The Martial Unity

“Boss, are you sure about this?” In the command room of a warship, the nervous voice of a second-in-command drew the attention of the pirate commander, who turned towards his subordinate with a chilling expression. He wore naval attire that was rough and unrefined, with the crest of the Scallywag Scoundrels embroidered on the chest of his attire.

The command room they were in and the naval crew seated at the systems running the systems that maintained the ship’s functionality. They spat out reports and responses regarding the onslaught that they had commenced on the Blood Arc the moment it arrived in the Strehegeld Star System.

“What was that?” He growled at his subordinate.

The man flinched, but he managed to maintain his composure.

“Boss, this is the Blood Humanist Society,” he managed to squeeze out. “They’re not to be trifled with by pirates like ourselves. We should focus on independent adventurer parties and isolated ships. The Blood Humanist Society is too powerful for us to take on.”

The commander grinned at his subordinate before turning forward with a crazed expression. “That’s where you’re wrong. We received intelligence from the Blood Cult, remember? They said that the Blood Arc would be sparsely crewed. If we keep bombarding them with attacks, then they will eventually succumb to our superior might!”

His subordinate’s expression grew sour, but he didn’t say another word. Pirate organizations weren’t organizations that prioritized systematic merit and competence, and a chain of command that was subject to checks and balances. The man who served as his second-in-command didn’t believe a word of the report that the Blood Cult had sent them. Why would the cult be incentivized to tell them the truth if the Blood Arc ship was indeed heavily armed and defended? There was no reason to believe them when there was no enforcing mechanism to disincentivize the deceit. Not to mention, one was a cult that was hated by human civilization, and they were pirates who were perpetually on the run from the establishment of human civilization and the Gaian Alliance.

But he couldn’t bring himself to push back against his commander more than that. Unfortunately, the simple reality was that the pirate commander was a man who simply didn’t tolerate dissent from his subordinates. This was a man who had been unable to fit into a conventional and orthodox naval force of law-abiding organizations in the stars. The kind of people who were unable to fit into orthodox naval protocols were the kind of people who were unwilling to impose the kinds of systems in place that ensured that things didn’t go wrong.

Like being misled by the Blood Cult in its commission to attack and seize the Blood Arc fleet carrier. They had received a handsome sum of money, to be paid in installments, if they would attack a fleet carrier that they professed would be arriving at the Strehegeld Star System soon. The Blood Cult had informed them that the fleet carrier didn’t contain many forces, and their fleet of heavy cruisers contained the firepower to bleed out its energy shields soon, asserting that the Blood Arc didn’t have any spare energy sources and needed to reserve them for the trip back home.

A good organization would have instantly distrusted the intelligence given that it came from the Blood Cult. But one that lacked protocol discipline when it came to vetting information, one that lacked prudence, and one that was desperate would certainly accept it.

And that had ultimately led them to the situation that they were in.

The subordinate of the commander faced forward, unwilling to incur the wrath of the man he called commander. The radar screen that was displayed on the otherwise transparent front wall of the command room, leading to a view in space, allowed him to see the Scallywag Scoundril heavy cruiser mounting a tremendous onslaught against the Blood Arc fleet carrier. Their massive laser turrets unleashed a wave of laser and antimatter beams against the Blood Arc as they maneuvered around it.

He couldn’t see it with his naked eye, of course. Even though the Blood Arc fleet carrier was massive, the sheer distances at which space battles occurred were far, far greater in magnitude. They relied on long-range precision aiming systems that allowed them to accurately launch attacks at their enemies from a massive distance away. The radar animation showed several points that began circulating around the target ship, attacking it from all directions, and to ensure that they could keep up with the ship and maintain the onslaught, no matter how the ship maneuvered. Long-distance cameras displayed near-live footage of the ship being bombarded with lasers, allowing them to see the real-time damage it was taking. According to their calculations from the intelligence that they had gotten from the Blood Cult, the energy shields wouldn’t last more than five minutes due to the limited energy supply of the fleet carrier.

By now, the shield should have begun faltering.

By now, they should have been able to penetrate it and inflict real damage on the enemy forces.

By now, the battle should have come close to victory.

And yet, the truth was something else entirely.

The Blood Arc was entirely unscratched.

The energy shield hadn’t so much as even stumbled.

It remained strong and unyielding even as an onslaught of laser attacks blasted the powerful Blood Arc ship.

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!

Despite attacks that would shatter entire islands on a terrestrial planet, not a single one of them could break past the tremendously unyielding energy shields of the Blood Arc.

“Shield integrity is unchanged.”

“Energy reserves do not appear to be depleted based on sustained energy output.”

“Hull integrity is at 100%.”

“No…” The commander’s eyes widened. “No. No. NO! This should be impossible! They told us that the Blood Arc would succumb to this kind of pressure!”

“Sir, look at this!” An analyst of the pirate crew drew attention to the commander, showing him a thermal scan of the ship. It showed an extremely bright spot at the center of the ship.

“What…” The commander widened his eyes. “What is that?”