Star Citizen Online: Isekai Edition

Chapter 90: Dealing with the Space Pirates with Explosive Speed

Unknown Space of the Chronus Expanse Star Region

In fact, Arcturus was rather glad to be ambushed by the space pirates or whatever, if he had to admit it truthfully. Yes, it was dangerous as fuck, but at the same time, he was beginning to get bored on the journey, and it was evident that he would be spending the next good few weeks on the spaceship and traveling to the targetted destination.

After many days of travel, he didn't even leave the territory of the Chronus Expanse Star Region, apparently, and he was still relatively far from the Phoenix Star Region, so he would need only a few days to reach the borders between the two of them.

Because the Imperial Military was paranoid as heck, and they were rather hellbent on their security, they were not building the Hyper-Travel Super Gates.

While the Hyper-Travel Super Gates allowed one to move from one point of the galaxy to another in a matter of few hours, it wasn't easy to build them as typically only High-Level Civilization were able to build them as it required almost unholy amount of rare resources to build even a single Hyper-Travel Super Gates, but the technology that was required for the thing to function wasn't something that even some High-Level Civilizations possessed.

The Eternal Empire of the Asurya refused to build any of the Hyper-Travel Super Gates because the Imperial Military considered the Hyper-Travel Super Gates to be huge security risks for the matters of natural security.

The Empire was leaning towards perfecting the basic hyperdrive engines instead of building the Hyper-Travel Super Gates because those could be hijacked, or if the enemy took control of them, they could bring their forces across the territories of the Empire.

While this certainly had many disadvantages because the presence of the Hyper-Travel Super Gates facilitated faster trade and travel, for the Empire that put their own security and defense in case of a potential attack, it was only logical.

"It seems that we would need to cut our talk short because it looks like I have guests..."

Arcturus stated to the holographic projection of the Bator-Commandant Irene Verinus Tarun, as the Asuryani military woman looked at him with a small amount of intrigue and grin because she could see that the man was actually delighted that he was being ambushed by the space pirates.

<It seems that the recent invasion of the Orkish WAAAGH! and Mind Fleet Leviathan has allowed some ruffians to enter our territory and even create ambushes at the Hyper Points. You should have been using one of the main trade routes.>

She stated that he frowned almost immediately after he heard it because the reason why he wasn't using one of the main Hyper Lanes that were protected by the Imperial Navy was because he was cheapstake as he didn't really want to pay fees.

I wasn't in the mood to pay them around several thousand Universal Credits for the yearly permits to use the main Imperial Hyper Lines; for that reason, I went for the smaller ones that could be used for free, but at the same time, there were some dangers.

"Maybe, we shall see when I deal with them... everything would depend on the results. If I am lucky, these few lots would have some juicy bounties on their heads. Didn't the Imperial High Command issue the rewards for the heads of the documented space pirates that managed to slip by and enter the Imperial Space?"

Durign the crisis in the Alaric Star Domain, many Naval Forces were withdrawn from their original stations and sent to the Alaric Star Domain to combat the threat of the greenskisn that were heading towards the Imperial Space.

Once it was essentially confirmed that the entire Mind Fleet of the Mind Flayers was heading towards the Alaric Star Domain and the Orks were just a means to weakening the Imperial Forces, the Empire sent there even more of their forces.

This resulted in some areas getting seriously weakened in terms of defense, and the space pirates took it in stride.

Obviously, the heavy majority of the space prints that attempted to enter the Imperial Space were shot down by the automated defense systems, yet some of them managed to slip by and enter the Imperial Space.

<Yes, those who entered are very smart, and they are never attacked anything significant, mostly targeting vessels of private persons and small-scale skirmishes, often hiding in the hardly reachable areas and places that are still weakened after the lack of the Imperial Navy, which would take some time to return back to their original strength.>

That was to be expected; if the space pirates were stupid and started attacking indiscriminately all around them and gave to their greed, they would be soon enough discovered and hunted down by the Imperial Navy that would almost instantaneously send their subjugation force.

Yet, they played it smart.

They knew where to hide to avoid the watchful eye of the Imperial Navy and they were bidding their time. The smartest of them, who knew when to end, would escape before the Imperium restored the strength of their defenses around the borders.

So, they had to act fast, and they were already attacking the Hyper Points, which was a really pretty risky method because they were giving away their position with this as they had to prepare a trap and create an ambush.

"Nevertheless, I will take this as a good omen and will call you when I have finished with them."

Arcturus stated as Irene nodded and swiftly cut the call, as Arcturus returned his attention to the holo-projection of the Red Queen, who was already mustering up the defenses of the Obscurus and also some of the newest upgrades that were installed on the starship.

Some of the tweaks and additions to the Obscurus have increased the lethality by several levels already.

<I have identified ten starships of various types, all of them belonging to the technology tree of the Mid-Level Civilizations. But, they are in very rough shape, and some of them seem that they would fall apart.>

For super-advanced artificial intelligence like the Red Queen, it took only a few moments to scene the hostility and detect the exact number of the enemy starships and everything around them.

"Can you hijack at least some of them?"

They were rather outnumbered in this, and they were already on the verge of being fired at, because the space pirate starships were getting into the formation and preparing to start firing at the Obscurus.

It didn't need the genius to realize that this bunch of space pirates was one of the better ones, just because of the quality of the starships, which were rather high.

<Three of them have significantly weakened cybernetic defenses; I am already working on hijacking them; it should be done in the next three minutes. When they fire the first salvo at the Obscurus, my hijacked starships will attack their compatriots.>

While Arcturus believed in the power of the Obscurus, he decided to play it safe and let the Red Queen to hijack the control of the spaceships possible.

Normally, such a strategy wouldn't be really possible due to the very high cybersecurity in their system, while at the same time, employing several other failsafes to prevent cyber attacks or anyone hijacking the control of the starships.

"Initiate the recording of the theatre so we can claim the reward for destroying the pirate. Did you find the name of the space pirate crew that is ambushing us?"

He asked while looking through the window as they were in one of the rare, trinary star systems that had three stars in them, which created rather a beautiful panorama when one observed the star system.

Most of the Star Systems had only one Star in them, which was typically the Sun of the mentioned Star, but some were Binary, which had two, and there were even Trinary Star Systems, which had three Stars.

<Judging based on the grotesque form of the White Irelian Shark, it should be the White Shark Corsairs, originating from the Irelia Republic in the fringes of the Chronus Expanse Star Region that is bordering the Wildstar Star Region. Their bounty is 24,000 Universal Credits for the entire pirate crew.>

24,000 Universal Credits was a nice sum; it was typically more than most Mid-Level Civilizations would put on the Space Pirates. Hearing that the White Shark Corsairs had that nice sum of Universal Credits as a reward, their fate was sealed.

This bounty would be his to claim, as his adventurous spirit was lifted up when he realized that the opportunity to make some money presented itself. Not even several moments later, the pirate starships started preparing their weapons and preparing to fire, as they predicted that the crew on the Obscurus was paralyzed.

With the plan that the White Shark Corsairs prepared, an EMP mechanism was installed that would discharge huge electromagnetic waves that should fry the majority of the starship they were preparing to ambush.

Unfortunately for the White Shark Corsairs, Red Queen had already prepared for an eventuality like this, though it wasn't just her effort because most of the starships manufactured by the High-Level Civilisations would have the basic package of essential defenses.

One of the most fundamental ones being the defense against the EMP attacks.

<Hijacking complete. Disabling the communication systems. Disabling the emergency system. Activing the lockdown of the entire starship. Activating the weapon systems to the maximum. Overheating the engine.

Redirecting the energy from the starship to the weapons. Overcharging the weapon systems. Firing.>

Just as the starships were going to fire at the Obscurus, Red Queen notified him that she had finished hijacking the systems of the three starships that had the weakest cyber defenses and did not have any manual failsafes.

Many of the starships had such manual failsafes, but Red Queen took precautions even further as she locked the entire crew in their places.

Once that happened and the first seven spaceships of the White Shark Corsairs fired at the Obscurus, she raised the shields of the starship to the maximum while at the same time controlling the hijacked starships to attack the remaining seven pirate starships.

Everything happened almost in an instant when the three hijacked starships from the White Shark Corsairs under the control of the Red Queen overcharged their weapon systems to fire at full power at the remaining seven starships.

In a split of a moment, several explosions could be observed around the several starships of the White Shark Corsairs, as the three hijacked starships started exploding from several parts and areas of the starships.

The overcharging of the weapon systems was put to extreme levels, because Red Queen planned to destroy the hijacked starships at the same time. Even though she locked down entire starships, she was sure that some of the Professionals would soon enough tear through the defenses and locked rooms, to do something about the hijacking.

As the ever-cautious artificial intelligence she was, she didn't take any chances when she made her next move.

Just several moments later, the three hijacked starships of the White Shark Corsairs were being destroyed one after another because the overcharging took a toll on the ships, and they couldn't handle the stress.

The seven starships of the White Shark Corsairs that were not hijacked by the Red Queen didn't really fare any better because when they were attacking the Obscurus, as the ship in question just shrugged off the projectiles from the White Shark Corsairs like nothing, the pirate crew sustained tremendous damage.

In the meantime, the Obscurus readied its weapons and, targeted the hotel starships, and fired the first salve as three of the ships were hit right away. In one moment, the White Shark Corsairs had three fewer starships, and they were finished when the Obscurus fired at them.

The entire process of the disposal of the space pirates didn't really take long, and soon enough, the only ship that remained was the one that had far more emblems of the White Irelian Shark engravings on the hull.

Clearly, it was the captain's ship.

The space pirates were cowardly in nature and would escape when things went downhill, but this time, everything happened too fast.

Far too fast than the pirates could predict when one of the price laser projectiles from the Obscurrus hit the largest pirate ship that was the sole one remaining in the area where the engine room was located.

But that was only one room for the Hyperdrives, because the more advanced starships and those with better designs didn't have all of the engines in one area of the starships, as they were at least in two or three locations.

"Finish them off and scan the area for anything that remains from the starships and could fetch any amount of Universal Credits."

Even though he seriously doubted that, and in truth, he was too lazy to board the starships of the White Shark Corsairs. If they were pirates from some bigger crew or from some more powerful, they might have some amount of money, but the small fries here?

Not that much.