Now then, I imagine you already know, but this is the gist of Haruhi’s plan.
“We’ve successfully infiltrated the enemy ship! The rest is easy. We just gotta rush the bridge and seize it! We tie up that geezer and demand he free the prince and princess. They can still have their war without the hostages, and we get to have a shoot-out.”
If everything actually worked out that way, it would be too easy.
I took a peek outside the window of our ship, docked in the enemy hold. This appeared to be some sort of launchpad for smaller vessels. Shuttles and ferries everywhere. It almost looked like valet parking.
The main difference between those ships and ours was that we were surrounded by guards with (presumably) laser rifles (suspiciously similar to what clone troopers carried in a super-famous sci-fi series.)
“Uh, Haruhi,” I said as she rose to her feet brandishing the ray gun. “If you run straight out there, they’ll fill you full of holes. You’ll be burned to a crisp before you make it to the old man.”
“That won’t be a problem as long as you put your back into it.”
Let me reiterate that I am not capable of dodging beams of light.
“R-r-right!” Asahina said, breaking her silence. Her voice was shaking. “Th-this is very dangerous! We should sit and have some tea.”
“Nope!” Haruhi immediately said, dismissing Asahina’s welcome suggestion. “That’s no fun for me! Listen, we are members of the Galactic Patrol. We’re the good guys! It’s our job to mow down the baddies. Kidnappers think they can hold us captive? Unacceptable!”
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Yet she seemed delighted. Her expression didn’t match her lines. She was dying to go on a rampage.
“That may be so, but give us a little time.” Koizumi now stood next to Nagato. “Nagato’s looking into the matter—she’ll soon know where the royal children are being kept.”
I glanced over, and Nagato was slowly running her fingers over the console’s panels. I had no idea how that thing worked, but there was a ton of code running across the display. Eventually…
“There,” she whispered. Her fingers—and the scrolling text—paused.
“Found something?” Haruhi asked.
“The crew list,” Koizumi answered. “I asked Nagato to hack this ship’s central computer. Nagato, you made it look easy.”
He sounded impressed, yet that smile was a bit strained.
“This makes it clear most people listed are military—only two individuals on board who don’t match that description. I suspected the odds were good they are aboard this very ship, and indeed, it turns out they are.”
Koizumi swung around, facing me and Haruhi.
“The prince and princess are imprisoned on this vessel. In VIP suites—likely because they are royalty. It would hardly do to place them in a cell.”
Was this all a happy coincidence? Or was that decrepit commander just an idiot? You’d think he’d have the sense to keep his prisoners on different ships.
While I shook my head, Nagato must have done something—the main monitor now showed the ship’s layout. A retro wire frame schematic. One section of it was flashing.
“The prince and princess are in this room,” Koizumi said.
Another section started flashing.
“And this is our present location. The lower hold. The royal suite is much closer than the bridge, but what say you?”
“Hmm.” Haruhi considered this. “Should we snatch them and bail, or take over the ship?”
I didn’t really feel like one was substantially easier than the other. You may be forgetting that we’re not quite as statistically anomalous as you are, Haruhi.
Even if we managed to shake off the troops milling around the Schismatrix and somehow made it to the royal children, we’d still have to make it back in one piece. If we tried to wrest control of the ship, we’d need to force a quick surrender with only the five of us. Neither seemed realistic.
“Then a third way,” Koizumi said craftily. “Since we’ve got the ship’s computers hacked, let’s take advantage of that.”
Good thing Nagato could do anything. Though this ship’s network security also seemed conveniently flimsy—wasn’t this supposed to be the distant future? Why was the word computer still in use? What language were we speaking, anyway? Maybe best left unprobed.
With a guilt-free smile, Koizumi added, “This is a stealth ship intended to launch a surprise attack on their enemy. They’ll have done a lot of work to ensure their targets do not see them coming. Including the masking of all outgoing communication and electromagnetic signals. We need merely ensure they are detected.”
Koizumi pointed a finger at the star map above his own seat.
“Fortunately, we’re rather close to the Fifth Separatist Empire—their target. If we cause a commotion, they’ll soon discover us. Stealth units that have been revealed tend to be rather flimsy. Every ship in the invasion fleet will be in turmoil. If we take advantage of that, recovering the royals should be a simple matter.”
“Then make it so!” Haruhi said, like a figurehead general leaving all planning to her scheming aide. “Yuki, do your thing.”
Nagato nodded and began doing something—I couldn’t tell what, of course—at her console.
A moment later, she muttered, “All ships, ECM active.”
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Ten thousand ships broadcasting electronic warfare signals with no interference was stupendously effective.
There was low vibration in the distance that made the entire cockpit shake.
“They’re definitely panicking,” I muttered, gazing around the hold.
Scattered revolving lights were painting the small ship’s hold a deep red, and an alarm echoed loudly, ordering soldiers to their combat stations.
The ship shook again. A direct hit.
The New Orthodox Empire fleet, with the Schismatrix in the belly of their flagship, was currently engaging interceptors that had been hastily scrambled by the Fifth Separatist Empire in response to Nagato’s signal.
She had hacked into the ship’s systems, scooping up intel.
“Reinforcements inbound. Forces evenly matched,” Nagato said, eyes on the deluge of text streaming down her screen.
“Perfect,” Haruhi said, pretending to roll up her sleeves. “This is our chance! We’re gonna move hard and fast under the cover of all this chaos! Looks like the guards all vanished, too.”
Indeed, the soldiers stationed round the Schismatrix had run off somewhere, and there were only scattered security patrols milling about the hold. If we missed this chance, we probably wouldn’t get another. Had we managed to lock into the correct path for beating the game?
“Make sure you remember the route to the royals’ room!” Haruhi said. Feet planted firmly, she stared at the wire frame for a few solid seconds, then brandished her ray gun. “Move out!”
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I would’ve loved to stay behind on the ship, but clearly that wasn’t an option. We all drew our ray guns (can we not have a better name for these? Blasters, maybe?) and Haruhi led the way through the airlock and into the hold.
“Eep!” Asahina nearly toppled over on the landing, but Koizumi caught her. As adorable as she was sexy. She’d lost her blaster (definitely sounds cooler, so I’m going with it) while she was airborne, and it skidded toward Haruhi, who then picked it up.
“Everyone, set your weapons to stun. That’d be the S on this dial. They may be kidnappers, but they’re not pirates, and we won’t be able to sleep at night if we hurt them.”
When had she figured these guns out? Also, that totally ruined the whole blaster thing. Now I’d have to start calling them stun guns.
Haruhi handed Asahina her S-Gun and yelled, “Follow me!”
When she was certain we’d heard her, she bolted off. Hair streaming behind her, full of energy, she broke into the kind of run that made you forget we were in space. Was this really a spaceship? I was starting to feel like this was an elaborate set, like humanity had yet to even land on the moon. Well, we had our mission. The rest didn’t matter. No choice but to follow it where it takes us. Especially if Haruhi was into it.
We charged toward the hold’s big exit door. Haruhi saw the remaining guards aiming laser rifles at us and took them down with her S-Gun. The paralysis beams left them writhing, and we stepped right over them, charging forward. Toward where the prince and princess were being held…
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We arrived.
Mostly thanks to Nagato’s memory rather than anything Haruhi did, but despite taking the shortest route through the spaceship’s interior, we managed to have shoot-outs on every staircase, elevator, and corner on the way here, downing countless guards. I no longer had any clue where we were, but we were outside the door to a room.
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