Xyrin Empire
Chapter 591: Private Piracy Group, Bottom Layer Scavengers

Chapter 591: Chapter 591: Private Piracy Group, Bottom Layer Scavengers

The nearby constant star loomed massively, resembling a burning wall in the background, violently pouring its scorching sunlight onto the surface of a barren black planet. This was a "Plasma Star" clearly unsuitable for human habitation. It had an excessively thick atmosphere, and the ion characteristics of the atmospheric composition were too active. The intense solar wind from the nearby star buffeted this naturally electrolytic dense atmosphere, causing more than twenty severe lightning strikes per square mile at any moment. The upper layer of the atmosphere thus became a thick cloud of plasma, while the relentless thunder below scorched the earth, continuously turning the planetary crust into an electrically conductive shell similar to obsidian through electrolysis and melting. When excessively charged, one-third of the planet would even be covered in dazzling silver light, making it look even more majestic—and more deadly.

No one could live on an electrode plate with a voltage as high as a billion volts, right?

And on the dark side of this Plasma Star hung a massive and ancient space station.

It resembled a gargantuan spool-shaped structure, its main body a cylinder stretching over two hundred kilometers long with a radius of about fifty kilometers. At each end of the cylinder, there was a massive iron ring structure rotating in opposite directions, each with a radius of one hundred kilometers, its function unclear. This enormous space station was maintained on the star’s dark side, relying on its own power to maintain its position in order to avoid the overly intense solar wind. From this, one could determine that this space station most likely belonged to a civilization below the Constant Star System level: they still lacked the technology to safely establish a space entity within the magnetic flow barrier of a sun and utilize their own energy field for protection.

This massive space station had reached the scale of a space city and was considered a magnificent creation in "low-level civilizations," but it was clearly no longer youthful. Its surface was mottled, covered in scars, and some areas even showed obvious signs of missing components. The exterior of the space station should have been illuminated with lights, but now only one-third of the area was bathed in light. It had five petal-like semicircular landing platforms in the middle section, but two of them were piled up with debris and unlit, clearly having lost their intended function—it was obvious that no one was going to fix them.

The base of the Private Piracy Group was here.

First, it was unexpected that a group of privateers would even own their own space station. Given its scale, it definitely wasn’t built by them; it must have been created by some nation’s hand. And if we didn’t seriously consider it, the Plasma Star that the space station relied on could also be counted as part of the privateers’ treasures. Ah, a private piracy group with a space station and a colonization star—never mind the extent of any exaggeration, it could still be quite intimidating.

Second, it was unexpected that anyone would dare to live in such a rundown space station...weren’t the people inside afraid that the space station’s power system might suddenly stop? The solar wind from behind the planet needed only fifteen minutes to blow up such a fragile, unshielded space entity.

Originally, Visca’s plan was for the Void Wanderers to boldly appear before the privateers and righteously declare that they had taken over the empire’s legitimate property, which would be followed by a sufficiently dazzling bombardment (executed personally by the Imperial General), and finally, they would capture the group’s leader, the "Boss." Afterward, they would use brutal interrogation techniques to pry information from her mouth. However, this plan was shattered by my decapitating strike that turned into a violent loli’s teary costume of charm, and after seeing the imminent disintegration of what looked like a refugee camp’s space station earlier, I finally decided, in the spirit of aiding the poor, not to scare them anymore...

Big Sister thought perhaps we should try those interesting stealth tactics seen in movies, mixing into the privateer group to snatch some information—it would be fun. This fun plan received unanimous approval.

The Void Wanderers maintained concealment on the sunward side of the Plasma Star (the Federation Army’s cutting-edge ships didn’t worry about mere plasma storms, shielded or not—it was a matter of technological gap), while I, along with Big Sister, along with Visca, approached the space station in a small shuttle, shaking and swaying.

Naturally, as soon as we entered their warning zone, we received their warning.

"Unidentified spaceship ahead, this is the Dawn Ark Space Station, you have entered our air defense zone, please immediately identify yourselves and slow down to stop your ship, or else we will initiate an attack!"

"Tsck, a bunch of bugs, but quite professional-looking."

Visca scoffed disdainfully from the pilot’s seat, and I took over the communication: "Tell your boss we’re here to do business."

"Business? This is a residential-type space station, we don’t need anything other than supplies...Hmm, I think we indeed ordered a batch of food; I didn’t expect it to arrive so soon. Are you the special envoys from the Roland Gale Consortium’s food department? Please present your business license, production license, health permit, and batch inspection report."

...Continuously criticizing people is a troublesome thing, so this time I chose to ignore it.

"Maybe you’ve got the wrong idea, I’m here to do some more valuable business, a little interesting trinket from the other side of the Big Nebula," Pandora continued, "I’ve come to you guys, Big Man Beck and Ham referred to me."

The voice over the communicator fell silent for a few seconds, then changed to an older man, "I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong place, this is just a colonization space city, we don’t accept supplies through unofficial channels."

"Well, forget it then. There are plenty of private piracy groups around here, and they would pay a higher price."

"Ah Jun," Big Sister whispered, coming close, "you really know how to bluster."

"It’s no technical feat. Private piracy groups aren’t even real pirates. In the cosmic era, they are just a bunch of thugs. How could you expect them to have any serious counter-spy skills?"

Indeed, even though the person on the other end sounded a bit more cautious, due to the unique "business" of the private piracy group, he couldn’t determine the truth of my words. More importantly, similar door-to-door businesses were not unheard of. After considering for a while, he responded dubiously, "Alright, your landing code is AE689. I’ll guide you down—uh, what kind of spaceship is that? Can’t a standard guiding frequency interfere?"

"Coming from a new scientific system, of course it can’t interfere, and I assure you, even military personnel can’t crack its navigation technology. How about that, pretty impressive, right?"

This time, the person on the other end finally believed me, mostly, and his tone relaxed a lot, "It wouldn’t just be something you got from inside the military... ah ha, almost forgot the rules of the trade... I’ll give you the code, just find a place to land yourselves, someone will be there waiting for you."

Just like that, we infiltrated.

A group as inconspicuous as the private piracy group isn’t usually targeted by powerful forces; naturally, they also don’t need to worry about infiltration by spies. In this chaotic universe, where declarations of war can be made without any reason, a small organization like a private piracy group isn’t even on the radar of law enforcement. Thus, they are truly free, but that said, any power could easily annihilate them without any cost.

That is the current situation of the "Scavengers" at the bottom of the cosmic armed forces pyramid.

Therefore, infiltrating the private piracy groups’ space station was easier than expected. Just provide a flimsy excuse without revealing any power that could threaten them, and these universe thugs would be completely unguarded. You don’t hear about middle school delinquents needing passcodes for their small teams.

This old space station didn’t have proper port management. After our shuttle landed, they didn’t even scan the cargo hold; a crew in spacesuits emerged from the sealed door, motioning us to disembark.

I opened the shuttle’s hatch, hopped onto the slightly low-gravity landing platform cradling a spoiled Visca, then extended a hand to help Big Sister down the gangway before turning to wave at the approaching astronauts.

Everyone was petrified, no response was forthcoming.

...Uh? What’s going on?

I looked at them in surprise. Through the transparent visors, I could see each astronaut wearing a terrified expression, every one of them as still as if turned to stone. What was going on?

I glanced down at myself; clean and tidy, except for the fact that my clothes were all bargains from the street stalls. Pandora, dressed in the black dress I last sold her, looked perfectly normal. Big Sister, in a long white dress, was neat and had poise; these outfits should be fine, right...?

"Whatever, let’s just talk nonsense! Damn, this landing platform is directly exposed to outer space! Even Chang’e took a Foundation Establishment Pill when she went to the moon, you ever see an astronaut from the International Space Station walk out in boxers and a tank top?"

We walk around in space like it’s our backyard, but to these humans in front of us wearing space suits, our behavior is quite startling.

"What are you looking at!" Visca snarled, waving her fist at them, her spirit communication booming directly into the minds of those workers, "Is it so strange for you fragile humans to see someone not wearing a spacesuit?"

She immediately excluded me and Big Sister from the human category, but it actually made the spacemen nod in understanding.

Asserting dominance upon the landing platform—not that I intended to, but it apparently drew more attention from the private piracy group. They promptly invited us into the space station and informed us that they had already sent someone to notify Boss, while the shuttle we arrived in would be "temporarily under their custody." I wasn’t bothered by this and simply pulled out a remote, locking the shuttle with two beeps. Bubbles designed these spacecraft-specific anti-theft locks with a spatial anchor feature. Even a Dead Star Fortress would have a tough time dragging this shuttle away. Honestly, our little plane might just be the only shiny thing in this rundown space station.

... The kid’s mom is really too idle usually.

"This place is really chaotic," Big Sister whispered to me as we walked through the slightly uneven hallway of the space station, "just like a slum."

What high standards can you expect from a group of private pirates managing a space station?

It’s hard to say how many years this place had been built, but all the way here, every metal plate we saw was almost rusting, the railings of the suspension bridge also looked dirty, various graffiti and posters almost completely covering the original color of the metal walls. If the personnel corridors, which should have been clean and bright, are like this, not to mention the warship channel beneath the suspension bridge, looking more like a scrapyards, piled with battlefield trash scavenged from who knows where, a few rust-stained industrial robots, a bunch of workers lazily rummaging around in boxers and tank tops. What should have been a warship launch channel now needs only a circle drawn around a "demolish" sign without any discord.

"Hey, how about that, it’s pretty big, right?"

Guiding us, a dark-skinned man wearing a dark brown work suit and a yellow leather cap didn’t seem embarrassed about this space station. Instead, he seemed rather proud, "This whole space station is Boss’s private property. I heard Boss used to belong to a prestigious family, but it was due to some interstellar war she fell from grace. Still, this station, and the silicon ore star below, those are her domain..."

This chatty man had already brought up this topic more than once on our journey. Clearly, Boss held extremely high prestige here, even to the point of personal worship. However, I had no interest in this. We were here to buy information from "Boss." You might dismiss the insignificant power of a local lord, but one must admit, the local lord often knows many things you can’t buy at any price, like the now-mystically hidden Holy Temple Army, or the recently attacked and now untraceable Federation Army. Boss definitely had clues about their whereabouts.

Lilina actually passed on teachings to the private piracy group, I really don’t understand what that girl was thinking...

"Bo Han, if you don’t mind going back to the mines and getting whipped, keep that mouth shut!"

Suddenly, a strong male voice boomed from ahead, causing our incessant dark-skinned guide to abruptly shut up. Looking towards the sound, two brawny bald men, big as bulls, stood at the end of the suspension bridge, looking over with unfriendly expressions.

Such a strong sense of déjà vu, the Beckham brothers do make frequent appearances.

And I astutely noticed something: although the brothers in front looked almost identical and wore the same rough work clothes, one of them had painted a large leaf symbol in green paint on his chest. The leaf was at least the closest shape to the splash of paint, appearing so vibrantly on their dirty clothes, obviously freshly painted—it goes without saying, he must have completed an exorcism recently.

Is he really planning on switching careers to become a priest?

"Beck! Heard you two encountered an Interstellar Ghost out there?" the man known as Bo Han, unfazed by the teasing, shouted even louder, "And damaged a Combat Mecha too! That Mechanic named Ken came back not right in the head, and now you’re gonna switch your job to a Priest? Is that thing your Divine Robe?"

"Shut your trap!" retorted Baldie, the man with a Beijing accent, as he smacked the green mark on his chest, "I really did witness a Miracle, didn’t you see how powerful the Holy Temple Army that came to preach and disrupt us was? I’m warning you, watch your mouth! If it weren’t for the Goddess telling us to cherish life, I’d smash your damn skull!"

...These guys must have come from inside Hebei, right?

"Beck, that is, the bald man with a green mark who’s seriously considering becoming a priest (what a mismatched image that is), now looked at us skeptically, "People really do come here looking for the Private Piracy Group to do business using our brothers’ names. Our brothers’ lips aren’t too tight, but honestly, you guys don’t look like you’re here for business."

I didn’t bother with him; this wasn’t our actual purpose. Had Big Sister not suddenly desired to play the infiltration game, our warship would already be parked at your doorstep.

"All right, not keen on talking, huh? Over here, Boss is very interested in that Shuttle you brought; it looks pretty advanced. The folks from Angel should be interested in buying this sort of Light Fighter technology," Ham shrugged and led the way, "Finish your business and scram fast. Don’t blame me for being blunt, but we least like doing business with you military types, especially the kind that sneak out their own people’s stuff to sell—getting us involved in that mess, we small fry really can’t afford to offend..."

So they mistook us for members of an official major power from the East Sky Region, thinking we were selling our country’s new technologies as goods. And from his tone, such dealings aren’t unusual; is it so common that in this universe, fraught with relentless emergence of new technologies and extreme national disunity, where everyone merely seeks self-preservation, that even treason counts as a business activity?

Eventually, we were led by the special train inside the Space Station to a cabin area that was obviously exceptional—well, it was just a regular space station living section, but—this might be the only clean, new place around here.

Clean alloy corridors, bright lights, silver-white cabin walls, and automatic sentry doors that scream high-tech—we finally found a spot that felt like a space station rather than an old market on Three-pronged Street. This was where Boss resided.

Beckham pointed to a silver-white door adorned with a colorfully painted paper that read "Queen’s Boudoir" in crooked bold letters, "That’s Boss’s room right there. Just go in on your own; she doesn’t let us enter randomly."

The brothers took off after that.

Big Sister and I exchanged glances, and Visca unceremoniously stepped forward and pushed open the ajar metal door without even knocking.

A... very ordinary cabin.

At first, I thought I would see a magnificent treasure room filled with mountains of pearls, agate, jade, and crystal, with gold leaf on the walls and diamonds inlaid on the floors, a big red velvet chair occupied by a beautiful woman wearing an eye mask and a pirate hat, clad in a black jacket, nonchalantly smoking with her legs crossed while picking her ears with an iron hook, greeting us with a chuckle and a deep voice, "Jack, we’ve still got unfinished business..."

Talk about getting your wires crossed!

But actually, all that met our eyes was a very ordinary living unit with simple, unadorned white metal walls, less than thirty square meters in area, one wall lined with a foldable standard-issue space station bunk, a grey writing desk beside it, and on the other side a large metal cabinet. Next to the cabinet was a wooden dressing table—the only luxury item in the room—and Boss stood in the center of the room, her back to us, a woman about 1.7 meters tall, with shoulder-length curly purple hair, dressed in a dark leather jacket.

I couldn’t see her face, just her silhouette; she didn’t compare to my sister, probably a young woman.

However, Boss didn’t react at all to our arrival; she was busy scolding someone—there was a large floating screen in the middle of the room, showing a middle-aged man with a gloomy expression, being reprimanded like a grandson by the formidable Boss. (To be continued. If you wish to know what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com for more Chapters and to support the author and genuine reading!)