Assault

It's been three days ever since we got assigned to guard the civilian

cargo ships affiliated with the independent anti-pirate fleet led by

Major Serena.

[Maybe the pirates aren't taking the bait because you're with us?]

"It's not my fault! They probably found out that this ship is actually

being used as a decoy by you all."

[I'm sorry, but that's impossible. We've changed the ship ID and

registered name just recently.]

"You're talking like it was nothing."

"It's thanks to the special rights granted by the state..."

A ship ID is used to register and identify every ship in active service and

is unique for every ship. There's no case of ships with matching IDs, and

since it's so important, you can't change your ship ID once it's assigned.

Normally, that is.

Well, it's not like there aren't any loopholes. In fact, the ships pirates

use have IDs that correspond to the ships they've supposedly shot

down or ships that have been reported missing. That's because they

normally retrofit usable ships stolen from their victims and turn them

into pirate ships.

Going back to the earlier discussion, an ID is used to make every ship

easily identifiable even though there may be lots of active ships of the

same model. It makes every ship have a unique identity. So saying that

they've managed to easily change the ship ID is not normal in the least.

I'll just pretend I didn't hear it.

I turned toward Chris to warn her, but she already had her hands

blocking her ears while sporting a knowing look. It looks like she's

aware this convo was off the record as well. If this were a manga, she

would have her mouth drawn like an X mark.

If you're wondering what we were all up to, we're all just standing by in

the cockpit. Maybe it was because things have been quite peaceful for

the past few days. Major Serena seemed to have enough free time to

exchange some lighthearted banter with us via the comms. It seems

that she deals with paperwork whenever there's a lull in pirate activity,

and had just finished sorting out all the documents sent to her. Seeing

that her only outlet for stress relief was talking with us via the comms, I

got a bit worried about our good major's interpersonal relationships.

Was she really feeling that lonely?

By the way, May was currently going around the ship and cleaning it.

We told her we did periodically clean up, but according to May, there

was still some accumulated dust and grime in certain sections of the

ship interior, so she set out to clean said sections since she was

relatively free.

"Let's leave your conjecture about me warding off the pirates aside first.

What's the current rate of pirate activity in the entire Sierra system,

major?"

[You always try to change the subject whenever a conversation doesn't

go in your favor huh… Anyway, due to the large-scale attack a few days

ago—]

As the major started explaining, Krishna's alarm suddenly rang out. It

looks like the cargo ship got targeted by an interdictor.

"...Speak of the devil."

[We'll head to your coordinates immediately. We're slightly behind in

order to avoid their detection, so it'll take five minutes for us to arrive.

Please hold them off until then.]

"Aye, aye ma'am. Mimi, switch the radar to active combat mode and

connect me to the Pelican IV. We'll be engaging the enemies as soon as

we deactivate the drive, so I'll leave the defense systems to you as

always."

"Understood."

"Roger."

I started synchronizing the ship's FTL drive to match the interdictor's

timing. The Pelican IV is attempting to shake the effects of the

interdictor off, but it's probably no use.

I believe interdictors work by creating an artificial gravity well in order

to forcefully stop a ship traveling via FTL drive. The game flavor text

described the artificial gravity generators installed into such devices as

exceptionally powerful.

A ship hit by an interdictor would be trapped by the powerful artificial

gravity and would be at the mercy of the attacker. It was a different

story for sufficiently powerful and highly mobile ships like Krishna, but

a civilian cargo transport ship shaking off an interdictor is next to

impossible. In other words, there was no use escaping.

"This is Krishna. Please respond, Pelican IV."

[This is Pelican IV. We've been targeted by an interdictor fired from an

unidentified ship. We're trying evasive maneuvers, but it looks like it's

useless.]

"This is Krishna's Captain HIro speaking. Stop trying to resist and just

allow the interdictor to pull you out to regular space. We'll be able to

mount a more effective counterattack and prevent any more strain on

the ship's generator that way. Once you get back to normal space, please

deploy your shields at the maximum output and prepare your defenses.

The cavalry's coming soon."

[Roger. Good luck. We'll prepare for close quarters combat as well.]

The transmission was cut. The supposedly civilian cargo ship, Pelican

IV, was actually filled with highly trained imperial soldiers wearing the

latest cutting edge military issue power armors. If the pirates ever

manage to board the ship, they'd be greeted by armed to the teeth

macho onii-sans sporting scary-looking smiles. Just imagining it was

giving me the chills.

"We'll probably get attacked soon. Be sure to check your seatbelts,

ladies. May."

[Yes, Master.]

I hailed May, who was still busy cleaning, via the intercom, and she

promptly replied.

"We'll be entering combat soon. Please make sure to evacuate to a safe

spot on the ship."

[Yes. Understood. Good luck, Master.]

"Yeah."

After the short exchange, I proceeded with confirming the state of the

ship's weapon systems and made sure there were no problems. We

were able to acquire ammo for the ballistic shot cannons via the

military, so we're good to go. We won't be losing to those damn pirates.

"The Pelican IV has started dropping their propulsion output. The

number of enemy ships is... Eh!?"

"What's wrong?"

"Uh, um, the number of enemy ships is eleven."

"And?"

"There are large ships among the enemies… To be specific, there's one

battleship and three heavy cruisers..."

"Oh..."

So the large ships aren't your run-of-the mill retrofitted pirate ships,

but military heavy cruisers, and at least one military battleship. By the

way, destroyers are classified as medium-class ships while corvettes are

small to medium-class depending on the model.

"I have a really bad feeling about this."

"Hahaha. Me too. Once we get out there, fire off all the chaff and flares,

and turn the ECM on full blast."

After my exchange with Elma, we fully synched with the interdictor and

went back to normal space. As soon as we got out, I fired up Krishna's

generator to maximum output and punched the afterburners to

accelerate.

"Oh boy! They just fired at us without even a shred of mercy! How

scary!"

"Is this the time to be cracking jokes!?"

"Hieee!"

The spot Krishna was at earlier was instantly smothered with crimsoncolored laser fire. If I didn't accelerate immediately, we would have

taken a direct hit.

I turned off the flight assist mode, adjusted the velocity and vectors, and

used the attitude control thrusters to change the ship's heading.

Krishna's bow pointed toward the enemy battleship and we finally got a

full view of it.

"They're older models, but those are obviously an imperial military

battleship and heavy cruisers. The military's a bit too lax with their

weapons and equipment, aren't they?"

"Aren't they just too brazen!?"

After Elma's cry, I fired the thrusters to maximum output and charged

straight toward the battleship. It would be foolish to attempt a long

range shoot out with a bona fide military battleship after all. The more

you take distance from them, the higher the chance of falling prey to

their powerful laser cannons.

The Krishna's inertial control system mitigated the Gs resulting from

high-speed maneuvers somewhat, but I still couldn't help but grit my

teeth. I and Elma should be fine, but I imagine it's a bit hard for Mimi

and Chris to bear. Especially Chris.

"Uuukuuuuh...!"

I heard Chris's mournful cry from the back, but unfortunately, I can't do

anything about it right now. Facing the military grade high-output laser

cannons of an honest-to-goodness battleship, even Krishna wouldn't be

able to last long if it took a direct hit. It'd saturate the shields in no time.

"What are we gonna do?"

"We don't have any choice but to face them head-on!"

While facing a battleship, the fastest way to beat it was to swiftly close

in, hit it with an anti-ship reactive torpedo, and blow it to kingdom

come. It's one of the basics of battling a squadron of ships of a higher

size class. But I'm not planning to waste one on these guys. And so…

I maneuvered Krishna straight towards the battleship's blind spot while

being pelted by a torrential rain of defensive fire. The enemy ship

attempted to use their sub-thrusters to change the ship's heading to

prevent that from happening. The enemy heavy cruisers and assault

ships moved in to provide some cover as well… but it's too late.

"There we go!"

We passed by the battleship's bridge and I used the sub-thrusters to

change the heading of the ship once more. We managed to get

completely behind the ship. Now that we're in position, I've practically

prevented the enemy ships from firing off their more powerful laser

artillery since there's a good chance of friendly fire.

In other words, I've used the enemy's huge battleship as a shield. If I

went at them completely head-on, we'd probably be shot down in less

than ten seconds. In other words, this is using my enemies against their

own.

[The small-sized combat ship has stuck to our backside!]

[Mayday! Mayday!]

They have no choice but to use their own small crafts to attempt to

shoot us down.

But there's little chance Krishna would lose to those aforementioned

small combat ships. I maneuvered Krishna to continue sticking closely

to the battleship while exchanging fire with the incoming small craft. I

brought down each one with volleys from Krishna's four large caliber

laser cannons and ballistic shot cannons. The enemy ships just keep

coming only to be shot down, so it's akin to a turkey shootout.

"This is such a weird maneuver. Just how did you come up with

something this freaky…?"

"Eh? W-What's actually happening? What do you mean, Elma-san?"

"We're sticking closely to the rear of the enemy battleship by using the

reverse and attitude control thrusters while fighting off the other

enemy ships coming for us. I honestly don't know how he can pull off

something this freaky though."

C'mon. Don't keep calling it freaky. I'm just keeping an eye on the radar

and the HUD while predicting the movement of the enemy ships and

repeatedly adjusting the position of Krishna by using the reverse and

attitude control thrusters. Well, it's true that it takes quite a bit of

concentration to pull something like this off.

[T-This guy isn't budging!? Hey, hurry up and shoot it down!]

[What's with those creepy maneuvers... Just how the hell is he

maintaining that position while constantly on the move?]

[Dammit! Fighter III got shot down! It has more firepower than we

thought!]

I listened in to the enemy comm exchanges. They're using the common

frequency used by the imperial military. So are these guys really

soldiers?

Oi, oi, oi. This isn't in the league of being lax with weapons and

equipment anymore. These guys are actually bona fide soldiers, man.

Did Chris's uncle manage to buy their services? Just who are these

guys?

I kept exchanging fire with the enemies for several minutes.

After a few more moments, the flagship of the imperial independent

anti-pirate fleet, Restalias, finally came into view.

Following the Restalias were five heavy cruisers, three destroyers, and

two corvettes, with each letting out intimidating thunderous roars.

They just came out from subspace via FTL drives, so the load roars may

be a result of that.

[To all the unidentified imperial military warships engaged in battle!

We are the imperial independent mobile anti-pirate fleet. This is the

commander of this fleet, Major Serena Holz speaking! You are heavily

suspected of a gross breach of imperial military regulations! Stop

fighting immediately and depower your engines!]

The cavalry's finally here. I hope this settles it.