“Heh. Ain’t never seen a ship like that before. Who d’ya belong to, buddy?” their leader asked.
“No comment.” I scanned the unidentified, jet-black ships. Each one held somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 Ener.
“Heh heh heh. So you’re checkin’ us out too, huh? Guess we can’t help that. Hand over the cargo, buddy, and we’ll spare yer life.”
“Oh, all right. I suppose I have no choice.” Steeling my resolve, I carefully raised main generator output from normal to battle-ready. I took a breath. I might really have to kill fellow humans to get out of this, but the Rare Metal in my ship could mean the difference between life and death for me. Without money, I wasn’t going to last long out here. If someone wanted to fight me for it, then I had to protect myself. Even if that meant crushing these space pirates.
“That’s enough, buddy. Don’t wanna die, do ya?”
“Of course not.”
There was no question about what would happen to someone who lost their cradle—their spaceship—in outer space. Though they would probably die in the explosion long before suffocating.
Maybe I should have been afraid, but as I prepared to fight for my life, I felt oddly calm. Perhaps that was because my vessel was the Krishna.
The pirates’ ships were simple, balanced ships made for civilian use, nothing close to my Krishna. Worse, the models were several generations old and worn from use. Their main generator outputs, shield strength, and weapons were pitifully weak by comparison to mine. They probably neglected proper maintenance, leaving the ships’ plating all out of shape.
As for me, my Krishna was built for hardcore military use, and I’d customized it perfectly to my liking, making it the ideal personal battleship.
My shield and weapons strength far surpassed their shabby ships, and a military-grade sturdy hull protected me from their pathetic attacks. Quite frankly, defeat was inconceivable. This wasn’t going to be a fight; it was going to be a one-sided hunt. A curb-stomp.
I flipped my rising generator output to max level all at once and said, “I don’t wanna die, so I’m gonna fight back. Just so you know, this probably ends with you guys dying. Don’t blame me.”
“That’s big talk for someone facing three ships at once. You’re gonna regret this, buddy!” The space pirate ships that were circling swiveled to aim at me.
In that instant, I launched the Krishna forward full throttle.
“Wargh!”
“Wha?! He’s fast!”
The sudden g-force threw me back against my seat, but I managed to use the touchscreen to get my weapons online. Four weapon arms equipped with heavy lasers extended from the Krishna, while the weapons bays on either side of the cockpit deployed two flak cannons. I activated the sub-boosters and banked into a 180-degree turn, maintaining my momentum as I pointed the four heavy lasers at one of the space pirates’ ships.
“It changed shape!” one of the pirates screamed.
The continuous fire of my military-grade heavy pulse lasers easily tore through the ship’s shield, vaporizing its hull with small explosions. The lasers kept on burning, cutting right through the cockpit.
“All that with one shot?!”
I hit the throttle again, chasing after a ship trying to escape. The drag of the g-force made my vision go dark. Almost soothed by the sensation, I once again activated my heavy lasers.
“N-no, I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die, I don’t—” The volley of pulse lasers pierced mercilessly through his shield and stabbed the ship’s main booster as the pirate begged for his life. The lasers must have burned right through to the main generator; the second ship exploded in a burst of fiery light.
“Dammiiit! I’ll kill you!” The third pirate chose to fight instead of fly. Maybe the sight of his friends’ demise left him yearning for revenge. He readied his laser cannons. Once he started firing, avoiding the speed-of-light ammo would be next to impossible. I didn’t have many options open to me. All I could really do was dodge around erratically and hope that made it harder for him to target me.
“Gngh?! Urk…!”
I switched between rapid acceleration and sudden stops, trying to move the Krishna as unpredictably as possible. The jerky motions turned my stomach and left me nauseous.
“Grrr, how do you move like that?!”
The space pirate steadied his aim. That was certainly a change from the game. This couldn’t be a dream; the space pirates reacted like thinking, reasoning humans, just like me. The nausea intensified. Maybe it affected my maneuvering or maybe the space pirate’s aim simply outshone my evasive maneuvers. Either way, the pirate finally landed a shot on the Krishna.
“I-It didn’t work?!” The pirate growled with frustration and surprise. The Krishna’s shield blocked his laser completely, leaving me unscathed.
I think that’s enough.
I accelerated toward the pirate ship facing me. We dashed recklessly at each other, like a game of chicken. He got off a few more desperate shots, but his panic made him sloppy and sent his fire wide. Even when he managed to hit me, the Krishna’s shield rendered the attacks harmless.
“S-stop! Mommy—!”
I dodged the space pirate’s ship an instant before we would have collided, firing flak at him as I veered away. The high-speed shots saturated his shield, tore through it, and blasted through the hull of his ship. By the time the flak burst free, his ship looked more like metallic Swiss cheese than any kind of space craft.
“Hargh! Haah, haah…” I banked through a tight turn, wheeling around to watch the ship explode. My breath rasped through the cockpit. I returned the generator output to normal levels and, finally, took the weapons system offline.
The nausea subsided when the ship stilled and the g-forces relented. It wasn’t nervous nausea. Now that I’d stopped, now that it was over, I felt strangely calm.
“If that didn’t wake me up, this has gotta be real.” I shook myself. I’d survived. I’d more than survived. I took down three pirates bent on robbing me of my Rare Metal and barely broke a sweat. I had to stay positive now. If I didn’t, I’d die out here—if not physically, then certainly mentally.