chapter 47
There were about 200 ships in the space near us. Already, we could see the ships that were further away turn around. They will most likely successfully escape.
The enemy fleet seemed to now be in position. They had their three battlecruisers, each one of them over 700 metres long. They were true terrors. But they also seemed to have 58 frigates. Most of their firepower was concentrated on ships. They had already disabled at least a dozen ships, with even more having surrendered.
They still seemed to be attacking the station, but only the weapons that were currently working. There didn’t seem to be any of the defence fleet that the station used around here, and the only ship putting up a decent defensive effort was another battlecruiser. But it didn’t seem to be fighting back, only defending.
The screen zoomed in on two missiles that were getting closer and that were about to be hit by my missile interceptors. They exploded near the missiles, expelling their pellets in a cloud that the missiles went through. That would have already done a decent amount of damage, but those pellets themselves now exploded when one of them was hit.
The resulting shrapnel tore those missiles apart, making them disappear from the screen in quite a satisfying way. Unfortunately, more missiles will come after that, and if I continue to survive, more attention will be coming my way.
Lola was trying to calculate an escape route that would actually work, but running away this time didn’t seem to be any help. I felt strangely calm about this. There was no survival here in space except if we surrendered.
I was about to tell Lola to broadcast our surrender when I saw a flicker of a ship disappearing to our left, where the station’s berths were.
“Lola, zoom in on sector -D -7.”
Almost immediately, the screen changed, showing the best image we had of that location. Soon she started to populate the image with more data. It was a berth for ship size small-A, and a ship had descended back after most likely realising what the situation was like out here.
“Lola, try to open a communication line with them and send that we’re not pirates and we're not going to try to hurt them.”
“Why would we do that?” But she stopped talking realizing what I wanted to do as I pushed the RCS thrusters to their max to move as quickly as possible toward the open hangars of that berth. This time, the ship AI helped, with us soon having proper acceleration and deceleration vectors to successfully land at that berth.
More missiles were coming our way, but my missile interceptors were putting in the work, shooting down every one of them.
When we reached over the hangar, the doors had already started to close, but with a quick tilt of the ship, I managed to get the tip of the wing underneath the closing doors and then slid the ship in.
The other ship’s weapons turned red, indicating that they were now hot and aimed at us. But I was too busy trying not to hit anything to focus on that, so I just hoped they wouldn’t open fire, because shooting here would probably hurt their own ship as well.
There wasn't much room, but thankfully, my ship was just barely small enough that I managed to not hit the other ship as I landed. Though I did scrape one of our wings on one of the walls.
The hangars above closed shut, and then, a moment later, Lola connected the line of communication she had managed to make with the other ship.
The people on the other side were probably not going to be happy, so as soon as the line connected, I immediately started to hurriedly talk.
“I’m so sorry, I’m really not with the pirates, and I mean you no harm, but this was the only way I saw to save my ship and actually have a chance of not being captured by the pirates.”
What I heard in response was an absolutely furious exhale of breath. Everything fell silent after that, with me holding my breath nervously.
“Fine. But if there is one scratch on my ship, you’re going to pay for it.”
“Completely understandable. I am Mage-Captain Remi Graves of the Forward Horizon. Who am I speaking to?”
“So, an adventurer, we are as well. I am Mage-Captain Virun Valdrishilus Common the VIII of the Flickerster. Let us meet outside.”
With that, he got off the communication line.
“I mean, that went well?”
“Agreed. But what will we do now? There doesn’t seem to be any quests for help from the station.”
“You start gathering information about what’s happening on the station. You mentioned that there was an attack. Try to find out what the current situation is.”
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“Also, try to get in touch with anyone who's still in charge of the station and get them to make a quest so we could help them officially. Do not take no for an answer. Keep pushing until they accept.”
“Is that wise, to antagonize them like that?”
“Currently, all the higher-ups are probably busy fighting or leading. The lowest of the low are handling such communications, and they probably have orders not to bring up anything they deem useless, and they would deem our request useless. So you need to be as annoying as possible so they eventually bring it to the higher-ups.”
“Acknowledged.”
“It’s strange that there isn’t a quest for all adventurers around here to help them.”
Through my bond, I sent a command to every drone I had for them to fully wake up and get into battle readiness.
As fast as I could, I pulled on all of my gear that was near the cockpit and then slid downward to the first floor. Thankfully, there was gravity. All of the drones were already waking up.
“Bob, open back ramp. Squadron 4, guard it with Bob.”
Squadron 4 was the only properly fitted-out combat drones, and they were also the first to wake, besides the damage control squad.
For a moment, I paused. In this locker were all the weapons that I currently had. My revolver was, of course, already in its holster on my waist. What should I take out? The Experiment 333? Who was I kidding, I was probably going to need everything.
“Hauler drone one and two, report here immediately.”
Experiment 333 I hung to the front of me with a harness belt for easy access while still keeping my hands free for the other things.
The right side of my trench coat was filled with small slots, perfect for my revolver ammo, which I quickly started to take out and place into these slots.
The hauler drones made it here.
“Listen up. We’re most likely going into a combat situation. Your job is to stay away from the fighting, but close enough that if I need anything—like these weapons or ammo—you can come in so I can resupply. Is that understood?”
They were flying drones, so they bobbed up and down to confirm that they understood.
“Good. Now open up your holding bay and extend your hooks.”
Into the holding bay, I started to place ammo boxes and other necessities for the guns, like batteries and gas canisters. Onto the hooks, I hanged the extra weapons.
Onto my back, I hung the deployable barrier I made from the excess armour.
After double-checking that everything was good, it meant it was time to move.
As I stepped onto the ramp, I could see the other ship and the crew that was outside. They looked warily toward my ship, so I held out my hand, trying to signal that I was no threat to them.
“Everyone stay here at the ramp but continue to prepare,” I told the drones, most of which were still overcharging their batteries. Which was not good for the overall health of the batteries, but it would give them more operating time.
There seemed to be six members of the other crew currently outside. All of them looked like they knew how to fight. About half of them had projectile weapons, while the others had more medieval ones like swords. All of them wore something that was a mix of modern body armor and fantasy leather armor.
They readied for a fight when I got closer, but they didn’t do it by pointing weapons at me—just being ready at a moment’s notice for violence.
As I was about ten steps away from them, I stopped as I actually recognized one of them.
“Vertolit?” I asked. He was the one I met at the bar in the last station.
“Wait, you’re Remi? The one that asked me about ship sizes in the last station?”
“You know each other?” the captain of the other ship asked.
“We only met briefly at the bar. He seemed like a decent fellow. So I don’t think he’s trying to pull anything,” Vince said while visibly relaxing. A few others also seemed to relax, but the captain and one more never did, continuing to be completely vigilant.
“What are you guys planning to do?” I asked the other captain.
“What can we do? We will barricade ourselves here and hope the station wins. Because apparently, they don’t need our help?”
“So you also think it’s weird that they haven’t put out an open quest for all adventurers to help them?”
He was about to answer when Lola spoke, and I saw the other captain also turning a bit, probably also being informed.
“I finally got through. I’ve been given more information, and an open quest has been issued. I could actually overhear, I think, who’s in charge of the whole defense yelling at the person I was speaking to, questioning why a request hadn’t already been issued?”
“Anyways, the situation is quite bad. The pirates had infiltrated the station security and apparently messed up quite a lot.”
“The general population of the station is still safe, as those levels are properly locked down, but they can’t activate their security systems or lock down the security floor. They are currently engaging with pirates who are trying to get into their command center.”
“Transferring you the floor plans.”
A moment later, an image of the station was sent to me. It was of the security floor. All of the doors there were still open. The security floor itself looked like a doughnut. The center was where the command area was, then there were four hallways to get into that command area, with a large circle going around the circumference of the station. From that other hallways led to other areas, like the docks we were currently in.
It seems the pirates had taken over one of the dock areas, from where they were staging their attacks. Currently, they were only using one of the hallways, but if the station managed to put up a defense—which they seem to have—those pirates will try to flank.
“We have a game plan. Bob, you take squadrons 3 to 8 and half of the constructors. You will hold what we will now call hallway B junction, and I will hold hallway C junction.”
With that, I overlaid the image with that information and sent it to everyone. Immediately, drones started to emerge from the ship, with the other ship's crew immediately tensing up.
“A quest has been issued. My drones and I will try to hold the flanks. Your help would be appreciated, but they’ll probably also need help at the center—although the station security seemed to be holding that location for now.”
That was all I said before I started running. We needed to make it to those choke points before the pirates did—otherwise, they could use the hallways to flank. And if the station security falls, things will get a lot more complicated for us.
We exited our berth. It took us two minutes to rush across the rest of the dock area and enter the rest of the station. Most of the hallways were closed off, properly locked down, but the way into the security area. Here we could simply open that door and move upwards until we were finally on the security floor.
“Good luck, Bob,” I said to him as we split off, them going towards the left while I went towards the right.
From my trench coat, I pulled out all my drones, three of them full combat ones and two of them for scouting. One of them I sent into the hallway in front of us that led to the security centre. He was going to be our eyes and ears to understand what was going on there.
If the station security falls, we need to make a hasty retreat back to the ship.
It took eight minutes of full-out running for us to make it to hallway C junction. Two of the drones I sent forward as an early warning system. I looked around and only saw smooth hallways. We did have one corner, but this didn't seem enough for a proper defensive position.
As I was scanning everything, there was an oddity in the walls. Some of the metal seemed denser than others. I stepped close to one of those locations and knocked on the metal. This was ship armour grade, but only a couple of panels were like that.
“Construction drones, start cutting out these panels. Cut through the softer materials around them and then start making barriers.”
“Lola, did you get that? Inform the other team as well. And also inform the station’s security of our current location and the strength of our forces. They should have a better idea of the enemy's strength, and hopefully, they will warn us when we have incoming.”
“Acknowledged.”
The construction drones had already gotten one of the panels out and were starting to weld them into the floor when a drone that was a little bit behind us informed us of movement.
As I turned around and aimed backward, soon the other ship’s captain and four of their crew came into view, and I lowered the gun.
“Station security sent us here. It seems that I have you to thank for the quest being issued. Those pirates won’t know what’s about to hit them,” he said, and I could feel the bloodlust coming off him.
A moment later, Lola contacted me.
“Seems like the pirates are about five minutes out from your location.”