Things Don't Always Go Your Way (2)
With the Earth Federation's main force on the move, a single misstep could shatter even their sturdiest border defense fleets — and with them, the entire faction might collapse. Marianne, it seemed, needed every last elite fleet she could trust, just in case.
Her words left me with a thoroughly complicated feeling. After all, Leonard and his fleet were never my subordinates to begin with — they were hers. Hauling off those guys who ignored my orders and focused solely on base defense was purely Marianne's call.
So I told her not to fuss over me about it. I had my own self-defense preparations in place by now, and she was free to take them whenever she liked. I gave her my full blessing.
"Oppa…!"
The moment the words left my mouth, our Marianne threw herself into my arms. A minor accident ensued — I found myself pressed against a pair of chest-fat masses that seemed to have grown even softer and springier than before, along with a certain bumpy something that boldly advertised how bras were entirely unnecessary when you had that much bounce.
Of course, taking Leonard and the elite fleet was one thing. Marianne also left with a promise:
"My Oppa might be in danger, so I'll send a separate fleet to guard the base at least until the crisis is over!"
She would transfer one of the pirate crews stationed in her faction's rear over to us, she said — and then she was gone.
While I waited for the pirate crew that would fill Leonard's shoes, I decided to run through a few base inspections. For instance…
> Gravity Detector Radar — Under Construction…
> Time remaining until completion: 12 days 8 hours 4 minutes 59 seconds
Whew. Still a long way to go.
I leisurely watched the base-building tycoon progress alongside the status of our second battlecruiser under construction. Leonard's fleet — the ones currently shouldering our base security, such as it was — had just left, after all.
As part of the fleet normalization plan, I was grinding down existing ships to free up Fleet Point capacity. For extra resource intake, I was dismantling every aging or increasingly useless "Standard-grade" small vessel we had left.
Just in case, I decided to put those reclaimed resources to work. Using bulk-hire discounts plus Empress-connection perks that knocked ten percent off market rates at the mercenary bureau, I hired roughly two additional mercenary companies and temporarily handed them base defense.
With those rough preparations done, I figured I'd throw together a simple welcome for the gentlemen who'd be staying at our base until Marianne returned.
But right at that moment…
"Commander! We have a serious problem!"
"Hm?"
"The Pirate Coalition fleet that was heading to our base clashed with another commander's clan — the damage was so bad they turned around and retreated!"
"…Oh."
A very solid, very emphatic premonition settled over me that things were not about to go well.
Things in this world don't always go your way. (2)
No sooner had Jessica finished speaking — rabbit ears and rabbit chest bouncing and bobbing as she sprinted over — than a thoroughly rigged event message popped up in front of my eyes, summarizing the situation.
Ah, come on. That's just dirty.
The fleet that was supposed to come protect the base had randomly run into another player clan and gotten completely wrecked. From where I was sitting, this was rigged beyond all reason…
Thankfully, our super-competent Marianne's quick response meant a replacement fleet was already on the way. A silver lining, at least.
…Granted, "on the way" now meant more than a week later than originally planned, which was thoroughly disappointing. But sometimes you just have to be grateful something exists at all, so I decided to content myself with the fact that they were coming, period.
The problem was that this threw our plans into disarray on multiple fronts. As I'd mentioned earlier, my shipyards were still mid-dismantle on the small craft — and the Fleet Point freeing process was already nearly finished…
Aircraft Carrier: 1 ship × 70 pts = 70
Battlecruiser: 1 ship × 30 pts = 30
Heavy Cruiser: 7 ships × 10 pts = 70
Light Cruiser: 3 ships × 6 pts = 18
Destroyer: 15 ships × 3 pts = 45
Frigate: 2 ships × 1.5 pts = 3
Corvette: 7 ships × 1 pt = 7
Resource Mining Ship: 25 ships × 1.5 pts = 37.5
If you excluded the ten "resource-transport destroyers" — the ones optimized for cargo by stripping out everything but a single laser turret and packing the rest with transport bays — plus the two heavily damaged heavy cruisers and two frigates I'd left unrepaired specifically for dismantling…
"Commander, don't we have far too little actual combat power left?"
"Mm."
"Aside from the single Kraken-class and the single Leon-class — that's a Standard-grade battlecruiser — our remaining capital ships are just five heavy cruisers including the Overseer, one Kanhel-class, and two standard light cruisers converted into AA ships."
"That's about right."
"And for small craft, once you exclude the resource-transport destroyers — or as you call them, the 'delivery vans'…"