Chapter 927: I’m Not Falling For This Again
Ries was hard at work trying to improve that new VR Capsule and figuring out how the control system of the Exo-Knight worked.
Unfortunately, she was limited in what she could do since she couldn’t just break the Exo-Knight apart to look inside of it so her progress was relatively slow.
Still, she persevered while we continued on our flight path.
Interestingly enough, Mara and Amber didn’t seem to have a problem with using the VR Capsules and I was most definitely, very definitely not jealous of them at all. Nope, not at all. Really, not jealous at all.
Ahem...
They did tell me that it was actually possible for me to just lower my Psionic shields to be able to use it but... That would need some time to learn and since Ries was already figuring something out... I decided to just take my time with it.
Well... At least I found a new hobby where I started watching that SonicSlayer’s streams just to see how he plays his games.
After all... If I was intending to beat him, I had to understand his playstyle to stand a chance at least.
I realised that they pretty much played every genre of game be it shooter, strategy, puzzle, horror, RPG or even visual novels of all things.
I would have thought that people would only watch the streamer for a specific genre of game that they play but apparently... This SonicSlayer guy is able to make any game he plays look interesting, especially when he’s so proficient at them.
I can’t believe I actually watched the guy play an otome visual novel for a whole hour of all things...
There was just something about the way he plays that makes it interesting to watch.
Of course, even with the vast library of games that he plays, he still has a specific game that he would return to keep playing during a specific period of time. For now, he seemed to be quite interested in that space RPG game that resembled the one I played back in my old universe.
I’m not gonna lie though... This was the only game that I think he wasn’t playing the best at.
Like... He’s piloting the Verlandi for crying out loud... I’ve yet to even see him pull off an emergency reverse thrust, flip counter corkscrew manoeuvre with it. That’s like... One of the best things that you can do with the ship you know?
So either this guy doesn’t know about this manoeuvre or he isn’t good enough to pull it off.
And I definitely know it’s possible because I did it using the real Verlandi in this universe as well as in the game in my old universe as well.
In other words, this was a skill issue.
In fact, watching this guy fly the Verlandi made me so frustrated by the lack of skill that I actually wanted to go out in my own Verlandi to fly around doing the exact thing he’s not doing just to get my mind off of it.
You know the feeling... When you watch some guy play a game so badly you just want to wrench the controller away from them just to show them how badly they were playing by playing it yourself.
No? Just me? Alright then...
*
I was in the midst of giving Freyja belly rubs in the cargo bay when Yumiko called out to me through the ship’s intercom systems.
"Mistress? We’re picking up a distress signal."
I paused and Freyja looked up at me while she was still laying on the floor, her head tilting to the side cutely.
I gave her another pat on her belly before standing up to head towards the bridge.
A low whine from Freyja almost made me rush back to go back to patting her but... Ugghh..
"Come on girl! Heel!"
She obediently flipped over onto her feet and ran after me, accompanying me to the bridge and following me at my side.
Sorry girls... Please put up with this a little...
I walked through the corridors of the ship with Freyja accompanying me, her tail wagging happily as we moved.
I found Lea in the corridors in the middle of heading towards the hydroponics garden, my Alv lover completely naked aside from a pair of stockings that she wore and she looked like she was going to wave at me in greeting before she froze up at the sight of Freyja.
Ughh... No matter what, it seems like my girls will never get used to Freyja.
I don’t blame them and I feel a little bad so... I went ahead to give Lea a deep kiss which made her shudder and her toes curl before I left her there to catch her breath while I continued to the bridge.
Freyja continued to plod beside me and ascended the stairs to the bridge with me, the doors opening with a soft hiss as I stepped up to it.
I found Yumiko on the bridge with the blue haired Renata still in the pilot seat.
Yumiko’s ears twitched when she heard the pneumatic hiss coming from the door and turned, her tail wagging distinctly.
She turned, "Mis---"
She snapped her mouth shut and her tail went rigid, her eyes dropping to stare at Freyja who was ignoring everything in favour of looking up at me and panting with her tongue flopping out the side of her jaw.
I cleared my throat, "Ahem... You mentioned something about a distress signal?" I reminded her, snapping Yumiko out of her trance.
Her tail was no longer wagging as she tore her gaze from Freyja to move back to me, "Y... Yes, Mistress... Our sensors picked up a ping just now... Right here..."
She tapped on the console and the map of the area was projected in front of me, showing that the supposed distress signal came from what looked like a ship graveyard.
That was a place were decommissioned ships get dumped by corporations and serve as their storage for spare parts which inevitably becomes a place where smugglers, thieves and other unsavoury types might go to salvage for parts to sell or to do illegal dealings.
It’s already quite surprising to hear that there’s a ship graveyard within the Inner Colonies because I was pretty sure such things would be dumped outside in the Outer Colonies instead.
For a distress signal to come from there, it’s either one of those lowlifes that are looking to score a few quick Credits... Or some employees of the company owning the ship graveyard being hunted by those lowlifes.
"Do we know the source of the distress signal?"
Yumiko shook her head, "It’s a general ping, Mistress... There’s no identifying tags attached to the distress signal."
"Means those guys could be Insurrectionists, smugglers or bandits for all we know?"
"That’s correct, Mistress."
I sigh a little, "Should we answer it then?"
Yumiko straightened slightly, "It’s your call, Mistress. We only need to alter our course a little and we are still on schedule."
I nodded at Renata who was watching us from the pilot seat, "Divert course, we’ll go and check it out. Do a scan of the system when we get close, check if there’s anyone else skulking around here."
Renata obeyed and the ship slowly altered its course as we headed towards the direction of the distress signal.
When we were within range, Renata pulled back on the throttle until we were back in normal space and the sound of our ship’s sensors charging up could be heard.
A second passed before a pulse was sent out from my ship, the pulse washing over the entire area around us.
A single white dot appeared on the screen, indicating an unknown ship with no affiliation being nearby. Aside from that, there were no other pings.
"Can we contact the ship?" I asked.
Yumiko tapped on the communications console and a screen popped up, showing that we were attempting a connection with the unknown ship.
In the meantime, Renata brought up another screen that showed the ship in question in view from one of our external cameras.
It looked like a B Class small Freighter. And it looks heavily modified too.
Modified to be used as a smuggling ship, that is.
The screen showing the attempt to hail the ship ended up displaying a ’No Connection’ message, indicating that either the ship was refusing hails or they could not answer the hail.
Yumiko turned to me, waiting for my decision.
"What do our scans say?"
"No affiliations found, Daddy. I’m pretty sure that it’s a smuggler," Renata answered before focusing a scan on the ship. "Deep scans show that the ship seems to be carrying this oval shaped thi--"
"Fire main cannons! Blow the fuck out of that ship!"
The oval shaped thing that appeared on the screen was most definitely some kind of alien egg and I was definitely not falling for this shit!!
I watched with satisfaction as one of the railguns turned to point at the ship before firing a single round, the kinetic shell piercing through the ship’s hull before the ship was engulfed in a fiery explosion, consuming the entire thing.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t imagining some kind of alien creature floating out of the debris for a moment before the fire consumed it.
Hmm~ Hmm~ Don’t need to thank me~ This is me just doing my part for the galaxy~
