NOVEL NEXT He Got Blasted
The other Mercs were looking at me with worry as it was clear the pirates weren't interested in letting us join their ranks at all.
I quickly raised my hands, "Wait, wait! Alright, alright! We'll just tell you what they're planning and we'll leave, ok?"
I could hear the smirk from the pirate lord over the comms.
"Of course, of course. We're all reasonable people here so I promise I won't shoot you as long as you tell us what they are planning to do."
Suuuure… I'm going to bet he's later going to say he promised not to shoot me but he said nothing about his crew shooting us. Or maybe he'll say something like he promised not to shoot me but said nothing about shooting everyone else.
Please, I've seen this so many times already.
Good thing for us is that we are also tricking him I suppose.
But well… If the rest don't show up soon, we're going to have a problem…
Unfortunately, I had no way of contacting the others since that might tip the pirates off to the real plan so I could only just keep distracting them until they were ready.
The actual signal to start the battle would be the pirate battlecruiser being hit by the battleship, in whichever way they were planning to do that.
I guess I should just use my bullshitting skills to try and buy as much time as possible for the others to get ready.
I cleared my throat, "Alright… They are planning to--"
A sudden explosion from below the battlecruiser interrupted me, causing the giant ship to list to the side as its shields collapsed.
"Oh damn, that was a shield breaker torpedo… When did they even launch that?" One of the Mercs muttered through our comms.
Obviously it took time for the torpedo to travel from the battleship to the battlecruiser so they must have already predicted where the battlecruiser was going to be and launched it even before they stopped here.
That's some high level prediction from whoever was in charge over there.
Right after the shield shattered, two giant laser beams came from below and pierced through the hull of the battle cruiser, one of it going through the thrusters while the other went through the middle of the ship.
There was a secondary explosion from the battlecruiser and the ship started to spin to the side as the entire ship began to fall apart.
I was only kidding when I said that the military planned to blast the pirate lord before he could do anything…
That was the cue for several dozens of Mercenary ships to appear out of the nebula from above the pirate fleet, their guns firing at the ships below them.
I grinned, "Let's get to work guys!!"
My hands pushed forward on the throttle and my ship accelerated straight into the firefight, joining the fray.
Without hesitation, I started firing at the pirate ships, taking out three of them before they could even realise that they were actually under attack.
It dissolved into a chaotic battle as Mercenaries clashed against the pirates.
At the start of the fight, we had the clear advantage as we crashed through the pirate fleet that were still trying to recover from the initial shock of losing their pirate lord so quickly.
They then started to splinter off into their own groups and rallied behind the four Destroyers, most likely being captained by the former pirate lord's lieutenants or something.
The pirates then turned around and started shooting back at us, forcing us to keep our distance as our ships consisted mainly of A and B Class ships with only a scattering of C Class Light Corvettes. We would already be hard pressed trying to deal with one Destroyer.
Samson, Amber and I worked together to take out the pirates that strayed too far from the protection of their destroyers.
Both Samson and I would be using our long range weapons to fire at their ships, forcing them to either withdraw or attempt to get close to shoot back at us.
Three Fighters fell for our bait and rushed towards us, thinking that they could take us out on their own.
We engaged our reverse thrusters to back away from them, as though we were trying to run away which only made them increase their speed to chase after us.
When they were out of the Destroyer's range, both of us immediately switched our thrusters back on again and started firing at the pirates that were chasing us.
They then realised that we had baited them into a trap but were too late as Samson and I destroyed a ship each, leaving one to turn in an attempt to run away.
Amber then appeared and flew past the pirate ship, her ballistic cannons completely eviscerating the fighter into pieces.
Several more pirates broke away as they wanted to get revenge for their lost comrades and four of them chased after me.
"Break off!" I ordered, spinning my ship away to avoid several lasers that were shot my way.
I angled my ship to fly through the debris, using them as shields as I sought a chance to engage them.
One of the fighters seemed to really want my ass since he boosted away from his group to chase after me, his ship barely a second behind mine.
I did a turn around one of the floating debris before engaging my reverse thrusters to slow down quickly.
As expected, the pirate turned around the corner and didn't even try to slow down, causing him to end up in front of me.
My first ballistic cannon shot shattered his shield before the second one blasted his entire ship apart.
A second ship turned after him and also ended up in the same position, this one falling prey to my energy chainguns that completely shredded the ship into pieces.
My ship then jerked forward as the last two pirates fired at me from behind, my shield doing its work of absorbing the hits for me.
I pushed forward on my thrusters again and sped off, dodging the next hail of energy bullets that tore through the space that I had been.
Two down, two more to go.
"Tera! I got you!" Amber's voice came from the comms.
I glanced at the map to see that she was approaching me from below so I maintained my heading to keep the pirates behind me flying in a straight line after me.
The pirates thought I had made a mistake and tried to rush at me, only for Amber to shoot at the lead ship from below and shredding it apart before she flew past the ensuing explosion.
The last pirate had to swerve away to avoid colliding with the remains of his comrade, giving me the opportunity I needed to turn back around and unleash a hail of energy projectiles that peppered the pirate with holes.
"A little help here too?!" Samson requested, flying near me with three pirates on his tail trying to avoid their shots while they also avoided his turrets.
I pushed forward on my thrusters and flew after him, approaching the pirates from behind and aiming my photon laser at the fighter at the very centre of the formation.
The pirate was so focused on chasing after Samson that he didn't even realised he was being targeted until I fired my laser.
The shot pierced through the side of his ship and completely cut it in half, causing the last ship to swerve away in a panic while the lead pirate got distracted with what was going on behind him.
Big mistake for the lead pirate as Samson's turrets locked on to the pirate and blasted him into oblivion, the ship's wreckage spiralling away to join the sea of debris.
The last pirate tried to escape but my railgun did short work of it, drilling a hole through its hull like it was made of paper.
I was wondering how we were going to deal with the destroyers when an alarm started to ring from my console, warning me about the imminent arrival of a high energy object.
Looking to the side, I saw a ship rapidly approaching the battlefield and realised that it was the battleship itself that was speeding towards us.
"Everyone, pull back!" I shouted into the comms, turning my ship around to create as much distance as I could from the pirates.
Most of the Mercenaries did as I told with a few still trying to shoot down the pirates that they were still engaged in a dogfight with before withdrawing.
Just a bit later, the Captain's voice came from the comms.
"All Mercenaries! Thank you for your hard work! Pull back and we'll clean up those Destroyers for you!"
The battleship slid right into the space beside the pirate fleet, its massive size easily dwarfing the battlecruiser that the pirates had been using as their flagship.
That's an E Class ship for you.
There was a short moment of silence as all eyes went to the battleship, watching all its broadside cannons bring to bear on the remainder of the pirates.
Two of the Destroyers tried to run while the others simply stayed where they were, either their captains had given up or they were too stunned to move.
The battleship fired.
Space was lit up in a series of explosions and it was glorious.