Chapter 137: Loot Recovery

『Boss, are we not going to recover the FTL Drive from that ship?』

Tina made a call while we were in the middle of salvaging the loot.

“They have no problems with external equipment like weapons, but the drones can’t salvage internal stuff like that.”

『That’s true, but we can always take them inside the hangar. We can handle the salvage work over here y’know?』

“Won’t it take too much time?”

『It’s fine. There’s a lot of maintenance bots to help us out, and if we don’t care about what happens to the rest of the ship, recovering those should be easy.』

“Fumu……”

“What do you think?’ I asked Elma with my gaze.

“Why don’t have them try it then? It’ll increase our profits anyway.”

“That’s true. Okay, go ahead then. May, use the tractor beam and bring the wreckage in.”

『Understood.』

“Tina, Whisker. I’ll give you a nice bonus later so do your best. I have no idea how much I give you guys though, so I’ll have to consult the Mercenary Guild first.”

『Leave it to us!』

『We will do our best!』

The replies of the sisters were filled with motivation. Afterward, the Black Lotus approached the ship that didn’t explode and fired off its tractor beam that shone with green radiance. The ship wreckage gradually drifted toward Black Lotus.

By the way, that green light is apparently just given off by a guiding laser, and the tractor beam itself was actually invisible. It also didn’t give off that cliche UFO tractor beam SFX. That would have been neat though.

“Oh, and make sure there are no surviving pirates inside the wreckage before you open it up, okay.”

『Yes. What shall we do if we found some?』

“Get rid of them. We don’t take prisoners.”

『Understood.』

May’s curt reply resounded from the comms. Well, it’s her, so I’m sure she’ll do a thorough job.

Eh? Killing fellows who can’t resist is overdoing it? Nah. These pirates must have had their fair share of killing without mercy, so they shouldn’t complain if it was done to them as well. There’s no room for mercy here. Anyway, let’s get back to looting!

“They really have a fondness for alcohol huh.”

“Yeah. But usually, you can only find cheap bland-tasting alcohol in a pirate ship’s cargo hold though.”

“They collect a lot of junk as well. Hey, they have refined rare metals here. Sweet.”

Now that we have a huge mothership with equally huge cargo space, we can finally take all the loot we can carry instead of prioritizing the valuable ones. Yeah, it’s not really necessary and sometimes inefficient, but it just feels great to strip ’em bare y’know.

Mimi was always in charge of organizing the recovered loot and selling them back at colonies we visit, so her smile today was especially radiant as she took note of all the items we were getting. Back then, Mimi acted all flustered whenever she participated in loot recovery with the drones, but now that she’s used to the work, she was even multitasking and calculating the estimated profits from selling the loot.

The contents of the pirate ship’s cargo holds were mostly foodstuffs and alcohol, as well as the loot from their previous victims. There were also pirate ships that had their cargo holds filled with loot, but those usually are more preoccupied with selling them off, so they won’t attack any other ships until they empty their stock. Encountering those ones is completely up to luck.

However, we also sometimes encounter ships that are filled with loot even though they haven’t attacked anyone else yet. They mostly hoard stuff like rare metals that are quickly exchangeable to cash. In other words, those are their so-called savings. You never know when you can encounter such ships, and if you keep hunting pirates, you’re bound to find them occasionally.

“Yosh. Since we’ve filled the cargo hold, let’s return to the Lotus and drop them off before heading back out for more.”

“Understood!”

Mimi replied with a radiant smile still displayed on her face. Yeah. I get you, Mimi. Looting is fun huh.

We transferred the contents of Krishna’s cargo to the Lotus several times until we finished collecting all the possible loot. We then returned to the Lotus for a well-deserved break. I watched the mechanic sisters working busily with Krishna’s optical sensors as I sipped my drink from the pointlessly high-tech sci-fi floating tumbler.

“They sure are putting those maintenance bots to good use.”

“They’re pro mechanics after all. Judging from that, they’d be great at controlling drones after a little practice as well, don’t you think?”

“Really…?”

“Mechanics are usually great drone operators as well. If they ever decide to part from Space Dwerg and work full-time with us, I think they should be hired as both mechanics and drone operators.”

The mechanics assigned to large starships try to maintain the ships on their own as much as possible, but there naturally is a limit to doing stuff manually. Lifting the armor plates of starships by hand is difficult, even in low gravity environments, and above all, it’s quite dangerous to do so. That’s why mechanics use maintenance bots for those kinds of jobs.

Usually, one mechanic controls up to three maintenance bots simultaneously. By the way, there were ten maintenance bots running around the hangar of Black Lotus right now. It looks like each sister was controlling five bots at the same time.

“Isn’t controlling ten bots with just two of them quite amazing?”

“It’s probably due to the work not requiring much precision, but yeah, it’s still amazing.”

Tina and Whisker were operating the holographic control console projected by the holo-display with expert demeanors. It even looks like they were talking as they worked, but the maintenance bots continued to work on their own jobs without interfering with each other.

Hmm. Just like May said, their skills as pro mechanics were superb. I’m even more impressed after seeing it firsthand. My evaluation of the two of them was sharply rising.

The maintenance bots operated by the two of them seem to be taking apart a section of the hull of the pirate ship wreckage with laser torches. Those laser torches look really cool, man. They look like they might allow me to awaken to the Force. But since I’m not Force-aware, I’ll probably just cut off my leg if I attempted to swing one around.

But beam swords are a man’s romance y’know… I also think the swords I got from Earl Daleinwald are cool, but I’d get mistaken as a noble if I ever walked around with those, and that could only lead to massive trouble. I don’t want to go through that, so I don’t have any opportunity to use them at all.

『Master.』

As I watched the sisters and the maintenance bots work with Mimi and Elma, a call from May went through.

“Hm? What’s up?”

『It looks like there are some more targets.』

The response picked up by the subspace radar of Black Lotus got displayed on Krishna’s HUD. Oh, so there’s new prey huh. They sure are biting a lot today.

“Roger. We’re heading off for more work, guys.”

“Yes!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Guess we should sortie before those guys warp out.

“Oh boy. That was exhausting.”

“It’s really hard work, isn’t it big sis?”

After the second wave, another set of pirates came. After we managed to hunt a total of three pirate groups, we finally decided to go back to Brad Prime. We managed to arrive during rush hour, so we were currently waiting in line in order to enter the colony.

Our total number of kills this time was 27 small ships and 2 medium ones, for a total of 29 ships. The total bounty reward is 217,500 Enels. The bounty money was already large enough, but we also managed to secure one small pirate ship in good enough condition which was put inside Black Lotus’s hangar, and one medium-sized ship which we towed back.

We made so we could use the FTL Drive while towing the ship and brought it back. The small ship inside the Lotus was your typical chimera ship made up of a stock civilian model patched with assorted stolen parts.

In addition, the cargo hold of Black Lotus was now filled with the items we plundered from the destroyed pirate ships. Just how much will we be able to earn from selling all of this loot? I’ll calculate it using my knowledge from SOL as a basis. If I remember correctly, small ships sold for 30,000 Enels and medium ships sold for 70,000.

I can’t say anything certain for the rest of the loot though. But it probably won’t fall below 80,000 at least.

“Looks like it’s time for a celebration tonight as well. We can eat out, or we can have our chef whip some stuff up since they’re also delicious. Which would you prefer?”

Since there’s no danger present in the sectors near the colony, we got down from Krishna as soon as we arrived in the vicinity of Brad Prime and met up with the sisters. We then relaxed at the break room as we waited for our turn to enter the port.

By the way, the chef I referred to was our amazing high-performance auto-cooker, Tetsujin V. If you used high-end food cartridges instead of the normal ones, you’d end up with tastier food that won’t lose out to those served at five-star restaurants back on Earth. And we can also party harder compared to eating out.

You need to worry about the way back if you eat out, so you can’t overdo it. I’m not really concerned about that though since I don’t drink alcohol, but I’ll pass on carrying back four women knocked out from drinking too much. Two is probably okay, but four is too much.

“Wouldn’t it be better to have the party inside the ship? I’ll even bring out my secret alcohol stash.”

“Alcohol!”

“Alcohol huh… Come to think of it, we should already be allowed to drink, right big sis?”

“That’s right! Hey, boss!”

Tina turned her excited gaze toward me. Her eyes were sparkling in anticipation.

“Mimi, listen to their preferences and order the dwarven liquor of their choice.”

“Okay.”

The sisters let out joyful whoops after hearing my words. It’s kinda awkward seeing these mechanic sisters, who looked like elementary school kids, celebrating after knowing that they’ll be able to drink their favorite liquors.

“Dwarven alcohol huh…… They’re all strong liquors so I’m not that fond of them.”

“Dwarf alcohol isn’t all of the strong variety. They also have kinds that have a sharp taste that penetrates straight into your noggin. For example, the Ground Ring from Kiraku Brewery is reasonably priced but has a solid character and flavor. I highly recommend it.”

Whisker nodded in agreement to Tina’s words. It looks like these twin sisters have similar preferences for alcohol as well.

『I’ve received landing clearance, Master.』

“Understood. Go ahead and enter the port. Be careful not to get into an accident.”

『Yes, please leave it to me.』

I replied to May, who contacted us through the break room’s speakers, and smiled faintly at the sight of the girls crowding around Mimi as she fiddled with her tablet to place some alcohol orders. It looks like we would be able to get along with the sisters well after all.

Soon after, I saw Elma and Tina trying to buy large amounts of expensive alcohol from the online store while Mimi and Whisker desperately tried to stop them– Hey, wait a minute, guys! I’m the one who’s gonna pay for that alcohol y’know? We need to have a little talk, you two. Honestly. This pair of hopeless drunkards.