Grudge Braker - Androids and hard-boiled eggs -

The Ghost of Centauri -1

After buying a six-pack of beer at the grocery store, Kent went back to his roost, which was not far from the guild.

The canopy screen of the old city, which once reflected the blue sky, is now a faded gray.

As soon as Kent parked his scooter in front of an old jumble of buildings in the gray city, the communicator on his wrist vibrated.

"Hello?"

Without even looking at the caller, Kent replied. There was a goofy pinging sound and the communication was connected.

"Master, the battery in your scooter is about to run out."

"Well, thanks for that."

In a cursory response to Noel's advice, Kent pulls the battery out of his worn-out electric scooter.

"You're a troublesome wife, aren't you?"

"My wife..."

"What's that reaction?"

"Because the master said you'd be my wife."

"I hope you're going to make me some dinner as well."

Kent cuts off the communication, teasing a speechless Noel.The LCD that showed speed and battery life was long gone, but thanks to Noel's hacking into the home appliance's diagnostics and trying to take care of Kent, there was no trouble except when the machine physically failed.

"Well, let's have a hot shower."

With a beer dangling in his right hand and a scooter battery in his left, Kent descends the plumbing-bare stairs.

The bar in the basement of the building, given to him by his dead comrade Cecilia, is Kent's home.

"Hmm?"

Kent stops when he tries to open the metal key that Cecilia had long ago installed, hoping that it will give him more security than an electronic key.

"I thought I locked the door."

It sounds good to say it's a free trade city, but Centaur III is in a sense a lawless zone with military police guarding the city center, guardsmen hired by the rich, and vigilantes in the shopping district guarding the security.

"What the hell, my beer's getting hotter."

Placing the battery and beer on the stairs, Kent pulled an old gunpowder-style .45 revolver from his hip holster.

When the hummer is raised, the cylinder turns with a pleasant metallic sound.

A lot of people laughed at the fact that it was an antique, but Kent liked this zesty, cold, heavy feeling more than a plastic water gun or a short-needle gun.

Kent gingerly opened the door and the bar counter was lit. A large man in white sits with his back to Kent.

"Do the thieves like free jazz these days?"

Kent spoke up as he pointed his gun at the man drinking from an Old fashioned glass while listening to an old song playing from the jukebox.

"Nice bar, it's a waste that it's not open."

"Thank you for that."

The man, still holding the glass in his right hand, holds up both hands and turns to Kent.

"The gun must belong to Andersen, Lieutenant Matsuoka."

"Yes, the bar is Cecilia's legacy, Colonel Richelieu."

Spitting out, Kent put the hammer back and stowed the gun in its holster.

"So, what is it that you want now, Colonel?"

Brushing off Kent's sarcasm, Alfred Richelieu stood up and took a glass from the shelf and poured the amber liquid.

"I'll have a drink of the now-extinct Centaur Ⅱ, will you?"

At the time of Terraforming, there were more than 70 space colonies in the Centauri system. Centaur Ⅱ, which was an agricultural base, was destroyed by the Solar System Space Force's.

The whisky "Shaiya", which is said to be the best in the Centauri system, was not made even after the war and is now traded at a high price by maniacs.

"........."

Wordlessly, he accepts the glass, and Kent raises it with his former superior officer.

"To our home."

"To our fallen comrades."

Kent swallowed the amber liquid in one gulp.

"So, you're not here to talk about the old days, Colonel, no, now you're the Chief of Military Police...were you?"

Kent lit a cigarette as he felt the liquid run down his stomach and heat up.Taking out a cigarillo from the silver cigarette case, Richelieu also exhaled purple smoke.

"Yesterday, one of the ghosts was stolen from the old star system's force testing facility at Lagrange Ⅱ."

‘The Ghost of Centauri', a rumour sometimes circulating on the underground net. Mostly it's a hoax, but the one thing that always agrees is that one genius scientist's name always comes up.

"A dreamy story about the legacy of a genius scientist, ‘Rudlf Boesemann’, and the new technologies that have been hidden for the revival of the Centauri autonomous government...."

Shoving the cigarette into the ashtray, Kent looked up at the sooty ceiling.

'Yes, I wish it was a dream story...'

'So what?'

'I want that one back.'

Filled with a desire to say no, Kent took another gulp of whiskey in his glass. Kent glanced at the communicator that buzzed at his wrist.

'3 em in rm' (enemy, number three, room) A short sentence and a floor plan of the room, with three red marks attached to it.

"Why don't the military police do it?"

"Yeah, that's where I'd like to be if it was a normal thing."

Hearing that one word, and before he could even hear the content, the desire to refuse overflowed out of Kent's mouth as words.

Hearing that one word, and before he could even hear the content, the desire to refuse overflowed out of Kent's mouth as words.

"I'm sorry..."

"The reward is thirty million credits."

"Ugh."

Kent gulps when he hears the amount, he'll pay off all his debts and get some money.

"I'll pay you ten million up front."

Richelieu folds it up.

"Let's hear what's going on, but before you do."

"Before that?"

"Get those gorillas out of the house in the corner of the kitchen, behind the ceiling, behind the door, where they're hiding, and the building will be damaged."

Grinning, Richelieu snapped his fingers. Small sparks ran, and a cyborg soldier with his optical camouflage disarmed emerged.

"How dare you take notice of this new cyborg that even stops breathing and heartbeats."

"Oh, the sound."

"Sound?"

"The jukebox sounds different than it usually does."+

Half of it was bluffing, but half of it was true. It was the result of Noel's analysis of the music flowing from the jukebox and his calculations based on the difference in the usual soundstage.

Since then, Noel has been like this and is eager to take care of Kent in any way she can. At first, Kent was disgusted by Noel's obsession with him, but lately he's gotten used to it.

"That's a big deal,"

Kent catches up to Richelieu, who's squinting in disbelief.

"Oh, and Colonel,"

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"If you've got someone headed for my ship, you'd better make them turn around."

At Richelieu, who raised one eyebrow, Kent continued his words.

"A debt collector who came to repossess our ship two months ago got his leg blown off by a bow laser cannon and is seriously wounded."

"I see."

"The idiot who tried to steal my ship half a month ago while I was sleeping is now a debris."

"All right."

Hearing Kent's words, Richelieu glanced at one of the cyborg soldiers. The soldier who nodded remained mute, but he must have been using the text-communication by brain waves.

"I'm a short-tempered partner."

The communicator buzzed and vibrated as it protested to Kent, but Kent ignored it and shrugged.

"So? Let's hear what you have to say."

Only jazz echoed in the silence, and Kent's mouth furrowed as he picked up the bottle of whiskey that was about half full as a result of the two of them drinking it with the Colonel.

"The former Centauri system forces dispersed and concealed their prototype technology before the end of the war."

"The legacy of the sorcerer Rudlf..."

"Yeah, some advanced technology that's been called 'Ghosts' on the street."

"I thought it was just a bunch of crap."

Twenty million abandoned people were thrown out of the solar system after being thrown into an impossible terraforming project.Unable to endure economic exploitation, they rose up four generations later in the Centauri War of Independence.

The results were crushed by the overwhelming mass of solar system governments. However, it was said that the fact that the independent government forces were able to fight against an enemy with more than three times the fighting power for two years was largely due to this genius engineer's invention.

"So, you're saying that the magic wand that this mage left behind was stolen?"

"Yes, we know who stole it, the solar system government's puppet 'Coalition of Unity' and their mafia hired by the puppet party."

"Didn't anyone have security for something so important?"

"They're not going to guard something that's not supposed to be there for us either."

Richelieu laughed, as if mocking himself. Thirteen years after the end of the war, those with a fervent sense of patriotism were disappearing. If the military police use people for security, they may be able to leak information to the contrary.

"Why don't you just send in your gorillas and get them back?"

"I would if they didn't have the military-industrial complex 'Plutus' behind them."

The military-industrial complex 'Plutus', the conglomerate that holds the economy and distribution of the entire solar system, has continued to press for the autonomy of the Centauri system to be taken away even after the end of the war.

What 'Plutus' wants is the right to freely exploit the Centauri system.The third generation humans like Richelieu, who are still in key positions after the defeat, were barely fighting against it.

'The autonomous government doesn't want to be stared at by the solar system government, so they want to get it back, so what did they steal that 'Plutus' is a treasure enough to extort the Centauri system?'

Kent asks, firing up the glass.

"Shipborne transporter gate."

Kent pouted as he heard it, and thought. Don't be silly, there's no way a thing as big as that could fit on a ship. The transporter portals to our solar system are bigger than a 900-yard spacecraft carrier...

'Are you kidding me?'

'It's not good enough to travel between stars, it can only jump 13 light-minute, at a time with all the fuel, and once it's used, it's defective and needs to be refilled with anti-matter.

Even so, now that the Solar System government has control of all the metastasis gates, there will be people who want them more than they can handle.

More than anything else, the possession of the Transference Gate by anyone other than the solar system government is itself an illegal act.

"Hey, Colonel, we're not next, why don't you give them the treasure?"

"Yes, we won't have another chance at the next war."

But it's absolutely no good to have our autonomy taken away as a bargaining chip, Richelieu's eyes told him.

'Alright, I'll take care of it, just give me the details in a highly cryptic sentence.'

The legacy of his dead comrades is an old gun and a small bar, 'Plutos', no matter how great it is, but Kent likes his life now.

That's a good reason to take it on.

There was a goofy pinging sound and a text message came in from Noel. Small letters danced on the communicator he wore on his arm.

'ACCOM U MA' (Accompanying you, Master).