Chapter 7: Robbery
The three seats were connected, and Dias sat at the right side of Cillin. To Cillin’s left was another youngster around Cillin’s age.
The youngster shuffled in his seat repeatedly looking a little nervous, and when he saw Cillin frowning slightly, he tugged at the corner of his lips and said, “Bro don’t worry, the flight path of the spaceliners from Planet X-C100 is the product of precise calculations. It is different from the spaceliners from other planets; its safety factor is at least tens of times higher. The chance of running into a magnetic anomaly is less than 0.01%, and the chance of encountering a space robber is even less. Moreover flights from X-C100 are protected under special laws…”
While listening to the youngster’s mostly self-comforting naggings, Cillin noticed that the corner of Dias’ lips were upturned ever so slightly. He couldn’t help but feel that the son of a bitch was smiling in a way that was up to no good.
Once the ship had entered warp flight, some of the conversations began to quiet down since the passengers needed to divert more energy to suppress the discomfort of traveling under such conditions. Meanwhile, Cillin lay down his seat, pulled up the blankets, closed his eyes and began to sleep.
Dias just felt funny watching Cillin’s reactions. This little guy was sleeping quite soundly; he must be quite used to this. Both his physical and psychological qualities were pretty good.
What he didn’t know was that this was in fact the first time Cillin had slept during a warp flight. But although he was sleeping, every hair on Cillin’s body was absorbing the surroundings around him; and especially killing intent. He would wake up if he detected even the slightest bit of it.
However, Cillin didn’t manage to sleep too long before an abrupt shaking woke him.
“Magnetic interference and force field has affected the helm’s control, and the pulse power isn’t functioning normally as well. With these changes the control systems aren’t going to last much longer. This ship will exit warp flight.” Dias calmly assessed the situation before him, “It’s probably due to deliberate interference on the outside. If my guess is correct, then we’ve run into space robbers.”
When the boy beside Cillin heard the words ‘magnetic interference and force fields’ he was already so frightened that he turned deathly pale, and the latter words ‘space robbers’ from Dias was without a doubt an unbearably heavy blow for the boy. Therefore the poor kid had fainted straight away.
Dias’ voice wasn’t loud and only the three of them could hear his words, but the other passengers had also formed their own respective assumptions. The common point here was fear.
After yet another round of violent shaking and the sound of buzzing electricity, a low and arrogant voice resounded throughout the entire ship.
“Much apologies, my cute passengers. For now this ship has fallen under our control. If you do not wish to die then please stay obediently in your seats, since the guns in our hands can’t interact nicely like human beings after all. Oh, one more thing, I dislike noisiness, so if anyone screams aloud then you may meet your fellow debris in space.”
Space robbers!
For a time, the cabin was filled with anxious breathing and sobbing.
Cillin analyzed the situation in his mind. Since these robbers dared to rob a Planet X-C100 spaceliner, that meant that they must have planned meticulously for this. That they were able to avoid the security patrols, take down the entire security system on the ship without meeting much resistances or huge commotions such as explosions meant that there was a ninety percent chance they had planted a mole on this ship a long time ago. Moreover, due to the protection of certain laws, anyone who carelessly kill the passenger of a terminal planet spaceliner will be hunted ruthlessly by the military. Judging from the robber’s tone, at this stage of the situation, these robbers did not plan to kill the people on this ship, and even the guards were probably only immobilized for the moment. However, nothing was certain, and robbers were robbers after all. Who knows if they might find someone unpleasant to the eye and shoot them?
Watching Dias sitting cross-legged leisurely at his side, Cillin thought that this incident had everything to do with this guy for sure. Sigh, looks like I’m caught in a crossfire. However Cillin was more curious than anything else actually. Just what was this A rank fellow planning to do?
Not long after, about ten or so robbers wearing hideous-looking masks walked in with guns in their hands, and they headed straight in front of Dias. Tens of guns were pointed at Dias.
“Get up and come with us!”
Dias himself was pretty cooperative. He opened his arms and spread out his fingers to show that he had no intention of resisting.
“Oh, right,” Just when he had taken two steps Dias suddenly turned towards Cillin and said, “Hey bro, look after my food will you? I haven’t finished that box of space burrito yet.”
Cillin’s eyebrows twitched. Fuck! Do I know you that well? Like hell it’s my problem that you haven’t finished your burrito, and who would so bored as to grab your more than half-eaten burrito with teeth marks still on them under this circumstance? You’re obviously dragging me down with you!
As he thought, the leader of the robber group pointed his gun at Cillin, “Bring him together!”
Cillin did not have the slightest doubt in his mind that the pair of eyes hidden behind Dias’ sunglasses were filled with fox-like smiles.
The rest of the people inside the cabin dared not even take a deep breath; afraid that the robbers might notice them.
With tens of guns pointed against them, Cillin and Dias were brought to the main control room. As it turned out, the captain and the helmsmen were left unconscious in a corner. As Cillin expected these robbers had not killed them, although there was no telling what would happen afterwards.
“Boss, we’ve brought him over.”
The person sitting at the captain’s seat spun the chair over. He wore the same mask as the rest of the robbers and was toying with his gun. He did not look at Cillin and stared straight at Dias, “Where is it?”
They had already gone through all the luggage deposited in the baggage compartment. They did not find what they were looking for.
Dias did not act like a fool, “It’s on me.”
The hand toying with the gun stopped as he said solemnly, “Take it out.”
Almost twenty guns were pointed at Dias. If he made even the slightest unnatural movement, they would fire straight away.
Dias shrugged his shoulders, “I can tell you and give you the stuff you’re looking for. But you have better keep your guns in check. If I’m dead, then you won’t be getting it either.”
While speaking, Dias shook his hands once as a silver colored ring slid from his arm to the wrist. He touched somewhere along the thin ring, and it turned into a three centimeters wide bracelet.
A subspace product! Its quality was even far better from norm; this single ring was far more valuable than the entire ship itself!
These robbers all knew their stuff. Even through the mask, Cillin knew that their eyes were brimming with greed.
Dias took out a big black briefcase. Cillin had seen this briefcase before at the restaurant, but he seriously did not expect that this case that Dias was carrying around leisurely would be the robber’s target. Cillin did not doubt the value of the item inside in the least, but wasn’t this Dias fellow being a little way too conspicuous?!
He did it on purpose; this dude totally did it on purpose!
Every muscle in Cillin was tensed in readiness. This Dias fellow was as sly as a fox; there was no way he was going to give in this easily.
After taking out the case Dias flung it straight at the person sitting on the captain’s seat. Just as the person was about to catch it, all the lights inside the control room abruptly turned off.
Fuck! I knew he’s going to do it!
Just before the lights turned off Cillin noticed a flash from a spot on Dias’ bracelet at the same time a strange noise was released. Most people would not notice these noise, but the chips inside Cillin reacted towards it, which was why the Cillin’s first and immediate response was to get out of the way.
As expected, gunshots rang out amidst the darkness as sparks flew everywhere.
Dias had attacked!
Cillin did not need to wear night vision glasses at all. His eyes automatically adjusted as columnar epithelial cells grew in his retina, and his pupils were enlarged as wide as 90% of the eyeball’s surface. The light from a single firing laser gun was enough for Cillin to see everything inside the control room with perfect clarity; not to mention that so many guns had fired at the same time. For Cillin it was like someone had setup a searchlight inside the room.
Dias certainly lived up to his rank A genotype. Crisp movements, precise aim, and striking his target with every hit he threw. He didn’t even need a weapon to take down most of the robbers in a single breath’s time. He did not kill the robbers and instead simply immobilized them.
Cillin did not believe that Dias was a merciful person. From a Hunter’s point of view, a robber was worth more alive than dead.
One of the robbers took out a spare light source, but even with light, they still found it difficult to catch Dias’ figure. He was simply too quick; giving them no time to aim at all. Plus these robbers probably never thought that the entire control room would suddenly black out. They didn’t bring either infrared goggles or scanning electron goggles.
The entire battle lasted not more than ten seconds. It would not be an exaggeration to say that these robbers had experienced a disastrous rout. The difference between their strength was all too obvious.
The last robber was smart enough to put a fainted worker in front of him; ready to use them as a hostage. But before he could even speak a cracking sound rang out from his throat, and he became the only dead man of the bunch in this control room.
“I hate it when people threaten me.” Dias’s tone was perfectly calm. It was as if he was simply repeating a commonly known fact.
Once the fight was concluded, all of the light source had restarted again as light returned to the control room. Cillin’s eyes had also returned back to normal.
Dias did not even look at Cillin standing beside him as he fiddled with a few instruments.
A large screen unfolded before them as several crisscrossing lines of coordinates began to move rapidly before locking onto a couple of rapidly moving light sports. They were robbers who were supposedly standing watch at the other sections inside the ship before running away after realizing that the situation was amiss.
Once he locked onto the targets Dias did not hesitate in the slightest to engage the photon torpedo equipped on this ship. The corner of Cillin’s lips kept twitching. Wasn’t there a few factors of password to enter before the ship’s photon torpedo could be engaged? He had cut through them this quickly?
Bright explosions lit up like many flames consecutively, and soon the fighters of the fleeing robbers were blown to smithereens.
“Yeah!” Dias hummed a tune and danced on his feet. Once he put away the briefcase that had dropped on the ground he arrived in front of Cillin and said, “The security team will be arriving in a minute. Oh, Cillin, it’s not in my place to say this, but you should have acted a little more panicky when you see the robbers and be terrified by the sight of the muzzles of their guns. You shouldn’t look so calm it’s as if you have face paralysis, because the passengers’ every move and expression would be recorded by the ship’s security cameras. The way you act is so obviously suspicious the security team will bring you back and interrogate you brutally.” Dias purposely emphasized the word ‘brutally’.
Cillin gave Dias a sidelong glance, “So? Haven’t you sat beside me on purpose to involve me in this matter?”
Dias let out a cunning laugh and did not deny it.
“You know, the airline company and security team will provide compensation to passengers if they are met with a robbery. If you’re willing to mutilate yourself, they’ll pay even more.”
Cillin’s reaction was noncommittal.