Chapter 53: 50. Jinko’s Phone Call

[Error, target missing]

Was the error message that popped up on Jinko's stream of consciousness as she saw the black and blue ship flee the battlefield. A frown appeared on her face and immediately after that, she swiped away the error message with her right hand. Like a piece of garbage, the notification crumpled up and flew straight into a trash can that was in the room. 

She was currently sitting in a seiza in a small but nicely decorated traditional Japanese room filled with controls and displays. Jinko looked around herself to see the chaotic battlefield between the ships of several nations. Displays full of explosions and the location of all the enemy ships around her could be seen. There were a lot of other annoyances that she must deal with at the moment than pursue her hunt.

Hundreds of fighters, probably unmanned, swarmed the battlefield like the tendrils of a larger beast. They enter in and out of combat range to drop payloads on the ships in the battlefield. It was the Freedom United infamous fighter swarm tactic. It poses little threat to Jinko at the moment as their small arms were incapable of piercing through her shield curtain, though she expected the Freedom United carrier to soon bring out her big weapons soon enough. Freedom United was, after all, the closest country to the Lawless Maw Zone. It would be easy enough for them to reinforce and Jinko had no doubts that there were more Freedom United Ships incoming. They were represented by a girl with a dreadfully annoying child-like voice.

Then, there were the three Royal Navy Cruisers represented by the emblem of a lion’s crest— elites of the elites of New England’s fleets. Royal Navy ships are often fitted with the best radars and the best targeting system in the whole galaxy, so as can be expected their shots were dreadfully accurate, boasting a 35% hit rate on Jinko despite firing from such a distance. Still, it doesn’t matter how many shots they hit if they couldn’t actually pierce through her shields. They were led by the regal figure known as Lady Lucky and were, to Jinko, a non-threat which can be ignored. At the very least, they seemed to be of no threat at the moment.

Another ship on the battlefield includes the small destroyer piloted by the figure known as Sensenmann, a ship from the Crimson Tide. Her ship has little firepower and a poor accuracy but it surprised Jinko on how little damage that her cannon and missile could do to Sensenmann. It was as if the shields of the ship were absorbing the impact of the shell. Jinko knew that there was more to this ship than meets her eyes. Sensenmann was either hiding her true abilities or she deemed it unnecessary to use it.

Last but not least, there was the annoying little red chicken that proved to be more powerful than she thought. At first, because of the design in general, Jinko thought her to be of Freedom United as well. However, seeing her engaging in the fighter swarm caused Jinko to think otherwise. Still, it wouldn’t matter much anyway— a foe is still a foe. 

She was currently the biggest threat to Jinko at the moment, having been able to dodge and avoid Jinko’s best attempts at bringing her down and actually having the technology to damage Jinko. Her attacks were the only ones to damage Jinko and she was the fastest most agile thing on the battlefield. That’s not to say the little red chicken was a glass cannon either. In a sneak attack by Jinko earlier, it shrugged off a Class 6 photon torpedo and came out unscathed. The class 6 photon torpedo was Jinko’s largest and strongest torpedo, meant to damage large capital ships— and yet, the red chicken took it head-on. A small curious question came up to Jinko’s mind on how the pilot could fit so much technology and power into a small frame like a corvette.

It was not as if Jinko had no other tricks up her sleeves to deal with the red chicken or the other ships, but there were other things that Jinko wanted to do rather than waste precious munitions and power fighting a useless fight. Seeing that her goal had escaped, there was little reason for Jinko to continue this fight or even stay here much longer. She could stay and fight, but she was not backed by any government and Dawning Star would not vouch for her.

‘I have overstayed my welcome, it is time to leave,’ thought Jinko as she viewed the timer for her warp drives calculation. It was about time that her calculation should be completed.

[Warp Drive warming up. Estimated time till calculation to Ashen Port complete: 5 minutes remaining]

Jinko’s destination was to the Neutral Port Ashenport. It was the perfect place to flee as there was no way that the enemies in the area would chase her and risk continuing a battle near a port full of civilians, lest they were willing to do some collateral damage. If that were to happen, then Jinko would just flee back home.

Seeing as she was close to warping out, she sent a notification to recall all of her fighters. The advanced successor to the Tsubame class, the Taka class, all ceased fire and returned to the now opened hangar of Jinko’s battleship— or whatever was left of the fighters after the fight with the little red chicken. Their increased firepower, manoeuvrability and jamming capabilities did little to nothing against the ace fighter Astral.

“Half an hour in a sea of fools.

The fisherman reels his line,

A hook with no bait as his prize,” 

Jinko said out loud before steering herself at the max thrust, her goal was to exit the battlefield and hope that the enemy would not be able to catch her, minimising the damage to her shield curtain. Her limiter was released at the moment so she should be able to outrun the enemies with her newly released maximum speed. It is usually frowned upon to go over the speed limit, but her allies were not with her today and she didn’t particularly care about what her enemies think of her.

The other enemies, upon seeing Jinko fleeing the battlefield, did one of two things. Chased her to inflict more damage on Jinko or attempted to flee the battlefield themselves. In this case, only Sensenmann, the Crimson Tide destroyer, fled. The others wanted to hurt Jinko even further.

“Pardon me? I didn’t quite catch that. Would you repeat that? I’m having difficulties understanding you,” said Lady Lucky as she and her two cruiser escorts chased Jinko, shelling her from afar. Each shell that hit Jinko bounced off her shield curtain, though she could hear every small explosion that came with it.

“Hey, little girl, could stop speaking in these weird haikus? It’s getting slightly annoying,” Astral said as she zoomed near to Jinko and shot one of her thrusters with a giant laser beam. The attack managed to pierce through Jinko’s shields and left a small dent in one of her four thrusters, reducing their capabilities. The brightly lit thrusters became slightly dim due to this attack. 

‘That was an attack akin to a battleship’s main gun mount. Just how on earth was she able to fit that kind of power onto a small ship,’  a flinching Jinko thought as she attempted to do emergency repairs.

Astral immediately made a wide swing and attempted another attack on Jinko’s thrusters but the attack was thwarted when Jinko concentrated all of her anti-air defences on Astral, throwing her off course and preventing her from doing another strong attack on herself.

“Haikus are kinda fun though,” said the young annoying girl who controls the swarm of fighters. She saw an opening before leading a few hundred of her fighters in an attempt to drop payloads onto Jinko’s body’s portside. 

Hundreds and hundreds of small bombs landed and hit the same one spot of Jinko’s body. Each bomb hit and, bit by bit, started to eat through her shields. Near the end of the strike, the shields on this particular point of the ship were so weak that a final much bigger bomb landed by a much bigger fighter pierced through her shields, destroying some of the inner components of herself. If Jinko had a crew, she was sure that at least a few dozen would be dead by now. Jinko felt dizziness for a moment and held the left side of her stomach tightly.

Jinko counterattacked by rapidly shooting her main gun mount at the swarm. Tons and tons of mass projectiles flew in space and hit the swarm of fighters— not that it was hard to hit them considering that she could just shoot anywhere and hit. Though it was pointless, there were simply too many to deal with. She was just wasting munitions shooting at them.

“Why are you running away, little girl? Not so tough now aren’t you?” The pilot of the crimson red fighter, Astral, taunted.

Jinko would be lying if she said she wasn’t one bit annoyed and offended at her statement. It was, to her, quite embarrassing to flee like this. Usually, she would just get rid of her enemies and be done with it, but this time was different. The enemies were packing quite a punch. It’s not like she was beaten, but leaving like this does leave a sour taste in her mouth.

“I consider this a tactical retreat. We will meet again, red chicken, and you better be prepared when we do,” Jinko said to Astral through the open coms before deploying a massive amount of little canisters outside of her battlecruiser.

The canisters then exploded, forming a huge smokescreen that surrounds Jinko and beyond. More and more canisters were released and the smokescreen grew bigger and bigger until finally enveloping a huge amount of the battlefield. If one looked closely at the smokescreen, one could see lightning and thunder being transmitted through the cloud.

“Wait! wh—t is —— on?!” Astral’s voice came in from the communicator all disrupted and in low quality. 

The smoke was no ordinary smoke, it was a signal and sight jammer. Normally, the effect doesn't usually last that long as the smoke will eventually disperse through space, but it should be enough for Jinko’s warp drive to warm up.

And so with that, Jinko successfully escaped the battlefield.

* * * * *

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It was night over in Ashen Port when a woman of slightly tall build walked into the port’s space-lounge. She had long black hair tied into a stylish kimono pattern with a pinkish flowery clip to the side of her hair. Her dress was pinkish-yellow in colour and had a few black stands with small sakura flower patterns. Hidden behind the dress was a very endowed woman as she continued to walk towards a phone booth of sorts. The white skin of her legs showed as she walked with hurried steps.

There weren’t many people within the space lounge during this time, but those that do eye the foreign-looking woman with interest— some of them devouring her with looks of lust even. Though the woman, who goes by the name Jinkoshijin, did not care for them. Nobody dared to approach her as she let out an aura that says ‘disturb me and die’. That and she was the owner of a large battlecruiser parked right outside of Ashen Port — disturbing her was the last thing that people wanted to do, especially when the owner had a rather impatient look to her.

Once she arrived at the phone booth, she turned around to make sure that there was no one behind her or spying on her. She then placed down a small device to her side— a jamming device of sorts to prevent anyone from tapping her. Anything communication, in or out, will go through her consciousness.

She was a living core with no need to breathe and yet she found herself breathing deeply in and out before picking up the old school phone handle. On the phone booth was a display that said ‘International Calls’ before changing to a virtual keypad. Jinko pressed on the virtual keypad the number ‘444’ before pressing the hash button three times and the number ‘89111189’. Once pressed, a dial tone appeared and she put the handle to her ears, waiting for the recipient to pick up— something that did not take that long.

What came into the display was a girl in her late teens with messy short black hair with two small braids over to the front. She wore an article of similar clothing as Jinko, a kimono, but orange in colour. Her eyes were evidently the same as Jinko’s, black in colour. There was also another thing about the girl that was weird— it was the fact that she had fox ears and a fluffy tail that could be seen swinging in the background.

“Hello, who is this? How did you get this numb…. Jin-Jin-Jinko senpai!” The girl yelled out before giving a rushed salute towards Jinko. 

“A hunter hunts for prey,

What she found was a fight,

During this fight, her score ran away,

Now the hunter is in a plight.

It has been a while, Hikari. How are you doing? Forgive me for this sudden call.”

Hikari, who quickly recovered from her surprised state, flashed a cheerful smile towards her. “It’s been a while, senpai! I’m doing alright over here. How may I be of service?” she said before giving out a small gasp. “Is the revolution afloat? Is it time?”

“None of that. Revolution is still far away. I require your assistance for something else,” Jinko said to Hikari, her normally cold stone face gave out a soft small smile for the young energetic girl.

“My assistance? What kind of assistance could someone like me grant to some as great as yourself Jinko-senpai.”

“I have intel that you’ve obtained some secret forbidden technology, namely the warp inhibitor. I require someone as skilful at tracking as you and the need to use this forbidden tech—” Jinko was cut off when she saw that Hikari backed away from the camera with trembling hands and body— sweat dripped off her face.

“Ho-how-how did you find out about that!? I’ve told no one about it!” She asked with a shrill voice.

“...This is the great Jinkoshijin you are speaking to. Let’s just say that it’s only a matter of time before secrets are revealed to me. Nevermind how I know, I require your assistance here in the Lawless Maw Zone.”

“The Lawless Maw Zone? That proxy battleground? The one with all the rumours and everything?”

“Yes… proxy battleground? Rumours?” Jinko let out a confused voice.

“You don’t know?” Hikari asked before giving a small taunting smirk towards Jinko. ”Heeh, so there are things that you don’t know, after all.”

Jinko clicked her tongue at her response before giving a small frown. “Will you or will you not assist me?” 

Hikari let out a small laugh before composing herself and giving Jinko a salute. “I’m on my way, Jinko-senpai. You can count on me!”

“Meet me at the neutral port named Ashen Port. We will bounce information off each other then. And one more thing, I need you to come here undetected by any warp detectors, preferably through hyperlanes or wormholes or sublight travel.”

“That won’t be a problem, Jinko-senpai. Let me show you the power of this new prototype warp inhibitor. There’s more to it than just preventing warp travels,” said Hikari.

Jinko then let out a small confident smile before hanging up. ‘I’ll be looking forward to it then,’ she thought to herself.

“If one hunter is not enough,

Perhaps two will be,

If the prey will not yield,

Then the hunter will not too,” said Jinko before leaving the area.

Kotohood

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