Raptor One – Chapter 89
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-Lower Deck - Module One - Hangar Bay-
I give a feral grin and tighten my grip as I wait Nail dock on Tenacity, Zu and Peppy was besides me, checking their equipment one last time before engaging in battle, their Primal wolfs on their sides.
I sigh, a jet of condensed air leaving the four breathing ports of my mask, making Lycanis woof, announcing her presence to me.
I pet her head while watching Nail dock Selket on the hangar bay, some hand movement from Peppy close to the entrance of the hangar bay where the AR Console lies get the crane moving, the drop module is lowered down and Selket is picked up, then placed on top of the drop module, five heavy clanks that can be heard despite the missing air echo.
“Okay devushki, load a crate of Liquid Iron and Steel Plates, we may not need it, but it’s better ready than sorry.” I say and grab the heavier crate of steel plates.
“Okay! Hey Zu, a hand here!” Peppy reply with a smile and call Zu out.
“Sure.” Is all that Zu say before helping her out.
We do the tasks with no hurry and in 3 minutes we are done checking everything out.
“Hold on tight!” We hear Nail say and I check the drop module outer camera, The elevator rise into two halves, and seconds later I feel the G-forces pulling me up as Selket is slinged down before blasting off into The Taunt, I watch with a grin the heavily damaged Corvette, it’s lower front blasted open and it’s lower turret sizzling hot as the ship got itself into the danger zone again of the O-class blue star, it’s heatsink overloaded trying to keep the ship from becoming molten metal.
“Does devushki have the standard heat survival implant?” I ask the girls as they rack their Avalon carbines.
“The visit to the doctor got us the advanced ones for all of us, why?” Zu reply from her comms.
“The ship will be fuming hot when we enter so be ready, they must be looking like angry bees in there... the alive ones at least.” I say with a snort.
“Sorry guys, this will take a little longer, I'm getting some resistance to the drop, they look desperate to be wiggling their ship like a worm.” Nail’s voice come into our comms.
“Da, take your time.” I say and sit down before petting Lycanis.
This girl, Lycanis, despite being of Zerg descent she’s very tame, even more now that I got linked to the archonexus, my sensitivity translated to power and capacity, I wonder how they work as despite having their own ego they work as a singular unit and is affected by psicasts just like all psilinkers.
“Ready for drop off!” Nail’s voice comes again after a minute of silence, so I get up and take the front as I have more armor than the girls.
I watch as we are dropped on the clear end of The Taunt’s insides, the Drop Module hitting the ship floor hard and locking with four clangs, I did not open the hatch just after, and it was for the best as sound of bullets hitting the metal plating resound inside the Drop Module.
“Starting Sweep.” Nail say before we hear from her comms the mechanical sounds of laser machineguns going off, a look at the Drop module camera show dozens of crews being vaporized, only four survived while taking cover inside a flimsy bulkhead, so I finally open the Drop module doors and walk out with the girls.
The first thing I feel was the heat, it was very unpleasant and that with the cold space as help, I wonder how bad it will be on the pressurized zones of the ship.
“Moving out, if they pop their heads back here shot it, Nail, give cover for as long as you can.” I give some orders as we head forward into module one.
“Roger.” Both Zu and Peppy say with their Carbines ready to shoot.
“Understood Captain.” Nail reply comes seconds later as she needs to constantly adjust her bearing to not hit the ship walls due to it’s movement.
The walk on this extensive empty hangar bay was bullet free, the canisters of Erchius fuel looks like it have sub standard security as I glance at it’s slowly bubbling contents, a explosion will happen sooner or later in this danger zone.
“How’s Selket fuel tank holding?” I ask Nail while running to the fist module of this hangar bay where the four survivors retreated to.
“It’s holding very nicely despite being in a hostile environment.” Nail reply comes into our comm link.
“Good.” Is all I say as we reach module one and take cover.
A look tell me the four guys are in panic, trying to say something, some hand movement connect my comms to their, and their panicked voices enter our ears.
“Wait wait wait! Don't shoot! We surrender!” I hear one say, the others nodding.
“Drop your weapons bystro.” I say and walk forward, the girls getting ready to fire under cover.
“Okay! Okay!” Another one say and they throw their guns, it slides forward after hitting the ground, looks like the gravity drive is working full power.
I nod and close in, calling the persons to group up, Zu and Peppy also start to close in.
I slowly induce joy and bliss and see their panic reduce as they get comfortable in our presence.
“Now that we have your surrender, help me get this elevator working will you?” I say with a happy tone, my heavy voice goes unnoticed as they nod and try to get the elevator working.
“We are in luck sir! They did not lock us down yet, they must have overlooked us helping.” A female pirate say as the elevator lower down.
“Good job, now be patient and wait while we take the rest of the ship, how many people you got left?” I say with a nod and walk closer to the descending elevator.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Middle deck, all three pieces are used for crew bunkers, down here died half the crew, mostly repair crew, we don’t have heavy weapons, mostly revolvers and pistols, but the Captain, a hell of a girl and her guards do have power armor and heavy weapons, you’ll find most of the obligatory components on the upper deck like the reactor and bridge, the entrance to the upper deck is all the way to the front of the ship.” A guy give us the information we want.
“Good to know, will they try to fight us off?” I ask some more.
“Ha! Just a bunch of chickens!” The female reply. “As soon as one of theirs are killed by you guys with a good smile they will all surrender.” The girl finish her words and walk to a small cover before sitting down, the others soon follow her as the elevator finish opening it’s door to us.
“Let’s go.” I say and walk inside the elevator, Zu and Peppy following behind.
As the elevator slowly goes up again we feel the heat get worse and the sound return, a good announcer was my mask giving a click, it’s self locking mechanism deactivated allowing me to show my feral grin again.
“How much resistance do you think well get?” Zu ask Peppy.
“I dunno, half to half I guess.” Peppy reply back.
“What is our first action when the door open?” Zu ask me and my grin grows wider, my sharp teeth showing even more.
“Open fire.” Is all I say as both Zu and Peppy ready their Carbines, the elevator door opening moments later as my words finish it’s echo, some eyes lock into my wide open feral grin before seven bullets of molten metal hit him and another five pass by him deeper into the long corridor.
I chuckle as the guy fall while many others cry in pain, from the twentyish persons here half had gone down bleeding.
“Surrender or we are going to shot you down.” I say with a wicked grin...
Oops, I'm letting my mindset bend, bad mind!
The shoot first talk later was too successful, my face did not help either as I right myself, I'm a independent not a pirate, get yourself together!
I sigh as I watch the girls rounding the intact ones into a corner, some of the crew was pulled out to give basic first aid before being taken to another quarter and locked in.
“This feels refreshing somehow.” Zu say with no empathy whatsoever.
“Yeah, right?” Peppy also nod I can hear her humming inside her helmet.
“No guilt?” I ask guile looking down at the girls
“None!” They say in sync.
Poor guys and gals, I think while shaking my head as we close in on the elevator, bullet marks on it.
I press the button and the elevator refuses to open, it’s jammed.
I give a look at it and it does not come to me at first but some thinking give me the answer, the shots fired.
I give the elevator a look and find out that most of the door is welded shut by the gunshots we fired so I take out my own welder and start opening the bugger...
That was the intention, but the welder and many things on my gauntlet is not working...
I give it a look thinking it’s the heat, but I find out it’s missing components and faults, all of which can’t be fixed without help.
A check on my liquid iron kinetic slinger is a burst too making me sigh, brute force it is.
Luckily my climbing finger spikes are working so two stabs into the elevator and a yank do the work, the external plate that was jammed is pried open and the internal one is already open awaiting our entry, which we do so.
“change of plans, I'll on the frontline, give me backup, as any good thinker will aim on me and a good squad will pin you both and shoot me down before I can deal the hurting.” I say with a sigh while checking my equipment, all is working but my gauntlet extension is not...
Did I test it after that unholy change that the archonexus did to me? It fixed a lot but also left many parts broken... It must have thought it was of no consequence.
I walk forward into the mostly empty modules of the upper deck, the defensive check point on module 3 is empty as we pass by it, reaching module 2 we see the reactor, it’s a big... What was this thing again? Right, a Combustion reactor, breaks down any solid that can generate heat into energy, this thing generates a lot of heat so the heatsinks are pretty much overloaded most of the time.
I shake my head and lock eyes with the five pirates with their back to the wall, looking at us while shaking, a pistol on hand, I give a smile, sharp teeth showing, the girls behind me pointing the carbines their way make the group drop their guns as they see we won’t shoot if they don’t.
With their guns collected I have a choice, overheat the combustion generator and cause a mass explosion that will rip the ship in two and leave or hijack the command module and bring the ship back to the new solar system...
“What do you think devushki? Blow the ship or hijack it?” I ask both Zu and Peppy.
“I say we blow it, too much trouble.” Zu say with a scowl, her perfectionism affecting her decision.
“Keep it! Keep it! The entire ship is money, and the crew can become laborers for their crimes bringing the price further up, remember that each module cost a fortune! Used or not!” Peppy say while jumping around me.
“Da, da, rodzher! Calm down devochka.” I say with a grin.
“Now that she say it, we don’t need to trouble ourselves with the ship, only bring it to the station where it will be repurposed or dismantled back into modules and components, and all the options will bring more money and no trouble our way... If they don’t shoot us on sight that is.” Zu reply with a nod.
“Then it’s worth hijacking this ship, let’s hope the comms is working when it’s done, bullets can do wonders for breaking things in enclosed space.” I say with a chuckle and head to module 1, the command bridge.
The walk is not long but we are met with a locked door, a look show it’s reinforced titanium, I sigh and try to jab my fingers into the seams.
I’m hit with dumb luck as my fingers manage to pry into the door middle seam, my climbing claw is proving to be more useful than for just climbing things.
I try to open it but it’s hydraulic system force the door shut again, so I try to brute force it like I did to the elevator, the door shriek in protest but I manage to barely open it, when I manage to look up I find a human female pointing her gun at me, three bullets leave her rifle, two hit my left leg and one hit my right arm, none of the shots broke my ‘Carbon Fiber skin’ yet.
Lycanis sprung into action right after hearing the shots but was dodged, Zu and Peppy also opened fire, Zu’s burst fire hit the captain’s helmet two times and another on the body, Peppy’s burst fire hit the captain two times, one on her right arm and another on her torso, their primal wolfs taking making two other guards occupied leaving only three persons free.
That being the captain and two guards with the captain itself dealing with Lycanis.
The two guards seen intelligent as they dive into cover and start shooting Zu and Peppy that just got into cover themselves, Peppy receive a barrage of bullets on the chest before taking cover however but the combat exoskeleton armor protected her.
“Lycanis! Catch!” I say before jumping into the free guard, the titanium plate on his face deforming severely and the force knocking him out cold.
Yes, him, it was a guy.
When I was about to run into the other guard I hear the shriek of metal, making me look at it’s way just to see Lycanis getting into the female captain armor and taking a chunk out of her, blood splashing out as she falls down with a heavy bleeding, a gaping hole on the side of her stomach.
This lapse of attention caused another pirate guard dearly as one of the primal wolfs took a chunk from her armor and broke her off from the fight again, the other got a nip on his ankle by his assigned primal wolf also getting him too busy to help.
I give a feral grin because of a lapse of attention making the two free guards shudder as they are flanked with Lycanis coming approaching after finishing the Captain, the terror effect made the living guards throw down their weapons in surrender thus finishing the battle making me frown.
I huff in anger, four hisses leave my mask as I right myself, our primal wolfs taking defensive stances as we grab their guns and yank their armor off.
I give the Bridge a look and see that besides the blood it’s in working order if you ignore the bullet holes on the walls.
Kicking the living humans in their birth suits to the living quarters was easy, I tried to contact Tenacity right after and took notice of the missing signal while moving the ship out of the heat zone of the blue sun, but with some tinkering I managed to get it back working by taking a circuit from one of the stations on the bridge.
“Here’s White talking can you hear me?” I say out loud on the comms again.
“Loud and clear.” Shy reply with her small voice.
“Good, Nail, still alive?” I ask on the comms.
“Sure is Captain.” Nail reply comes right after.
“So we are all clear, I'm opening the hangar bay, come grab Zu and Peppy back to Tenacity, I'll bring this hunk of metal with us to the new sector, Zu’’s in command” I say while taking the rest of the titanium armor from the killed captain, most of it can be re-used or sold.
“Understood.” I hear from all five girls.
After collecting the flying debris of the fallen fighters into The Taunt we depart, The taunt’s drive is primitive at best in my looks but the travel was done with no incidents as we reach Magma Tesla solar system and head for Planet IIIa, a medium size planet in the orbit of a gas giant along with three moons, one which orbits the planet itself.
The moment we approached the planet we where met with a full fleet of warships, not wanting to give a bad impression I hailed the guys.
“Here Is Captain White from ISS-Tenacity hailing from The Taunt, captured pirate ship, we request passage and docking with help for prisoner management.” I say on the comms and seconds later receive a reply.
“Here’s Fleet Commander Sierra talking, welcome to Tesla Prime.” He say and the fleet divides into two allowing me to see it’s composition, four cruisers, one Capital, sixteen frigates and two carriers.
“Wow.” I say with a chuckle, our time here will be interesting.