Both Captain Zuo Jing and the pirate captain had beads of sweat on their foreheads.

However, their psychological qualities after years of working outside allowed them to calm down quickly.

Captain Zuo Jing also quickly thought of a way to deal with the terrifying self-destruction power of the Rainstorm-class ship, which even the shield could not reduce.

"It only has eight fighters in total. As long as we disperse the formation and concentrate our firepower to shoot down all the fighters, it will be useless."

"What about the Gladiator?"

Captain Zuo Jing glanced at the sensor and saw the Fighter Kai flying around the fleet at a fairly safe distance, obviously looking for an opportunity, and couldn't help but frown.

He knew that Fighter Kai must be difficult to deal with, but he had no way to deal with him at the moment.

They may not even be able to withstand the heavy rain now, let alone the fighters who seem to be more at ease.

But at least until now, this fighter has not shown any performance.

So Captain Zuo Jing could say, "Don't worry about it for now, the storm is the bigger trouble."

During the brief communication between the two sides.

Torrential continued to release the remaining six fighters at a safe distance.

Six Terminator fighters flashed blinding red lights and pounced again.

Chen Ming had just roughly calculated the prices of the spacecraft of the two fleets and found that the prices of the spacecraft they launched were similar.

As long as you don't look for mules, there is actually no difference in the losses when fighting other things.

So Chen Ming finally decided to focus on the left side according to his likes and dislikes.

In addition to the reason that they had previously had a conflict with Zuo Jing, Chen Ming was also not sure whether Zuo Jing would install some self-destructive gadgets on their ordinary spacecraft.

If they killed the pirates and tried to capture Zuo Jing but they exploded, Chen Ming would lose everything.

So the six Terminator fighters that flew out later all flew towards the Zuo Jing fleet.

They moved smoothly through the dense hail of bullets from point defense weapons, with only one ship being destroyed by stray bullets, while the remaining five ships all rushed to the dangerous distance.

He also generously sent five frigates to force them to exchange one for one.

These roughly and casually modified frigates had no ability to fight back against the Terminators.

Five fireballs appeared in space almost at the same time.

At this time, the only sound in the communication channel between the pirates and Zuo Jing was the extremely chaotic noise of the crew members on the remaining ships because Zuo Jing's fleet had lost more than half of its members in an instant.

Captain Zuo Jing was also somewhat stunned by the self-destructive tactics of the Storm-class.

It's not like he hasn't seen combat videos of ships like the Storm class.

But he had certainly never seen a Terminator drone used in this way.

Under normal circumstances, ships like the Rainstorm class are mainly used to assist with point defense by fighter jets.

When an emergency occurs, they will send out fighter jets to forcibly contain the enemy, and will not use fighter jets to fight until the most unavoidable moment.

Doing so can steadily consume a lot of the enemy ship's weapons, ammunition and radiation energy capacity, while also increasing the success rate of the final self-destruction.

He had never seen anyone who would directly use a fighter plane to self-destruct in exchange for one.

And the result was even quite good. Eight fighter planes managed to replace ten of their battleships with the Dram-class ships that had not been dispersed before.

However, Captain Zuo Jing immediately realized that his opportunity had come.

Because the combat capability of the Storm-class itself is not outstanding, it mainly relies on its own eight fighters and the threat of self-destruction at critical moments to create a local situation of being outnumbered.

In addition, the battleship itself lost some armor due to problems with the flight deck.

After these eight fighter planes are blown up, the combat effectiveness will definitely decline significantly.

So even though their fleet has suffered heavy losses now.

But so apparently is the case with heavy rain.

Captain Zuo Jing suppressed the other voices in the communication channel and said, "All of Baoyu's fighter planes have been lost! It has no combat capability anymore! All spacecrafts are on the move! Don't let it go!"

Captain Zuo Jing gave the order.

Meanwhile on the pirate side.

Because Chen Ming didn't take special care of them, their condition was relatively good.

But the pirate captain was also under tremendous pressure.

After the first two fighter planes attacked, their fleet was left with only one mule and seven frigates.

If the remaining six fighter planes had hit them, they would have been almost all killed.

He himself should also accompany the mule to heaven.

Fortunately, things did not develop that way.

And he, who had been planning for heavy rain, also knew the situation of heavy rain.

So after sweating profusely, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

The rainstorm that consumed all the fighter planes was no longer a concern. As long as we kept an eye on that strange fighter, the rest of the problems would be easy to solve.

The pirate captain also gave the order to besiege Storm.

The two remaining fleets surrounded them.

Gamma Z, who thought the current situation was not good, used the voice broadcast system of Baoyu and asked Chen Ming in a more "human" voice: "The other side already knows that Baoyu's fighter planes have been bombed. What should we do next?"

"Well, I'm thinking about it now."

"ah?"

Gamma Z made a puzzled sound in a very human way.

It seems that he has been in human society for a long time and has picked up some human language habits.

However, what Chen Ming was thinking about was not what to do if he lost his fighter jets, but what weapons to use for the new fighter jets.

When Chen Ming asked Lao Wu to purchase supplies, he also prepared some replacement weapons, which were basically some defensive types.

After all, Chen Ming has been involved in spacecraft combat for some time and knows that the effectiveness of small weapons in actual combat is often only average.

In a real battle between fleets, at least medium-sized weapons can be considered the main output.

Generally speaking, for small arms to be valuable in fleet combat, you still have to use some defensive weapons.

However, in order to ensure that Chen Ming still has weapons in some special situations.

He still asked Old Wu to prepare some of the more common and useful small weapons.

So now, Chen Ming plans to be extravagant to the extreme and chooses to install the most expensive ion pulse on the fighter.

Although it's a bit of a loss to use self-destruct once.

But Chen Ming just wanted to see the effect and at the same time simply test whether his abilities could be expanded.

As soon as Gamma Z asked the question, Chen Ming quickly decided what weapon to use.

Immediately, the rainstorm level was repaired.

A mixture of various materials, liquid metal, appeared out of thin air on the flight deck, and within a few breaths it condensed into the shape of a Terminator fighter in the hangar.

The eight Terminator fighters neatly parked in the hangar made Gamma Z once again wonder, "Huh?"

Chen Ming didn't explain too much, just said: "Go on."

Gamma Z was silent for a while, and suddenly understood the meaning of Chen Ming's previous words which were obviously unreasonable to him.

He tried to accept it all and responded, "Yes."

Just when the pirates and Zuo Jing thought that Baoyu had no ability to fight back.

The starboard flight deck of the Storm class suddenly lit up red again.

Eight dark red spots of light flew out with long tail flames.

The cold sweat that Commander Zuo Jing had just wiped off suddenly flowed down again, and the hairs on his body stood up.

The Storm-class is obviously just a frigate. Even if all irrelevant equipment compartments inside were removed and the remaining space was filled, it would be impossible to squeeze eight fighter jets in.

And there is only one reason that can explain the eight new fighter planes that appeared before him.

This is the effect of psychic power.

Captain Zuo Jing had learned about this from the news spread by various forces after the conflict between the Sinda Company and the star zone military.

Chen Ming is a psychic with the ability to control and enhance spaceships, but his psychic powers are limited to spaceships he has personally come into contact with.

If you say that the engineering ship has come into contact with him, I believe it.

But if this Storm was really as the pirate captain said, and was transported all the way from the capital of the star field, then it should not have been affected by Chen Ming, who was taken away by Yu Hui in the last conflict between the military and the Xinda Company.

This is obviously wrong.

But the current situation did not give him time to think too much. Eight fighter planes were already rushing towards them with a flashing red glow.

You can't dodge, you can't escape, and you can't hit even if you want to hit.

Due to his limited tactical skills, the only solution he could think of was to gather together and rely on the shield coverage of multiple spaceships to forcibly share and resist the damage.

If you can stop it, that would be the best. But if you can't, then we'll all be doomed.

However, this order, which was almost tantamount to suicide, was completed by Zuo Jing's fleet with very high efficiency.

Only Captain Zuo Jing's flagship was left, hiding behind the remaining three spaceships.

The pirate fleet next to them was also in a difficult situation at this time.

Although Chen Ming did not target him, he had enough time and environment to escape.

But the pirate captain didn't dare to run.

Because he had just agreed to sign an employment agreement with Zuo Jing, and his whereabouts were not hidden too much along the way.

If he dares to run now, once Zuo Jing investigates his situation, he will definitely be arrested and interrogated about what happened here.

How would he explain then why the Zuo Jing fleet he accidentally encountered was annihilated here, while he escaped back without any harm?

So now he doesn't dare to escape at all.

In order to protect Zuo Jing's fleet, they were forced to send a few ships over to symbolically respond to the oncoming fighter planes' firepower.

But at this time, something happened that surprised both the pirates and Zuo Jing.

Originally, each of the eight fighter planes that had just rushed over had a scarlet glow from the Terminator core being activated.

But at this time, the other seven fighters fell behind, and only one fighter rushed over with a red light even brighter than before.

Chen Ming took the initiative to ask Gamma Z to do this.

Because he wanted to try to use his maintenance capabilities to complete some operations that he had just thought of.

And because Chen Ming had just transformed the ship into a living ship, Gamma Z accepted the order no matter how outrageous it sounded.

As for the reason why Chen Ming did this.

This is because it takes time for the Terminator fighter to activate the Terminator core overload.

Overloading will inevitably cause problems in various components of the spacecraft during the overloading process.

In addition to actively initiating overload, the Terminator Core is used to temporarily suppress this problem, and the effect can last almost until the fighter explodes.

Of course, under normal circumstances, the Terminator core would no longer be able to maintain the stability of the fighter's equipment a short time before the explosion.

Therefore, Chen Ming tried to continuously repair the fighter plane while it was overloaded.

Instead of relying on the Terminator core to suppress the damage to the fighter, it depends on Chen Ming himself.

Although Chen Ming was unable to affect the outgoing fighter jets that had already left the spacecraft when he was controlling the cattle herder.

But now, it may be because the fighters sent by the Storm class are also controlled by Gamma Z.

Chen Ming can also affect the fighter jets when they are out.

That's why he came up with this idea.

Equipment damaged by overload is forcibly repaired until the repair capacity is completely unable to keep up with the self-destructive power of the extreme overload.

Under such an effect, the overloaded red light on the fighter plane has become impossible to look directly at.

They could only avoid the dazzling red light and see countless energy bombs fired from dense ion pulses in the red light splashing onto the shields of the Zuojing fleet.

Destroyed the shields of the three spaceships.

A fighter plane equipped with only two small weapons directly destroyed the shields of two escort ships and a destroyer under extreme overload.

However, Chen Ming suddenly found that something seemed wrong, so he immediately ordered Gamma Z to try to turn the fighter plane, which had been overloaded to the limit, so as not to crash directly into it.

But Chen Ming was a little late.

The overloaded fighter jet had completely lost control and crashed into the defense line formed by three spaceships.

At this time, there was only a red light in the area visible to the naked eye, and nothing could be seen clearly.

The sensor can still transmit some data.

The three shields of the three ships of the Zuojing fleet, which were barely opened again, collapsed at the first touch and could not even suppress the self-destruction attack of the Terminator fighter.

The three spaceships were completely engulfed by the explosion that continued to spread backwards, melting in the red light that ended everything.

Only one Mule-class flagship was left, hiding alone and intact at the end, watching everything happen quietly.

At this moment, Chen Ming's eyes couldn't help but twitch.

The final effect is very good.

But this loss can only be described as considerable.

never mind.

Chen Ming didn't worry too much, at least the experiment just now was a success.

His maintenance capabilities can indeed create an effect similar to that of accumulated strength over time on the Terminator fighter, which can be said to be a perfect fit.

The absolute value of this 100 million yuan.

At the same time, Chen Ming also tried another ability, changing weapons.

It was just before the fighter lost Gamma Z's control and was about to be destroyed.

Chen Ming directly used the panel to remove the two ion pulses from the fighter.

And it worked.

The final object appeared directly where Chen Ming wanted it to appear, which was the storage cabin of the rainstorm.

Although the circuits inside the two ion pulse gates were severely damaged due to the overload just now.

But the difference between repairing damage and buying a new weapon can be quite big.

Chen Ming did not continue to let Gamma Z attack the enemy.

Instead, he immediately used the panel to replenish the damaged fighters, filling the total number of ships to eight.

Eight Terminator drones surrounded the rainstorm like eight blood-red death stars.

There was no longer any noise in the communication channel of the pirate fleet and the last remaining flagship of the Zuo Jing fleet. Only silence remained.

It seemed like there were endless Terminators, which brought terrible psychological pressure to the pirates and the remaining people on the left.

Just when the pirate leader's legs were shaking, he suddenly saw a communication coming from the device in front of him.

He immediately picked up the phone in a panic.

"Surrender or..."

The word "death" had not yet come out of Chen Ming's mouth.

The pirate captain immediately shouted: "I surrender!"

At the same time, all the remaining ships were ordered to shut down their shields and disarm.

"Very good, wait over there."

Chen Ming hung up the communication with the pirates and asked the fighters to guard them.

Then, a communication was sent to Zuojing's flagship.

The communication was also connected on Zuojing side.

But Chen Ming asked the same question as before: "Surrender or die?"

Captain Zuo Jing did not reply, but asked: "Are you Chen Ming?"

"Choose death, right? I understand."

Chen Ming hung up the phone directly without wasting any more time talking to him.

Of course, Chen Ming didn't go so far as to continue activating the Terminator core.

He just let Gamma Z control the Storm and lead eight fighters to attack, intending to rely on the eight fighters and the combat power of the Storm class itself to launch the final wave of offensive.

However, the rainstorm level has not passed yet.

Chen Ming saw a bright flash of fire on the only Mule-class ship left on the left.

Ended himself in the flames of the explosion.

The madman in Zuo Jing blew himself up and sank the ship, leaving Chen Ming no chance to capture them.

“…”

Chen Ming was silent for a long time and looked at the pirate fleet with only seven spaceships left.

He recalled the fleet of twenty-three spaceships that the pirates and Zuo Jing had just seen, and fell into deep thought.

This battle can be said to be a performance of Baoyu and a ship. The fighter modified that Chen Ming had been controlling with Gamma B was completely useless.

The charged anti-aircraft gun that I bought from the black market specifically for the fighters was never used.

He wanted to try out the effect of this weapon at the last moment, but he didn't expect that before he knew it, the matter was over.

However, Chen Ming will not lack opportunities to fight in the future, so if he misses it, he misses it.

Chen Ming calmed down and planned to wait a while before salvaging the remaining wreckage.

Now, he activated the communication equipment and connected with the pirates again.

At the moment the communication was connected, Chen Ming said without giving the pirates any time to react: "Come on, give me a reason not to kill you."

The pirate captain responded very quickly and said, "I am from the Free Alliance. We are willing to pay the ransom for our lives."

"Freedom League?"

Chen Ming frowned and recalled in his mind.

In his impression, the Free Alliance that the pirates mentioned was a relatively loose force.

There is a mixed crowd inside, from businessmen to politicians to pirates, really all kinds of people who have nothing in common.

Although the Free Alliance is loose as a whole, it generally maintains a purely interest-based relationship internally and competes with others outside of the alliance through this relationship.

Of course, conflicts sometimes occur within the forces, and sometimes they are even the kind that cannot be resolved without a fight to the death.

The main theme is freedom.

Although the Freedom Alliance is a gray force that cannot be seen on the public stage, it does have considerable influence in the gray area.

Chen Ming knew about the Free Alliance because basically all companies have a relationship with the Free Alliance. Although they may not have joined the Free Alliance, they definitely have a connection.

The same was true for Xinda Company before.

Sometimes, in order to avoid taxes or for some other purpose, Chen Ming had to deal with the Freedom Alliance when he was working.

After all, if the company wants to expand its business, it will inevitably have to rely on them in many matters.

Things like the construction of pirate space stations and the connections between different pirate space stations are also related to the Free Alliance to a certain extent.

In other words, basically all industries and businesses in the gray area are related to the Free Alliance.

This made Chen Ming a little unsure of the situation.

After all, he was not sure whether this pirate would have any connection with the pirate space station where Chen Ming had been staying before.

If Chen Ming only has contact with the company, it doesn't matter.

But if these pirates knew the factory manager or the boss, and he killed them, although there was no problem in name, after all, they were the ones who started the trouble, but Chen Ming would still feel a little uncomfortable.

So just in case, Chen Ming asked about the pirate captain's name and background and planned to contact his boss.

However, before doing so, Chen Ming still needed to confirm a few things with the pirate captain.

"Why did the people from the Freedom Alliance cooperate with Zuo Jing just now?"

"Um... this..."

The pirate leader hesitated for a moment, but he knew that if he didn't speak up, he would die, so he answered honestly, "Because in addition to my work for the Freedom Alliance, I also had contact with Zuo Jing."

"You know about the incident where Zuo Jing attacked the capital of the star region some time ago, right?"

"You participated?"

"No, no, no, I just know the participant and I usually buy some information from him."

intelligence?

Chen Ming suddenly had a strange premonition and asked, "Who?"

"A man called Shen Yi."

really.

Chen Ming confirmed it in his heart and could only say that this world is a small one.

The purpose of this pirate coming here is probably related to Shen Yi.

Just now, they collided with Zuo Jing's fleet but there was no conflict. Instead, they came together to find him. I'm afraid it's because they have the same goal.

"In that case, you should know who I am, right?"

"I know, Wu Ping'an."

"?"

Chen Ming's silence made the pirate captain realize that he seemed to have said something wrong, and he quickly said, "This is what the people from Zuo Jing told me just now."

"He said that he found out from someone at a pirate space station that this engineering ship was rented by Wu Ping'an, one of the people who killed Shen Yi before."

"So in order to get revenge, they chased me all the way here, and said that there was a 10 million bounty on Wu Ping'an, and if I helped them, they would share the bounty with me."

"Shen Yi and I are just in a business relationship of buying and selling information. We are not familiar with each other at all."

Chen Ming didn't know whether he was playing dumb or what. Since everyone knew who Lao Wu was, there was no reason why the pirates wouldn't know about him.

Chen Ming asked him suspiciously, "Did the people from Zuojing say anything to you?"

"I asked, and Zuo Jing mentioned Wu Ping'an, and also said there was another person I didn't need to know about now. You should be the other person he mentioned, right?"

The pirate captain now had an idea in his mind and roughly knew why Zuo Jing was unwilling to explain the situation of this mysterious man to him.

All of this is definitely closely related to the nine extra fighter jets on the Storm-class.

Chen Ming did not respond to the pirate captain's question, but continued to ask: "So why did you come here this time?"

"Uh... that Storm."

Chen Ming held his forehead.

He has basically figured out the situation now.

This group of pirates set their sights on the rainstorm that Chen Ming bought, and they chased him all the way without finding any opportunity.

Then suddenly it was discovered that the rainstorm had run away with an engineering vessel, and when it saw the opportunity it caught up again.

Then when he was about to take action, he happened to meet Zuo Jing and found out that the engineering vessel was rented by Lao Wu. After some communication, they found that they could cooperate, so he prepared to take action against Chen Ming.

Of course, it is also possible that the pirate captain was deceiving him.

He knew Chen Ming's situation and came just for Chen Ming.

But it shouldn't be wrong to say that they met Zuo Jing by accident. After all, their reactions at that time showed that they were both very surprised.

But it’s not really important.

After all, no matter who it is, Chen Ming already has a reason to kill him.

Now all Chen Ming needs to do is confirm with the boss and the factory manager whether this pirate is someone they know.

If he doesn't know him, then Chen Ming can just take action directly.

Chen Ming turned on the sentry's communication equipment. No one on the boss's side should dare to eavesdrop.

So he contacted him directly.

(End of this chapter)