The two ships continued deeper into the asteroid belt after leaving the ruined pirate ambush behind, their paths cutting through lanes of broken rock and drifting ore where light ca and went in long shadows, and from that point on, almost every pirate ship unlucky enough to cross Rhoswen’s path ended the sa way.
She threw herself into the work with almost suspicious enthusiasm.
Part of it was because this was still her first real outing as a shipgirl, and part of it was because she knew she had fumbled the start of her first battle by letting excitent outrun judgnt, so now she was trying to win back the good impression she thought she had damaged, which made her even more active than before.
Unfortunately for the pirates, her chosen thod of "working hard" was still mostly to ram things.
Aurelian watched one more pirate frigate vanish beneath Crimson Bulwark’s might, and, seeing this, he slowly understood how she fought and began to think about what role she might have as the fleet’s strength increased.
Astra, who had now seen enough of it, also started thinking about strategy, as she was the command ship, as she monitored the wider field and blocked off any routes where pirate ships might try to slip away.
"She’s very economical," Astra said in her usual composed tone. "You save a lot of ammunition this way."
Aurelian’s mouth twitched slightly.
"That is one way to describe it."
It was true, though.
As rough as the approach looked, Crimson Bulwark was built to take impact, and her talents clearly favored direct contact.
In a fight against ships weaker than her, especially pirate ships that lacked proper armor standards and rarely carried top-tier modifications, she really could just crash through them and keep going.
Astra, on the other hand, would never fight like that if she had a choice.
She had too much mass, too much value, and too much complexity built into her hull. Even if she could do it, the repair costs alone would make the style stupid instead of efficient.
"Unlike her," Astra added, watching another collision light up the tactical display, "I cannot recover from reckless impact even if it was a money-saving asure. It is cheaper for to shoot."
That, too, was true.
Pirates in the Duskrail asteroid lanes had spent years preying on Tier I and Tier II ships, mining haulers, ard rchants, and small escorts that either could not fight back properly or did not want the trouble.
Tier III ships passed through now and then, but most captains in that class did not bother chasing pirates unless the pirates had done sothing truly inconvenient.
The cost-benefit ratio was bad.
That was what kept pirate nests alive in places like this.
Aurelian, unfortunately for them, was not here to play by local pirate economics, and Rhoswen was even less interested in preserving their business environnt.
Before long, word started spreading through pirate channels.
A destroyer was moving through the belt.
It ramd first, shot later, and seed uninterested in leaving anyone alive long enough to learn a lesson.
Worse, it was fast enough that running was not a real answer once you had been spotted.
By the ti Black Crown and Crimson Bulwark crossed into the denser mining side of the belt, more and more pirate ships were actively breaking course the mont Rhoswen’s transponder trace touched their local sensors.
That should have been funny.
Instead, it brought attention.
And attention in places like this always leads to stronger forces to take notice.
In one of the pirate-held pockets deeper in the rock field, a broad-shouldered man with a scar across his jaw slamd a cup down on a tal table hard enough to make the liquid inside spill out onto the table.
He was the local pirate leader, and unlike the smaller crews drifting through the belt looking for easy kills, his group had roots here, hidden depots, bribed informants, and enough backing from off-record interests that they had started thinking of the asteroid belt as theirs.
Now soone was ruining that.
"Whose ship is this?" he asked, voice hard and low, looking around at the people gathered in front of him.
No one answered quickly.
That alone made him angrier.
One of the lieutenants finally cleared his throat and said, "Probably soone from out of town."
The pirate leader stared at him, then kicked the chair beside him hard enough to send it skidding.
"No shit," he snapped. "I asked where they’re from."
The room went quieter.
That was the real problem.
The Bounty Hunter Guild usually gave pirate groups like his a certain amount of space as long as they did not cross lines that mattered too much and as long as the money moved in the right direction.
So mining companies even preferred having pirates around to harass competitors. It was an ugly balance, but it was a balance.
This ship had not entered that balance.
It had just started smashing things.
Reports kept coming in. Four ships were lost. Then more. Then, the survivors floating in pods were talking about a destroyer that attacked like a mad dog.
A few quick checks through the starport feeds gave them even less comfort.
The ship had co through a gate route, not from a nearby pirate dock, not from any local corporate escort line, and no one in their usual channels had a clean read on it.
That made the pirate leader’s head hurt for exactly one reason.
Unknown problems could beco expensive very fast.
Still, he had built his position by not looking weak.
If one destroyer could roam through his territory, wrecking ships without response, then the rest of the pirate belt would stop fearing his na.
He made the only decision a man like him would make.
He gathered his fleet.
It moved fast by pirate standards, which ant it was ssy, badly coordinated, and full of ships that did not really belong together, but there was still a lot of it.
Ten Tier III ships.
Hundreds of Tier II hulls.
On paper, it looked more than enough to crush one troubleso destroyer, especially if that destroyer was being mistaken for sothing closer to a cruiser due to her size and aggression.
Unfortunately, their intelligence was wrong in the most dangerous way possible.
They knew about Crimson Bulwark.
They did not know about Black Crown that was behind her.
Back in the belt, Aurelian finally reached the area tied to the cyan clue from the blind box.
The local rock structure matched the details well enough that he was sure they were in the right place, and he had already begun narrowing down the exact excavation point where the object would surface later.
He had no intention of waiting here for four days just to catch a miner in the act. That would be stupid.
He only needed the location now.
Once he had that, he could decide whether to monitor it, intercept it, or claim it before greed had a chance to turn into murder.
He was just about to mark the final search zone when spatial distortions touched the edge of the tactical display in front of him.
Aurelian’s eyes narrowed imdiately.
User Comments
0 comments from readers