LIGHTNOVELONLINE We Get To Test The Ship Out
Amber and I dropped the box that Linc set us out to retrieve in the cargo area alongside the rest of the loot we had pilfered from the pirates.
They had so much cargo… And the stuff they had made me believe that they most likely raided someone or somewhere before they came here.
If I had to guess, they probably looted some merchant but then got attacked while they were trying to escape which then brought them to seek shelter in this station.
We found not only weapons and ammunition but also trade goods like minerals and ore, energy cells, machine parts and even what looked like drugs that were packed away in boxes.
It somehow felt that the drugs were packed better and stored with more care than everything else. Though I guess that's most likely because they were also the most expensive items in their entire inventory.
And yes, the drugs were White Powder, the same ones I had dealt with back on the station that I bought Lea from the black market.
Speaking of which… I've still yet to put my black market trading plan into motion.
Now that I have this ship, I suppose it's high time I started.
After all… I do need to replenish my Credits after spending so much on the ship. There's still things I need to buy to get this ship to operate at full capacity… One of which was getting a suit of Power Armour if I could get my hands on one, of course.
Speaking of earning Credits…
"I wonder what's inside this box," I muttered, referencing the box that Linc had told us to recover.
Amber shrugged, "If you want my guess, I think it's drugs."
I raised an eyebrow and gestured to the side that was piled with boxes, "We have literal boxes of them right over there though."
"Special kind of drugs then," Amber corrected herself.
Well… If I really wanted to, I could probably just open it to check.
The box had a lock on it that required a passcode to unlock but I'm pretty sure my Codex could hack into it and disable the locks… But one thing I know is that if I do something like that, I would probably get caught up in something problematic that I most probably did not want to deal with.
Thus, we both just left it where it was before I headed back to the bridge where both Ries and Lea were waiting.
"Are we ready to leave?" I asked.
"Yes, Boss! Everything is set to go!" Ries announced cheerfully.
I sat down on the Captain's seat, "Alright. Let's start our undocking procedures and we'll set a course for Linc Pleasure Station."
We took our own places and Ries made contact with the station master to let him know that we were setting off.
Given the greenlight to head off, I detached our ship from the station and I made use of the auxiliary thrusters to move away from the station before engaging the main engines.
Our ship started to move away from the station and I spotted the pirate ship that had initially been attached to the station but was now drifting away after it was detached.
"Lea?" I called out.
"Weapons primed, Mistress," She answered immediately.
One of the requests I received from Selby was that we destroy the ship to get rid of any evidence that they had docked at this station.
Originally I had thought about selling the ship as well but after looking through it, I realised it was quite badly damaged that only scrappers would buy it which made it not worth the effort to tow back to a station.
I nodded at her, "Fire at will."
Lea took control over one of the turrets and I could see the railgun turret rotate to face the smaller ship in the distance.
There was a pause before the weapon fired a single shot, the kinetic round blasting through space and closing the distance between us and the target in almost an instant.
The round pierced through the defenceless ship like it was made of paper, the shell splitting the ship into two pieces and flinging them away into the void of space far away from the station.
Damn, that was something. The guns definitely hit harder than the Verlandi's.
Ries was looking at me with pride, "What do you think, Boss? The guns are nice, aren't they?"
I nodded, "It really is. Alright, let's set a course for--"
[High energy signatures incoming!]
A warning sounded over the systems before I could complete my words.
I frowned and checked the map on my console. Sure enough, there were eight blips on the map that were currently speeding their way towards us.
Something tells me that these guys aren't friendly… And that thought is further amplified by the fact that my scanners showed that these ships had unidentified affiliations.
"Everyone, battle stations!" I ordered, making the decision immediately.
The three of them accepted my order and I reached for the console and diverted power away from the Travel Drives and into the weapon and shield systems.
"Should I get ready to launch, Tera?" Amber asked.
I checked my scanners and realised that all the ships were B Class and below with the largest amongst them being a Heavy Fighter.
"Ries, Lea? What do you think? Can we take them on with just this ship alone?" I asked.
Lea nodded, "That's not a problem, Mistress. I'll be able to shoot them down before they can even get our shields down."
"You heard her, Amber. Anyway, we don't even know if they are really enemies or just other people who are coming to visit the station for their own business."
Amber chuckled behind me, "Sure~ I'd sooner believe that these are a group of merchants who got lost and also just happened to somehow get their ship registrations deleted in the process."
I decided not to respond to that since the ships slowed down a distance away from us and I quickly got a hail coming from one of them.
I tapped on the console and a rather unfriendly face belonging to a middle aged, balding man appeared in front of me.
"You… You're not Gary."
I raised an eyebrow at him, "Yeah, and you're not a hot, busty girl either. So what?"
"So why do our trackers show that you have our drugs?"
I managed to keep my face neutral to act dumb, "What the heck are you talking about? Are you merchants or are you pirates?"
He scoffed, "No need for the theatrics. You know we're pirates but we have no quarrel with you. An associate of ours stole something from us and ran away with it but he didn't know we put a tracker on the things he stole. We managed to shoot at his ship before he escaped and we tracked him here. So I can only assume you either took him in your ship or you got rid of him and took his cargo."
Damn… I don't think we actually saw anything that resembled a tracker on those boxes that contained the drugs so I can only assume that they hid one inside the drugs themselves.
We should have checked the boxes more thoroughly but I guess now it's too late to think about it.
Still, it looks like that old man was wrong about them being attacked by Mercs.
I smiled at him, "Well… I honestly don't know anyone named Gary on board… But if it's a pirate that had his head blown off by a shotgun, I may have some recollection of such a person."
He scowled, "Fine, I say good riddance to him. As I said, we're not looking for a quarrel so if you just eject the drugs that the bastard stole from us we would let you go peacefully."
I tilted my head, "And what if I say that I refuse?"
What? You didn't think I was just going to hand it back over to them did you? These guys are pirates you know? Which means we would even get rewarded for killing them as well so why the hell would I be letting this interaction go peacefully? They're literally walking Credit farms!
His brows furrowed, "You really want to do this? We're giving you a way out here, you know? If you want to make things difficult, we can always just take it from your corpse."
"I don't think you are… Because you're not in a position to ask anything from us."
"And why not?"
"Because you are already dead. Lea!"
She understood what I was asking for straight away and fired the railgun.
The kinetic projectile was shot out from the front most turret and it sped off towards the group of ships at blinding speed.
Before the guy on the call with me could even react, the kinetic shell struck his ship dead centre and blew his entire ship into pieces, completely disintegrating his ship from existence.
The feed in front of me cut off and I turned my ship around to face its broadside towards the pirates.
Time to make some money~