Chapter 567 - The Three Gates!
"SPREAD OUT!" Captain Roger shouted an order for his entire fleet, forcing them to break the formation and retreat as far as possible!
Since those s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps were quite small and their alloys were light, their mobility was their greatest strength!
Hence, only a few s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps had ended up joining the celebration with big explosions, happening in the middle of s.p.a.ce.
Captain Roger"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and the rest managed to evade the rainbow beams just barely.
"Who did we lose?!" Furious, Captain Roger asked while banging his fist against the armchair.
The sight of his fellowmen"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps turning into giant b.a.l.l.s of flames was too painful to watch.
"We lost the Falcon-9, Silly Billy, and Mother Load." Liam reported the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps" names.
Captain Roger tightened his fists, feeling like his heart was going to explode in anger. Two of those s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps carried the most pirates in the fleet, numbering a total of 45.
if he added the other 10 pirates in the last s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and the 18 pirates inside the first two scouting s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, then he had lost 73 pirates from merely two attacks!
This was the biggest loss he had ever experienced in his life!
"Captain, should we continue retreating?" Liam inquired.
During their small talk, their s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p had already crossed hundreds of kilometers away from Felix"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and the planet.
The other pirates" s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p was also still retreating with no intentions of stopping.
Captain Roger narrowed his eyes at the hologram that was showing him Felix"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and admitted with suppressed fury, "We can"t destroy it face to face with its s.h.i.+elds and overwhelming weapons."
"So?"
Captain Roger glanced at Miss Kylie and said, "So, we keep splitting like this and go around it to scout the planet."
"Why the planet now?" She asked again.
"Because they are not chasing after us." Captain Roger sneered, "If they had a feud with every pirate crew they see then they should have chased us even if we are split up."
"Since they remained in the same place, it only meant that there is something below there that needed to be guarded by them from any intruders!"
Liam and Miss Kylie raised their eyebrows in surprise at his thought process but when they revisited the facts, it did make sense!
"That"s why they killed our two scouting s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps immediately after getting close to the planet." Miss Kylie exclaimed.
Captain Roger nodded his head and stressed, "We need to reach the planet at all cost."
"Orders?" Liam inquired.
"Relay the order to the others, tell them to pick a unique direction to enter the planet. We will do it all at once to confuse that guard dog." Captain Roger informed.
When the order was sent, Samir was left in a great panic after seeing through his radar, all pirate s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps splitting even further instead of grouping up.
Before long, most of them had exited the premise of his radar, turning them into ghosts!
"Leader Malak, the pirates have decided to split up." Samir immediately reported with an agitated tone, "I believe they might bypa.s.s me and enter the planet."
Malak stiffened in her place after hearing this message, forcing the others to stop as well.
They were still in the labyrinth and they had just experienced two nasty traps, almost killing Nicci and Khodri. So, they really didn"t want to hear any more bad news.
"We need to speed up even more. The pirates had chosen to go around Samir." Malak stressed while increasing her speed.
"We can"t go any faster." Pualani shook his head, "We barely reacted to the previous traps. If we went any faster than this, then we are definitely going to lose a member or G.o.d forbid end up with a wipeout."
"But..."
"He is right Malak."
Before Malak could argue back, Felix interrupted her.
"Sigh, I know." Malak rubbed her temples, "But if the pirates found out about the hole, then we will be either way."
She was saying so because she knew that pirates were operating by one policy! If they can"t have something, destroy it!
So the moment they find out that it was impossible to get the treasures with Samir guarding the hole, they wouldn"t hesitate to level the entire area above the underground world then bounce!
"Just focus on the treasuries." Felix said, "I will be taking care of the other matter as well."
Upon hearing so, the squad calmed themselves and continued walking onward cautiously.
In their eyes, If Felix said he would take care of it, then he would take of it. They had that much trust in him, especially Erik and Malak.
"Queen, please use Samir"s link for the ghosting feature." Felix requested.
The Queen asked for permission from Samir, who gladly accepted it.
The moment Felix"s holographic body manifested in the c.o.c.kpit, Samir bowed his head deeply and apologized, "I have failed you."
"What are you talking about?" Felix smiled faintly, "You almost got rid of half the fleet on your own. That"s already an achievement to feel proud of."
"It"s not enough." Samir was a bit happy with the praise but his hatred towards the pirates took over again, making him unsatisfied by his results.
"Don"t worry, we will get most of them." Felix smirked and said, "Start the main engines, we are going back to the exosphere of the planet."
"Are we going to protect the hole?" Samir inquired.
"No, we are going for a hunt." Felix clarified, "If we remained near the hole, we will be leading them straight to it. This means bringing the fight to us. But what we need to do is bring the fight to them."
"But...If they had a map or something to take them to the ruins, then we would be leaving the squad unprotected." Samir opposed.
"Don"t worry, I am certain that they don"t have a map to the exact ruins." Felix said, "If they had it, they would have ignored you and went straight to it."
This was just a bulls.h.i.+t excuse. In reality, Felix figured out that the b.l.o.o.d.y Mary Pirates didn"t possess a map due to their editing in the doc.u.mentary!
When he watched the doc.u.mentary, he saw them go straight to the ruins without any detours.
That"s what fooled him previously, but now that he started to believe that was an edited part, it only meant that the pirates had reached the ruins a month earlier and took a long time to find it.
After all, they were buried under the desert, and without the exact coordinates, it was only natural to take a month or even more to find them. Naturally, due to the hole sticking out in the desert, it wouldn"t take the pirates that long to find it.
Still, they would take at least an hour or two to find it if they were lucky.
One should never forget that this was still a planet. It might be only three times bigger than the moon but it was still a planet.
"We better get started then." Samir smiled coldly, "We have a lot of hunting to do."
The moment he said so, the radar managed to pick up a grey dot at the edges of the gla.s.s screen.
"I will let you take care of the rest." Felix nodded his head slightly at him and said, "The squad needs me down there."
"If there are any other complications, I will make sure to inform you." Samir ensured.
Felix exploded into light particles after hearing so. Then, he reconstructed above Malak and the rest and continued on their way.
He knew that the 2nd treasury was nearby and he couldn"t leave them alone to it since this one was going to be pretty dangerous compared to the last one.
As expected, the squad spent two more minutes walking before reaching a triple path cross.
This would have been perfectly normal for the squad if they didn"t notice that the paths were leading to three different colored gates!
Black, golden, and white. This time, each gate had one unique hieroglyphics riddle written in the center!
"What are we looking at?" Erik asked.
"A test, maybe?" Khodri replied.
Everyone was smart enough to guess that only one gate was leading to the 2nd treasury.
As for the other two? They would rather be pessimistic and believe that they would get killed inside of them.
"Boss, what gate did the other squad pick?" Erik inquired.
No one looked too nervous due to Felix"s Intel that hadn"t failed them so far.
In their eyes, just copy what the other squad did and they would be out of here with plenty of riches in no time.
Alas, what they didn"t know was that Felix had absolutely no f*cking clue, which door did the pirates had chosen!!