Chapter 20
Destination: Near Planet Taygeta.
A stretch of space no one had attempted to jump into in nearly five years.
The spatial rifts had long since healed.
Normally, when a ship is the first to forge a new route, the risk of a jump accident is high, so it’s common practice to send a token or drone through first.
But the Emperor’s order was a top-secret matter restricted to the upper echelons of the Security Bureau.
Since the Federation’s ships left operational records, the Razangriff moved alone.
Ramirez and Theodore chose to jump through the 42nd Sindalot Multistar System to the Federation’s frontier, travel beyond humanity’s territory, and then make a coordinate-calculated emergency jump.
They judged the risk of an accident acceptable, since connecting the Nkhilakarn’s brain would reduce the superintelligence’s burden of calculating coordinates.
The Nkhilakarn was intelligent enough to assess the situation and think normally even after they’d rummaged around in its brain.
At worst, they’d figured, the ship’s outer armor would suffer a little damage from strong spatial turbulence.
But what in the world was that……?
The two were dumbfounded by a sight they had never expected.
-Large numbers of unidentified objects are approaching this ship. All personnel aboard, brace for impact.
A creature they’d never seen before emerged from the jump corridor.
A creature not found in the Federation database or the Earth Empire’s records.
A long snout and sharp teeth.
A torso that opened and closed as if breathing.
Four bony legs and a whip-like tail.
It was truly worthy of being called a monster.
“……Captain. Do you see that?”
-Yes. It’s a completely unfamiliar species.
A creature living in a jump corridor?
That made no sense.
Jump space was a hellscape where space-time twisted.
The Federation didn’t build enormous spaceships for nothing,
nor did it prefer jumps with limited range using Sindalot Multistar Systems.
-……I can feel it. It seems to be examining the ship.
They approached the Razangriff,
latched onto the outer armor with sharp claws,
and crawled around the ship as if sniffing it.
-It tickles a little, somehow.
“I didn’t need to know that.”
After inspecting the outer armor from end to end,
they stretched out their thorny tails,
-Did they punch a hole in the armor?
and embedded them in the Razangriff, creating cracks.
-……
Theodore reacted violently,
but the Razangriff’s AI operator did not.
That meant the ship hadn’t sustained any physical damage.
Or the operator had lost the electronic warfare battle, but the initial alarm was still sounding, so he ruled that out.
At Theodore’s outburst, Ramirez checked the external cameras,
and saw cracks forming in the outer armor
“……!”
and the monsters vanishing one after another.
The monster that had stuck its tail into the Razangriff and made a crack threw itself inside,
crossed the ship’s thick inner and outer armor and numerous bulkheads, and set foot on the bridge.
Just like the short-range jumps of the Nkhilakarn and Epsilon.
“Captain. Please bring Rubedo……”
They were a completely new kind of space creature.
Even Adlam, the researcher, wouldn’t know anything about them.
But he thought the bugs inside Rubedo’s head might know something.
One. Two.
……Sixteen.
There were too many for Ramirez to handle alone.
Besides, Yangyang was with Rubedo.
-Yes, Brigadier General.
Theodore headed for the rest deck without hesitation, following the order.
“Well then.”
Ramirez drew his ultrasonic knife.
The monster at the head of the group watched his movements warily,
Shhk.
but one swift motion of his hand as he closed in split it in half.
“……!”
But
the monster, split in half, did not fall. It stared at him.
The two halves of its body clung back together.
The same thing happened when he cut it again.
The monster returned to its original form as if it had never been cut in two, and charged him with the others, as if it were their turn now.
A melee broke out, and Ramirez slaughtered all sixteen in an instant.
But they regenerated immediately, and before long their number had exceeded thirty.
“Hah.”
Recent events had been one surprise after another for him.
He, wearing power armor, had been unable to overpower an unarmored soldier.
A planetary marshal had joined hands with the Nkhilakarn.
Mijeong’s corpse had dropped from the sky.
Those things alone were absurd enough,
but now he was being attacked by monsters he’d never seen before in the middle of a jump,
and physical attacks didn’t even work on them?
Even after reinstalling his combat OS, he couldn’t help being flustered.
……
In the time it took to take one deep breath, his combat OS forcibly suppressed his emotions.
“The problem is that we’re inside the ship.”
Having regained his composure, he considered a way to turn the situation around.
Thermal weapons?
……There wasn’t a fool anywhere in the world who would fire a laser or wield a plasma weapon inside a ship.
There were no force fields or barriers inside a ship.
Of course, if it was someone else’s ship, like during the Sigma attack, that was fine.
“We’ll just have to hold out until Rubedo gets here.”
Lately, he wondered if he hadn’t been acting too recklessly.
Fettuccine brothel attack.
Trip to Bahati.
Arresting rebels.
Coordinate-calculated emergency jump.
And so on.
If he thought about it, all of this had happened because the Emperor hadn’t given instructions down to the details.
The Emperor had only given broad orders, like “Head for the Sindalot Multistar System.”
-Energy barrier deployed.
The AI operator, having assessed the situation, deployed a barrier to protect the ship,
and Ramirez readjusted his grip on the ultrasonic knife.
……
……
……
-Large numbers of unidentified objects are approaching this ship. All personnel aboard, brace for impact.
At the AI operator’s sudden alarm,
“Man, seriously, does this make any sense? How can there not be a single moment when things go smoothly?”
“Right? How does something happen even in the middle of a jump? I told you we shouldn’t go to Taygeta. Tsk.”
Yangyang and Rubedo, lying on the floor and feeling like garbage, sighed at the same time.
“Well, the captain will handle it. It’s obviously spatial turbulence, so there’s nothing we can do.”
“They should have finished mapping spatial turbulence ages ago…… Ugh.”
“Huh?”
Feeling an inexplicable foreboding, Rubedo sprang to her feet and stared toward the bridge.
“Ugh…… I need to get to the bridge right now, ……to the bridge.”
A pain like someone squeezing her head.
Mijeong was urgently warning her.
To get to the bridge at once.
“Uh, y-yeah……”
“The Brigadier General and the captain are in danger.”
“……That old geezer?”
The sight before them as they left the room was
“Grrrr?”
a pack of monsters she had never seen before, filling the ship’s corridor.
Yangyang immediately drew her ultrasonic knife and cut them down, but
“?”
the monsters didn’t fall, and slowly began regenerating.
-Private Rubedo!
Captain Theodore appeared beyond the regenerating horde.
-The Brigadier General urgently requests your presence.
“What exactly happened? Spatial turbulence?”
The monsters charged at him,
but Theodore smashed every one of them with his bare hands.
Rubedo was a little surprised that the captain was this strong in a fight.
-Unknown creatures have infiltrated the ship.
“What? Did they make a hole in the ship?”
Even as she said it, she knew that couldn’t be right.
If there really were a hole in the ship, everyone would’ve been smashed to pieces and lost in imaginary space, whether or not there were intruders.
If something had infiltrated without damaging the ship…… it made no sense, but there was only one answer.
“No way. Did they jump? Into the ship?”
-I can’t be certain it was a jump, but……
Before Theodore could answer,
a monster that had finished regenerating and returned to its original form charged at Rubedo.
“Kyaaaah!”
Yangyang’s kick shattered it, scattering pieces across the ceiling.
She saw the spots slowly gathering back together.
“You don’t have to tell me. Those are them, right?”
“I thought they were some new biological weapon developed by the Federation or the elves. Those are the intruders?”
At last, she’d thought the Martian Senate or the elves had developed technology to interfere with a target mid-jump and deployed some hideous biological weapon.
Otherwise…… as unbelievable as it was once again,
there were space creatures living inside jump corridors?
But that raised one question.
Why had they only been discovered now?
Jumping had been humanity’s most critical technology ever since the Earth Empire ventured into space.
With countless people jumping for 200 years, it made no sense that these unidentified creatures were only being discovered now.
“Ugh……”
The pain was worse than before, as if her brain were being gouged out.
For Mijeong to react this violently when her head hadn’t even been attacked……
She still didn’t know the price she’d paid for healing Yangyang.
She feared her memories might disappear without warning.
“……Ugh, Sis. Please help me. I need to get to the bridge, quickly.”
“Are you okay, Rubedo?”
“No—aaagh!”
Yangyang scooped Rubedo up in a bridal carry, then hooked a regenerating monster with her foot as it charged and kicked it into the wall.
“Captain. We’re coming to you now.”
-No. I’ll go get the Brigadier General and Adlam.
“The elevator……”
-I’ll take the other one.
“Okay.”
Theodore took Elevator 1.
Yangyang and Rubedo took Elevator 2.
They dodged and smashed the monsters bursting out of the walls as they split up.
……
……
……
This moment, spent maintaining his power armor and firearms,
was the most peaceful moment of Kang Chanwoo’s life.
'Fettuccine was too spectacular. Fighting Federal troops with my bare hands.'
Though they were on their way to Taygeta,
and doing a coordinate-calculated emergency jump to forge a route,
it was still better than a bloody melee.
He preferred shooting from a distance to that kind of dogfight.
“Isn’t it so peaceful, Ms. Adlam?”
“Y-yes, it is.”
His job was to keep her company so she wouldn’t get bored while Adlam checked the parameters of the power armor.
And, while he was at it, to make sure she didn’t make any mistakes.
Of course, Adlam had never made one.
“I heard you passed out from the shock at the Furnace. Are you feeling all right?”
Adlam froze at that.
“I-I’m sorry, Sergeant……”
“Huh? What for?”
“Because I’m incompetent. I couldn’t do anything back then. I just passed out from the shock. S-so……”
Ah.
I brought that up badly.
Kang Chanwoo realized it instinctively.
She was suffering over something that had happened beyond her abilities.
The dock and Prasada Palace had been quite far apart.
Even if she’d driven a hoverbike at full speed, she wouldn’t have made it in time.
Besides, Adlam was a researcher, not a combatant.
Military-grade body-modification and enhancement surgery? As if.
Even if she had been there, all that would have happened was more corpses, not anything useful.
“If I had the abilities you or the Brigadier General have……”
“Ms. Adlam.”
“Then our comrades wouldn’t have died like that……”
“Ms. Adlam!”
Kang Chanwoo’s shout pulled Adlam out of the mire of self-deprecation.
“A-ah…… Yes, Sergeant.”
“May I speak frankly?”
“Y-yes……”
He decided he needed to be a little blunt here.
“The future wouldn’t have changed just because you were at Prasada Palace.”
“……I suppose you’re right. I know that, but……”
“There’s no one more foolish than someone who agonizes over things beyond their abilities.”
“You’re…… right.”
“More than that, you’re a technical officer, not a combat soldier. There are roles better suited to a researcher than fighting.”
Kang Chanwoo’s encouragement helped Adlam steel herself.
“Th-thank you, Sergea……”
-Large numbers of unidentified objects are approaching this ship. All personnel aboard, brace for impact.
The ship’s alarm swallowed her words of gratitude.
“What’s this?”
“This is impossible. An attack in the middle of a jump……”
Even as Adlam vehemently insisted it was impossible, the source of the alarm appeared.
“Whoa!”
Sharp claws sprang from the edges of the power armor,
and Kang Chanwoo quickly pulled Adlam toward him.
“Grrrr.”
One, two, three……
Their numbers rapidly swelled until they were impossible to count.
“Hup!”
Kang Chanwoo drew his ultrasonic knife and immediately took one down, but
the thing, split in half, didn’t fall and slowly regenerated.
“Ms. Adlam, it seems something has happened that only you can handle.”
He dodged the claws lunging at him,
grabbed the long snout gaping wide with both hands and tore it apart,
caught the whip-like tail and slammed it into the floor,
“Do you know anything about these things?”
Kang Chanwoo asked.
As a researcher, she ought to know something.
That’s what he thought,
“N-no…… I’ve never seen this creature before……”
His expectations were thoroughly dashed.
……Technical officers really are useless.
Swallowing his true thoughts, he immediately hoisted Adlam onto his back.
“It seems physical force doesn’t work on them. And there are too many.”
“Um, I can walk by myself……”
“You’re too slow.”
After sizing up the enemy during a brief exchange, Kang Chanwoo dodged the advancing tide and headed for the Gladiator hibernation room.
For now, they had to even up the numbers.