Frontier Territory

The Independent Anti-pirate Mobile Fleet left the Windas system and

reached the frontier via gateway. Even though it was a remote area, it

wasn't that different from the place where I first met Mimi and Elma.

"How is this place different, My Lord?"

Krishna's cockpit. Kugi inquired as she sat on the sub-pilot seat.

Since we were approaching Edge World, we prepared ourselves to

perform an emergency sortie even while the Lotus was still navigating

at superluminal speed.

"From here onward, we'll be entering the Edge World, which is also

described as the remotest area of the empire, and beyond it is

unexplored space. This place isn't actually near any borders with

neighboring nations even though it's on the edge of imperial territory.

In other words…"

"In other words?"

"It's the boonies."

"Ahaha… How blunt."

Mimi laughs bitterly after hearing my explanation. Well, this place really

was like the remote countryside with very few, if any, sights to see.

Right now, it wasn't strategically important, and no special resources

have been found within it. In other words, that also means that there

weren't any planets suitable for humans to live on untouched. Unless

there was a special reason like a shortage of habitable planets in the

distant future, this system, which I believe is called the Vostok system,

will continue to be a sleepy remote countryside system.

Well, as far as I can tell from the system information on the screen, it

seems that there were no worthwhile resources that could be obtained

here at all. However, it's not like there were no resources. It's just that

those available were so common that they could be obtained practically

everywhere else, so they weren't exactly that competitive demand-wise.

In the future, when the empire finally decides to develop the Edge

World in earnest, this place will probably serve as a relay point.

"Actually, these kinds of star systems are prime pirate hunting grounds

for mercenaries like us."

"Is that so?"

"Because it isn't close to any border, the number and overall quality of

the imperial garrisons assigned here are very poor. That's why space

pirates find it easy to operate here. It's a common pattern for pirates to

use unassuming systems like this one as their base of operations and

then worsen the public security of the neighboring systems."

"I see."

Kugi listened to my explanation with a lot of interest. However, places

like this were also inconvenient for mercenaries because it wasn't

possible to keep your ships well-stocked and in good condition in such

star systems. The Termaine system was also remote, but it still was part

of a border with another nation, so there were plenty of imperial

military forces deployed within it, and there were also ample weapons,

ammunition, and maintenance facilities to service their military's ships.

But in truly remote star systems like this one, those facilities were

exceedingly rare. Well, in our case, we still had Black Lotus so we

wouldn't have trouble maintaining Krishna in the short term.

However, the problem was Antlion. A mother ship that's able to house a

medium-class ship is part of the class of so-called capital ships. They

were typically as large as an imperial military destroyer or as small as

an imperial military cruiser.

The only mercenaries capable of operating ships of those sizes were

large mercenary corps that usually had a mix of at least ten small and

medium-class ships. That number was already overkill for us who only

operate one small and one medium-class ship.

"Are frontier systems places with nothing to be found in them?"

"Oh, no, that's not actually the case."

"Is that so?"

I answered Kugi's question, and Mimi followed up with a question of

her own.

"I can't say for certain because I haven't seen our destination yet myself,

but it should have enough facilities for a fleet of this size to dock. And

merchants will soon gather in places like that. It's safe after all. And

when that happens, mercenaries and adventurers who are intent on

surveying unexplored areas will also gather. In turn, more merchants

will arrive to take advantage of those mercenaries and adventurers."

"I see. That's basically how trading colonies are formed, right?"

"Well, yeah. But it's probably not complete yet in this case."

"But how will the merchants conduct their trading if the colony isn't

complete yet?"

"They'll probably make use of 'that', but it would be more interesting for

you guys to actually see it for yourself. I'm sure you guys will be really

surprised."

I haven't seen the imperial military, or rather, the Graccan empire's

version of [that], so I was looking forward to seeing one myself.

The fleet rushed inside a hyperlane again as we chatted. We'll be

heading to the star system in question next, and since it will just take a

short time to travel there through the hyperlane, we just waited inside

Krishna's cockpit as is. Meanwhile, Mimi and Kugi seem to have decided

to study the handling of sub-systems together. I just listened to the

two's discussion quietly from the side. There were some parts that I

could supplement and explain in more detail, but it's important to learn

things like that by themselves. Unless they were learning something

obviously wrong, it was good to just listen in silently.

Even so, Mimi and Kugi seem to be getting along quite well, which was

for the best. At first, Mimi was cautious around the other girl, so I was a

bit worried. But judging from what I'm currently seeing, they seem to

be on very good terms now. At least, in my eyes they were. I thought it

was necessary to carefully keep an eye on the relationship between the

two… but Mei, who was piloting the Lotus from its bridge, contacted

me.

[Master, we are about to arrive at the target star system.]

"Roger that. I don't think we'll encounter things like crystal lifeforms

but stay on guard just in case. And please inform Elma too."

[Understood.]

The transmission from Mei was cut off. Shortly afterward, I received a

notification that Black Lotus had left the hyperlane and returned to

normal space.

"We've finally arrived. There doesn't seem to be any danger for the time

being."

I operated the console and checked out the data picked up by the

sensors of the Lotus. For the time being, it seems no attack warnings or

anything like that has been issued. Mei was able to analyze the contents

of superluminal communication picked up by the subspace sensor and

make a more reliable judgment, but that was far beyond a human like

me.

The fleet reorganized itself, synchronized their FTL drives, and moved

as a whole toward the center of the star system at faster-than-light

speeds.

"The interior of a hyperspace tunnel is too chaotic and uncomfortable

to look at, but the scenery while navigating at superluminal speed is

interesting, or rather, pretty huh."

I personally think the sight of stars turning into flowing lines of light

was simply beautiful. Swimming around the sea of stars like this made

one feel a great sense of freedom.

"Eh? I think the inside of a hyperspace tunnel is also pretty, though."

"Your sensibilities are really a bit off sometimes, Mimi."

"Muu, how cruel."

Mimi showed a glum expression as she pouted at me.

Well, Mimi's basic common sense was fine, but her artistic or visual

taste was a bit peculiar.

"Oops, it looks like we're about to reach our destination. Alright, guys.

Focus."

"Did you just change the topic, Hiro-sama…? We'll talk about this

properly later."

"Sure, if we still remember about it."

I think she'll get so surprised by the thing we're about to see that she'll

forget all about such a topic though. If it doesn't turn out that way, I'll be

in a pinch. C'mon Graccan empire. Please show us something amazing.

"FTL drive deactivating in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Now."

The image sent back by the external sensors of the Lotus changed at the

same time as Mimi's count ended. The ship switched from FTL

navigation to normal navigation. The stars returned from flowing lines

of light into points again.

"Whoah, what exactly is that?"

"It's big… isn't it?"

After confirming that we've returned to normal navigation, the image

picked up by the external sensors of the Lotus changed several times

until, finally, it projected the image of a gigantic object on the main

screen.

It was a gigantic twin-boom starship. I haven't really researched much

about this class of starship so I couldn't tell which manufacturer it was

from at first glance, but it definitely was everything I expected it to be,

and then some. It didn't look like a new ship at all, at least in terms of

external appearance, and its hull showed clear signs of age.

"That stupidly large ship is called a military supply mothership. It's like

a mobile base that's able to carry a large number of supplies,

equipment, and troops. It can also serve to resupply and maintain

starships of various size classes – from small-class ones to large-class

battleships."

Although it was ridiculously gigantic, it should still be fully capable of

both FTL and interstellar navigation. But since it was so big, it was

really difficult to chart a course to places just within a single system.

"It's bigger than the colony ships we saw back in the Comatt system."

"Yeah. Well, they had about five colony ships filled with people back

then, so in terms of the overall population, those ships still had more."

"I wonder just how many people are able to live in that ship…"

Mimi had already seen colony ships before, so she wasn't that shocked

by the mothership, but Kugi was thoroughly impressed by just how

ridiculously big it was. Her cute mouth was agape in surprise.

"We're probably gonna stay on that ship for a while. I hope you get used

to it fast."

"Right."

So, the name of this supply mothership was [Dauntless] huh. We'll be

staying over for a while. I hope the rest of the crew gets used to living

inside it quickly.