Chapter 46.1: Showing Off Affection
“Those pirates loaded the energy ore onto the airship and are preparing to leave?” Zhao Lingyu frowned when he received the second piece of information “It’s really Corbien’s style.”
The territory of the Human Federation was too large, so there will inevitably be some dark forces in such a large area and the star pirates were one of them.
They plunder the merchant ships and some resource stars in the interstellar space, which make them the most disgusting existence for many interstellar businessmen. So the Human Federation has tried to eliminate them.
However, it was impossible to completely eradicate these people.
Some of the space pirates built strongholds on abandoned or unexplored planets in the Human Federation, while others hide outside the Human Federation, and some…
There was a big case in the Human Federation 200 years ago, where the executive officer of a certain star area was actually the controller of a group of star pirates. All these star pirates had official identities in the Human Federation, but whenever merchant ships with no background appeared near their star area, they would pretend to be star pirates and plunder it. After plundering it, they would once again become good working people.
However, there were still many star pirates in the Human Federation and the leader of the largest group of star pirates was called Corbien.
Corbien had been in charge of that group of star pirates for more than 100 years. In the past 100 years, he developed and expanded this originally small group of star pirates to eventually become the largest group of star pirates in the Human Federation and even the Freedom Alliance.
Whether it was Zhao Lingyu or Zhao Peng, they had tried to exterminate this group of pirates several times, but Corbien was very slippery. He would not fight head-on with the regular army, so always managed to slip away before the regular army arrived.
Facing them, the regular army never lost but also never won.
“Marshal, what are we going to do now?” Hong Zhong asked.
“Ivor, what do you think?” Zhao Lingyu looked at the First Legion’s wise counselor.
“General, the Yang family has a connection with Corbien.” Avery suddenly said. Yang Ye asked Zhao Lingyu to come over and these star pirates retreated so quickly. There definitely must be a conspiracy.
Zhao Lingyu pondered for a moment and suddenly said, “Send out all the scout ships and the frigates without load. Send them out at full speed and after catching the pirate fleet, no matter what, attack the cargo ship hold.”
“Marshal won’t it be a little too dangerous?” Scout ships were nothing, but frigates were usually used to defend the main fleet and by definition couldn’t be arbitrarily separated from the fleet. “And those energy mines…” According to the military headquarters, he hoped they would bring back all the energy mines.
“Destroyed or used to feed pirates, which do you choose?” Zhao Lingyu asked and after a moment of thinking added, “In addition, prepare to accept a large group of immigrants.”
“Yes! Corbien had probably already done something to planet 12534 to delay us. There are still three million inhabitants up there.” Ivor’s brow furrowed.
Although 12534 was a planet that would be discarded after mining and thus only had a number and no name, because there were so many minerals, the resident population on it was two million eight hundred thousand. Plus the garrison and merchants who were captured by Corbien so 3 million was just a conservative estimation.
Although Corbien is greedy for money, he didn’t like killing, so all the people were probably still alive and well.
“Let’s just be prepared.” Zhao Lingyu said, looking in the direction of planet 12534.
Planet 12534 wasn’t in chaos. The star pirates who forced the planet inhabitants to dig ores, suddenly put all the minerals on their spaceship and left.
This was a great thing for those who were oppressed before, but then they found that the planet beneath them was a little different.
“After the mining planet is hollowed out, the lucky ones will only collapse on the surface, but the unlucky ones will disintegrate.” The middle-aged man who had been digging with Roy turned pale.
From the time the star pirates occupied this planet until now, all three million people have been digging without sleep for twenty days. Was it possible that the planet had been hollowed out?
“It’s only been 20 days, there’s no way we could have dug the planet empty,” said a very thin young man. “I’m a technician in the mine. According to my calculations, we would have to dig for at least a year before we would be able to finish mining this planet!”
“Then maybe I am wrong, we will certainly be fine…” the middle-aged man laughed a few times but his smile looked somehow wrong. “We really will be fine, right? “
Roy listened to the discussion of the people around him, his lips slightly white because of worry, when he saw a conspicuous large man running toward him. “Young master! Young master!”
“Qiu Zhuang!” Seeing a familiar person, Roy couldn’t help feeling excited.
“Young master!” Qiu Zhuang ran over, his face full of worry. “Young master, what should we do? Those star pirates blew up several energy mines, making the whole area collapse.”
“What?” Roy’s face turned white.
The young man who claimed to be a technician before suddenly fell to the ground. “No wonder there was an earthquake before, they actually blew up the energy mines… this planet…”
“If there are no accidents, the star pirates should want to delay the regular army, so they did something to the planet. Now the planet will probably disintegrate.” More and more people had gathered, many of them coming from the surrounding mines. The person who spoke was a man who was still carrying a basket of ore and wearing a tattered military uniform.
“Who are you? Why do you say that?” The middle-aged man asked.
“I’m a sergeant in the regular army over here. I was captured by the star pirates before and then I’ve been helping them dig the ores.” The man in ragged military uniform smiled bitterly. “I More or less know something about the star pirates.”
“If that’s true, the regular army should be coming and they will not give up on us.” Roy said.
“You’re right! What’s your name?” The sergeant looked at Roy curiously.
“My name is Roy, what’s yours?”
“My name is Cohen.” The sergeant smiled, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
Zhao Lingyu’s fleet had just arrived near planet 12534 when they detected that something was wrong with the planet.
This planet was about to disintegrate!
Planets disintegrating into asteroids or simply turning into meteorite belts happened almost every day in the universe… but there were still three million people on this planet.
“Get someone to measure the speed of the planet’s disintegration and control all the signals on the planet. Eight of the main ships will guard outside, while all other small ships will go to the surface to evacuate everyone!” After a brief reflection, Zhao Lingyu added. “All the people received on the warship will be treated as prisoners.”
Three million people were too many people. However, if there were star pirates mixed in with them… Although the treatment of prisoners may make some people dissatisfied, close monitoring can also help eliminate certain trouble.
Roy, Qiu Zhuang, the fat middle-aged man, plus those around them were all grouped together by the sergeant named Cohen. They found a nearby kitchen and collected some food, while they waited for rescue.
It was at this time that many large battleships suddenly appeared above planet 12534, with the logo of the First Legion on it.
The warships surrounded the planet and then some small spaceships began to land one after another.
When Cohen saw those ships, his eyes flashed as he jumped up excitedly. “It’s the First Legion! The Marshal has come to save us!”
“I knew the Marshal would definitely come…” the fat middle-aged man, whose stomach had slimmed down quite a bit, stuffed crude food into his mouth. His speech was somewhat blurred, but the expression on his face was still excited.
Qiu Zhuang’s eyes were also excited, but when they came in contact with Roy, all the excitement disappeared, leaving only worry about the identity of his young master.
Roy clenched his fist, listening to the words of the people around him thanking Zhao Lingyu. His eyes flashed with resignation.
It was just an arranged marriage with a person he did not want to marry. Why did these people push so much?
The signals on the planet that had been blocked by the star pirates before, were now restored and had been taken over by the First Legion. As long as you were on the planet, the voice of the First Legion’s external liaison could be heard from your communication equipment and their appearance would also show in the equipment that could transmit images.
“Attention all residents on planet 12534. Attention all residents on planet 12534! The planet is now facing disintegration. We will immediately organize rescue. Please reach a rescue point and enter the spaceship to leave this planet. We hope everyone will not be crowded!”
The news that the planet will disintegrate was confirmed and the confirmation made the people on the planet very anxious, and even desperate.
“Now that the planet has been taken over by the First Legion, we will do our best to save everyone, but if we find someone disobeying orders or causing trouble while organizing the rescue, we will not tolerate it!”