Chapter 272: Number One Ace

Approximately thirty hours later, the combined forces convened as planned, and the imperial military, or rather, the independent anti-pirate fleet led by Lt. Col. Serena commenced their simultaneous attack on the Red Flag pirate bases in the Refill system.

“Our target is Pirate Base Bravo.”

“Man. To think there were actually two pirate bases on a single star system. Just how early did they plan for those planetary raids?”

There are various types of pirate bases, but most of them are modified large asteroids. Their insides are hollowed out first, and then they’d build simple residential sections within. If expansion was needed, they’d bring in another asteroid or two, and connect them to the original one to make a unified complex.

The reason they’d go out of their way to modify asteroids is, of course, to hide their base from the prying eyes of mercenaries and military forces hunting for them. A modified asteroid base was a lot more difficult to find than a regular base. That’s because there are just so many of them in star systems that it was next to impossible to scrutinize them one by one. …Wait. Maybe the independent AIs can actually do such a thing. It just feels like they’d have a method or two on hand. Anyway, in SOL at least, the thing I mentioned was one of the major reasons why pirates built modified asteroid bases according to game lore.

By the way, it’s not like there weren’t any special pirate bases that utilized building materials with a high degree of stealth capability. They were pretty rare though. I don’t know how many players managed to encounter one during game events in SOL exactly, but anyway, their outside appearance was very SF-like, and their high stealth capability made them very difficult to detect on radars.

Once discovered, players always blew them up flashily using anti-ship reactive torpedoes, EMLs, or missile storms though.

“Building bases isn’t exactly easy, and it takes quite a bit of time. The pirates having two bases regardless likely means they were planning to hunt elves here for quite some time now. Maybe they found a pretty rich buyer?”

“A buyer?”

“Piracy is still kind of a business after all. They were serious enough to build two bases. That means they were pretty confident that they’ll be able to recoup such an investment. It’s reasonable to think that they managed to find a buyer rich enough to be willing to pay an exorbitant price for captured elves.”

After all, elves were generally very pleasing to the eyes, and their lives were long as well. Also, a lot of them were very skilled in psionic power manipulation. Hm. Maybe they were still quite the hot commodity in the black markets even without a rich buyer in the equation?

“Maybe we’re just overthinking things. Elves do seem like they’d fetch a pretty high price in black markets after all.”

“There are a lot of beautiful elves after all.”

“Look, I know you two meant that as praise, sort of, but it just feels weird to hear your race being evaluated as having high value as slaves.”

Elma, who noticed Mimi and I were focused on her, complained glumly. Well, that’s true, I suppose. I mean, she’ll probably fetch a high sum too. She’s really cute after all. But admit that does sound weird.

“Let’s just drop the topic of troubles behind the scenes, guys. We’ll be arriving soon.”

“Yeah, alright.”

Soon, we’ll be disengaging from synchronous navigation and arrive near the location of pirate base Bravo. The main force spearheading the attack was the independent anti-pirate fleet led by Lt. Col. Serena and mercenaries like us. By the way, a mixed force composed of the Refill system garrison, which is composed mostly of Rose clan members, and imperial detachments gathered from other systems were in charge of bringing down pirate base Alpha. I’ve heard that the Refill system garrison was particularly fired up and wanted to regain their honor by making this operation a success.

“This is a bit nerve-wracking.”

“Really? We’d probably have it easy this time. We still shouldn’t let our guards down though.”

“Why is that?”

“We did that whole blockade trap thing, right? The base probably doesn’t have even half of its original forces left.”

“Ah, I see.”

“What Hiro said makes sense, but we really can’t afford to let our guards down just yet. There’s no telling what the pirates might do since they’ve been cornered this far.”

“That’s true. Who knows. Maybe they’d be desperate enough to break a Singing Crystal or something.”

“That’s gonna be really troublesome……”

After hearing my example, Mimi’s cheeks twitched. A Singing Crystal was a troublesome object that would attract a large number of crystal lifeforms to the spot where it gets destroyed. In SOL, it was an item used to start a Raid event. In this dimension, it’s a special-grade dangerous item that’s deemed highly illegal.

Come to think of it, just what is that thing anyway? I mean, isn’t it pretty crazy that the reverberations created from destroying it can cross space-time in order to instantly generate a breakout of crystal lifeforms? If its nature can be successfully researched further, it might lead to another major breakthrough in FTL tech.

“C’mon, focus. We’re about to warp out.”

“Oops, sorry. Let’s get started then.”

A thunderous boom echoed all throughout the cockpit, and the surrounding light streams turned stationary once more.

『Command to all ships. We will now begin the attack and destroy the enemy pirate base. Large-class ships, silence the enemy base defense modules with precision long-range bombardment. All medium and small-class ships will focus on directly eliminating enemy ships. Destroyers, focus on defending our large-class ships.』

“Roger. Alright, let’s do this.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Switching sensor range to combat mode.”

“Switching generator output from cruise mode to combat mode as well. Weapon systems, activate. Sub-systems, stand-by. Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”

“Yosh, let’s aim for number one Ace. Elma, activate the heat sink.”

“Wai-!?”

I punched Krishna’s thrusters to maximum output and charged straight at the pirate base. Yep, as expected, it was a modified asteroid type. I spotted something that looks like a maintenance dock. So was this their main base?

“Multiple energy readings detected from within the enemy base. The defense modules have activated! Anti-spacecraft fire, incoming!”

“Chaff and flares!”

“I know!”

The emergency cooling system kicked in coupled with a beeping sound, and while the cockpit’s temperature rapidly cooled down, Elma deployed the flares and chaffs. At the same time, I fired the afterburners that sent the ship screaming past the high-caliber laser cannon bombardment that inundated our previous position. The laser bombardment was from the defense systems of the pirate base. It looks like we managed to throw their aim off with the chaff and flares.

Oh, no, I think they actually managed to graze us a bit. It wasn’t a direct hit, so we’re safe.

“Hey! We just got grazed, didn’t we!?”

“It’s okay, we’re fine. C’mon, we’re going in.”

The large-caliber laser cannon arrays equipped on these bases had high power and accuracy, but they weren’t capable of precise and quick adjustments. It would be difficult for them to get a lock if we kept moving around and gradually shortened the distance. There’s also a risk of friendly fire if they forced it. And with Krishna’s superior speed and agility, once we’ve thrown their aim once, we’d be able to close in with no problems.

The moment I got my groove on and prepared to unleash hell on the base, a call suddenly came in. It was Lt. Col. Serena.

『This is your commander. Krishna, please maintain your current course. Countdown. 5, 4–』

“Are you serious!? Elma, activate the shield cell!”

“Aah, mou!”

Even if we’ve shaken off the heavy-caliber laser cannons, there were still the medium and small-caliber cannons for close-range defense to worry about, as well as multi-cannon turrets, and seeker missiles. If we kept our course, we’d be eating those in the face y’know!?

“W-We’re taking hits!?”

“Dammit all! Hold! Hoooold goddamit!”

While keeping a straight course, I kept pushing the afterburners to rapidly close in on the pirate base at maximum speed. But, after all, since we were advancing in a straight course without making any evasive maneuvers, we couldn’t help but take in anti-spacecraft fire. We were steadily getting pounded.

Stop! We’re gonna die at this rate! Wait, the shield cell barely managed to recharge in time!?

Huh? Isn’t the energy depletion less than I expected?

『3, 2, 1–』

The moment the countdown finished, a storm of large-caliber laser cannons fire launched from behind us and landed squarely on the pirate base, causing crazy explosions everywhere. It looks like the large-class allied ships managed to destroy all the anti-spacecraft defense modules that were aiming at Krishna.

『You did a good job. You can move around the battlefield freely now.』

“You better remember this, dammit!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more leeway to rant any further. That lady really was bonkers.

『Of course, I will. I’ll make sure to give you a suitable reward for your excellent services. Command, out.』

“That’s not what I meant! Hey, wait–!”

“The transmission’s been cut off.”

“I’m about to lose it too……”

I feel like this was the first time my life was truly at risk ever since I got sent to this dimension. If it wasn’t for Krishna, we wouldn’t have survived that.

“Anyway, just calm down for now. We’re entrusting our lives to you right now after all.”

“I know! Dammit!”

Anyway, I probably wouldn’t be satisfied unless I hit that beautiful face at least once. Depending on how it goes, I’m even up for a duel.

“But the shield really held out well…… One mistake and we would have been goners.”

“Yeah…… It unexpectedly held out.”

Elma cocked her head in wonder. What did she have to cock her head to the side for? She’s the one who was in charge of the shields.

“Maybe the defense modules of the pirate base were weaker than we expected?”

“Ah, right. That’s certainly possible.”

Maybe they weren’t being maintained properly so their output got drastically lowered. If the lens part of the laser cannon was dirty, it wouldn’t be able to properly focus the laser projectile and the power would get reduced.

“Oh well. Let’s just focus on the battle right now.”

Although we were unfortunately used as a decoy, the defense modules of the pirate base were almost completely destroyed as a result, and the remaining pirate forces in the base didn’t number a lot due to our previous baiting tactics. Now we only needed to crush the remaining defense modules while watching out for the remaining pirate ships. Let’s get this over with then. So I can sock Lt. Col. Serena later. That’s a promise.