Of Civilizations and Killing

Atop the command deck of the Bloodskulls space pirate crew Light Cruiser

"Boss, they are jamming us!"

The pirates in the command deck were right now panicking as hell because they had for sure picked the wrong opponent to mess with. All of them were humans or at least some very close humanoids indistinguishable from the humans.

When they first saw the ship, it didn't have the design of any Type 3 Civilization of the galaxy, not even the Type 2 Civilization, so it was counted as an unknown ship of a rather peculiar design. 

They thought that it was a custom-made ship made by either, for someone very rich, and they didn't even see visible weapons and the entire ship looked more or like some piece of art, not like a proper warship.

So they decided to rob it because just for a ship of this size, they would get at least a few hundred thousand Universal Credits, if nothing else. 

The ships that were used by the pirates were mostly civilian ships of Type 2 Civilizations, not to mention, even according to their standards, they were outdated by at least a few centuries until they were retrofitted to be capable of some combat. 

Most of their weapons were old according to the galactical standards of advanced civilizations, their shields were primitive kinetic barriers and the same could be said about the personal equipment of the pirates. 

"Boss, somebody has now teleported into our ship!"

One of the underlings cried in fear, because the teleportation technology and such advanced than this one was already bordering the pinnacle of the Type 2 Civilizations, maybe even level of the Type 3.

"Get up, you fuckers, and go and ill the intruder! It's just one man, and there are a hundred of us!"

As the pirate boss screamed out of his lungs, unfortunately for the pirates, suddenly weird jamming appeared around their spacecraft, and all of their firearms were fried and were basically just useless pieces of metal.

The escape pods became null and practically the entire ship went into lockdown mode in a matter of moments. It needs a genius to figure out that their ship has been hacked by very advanced Artificial Intelligence.

And this gave them chills because not many species or space faring nations were developing advanced Artificial Intelligence.

There were many precedents in history where the Machines rebelled, and only some of the most advanced civilizations in the galaxy had sentient A.I. under their control.

Normally speaking, only powerful star nations or civilizations were able to develop and control advanced Artificial Intelligence. 

***

Cargo Room of the Pirate Cruiser.

The last of the pirates that were stationed at the cargo room found himself being decapitated by the blade of Power Sword in one swift, fast slash. With the disintegration capabilities of the Power Sword, all of them were killed in one hit.

Arcturus swung the blade down to get rid of the blood as he returned the sword back to the sheath.

The pirates were no match for him; neither did they have advanced technology that could counter the Power Weapons or someone genetically enhanced enough to contend against him.

"Weak... it seems that neither of them are Augmented and Genetically Strengthened."

He then started looking around, whole tapping something on the terminal. The best pirates had in their arsenal were some basic armor, but those were not enough to stop even ordinary cold weapons made from some more durable materials.

So, using them in hopes of stopping Power Weapons was either a pipe dream or just utter foolishness. 

For that, they would either need a powerful suit of Power Armor or powerful personal shielding technology, but that was way out of their reach, as all of those were Military-Grade technologies of far more advanced species.

"How much are the contraband here worth?"

Within the Cargo Room there were some good things; it seemed that the pirates were lucky not long ago and robbed some merchants or corporations judging on the things that they had here.

"Most things that are here are refined Ores and metal ingots; their overall value, according to the information from the data obtained from pirates, should be something around 20,000 Universal Credits. The other things altogether have a value of another 30,000 Universal Credits."

If the value of the Universal Credit was the same as was in Star Citizen Online, then this would be indeed a good catch. 

"For a small pirate band as Bloodskull Pirates, this is rather impressive loot."

From the data obtained from the Pirate Ships, Arcturus was able to learn where he was right now within the galaxy.

Presently, he was in one of the unclaimed Star Sectors in between The Eternal Imperium of Asurya, Veredan Republic and Crystal Hegemony, close to the galactic core. 

The Bloodskull Pirates were looting in this place because it was a lawless zone between two of the most powerful nations in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the third was a very powerful star nation, too...

While they were a small pirate band with backward technology compared to the local hegemons, this was, in fact, the best place for them because, due to their low-threat ranking, they were mostly ignored as long as they didn't attack ships belonging to the big players.

Thus, they mainly focused on the people who came from Type 1 Civilizations flying through this space and robbing them instead. 

Arcturus then put up on his hood as he advanced deeper into the ship, with his A.I. showing him the holographic projection of the ship. His target was clear: the command deck of the ship, where he would take the head of the boss.

The reward on the Bloodskull Pirates was 25,000 Universal Credits, which was a lot considering they were small-time players, but all of it was a collective bounty put together by several Typer 1 Civilizations.

The Bloodskull Pirates were very active in robbing the Type 1 Civilizations and occasionally even some spaceships that belonged even to Type 2 Civilizations or Nations if they had weak defense.