We were approaching the first cluster. We had already basically matched their speed. Our current distance was nearly 8000 kilotres—too long for any proper engagent—but we were mostly approaching so slowly because we were still facing 138 space monsters.
In the ga of rock, paper, and scissors, they were the paper, and we were the scissors, but if you layer paper thickly enough, no scissors would be able to cut through it. For that reason, I was rethinking our original plan.
“Captain, should I move in?” FH asked , as they were all waiting for my orders, and I had been quiet for a while now.
“Bring up all the unique space monsters in this cluster.”
The screens changed to show twelve different space monsters. They were of the sa species but obviously different. Our modelling was now precise, as we had gotten close enough to get their proper size and dinsions, with all the added tiny details distance made impossible to see.
All of them were bigger than normal, with five of them seeming to have extra growth along their spines. We believed that they could launch those spikes, aning that these ones actually had so ranged capability.
Our shields and armour should be strong enough to handle those, but there was always a variable that even now sotis seed to slip my mind; skills could change everything. The spikes should not be a problem, but what if that individual had a skill that added penetration to them? Skills did not always follow the laws of physics.
“We will go with plan B. If we lose the skills they have, then we lose them; there is no point in hunting sothing we might not even get.”
“Understood, Captain,” my crew mbers answered back.
Our original plan was to get in close and use our overwhelming firepower to kill anything that got too close. The last ti I used my innate ability, I did not layer my extended range skill onto it, which should make it possible for to trigger my innate ability from further away.
The problem with that is that the last ti it took so much out of when the space monster died. If I extended my range, it would probably knock out. I had a feeling that I needed to be awake for the aftermath, and of course we were quite certain that I wouldn’t be able to lend my affinities to FH if I wasn’t awake.
The tactical screen updated almost imdiately as we started to move more aggressively towards our targets. The reaction from them was almost imdiate as they abandoned the current feeding ground that was a huge flat asteroid made into a food-growing factory.
The space monsters pushed off from the surface. They surged towards us quite fast; one of them seed particularly fast, it was one of the unique ones.
“Fire at will.”
Our range was still extre, but our weaponry was actually quite good at this type of engagent. The bolts of light sped through space, heading towards their targets.
We had seen the other space monsters trying to dodge incoming fire plenty of tis; these ones were more successful, as the range of our engagent was longer. Their shielding also seed to work better like this, thanks to the shots not being so well placed.
Yet even now, the distance was an advantage to us. It took a while, but each of the lead space monsters died one by one. As expected, so of them did have ranged capabilities, which they used before their deaths.
Those spikes flew towards us, but their speed was even lower than that of railguns, so dodging them was quite easy. All the red lines were predicted to miss as we adjusted our current position.
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In all honesty, this felt way too easy. Still, it seed that we had made a good decision not to engage too closely, as the space monsters used their own fallen bodies as protection against incoming fire.
We had not seen this behavior before. Of course, the smaller groups did not have so many dead to so usefully use them. That made wonder how smart these creatures actually were.
Alert beeps of incoming fire sounded again, but all five of the space monsters that could shoot those were already dead.
The tactical screen showed six spikes changing course, still heading towards us. That made blink in confusion. Once again, we adjusted our course, which should have made these spikes miss us, but soon they were on a collision course once again.
“That space monster must have had a skill that could make those projectiles track a target?” Dean said.
“Well shit, that skill would have been really useful,” Bob remarked while FH was starting to pull on him even more, as we were quite certain that those spikes were going to hit no matter how we tried to manoeuvre.
Just in case, we used our main engines to accelerate to see if there was a limit to the tracking capability of these spikes. It seed that if we had enough ti, we could outpace the tracking capability, but the spikes were moving quick enough that we were about to get hit by them.
“Best angle, brace for impact!” Imdiately, the ship stopped trying to get away and instead turned towards the spikes, showing our strongest angle. The shields layered on top of each other, with their AIs pulling more power to strengthen them as much as possible.
Each of those incoming spikes must have weighed a couple of hundred kilograms, and with the speeds they were moving, these ones could do so real damage.
The first one bounced off the shields, but already the heat load jumped to 20% of the maximum. The ship made rapid angle changes, allowing us to distribute the heat load between multiple shields.
Each hit rocked the ship. The fourth one was the worst, as that one didn’t bounce off—breaking two shields, with the third and last one barely holding. We rolled again, barely making it in ti so that the fifth spike would hit a different cluster of shield generators.
Fortunately, the last two also bounced off. Four shield generators needed repair, but all of them survived without catastrophic damage taken from the excess heat.
“Those spikes are scary,” I heard Lola say.
Speed and weight, those were the two things that made projectile weapons so dangerous. The fact that there were space monsters out there that could not just match but greatly exceed the damage output of battleship spinal railguns was truly scary.
Even through all of that, we barely paused our fire against the other space monsters. In less than ten minutes, the rest of the fight was over. Our weapons were quite hot as they had all pushed themselves a bit too much to finish off the space monster before they got too close.
“Any movent in the other clusters?” I asked, as those three remaining clusters weren’t too far from here.
“No, Captain, we’re in the clear.”
“Excellent. Did we detect any possibility of a skill stone forming?” Those were hopeful words because the chances were simply so low.
“No, Captain.”
“Then we prepare for the next engagent,” I said while already controlling nano machines and drones to start doing maintenance and repairs.
We had been at it for about twenty minutes when the entirety of the command centre turned red, and warning klaxons sounded.
“Fleet detected nearby,” FH’s voice sounded out.
The tactical screen once again changed, pulling out from our current position. Closer than I expected, we were detecting a fleet of thirty-five ships that had exited FTL.
“Are those the Baron’s ships here to start clearing the space monster corpses?” Sam asked.
“No, they weren’t scheduled to arrive for a week or more,” I said back to him as we were getting more and more information about the fleet that had dropped in.
Not only were they quite close to us, but they were already heading towards us.
“There must be a scout ship in the system,” Lola said, what we were all thinking.
The tactical screen separated the fleet into two. A mont later, nas appeared: The Red Pistols and The Wayward Moons. It took a mont to rember. Those two were pirate fleets operating near this area.
“Why are they here?” I asked no one in particular, but it seed that FH already had an answer.
“These two fleets often prey upon space adventurers who have already hunted whatever space monster they were after. It seems that they have gotten wind of what’s happening here.”
“They waited for us to kill off the wandering space monsters, and most likely the scout ship contacted the fleets, who were almost certainly waiting outside the system to jump in as soon as they knew we were going to win this fight,” Dean explained.
“That’s probably what happened, I agree,” while trying to think of what to do. The fleet started to decelerate, making it obvious that they were going to try to take all these corpses.
“FH, contact the Baron. Tell him what has happened and see how far his fleet is from us.”
At least thanks to the quantum net, he would have an idea of what’s happening here. It was also quite obvious from the moves of the pirates that they did not actually want to fight us. They were showing force, hoping that we would just leave what we had hunted.
“Start accelerating in the heading AP556.” There was a longer pause before my commands were followed.
“Wait, we’re just abandoning everything?” Sam asked in disbelief.
“Of course, we’re not going to defend. They let us hunt so they wouldn’t have to fight themselves. Now they’re swooping in, using their numbers to scare us off. This tactic is even old in the animal kingdom.”
“So, they don’t actually want to engage us?”
“No, Dean, they probably know that they would still lose ships even if they would most certainly win. They’re hoping that we are not stupid enough to stand our ground and die for this.”
Silence perated the command centre as the ship started to adjust course.
“But letting them just have it all just like that… well, that would hurt our reputation, wouldn’t it.”
“Captain?” Bob asked in confusion.
“Lola, it’s ti to calibrate that lure device. We need to move fast to leave it here.”
I was already moving while everyone was still standing still. “Lola, now. We don’t have much ti.”
“Wait, so that’s why we’re using this heading. Captain, you can be way too devious,” Bob said while following close behind Lola. “But will it work?”
“We’ll see now, won’t we? Also, FH, let’s try to find that stealthy rat that has been keeping an eye on us.”
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