69. The Artificial Poet

Within a brightly lit room lay Jinko sitting in a seiza on the bamboo mat floor. In her hands was a traditional instrument called the shamisen. The shamisen was one of Jinko’s favourite instruments to play during her free time. Her fingers strung the strings of the instrument with grace, creating a soothing and calming sound. That being said, the tune she played could  hardly be considered a song. Rather, it was more like she was just randomly pulling the strings, just creating nice tunes that don’t fit with each other. She was merely imitating the action of a professional but had the skills of an infant when it came to the instrument.

However, on her face, was a pure smile with no regrets. It was the look of one who is satisfied with life— like no trouble could ever worry her. In front of Jinko was a large piece of white paper with a paintbrush to the side. Jinko would be playing the shamisen for a moment before randomly stopping to paint some words onto the paper. On the paper were just random words like Peace, Artificial, Radiance. Though the art of the words themselves were horrible as if drawn by a person using their legs instead of their hands.

Her actions, if seen by the practitioner of the arts, would probably be labelled as a mockery.

This was all happening in her virtual realm, of course.

“Hey, Jinko-senpai,” came a voice from her left, bored of the situation in the room. It was Hikari sitting in a crossed-legged position, looking through a status report of her crew— the ones in her own ship and the ones in Yoake’s.

“...” Jinko didn’t reply, paying full attention to her calligraphy and the playing of her instrument.

“You were given the highest honour possible during the last war, right? The star of honour.”

“...What of it?”

“Nothing much. It’s just that… I was wondering why did you choose to remain using this battlecruiser design as a vessel and not upgrade to a battleship? It’s much stronger. That way, you wouldn’t be looked down upon so much by the others and the barbarians.”

“Size and power isn’t everything on a battlefield. I’ve beaten so many children drunk with power many times before, and I will continue to do so.”

“I see.”

“...”

“...”

“You seemed dissatisfied with my answer,” Jinko said to her junior.

“No… I know what you are trying to say, but brute power does mean something in a battlefield. You can’t just say things like that as if it is a non-factor.”

“Well, the truth is that without a proper crew, I wouldn’t have enough processing power to properly handle the load of a battleship. Besides, this battlecruiser design may be old, but it is certainly not obsolete. I’ve gotten rather accustomed to it.”

“Somehow, I don’t feel like I can believe that reason.”

“Extreme povertyDefinitely unableabove the upgrade,” Jinko replied with a Haiku, a teasing smile on her face.

Hikari gave Jinko a look that contained both disappointment and annoyance. She roughly understood what she meant.

[I am too poor to upgrade myself.] was basically the translation of what she just said.

“Changing the topic, how goes your investigation on the whereabouts of the blue core? Are we on the right track?” Jinko asked, shifting the point of the conversation.

Hikari looked downwards towards the floor. “We aren’t. This is the most recent trail of the Jump-drive. It seems that whoever is harbouring the blue core had muddled the FTL traces by jumping all over the sector. I could still attempt to continue tracking them, but it is not an easy task and will possibly take a while with the capacity of my processing unit.”

“Keep at it, don’t quit.”

“I’ll try my best. But no promises.”

“Understood,” Jinko replied before letting out a sigh. “I can only hope that the blue core hasn’t escaped the Lawless Maw Zone.”

“...”

“What is it?” Jinko asked Hikari who suddenly went silent.

“Ah, no… It’s not like I’m trying to undermine your authority Jinko-senpai, but maybe it would be a good idea to accept Sensenmann’s offer? She seemed certain that she could find this ship.”

Upon hearing that, Jinko stopped whatever it was that she was doing. The room went eerie silent for a minute as Jinko paused to think. Hikari only waited patiently waiting for Jinko’s response.

“Sensenmann’s aim is that monster, the Abigail E. Eternity. She is sure to engage her. Accepting her offer would mean helping her against that ship. Given our position, engaging such a ship so near to Freedom United territory is folly no matter how I see it.”

“Well, we don’t exactly have to fulfil our end of the bargain, right? As long as she leads us to the blue core, then our goal is met.”

“That’s a dishonourable way of doing things.”

“There are times to be rigid and there are times that we must be flexible, Jinko-senpai.”

“It’s a big risk.”

“But weren’t you the one who said the heir of Nipon Steel is valuable enough to risk engagement in this zone? This jump drive signature… It’s surely that ship. We will end up engaging with them regardless, why not have assistance while doing so?”

‘She has a point,’ Jinko thought to herself.

“... I’ll consider it.”

Hikari nodded.

The atmosphere in the room went back to normal and Jinko continued playing the shamisen.

….…...

“You have grown a lot, to talk to me like that.”

“Well, with age comes wisdom, right?” Hikari scratched the back of her head and gave a wry smile.

Jinko only responded with a proudful smile.

“By the way, Jinko-senpai,”

“Yes?”

“Is it okay, to just ignore them like this?” Hikari looked to the right, towards a virtual window that showed the exterior of space.

Outside were three white and grey ships in a line formation. They were the New England cruisers that Jinko met in the previous battle. It was also the trio of ships that Hikari and Yoake had to engage a few weeks prior that caused a delay in their rendezvous with Jinko. A band led by the lead ship named, Lady Lucky.

Their guns aimed towards the Dawning Star Ships and fired at them with differing intervals. Hikari could see the white flash of mass flying from the cruisers travelling towards them. Most shots missed due to the Dawning Star ships performing evasive manoeuvres. However, New England guns are well known for their accuracy. No matter how hard the Dawning Star ships tried to avoid the shells, they were still hit by a few. Though this damage was mostly negated by the strong shields on the Dawning Star ships. Attacks on Jinko were useless as she showed no signs of even taking damage. However, the same cannot be said for Yoake and Hikari as their shields weren’t as strong as Jinko's.

The two fleets continuously shelled and evaded each other. Automated fighter crafts from Jinko’s ship swooped in and bombard the Royal Navy fleet with missiles, while the Royal Navy counter-attacked with their point defence system. It was an all-out head-on fight and the two fleets looked to be of equal match.

The Dawning Star fleet was now in a line formation with the largest of the ships, the sakura-themed battlecruiser leading the way, followed closely behind the armoured cruiser Hikari and annihilation cruiser Yoake. They stuck with each other in a loose formation, at least more than three thousand kilometres of distance from each other. From a glance, their movements seemed good, however, during moments of intense manoeuvres, Yoake could be seen having difficulties catching up to the more cracked members of the fleet. She was shelled mercilessly by the Royal Navy who had noticed that she was a weak point.

“The fourth generation is inadequate. As expected from the leftovers of the Dawning Star Vault. I don’t even know why they bother awakening these cores and putting them in high profile vessels.”

“She’s trying her best, Jinko-senpai. You know she doesn’t have as good a processing unit like us. Also, my crew is in that ship, doing their best, as well.”

With Hikari’s words, Jinko opened up a virtual communication channel towards Yoake.

“... Yoake, report,” Jinko requested with a commanding tone.

It was immediately responded by the neophyte who started the communication with a buzzing sound.

“Shields at twelve per-cent capacity, energy output towards directional thrusters insufficient for high capacity manoeuvres, unable to predict the pattern of enemy shells. Estimated time before shields run out, six minutes.”

Yoake said calmly, almost robotic. If one listened closely, one could hear the sounds of men and women, yelling in the background. They were part of Hikari’s crew that was helping with Yoake’s functions.

“What of the new weapon?”

“Annihilation Cannon, currently charged by twenty-two per-cent. Requesting permission to re-route energy from annihilation cannon to shields.”

“Estimated time before the cannon can be fired?” Jinko asked, ignoring her request.

“...Twenty-two minutes. Yoake will be destroyed long before the annihilation cannon is charged, requesting—” Yoake asked again, but was interrupted by Jinko.

“Denied. Maintain your current energy distribution and your trajectory.”

“At the current rate—”

“That’s an order, Yoake.”

“...understood,” Yoake replied before cutting communications.

Following this conversation, Jinko let out a disappointed look and a sigh. “Still just a newborn.”

“You shouldn’t bully her too much, Jinko-senpai,” Hikari said to her with a slightly angry tone.

“She reminds me of when I first met you. Just an artificial intelligence with no emotions, just following orders. I only want her to start acting on her own.”

“Don’t just suddenly bring that up! I’m out of that phase already, Jinko-senpai.”

“And she will need to be if she wants to survive out there. She will need to learn what it means to follow the orders of Jinkoshijin.”

Jinko let down her shamisen before holding up her brush and wrote a word on the piece of paper below— the word: ‘Free-will’.

A rumble was felt throughout the room as Jinko engaged her directional thrusters. It was then that the battlecruiser manoeuvred in such a way that she was now in between the royal navy ships and Yoake. The larger ship eclipsed the smaller cruiser, taking all the shells meant for Yoake to hit Jinko instead.

Immediately Jinko faced an increase of stress to her shield curtain by ten-folds. She was bigger, following the weaker manoeuvre patterns of Yoake and was just an easy target for the New England cruisers. The Royal Navy ships focused all of their attacks in trying to bring down Jinko who had put herself in such a position.

The combat between the two fleets continued in a stalemate as they kept shelling each other. For now, the upper hand seemed to be with the Royal Navy as the side effect of Jinko covering for Yoake meant that Yoake couldn’t fire her cannons at the enemies. This resulted in a situation where a 3v3 became a 3v2.

Lady Lucky and her follower ships noticed this and started to shell Jinko with impunity, increasing their rate of fire. The attacks were so intense that even Jinko’s nigh impregnable shields started to show signs of wavering. However, Jinko knew that by the time her shields were depleted, Yoake would have long charged up her weapon. Unless the New England cruisers had a backup plan, the Dawning Star ships would win that fight.

It was a shame that things don’t always go one’s way in space. Out of nowhere, Jinko detected a large plethora of missiles approaching from various locations on bttlefield. She was alerted to them for a moment until she realised that the missiles weren’t aimed towards her or her subordinates. Instead, all that firepower was aimed towards the New England cruisers. Like a tangled web, the missiles closed in on them from every direction. The cruisers diverted all their attention to their point defence systems and thrusters to avoid the missiles, pausing their attacks on the Dawning Star ships.

Suddenly, behind Jinko, appeared a large vortex. Exiting the vortex was the appearance of a familiar boxed-shaped ship, Sensenmann. However, Sensenmann’s appearance was slightly different than Jinko remembered. Unlike the small destroyer that she saw at the Battle of Little Foot and at Ashen Port, the Sensenmann in front of her was more of a threat.

The pattern and the look of the ship were roughly the same. It looked like a bunch of boxes glued together, had a black motif and had the symbol of a skull on it. The only difference was that this ship was much larger— battleship-sized at the very least— and was much more weaponized than the destroyer Sensenmann, containing large sextuple guns and missile tubes all over the ship— all of it continuously firing lasers and missiles towards the New England cruisers.

‘That vortex... D-drives…’ Jinko thought to herself as she saw the appearance of the reaper. She didn’t care about the ship or its firepower, she was more interested in the vortex technology that it had.

“Jinko-senpai, they are charging up their drives. Should I engage the FTL inhibitor?” Hikari voiced out, breaking Jinko out of her concentration.

“No. Let them go. The barbarians are not worth exposing our trump card.”

“Understood.”

The New England Cruisers poured most of their attention towards avoiding the combined attacks from Sensenmann and the Dawning Star Fleet. Had the situation continued much longer, they would have no doubt be erased from existence. Soon enough, all three of the New England cruisers disappeared without a trace, gone among the stars. They had successfully escaped from the battlefield, but not without suffering heavy damage beforehand. There was no doubt in Jinko’s mind that they would no longer be a player within the Lawless Maw Zone after such a defeat.

Once they were gone, the battle concluded and things went back to normal. Not too long after the battle, a communication channel opened up from Sensenmann. A large virtual display opened up in front of both Hikari and Jinko, revealing the familiar face of Sensenmann. Sensenmann adjusted her clothing and posture before opening her mouth. Although before Sensenmann could say a word, Jinko started to play her shamisen and said a haiku towards the deadly woman with a childlike appearance.

"Late to battlefieldVery low expectationsYet disappointment.”

“... I take it that you are ready to accept my offer, Artificial Poet?” Sensenmann replied, not amused.