Thanks to May’s consideration, Elma, Mimi, and me got to wholeheartedly spent some real quality time together, and we welcomed the warp out to the Comatt system in a thoroughly refreshed state.

“So will they really aim for us the instant we warp out?”

“If all goes according to what we thought of last time.”

“It would be best if nothing happens… But judging from his previous actions, I don’t think Balthazar Daleinwald is the type to take defeat lying down. However, since he’s already been found out by his father, wouldn’t it be useless no matter what actions he takes?”

“On the contrary Master, He may be planning to capture both Chris and Earl Daleinwald, and then force them to acknowledge him as the sole heir. Or worse, he might even be planning parricide in order to forcefully snatch the position. It’s because he’s cornered that he might do desperate things like that. Judging from his previous behavioral patterns, there is an 81% chance of him initiating an attack.”

“Not 100%?”

“Because his plans have been foiled by Master time and time again, that may cause him to be more wary and hesitate as a result. It’s also possible that he may not have been able to secure enough forces to mount an attack. I included those variables in my calculations, so it’s not 100%.”

“I see. But we still don’t know just how far that Balthazar guy is willing to go.”

“Yes.”

While in the middle of our conversation, an alert suddenly rang out inside the cockpit. No, it’s not that we’ve been locked on by an enemy. It was just an alert before Krishna goes through warp out procedures.

“Looks like we’re nearly there. Anyway, just make sure we can activate the weapon systems immediately if something does happen.”

“Yeah. I’ll prep the subsystems and defense systems as well.”

“Hiro-sama, what should I do with the radar system?”

“Just set it to maximum range.”

I thought it was best to prepare for heavy long range bombardment, but May had a different opinion.

“No, there’s a good chance they’ll close in on us immediately, so it would be best if you shortened the range instead.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. If my calculations prove to be correct, that is.”

May turned quiet again after saying her piece. Hm? A close quarters encounter huh…? Would they charge at us with torpedo ships armed with anti-ship reactive torpedoes? But that would be overkill. Even one or two of those is enough to settle everything by taking out the flagship directly. Damn, I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Well, reactive torpedoes are actually quite slow, so you’d have to fire them close to point blank range to guarantee a hit. They can be intercepted easily as a result, but were still very popular in the game for the sheer romance of EXPLOSION! If they didn’t have pilots with the required skills, the only choice was to send in a great number of kamikaze ships while hoping at least one would survive and deliver its payload, but I’m not sure if the enemy’s really so desperate to resort to that tactic. It would be pretty scary if they somehow obtained a crap-ton of reactive torpedoes and simply fired them all at once in a saturation attack though.

“Hiro-sama, we’ll be warping out soon.”

I continued mulling over countermeasures for the possible battle until Mimi notified me we were about to arrive.

“Oops. Oh well. Let’s just keep alert and try to cope with whatever situation that happens.”

“In other words, let’s just leave it up to fate, huh.”

Elma grumbled a bit after hearing my instructions. But it can’t be helped, right? We can’t predict what would happen once we warp out after all. All we can do is keep alert and go nuts when a battle does occur.

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1…… We’re warping out!”

The fleet came back out to normal space followed by loud booms. Mimi hurriedly switched the radar settings from hyperspace detection to normal space. As a result, aside from Earl Daleinwald’s ships, we actually did pick up another reading. The Earl’s fleet went on alert, and we were sent a warning as well.

From the radar readings, an unidentified ship was circling around the Earl’s fleet. Its movements were akin to a shark eyeing prey. No matter how you look at it, that ship is hella suspicious. It was more than likely aiming for the Eearl’s fleet, but stubbornly kept its distance. Was it trying to buy time?

“It’s clearly buying time. I wonder what they’re aim is?”

“Maybe they’ll hit us with something like a Singing Crystal?”

“No, that’s probably not it… Rather, I think you’re the only guy crazy enough to use something as dangerous as that as a weapon.”

“Really? It’s quite effective though.”

As I and Elma exchanged banter, the Earl’s flagship tried to hail the suspicious ship and asked for the crew to identify themselves. However, there was no response at all. It kept circling around our formation and didn’t carelessly approach, but it’s crew kept their silence.

From the readings, it was an orthodox military small or medium attack craft. Since they’re trying to avoid being identified as part of the military, they were using some sort of jamming device to mask their signature. It was truly quite a suspicious ship.

The flagship of Earl Daleinwald’s fleet finally issued an ultimatum. If the suspicious ship didn’t fall back, they would immediately bring it down. The unidentified ship still ignored that warning and continued circling us. The tension went up several notches.

“Hiro-sama, there’s something approaching the fleet! It’s fast!”

“What!?”

Krishna’s radar caught a high-speed object heading straight for the Earl’s fleet while we were all preoccupied by the unidentified ship. It was plunging straight towards the flagship!

“They’re breaking through directly?”

The Earl’s fleet also caught the object on their radars, and their weapons systems immediately went online to intercept. At the same time, the unidentified ship also activated its weapons and started firing on the fleet.

In any case, we can’t just stay still and allow the attack to succeed. I immediately had the Krishna accelerate to intercept as well. It looks like May’s conjecture was mostly correct. The enemy did opt for a close quarters engagement. It’s just that we didn’t anticipate how close it was.

I pushed the thrusters to maximum and started chasing after the object – a long, bullet-shaped small craft.

“It’s a ship I’m not familiar with! And its shield’s hella tough!”

This ship wasn’t implemented in SOL, at least as far as I know. I tried shooting it down with a repeated volley from Krishna’s laser cannons, but the shield of the unfamiliar ship managed to tank all the shots. It was small, but it was super tough.

“That’s the latest suppression ship model used by the Imperial military.”

“Suppression ship?”

“Yes. It is equipped with an energy shield emitter that rivals those of a battleship’s, and its general tactic is to ram itself directly onto target ships. That will allow the infantry squad riding within it to board the target ship and suppress it from the inside. Aside from the powerful shield emitter and a generator that can support the emitter’s output, it has virtually no weapons equipped.”

“What the heck is up with that weird-ass ship!?”

In other words, it’s a human-filled torpedo, right?

Eh? Don’t tell me their aim is to kill Earl Daleinwald and Chris by boarding the flagship? Seriously? But there are other more efficient methods, right? Why the heck did they choose this kind of stupid strategy? Is there something wrong with their heads!? This is the same stupid stuff the designers of the Great Panjandrum came up with. Was this part of Imperial style battle tactics or something?

“Well, it’s that you know. Imperial nobles are well known for their love of sword duels……”

“Yes, that’s right. I watched it happen plenty of times in a long running holo-vid series called The Unfettered Emperor. I think it’s already on its 2406th episode.”

“Argh! Hold up, hold up, okay…… Let me wrap my head around it first. Wait… Don’t tell me that Balthazar guy is actually part of that boarding party?”

“Probably. It’s an Imperial noble’s style to ask for a sword duel to settle things with a hated foe, or something like that.”

“My head hurts…”

Did I unknowingly get myself transported to a space comedy-themed dimension after coming out of hyperspace?

Argh! I won’t let myself be defeated by a joke machine! Go down! Go down, I say! I’mma make you guys full of holes using my shotgun cannons dammit!

However, despite my best efforts, the suppression ship was simply too fast, and it eventually found itself lodged on one side of House Daleinwald’s flagship.