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SUBJECT: A Freighter Steeped in Mystery, and Her Owner
FROM: Gilbert Valentine
TO: Nora Valentine
Been a while, hasn't it. Where the hell do I start...? I guess I'll start with my first contact with her.
A freighter with a retro-styled hull, spotted by pure chance at a certain Warp Station. That hull is supposed to be classified inside the military... but the rumor that she flies wherever she pleases turned out to be true.
A chance like that doesn't come twice. I begged my way aboard somehow.
The ship had me curious, sure—but the instant I laid eyes on her owner... on her, I finally understood what people mean when they talk about a jolt of electricity. Hahaha. Hardly becoming of a man my age, is it.
At the time—yeah, I was drifting from star system to star system with no particular aim. Ha. I'd lost my purpose a long time before that...
But thanks to hitching that ride on her ship, I ran headlong into something outrageous.
A wrecked ship broadcasting a distress signal—. And loaded inside it was that accursed... that thing.
That research never ended after all...
This time I'll put an end to it. No matter what.
Now that I'd got my purpose back, there was no time to be floating around lovestruck. So of course I said goodbye to her. Even if it tugged at me hard enough to damn near rip the hair off the back of my head.
Then, following the new information I'd picked up, I set course for that planet. It seems a pack of rich bastards had a hand in the research all along.
I went in fully prepared to make them pay in full for that nightmare of a research project... and on the way there, I ran into her again.
Maybe some prank-loving goddess is playing with me.
It makes me feel like “you” are telling me it's time to forget about you.
I did try to fight it once, you know?
But it's no use. I'm no good. My will is weak. Far too weak.
..........Anyway. That ship is as far outside the standards as the rumors say—no, further.
Have you ever seen a transport ship that can pull off a solo warp? I ended up falling for the ship, too.
And that's not the half of it. The onboard navigator AI blew me away all over again, too—
Ah—right, I forgot. I ran into him again, too. That bastard Wolf. Still wearing the same grim mug as ever.
I may owe him a few, and he may owe me a few. One of these days we'll have to sit down, talk it through properly, and settle up with each other...
Hahaha—I still haven't come down from it. Lousy writing, for a man who calls himself a “journalist.”
No—the truth is my head's a jumbled mess right now.
Let me just set down what happened right in front of my eyes.
That planet's defense system was among the most formidable in this star region. Until now, its kill rate against ships descending without authorization stood at one hundred percent.
But that is now a thing of the past.
She did it—she, and this retro freighter, and the AI aboard her. I got to be there at the very moment a legend was born.
The first baptism after we began atmospheric entry—railgun sniping from extreme long range. An ordinary ship would have been blown to splinters right there, turned into a shooting star that flickers out and is gone.
But this retro freighter is different. She took evasive action. In the middle of atmospheric entry, no less. Shrugging off the friction of the air, she went on dodging every last hunk of iron that came screaming in at hypervelocity, one after another.
What pulled that off was this ship's abnormal performance—and her, at the controls. Sitting right beside her, I could feel her voltage climbing higher and higher.
And then she broke through the mesosphere—which no one had ever gotten past—and made it into the stratosphere.
The moment we did, we were welcomed by a sweeping barrage of particle beam weapons. We took the first hit, sure, but the range was long enough that it did no real harm. If anything, I suspect that was the trigger that drove her voltage to its peak.
Slipping through the particle beams and the railgun fire as if laughing in their faces, she kept descending in a dead-straight line, aimed at the spaceport “Goal.”
The defense system, as if to declare it couldn't just stand by and let this happen, threw in drone formations. Even she couldn't stand up to being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Since the descent began, I'd lost count of how many times I braced myself to die—and here was another one...
A flicker of panic crossed her face—and then, what could she have been thinking? She dropped the output of the gravity canceler the ship had deployed.
The next instant, I was nearly crushed flat by an ungodly pressure.
Vibrations came through that felt like we'd taken a few hits—and from that point on, the air around her changed completely.
Was her tongue simply not keeping up, or was she uttering some language that couldn't be converted...? I could no longer understand a word she said.
I got the impression her voltage had blown clean through its peak and sublimated into some other dimension.
Maybe because I could feel the G-forces now, I could sense just how nimbly, how sharply, the transport was moving.
And then————we came tearing into the spaceport's dock.
Whether this turns out to be the opening curtain of a legend, or gets buried away in the dark of history... I intend to chase it as far as I possibly can.
Formidable as that defense system was, once we were inside the spaceport dock it apparently couldn't lay a finger on us. And with the AI hacking straight into the defense system's core without missing a beat, our safety was secured.
I pulled off the HMD, and when I looked over at her beside me—
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“Gilbert. Master's vital signs have all returned to within normal range. Her brainwave activity is rising as well. ...I believe she will wake before long. Please go to the medical bay and be with her.”
“Ohh—is that so?! Thank god! I'll head over right away.”
[SEND] Tap.
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