The Pirate-Hunting Unit moved quickly after departure, thus living up to its name. If it took its sweet time to get moving, pirates would run away long before the fleet arrived, so the unit had taken to heart the importance of brisk and efficient operations.
Mimi and Elma were in the Black Lotus’s lounge, chatting idly.
“I always thought that edge worlds were extremely dangerous, but they’re really nothing special.”
“Well, no. If they were hell zones where pirates and space monsters would attack you relentlessly the second you left the Dauntless, not even explorers would dare visit them.”
Nearby, I was enjoying a “lap pillow” from Mei. Today was “Mei Appreciation Day,” so I was letting her pamper me as much as I could. When operating alongside the Pirate-Hunting Unit, we traveled mostly by autopilot, since we simply had to follow their orders; that meant Mei was free to spend as much time on me as she wished.
The Krishna sat in the hangar, and the Antlion was docked to the Black Lotus, so none of us needed to pilot them. No space pirates were brave enough to attack this fleet; even if space monsters showed up, I probably wouldn’t need to do anything, given the fleet’s overall strength.
“Is it really all right to just laze around like this…?” Konoha asked with visible contempt.
“It’s fine. Running around looking for work won’t change anything at this point.” I waved off her concerns.
We’d checked our equipment, and everything was in perfect shape. This time, we weren’t the main fighting force anyway. Rather, we were here as important psionic-ability advisors and backup that could jump in if needed. Even if something came up, the current plan didn’t involve us dirtying our hands, either in space combat or combat on the surface of an unexplored planet. I had no intention of sword-fighting those dangerous metal spiders, and we would only be asked to offer close air support at most from the Krishna.
“Our job this time is pretty boring,” Tina said.
“There won’t be anything for us to do,” Wiska added.
“Well, even if we did find something, asking you two to deal with an alien civilization’s artifacts would be a bit too much.”
Tina and Wiska specialized in ships and technology related to them. If we somehow acquired mysterious alien technology, they wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it.
“I’m still holdin’ out hope that we’ll scare up some of that new material those spheres are made of,” Tina said. “That stuff’s pretty cool.”
“Hopefully they find a way to mass produce it…but I think it’ll be too expensive to be feasibly use.”
“Replacing plating is super expensive,” Elma noted.
“Yeah.”
Plating was the priciest part of a ship. The lowest quality material was super cheap, but each improvement in quality increased the plating’s cost by an order of magnitude. Outfitting even a small ship like the Krishna with the highest-grade military plating, rather than standard plating, would increase the component’s cost by two figures. I couldn’t even imagine the cost of replacing a ship’s plating with whatever was developed from the casing—or carapace—of those spheres.
“Our destination’s two star systems away, right?”
“Yes. The Riche System. A star system two hyperlanes from the Kensan System where the Dauntless is stationed.”
“Is any system information available?”
“I took a look earlier, but there’s almost nothing. It’s a B-type main-sequence star with four planets. There’s an asteroid belt with rocks and chunks of ice in the outer region, and all four planets are rocky.”
“There’s ice in the asteroid belt? It’ll serve as a breeding ground for pirates.”
It was possible to extract water from ice, which meant that—so long as they had enough energy—pirates there could remain self-sufficient in terms of food and water. That would make it easier for them to establish a base nearby. Well, it also makes it easier for the Grakkan Empire to create a colony.
“The question is whether pirates have already set up there. There haven’t been any reports of space monsters in the region yet, so it’s definitely possible that they’ve already created an intermediary base nearby.”
“Even if they have, that won’t affect us. It’ll only become a real problem once the Empire claims this area as its territory and starts colonizing it.”
Even if there was a pirate base in the Riche System, it was pretty unlikely that the pirates would try to pull anything against the Pirate-Hunting Unit. In fact, they’d probably be doing their best to hide.
“Aren’t we going to go hunt for them?” Wiska asked.
“Depends on Colonel Serena. She might decide not to waste the resources, since our ultimate goal during this expedition is to deal with those spheres. We don’t know if the pirates are even there,” I answered with a dismissive wave.
The icy asteroid belt made it likelier that pirates had established a base there, but that didn’t mean they actually had.
“We will soon enter the last hyperlane before our destination.”
“How long will we be in it?”
“About one and a half hours.”
“We can laze around for another hour, then.”
“Yes.”
Mei stroked my head and stomach as I lay in her lap. Although she was mechanical, she still felt warm and soft to the touch. What a mystery. Orient Industries was incredible.