Chapter 16: Shooting Star (1/2)

“Mimi, what’s the battlefield’s current state?”

I called out to Mimi after the drones finished collecting all the loot from the ship wreckages.

“Eh? Um, err… it looks like our allied forces have the advantage for the time being.”

“Can you pinpoint the spots where our allies aren’t doing so hot?”

“U- Um… I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Yeah, I figured as much. I also mostly rely on my intuition when searching for those particular trouble spots, so her answer’s not all that surprising…

“Generally, there’s a one-on-three or one-on-four ratio between merc and pirate forces scattered all throughout the battlefield. Spots, where the pirate numbers are a bit too many for comfort, are the ones that require some support. But if the pirate numbers exceed ten, going in to act as reinforcement poses quite a bit of risk, if not outright suicidal. I think we’ll be fine even with those numbers though.”

“I see… Um, so, it should be this particular spot then, on the lower-left portion of the battlefield map. It’s close to the position of the Star System fleet, but they still seem to be struggling due to three medium-sized pirate battleships participating in the battle.”

I checked the coordinates Mimi pointed out, and it did look like our allies were having a tough time. Four mercenary ships were surrounded by over twenty small pirate craft. They also faced the aforementioned three medium-sized pirate ships. They were still managing somehow due to support fire from the military fleet, but it looks like they won’t be able to keep it up if the current situation continues.

“Alright then, we’re going to help them out Mimi. But keep your eyes on the radar so we won’t be taken by surprise. Also, make sure to hail our allies before we engage the enemies to avoid confusion.”

“Yes, I’ll do my best!”

I checked the weaponry and equipment of the hostile medium-sized pirate ships after hearing Mimi’s energetic reply.

They were also heavily modified civilian-use starships, just like the missile support cruiser we fought earlier. Pirates commonly used these types of retrofitted ships. They would attack civilian ships, disable their main thrusters, dispose of all the passengers and crew and would then take the ships for themselves.

They would then equip these ships with weaponry and defense systems plundered from mercenary and escort ships they managed to shoot down, and the result would be the patchwork pirate battleships they often used. At least, that’s how they were said to operate in Stella Online. Looks like things are pretty much the same in this world. I don’t even want to imagine what happened to the original crew of those ships.

Anyway… those modified medium-sized pirate warships are equipped with rapid-fire multi-cannons for close-range defensive fire and a medium caliber laser cannon for support bombardment. They probably operate by supporting the small attack crafts from behind through long-range laser cannon fire. The multi cannons are most likely of the auto-targeting turret cannon type.

They’ve mainly concentrated their weapon batteries on the front end of the ship, on top and on each side. They look pretty solid, at least. I’m pretty confident Krishna’s energy shields, powered by a top of the line, high-performance shield generator would be able to tank hits from these weapon batteries even if they attack simultaneously, but there’s no reason I’d go at em right from the front to begin with.

Judging from their weapon battery arrangement, their bottoms and rears are complete blind spots. They’re all modified from civilian cargo ships, so they should have large cargo holds located below deck. The chance of the pirates reinforcing their armor is pretty low, so they should be relatively defenseless in that particular area. I reckon there won’t be any unexpected nasty surprises popping out from there.

I decided on my course of action after determining their capabilities and powered down Krishna’s reactor to minimum output, turned the weapon systems offline and activated the rapid cooling system.

“It’ll get a little cold, so bear with it for a bit, alright?”

“Understood. Um, what are you planning?”

“Hm? Oh, well, us mercs don’t just fight battles head-on Mimi.”

When the temperature of the hull cooled down, the temperature inside the cockpit also started to rapidly decline. After three minutes, the air inside the cockpit turned cold to a point where my breaths expelled white vapor. I checked if Mimi was okay, but it seems her clothing really did provide ample cold-resistance. She was also breathing out white vapor, but at least she doesn’t seem too bothered by the cold.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

When I judged that the ship has cooled down sufficiently, I started to head towards the blind spot of the enemy ships using minimum thrust. The small craft and the medium-sized ships remained completely unaware of our existence.

“Why couldn’t they detect us Hiro-sama?”

“Ships engaging in active combat usually give off high heat signatures. Therefore, most folks rely on heat sensors to detect other ships during battle. There’s a lot of ship wreckages littered all over the place in battles like this, so ordinary radars just won’t cut it. That’s why it’s possible to fool the heat sensors by lowering the ship’s temperature and slipping in amongst the debris.”

This was a strategy called “Thermal Stealth” in Stella Online.

The rapid cooling system was originally intended for cooling down the ship’s temperature whenever the hull gets too heated up due to continuous laser cannon use, but the players managed to create another use for it outside its intended purpose.

“I see… So there are actually a lot of different strategies you can use.”

“It’s not something that’ll work each and every time, but it happens to be an effective strategy in our current situation.”

“Yes!”

Once I’ve confirmed that we were completely positioned in the blind spot of the medium-sized pirate ships, I reactivated the weapon systems and aimed the pulse laser and live projectile cannons on their defenseless stomachs.

I fired my four pulse laser cannons simultaneously and quickly saturated their energy shields.

The live projectile cannons followed suit, pelting the wide-open bellies of the ships with countless destructive pellets, piercing through their thin armor and peppering them full of holes. Their armor really was quite weak. The projectiles seemed to have savaged their power reactors, life support modules, power conduits, and ammunition caches.

Lots of small explosions occurred inside the damaged hulls of all three medium-sized pirate ships. After a final large explosion went off on each of them, they completely shut down. Three down.

“Mimi, contact the allied ships and declare our intention to reinforce them!”

“R- Right away! This is Captain Hiro’s ship, call sign Krishna. I’m his Ship Operator, Mimi. We will now proceed to aid you all as reinforcements!”

The heck. Wouldn’t these guys be fine even if I didn’t butt in to help? They sounded pretty chill, considering the situation.

“Let’s go.”