Galactic Year 1672, March – Death of an Empire.
The news of the horrific accident that many believed to be a conspiracy or rebellion spread through the galaxy like wildfire, from the closest planets to the Galactic Empire's heart in the center of the galaxy all the way to the frontier, where outcasts and outlaws lived. The entire imperial family had perished together with over five billion million people after a hyper-core fusion reactor mysteriously overloaded and caused an explosion so devastating that it swept the surface of the planet clean.
At the time, Marika followed the news with great interest because although the government of the Sea of Morning Star was largely left to their own devices, they were part of the empire. The planet was devastated so badly that much of the bureaucratic structure of the empire collapsed under its own weight. Just over four months passed between the explosion and the aftermath that would take away the breath of every living soul in the galaxy.
Galactic Year, 1672, August – Civil War rises like a Phoenix from the Ashes
Misa had stormed into her private quarters that morning; although it was difficult to tell what time it was in space. Marika was already awake, a broken tea cup on the floor and her eyes glued to two videos running in parallel, broadcast over the emergency news channel. The New Galactic Empire, formed by an illegitimate but direct descendent of the last Empress. The Galactic Republic, created by 511 member worlds across the galaxy. Both of these forces rose from the ashes of the destroyed Galactic Empire and declared war on each other.
"Tell me, Misa… what's going to happen to the Sea of Morning Star now?" Marika was worried about the friends she still had there. She had graduated a year ago now, and the first years she had left behind were now just enjoying the summer vacation of their third year. But Marika's question went unanswered.
Galactic Year, 1673, January – War never changes
A conflict that Marika personally saw through, a conflict that was over a hundred years old now. This conflict reared its ugly head through the chaos. What had once been the Stellar Alliance and the Colony Federation banded back together. And with the remains of the Galactic Empire at each other's throat, the Stellar Alliance sought to take back the worlds they had lost to rebellion a century ago. What had become an enterprising business governed by laws, insurance and strict policy was now rolled back to what it had been at the time of inception.
Marika was twenty years old now and still her heart beat like she was racing towards a cliff in the dark. The Letter of Marque that had enabled her to be a pirate until now was no longer a mere business license or an insignia of being a military force. Pirates were what they used to be now that war had broken out again. Marika felt many things that day; excitement, fear, uncertainty, anticipation and hesitation. She was now more than just a pirate in name. It was real now.
Galactic Year, 1673, March – The Sea of the Lightning Star Massacre
Met with opposition from the now sixteen member worlds in the Colony Federation, the Stellar Alliance resorted to an absolute taboo that drew even the ire of the radical New Galactic Empire Armada. Unable to secure safe landing for an invasion, the Stellar Alliance commenced orbital bombarding with battleships, devastating large parts of the planet and killing millions.
Marika was among those that appeared first on the scene to stop the Stellar Alliance from turning the colony into an uninhabitable wasteland. The Bentenmaru took heavy damage and so did Marika. For the first time in her life, there was no peaceful solution. Every moment of hesitation would cause tens of thousands more people to die. Opening fire on Stellar Alliance ships really made the realization sink in that this was not entertainment for anyone. It was a real battle of life and death. Unlike her bout with Quartz Christie and the Grand Cross battleships, she was opening fire on manned ships. Even though she herself didn't press the button that fired the main cannon, she felt the weight of the people that died that day, by the hand of the Bentenmaru on her shoulders.
But she would not break under that burden.
Galactic Year 1673, August – Escalation
It came as a surprise to both the Federation and the Alliance when sides were picked by the remnants of the Galactic Empire. A war that had left their sector largely alone was now at their very door step. The New Galactic Empire demanded the Stellar Alliance swear allegiance to their rule or face extermination by their massive armada. The Galactic Republic coerced the Colony Federation into joining, threatening to remain impartial should the NGE threaten their lives after absorbing the Stellar Alliance once again.
For the pirates, this meant only one thing; the number of their targets had just multiplied exponentially. The Bentenmaru had lead through shining example, making them famous even among the Stellar Alliance. What do we do if pirates attack us? Was a common question in the Stellar Alliance military. Pray that it is the Bentenmaru. Was the answer given most often.
After witnessing the countless deaths at the Sea of Lightning Star, Marika searched for ways to still follow her way as a pirate but also spare as many lives as possible. Thousands of Stellar Alliance soldiers were marooned in space by her, left with only three days worth of food and water and a functioning communicator. Their ship was stripped bare of anything valuable and so were the soldiers. But the one thing that counted most was most often not touched by the Bentenmaru; their lives itself.
Only those that were determined to fight to the death were met by Schnitzer and occasionally even Marika herself. Those injured were seen by Misa while the salvage of the military ship was progressing. The dead were frozen, so they could be given a burial on their home planet.
It was the Stellar Alliance military that first started putting pirates into one of two categories. With Kato Marika as the leading lady, many pirates followed her because of Quartz Christie and her other exploits, followed her example; they plundered, robbed, fought, stole and kidnapped but killed only in the most desperate of circumstances. These pirates, and Marika herself, became known as the Kato Rogues. Those that did not adhere to the guidelines that Marika embodied on the other hand were merely pirates, although they were called Black Pirates in some circles.
Between those two groups of pirates existed a rift of principle and morals. But they were still united in a sense. Pirates would not get in each other's way because in the end they still fought the same enemy.
And now, in this time, the Galactic Year 1673, October – A new voyage begins now.
=== Shin Mouretsu Pirates ===
The captain's room. Without turning on the lights, the twenty year old Kato Marika finally finished her day. The uniform that had changed a little over these last two years was sloppily hung over a chair that was right on the way between the door and her bed. Wearing but her underwear, Marika slipped under the warm covers without a word. It had been a long day and the night crew was taking over. I hope Sasha doesn't get crumbs over the console again… Luca nearly lynched her the last time. Fumbling about under the covers, Marika finally found what she was looking for. The one thing she couldn't go without.
"Finally coming to bed?" Words coming from someone that had already been lightly asleep for some time now – more than light sleeping was never an option for pirates these days. The cover rustled and was moving back a little, revealing the long black hair of one vice-captain of the Bentenmaru. "What were you still doing? It's also a captain's duty to get rest whenever possible." Her nagging and sharp tongue hadn't changed at all.
"Sorry, Chiaki-chan." Marika held her hands in front of her stomach and parried a soft elbow blow from her girlfriend. "You were waiting for me, right?"
"Naturally." Turning over in bed and facing Marika, Chiaki swiped a strand of Marika's spiky hair from her forehead. "So? What kept you?"
"Show called and had information for us. There will be a secure cargo transport with four Corvette class Stellar Alliance ships as security. I had to decide if we are going to take part in that and it took some time to contact the other captains. The Viracocha and one more are going to join us." Marika's facial features relaxed and so did the captain. "But enough business stuff!" Throwing her arms around Chiaki, Marika casually kissed her. Not especially passionately or lustful, just a normal kiss that lasted a few seconds and left Chiaki with a minuscule, and thanks to the darkness also invisible, blush straight across her face. "I'm happy you came to the Bentenmaru."
"You tell me that ever night. It's been over a year. You don't have to keep telling me so I don't go back." Chiaki reached over Marika's torso and put just one arm around her, resting gently on her side. Touching her forehead against Marika's, she was almost desensitized to intimacy now. "And you make me think about my old man every time you tell me that. It's really awkward when we're in bed together."
"Sorry, sorry. I got so used to saying it, it's almost like saying Good Morning or Good Night." Marika moved her head around, giving her neck muscles a little bit if a workout. "Ah, today sucked… it makes me remember the days I spent studying like crazy to graduate. I'm all sore from not moving around enough."
Chiaki sighed a little. "Marika." It was the kind of tone she used when she was either annoyed or disappointed with her.
"Chiaki-chan?"
Don't call me that! I've been telling you for years! "If you want to have sex, just say so. I don't like having to guess whether something you say is a subtle euphemism or not." Saying sex out loud was still embarrassing, although she would never have admitted that to Marika.
"Hm… I guess not tonight. I really hurt all over and if we stay up any longer we'll feel dead tomorrow." Kissing Chiaki on her forehead, Marika pulled back her shoulders and then stretched, her arms still around Chiaki. A quiet popping sound came from her shoulders and then her wrists. "Ow… Hey, Chiaki, I've been thinking that we should figure out a place that we can use as our base. It wasn't really necessary when we were just working with the insurance company, but now we're always running out of space and it is getting harder and harder to find safe haven, so-" Marika's lips were sealed soundly by the black haired girl who really had enough of business.
Once the kiss faded, Chiaki didn't move away far enough for them to not feel each other's breath on their faces. Remaining close, she sighed again, something she did a lot around Marika. "Who was it that said Enough business just a few minutes ago?"
"Sorry, couldn't help it. I got a lot on my mind." Even though there was no way Chiaki could see it, Marika put on a big smile for her. "I would be dying from overwork without you."
Misa would lock you in your quarters before that happened. "A base does sound very much like something pirates should have. Knowing you, you already have an idea of where and how and I'll listen; but not tonight."
Grabbing Chiaki by her waist and shoulder, Marika rolled backwards and pulled her girlfriend with her. While she was flat on her back, Chiaki was right on top of her. "I've gotten tough enough to do this now."
"Yes, yes, so you've demonstrated to me almost every night for the last month." Pinching Marika's hands in quick succession, Chiaki got off of her girlfriend and laid back down next to her. Marika turned with her, as if she had known this would happen. To make her lover a little happy, or more accurately comfort her, she moved her right foot just between Marika's shins and left her leg there. I still don't understand what's so enjoyable about rubbing legs together. But if it makes her happy I can play along for a bit. "Are you going to keep messing around or can we go to sleep? Although I am wide awake now, thanks to a certain rambunctious captain of mine."
Marika pouted a little being addressed like that. "Don't call me captain when we're alone. Marika. Girlfriend. Lover. My Love! Any of those are okay!"
Grabbing Marika's nose and twisted it a little to both sides, Chiaki made the pirate captain moan in mild annoyance. "Sleep."
"Okay, okay… you're still so strict." Finding Chiaki's hand in the dark was much easier for Marika than anyone would have thought. It was almost like there was a special magnetism between them that made it possible for their hands to always find each other with almost perfect precision.
They had barely been quiet and slowly drifting to sleep, playing with each other's fingers half still when half dozed off already, when their little excursion to the land of dreams was cut short. "Captain, come to the bridge immediately! We have a situation!"
The voice belonged not to Misa or Kane, who would usually call her. It was Yayoi Yoshitomi, who had handled the Bentenmaru's engines all the way back when the original crew had been sick and stuck in isolation. After graduating about a year ago, she had signed on with Marika. Since then, she had helped out San-Daime whenever possible and took his position during the night shift.
She was not the only one from Hakuoh Academy that had signed on with the Bentenmaru. Hoshimiya Ai had become somewhat like an attache to Kane, who was quite bothered by having a barely adult girl follow him around and observe him during missions. The rest of the crew was quite amused by it however.
With the prospect of having to stay in space for extended periods of time, Marika brought Harada Maki, who had once proven aboard the Bentenmaru that she was an excellent cook. Although there were sometimes complaints about there being too many vegetables, the crew was much more well nourished than ever before.
The last of the new arrivals was Sasha Staple, who had quite the talent for navigating. And much like her older counterpart, Sasha was a little strange. Luca would hardly talk to anyone on board the ship under normal circumstances; except Sasha. And Sasha would always blow off anyone if Luca called, almost as if they were secondary. Only Marika commanded respect from them.
Three of those four were manning the bridge when Marika and Chiaki dragged themselves in there, both wearing formal pirate outfits and trying to play off that they were really tired. In twenty-nine out of thirty nights, nothing happened that required the attention of the captain. But tonight was not such a day.
"Sasha, sit rep." Marika didn't have a lot of energy left and it was audible. Yayoi had been on board the longest out of those three but Sasha was the navigator and could be surprisingly concise. Her somewhat wild blonde hair and carefree look really betrayed that personality trait of hers.
"At 0240, an unknown object appeared out of thin air right in front of us." Sasha loved to use a weird time format that the military of an ancient civilization had once used.
"You mean it dropped out of FTL?" Chiaki went down to where Yayoi was and sat down by Hyakume's station. She could fill the place of any crew member, but she was very much a queen of all trades, master of none. In combat situations, between ships, she was only properly trained in handling weapon systems. And even then she generally assisted Schnitzer.
"No, it literally appeared. There was no touchdown signature and from what we can gather with optical, it doesn't even seem to have any propulsion system."
"An asteroid?" Marika hit a few buttons and optical came up on the screen, showing what was basically a big white cube that was clearly man-made. "What is that?"
"A ship." Chiaki was just getting results from a low range penetration scan – a relatively recent upgrade the Bentenmaru had gotten. Much like the name implied, it could partially scan the inside of ships. "It's dead though. No energy readings, no life signs. No explanation how it got here either. There is no heat signature or resident energy trail anywhere." This info came from a long range omni-directional particle scan. A type of scanning that focused exclusively on all types of energy. A cold ship would barely even shop up on it.
Marika scratched her cheek, took a deep breath and made a hard decision. "Wake up Schnitzer and Coorie. If that thing gives off any life sign, wake up Kane and Misa as well." There was no point in waking up everyone at this point. But just in case, she wanted the electronic warfare systems to be running and she wanted weapons to be aimed and primed.
But there was no life sign. Schnitzer arrived first. Coorie showed up a good minute later, wearing slippers, and looked like she might fall asleep at her station if nothing was going to happen. "Chiaki, has it been doing anything?"
"No. I ran every scan I know how to read and it just looks like a dead lump of metal. But there are definitely hallways and rooms inside. It's about forty to forty on forty meters, which isn't that big. It's perfectly square, too."
"Coorie, can you see if their systems are live?" Marika wanted to check if they couldn't find out information that way.
"Nope. If they have any computers on board of that thing at all, they're all powered off. Or dead." Coorie reached for an open pack of snacks and shoveled three hand fulls of small crackers into her mouth. "I'll keep an eye out for any sudden activations and what not."
"An unknown ship without any kind of visible propulsion system appears out of thin air, without any heat trail or FTL touchdown signature. All scans show that it is dormant or dead. Chiaki, are there any docking ports?"
"None that the scans picked up. It's possible that the hull is capable of shifting to create an opening, but I can't tell that much from scans."
"I have a bad feeling about this. Schnitzer. Wake up about ten of your people and have them prep for a space walk and bring one set of invasion gear. Ai, get us as close to that thing as you can. Chiaki, once we're close, fired anchors and see if they stick. Sasha, Coorie, Yayoi, keep an eye out on anything suspicious. I am going to see for myself what this is all about."
Chiaki was a pirate first and Marika's lover second, which was why she replied with Aye, aye captain instead of getting out of her chair and asking Marika to be careful. And the second she was able to leave her post for a short while, she still didn't. Chasing after Marika like a puppy in love was not her way. To begin with, Marika had almost bullied her into admitting her feelings for her. The constant bedroom eyes, the not so subtle innuendo and comments – it was a living hell to keep on pretending she wasn't in love with Marika. And when even Luca told her to suck it up and just spit it out already – that had been the last straw. There were no regrets though.
The anchors launched and hit the unknown vessel without issue. Schnitzer's group, including Marika, made it to the hull of the ship fifteen minutes after the order had been given. Because there was no way to check if the inside was pressurized or not – and simply drilling a hole into a space ship was a would-be death sentence for anyone inside – Marika brought invasion gear with her. The fancy name really didn't do the mechanism justice. It was a portable mini-pressure chamber. It couldn't generate oxygen, but it provided an air-tight dome. Drilling a hole into a spaceship inside such a dome was no longer a real problem.
"Captain? This is the bridge. I'm taking command in your absence." Chiaki's voice came through on the short range communicators that everyone was wearing.
"Okay. See you soon, Chiaki-chan." Marika knew that despite Chiaki no longer showing any reaction to it, she still hated it when she was addressed with -chan by her name. The drilling proceeded faster than planned – the ship was structurally weak. And Marika had been right to bring the invasion gear. The inside was still pressurized.
Schnitzer and four of his men went inside before Marika, who was wielding a custom made rifle that fired heavy paralyzing electrostatic beams. One hit from it was enough to knock out any adult for twelve to eighteen hours flat. By turning up the voltage to maximum, it could also kill, but Marika only had that option because she was not naive enough to think there would always be a place for non-lethal force.
But on this ship, there would be no need for any kind of force. Marika felt more than just a little sick when she jumped down into the ship. The gravity and lights were off, making the raid squad resort to light sticks and flashlights mounted to their helmets, suits and weapons. What they saw was beyond inhumane. The walls were smeared with blood and bodies, riddled with holes, were floating through the hallway. The dead were not all in the same uniform. Part of them clearly belonged to the New Galactic Empire. Others bore the insignia of the Galactic Republic. And yet again others were simply dressed in white coats, civilians, scientists from the look of it.
The air was breathable but drops of blood were everywhere. Opting to skip taking off their helmets, the group moved towards the closer end of the hallway. It was more of the same. Cold bodies and blood. Exploring the ship, they found that it had four decks and each deck had two sets of hallways that went around the entire square. The center room was locked, barricaded, on every deck. Marika looked over her shoulder, towards the hallway they had just left. "One hundred and forty."
Schnitzer looked at his captain. "You counted the dead?"
"A ship of this size containing so many people is unnatural. Even more so because they were fighting. How did they get on board? What was so valuable to resort to so much violence?" Marika kept a com line open to the bridge. "Coorie, if we power up their generator, do you think enough systems are going to come online to get an idea of what happened here?"
"It's possible. It looks really bad over there, so it's possible their generator is toast, but it's worth a try."
"Should I come over, Captain?" Yayoi was not comfortable around dead bodies, but being part of a pirate crew she knew that dealing with something like this was always somewhat of a possibility.
"No. I don't want anyone down here that isn't trained for raids." And I don't want any of you to have to push corpses around to get around. "Schnitzer, how is that door coming?"
"It's a sealed bulkhead. We could try to blow it open, but if the bridge is behind this it might damage a lot of sensitive equipment. And considering the ship's state, we might rip the whole thing apart with how big of a charge we'd need to get through a door this thick."
"Okay, forget the door. Split into two teams. Find the engine room and once you do, get Yayoi to walk you through the reboot process via com." Marika turned around, kicked herself off the ground and floated towards the end of the hallway, her crew in tow.
"We've been aboard a lot of Stellar Alliance vessels and about a dozen from the NGE. Nothing ever looked like this. It is all self-contained. I thought that maybe this is some sort of life boat, but that doesn't explain the lack of engines or the presence of a bridge. Coorie, are you there?"
"Yes. What do you need, Captain?"
"Compress all the surveillance from our suits and send it to Lynn through the usual channel."
"Will do. But what are you expecting to come out of that?"
"Lynn works with Jenny and they have their hand in a lot of transportation business. Someone has to have shipped the materials and tech for this. If Jenny didn't, Lynn can find out who did. Even the NGE and the GF don't fight like this without something important being on the line. And I'm still curious how this ship appeared out of thin air."
Finding the engine was one thing, but restarting it was another entirely. It wasn't just turned off; it was dead and in the same state of death as most of the crew – riddled with holes. Yayoi could tell at a glance that just trying to turn that on would either do nothing or result in an explosion. It was a highly modern variant of the subspace fusion quantifier engine that the Galactic Empire had used in their newest warships just before the collapse.
Marika was back on the Bentenmaru shortly after they realized that getting power to the ship would be a lot more effort. They started moving a direct support cable from the Bentenmaru to the unknown vessel, diverting some of their power to boot up their system.
"So, Coorie?" Marika was equally curious and worried.
"Gimme a sec. The systems were all cold until a moment ago so it'll take some time for them to all boot up. Okay, here we go. Vessel F-4461726B. No name, just a factory serial. Let's see then… there is a lot of dead sectors and the mainframe is throwing up a ton of errors. I guess they had a shootout inside the bridge, too. But it looks like the camera feeds are fine. There is a lot of them, what should I do?"
"Make a copy and send them to my terminal. Did anything other than the camera feeds survive?"
"Bits and pieces. There is no manifest, no manual, there's little in general. A massive chunk of the mainframe data all relates to the engine and something else that's just labeled WD-06. That's where most of the damage is. And it is encrypted. There is no way to decrypt just bits and pieces, sorry."
"No, that's fine. If the camera feed survived, we'll find out what happened. Can you access the actual cameras?"
"Sure. There were a lot of them on board though. It lists them by ID instead of location so this might take some searching but there were 272 cameras in total. To compare, the Bentenmaru has 48 and we're a much bigger ship. Any specific camera I'm looking for?"
"Tell me when you find the bridge. Call it a hunch but after seeing how brutal that fight ended up being, I'm reconsidering just opening up those bulkheads to the bridge."
While Marika and Coorie were talking, Misa had entered the bridge. "I see you have everything under control."
"Kind of. There is still a lot that's bothering me though. And… I'm sorry Misa, but the people on board of that ship are beyond any help."
"I was watching the surveillance from my room. Even for the New Galactic Empire, that's abhorrent and needlessly violent." Being the ship's doctor, Misa had dealt with a lot of pain and death over the years. "The only time I've seen something like this was when I went down to the Sea of Lightning Star after the orbital bombardment." Misa didn't treat Marika like a little girl. She could tell that she was still working through the aftermath of that fight, but she didn't hesitate to bring it up in conversation when she needed to.
"Are Kane and the others still asleep?" Marika wanted to know.
"I haven't heard anything. It's more of a mystery incident than a thrilling one, so there isn't much reason to wake them up. And our night crew seems to be doing a fine job." Misa liked to bolster the confidence of their new crew members. She in particular had been happy to have them. Having a few more girls on board, especially on the bridge, was not a bad thing. Especially since Luca was tight-lipped and Coorie was not the most girly girl around.
Deep down, Marika had been a bit conflicted about bringing on former Hakuoh students as pirates. It was no longer a job with a safety net but more of a way of life now. Ultimately, it was the crew's choice whether they came on board or not, but letting them come on board in the first place still made her a little guilty. But that was just part of the burden a captain had to shoulder. And she was glad that they had come.
"Chiaki, come." Marika didn't need to give elaborate reasons. She was the captain and everyone was used to the idea of following her. Leaving the bridge ahead of her second-in-command, Marika noticed Chiaki catch up a few seconds later, the two of them on the way to the loading bay. "What do you make of all of this?"
"It's fishy."
"I thought so too. And when there is something fishy, there is usually-"
"Something valuable."
"And we are pirates. Now the big question is what the valuable thing is. A ship that appears out of nowhere, with everyone on board dead. Or in other words, nobody on board."
"Are you thinking it is on auto-pilot, like Serenity's golden arc?"
"Not on auto-pilot but able to traverse in ways other than FTL. Even with FTL, it takes hours, days, weeks or months to traverse the galaxy. But this thing just appeared without a heat trail and without a touchdown signature."
"The engine?"
"Doesn't look like anything we have ever come across, right? This is just my instinct as a pirate, although it's a bit funny for me to say this after only this long, but that engine… I bet that is what they were after. Something about it is special. Special enough to kill everyone on board to get it." Marika entered the room where they kept their space suits and just started undressing without a care in the world.
Chiaki didn't mind watching. This, being Marika's girlfriend, her lover, was not what she had set out to achieve when she joined the crew of the Bentenmaru, but she liked it. Marika met her expectations and didn't treat her any different than before. She was, even to Marika, a screw member first and her lover second.
"Are you going over there?"
"Yeah. Chiaki, can you press the com button to the bridge?" Marika was in the middle of putting on a spacesuit. After the connection was established, Marika gave new orders.
=== Shin Mouretsu Pirates ===
Four hours had passed after the Bentenmaru had extracted everything useful from the unknown ship, including the entire engine. Getting it out had been an exercise in absurdity. Having to cut open the hull by the engine room had taken nearly an hour by itself. Cutting out the engine itself another forty-five minutes. During all of this, Marika ran back and forth between the unknown vessel and the Bentenmaru, making sure the surroundings were monitored, that all frequencies were checked and most of all, that there were no bad surprises waiting for them.
Coorie managed to get the camera feeds sorted out two hours into the process of stealing the ships engine. Together with the camera feeds came a lot of confidential data from the New Galactic Empire. As it turned out, things were different from what Marika had expected. It was the Federation that stormed the place and initially captured the ship, only to be decimated by reinforcements of the NGE. The final moments within the bridge was a single scientist from the Federation operating the console seemed to control navigation.
The electronic warfare specialist discovered more still. The ship was a prototype vessel that was designed to bring the NGE a decisive edge in the war, a miniaturized version at scale 1:112 of the real thing. A gigantic warship capable of holding thousands of troops, with no heat signature or requirement to travel through FTL. The information that Marika really wanted was locked behind even more powerful encryption, and Coorie needed more time to get through that.
Meanwhile, San-Daime had begun taking apart the engine they had stolen. Yayoi was with him, documenting every screw, every bolt and every piece they removed or shifted on video feed and a digital catalog. Marika had ordered them to be extremely careful after all.
And it was now, right as the four hour mark had passed, that both Coorie and San-Daime almost competed for Marika's attention, incredibly excited over something. Battered by their demands to listen to them first, Marika raised her voice. "Stop!" That got both San-Daime and Coorie to calm down. Seeing the adult Marika command authority like that, with her voice loud and clear, Misa was reminded of Blaster Ririka.
"Coorie, you go first. San-Daime, I want you to listen to her, it might be about the engine."
Coorie adjusted her glasses, sitting backwards in her seat, hands on the backrest. "That engine is a marvel of technology from what little data I could salvage, but the real treasure is the thing that the engine has at the core. They're calling it an Atomic Conversion Displacement Field Generator." Coorie turned back around and produced a lot of noise on her keyboard until a graphic showed up on the captain's terminal, where Marika was standing. "This is regular propulsion." it showed a simplified version of how standard propulsion worked, along with the maximum speed the best known standard propulsion achieved. "This is a faster than light dive through sub space." This time the graphic split into three, showing a tunnel of unstable space between two points in regular space. "But even FTL isn't instant travel."
More keyboard noises and the graphic changed completely. "This is an entirely new method of travel."
The graphic was still split in two, showing a ship that was just drifting still in space until it suddenly disappeared and disappeared in the other screen. "This is how that ship appeared without our sensors finding anything."
"What's happening there?" Marika was no engineer or physicist so she had no idea about the higher technical intricacies of FTL or even whatever was exceeding that.
"In one word, warping. Now, that sounds like real science-fiction, but what is actually happening is this." The keyboard was assaulted a third time and the graphic explanation repeated itself with a secondary layer added to it, showing everything in absolute slow motion. "Here, right at the start, the ship sends out some kind of information that is transmitted through subspace. Since information has no mass, it surpasses the speed of light in subspace, going millions of times faster than a ship would. For all purposes, it's basically instant within our galaxy."
"Basically, it's a subspace communicator. The same thing that lets us talk to other ships or Show millions and billions of kilometers away." Marika was just putting one and one together.
"Yep, exactly like that. Now, here is the key difference. This information behaves like a boomerang, or a yo-yo, or anything that bounces back. It goes to whatever target coordinate you give it and returns with a spatial imprint. Think of it like making a photo of some distant coordinate. This by itself would be an amazing tool to spy, but sadly converting the information is way beyond our computers. I checked how long it would take to render one micro-millimeter, one millionth of a millimeter, in visual form."
"And?"
"Around 118 years."
"That's no good then. But I assume the real treat is coming up now."
"The real purpose of this snapshot of space is basically to-" Coorie was cut off when San-Daime couldn't wait anymore.
"The engine is not exactly an 'engine' the way we think of it. It draw electromagnetic energy from subspace. Think of it as having a permanent FTL window active inside a containment field. That is what the engine does. That can produce a lot of energy, but what's more important, having that FTL window open is what allows that sending and receiving of snapshots from anywhere in the galaxy. That engine is marvelous! It basically sends out a scout, that snapshot, and then it sends the whole thing!"
"The whole thing?"
"Yes! It creates some sort of field that envelops the ships, converts it into information, and then sends that information through the FTL portal to the target coordinate, where the information, loaded with reassembly code, re-creates whatever was sent through. It's an actual real-life warp drive."
"It converts us into information? But isn't it impossible to turn something with mass into something that has no mass?"
San-Daime paused a little. "Technically speaking that is right and I can't actually explain how exactly it does that. If I could, I would be a complete genius. But we saw the ship appear. I can tell from the engine structure and setup that this is what it does." And there was actually a small book with research notes tucked away inside.
"Can we use it? Being able to go anywhere in the galaxy instantly would be amazing." Marika thought she had stolen something absolutely incredible.
"Hm, not as-is. There is a ton of damage and even if there wasn't, you probably have to custom build some sort of interface for the controls and the engine itself."
"San-Daime." Coorie was curious about something. "What if we hook it up to our FTL drive and power it through alpha and beta?"
"No, no, that could technically work but we'd never get the juice required out of alpha and beta to go anywhere far. Not to mention the stress it would put on them."
Marika saw an opportunity. "What if we went not far? Instead of using it to travel, it could give us a great edge in combat. This information reassembly method is safe, right?"
"Something would have to move into the exact space where we want to go within one microsecond, give or take a few fractions of one. It's more likely to get caught in a surprise supernova coming out of nowhere." Coorie was very certain about those odds.
"San-Daime, could you hook that engine up to our FTL drive and reactors? Coorie, you could create some kind of interface for it, right?"
"The engine core was fine, so if we manage to repair the containment field, it could work. But there is no space to put that thing anywhere on board like this. Never mind that repairing something like that is really beyond me. We'll have to go and find an expert engineer."
"Please do. Coorie, if you know anyone, contact them. For the first time since I became the captain, we are actually loaded with cash. If we can make this work, we will make this work." Marika saw lots of applications for that. "San-Daime, if we're able to power the drive with our generators, how far do you think we'll be able to go?"
"I can't say. Considering the energy output for our FTL window to jump, I can at best make a really rough guess."
"Your guesses are most likely better than most expert's."
"Maybe, and this a big maybe, about a million kilometers. Or about three light seconds. Give or take."
"That is plenty of space to get an advantage in ship to ship battles."
"I think we might have to seriously consider having both reactors overhauled for that… but that will cost a fortune." San-Daime was worried that just doing one of those warp jumps might deep-fry both reactors.
"How much?" Marika knew that, right now, they had deep pockets, but those deep pockets could be emptied out quite quickly when it came to ship upgrades and overhauls.
San-Daime pointed at Coorie, who did some quick calculations. "About half of our savings if we get a good deal."
"That much?!" The captain had not been ready for that.
"We're an old ship." San-Daime felt like the overhaul had been an inevitable thing eventually, but not this soon.
Marika fell down into her seat and put her left hand to her forehead. "I guess money is there to spend it after all. Especially if you're a pirate."
"There is the option of selling that engine." Chiaki knew that this was going to be shut down, but she wanted to be the one to make that suggestion so nobody else had to.
"I'd rather this not fall into the hands of someone that might use it for unsavory things." Marika was quite aware that a pirate saying something like that had a bit of a funny feel attached to it. But nobody really said anything. They all understood what their captain had meant. The kind of pirates that would rob, murder and torch civilians instead of the invaders. "Sasha, plot a course for the Stellar Primus Scrapyard. We're going shopping."
"Say, captain, the data says this was a prototype. And it looked like the Galactic Federation was trying to get rid of it. They'd probably demand we hand it over if they get wind that it was stolen instead of destroyed."
"I was thinking the same thing. We are pretty far away from the nearest habitable planet and outpost because of our last mission, but that doesn't mean the NGE can't have ships traveling here at FTL already." Marika looked over her shoulder and couldn't see Schnitzer. "Chiaki, where's Schnitzer?"
"Helping out with the salvage. We had to move a lot of it right to the storage rooms because that engine is taking up a lot of room in the loading bay." Chiaki was often as well aware and informed of what was happening on the ship as Misa was.
Connecting her terminal ship wide, Marika just called for Schnitzer. "Schnitzer and all battle personnel. We are going to terminate the unknown vessel with explosive charges. I want that thing blown to bits so small that the NGE will need a dust pan and air tight bag to collect the dust. Get one of our asteroid nets and collect all bodies out. Put them out into space and make sure they're on a stable rotation." Marika closed the link and turned to her EW expert. "Coorie, once we leave, send a message to the FWRA. Erase our meta data, transponder code and signature. I don't want anything to trace back to us. By the time they get here, our FTL and heat signature will be gone."
She just cannot leave those poor sods out here in space, their families and friends wondering forever what happened to them. Misa looked upon her captain proudly from her chair. And so did Chiaki. Marika on the other hand was filled with regret that she could not see to the safe delivery of those bodies herself. The Federation War Reparation Agency handled the return of bodies and eventual payouts to the surviving members of the families they left behind. She didn't know what would happen to the bodies of the NGE soldiers, but given that the Federation had strict guidelines on the treatment of prisoners of war, they were a decent chance that they would at least send the bodies to the New Galactic Empire.
Watching the unknown vessel blow up in a singular, well timed and synchronized explosion, the Bentenmaru finally left the uninhabited space, heading back to civilization. They would be in FTL for close to six hours until touchdown. There was a huge, empty lot of space where they would arrive, so even after a long jump like that it wouldn't matter if their target position was inaccurate. The further one jumped, the more inaccurate the jump got. With a jump of six hours, the margin of error was just about a hundred thousand kilometers, give or take.
Marika dropped into bed face first with her clothes still on. She had changed so many times tonight that she just didn't care anymore. But there was no rest for the wicked. Chiaki pulled on her arm, dragged her off the bed and Marika just let herself fall to the floor. "Chiaki-chan… just lemme sleep. I'll have to be up right after we drop out of FTL."
"And you want to get up and have your entire uniform smell like sweat and bed?" Pulling Marika up, Chiaki couldn't suppress a yawn herself and blushed, hoping that Marika was just going to ignore it.
"See! You're just as tired as me..." Falling backwards on the bed and dragging Chiaki down with her, Marika put her arms around her girlfriend, her eyes shut tight. "Let's sleep..."
Covering Marika's mouth with her right hand, Chiaki had no problem wrestling herself free and sitting up. This was nothing that unusual for her. Marika worked too hard lots of times, especially since the war broke out, and this exact scenario had happened before around a hundred times. Taking off the black boots that reached all the way to Marika's knees, turned her over and pulling the coat from her back, it was like stripping a doll. The hat was the only thing she had taken off herself.
With the coat gone, she turned Marika over again, unbuttoning her vest and shirt that she wore underneath first, then pulling down the zipper that kept the black miniskirt in place. The school uniform was long gone, but she had replaced the light blue miniskirt with a black one that was a little longer. Marika herself didn't want to do that but prior to the war, and even now, Marika had become known as "Miniskirt Marika", a nickname Chiaki didn't like all that much, but the customers loved it.
Having stripped Marika down to just her underwear, Chiaki knew that it was impossible to get her back up and to brush her teeth. "At least get under the covers yourself! I know you're still awake!" Chiaki sounded annoyed because she wanted Marika to not ignore her.
And sure enough, the captain struggled about on top of the bed and then crawled under the cover. Chiaki still had to undress herself. At the beginning she had been just a deck hand until Marika had one day just promoted her to second-in-command. Chiaki thought that the crew would reject her as Marika's stand-in, but they were surprisingly welcome. Misa even went so far as to be welcoming and happy that at least one of their captains was the reasonable sort. Saying that in earshot of Marika had caused the captain to sulk and pout for a good five minutes.
About a week later, after Marika had carelessly talked to her old school friend Mami, the Bentenmaru received a large package that contained a brand new captain's uniform. Or as it turned out, vice-captain uniform. There were no epaulettes or cape and it was all around a bit less flashy than Marika's uniform. But it was very much clear that whoever wore this would be seen as the second-in-command aboard the Bentenmaru.
Slipping into bed herself after she finished undressing, Chiaki was promptly assaulted with a big hug and, immediately after, with light snoring. It didn't take much for Chiaki herself to fall asleep as well.
=== Shin Mouretsu Pirates ===
The Bentenmaru returned to their piracy duties after making a stop at the Stellar Primus Scrapyard and finding a whole team of engineers that were bending over backwards to work for cheap in trying to repair that engine. A good bunch of them left after Chiaki threatened to shoot dead anyone that would break the damn thing and a few more still left after Marika disarmed Chiaki's threat and supplanted it with one that was even worse. Anyone unqualified that was just itching to work on something new and exciting, anyone that got in the way, would be left marooned on some asteroid in the absolute middle of nowhere, needing a miracle for someone to find them. Six people remained at the end. Some of the Bentenmaru's personnel remained at the scrapyard to protect the engine and make sure that none of the engineers tried to make off with hurriedly made up blueprints.
This left them a little short staffed for the raid on the secure cargo transporter and the four corvette class SI warships that protected it. One of Marika's contacts came in handy in such situations; Jenny Dolittle. Remaining at Space University with her lover, Lynn Lambretta, she had total control of what had become a massive space faring company, Fairy Jane Inc. At the surface, the company was growing rapidly through government contracts, connections and sometimes even suspiciously conveniently private contracts. But in the underworld, beneath that, was the true face of the company. With the fall of the Galactic Empire, Jenny had gambled everything on profiting off of the conflict that would follow. With Lynn by her side, Jenny bullied and blackmailed her way into many an advantageous situation.
One of the services that Shadow Jane offered was the covert transport of mercenaries. Shadow Jane was what the underground version of Fairy Jane was often called unofficially among criminals among which Pirates of all sorts were counted now. Having two dozen extra hands on board came in handy, although it was another big expense, even after Jenny gave her a friendship deal.
The ship was already ready for combat and it was almost time now. "FTL jump!" Marika's order was executed immediately and with perfect accuracy. Four pirate ships were coming together to blast the stellar alliance out of the black sky.
They were in FTL less than fifteen seconds, achieving touchdown exactly where they wanted. The Bentenmaru main crew was manning all positions, with the night crew on standby in their quarters, patched into the bridge console of their respective superior, seeing what they were doing and learning.
"Diffusion mines now! Schnitzer, begin main cannon charge in twenty-five seconds! Chiaki, launch HDE missiles and target the weapon's systems of all corvettes equally! Coorie, start a feint attempt to hack the transport, then focus on the front leading corvette. Omni-directional scan now!" Marika gave all over her orders without hesitation and so quickly that there was not even room to cough in-between each one.
The corvettes operated in a highly compact formation right around the transport, opening fire on the pirates without warning. There was no need for introductions just yet. Marika would wait with that until she had shown them what a pirate could do.
Acting faster than any of the other pirate ships that achieved touchdown seconds after the Bentenmaru, Marika's ship drew almost all of their fire. The diffusion mines made short work of any beam attacks and Kane was too skilled a pilot for mere missiles or cannon shots to hit the ship. Turning the ship around with thrusters during full propulsion caused the entire crew to fell almost 3Gs worth of gravity for a moment and made the hull groan. But in that instead they were right in position to give the first corvette a full broadside and tear them in half. "Schnitzer!"
Firing their main cannons, the first corvette shook dangerously as the beam hammered past them, hitting the second corvette, furthest from them, right in the tail, destroying their propulsion in an instant. "High density light blast!"
Coorie pushed a button and the Bentenmaru unleashed targeted blasts of light rays that carried a massive density of information, allowing Coorie to establish a forced communications link with the targeted ships for a brief moment. "Welcome to the front lines gentlemen! Now if you don't mind, hand over your valuables, hand over your money and hand over your women our it won't be the engines we'll blast in half the next time! Surrender now and you will still be able to call home and get someone to come and take you back! I am Kato Marika, captain of the pirate ship Bentenmaru! Resist and we will blast you out of this vast black sky! Now, make up your mind!" And she cut the transmission without waiting for anyone to reply.
Marika's expression was haughty, arrogant and imposing all the way through, playing around with a large beam cannon that she was resting on her right shoulder, occasionally pointing it at the screen that transmitted the video. "Chiaki-chan, do you think I should turn around and yell fire to Schnitzer during my speech?"
"This is no time to mess around, captain." Chiaki was helping out Schnitzer still, firing a second salvo of missiles.
"Corvette two is standing down. Their engine is bust anyway." Hyakume thought that they gave up too easily. "Guess the Stellar Alliance is running out of people that want to duke it out with the pirates after they got their asses handed to them so many times."
"That was too easy. Chiaki, target their weapon systems. If necessary, fire a SHDE and have it go off right next to their hull." The difference between a simply High Density Energy missile and a Super HDE missile was the blast force.
But contrary to Marika's expectations, the second corvette didn't suddenly fire but even turned off their computers after their main cannon took considerable damage and was rendered inoperable.
The entire Bentenmaru shook violently when the third corvette left themselves fully open to the other pirate ships to fire their main cannon at the Bentenmaru, only to miss by about fifty meters. "I guess the other two aren't give up so easily." Marika was impressed they'd take such a huge risk just to fire at the Bentenmaru. And it hadn't panned out for them. Their engines exploded with enough force that the last ten percent of the corvette were just gone after taking missile fire from the Viracocha.
"Captain, there's a transmission from the Viracocha." Coorie put the message through and Marika received it on her terminal.
"Captain Kachua. What is it?" It was an audio only transmission to minimize vulnerabilities on the systems of both pirate ships.
"There are three of us and three of them. The Darkdread Bloodlust is already boarding the ship you nearly blew up and using them as cover. We're about to board what is left of those fools that took a shot at you. You're fine with that, yes?"
"Go ahead. Show them that we pirates aren't to be messed around with." Marika enjoyed situations like these a little. It was when she could show others the skill of the Bentenmaru's crew, it was a moment of pride for her. And robbing the Stellar Alliance military blind was also very satisfying. "It's time to show those pesky little military eggheads who rules this corner of space! Coorie, how long-"
"Push," Coorie said and immediately after, the engines of the front leading corvette overloaded and exploded in silent fireworks. "Oh, sorry Captain, I wasn't sure how much longer you were gonna talk to to the Viracocha so I went ahead and overloaded their system. They should be floating in the dark in there. They'll have air for a day or two, though."
There was no hesitation in Marika's actions. As far as she was concerned, this was just a regular day, another raid on the Stellar Alliance. Stealing from the bad guys. "All Bentenmaru raiding personnel, get ready! It's time for some real piracy!"
With their weapons at the ready and Schnitzer at the front, the Bentenmaru crew found that the crew of the second corvette had committed mutiny to get out of this alive. Their captain was tied up, floating upside down in the brig, and a number of sailors, unarmed and with their hands above their head, were there when the Bentenmaru hacked the airlock and got in. Marika was both relieved that she didn't have to shoot at real people but also disappointed that actual military would give up so quickly. Grabbing one of the sailors, the one that was sweating torrents of cold sweat whenever she so much as glanced at him, Marika was annoyed with herself when the sailor just started floating into the air. "Coorie. Gravity."
The sailor plummeted to the ground and Marika had solid ground back under her feet. And this time she did it right. Pulling him up by his collar, Marika managed, just barely, to lift the guy off his feet. Her arm and back was wincing in pain but she maintained her expression, a haughty and aggressive smirk. "The hell is all this? This is the Stellar Alliance military? You kidding me? Are you some sort of reserve because the real soldiers are all on vacation?"
"Y-Yes!" The sailor, looking as young as barely eighteen, was too intimidated to lie through his teeth. "The entire frontier division is taking part in another mission!"
"Hey, will you shut up?! You can't go and tell pirates that kinda stuff!" Another one of the soldiers was not nearly as intimidated until Schnitzer picked him up by grabbing his entire head with his hand and just lifting him up that way. "It's true! It's true I say! Command is planning something big! But I swear we don't know!"
"I swear too!"
No wonder that they went down this easily. If they're all reserve, this is probably the first time they saw real combat or a real pirate. "You're not even worth spacing." Marika dropped the guy. Schnitzer left his comrade down as well. "Tie them up. The SI can come and get them after we're done here. You lot! Don't leave anything behind! We're taking anything and everything and if one of them idiots there gives us trouble, put them in the airlock so that they can get a premium view of the black sky out there first hand!" All of Marika's behavior was still theatrics, even now. In a very strange way she was still a performer. But now she was robbing the military and without being asked to. These were real crimes and she was a real criminal; just like her great-grandfather, the first captain of the Bentenmaru.
Heading towards the bridge herself, Marika was glad when Chiaki caught up to her. "Something big is happening, right now."
"I heard. I don't think this transport is a trap though."
"A trap for pirates would have to be bigger, get more of us together so they can strike a decisive blow. If they were fighting the Federation, we would know, Show would have contracted us about that. Jenny would have told me about that as well when I contacted her." Marika felt like she wasn't seeing the big picture.
"You don't think the big thing is chasing after the ship we blew up, do you?" Chiaki arrived at the bridge with Marika, where the mercenaries that Marika had hired were already finished capturing the soldiers on board. Since Marika was deep in thought, Chiaki stepped up. Her black clothes and the big hat, which was not quite as big as Marika's, still commanded a lot of respect. "What are you standing around here for? The rest of the ship doesn't search itself! I want all of these idiots accounted for and secured!" Chiaki also liked the theatrics she could put on during a mission. She hadn't had nearly as much chance to do so as Marika when they were still going to school, but Marika let her take point pretty often.
Marika suddenly became fierce, looked around and the very way she did this put the fear of god into the soldiers. Although the story went that if the Bentenmaru attacked you, all you had to do was cooperate, but the other version of that story was that those that didn't cooperate were never heard from again. "I don't believe for one second that none of you bastards know what the hell your damn military is doing!" Marika thought that swearing would raise her pirate credibility further. "So here is what we're gonna do. You see this lovely lady with the big gun here by my side? She's got a serious temper problem you see, so I'm thinking, why not let her calm down by shooting one of you every minutes. But I might change my mind about that if I hear something I want to hear. Like what the actual soldiers are doing!" Marika could tell from Chiaki's pissed off look, that fit the lie perfectly now, that she was going to get scolded later. Sorry, Chiaki-chan!
"So let's start by counting to ten, shall we? One, two-"
"Who the hell is going to wait until you're done counting?!" Chiaki stepped forward, pointed her gun right at the face of one of the captured soldiers that sat on the ground. The shot from her rifle went right in the ground a few centimeters behind the soldier. Marika had pushed down her rifle with such perfect timing that it was like they had practiced it. I knew you would pick up on my cue, Marika. This is what you get for making up lies about my personality.
I said I'm sorry, Chiaki-chan! Marika had been worried there for a moment.
"I… I know." One of the higher ranking soldiers in the back got on his feet. "I overheard the officers talking in their lounge while I was on serving duty. Operation Sin. Almost the entire fleet has been deployed to FF-10." The soldier felt something cold run down his forehead. "Frontier Fortress 10. They are going to take Frontier Fortress 10."
=== Time for a Pirate Break ===