Twelve warships, up-armored with iron plating. An ancient-style cargo ship. Leading them, a 150m-class destroyer. It was an advanced ship built over the ancient designs, similar to that monster tank we had fought.

The enemy fleet was 20 kilometers away, heading in our direction.

"Don't forget, Admiral," said the Card King. "Do not sink the cargo ship. If the signal is correct, it's transporting something immeasurable."

I scoffed. "No promises."

Vil's voice crackled over the speaker, and he spoke with his usual bored tone. "Shall I begin?"

"Go ahead," I ordered.

The railgun was sleek and incredibly long. It hummed as the barrel moved around glancingly, trying to pick a target and line up the shot, and it fired with a sound that was a mix of a bullet whizzing by one's head and a hollow pipe thumping.

The destroyer's bow flashed with sparks as the round pierced it like butter--through the innards--and out the rear, firing a spray of ice that jut out like a huge icicle. It must've been a triple-freeze round.

The fleet blossomed out into a crescent formation. It was pointless. Those enemy warships were garbage, about as powerful as those pirate ships we fought the other day, and the cannons they carried wouldn't have even penetrated the gunboat.

So I sent it out.

The pirates sang a jolly sea shanty as the gunboat shot out from the hangar, and they sailed off to the right flank.

The railgun fired again. The projectile pierced through, this time the deck erupting with a burst of water, a shock of lightning pulsing through, then freezing solid like an ice sculpture.

Finally, one of the destroyer's main guns fired.

We braced.

It sounded like a gunshot in reverse, and it exploded in the water beside us. It rained across the decks. A complete miss.

There was a lull in the fight. Vil was reloading. The enemy destroyer was the only thing in range, and half of it was frozen solid. The warship continued over, faster, and with the blinking of distant lights and the aftershock pops of cannon fire, I knew our gunboat had made contact.

The gunboat was hit first--those fucking idiots were probably singing again--but the thick, round cannonballs just doinked right off. I could hear the ringing from here. The turret, after a moment of thought, aimed its snoot in the direction of the warship, then fired.

A blur of a black line zipped into the enemy warship, and a bright light shone out from its port windows, and it shattered like dropping a vase. The explosive fireball was instant, but the shrapnel so intense that it just shredded the insides, and now the ship just vomited itself out into the sea--torn corpses of crewman and all.

Vil fired the railgun again. This time, he aimed for the castle, the bridge. The projectile shot across the sea--the destroyer returned fire--and the round plinked right off--

And a bright red latticework of mana shimmered.

A protection spell! It seemed the empire had brought aboard mages, after all.

The enemy shell howled closer, then slammed into the water, the explosion rocking us.

A woman's voice crackled into the bridge. "Admiral! There's a hull breach!" An alarm pounded behind her. "Flooding in compartments 6 and 7!"

That destroyer had teeth, it seemed. "Cassandra, take care of it," I said.

"The breach will soon be fixed," she said, "but we currently do not have the proper functions to dispose of the water."

"We'll worry about it later."

"Admiral!" one of the technicians shouted. "We're within range!"

I grinned darkly. "Fire the katyusha barrage."

The enemy fleet had come into range, and though they were a bit spread out, it wouldn't matter. This bombardment would teach them about being cocky to a single vessel.

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The crew on the decks aimed the rocket arrays, several cubes of metal frames that held rows and columns of rockets. They aimed up and out, using the same aiming calculations that Jessie had given them, and with a sudden series of flashes and howls, the rockets shot off, each array firing one-by-one, but altogether making a symphony of barking hisses.

In the distance, the enemy warships began to turn, maybe to line us up for a distant broadside, maybe to dodge, but it wouldn't work. The rockets slapped into the water around them, a rain of black smoke pummeling the sea, some rockets punching through the decks, ripping through masts and sails, throwing sparks and fires and bursts of seawater around. It was like a thousand drums rolled off at once, and in another instant, stopped.

Now, the sea was on fire, smoke plumed from burning, sinking ships, and the destroyer turned for a broadside. Fuck! I didn't notice, but the ice had melted off. They must've used magic.

The tank turrets opened fire--no dice. The enemy was out of range for them.

The destroyer aimed. It fired its own symphony, three-three-six. Twelve shots careened toward us--

> Heart of the Dragon activated.

--then slashed across our portside. The shells paused against an invisible barrier, glowing magic circles blinked in and gripped them, and the shells spun around--

And fired in reverse.

The shells shot back to the destroyer, but the air around it blurred, and huge, flowerpetal blossoms of light bloomed around the destroyer's hull, and the shells exploded against them.

Tch. This would be harder than I thought. "Vil, use nullify-smoke-charisma."

"Crowd control, huh? Alright."

He reloaded, and the railgun fired again. The protection spell blinked against the projectile as it shot through, piercing the hull clean down the center line and out the other side, pulling with it plumes of black smoke that poured up and out of the ship. Tendrils of pink smoke mixed in, but I could tell that the charisma spell was only slightly effective.

I noticed our gunship had finished off the other warships. All that was left now was this stubborn destroyer, and the cargo ship would be vulnerable.

We sailed closer. The destroyer still plumed smoke, and I knew the crew wouldn't fire back if they couldn't see.

Just as we reached less than a kilometer away, the tank turrets opened fire, blasting one-by-one with fast-fire high explosive rounds, not to penetrate the enemy but to annoy the ever-loving-hell out of them. It was essentially a stun-lock on their crew since they couldn't see shit; the constant shockwaves shook them.

"Admiral," shouted a rebel officer. "We're getting too close! They'll cut right through our armor at this range!"

I smirked. "It's already over."

We headed right at them, and they at us. The smoke had cleared, and they fired again--two shells.

One slipped past us. No hit.

The next slammed into a blinking magic circle and exploded—the healer!--blinding us for a moment, and the smoke pulled away. The healer hit me with a cute little salute on the decks, and we raced closer.

Vil fired. Nullify-Smoke-Confusion. The rounds ripped through their decks.

We raged closer.

The enemy's cannons fired blindly. They missed.

We were gonna crash into them. I pulled right just as the destroyer yanked left, and our hulls ground against one another. Metal twisted and groaned and echoed out these horrible screeches, and just as we matched bow-to-stern and stern-to-bow, the boarding party leapt over.

The gimps.

The Gimp King roared in laughter as he slammed against their decks, and only four island-type gimps jumped over behind him. It was all we needed. The battle was won.

We slipped by each other, the destroyer raced onward, I took a sharp left to follow, and before Vil could even level another shot, we could see it.

The enemy crew were... jumping off the ship. They were abandoning.

The destroyer pulsed and tilted as it punched by something, and the screams--we could hear the screams from here.

Just what in the hell was going on in there? Were the special gimp forces pelvic thrusting them to death? I shuddered at the thought.

Soon, I saw a man backstep across the deck. He froze when he found himself on the edge, the churning ocean below, and he looked up and saw the light of the Gimp King's eyes, the fire in his grin, and his bulge--my god, I could see it from here--it throbbed with the same sort of sexual energy that would rival the creation of the universe.

The man raised a rifle and fired.

The bullet sparked off the Gimp King's armor. It was cyberleather. Then, he turned his body as if posing, and he--oh no--his dick flopped out of his thong and smacked against the deck, somehow coiling with the length, and with a snap, it flexed, all of it, not just into an abnormally-sized dick, but as a sword, a spear, a phallic blunt weapon that when he spun his body, the sheer speed and power cut the man in half.

Did I--did I just witness that for real? Did that really happen?

The poor sailor's top half splashed in the water, and his bottom half right after.

I looked back to the Gimp King. In his hands, the dick, but it wasn't even connected to his body. It was a dildo-weapon. I didn't remember him taking that. Where did it... where did it come from?

"Admiral," the Card King said. "The pirates have boarded the cargo ship now."

I looked. Far on our flank, I spotted the cargo ship idling in the waters, the gunboat parked beside it. The pirates, just a small crew of five, were on the decks with the imperial sailors, and they were... dancing. Of course. I could see the captain raise his hands as he sang, and even his backup singers had--trumpets? Really? What was worse was that the imperial sailors danced right back, shouting off phrases in unison, twirling around, and snapping their fingers.

The pirates shuddered as if dealt a heavy blow, but they spun, too, and countered with what I assumed was the chorus--they had been practicing a lot lately--and finally, the imperials just... gave up. They quit. They applauded one another, the trumpets stowed away, and they even shook hands.

I dusted off my hands and looked back at the rebel officers. "Well done, everyone," I said. "Another successful mission."

Doc sat in the shadow of the room. "Bravo, Redrim. However, this isn't successful until we've yet obtained the cargo."

I scoffed. "Yeah, but that's easy. No way we could fuck that up."