So in the end, I found myself in power armor, landing on Riche III alongside Colonel Serena.
How come a mere mercenary like me has to cover the ass of an Imperial Fleet colonel who’s also a marquess’s daughter? Never mind—I know the damn reason. I care about Serena. She’s beautiful, and to be honest, I kind of like having her around. I think she’s pretty intriguing.
I’d never once dreamed that I would one day harbor feelings akin to those of a stereotypical hero pursuing a girl who interested him—especially one so gorgeous. Nor had I imagined that those feelings would lead me to charge into danger by her side.
“Um…I’m sorry,” the knight-like white suit of armor standing beside me apologized meekly.
I feel nothing when you apologize to me in that suit. Serena couldn’t just remove it now, however. Riche III’s environment was extremely inhospitable. Humans couldn’t survive it without power armor or some other suit that could withstand the hostile environment.
“I’m not mad,” I told her. “I accepted this job, so stop worrying about it. I’m just struggling to come to terms with how big a pushover I am. At any rate, your subordinates are watching us, so you should get a hold of yourself.”
“Yes, but…um…I’ll make this up to you, so…”
“I told you not to worry about it…although I guess you won’t listen either way. Okay, fine. I look forward to however you intend to make this up to me. Go with something special, okay?”
“Of course…” Colonel Serena said, sounding relieved. “Leave it to me.” She then turned, facing forward.
Serena and I were inside a makeshift command post created by a material projector. It was about three kilometers from the building where the Screech Owls had found their sphere.
“Okay… Time to find out just how bad our luck is.”
“Stop it! Don’t jinx us.”
“Colonel!” someone said over our comms. “An unidentified object has appeared from inside the ruin-like structure!”
Serena and I hesitated, and our eyes met despite our power armor. The colonel’s look obviously said, “See, what did I tell you?”
From within the makeshift-but-shielded command post, she gave an order in a strained voice. “Show me.”
If she didn’t have power armor on right now, she’d probably be massaging her forehead.
“Yes, ma’am. Sending images.”
That voice belonged to the man commanding the forward party, and at the same time as his voice transmitted, images of what he saw projected onto our holo-display. Good-quality images. They must come from his battle armor’s optic sensors.
“That is indeed an unidentified object,” I muttered.
It was difficult to describe. If I had to, I’d have called it a tetrahedron. A towering gray tetrahedron that had some shiny, dark gray limb-like appendage projecting from its underside, which it used for walking. There were features on its surface that looked like eyes, but we couldn’t know whether that was their actual function. The entity was more uncanny than intimidating.
“A friend of those spheres…?” Colonel Serena wondered.
“Perhaps a parent or older sibling? In any case, it’s definitely higher in the hierarchy,” I responded.
She paused. “Try contacting it with that device.”
“Understood.”
The marines of the Pirate-Hunting Unit prepped the device in question, which was the size of a large bundle, and pointed its parabolic antenna at the tetrahedron. That was the communication device Dr. Shouko, Wells, and the twins had created using the translator-implant database.
Unfortunately, since the spheres had refused to talk with us, we hadn’t been able to communicate with them. Still, we’d managed to decipher the mental waves they used to speak to each other, and Konoha and Kugi had confirmed that this device would work.
The device didn’t operate via electronic means like other technology. Instead, it was the first communicator in Imperial history based on thought waves. At least, that was how Wells presented it, although I had no way of gauging just how impressive that accomplishment was. Kugi’s homeland, Verthalz, likely had much more impressive tools.
“The Screech Owls say this is their first time seeing that thing too.”
“Well, it’s not something you’d forget easily once you saw it.”
That meant that our arrival had caused the life-forms here to react differently.
“So either that thing is smart enough to understand and judge this situation, then come up with appropriate responses and choose one…or the boss behind it is.”
“My stomach hurts…” The suit of pure-white knight armor rubbed its abdomen, producing a loud mechanical sound. It looked pretty comedic.
Careful not to scratch up that shiny, polished armor of yours, Colonel.
“Colonel, the object has moved,” Lieutenant Robertson reported.
Looking back at the holo-display that provided the Imperial marine’s point of view, we saw that part of the tetrahedron had split off and was now floating. Is that miniature tetrahedron a biological offshoot? Well, this isn’t really the time to analyze how it functions ecologically… I should probably be on guard against whatever that action meant, though. It would be nice if that had been some kind of friendly gesture, but I doubted it.
“Activate shields. Maximum output.”
“Aye aye, ma’am. Activating shields.”
At the same moment the marines activated the portable shield generator, a powerful shock wave struck us. It was accompanied by a thought: ‹Back off.›
“Gyah!”
“Guh!”
Colonel Serena and the others with us inside the makeshift command post shuddered and cried out in pain. Meanwhile, the picture on the holo-display turned in a strange direction, then stabilized. The fall-prevention function on that marine’s power armor must’ve activated. It triggers when the user is about to lose consciousness. The soldiers in the forward party had completely stopped responding. They must have passed out; the people here, three kilometers away, almost did too. Excluding me, that is.
“Are you okay?” I asked Serena.
“Why are you totally fine…?”
“I’ve been working out.”
I wasn’t lying. I’d become pretty proficient at managing the psionic powers Kugi and Konoha taught me. That “shock wave” just now had been a powerful thought wave, and I’d completely blocked it using the mental barrier Kugi had taught me. Even without a mental barrier, I probably could’ve endured it, given how much psionic power I have.
“What was that?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think it was a deliberate attack. It was a high-powered thought wave—something like a really loud shout, essentially. A wave that powerful can knock out bystanders without psionic abilities. By the way, it told us to ‘back off.’”
“Back off? How pompous… Wait. You understood that noise?”
“Noise? It sounded like words to—oh, I see.”
I had completely forgotten that, although I didn’t have a translator implant, I was a special case who understood most languages automatically. The normal translator implant apparently wasn’t able to handle that powerful thought wave.
“My translator implant is special,” I said, tapping my ninja armor’s helmet with one finger.
Colonel Serena responded in an exasperated voice. “Your translator implant is special, and you’re a swordsman on par with Imperial nobles—despite lacking physical enhancements. Moreover, you can use psionic abilities, and you’re also an incredible combat pilot. Isn’t that all a little bit much?”
“I mean, it’s not my fault. At any rate, what should we do now? I think the soldiers on the front all blacked out.”
“I’ll wake them up with the medical systems in their suits. Hm…? They aren’t responding.”
The marines’ vital signs were stable, according to their power armor, so they were definitely still alive. But their suits’ built-in medical systems couldn’t revive them. Maybe because it was suffering mental damage, not physical damage, that knocked them out?
“Resuscitation via the power-armor medical system has…failed again. Their vital signs are stable, but they’re still unconscious.”
“How troublesome…” said Serena. “I’ve heard that elite soldiers from Verthalz can use their abilities to destroy their enemies’ minds. This effect must be something similar.”
Yeah, users of the second magic—like Kugi—could accomplish something like this easily. Normal people with no defenses don’t have any way to resist their consciousness being torn apart.
“Damn it! I’ll just have to go myself,” Serena declared.
“You can’t.”
A unit’s commander leading the charge might be tradition, but charging at an unbeatable enemy without a plan wasn’t bravery; it was recklessness.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“No. Well… But…”
“I’m the only one who can do this. It doesn’t seem like it wants to fight, and our combat bots are still perfectly fine.”
“That’s true, but… Very well. I’ll accept your kindness.”
“Good. Then see you later, Colonel.”
I saluted, then ran off toward the tetrahedron’s location. If I ran normally in this ninja armor, I could cover three kilometers in under five minutes. But what if I tried something special?