Chapter 229: Hack and Slash

The security inside the ship was surprisingly quite thin. Nah. Perhaps they just had their hands full dealing with the combat bots that infiltrated with me.

『Damn tin cans! You killed Joyce!』

『Pull him back if he’s still breathing! Leeroy! Throw a shock grenade!』

『On it– Gyaaaaaaaah!?』

『Goddammit! I’m not gonna get f*cked up by damn tin cans!』

The information-gathering program (a Malware-like computer virus) Mimi sent to the console I found earlier inside the hold allowed me to pick up the private comm frequency of the pirates and sent the contents of their exchanges directly to my ears.

“Man. You’ve become a super-hacker before I knew it…… Impressive, Mimi.”

『I didn’t. I really didn’t. I just made use of the cracking tool Mei-san designed, okay?』

『Well, if it’s just against pirate ships, even those commercially available cracking tools would probably be effective. Pirate ships basically don’t get any software and security updates unless done in an illegal way after all.』

“I see.”

Well, it’s true that most pirate ships are ships stolen from their victims that are modified to their tastes. So it goes without saying that security-related software updates aren’t available to them in order to avoid them being traced back by the authorities. And so, most of their ships are vulnerable to cyber attacks like what we just did. On some occasions, you actually encounter rare pirate outfits with excellent tech know-how that sport security systems on par with the military, but those are really, really rare.

“Well, in any case, it’s a good thing for us.”

『I’m glad that it proved helpful. I’m gonna do my best, Hiro-sama. Um, you’ll encounter a T-junction after this. Turn left and head through the door.』

“Is it the cockpit?”

『No, that’s not what it is. It looks like a holding cell for prisoners. I’m looking at the state of the prisoners through the surveillance cameras…… It looks like one of them is seriously injured.』

Mimi’s tense voice came through the comms.

Injured people huh…… I did bring some medical nanomachine units for emergency use, but I only had three of them. These are my lifelines if I ever get injured myself, so I really didn’t want to use them unless it was necessary.

“……Haa. Can you replace the image feed of the surveillance camera?”

『Yes, please leave it to me. There’s a keypad used to open the door next to it. You can find a maintenance socket below the keypad.』

“Roger.”

I quickly approached the door, extended the data cord from my portable terminal, and jacked it into the maintenance socket. The door opened after a few moments. I hurriedly slipped inside the holding cell, and the door closed soon after. It would be bad if I got myself trapped inside after this, but it’s okay since Mimi’s already unlocked the room.

When I glanced around, I saw about ten prisoners huddled inside the not-so-spacious room. Their hands and feet were bound by handcuffs and shackles. They seem to have been robbed of most of their mobility.

“I’m a mercenary initiating an attack on this ship right now. In other words, you can say I’m here to rescue you guys. More or less, anyway.”

After getting a good look at them, I saw that all of the prisoners were elves. Everyone’s ears were pointed like Elma’s. They were all beautiful-looking as well. I see. It can be said that elves were one of the most beautiful races in this world, so they were a prime target for pirates.

It looks like there were more women than men. They all stared at me with wary eyes.

“I already destroyed this ship’s weapon and propulsion systems. The combat bots under my command are dealing with the pirates as we speak. Forces from the imperial space navy and the system garrison should be arriving soon, so you’re all pretty much saved.”

“C-Can we…… really go home?”

An especially beautiful lady among the already pretty elves asked me with a soft voice. I nodded and opened my mouth to reply.

“Perhaps. But I can’t say for sure since I don’t know how exactly you guys got captured. But you can all at least head back to the Refill Prime colony. Anything that happens after that will be up to the authorities. In any case, there is someone who suffered serious injuries among you, right? My comrades saw it through the surveillance cams. I have some emergency medical nanomachine units here. We should be able to stabilize them and preserve their lives for the time being with these.”

After saying that, I showed them the gun-type emergency nanomachine unit. They all became more vigilant. They might have mistaken it for a laser gun or something.

“It’s alright. This is medicine. It closes up wounds and stops bleeding. It’s used to keep seriously injured people alive. I’m gonna use it on the injured person, so please make way.”

They exchanged gazes and whispered among themselves for a while before making way. I walked further in and crouched down beside the injured person.

“This is terrible. He has laser-inflicted as well as blunt trauma injuries. But he should be able to pull through with this.”

I pressed the emergency nanomachine unit on the arm of a man with a semi-carbonized laser wound on his left shoulder and right flank. I’m clear on how medical nanomachines work in this dimension, but in the game, they were able to recover 60% of your total health. I’m not sure how much the situation of the injured person would improve, but at least he should be able to pull through.

“Yosh. This ship is already in outer space, and combat is being conducted onboard. So please stay here until everything is over. I’ll tag this room for priority rescue so the imperial and system garrison troops should be able to rescue you all right away once they’re here.”

“Understood…… What about you?”

“I’m going to proceed with taking control of this ship’s cockpit. I want to settle everything before the imperial troops arrive.”

If I don’t take care of everything before the cavalry arrives, my reward would decrease after all. I couldn’t lay my hands on the elves who are likely the main cargo of this ship, but the cargo hold probably still has a lot of other valuable stuff. Most of the items stuffed inside the cargo hold of pirate ships are things like food cartridges, low-quality alcohol, and drugs. But since this was a large-class ship with an equally large cargo hold filled with items, I should still be able to make a tidy profit off selling them.

Besides, a relatively undamaged large-class ship apart from the weapon and propulsion systems would fetch a fairly good price as well. I’m not sure what the market price is in the Refill System or how much demand there is, but the total earnings shouldn’t fall below 1,000,000 Enels.

“I’ll be going then. Just stay quietly inside here until rescue comes.”

“Yes…… Um, can I ask for your name, at least?”

The beautiful lady who seems to be the group’s representative asked, so I turned around and honestly answered.

“The name’s Captain Hiro. I’m the combat ship Krishna’s owner, and a Platinum-rank mercenary.”

I left the holding cell and continued heading for the cockpit, but the comm channel of the pirates was much quieter compared to earlier. It’s probably because the number capable of using comm devices has already been thinned substantially. Our trusty combat bots seem to be working hard this time too.

『Hiro-sama, you’ll be reaching the cockpit soon.』

『Hiro, the imperial forces are here.』

“Roger that. I’m gonna finish this right away.”

I responded while running through a narrow and dirty passage where things like soiled paper scraps and broken glass fragments are scattered about. The aisles and passages of pirate ships are generally narrow, dim, and impossibly dirty. Man. I’m surprised they’re actually able to stomach spending their days living inside pigsties like this. At least clean it a bit, dammit.

『The door isn’t locked.』

“Ok, here I go.”

I took a deep breath, opened the door, and burst inside the cockpit.

“–!”

“Wha–!? You–”

I held my breath, quickly aimed at the head of one pirate, and fired away. A lethal laser shot landed square in the middle of the forehead of the first pirate who noticed me. He was blown back after a small explosion. There were two more pirates.

Perhaps startled by the sound of laser gunfire, the pirate sitting on the captain’s seat turned a sideways glance toward my direction. I rushed further into the cockpit, aimed at his side profile, and fired. His head burst open from the side, and the body of the pirate sitting on the captain’s seat fell to the floor.

The third pirate sitting on the operator’s seat tried to quickly get up, but by that time, I was already in front of him. While still holding my laser gun in my right hand, I pulled out my sword with my left hand and cut the third pirate’s right arm clean off. I brought the sword back down and pierced his heart through his left rib cage.

If it was just a regular metal sword, it would have been stopped by the muscles and bones inside the guy’s chest, but unfortunately for him, my sword had a reinforced mono-molecular blade that cuts through even power armor. His muscles and bones were pierced very easily, and the sword instantly impaled the heart of the third pirate, tearing it apart. Just to be sure, I stabbed the blade further in and severed the guy’s spine to finish him off completely.

“–Whew.”

I managed to kill all three pirates in just one breath and exhaled loudly afterward. Since I just slaughtered three people, the cockpit was drenched in blood. This was probably gonna earn me lots of complaints from Tina and Whisker. Oh boy.

“This is Hiro. I’ve completed clearing out the cockpit. I’m proceeding to take control of the ship’s systems next. Help me out Mimi.”

『Yes, Hiro-sama.』

I swung my sword to get rid of the blood, placed it back on its sheath, extended the data cord from my portable terminal, and jacked it into the socket located on the cockpit’s main control console. I immediately launched the external communication systems and called the imperial and system garrison forces that have just arrived.

“This is Captain Hiro, a Platinum-rank mercenary affiliated with the Mercenary Guilds. I’ve finished taking control of the pirate ship’s cockpit. Currently, the combat bots under my command are sweeping up the remaining pockets of resistance inside the ship. Also, I found some captured civilians onboard. There’s also someone who received critical injuries. I’ve sent you a full 3D map of the ship’s interior and am requesting an immediate rescue for the civilians.”

Anyway, this incident should be more or less settled. After completing the clean-up of the ship interior, we’ll just have to hand over the pirates who managed to survive and the captured elves. After that, we’ll perform some temporary repairs on this ship, tow it to Refill Prime using Black Lotus, complete the procedures for cashing in this captured ship’s cargo among other stuff…… Sheesh. I mean, we did jump in straight away at the first sign, but we’re starting off this trip with troublesome stuff right off the bat huh.