Surprise
Preparations for the upcoming meeting with the pirates proceeded smoothly. Everyone was equipped with the special grenades, and Tom discovered he had some particular volunteers to thank for their readiness. Bohdan had overseen the enchanting process, ensuring each grenade was perfectly prepared, and had also managed the production of the Healballs. Rebecca had assisted with the healing spells for these items, her expertise proving once again to be invaluable. Tom made a mental note to do something special for her, provided they all survived this encounter.
The Deshieldinator that Herbert brought up from the basement was indeed quite large—almost twice the size of the one on the walls. Kuthir was tucked inside a compartment that Herbert had added to the side of the machine to match the original construction. He even thought ahead to bring another for the side of the one that was mounted to the walls so that there would be no distinguishable differences between the two weapons.
Explaining the situation to Kiera, Tom had made sure that her team was going to be ready to take out any of the pirates should they try anything funny. She promised to watch over them and, as she put it, "prepare them for bisque" if they got out of line. Tom had laughed at this, and his mind wandered to the last time he had a good lobster bisque. It must have been at Texas De Brazil. They had some of the best bisque.
Shaking himself from that memory, he thanked her and explained the rest of the plan. Inari also gave Tom specific instructions to pass along to the Rangers. They were to be ready with their own weapons to fire when the shields on the ships went down, and the first volley should be with rocket launchers. Tom had originally been surprised that the Ranger skills transferred to guns so easily, but Inari explained that they were still ranged attack weapons.
Bohdan was standing by with the other mages who could cast Floating Disk, and Anderson was prepared with the other pilots to take to the skies, going so far as to have everyone sitting in the cockpits ready for the order.
Herbert's man on the roof and the gunners he had prepared were standing by. They kept their communication orbs in hand, waiting for the order to activate the shield or fire at the enemy. Chris manned the Deshieldinator on the wall so he could be in a position to give orders to the fighters when the time came. He stood to the side, dressed in the same tactical gear as the guards so as not to seem like he was about to point a weapon at the ships and fire it.
As the last of the three hours, they had been given expired, the screen once again flickered into existence in the sky, showing the pirate captain's head. This time they did not have any trouble setting the translator.
"Puny Earthlings, have you made your decision? Or will one be forced on you?" the captain asked.
"Oh, umm...about that," Tom began before he was cut off.
"It sounds like you are to be destroyed," He laughed, feeling confident in their superiority.
"No, no! We have something to ask first," Tom continued, pretending to sound panicked at the thought of being destroyed.
"We know that the Federation ships are on your tail and could be here anytime. We wanted to ask if you might be willing to trade taking some of our resources for a powerful weapon we have created," Tom put his hand out in front of him to make it seem like he was trying to offer a much better deal so they wouldn't kill them all.
"How do you know the Federation is following us?" the captain asked.
"The Admins told us," Tom said.
"Those damn meddlers. Always getting in our business. We aren't breaking any of their rules. Why would they keep doing this?" the captain grew more agitated as he grumbled about their involvement.
"Look, I just think you could get even further ahead of them if you maybe took the weapon instead of the resources. It would help you against any federation ships that might catch you," Tom offered, still trying to look as scared as he could.
"No weapon is worth the resources you have, but I will entertain the idea. What kind of weapon is it?" the captain asked.
"We call it the Deshieldinator. It fires a hyper-focused beam of energy at a target and forces the shield's capacitors to work overtime to provide energy to keep the shield up. At such a small point, it overloads the generators, and they crash, leaving them with no shields," Tom explained.
This got the attention of the captain. He leaned forward and looked at Tom for a long moment.
"Interesting. And you can show us the weapon works?" the captain asked.
"We wouldn't dare to use it on one of your shields, but we can demonstrate on a building here in the city to show you the power it holds," Tom offered, reeling them in slowly.
"Very well. Show us the power of this weapon, and we might consider a deal," the captain said.
"Captain, I don't know if this is a good idea," a voice spoke from off-camera.
"Silence. Are you the captain?" the captain replied.
"No, sir, I'm just not sure we should..." the voice tried to continue but was cut off again by the captain.
"You shut your mandibles! These Federation ships have been the bane of our existence for too long. With a weapon like this, we could keep them off our tails when we cut things too close and give us more time to secure resources for sale."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Thank you, captain. You won't regret this decision," Tom said, trying to redirect them to focus on him instead of possibly turning down their offer.
Tom nodded to Herbert, and the guards opened the gates to let them through. Herbert and a few Barbarians wheeled the larger Deshieldinator out the gate and into the street, turning it to face to the right; they lined it up with a building off in the distance. After putting the brakes on the wheels, Herbert instructed the Barbarians to hold onto the device, so it didn't move too much when firing.
Aiming the Deshieldinator at the building, Herbert fired up the machine, and it whirred to life. Lights flickered for a moment before becoming steady on the side of the machine, and a meter began to rise, showing the preparation of the beam. When it was showing full capacity, Herbert pulled the trigger on one of the weapon's handholds.
A brilliant beam of orange energy shot out of the barrel of the Deshieldinator and blasted into the side of the building, causing a massive amount of damage. Herbert began to slowly move the barrel of the weapon to the left, and the weapon cut a line straight through the material and out the other side. When he reached the halfway point across the building, it began to collapse from the weight above it, and the building crumbled to the ground.
Eyes going wide, the captain leaned in close again, in awe of the power the laser had to destroy such a large structure in such a short time.
"I must have this weapon. We will agree to taking only half of your resources in exchange for the weapon," the captain said.
"Captain, I really think this is a bad..." the voice again pleaded with the captain.
"Do I need to throw you in the brig? I said silence!" the captain shouted, clearly letting his greed get the better of him.
"It's a deal captain!" Tom said, pretending to seem extremely relieved.
The captain sat back in his chair and chuckled heartily at what he thought was the deal of a lifetime, "You might be my new favorite victim, Earthling. We will finally have something to make the Federation fear us."
"Thank you, captain. You honor me with your words. If you would be so kind, you can come to pick it up at our gates. It's rather heavy, and we are not able to move it so far," Tom replied, even adding a bow to make it seem like he was humble in his gratefulness.
"We will be there shortly to claim our prize," the captain replied, shutting off the communication.
"You saw that, right?" Derek asked.
"You mean that he thought this was the best thing since sliced bread? Yeah, I saw it," Tom replied, a wide smile spreading across his face.
"I think you may have been right," Derek added, a smile spreading across his face as well.
"Let's go give the captain his prize."
Moving down from the wall, Tom and Derek moved to the gates. In the distance, they noticed that the ships had already begun to move toward them.
"Herbert, be ready to activate the shields," Tom ordered.
Herbert gave him a thumbs up and stepped down off of the platform on the back of the Deshieldinator. Tom and Derek joined them near the weapon to await the pirate ships as they floated ever closer.
Once they were close enough, the ships lowered from the sky until they hovered only about fifty feet off the ground. On the front of the lead ship, a slat of the metal the ship was made of began to open vertically and lower to the ground as though a gangplank was being set down for someone to board the ship. A light at the top shone too bright to see inside of the ship, but it was partially blocked out by the shadowy silhouette of a lobster beginning to descend the ramp.
Several more figures followed the first until five of the lobster creatures stood at the base of the ramp, waiting for Tom to come and meet them. Tom motioned for the Barbarians to stay with the Deshieldinator, and he and Derek moved to meet their invaders.
Tom didn't realize how large the creatures were until he was near. Each had to be at least fifteen feet long and almost ten feet tall. This was not what he had expected, but he should have known better than to assume something like this with a species he had no idea existed until today.
"Greetings, Earthlings. You are even smaller than I imagined you would be," the captain said. "No wonder you were unable to bring us such a weapon."
Tom bowed in respect, feigning fear at meeting them, "Yes, captain. I know we are not much in the way of power, especially when compared to one such as yourself, but we just wish to continue living here. The System integration was especially hard on us with all the monsters appearing on our planet. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate you accepting our offer. We will assuredly suffer, but we might just survive."
"Well, I do need to make up some time. We got a little turned around at Alpha Centauri, thanks to someone," the captain said, looking not so subtly at one of the lobsters, who was him that sported an eye patch at the end of one of his stalks, which, quite frankly, looked absolutely ridiculous. "Go ahead and bring it over. We will load it on our ship."
Motioning for Herbert and the Barbarians to approach, they brought the device over to Tom and Derek and then moved back to the gates of the guild compound.
"I think you'll be very happy with this, captain," Tom said, pretending he was relieved it was going smoothly.
"Oh, I'm quite sure I will be. Especially once we also take all of your resources as well," the captain began to laugh maniacally.
"What?! You can't do that!" Tom pretended to be outraged at the change of events, though he had assumed this would happen.
"Oh, I can, and I am. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Tom made a hand gesture to Herbert from behind his back. Holding the communication orb up to his face, Herbert gave the order, and a beam of light that looked like a crystal in the sky, reflecting every color of the rainbow inside, shot out. It flared when it reached its pinnacle, and the energy began to rain down around the guild building and compound, forming a bubble around it that reached about ten feet out from the walls.
"What is this?!" the captain exclaimed in a mixture of confusion and fury.
"It's probably not going to be your day, captain."