Chapter 217

So sorry for the wait. Seriously, my bad.

I think I’ve finally, finally managed to get back into the writing groove.

---

Etta was feeling fabulous.

She scanned the bridge of the Plum, taking in her companions’ anxious faces, and yet she couldn't stop smiling. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she figured it was just the sheer thrill of being useful to Taro and the gang.

"An opponent just like Etta... just like me... hehehe."

Etta giggled under her breath, her eyes glazed over as she stared into a technicolor world painted by electromagnetic waves. To her, walls were no longer physical obstacles—they were mere suggestions. She could see right through them, even spotting the crew on the Second Bridge far in the distance. A moment later, the view vanished as Koume slammed the ship into Anti-Radiation Mode—likely a desperate attempt to keep Etta’s own leaking radiation from frying the rest of the crew—but it didn't matter. There were a million ways to see the stars.

"I love hide-and-seek. And I’m very good at seeking."

Muttering to herself, Etta dove into the Plum’s terminal, her fingers dancing across the BISHOP interface with fluid grace. Her "Excellent Boss"—or so she’d decided to call him—Taro hadn't even asked for an explanation. The moment she requested access to the Electronic Equipment Center, he’d green-lit it without a second thought.

I haven't actually done anything to earn this much trust, Etta thought. And as the guy in charge of this ship, he really shouldn't be this reckless with his security clearances. Marl and Alan were always calling Taro a "soft-hearted pushover," and Etta was starting to realize they were 100% correct.

Still, she kind of liked that about him.

"Yes, hide-and-seek. But you've got it all wrong. I don't know who you are, but you’re playing the game incorrectly."

Etta’s mood reached a fever pitch of excitement as she addressed her invisible rival. She fired up the Plum’s High-performance Communication System, and the massive array of sensors gave her every scrap of data she hungered for.

"Wrong... all wrong..."

She plunged her consciousness into the depths of the ship’s systems. The communication array funneled the scan data from every single ship in the fleet directly into Etta’s brain. She processed the torrent, untangling the enemy’s scan waves and the flow of Communication Drive Particles like a bored cat unravelling a ball of yarn.

"You think you’re the one looking for us. But that’s not how this works."

Etta sifted through the whirlpool of complex, camouflaged data, distilled it into a series of simple tasks, and tossed it over to Taro. And, as always, he managed to shock her—the encrypted data was spat back out, fully decrypted, almost before she’d finished sending it.

"We aren't the ones hiding. That's just boring."

As a pure-blooded Sonarman, Etta raked through the processed info, her mind racing to derive that one single, golden coordinate. It was the same way she had survived life back at The Facility.

To an outside observer, the sheer volume of data she was crunching was enough to liquefy a human brain—a literal life-shaving effort. To Etta, it was just Tuesday. She didn't have Taro’s freakish Super-calculation Ability, but she could grasp abstractions, merge them, and spit out logical results with terrifying efficiency. That was how she’d won the cutthroat games back home.

"I'm 'it'."

Etta spotted a single set of coordinates amidst the digital storm and smirked. Her opponent was clever, hiding behind layers of sophisticated spoofing, but in Etta’s eyes, it was amateur hour. She had stepped over the corpses of a dozen people more talented than this. This rival wasn't even worth remembering. Based on the technique, she guessed it was someone who’d only lasted three, maybe four years at The Facility.

"A 3rd-year. Found you."

Etta’s distorted smile widened. "Found... you!" she chirped, her laughter echoing with childish glee.

At Coleman’s Facility, Etta had never lost.

Not once in twenty years.

---

"Look at them, desperately trying to find us. Hehe... how cute. And how naive."

Yotta, the Mercenaries' undisputed queen of scanning, could feel the enemy Sonarman flailing. The enemy’s scans were messy, scattered—useless for a weapons Lock-on and definitely not precise enough to calculate a Space Reservation for an Overdrive jump.

"You can't just spam waves like that, darling. You'll clutter the field and cause an information overflow. You need order."

Yotta’s voice was as sweet and patronizing as a preschool teacher talking to a child who’d just colored outside the lines.

She predicted every piece of info her opponent might have gleaned and layered her countermeasures ten deep. She didn't actually think her jamming could be broken, and she doubted the enemy was even seeing real data, but she was a perfectionist. After all, the way they’d dodged that earlier sniping suggested they weren't total idiots.

"Oh, for heaven’s sake. Look at that. They’re searching in a completely different sector now."

Yotta giggled as she watched the enemy Sonarman fire off another round of meaningless scans. It was the pathetic, frantic behavior of someone who’d lost their target and was now just guessing at shadows.

"The battle is going perfectly... Ufufu, I think we can call this one."

Yotta leaned back, finally satisfied with her electronic bullying, and glanced at the Tactical Screen. The Second Main Fleet was steamrolling the opposition. It was only a matter of time. They’d already vaporized one battleship and chewed through 30% of the enemy’s forces. The encirclement was ironclad.

"Poor Etta-oneesama. She won't even get a turn. I wonder if she’ll be mad at me later?"

This whole thing had been a joke from the start—a tiny guerrilla force trying to pick a fight with the Second Main Fleet? The power disparity was so vast that a reversal was literally impossible. Not once in the entire bloody history of the Galactic Empire had a 1-to-10 disadvantage ended in anything but a massacre.

"Still, I never expected the flagship to lead the charge."

Yotta stared at the icon on the Radar Screen representing the enemy flagship, still stubbornly fighting on the front lines. She looked up, and her Adjutant nodded frantically.

"Y-yes! According to the solutions from the Formula, it was considered a statistical possibility, but..."

The Adjutant trailed off, mumbling. Yotta felt a prickle of annoyance at the mention of "The Formula"—it had been suspiciously off-base lately—but she decided to let it slide. Everything was going too well to be grumpy.

Sure, they’d expected some sabotage, but the Representative Director showing up in person was a gift. The Mercenaries had been terrified of a long, drawn-out guerrilla war in outer space; this was much more efficient. You cut off the head, and the body dies. Unless the leader has some insane, god-like charisma, organizations always fold once the boss is gone. And according to her Intel, Taro was no god.

"Whoa! A direct hit! Who fired that? I’m giving that crew a massive bonus!"

Yotta practically bounced out of her chair. On the screen, the words [DIRECT HIT] flashed right over the enemy flagship. A moment later, the status changed to the words she’d been dreaming of. No escape pods, no survivors—just a sudden, catastrophic secondary explosion that deleted the ship from existence.

"The enemy flagship, Battleship Plum, has been SUNK! Ahahaha! Oh, this feels good! This is the best!"

Giddy with excitement, Yotta grabbed her Adjutant and kissed them squarely on the lips. The Adjutant froze in shock before melting into a submissive heap.

"Look at them! That is the fate of losers! The end of fools who think they can challenge true power! The weak obey the strong—it’s the law of the universe! And anyone who forgets it ends up as space dust!"

Yotta gestured grandly at the Radar Screen, which showed the enemy fleet in a state of total collapse. The Adjutant stared with hollow, dazed eyes, nodding along before blinking as if waking from a dream.

"Yes... Um, Miss Yotta? We’ve had an incoming transmission from Admiral Sod for a while now—"

"Ignore him! I’m having a moment! Don’t ruin the vibe!"

Yotta snapped, cutting the Adjutant off. The subordinate looked worried for a split second before reverting to the expression of a loyal, tail-wagging dog.

"He’s probably just calling to accept a surrender, but I’m not interested. It’s a shame, really, but they all have to die here."

Yotta gave the Adjutant a look that said, You get it, right? The Adjutant squeaked out a "Yes" with an ecstatic flush, watching as Yotta’s hand wandered inside their blouse.

[EMERGENCY INCOMING CALL: FLEET HEADQUARTERS, ADMIRAL SOD]

The red BISHOP text flashed across Yotta’s mental vision. She yanked her hand back and kicked a nearby auxiliary screen with a scream of rage.

"SHUT UP! What is it now?!"

She was livid. The battlefield was hers. There were no variables left. The last enemy ship was being picked apart as they spoke. She didn't want a report; she wanted a standing ovation.

"That old fossil... if this is about paperwork, I’m having him fired by next month!"

Growling, Yotta finally slapped the connection open.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MISS YOTTA?! HAVE YOU GONE BLIND?! LOOK AT YOUR RADAR!"

Sod’s roar was so loud it tripped the bridge’s automatic volume suppressors. Yotta flinched, her own temper flaring as she prepared to scream right back. But then—

"EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! THERE IS A LARGE-SCALE WARHEAD CLOSING ON YOUR POSITION! IT’S THAT KINETIC WEAPON!"

Yotta blinked, her brain stalling. She glanced at the Radar Screen and sighed. There was nothing. No missiles, no projectiles. Even with stealth tech, finding a physical object in her backyard was child's play for a Sonarman of her caliber.

The man was clearly senile. Yotta’s anger turned into pity.

"Stop being hysterical and finish the cleanup. We can't have survivors. A few escape pods got away, didn't they? Go hunt them down."

Yotta sounded exhausted. On the screen, Sod looked like he’d just seen a ghost.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! MISS YOTTA, THE ENEMY FLEET IS GONE! THEY OVERDROVE OUT OF THE SECTOR MINUTES AGO! GET OUT OF THERE! YOU’RE OUT OF TIME!"

Sod’s face was beet-red, veins bulging on his forehead as he leaned into the camera. Finally, a cold chill washed over Yotta. She focused every ounce of her consciousness into BISHOP.

"...What... what is this?"

She stared, paralyzed. Deep in her system’s kernel, a Timer Function she’d never seen before was counting down.

"Who... how did—"

The timer hit zero.

"Ah... ah..."

Yotta’s voice was a pathetic wheeze.

Suddenly, the ship’s real alarms began to scream. The bridge lighting turned a violent, bloody red. The "reality" her ship had been feeding her was stripped away, overwritten by a cold, hard truth. Her eyes darted to the Tactical Screen. The enemy fleet was gone. There was no wreckage.

Instead, there was a single, massive piece of debris hurtling toward her bridge at relativistic speeds.

"Onee-sama—"

In the microsecond before her consciousness was physically erased by a thermonuclear bloom, Yotta finally understood.

She hadn't been winning. She’d been lobotomized.