Episode 57

The meteoric rise of White Dingo was mostly thanks to Rin’s old man.

Back when he was still flexing his muscles as the President of Little Tokyo, Rin’s father had apparently turbo-charged Dingo’s growth by turning the corporation into a dumping ground for criminals and "at-risk youth." Looking back, the logic seemed a bit questionable, but maybe it was the best solution at the time. Rin had always intended to ask for the details one day, but actually questioning his terrifyingly strict father required a level of courage he hadn't quite mustered yet.

"Small-scale combat has broken out at several points within Alliance Territory. Reports say they’re still just skirmishes," a subordinate reported.

Rin snapped back to reality. "Thank you," he replied. He already knew the facts, but hey, manners cost nothing. Besides, having BISHOP analyze communication data was exactly where this subordinate excelled.

"Engine output halted. Reactor core at five percent... Rin-sama, are you sure about this?"

The voice was hesitant. It belonged to Hartmann, Rin’s trusted, long-time adjutant. Rin recalled the man being nearly sixty. He was always there, hovering like a stern shadow, taking care of Rin’s every need. Word was the man was a total softie for kids; he’d even bragged about changing Rin’s diapers back in the day. Looking at his massive, rugged frame and "I-eat-nails-for-breakfast" face, the mental image was hilarious.

"Who knows?" Rin mused. "But I’m choosing to believe in him."

The room’s lights had been killed. The Control Room was a cavern of gloom, illuminated only by the ghostly, flickering glow of the Radar Screens. On the display, ten green dots represented the fleet, while a single, unidentified yellow dot lurked nearby.

"Go away... please just go away..." Rin whispered, hands clasped as if in prayer.

The yellow dot was crawling toward them. The radar’s magnification had already been dialed down to the minimum setting, meaning the enemy ship was essentially breathing down their necks.

"We don’t even have power diverted to the Shield Generation Device. If they sneeze in our direction, we’re cosmic dust," Hartmann pointed out.

"I know, Hartmann. But it’s not like we have a Plan B."

The Rin-Teiro Fleet was currently scraping the edge of Dingo’s territory on their way to the Alpha Star System to establish the new trade Route. The journey had been smooth sailing so far thanks to Taro’s towing service, but the universe wasn't about to let them off that easy. Now, a Dingo Patrol Combat Ship was practically rubbing hulls with them.

"Rin-sama... I can see the enemy ship with my bare eyes."

A radar officer by the window spoke in a terrified squeak. There was no sound in space, of course, but everyone in the room was acting like a single loud fart would give away their position.

"It’s really there... Does anyone recognize the model?"

At Rin’s query, his watchdog Hartmann raised a silent hand. He strode to the reinforced glass window and glared out with the piercing gaze of a hawk.

"An IF Corp Frigate Pawn. It seems Mr. Teiro’s hunch was on the money."

Rin let out a massive sigh of relief at Hartmann’s soft confirmation. Unlike the Barkhorn, the Frigate Pawn didn't have any windows. Taro had warned them via prior comms that the bogey in the distance was likely a Pawn.

"That’s Mr. Teiro for you!" Rin beamed. "And can you believe it, Hartmann? He’s pulling off this massive deception with just a single ship!"

Rin looked like a kid on Christmas. He peered out at the line of Consort Ships following them. The entire fleet, Barkhorn included, was sitting dead in the water, waiting for the patrol to get bored and leave.

"He’s cloaking every single one of us... It’s like he’s a dedicated Electronic Warfare Craft. How does he do it with a standard Cruiser?"

Rin tilted his head, stumped. He must have some insanely overpowered Stealth Device under the hood, he guessed.

"He’s incredible... just like the Hero Tiger. He shows up in a crisis, saves the day, and vanishes into the sunset... well, he hasn't saved it yet. But he will. I hope."

Rin gazed at the Plum II with hero-worshipping eyes, superimposing the image of the legendary Hero Tiger over Taro. The two men looked absolutely nothing alike, but they both had black hair. For Rin, that was a close enough match.

Meanwhile, in the Control Room of the Cruiser Plum II, Taro was busy regretting every single life choice that had led to this moment.

"This... is... hell... No room... to breathe... Tanaka-san... save me..."

A literal mountain of environmental data was screaming into Taro’s BISHOP interface. Every micro-fluctuation in the vacuum had to be calculated and neutralized in real-time to keep them invisible. He was basically doing the job of a high-end Stealth Device by manually overclocking a Scan Scrambler. He was currently juggling forty parallel tasks. Every single one was dedicated to catching the Scan Particles from the patrol ship and bouncing them back as if the fleet were just empty space.

"You won't die just because you stop talking for five minutes, Teiro. And who the hell is Tanaka-san? Seriously, are you going to pass out?"

Marl’s worried voice drifted through the pitch-black room. Since every spare watt of battery was being pumped into the Scan Scrambler, the interior of the Plum II was darker than a politician's soul.

"I... I can do it... Just five more minutes... I've got this..."

Talking was a massive drain on his focus, but Taro desperately needed the human connection. Without windows, the interior of the Plum was a void of absolute darkness—the kind that made you feel like the last man in the universe.

"Koume... what’s... the status... out there?" Taro wheezed.

Koume, who could link the ship's cameras directly to her optical nerves, didn't give a damn about the darkness.

"Everything is nominal, Mr. Teiro. The target shows no sign of awareness. If this were an ambush, they would be in a prime position to deliver a point-blank fatal blow, but the probability of that is low. They would almost certainly be destroyed in the exchange."

"True," Marl chimed in, shifting in her seat. "I’d be shocked if a guy with Dingo’s personality had subordinates loyal enough to sign up for a suicide mission."

Marl said "that personality" with a voice dripping with pure vitriol. Taro heard the rustle of her clothes in the dark and had the incredibly inappropriate thought that it sounded kind of sexy.

"Well... glad... it's just... one ship... That... tri-tri-thingy..."

"You are referring to Triangulation, Mr. Teiro," Koume clarified. "Indeed, if they were cross-referencing data with a second ship at a distance, we would have been compromised immediately."

"It is a Directional Scrambler, after all... Ugh, fine, I’ll help. Give me two of those tasks."

Marl sounded like a mix of impressed and annoyed. Taro saw the interrupt request pop up on his BISHOP.

"Bless you," he grunted, offloading the data.

Immediately, a [SPECIAL FUNCTION GROUP: CUTIE-PIE] appeared on Taro’s clinical BISHOP display. It started munching through two of the data blocks he’d been sweating over. It only reduced his workload by about five percent, but the mental relief was massive.

"Ugh, this is actually really tedious," Marl complained. "How the hell are you running forty of these at once?"

"I don't know... I just... fuhihi..."

"Stop that laugh. It’s genuinely creepy."

Thirty minutes had passed since they started the scramble. Marl had been helping for the last fifteen when Koume finally delivered the golden words.

"Target has cleared the designated area."

"HELL YES!" Taro yelled, instantly slashing his active tasks down to ten.

With the Rin-Teiro Fleet bunched up in a tight line, most of the ships were now "shadowed" behind the Plum and the Barkhorn. He only had to scramble for two ships now.

"We actually made it... though when you told us to kill the engines, I seriously thought you’d finally lost your marbles," Marl said.

"...I realized during the last scrap that Dingo’s ships were Infinite Factory Corp models," Taro explained, carefully avoiding eye contact even though it was dark. "They don’t have windows, so I figured as long as we fooled the sensors, we could hide in plain sight."

"Hmph. Look at you, actually studying. Is that why you’ve been locking yourself in your room every night?"

"Eh? Oh, uh, yeah. Exactly. Can't run a business if I'm a dummy... Anyway, glad it worked. Getting caught would’ve been a nightmare."

They had bumped into the patrol ship quite a distance from Dingo’s actual territory. Wiping out a single ship would have been easy, but it would have tipped Dingo off that someone was poking around. The longer they kept the Route a secret, the better.

"I concur, Mr. Teiro," Koume said. "Splitting the fleet for self-preservation would have been a tactical error. We would have been in a precarious position. However, since Dingo is patrolling this far out, we will need to recalibrate a portion of the Route."

Taro and Marl both nodded in grim agreement.

As they finally drifted out of the enemy’s scan range, the ship’s lights flickered back to life. The crew let out a collective cheer at the return of civilization’s glow, and the fleet began moving toward the new, recalculated coordinates. The detour took them through a region with an angry, hyperactive star, but it was better than a corporate firing squad.

"I think there’s a directional beacon in the military surplus pile... If we drop that here, calculating the solar interference should be a breeze," Taro muttered.

He was putting his new private military knowledge to work, albeit discreetly. He played it off as "independent study," and whenever he needed to drop some seriously deep tactical knowledge, he just pretended it was Koume’s idea. No one really praised him for it except Koume, but Taro was perfectly fine with that. He was satisfied.

"Wait... CRAP! I forgot to watch the [UNCENSORED NYAN-NYAN VIDEOS]!"

"Yes, yes, dear. After the war," Marl sighed.

In a tiny corner of the galaxy—a speck of dust not even a ten-thousandth the size of Imperial Territory—the Rin-Teiro Fleet crawled forward. They mapped debris belts and logged regions with low Drive Particle density.

Taro and Rin stayed in constant contact, cooperating, joking, and bonding over the long haul. Fueled by the shared idiocy of youth, they quickly became fast friends.

"I see it! It's the Alpha Star!"

Three months after they had first set out, they finally returned to the Alpha Star System. Every soul on the Plum glued their eyes to their monitors, while everyone on the Barkhorn scrambled for the windows.

The light of the star was blinding, a pure, brilliant radiance.

Taro thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.