Chapter 10
Unlike the workers in economy class, Rubedo and the others weren't wearing spacesuits.
Thanks to their body-enhancement surgeries, Ramirez and the others could easily withstand the gravitational acceleration.
For reasons she couldn't understand, Rubedo was unaffected by gravitational acceleration and the impact of jumps because of Mijeong.
Of course, that didn't mean she could survive in space without a spacesuit.
Being active in space for an extended period without one was impossible for anyone but androids, Nkhilakarn, and Mijeong.
So why hadn't they put on spacesuits, despite the risk of being stranded in space if something went wrong with the ship?
A spacesuit isn't armor.
It's meant to let you survive in a vacuum, not preserve your mobility so you can carry out complicated tasks in zero gravity.
Naturally, it offers no protection whatsoever against physical impacts.
No one could know what might happen if they were stranded in the middle of space.
Space debris might pierce their bodies, or they might get caught in one of the intermittent spatial-collapse events.
To deal with those unforeseen situations, they needed to be able to move freely.
They only had to endure for a brief moment, until Rubedo could use Mijeong's power.
That was their plan.
Fortunately, the spaceship didn't explode in space or anything like that.
It had merely started falling before it could even escape Fettuccine's gravity well.
"Shit?"
Yangyang, who'd let her guard down when nothing had happened right up until takeoff, blurted out a curse in alarm.
Her reaction spoke for everyone there.
They weren't going to make a clean job of it in space—they were just going to crash straight into the planet while still in its gravity well?
If they landed in a city, the passengers and its citizens would all be wiped out. The city would be devastated, too, causing enormous losses.
Even if they landed in an uninhabited region, the ecosystem would be wrecked.
The worst-case scenario had come true.
She felt the ascent stop throughout her body, and the pressure vanished.
Then free fall began, accompanied by a strange tickling sensation in her lower abdomen.
"I didn't see this coming."
"Only lunatics would drop a spaceship onto their own planet."
There was no time for leisurely chatter.
They had just two minutes until a sticky kiss with the planet's surface.
Rubedo immediately spoke to the bug in her brain.
"Mijeong."
"I'm listening."
"This spaceship that's falling..."
For some reason, she felt a little embarrassed by this odd exchange with herself.
Even so, it was plainly their only way out, so she quickly got over her embarrassment.
"Can you land us safely in an uninhabited region of the Furnace?"
"That's an easier request than changing a creature's sex."
A strange sensation, as if her head were shrinking.
At the same time, she felt a sense of déjà vu.
When and where had she felt this before?
Before she could find an answer to that question,
the spaceship, hurtling through the atmosphere toward the city,
vanished in an instant.
…….
…….
…….
"Cough."
The air was acrid.
Her eyes stung, and she couldn't open them properly.
The sky was so hazy with exhaust fumes that it looked gray.
Tears quickly welled in her narrowed eyes.
A factory planet. Commonly known as the Furnace.
It was the Federation's environmental sacrificial lamb, churning out endless quantities of whatever products were desired by grinding down the planet's environment and lifespan.
Even though they'd landed in an uninhabited region far from the city, the environment was so polluted that it was hard to breathe.
"Wait, cough, why are you all fine? Cough."
Only Rubedo was struggling.
The workers, bewildered by their unfamiliar surroundings, could breathe just fine thanks to the oxygen tanks and filters attached to their spacesuits.
"That's because we had our eyes and lungs replaced."
Ramirez and the others had enhanced eyes and airways through body modification, so they could see and breathe just fine even in such an extremely hostile environment.
"Mijeong?"
She called out to Mijeong, just in case, but...
"……"
"I said it was an easy request, but considering the spaceship's mass and the number of lives I saved, I probably won't wake up for a while."
No unwelcome voice came from her mouth.
A worker approached Rubedo, who'd hastily covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve.
"……Little miss, breathing without a mask on the Furnace is suicide. Here, use this, at least."
"Thank you, cough, cough, cough."
"Thank you, kind sir."
Kang Chanwoo thanked him on Rubedo's behalf as she hurriedly put on the goggles and spare mask.
The worker waved him off as though it were nothing.
"It's only natural. We have to help each other. By the way, are you soldiers?"
"Yes, we are."
"I thought so. I wondered when I saw you were fine without masks here on the Furnace. It's truly an honor to meet soldiers."
Then he pointed to the two people behind Kang Chanwoo and asked another question.
"Then... are they soldiers, too?"
"That's right."
The worker flapped both arms, looking oddly like a young girl who'd just met her favorite idol.
And for good reason. While the residents of colony planets worked themselves to the bone, these soldiers weren't living cushy lives on Mars. They fought across the universe to keep humanity safe.
If they were soldiers who were ready to lay down their lives to protect humanity from outside threats,
if they were the soldiers who had once wiped out an alliance of alien species hostile to humanity,
then they certainly deserved the people's respect.
"We came to this filthy place for the money, but what brings you soldiers here...?"
"Are you curious?"
"Yes... No, no. I shouldn't have asked. My name is Dexter. Do you happen to know anything about the spaceship's crash landing?"
Kang Chanwoo rested his chin on the back of his hand and pretended to think before giving a curt reply.
"No."
"Then do you know what happened to the pilots?"
"Are you saying there were no pilots in the cockpit?"
"That's right. This is a serious problem. If we get to the factory late, we could be docked pay or even fired..."
With that lament, Dexter merged into the confused crowd.
"Brigadier General."
"Yeah?"
"Let's call Razangriff."
"Are you suggesting we put them aboard Razangriff and drop them off in the factory district?"
"You've gotten funnier. The moment we saved them from certain death, we did our duty."
We were the reason they almost died, and I was the one who saved them, though...
The words rose to the tip of Rubedo's tongue, then retreated.
"Didn't we come to the Furnace to restock consumables and replace the damaged Gladiators? Calling ahead will save time."
"So how are we getting to the factory district?"
"Well, you see..."
Kang Chanwoo lifted Rubedo into his arms.
"We run."
"What?"
"Brigadier General. You told him to come at full speed, right?"
"That's right."
"Then let's go."
"Nooooo!"
Rubedo squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face deep in his arms.
To her, this felt scarier than jumping or breaking through the atmosphere.
…….
…….
…….
"What do you mean?!"
At the angry outburst from Jorge São Paulo, the Marshal of Fettuccine, the chief sheriff bowed his head and remained silent.
"If you have a mouth, use it! What? The spaceship that was falling suddenly disappeared?"
"Well..."
"Did a planetary shuttle jump? Huh? Is that it?"
"That can't be... No. I suppose not. Spaceships don't have jump drives, after all."
"Didn't you say you'd take care of them properly? Why are they all so stupid? That idiot Yegor, who got caught colluding with Smegma while running around with some low-class pimp bitch, and you, who can't even catch one fish in a net!"
"……"
"Didn't I tell you to mobilize the garrison and wipe them out along with the hotel? No matter how formidable Brigadier General Ramirez of Task Force 42 is, no one can stand up to a surprise attack and overwhelming numbers."
This was truly unfair.
Suppressing his anger, the sheriff explained once again what he'd already said several times.
"Haven't I told you over and over? Federation soldiers won't blindly follow some suspicious operation when they don't even know the target. And if we tell them the target is Brigadier General Ramirez, they'll disobey out of respect for him."
Jorge grabbed the back of his neck.
If the Federation sent you here to protect Fettuccine, you should follow my orders, you military bastards!
After huffing and puffing for a while, he calmed down and offered a relatively more conciliatory suggestion.
"Phew. Then just deploy the military dolls."
"Who was it that turned all those military dolls into lifelike sex dolls and sent them to the brothels?"
…….
He had no answer.
But if he backed down now, the representative of the Martian Senate would look ridiculous, having been bested by a mere sheriff.
He had to avoid that, if only to protect his petty pride.
"……Shut up! If the Senate finds out Ramirez has caught on to our collusion, you'll take the blame for everything!"
Shit. Why are you dumping that on me?
You die, not me, right?
The chief sheriff swallowed his thoughts.
"Get the hell out and find his corpse! Don't come back with some soft report saying he's missing. I want to see with my own two eyes that he's dead."
At that, the sheriff got the hell out.
His speed was like a bullet, leaving Jorge speechless.
Left alone in the room, Jorge clutched his head and collapsed.
"This is bad, this is bad! Ramirez might still be alive!"
The sight of him stamping both feet and curling up like a shrimp wasn't something anyone would want to see.
"That man must have realized this wasn't Yegor acting alone, but something I orchestrated. His suspicions will turn toward the Senate, and the moment he sinks his teeth into them, I'm finished."
If even the caretaker of the Fantasy Tower, a high-ranking post that should be above reproach, was corrupt, then the planetary government above him was rotten, too—and the Martian Senate was the one that had placed the Marshal in that position.
The Martian Senate may indeed have been using Jorge to accommodate Sigma, but the Senate wouldn't be happy to have that fact exposed.
So the moment Task Force 42, which wouldn't hesitate to go after even the central government, got wind of it, they'd cut off the loose end without hesitation.
And that loose end was Jorge himself.
"I have to. I have to see his corpse. A spaceship that big doesn't just suddenly evaporate. Dead or alive, he's definitely still on this planet."
Unfortunately, Jorge had the wrong end of the stick by a mile.
Before long, he did receive news about Ramirez, but it didn't come from the sheriffs.
"São Paulo, you, you fucking cripple! You said you killed him!"
It was a call from the Marshal of the Furnace.
"Why is Razangriff in orbit around our planet?!"