CH 394

“Ok, it looks like we have a deal.”

“Fine. You win, kid.”

Granny Serestia shrugged her shoulders in concession.

As for the details of the loot and reward distribution, we first agreed to the rule that the loot, guild bounty, and military reward money for individual pirate ships all going to the ship that shoots them down. In other words, it would be a race to see who shoots down the most prey.

The prize money for taking over the pirate base itself would be shared equally amongst both participating groups. Granny only had two small combat ships currently on hand, and it would be difficult for them to take down the base without our help. However, the coordinates of the pirate base and the recon info will be coming from them, and it’s true that we wouldn’t be able to launch a well-planned attack directly on the pirate base without those. Combat strength was important, but information was equally as important. That’s why I decided to agree to an even split.

Lastly, we agreed to a 7/3 split for the loot. Ours was 7 and theirs was 3. Needless to say, the Black Lotus and Antlion were both medium-class ships, so they had more cargo capacity than smaller ships even if their cargo bays were already stuffed with special equipment. This was a basic feature of medium-class ships.

And since Krishna now relied on Black Lotus for supply and equipment storage, its own cargo bay was almost empty. We had an overwhelming advantage when it came to cargo capacity compared to the other side’s two ships. And that’s how this split came about.

It even seemed like I’d be able to squeeze out 7.5, if not 8, out of them if I persisted in negotiating further, but that would admittedly be too greedy. It’s not like we’re completely unrelated too since she’s Mimi’s grandma.

“Still, you have a pretty interesting ship, Granny…… I don’t recognize the model at all.”

“These kinds of legacy ships pop up from time to time.”

Elma’s eyes were glowing with a strange light as she stared intently at Granny Serestia’s ship, the Annihilator, that was projected on the holo-display. The Annihilator huh? What a damn grandiose name.

By the way, the term ‘legacy ship’ referred to an old ship that has been remodeled so much that it’s already lost all semblance of its original model. Some of them were ragged ships that were already running on fumes, and some were turned into monster ships that far exceeded their original specs. Granny’s ship was definitely the latter.

It was equipped with Stalker missile pods that boasted high guidance capability, two heavy laser cannon turrets with wide firing angles, and two multi-cannons facing directly in front of its bow. In terms of firepower alone, it was already comparable to Krishna.

And just like Krishna, its size almost scraped the limit of what could be classified as small-class ships. The reason why it mainly used live ammunition weapons such as missile pods and multi-cannons was probably that it didn’t have as much generator output as Krishna does. Krishna was better than it in terms of overall defense capabilities, including mobility, energy shields, and ship armor.

“Well, my bad for it being a legacy ship.”

In response to Elma’s words, Granny Serestia’s lips pouted. Nicholas hurriedly chipped in to soothe the peeved Granny Serestia.

“But its internals can still keep up pretty with newer models y’know. It also has a high degree of customizability. Its main flaw is being a bit hard to maintain.”

“It’s fine since we take good care of both its hardware and software.”

Lattice also gave a follow-up.

“Well, if you guys can freely control a ship with this combination of armaments, you definitely would be insanely effective in anti-pirate combat.”

Stalker missiles were less powerful than normal seeker missiles, but they were still more than effective against pirate ships’ thin armor and flimsy energy shield. With this machine, even when you encounter a large number of pirate ships, you’d be able to engage them all head-on without taking a single step back.

“The other one is a fast recon ship huh?”

“There’s nothing particularly special about it.”

“Well, it ain’t a ship that’s geared for combat anyway.”

It was a type of ship that you didn’t see that often in the Graccan empire, but you could anticipate its performance to a certain extent just by looking at its outer appearance. It boasted a lot of thrusters on a small hull. It had a Class II laser cannon on its bow, and two small seeker missile pods on its hull. It didn’t lack offensive capabilities, but it was clearly not a machine suited for combat. It was evidently a reconnaissance ship since it seemed to be equipped with a lot of sensors. It didn’t appear to have any hidden surprises of any sort.

“But I can’t place the model of your ship as well, kid. So we’re similar in that regard.”

“True. Its exact origin is a secret though.”

“Hmm……? Well, that’s fine. As long as it performs according to the specs, I have no complaints.”

After saying so, Granny shrugged her shoulders once more. She just fired back with something similar to what I said earlier huh? Well, I guess that’s fair. Krishna was also the kind of ship that required a lot of maintenance…… Fortunately, nothing has gone wrong with the ship’s generator, which was a complete black box, so far. And I also somehow managed not to take any big hits during our past battles, so we’ve been managing so far.

In fact, if Krishna were to suffer a great deal of damage, especially to its generator, it would be extremely difficult to repair it. Maybe I’d have to consider switching ships by then. We can’t fix it after all.

“Now that the conditions for cooperation have been set and we’ve seen the extent of each other’s strengths, let’s move on to planning our attack.”

“Alright. That said, we don’t need to plan anything overly complicated, right? Your Krishna, Black Lotus, and our Annihilator will attract their attention by attacking head-on. Once we’ve baited most of their ships out of their base, you’ll crush the base’s defense batteries with a reactive torpedo. After that, we’ll just go with the flow. Oh, why don’t you just focus on crushing all of the base’s defense batteries instead?”

“Hey. You can’t just push all the troublesome stuff to me and take all the pirate bounty. And besides, it would definitely be quicker to wipe out the defense turrets with your stalker missiles instead.”

“We’d get shot down if we headed straight for the base. No, thank you.”

“So quit it with pushing that stuff onto me.”

This old bag really had quite the personality huh? Well, all things considered, it would definitely be more efficient for Krishna, that would already be nearer to the base at that point after firing off a reactive torpedo, to deal with the rest of the turrets.

“Guess you have a point though. We definitely would be nearer to the base at that point after all.”

“Good boy. You catch on quickly. Just do your best and take care of them as fast as possible.”

“I know that. This should go without saying, but make sure to protect Black Lotus.”

“Of course we will. You didn’t have to remind me. Once we attack their base, those guys will come out to seriously try and crush us as well.”

“We just have to be wary of reactive ammunition.”

“Getting hit by that stuff won’t end pretty after all.”

Elma and Nicholas, who were listening to the exchange between me and Granny Serestia, assented with serious expressions. Pirates usually didn’t use any overly destructive weapons whenever they were out for ‘work’. That’s because if they used excessive firepower on their prey, the loot, including passengers, would be in danger of getting harmed.

However, it was a different story if their base was attacked. They would resist in earnest. In other words, they wouldn’t have qualms to fire continuous volleys of seeker missiles at you, and in the worst case, they might even use anti-ship torpedoes and large missiles tipped with reactive warheads. There’s a danger of suffering severe retaliation if you underestimated them.

By the way, if a reactive warhead were to directly hit Krishna, it would definitely suffer critical damage despite its triple-layered energy shield array. Black Lotus wouldn’t be spared either. And in the unlikely event that the ammo was actually an anti-ship reactive torpedo equipped with a shield saturation module, Krishna would be vaporized without a trace, and even Black Lotus would explode in one blow if it got hit in a critical spot. That’s why one had to be careful not to take any hits from missiles and torpedoes tipped with reactive warheads if possible.

“We’ll head out once the checks on the Lotus are over.”

“Oh? You’re fine with that?”

“Since we’ve already decided to launch an attack, we have to do it as soon as possible. There’s no reason to waste any time.”

When she saw me shrug my shoulders after hearing my words, Granny Serestia displayed a satisfied smile.

“Good. I like that kind of attitude, kid.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

It looked like Granny Serestia had taken a liking to my proactiveness. That’s well and good, I suppose.

Well, we better prepare for the sortie now. I’ll contact Mimi and the others first.