About an hour later…
I didn’t really think we’d stumble across the pirate lair that easily.
Yanking the flight stick around, I said, “So now what?”
“The situation speaks for itself.” Koizumi shrugged. “We’ve been captured by some sort of tractor beam. There is no escape.”
In accordance with Captain Haruhi’s orders, the good ship Schismatrix had warped itself right across the galaxy.
And the moment it emerged, the screen filled with stars—and the massive fleet hidden in this star sector.
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of ships. Pointy spaceships, big and small, all mixed together in row after row.
Running into them right after returning to normal space caught me by surprise. But the mystery fleet must have been equally shocked. A bunch of ships got jammed up like a pileup on the freeway, and there was a brief moment of chaos, but they quickly recovered. The bow of one of the ships pointed toward us and shot an oddly colored beam at our ship. The moment they did, Schismatrix was trapped and the consoles started emitting warning sounds. They still were.
“Turn those off,” Haruhi said, chomping on some chocolate bar–style space rations. “The noise is driving me nuts. And call up the man in charge of the other fleet! Who are these people? They don’t really seem piratey.”
If these were our pirates, that was bad news. One dinky patrol vessel against ten thousand warships. How were we supposed to win? Would Asahina’s insane spell work in a vacuum?
As the alarms that sounded like electronic music kept beeping, our comms officer stopped doubling as a tea server, sat down at her console, and started tapping the touch panel.
“Um. What do I do?” Asahina stammered.
Right, I guess she wasn’t a mage anymore.
“This alarm indicates they have a lock on us,” Koizumi drawled. “I expect they’ll hail us soon—they seemed rather bewildered by our arrival.”
Nagato finally stopped the warning message that sounded like a gas leak alarm. All she actually did was brush the screen in front of her, but she must have reached an understanding with our spaceship; the machines obediently went quiet.
At roughly the same time, a suspiciously familiar-looking old man appeared on the main monitor. We could only see his upper half, but that was enough to tell he was in military uniform.
“We must protest!” he said, scowling at us. “That could nearly have been a serious collision! If your warp-out point had overlapped with one of our ships, the explosion would have been colossal!”
No wonder he looked familiar—he was the spitting image of the fishy old-timer who’d called himself the forest sage.
“What business does a Ranging Galactic Observation vessel have here? There are no viable planets in this region of space!”
Mm. He seems weirdly flustered. Clearly, we weren’t welcome here, but he also seemed like he was up to no good.
Haruhi hadn’t said anything because her mouth was full of what looked like chocolate. Once she swallowed, she said, “Identify yourself. Giving your name before asking a question is basic manners!”
Her open-mouthed grin was distinctive.
“You already know we’re patrolling for the Ranging whatsit. Who are you?”
“We are the New Orthodox Galactic Empire Third Mobile Space Fleet, and I am the fleet commander—”
She didn’t bother letting him finish.
“It’s our turn to ask the questions. What are you doing here? With all these ships.”
Seemingly unnerved by her questions, the fleet commander got very shifty.
“……Military exercises. Now if you’re satisfied, be on your way.”
If I picked up on it, Haruhi definitely did. And just like I expected…
“Very fishy,” she said. “If this is a mock battle, why not do it in the open? This guy’s acting funny. Koizumi, where are we?”
Koizumi looked up from his instruments.
“Near the border between the Fifth Galactic Separatist Empire and the New Orthodox Galactic Empire. Currently in the latter’s territory. This is off the standard shipping routes, which is ideal for exercises, but…”
No one doubled as a narrator better than this pretty boy.
“The scale is far too large. Judging from their trajectory, they’re covertly heading toward the holdings of our client, the Fifth Separatist Empire. I cross-checked the data on the ship computer but was unable to verify any military exercises scheduled during this time period. At the very least, the Ranging Galactic Observers are unaware of any.”
“Aha!” Haruhi said, her unparalleled intuition getting her to the explanation. “They’re not practicing for war; they’re getting ready for the real thing! It’s a sneak attack!”
The elderly commander quivered guiltily.
“What a bald accusation! Even if that were the case, the Ranging Galactic Observation Patrol has no right to interfere in a civil war!”
“Maybe not,” Haruhi said. “But we’ve seen what we’ve seen. It wouldn’t be strange if we accidentally let your targets know you’re about to launch an offensive. My lips are feeling very loose right now.”
“O-oh dear… No, wait, wait…”
The fleet commander was in a bit of tizzy.
Clearly, we’d warped right into the middle of a fleet staging for a sneak attack. That just seemed like a headache for everyone involved.
“Fine,” Haruhi said, grinning like a cat. It wasn’t clear what was fine. “We’re only here for the space pirates, and while I do think everyone would be better off without these silly wars, I’ll let it go this time.”
The elderly commander looked profoundly relieved. But…
“On one condition.”
Haruhi leaned forward in the captain’s chair.
“Will you tell us where the pirates’ lair is? The ones we’re after.”
“Pirates, you say? Hmm, very well. We’ll happily share our intel.”
He was very friendly now. Extremely happy to be rid of us.
“Still, there’s all manner of pirates out there! Did they attack a merchant vessel? The biggest power in these parts would be Captain Beyond’s High Ground Pirates.”
“Um…more like kidnapping? Koizumi, what was it again?”
“Their identities are unknown,” he said, giving the commander a look of amusement. “But the pirates kidnapped the Fifth Separatist Empire’s prince and princess.”
“Oh, right!” Haruhi said, then pointed at the screen. “Those pirates. Any clue where we can find them?”
“Urk……”
The commander had visibly flinched. He was incredibly bad at hiding his emotions for someone of his rank.
“First I’ve heard of it! I wouldn’t know.”
“That’s a lie if I ever heard one.”
If he couldn’t even convince me, he’d never convince Haruhi.
“It’s written all over your face! Why did you even bother playing dumb?”
Her smile seemed innocent, but I could tell it was a sham. Let me reiterate that her intuition was keen enough to put most katanas to shame.
“Aha, I see what’s going on!” she said with triumphant certainty. “You’re the kidnappers! You disguised a military vessel as a pirate ship! Why would you kidnap the royalty of another country? Oh, I get it. To justify your war! You’re gonna use them as casus belli to attack the Fifth Whatchamacallit Empire. You’ll claim they defected to you, rebelling against their parents!”
Her eyes latched onto this poor old man, refusing to let him go.
“When I heard how many Galactic Empires there were, I started wondering. ‘Space pirates’ is such a vague term.”
“Hngh…”
The commander was really sweating now. Guess we had him dead to rights.
“What a coincidence! The fleet we just happened to bump into was our target all along!”
She was acting like this was a stroke of luck, but if it actually was pure chance, that would be genuinely stupefying.
“Saved us a lot of trouble,” Haruhi said, clearly not finding it particularly noteworthy. “Anyway, that makes things easy. Hand over the prince and princess. We’ve gotta bring them back to their parents!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
This whole time, the old fleet commander looked like a toad sweating bullets, but now he stood with his back straight.
“If you’ve figured this much out, you leave us with no choice. We cannot let you go, much less free the royal children. We’ll need you to sit quietly until our operation is complete!”
With that criminal admission, the commander faded from our screen.
Uh-oh. He wasn’t planning on blowing up our ship to silence us, was he? Haruhi, maybe you should reconsider blurting out every little thing that crosses your mind. This might have been one of those pretend you haven’t worked it out moments. While I was worrying about our future prospects…
“Erp?”
The Schismatrix began to move. Not under my control, either. All on its own. Why?
“The tractor beam. They’re pulling us into the warship. Presumably to capture us,” Koizumi drawled.
He was right; our ship was being pulled toward the massive warship. A hatch was opening in the side of it.
“That’s the flagship,” he elaborated. “I imagine they’ll keep us locked up until the war is over.”
Managed to work that one out myself, thanks. Anything we can do about it?
“I’d say this is an opportunity,” Koizumi offered, rubbing his lips with one finger. “Our mission is to recover the kidnapped children. They’re likely held somewhere in this fleet, and this may give us a chance to reach them. Only one problem—”
Here, he turned to Nagato.
“Which ship are the prince and princess on? I imagine a little prodding will tell us that.”
“…………”
Nagato’s lips stayed sealed, her eyes on the console before her. She was currently our ship’s radar expert, but Nagato herself was likely more efficient than the ship’s instruments. She may have been a thief in the fantasy world, but space was her element. It was worth getting our hopes up.
Unable to suppress her own baseless expectations, Haruhi began practicing her ray-gun draw.
“I figured we’d have to flit from star system to star system gathering intel, but this was real quick! Ideal, really. Mm, my plan’s perfect!”
Even I could tell what the plan was. Haruhi was raring for a shoot-out, and if she threw herself into one, that automatically forced me into it as well.
Maybe we should have obediently done all the busywork quests designed to raise our levels until we really were ready to tackle the demon lord’s castle.
Leaning back in my seat, I sighed up at the imposing bulk of the flagship.
“I feel like Pinocchio.”
And thus, the Schismatrix got pulled inside the enemy vessel. The epitome of flying by the seat of our pants. All the worse because we’d got it in one. I bet there was lots of foreshadowing we were supposed to have found here and there around the galaxy, but Haruhi was never one for patience and had once again skipped ahead. Better than fighting the final boss at level one, at least.