be going all over the place as mercenaries, so we want to be safe. Elma, how about you?”

“Like I said, I’ve got them all,” Elma said. “Besides, we elves have better immune systems than humans, so it’s not super necessary. But I guess I might need updates on some of my shots, so it’s probably best that I get examined too.”

“Mhm, mhm.” Dr. Shouko took some notes. “Anything else?”

“Um, Master Hiro lost his memories—” Mimi started, but I interrupted her.

“Sorry, Mimi. I lied.”

“Huh?! Do you mean that?!” Her earnest shock stung. Dammit, Mimi, don’t look at me like that.

“It’s a bit more complex than memory loss. To put it simply, my memories aren’t totally clear. Some sort of hyperdrive accident or something brought me and my ship to the Tarmein System. I’m not sure why yet, though. My ship doesn’t have any docking records from before that system, either. It’s as if I just suddenly appeared in this universe out of nowhere.”

“Huh…” Dr. Shouko said. “That’s pretty weird, isn’t it?”

“It is definitely weird. Not only are my memories from before the accident weird, but things just don’t seem to match up in general. I was wondering if you could check if any of that has been affecting my body.”

“Mhm. So it’s possible that this hyperdrive stuff is putting a burden on your body or mind,” Dr. Shouko said. “I’d agree that you could use a thorough checkup.” Dr. Shouko hummed to herself as she tapped her tablet. Is she making a medical record or something? “No special medical history? No chronic conditions?”

I shook my head. “Not as far as I know.” I didn’t even have any allergies.

“Same,” Mimi said.

“Me neither,” Elma added.

“Let’s get right to it, then. First, we’ll do a full scan in our medical pods. The ones here are our newest model.”

“Inagawa Tech’s, right?”

“Yep! We aren’t much bigger than any other company in size or scope, but our technology is still the best. The only flaws are the pod’s size and cost, really. We like to shoot for the stars, y’know?”

Dr. Shouko went on extolling the virtues of the medical pods while leading us through the facility. It was all just garbled jargon to me.

“So that about explains it,” she said.

“I didn’t even understand a fifth of that,” I said flatly.

“I at least know it’s incredible!” Mimi said, ever the optimist.

“It seems functional, at least,” Elma said.

“Yep, ‘incredible’ sums it up pretty well.” Dr. Shouko shrugged off my dour review. She probably got more than her fair share of glazed eyes and blank, uncomprehending expressions when she explained things. I bet she enjoys lab work more than the human interaction aspects of medicine.

“You know, I owe you all my life for that rescue a few days back,” Dr. Shouko said. “I’m gonna give you the best treatment I can, so don’t worry.”

“Wait, what? You were on that ship we saved?” I said.

She gave me a hearty nod. “Yep! I thought we were goners for sure. I’m a pretty plain woman, so if pirates boarded our ship instead of shooting us down, they’d probably just dispose of me, if ya catch my drift.” She shrugged.

Dr. Shouko was selling herself short if she thought anyone would consider her plain, especially with a chest like that. Though, when it came to space pirates, being disposed of might be preferable.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I was really insistent that I take care of your medical exams. I’m more of an R&D gal, but meh, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a license, and I betcha I’m a lot better than some of those so-called ‘doctors’ out there.”

“Uh-huh.” Would it be rude to ask for a new doctor? I glanced at Mimi and Elma, who both shuffled their feet and shrugged. Guess we’re stuck with her.

Whatever. She said it was fine, so we just had to trust her. If it didn’t work out, maybe we could try a different hospital instead. It was just a routine checkup, after all.

“Here we are!” Dr. Shouko announced. “Come right in.”

“All right… Whoa,” I said.

“Wooow…” Mimi breathed.

“Neat,” Elma said.

Dr. Shouko had guided us into a room containing several medical pods, each much larger than the Krishna’s. The ship’s pod was about the size of a small bed, while each of these were as large as the Krishna’s entire med bay, at over six feet tall, ten feet long, and six feet deep.

“They’re pretty big,” I commented. Understatement of the century right there.

“Riiight?” Dr. Shouko said. “On top of that, these babies all have computers installed in them for positron emission tomography. Their functionality is guaranteed. Now get to stripping and pick your pods.” She handed us each medicine to take as we undressed.

“Stripping? Uh, how much?” I said.

“All of it,” she said.

“All of it?!”

“All of it. I’m used to naked specimens, so don’t worry about me.”

“Oh, okay…” I was more worried about myself than Dr. Shouko, in truth. Nevertheless, I peeled off my jacket and gym wear, sneaking a look over at Mimi and Elma. “Oof!” Elma threw her jacket right into my face to obstruct my view.

“Mimi, hurry up and get undressed so you can get in your pod,” Elma ordered. “You stay like that until we’re done, capisce?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I struck a quick salute and obeyed, but I was completely naked by now. Don’t I look like a perv with a woman’s jacket on my head? Doesn’t this seem weird to anyone? Just me, I guess.

“They’re in their pods now,” Dr. Shouko informed me. I pulled the jacket off of my head and threw my clothes into a basket.

“Thanks. Sorry you had to see that,” I said.

“Oh, no. You did just fine,” Dr. Shouko said.

With a quick nod of agreement, I opened a medical pod and climbed inside, lying on my back. It’s kinda cramped. It reminds me of the time I got that MRI scan done. The medicine Dr. Shouko had given us while we undressed spread a strange warmth through my whole body. I thought only women in adult films could radiate such heat.

“Can you hear me?” Dr. Shouko said. “I’m about to start the scan, so relax and try not to move.”

“Gotcha.” Pale green light scanned up and down my body a few times. I really hoped there wasn’t going to be some crazy side effect thanks to me coming from a different universe.

“And we’re done! I’m about to open the pod. Come on out and put some clothes on.”

Psheeew. The pod opened with a hiss of air. The scan had taken no time at all—not that I was complaining. Good ol’ sci-fi universes. I hastily put my clothes back on and returned Elma’s jacket to her.

“Mimi and I are fine, but I’m kinda scared about your results, Hiro,” Elma said.

“Let’s hope that you’re okay,” Mimi said.

“Hey, don’t say that. I’m getting all worried,” I said.

“Ah ha ha! I don’t think you have to… Hmm?” Dr. Shouko squinted at her tablet. Doc, I don’t like how furrowed your brow is! “Wait. Hmm… Huh?”

“I’m getting really worried now,” I said. “Mind telling me what the heck is going on?”

“No, no, wait. Hmm… Hiro, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“I just have a few questions based on this,” Dr. Shouko said. “First off…it looks like you don’t have a translator implant in you.”

“Is that so?” I certainly didn’t remember getting any implant like that. Mimi and Elma raised their eyebrows at me.

“That’s unusual, if it’s true.”

“Very unusual,” Mimi agreed.

“Unusual for sure,” Elma said.

“Yes, quite,” Dr. Shouko added.

Apparently, the moment you had a birth certificate in this universe, you got your translator implant for free. Lacking one as an adult was basically unheard of.

“But you haven’t had any issues communicating yet, have you?” Mimi asked.

“Not as far as I’ve seen,” Elma answered for me. “Even if he’s got issues with common sense.”

“Huh, is that true? How about we run some tests?” Dr. Shouko said.

“Sure,” I said.

Dr. Shouko continued as she tapped at her tablet: “I will play several extraterrestrial languages through my speakers. Try repeating what they say. This is an implant test program.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Okay. Here’s the first one.”

Daily conversation played from Dr. Shouko’s tablet speakers, and I repeated what I heard. It all sounded like normal Japanese to me. We finished the test program with no particular issues.

“No problems here.” Dr. Shouko scratched her head. “What the heck is going on?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Maybe I’m getting that warped-to-another-world language bonus or something? If this is sci-fi, I wish they would’ve just given me the implant instead. I didn’t know what was going on, let alone how to take it.

“Uhh… How about we ignore the implant thing?” I suggested. “I seem to be getting on just fine without it.”

“Aww, but I was really interested!” Dr. Shouko whined.

“No, thanks. I’m not here to be your guinea pig, Doctor. Let’s get to the next subject.”

“Fiiine. My next question is…where are you from?”

“As far as I know, I’m from the third planet in the Solar System, Earth. Like…the one that the sun is in.”

The third planet in the Solar System was a weird thing to say; it was the kind of phrase I’d picked up from playing video games too much.

“The sun? I’ve never heard of that.” Dr. Shouko looked to Mimi and Elma for help, but they shook their heads.

“Leaving that aside, what’s so important about where I’m from?” I asked.

“Well, your genetic data has a lot of stuff that we’ve never observed before.”

“Like?”

“I looked into it, and your bodily functions aren’t different from any other humanoid, so you should be fine there. It’s really interesting, though. Having unusual genetic data means that you might have some special genes that we don’t possess.”

“Could you dumb that down for me?”

“Your genetic data is overflowing with unseen frontiers! Wanna give me some?”

“Uhh…” It was my turn to look to Mimi and Elma for help, but again they just shook their heads, apparently just as confused as me. “What’s in it for me if I help you?”

“It’s valuable data. Like, super valuable. Unknown genetic data is like vast, unexplored space!” Dr. Shouko stepped close, her excitement palpable. Hey, back off a little. It feels like your eyes are gonna pop out from behind those glasses. I set my hands on her shoulders to create a little breathing room between us.

“And what would this cost me?” I said.

“Almost nothing!” Dr. Shouko said. “We’ve got tight security, so your data will be safe. I don’t recommend getting examined like this anywhere else, though. If you’re not careful, you could run into someone eager to cut you up and take a look under the hood. We’re a lot better about that. If you give us your genetic data, I can promise that we won’t follow you around or kidnap you.”

“Hmm.” This was not what I was expecting. Sure, I figured it could be a big deal, what with me being from a different universe and all, but I’d never anticipated something like this. What to do? The safest course might be to accept her offer. “Okay, sure. I’ll offer you my genetic data, with one condition. In return, I’d like to entrust Inagawa Technologies with all of my health care.”

“No problem there!” Dr. Shouko replied. “Actually, that’s just what we’d want. It works to our advantage if other companies aren’t getting their hands on your data as well.”

“Sounds like everyone wins. Can you make me an offer right now?”

“Sadly, I don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Let’s hold off on making a final decision, then. For now, let’s just do the medical check and vaccines.”

“After I harvest your data. Those checks and vaccines could taint it. I want it as natural as I can get it.” Dr. Shouko offered me an eerie smile.

I shivered. What kind of vaccine changes your genetic information?

“So I have to come back?” I said.

“Oh, no, no. I put your data scan at the tippity-top of our priority list. The offer ought to come before long.”

“I see.”

“If you’re willing to wait a little while, I can go ahead with Mimi’s and Elma’s examinations first. They’ll go to a different room for that. Just follow the navigation bot, ladies.” Another of those little guide bots rolled into the room right on cue.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s just get it over with.”

“Master Hiro…” Mimi squirmed, but Elma chuckled and dragged her away.

“Don’t worry,” Elma said. “The doctors won’t bite. He’s a big boy; he can take care of himself.”

“Let’s go back to the lobby,” Dr. Shouko told me. “That’s a better place to talk.”

“Sure.”

I waved to Mimi and Elma and followed Dr. Shouko back toward the lobby. Even as she walked, the doctor kept tapping away on her tablet.

“The staff will take good care of them, so don’t worry,” Dr. Shouko said, her eyes still glued to her screen. “They’re not researchers like me. They’re normal doctors.”

“That so? By the way, I was wondering: is it that easy to get an offer from you guys?”

“The reward for unknown genetic data depends on its value and potential for practical application. How much of it is unknown also contributes a little bit. Now that I’ve sent the data, it shouldn’t take long for… Oh! Speak of the devil, there it is!”

“That was fast.”

Ridiculously fast, actually. How much sway did Dr. Shouko hold with Inagawa Technologies?

“So let’s talk money,” Dr. Shouko said.

“How forward of you.”

“Money’s a convenient tool in that you can build trust in seconds instead of building it over the course of years. You’ve just gotta have the right price.”

“True,” I agreed. “And what is our price?”

“Three million Ener is our offer.”

“That’s a ton of money. Is my genetic data that valuable?” That was equivalent to 300,000,000 yen. It was like I was from some special, ancient bloodline or something.

“I said this before, but undiscovered humanoid genes are a promising frontier,” Dr. Shouko said. “We could explore whole new realms of understanding and technology with this.”

“A new level…” I muttered.

How the hell is she gonna use it? Well, I guess I don’t know the bioethics of this universe yet, so there’s no point in stressing about it.

“Protect my personal data for me, okay?” I said.

“Absolutely. Here’s the contract, by the way.”

Dr. Shouko presented her tablet and I skimmed the document on the screen. Pretty normal boilerplate stuff: they’d protect my info, no cloning without permission, I was owed 30,000,000 Ener if Inagawa Tech breached the contract, et cetera. They’d even thrown in the bit about all my future health care needs going through them. Hard as I looked, I couldn’t find any loopholes or pitfalls.

“You’re a cautious one,” the doctor mused.

“It’s just scary to give away my genetic data,” I said. “I’m also weirded out by how well you’re compensating me for this.”

“Is it that much? Keep in mind that no matter how much money we make from your data, you won’t see one Ener of it.”

“Well, nothing good can come from being too greedy,” I said. “I’m planning to make money my own way, so that doesn’t concern me.”

“Ooh. How very mercenary of you.” Dr. Shouko grinned to herself.

Despite the easy payday, I had to wonder if this was really for the best. Selling my genetic data creeped me out, but at the same time, Inagawa Tech would probably just keep hounding me if I refused. As long as my crew and I were safe, that was all that mattered.

“All set, then?” Dr. Shouko asked.

“Yeah.” I used my finger to sign the contract and seal the deal.

“Woo, I’m glad we got that contract over with! Now, let’s get some blood and semen samples.”

“Okay, I get the blood. But how do we get the semen?”

“Hee hee. Why don’t you wait and see?” Dr. Shouko shot me a funny look and licked her lips.

Chapter 4:
Factory Tours

 

“SO BASICALLY, you act like you hate me, but you’re actually head over heels in love with me?!”

“N-no, that’s not it! I-I swear!” Elma insisted.

“Elma, please,” Mimi said. “It’s not nice to cover up your embarrassment with violence.” She stuck her tongue out, mocking Elma.

“Mimi gets it,” I said.

“Uuuurgh!” Elma hastily covered her red ears again.

“Really, though. How does that work?” I asked. “I’m amazed that humans and elves can breed to begin with. How do the chromosomes and genes work?” Despite having similar bodies, elves and humans had evolved on completely different planets.

“Elves can, um…m-m-make babies with someone they accept as a… Uuurgh!” Elma put her head down on the table to hide her face.

Okay, I guess I get it. Space elves instinctively change to be able to breed with other species, basically. That sounds like it came right out of a porno.

As soon as that thought struck me, my mind went crazy over the possibilities. What if elves could breed with other races as a survival tactic? Maybe they lived on planets overrun with orcs, goblins, and tentacle monsters and the only way to survive was to mate with them. Would later generations retain their elf traits? It sounded insane.

“Well, I think I get the gist of it,” I said. “Space elves are awesome, huh?”

Elma frowned. “I-I’m seriously worried about what’s going on in your head right now.”

“For now, let’s just say, ‘Aww, Elma wuvs me,’”

“Gah!” Elma groaned, her hands trembling. “Ooough!”

Now she sounds like a siren.

“Master Hiro, it’s not nice to tease her,” Mimi said.

“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, Elma.” Mimi might have been the youngest, but she made a good point.

“I-It’s fine. I went a little too crazy anyway,” Elma said.

“I appreciate it, though. It’s great that you feel that way about me. I love you too. You’re reliable, you’ve got an adorable personality, and most of all, I can relax around you. I feel more comfortable near you than when we’re apart, honestly.”

“R-r-really?”

“Yeah, for sure. I mean it.”

“Huh. W-well, I guess I might feel the same way?” Elma uncovered her ears, staring at her fiddling fingers. Absolutely adorable.

“Good!” Mimi declared. “Have we kissed and made up now?”

“Yeah, we’ve made up,” I said.

“S-sure… Yeah,” Elma said.

Mimi beamed. “Great! Then I made an itinerary for us today. First, we will visit the Cierra Corporation’s artificial meat plant.”

“Ooh, artificial meat,” I said. “I’m definitely interested in how they make that stuff.”

While the artificial meat felt real enough, it was actually a mystery product composed of white meat instead of red. No matter how you cooked it. or how much it might taste and feel like beef or pork, cutting into it always revealed white meat inside.

It was definitely strange, but it tasted amazing and oozed with grease and fat. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of crazy process produced it.

“I’ve never seen an artificial meat plant,” Elma said.

“Exciting, isn’t it?!” Mimi said. “After that, the plan is to go to an aquaculture farm and the attached food processing plant.”

“An aquaculture farm, huh?” I said. “What do they actually farm in a place like that?”

“Isn’t it just the algae they use for food cartridges?” Elma said.

“If that’s all, it doesn’t sound like much fun…” I muttered. “But hey, if they offer tours, then it can’t be that boring. Right?”

“Hmm. I suppose you’re right,” Elma said.

“We’ll eat lunch at the food processing plant,” Mimi continued. “They say that you can eat just-processed foods there.”

“That is kind of horrifying.” I shuddered at the thought.

“It’s okay; it’s not what you think. I already researched it,” Mimi said, her eyes momentarily glazing over.

“That’s just fantastic. Should we get going soon?” I said.

“Hmm… Taking travel time into consideration, then yes.”

“Cool. Everyone, get dressed,” I said. “We’ll meet back here in the cafeteria when you’re ready.”

It only took us an hour to throw on clothes, venture out into the colony, and arrive at our first stop on our foodie tour.

“Whew… That train was kinda comfortable,” I commented.

“It would have been nice if they accelerated a little more gently…” Mimi said.

“That’s nothing compared to a ship, Mimi,” Elma replied. “Though apparently, some people get sick on trains.”

We’d hopped on one of the trains in the underground freight transport system to traverse this massive colony. It was cheap and fast, but that came at the price of cramped conditions. Each car had a maximum occupancy of six, and the three of us had gotten one to ourselves, but even that felt claustrophobic. There was no window and no view of any scenery, just a speedy, bumpy roller coaster of a train ride.

“So is this the artificial meat plant?” Elma asked, then suddenly froze.

“Hm? What’s up?” I followed Elma’s gaze, but the sign before us looked ordinary enough to me.

“Cierra Corporation Cultured Meat Plant,” I read aloud. What bothers her about that?

“I just remembered I have to do some stuff,” Elma muttered. “Have fun without me.”

“Hooold up.” I grabbed Elma by the shoulder before she could flee.

“Cultured meat? That’s not the same as artificial meat, is it?” Mimi cocked her head.

“Elma?”

“I don’t really wanna go in there,” Elma confessed.

“But we made a reservation,” Mimi said. “It’s almost time.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Ah, forget it. Let’s drag her in.”

“No, no, no, no, no…”

We dragged a reluctant Elma into the plant, where a slim man with a pale complexion offered a weird toothy grin from behind the reception desk. That’s really scary.

“Welcome! Is this Hiro’s party?” the man asked us.

“Y-yes, sir,” I replied.

“Thank you for choosing our plant’s tour service. Gosh, how long has it been since someone wanted a tour? We’ll bring the whole staff to make it a big merry party!”

“W-wow, crazy,” I said.

His eyes glittered, as if he were a cat sizing up its prey. A huge smile was still stretched across his face. I was beginning to have second thoughts about this.

“Well, don’t be strangers!” he said. “The visitors’ path is right this way. Follow the navigation and enjoy!” He indicated a door that slid open automatically with a click. It’s nothing to get worked up over; automatic doors are normal. Why is that door so thick, though? What is that, a safe?

“Master Hiro, let’s go!” Mimi tugged on my hand, unflappable in her excitement.

Elma shrank back. “I-I think I’ll pass, after all…”

“Oh, no,” I said. “You aren’t slipping away that easy.”

“H-hey, you’re too forceful! Stop pulling meee!” Elma yelled.

We made a chain, Mimi tugging me along while I dragged Elma behind me. I needed to keep a hold on both of them so Mimi wouldn’t dash off alone and so Elma wouldn’t flee. We die together, girls!

The moment we passed the automatic door, it shut and locked behind us. A mechanical voice addressed us: “In order to maintain plant hygiene standards, you shall be disinfected. Afterward, you may proceed.” White smoke hissed into the room. “Disinfection complete. Please move to the next room.”

A door opened, allowing us into a smaller chamber without any windows or doors.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Hmm… I don’t see any doors.” Mimi tilted her head to one side.

Elma heaved an exasperated sigh. “We’re gonna regret this.” The moment she said it, the door shut and locked behind us. Then the whole floor began to sway.

“Is the room moving?” I asked.

A voice greeted us from the ceiling. “Thank you for coming to participate in Cierra Corporation’s Cultured Meat Plant tour. Think of this room as a sort of gondola from which you can view the plant.”

“It’s like the whole room itself is a vehicle,” Mimi marveled. How was she the only one not freaked out by this?

“Shame it doesn’t have any chairs,” I said. My hand strayed to the laser on my hip.

“Customers have loved our meat for more than 300 years. We’re a cut above artificial meats, and that’s why an astonishing 93% of our customers come back for more. On this tour, you’ll see the starting cultures for our meat, the entire manufacturing process, and even the shipping department. Please relax and enjoy!”

“Are artificial and cultured meats different?” I asked.

“I suppose so?” Mimi tapped her lips as she thought.

Elma slouched over in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. What’s her deal? I’m getting a worse and worse feeling about this.

“First, let us take a look at the initial cultures,” the voice overhead said.

The walls around us went transparent, revealing a factory floor. Conveyor belts moved translucent containers to various stations, where machines squirted liquid into them. Their final destination seemed to be some kind of incubator.

“What do you think that box is?” Mimi asked me, pointing at the incubator.

“I have no idea.”

As the room moved on, more incubators appeared. These contained products that had clearly stewed for longer.

“Eugh…” I groaned.

“Wh-what in the world?” Mimi said.

The closer we got, the better we could see into the transparent containers. They held what appeared to be wriggling earthworms but—horrifically—were actually stringy meat.

“I super do not like this,” I muttered.

“C-could cultured meat be…?” Mimi craned her neck to keep analyzing the containers as the room moved on.

“This is why I didn’t want to come,” Elma grumbled, her words hanging in the air.

 

***

 

“Thank you again for visiting today. We hope you’ll try out our high-quality cultured meat in the near future.” I didn’t dare turn to look at the creepy receptionist again as we exited the plant. I could picture his smile all too vividly.

“Ulp.” I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from blowing chunks.

“I-I don’t think I’ll be able to eat meat for some time,” Mimi said.

“This is why I didn’t want to come!” Elma yelled.

The things we witnessed in there… I don’t even want to think about it.

There had been pools of meat-colored tentacle things, some the size of trains. They’d slice the tentacles open and… Ugh, I can’t describe it any further. According to the voiceover in the gondola, those tentacles were actual animals like cows or pigs, just genetically modified to improve edibility. The result was, well, whatever horrors lurked in that factory. They grew quickly into high-quality meat, though, and they supposedly weren’t sentient. I just wished all that genetic engineering could have made them less…disgusting.

Chapter 5:
Two Trouble-Magnets Attract

 

THE NEXT DAY marked the beginning of Elma’s prohibition.

“Ugh. Nnngh…” She started crying the moment she woke up. Slumped forward in the cafeteria, Elma gazed mournfully at an unopened bottle of expensive, untouched whiskey.

“Is it really worth crying over?” I asked.

“I-I just bought it, and now…” Tears tracked down her cheeks.

I very nearly took pity on her and lifted the prohibition right away. Could I even really stop her from drinking it? She’d bought that whiskey with her own money. Who was I to say she couldn’t have it?

I sighed. “Just drink a bit less, okay?”

“C-can I really?” Elma said.

“Next time you get blind drunk, though, it’s going right in your butt.”

“Urk! I-I’ll be careful.” Elma’s eyes glimmered with hope. She glowed all over with that mysterious, misused magic of hers.

“Master Hiro…” Mimi cut in.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I couldn’t bear the reproach in her gaze. “Anyway, Mimi, what are you up to?”

“I was thinking of relaxing on the ship. After all, I need to work on my operator studies.”

“Fair enough. Hmm… What should I do?”

I had yet to find a gaming console in this universe, and I’d never been much of a reader. Maybe in a colony with so much shopping, I could scrounge up something fun, though.

“I might wander around the city for a while. This place seems safe enough.”

“Um, are you going alone?” Mimi asked.

“Probably, yeah. There’s nothing wrong with some alone time once in a while.” I’d had precious little solitude since arriving in this universe and inviting Mimi and Elma to join my crew. Flying solo for a bit might let all of us relax for a day.

“Really?” Mimi glanced at Elma.

“I don’t see the problem with him wandering around alone,” Elma said. “Just don’t poke your head into any trouble, bub.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Elma narrowed her eyes at me. What could I say? I certainly wasn’t looking for trouble, but if trouble happened to be looking for me, well, all I could do was my best.

 

***

 

“Let’s see… Where to go?” I mused.

Where in this big, wide universe might I find a gaming console? I’d take pretty much anything at this point, perhaps even a book.

“But print books are kinda…eh.”

Books ate up space quickly. If I started hoarding print books, the Krishna could get cramped. “No books, then. Okay.” Digital was probably a better option for reading, anyway.

I wandered along, tapping at my terminal, trying to suss out anything that might be a gaming retailer. Abruptly, the bright lights of the colony went dark. I looked up and found myself alone in an empty alley.

That’s what I get for having my nose in my phone.

“Wait!” a woman yelled.

“Why would I wait just because you told me to?!” a rough-sounding man replied.

Gee, it sure feels like this has happened before. Also, that voice sounds familiar. Am I just imagining it?

I peeked around the corner of the alley and found a woman in a disheveled white coat. Her brown braid slapped against her back as she fled, and her breasts bounced frantically as she went. Dammit. I couldn’t just leave her. I heaved a sigh, unholstered my laser gun, and dashed around the corner. The woman stumbled to a stop when I appeared. “Eep!”

“Wha—?!” Her pursuer dropped down the moment he spotted my gun, reaching into his pockets. He was too quick and too smooth to be some fumbling amateur.

I caught the woman before she fell, firing a warning shot at her attacker as I did. The projectile grazed his cheek.

“Put your hands behind your head and get on your knees, slowly,” I said. “Do anything weird, and I won’t hold back. The next one’s going right into your forehead.”

The man froze before slowly lowering to one knee and raising his hands to clasp them behind his head.

“Y-you’re…”

The woman in my arms squirmed, and we locked eyes. Recognition dawned on her instantly. Dr. Shouko blinked at me with a mixture of astonishment and fear, then relaxed a little.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but just turn around and get out of here,” I told her pursuer. “Don’t try anything weird either. Remember your manners and be a good boy now.”

The man glared daggers in my direction, refusing to back down. He squinted, then pointed right at me. His hand bent away in the wrong direction as a gun barrel sprouted from his wrist. Laser gun in his left arm, huh? What is he, a cyborg?

He flew into motion, fast and fluid, but I was faster. I leveled my laser at him before he got very far.

“Gah?!”

An explosion bloomed from his mechanical wrist as I shot his arm-gun. He struck the wall behind him, slumping to the ground in a heap. Dr. Shouko gasped, clinging to me in fear, pushing that voluptuous chest against me. Oho! Those are some Mimi-tier knockers. How excellent.

Chapter 6:
The Pirate Hunting Unit

 

I WASN’T ABOUT TO MAKE the same mistake two days in a row. Thus, the next day, I resigned myself to staying aboard the ship. Mimi was just helping me figure out her favorite e-book-reading app when someone came knocking at the Krishna’s door.

Is it Dr. Shouko? Was she freed from her mountain of apology letters already?

I cringed the moment I recognized the person on the holo display.

“It’s been quite a while, silver rank Captain Hiro.” A prim woman with golden-blonde hair, red irises, and a white military uniform complete with a red cape smirked at me. This woman was as beautiful as she was dangerous.

Lieutenant Serena.

The blood drained from my face. No matter how hard I blinked, she remained stubbornly real on the holo display. I had no choice but to scrounge together some appropriate clothing and face her.

“Oh, my,” she said when I invited her into the ship. “What a lovely automatic cooker you have here.”

“Well, thank you,” I said, mouth dry.

The best the Krishna could do in terms of a reception room was the cafeteria. Lieutenant Serena took her seat as though she were in the grand lobby of some fancy hotel and sipped the tea Mimi offered her. Then Mimi came around to join me and Elma on the opposite side of the table.

“So, er… What brings you here?” I tried.

Lieutenant Serena smiled, setting down her tea. As mercs, we didn’t have any fancy teaware.

“Ha ha. I came here to invite you, of course,” she said.

My crew and I exchanged glances, a single thought striking all of us at once: How persistent is this lady?

“I’m the kind of woman who never lets my prey escape,” Serena said as though reading our minds. Her smile sent chills down my spine. Mimi and Elma wrapped their arms around me as though shielding me from the lieutenant. “Well, they clearly don’t approve.”

“Girls, please. Don’t be rude,” I said.

Mimi and Elma reluctantly backed off. I immediately missed the comfort of their touch, but I couldn’t face down Serena that way.

“I think I’ve refused a few times already, but again, I don’t plan to join the Imperial Fleet,” I said.

“Yes, I’m aware. It’s quite disappointing.” Serena sighed, but her dismay was so obviously rehearsed that I couldn’t take it seriously. “I’ve been forced to give up on that goal. I wouldn’t want the mercenary guild to badger me about my forceful recruiting methods, after all. I’d prefer to be on good terms with them.”

“Go on.” In that case, why come all this way? “You’re not here to flaunt the Empire’s noble authority, I assume.”

“Oh, I would never. If I did, you would flee to the Belbellum Federation, wouldn’t you?”

I held my tongue, which perhaps was answer enough.

“Incidentally, I’ve been promoted,” she went on. “They were impressed by my work in the defense of Tarmein Prime. See, the insignia on my badge has even changed. Now you may call me Lieutenant Commander Serena Holz.”

“Congratulations for that,” I said flatly.

She tapped at her badge, nodding to acknowledge my congratulations. But surely she hadn’t come all this way just to gloat.

“My promotion is partly thanks to your efforts during that fight, Captain Hiro. How strangely fortunate for us to be aided by crystal life-forms, hmm?”

“I assure you it was just luck,” I said. “I had just charged into the enemy line at that point, so I was downright terrified.” Cold sweat trickled down my back. She couldn’t prove I’d used a Singing Crystal to summon those beasts, right?

“Heh heh, but of course,” she said. “It was just good timing. Don’t worry. I’m not interested in probing too deeply into that.” Lieutenant Commander Serena smiled as if to say You owe me one. Frankly, that seemed a little unfair to me. If I hadn’t acted when I did, her fleet would have suffered huge losses and damages. Wasn’t she the one in my debt?

“Ha ha. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if my work has helped you somehow, then that’s just great,” I said.

“Heh heh heh.”

“Ha ha ha…”

Mimi trembled at the sound of our awkward, unnatural laughter, but I refused to back down. Serena wouldn’t lead me around by the nose ever again. I was on my guard this time.

“So how about we get down to brass tacks?” I prompted.

“Sure,” Serena said. “With my advancement, I’ve also been charged with a new force to lead.”

“Congratulations for that too, I think?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m very excited about it. The Empire has granted my request for an independent cohort for the sole purpose of pirate hunting, and I’ve been tasked with leading them.”

“Wait, only pirate hunting?”

“Yes. In simple terms, the Imperial Fleet is divided into two sections. One is for defense and stays stationed at colonies and strongholds. The other is a mobile force that actively seeks out enemies and carries out incursions.”

“I see.”

“The Imperial Fleet—our defensive side—wields great power, but we often have to spread it thin to cover our territory. As such, proactively hunting pirates and space monsters is a risky venture that puts us on the back foot. In the worst of times, this leads to casualties and the weakening of national security. Unless we’re able to form an airtight plan and back it up with fire power, the Imperial Fleet looks vulnerable and open to attack.”

“I can understand that.”

Pirates would swarm the moment they smelled weakness in the Imperial Fleet. Any kind of gap in the defenses could entice enemies in neighboring systems looking for quick scores. It would hamper all of the fleet’s operations, defensive and offensive. If that went on long enough, if pirates and others truly believed they’d caught the Imperial Fleet out, it could even provoke an attack on one of the colonies.

“But that doesn’t mean that the mobile force is free to move as it pleases. It is both the Empire’s strongest offense and a component of its defense. Moving comes at great cost, as other nations could attack us if we’re not careful.”

“So basically, you need more mobile forces,” I said. “Right now, mercenaries are making up the deficit.”

“That is correct,” she said. “The goal of my new pirate hunting squad is to fight space pirates ourselves instead of relying on mercenaries.”

“I see. But this still doesn’t explain why you needed to come all this way to talk to me.”

Her mobile force sounded nice and all, but it would also be a rival for local mercenaries, who would likely need to travel elsewhere to scoop up bounties. Anywhere Serena went would be slim pickings for mercs. I couldn’t see why she’d come all this way to deliver that information to me, personally, though.

“Yes, well, I’m here to recruit you,” Serena said.

My eyes narrowed. Hadn’t I turned her down enough?

“Your outright refusal only makes me more—urk! Forget I said that,” Serena said. “Anyway, I have a request for you. It’s something that only a professional pirate hunter can help me with.”

“A request, eh? What are the details?” She could make a request through the guild, but this sounded a lot fishier than the official routes.

“The Imperial Fleet has expertise in traditional battles,” Serena said, “but we lack experience and knowledge when it comes to the guerrilla-style fighting one might employ against pirate ships.”

“Yeah, figures,” I said.

A big lumbering imperial squad would have a tough time catching small mobile groups of space pirates who could simply run away and hide at the moment Serena showed up.

“As such, we would like a professional such as yourself to teach us the necessary skills to exterminate pirates.”

“Gotcha.”

“And?” Lieutenant Commander Serena looked at me expectantly.

“I respectfully decline.”

Her face froze around a tight, tense smile. “M-might I ask why?”

“I mean, I don’t have to accept it. Why not just go to the mercenary guild and ask them to teach you? They’d be able to give you a much better teacher than a guy with no military background like me.” It also sounded annoying as hell, though I couldn’t really tell her that.

Serena hadn’t made any mention of compensation, but I had to imagine we could make more money more quickly by hunting pirates ourselves. I also had no idea how long this little training class might last. The longer it dragged on, the more it hurt my bank account.

“I’d like to learn all you can teach me.”

“Not into it.”

“Why are you so stubborn?” Lieutenant Commander Serena puffed out her cheeks adorably. Wow, gorgeous women can make any face they want and still look good, huh?

I couldn’t exactly explain that I was digging my heels in because I found her annoying, so I searched for some other reason that might placate her. She was imperial nobility, after all. She might slap me with a defamation suit if I said the wrong thing.

Thus, I told her, “It’s because I don’t expect to be sufficiently compensated for the amount of time I’ll have to put into it. Really, why are you so fixated on me?”

“I like your way of thinking and your willingness to stand out,” Serena said matter-of-factly. “Among all the mercenaries we commanded, you were the only one to propose your own independent strategy. It was reckless at first glance, but you did it—you got out, and you won the day.”

Is she complimenting me? Why does that freak me out?

“And the crystal life-form attack,” she continued. “You used a Singing Crystal, didn’t you? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. I don’t have proof, after all. I believe that a man willing to use such a bold, ruthless strategy without hesitation would be able to teach us the best way to obliterate the pirate scum. That’s why I’m fixated on you. In truth, I would love to have you as a subordinate, but I assume you’re not interested in that, are you?”

“Nope. Not into it.” That was twice today I’d turned her down. She really didn’t fold easily.

“I’ll give up on that front, but in return, I want you to help me. If the military’s reward isn’t enough, then I am willing to personally compensate you. After all, I am the daughter of a marquess and a field officer of the Imperial Fleet. Having me as a connection would be awfully helpful, don’t you think?” She punctuated this statement with a downright wicked smile.

I glanced at Mimi, but she just shrugged. Elma leaned a little closer and whispered, “I think it might lead to more trouble if you reject her after all that.”

I still didn’t like it, but Elma was probably right. Serena had traveled all this way to personally deliver the message this time. That was a lot of effort to go to just to get a no.

“Okay, but you owe me.” I sighed. “Make sure to send the contract through the guild, okay? I think they have a system that lets you request me specifically. Now, the rewards?”

“You’ll receive junior lieutenant pay for a period of…let’s say thirty days. Your only superior in the squad will be me.”

“I don’t want the fleet trying to assimilate me or whatever. No matter what, I’m clocking out at a set time. You get ten hours a day and not a minute more.”

“Tch… Very well.”

“Also,” I continued, “all of my knowledge is specific to mercenary work—as in hunting pirate ships alone. I plan to do my best with this job, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll help you become a fantastic squad leader.”

“Of course. I can understand that. We need to be able to digest your teachings and use them well. Our captains are excellent, so you’ve no need to worry.” Lieutenant Commander Serena’s smile turned sweeter. Seemed her mood was improving as I gave ground in these negotiations.

“So again, the rewards,” I prodded. “Elma, what would a good amount be?”

“It’s hard to tell. Mercenaries aren’t usually asked to teach the military, so I don’t have a precedent to work with. But if this were a bodyguard request for a certain number of days, it would be somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand.”

“This job poses no danger to your life, so wouldn’t you expect a little less?” Serena asked. “Besides, the reward comes with a premium, as it’s meant for parties of ships who can perform bodyguard duty.”

She’s shrewd for sure. I guess I should’ve done some research in advance.

“But Hiro can get 200,000 daily from pirate hunting,” Elma argued. “Getting less than a quarter of that is just stupid. We’re mercs, not charity workers. If we don’t profit, we don’t work. You should know that.”

We didn’t actually make 200,000 Ener every day, and we took days off pretty often. Still, Elma was right. Taking this job would cut us off from more lucrative gigs for a month.

Serena let out a grunt of frustration at our haggling. “What about 40,000 Ener a day?”

“We don’t get out of bed for less than 60,000 Ener,” Elma declared.

“Why don’t we meet in the middle? 50,000.” Serena crossed her arms. This was likely her final offer.

Elma glanced at me. I shrugged, leaving it up to her.

“Fine, that works,” Elma said. “Hiro, do you have anything to add?”

“I can’t plan any strategies without knowing what their ships can do, so I’ll need ship blueprints and weapon specs ahead of time. I’d also like to test your pilots in simulators.”

“I will give you as much as I can make public,” Serena said. “As for the simulators, I can send ship data regarding our enemies to the mercenary guild in advance.”

“Sounds to me like we have a deal,” Elma said. “Send all the details through the mercenary guild.” Elma looked plenty pleased with herself, but I had a queasy feeling lurking in the pit of my stomach. With this, we’d become Serena’s underlings.

“So now that we’re done talking about work… Can I ask you a few things while you’re here?”

Serena hesitated. “As long as I’m able to answer them.”

“Awesome. It’s no big deal, though—or I guess it is.” I stumbled over my words. “It’s just kinda bothering me. Do you remember the mercenary ship that crashed into the Imperial Fleet during the pirate crackdown back in Tarmein Prime?”

“Yes, I do,” Serena said. “I warned them not to charge the pilot for that incident, but due to some mistakes, they saddled her with an impossible repayment deadline. I do believe Elma was the pilot of that ship, yes?”

“Great, you do know. That’ll make this faster. I wanted to ask, just in case: Were there any mistakes in the calculated reparations?”

“None at all,” Serena said. “I triple-checked the numbers myself. There was an issue with the deadline, as I mentioned, but that is all. I can’t annul the debt now, and I can’t return it, so don’t ask, if that’s where this is going. I will apologize regarding the issue, but those responsible have been terminated from their positions. Frankly, it was their way of harassing me, so I should be grateful to you for giving me an opportunity to deal with them.”

“You’re awfully unapologetic for almost getting her jailed and then some.”

“Well, yes. I’m not at fault for what happened. It was her mistake that nearly destroyed an imperial battleship. I’ll have you know that people often get tried for felony in such cases. After all, her mistake nearly caused the destruction of a ship and badly wounded many of our troops.”

“Hmm… Fair enough.” Maybe debt alone was the best-case scenario for us, after all.

“I can only apologize for the nature of the deadline, but those are decided at the fleet’s discretion. Typical cases run between a few months to a year, but that’s not an absolute. In the most egregious cases, the fleet will set shorter deadlines, such as the one you dealt with. It’s a case-by-case decision, and I urged them to be lenient, but they ignored me. However, you could say that I’ve expressed my goodwill already by canning the people at fault for the whole ordeal.”

Hmm. I still don’t like it, but maybe this is normal in a society where nobility and the army hold all the power.

“Hiro, it’s okay. We all know I messed up and, I mean…I don’t mind how things ended up with us working together.” Elma smiled a little, tugging at my arm. Hmm… If she says so, then I guess there’s no point in fighting Serena on it.

“Ha ha! Captain Hiro, you’re quite the thoughtful one,” Lieutenant Commander Serena said. “I have good news for you, by the way.” She grinned and it made my stomach lurch. “Once you’ve completed this request, I would like to offer you a position as my own contracted mercenary.”

I blinked at the lieutenant commander, my mouth falling open.

“Goodness,” Serena said. “This is the first time anyone’s ever looked so disgusted by me.”

Did I look that sour? Serena seemed like she was fighting not to grimace, but could she blame me? Her proposal sounded more like a prison sentence.

“I might as well ask. What’s in it for me?”

“I appreciate the straightforward question,” she said. “First, by becoming my contracted mercenary, you’ll find it very difficult to run into trouble with imperial nobility or the army. I’m both a lieutenant commander and Marquess Holz’s daughter, after all. Anyone who wants to bother my mercenary will have to go through me.”

“Uh-huh. But that also means anyone who doesn’t like you will also dislike me, right?”

“It’s not impossible, but I doubt anyone like that exists,” Serena said. “If you run into any trouble, you can let me know and I’ll deal with it to the best of my ability.”

“To the best of your ability, huh?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“Nah. Now let’s talk about the downsides.” For once during this strange negotiation, I leaned back in my chair and relaxed. If she was making this kind of request, there was no need to keep kissing ass.

She returned my smile. Two smiling friends, that’s all we are. Mimi, on the other hand, trembled beside me.

“Downsides? Whatever could you mean?” Serena asked, feigning innocence.

“Ha ha ha, funny joke. Seriously, I’m not here to be your little puppet. You owe me already, so I’m not going to keep helping you out before you repay me.”

“Oh? But making you my mercenary would be repaying you, no?”

“Is that how you’re trying to seduce me now? Pretty bold of you to say that you’d be paying me back by contracting me. As a noble and a military woman, you made a concession to us, and I paid you back in kind. That’s all. Like Elma said before, this reward is lower than low for us. Normally, I wouldn’t even listen to you. You still owe me.”

Serena groaned, but I ignored her.

“If I get in trouble with nobility or the army, I can just run away if I need to. Being protected from that stuff isn’t much of a benefit. You say you don’t have enemies, but I’m not buying it. Anyone who doesn’t like you or your father will be on my ass. Besides, just being your contracted mercenary limits what I can do, right? At that point, there are too many downsides. As you know, my methods are pretty unorthodox. I’m assuming that’s not gonna fly if I’m working for you. The moment I step out of line, you can just cut me off, and I’ll be left high and dry. Doesn’t seem like a very lucrative deal to me. Any rebuttal?”

Serena’s face flushed, lips pressing into a thin line. Is she mad? Sorry, I’ve just got a whole bunch of pent-up anger. After all those annoying spam messages, you come here and toss this crappy request in my lap. Think about how I feel!

“H-hey, Hiro,” Elma said. “That was just—”

“You’re the first person who’s ever spoken to the daughter of Marquess Holz so foolishly.” Lieutenant Commander Serena snorted a laugh, but red still lingered in her heated cheeks. “But very well. I’ll forgive you, as you do have a point. Sometimes, trying too hard to get something will only lead to ruining it. A cute lap kitty can’t match up to the strength of a stray, after all.”

“Who are you calling a stray cat?”

“One doesn’t need a collar to domesticate a pet as long as they have food. The collar can wait until after I’ve tamed you with treats.”

“Are you trying to literally put a collar on me?”

“Yes. Like I said, I don’t let my prey escape.” She rubbed across her lips with a finger. I couldn’t tell if that hungry gaze was anger or arousal, but both terrified me.

Mimi and Elma wrapped their arms around me in solidarity.

Serena just smiled. “For today, I’ll be satisfied that you accepted the request. I will send it through to the mercenary guild, so please be sure to formally accept it. I’ll also provide them with the necessary data.”

“Sure. I’ll watch my language at work, but forgive me if I get a little high-strung.”

“Oh, that’s no problem. You’re very free to talk as you please in a private setting.”

“Ha ha ha, gotcha.” Wait a minute. Private setting?!

 

***

 

“I can’t believe you talked to her like that. I was scared outta my mind!” Elma told me.

We lingered in the cafeteria after Serena departed, eating our lunch. Elma picked at a bang bang chicken salad with Japanese-style noodles. I had a hamburger, fries, and a milkshake. The shake smelled a little off, but it was way better than that stuff down in the colony.

“If that was enough to make her go mad and break things off, then it wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” I reasoned. “In fact, the way she smiled and forgave me shows that she’s serious about this. We don’t want to get tripped up because we were careless, so it’s best to avoid verbal promises.”

“I don’t like her. She’s dangerous,” Mimi said, prodding at her ketchup-drenched omurice.

C’mon, Mimi. She’s hot and she’s got big bazonkers, but I won’t fall for her traps that easily. I’m not like that. Don’t worry about me.

“Anyway, you’ll be training for a while,” I said. “Since I’ll have my hands full with the request, I figure you’ll keep working on your operator studies, Mimi. Elma, I hope you’ll help Mimi out during that month.”

“Sure,” Elma said. “I don’t have much else to do. Not every day can be exciting, even for a merc. But Hiro, make sure you train so your skills don’t get rusty, okay?”

“I’ll do what I can. I’ve already been thinking about it.”

If I just lectured on a whiteboard, I’d be nothing more than an armchair theorist. No, we’d need mock battles and simulations to really make any progress.

“But hey, if I’m gonna do this job, then I’m gonna take it seriously,” I said. “Besides, it’s zero danger, and I get to have a lieutenant commander indebted to me. We get a little bit of cash to sweeten the deal too. Meanwhile, Mimi gets to keep studying. Sounds great to me!”

“Master Hiro?” Mimi said, looking up from under her lashes.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful, okay?”

“You betcha.” Was Mimi especially wary of Serena, or did she not trust me? Hopefully the former. Please tell me it’s the former.

“Don’t let that marquess’s daughter make you her bitch,” Elma said bluntly.

“You don’t trust me at all!”

“It already happened once!”

Ouch. “I have no rebuttal.”

I spent the rest of the day trying to repair Mimi’s and Elma’s sour moods, shutting us in the Krishna for a cozy, lazy day. We had to indulge while we could. Soon, I’d be spending whole days away from them and in Serena’s service instead.

 

***

 

Mimi and Elma slipped right into their temporary roles, devoting their time to training and learning even before I left the ship. As for me…

“Eugh. Nobles are crazy,” I groaned.

Elma had suggested for (read: forced) me to watch a documentary-style compilation of nobility-related problems and shenanigans in the Grakkan Empire. In her own words: “Your attitude toward nobility terrifies me. If you’re not careful, you could have all of us tried for slander. Learn to talk to nobles!”

I found it annoying at first, but the longer I watched, the more horrified I became. Apparently, nobles could actually murder common folk without any consequences as long as they provided even the flimsiest of excuses. And I do mean flimsy. Stuff like “they were a villain,” “they insulted me,” and “I did it to avenge the Grakkan Empire.”

To make matters worse, other nobles served as judge and jury in those kinds of cases. The noble in charge of the territory where the murder took place got to mete out justice—and they’d almost always side with their fellow nobility.

The imperial government did have some power over the nobles. They too could decide it was time to “avenge the Grakkan Empire,” and citizens were a major asset to the emperor. Plus, imperial nobility still valued reputation and honor. Tossing around their authority too much wasn’t a good look for anyone and could even get them shunned by other nobles.

It all struck me as a pretty delicate balance to maintain. Even a whiff of corruption could bring it all crashing down, and since it was clearly intact, they must have been doing something right.

“Nobles are insane,” I said to Elma, surely (not) wowing her with my colorful vocabulary.

Elma just sighed, as if to say See? I told you so.

“Yeah, they’re insane,” Elma muttered. “You need to pick your words better.”

“I’ll try to do better next time. A little late for Serena, though, right?”

“It may be, but it’s best to err on the side of caution. If anyone has a sword at their hip, they’re probably nobility. Keep an eye out for that.”

“Gotcha.” The sword was apparently a symbol of their honor or whatever. Maybe it was akin to a samurai’s katana.

“Most of the Grakkan Empire’s nobility are decent people, so you shouldn’t have to worry too much…but some of them are complete idiots. The best thing you can do is avoid interacting with them. Though they probably wouldn’t come near a mercenary unless they had some business with you.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Unlike normal people, mercs walk around with lasers, most of us know how to fight, and we have ships loaded with weapons. If nobles caused trouble with us, it could easily blow up in their faces. If a noble tries to slice you, just shoot them with your gun. In the worst case, you get in your ship and dogfight. We’re scared of nobility, but they’re scared of us too.”

“Huh. I get it. It’d be a different story if we were defenseless herbivores, but you wouldn’t want to corner a hungry wolf.”

“Weird example, but kinda? Like I said before, you can’t be rude to nobility.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t wanna die, after all.” I certainly didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of their swords.

“I should’ve noticed this earlier.” Elma shook her head. “Amnesiac or visitor from another world, it’s obvious that you’d be short on common sense. I should’ve started teaching you common sense and social norms sooner.”

“I know you didn’t mean to be rude, but that felt mean.” How should I know common sense?! This stuff wasn’t in Stella Online! “Really, though, this world’s common sense just seems bizarre from my perspective. How is it obvious that a guy has to be sleeping with the girls on his ship? What is this, a porn game?”

“Interstellar travel is faster now thanks to hyperdrive functionality, but a long time ago, it took a month or two most of the time. Mercenaries were mostly rowdy men, so taking a woman onto your ship for a month or two… Wouldn’t you think that something was up?”

“Yeah, true, I guess.” All that time stuck together in close quarters—things were bound to happen eventually. If a man didn’t make a move in that situation, people would doubt his sexuality…or his virility.

“There you go, then,” Elma said with a nod. “When a girl gets on a guy’s ship, most people assume that she’s ready and consenting. It’s a tradition at this point.”

“I see. Well, I’ll do my best to pick up this kind of stuff in the future.”

“You do that. Trust me, the effort won’t go to waste.”

It wouldn’t be easy changing my natural tendencies at my age, but I had to learn the social norms here if I was going to survive. Still…

Elma, can’t you at least find stuff other than children’s books to teach me with?

 

***

 

I got in a good week of studying, and in all that time, none of us suffered any side effects from our vaccines. I never did hear from Inagawa Technologies, though. What had happened to my genetic data? Ah, whatever. It’s not worth panicking and bothering them about it.

Okay, I said about a week, but I really only studied for the first two days. After that, I pored over the info Serena had sent me about her squad. It allowed me to set up simulations at the mercenary guild and run them using the Krishna’s data.

Today, it was finally time to put all that prep to good use.

“I’m Captain Hiro, and I’ll be advising you for a few weeks,” I announced. “Let’s get this bread.”

I stood next to Lieutenant Commander Serena on the flagship’s bridge and addressed her recruits. Some sat in the briefing room with us, while others joined via video conference.

“I hear this squad was formed to turn every last pirate from space pest into space debris. I’m a mercenary, so this is my specialty. That’s why she’s invited me to be your advisor.”

I continued, “I’ll teach you all how to hunt them, fool them, and chase them down. You’ll take in that information and apply it through simulations. I don’t think you’ll be able to learn my methods directly, since I’m a mercenary, but the concepts should still translate. As long as we respect each other as pirate fighting comrades, we should make it through this just fine.”

I paused, and my array of students applauded. Thanks for your pity, guys. I’ll do my best.

“Whenever you want to do something, you have to learn the basics. Let’s start with identifying what a space pirate is.” Pirate ship data filled the holographic display beside me. “Pirates often roam in groups of three to five ships. Numbers are important, as they need a few ships to surround their prey. They typically use optical weapons, seeker missiles, and multi-cannons. They’re all Class I to Class II low-power weapons, but they like to really cram stuff into their weapon slots, so they can pack a punch. A few ships will surround you while the beefed-up ones try to exhaust your shields and capture you. That’s their usual plan of attack.”

The men and women of the class nodded along. These weren’t exactly state secrets I was dishing out. Anyone who’d ever encountered a space pirate knew this stuff.

“Next, they usually use private ships that they’ve captured and remodeled. As a result, they have lower mobility. Most customizations go toward adding weapons and thrusters, meaning they’re lacking in armor and shields. They’re built for speed first and foremost. The longer a hit takes, the more likely it is that imperial ships or mercenaries will find them. They add enough strength to suppress private ships, but then the focus is on getting away. If their prey bites back or they’re caught up in an attack, they’re sitting ducks.”

It was no surprise to see my students nodding along. They likely knew how easily their military-grade weapons could blast through flimsy pirate shields and armor.

“As you might guess, pirates are terrified of the Imperial Fleet,” I said. “They don’t go anywhere you might show up, and the first thing they do when you show up is run. They don’t wanna die, after all. To be honest, they would probably turn tail even if they were in the middle of a hit.”

“Yes,” Serena chimed in. “You can expect that they won’t fight back. The only time they’ll try to attack us is when we raid their bases.”

“Pretty much,” I said. “They’re constantly scanning for imperial ships, and they’ve got eyes and ears in the colonies. Heck, they probably already know that something is going on here, since all your ships are docked outside.”

“Er…”

“I don’t think you could’ve done anything about it,” I told Serena. “They’re always slipping in with merchants and normal people, gathering whatever info they can. More of them are lurking in large colonies like this one, so I doubt you could find every single one. But hey, that’s outside my jurisdiction. I’m just here to tell you about the ones in the ships.”

“I see. Perhaps we should address that at a later time,” Serena said.

“Good luck with that. Moving on…” I displayed a map of the Tarmein System. “A while back, we destroyed a pirate base under Lieutenant Commander Serena’s leadership here in this system. Here’s a distribution that shows where pirate ships ran into private ships, where mercenaries destroyed pirate ships, and the expected routes of ships that went missing.”

Dots marked the locations I pointed out with flight paths crisscrossing over the map. At the center of it all sat the pirate base, a flurry of dots and lines that marked the battle there.

“Here’s how it looked after we destroyed their base.” I tapped my terminal a few times, and the map changed. “You can see the difference, right? Add in data of where the Imperial Fleet was putting in work, and you get this.”

Gasps rippled through the audience. The paths of the pirates shied away from any area with imperial activity, making it clear just how much the pirates knew about the military’s movements.

“I don’t know about other mercenaries, but I use data like this to find places where pirates are working and hunt them down,” I explained. “This would be more accurate if we had data from private miners in the most resource-rich locations, but…well, this is good enough. Do you all follow me so far?”

“Yes, how interesting,” Serena said. “This lecture is being recorded, so you’re free to continue.”

“Understood. So the obvious next question is: How can your squad use this information to hunt pirates? Well, what I’m about to tell you may come as a shock.” I glanced at Lieutenant Commander Serena. She nodded ever so slightly. “I’ll give it to you straight. Any ship bigger than or as big as a cruiser isn’t suited to hunt pirates. If you really want to crush them, you’ll have to change your squad composition entirely.”

Another burst of chatter and audible breaths. I couldn’t blame them. This squad was built around two corvettes, three destroyers, five cruisers, and one battleship. They were giants.

“Pirates often work in asteroid belts,” I went on. “If you use that data distribution map to find them, you’ll almost always be fighting in belts. Do you think cruisers and battleships can fight well in that kind of environment?”

This time, they went silent. It ain’t gonna work, see?

“Based on my simulator work, I was barely able to manage destroyers, but I’d recommend corvettes. It’s not my place to make decisions regarding your composition, but I think you’ll want to look into that.”

“We appreciate your concern,” Serena said. “However, could we not use the ships’ firepower to just remove the asteroids from the equation?”

I’d come prepared for that very objection. “Yeah. You can kill the space pirates just fine with that, but you’ll get a whole heap of complaints from private miners. Those resource-rich asteroids are how they make a living. They might be happy to be rid of pirates, but they’ll be much less happy if you kill their business in the process.”

“Hmm.”

“I said you should change your squad composition, but I doubt it’s that easy for you to do. Mercenaries can change ships and weapons whenever we want, but it’s probably not as simple for the military. I’m sure you’re all a bit offended by my suggestion.”

I got a couple nods at that one. Pilots tended to get attached to their ships and treat them like family, like partners. A ship couldn’t be abandoned that easily.

“That’s why I have a proposal,” I said. “Lieutenant Commander, do you have the resolve to do whatever it takes to hunt pirate scum and protect your empire?”

“Y-yes? Anything within my power, I suppose.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

 

***

 

Within a few days, the Pirate Hunting Unit performed its first real mission in the Arein System.

“Their total record so far is thirty-two ships,” Serena said.

“Ha ha ha! What a bountiful harvest,” I said.

“Yes, quite…”

Standing on the bridge of their flagship—the battleship Lestarius—I was feeling quite peachy. Serena looked awfully uncertain next to me as we watched her crew clean up the last of the pirates, but they were executing their mission beautifully.

“Heh, military ships are a cut above, aren’t they? Loving that range and firepower.”

“Erm, isn’t this rather dishonorable?” she asked me.

“Who cares? You’re happy to see dead pirates, the pilots are happy to serve their cause, I’m happy to get my bonus, and the Empire’s people are happy to be without pirates. That’s like a quadruple win there.”

“True, but…”

Serena and I watched as a medium-sized transport ship lumbered into view. It carried Rare Metal, as well as high-tech medicine produced right here in the system. However, it was having some trouble, limping along as it sent out a weak distress signal—extremely weak, in fact. I mean, the place is crawling with pirates. Maybe they’re lowering their output to keep themselves from being picked up on radars?

“The plan is going well,” I said. That transport ship was pure pirate bait. Serena had purchased it. 5,000,000 Ener right out of pocket, like it was nothing.

“I’m not too sure about this underhanded attack,” Serena said uneasily.

“Look. They’re a bunch of a-holes who attack helpless merchants, miners, and travelers. They can hardly complain if we employ a little trickery. Besides, they’re not some foreign army; they’re pirates. You’re not gonna receive a formal complaint or whatever.”

The strategy I devised was simple. A force built around cruisers couldn’t go chasing after the pirates; we’d have to lure the buggers out. We gave them that sitting duck full of Rare Metal and sat back to wait.

First, the corvettes and destroyers would go into the cluster and clean things up a bit. That meant either attacking the pirates or—if there weren’t any pirates—guiding the larger ships into the cluster. Cruisers and battleships were huge, but if they reduced their generator output, it would be easy for them to sneak in. Asteroids came in plenty of different sizes, and some of them were big enough to hide battleships.

After that, the bait would be placed just outside of the cluster and begin emitting a weak emergency signal. Drawn to it, the pirates would then be eradicated by super-powered cruiser and battleship fire.

Huge military-grade ships like cruisers and battleships had capacitors that could maintain battle-readiness and basic functionality even when their generators didn’t work. That electricity was enough to let them blow away pirate ships without being detected. Once the capacitors ran out of juice, we would stop the distress signal, activate the generator, and restore electricity to them. After they were charged, the bait ship would go back to singing its siren song.

Once we took out one group of pirates, we could simply rinse and repeat. Of course, that would only last so long. If we tried this trick over and over in the same spot, even lowly pirates would catch on eventually.

Still, it should be good enough to take out a bunch of pirates and get me my 20 percent of the loot and rewards. We’d already taken down thirty-two pirates. Pure profit. How could I not smile?

Oh, and if the pirates did somehow manage to get into the bait ship, they were in for a different nasty surprise. They’d be greeted by Serena’s subordinates, all of them big, burly, and ready to brawl. What, you think those rascals would shoot the ship down? Absolutely not. If they did, they would damage the cargo. Stealing it for their own fleet made much more sense.

My little plan worked like a charm. The fleet crushed fifty-two ships that day, a tidy 100,000 Ener profit for me.

“Hoo boy. Big money!” I said.

“Good for you.” Serena shot me a dour glare. She hadn’t come out quite so clean. That ship she bought cost her a pretty penny, and the military refused to treat it as an official expense.

I winked at her. “Keep this up and I bet you can write off that expense.”

“It would certainly be a welcome miracle.” She heaved a sigh. Marquess’s daughter or not, that 5,000,000 was nothing to sneeze at. Maybe her financial situation wasn’t as cushy as it seemed.

“Keep on using this method for everyday pirate hunting, and once you find the location of their base, you can just attack it head-on,” I said. “Ultimately, it’s a battle of wits against those space pirates.”

“I see,” she said. “Though we do have more than half of the contract period remaining. I expect you to stay with us, understood?”

“Aye-aye, Lieutenant Commander.”

It would have been nice to dump this strategy on them and leave, but of course, things couldn’t be that easy. I gave Serena a salute and braced for whatever she had in store for me next.

Chapter 7:
Lieutenants Have Layers

 

THE IMPERIAL FLEET always performed maintenance on its ships after a battle whenever possible. Those ships were built with taxpayer money and lent to them by the emperor, after all, so they couldn’t be careless.

Despite the one-sided massacre, the Pirate Hunting Unit got stuck in maintenance for a while. Normally, soldiers would use mandatory maintenance as time off, but we had to concoct new strategies and review yesterday’s battle. It’d be just another normal day for me anyhow.

Or. So. I. Thought.

“Shall we be off, then?” Serena said, grinning. I’d arrived on the bridge of the Lestarius flagship for my usual teaching routine, only to find Serena alone and wearing casual clothing. A beige knitted sweater hugged her curves, and her black skirt showed off her legs. It might have been alluring, but she also wore a sword belt complete with some high-tech weapon. What is this, fantasy casual?

“Wait, what are you plotting?” I said. I wasn’t stupid enough to be all Okay! Woo, date with a pretty lady! Nothing about our interactions so far led me to trust Serena’s intentions in the slightest.

“Plotting? Why, it’s nothing that bad.” Serena punctuated her lie with a haughty laugh. I went right for my handheld terminal. “What are you doing?” she said.

I dodged the question. “Uh, nothing. So where are we going?” She probably didn’t care all that much about my momentary tapping.

“I’m off work today,” she said.

“Uh-huh.” Yeah, the getup kind of gave that away, though I wouldn’t have minded working for a boss who dressed like that every day.

“I was thinking of going out to eat in the city,” she continued.

“Sounds like fun.”

“Isn’t it just sad to visit a restaurant alone, though?”

Ha ha ha! Poor, lonely lady.

“Why don’t you invite a friend?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, I have no friends in this star system.” She cradled her cheek in her hand as if disheartened. How deliberate.

“That so? Why don’t you invite one of your subordinates?”

“I assume they would be rather uncomfortable seeing their superior this way.”

“If I’m being treated as a lieutenant, doesn’t that make you my superior as well?”

“Yes, but when the contract is over, that relationship will cease to be. It shouldn’t concern you as much as my other subordinates. Besides, you seem to be very outgoing, even when speaking to nobility.” Serena closed in, still smiling.

I scooted away, desperate to buy time. “Looks like I don’t have any work today, so I guess we could say I’m off too, right?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am off work, but you are not. I would like you to discuss pirate-killing strategies and your experiences over lunch. It’s work-related.”

“Work-related? This sounds like abuse of power.”

“Hee hee! Worry not. Nobody will reprimand me for abuse of power for something as small as this. You’ve been hired as a pirate hunting expert, so you should make sure to fulfill your duty.” She grinned like a cat closing in on her prey.

This kitty definitely intended to sink her claws into me. While I scrambled for an escape, my terminal started ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at Serena for permission. She gave a reluctant nod.

“Hiro here!” I could scream for joy. My SOS to Elma had actually gotten through.

“How’s it going?” Elma said.

“Off work. Potential lunch.”

“You can’t refuse, huh? Accept, but on the condition that we can come with you.”

“Gotcha.” I hung up. Serena’s gaze had narrowed to a glare. “If my crew can come, then sure.”

“Rather strange to bring other girls on a date, don’t you think?”

“If this is work-related, then it’s not a date. Besides, Elma’s a veteran. She has way more experience than me. She’d be the perfect person to talk to if you want some real mercenary stories.” Checkmate.

“Urk… Very well.” Serena continued to glower at me, but she couldn’t refuse.

 

***

 

“Good morning, Lieutenant Commander.” Elma greeted Serena, exchanging smiles with her. “Your outfit there makes you seem quite approachable.”

“Thank you, Elma. Your apparel is lovely too. And Mimi, you are as adorable as ever.”

“Umm, th-thank you,” Mimi stammered. “Y-you’re very pretty, Lieutenant Commander Serena.” She was looking a little pale.

Elma looked like a traditional, full-on fantasy elf for once, with her green, flowy clothing. I wished I’d gotten to see her like this sooner.

Why don’t you always wear that? You’re always in mercenary gear no matter where we go. If you’re lazy, maybe a shirt and pants. That’s it. Wear some elf stuff, girl!

Meanwhile, Mimi had gone back to her getup from our shopping trip. It made her look like a nice little rich girl, refined and classical. Her bust was beautifully accentuated, of course. Meanwhile, I stuck to my usual pants and jacket. My philosophy when it came to clothing was that anything normal was fine by me.

“It’s usually my job to escort the girls around, but unfortunately, I don’t know much about the colony,” I said. “Oh, and also… Since we’re not at work, I’m not gonna kiss up much. Cool?”

“No problem,” Serena replied.

“Thanks. Things get too stiff when I have to be all polite and formal. So, Serena, did you want to go somewhere specific?”

“Yes. I’ve selected a restaurant with good reviews. It also offers organic food. I’ve arranged for transportation, so let us go to the fourth elevator and head into the city from there.”

“Aye-aye.” Organic, eh? So instead of food cartridges, we’d get real meat and veggies? Now she had me interested.

Mimi bounced along beside me, hardly able to contain her excitement. A restaurant like this would go a long way toward her goal of trying all the food in the galaxy.

“Never came here before,” I said when we piled into the elevator.

“Oh, yeah,” Mimi said. “When we went shopping, we used the second elevator.”

“The second elevator’s vicinity is a popular downtown shopping area,” Serena said. “This area is more for government offices and major corporations, so it is geared toward nobility and the wealthy, with high-quality restaurants and popular brands.”

We gradually descended to the city below. Once we stepped out, Elma commented, “Wow. Even the people walking around look rich.”

“Plenty of guards too,” I said.

Elma, Mimi, and Serena might have been able to blend in one way or another, but the guards eyed me in my boring merc gear. I probably looked like the girls’ bodyguard or something. I could tell they were just dying to frisk me.

Thankfully, Serena had ordered a taxi, so I didn’t have to endure the stares from the guards for long. We cruised smoothly to our destination, watching the ritzy, upper-class accommodations out the windows.

The taxi dropped us off in front of a tall building that looked nothing like a restaurant to me.

“Our destination is on the third floor,” Serena informed me.

“Looks like a normal building to me.”

“Living space is valuable, so they focus all the gaudiness on the inside,” Elma said.

“I-I’m rather nervous…” Mimi murmured.

Serena giggled. “Tee hee. It’s only a restaurant. There’s no need to worry. I’ve reserved a private room, so you won’t have to fuss over manners.”

“A private room, huh?” If Mimi and Elma hadn’t come to my rescue, I would’ve been alone in a room with Serena. She really was willing to use any means necessary to get me wrapped around her finger.

“We’re right on time. Shall we?” Serena prompted, guiding us inside.

 

***

 

“You know,” Serena ranted, “they all look down on me because I’m a woman. But we work our butts off, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Sure,” I said politely.

Just a half hour into our meal, Mimi, Elma, and I had all arrived at the same conclusion: This lady’s nothing but work!

Things had started out fine. Fine wine accompanied a meal of real-deal meat and veggies. As a general non-drinker, I stuck to water, but Serena indulged until her eyes glazed over. Every sip made her less and less articulate. When we suggested she might have had enough, she just said, “It’s my day off, and I’ll drink all I want!” Honestly, we might have just egged her on.

“Bowing my head when I don’t wanna, forcing smiles…and what do I get for it?! They just look at my damn tits! I oughta cut them up!” Serena said.

See?! Like that!

She’d told us outside we didn’t need to worry about manners, but maybe this private room was really so Serena herself could cut loose.

“Oh, uhh… Calm down, okay? Put the sword down.”

Serena drew her sword and jabbed it in the air. I rushed to her side, easing the weapon from her hands and setting it aside for now. I really did not want this lush getting violent.

“And you!” Serena seethed, glaring at me. “How can you resist me when I’m trying so hard to tempt you?!”

“Do you wanna know?”

“No, I don’t.” She clamped her hands over her ears. “I already know. Trying to scout you by force is wrong…”

“So you were self-aware all along.” Elma chuckled as Serena laid her head down on the table.

Chapter 8:
The Second Great Pirate Cleanup

 

TWO DAYS AFTER Serena submitted her request, the battle arrived. We were on our own this time—no Imperial Fleet was going to back us up. That was just fine by us. Serena got her Pirate Hunting Unit prepped, pretended to head to a different system, and then hid in the Arein System in preparation for an ambush.

We’d covered our tracks well. The briefing went out on a prerecorded holo-message in case our comms got tapped. The whole unit synchronized, so we could exit FTL travel all at once and launch right into the attack.

“Hiro, it’s almost time,” Elma informed me.

“Yep. Mimi, are you ready?”

“I’m ready anytime!” Mimi said.

We were in the Krishna’s cockpit, waiting for the battle to begin. I switched the generator output from standby to travel as we cruised among our fellow mercenaries. Like them, we would be using FTL drive to head to the scene of the battle.

“This’ll be our first real battle in a while,” Elma said. “Are your skills still sharp?”

“Probably,” I said. “How are things looking over there?”

“Look, buddy. Controlling generators and subsystems is my forte. Who do you think I am?” Elma grinned at me, cocky as ever.

As for me, I might have a little rust to kick off at the start of the battle, but I’d been keeping up my training in those simulators, so I should still be sharp.

“Charging now,” Elma said. “Five, four, three, two, one… Faster-than-light drive now charged.”

A boom cracked through space, and the Krishna jolted into FTL travel. The sound always got me. How did it even occur when space was a vacuum? My research had turned up little but vague references to interference with the shields and materials of the ship.

Ah, whatever. Forget all that. I could use my phone, computer, electric range, and TV without knowing how they worked. Thus, I could move a ship without knowing how it worked too!

“Wonder how much we’ll make this time,” Elma said.

“Let’s see,” I said. “The fixed pay is 50,000 at the end of the battle, while our piecemeal pay is 5,000 per small craft, 20,000 per medium, and 100,000 per large.”

“That’s the same as before, isn’t it?” Mimi asked.

“Yeah,” Elma said. “That’s fair market price, plus we get to keep the bounties and cargo from the ships we take down. Skilled pilots get more money, so mercs are always eager to help out, especially since those pirates flee their little nest with ships full of cargo.”

Pirates knew to get out while the getting was good, but they hoarded whatever they could as they escaped. Maybe they’d be better off traveling light for maneuverability, but that meant abandoning all their treasures as well as their base—a lose-lose either way. It made sense to try to cling to their valuables while escaping, so they could eventually sell off the loot and attempt to regroup.

“It’s about time to go wild. Think Serena will be okay?” I asked.

“Probably,” Elma said. “She’s a good soldier, if nothing else.”

“Ah ha ha…” Mimi laughed wryly at Elma’s careful wording. The scene from a few days ago was still fresh in our minds.

“We’re almost at our destination,” Elma said. “Exiting FTL in five, four, three, two, one…”

Another boom snapped through the quiet of space as blurry streaks of stars settled into pinpoints. It took mere heartbeats for the Pirate Hunting Unit to launch their attack after exiting FTL. The battleship and cruisers tore through the base and any structures around it with a blitz of large-bore lasers, plasma cannons, and railguns.

“They’re flashy, aren’t they?” I mused.

“I don’t see many ships coming out,” Elma said. “The ambush definitely worked.”

“Do you think we’ll get any prey?” As much as I wanted to succeed, having all the pirates go down inside the base meant no money.

We shifted the generator to battle-ready mode and accelerated toward the pirates’ base. Other mercenaries rushed in alongside us.

“There are signals on the radar now,” Mimi reported. “The pirate ships are launching!”

“Fantastic. Looks like pirates are back on the menu, girls.”

“Putting weapon systems online now,” Elma said.

The Krishna shifted around us, deploying four weapons arms, each bearing a heavy laser cannon. Two flak cannons emerged from either side of the cockpit as well.

“Here we go, ladies!” I roared, launching the Krishna into battle.

 

***

 

“Three enemy ships at ten o’clock, at our elevation!” Mimi announced.

I locked on to the enemy ships, checking their angle and speed. They were heading this way.

“We’ll pass by them, swing around, and shoot them from behind,” I said.

I pointed the Krishna right at the enemy ships and accelerated, brushing past. A burst of lasers and multi-cannon fire pattered against the hull but did little actual damage to us.

“Brace for G-forces!” I said.

I kicked on the thrusters and banked into a 180-degree turn. It swung us around behind the enemy, but the G-forces shook the whole ship. I gritted my teeth, fighting to maintain control.

“Enemy ships ahead!” Mimi warned me.

“Let’s mow ’em down,” I said.

With us sneaking behind them, two tried to escape to the sides, but I showered them in heavy laser fire. A final ship whizzed away in a straight line. He must have been desperate, but that wasn’t enough to save him.

“That makes three.”

Fire erupted from the cannons by the cockpit as countless bits of shrapnel rained down on the pirate ship from behind. The ammunition cut through their shields like a hot knife through butter and ate through the ship’s thrusters, then its energy pipes, and finally its main generator. Instant Swiss cheese. I zipped past the three exploding ships and searched for my next mark.

Elma smiled at me. “You don’t seem rusty at all.”

“You think?”

“Three o’clock, twenty degrees upward,” Mimi said. “Six… No, seven enemy ships. Two of them are medium craft.”

“Are you gonna charge in?” Elma asked.

“You know it,” I said. “I’ll let you decide when to use the chaffs and flares.”

“Understood,” Elma replied.

I activated the thrusters and aimed for this new cluster of prey. The pirates noticed and hopped on their comms.

“Enemy approaching… Uh, the hell? Their ship’s got arms,” one pirate said.

“Arms? Let me see that. Gah, it’s that monster from before! He’s bad news! Run, run, run!”

“Run where?! There’s nowhere to run!”

“Just kill him before he can kill us!”

Six ships turned and barreled toward me at once. Two looked like transport ships repurposed for missile support.

“Let’s start with the medium craft,” I told Mimi and Elma.

“Yes, sir!”

“Gotcha, boss.”

“Fire, fire, fire!” one enemy screamed. “Give ’em all ya got!”

A warning siren blared in the cockpit: heat-seeking missiles, the pirates’ most dangerous weapon. They could follow us no matter how we dipped and dodged.

“Releasing flares!” Elma shouted. She launched the flares, hoping to confuse the missiles into seeking out these new heat sources instead of us. In the meantime, the Krishna wove through the darting missiles.

“Do it again!” a pirate roared.

“Activate point-blank defenses!”

“Stop them!”

“It’s too late, my guys,” I said with a low chuckle.

The medium craft attempted to release more missiles, but it was too late. I unleashed my flak cannons on them, slashing through their shields and plating to strike the missiles still aboard their ships.

“Waaaaargh?!”

One of the medium ships exploded in a bloom of fire. The other pirates wavered.

“O-oh, shit.”

“We gotta split!”

Elma’s gaze flicked to me. “You’re not just gonna let them go, right?”

“Absolutely not. We kill all pirate scum.”

I doused them in heavy laser fire, circled back around, and blanketed the rest in flak. Do I enjoy slaughtering people with no will to fight? Yes, I do! I get money, and I get to clean up some space trash. What could be more fun? Ahh, the sweet taste of justice.

“Heeelp!” one pirate screamed.

“No,” I said. Perhaps this was overly harsh and cruel, but letting these vermin live would only cause more suffering for someone else down the line.

“Area cleared,” Mimi said. “The next-nearest ones are at ten o’clock.”

“Let’s go.”

“Right!”

We turned the Krishna toward its next battlefield.

 

***

 

“How’s the battle going?” I asked.

“The ambush seems to have worked. There is no substantial counterattack.”

“Good. Let each captain know to continue their work calmly.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Commander!”

We overwhelmed the pirates instantly by destroying their base’s hangar in our first strike. However, that was only their largest. A few pirates still managed to launch from the other ones.

Not that it mattered. Our mercenaries were waiting and eager. They were mopping up any pirates attempting to flee the sector.

Our little experiment here could not be going much better. Usually, only one branch of the military would patrol each star system. In fact, conventional wisdom dictated that the military did not hunt pirates directly. A force like this—one designed specifically for pirate hunting—was a first in the Empire’s long history. And since we weren’t communicating with other branches of the military, we kept our plans a secret and caught the pirates completely unaware.

“Let’s see how the rewards are looking.”

I tapped the holo-display to check on the scores of the mercenaries. In first place was the Krishna, his ship. A grin pulled at my lips, but I covered my mouth to contain it. I couldn’t go gloating over a single pilot.

Besides, this battle wasn’t over yet. We still had to expect the unexpected.

 

***

 

“That about does it, huh?” I asked Mimi.

“Area cleared,” she confirmed. “I don’t see any other pirates nearby.”

The battle raged on in other sectors, but our radar was clear. The only blips appeared far away from our location.

“How many did we kill?”

“Our score is thirty-three small craft and three medium craft,” Elma said.

“So we didn’t get as much as in Tarmein, huh?” Pretty sure we did way better there. Am I rusty after all?

“If there aren’t that many ships, then there’s nothing we can do,” Elma said. “I’d say you did great.” The sector was certainly clear of pirate activity. Maybe that ambush worked a little too well.

“Fair enough,” I said. “So 5,000 per small one and 20,000 per medium. That puts us at 205,000 Ener, right?”

“Add 50,000 for our participation reward,” Elma said. “Then bounties should be counted separately.”

“I think small craft are usually around 10,000, while mediums are around 50,000. Add in the participation reward and that should be 500,000 on top of our base reward, right?”

“Just about. Sounds like our total is 700,000 or so, huh? Along with whatever we harvest from their cargo.”

“We’d better put our backs into that cargo-collecting,” I said.

We got straight to work on that, rummaging through the destroyed ships in search of Rare Metal and high-tech goods. Alcohol, drugs, and other luxury items would also be a good score. The drugs were illegal, of course, but acquiring them this way and selling them off after the battle was no crime.

I never did quite understand why the fleet paid such a high price for drugs in particular. Maybe they just didn’t want them floating around as space debris? If we didn’t recover them now, then containers of the stuff would drift around the system. That could make it easy for scavengers to scoop them up instead. They always swept in after a battle like vultures picking at a carcass. Some mercs really hated the scavengers, and I didn’t particularly care for them either, but there were worse things out there in the universe.

“I’ll keep watch. Elma, could you teach Mimi how to work the recovery drones?”

“Aye-aye, Captain. Mimi, let’s do this.”

“O-okay.”

Elma used all sorts of sensors to start searching through our prey. Meanwhile, I steered the ship to where we needed to go.

Chapter 9:
A Colony Under Attack

 

“PHEW. What a haul!” I grinned at our loot. We’d come away with Rare Metal and tons of expensive, high-tech bits of equipment. Definitely a tidy profit to be made here.

“At least we didn’t get anything dangerous this time, right?” Elma asked me.

“Oh! Uh-huh, sure.”

“Excuse me?” Elma narrowed her eyes and set her hands on her hips.

“W-we really didn’t get anything bad, right?” Mimi said.

I shrugged at Elma’s glare and Mimi’s trepidation. Seriously, our loot was pretty ordinary. We weren’t going to walk away with something as crazy as a Singing Crystal every time. Our luck wasn’t that hot today. Sad!

Serena called back everyone still out in the field, leaving behind a few cruisers and destroyers to mop up the remnants of the pirates. The stragglers couldn’t do much against military-grade power suits and heavy weapons.

As for me? I didn’t do face-to-face combat. Sure, my laser gun was special, but it wouldn’t break through the enemy’s power armor. I had power armor of my own on board, but I wouldn’t last a single grazing shot. Come to think of it, I’d never even used it before. Honestly, that gear in the hold did little more than gather dust.

“Wanna get going?”

“H-hold on!” Elma shouted. “We don’t have anything dangerous, right?!”

“W-we’re fine…I hope!” Mimi peeped.

I brushed off their panic and turned the ship back toward Arein Tertius. With our cargo hold full to the brim, we couldn’t claim any more loot anyway. The scavengers already blipping on the radar would have a field day, though.

“Charge FTL drive,” I ordered. “Let’s go.”

“Come on, seriously. Are we actually safe?” Elma pressed.

“Dude, we’re fine. There’s nothing crazy on board. Nothing dangerous, all normal. Maybe.”

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?!” Elma screeched as I activated the faster-than-light drive. With a thunderous boom, the Krishna charged into FTL travel.

“How badly did that Singing Crystal traumatize you?” I asked Elma.

“Anyone would be traumatized by you whipping that thing out like it’s nothing!”

“That bad?”

“Ugh. That thing’s worse than a reactive warhead. If we dropped it and it broke, we’d be dead.”

That seemed like a pretty harsh comparison to me. Reactive warheads were stronger than any atomic or hydrogen bomb. They could obliterate an entire ship; that was what we used for our reactive anti-ship torpedo on the Krishna. A Singing Crystal couldn’t be that much worse, though the crystal life-forms they spawned could work longer and in a wider range.

I smiled. “Neat!”

“Neat? You’re awfully carefree.” Elma huffed in exasperation.

“That’s our Master Hiro.” Mimi beamed proudly, though I wasn’t sure why.

“Guess you’re back to babysitting that rich lady when we return to the colony.” Elma let out a sigh. She’d finally relaxed; perhaps it was because we’d entered FTL travel and were safely headed away from the battlefield.

“It won’t take long,” I assured her. “It’s just another week. What should we do after?”

“If you want to keep making money, how about we find a sector at war? With your skill and the Krishna, we can make a ton of cash.”

“Hmm. I dunno, I’m not that interested. It sounds uncomfortable.”

In Stella Online, colonies at war were pretty restrictive. Stores would be closed. All you could really do was refuel and perform maintenance. If it was the same here, we’d face tight security. Sometimes the army even took up a patrol to watch for terrorism in such places.

“Hmm. Three hyperlanes ahead, there’s a system with a sightseeing planet. Pirates are running rampant, attacking passenger ships there.”

“Heh. Sightseeing, huh? Maybe we could kill pirates and take a nice vacation all at once.”

“The docking there is expensive, but you’re the captain. We’ll listen to you. A vacation would be nice.”

“Then let’s go with that.” A little detour sounded like some much-needed fun for me and my crew. My dream of a stand-alone house still loomed on the horizon, but it was a long way off. Didn’t hurt to rest in the meantime.

I switched off the FTL drive as we returned to Arein Tertius. I prepared to send a docking request to… Hm?

“Doesn’t the colony look kinda…off?” I asked.

“Huh?” Elma gasped. “Oh, wow, it does. Is that district out of power?”

“It seems to be, yes,” Mimi said. “I wonder what’s wrong. Their docking bay’s guide lights are blinking red too.”

While we waited and watched, spaceships poured out of their docking bay like ants fleeing the colony.

“What should we do?” Elma wondered aloud.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “Mimi, can you connect us to the Port Authority?”

“Yes, Captain. I’ll bring them up on the main monitor.” Mimi tried to open the connection, but they didn’t pick up at first. Finally, after several tries, she got a response.

“This is the Port Authority! We’re busy at this moment!”

“Hey, buddy, calm down. I’m Captain Hiro from the mercenary guild. We just got back from crushing a pirate base, and it looks like something’s wrong in the colony. What’s going on?”

“A mercenary?! Hey, do you have power armor on your ship?!”

“Huh? Uh, yeah?”

“Save us! Our colony is being attacked by these mysterious life-forms!”

His desperate words left us stunned and blinking at each other for a moment.

I began, “I mean, uh, we can’t just—”

“We’re mercenaries,” Elma said firmly. “Our lives aren’t so cheap that we work for free.”

Elma held her ground, but Mimi fidgeted in the operator’s chair. I couldn’t blame her.

“You want money at a time like this?!” the Port Authority worker screamed.

“I always want money,” I cut in. “If I’m risking my life, don’t I deserve a return? Didn’t you put a request in to the mercenary guild?”

“W-we might have, but I don’t know!”

“You don’t know? Well, show us to an empty hangar. Do your job before you start complaining at me.”

“O-okay, fine. Umm, thirty-two… No, go to hangar three!”

“Gotcha. We’re on our way.”

We hung up and followed the guide beacons that lit up to mark our route.

“Are we going in?” Elma raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we keep our necks out of stuff like this?”

“I dunno, but this could be good money,” I said. “Let’s at least hear what they have to say. We might even be able to make money by just guarding the port until Serena gets back.”

“Are you sure about this?” Mimi asked, worried.

“As long as I wear power armor, I don’t think anything bad will happen. I hope.”

I had to dock here eventually to collect my rewards from the pirate hunting venture anyway. I definitely didn’t want to see the place destroyed before I could cash in.

We docked without incident, and I left the ship to Mimi and Elma while I contacted the mercenary guild from the cargo hold.

“I really haven’t touched this since I came to this universe,” I mused as I stood before the power armor.

Power armor was basically…well, armor with power. It made appearances in all kinds of sci-fi novels and video games. The wearer got both thick, protective plating and—thanks to the core installed in the armor—a powerful firearm. With this stuff on, I’d be like a walking tank. In Stella Online, power armor was next to impossible to defeat if you didn’t have some yourself to fight back with.

“Maybe I’d better bring some other gear too.” The power armor would limit my ability to use long-range weapons like rifles, but I could still carry my usual laser gun, a backup energy pack, and some hand grenades.

“Hmm… Which one? Okay, I choose you.”

I clipped plasma grenades to my belt. When pressed, they’d spew super-hot plasma after three and a half seconds of delay and turn any living thing in their path into ash. Plus, there was no explosion, so I could use it in an enclosed space if I had to.

“Well, this is an unknown monster attack.”

I hoped this would be enough. According to the Port Authority, whatever was attacking the colony required power armor to defeat. There was definitely nothing like that in Stella Online. How annoying.

 

***

 

Nuclear-Powered Strength-Boosting Artificial Exoskeleton. That was the official name of power armor, but I hope that makes it clear why everyone just called it power armor instead.

It came in several varieties. Most face-to-face fights in Stella Online took place in small, enclosed spaces where mobility was important. Outmaneuvering an unarmored human was a huge advantage in a scenario like that, but it actually wasn’t the most vital function that power armor provided.

Then what was, you ask?

“Humph!” I grappled with a white monster, using power alone to crush it in a bear hug, throw it aside, and stomp it into dust. Without missing a beat, I snagged a smaller beast, tore it apart, and threw it at a wall. Then I charged into a cluster of medium-sized monsters, smashing them with a brutal body slam. One managed to dodge and grab at me, but I unleashed a high-tension electric current that shocked it before shooting down the fleeing monsters with the laser guns mounted on my shoulders.

“Ha ha ha! Raw power wins again!” I bellowed, knowing full well how corny it sounded.

Raw power. That was what the armor was truly for. Mobility helped in small doses, but if you were wearing power armor, you were probably getting up close and personal. I needed to withstand enemy attacks and strike back with overwhelming power with both fists and heavy firearms. Once I had all that, I was good so long as I could hit my targets.

“This is the Port Authority. It seems you’ve secured the area. Thank you.”

“Yeah. No prob, as long as I get my reward through the mercenary guild.”

I stacked up the monster carcasses and glanced at my armor’s readings. Still undamaged. Joint actuators doing well. Weapons online. And I had 99.7 percent of my energy store remaining.

Just what I’d expect from TMPA-13 Rikishi mk-III power armor. Harite super-pressurized current emissions devices bolstered each of my hands, and Shiko impact-magnification devices supported my legs. On my shoulders sat high-emission Shikiri laser guns.

On top of all that, I had a Buchikamashi shield function that allowed me to execute a high-speed tackle from super-short range. Of course, I could also just use the shield as a shield.

All of this came packed into one of the largest suits of power armor out there, a true heavy armor class. That meant high generator output but also a good payload of heavy firearms.

To be honest, the thing was so big, it kind of had a roly-poly look to it. If armor could be chubby, this sure was. Those legs had to be stout to handle so much weight. The manufacturer clearly hadn’t put much thought into aesthetics. I had to repaint it metallic silver to get rid of the tacky original paint job. It wasn’t tacky in a cool way either—it was just tasteless. It looked like a mecha version of a sumo wrestler.

But it was strong, let me tell you! Considering what I wanted from it, this armor was optimal. It might’ve looked like meme armor, but it packed a wallop. In Stella Online, this was a high-tier piece of gear.

Player-versus-player events were full of this kind of armor, which resulted in plenty of inside jokes about its looks. Event announcers would say things like, And here we begin the New Year’s grand sumo tournament of Stella Online! Or even, Today’s first round gives us the mountain, Captain Black of the east, and the ocean, Captain Hiro of the west!

I had to wonder why this stuff was made, but only the SOL devs knew the truth. Appearances aside, at least it worked well, even in this universe. Maybe power armor was the same across universes?

“Master Hiro?” Mimi said, snapping me out of my day-dreaming. “Are you okay out there?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking. What’s up?”

“We’ve received a rescue request from the guild. Do you remember the Inagawa Technologies hospital that performed our physicals? They’re treating the wounded there, but the monsters are starting to gather near it.”

“Will this area be fine?” I asked.

“A power armor troop from the imperial army will arrive soon. They’re offering 50,000 Ener for a successful defense and for providing battle data.”

“That’s a low price for risking my life. I’d be in real danger if I didn’t have this armor.”

“Well, that’s why they told you to wear it,” Elma countered. “What are you gonna do about Inagawa?”

“I’ll go. Is the reward good?”

“It’s double the port’s defense: 100,000 Ener.”

“That’ll do. Mind guiding me there, Mimi?”

“Yes, Captain!”

I picked up a weapon that I’d tossed aside in the scuffle and followed the map on my power armor’s HUD display, the metal of my suit clanking as I went.

“You’re crazy for fighting up close,” Elma said. “You’re not a martial artist, are you?”

“Not really, but sometimes you just have to get in close. Figured I might as well try it in a less dangerous situation.”

“True.”

I checked my weapon as I ran. My variable focus laser launcher could fight off enemies in power armor by concentrating the lasers together, while dealing lethal damage to unarmored enemies with split lasers. Its weight made it a little unwieldy, but my power armor took care of that problem.

“Continue forward, and you will see an elevator to your right,” Mimi informed me. “Take that and head to the middle level.”

“Right on.” I didn’t see any of those pasty white monsters in this area, but the memory of fighting them suddenly connected the dots in my mind. “Y’know, those monsters look like the artificial meat we saw at that plant.”

“I had the same thought…” Mimi murmured.

“They said they wouldn’t survive if they left the plant, but maybe their management was wrong,” Elma said.

“It might not just be that plant,” I said. “All artificial meat is white from what I’ve seen, so it could be others as well.”

I squeezed the bulky power armor into an elevator and headed for the middle level. The elevator groaned a little at the weight but proceeded smoothly nonetheless.

“You two watch out around the ship too,” I told them. “Though I doubt they’ll come in as long as the hatch is closed.”

“No worries there,” Elma assured me. “I’m keeping an eye on the hatch’s security cams, and I have shields up on low output.”

“Good job. Just in case, though.”

The Krishna’s defense could withstand nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons—meaning if its shields were up, those monsters had no chance. This isn’t me foreshadowing; it’s downright impossible to break through. Even in my power armor, I’d have a tough time getting through those shields. This laser launcher wasn’t enough to get through the shields made by the Krishna’s generator. It was strong, but only about as strong as the shoddy lasers on pirate ships.

“This is awful,” I said as the elevator reached its destination and the doors slid open.

Pure pandemonium greeted me. A twitching leg dangled from a monster’s maw. Another beast drooled over some unfortunate fallen fighter. A cluster of smaller monsters swarmed over someone. And this was just my first impression. Similar scenes played out in all directions.

No matter their size, every one of the horrible monsters had a round mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. While the smaller ones were little more than tentacle monsters of the sort we’d seen in the food plant, the larger ones had actual arms and legs. Yes, that’s right; they were tentacle monsters, but don’t expect this story to go that way. They were just hungry. Honestly, that was almost as gross as the alternative.

“Eugh, this is just bad,” Elma groaned.

“Is Mimi okay?”

“When she saw your display, she went pale and curled up.”

“Let her know she doesn’t have to look. Also, tell me if you see signs of survivors.”

“Aye-aye, Captain. There at least aren’t any on the road.”

I couldn’t let those monsters onto the elevator, so I readied my laser launcher the moment I stepped off.

“Time to cleanse some filth!”

I sprayed split laser fire in all directions, vaporizing monsters to ash. With no survivors to worry about, I could shoot wildly to clear out the beasts with abandon. They’d have a tough time taking me down in the armor; even then, they probably couldn’t do much more than dent it even with all those claws and teeth. In the meantime, my firepower could wipe them out with a thought.

I kept firing, taking down the larger ones with lasers and kicking aside the smaller ones. Occasionally, the smaller ones would cling to my armor, forcing me to yank them away and stomp them into dust. My electrified hands made easy work of them.

“If I were you, I’d be vomiting all over the place,” Elma commented.

“You already vomit when you drink too much. No need for more.” I grinned wryly, stomping on a small fry.

Some of the larger monsters started to catch on and turned tail to flee. You’re not getting away that easy. Continuous fire from both my handheld laser launcher and my shoulder guns obliterated them as I charged toward the hospital.

“Take a right at the next intersection and you’ll be there,” Elma said.

“Gotcha.” My legs clanked loudly as I ran on.

There were still no survivors on the road; hopefully, they’d gotten inside and barricaded the doors or found one of the colony’s emergency shelters.

“Wow,” I said breathlessly as I rounded the corner. A teeming mass of monsters roiled before the doors of the general hospital. “Wonder why they’re all gathering here.”

“Who knows? Maybe they need physicals?” Elma joked.

“The thought of monsters all jostling into a hospital for physicals is a little too surreal for me.” I turned my laser launcher on the crowd of monsters. “Yeeeeeah! Let’s rock and roll!”

Split lasers blasted through the beasts at the speed of light. A shower of red blasted through their ranks, blowing away the encroaching monsters. Normally, high-output lasers might do damage via heat and explosions, but in Stella Online, lasers were used to pierce directly through targets and vaporize them. I continued my wild assault on the monsters outside the hospital.

“I don’t mind as long as it gets the job done, but it is weird,” I mused. Maybe lasers back in my universe worked on a different principle than the ones here.

“What is?” Elma asked.

“Oh, nothing. What’s with these monsters? Does this happen often?”

“I’ve never heard of it happening,” Mimi piped up.

“If things like this were happening regularly, the meat plants and manufacturers would be in deep doo-doo,” Elma said dryly.

“Sounds about right.” People would quickly turn against cultured meat if this was the price they had to pay for it. There had definitely been a number of casualties; no doubt the government would make sure this never happened again. “Hey, what if they were actually unlicensed frauds?”

“That’s a scary thought. Like, what are they feeding those things?”

“According to the Kobe beef pamphlet,” Mimi said, “it’s important to have good feed to make good meat.”

“I don’t think that’s what Elma’s worried about.” We chatted as I continued to massacre the fleshy beasts. What’s that? What happened to rocking and rolling, you ask? Well, there’s not much of that in this cleanup work. Can’t have rock without tension, unfortunately.

“Elma, we have a call from the hospital,” Mimi announced.

“All right. Connect us.”

A man’s voice came in over the comms.

“This is Inagawa Technologies General Hospital. I’m Amurei from the security division. Who am I speaking to?”

“I’m Captain Hiro,” I told him. “I got a rescue request from the guild, so I ran over to help. Currently, I’m dealing with the monsters in front of the hospital.”

“I’m Elma. I take care of information support as a member of his crew.”

“My name is Mimi. I work as an operator.”

“Oh, you’re all from the mercenary guild? Thank goodness.” The man, Amurei, heaved a sigh of relief. “The wall that’s keeping us safe is about to break.”

“This is all it took? Shouldn’t the walls be thick to keep the place airtight?” I said.

“It seems their fluids are caustic. Normally, the colony’s airtight walls aren’t made with caustic substances in mind.”

“I see.” The hospital might not protect against acids if it was just aiming to be airtight, but my power armor was more than capable of taking the monsters’ spit and blood without any corrosion. “Leave the outside to me. They haven’t gotten in yet, right?”

“Not yet, sir. Once you’ve eliminated them, could you harvest a sample? We would like to make nanomachines to destroy them.”

“Sure. Do you need a live sample?”

“No, sir. A corpse is fine.”

Chapter 10:
Lieutenant Cute-but-Annoying

 

“YOU WON’T escape me.”

“Uh-oh.”

We spent three days getting everything ready: provisions, fuel, and maintenance. The Krishna was in tip-top shape and ready to blast off into the universe.

Then Serena returned. And she wasn’t in her uniform this time.

“Ma’am?!” I panicked. Why was she here in her street clothes? “Uh, ma’am, please? Ma’am, please, ma’am, I’m begging you. Ma’am!”

“What’s with that response?!” Serena said. “E-excuse me! Stop pushing me! Rude! This is beyond disrespectful! I am the daughter of Marquess Holz, I’ll have you know!”

“Tch. Damn, you’re annoying.”

“Pardon? Did you just call me annoying?!” Serena’s jaw dropped at my blatant dismissal. Oh? What’s that? Are you gonna use your noble rights or whatever to cut me down without remorse?

“Erm, Master Hiro? I’m not sure that’s a good way to speak to her…” Mimi said.

“How fearless can one man get?” Elma muttered.

Mimi’s face drained as she watched me shove the lieutenant commander away; Elma just shook her head. Hey, what’s the problem? I don’t know how this noble feels, but the Krishna is my ship. She can’t just barge into my domain.

“What’s the deal?” I said. “Didn’t you say you’d give up on trying to recruit me?”

“Ngh! Y-yes, I suppose I did, but…”

“But?”

“It’s not fair! I’m buried in work, but you all get to go enjoy yourselves in the Cierra System’s resorts?! That’s the definition of unfair!” Serena jabbed a finger at us.

“Ugh. How annoying can she be?” I griped. How’d she know we’re going there, anyway? Now I’m scared.

“I heard that! You called me annoying again!”

I ignored Serena’s palpable disappointment and sighed. What else could I call her but annoying? What other word could describe the disruption her every appearance brought with it, as if she had planned specifically to arrive right when we were about to leave?

“That’s mean even for you, Hiro,” Elma said. “You’re usually nice to girls.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she was just a big shot, but she’s the marquess’s daughter. If I’m too nice to her, she might get overly attached.”

“Attached?! What am I, some sort of pet?!” Serena flushed with fury.

“You may be having the opposite effect,” Mimi warned.

Wait, really? Is Serena getting more attached every time I try to push her away?

“So for real, what’s the deal?” I said. “Yes, we’re about to go on vacation in the Cierra System. Well, a working vacation. We’ll still take down some pirates here and there.”

“Well, I think it’s, erm…imprudent,” Serena said.

“Imprudent?” I parroted.

“Yes. People died and property was damaged in that bioterrorist attack. Do you not think it’s imprudent to go on vacation during such a difficult time for the colony?”

“I see.” I nodded.

“Heh. I’m glad you understand. Perhaps you could remain—”

“It has nothing to do with us, though,” I cut in. “Now, we’ve gotta get going. Can you leave, please? I’d say it’s way more imprudent to use that as an excuse to keep us around.”

“Aah!” Serena screamed. “No, you can’t! It’s wrong for a man to lay hands upon an unwed noblewoman! Aah! I’ll cut you down for this slight, I swear! It is my right!”

“God, how annoying are you, really?! You look sober, but you must be drunk!” I tried to push Serena out of the cafeteria, but she locked herself in the doorway using all four limbs, resisting for dear life. I’d have to pry her out with the damn power armor at this rate.

“Ugh, jeez. Calm down, you two. C’mon.” Elma stepped between us and forced us apart. Resisting wouldn’t do me much good here, so I raised my hands in surrender and settled in a chair. Mimi sat next to me while Serena and Elma sat across from us.

“Okay.” I sighed. “I’ll ask you one more time. What’s the deal? We want to get out of this star system. If you don’t give me a good reason for impeding our freedom, then I’m going to use my authority as captain to have these two help me throw you out of the ship.” I glared at Serena in an attempt at intimidation.

It worked.

“Urk…” She averted her eyes, refusing to look at any of us. “I envy you all. So I wanted to come and stop you.”

“Huh?”

“I’m jealous, and I wanted to stop you! Do you have a problem with that?!” Serena barked.

“A lot of problems, yeah!” I said.

“In what universe is this fair?! I spend every last minute of every last hour of every last day looking at those damned tentacle monsters on the holo-display, poring over the data, attending strategy meetings, and writing reports! Yet you get to go to a resort! Why would I not come to stop you?!”

“That’s straight-up annoying! This really is just jealousy!”

“No, no, no! It’s not fair, it’s not fair! I wanna go on vacation!”

“You’re throwing a tantrum now?! What about your honor as a soldier or your pride as a noble?!”

The lieutenant commander banged her fists on the table and screamed. She must have been drinking before she came here, because the levelheaded soldier I knew before was totally gone.

“So you really just…came to stop us because you’re jealous?” I asked.

Serena glared up at me and nodded. I smiled, prompting her to do the same. Gotcha.

“Okay, get out.”

“Nooo! But I was so honest!” she howled.

“You were malicious! How am I supposed to sympathize?!”

Serena clung to the table in protest as I attempted to peel her off. Mimi was, of course, the one to put an end to our struggle. “Excuse me. May I speak?”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Well, Lieutenant Commander, I believe you know that throwing temper tantrums won’t help,” Mimi told her. “You know your position better than anyone. The fact that you’re wearing street clothes means that you’re off work, correct?”

“Right,” Serena said.

“Then perhaps you’re here for a breather or even to vent your feelings. You want to spend time with Master Hiro because he ignores your status and talks to you as you are. Is that right?”

Serena’s sulky silence was answer enough.

“Spend time with me?” Mimi might have had some insight, but I was totally in the dark. Besides, I wasn’t looking to take Serena out on another disastrous, drunken date. She reeked of trouble.

“How about we have a little party?” Elma proposed. “We don’t have any organic food, but the Steel Chef makes good stuff. I’ve got some drinks too.”

“Yeah, you do,” I said. “Like the 100,000 Ener worth of stuff that’s burning a hole in my cargo hold, right?” Elma visibly twitched at the reminder.

“Wh-why does it matter? You want to keep me here, don’t you?” Elma said.

“Yeah, true.” The pretty, reliable Elma was great to have around the ship, just like sweet little Mimi. But Serena? No way. That’d be a whole different ball game. “Okay, just for today, we can break out the drinks. And you owe me two now, Serena.”

“Urk! O-okay.” Serena’s debt to me was growing, which should have been a problem for her—unless she was just using that to remain close to me. Oh, no.

“How about we get to it?” I said. “We can call it a farewell party.”

“Yes, sir!” Mimi chirped. “I actually just had some new food shipped here! Let’s try it.”

Wait. New food? When had that happened? Mimi was picking up a few tricks from Elma. I had to wonder how packed the cargo hold was with them both sneaking in their favorite treats.

 

***

 

“So, er… I can’t really think of anything, but anyway, cheers!”

“Cheers!”

After my flat, boring toast, the girls clinked their glasses together. They all had booze, but I stuck to my usual non-carbonated soda.

Mimi beamed. “Aah, what a lovely drink!”

“That’s the one I bought back at the factory,” Elma told her. “It was a little expensive…”

“You call 100,000 Ener a little?” I asked.

“I-It’s not that much money for mercenaries…”

“You all have a strange relationship with money,” Serena mused.

“N-not me!” Mimi said. “Master Hiro and Elma are just a little…”

“A little what?” Elma cut in. “Didn’t you beg Hiro for a new bath, washing machine, cooker, and all that stuff? How much was it? Three hundred thousand Ener?”

“Agreed. You’re just as bad,” I said.

“N-not at all…” Mimi murmured.

Whoever said “three women make a madhouse” was right. They had seemingly endless things to talk about, hopping from topic to topic. I struggled to follow the twisting threads of rapidly shifting conversation. Can’t I just organize it all on a flash drive?

Instead, I surveyed the spread of treats that arrived thanks to Mimi. I couldn’t even name half the stuff on the table. All kinds of cuisine awaited us. There must’ve been as many dishes as there were stars in the sky. Okay, maybe that’s a little hyperbolic.

I decided to inspect the dish closest to me. It was a pinkish pasta, or so it appeared. It’s okay. It’s, uh, not moving or anything. I won’t say what it was, but just imagining it made me shudder. I used my chopsticks to pick up a bit of pasta and examined it closely. Okay, it’s pasta. It doesn’t LOOK like worms, at least.

I put it in my mouth. It didn’t struggle or explode on my tongue, which was a relief. As for the taste…it was reminiscent of sea urchin. There was a sweet richness to it, making it pretty dang tasty altogether.

I was still chewing when I found the girls staring at me.

“What?” I said around a mouthful.

“Is that good?” Elma asked me.

“I don’t mind it. It’s sweet and thick… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Umm, that’s called a spaceworm—” Mimi started.

“La la la, I can’t hear you!” I yelled. “This is sea urchin pasta! Urchin-flavored pasta made with advanced flavoring techniques!”

“That’s quite the attempt at self-deception…” Elma commented.

Mimi, why’d you buy this disgusting creature?! No, wait. This is pasta. It’s not disgusting, and it’s not a creature. It’s pasta!

“Why don’t you all try it? This sea urchin pasta is good.”

“Er, I would rather not.” Serena backed off.

Elma cringed. “Me neither.”

“I really shouldn’t…” And Mimi made three.

“You bought it! Why don’t you want it?” I pressed.

“Umm…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be trying all the food in the universe?” I said.

“Ulp… Yes.” Mimi plucked up a bit of worm, I mean, pasta. Pasta. Right. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she chewed, but suddenly she blinked, her whole face brightening. “Huh? It’s actually good.”

“Right? Pretend it’s sea urchin pasta, and it’s just fine,” I said.

“I agree. Yes, it’s just fine,” Mimi said.

Elma and Serena shared a wary glance.

“M-maybe I should try it too?” Elma said.

“A-agreed. We wouldn’t want to waste it,” Serena said.

Timidly, they nibbled at the pasta. Like Mimi, they cringed at first, but after a few bites, they blinked in surprise.

“It’s actually good, wow,” Elma marveled.

“Quite the delicate flavor…” Serena said.

“By the way, I can’t help but feel like someone put this in front of me on purpose,” I said. “I wonder why?”

“Erm, it’s just a coincidence,” Mimi said.

“Yeah, totally. Coincidence!” Elma echoed.

“Kinda crazy how all of your foods are clearly normal compared to mine.” Elma and Mimi sweated under the weight of my glare, but I didn’t push it any harder than that. “Whatever. How about we try this one next? Mimi, you first!”

“Eep?!” Mimi stiffened up and made a funny noise when she saw the plate I pushed at her. Orbs the size of marbles sat on it, glossy and black.

“What’s wrong? They’re all foods that you bought.”

“Eh heh heh…”

She was deflecting. Nice try, cutie. I pushed the plate at her again.

“Urk…” Teary-eyed, she plucked up a black marble in a trembling hand. The moment Mimi chomped down, she went absolutely, eerily still.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Well, um…not bad?” Mimi furrowed her brow and cocked her head.

Her reaction prompted the rest of us to try one of the strange marbles ourselves.

“Mm?” Elma said.

“Hmm?” Serena said.

“What is this weird flavor?” I wondered aloud. It was sweet but also salty and acidic, as though someone had added soy sauce to pudding. “What is this? Actually, never mind. Don’t tell me.” Seeing the look on Mimi’s face, I didn’t really want to know.

“I think that’s for the best,” Mimi agreed.

It was probably some sort of egg. The egg of something that made Mimi really uncomfortable. Yeah, ignorance is bliss this time.

“Is that all of the weird stuff?” I asked, afraid of what might remain.

“Yes,” Mimi said. “The rest is rather inoffensive.”

It turned out she was right. I enjoyed some of that cartoon meat on the bone from before, fruit I’d never seen that sat in neat little tarts, fish flakes, black jerky, and fried shrimp the size of my pointer finger. Incidentally, the shrimp and the black marbles had also been placed in front of me.

“Oh, what delicious-looking shrimp! Elma, try it out!” I said.

“Bwuh?!” Elma’s long ears perked up, but she hesitated. Was shrimp considered strange here? “Umm… It would be kinda rude to eat before you, right?”

“Ha ha ha! Don’t be modest. C’mon, here comes the choo-choo train.”

“Ulp.”

You won’t escape me.

As it turned out, shrimp wasn’t that weird, but we weren’t eating shrimp. Nope. Those things I thought were shrimp were actually some kind of caterpillar. Still tasted creamy and delicious, but suddenly I understood Elma’s reluctance.

 

***

 

All the food now identified, we enjoyed the feast before us. The girls also enjoyed their booze, though as usual, I abstained.

“Ah ha ha ha!”

“Master Hiro, c’mooon…”

“He had the gall to say I was too late to help!” Serena shouted, belligerent. “Well, excuse me for destroying a pirate base and cleaning up the remains! You’re the one stationed at the colony, so why don’t you protect it yourself?!”

Send help. Elma drowned herself in alcohol while Mimi clung to me and tugged at my clothing. All the while, Serena ranted about her unfair lot in life.

“Now, now, Serena. Calm down,” I said.

“And you!” Serena slurred. “You go around with your power armor defending the port, killing off a whole bunch of monsters on your own, rescuing Inagawa’s hospital, and then they make nanomachines to kill the rest! Do you know all the complaints I heard? ‘Oooh, the mercenary helped us out more than your squad.’ That’s why I told you I was going to be away! Why don’t you all use your soldiers better, huh?! It’s your fault that bioterrorism happened in the first place! Ugh!” Serena snatched my collar and yanked, flinging her pent-up rage at me. I couldn’t stand hearing her drunk-logic lectures, but they were inevitable from the moment she took her first sips.

“Oh, um… Calm down. Deep breaths.”

“Grrrr…” She growled but eased up on my collar.

“Uh. You okay?” I said.

Serena did not respond except to collapse right there on the table, fast asleep.

“Does she not realize she’s unconscious on a man’s ship?” I said. “That’s pretty reckless, if you ask me.”

“Heh heh heh.” Elma smirked. “Wanna do it?”

“Stop making those gross hand gestures at me, you drunk elf.” Elma prodded the index finger of one hand through a loop made by her index and thumb on the other hand. You know the gesture. “If I wanted to get off, I’d rather do it with someone who’s drunk but awake than with someone who’s unconscious.”

“Urk?!” That blew the dumb smirk right off of Elma’s face. Heh. Now that’s what I wanted to see.

Rather than keep teasing, I eased Mimi off of me and set her down on the couch. Then I scooped up Serena, bridal-style.

“Whoa. So you are gonna do it?” Elma said.

I grinned mischievously at her question and let out a “Yeet!” as I chucked Serena right into the medical pod. I didn’t have a death wish, so of course I didn’t desire any kind of drunken fling with a woman like Serena. She’d come roaring back with a marriage certificate or something, demanding I take responsibility. And what if her parents heard about this? I’d disappear without a trace—and fast.

“Huh? Back already? What, you couldn’t get it up?” Elma teased.

“You turn into a hell of a potty mouth when you’re drunk.” I bopped Elma on the head.

“Wow. Why do you get to act so big?” Elma said. “You know you’re head over heels for us. Once you peel back the surface layer, you’re one heck of a beast.”

“I can’t refute that,” I said. “Every man knows that he’s got a beast deep inside him. It’s pretty hard to hold that beast back with restraint alone, y’know.”

“Oh, jeez,” Elma groaned. “Do you think you sound cool?”

“Aww, what’s wrong? Does someone want attention?” Her schoolyard jabs were cute, but I saw right through the act. “Okay, fine. Wanna drink together? I’m not going to drink alcohol, though.”

“Pssh. Little baby.” Elma poured uncarbonated soda into a cup and offered it to me with a smile.

Guess it’s time to keep this lonely little rabbit company for a while.

 

***

 

“Urgh…”

“You always get carried away and drink too much.”

About an hour after I tossed Serena into the medical pod, our lovely elf had also collapsed after taking too many shots. This time, it was Elma I carried into the med bay. Hopefully, Serena had sobered up and I could simply switch them out.

Serena was still dozing in the medical pod. Her vitals were clear, though, so I nudged her awake. She blinked, looking lost for an instant before she jolted upright…

“Gack?!”

…and smashed her head against the glass lid of the medical pod. Lieutenant Commander, I can’t help but notice that, despite you being completely sober, you’re still silly as heck. I helped her get the pod open. Clearly, she wasn’t going to manage it from the inside right now.

“Just get out. I’ve gotta put Elma in.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Serena climbed out, rubbing her head, and I set Elma down in her place.

“Umm…?” She still looked confused.

“You drank too much and started spewing all your insecurities like a punctured can of compressed oxygen,” I said. “Then, you passed out, so I had to put you in that medical pod. And now here we are.”

Serena blushed, her gaze flitting away. “Erm, I’m very sorry.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with letting your hair down once in a while,” I said. “You seemed a little stressed, after all.”

I figured she would feel awkward. Imagine storming into someone’s ship and begging for attention with no regard to how much of a nuisance you were. Then you drink until you don’t even know who you are anymore, pass out, and wake up in a medical pod. Any sane person would be ashamed by a tempestuous blunder like that.

“Ngh…” Serena covered her face with both hands.

“This is the second time!” I pointed out.

“Urk!”

“You either need to be more careful with your drinking or have them put nanomachines in you to deal with your drunkenness. Either way, you can’t just get on a mercenary ship and get drunk off your ass. You could end up in a really dangerous situation, especially for a person with your status.”

I had to imagine that mind control existed in a universe this advanced. Someone could cut her tendons or toss her on a ship and drag her far away, wherever they liked. Hell, if I wanted to take her to the Belbellum Federation and sell her off, I could have. A young, beautiful noble would go for good money there.

“I regret my actions,” Serena mumbled. She slumped down, pouting. Perhaps it was just an act, but I couldn’t help thinking how adorable she looked like this. Remember, this is Lieutenant Commander Serena here. Fully sober Serena. Is she really that remorseful? Maybe, maybe not.

“Well, as long as you learn from it,” I said. “I mean, I’m not in much of a position to lecture someone like you, anyway.” I recovered Serena’s sword, which was leaning against the wall, and returned it to her. “You should probably get back to your ship. I don’t think either one of us wants people spreading crazy rumors.”

“I-Indeed. You’re right.” She accepted her sword and rose to her feet.

As for Mimi, I found her cleaning up when I returned to the cafeteria. Out of all of us, it was the youngest member of this ragtag bunch who actually showed the most self-control.

I saw Serena off, but she turned to me just before exiting the ship.

“Will we meet again?” she asked.

“If you keep hunting pirates, then yeah, I imagine we will,” I said. “They’re how I put food on the table. Besides, you owe me.” Maybe I was a bit of a hotshot when it came to slaughtering pirates, but I’d rather be that than a pirate sympathizer.

“Do I?” Serena said. “I suppose I do. Goodbye, then.”

“Yep. Later.”

Lieutenant Commander Serena left with a little smile. I sighed, shaking my head as I returned to the Krishna.

“Will we meet again? Really?” God, why’d she have to hit me with that kind of line while looking at me with those big puppy-dog eyes? What was I supposed to do?! She was way too much to handle, but I suspected fate would thrust us together again before long.

Epilogue

 

OUR PARTY DIDN’T DEPLETE our resources enough to delay us. The food and drinks had mostly been from Elma’s and Mimi’s personal stashes. Still, our little feast had proven to be a tiring affair. When I got up the next morning, the girls were still asleep, so I went right to training, bathing, and enjoying some coffee while I scoured for information.

I wasn’t searching for info on our next destination, though; I was digging for intel on the bioterrorist attack. It seemed those pale monsters really were made from the cultured meat plant’s life-forms. Genetic manipulation had caused their aggressive behavior and protected them from the fail-safe that should have killed them the moment they left the plant.

A group calling themselves the Association for the Protection of Artificial Life, or APAL, stepped up and took credit for the attack. The imperial government already had their sights set on destroying the organization. They were like some twisted version of an animal rights group, bent on using any means necessary—including violence—to protect the rights and lives of artificial life-forms created by humans for things like food production. I definitely didn’t want to get entangled with them.

Inagawa Technologies sent me a reward for protecting the hospital and researchers, along with a fancy and suspiciously heavy fruit basket. They even hid a bit of Rare Metal beneath the treats. Either way, I wasn’t going to sue them. It just seemed like a pain, y’know?

“Good morning, Master Hiro.”

“Mornin’.”

I’d just finished reading an article on the whole incident when Mimi and Elma entered the cafeteria.

“Morning, girls. How about we have some breakfast and get going?”

Elma rolled her eyes. “Think we’ll be interrupted again?”

“I can’t imagine Lieutenant Commander Serena will come around again today,” I said.

Mimi tried to smile sweetly, but there was an edge to her grin. It seemed her image of Serena as a troublemaker was solidified now.

“It’ll be fine,” I assured them. “It’s not like we’re in a hurry anyway. One or two days’ delay isn’t a big deal.” It would increase our docking costs, but considering we had over 17,000,000 Ener (1.7 billion Japanese yen), that wouldn’t really make a dent in our funds. “Hey, let’s eat! What does the Steel Chef have in store for us today?”

Elma rubbed her belly. “I need a big meal.”

“I’m fine with something light,” Mimi said. “Mornings don’t get the belly rumbling for me.”

Even on the morning of our departure, we enjoyed a comfortable and lively breakfast together as usual.

 

***

 

“Mimi, launch request,” I said.

We jetted off toward the Cierra System the moment we finished breakfast. Serena’s Pirate Hunting Unit was prowling this system, leaving few morsels for us to clean up. It was time to move on to greener pastures.

“Understood!”

“Keep doing what you do, Elma.”

“Gotcha, boss. I’ll take care of the subsystems.”

With the ship’s status green all around, Mimi announced our exit. “We’ve received permission to launch.”

“Awesome. Let’s go,” I said.

We released our docking from the hangar bay, brought in the landing gear, and slowly shuttled out of the colony. It paid to be cautious when leaving such a crowded and busy place. One little accident could result in a fortune in repairs to my ship, the other ship, and the colony itself, not to mention reparations. I wasn’t looking to go bankrupt.

“Um, it seems we’ll be third out of the gate,” Mimi informed me. “After that yellow container ship right there.”

“Aye-aye.” High-traffic colonies like this had to manage queues of ships in order to prevent disasters. Being just third in line actually meant this was a quiet day around here.

“We’re next,” Mimi told me.

“I’ll drive nice and careful until we’re out of the colony.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d hate to be stuck in an accident in front of the gate,” Elma said with a thousand-yard stare, presumably haunted by such an incident.

I reduced my shields to minimal output to avoid interfering with other ships, but that meant a collision would be even more dangerous. Before long, the yellow ship ahead of us made its escape. It was our turn.

“All right. We’re good to go, Master Hiro.”

“Got it.”

I proceeded cautiously, passing through the airtight shield that divided the colony from outer space. The barrier allowed ships through but not air or air pressure, a truly miraculous invention of this universe.

Finally, we passed through the shield and entered the wide-open expanse of space. I raised the generator output to maximum, and we left the colony behind.

“Mimi, ready navigation.”

“Yes, sir. Routing now.” With a few taps on her console, Mimi fed me the information I needed to navigate to our destination.

“Begin charging faster-than-light drive.”

“Understood,” Elma said. “FTL countdown incoming. Five, four, three, two, one. Activating FTL drive.”

Boom! A familiar bang thundered through the space around us as stars soared past our windows.

“Our destination is the Pamoni System, about four hyperlane exits away from the Cierra System,” I announced. “Okay, Elma, start charging hyperdrive!”

“Charging hyperdrive.”

“Successfully connected to hyperlane,” Mimi told us.

“Counting down,” Elma said. “Five, four, three, two, one… Hyperdrive activated.”

Space warped, the starlight melting into streaks. A torrent of stars roared around us as the kaleidoscopic colors of hyperspace whirled.

“Well, we oughta be able to take things easy for a while,” I said.

The autopilot could steer us through hyperspace. It was especially helpful for long journeys, though it was always a good idea to have someone around in case of emergencies, or so Elma told me.

In Stella Online, hyperdrive journeys happened in a blink. I mean, how crappy would the game be if you had to wait hours to travel? It was a simple matter of activating hyperdrive, jumping into a lane, and bam! You’re there.

“What should we do about keeping watch?” I asked.

“Erm, do we actually need to?” Mimi cocked her head in puzzlement, as if she’d been wondering about it for a while.

“I dunno. I did it because Elma told me to, but I can’t actually explain why we’d need to. Really, I’m not sure about it myself. There are functions to correct autopilot when it starts malfunctioning, and we can set an alarm if we need to.” I looked over to Elma.

She nodded. “Yeah, that was a lie.”

“Huh?” Mimi gasped.

“For real?” I said.

“I mean, since we’re left with nothing to do for so long…y’know? It’s nice to have time alone together sometimes.” Elma averted her eyes in embarrassment. Oh, I see. That’s why she insisted on someone keeping watch. Sneaky, Elma.

“Okay. No keeping watch from now on, then?”

“Er, hold on a sec.”

“We just need to work together, right?” I said. “There’s no reason to set up pointless shifts and mess up people’s sleep. Sounds silly to me.”

“Y-yeah, maybe, but…”

“Come on. What’s wrong with us being a little degenerate?”

“Are you serious?” Elma glared at me.

Hey, what can I say? I was a simple man, and this was every simple man’s fantasy. It wouldn’t actually change much. We were already crammed together on this tiny ship for hundreds of hours. Plus, what else was there to do during hyperdrive? We couldn’t get network reception to carry out research. This was pure leisure time: videos, games, e-books, training, eating, bathing, et cetera. Overall, it was horribly boring. But with two or more consenting adults around, well, there might be a nicer way to pass the time, if you know what I mean. I could see why people of the past had had so many kids.

“Okay, girls, job’s done. As captain, I declare that you’re free to do as you please.”

“Understood,” Mimi said.

“Ugh,” Elma groaned. “Are you for real right now?”

“Hey, c’mon,” I said. “It’s a long trip, so let’s take it easy. Mimi, do you have any sights you want to see in the Cierra System?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

“Then let’s take a look in the cafeteria,” I said. “I’d love to know more about that resort galaxy. Elma, let’s go.”

“H-hey, hold up! Stop pushing me!”

I dragged Elma along into the cafeteria, determined that we would all kick back and relax for the first time since we’d entered the unfortunate Arein System. Good riddance.

Afterword

 

THANK YOU FOR BUYING Reborn as a Space Mercenary’s second volume. Again, quite the title, isn’t it?!

Hi there. I’m Ryuto. It’s getting cold out there. I’d love to hibernate like the bear I am, but things seldom go the way we want. Oh, what a cruel world!

So it’s Volume 2. Volume 2, woo! I did it!

ComicWalker has begun a manga adaptation of this series! Shunichi Matsui’s renditions of the Krishna, the colonies, our lovely heroines… Man, you’ve just gotta see it. By the way, the ship comes before the women due to my own personal tastes. I’m telling you, it’s wonderful.

I’m sure you don’t care much about my circumstances other than that, so let’s get to talking about the book! I’m living a modest life with my beloved dog, by the way.

Anyway, here’s the second edition of me talking about things I couldn’t talk about in the book! This time, we’ll discuss non-human races on other planets. They come up for a moment in this volume. As you can see, there are many non-human races in this universe.

One representative would be the Elma we know and love; she’s an elf. Like humans, elves have used technology to leave their home planet and have mastered interstellar travel all on their own.

There are also dwarves, with their small but muscular bodies and skilled hands; reptilians, who have evolved from common reptiles; wolves who walk on two legs, known as lycanthropes; and even humanlike creatures with everything from cat ears to woolly bodies, like Chewbacca.

Non-humanoid races also exist. For example, there are jellyfish-like aliens, tentacle-like aliens, plant-like aliens, and much, much more. Imagine if our heroes ran into a certain pink, all-consuming monster… Scary!

I’d love to write about the various cultural exchanges between some of these races. Space is vast, so wouldn’t it be boring if we only met humanoids? Let’s be disgusted by their strange customs, and let’s disgust them with our strange customs. Don’t be picky; live a little and broaden those horizons!

Now, it hurts to say goodbye, but I think it’s about time we did so. Thank you to my manager, K; Tetsuhiro Nabeshima, our illustrator; and everyone involved in the publication of this book. Most of all, a huge thank-you to everyone who bought and read this book.

Let’s meet again in Volume 3! C’mon, Volume 3! See ya!

 

—RYUTO

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ryuto

A brown bear living in Hokkaido

 

My hobby is gaming. I have a wide range of tastes, but survival action and strategy games are my absolute favorites. I changed the carpet in my living room recently. It’s wonderful to bask in the sun with my dog. Shaking things up is nice once in a while.