Chapter 193

"Right... got it. I’ll handle things on this end based on what we just talked about."

Dingo cut the comms, exhaled a sigh heavy enough to sink a battleship, and flopped back into his seat. The intel Taro had dumped on him confirmed his worst fears. The situation wasn’t just bad; it was a total dumpster fire.

"Exactly as I thought. For once, I really wish I’d been the idiot."

He scratched his head like he was trying to dig for gold, then slammed his hands onto the table, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to force his brain into gear.

Dingo had first smelled a rat when Pirate Ships started blowing themselves up for no reason.

"If you want cash, you sell the ship, you morons. These guys have a goal, and they’ve clearly got some shadowy organization backing them. Use your damn heads for once!"

He’d barked that at a subordinate who’d dismissed the attackers as just a bunch of crazies. To Dingo, a pirate operating at a loss was an oxymoron—it was as impossible as a universe that refused to expand. In short, they didn't exist in the natural order of greed.

"I don't care what it takes, find them. I’m going to make them pay the tax for acting like they own my turf."

With that, he’d thrown everything into hunting down those unidentified ships. Usually, Dingo treated piracy as just another branch of the local economy and did the bare minimum to keep it in check. But that was for his pirates. Foreigners coming into his territory to exploit his resources? That was a declaration of war. He didn't mind if they exploited people in another territory, but they sure as hell weren't going to do it to his.

Within a record-breaking timeframe, he’d managed to scrub the "irregular" pirate presence almost entirely. In a place like Dingo Territory, where outsiders rarely dared to tread, spotting an anomaly was as easy as finding a neon sign in a coal mine.

The problem was, he still couldn't find the man behind the curtain.

Dingo had tried everything—boarding actions, surrender demands, polite requests to stop being annoying. Every single time, the ships ended up as a fireball. Even the salvage teams came up empty-handed. All they knew was that the ships ran on BISHOP, which meant a human had to be at the stick. An AI couldn't handle BISHOP for beans, and the maneuvers these ships pulled were far too complex for a computer anyway.

"What's the end game? What’s the point of all this?"

Dingo had spiraled through every possibility, from the logical to the utterly insane. He’d been about to toss the whole file into the "Too Weird to Handle" bin when Taro’s call had changed everything.

The EAP’s military buildup. Takasaki’s sudden defeat.

Taro’s intel turned his "utterly insane" theories into a grim reality. Dingo knew the EAP’s situation inside and out, and the pattern was starting to look disturbingly familiar.

And now, this latest tip from Taro.

"Well, that settles it. But I’m not letting these clowns dance on my grave."

Dingo peeled himself out of his seat. It was time to move. Whatever way the chips fell, he was going to make sure he was the one holding the house's winnings.

The Industrial District of the Roma Star System’s First Station was currently a fortress. The area surrounding the former Coleman Research Institute was locked down tighter than a drum by the Rising Sun’s Security Department. Heavily armed guards stood at the main building's entrance, looking like they were itching for someone to breathe in the wrong direction.

"Good work, boys. Have a snack."

Taro shoved a handful of candy—which he’d bought at the Commercial District and hated because it tasted like chalk—into the hands of the bewildered guards. Before they could even process the "gift," he and Koume had already vanished inside the facility. The halls were a hive of activity, researchers scurrying everywhere. Taro just waved them off with a "Don't mind me, keep working" as he marched toward the inner sanctum.

[PASSCODE CONFIRMED: ROOT AUTHORITY]

They bypassed a series of newly installed bulkheads and entered the high-security zone. This was Coleman’s old playground, now cluttered with enough analytical gear and cables to trip a giant. Taro cut through the mess with surgical precision, found his target, and told the nearby researchers to scram.

"Is this the one, Mr. Teiro?" Koume asked, staring at the device with her usual blank expression.

"Yeah," Taro grunted. He hovered his hand over the machine he knew better than his own pockets. I mean, technically I’ve never seen this physical unit before, but thanks to my 'Ghost Ship sense,' I could probably take it apart blindfolded.

[SECURITY RELEASE: PASSCODE... REJECTED]

[PASSCODE RE-SPECIFICATION: ARCHETYPE]

[SECURITY RELEASE: PASSCODE RECOGNIZED. ACCESS GRANTED.]

Taro dove into the system via BISHOP, shredding the security layers in seconds. Koume tilted her head, watching him work with a mix of curiosity and her standard "I am a robot" deadpan.

"Endor Corp, Type VIII Cold Sleep System," Taro recited, his voice taking on a lecture-hall drone. "Equipped with a Land Interface System and a TETF Method integrated core. It’s based on the Type V architecture, which makes it perfect for retrofitting an Override System. It was originally designed to overwrite memories by exploiting the brain-dead state during cryo-stasis, but that didn't exactly go as planned."

“……”

[SYSTEM FREEZE: ACCEPTED]

[HARDWARE RELEASE: ACCEPTED]

The Capsule section of the machine hissed and slid upward, revealing the guts of the base unit.

"The reason it failed was because it had a 'minor' flaw," Taro continued, reaching into the machinery. "Turns out, you can’t read activity regions very well from a brain that’s, you know, not active. Even though everyone has a 'language center,' the actual coordinates vary from person to person. They ended up with a lot of 'accidents'—like accidentally overwriting someone’s language center with visual data. Imagine trying to say 'hello' and seeing a picture of a cat instead. Messy stuff."

Taro grabbed one of the exposed circuit boards and yanked it out.

"That’s why they barely made any of these. The Type IX fixed the issues and hit the market. But they didn't just throw the Type VIII units away. Oh no. You don't just dump a convenient Override Device that bypasses brain rejection. Instead, they found a new niche for it—as a Brainwashing Device."

Taro squinted at the board. He’d never held this specific piece of hardware, yet he knew every trace and solder joint. It was that weird, phantom knowledge that had been rattling around his head since he woke up on that Ghost Ship.

"The secret sauce is a specific neuro-narcotic. I’d bet my ship that the stuff produced by the local Heating Equipment around here is the key ingredient. It lets you shove in basic pilot training and simple commands. Like, say, 'blow yourself up when X happens.' Easy as pie. Why anyone would want a bunch of suicidal puppets is a different question entirely."

Taro found the specific chip responsible for the drug-interface and popped it out. Analyzing the whole machine would be a weekend project, but just cracking this chip would be a breeze.

"Fun fact: the developer of this Type VIII was a guy named Dal Enfo Coleman. Sound familiar? He’s the guy who owned this place. I’m guessing it’s the same dude, though the fact that this tech is thousands of years old is a bit of a head-scratcher."

Taro handed the board to Koume and held up a finger, striking a teacher-like pose.

"Okay, pop quiz. Normal pirates run away when the big scary navy shows up. But if a swarm of crazy pirates who fight to the death suddenly appears, what does the military have to do?"

Koume didn't miss a beat. "Regardless of quality, they would be required to match the quantity. They would be forced into a massive expansion of their forces."

"Correct! Next question. What happens if the entire economy is geared for war, and then suddenly, all the pirates disappear for no reason at all?"

"...If the politicians are feeling nice, the budget gets slashed," Koume replied. "If not, the military has to find a new target to shoot at. A military that large cannot simply exist without a purpose; it would collapse under its own weight."

"And finally: have we seen this movie before?"

"The prolonged war in the old Enzio, followed by the declaration of war against the EAP. And, if I may add, the current state of the EAP follows this exact trajectory."

"Gold star for Koume!" Taro turned on his heel and headed for the exit. "According to Dingo, there was a massive spike in pirate activity right before the Alliances in Enzio started tearing each other’s throats out."

He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes cold.

"I don't know who’s pulling the strings, but someone is trying to build a Second Enzio."