Chapter 2: My First Space Colony

Chapter 2:
My First Space Colony

 

IT’S ABOUT TIME I told you about me: Satou Takahiro.

Location: a city in Hokkaido. Age: 27. Relationship status: single.

After graduating from high school, I went to a technical college in my hometown and joined a firm in that same town. Back in college, I dated a girl I met online, but…you know how long-distance relationships are. We broke up. I got signed on as a network administrator since I was “good with computers,” but I really had no actual expertise so I struggled to learn on the job. I spent most of my workdays flipping out at coworkers who managed to get viruses from every conceivable source: news pages, online shopping, fishy browser games, even porn sites.

My hobbies? Video games. That’s it. And I wasn’t all that picky. I’d play Japanese and Western games alike. For a while, I was obsessed with first-person shooters, playing them so much that I hit the top of the scoreboards. I never quite had the skill to take first place, but I was among the very best in Japan at the time.

Since my coworkers thought I “looked scary” with my “intimidating eyes,” I didn’t really get much social interaction or camaraderie in my daily life. That’s what drew me to Stella Online, a game that allowed me to explore the vast reaches of space on my own. In the end, I got addicted to it.

That’s pretty much all you need to know about me. Oh, right—I like carbonated drinks. That fizzy sensation in the throat is just incredible.

That’s enough about me. Let’s get back to my current predicament.

“And where did you obtain all of this Rare Metal in your cargo?” The Port Authority seemed intent on interrogating me.

“I got all the stuff in my ship from defeating and looting space pirates. Any other problems?” I was fortunate that alcohol wasn’t contraband in this colony with how curious they were about the Rare Metal. I had no clue where the pirates had gotten it, so my only option was to play innocent.

At this point, I was an unaffiliated, uninteresting, self-styled mercenary with no proof of identity. How would you feel if a guy like that strolled in with tons of precious metals? Yeah, suspicious. Extremely suspicious. I couldn’t blame the Port Authority worker for being thorough in his questioning.

“And you absolutely cannot tell me where you got it?” he pressed.

“I’ve been telling you where I got it: from the pirates. This pointless questioning is really irritating.” Was this guy talking in circles intentionally? Was he waiting for me to get annoyed and blow my own cover? Or did he want something else, like a bribe?

Oh ho ho, I know what it is. I bet he wants to make me suggest a bribe first so he can use that to either arrest or extort me. It was a waste of time to play along with stupid games like this. What to do, then?

I was still pondering my predicament when someone barged into the questioning room without so much as a knock. She was a young woman; maybe “girl” was more accurate? I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t pretty darn hot, too. Nice features, shiny blonde hair, red irises, and a pure white uniform with a red mantle. Her dress made her look like some heroic lady knight or war maiden.

She seemed calm and mature on the surface, but her eyes were as penetrating as a bird of prey’s. It would be best not to be fooled by appearances with this one.

My Port Authority “friend” quickly fell to fawning. “O-oh my, Lieutenant Serena. What brings you here?”

“I saw an unfamiliar ship in the hangar. I presume he is the owner of the craft?” she asked, pointing at me.

“Y-yes, ma’am.” The Port Authority worker broke out into a nervous sweat as he handed this military woman the tablet he was holding. She skimmed the tablet, and then her gaze turned to me.

“That is quite the quantity of Rare Metal. I trust it wasn’t obtained through unsavory means?”

“Swear on my life,” I replied.

“Hmm… Are single mercenaries capable of defeating space pirates? You’re not even registered to a mercenary guild. Do you have anything else you’d like to report?”

“There was coordinate data on their ship that seems to point to their home base. I got that info from analyzing the data caches of the destroyed pirate ships. I was hoping to hand over that info while I grabbed my bounty, but I got dragged here as soon as I revealed what was in my cargo.” I shrugged for good measure, just to emphasize how little I really knew about all this.

Something in her bearing reeked of galactic police. She clearly outranked my buddy from the Port Authority. If I made it clear I planned to cooperate, maybe she would help me out here.

“You have no proof that his cargo is stolen, correct?” she asked the Port Authority guy.

“Y-yes. That is true.”

“Then I don’t see the issue. Will he be selling his cargo to the colony? We’re awfully lacking in Rare Metal, so this could benefit us greatly.”

“B-but…”

“But what? Do you have some sort of information that I, the daughter of Marquess Holz, should know about?”

“Er, well…”

“Because it seems to me like the real problem here is a Port Authority worker holding up incoming ships’ cargo in the hopes of extorting bribes.” Lieutenant Serena grinned at the Port Authority worker, who shook like a leaf under her glare. So did I, to be honest; despite the smile, she was terrifying.

“I-I would never do such a thing!” he said.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. We will buy the Rare Metal from him at a fair price. This upstanding, self-styled mercenary will receive Ener for ridding us of space pirates. Then, he’ll likely use that Ener to buy things from our colony. Everybody wins, no?”

“Y-yes, ma’am, of course! I will process the paperwork right away!” The Port Authority worker jumped up from his seat and bolted from the questioning room like a prisoner making his escape. Maybe he was. Maybe he really wanted to escape those heavy glares that badly. Either way, it left me alone with this Serena.

After the Port Authority worker’s exit, she turned to me. “My apologies. Sometimes he is a little too…dedicated to his work.”

“Nah, I get it. I am pretty suspicious, I guess.” It truly wasn’t his fault. I had no achievements with neighboring mercenary guilds; most likely, none of the star systems around would even recognize my ship. The data that should have listed me as captain was corrupted. I could make it through a biometric authentication, which had prevented them from taking the Krishna from me completely, but they easily could have confiscated my ship and everything in it.

“That’s true. It would almost be less surprising if you’d wandered here from an entirely different universe. How did you end up in this star system anyway?”

“Seems like there was an accident while I was mid-hyperdrive,” I began. “I don’t remember much about the accident itself aside from being confused along the way. I was sitting there panicking when the space pirates attacked, but I managed to deal with them and harvest their cargo and data caches. Analyzing the data brought me to this station. Fortunately, I can at least remember my name and my status as a mercenary.”

I told her about myself, mixing in a few careful lies. I’d concocted the “accident” backstory while talking to the Port Authority worker. It wasn’t airtight, but it was tough to prove wrong.

“So your memories are unclear?” Serena asked. “I hope you understand that you’re under suspicion of being a spy from the Belbellum Federation.”

“That doesn’t really add up. If I was part of this…Billbelly Federation?”

“Belbellum.”

“Yeah, that. If I was a spy from the Belbellum Federation, would I brazenly carry around unsourced Rare Metal, pilot an unidentified craft, and try to park right at the front door of this colony? And claim I was an unidentified, self-styled mercenary on top of all that? I stand out pretty badly here. If I was in charge of a spy like that, I’d clock him as soon as he proposed such a ‘brilliant’ plan.”

“Well, what a coincidence. I would do the same.” The military woman giggled. She was adorable when she laughed like that, though her scary first impression still had me keeping my distance. “Very well. I will notify the police station about you. Be sure to pick up your bounty and hand over the data caches, okay?”

“You have my thanks.” I earnestly bowed my head in gratitude. She smiled, satisfied, and turned to leave…except before doing so, she faced me again.

“You’re an interesting one. We will formulate a battle plan based on your data. I trust you’ll join us?” She didn’t wait for an answer before smiling and leaving. It might not have been as terrifying a smile as before, but it still reeked of danger. Exterminating space pirates should be a cushy job, but I couldn’t quite relax knowing she’d be around.

Eventually, the Port Authority worker returned and released me from the questioning room. My stomach growled almost immediately. “Now, in exchange for your Rare Metal, we will pay you 2,500,000 Ener,” the Port Authority worker said. “Is that acceptable?”

“Sure.” I opened a small terminal, something like a smartphone, and found 2,500,000 Ener deposited into my account. I’d discovered this terminal in the living space storage area behind the Krishna’s cockpit and recognized it instantly. It was one of the most common tools in the galaxy. With one of these babies, you could take care of communications, navigation, funds, and other tasks right in the palm of your hand. I’d found some other helpful things in the living space storage area, but all I carried now was my terminal and a laser gun for self-defense. Naturally, they’d confiscated the laser gun when they dragged me in for questioning, but I would definitely take it back when I left.

“Need anything else? If not, I’m off to the police HQ so I can get this bounty and take a nice nap. Cool?” I said.

“No, that is all. Thank you for your time,” the Port Authority worker said.

“Right. Well, later.” There wasn’t much use in getting mad about the whole debacle at this point. I left the Port Authority behind and headed right for the police station. Lieutenant Serena had already told them about me, so I got through my business there quickly and painlessly. Along with the 19,000 Ener I’d harvested from the space pirates, I received a prompt payment of 150,000 Ener for the information about their whereabouts. Now, my total funds were 2,669,000 Ener. Nice!

I got to ask the police about commodity prices around the colony. Basic meals were about five Ener, going up to ten to fifteen if you wanted to get fancy. A liter of clean drinking water would cost you three Ener; anchorage fees for spaceships were 150 Ener for twenty-four hours. I guess you could say one Ener was roughly equivalent to one hundred yen or so, which meant that water was pretty pricey. Same with the anchorage fees; 15,000 yen a day was rough. But such were the costs of being in a colony. Air was included in those prices. Both the air and the water was valuable around here. Really, when I thought about it, it was a pretty honest price given how precious resources like those were for a colony.

Hmm. Assuming I slept in my ship, a day’s stay at this colony would mean three meals for fifteen Ener, four liters of water for twelve Ener, and anchoring for 150 Ener, for a total of 177 Ener.

Nice! I can stay here for forty years, though I imagine I’ll run into more problems if I stay for that long. Maybe I should find a more permanent place to live. Regardless, as long as I didn’t blow all my money on dumb stuff, I had enough to live on without too much stress for a while. Even faced with a huge, unknown universe, knowing I had enough cash to get by was a huge relief. I’d slipped past pirates and government officials alike, and I made a good chunk of change in the process. I returned to my ship with light steps and high spirits.

 

***

 

I spent the next few days just gathering information by connecting to the trading colony’s network. I didn’t do anything illegal, of course; all of my intelligence-gathering was above board. I simply requested access to the Port Authority’s network in order to view their information databases and their network administrator granted me access rights.

I started by compiling information on neighboring star systems and the space empires that controlled them. It would help with parsing the big picture here. It turned out I was in the Tarmein System, made up of four planets that revolved around a B-type star called Tarmein.

Tarmein sat close to the star, making it extremely hot and mostly useless. The next closest was Tarmein II, a gas planet made up of deuterium and helium-3, both of which were being mined to be used as energy sources.

An asteroid belt surrounded these first two planets. The asteroids within were being mined for their ample supplies of Rare Metal and other valuable ores. Two other planets existed outside of the asteroid cluster, aptly named Tarmein III and Tarmein IV. Not much creativity going on here.

Tarmein III’s poisonous air and acid rain made the whole planet toxic. Yet both the air and acid rain were valuable substances in their own rights, and even the surface and underground contained useful metals. Prison-slash-mining stations where criminals did hard labor hovered in the planet’s orbit.

Like Tarmein II, Tarmein IV was a gas planet. But this one was a long, long way from the trading colony, which meant it went largely ignored. Tarmein II was closer to the asteroid belt, so mining there was more convenient.

This whole star system was just brimming with resources. Merchants and mining ships of all sizes flew in to get a piece of the action, leaving space pirates with plenty of juicy marks. And that meant mercenaries had just as many juicy marks. There was one more thing that made working as a mercenary such a lucrative prospect here, but first I need to tell you about the space empire running the place.

The Grakkan Empire controlled the Tarmein System. The emperor and aristocracy had ultimate power over the region. In the past few years, their already poor relationship with the neighboring Belbellum Federation had deteriorated further, resulting in ceaseless skirmishes along their space borders. As for what made mercenary work here so profitable, the Tarmein System was extremely close to the border between the Grakkan Empire and the Belbellum Alliance. In fact, it essentially was the border.

“Staying in this space is gonna get me caught up in trouble, for sure.” No doubt about it. It was a fantastic way to make money as a merc, but as of now I’d be leaping into a battle I didn’t know much about. Participating in these skirmishes would mean that I was fighting against the official fleet of a space empire, a totally different beast from dealing with space pirates and their shoddy ships.

“Maybe I should go for a different star system then? Eh, still…” Serena definitely had her eyes on me after that questioning. Nobody made direct contact with me, but whenever I looked around outside my ship, military men were surveying it. If I left this star system in a hurry, they’d be hot on my trail. Better to let things settle down and do some mercenary work in the meantime.

“But…” I mumbled, surveying the Galaxy Map. Though I tried inputting a few star system names that I remembered from Stella Online, none of my searches yielded any results. I tried looking up a few other things. It turned out ship makers, abilities of ships in circulation, equipment, and items from Stella Online were all the same here. A lot my knowledge from the game still held true. However, there were also many ships and items that I didn’t recognize at all.

The biggest problem, though, was each faction’s strength. The Grakkan Empire that controlled this star system was massive. But I had no memory of a huge empire like that in the game, at least not in the places players had uncovered.

Players still hadn’t reached the center the explorable areas of Stella Online’s vast galaxy. It was certainly possible that a big space empire like this one was still undiscovered on the other side of the galaxy. But then, shouldn’t it be strange that I recognized ship makers from this area?

“Hmm. Is it even the same universe?” At this point, I couldn’t guess how useful my advantages—my beloved Krishna and my knowledge—would be. My knowledge could be biased, and that could lead to a fatal misstep. It would be smart to question what I truly knew, to wonder if my knowledge really matched this universe, and to make a habit of reconsidering all of it.

“I’d better stock up on food soon, too.” Over the past few days, I’d nearly exhausted all of the food in my cargo. Some of it reminded me of granola bars or jerky, but there was also canned food and cartridges for the automatic cookers.

Food cartridges were essentially processed algae cultures, while automatic cookers…well, put simply, they were like 3D printers but for food. They made meat and seafood so realistic that you’d never believe it was all just algae. They weren’t tasty, but they were edible. Some true sci-fi gadgetry.

The resulting garbage and my excretions were put through a recycling process on the Krishna, where they were compressed into blocks and delivered to the colonies. Apparently, the waste handling fee was included in the anchorage fee. I didn’t recognize the system at all; when a guy came to pick it up for me, I had to ask him about it. He scrunched up his face as if to say, You seriously don’t know how to take a crap?

Sorry, guy. Stella Online didn’t teach me about this one.

After that, I used the info network to look up other commonsense things I might not know about. It looked like I’d be mostly fine, though there was still a chance of running into some sort of embarrassing trouble in this world.

The Krishna itself was surprisingly livable. It was a small craft with a maximum occupancy of five; one room housed one person, and two rooms housed two each. It also came with a shower, laundry room, kitchen, and infirmary. The ship might have fooled someone from the outside, thanks to my renovations, but the Krishna was built for military use. Military duty meant being stuck on board for months or potentially years at a time while fighting for your life. Traveling the vastness of space was not a speedy prospect, after all. Clearly, the Krishna was constructed with all that in mind.

Unfortunately, the ship couldn’t replenish my groceries. For that, I’d have to go down to the colony myself. I dressed as presentably as I could manage and left the ship, small terminal and laser gun in hand. I decided to walk around with the laser gun visible in its holster as a warning for people to stay away, the same way a prey animal will flash bright colors to ward off predators.

I had no idea if the gun even worked, as I had yet to test-fire it, but I had read the manual so I knew how to operate it. Theoretically, anyway. Maintenance was still a mystery to me. There was no manual for that part. I’d have to take it to a shop if I wanted that information.

Stella Online included a face-to-face combat mode, where pilots used laser guns and rifles to fight each other outside of ships. I won this gun for ranking first in a shooting tournament. The design was pretty cool, and it came with some interesting features, so I’d hung on to the thing.

Pilots could also fight each other using power armor suits and tank modes. I had a suit of power armor right in my cargo. It was high quality but perhaps overkill for a grocery run, so I left it behind.

“All right. Let’s go, then.” I had never lost face-to-face combat in Stella Online, but using past experience wouldn’t necessarily go well in this universe. Can’t go pushing my luck.