Chapter 83: All Are Enemies
Chapter 83: Chapter 83: All Are Enemies
"Ninth Brother, so far, we’ve captured 145 escape pods. Among them, 22 contain energy weapons that Third Brother threw out. He told us to stash them away so we can sell them for drinking money later. The rest are all hostages." Another message came through at this time; the communication system on the pirate battleship was perfectly fine.
"Since Third Brother ordered it, stash them away for him!" The warship’s commander was Nine from the pirate gang. Naturally, he knew his Third Brother loved to secretly stash away some good stuff, though he also frequently shared the spoils with everyone.
"Ninth Brother, what about the captured hostages?" the person asked through the communication device.
"Run their data first and do a facial recognition check. After that, lock them up and put collars on all of them," the commander ordered.
"Understood!" The pirate battleship continued capturing the fleeing escape pods in the surrounding space.
When detaching from the Baisha Transport Ship, the escape pods would automatically collect data on the ship’s current status. Then, upon ejection, they would instantly thrust themselves out of the Baisha Transport Ship’s hazardous spin radius.
The front of the pirate battleship had lost a massive chunk from the collision. The captured hostages were guarded by several pirate mechas, while other pirates came over to cross-reference the Baisha Transport Ship’s data and verify their identities.
"Although I don’t know who the mole on the Baisha Transport Ship is, I do know that this warship is full of pirates!" an ordinary-looking young man in the crowd thought. He waited for the pirates to verify his identity with their data, looking at the four mechas and the dozen or so pirates around him with a faint smile touching his lips.
Meanwhile, Yang Bo waited for a few more minutes. He watched a pirate hurry over to the pirate leader. The pirate leader suddenly stood up, and the energy armor on his body erupted with a blinding light. In an instant, the man teleported hundreds of meters away.
"Badass!" Yang Bo thought, utterly astonished by the sight. The pirate leader’s superpower was incredibly strong; he had barely been able to capture the man’s movement. Fortunately, his own dynamic field of view was quite high. This guy was likely an A or A+ tier superpower user.
The pirate leader walked out of the corridor ahead, followed by two pirates in battle armor and a mecha. They marched down the passage, heading to an unknown destination.
Yang Bo made a bold guess. "Could it be that they discovered the missing mechas on the spaceship?
"What will they do next? Will they all evacuate? And then blow up the Baisha Transport Ship in a fit of rage?
"Should I pretend to be captured and get sent to the pirate battleship so I can raid their home base first?"
This audacious idea startled even Yang Bo himself, but he felt it was a viable path.
He continued to ponder. "I wonder what those collars on the hostages’ necks do, and if I can control them?
"And that guy who was piloting the Rift mecha... did he really go into hiding?
"Holy crap, did that guy go to the pirate battleship?"
Yang Bo suddenly realized something. Since the person piloting the Rift was capable of executing such a plan, their goal was definitely to prevent the pirate battleship from blowing up the Baisha Transport Ship.
What was the safest way to prevent the pirate battleship from destroying the transport ship? Naturally, it was to board the pirate battleship and sabotage it!
"Furthermore, going to the pirate battleship has another advantage—you don’t have to worry about who the mole is!" Yang Bo realized his guess was highly likely to be the exact plan of the guy piloting the Rift. The reason that person destroyed the main control room and left might have been an intentional show of weakness.
"I’ll forget about saving people for now. Those guys are wearing collars. If the pirates have any countermeasures in place, I might end up getting the hostages killed. I’d better go hunt down the other pirates and pick on the soft targets." Yang Bo turned around and left. No matter what the pirates were planning, weakening their forces was his only option right now.
It definitely wasn’t just to upgrade his skills or anything like that.
"Right, I didn’t even notice what skills I got from killing those five armored guys last time," Yang Bo murmured to himself. He recalled the pirates he had blasted to death with the laser cannon. Did they not yield any abilities? After a closer look, he realized his Warship Maintenance skill had increased.
"What’s wrong with these people? They know Warship Maintenance, so why couldn’t they just find a proper job? Even working as a cleaner earns tens of thousands a month." He actually felt a pang of pity for them.
"If the pirate boss evacuates, I’ll damn well follow him to his battleship and wreak havoc! Let’s see who’s tougher. I have a mecha and metal skin anyway, so I can survive in space."
Having made up his mind, Yang Bo left the area, preparing to hunt down the scattered pirates in the cargo holds.
The pirate leader arrived outside the warship. The mecha established contact with the pirate battleship. Upon hearing the commander’s report, the pirate leader’s expression darkened.
"Boss, you need to be careful. We’ve detected a lot of scattered debris, and it’s all from our mechas. The guy piloting the Rift must have attacked our men. Come back as soon as possible," the commander on the pirate battleship said through the comms.
"I know. Make sure you intercept all the escape pods and capture everyone. We took money from the anti-government forces this time. If we don’t deliver enough heads to those mad dogs, there’s no telling what they’ll do. This was my mistake; I never should have made a deal with them," the pirate leader said, forced to swallow his grievances. He had originally thought this would be an ordinary robbery.
Moreover, someone had provided detailed information for this operation, and they even had the help of a mole. There was no reason for it to fail. That was why he planned to sell this batch of people. If it were up to his usual habits, he would have killed them all right from the start.
The Silver Moon Pirates were quite powerful among pirate gangs, but they were ultimately just pirates. The anti-government forces, on the other hand, dared to openly clash with government warships.
In front of the anti-government forces, pirates were nothing but trash.
If they offended the anti-government forces, those guys could easily place a bounty that would make it impossible for the Silver Moon Pirates to survive in the pirate underworld.
"Don’t worry, Boss. We’re intercepting them right now. We’ve cross-referenced their data and locked them all up." The commander’s words made the pirate leader feel much more at ease.
"You two stay here on guard and power up the mechanical laser cannon system. When our own people arrive, they will contact you via radio first." The pirate leader left two mechas on the surface of the Baisha Transport Ship, then hurriedly headed back inside with the other two men.
The pirate leader’s heart bled. The mecha debris detected by the battleship definitely belonged to their own men, and he had no idea how many squads had been ambushed.
He was now filled with overwhelming regret. The squads were scattered all over the Baisha Transport Ship, and who knew where they were? There were thousands of cargo holds on this vessel.
Yang Bo piloted his battle armor through the maintenance corridors. He quickly noticed something was wrong—the readings showed a loss of pressure in some of the cargo holds ahead.
"Are these bastards actually breaching the cargo holds one by one?" Yang Bo thought, looking at the pressure gauges. These were the most primitive hydraulic operating systems. The reason modern spaceships still retained such systems was that in certain areas with magnetic storm radiation, both optical and wireless controls would be heavily disrupted.
After closely examining the locations of the breached cargo holds, Yang Bo maneuvered his mecha and hurried toward the vicinity. The enemy was undoubtedly planning to destroy the cargo holds one after another.