The battle was on. My plan was simple: leave the small-scale ships to Lucia and focus my attention on the cruiser.
But reality had other ideas.
"...Targeting... unstable. Calibrating... point-zero-five..."
Lucia’s voice was edged with uncharacteristic panic.
Beams and lasers lanced out from various ports on the Sperm Whale’s hull, but the shots were wild, failing to find their marks. In the past, she would have coordinated the turrets with terrifying precision, weaving a curtain of fire through the smallest gaps in the enemy's formation. Now, it was a pathetic display—nothing more than warning shots that barely grazed the void around the enemy ships.
"Hey, what’s the deal? You’re wasting ammo."
"My apologies... Resource allocation to the Fire Control System has plummeted. I am experiencing... hesitation in tracking the targets."
"Hesitation? You?"
It was unthinkable for a high-function autonomous AI like Lucia to experience lag while processing a few dozen targets.
"...The cause is the newly implemented sensory processing driver. It is attempting to over-interpret incoming data."
"Explain."
"For instance, the thermal signature of an enemy missile. Previously, I processed it as two simple parameters: coordinates and thermal value. Now, however, I am automatically generating and linking thousands of sensory parameters to that heat source... things like 'hue,' 'radiant fluctuations,' and 'propagation velocity through the vacuum.'"
On the monitor, Lucia’s avatar furrowed her brows in distress.
"Calculating the trajectory of a single enemy craft now generates tens of thousands of times more data than before. Simple coordinates are being perceived as such high-resolution 'real images' that they are consuming my calculation memory. The data I should be processing with cold efficiency has become... too heavy."
"...Is it a bug?"
"No, it is a specification. To perceive the world with 'texture' requires an immense amount of processing power. Optimizing this unnecessary throughput... is impossible under current combat conditions."
You’ve got to be kidding me. To think the price for being able to enjoy "delicious" food was this kind of system load. The "richness" Lucia had gained had become a literal weight, dragging her down in the heat of battle.
"Uuuugh... it’s all over..." Emulgand moaned, slumping to the floor in despair.
"Calm down, Assistant. This ship’s shield output is on par with a fortress. We could take hundreds of hits and not budge before I finish shooting them down manually. We’ll just have to do this the slow way."
I tapped the console, preparing to pull manual control of the point-defense turrets back to my station. It was going to be a massive pain to intercept fire from all directions while maneuvering the ship alone, but I didn't have much choice.
Just then, a comm line from the engine room chirped open.
"Akito, I’ve confirmed Lucia’s status from down here," Mina’s voice crackled through the speakers.
"Mina! Sorry, but I’ve got my hands full!"
"I’m going to use the Bio-core. I’m patching it directly into the ship's sub-processor via a temporary cable right now."
"The pumpkin?! Is that safe?!"
"It’ll be fine. The little guy has been incredibly energetic since the Professor adjusted it. It has plenty of calculation resources to spare. Connecting now."
The console display flickered and transformed instantly.
—External calculation node... connected...
...Calculation... proxying...
The frantic flickering in Lucia’s eyes stabilized. The automatic Fire Control System, which had been spraying aimlessly, suddenly snapped back to the enemy signatures.
"...Calculation capacity restored. It is not at peak efficiency, but the accuracy has settled within acceptable parameters. The Bio-core has taken over the background processing for me."
The original, clinical tone returned to Lucia’s voice. It was still a bit unrefined, but it would do. It seemed the pumpkin wasn't just a freeloader after all; if it was willing to work for its rent instead of just parasitizing the shipboard LAN, I’d take it.
"Alright, time to hit back for real. First, let’s pin them down."
I flipped the safety off the bow main gun—the Ion Cannon. It was designed to induce total functional failure by overloading a ship's generators.
"Now, let’s see how this thing fares against a ship carrying an Interdictor. Time for a field test."
"Targeting enemy flagship... Lucia, let them have it."
"Acknowledged. Ion Cannon, firing."
A torrent of pale blue electromagnetism erupted from the bow. The release of such massive energy caused a low-pitched roar to vibrate through the ship, making the very frame creak. The high-output ion stream engulfed the cruiser at the center of the pirate fleet. The enemy’s shields undulated violently, and the brilliant glow of their thrusters began to flicker and dim.
"Enemy flagship, generator output failing."
"Hah, serves them right. Even regular army fleets don't carry Ion Cannons this powerful. They never saw it coming."
"Alright, let's peel them apart while they’re vulnerable!"
A crimson, large-caliber pulse laser lanced out from the Sperm Whale's lower bow. The plan was to saturate their weakened shields and neutralize them in a single burst.
But.
"—Enemy ship, emergency evasive maneuver!"
True to Lucia’s warning, the flagship twisted at an impossible angle. They must have had a sub-generator or a booster that directly combusted fuel for emergency thrust. The laser sliced through the void, grazing the shield at a shallow angle and dispersing into a mist of light particles.
"Damn, they’re better than I thought! Not just relying on their gear, then."
"Enemy continuing evasive action. They are persistent. Shield strength is holding at sixty percent."
On the monitor, the enemy ship skillfully ducked behind debris, using the reef as a shield to break my line of fire. They had the home-field advantage here. If this turned into a war of attrition, Emulgand’s heart might give out before the ship did.
"...No. I will not let you escape," Lucia whispered. "Future position prediction... correction complete. There."
Her fingers danced across the console. Several pulse lasers fired toward the enemy’s projected path, followed immediately by the Gauss Cannon. As if drawn by a magnet, the lasers caught the enemy ship and refused to let go.
A silent flash erupted in the dark.
Two of the escorting small-scale ships, unable to complete their maneuvers, vanished in a burst of light. With the escorts gone, the rest of our turrets focused entirely on the flagship.
I could almost hear the phantom sound of glass shattering as the shimmering film covering the enemy flagship splintered into nothingness.
"Enemy shields neutralized. They are exposed."
"Checkmate."
I flashed a grim smile and hammered the console. A ship without shields was just a steel coffin. The Sperm Whale was loaded with medium-caliber armor-piercing rounds specifically for trading blows with cruiser-class vessels. Strip the shields with energy weapons, then crush the hull with physical rounds—the ship's true combat style was finally back in play.
An absolute storm of lead rained down on the defenseless pirate fleet. Armor-piercing shells slammed into the flagship without mercy. Even the composite armor of a former military vessel couldn't withstand it; the hull groaned and buckled under the sheer kinetic energy of the impacts.
The armor finally gave way. Shockwaves tore through the breach, obliterating the internal generators. Red-black cracks raced across the hull before explosive flames erupted from the inside, tearing the massive vessel apart. After a heartbeat of silence, a silent fireball expanded across the monitor.
The flagship, the Interdictor, and the pirates all vanished into stardust.
"Combat concluded. Confirmed destruction of all enemy vessels," Lucia announced softly.
Silence returned to the bridge. I let out a long breath and began the cooling cycle for the main gun.
"Hmph. Burned through a bit of ammo, but we'll make it back in scrap," I muttered, sinking back into my seat. The interruption was over, and the path was clear. "Alright, Lucia. Deploy the recovery drones."
"Recovery? I thought we were in a hurry, Captain."
"It's not like we're on a strict timer. We might as well make some pocket change while we're making the detour."
I pointed to the debris field on the monitor—specifically the section where the Interdictor had been mounted.
"The rare metals in military-grade parts of that class are worth a fortune. Even as scrap, they'll fetch a high price. Plus, the remains of an Interdictor? That's valuable research material."
I glanced at the Professor. He simply shrugged.
"My expertise is in bioengineering; I have little use for mechanical junk. However... Varna would likely buy it for well above market value. That vixen has a notorious appetite for such oddities."
The Professor smirked and took another sip of his tea.
"Acknowledged. Sorting and recovering high-value resources," Lucia said.
The Sperm Whale’s cargo hatches opened, and a swarm of small mechanical drones buzzed out into the void.
"Am I... am I alive? I'm still alive...?"
Emulgand, still sprawled on the floor, timidly peeked over the edge of a console. I nearly burst out laughing at the sight of her. Her thick glasses were crooked, her hair was a disaster, and her face was as white as a sheet.
"You look like hell, Assistant."
"Eh...? A-Ah..." Her hands shook so much she couldn't even manage to push her glasses back up.
"...Lucia, get her some strong coffee. And get the Professor a refill."
"As you wish."
"Fascinating data," the Professor mused, looking entirely unbothered. "An ad-hoc connection between the Bio-core and the ship's systems... I could write an entire thesis on the results of that little experiment." He seemed far more interested in Mina’s quick thinking than the fact that we’d just turned a fleet into scrap.
"Alright. Let's get moving. Lucia, recalculate our heading."
"Yes, Captain. Recalculating... maintaining the linkage protocol with the Bio-core for optimal processing."
Lucia turned back to her station. She looked a little proud—or perhaps just relieved to have her systems under control again. As the drones returned with their spoils tucked into their frames, the Sperm Whale began to accelerate once more.
For a welcome to the Vol Ga Do sector, it had been a bit of a rough start. But at least the cargo hold was getting full.