“I see,” said Ehka after having been told what had happened after I met up with Wemer near New Earth. She didn’t seem too surprised to learn that I had earned the rank of cadet which made me believe that she expected such a turn of events. Therefore, I proceeded to tell her about what he told me, about me no longer working under her but with her.

  “I see,” she repeated nonchalantly.

  “So, were you aware?”

  All signs pointed that she knew what she was doing.

  “We’ve been told that we wouldn’t be able to stay in Rocksea at least.”

  “Was sending me deliberate?”

  “Would you believe me if I said no?”

  It took a moment to answer her. “I wouldn’t.” Wemer was pleased to have met “a local” from Rocksea. He was clearly looking for a pawn of his own to install. Ehka sent a suitable one, me, to him. It was too much of a convenience.

  “Wemer has his own agenda, and so do I,” she said, looking right into my eyes. “I am going to need your help.”

  “What kind?”

  When I asked that question, I wasn’t really expecting much. Honestly, I thought she’d ask me something of a favor. With dark clouds suddenly dominating her face, she asked me something I never expected. Really, I didn’t see that coming.

  “Help me escape, huh…,” I repeated to myself what she told me. She told me that she wasn’t willing to accept whatever rewards they had for them. She and Duke wanted to live on their own terms and wanted to flee after the job was done. She didn’t ask me much. All I would need to do is … simply turn blind eyes when she was doing her own things, and she’d be gone before I knew. It sounded easy enough that I had no reason to refuse. I would have excuses as well, probably. Anyway, it wasn’t important for me to keep my eyes on Ehka anyway. It wasn’t as if she was a fugitive or something. Besides, it wasn’t in my job description. She was the least of my worries.

  “I have bigger problems right now,” I said to myself in the captain’s lounge. I needed crew members. But before that…, I sent an email to the Copper wing about my arrival and their sparkling new ships, the robins. They quickly came over to drool over their new ships.

  “All yours,” I said casually to them in the docking bay of Cleo.

  “Holy Nebula,” Tylarr uttered. “Free of charge?”

  “Well, they ain’t mine to begin with.”

  “Don’t mind if I do~.” Whistling, he flew over to one and entered. Aktug and Vavaina looked very happy as well. Kalomoira was a bit of a different story because I asked her specifically to become a member of Cleo. Aktug saw what I was trying to do and sort of agreed that an indoor job fit her better due to her esper powers. While he didn’t like the loss of two members, her and me, being given the Robins outweighed the loss. As for Kalomoira, she accepted my suggestion after telling me that she never liked dogfighting anyway. So, I had a single crew member at the moment who was a bridge member. I needed someone to station in the Rad engine room. I didn’t have a big pool to begin with. The only people who came to my mind were the original members of the mining gig: Rabinovich and Juno, so I decided to give them a call because I was getting pretty desperate. The first one I called was Rabinovich, who was easy to reach after calling the Oreo station.

  “Hey, dude,” he said casually. “Good to see you.”

  “Hey, dude,” I replied casually as well. The man hadn’t changed or perhaps worse. He looked thin and had dark circles under his eyes. He must have been off drugs, booze, and women, though. I wondered what was making him look worse. “Got a moment to talk?”

  “Yeah.”

  I told him that I acquired a navy frigate and needed a crew. He made a confused face and looked at me funny.

  “I am pretty sure you skipped a lot in between,” he said to me. “You got a navy frigate?”

  “I assume you’ve been solo-mining?”

  He scratched the back of his head lazily. “Yeah…, I … I can’t take this anymore. This boredom…, it’s too much.”

  It looked like he had no idea what was going on in Rocksea. Well, nobody bothered miners, so he would have been left alone. I could easily imagine his routine. The boredom he was talking about was a real monster. As long as we lived in space, it wasn’t something we could ever get rid of because there was absolutely no ambient sound in space. There was something called “deepening silence”. It could drive anyone crazy upon long exposure.

  “I have good news for you then. If you are willing of course.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Work for me as an engineer in the frigate.”

  He had this confused look again. “What are you, a big shot now?”

  I shrugged. “I am not, but I have a frigate, a combat frigate. I cannot tell you over the comm. Come to the Duchess’ boobs and we can talk more.”

  Sighing, he rubbed his eyes gently. “Fine, you win. As long as I get the fuck out of this circle of doom, anything will be fine. I will be there ASAP. I am leaving right now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, thank you. Whatever you are up to, it should be better than watching rocks.”

  Once the communication with him was over, I had a decision to make. Having Rabinovich was a good thing, but it was just one person. I clearly needed more than just one. I decided not to bother with Yating, who had a blood connection with Kamen. Juno, however…

  “I need more people,” I convinced myself. “I can't be really picky right now.” Gulping, I made the call which was answered pretty quickly. And there she was, the muscular woman, Juno, was looking right at me with confused eyes.

  “You?”

  “Hello, been a while,” I said with a grin. It felt awkward instantly, but I swallowed and continued on. “How have you been?”

  “You must have a reason to have called me.” She sounded rather hostile.

  “Yes, I do. I just talked to Rabinovich, and he has joined me. What do you say?”

  “Join you? For what?”

  “I cannot tell you over the comm, but it will be worth your time. You will be more than a miner at least.”

  Was being a miner a bad thing? I didn’t think so. However, it was a boring job with no prospect for advancement. Additionally, where was my confidence coming from? I had no fucking clue. However, from a corner of my mind, I knew one thing for sure instinctively. It was that - mining was boring - and that Joy and entertainment were like hard drugs to miners. I was essentially offering them drugs for free, which they could hardly refuse.

  “God damn it…,” she cursed as she looked away. A tip of my lips curved into a smile. I could tell that she, too, was having the exact same problem Rabinovich was going through: boredom.

  “Juno, join me. Let’s have some fun.” I sounded like a badass and I liked it; I liked it very much.

  Attaboy.

  Huh?! I thought I heard a voice? Looking around inadvertently, I found no one nearby. Weird.

  “What kind of ‘fun’ are you talking about?!” Folding arms, she barked at me. She looked like an angry mother caught her son looking at porn. I had to chuckle.

  “The legit fun, woman,” I told her, resisting to laugh. “Rocksea is going to change, and you could be in the heat of it. What do you say?”

  I felt like I let out more than I should have. If anyone was eavesdropping the conversation, they could get something out of it. But whatever.

  “You are sounding like a criminal, right now. Do you realize that?”

  “Just give me an answer. Join me or go back to mining. I think that’s an easy decision to make.”

  She growled but eventually exhaled, looking down with her shoulders sagged.

  “I will join you,” she said, looking still down. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but I will join you.”

  Yeah, I get her point. She was always against violence and even vetoed our decision to become freight escorts. For her to accept her new role on her own was something more than just going against one’s codes.

  “See you soon.” I said in such a sleek voice that my own voice creeped me out a bit. Once the communication was over, I really grossed myself out of what I had just done. Whatever got into me, whatever made me do that…

  “Fucking hell,” I blurted. And what was that voice? It must have been an esper, but it was not Kalomoira’s voice. It was someone else’s… It was a female’s voice… Was there another esper around? Well, Yating was an esper if my memories were correct, but she couldn’t have been around here.

  “Well, whatever…”

  With the Copper wing having decided to make the frigate their home of operation, the ship felt no longer deserted. With Aktug wanting to recruit a few more members as well as wanting to get used to their new ships, they practiced daily. And, since Cleo was their base of operation, it was Kalomoira who became busy since she was in charge of checking people out and in. Meanwhile, Ehka recalled almost all badgers that were out and gathered them up at the station, forming a small defensive fleet to watch over. She also sent out a few of them as scouts to monitor the Hole. It didn’t take us long to find out that they were assembling a fleet of their own. What was rather shocking was that the Old Lady was being used as a flag ship for the fleet. This made sense since she was probably the only combat capable frigate they could get their hands on.

  “She might not survive…,” I whispered to myself in the captain’s lounge while looking at the scouts’ reports. It looked to be inevitable for Cleo and the Old Lady to clash. I cared greatly less about the old mining frigate ever since I received Cleo but still I didn’t want to see it go down in flames although there wasn’t a choice for me in this matter. My eyes moved down to the fleet compositions. They were reporting over thirty badgers and over ten robins. Given how mobile badgers were, it was highly likely that more badgers could be called upon on a short notice. Purely number wise, we were in a disadvantage. We had the combat frigate, four robins, and about twenty badgers total. In a straightforward battle, we were likely to lose although there was the unknown factor from Cleo. She was yet to be tested in an actual battle after all. The frigate had ten turrets.

  There were eight of them in front with half of them having only 50% coverage, meaning effectively it had four turrets unless they were firing a target right in front. It also had a pair of turrets on its rear to cover its blind spot because the eight front turrets could not reach any targets in its rear. Therefore, it had a total of ten turrets, and all ten could aim at the same target as long as it was in front of it. Additionally, the bridge-like structure on top was just for appearance because its bridge was deep within the ship. It was more of an observation deck for viewing. Kalomoira mentioned that it’d make a great cafeteria in peaceful times.

  “I do need a proper assessment for Cleo’s combat capabilities…”

  I did read up on various documents stored in her memory along with the rulebook of the Podlezl navy. Reading has been my way of killing time as of late. There was a lot to take in, but I was determined to become a permanent cadet. There were several things I learned from reading the documents. It was that a cadet had a wage of 9,000c per 60 days, which was rather low. I also learned that the rank of cadet wasn’t actually meant to be permanent. It was the rank of a trainee. However, under some special occasions, the rank of cadet was given to appoint a civilian into the navy on a very short notice. It was clear that my case was one of those. Would I get past the rank of cadet? It looked unlikely because I wasn’t recruited via the normal channel. I was essentially conscripted, therefore severely limiting my prospect of a proper advancement. But there were ways to go around. In the navy, actions spoke louder than words. In other words, actual achievements counted. As long as I did my job and helped them to conquer Rocksea, it was going to count, probably.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “We will see…”

  Wanting a change of scenery, I left the captain’s lounge and flew into the bridge to find Kalomoira busy chatting with the members of the Copper wing who were out there having fun with their new robins. Actually, there was no reason for me to believe that she was in fact chatting with them. I mean she was a mute after all but she was focused on the console in front of her and was pacing in and out. Her seemingly odd behavior was enough for me to believe that she was focusing on something else.

  “Do they like their new crafts?” I asked her, assuming that she was communicating with them.

  ‘They love it,’ she replied without turning her attention to me.

  “Just how better are they compared to badgers?”

  ‘Ship agility appears to be virtually identical, but its laser gun is so much more accurate.’

  The robin had a single gun, actually a turret. As far as I knew, the turret was a pulse laser gun, similar to that of a mining laser but tuned to inflict actual damage to objects. Because it was shooting light, it was obviously far faster than good old gunpowder-based projectiles. It didn’t reach the light speed but it got close.

  “Doesn’t a badger have like four gatling guns? A robin has just one turret. It can’t outpower a badger, can it?”

  A badger had two gimbal gatling guns on the front and the back. Really, on paper, it appeared that a badger had far more firepower.

  ‘What’s the point of having lots of guns if they don’t hit most of the time? You’ve been in dogfights a few times, haven’t you?’

  Indeed, I’ve had two dogfights so far, and the times I managed to hit my target was less than half of my fingers. At one point, I felt like I was doing something horribly wrong, only to be told later that it was normal with badgers.

  ‘Their weapons are actually hitting their intended target right now.’

  I kind of wanted to try it out to see how much better it was. Thankfully, there was an available robin in the docking bay.

  “I am going to check it out.”

  ‘Have fun.’

  With absolutely no one around while making my way down to the docking bay, it reminded me that Rabinovich and Juno had to be here. I wouldn’t survive a real battle with just one crew member. The members of the Copper wing were technically a part of the crew, but they were pilots. Perhaps, I should ask Ehka for some additional members. Anyway, this ship had four floors with the docking bay being an entire floor. There were no elevators. Instead, there were two hollow vertical passageways with four beams that reached from the top to the bottom. With zero gravity, it was faster to move around this way by using the beams as a guideline to go up and down. An elevator would only complicate things. A lone robin was sitting there when I reached the floor.

  “Okay, its controls are quite similar.” After fiddling around a bit, I found that it could support video communications. “Okay, so its internal spec is obviously superior.”

  ‘Make sure to turn the turret into a training mode so that it won’t actually fire the real beam.’ Kalomoira’s voice sounded in my head all of a sudden.

  “It can do that?” I blurted. “Well, it's a laser after all. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  When I piloted the ship outside, Aktug, Tylarr, and Vavaina were circling around each other like bees. I could see their turrets flashing occasionally, shooting their fake beams.

  “Mind if I join?” I asked them via a public channel.

  “Join in. Get a load of this bad girl,” Tylarr replied with glee. I would soon find out why he was so full of glee because I actually managed to score a few hits within a minute of joining in.

  “Three hits…,” I mumbled. The computer wouldn’t lie. It had no reason to lie. The very fact that I managed to score hits so soon comforted me that I didn’t suck balls. Then I face-palmed myself. “Then… why in the world?” I mean why stick with badgers? Granted, robins were more expensive, but the rise in efficiency felt like it was worth the money, not to mention no longer needing logistics for ammunition.

  “Badgers should be phased out,” I declared. The technologies were out there, yet we were refusing to utilize them. That was bullshit in my mind.

  “Aktug, you need to find an extra member for this robin ASAP.”

  I was talking about the one I was currently piloting. It was currently ownerless. Kalomoira was going to pilot it but she sort of retired from the front line.

  “I hear you loud and clear. I am probably going to need to ask Ehka. We are short on time. We don’t have time to vet strangers.”

  “The enemy outnumbers us. We need to come up with a way to fight them.”

  “Naturally, we are experienced in being outnumbered,” Tylarr joined in. Indeed, we were. The way Ehka arranged escorts meant that we were always outnumbered. Naturally, just like he said, most of the employees under her grew accustomed to disadvantaged battles. Was this a part of her plans? It could well be. The bottom line was that none of us was feeling any deep pressure on us being outnumbered. We were hardened against it for better or worse. After getting back to the frigate, I headed over to the cafeteria which was obviously void of anyone at the moment. It had five round tables with four locking spots for shoes each. It also had a kitchen, which made me realize that the ship may need a chef. Right now, we were consuming basic frozen powdered food, AKA dummy food, simply to simulate our intestines. We cook energy pills for the actual calories as well as other vital nutritions. This was when I realized that there was nothing to eat other than the dummy food. I would actually need to order a variety of foodstuffs to make this work. When I was on the Old Lady, I didn’t need to worry about any of this. The old ship just worked. Well, we had no expectations, either. Still …

  ‘Vazken, I’ve just been informed that a Lightwave worker class 1 is asking to dock.’

  A Lightwave worker class 1 was a mining barge, a fighter class ship for solo mining.

  “Man, it’s been days already?” I assumed that it was Rabinovich. If he really did leave right away, he wouldn’t have time to take a proper transport. He must have simply left with his own mining ship. “Let him dock. I am on my way.”

  ‘Okay.’

  When I reached the docking bay, I saw a heavily battered mining barge. It had clearly seen better days. Most of its paints were peeled off, and there were small dents everywhere. More importantly, there was a man who I was quite familiar with.

  “Dude, welcome,” I told him with my fist toward him for a fist bump.

  “I’ve got lots of questions,” he replied with a grin and accepting the fist bump. “But this ship…” He had a good look. “It looks state of the art.”

  “Come on. Let’s talk over the bridge.”

  Nodding, he followed me to the bridge during which he had further look at the interior.

  “Is the ship empty?”

  “Only a bridge crew member,” I replied.

  “Must have been desperate to have called me then.”

  He wasn’t wrong although I wasn’t going to admit it openly.

  “Juno is also on the way.”

  “She accepted? That’s surprising.”

  “Must have been bored to death like you.”

  “Or maybe…”

  I repeated, not wanting what he had to say because I had a pretty good guess on what. “Must have been bored like hell.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

  If I were to get a woman for myself, I prefer someone like Kalomoira. I wanted a proper woman that looked and behaved like one. She also favored skin-tight suits for some reason, revealing her nice body shape for all to see. Anyway…, upon reaching the bridge, I introduced both of them to each other.

  “This is Kalomoira, the only bridge crew at the moment. She is a mute but is a class C esper. She will speak directly to your mind.”

  “Errr, okay?” Not fully understanding what it meant to be spoken directly to one’s mind, he awkwardly tried handshaking. Then he startled, jumping up and down subtly. She must have spoken to him in his head.

  “Oh, wow, this is going to get some used-to,” he blurted.

  “Her telepathy is very useful. It cannot be detected by technology,” I said.

  “Oh, that is useful.” he agreed with a nod. He looked up and down on her quickly. “Nice,” he whispered. I couldn’t disagree. The woman did have a nice body. “What’s my role anyway?”

  “An engineer to attend the Rad room.”

  “I see. Just so you know, I was never actually formally educated in engineering. My know-how comes purely from my experiences.”

  “Nobody is properly educated in Rocksea anyway. I’ve never been to a school for example. I am sure you’ve graduated from some form of academic institution, no?”

  “Ha!” He chuckled. “I graduated from an art course.”

  Kalomoira and I looked at each other, looking dumbfounded.

  “You are an artist?” I blurted.

  “Schools are useless because life is never straightforward,” he said with a scoff. “It’s just better to learn as you live. As long as one’s not a complete fool, they can do it.”

  “Kalomoira, what was your major?”

  ‘Literature.’

  I was … really shocked. I went further and asked Ehka even. She apparently graduated from a police academy. She was the only one I knew whose major was directly connected to a career… and then she was kicked out of the Knights anyway and ended up in Rocksea. What Rabinovich said seemed correct; our lives were just too long to predict and restricting oneself to a certain major looked relatively meaningless. It made me feel less bad about not having been exposed to proper education.

  “So, here we are, the Rad room.”

  I introduced him to the Rad engine room, which could be seen as the liver of a spaceship. This was where all the electricity was generated. The egg-shaped object was the Radiation engine itself which would suck all nearby radiations in order to generate power. This had a nice side effect of protecting anyone within a certain radius from excessive radiations. The only issue was that the Rad engine had occasional leakage. There were other minor issues with the engine as well. It’d be down to the engineers who’d take care of issues whenever they arose. It could be maintained by a computer to a degree, but physical presence was often required.

  “Wow, I will be honest. Never seen a rad egg as big as this. Even the Old Lady’s was half the size.”

  “This is a navy combat frigate after all,” I said proudly. She had to have this big of a rad engine to power all those ten turrets probably.

  “Speaking of which, how in the world did you get this? Is this even legal?”

  A civilian having a navy frigate would of course not be legal.

  “Alright, it’s a bit of a long story, but we’ve got time.” And so I told him what went down. How I was getting used to being a bouncer, how I ended up joining the Copper wing, and how I ended up meeting with Kamen for more job opportunities. As I told him, I realized that it all came down to money. I froze for a brief moment, thinking back how it all started with desire for more money. Finally, I told him the bit about meeting Wemer, the leader of the Knights and becoming a cadet for the time being.

  “So…, if I am correct in my assessment, you are going to rule Rocksea?” He wondered aloud with his fingers on his chin.

  “I believe so as long as I can remain as a cadet. The government wants someone local to be in charge.”

  “And you are a local…” he trailed off. “Normally, I wouldn’t believe this, but you having this navy frigate is proof enough. Being authorized as its captain… means it was given to you. I have no choice but to believe your story.”

  Life was returning to his eyes rapidly as if he found renewed vigor within himself. He probably saw the benefits of working for me. I knew what was going through his mind. Money may not be what he ultimately wanted but perhaps a position which he could certainly get by working for me.

  “You will be more than a miner. It won’t be boring anymore,” I told him confidently. I was well aware of potential issues he might bring in the future. If he is unable to get a grip on his addiction issues, I would probably need to fire him, but that wouldn’t be my fault but his own. I’ve given him a chance. It was down to him to make it work. The same applied to myself as well. I was acting all high and mighty but I was no different than Rabinovich here. I, too, had to make it work by defeating Kamen and then bring Rocksea under control.

  “I will see you around, yeah?”

  He nodded. “I am going to get myself used to the machines. It will take me some time, mind you.”

  “There is an instruction manual in the database. Feel free to read it.”

  “Gotcha.”

  There were a lot of things in the ship’s database although some of them were restricted only to me. Such as the navy rulebook and the ship spec documents were restricted only for me to view. According to its spec and developer notes, I found out that this navy frigate … was designed to survive in hostile zones. In other words, it was designed to fight in disadvantaged battles. Cruisers, while being the main workhorse of any space fleet, were large. It had issues entering dense zones, like Rocksea. They must have wanted a smaller but capable space vessel for situations like this. Interestingly…

  “USN Stiletto is the codename. It was developed by United Sol,” I said with a crooked grin on my face. I was in my captain’s lounge. “The Poldezl republic didn’t develop this. How surprising.”

  I was always under an impression that the United Sol, short for the United Solar System Federation, was on its last legs. Yet, they developed this. I suppose they were not to be underestimated… Anyway, Juno arrived at the Duchess’ boobs two days later and she was equally amused at the turn of events. In fact, if it wasn’t for Rabinovich, she may have not believed me at all and may have simply returned. She was really hell bent on not believing me for some reasons. Regardless, with her joining, I had three internal crew members at last. It wasn’t ideal, but I met the bare requirement to operate the ship adequately. It was time to get some real world experience with the frigate and get acquainted with combat because I was sure that Kaman wasn’t going to wait for us. As a matter of fact …

  ‘Scouts have detected that Kamen’s fleet is moving out,’ said Kalomoira’s voice in my head. I was in my captain’s lounge at the moment, slacking off while casually reading documents in Cleo’s database. It was time for a full head on confrontation? I wasn’t sure. But they were moving, and so should we. Flying into the bridge, I barked out an order.

  “Yellow alert!”

  The members of the Copper wing were staying on the ship, thus they didn’t need to be notified. But other badgers needed to be.

  “Open a limited public channel notice. Tell them to gather at Cleo.”

  ‘To everyone?’

  “Yes, to all badgers.”

  ‘Rogers that.’

  Cracking my fingers, I took a deep breath.