I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary - Chapter 533

Chapter 533: 「Understood, Leave It to Me When The Time Comes」

「Starting self-check process. Life support system, all good. Generator, weapons, maneuvering wings, shields—probably, all good!」

「Big Brother... could you trust our work a little more? We did all the checks properly ...I get where you’re coming from, though!」

A mix of protest and agreement from Wiska came through over the comms.

Well, I can’t help it...The generator’s total output is reaching numbers that are incomparable to before, the onboard weapons are almost entirely different from what we had before, and there are even systems installed that I don’t fully understand what operational principles they operate on. As for the Maneuvering Light Wings, they’ve literally sprung up from nothing. They are also saying that the shield generator has some obvious changes. It seems the shields have some kind of new feature—probably Krishna has implemented the deflective shield that once repelled laser cannon attacks. But we haven’t gotten around to investigating that yet.

「Sorry, it just slipped out. I mean, Krishna’s probably evolved in response to my requests, so it’d be pretty unfair for me to complain now.」

If Krishna has a mind of its own, it might sulk if I complain too much. I guess it’s about time I accept Krishna’s evolution and get accustomed to it.

「Radar and other observational and communication devices are all good!」

「Subsystems are fine too, my Lord. Shield cells, emergency cooling system, chaff, flares—everything’s working perfectly.」

「We don’t even need to allocate output anymore, huh...」

「Haha... Right?」

Typically, a spacecraft used in battle was designed to adjust generator output on the fly, directing power to offense, defense, or mobility as needed. But now that the once-enigmatic psionic generator was running at full power, we no longer had to make those adjustments. The generator outputted enough energy to supply the maximum power to all systems constantly. Well, Krishna always had a surplus of power to begin with, so it’s not like we had to frequently adjust the output distribution all that much.

「Master, hatch opening confirmed. Electromagnetic catapult fully charged. Ready for launch at any time.」

「Okay, we’re all set here too. Launch us.」

「Understood, Master. Launching Krishna.」

With Mei’s signal, the electromagnetic catapult accelerated Krishna at high speed, and intense G-forces should have hit us—but they didn’t. I felt no G-forces at all, which was unnaturally strange. Krishna’s inertial control capability was always good, probably one of the best of its class, but this level was something else entirely.

「Inertial control has improved too... Well, that makes sense. I didn’t feel any strain during those crazy maneuvers.」

「It feels unnerving, to be honest... like it’s not real somehow.」

「It’s like being in a simulator.」

「Exactly.」

「Much appreciated!」

Did I say it wouldn’t get too messy? Yeah, that was a lie.

At first, it was going well. Sure, I was surprised when only the upper half of a kaiju-like creature made of some kind of purple mist and larger than expected emerged, but the fleet soon took care of it with a volley from the Soul Crusher.

The real trouble started after that. That initial purple, misty kaiju was just the beginning. After it, a horde of medium-sized, squid-like energy lifeforms appeared, followed by the usual crystal lifeforms, gigantic star jellyfish, photon-based lifeforms—you name it, they just kept coming.

We managed to stay on standby up to the third wave, but from the fourth wave onward, Krishna had to jump in, fighting off small to medium-sized space monsters. Even the Black Lotus, which initially planned to stay out of the combat, had to engage, particularly against the crystal lifeforms and other space monsters that had physical bodies. Elma’s Antlion also launched, using its laser beam emitters to incinerate crystal lifeforms and space creatures that looked like masses of flesh.

「Elma, deploy the jammer when enemies appear.」

「Cooling’s unable to keep up, so I can’t keep it active for long, you know?」

「Just cutting them off at the start will be enough.」

It might sound surprising, but Antlion’s Gravity Jammer was proving exceptionally effective. It didn’t work on every enemy, but many of the space monsters seemed to rely on gravity-based propulsion. When hit by the Gravity Jammer’s interference, a significant number of them slowed down noticeably.

「Do you think the Empire is aware of this effect?」

「Probably not. There wouldn’t be much reason to use a Gravity Jammer against space monsters.」

「Maybe we should report this to them through Selena when we get back...」

While having this conversation with Elma, who was piloting the Antlion on standby as an escort for the Black Lotus, which was shielded by the Holy Empire fleet, we headed toward the area where the eleventh wave was emerging.

The main forces of the Holy Empire fleet were busy dealing with the remnants of the ninth wave and the newly arrived tenth wave, so the eleventh wave was left to a high-mobility fleet composed of smaller ships like corvettes and destroyers, referred to as Type-A escort ships by the Holy Empire. Krishna joined this fleet as well.

「Spatial tremor pattern analysis complete—it’s crystal lifeforms!」

「If it’s crystal lifeforms, the Black Lotus’s EML will be effective. If any large types appear, we’ll have them fire, so make sure no one enters Black Lotus’s line of fire.」

「「「Roger that.」」」

The void distorted, a hole formed, and countless crystal lifeforms warped in from it. They’re ideal targets. Time to let loose and give them a proper thrashing.