Me, Her, and the Ballistic Weaponry [Antique] Chapter 37

“Ara. Well isn’t that nice? I think we should accept their offer and join hands.” Rizer declared as she displayed an intrigued expression on the Plum IIs main monitor inside the bridge.

Tarou actually thought she’d be angry or exasperated, so her reaction right now was a bit unexpected for him.

“But they’re, uh, the Mafia y’know. Ya really cool with that?”

Rizer made a puzzled face at Tarou’s question.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, Teirow-san. There’s a saying in our line of business that you’ll only be considered full-fledged once you’ve managed to partner up with the Mafia. They’ll serve as a nice addition to our Union. The fact that they actually suggested a partnership first is probably their way of returning the favor they owe us for saving their lives.”

Tarou could only nod half-heartedly at Rizer’s optimistic statements. He still wasn’t convinced and turned towards Koume for help.

“Hey, Koume, these guys’re really different from the type of Mafia I’m familiar with, so could ya explain it a bit more fer me please.”

Koume inclined her head after hearing Tarou’s question. “I have no knowledge regarding Mr. Teirow’s notion of what Mafia are like, but would basic information about them suffice?”

“Yeah, that’ll be fine thanks. And as for my impressions of em, I guess, people who constantly skirt the law, collect protection fees from businesses and act all scary towards regular folks. Somethin like ‘Looks like yer rakin lotsa cash here. How bout ya give us a a little cut?’ Ya get me?”

“I see. So it’s something along the lines of picking up a gorgeous woman, getting carried away and entering a relationship with her only to find out later that she’s the woman of a Mafia boss and only got together with you to cheat you out of your money.”

“Youuu~! How’d ya know bout that huh!?”

Koume displayed an ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ gesture of putting both palms up and shrugging her shoulders at Tarou’s tsukkomi.

“No, no, all I did was give an analogy, Mr. Teirow. Anyway, according to the Encyclopedia Galactica, the Mafia are classified as: groups which maintain order in sectors where the influence of imperial law enforcement is limited or members of a corporate organization which operate mainly through use of armed force. These armed groups, called Mafia Coops, are officially sanctioned by the imperial government and are different from outlaw corps who do not have the empire’s official backing.”

“They’re officially sanctioned by the empire!? So they’re legal huh?”

“Yes, they are. As you know Mr. Teirow, the galaxy is vast and the number of sectors humans are living in is ever expanding. If this rate of expansion exceeds the capacity of the imperial government, some relatively lawless sectors would inevitably appear.”

“So these guys’re a stopgap measure to fill the lack of manpower huh? But I bet they’re also doing lot’s of less-savory work on the side.”

“Yes, there are some coops doing things like producing and selling prohibited drugs or human trafficking, which clearly exceeds the boundaries of the rights and privileges given to them by the imperial government and frowned upon by society in general, but in most cases, they’re a kind of necessary evil.”

“‘Necessary evil’ huh… So it’s like sayin ‘If there’s a demand then there’d be supply’ or ‘If even the Mafia ain’t doin it, who would?’.

Koume nodded silently at Tarou’s words. Tarou mulled over the details of their talk for a while, but then noticed that Rizer was getting fed up from waiting, so he hurriedly turned up the volume.

“Sorry, sorry. Sure made ya wait huh. Anyway, bout the Mafia, I’ve more or less understood. By the way, Vera proposed a 20% cut, but what d’ya think?”

“Ara, quite humble aren’t they? I guess they’re trying to appeal as much as they can because we’re just under a temporary partnership. Very well. If that’s the case then I propose a 39% cut on my end and 41% for you. If you’re fine with it, then let’s go with this arrangement.”

“Roger that! This proposal is hereby approved by our Union. Shall I get to draftin a contract then?”

Tarou drafted a simple contract on his BISHOP and sent it to Vera, who would then start transporting HADs into the Plum IIs hangar.

“I’ve finished modding the Overdrive Teirow.”

Tarou was busy thinking about what bad stuff would have happened if the rest of the Union hadn’t approved Vera joining up when Maar got out of the engine room while rubbing the sweat off her face with a towel.

“Good work. Looks like everythin went well huh?”

“Yeah. With this, it’ll be possible for us to do ultrlong distance jumps. Just like I thought, owing to this ship’s unique structure, the main power transmission lines for the different blocks aren’t bunched up together. It’s a safety measure to prevent the critical components from losing power all at once” Maar informed as she undid her tied up hair and exhaled.

“But after this, we’ll be able to pump out as much power as we like. We should be able to get enough to reach the research station.”

Maar and Tarou gave each other a thumbs up. The current location of the research station was quite far from where they were, so ideally, they’d have to use a small scale stargate in order to jump to its position. But the small scale stargate was lost during the WIND attack, so Plum II had to get to the station using its own power.

“That’s fine an all, but ya think we’ll be okay pumping out all that juice?”

Tarou, who was concerned about the ‘power transmission lines’ and ‘critical components’ Maar mentioned earlier and probed, to which Maar replied with an ‘Hmm.’

“I don’t think we’ll end using up all that extra power anyway. Just allow the batteries to charge for five minutes after every jump and we’ll be fine. The life support systems have spare batteries installed in them anyway.”

Tarou was fairly satisfied with Maar’s answer and replied back with a short ‘Roger’.

“A’ight then. Shall we get ta rescuin the good professor then…? This is Plum II. We will jump to the target site soon. How are your preparations?”

“This is Stardust. No problems on my end. I can sortie any time.”

“This is Blue Comet. I’ve finished preparations a while ago kid.”

“Black Meteor here. Prep’s all done. Let’s get this over with.”

Allan, who was helming the support ship Stardust and the newly joined Guns and Rules HAD squads responded. Vera and Squall led three units each and replied immediately.

“This is Plum II. Preparations confirmed. A’ight folks, let’s get goin.”

Tarou moved his gaze towards Maar and silently nodded at her.

——”Overdrive, activate.”——

“Wide range area scan. Search for target. Confirm status.”

Tarou immediately initiated a scan after entering into overdrive.

“We’ve detected a large artificial structure 400 kilometers ahead. All within expected error parameters, Mr. Teirow.”

“The level of flare interference and the amount of debris?”

“Both are at acceptable levels. The field’s properly doing its job.”

Tarou nodded, satisfied with Koume and Maar’s reports. “Set course for the target. Full speed ahead” he promptly ordered. And after five minutes, when they managed to cover half the distance towards their target, lots of glowing icons suddenly popped up on the radar screen Tarou was monitoring.

“Looks like the welcomin party’s here. Any response on the IFF?”

“None. They’re all Unknowns. They’re probably all WINDs.”

“Koume also agrees that is the most probable conclusion. By the way Mr. Teirow, I’ve detected something baffling.”

Tarou turned towards Koume after hearing her statement. “Is it somethin good?” he asked, to which Koume replied with “That’s uncertain”.

“We’ve managed to find something unexpected from the result of the wide range area scan. I ran a check to see if it’s just a data analysis error, but it’s most likely correct that the scan detected two responses of large artificial structures located in the target area.”

The bridge slipped into silence after Koume delivered her report.

“Whaddya mean ‘two’? Are there two research stations or somethin?”

“Incorrect, Mr. Teirow. And there’s a distance of 150 kilometers between the two objects. It’s impossible for the other to be a sub-station.”

“Is it possible that we’ve managed to detect an asteroid?”

“That is also incorrect, Ms. Maar. Weak transmission signals are being detected from both structures.”

“Uee. So it’s an unidentified artificial structure. What the heck is it? Can ya estimate the size?”

“Please wait for a moment” Koume responded to Tarou’s request. After a brief pause, Koume’s voice resounded inside the bridge, which had lapsed into silence again earlier.

“Both objects are estimated to be the size of ultrsmall-scale stations. One is the Alpha research station, but the other one seems far smaller than the former.”

Tarou’s brows scrunched up after hearing Koume’s report.   

“Hm? Just what is it? Even if ya call it ultrsmall-scale, the thing’s still way larger than our ship right?”

“Affirmative, Mr. Teirow. Comparing the scale, it should be at least 10 times the size of this ship.”

Tarou thought about several possibilities after hearing Koume’s report, but none of them seemed to click. Maar was also puzzled, and was thinking while rubbing her chin with her fingers.

“I give up. We’ll soon come into visual range anyway. It’ll be faster to see it for ourselves instead of trying to guess like this” Maar suggested as she moved her gaze towards the large main monitor installed inside the bridge. Tarou’s gaze also followed suit.

Soon, blurry images of outer space were projected on the screen, which gradually cleared up after several seconds. They finally got to take a look at the mystery structure after the projected images reached maximum resolution. Everyone inside the bridge got surprised by what they witnessed.

“What the heee~ll…!?”

Tarou’s mouth gaped wide open. Even Maar and Koume couldn’t help but stare at the screen with dumbfounded expressions.

What they saw was a gigantic object made out of a chaotic mess of countless miscellaneous parts; a huge metal dish and various cargos which could have come from ships. There was also an antennlooking thing sticking out of something resembling a station’s bridge. It was like a large number of space-use equipment was gathered and crammed to form the mysterious monstrosity.

The first thing Tarou thought was that the thing was a gigantic WIND, but he couldn’t seem to find components vital for starships included in the mess.

“Seriously, what IS that thing…?”

Tarou forgot all about the unidentified hostiles now moving toward their ship and just continued staring blankly at the screen.

Chapter end