59. Iron Fang Strikes (Part 4)
Vunt crouched low to avoid the pirates running amok, sneaking his way toward the bar. He saw Taya sitting blankly on the stage, looking lost. When she saw Vunt approaching, her eyes lit up, and her vitality returned. She was about to say something when Vunt stopped her.
"If nothing goes wrong, Kuken won't hold out much longer. I'm planning to cause some chaos here, and then lead everyone to escape via the life pods," Vunt whispered.
"I don't know how I can help... but a man who looked like a captain mentioned earlier that there's an armory not far from here," Taya said.
Hearing this, Vunt became instantly excited. He patted Taya's cheek and said, "Alright, wait for me here."
A moment later, Vunt ran back with a face full of excitement. He pulled Taya into his arms and whispered, "Come, let me show you the fireworks... Haha! 3, 2, 1!"
BOOM!!! A massive explosion erupted! Fire suddenly surged through the corridor!
Vunt had taken advantage of the chaos to sneak into the armory. After making a simple time-delay igniter, he had directly ignited the blaster gas stored inside!
The armory was merely a storage site for the pirates' blaster rifles, not the ammunition depot for the warship's main cannons. Therefore, while the explosion destroyed several surrounding compartments, it did not cause any structural damage to the cruiser itself.
However, the explosion caused Kuken on the bridge to completely lose it. He grabbed the navigator by the collar and roared, "Who is causing trouble on my ship?! Is it those singers?!"
"I... I don't know..." The navigator, who had been sprayed in the face with saliva, was terrified and answered hurriedly.
"Useless!! All of you are useless!!" Kuken pressed a pistol against the navigator's chin and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
BANG! The navigator's head exploded instantly, splashing blood and brain matter all over Kuken's face.
This only served to trigger Kuken's ferocity. He pointed toward the door and bellowed, "Go and kill all those singers! Leave none alive!! And! Get someone to put out the fire!"
Several pirates grabbed blaster rifles and ran out the door.
On the other side, Vunt was already leading Taya and the dozen or so civilians toward the life pods, with Quinto and Felacy among them. The pirates on the cruiser were all drawn away by the armory explosion to fight fires, repair the ship, kill people, or tend to the turrets. In the midst of the chaos, no one noticed them.
Arriving at the life pods, Vunt ushered Taya and the civilians inside and told them, "Don't worry! People outside will rescue you!"
Having said that, he prepared to press the launch button.
Seeing that he wasn't coming in, Taya quickly pulled at him, "Darling, why aren't you coming up?"
"I have to see if there's a chance to capture this cruiser. You know, my boss is currently short on ships," Vunt gave a dashing smile, then closed the hatch and pressed the launch button.
As the life pod launched, Tang Xiao, who was currently providing heavy fire while piloting a fighter, also received the notification. He said over the comms, "Detach a few people to bring those life pods back to the mothership! The rest of you, continue the attack!"
Six out of the eight close-in weapon systems were unable to rotate. Under these circumstances, the Blade-class fighters were able to fire upon the cruiser almost without any threat.
The Iron Fang cruiser was hit by over sixty Gemini missiles, but given the sheer scale of this 315-meter-long warship, its shields remained unbroken. After all, the Blade-class fighters were essentially upgraded assembly jobs; aside from the Gemini missiles, the power of their small infrared laser cannons was almost negligible to a cruiser.
However, the situation changed quickly when three Hammer-class frigates joined the battle!
Two of the turrets on one of the Hammer-class frigates looked noticeably mismatched. To accommodate the functions of these two turrets, the frigate had been significantly bulked up to house a larger fusion reactor, making it look like a bloated pufferfish.
Once within range, the two turbo-laser cannons on this Hammer-class frigate immediately opened fire! The powerful lasers, passing through specially prepared high-concentration blaster gas, formed even more devastating particle beams—a unique weapon widely used by various combat spacecraft in the *Star Wars* universe.
Under the immense power of the turbo-lasers, the shield strength of the Iron Fang cruiser began to drop rapidly. At that moment, the other two Hammer-class frigates also opened fire, launching a series of pale blue light orbs that repeatedly struck the cruiser, exploding into bursts of electrical light.
These light orbs were not fast, but in the current situation, hitting the Iron Fang was not difficult.
These two Hammer-class frigates had also undergone modifications; the two turrets on their hulls had been replaced with ion bomb launchers. This was a weapon used by bombers in the *Homeworld* technology tree, and it was highly effective against shields.
"Boss!! Our shields can't hold much longer!! Two sets of shield generators have overheated and need to cycle!" a pirate shouted to Kuken in a panic.
Kuken's gaze was fierce as he stared intently at the massive mothership outside the viewport. He slammed the console violently and roared, "Prepare for hyperspace jump! We're retreating!!"
He panted heavily like an enraged beast. "I'll remember this place! The Endo System!! Your colony is here, you can't run!! I'll be back soon! Bringing 'Black Sun' with me!!!"
However, after a series of operations, the ship's operator suddenly screamed, "It's no use! The hyperspace engine won't start!!"
"Damn it!! Why won't it start?! We aren't even within a gravity well! Why won't it start!!" Kuken roared.
The operator, face pale, pointed a trembling finger at the Kushan mothership outside the viewport. "It's... it's the gravity well of the mothership itself..."
"What did you say?" Kuken felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over him from head to toe. He turned his head tremulously to look at the giant mothership looming right before them. "They... planned this from the very beginning?"
Because hyperspace engines are affected by gravity during startup, they can only be activated when free from planetary gravity. In other words, a ship must exit a planet's gravity well before it can begin a hyperspace jump; if forced, the physical phenomena caused by gravity would tear the ship apart upon entering hyperspace.
Furthermore, even after entering hyperspace, the gravity of various celestial bodies can affect the jump. Thus, the so-called "lanes" within the galaxy are actually safe hyperspace corridors that are unaffected by the gravity of various celestial bodies.