Chapter 6:
The Joint Operation
“THIS PLACE IS CRAZY.”
“It’s like a paaassenger shiiip.”
Examining the Black Lotus’s interior, Nicholas and Lattis reacted in the typical manner most people did.
The granny, on the other hand, didn’t seem impressed. “Hmph. Comes off so weak. A mercenary ship should look like a mercenary ship.”
“In my opinion, only an idiot would deliberately make their furnishings less convenient to make themselves look more badass,” I countered.
Given how she’d phrased her comment, I couldn’t help wondering whether she was at fault for the type of mercenary culture that had developed within the Empire. If so, it was quite a serious sin she’d committed.
“You snap at every little thing, don’t you?” the granny remarked.
“You started it by complaining about our furnishings. Whatever… This conversation isn’t going anywhere. Let’s get down to business.”
I led the group to the Black Lotus’s lounge.
“I’ll go prepare drinks, my lord,” Kugi volunteered.
“Thanks.”
As she quietly left, Celestia glanced at me suspiciously. “That girl is from Verthalz, right? Why’s she following you? She even calls you ‘my lord.’”
“As you already know, I can use psionic powers. Their extent is considerable, to say the least. She was basically assigned as my chaperone.”
“Does that mean you came from the Holy Empire of Verthalz?”
“No. Though, according to Kugi, they’d treat me quite well if I went there. Still, I prefer living as a mercenary.”
“Ah—you’re that type too? Must be tough on the people around you.”
“Buzz off,” I said, then gestured toward the seats around the lounge’s holo-display table. “Anyway, make yourself comfortable.”
I sat down myself, as did Elma; Kugi would as well, once she returned from fetching us drinks. As for the others, they were off checking out the ship’s recently renovated research area.
“Where’s Mimi?” Celestia asked.
“She’s making sure everything we ordered got installed properly. We’d be over there too if you guys hadn’t suddenly shown up.”
“My bad. As you get older, you also get a bit impatient.” She didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.
As Celestia and I continued our verbal sparring, Kugi returned with water bottles for the group. Strangely, normal water was more expensive than soft drinks in this universe.
“Our drinks are here, so let’s get down to business.”
“Yeah. Well, this really isn’t that complicated,” the granny began. “We’ve been here for quite some time now, and we have to earn enough to pay our daily expenses. Most importantly, sitting around doing nothing is damn boring, so we tend to go casually hunt space pirates.”
“I see. Wait—are you even registered with the mercenary guild?”
“Yeah. I’m the mercenary Granny Farin. Currently silver rank.”
“Are they even running that guild properly…?”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, it’s normal to have developed a back door or two that you can use to bend rules.” Celestia smirked.
I was sure she found this amusing, but it actually made me question my faith in the mercenary guild’s legitimacy and integrity. Well, in the end, the guild was a business that dealt in life and death; it wasn’t exactly an organization of heroes. I supposed engaging in under-the-table deals came with the territory.
Anyway, thinking too deeply about it was pointless. Whatever darkness lurked under the surface, the guild fulfilled its contracts and paid me what I was owed. It was invaluable to mercenaries like me. I just had to be careful not to stick my nose anywhere it didn’t belong. As long as it didn’t collude with space pirates, the guild was fine in my book.
“In any case, we’re getting sidetracked. So…?” I prompted.
“When you hunt space pirates, it’s to be expected that you’ll harvest some things, right? Well, we’ve managed to salvage some pirate data caches.”
Data caches. As one would expect, a space pirate’s data cache usually contained violent pornography and snuff films, but it also occasionally held a personal journal and information related to business dealings. They also sometimes stored flight data. The former finds were completely useless, but the latter few occasionally proved handy.
“I think I see where this is going,” I said. “Are you serious about this?”
“Oh, are you getting cold feet?” the granny asked me mockingly.
She intended for us to cooperate to destroy a pirate base using just our two teams. I figured there was an 80 or 90 percent chance that she’d extracted pirates’ flight patterns from their data caches. Tracing the flight patterns of multiple ships, it’d be easy to pinpoint the location of the base these pirates used.
“I need more information,” I told her. “This isn’t something I can just casually agree to.”
“That’s true. Lattis.”
“Yeees, ma’am. I’ll be borrowing your holo-display here, okay?”
After asking my permission, Lattis used her tablet to project an image onto the holo-display built into the table.
“That’s the target?”
“Yeah. I scouted the place already, of course,” Celestia told me boastfully.
I ignored her, examining the projected image of what looked like an asteroid adapted into a pirate base.
The base definitely wasn’t very big, and in addition to being on the small side, it appeared to have much less weaponry than the Red Flag base I’d gone after before. The pirates had more batteries of laser cannons than missile pods, but those cannons appeared to be of low quality, and there weren’t many of them overall.
“You picked out a pretty good target,” I said. “This seems doable.”
“Oh? Got a plan?” asked Celestia.
“We fire on them preemptively in a frontal assault, then take out any pirates that get mad and come out of the base to fight us. Without an overwhelming edge in close combat, that’s the easiest strategy.”
Fortunately for us, the pirates’ defensive turrets were mostly grouped together. If we started by firing at those with reactive anti-ship torpedoes or the Black Lotus’s electromagnetic launcher, we should mostly eliminate them. Any pirates that emerged then we could take out in a direct skirmish. That would ultimately reduce the number of pirates inside the base and make it easier to subjugate.
When the Imperial Fleet went after pirates, they usually targeted the cannons closest to the hangar containing the pirate ships. Since their goal was to eliminate every craft without letting a single one escape, it made sense to shoot out the pirates’ legs first. And when imperial marines fought in person, pirates were no more than moving targets; they had nothing to worry about on that front.
In contrast, it was best for mercenaries like us—who had significantly less power in close combat—to avoid such combat as much as possible. If we managed to win the space battle, but lost the battle on the ground, it would be no laughing matter. That was why I preferred to allow the pirates to emerge and fight us, rather than destroying their hangar.
Of course, that would mean some pirates judging that they couldn’t beat us and trying to run away. Some would probably escape, even with Antlion’s gravity jammer disrupting them. Still, by taking out the pirates’ base, we’d deal them a heavy blow.
We’d also receive quite a haul from the operation. The stolen goods the pirates had stored on the base would obviously become ours, and after we finished up, we could report the results to the star system army or Imperial Fleet. We’d subsequently get a significant bounty for our efforts.
“The easiest strategy is to crush them in a frontal assault? You talk a big game.”
“We could do it. How about you?”
“I had the same plan in mind, of course. Pirates are just pirates, after all, however many there are. We’re also good at taking on multiple foes at once.”
“I see. I look forward to seeing your abilities, then.”
“That’s my line.”
With a resigned look, Elma watched Celestia and I smile provocatively at each other. I really did want to know how good the granny was, and my wallet had felt a little light lately. This was actually a pretty good opportunity for us.
“So you’re on board?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah. How will we split the loot? If my crew has more and bigger ships, we should naturally get a bigger cut.”
“What’re you talking about? You’re a greedy bastard, aren’t you? We’re the ones who brought you this information, so of course we’re getting the bigger cut. Do you even know how many ships we’ll bring?”
“I doubt you’ve got a large fleet with you. If you do, then show me.”
“You bastard…”
I wasn’t sure how hastily Celestia had rushed here upon learning of Mimi’s situation, but even if she’d once led a large fleet, she likely only had a few ships with her right now—three at most, and all small. Since she’d been in a hurry, she couldn’t have brought less speedy medium or large ships; they’d have slowed her down.
Heh heh heh… This is gearing up to be a fun negotiation.