Intermission 3

Planet Berano, several hours after the pirate attack.

The morning sun was rising by the time the Estashionian reinforcements arrived. The vessel they sent was big enough that they had to take over an entire island and remove all the tourist ships before they could dock, but Iris wasn’t sure why they would only send one.

“What’s wrong, Iris? You don’t look happy,” Hibiki asked.

The two girls were standing a ways off from the dock as they watched the soldiers unloading relief supplies.

“For starters, I don’t like how long it took them to get here... But that’s no warship.”

“What?”

“It’s technically a military vessel, but it’s a cargo ship. It wouldn’t last ten seconds in a fight.”

“I see. Well, it’s normal to send supplies for a relief effort, but...”

“It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Even if they were gone now, the planet had been attacked by pirates. Shouldn’t they have at least sent an escort ship to defend the supplies and patrol the area once it got there?

“Wait, is that...?”

Iris caught sight of a girl in diplomat’s clothes giving orders to the soldiers.

“That’s Pleates.”

“You know her?”

“There’s this technology exchange thing that all Galactic Federation planets participate in. Estashion and Finerita are both major tech powers, so we see each other a lot,” Iris explained as she watched Pleates with a small frown. “When Daddy would give speeches, I would sometimes talk to her since we were around the same age... But we weren’t exactly friends, you know?”

“Yeah, I get the idea, more or less.”

“You sure pick up on things quick, Hibiki. It’s easy to talk to you.” Iris laughed a bit, then sighed and started to walk forward.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to have a little chat with Pleates. Not that I’m looking forward to it.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

The two girls started to weave their way through the crowd of soldiers.

“...Hm?” Pleates saw them coming and turned to look in their direction. “Geh! Is that you, Iris?!”

“‘Geh’? That’s my line, Pleates.”

Neither one of them was interested in pleasantries.

“I see you’re as bratty as ever.”

“Better than being an old lady who’s pretending to be younger than she really is.”

“Who are you calling old? I’m only in my twenties!”

“Uh-huh. And I’m still in my teens.”

“Arrgh!” Pleates screamed.

“Iris, that’s enough wasting time...” Hibiki poked Iris in the side.

“Fine, fine. Pleates, why are you so late? Estashion’s army should’ve been here a long time ago.”

“That’s not your problem, is it?”

“It is my problem. The place where we were staying was attacked.”

“So what? Unlike Finerita, where it’s so boring that the leader’s daughter can go off to other planets to play, Estashion is always busy. A single planet of ours getting attacked by pirates is a small concern. Of course it’s going to be low priority.”

Hibiki sneered.

“Berano’s under your protection, isn’t it? This was a genuine emergency, and they needed your help. If you had a reason for being late, that’s one thing, but we’re talking about people’s lives here. That shouldn’t be at the bottom of your to-do list.”

Pleates ran her fingers along the braid hanging over her shoulder.

“Yes, they are under our protection as long as they don’t cause any problems.”

“What? That’s not what it means to protect something.”

“Hmph! You’re as stupid as your friend Iris, brat. Planets like these are just cash cows. You milk them for all they’re worth, then put them out to pasture. Not that a little brat like you would understand that.”

“Tch...!”

“Hold on, Hibiki.”

Iris held her hand up to keep Hibiki from jumping on Pleates.

“Pleates, you just told a lie, didn’t you?” Iris said with a glare.

“What?!” Pleates’s face froze. “Wh-What are you talking about? I’m not lying...”

“I never told you, but when you lie, you always play with your hair.”

“What?!”

Pleates only then seemed to realize what she’d been doing. She quickly let go of her braid, but she knew she’d been caught red-handed.

“You did it when you lied about your age the first time we met, when you lied about how big your breasts were, and when you tried to lie about the little gut you were getting.”

“She lies about herself that much?” Hibiki asked.

“S-Stop it! Just stop!” Pleates begged, half in tears.

Iris had been talking so loudly that a few of the soldiers were starting to stare.

“Now, if you don’t want me to spill some more embarrassing secrets, you’d better tell me exactly what it is you’re hiding. If you keep lying to me, you’re going to cause a diplomatic incident.” Iris stuck out her chest proudly.

Pleates mumbled to herself for a second before reluctantly speaking up.

“...There was a sighting of a dangerous criminal near Estashion. We had to mobilize all our manpower and focus on guarding and screening the immigration control gate.”

“What? The whole planet’s surrounded by a transparent shield, and the only way in is through that gate. Why did you need the whole military to guard it? Who is this criminal?”

“The rest is classified. I can’t tell you.”

Iris tilted her head in confusion. Something didn’t add up.

What’s going on? If the Estashionian army is willing to go all out to stop this guy, it must be some major criminal or a terrorist...

But anybody that the Galactic Federation had a warrant out for would be public knowledge to the entire federation, so it was strange for Pleates to suggest that information on such a criminal was need-to-know.

Pleates is with the Estashionian military, so if she’s saying it’s classified, then...

The criminal would have to be someone from Estashion, and it probably involved their military secrets. If they were guarding their immigration gate, it sounded more like someone was trying to flee the planet. But if they let some dangerous criminal like that escape, they had a duty to notify the rest of the federation. Either way, Estashion was hiding information.

I can try pressuring her about that, but I don’t think she’ll tell me any military secrets. The only other blackmail I’ve got is the poem she wrote and read for me when she got drunk that one time. I could try just reciting it...

But Iris knew she didn’t have time to play games. The pirates that attacked Berano, and then the criminal sighted near Estashion... At first glance, the two seemed to have nothing in common, but the timing was too perfect. It was even the criminal’s appearance that had caused Estashion to delay sending aid. It certainly didn’t seem like a coincidence.

She knew there had to be some connection, but unfortunately, Iris didn’t think she was capable of figuring out what it was. Part of it was the lack of information, but another big part was just that she knew she wasn’t cut out for that kind of mental heavy lifting.

The best person for the job would probably be... Satsuki, yeah.

Her thoughts turned to her classmate who was still waiting at Ryugu Palace. She didn’t like the idea of admitting that Satsuki was smarter than she was, but she knew she couldn’t afford to be worried about her ego right now. If her guess was right, Rekka could be in even more danger at the Seageists’ base than he thought.

If Rekka’s in danger, then I don’t have time to sweat the small stuff.

Iris filled Hibiki in and then headed back to Ryugu Palace.