chapter 49
“It won’t be long before the pirates decide to flank,” I informed the other ship’s crew.
“Then you better get a layered defence in place or we won’t be able to put up much of a fight.”
It seems my hesitation at not completely understanding what he meant made him realise something about me.
“Oh shit, you haven't done this. Of course, why else would you ask about the ship sizes? One of the most common skills everyone tries to get when they use guns is a skill that allows you to bypass armour. The quirk for all of those skills is that they can only ever penetrate one layer. Of course, there are other limitations, but we don't have time for that.”
“So, how far apart do these layers need to be?” I quickly asked him while, through my bond, sending new orders to the engineering drones.
“If it’s different materials, they can be stacked against each other, but similar materials need space between them. Just a few finger lengths would do,” he said, holding up two of his four fingers that were about the same size as my thumb.
We didn’t have much time, but my drones were well-designed for this work, and most of the metal the walls were made out of was really soft.
“So since you're new to this, I assume you don’t have any barrier-buster killers?” the other captain asked me.
“I might have. I got plenty of stuff, but can you give a brief rundown?”
Before he spoke, he looked at my drones and the stuff they had on them, then looked me over.
“You don’t look like you’re green, but—oh, I get it now. You're not new to combat, but combat out here in the galaxy. Basically, you need something to take out large projectiles—usually rockets—or something to block the path of spells so they won’t reach their target.”
As he finished saying that, he signalled one of his crew members, who pulled out a black rectangular box from a large container and placed it against the barrier that was still being welded to the wall and floor.
“Next, we need to worry about speedsters. It would be rare that they would have some, but the best weapons against them are proximity mines that use electricity as their damage.”
He then pulled out two extremely flat circular objects, placing them on the ground for a few seconds. When he picked them up, one side now mimicked the texture and color of the floor. He tossed them not too far away from the cap between the barriers. As they landed, it was basically impossible to see them.
“Isn’t that going to be dangerous if it goes off? They seem too close?”
“They don’t have the largest of range, it’s also common for speedsters to try to avoid common paths if possible.”
Much more to consider during a fight than I thought. There was about a 2-metre gap between the two makeshift barriers, leaving enough space to engage the pirates that were soon upon us.
“You, get over here,” I pointed at the drone who wasn't really meant for fighting.
It didn’t waste any time and zipped over as fast as possible. I only had one 25-mini-missile launcher. It looked like a thick dinner plate, and it could be mounted on a wall.
“Lola, did you send all the necessary information to Bob and his team?”
“Of course.”
“How far away is the scout from the command center?”
“We should have visual in about 20 seconds.”
The mini-missile launcher welded itself onto the wall. I tried to pull it off, but it held.
“Good. Now you,” I said to the drone that was hovering close to me, “are in charge of firing this thing when barrier busters are used. Use three mini-missiles per barrier buster. Is that understood?”
He bobbed up and down, and I got through our bond a hesitant understanding. He seemed to be a bit nervous about this, but he would be fine.
My early warning drones saw movement and started to pull back.
“Contact, 120 metres,” I said out loud to everyone.
“Would’ve been nice to get more barriers up,” one of the other ship’s crew members said, and I agreed.
It seemed that Bob would have more time to get more defenses up, which was good news.
An explosion came from in front of us, and that made me smile.
“What was that?” the other ship’s captain asked.
“My forward drones had a few explosives they could leave as a present.”
“Good, that’ll slow them down.”
A moment later, the scout I sent to the command center started transferring visuals.
The place looked like a war zone. So many damaged consoles. There was fierce fighting in one of the hallway entrances, and the terrible fight was going on between what seemed like two droids and three people.
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It was hard to see what was going on as they were moving so fast. I was about to tell Lola to increase the frame rate of the camera, but before I could, the picture cleared up a bit. Seems like she was ahead of me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to focus on that, as the pirates were closing in. Two more explosions sounded off, but there was not the same type of yelling as the first explosion, so they probably were dealing with the explosives in a safe manner.
“Lola, pirates are about to reach us. Give me an overall report?”
“Bob, still not seeing any pirate presence. The command centre seems to be holding, although there are two hostiles inside that are being suppressed—or at least being held at bay.
“Outside is doing better than I expected. The adventurer battle cruiser is something else, it’s currently fighting the entirety of the pirate fleet. The surviving other adventurer ships seem to be coming closer to help.”
“Any idea on when the station might get its weapons back online?”
“The last report indicated around 45 minutes more.”
“Well shit, that’s about two eternities in a fight.”
One of my forward drones made it safely back around the barrier, but the last one didn't quite make it before we heard shooting. It was hit—half of its propellers destroyed—as it skidded to the ground about 20 metres away from the barriers.
It was still functioning, but barely. Instead of trying to limp back, it used its remaining propellers to twist itself around while moving close to the outer wall. Then it pretended to be dead while still broadcasting video of the approaching pirates.
The hallway curved continuously, so having just a little bit more warning before the pirates reached a visible angle where we could open fire was actually extremely nice.
I was at the outer wall with a few of my drones, while the other ship's crew was in the inner corner. That meant that I would be able to get the first clean shot.
It was nice to be able to use my left side again. Experiment 333 was against my shoulder, and I was looking through the sight.
In my mind, I could see another angle that the downed drone was giving me, and I was also trying to use mana sense, but I soon gave up on it because there was too much feedback. It seems that I wasn’t quite ready to use it in battle.
The moment came quicker than expected as a pirate tried to slowly approach using the inner wall, having their guns pointed toward us. That part of the wall was made of soft metal, and my trigger finger twitched as I was about to pre-fire, aiming at the wall itself, as this bullet should easily penetrate so little material and hit the pirate before he could get a shooting angle at me.
There was more kickback than I expected, and the gun made more noise than I wanted to, but the bullet flew straight, hitting the pirate center mass. The two other bullets that came after hit the pirate in its unprotected neck and then head.
I could feel my own ability trigger, but I only focused on one of the inner ear bones, making that into currency instead of the whole body, as I didn’t want my ability to be known.
Looks like full auto is a bit too unwieldy, but this time it worked out. I switched it to semi-automatic.
“One pirate down. They are pulling the body back, and I think they’re about to deploy their own barriers.” I informed the others.
Then from the video image of the downed drone, I saw something unbelievable. A pirate put her hands on the dead pirate, and then I felt a surge of mana.
“What just happened?” the other captain asked, worry in his eyes.
In complete disbelief, I said what I saw. “The pirate, I’m sure I killed, is slowly getting back up. Did she bring him back from the dead?” My voice was full of doubt, but it seems like the other captain knew what had happened.
“Well shit, they have a reviver. Who the hell are these pirates? No pirate group that has these types of individuals should be this unknown. Something isn't adding up, and if they have one reviver here, it means they also have one for their main assault, if not more. I will report this to the station security,” he finished saying.
This just got infinitely worse. The pirates also deployed their barrier and started to push it further towards us. I started to open fire, and it didn't take long before the other ship's crew also opened fire.
No one peeked out behind the barrier, only blind firing around it. It was the same for the pirates. Although everyone was scarily accurate. It seems we all had our ways of knowing where to aim.
Bullets hit the barriers, making small bits of metal and sparks fly. There was at least one pirate whose shots penetrated the first barrier without hitting it. That was scary and without the other ship’s captain's warning, I would have already been dead.
We were conserving ammo, but we were slowly chewing through their barrier. Experiment 333 seems to be working excellently, although from the readings I did see, it might have a problem with overheating.
“They’re about to use a rocket launcher!” I quickly informed everyone.
The rocket came flying over the pirates’ barrier, with three mini missiles flying to meet it, and a square piece of metal from the black box that the other ship’s crew had set up. It had small holes in its sides to propel it. The explosion that happened almost dead center between both sides was incredibly loud.
It seems like we also had our own barrier-buster, as one of the other ship's crew took one out.
Now it was our turn. The rocket flew toward the pirates. That seemed to come as a complete surprise to them, as they didn't seem to have any countermeasures, although one tried to pop out from behind the barrier and shoot down the rocket coming their way.
Fortunately, I had seen that coming thanks to the downed drone. My rifle barked sharply as I fired it. When the pirate hit the floor, he had seven bullets in him. This time I made his entire heart and brain turn into currency, hoping that would be enough to stop them from reviving him.
Then the barrier-buster hit, and more of the pirates went flying.
They seemed to have someone capable of pulling stuff with their mind, and I informed that to everyone here as the bodies were recovered.
Our outer barrier was also quite chewed up from the pirate’s gunfire, so I deployed my own personal shield, watching it unpack and secure itself to the floor. The others followed my example.
“Contact in hallway B junction. Seems like they’re finally trying to flank towards there as well. But Bob has had so much time to prepare that he seems more eager than anything else,” Lola informed me.
From Bob’s feed, I saw him firing his mini missiles, taking down barrier busters and pirates. With the other drones using their cutting lasers as weapons, and the one proper fighting squadron firing their built-in projectile weapons.
They seemed to be doing well. Unfortunately for me, the pirates seemed to be able to revive everyone, including the person with the missing brain and heart. Although the person doing the reviving looked haggard after that.
“How much of the body needs to be destroyed for them to not be able to revive?” I asked the other captain while we had a moment of reprieve.
“From what I’ve heard, they only need a small piece, but the soul still needs to linger nearby for it to work. I still don’t understand how they could have such strong individuals. Something is really wrong here.”
“Lola, any idea what is going on?”
“There seem to be more reports on the quantum web of other similar attacks that are happening right now, so perhaps something bigger is going on?”
“Well, I guess that doesn’t matter right now. If we survive this, we can worry about the next thing?”
“Agreed,” Lola answered back, and I refocused as the pirates were bringing up another barrier and it seems this time they brought more fighters.
They were met with a surprise as my drones joined the fight. We managed to hold off their assaults. Yet they continued to pull back the bodies to revive them. When I got a lucky shot on one of them. This time, I decided to turn his soul into currency.
There was panic when they could not revive him. Finally, they started to take casualties. Unfortunately, we weren’t spared. Two of my drones went down, and one of the other ship’s crew members was hit in the shoulder.
Time continued to go by, but the pirates seemed to be getting more desperate as we slowly started to run out of ammo. They didn’t know about the ammo, but seemed to know that they had only limited time before things turned ugly for them. As the station will get the rest of its weapons online sooner rather than later.
“They’re shooting a heavy laser against their own barrier?” I said out loud as I saw what was happening behind it.
“Well, that's not going to work,” the other captain said as he pulled out two grenades.
A few seconds later, the laser cut through their own barrier and hit one of ours. The other captain then threw the grenades, which covered basically the entire hallway in thick smoke. That blocked the beam from getting to us. He also brought out goggles and put them on.
“These help see through the smoke. Here, take one,” he said while throwing me one of the goggles.
I caught it and put it on, now I was able to somewhat see through the smoke.
In the end, I don’t think this would matter much, as more pirates seemed to be showing up, and one of them looked quite big and quite angry.
He kinda looked like a walking rhinoceros carrying a huge gun that looked really similar to a minigun, and as he got closer, he seemed to activate some sort of barrier.
“Could space fabric shields be used in this type of combat?” I asked, a bit nervous about the answer.
All of them snapped their heads towards me.
“What are you seeing?” the other captain asked me.
From my wrist display, I projected an image of what I saw. As soon as they saw that image, all of them started to swear.
“As soon as he shows himself, fire everything. Our only chance is to overwhelm that shield.”
“How good are our chances?” I said while preparing all the drones that still had something to fire, but I didn’t get an answer. Well, that’s not good.
“Lola, that outer wall isn’t too thick, right?”
“About four meters, then it’s space. Why are you asking?”
“Can you get me permission from the station’s security to use a small atomic blast to get rid of a strong pirate?” She did not answer back. But I could feel she was doing what I asked.
“So, how well do your bodies handle radiation?” I asked the other ship's crew, who in return looked at me like I was crazy. As I pulled out the atomic bullet, they straight out told me I was crazy.
“That will kill me,” one of the crew members said. “And that might not be enough.”
“I am planning on aiming it against the wall behind the pirates so they would get sucked out. That should also lower the radiation.”
“That might work. It’s still better if only I die than everyone here,” the same crew member commented.
“Get ready, he’s coming,” I informed everyone while readying my revolver.