Chapter 63: Pirate Hunt
Location: Red Sun Alliance; Lotin System; VS Stargazer
Captain Myers gave us the direction in which the pirates escaped. It’s even further from the planet than we already are. In a straight line, there is nothing for a very long while. The pirates would just cross the whole system out in the open. But we’re now looking at Maja’s calculation on the big view screen. If you only add a slight curve to the projected flight path, the possible destination of the pirate ship changes drastically. It leads right into a thick asteroid belt that circles the entire Lotin System.
I’ve noticed before, but now it comes to my mind again. This is a bit of a strange system… The asteroid belt is Very far out. In fact, it’s so far out, that the three wormholes leading to and from the system are closer to the single red sun than the belt. At least none of those wormholes are even close to the calculated route the pirates have taken. That only leaves one conclusion, okay, maybe two, but they are the same.
Shay is the first to voice it. “They’re based out there!”
Greg is quick with a follow-up. “Or they’re waiting till the heat dies down.”
My thoughts exactly. “How sure are you with that route, Maja?”
“Almost a hundred percent. Thanks to Captain Myers, I knew where to look. From there our sensors immediately picked up faint exhaust particles. They lead right along the projected path. As far as our scanners reach at least, and that’s pretty far. I’ve got their route confirmed halfway to the asteroid belt. And it will only improve once we start following.”
That brings a predatory grin to my face. For the first time, I can do something against pirates! They’ve always taken from me. First my parents, then Captain Amal. Now it’s my turn! “It’s settled then. Let’s catch them. You all know what to do.” That gets me nods all around and I turn to Lucy. “Hey, can you come with me? I want to try something.”
“Uhh, sure? But you know that I have to take care of our shields once we’re close, right?”
“Yup, that’s why I want to talk to you… I’ve got an idea. Actually, Lydia do you mind joining us as well?”
The auburn-haired girl in question doesn’t hesitate a second. “Not at all, where to?”
“Deck 04,” it’s all I have to say, to have their eyes widen slightly. It’s our magical center after all. Home of the batteries. So we leave the bridge and take the elevator one deck higher. No need to teleport this time.
Once we arrive, they look at me expectantly. I take a deep breath and start explaining my idea. “You both know that the ship is surrounded by Magitech emitters to sustain the stealth field, right?” They nod. “Good, so here’s what I’m thinking. What if we use a Shield spell from Lucy on them instead of the Cloaking spell? Would that work? It would be an additional layer of protection in case they have their own A&D Mage. And if they have, I’d bet everything that they know more than just defensive spells. You saw what destruction Sam Valterion was able to unleash in the recordings from Earth.”
Lucy blanches a bit and Lydia looks distinctly uncomfortable. She clears her throat. “I’m not familiar enough with the Red Sun Alliance, but it’s certainly possible that they have A&D spells available outside of the military… Hell, those pirates could also be military dropouts, who knows? So yeah, there is definitively a chance of them having an A&D Mage.” She’s quiet for a little bit more and scratches her chin, thinking. “Hmm, normally the disadvantage of Magitech is that they are only usable for a single thing. In our case, it would be stealth. But…” she stretches the word. “It could be also possible that they were built with the purpose of protection. I know this stretches it a bit, but let’s say stealth protects us from sight… Maybe the emitters can also protect us from damage. I guess, we have to try.”
I nod and turn to Lucy. “Okay, let’s just try it. Here’s how I connect the Cloaking spell to them…”
Unfortunately, Lydia’s stretching of the word protection didn’t apply to the Magitech around the Stargazer, and Lucy didn’t manage to connect any of her shield spells to them. A bit of a bummer… but now we know at least. I guess we have to go with stealth then. Meaning we are now a few hours later nearing the asteroid belt while fully invisible. At least this should catch the pirates with their pants down. That’s what we thought at least…
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Turns out they must have kept an eye out on who reacts to the crippled freighter. So when we near the first asteroids, still following the exhaust particles from the pirate ship, a loud ding turns our attention to the scanner console. Maja, quick on the uptake, immediately corrects our course and we’re now decelerating as much as possible while also taking a hard left.
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“What was that?” Shay groans after we all get our bearings again after the hard change of direction, where the grav generators are not quite able to keep up instantly.
“They left a scanning buoy behind. It’s also sending out a strong magical pulse every few seconds. We detected it quickly enough and managed to avoid the magic so far. The normal scans are of no concern due to our Cloak, but I’m not so sure about the magical scan. It’s new ground for us… Better safe than sorry.”
“You’re right, Maja,” I start, then continue voicing my thoughts with a frown. “They must have seen us starting the pursuit… Looks like they are waiting here to ambush us. I guess, they think they can take us… We haven’t shown our big guns so far, they are cloaked all the time. That pretty much confirms their A&D Mage… I mean the Stargazer isn’t light on weapons. Add in our sudden disappearance, I guess they became a little bit nervous and left the buoy. Any ideas? I’d say charging right in would be bad, right?”
Lucy and Shay both wince audible. “Absolutely,” Shay says and looks at Lucy. “Did you have any tactical training? I only know the part when we’re about to enter a ship and try to take over.”
“Not really,” Lucy sighs. “We were always told that we are the defense of a ship… No need for offensive tactics. Best would be circling the buoy and coming from another direction, I’d say.”
“My thoughts as well,” Maja enters the conversation and brings up a map of our sector of the star system on the screen. The buoy is marked in bright red with red and orange circles around it. “The red circle indicates the magical scanner range. The orange one is the normal one. We can fly through the orange zone undetected, as long as our Cloak is up. If we enter the red zone, I’m pretty sure that they’ll detect us. They will also get suspicious if we don’t enter the scanning range in the next few hours… They saw us start the pursuit, so they expect us here sometime. The trail leads right by the buoy.”
“Okay, so we circle a bit and try to come at them from behind. I guess they are somewhere close to the buoy to be able to react in time. Lucy, I need you to be ready to throw up a shield as soon as we find them. The same goes for you, Maja. We need the normal shields as additional protection. Shay, go grab a gun and be ready to defend the bridge. They shouldn’t be able to as long as we are shielded, but who knows if they somehow manage to teleport someone in here.”
They all nod and take their positions. Shay comes back a few minutes later, fully geared up with a big laser rifle in her hands. Maja gets the Stargazer moving again and we fly a good bit parallel to the asteroid belt until we turn right and enter it. I walk up to Jack, Lydia, and Greg who are sitting at a table in the back. Ronja has already left for the Medbay about an hour ago, saying she’ll prepare just in case.
“Hey guys.” I sit down with them. “It’s going to be our first battle soon. I don’t know how safe we will be, even if I’m pretty confident of the Stargazer’s capabilities.” I look each of them in the eyes. “So you now have to decide if you want to stay here or if you'd rather go back to your cabins or maybe join Ronja.”
Jack shakes his head immediately. “Hell no! There’s no chance that I’m gonna miss this.”
Lydia looks a bit frightened but shakes her head as well. “Yeah, I’m… I’m staying too.”
That leaves Greg… I could use his A&D magic, but I won’t ask him. It’s his decision if he wants to help. And it looks like he knows it as he struggles. Finally, after about a minute of silence, he speaks with a grimace. “Do you need my help?”
Ah, dang it. Why didn’t he just say yes or no? I shrug at his question. “I could use your magic, yes. But it’s also your decision. I know how you feel about A&D… Lucy should be able to handle everything alone.”
He frowns and asks with a weak voice. “What about the guns?”
I sigh. “It’s not optimal, but Lucy should be able to multitask. I don’t even know if we need them.”
Now everyone at the table is silent. Greg is deep in thought and Jack puts an arm on his shoulder to comfort him. Lydia looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head slightly and type a message on my interface at her. “Not my story to tell.” She nods her understanding.
Five minutes later, a shiver goes through Greg, and he takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “I’ll do it. This one time, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you, Greg.”
He smiles weakly. “It’s only because those guns are so fun to use.”
That gets him a chuckle from all of us but Lydia as she hasn’t seen them in action yet. “We’ll probably only have to disable their engines… I honestly don’t want to kill anyone, even if it’s pirates. Overwhelming firepower should make them surrender, I hope.”
We all stand up and walk back to the front of the bridge. Greg sits down at the tactical console, while Jack takes the communication station. Lydia decides to stand next to my Captain’s chair.
I look at Maja at the helm. “Where are we, Maja?”
She replies without turning. I guess navigating through the asteroid belt takes more of her concentration. Well, it’s a very dense belt, I have to say. It compares in no way to the lose asteroid belt around the Solar System and Earth. “We should be close… We’re a bit more than a quarter turn around the buoy’s scanning circle. So I guess, another half hour until we can engage from behind them. At least if they are still there, I haven’t managed to detect a ship yet, there’s too much interference from the asteroids.”
“Okay but be careful. Who knows what they prepared for us.” I somehow suddenly have a bit of a bad feeling. What if they have a Master Mage aboard? I don’t know how common they are…
The next 30 minutes pass painfully slowly, everyone is tense, and I’ve asked Lucy about a million times if she is ready to shield us. I get more annoyed answers every time, but at least she confirms her readiness. I’m about to ask again when Maja lets out a cry of triumph.
“Found ‘em!” She fires up the main view screen with the mapped space before the Stargazer. There they are! Hiding right behind one of the bigger asteroids is the pirate vessel. Well, they would be hiding if we had followed their route. Now that we circled, they float there out in the open. It's pretty much right before us if I speak in space distance. It’s still a few thousand kilometers, but that’s like nothing. We still don’t have a line of sight, as there are a lot of asteroids blocking us, but our sensors picked them up.
“Nice job, Maja! Can we target them without entering the red zone of the buoy?”
She shakes her head, and I imagine her frowning deeply. “No, we have to enter the magical scan zone… There are too many asteroids.”
“So no point in hiding anymore I guess?” Jack asks and I can only agree.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. Maja get us right at the edge, then you shield us, Lucy and Jack, you hail them. I’ll take down the stealth.”
“Aye, Captain!” Come the replies and I smile. Time to catch those pirates! I hope everything works out.