Episode 11: To a New Life

A space station straight out of a sci-fi flick. I wonder if humanity will ever actually build one of these?

Deep within the bowels of the station sat a chamber Taro had unceremoniously dubbed "the high school gym." It was a cavernous room, currently occupied by a man and a woman dwarfed by literal mountains of accumulated junk.

"Hey, Teiro. I want to pop this part off. Can you do your thing?"

Marl poked her head out from behind a pile of scrap. Taro looked up from the children’s picture book he’d been leafing through, sighed, and activated BISHOP as he strolled over to her.

"Encryption again? Sigh. Yeah, yeah, I’m on it. Just stop making that terrifying face at me. By the way, quick question: why the hell is everything encrypted just to join two ship parts together?"

Taro watched as multiple Cipher Functions flickered into existence within BISHOP Space. He began cracking them with practiced ease.

"What do you mean 'why'? It’s for safety. If a part shook loose while you were piloting, it’d be a total catastrophe."

"No, I get that part. I’m saying the fact that you can disassemble hardware through software in the first place is the weird part. Isn't that, like, a massive design flaw?"

"Is it? I think some military battleships are built differently, but for the rest of us, isn't ease of maintenance more important? If they were physically fused together, it’d be an absolute ordeal to swap them out. But with BISHOP, it’s over in a flash."

"Hmm... I guess the Rockboy did look brand new in like two seconds. So it’s basically just 'swap the parts and call it a day'?"

"Exactly. You fix the broken junk whenever you have time, and once it’s good as new, it goes into the spares. In space, even a minor hiccup can be a death sentence, so most ships carry a hoard of spare parts."

"Gotcha... And boom! Done."

Taro snapped his fingers. With a heavy clunk, the ship component in front of Marl detached, exposing its complex internal guts.

"Your BISHOP is such a cheat code... or maybe it’s just your brain. A professional Unlocking Specialist would’ve billed me for three days of work to do that. Honestly, have you considered a career in grand larceny?"

"Heh. I’ve already decided the only thing I’m ever gonna steal is a lady’s heart."

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up, you virgin."

"Wha—! Wha-wha-wha-wha-not a virgin!!"

"I—no, wait, I was joking! Look! This circuit is still alive!"

Marl yanked a fist-sized chip out of the guts of the machine and held it up to the light like a prize-winning gem.

"This is a Drive Auxiliary Device for a large freighter. It’s worth a fortune! Looks like I’ll actually be able to pay your salary this week after all."

Marl beamed at the chip. Her enthusiasm was infectious; Taro couldn't help but grin back.

"Oh, nice! That’s a relief. But man, being a Salvager is a grind. If I had to do this kind of tedious manual labor every day, I’d throw in the towel in five minutes."

It had been about two weeks since Taro had started crash-padding at Marl’s workshop. When he’d first heard she was in the "ship salvage" business, his heart had skipped a beat at the thought of grand adventures. Contrary to those expectations, the reality was mostly just... this. Mind-numbing dismantling work.

"Well, obviously. Scrapped ship allocations are strictly regulated, so it’s not like we can just fly out into the black whenever we want. It’s a gamble, anyway. Most of the time you find nothing, and the big juicy ships all get snatched up by the Corporations."

"The Corps? Who’s that?"

[THEY ARE CORPORATIONS, MR. TEIRO. IT SIMPLY MEANS 'COMPANIES.']

The two spun around at the sound of the voice coming from behind a stack of rusted iron. A moment later, Koume scrambled over the junk pile and came into view.

"Good work, Koume. How are things on your end?"

Perched atop the mountain of scrap, Koume’s lamp flickered.

[IT IS PROCEEDING SMOOTHLY, MISS MARL. I HAVE COMPLETED THE INVENTORY FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE SELLABLE ASSETS. MR. TEIRO, I MUST CONFIRM ONE MORE TIME: ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU DO NOT WISH TO SELL THE SHIP’S CORE?]

"You bet. Just selling the rest of the junk is gonna net a decent chunk of change, right?"

[THAT DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF 'DECENT,' MR. TEIRO. AS IT STANDS, THE AMOUNT WILL LIKELY BE SUFFICIENT FOR YOU TO LIVE A LIFE OF LEISURE UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE.]

"...Huh? Wait. Seriously? It’s that much?"

Ignoring Taro’s slack-jawed expression, Koume displayed the specific figures. Taro had been treating that ship like a piece of oversized industrial waste, but seeing the total converted into "number of lunches he could buy" sent him into a state of pure shock. Marl let out a long, weary sigh.

"You really are something... Let me ask you this: did you think every family in the ancient world was so rich they just happened to own their own cruiser-sized vessel?"

Taro paused. When she put it like that, it actually made sense. The local economy was so alien to him that he’d struggled to grasp the scale, but he supposed it was like a billionaire owning a mega-yacht for weekend cruises.

"Holy crap. Without even realizing it, I’ve achieved the dream of being rich enough to slap people with bundles of cash!?"

"Go ahead... I won't stop you from having weird hobbies, but if you try it on me, I’m hitting you back."

"That’s actually a reward in my book!"

"With a wrench."

"I am so sorry!"

Taro hit the floor in a lightning-fast dogeza. He wasn't entirely sure why he felt the need to prostrate himself, but it had been a pure, lizard-brain reflex.

[BY THE WAY, MR. TEIRO. WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO NOW THAT YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THESE FUNDS? DO YOU PLAN TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR DAYS AS A NON-PERFORMING LOAN TO SOCIETY? A PARASITE GNAWING ON THE SHINS OF YOUR METAPHORICAL PARENTS WITHOUT A SINGLE GOAL IN LIFE? KOUME WILL NOT STOP YOU, OF COURSE.]

"Can't you just call me a NEET and get it over with!? Also, you sound like you’re definitely trying to stop me!"

"She has a point, though. I’m curious too. Are you going to invest it?"

Taro scratched his head. "I mean, even if you ask me out of the blue like that..."

I don't even have enough knowledge of this world to have 'material desires.'

"Wait. There is one thing I want to do."

The two of them stared at him, intrigued. Taro rubbed his chin for a moment, then spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I want to find Earth. And for that, I’m gonna need a ship."

Marl’s jaw dropped. Koume remained uncharacteristically silent.

"And I want a big one. Like, 'stupidly huge' big."

---

"You said this was a 'Ship Market,' so I was picturing, I don't know, a massive trade show or something. Little Teiro-chan is feeling a teeny bit let down, you know?"

"The way you’re talking is starting to grate on my nerves... Look, you really should reconsider. A planet called 'Earth'... we don't even know if it actually exists."

They were currently strolling through the Ship Market’s exhibition hall. Holograms of vessels, ranging from shuttlecraft to behemoths, flickered all around them as they moved through the crowds of potential buyers.

"No, it’s there. I literally grew up there. I’m the living proof, so there's no mistake."

"That has to be a misunderstanding. The Galactic Empire has been around for at least five thousand years, and nobody has ever even confirmed its location."

"Yeah, but... wait, it’s in the legends, right?"

"Ugh, you’re talking about the 'Human Single-Planet Origin Theory.' That’s barely science; it’s basically a religion at this point."

Marl was being unusually persistent, clearly trying to talk him out of the purchase. Taro ignored her and kept his eyes peeled on the displays until one caught his eye. It was a massive vessel with a sleek, streamlined hull.

"Oh, now this is cool. And it’s huge. Hey, Professor Koume, what about this one?"

Taro looked down at the sphere on his belt. The lamp blinked.

[THAT IS THE DD-E559, THE THUNDERBOLT-CLASS. FINANCIALLY, IT IS WELL WITHIN YOUR MEANS, MR. TEIRO. HOWEVER, MAY I ASK WHAT YOU INTEND TO FIGHT WHILE COMMANDING A DESTROYER?]

Taro went quiet, thinking it over.

"Hey, Marl. Those WIND guys we fought? Are they everywhere?"

"Well," Marl started, "they’re pretty much distributed across the entire galaxy... but if you’re serious about hunting for a lost planet, you’re going to have to head into Outer Space. And out there, the enemy won't be the WIND. It’ll be humans."

"Humans? You mean like pirates?"

"Mmm, 'criminals' is a tricky word for it. Outer Space is beyond the Galactic Empire’s reach, so it’s a total lawless zone. Hard to call something a crime when there are no laws to break, right?"

"Wow. It really is a 'fist of the north star' situation out there... But I guess that makes sense. If Earth was in civilized space, someone would’ve found it ages ago."

Taro looked up, staring through the massive reinforced window at the end of the hall. Beyond the glass, in the airless void, an infinite number of stars twinkled with a dazzling, cold brilliance.

"...Well, a bigger search area just makes the hunt more exciting."

Taro knew this was a reckless gamble born of his own ignorance, but he didn't think he was going in with zero chance of winning. He had his memories of living on Earth, and the undeniable fact that he had somehow made it here.

And more importantly—

"Koume, when we get back, hop onto the Neural Network. Run a search for Earth-type planets. Can't be that many of them, right?"

[UNDERSTOOD. HOWEVER, I CANNOT AGREE WITH YOUR OPTIMISM, MR. TEIRO. WHILE 'EARTH-TYPE' LIKELY REFERS TO HABITABLE WORLDS, IN THIS GALAXY ALONE, THERE ARE—]

He had a very reliable ally by his side.