Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 77: Finding Another Shipgirl

The shipgirls did gain experience, but because this had been surface warfare rather than ship-to-ship combat, and because the enemy quality was lower, the growth was slower than in the earlier missions, more gradual and less noticeable than the ones they had been in before.

Astra’s growth was barely visible from the outside, her performance steady and controlled as always, the kind of improvement that did not show in obvious jumps but settled into refinement.

Rhoswen gained a level, and that was still more than he expected.

This mission had never been about striking it rich.

It had been about gaining experience in landing on planets, dealing with similar beasts, or, in most cases, pacifying other alien races.

When the operation was done, Aurelian returned to Polaris.

The whole trip had taken around six days, long enough to step away from the academy rhythm but not long enough to feel detached from it.

Compared to the pirate suppression or the Omnic crisis, it was not a particularly profitable mission, but he did not regret it. The outcome matched the purpose, and that was enough for him.

Once back at Polaris Academy, he handled the mission submission quickly, without lingering too much on it, then turned his attention to the thing he had been waiting on quietly since before the colony mission.

The aircraft carrier clue.

He finally bought it.

There was no hesitation once he made the decision, no second-guessing about the cost or the timing.

This time, the Destiny System did not point him toward a company sale or a conveniently available hull.

Instead, it gave him coordinates and a situation, one that was far more dangerous and time-sensitive than the heavy destroyer clue had been, the kind of situation that could not be delayed.

The clue pointed toward a starship graveyard hidden inside unstable folded space, a place that existed in a state that could not last.

The wormhole-like entrance to that area was already in the late phase of collapse, and within a few more days, the entrance and everything inside it would be ripped apart, erased, leaving nothing usable behind.

If he wanted the carrier hull waiting in there, he had to move now.

The details made it even more interesting.

Inside that graveyard was a carrier-class hull sitting just below Tier IV standards, badly damaged but not beyond recovery, and according to the Destiny System’s clue, that was the one waiting for the right commander to awaken it, a chance that would not appear twice.

Aurelian read the coordinates again, committing them without relying solely on the interface.

The place was remote.

Not within the comfortable lanes he already knew, and not anywhere near the sectors he had just been operating in.

This one sat out in a poor, underdeveloped star sector called the Ashveil Sector, near a stretch of dead exploration lanes that had long since been written off as empty and not worth deeper investment, the kind of place that rarely appeared on priority maps.

Its capital world had a stargate, the only reason the sector had any life at all, the only thing keeping it connected to the wider network.

The Empire had subsidized the place enough to keep it standing, but no one seriously expected much from it, and that was exactly why something like a collapsing fold-space graveyard could stay unnoticed there for a long time, hidden not by secrecy but by disinterest.

Aurelian did not linger after reading the clue.

This was not the kind of lead he could save for later, and he had no intention of testing whether the system would give him the same chance twice.

Once the route was set, Black Crown and Crimson Bulwark left Polaris again and headed toward Ashveil Sector, their departure quiet and unremarkable.

The trip was long enough that even Rhoswen, who usually is excited to leave the star port and roam around, was now getting tired of the scenery, which had fewer and fewer stars nearby. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Astra said little about the destination.

She had noticed, of course, that Aurelian was going somewhere specific, although she did not know where, but after seeing how he brought Rhoswen into the mix, she was able to piece together that it might either be a new sister or another item similar to the one they got when they were doing the pirate mission.

But she did not ask, and that was something he appreciated.

He was not going to tell either shipgirl about the Destiny System.

Not now.

Maybe later on, when he felt like it was time.

But for now, he just wanted them to trust him, which was a given given the relationship that commanders and shipgirls share.

"We’re making a recovery stop," he told them plainly once the route was locked in. "Remote location. Time-sensitive. Potentially valuable."

That was enough.

Rhoswen accepted it immediately, though she did complain a little about having to cross half the map without knowing what kind of fight might be waiting at the end, the uncertainty bothering her more than the distance itself.

Astra, by contrast, simply nodded and prepared the ship, already adjusting for the kind of operation that might follow.

After leaving the Ashveil stargate, they pushed into deep space again, leaving behind even the minimal structure the sector offered.

It would take about two days to reach the target zone, two days of steady travel without interruption.

The region ahead was poor, underdeveloped, and mostly ignored, the kind of place where a commander could disappear for a while without many people asking questions, which suited Aurelian just fine.

He stood on Black Crown’s bridge, watching the route display shift steadily as they moved farther from the academy core, each segment of distance closing without fanfare.

A carrier hull in a dying fold-space graveyard.

A second long-term frontier plan was already waiting in the back of his mind, forming without needing to be forced.

And a fleet that was still small, but no longer weak, no longer something that had to avoid every risk.

He did not yet know whether the ship in that graveyard would become another turning point.

But if the Destiny System had pointed him there, then at the very least it was something he could not afford to ignore, not with the pace he intended to maintain.