Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 70: Rhoswen’s First Battle

The next morning, Aurelian went back to Polaris Naval Academy to report for duty and submit the details of everything that had happened since his first deployment. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The process itself was clean and surprisingly quick, probably because too many people had already read the reports before he even arrived, and no one in the academy administration wanted to waste time having him repeat what was already in the system.

After the final verification was done, the academy transferred the mission rewards directly to him.

Thirty thousand credits.

Three thousand blue source fragments.

And one academy treasury exchange chance for blue-tier equipment.

That last one mattered the most.

The academy treasury was not the kind of place students often got to touch, and even among the items available for exchange, there were plenty that could change the feel of a fleet if used well.

Aurelian went through the list carefully instead of grabbing the first expensive-looking thing.

He thought about shipboard weapons first, then shields, then radar support, but after looking at his current situation, he ruled out all the obvious choices one by one.

Astra already had overwhelming flagship pressure.

Rhoswen already had excellent survivability.

What he lacked right now was not a bigger gun.

It was flexible ground and boarding power that could be used in multiple mission types.

After narrowing it down, he chose a blue-tier autonomous combat mech package developed by Polaris Naval Academy itself.

It was one of the few blue-tier items that the academy could produce in controlled batches, and it was popular for a reason.

It could function as ship-mounted equipment, could support boarding, internal defense, surface warfare, escort work, and urban combat, and it was the kind of thing that remained useful long after a commander who was unable to get items that could advance their ship girls and slowly outgrew their first few ships.

It also saved him a lot of money.

If he had tried to buy it normally, it would be expensive, but not much, and who can say no to free things? Getting it through the treasury exchange was a much cleaner way to strengthen the fleet.

After placing the order, he did not waste the rest of the day sitting around.

He accepted a pirate suppression mission near a third-tier mining world called Duskrail, a place surrounded by dense asteroid belts and mineral-rich debris fields that had attracted more greedy people than local patrol fleets could comfortably deal with.

The area was productive, and because it was productive, it was also full of trouble.

Mining companies clustered there for the ore.

Pirates clustered there for the miners.

The governor of Duskrail had long since stopped pretending he could fully clean the region on his own, so regular bounty and suppression contracts were posted through academy and commander channels, letting anyone interested take a swing at the problem.

It was not considered a very glamorous mission.

Most students who had just become commanders preferred easier routes or cleaner targets, because pirates in asteroid belts were slippery, knew the terrain well, and loved running the moment anything stronger showed up.

Still, Aurelian did not take the mission because he was excited about pirates.

He took it because the area overlapped with the route of the cyan clue from the blind box, and because if he was going there anyway, he might as well let Rhoswen get some real combat experience.

Black Crown and Crimson Bulwark left Polaris together.

The difference between the two ships was obvious the moment they moved side by side.

Astra’s flagship carried that calm, heavy authority that made everything around it feel smaller, while Rhoswen’s destroyer had a feeling of a massive boulder that can take hits and brush them off.

Aurelian stayed on Black Crown’s command deck with Astra while maintaining an open link to Rhoswen, so that he could command her if something happened while they were on this mission.

The trip to Duskrail was smooth.

The moment they came out near the mining lanes, the local traffic pattern looked exactly like the kind of place pirates loved.

Slow ore haulers, corporate escorts that stayed close to high-value routes, scattered armed merchant ships trying not to look vulnerable, and too many rocks for patrol fleets to fully control.

Aurelian marked the clue location first, because that was still his main reason for coming, then adjusted course.

They did not make it far before trouble found them.

A pirate group was in the middle of hitting an armed merchant ship on an outer route near one of the asteroid lanes.

The merchant vessel was already in bad shape, hull scorched, shields unstable, and the attackers had the kind of confidence that came from knowing they had picked a target weaker than themselves.

Four pirate warships.

Two Tier II frigates.

Two Tier II destroyers.

Not impressive by any serious standard, but more than enough to crush a single merchant hull that did not have real support.

Aurelian watched the tactical display for a second, then shook his head lightly.

"Bad luck for them," he said.

Astra’s lips curved faintly as she also agreed with what he said.

Then he opened the command channel. "Rhoswen, take the lead on this one. Astra and I will watch the edges and make sure none of them slip away."

There was a very short pause on the line, and then Rhoswen’s voice came back sharper than usual, clearly excited but trying to keep it under control.

"Yes, Commander."

Crimson Bulwark immediately broke formation and surged ahead.

Rhoswen’s first real battle had started.

The pirate ships noticed her almost right away, and, based on her size and acceleration, they quickly realized this was not something they should be fighting.

For a second, their formation wobbled, then they did what pirates always did when they realized they had bitten off too much.

They scattered.

Rhoswen did not hesitate.

Instead of slowing down and trying to look elegant, she pushed forward hard, picking the nearest target and driving straight at it with the kind of direct aggression that made Aurelian rub at his forehead once before he could stop himself.

She was going to ram it.

Of course she was.