Intermission 4

“Rekka, big trouble! Shirley is...”

As soon as he picked up the phone, Iris tried to tell Rekka all she’d learned from Satsuki’s magic, but she was in such a hurry that it came out as a jumbled mess.

“Calm down, Iris. I already know most of this.”

“...Right.”

Just hearing Rekka’s voice made her feel better. Slightly calmer now, Iris turned the volume up to maximum and put the phone on the desk in the room. The other girls gathered around as they all exchanged what they’d learned.

“Then it was the Estashionian government that betrayed Shirley first, wasn’t it?”

Iris felt angry when she heard what Rekka told them. All she’d asked Satsuki was who the Estashionian government was so scared of. She’d learned that it was Shirley, but she didn’t know about Shirley’s past. Once she found out Rekka was in danger, she’d wanted to get in touch with him before anything else.

“Shirley is heading towards Estashion right now.”

“Huh? But why...?”

“Before she left Estashion, Shirley stole the plans for the Peacemaker Device. She used that to make something she’s calling the master chip. And that’s not all,” Rekka said. “Shirley had the Seageists gather up enough money to build a new pirate ship. One that’s equipped with a device that amplifies the power of the master chip.”

“But then...!”

Everyone over the age of ten on Estashion was implanted with those chips. Which meant...

“She’s going to kill all the adults who made her suffer.”

The whole group fell silent.

“And then she’s going to make the remaining children choose. Obey her, or suffer the consequences. If they obey, they’ll be implanted with chips, too, and if they don’t, she’ll have Squallow and the other pirates kill them.”

“B-But the Estashionian army is really strong, right? And they’re guarding the gate into the planet. A single pirate ship couldn’t...”

“Remember what I just said? Shirley can use her master chip amplifier to take control of all of Estashion. As soon as she gets close to them, their warships will be helpless. She can walk right through that gate.”

“But that’s horrible!” Iris screamed.

Harissa and Tsumiki were panicking, too. Satsuki, Hibiki, and Suzuran were silent. They were all trying to think of something. Anything.

“Iris, everyone... I need your help.”

“Wh-What is it?”

“Shirley’s heading for the central energy storage facility on Estashion.”

As long as she had the master chip amplifier, she had the power of a god on that planet. But no matter how powerful her device was or how strong her ship was, she wouldn’t be able to keep them running without energy. And the central energy storage facility had exactly what she needed—it was the power source for the entire planet.

“The new ship was built to dock with that facility. She plans on draining its power.”

“Then if we can stop her...” Harissa wondered out loud.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’ll be easy to stop her. But until she has a source of power, she’s probably going to keep the amplifier’s output to a minimum. She probably won’t do more than make them open the gate or stop any warships from firing at her.”

She wouldn’t kill anyone until she had her power source.

“I understand. So, what do you want us to do?” Hibiki asked Rekka.

“It’s going to take about an hour and a half for her ship to reach Estashion. It’s going to take us two. But if you guys can warp from Berano in an Estashionian warship, you can get there before anyone else.”

Everyone gasped.

The Estashionian army had only taken so long to reach Berano because they’d left several hours late, but normally the trip would take less than an hour.

“Try to find some way to persuade the Estashionian army and get there before Shirley does. The energy storage facility is just a relay point. It gathers energy from generators all over the planet and distributes it out to where it needs to go from there. If you can cut the links between it and the other facilities, you can slow Shirley’s plan down a good deal.”

“We can’t just destroy the generators?”

“There’s a lot of them, and they’re mostly underground. Not to mention they’re supposed to be built to stand up to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. There’s not enough time to take care of that, and it would be harder to persuade the Estashionians to go through with it.”

“I see...”

Hibiki was now satisfied and looked at Iris. If anyone was going to persuade the Estashionian army, it would have to be her. Iris clenched her fists when she realized why Hibiki was looking at her.

“Leave it to me, Rekka! I’ll take care of it!” she said in a loud, cheerful voice.

“Thanks. We’ll be heading into warp any minute now. We won’t be able to contact you during that time, so don’t do anything crazy. As long as you can buy us time, we’ll make sure it works out.”

“...You’re the one who always does the crazy stuff,” Tsumiki retorted.

Everyone laughed a little, but then got right to work.

▽

The new ship the Seageists had created had no name. To Shirley, it was just a disposable vessel meant to carry the master chip amplifier to Estashion and take over the energy storage facility. She had no special attachment to it.

Shirley’s expression was cold as she stood on the bridge surrounded by the enslaved pirates. She’d changed from her tourist outfit into her usual white lab coat and let down her hair. There was a very different air about her now than when she’d been with Rekka.

Finally... I’ll finally get what I want.

At no point in her life had Shirley ever really gotten what she’d wanted. She’d just gone along with the flow, doing the work she was given in the environment she was placed in. And after all that, she was betrayed in the end and left with nothing. So this time, she would find her own happiness. This plan was her way of getting back what she hadn’t been allowed to have... and what had been taken from her.

The defensive barrier around Estashion uses new technology that not even the rest of the Galactic Federation has their hands on. Once that gate is shut, very few nations will be able to break through. Estashion’s main export has always been technology, and I have lots of new technologies that no one else knows about yet. If I use that as bait to negotiate...

Shirley’s lips curled up into a cold smile as she thought about what she’d do once Estashion was hers. Adults were filthy cheaters. Even if Shirley committed mass murder, they wouldn’t care as long as they could benefit from it. Someone might try to attack her under the auspices of “freeing Estashion,” but her planetary barrier would be impenetrable, and she’d have plenty of disposable soldiers who didn’t fear death.

I’ll need to leave some soldiers alive until things settle down with the rest of the federation, won’t I? I hate the idea of leaving any of those adults alive, though...

But it wouldn’t be for long. Shirley was already working on a combination of cloning and genetic engineering that would mass-produce soldiers for her. She could just take the combat abilities of the adults she didn’t kill and put them into the brains and bodies of the clones, then use the chips to control them. She’d have her own personal army.

A year... No, I can do it in half a year.

She wanted to be rid of those adults as soon as possible. She wanted everything impure removed from her ideal world.

“Exiting warp,” the synthesized voice of the ship’s AI said.

Shirley looked up and saw Estashion—the place she hated, but the place that would soon be her ideal world—appear in front of her.

“I knew there’d be warships. Not that it will help them...”

Shirley activated the amplifier and sent a simple order from her ring to the warships: “move.” The warships halted with their guns frozen pointed towards her, but after about 30 seconds, they parted formation and began to move aside.

“The reception is nice and clear,” she commented.

Satisfied with the success of the amplifier, Shirley then forced workers to open the immigration gate. She then entered the planet’s barrier and headed straight for the energy storage facility.

At this point, the government must have realized that something was wrong because someone tried to shoot her down from afar. Shirley protected herself by using the warships she’d just enslaved as a shield. Things were going just fine so far, but when she got close enough to see the facility, she realized something was strange.

“...A cargo ship? What’s it doing in a place like this?”

Did they realize I’m after the energy storage facility? No, even if they did, why put a cargo ship here? It can’t shoot me down...

Or was it loaded with explosives? If she attacked it, would it blow up and maybe take out the facility with it? Shirley’s mind began to race, but she was worried for nothing. When her warships approached, the cargo ship fled like a rat.

“What was that...?’

Was it just a random ship headed for the facility that had happened to be anchored in mid-air? She still didn’t know, but either way, the nuisance was gone.

Shirley docked her ship in the facility as she’d originally planed. The pirates could take care of the rest. She called up the display on the main bridge and used it to reroute all the power flowing into the facility to the master chip amplifier.

“This is it. The end...”

She touched the “execute” command on the display. That was supposed to be the end.

“...?”

But no power came.

Shirley looked at the display again to try and determine the cause.

...All power from the generators has been physically cut off?

For a split second, she was impressed. Destroying any part of the facility would mean a considerable loss. And adults hated to do anything that meant losing something, even if it was necessary. They would always waste time asking themselves if there was some other way, or even trying to figure out if someone else could take the loss instead. At least, that was how the Estashionian government had always functioned.

“I guess we do this the hard way. Come with me, Squallow.”

“Guuuuuh...”

Shirley spun around, the hem of her lab coat flying up in the air, and walked towards the lower decks with Squallow following behind her. She’d considered the odds of something like this happening very low, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a plan for it. This is what she’d brought the Berserker Cells for—not to defeat Rekka, the boy she’d run into by chance on the streets of Ryugu Palace City.

Rekka...

The name tore at her heart. Why had he come to save her? Why had he taken all those risks? And even if he was willing to put himself in danger like that, why not just save Tetra? There was no reason for him to save her or Rain, girls he’d known for less than a day. Nothing Rekka did made any sense to her.

The only things in this world she could trust were herself and her creations. Nothing else. That’s why she would create a new world. One she could believe in. One she made by her own hands. One where no one would betray her. And for that, she didn’t care how many people she had to hurt.

▽

Iris and the others were in the main computer room at the central energy storage facility. There was a collective sigh of relief in the room.

“She took over the computer network the instant she docked, didn’t she? See? Wasn’t I right about cutting those cables?”

“Do you know how much one of those cables costs? I brought you here because you said you weren’t going to destroy anything! This is going to be my fault, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, those were some thick cables. Hard, too. The energy loss during transport must be pretty low, right? Why not bring them to the next technology exchange?” Iris laughed thinking of the cables in the basement that they’d just ripped apart.

“Don’t try and change the subject!” Pleates, the girl she was bickering with, was literally in tears.

Pleates hadn’t wanted to bring them here, but after being threatened with everything from personal blackmail to leaking top-level classified info (courtesy of the Magic of Omniscience), she’d had no choice but to submit.