A group of more than twenty ships climbed out of the glowing aurora over Fat Beach Ball, and one-by-one shut down their mighty rockets as they reached orbit. Ahead of them, Fuyō, that lustrous fuschia-colored base ship shaped like a flower in bloom, steadily approached their formation. The fifteen boats which had joined in support of the plan to set out for fishing in the distant Galactive Interactive followed the Gendō ships at the head of the procession. Not everyone who went nishikigoi fishing had risen to the challenge, but they needed to make port at least once anyway to resupply. The boats began their final approach to the southern pedicel port after a smooth exchange with the fishing officers.
Unbeknownst to anyone at Fuyō, the approaching ships gathered under the guise of a visiting fleet were composed entirely of the opposition taking shape against the Gendō.
“We haven’t really run into any problems so far, buuut....” Terra anxiously looked back and forth. As the day’s MVP, she was leading the trapezoid formation of visiting ships. “This will work, right? We’re not going to suddenly get sussed out by the fishing officer, are we?”
“There’s nothing to worry about? At least, as long as the patrol boat crew isn’t plotting to check in here.”
“They’ve gotta be planning something like that, right?! They will if this is anything like you see in action Contents!”
“Let’s just pray this doesn’t turn into one of those extra flashy Contents with explosive stunts.”
Every one of the fishers in the other 14 boats there to investigate the situation were raiders with the goal of overthrowing Nurude. So, when the Trades’ boat—alongside the four others they already had a secret agreement with—called out to the remaining boats, they agreed to join in. The Gendō patrol boat, which brought the fishing judges, was seized by other ships after Chūya distracted it over comms.
That boat was currently stationed in the middle of the group, surrounded by the pillar boats. While the ship was under threat of being crushed by decomping if it tried anything, the pillar boats wouldn’t be able to stop it if it went all-in on fighting its way out.
They also had two other problems. One of them was that Terra and Diode were still hiding their true identities from the other fishers they’d allied with. The plan was to remain undercover as long as possible while they looked for an opportunity to take Nurude down. They had no idea whether their luck would hold or not.
The other was how they would even find that opportunity.
“Jigō-san said that his relatives would cooperate or whatever, but if that’s all we have to count on, I don’t think we can really rely on him,” Diode said as she made her usual skillfully-performed manual fine adjustments to enter port.
As she admired the girl’s abilities, Terra asked, “We can’t rely on him? He seems so dependable, though.”
“It’s not that he’s undependable, it’s that the Jigō family is weak. The Keiwaku family, and their supporters in the Bureau of Protocol, currently have the most influence in the Gendō clan—if we’re talking personnel and resources under the Keiwaku banner, it’s about 3/5ths. The Jigō have about 1/20th. They defied the Clan Chief over some trivial issue a while back and have gotten the short end of the stick ever since.”
“1/20th?! Oh, come to think of it, what about your father? I remember you telling me he resigned from his Council of Elders post, though.”
“Compared to the influence the other Ishidōrō have, he’s got the presence of a speck of print toner. Better than nothing, I guess?”
Diode called Chūya to ask if she could get in touch with her father. His response made her lose it.
Fangs bared, she shouted, “That oblivious dunce already managed to get himself caught! And here I thought he at least had the good sense to run away!”
“Hnnn,” Terra whined.
“So, Terra-san, do you think we could play your trump card?”
“My trump card? Oh, right.” Terra called using the communication protocol she had arranged in advance. “Eda-san, are you alive?”
Terra wondered whether she and the Insomnia were still safe. After several breathless seconds, an electronic noise came from her minicell and a palm-sized woman in a lab coat appeared and waved.
“Oh, cute as always, aren’t you, Terra-chan? I’m good, I’ve been tricking Security with the old ‘broke down and can’t go anywhere’ defense. Where are you now?”
“I’m so glad you’re okay! I’m just outside the port.”
Just as Terra heaved a sigh of relief, she was startled as Diode’s pit shoved up beside hers. She forcefully gestured for Terra to show her.
“Here y–”
“Alias, Diode. Real name, Kanna Ishidōrō Gendō. I’m Terra-san’s twister and partner. Now see here, Eda Exceptional or whatever they call you–” Diode’s tone was imperious, and she stared daggers at Terra’s left hand. Terra desperately tried to rein her back.
“D-Die-san?! Why are you talking like that all of a sudden?”
“That’s my line. What’s with you being all buddy-buddy right now?! I’m not screwing around here, just where does she get off calling you cute, and by the way, Terra-chan?! Why are you letting her call you that?!”
“I-I h-haven’t been letting her call me that, she’s doing that all on her own. This woman was the very first and very exceptional fleet captain, so I can’t talk back to her.”
“The first? What are you talking about, that person’s dead, isn’t she?! Look, I’m not tolerating this. She’s going to call you Intercontinental-san. You hear me, Eda?! You’re banned from using ‘Terra-chan’, starting now—”
“HAHAHAHA, ahahaha. Ah, so that’s how you two are, huh? Ah, isn’t youth adooorable...”
The two briefly shut their mouths as the tiny Eda doubled over in laughter. Diode, however, cleared her throat and confronted her.
“Don’t seduce Terra-san. I’m serious about this.”
“Ehhh...? I’d never do anything of the sort! This is just an exchange of necessary information! We’re just lubricating our friendship, aren’t we, Terra-chan?”
“I’m sorry, but please stop... I belong to Die-san, so...”
“Mgh.” Eda looked down and pushed her glasses against her nose, then trembled for a bit. “So, what you’re saying is that... this is what you wanted to get back the most?”
Terra suddenly felt time rewind, bringing her back to the question Eda had thrown at her back in Idaho.
“Um, it was also for her personality, but, it was like, her existence...? So if I could describe what I wanted as something I can touch, her body...? I guess? Yeah, I think so.”
“Knock it off, please. You really don’t need to tell that kind of thing to others!”
“All right.” Eda gave Terra a short reply and gently brushed her short hair back. With a hand on her chest, she greeted Diode. “I am Dryeda de la Lucid. I was 29 years old when I died. You have my apologies for teasing you. I’ll refrain for now. I wish I could shoot the breeze with you two until morning, but we don’t have the time. We’ve probably only got enough time for a cup of tea before you arrive. You wouldn’t be opposed to keeping our exchange to strictly necessary info, would you?”
Eda’s sudden attitude change threw Diode off a little, but she replied in agreement. “Fine.”
“Now that that’s settled, it’ll just be me and Terra-kun talking for a bit since we really understand one another. Terra-kun, I’ll explain what’s happening.”
“Ah, okay!”
“Grr...!” Diode grit her teeth and swallowed her anger.
“The Clan Chief here, this Nurude fella, opened the Tamatebako and started using that wretched device. It was installed during the early years of the exile fleet, and there’s nothing good about it, which–”
“Sorry, but we already know about this Tamatebako thing.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, Chūya-san talked about it. He told us a lot of other stuff, too. It’s a device that gives you total control over the 16 base ships, right?”
“Mhm, exactly. That makes this easier. Anyway, the Tamatebako was why that guy was talking about taking everyone to the Galactive Interactive. It’s just a boring development.”
After listening to her, Terra shyly asked, “Uh... you wanted to go back to the Galactive Interactive, right, Eda-san? You haven’t thought about working with Nurude-san or anything like that, then?”
She had the feeling the answer was probably best left unsaid, but she preferred to hear it anyway.
Eda’s response was unexpected. “Nah, I have zero interest in that. It’s not even worth considering.”
“Really?”
“I’m after something that’s gotten extremely vague and indistinct, with only scattered clues still around. The trail is faint, and even with two nimble people like yourselves cooperating, I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow it. So, if I worked with someone who’s responsible for some clan or a society, and who also happens to be an enormous fool, catching up would be absolutely impossible.”
“...”
The expression Eda gave her looked as though she was trying to conceal her true intentions—or rather, it was difficult to get a read on her because the minicell’s projection was so small. It was clear, though, that prying more deeply into her goals would lead to no end of indecipherably complicated conversations.
So, Terra... “I don’t really get it, but that means you need to come with us for now, right?”
“Yep, for now, and to the end, certainly.”
That was the best explanation they would get. For the time being, at least.
“Uhhh, going back to what we were talking about before, but... we have to stop Nurude-san from seizing control over the Circs. And with that as our goal, we wanted to save the captured decompers, too.”
“Ah, the box’s keys.”
“Yeah, that! That’s the word Chūya-san used, too! What exactly do you mean by ‘key’?”
“The Tamatebako is a system that boots up when 24 or more decompers are physically connected to it.”
“24 people... physically connected to it?”
“Yes. There’s a hidden room near Fuyō’s axis, and that’s where the core device and a number of beds are installed. The system begins incrementally booting when 13 decompers are placed in the beds in a comatose state, and its functions completely unlock when all 24 are occupied.”
“Isn’t that kind of... no, isn’t that an incredibly inhuman device?!”
“Well, yes, because after all, the Fángjūn were the ones using it when the exiled decompers were under their management.”
“Exiled decompers...”
“Seems like you’re already aware your ancestors were exiles and not pioneers. It’d be a problem if those people took the helm and went back to the Galactive Interactive, yeah? So, the Fángjūn set up a system that no one among the potential insurgents would use voluntarily. That’s the Tamatebako. You know why it uses 24 people?”
“Because there were 24 exiled clans back then? So... it’s a device that couldn’t be operated unless each clan offered a sacrifice to it?”
“Bingo, exactly. You’re catching on quick today, Terra-kun! Good girl, headpats for you.”
Eda had explained like it wasn’t a serious matter, but Terra more or less understood why she didn’t want to cooperate with Nurude. She covered her mouth and looked to her side. Diode nodded at her with an equally pained expression.
“What a cruel machine... Why would they even build something like that?”
“I don’t know because I never tried asking the people who built it. But if memory serves, normal people back then shunned decompers. So, they really didn’t have any qualms about building things like that.”
“And were you any different, Eda-san?”
“If I’d been on their side, I’m sure they would have put me up against the wall with the others in the 3rd Year Uprising.”
“Haha...” Eda’s unnaturally breezy tone made Terra think she’d repeated that to others long enough that she’d come to believe it herself. “Anyway, an acquaintance of ours is trapped in there. Do you happen to know if there’s a way for you to save her? Like, using your Great Chief authority or–”
“The Tamatebako’s functions override my authority as Great Chief. It’s a matter of power in this situation, and if we’re talking about which system is given more control, it would naturally be the one with a stricter authentication protocol, right?”
“B-but it’s still not fully online, is it?” Terra immediately dug in. “I mean, couldn’t we set up a surprise attack using the functions they still don’t have access to?”
“Woah, Terra-kun, you’ve hit on something quite clever.” Eda snapped her fingers. “So, attacking it from a blind spot using a function it can’t access, hmm... How about something like this?”
Eda switched to a simple schematic which appeared in her place. Terra understood it in a single glance, but she couldn’t help but comment.
“T-that’s pretty violent, isn’t it...?”
“It is, but it probably won’t get anyone killed. More importantly, we won’t get found out. The timing for the most important part of the surprise attack is simple enough. There’s no point doing anything complicated—it’s impossible because we have no time to rehearse it.”
“Guh... Yeah, you’re right.”
“You’ll visit Nurude with the other 14 pairs of fishers. We’ll end this when you first meet him in person. We can’t wait to see how it goes or anything. It’ll be his first time in a fight like this, so it’ll go well for sure.”
“Okay, if you say so. But as for the parts we need your help with... Ah, maybe we could say Ozuno-sama did it? What do you think, Die-san?”
“Die-chan’s busy.”
Surprised, Terra looked around the boat. They had already passed the anti-debris hull that resembled the outer sheath of a budding flower and were entering the pedicel port just past the barbaric port cannon. Diode, who had moved her pit back to the front of the boat at some point, carefully steered their boat towards the approaching metallic pier tube.
Giving a half-glance back, she said, “I’m in the middle of final approach. Once I dock, we’ll still have a little time before the main group arrives, so use it to contact the others, please.”
“‘Kaaay!”
“I heard how this should go, so I’ll leave it to you.”
Terra shared their strategy with the rest of the group through a hidden channel that Fuyō couldn’t receive. At the same time, to avoid exposing their identities after they docked, they received a briefing from Chūya on how to get to town by taking a different route.
Meanwhile, the pillar boat barreled towards the pier, but just before it collided, it smoothly decelerated and gently came to dock. Terra, her hands full with finalizing their plans via radio, caught Eda’s muffled laughter.
“I see, she’s good, isn’t she?”
“Right? I love it so much.”
“Yeah, that was a treat. Now, I’m gonna go over there.”
“Oh, wait, I had some things I wanted to ask before—Eda-san?”
The figure in the lab coat disappeared from her minicell. Diode brought her pit alongside Terra’s, and pointing to the boat’s shadow on the opposite side of the docking hatch, said, “I’m disembarking. Is everything ready?”
There were a number of things Terra wanted to talk about—themselves, Eda, the GI, decomping—but they didn’t have the time.
“See you later, Eda-san,” Terra said, then quickly began preparing to disembark.