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Mob No.11: [Oniichan. Next is 2 o’clock direction, down 20 degrees, distance 500].
The mercenary guild I came to today, hoping to find work after yesterday’s meaningful reunion with a friend, is packed as usual.
And the long line at the beauty’s desk is a common sight.
So I go to Uncle Loan’s, where no one is queuing.
“Morning.”
“Yo. Did you enjoy your time off?”
“It was so-so I guess.”
The hubbub over there reaches us faintly.
With that as background music, Uncle Roans and I start talking about work as usual.
“By the way. The strange abundance of gate-related requests isn’t my imagination, is it?”
Looking at the bulletin board, almost everything had become gate-related requests, an abnormal situation.
“Oh, right. Because of that demonstration. Requests have been flooding into the gate administration branches everywhere because of it. It’s being distributed as requests to our branches everywhere.”
Uncle Roans sighed and put his head in his hands.
“And the first priority is security. Starting with the places where the demonstrations take place, of course.”
“I refuse.”
I cut Uncle Roans off and refused immediately.
“Figured.”
My answer seemed to be within Uncle Roans’ expectations.
“I’ll take this.”
So without hesitation, I handed over the request I had chosen.
“Replacement security during the maintenance of worn out gate stabilizers in the Sadal star region, the furthest away from this place, huh? Well, you’d choose this request.”
Uncle Roans started the procedure with a resigned look on his face.
By the way, the people who do the reception also get points, and mercenaries get points for accepting and completing jobs that count for promotions and raises.
I’ve heard of evil receptionists deliberately making mistakes and processing high difficulty quests to force mercenaries into them for points.
Uncle Roans proudly declares that he never does that.
So I don’t accept requests unless Uncle Roans is here.
And even if I did accept one, it would only be from someone Uncle Roans has given the OK to.
There’s no one like that yet.
And when the procedure was over, with the hubbub at the beauty desk behind me, I left the lobby with the receptionist and immediately went to the dock, boarded my ship, and made my way to a gate that could take me to the Sadal Star Region.
Gates naturally form circular, wavering shapes.
Therefore, stabilizers are used in petal formations to stabilize them, giving them the nickname [Sunflowers].
There is always a cylindrical colony for management nearby, and they decide things like the order of the gates.
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This time, the toll was paid by the client, and round-trip tickets were provided.
The order of entry is first come, first served.
Of course, nobles could cut in line, but this time there was no such thing, and I passed through smoothly.
By the way, the gate I’m working at is different from the one I used to come here.
And the job contents are like this:
Duties: Guarding during wormhole stabilizer replacement
Term: 48 hours by Galactic Standard Time
3 shifts of 8 hour continuous work with 16 hours of standby break
Work environment: Free use of lodging facility in management colony (capsule hotel style) – free meals provided.
Spacecraft fuel provided.
Conditions: Must bring personal spacecraft.
Repair costs out of pocket if brought spacecraft is damaged.
Respond and sortie even during standby break in emergencies.
Due to above, cannot leave colony during standby break.
Compensation: 240,000 credits – Fixed
Frankly it’s plain and hard to tell if they’re somewhat stingy or very generous.
What’s more, if you get the last shift of the 3 shifts, you have 16 hours of free time from now.
Well the pay is low for 48 hours of confinement, and you can’t leave the management colony during standby break, so it would be pretty boring.
Of course besides me there were over 40 mercenaries gathered from all over who took this job.
If they were protagonist types they’d probably
[I can’t do such a plain job!]
[This isn’t work a mercenary should do!]
And storm off to subjugate pirates on their own.
And then that would typically cause trouble, leaving mob like me to clean up after them.
But you have to understand that work consists of 999 plain jobs supporting the 1 flashy job.
Not that they’d understand that though….
Anyway after getting briefed and assigned shifts, luckily I got the first shift.
But even though it’s called security, pirates wouldn’t come out to some rural place only connected to rinky-dink gates like this.
Instead what came up out of the blue was helping out the debris crew.
The reason being, Due to the nature of the facility, the replacement work this time has to be done in a rush no matter what.
To deal with debris, object barriers are normally active around the stabilizers but can’t be deployed during replacement.
While the stabilizers and my ship and such obviously won’t be damaged by micro debris, it’s supposedly safest to collect it anyway.
Because the range is large, they prepared additional collection ships but suddenly couldn’t make it work due to that demo, contacted the mercenary guild while we were on the way, and requested it as an additional job apparently.
Of course it was an optional side job for those with ships capable of assisting the work.
Luckily my [Patchwork] was that kind of ship.
So the first things to do were coating the ship in a special polymer and attaching debris collection containers underneath.
Obviously the containers, but the polymer coating is to prevent damage to the hull by trapping space dust and at the same time trap and adsorb micro debris so it doesn’t hit the stabilizers.
Of course I don’t coat near the thrusters, cameras, or cockpit windows.
Only after properly completing that could I start the security work doubling as debris crew helper.
[Oniichan. Next is 2 o’clock direction, descend 20 degrees, distance 500.]
“Roger.”
I move as instructed by the uncle, at an extremely low speed like I’m just about to land.
There a large metal piece – probably part of a ship hull – and tiny fragments were drifting.
[I’ll go collect it so please catch any that flow your way.]
“Roger.”
Saying that, the debris crew uncle jumped out of the container, jetted closer to the debris.
Then as if killing momentum, he slowly approaches the largest ship hull piece while collecting the micro debris like nuts and fragments.
The space dust only looks like it’s drifting, but it’s actually moving quite fast.
While the aforementioned ships and structures are obviously fine, it can easily penetrate something like a spacesuit.
So collecting it requires utmost care.
[It’s hard to grab… Mind if I let some flow your way?]
“Aye aye sir!”
I receive the micro debris flowing from ahead on my polymer coated hull.
[Got it! Grabbed it!]
While firmly holding a piece of the hull, the uncle let off a burst from his jets and nimbly returned to the container.
It’s been 3 hours since starting this work, and it’s going quite smoothly. I’m getting used to the work too.
Above all the uncle debris worker and I are in sync.
The security is going flawlessly too with my proud radar.
Looks like the work will go enjoyably for the remaining 2 days.
As long as nothing happens anyway.
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