Into the Darkness (3)

One day had passed since the Calvin entered sector I-97.

And in that one day, a great many things had happened to Milo Rusrak and the Rusrak Cartel under his command.

To be precise, a great many unfortunate things.

"Move, move! We need that defensive line up before the thing crosses into this section!"

In the stern of the Calvin, the remaining pirates were hard at work throwing up barricades. The mysterious monster that had boarded the ship had seized every zone in the forward section whole, which made this their last line of defense.

'Son of a bitch!'

One of his men had managed to catch the monster on camera before dying. When Milo saw the footage, he couldn't believe his own eyes.

The thing slaughtering his crew deck by deck was a monster that looked like a pink balloon.

Setting aside the fact that it was five meters long and had tentacles even bigger than its own body, it was unmistakably a Bubble Amoeba.

'Since when the hell does a Bubble Amoeba kill people?!'

As far as Milo knew, Bubble Amoebas were harmless herbivores that lived off plankton and similar scraps in the ocean. But this one was not harmless. It killed with some bizarre power, tearing men apart. And for all its sluggish appearance, it moved fast too — fast enough to snap up fleeing pirates with its tentacles one by one, as if mocking them, and rip them limb from limb.

Under any other circumstances, Milo might have found this strange Bubble Amoeba genuinely interesting. A balloon-creature that crushed people flat with tentacles and bisected them with psychic force was not exactly a common sight.

The problem was that because of that thing, half the pirates he'd boarded with were already dead.

At this rate they wouldn't just fail to capture it — the whole crew would end up as its dinner.

'Fuck it all. But it won't survive this either.'

Before Milo, his men were scrambling to set up heavy gun bags nearly the size of a grown man.

Its formal designation: APDT — Automatic Point Defense Turret. Standard Star Union equipment for security and local area defense. Because its hail of fire resembled a raging storm, the other species had nicknamed it the Stormgun.

It fired depleted uranium shells as its standard round, with a maximum capacity of a thousand rounds. Unless a user controlled it via a terminal, a compact AI ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠took over, firing automatically on the basis of its built-in motion sensors.

Depleted uranium shells were cheaper than Mega Corp tungsten rounds, but that didn't make them cheap. The ammunition counts were so high that every engagement burned through a nontrivial amount of credits. And it wasn't as if they were easy to acquire either — if you weren't Star Union, good luck getting your hands on them.

'Those robot-fucking bastards won't even sell ammo to other species.'

The Stormguns and ammunition the Rusrak Cartel held had all come from captured Star Union trade ships. Even then, their ammunition was finite, so they only broke the guns out against creatures with extremely tough armor, like Mountaincrawlers.

'Thank god the second armory was stocked, or we'd be dead already.'

The first armory in the bow of the ship had been wrecked in the monster's initial assault — every bomb and weapon inside lost with it. If they hadn't kept a second armory further aft on the off chance of something like this happening, all of them would have long since become monster chow.

"Captain! Stormgun installation complete!"

"Good. What about Team Beta?"

｢Stormguns in place! Returning to the ops room!｣

With the Stormguns activated, Milo fell back to the rear section alongside his men. While the engineers sealed and patched up the bulkhead doors in each zone, the rest of the crew repeated the work they'd been doing all along.

｢Captain?｣

"What?"

｢The ship AI says it has a report. Something about environmental fluctuations in the surrounding area.｣

"Busy right now. I'll check later."

After cutting the comm from the ops room, Milo hauled Stormguns into position with the rest. 'Fuck. The captain of the ship, doing grunt work like this.'

The mysterious monster had gutted his vessel, the Stormguns were about to burn through every credit he'd earned, and now he was busting his ass like a common deckhand on top of it all.

His head was so full of it that he forgot all about the report from the ops room.

With the bombs cleared away without a hitch, I began the Erosion at once.

While the process ran, I had asked No. 26 and Adhai to defend me against any pirate assaults. The role I'd assigned No. 26 was drawing the pirates' attention. Thanks to all her time with me, she'd become a fairly seasoned hunter — handling a few pirates should have been no trouble for her.

Of course, she could still end up in danger, so I sent the Tooth Fairies along with her. They were linked to my mind; if any threat No. 26 failed to notice appeared, I could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠warn her before it struck. She seemed pleased — not just about helping me, but about getting to move together with her beloved Tooth Fairies too.

Adhai, meanwhile, got the job of guarding me while I carried out the Erosion.

'She's at a disadvantage fighting indoors, after all.'

In open space, flying free, Adhai would hold an overwhelming advantage, but her body wasn't well suited to combat inside a ship's corridors. Cargo bays and other wide-open spaces were another matter. She'd seemed unhappy about being unable to join the hunt, but after I asked her — several times — to watch over me, her mood seemed to recover. Even now she was drifting slowly through the cargo bay, keeping watch for anyone who might come.

'All smooth so far.'

Four hours had passed since the Erosion began. One more hour, and the ship would be mine. I'd already taken not only the cargo holds on decks one and two but all of deck three. On deck four, the bow section had fallen into my grasp as well, leaving only the center and stern.

'Looks like they're digging in at the ops room over there.'

They were sealing off the zones around the ops room on the stern side of deck four. No. 26, meanwhile, was climbing the stairs toward deck four on a cluster of her fins.

'Hm.'

I'd removed every bomb and turned their armory into a wasteland, so I didn't expect a serious threat — but you never knew. 'I can deal with the leftovers myself.'

As long as they stayed passive over there, there was no reason to press them. Once the Erosion finished, every last one of them would die by my hand anyway.

I sent a pulse to No. 26.

[Zzzt (Hold on a moment)]

｢What's wrong, Big Baby?｣

[Zzzt zzzzzt (Time to come back now)]

｢You okay?｣

[Zzz (Yep)]

Having recalled No. 26 and the Tooth Fairies, I turned my focus back to the Erosion.

'It's been a while since things went this smoothly.'

Back in the space city, there had been hardly a moment to breathe. Ever since my leisurely attempt to fill the evolution conditions in the apartment complex got discovered, new enemies had come crashing in one after another.

'Thanks to that, I've gathered plenty of Genetic Essence.'

I'd picked up quite a few useful traits, but there was an unmistakable imbalance to them. 'I have almost no experience fighting wild animals.'

My current traits skewed heavily toward combat abilities — close-quarters combat, specifically. I had ranged options, but limited ones, and I was badly short on utility-type traits as well.

'Once I've got the ship, I'll go hunt wild beasts.'

Using the smuggling planet data stored in the ship's computer, no less. There I could go after a much wider variety of Genetic Essence.

I was sorting out my plans for the future when the message I'd been waiting for appeared.

The instant the message appeared, my consciousness seeped through the entire 300-meter structure. The ship was so vast that the sensation was worlds apart from when I'd dominated the escape shuttle. If I had to sum up the feeling in one word, it would be heaviness — as though I hadn't merged with Amorph's body at all, but fused into a colossal organism like a bowhead whale.

'Though this thing is far bigger than a whale.'

When I concentrated, I could hear the beating of the heart at the ship's center. The reactor originally built by Star Union was now serving as the heart of the composite organism fused with me. I drew energy up from the reactor and routed it to the cannons mounted along the hull. Plasma energy, forced by my will to concentrate in the guns. And then a cannon fired, wielding firepower that dwarfed even my Psychic Breath.

Feeling the heat of the barrel, glowing from the destructive energy, I smiled.

'Good. Then let's get started.'

This ship belonged to me now.

And I am not merciful enough to leave uninvited guests alone.

"...".

The ops room was more crowded than usual, packed with bodies — and yet not a single breath could be heard.

Forty pirates held themselves taut, ready to fight off a monster that could come crashing in at any moment. The monster, meanwhile, had made no move at all, as if it had decided to strangle them slowly.

'Something's wrong.'

The thought surfaced unbidden in Milo's mind. That holing up in the ops room was, in fact, exactly what the thing had wanted all along.

'No!'

He clenched his teeth, trying any way he could to shake off the ominous suspicion. He wanted nothing more than to scream out loud, but with all his men strung tight around him, he couldn't afford it.

Forcing his mind onto other things, Milo stared at the wall instead. His eyes landed on the black plating — black enough to swallow every ray of light like a black hole.

'Was it always this dark?'

Star Union ships, unlike Mega Corp vessels, favored black paint over white, so the metal panels of the floor, walls, and ceiling were all in the black spectrum. But even accounting for that, the ops room walls seemed to have grown darker than usual.

'Why would the color suddenly change—'

The moment the question formed, every light in the ops room went out.

"Wh-what! Aaagh! I-It's coming!"

"Calm down! The emergency lights will kick in any second!"

Because the ops room was a critical facility, it carried an independent backup power supply in addition to the reactor feed. Just as Milo had said, red emergency lighting soon flooded the room.

Under the crimson glow, the pirates' faces looked, however you sliced it, half-dead already. Milo himself didn't realize it, but the Wolf's fur all over his body was soaked through with sweat, leaving him a miserable sight.

Half-desperate, he summoned the ship AI.

"Calvin! Power up the ops room computers too!"

"Then sync it with the backup power supply, damn it!"

Soon the computers in the ops room flickered back to life, but Milo and the pirates couldn't relax in the slightest. And no wonder — heavy thuds were echoing in from outside.

They knew exactly what that sound meant.

"C-Captain!"

"...Sons of bitches."

It was the sound of Stormguns firing. It was coming this way, through the corridors.

"Don't worry. A Stormgun can shred even a Mountaincrawler. There's no way that thing tanks it."

"R-right, of course."

His men forced hopeful expressions onto their faces. But hope didn't last long on those faces.

'Why hasn't the gunfire stopped?'

Milo frantically checked the terminal wirelessly linked to the Stormguns. On the small screen, the ammunition count was dropping fast. The Stormgun installed in the farthest zone ran dry and its signal cut out. Seconds later, the round count in the next zone began plummeting.

"C-Captain!"

"What the hell is this?!"

By this point even Milo was struggling to hold on to his sanity. Before retreating into the ops room, the pirates had installed Stormguns in every zone and sealed every bulkhead door behind them. However powerful the monster was, there was no way it could move this fast — not while burning through every last depleted uranium round in every Stormgun it passed.

'I-I have to check!'

He called the ship AI again.

"Calvin! Connect me to the zone cameras!"

"That's an order! Calvin! Bring up the camera feeds on the monitor!"

The screen filled with grinding static — kssssht—kzzzt. Milo issued the command again, but no answer came from Calvin. All that returned was an irritating wash of noise.

"Calvin! The cameras—"

｢Kzzzht... Cal·vin... is... kzzzt...｣

The moment he opened his mouth to speak again, the ops room's speakers came alive. And the voice that flowed out was nothing like Calvin's, which had been based on a woman's voice.

"What?"

The cracked, ragged male voice pronounced its verdict — and every last light in the ops room went dark.

"Aaaagh! Hkkgh—!"

"No! No, please! Spare me!"

"Ghooooooh!"

Screams and dying gasps rang through the ops room, plunged into total blackness. Energy bolts from laser rifles, the thunderous booms of Hulk Mutant security guards swinging their fists — light and sound alike were the signals that someone in the ops room was still alive. But that didn't last long either.

Then a vicious silence closed around Milo's throat.

Wolves were a species keenly attuned to smell, and so, whether he liked it or not, Milo knew. His men were dead. Every last one of them.

Half-suffocating in that air, trembling all over, he switched on his terminal. Its small light cast a glow on the thing in front of him.

Six starfish-like limbs and serpent mouths rising out of the floor, devouring the corpses one by one.

'Ha...'

The thing that had boarded this ship was something far beyond anything he had imagined. It was something no reason, no common sense could possibly grasp.

Having given up on everything, Milo switched off the terminal's light.

'That hit the spot.'

I patted my belly, savoring a pleasant fullness. No, a massive meal wouldn't actually fill Amorph's stomach — but somehow, it felt like it should.

'That hunt was clean from start to finish.'

With every pirate aboard the Calvin taken care of, the time I could sustain this ship had shot up to fifty days.

'Eating the Hulk Mutants did most of the work.'

Every Hulk Mutant devoured added ten full days — I was honestly surprised. And with both of them eaten whole, I'd gained three new traits on top of it.

｢Big Baby, don't you want more?｣

[Zzzt (I'm full)]

｢Agreed｣｢Food｣｢Very much｣

Fifty days was more than enough, so I handed the rest of the prey over to No. 26 and Adhai. Thanks to that, they got to enjoy a feast that left them stuffed for the first time in a while.

'Now then, let's have a look at the ship's computer.'

I opened the databases stored aboard the vessel. A staggering volume of information flowed into my head along the tips of the Erosion Tentacles. The first thing delivered to me was a report on anomalies that had occurred in this vicinity shortly before I took the ship.

'Is there a rock field around here or something?'

I focused my senses on the outer hull, but nothing in particular registered.

'Probably nothing. Huh?'

I was about to brush it off when a bad feeling crept over me.

'Wait.'

I went back and read the anomaly report in the AI database carefully. To summarize: a cluster of meteorites gathered by a peculiar magnetic field was traveling along an abnormal trajectory. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that cluster was due to enter this vicinity within two hours.

'You have got to be kidding me.'

I knew exactly what that meant. Frantically, I spread every sense I had across the hull's exterior. My consciousness poured outward, past the ship itself and into the space around it.

The AI's report had come two hours ago.

My highly developed senses caught something in that void of space, where nothing could be seen or felt. At first it looked like twinkling stars. No — not stars. A white cloud.

A white cloud, closing in at tremendous speed.

'Oh, you have got to be—!'

The cloud was a swarm of Metallic Gremlins.

Natural predators of starships — plunderers of deep space — were coming for us. Right now.