chapter 147
POV: Ground Crew
I had been so happy a couple of hours ago. My bets worked out, unlike some others. One had quit on the spot, which I never understood, as you would still need to do some type of job. No matter how many credits you had, they didn’t last forever.
But the absolute mess going on around me robbed everything good that happened today, which made me kinda envy the other worker who quit on the spot, and really made me want to do the same. But I couldn't leave the others to deal with all of this.
The foreman was beyond mad. We currently had five ships on the landing pads, and that was all the room we had, but another one was already coming down. The first one that arrived today was still collecting dust, as the captain went off to watch the fights and hadn't returned.
Then came, one by one, the other four. First of all, all of them had way too much crew, but none of them lifted a finger to help us. Second, I do not know what idiots packed their cargo, but it has been the most trying workday of my life trying to get those things unloaded.
“Get that pile of rust airborne, and do it now!” I heard the foreman yell to the one cargo ship we had actually managed to unload.
I expected something else to go wrong, but the ship started to take off a few minutes later. I also saw the next ship already slowing down, coming in for a landing. This reminded me of my military days, dealing with the constant supply runs to keep the frontline operational.
All of a sudden, loud noises came from the ship that was trying to take off. The only ships that could land here were the ones that could take off with short runways or fly vertically. This one should have been capable of vertical takeoff, but one of its engines sputtered and started to spew out black smoke.
Whoever was flying it was doing a decent job, not crashing it as soon as the thrust of that engine started to become erratic. We all watched, stunned, as we couldn’t believe something else was going wrong.
The ship didn’t crash immediately; it started to veer to the side, closer to the fortress.
“If it gets too close, it would just be shot down,” I heard one of my coworkers comment, and he was absolutely right.
All of us waited for the inevitable end of that ship, but it just passed that invisible line I had memorised.
Something was wrong. The ship hit the fortress; there wasn’t even a force field up.
“Everyone into the building now!” I heard someone yell, and immediately I felt my fur ripple.
No one had moved, so I yelled as well: “Everyone into the building, deploy barriers, get yourselves armed!”
I did as I yelled. Some of us had proper military experience, while others were just good fighters, so they watched us military grunts in confusion, but they still acted.
The barrier shimmered up, and just moments later, the three ships that were still being offloaded started to fire. From the ships, hundreds of what looked like pirates rushed out, firing on anyone who hadn’t made it back yet.
The barrier was lifted off from the ground, giving us enough space to shoot back. This made the pirates more cautious, but it also meant that they could shoot back, although their ships still couldn't fire in.
The barrier, however, wouldn’t last forever if such fire continued.
We then heard explosions and looked forward to the fortress. The ship there had landed purposely close to the wall and was now working on demolishing a hole into it for whatever reason.
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“This makes no sense. There’s no way they can escape here, they will be shot down almost instantly,” the foreman said while firing with unbelievable accuracy.
As I looked backwards, already all the compartments filled with ammo had been broken open, with people running supplies to the front barricades. My mind quickly tried to understand why this was happening.
“The fortress didn’t fire on the ship, nor is its force field up. They’re here for a specific purpose, and they already have people inside.”
My words silenced the growing discussion of why this was happening.
“It doesn’t matter. Focus on defending this location and keeping ourselves alive. Backup should be here soon enough,” the foreman announced to everyone.
I continued to fire the assault rifle. I wasn’t that familiar with it, but I did have basic training when I took this job. I couldn’t believe it back then that this job would require basic training for weapon use.
There were other places of business nearby. A couple of warehouses and the transportation company. They had their own barriers activated, and I saw people gathering, obviously readying themselves for battle. The pirates would not be able to stop all of us. We would be able to crush them in time.
We unfortunately didn’t have anything stronger available for us to take down their ships, which was a problem. Still, we had some bigger weaponry to at least disable those turrets.
The weapons that should have been able to easily end these ships were mounted on the fortress walls, but obviously, that avenue of defence was somehow disabled.
“The first ship’s ramp is opening!” someone yelled, and we all looked over.
The foreman groaned out loud. So all of it had been some sort of plan, and I knew that ship. It had been coming here for months. This was something bigger.
From the ramp that lowered, what looked like robots walked out. They looked like stick drawings of humanoids, but all of them had rifles. For a moment, I thought that perhaps they were trying to help us, but no.
The robots spread out, heading towards the other points of resistance, obviously going there to engage and give the pirates enough manpower to hold the current forces we had at bay.
Then more explosions sounded off in the distance. We didn’t have an angle on any of them, but someone rushed toward the back windows and yelled something I already expected.
“Multiple explosions along the railways. They have cut off our reinforcements!”
“That’s not true, it just means it will take longer for them to arrive!” the foreman yelled, bringing back order as some had started to panic a bit.
I saw Captain Dave and his female companion show up. It didn’t take long for the pirates to have weapons pointed at their heads. Were they forced to do this? They didn’t seem bothered to me, but I guess I would have had the same reaction as they did.
The robots engaged the other barriers, keeping the people who were there from attacking the pirates directly. The robots didn’t seem to be doing too well in that exchange, but there were a surprising amount of them, so it would take a while to whittle those numbers down.
My heart was pumping, and I felt like I did back in the war. This was what I had been missing. The countdown was closing in on zero. As soon as it got there, we opened fire. We tried to aim as best as we could to kill the pirates, but that wasn’t our goal at the moment.
The barrier was lifted more, and the strongest of our weapons was used to shoot at the turrets of the ships. Three of them exploded, but we barely managed to lower the barrier to keep ourselves from being blown up.
That woke the pirates up once again. The fighting grew more intense. We were still working off our rust, as none of us had been in battle for quite a while. Some of the close-combat experts seemed to be vibrating, wanting to get in on the action.
While reloading, I saw Captain Dave stand up even while the three pirates surrounding him yelled and pointed their weapons at him. He towered over all of them and, with a quick movement, his large hand enveloped one of the pirates’ heads.
I watched as he squeezed, the pirate almost immediately collapsing, now without a head. The other two fired, but the bullets simply bounced off. The woman he had with him quickly dispatched the others who surrounded them, using some sort of pistol.
The pirates started to turn their attention towards them, but then they were fired upon from Captain Dave’s ship, as there were two other figures now on the ramp using weapons to fire upon the pirates. Soon, there were at least a dozen others, but those looked like advanced robots.
The last pirate ship to have arrived was about midway between us and the fortress. People there had set up barricades for some reason. The pirate ships close to us opened fire on Captain Dave’s ship. The force field around it easily absorbed the attacks, but they didn’t seem to be retaliating.
My coworker, who was next to me, firing at the pirates like I was, looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to fire. That’s why I hated dealing with pirates; they always backstabbed whenever there was a chance.
Although I didn’t know the exact situation with Captain Dave, I did know that he used to be a mercenary, but nothing more, nor did I know that he had other crew as well, besides the simple robots that helped offload the cargo he brought.
The pirates seemed to be retreating back to their ships, which confused us.
“They have Princess Verrona!” someone yelled, and we all looked towards the fortress.
From the hole inside the wall, a group came out, escorting and holding the Princess hostage. So that’s why they were doing this. There had been plenty of kidnapping attempts to get her by that pirate lord father of hers, who was the Duke’s brother.
Such despicable people should be burned. We had standing orders to try to stop any attempt to kidnap her by all means necessary.
“Everyone, get ready to charge!” the foreman yelled.
My legs were vibrating, ready to start moving. Yet before we could, a humanoid wearing a black helmet who had been holding the Princess’s hands behind her back let go, whispered something to her, and then attacked some of the pirates that were escorting them.
That masked person then used some type of rocket pack to speed away, but still tossed his sword backwards to the Princess. She seemed to want to go after this person, but the pirates surrounding her, who were still alive, tried to contain her. They only managed to stay alive for a few moments, but more started to rush towards her.
“Everyone, charge!” we heard the foreman say, and we rushed out. But almost immediately, we faltered as every robot that was fighting for the pirates blew up. The masked man made it to Captain Dave’s ship, and they started to take off.
Its landing gear pushed up with its main engines increasing thrust. Each manoeuvring thruster barely kept it airborne, but they quickly picked up speed. The way that ship took off was always weird.
The other pirate ships targeted them, but then, once again, explosions made us take cover. All of the engines of the pirate ships exploded, along with basically every turret they had, leaving them stranded here.
“Get back up! We have pirates to kill!” the foreman yelled, and we obeyed.