This Ship Is Ours From Now On
A few days later.
The moment I heard the follow-up report from the unit, I once again found myself struck speechless by sheer absurdity.
"So you're telling me you just charged straight at a ship that was at least battleship-class or bigger…?"
"When we scanned it from extreme long range, none of its weapons were active."
I shook my head in disbelief, unable to decide whether these people were fearless or simply brainless.
Forget that—how are they not terrified of something like that in the first place?
Special forces or not, this was ridiculous. The footage they were casually showing as "supporting material" during the report made it look like there were more interceptor beams than empty space out there.
"Honestly, the point-defense was so dense we couldn't get anywhere near it."
"It's structured completely differently from any defense system we know. Imagine taking a shotgun scaled up several dozen times, mounting a few hundred of them, and just blasting away nonstop."
"…And how exactly did you figure that out?"
"Well, by going in and finding out for ourselves, of course."
"You're asking something far too obvious, Minister."
"Were you all aspiring suicides or something? Why are you acting so proud of pulling a stunt that insane?"
Even Riel couldn't hide her shock at that answer—neither of us could.
It wasn't that they failed to conceal it. They simply had no intention of hiding anything.
I let out a long sigh at their attitude and decided to call up the on-site commanders.
A short while later—
"My apologies, Minister."
The moment the comm screen lit up, I found myself nodding involuntarily at the sight of Meteorn and Gran. Thick dark circles under their eyes, faces gaunt and hollowed out.
"…You've had it rough."
"What choice do we have? There's no one else who can handle this post but us."
Running an operation with a pack of lunatics, held together by nothing but a sense of duty. The sight alone was enough to make pity well up unbidden.
"Ah, in that case, we'll proceed with the next operation, Minister."
"Mmm… all right."
—Communication terminated.
Once the link with the marines and the Purge Squad cut out, a complicated mix of thoughts swirled through my head.
Before any of that, though—neither the Purge Squad nor the marines were supposed to be a circus of suicidal maniacs putting on a show, right…?
That thought led me to wonder whether sending the Prosnak marines out together with our Purge Squad members might have been a mistake after all.
Then, roughly a week later.
After catching some bastards trying to smuggle drugs on Kar-Du and injecting the pure refined narcotic straight into their spines before heading back, I received a comm report from the marine-Purge unit.
Or rather, the unit that had by now earned the nickname "Ghost Ship Watchers."
Come to think of it, maybe they finally understood my preferences. Whenever they reported to me, they skipped the fluff and jumped straight to the point.
This time was no different—they cut the small talk and launched right into what had happened. Except…
"Minister, we decided to infiltrate the ship individually. After a prolonged period of free-floating through space, we finally managed to land on the vessel's armor plating and docking facilities!"
"…You did what, exactly?"
Sometimes, I realized, you really do need to hear a person's story from the very beginning, step by careful step.
How in the world had they infiltrated a ship whose sensors and interceptors were sharp enough to pick up and shoot down even a small assault craft?
When I voiced that doubt, the two men on the other end of the screen—Meteorn and Gran—answered in tones of genuine puzzlement.
"Assault craft? How were we supposed to use those?"
"Exactly. You saw what happened to the assault craft last time, didn't you?"
"…Then how the hell did you board the ship?"
"Just as we said. Our Purge Squad and the Prosnak marines used the thrusters built into our assault suits. Each of us flew in separately and landed on the vessel."
The moment I heard that, the full meaning of their "individual boarding" sank in. Riel, standing beside me, clearly got it at the same time—she stared in open horror and spoke up.
"Hold on a second, yeo. Are you telling me you assaulted a Dark Age warship bare-handed, without even riding an assault craft?"
"That is correct, Aide Riel."
In other words, they had flown through open space using nothing but suit thrusters—like some kind of Iron Man cosplay—and landed on the ship.
A ship protected by a point-defense grid that shredded assault-craft armor like paper, and one that was, however slowly, still moving through space.
Once I fully processed that, I forced down the sigh rising in my throat and asked if there had been any casualties.
"…Any stragglers?"
"None among the Purge Squad."
"There are no Prosnak marines so weak they couldn't endure something like this."
No losses. That left only one question: what on earth had possessed them to try it in the first place?
The two human weapons answered without hesitation.
"After a series of provocations against the vessel, we determined that it reacts thoroughly only to objects approaching its immediate vicinity."
"Further experiments confirmed that its tracking radar only detects objects above a certain size."
They went on listing plan after plan, and with every word my sense of reality slipped further away.
We were supposed to capture this ancient Dark Age warship, yet they had tried ramming asteroids into it to overwhelm the point-defense.
If we go in stupidly fast, we'll board before the defenses can lock on, right?
On that logic they had modified an assault craft for insane acceleration and slammed it in—only to lose the craft entirely.
After every bizarre scheme imaginable, their final conclusion had been: forget the assault craft, just fly in solo on thrusters alone.
My expression must have twisted into something truly spectacular, because the two men reporting suddenly averted their eyes and offered a cautious excuse.
"…To be honest, we thought it was impossible at first."
"But once we actually tried it, it worked surprisingly well."
At that, I finally let out the long-suffering sigh I had been holding back and spoke in a voice thick with exasperation.
"You seem to have forgotten—your unit is composed exclusively of the absolute best talent each nation has to offer."
The marines might go around spouting nonsense about "heat" and other weird rituals, but the fact that they were treated as equals to the Purge Squad members meant they were probably cut from the same cloth.
Which was exactly why I needed to tighten the leash before these lunatics tried the same stunt again.
Of course, that lecture only made sense under the assumption that they were complete idiots who treated their own lives as disposable.
"No need to worry. We naturally prepared every contingency before commencing the operation."
I still had no idea what kind of contingency plan could possibly cover a bare-handed charge at a warship, but—
"As a precaution, we reprogrammed the anti-ship missiles on the stealth destroyer and launched them from the opposite direction of our approach, diverting the vessel's sensor focus."
"We also used reconnaissance craft to run interference, ensuring that even if our assault was detected, interception would be difficult."
"…I see."
So you actually had a plan after all.
Come to think of it, these people had spent lifetimes in real combat that I couldn't even begin to match. If there had been a real problem, they would have dealt with it long ago.
"Impressive. So you boarded successfully without a single straggler."
"Correct, Minister."
"Which means the place you're standing right now is inside that Dark Age warship?"
"Precisely."
No wonder the background on the screen looked different from previous reports.
I nodded and continued.
"So what's the next move? Are you going straight into seizing the ship?"
"That was the plan, but the vessel is far larger than expected… and the special armor plating makes external scans impossible. We'll have to search every compartment ourselves."
"Hmm."
Dark Age technology, apparently—scanners that could map an entire planet in an instant simply refused to work.
They explained they were setting up a temporary base camp and beginning an internal sweep. I nodded again.
"Understood. If anything unusual comes up after this, report again then."
"Yes, Minister."