I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary

Translator: SFBaka

The training direction for Mimi and Kugi has been finalized, Elma's starship has been procured, and the overhaul and upgrade of Black Lotus have been completed. I haven't had the opportunity to fly around freely out in space for a good while now, so I would have liked to do just that. But unfortunately, the imperial military, or rather, Col. Serena's Independent Mobile Anti-pirate Fleet has given us a designated request, so we were ordered to stay on stand-by inside the colony until the fleet is ready for sortie. It wasn't worth it to disobey orders and willfully leave the Windas Tertius colony without permission, so, unfortunately, I had no choice but to wait around while being bored out of my mind.

Well, this system was one of the key star systems of the empire anyway and right under the home turf of the imperial military. So, you have to head at least three systems away to get a chance to encounter space pirates. And if you want a tidy profit, you'd have to move at least five or six times away via hyperlane. If so, even a one-way trip will already take days. It wasn't a distance that you can just dismiss as a little far away.

Or rather, something like that would probably get treated as deserting during an official military mission.

"So, that's why you came to watch us work."

"Ya really have a lot of free time, Boss."

"It's fun to relax while watching people hard at work you know."

"Nice guts ya have there, Boss. It makes me really wanna pick a fight with ya."

"Sorry."

I immediately surrendered the moment Tina held up a plasma cutting tool that could even easily dismantle space monster bodies. Isn't it dangerous to point that thing toward a person, missy?

"But your work sure is plain."

"Course it is. The Krishna, Black Lotus, and Antlion's maintenance are all practically perfect already."

"So, right now, we're only stockpiling easily exhaustible items or components that would take some time to replicate. Next would be performing maintenance on the maintenance bots and the combat bots, sorting out the tools, or maintaining the maintenance facility itself."

"I see."

Right now, maintenance bots of various shapes and sizes were gathered around the two sisters. There were only a few humanoids, and most were multi-legged, one-armed, or multiple-armed work bots. There were also drone-like bots that were in charge of working on elevated spots. They seem to be floating around by using anti-gravity technology. It was basically the same device used by those spherical anti-gravity drink holders.

"Well, maintenance bots are actually capable of performing maintenance on each other, and the military combat bots can make use of their dedicated maintenance systems to conduct automatic maintenance, so these kids don't really need much attention anyway."

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"Yeah. Honestly, maintainin' our tools is a lot more of a handful than them."

"Uh, is there something you guys need to manually work on yourselves though?"

If there were this many maintenance bots, I can't imagine the two of them having enough chances to swing their tools around themselves.

"It's not necessary for performing maintenance on Krishna, Black Lotus, and Antlion. But we do have to get our hands dirty when it comes to strippin' equipment from captured pirate ships or puttin' usable ones together into a workin' ship that we can sell. Anyway, ain't that our main job around here, Boss?"

"Oh, right. That's true."

"We did need to perform some manual maintenance on Krishna at first. But that's just because we had no available manual to base on.

"Ah, yeah. I suppose there really isn't one available."

Black Lotus was manufactured by Space Dwerg, and Antlion was manufactured by Ideal Starway, but Krishna appeared together with me when I got thrown into this world. Its manufacturing details were completely unknown, and some of its components were mysterious black boxes.

Fortunately, it had a certain degree of compatibility with the ship components of this world, and although we haven't encountered any problems maintaining it yet, there's a high risk of it being unrepairable if any of those black boxes were to be damaged. In truth, Krishna was the most problematic ship I owned.

"Well, we've been gradually getting some headway on the analysis. We've created a working template for basic maintenance, so unless the Krishna gets seriously damaged, maintaining it is manageable."

"Fer now, we've prioritized the maintenance of the components that get worn out easily like the thrusters and the arm-type weapon mounts. We've also analyzed the other parts and can already perform maintenance on a lot of them, but the generator's still one big puzzle."

"I'm sure you'll be fine Big Brother, but still, try your best not to let the generator take a hit or it'll be really bad."

"Yeah. Once the power generator gets hit, it'll be checkmate."

Obviously, the power generator was the most notable weakness of a starship. Well, the only time it would get directly damaged would be when the energy shields and armor have been completely penetrated and a ship's vital part gets a hole punched through it, so the lives of the crew inside probably can't be guaranteed anyway. The best outcome in that situation would be to successfully escape in the cockpit block before the rest of the ship explodes.

"Well, let's leave the matter of Krishna aside first, Boss. When are we gonna sortie outta this colony anyway? We're already about to run outta topics fer small talk to kill time."

"What are you guys gonna do once we run out of topics then?"

"Mm. Studying, maybe? We've already been doing that every day though."

"Studying?"

I wasn't expecting Whisker to bring up studying, so it made me curious.

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"We have to keep studyin' about the latest state-of-the-art materials, ship components, and engineering techniques. A ship mechanic who can't keep up with the latest and greatest ain't a qualified mechanic at all."

"I see. So, you guys are constantly updating your knowledge and skills huh."

"That's how it is."

"If you declare the cost of studying that stuff under our expenses, I'll properly shoulder it all, so make sure you do that. But you can't spend money on things that are simply your hobby, alright?"

"Really? Thanks a bunch, Boss!"

"Thank you very much."

Tina and Whisker displayed overjoyed smiles.

"I'm gonna let Mei scrutinize every expense, alright?"

"Uu…… T-That'll be fine."

I had to give them a bit of a warning just in case. It's because a non-expert on that stuff like me wouldn't be able to judge if the expenses were justified. It would be better to leave that to Mei. I'm gonna end up burdening her again, but it was a necessary measure.

"By the way, are you really that free right now, Big Brother?"

"Very."

Elma was completely busy with adjusting Antlion, and Mimi and Kugi were studying under Mei regarding their new professions. So, right now, I have no choice but to wait for the designated request to officially go underway, and that's why I went over and ended up bothering Tina and Whisker. Well, I could watch a movie or work out a bit in the training room, but it would just feel empty to watch a movie or work out alone.

"Ya actually have a tendency to easily get lonely huh, Boss. That's pretty cute."

"Huh……? Well, maybe."

When I first came here, I spent my days alone. But after I picked Mimi and Elma up, that wasn't the case anymore. And so, I found myself always spending time with Mimi and Elma. And then, Mei joined us as well. Tina and Whisker came too. So, more often than not, I was always spending time with someone. Though I did spend a lot of time alone back when I was still on Earth.

"Well, it's not like we have anythin' urgent to do, right?"

"That's right, Big Sis. What do you want to do, Big Brother?"

The two of them were giving me gentle smiles. Can you stop that, you two? Stop emitting that natural aura of motherhood. It makes me feel really embarrassed.

After that, I spent a nice time watching holo-movies with the two of them.