4 Feeling of Life

"Download their database for later use; this is the first source of the information."

Arcturus then ordered Red Queen the next steps, which was done in seconds.

Due to being far more advanced than they could think, the space pirates didn't even register that there was an A.I. in their systems.

He only did this because it seemed that the pirate vessels were using only V.I. standing for virtual intelligence, and were not defended against cybernetic warfare.

Something that the more advanced civilizations surely would not be doing; only some ragtag pirates were like this. The defense against the cybernetic attacks was imperative for the more advanced and powerful civilizations.

Due to their lack of even anything that remotely reminded them of cybernetic defense, Arcturus could order the Red Queen to hack their ships and initiate a self-destruction sequence without any trouble.

In fact, even within Star Citizen Online, many engagements in space battles would end even before they began if one fleet was armed with far more advanced Artificial Intelligence that could just disable the enemy ships.

But he wanted to test the ship in real combat, and there was nothing better than the pirates themselves; aside from that, for sure, they had some bounties on their heads, and he needed some money. 

[The hostile ships have activated their weapon systems. Attack inevitable; the first round is anticipated in 125 seconds.]

Arcturus just nodded his head before he ordered Alice to activate the Void Shields. In a mere movement, the four ships of the space pirates fired their rounds at the Obscurus, aiming to immobilize the ship.

Obscurus was a relatively big ship floating in the emptiness of space.

Thus, the space pirates thought that it was an easy target for them. But unfortunately for them, the primitive projective weapons didn't even tackle the Void Shields.

"Send them one round, aim for the engines to incapacitate them... use only the Secondary Plasma Weapons."

The might of the Military-Grade Plasma Batteries was something that the pirate vessels could endure and contrary to my expectations, the three corvettes were destroyed instantly upon being hit.

Only floating debris remained from them, but fortunately, the Cruiser, which was clearly their command ship, remained heavily damaged. It was just floating in space, as its engines were destroyed and they couldn't enter the Hyperspace.

This wasn't really the outcome that he was expecting because Arcturus thought that they would be damaged but not destroyed outright now; everything that was on the deck of the ships was also destroyed in the explosion.

Weirdly enough, he didn't really feel anything, even though right now he had killed approximately two hundred people. As he just stood there, he realized that their death were utterly irrelevant to them.

He grew up in a society that was heavily moralistic and focused on the protection of life, so killing another human being was one of the worst crimes one could commit.

When he was living on Earth, Arcturus always considered himself to be indifferent to the value of the life of others to a certain degree, especially about strangers; now he got the confirmation.

"Prepare for the boarding..."

[Preparing for the boarding. On the Cruisder, I have detected hundred and forty life signatures.]

That was a rather small number, considering the size of the vessel was almost 800 meters in length. Most of the small-time pirate bands were not really big, so having a few hundred members was already good.

Arcturus didn't even know why he was going to board the pirate ship, but in the end, for him, it didn't even matter. The adrenaline that was rushing to his head was clouding his judgment to a large part.

He knew that, but at the same time, this was finally the opportunity to do what he wished...

He wanted to fight; he wanted to taste blood...

For his whole life, he was deeply surprised by the hatred he had for his life and for everything that the world pushed on him. Now, when the opportunity to vent it out presented itself...

There was no way he could say no to it...

The opponents were just pirates with primitive kinetic weaponry and he had armor that could block the bullets, Basic Swordsmanship on the Level 5 Mastery, top-grade weapon, and Epsilon-Grade Superhuman physique as he noticed was at least several times stronger than the baseline humans of Earth.

While the armor he was wearing wasn't the best, it protected his vitals well and could block a few rounds from the kinetic weapons. Hopefully, that won't be really needed, as he could just dodge...

But he had another one thing prepared for the pirates just to be sure, as he didn't wish to be shot by a stray bullet. While the Epsilon-Grade Physique was powerful compared to the baseline human, it was far from being considered a true superhuman. 

Right now, he was just somewhat faster, stronger and more durable than the average baseline human, but one well-aimed bullet would still kill him for good.

"Has the data been downloaded? Everything useful?"

He then asked Alice as the holograph of a little girl materialized next to him and nodded her head in confirmation. Alice was already embarking on the path of evolution as she was devouring the Virtual Intelligences on the spaceships of Bloodskull Pirate Crew.

"Then release the jamming signal, keep it low, but still strong enough to fry their firearms."

He wasn't foolish enough to risk going against even the most primitive weapon, considering that he lacked proper battle experience and acclimatization to his superhuman physique.

Once all of their weapons are fried, the pirates won't have a choice but to fight him in close quarters. 

And that would be their doom, as he would be cutting them down in droves. 

This was basically the inevitable end when more advanced civilization met less developed one. The history was always like that; the more advanced and powerful were devouring and destroying the weaker ones. 

It was clear that the weapons that the pirates were using were the basic mass-acceleration kinetic projectile-based weaponry that was designed to be EMP-proof.

Arcturus realized that his fear of battle soon left him, only to be replaced by great anticipation and bloodthirts that were so primal in their nature that they reminded him of the animals.