The skies have been drawn with lines of clouds from the numerous ships entering the atmosphere. Seeing such sight, Ezra couldn’t help but feel scared as he could only grab his handheld and analyze the ships that are coming out.

Using his hacking skills, he takes every bit of information he could about the ships and weaponry.

[What ships are coming, kid?]

“Five drop ships, one salvager freighter, and one Logistic ship. I don’t always join incursions, but I think this is too many soldiers for a scout team or even for a retrieval group.”

[Well, whatever’s in that ship, it must be quite valuable. Otherwise, it would be weird that they’re sending too many troops on this hostile planet.]

While Ezra was outside the ship, Helen was still in the cockpit and was trying to send messages to their headquarters. Despite being a pilot, she was not good at network espionage like Ezra so she just lets him use the tools of her ship via hacking.

[Have you tried jamming their navigation systems yet?]

“I’ve been trying! Something’s blocking me and I don’t know what it is.”

As he was wracking his brains, he didn’t notice Crux and Trucker already returned.

“We’re back, and we got guns. Get your asses back here and get them!”

Trucker commanded his two lackeys as he drops the guns on the Ship’s floor near the door.

One of his two lackeys looked at the guns and became puzzled. After picking it up, he noticed that there was a missing part. After that, it clicked in his head and he looked at Trucker.

“Boss, isn’t this DM-425? These will be useless once the Celes troops deploy their shields.”

When he said that, Trucker makes a huge smile and grabs the gun on the floor. After pressing something on the back, he points the gun to a nearby tree. After pulling the trigger, it created a loud noise as it charges itself for a shot. When he pulled the trigger again, a line, then a pulse traces the line hits tree, melting it and setting it on fire.

“This is a Prototype DM-425. This was when it still had the limiter remover.”

“Limiter remover…”

The lackey’s jaw dropped as he looks at the tree that was hit falling apart as the rest melted like it was hot steel.

“The Ion shields may negate the energy ammo but not the hot plasma!”

“But doesn’t that mean it easily runs out of energy? We got energy ammo, but I doubt it can be fit unto that prototype.”

While still smiling sinisterly, he points to his back with his thumb and sees Phillip carrying some large machinery with what seemingly looks like an energy generator.

“Turns out, this mountain of garbage’s got some treasure in it.”

“Wait, is that… a Mobius Energy converter!?”

By removing some of the Gondola’s Power Core, they were able to put it on the Mobius Energy Converter.

“This thing’s really old so it’s not reliable and might fail.”

Phillip lets them know while putting the generator down like it wasn’t ten times of his size.

Ezra runs to Phillip and then investigates the generator. Seeing the glowing power cores attached to the generator like giant florescent lights, his eyes sparkled as if he held a star for the first time.

“I’ve only read about these in books and saw pictures of these in the internet. I can’t believe they’re actually real…”

“What do you mean?”

When Phillip asked, Ezra looked at him and reacted like he can’t believe what he just heard.

“Mobius Energy Power Core production has been ceased like a century ago! There’s literally no way to make them these days as Kirethlium, their core material for production, can barely be found in space! These days, Kirethlium are used for making synthetic stars for Dyson Core Generators and the sort.”

While Ezra was trying his best to explain what he knows about the item, he realized half-way that he was being obnoxious and closed his mouth.

Crux saw that and went to him and grabbed him by the head.

“Sorry about that, Phil. This kid gets a bit too enthusiastic at times.”

“Well it’s a nice change of pace considering I’ve just been talking to a robotic voice this whole time.”

Phillip just laughs it off while grabbing a cord from the generator.

[I’d like to hear more about the kid’s nerdiness but the party’s already here!]

When they looked up to the sky, they could see that the Empire ships have already arrived and were already closed.

Phillip receives a notification from Gray while simultaneously having his retinal scanner counting the targets in the sky.

[Captain, I detect a viable ship for transfer. I suggest disabling systems for me to transfer.]

“Which one, is it the Logistic Support ship?”

[Logistic Support Ship systems response mismatch with my pre-existing precepts. Not viable.]

“Why?”

[Logistic ships have strong firewall systems to prevent forced system entry.]

“So which one do you want?”

[Salvager freighter… Systems non-viable for my precepts, but ship segments may be able to salvage Gondola. System Firewall can be breached.]

“So basically, you want a new ship just to salvage your original hardware?”

[Affirmative]

After listening to Gray’s request, Phillip then connects to Ezra’s coms frequency while looking at their direction.

“Our main target will be the Freighter. We can destroy the rest of the ships.”

“Can we at least try not to destroy the other ships? We could use some new ships for our group. Our last incursion with these guys got most of our ships in a pretty bad shape. Especially the logistics one, we barely have any of those.”

While the first wave of ships was dropping soldiers, the logistics ship was deploying small drones in droves like a swarm of locusts. The large Freighter was just on the back hovering slowly due to its sheer size.

“I can’t promise anything regarding the logistics ship. That thing can call back-up if it needs to.”

“That’s alright. We can leave that problem to Ezra.”

When Ezra saw Phillip’s gaze, he immediately deployed multiple mechanical arms that have keyboards from his back and a few more monitors and lastly a satellite dish pointing at the logistics ship.

“I can’t promise that I can control that Logistics ship, but I can guarantee crippling its systems.”

[I will assist the individual ‘Ezra’ with the firewall meltdown.]

While Ezra had started his hacking, Gray entered his computer’s system and assisted in decoding the encrypted frequency they could get from the targeted ship.

On the other hand, Trucker picked up two guns and dual-wielded them with a crazy look on his face while Crux and the lackeys picked one each.

“Over fifty against 7-8 of us, I like the odds!”

Seeing as how everyone has already started to help each other, Phillip couldn’t help but smile as he felt something nostalgic swell up within him.

[Rebels of Celes Empire, lower your weapons and surrender.]

While they were looking at their direction, a man’s voice echoes through loudspeakers from their ships.

From smiling, his stare turned into a glare as his hands become claws, his back growing two more arms, and his legs creating exoskeleton enhancements while his mask becomes a jaw with large sharp teeth as if it was responding to his unexplainable rage against the Empire.

And like a whisper, words enter his mind like a reminder.

“Destroy the Empire.”

-End of Chapter-