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Setting down his mug—identical to the one in the Brigade clubroom—Koizumi gestured to the copilot’s console.
“I messed around with the knobs and discovered a star map. According to it, we are in the outer reaches of an interstellar nation known as the Fifth Galactic Separatist Empire.”
The emperor with a suspiciously familiar voice had dropped that name as well.
“Huh,” Haruhi said, noisily sipping tea. “And the pirates’ den?”
“That, I don’t know,” Koizumi said, tapping a screen with one hand, and putting a number of windows up on the main monitor. “There are so many space nations, and very little uncharted territory. I narrowed it down to regions capable of sustaining systemic piracy—the Sargasso Space, for instance—but so far, I’ve yet to discover anything.”
He seemed to be enjoying himself. I dunno how he was managing that, but it was hardly the time to be elegantly sipping tea. When was this waking dream/simulated game gonna end?
“Naturally, it will draw to a close once we finish the task at hand,” Koizumi said, turning his smile my way. “First, let us study the history of this galaxy. The emperor of this Fifth Galactic Separatist Empire requested our aid. As the number implies, there are other space empires out there.”
Koizumi swiped with his fingers, and the star map on-screen shifted, highlighting regions in different colors.
“Originally, a single empire controlled all this territory. After several breakups and independence movements, it settled into what we have now. Data indicates the Fifth Galactic Separatist Empire was established relatively recently. We have the First Galactic Conquest Empire, the Rightful Galactic Empire Government in Exile, the Galactic Imperial Alliance, the Holy Galactic Empire, the True Galactic Empire, the True Galactic Empire Frontier, the Galactic Empire Independent Union, and—”
“Enough,” I interrupted. “I get that there are galactic empires everywhere. We need the pirates.”
“That’s the thing. Based on the files on this ship’s computer, they may not be pirates at all.”
“Huh,” Haruhi said, not the least bit interested. “How’s that work?”
“Well, many of these nations insist they are the one true and proper galactic empire, and are constantly engaged in border disputes. The computer suggests these so-called pirates could actually be the agents of foreign militaries carrying out clandestine missions.”
“Hmm,” Haruhi said. It was unclear if she followed this explanation, but she put her empty cup down. “So these other nations have the pirates’ backs. And this idiot prince and princess got themselves captured by another country, not actual pirates?”
“It is a possibility. In which case, no amount of caution is too much.”
Koizumi spread his hands.
“After all, we’re merely the Galactic Patrol. We’re in no position to comment on matters of international diplomacy. Rounding up pirates is part of our job, but territorial conflicts fall well outside our jurisdiction.”
Those regulations made sense.
I sighed.
“So what should we be doing? Just drifting through space?”
“Obviously, we fight the pirates! That’s the job we’ve been hired to do!” Haruhi beamed. “Who cares if they’re actually military ships in disguise? If they’re acting like pirates, they might as well be pirates! Let’s just board their ship and get out quick. If we get the prince and princess back safe and sound, that king won’t bug us.”
An empire with a king? Not an emperor?
“That’s all well and good,” I said, “But that brings us back to the question of where we’re going. We still have no leads on where the pirates even are.”
“True…”
Haruhi considered this momentarily. Then a light bulb went on. She drew her ray gun, turned the knob on the side of it, and took aim at the screen.
“Here,” she said.
Using her ray gun like a laser pointer, she indicated a section of the star map.
“A hunch is good enough!” she said, circling the area. “I feel like this galaxy isn’t as big as it looks. If we just keep flying, we’ll probably run into them. Nab any suspicious ships we see, give them the third degree, and make ’em cough up whatever information they have.”
Would it be that easy?
“It may very well be,” Koizumi said, punching Haruhi’s coordinates into his console. He offered me a smile. “I doubt this scenario is intended to be that difficult. We’re expected to clear it, after all. Odds are, if we do nothing, they’ll come to us eventually. As they did last time.”
“True.” I nodded reluctantly and put my hands back on the flight stick.
After doing nothing but living it up in the fantasy world, the man we were supposed to track down came to us. We’d skipped right past a bunch of stuff we were meant to do, and ultimately, all we did was blow up the demon lord’s castle. The end credits basically started rolling right after the opening finished. Circumventing the final boss battle had been a mistake—and one we’d better not repeat. We’d have to be careful and make sure we ended up face-to-face with the boss himself at the very least.
“Kyon, warp speed! Schismatrix, engines at max!”
Haruhi appeared to have given the spaceship a name. For now, I obeyed her orders.
After all, Haruhi’s hunches were prophetically accurate and, like it or not, if we headed where she pointed, we’d likely bump into something. She’d proven this power so many times I’d remember it even in the next life.
So I moved the flight stick, prepping for warp speed. Somehow I knew the procedures already. Kind of like how you can figure out how to play a lot of games without reading the manual, I guess?
“Schismatrix, warp speed,” I echoed begrudgingly, and the ship with a needlessly cyberpunk name broke the light speed barrier.
Oof. The view on-screen was giving me motion sickness. It was a whole spiral of spinning lights, like that freakish logo on the SOS Brigade site. I guess it was a warp. I was actually impressed by how much it looked like the anime I’d seen as a kid.
“More tea?” Asahina asked, carrying a pot around with a smile.
She was acting so normal it made the futuristic spaceship going warp speed seem like it was something that happened every day, but that couldn’t be true. Then again, having her act just like she did in the clubroom made me feel a lot better, so I happily let her fill my cup.
What did this journey have in store for us?
Haruhi seemed eager for a ray-gun fight, Nagato was silently sitting there radiating radar beams from her body, Koizumi was clearly treating this like a big game, and Asahina seemed blissfully unaware of what was going on. And I—or the SOS crew—was bound for the final frontier, where we’d likely find the pirates’ den.