The Golden Body and the Audit Report
“Then let’s not say anything to headquarters for now.”
“Eh?”
“We’ll keep quiet until the maintenance is complete. After it’s done, we’ll report everything and leave the rest to them.”
“Are you sure it’s alright to be so irresponsible?”
“Don’t worry, we’re not violating any orders. To begin with, without using refurbished second-hand parts, we couldn’t have done anything with that budget. It may be different for the military, but the Coast Guard doesn’t seem to have any regulations on what parts we use.”
“Yes, there was no mention of adhering to military standards.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“But…”
“Ah, if there’s an issue, it’ll probably be about going against common sense. But that’ll be alright too.”
“Why is that?”
“Can you really expect common sense from a fresh recruit who just graduated three months ago? If they have an issue with that reasoning, then the problem is with the ones who appointed someone like me. More importantly, I don’t know of any precedent of being punished for deviating from common sense. Well, there’s no shortage of times I was shunted around for personnel reasons.”
Sis Maki and I settled on not reporting anything until the very last minute.
As expected, a proposal came from Maria afterward.
To reinforce the hull, she proposed covering the entire ship’s body with an alloy.
The alloy would be obtained from the ship currently being dismantled,
so the cost estimate was extremely low.
Unusually, the reason for the low cost was also included in this proposal.
It stated that by obtaining the alloy ourselves, we could drastically reduce the cost.
While I still had lingering doubts, it was crystal clear that if I rejected the proposal now, we’d never get the certification issued. So with a heavy heart, I signed off on the proposal, approving the remodeling work.
Ten days later, we received a report that the ship was complete, so we hurriedly entered the dock to inspect the hull.
Maria and the boss truly didn’t disappoint with their work.
The entire hull was shining gold.
What a flashy exterior.
Surely this wasn’t acceptable.
As I stood there dumbfounded, Maria approached with a smug look on her face.
Before she could say anything, I swung my fist down onto her head.
“What did you do? What were you thinking giving the ship this appearance?”
“Ow! That’s harsh, Acting Captain. I went and made this the strongest ship ever.”
“So what is this about?”
“Isn’t it amazing? The whole hull is covered in that Scarlet Metal alloy, so no ordinary laser cannon stands a chance against it. More importantly, it has minimum resistance against the stellar winds pouring from that supernova, so there’s hardly any loss of speed. This should significantly reduce the time to reach top speed that the boss was worried about.”
“Oh, oh ah. What is this? Who in their right mind would cover an entire ship with that expensive Scarlet Metal alloy! Do you have any idea how much that costs? Not even His Majesty’s super dreadnought battleships are afforded such an extravagance. At most, only the bridge and His Majesty’s quarters are encased in it.”
“That’s because those ships are too big. For a smaller one like this, the leftover alloy from that passenger liner would actually give us change to spare. We just used the surplus from there, though we had hardly any left over.”
“Even so, we can’t possibly go out like this. It stands out far too much. Wait, listen up. This ship is not to leave here!”
With that, I rushed into the office.
I grabbed the working Sis Maki, explained the situation, and we decided to conceal the issue by painting over the entire hull.
Fortunately, we had room in the budget, so we managed to avert crisis there. But while taking three days for the painting work itself was acceptable, Sis Maki reported a new issue to me.
Apparently, the cost incurred for this repainting, specifically for the paint itself, had become problematic.
It turns out that after replacing the engines, this repainting job had the next highest expense in this entire maintenance overhaul.
The paint cost a staggering 800 million gold pieces.
Granted, this was for the highest grade special anti-cosmic ray paint recommended by the boss, but it was still an outrageous sum for a simple hull painting job.
The issue was that up until now, all expenses had been covered by using refurbished second-hand parts, and the labor costs were handled by us, allowing for unthinkably low prices.
As a result, the paint cost alone stood out glaringly.
Understandably worried, Sis Maki, who had been overseeing the accounts, came to consult me.
After much deliberation, we decided to attach an audit report, and through the company boss, we had auditors from the Casval Factory’s audit department come in. Additionally, through Sis Maki’s connections, we also had a private audit firm review everything.
To cut to the chase, as befitting employees of the renowned Casval Factory, their insight regarding refurbished second-hand parts was impressive.
While there were considerable monetary dissatisfactions, they concluded that since any parts taken from decommissioned ships are regarded as scrap, those reclaimed parts held no inherent value.
However, simultaneously, they stated that the cost would not be appropriate for parts that had undergone refurbishing from that scrap. But since it was Maria and the others who performed that refurbishing, the exception applied in this case.
Taking that opinion into account, the private audit firm also determined there were no improprieties.
Ironically, the cost of this very audit landed in the top ten of expenses incurred so far.
Well, there’s no such thing as second-hand paint, and the audit fees seemed quite exorbitant too, so it looks like the report should be satisfactory.
However, the end result is that the ship currently in the dock, in terms of its appearance, interior, and performance, can be considered equivalent to a brand new state-of-the-art vessel built with the latest technologies.
I did think we may have gone overboard this time, but having come this far, I have no choice but to leave it to fate.
I’m only the acting captain, not the actual captain.
If the ship has turned out like this, headquarters will probably take it away from me anyway. So along with this ship’s report, I’ll likely be relieved of duty.
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With that resignation, I decided to properly see this job through to the very end and proceeded to the second trial run.
This time, thankfully having enough leeway, I assigned tentative roles to my subordinates and conducted the trial run in as close to real combat conditions as possible.
We haven’t tested the weapons yet, but crew are stationed at all posts.
Just like before, the company boss was present for this test voyage.
“This time, we’ll depart directly from here, orbit the star Rutile, and return. If all goes well, we’ll be back the same day. Status reports from all sections.”
“Yes, Acting Captain. Bridge, report.”
“Navigation systems normal, engines initiated. No anomalies.”
“Engine room.”
[Output rising smoothly. Liftoff output achieved.]
“Understood. Helm, initiate liftoff.”
“The aerospace destroyer [Shunmin] is lifting off…We have now cleared the stratosphere. Exiting planetary control area.”
“Proceeding to normal cruising speed. Three cosmic velocities.”
………
“We are approaching our designated point shortly.”
This area has little ship traffic and is practically empty space.
Yet military ships and some transport vessels occasionally pass through, and more importantly, the radio environment is good here.
If any trouble occurs during testing that causes us to drift, it would be easy to receive rescue assistance – the perfect area for trials like this.
We’ve properly filed applications with the control authority this time, so no other ships should enter for a while.
“Commencing speed increase test. Final checks.”
“Confirm safety of trajectory. Radar operator, report.”
“Clear for one light-year ahead. Path is green.”
I’ve assigned those two new recruits to assist the radar operator.
That’s right, there are eight new recruits total on this bridge right now.
Mostly just observing, but they’re all focused.
We’ve assigned new recruits to all sections for this training exercise.
If anything happens here, we’ll immediately switch to emergency damage control drills.
Since it will involve risking their lives, I can only pray nothing occurs.
“Engine room.”
[All systems green in engineering.]
“All right, we’ll start with a five-light speed”.
“Towards target Rutile, five-light speed”.
“Five light speed, copy that.”
The ship immediately reached five spacespeed.
A satisfied boss voice came out from the engine room.
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Thanks for the treat.
can’t wait to see the higher ups try and start stuff and hopefully get karma dealt
Sounds like it’s going to be a heavily-armored ship. This will be interesting.