Mana System Chapter 206: Ambush (Patreon)

I anxiously sat in my chair in the command room. We had arrived at the location of our ambush a week ahead of schedule in order to allow any possible disturbed mana trail to dissipate and not give away our position.

The island in question was a small pirate trading port. It only remained in existence because it wasn’t worth the effort to take it out. The small island wasn’t self-sufficient, meaning nobody wanted to take it from the pirates that called it home. And there were enough weapons around the small island to fight off a fleet of ships, making the expense of any endeavor not worth it.

Unfortunately, there was no convenient rock ceiling that I could drop on the small port city like last time. So subduing the port would be a difficult affair, not that I planned on doing that. Although, I did briefly toy with the notion of using the Null Beam to make the island fall from the sky. I quickly dismissed that idea as futile since the amount of mana ingrained in the stone that made up these islands would quickly overwhelm my new weapons ability to draw it away.

Besides, our target would never believe we meant to assault this port by ourselves. So trying to convince them that that was our plan was stupid. No, we leaked that we were watching the island and following ships away from it to attack them once they were out of sight of the defenses. Which was mostly true.

Our hiding spot was just off the surface of the ocean. With the illusion field active, we were practically invisible. And that was the point. I wanted someone to eventually notice us and try to attack. Otherwise, I would have just used the cloak and kept mobile.

Our enemies had to think I was overconfident after our attacks so far but not idiotic.

So we waited and watched the ships coming and going from the port. From this angle, it was hard to see any clear marking of the ships but Khikall eventually noticed something off.

“That’s the third time that ship has docked today, Captain.”

I looked at the ship he was pointing to, not that I could tell one airship apart from another if they had the same features but I took his word for it.

“I wonder what they are up to?”

“They could be trying to artificially inflate their numbers by making it look like the port is busier than it should be. Making us wait while they tighten the noose or even bring in more pirates,” Barcos replied.

“If that’s the case, then where are they?” I asked, scanning the horizon.

As I was doing my search, I spotted something. It was a shadow on the surface of the water. I might have missed it if I hadn’t specifically been looking for anything out of place.

“Those crafty bastards,” I said, “they located us and sent cloaked attack vessels to corral us in. Look, the ships at the port are on the move.”

Sure enough, all four ships docked at the port were now heading off, but not coming directly at us. They were going to try and predict our moves and cut off our retreat. I smiled at that. If my objective was to retreat, they did an admirable job but I was here to attack and I had a new toy to test out.

***

Tu’Cath hissed in delight, his scout ships had located the prize hiding near the water and they seemed to be oblivious to their approach so far. Everything was in place though and he had talked three other captains into joining him, promising them all rewards for the destruction of this enemy ship. Not that he would be paying anything, he would hang back and watch the destruction, then when victory was assured, he would take all of them down and take over control of this port for his own benefit.

The four ships launched from the port. It wasn’t long after that that there was movement from the target. Of course, they would suspect something was up, only a fool would think this was normal. But he let out a self-satisfied hiss as the opening salvo of the battle commenced.

Twenty of his fast attack craft dropped stealth and zipped toward the small vessel. Their enemy was quick to respond though, deploying their guns and eliminating eight craft with the first volley. That was fine, they were expendable and they only needed to herd the ship long enough for the main flee to get within weapons range.

The enemy’s tactics made no sense though and Tu’Cath hissed in confusion. They should be trying to run, but they weren’t. They were heading straight for his group of vessels while fighting off the smaller craft.

Tu’Cath’s first instinct was to flee, something was wrong but if he did that, his crew would mutiny in the face of cowardice. That didn’t mean he needed to take the initial brunt of whatever was happening. “Slow our speed by ten percent, let our allies act as a shield while we see what this enemy is up to!” he yelled out his orders.

His actions appeared to be prophetic when the enemy deployed an unknown weapon against one of the pirate vessels. A distorted ripple passed over the ship followed by a massive burst of unrestrained mana. Whatever had happened, it had completely torn through that ship's defenses and the shield wasn’t even available to block the follow-up attack.

“Get us out of the firing arc of that weapon! Come up underneath and behind their ship,” Tu’Cath roared causing his crew to fly into a flurry of movement.

There was no immediate follow-up on the second or third ship but everyone was in motion now. Each ship began firing as soon as they were within range. There was no effort given for aiming and two more of Tu’Cath’s fast-attack vessels were hit by friendly fire. Although, it was probably more deliberate than it looked. He hissed in outrage and seared that ship into his mind. He would make them suffer after they dealt with this pirate hunter.

Tu’Cath’s ship rocked as the cannons were fired. The enemy ship was taking dozens of incoming rounds but seemed to be holding strong against three much larger ships. Another volley went out from his ship before the enemy's strange weapon fired yet again.

This time the attack was a glancing blow but the damage was still significant. The entire side of the vessel had a huge gaping crater in it. It shouldn’t have been enough to make the vessel crash but it fell from the air like all of its enchantments had simply stopped existing.

Tu’Cath got a sinking feeling about this strange weapon and decided he would rather be branded a coward than have to face what he thought it was doing. Instead of ordering his helmsmen to redirect their course, he simply ripped the human from his post, killing him in the process, and took his place.

The enemy ship wasn’t the only ship with hidden secrets. Tu’Cath ordered the spears launched. Despite the name, these weren’t weapons.

As his ship angled away from the fight, four fast attack craft launched from the front of his ship. They were tethered to his vessel by thick ropes. As these crafts hit the end of their ropes, his ship picked up incredible speed. It wasn’t enough though.

The enemy ship turned its devastating weapon on his ship next and fired. The follow-up beam only tore across a portion of the upper deck but Tu’Cath knew that wasn’t the true weapon. Almost immediately he felt the ship begin to plummet from the sky. The attached balloon wasn’t enough to keep airships in the air without the additional enchantments. Even the ships pulling them along were yanked from the sky as they shared the same fate as their mother vessel.

The last thing Tu’Cath knew was hate as his ship slammed into the ocean below and broke apart on the unforgiving surface.

***

The first shot of the Null Beam was an unmitigated success. That’s where things went a bit off though. The energy had overloaded the control system that connected to that turret and I had to try and reboot it manually while continuing to fire at the other ships. It only took a minute to get it up and running again but a minute in a battle like this seemed like an eternity.

The second shot only managed a glancing blow to the pirate ship but watching it fall from the sky told me everything I needed to know. The one ship that was hanging back a bit and trying to flank us decided to try and run at this point. I couldn’t have that so I quickly reoriented the cannon and fired. The angle was bad so the beam almost completely missed but it had a similar fate as the second ship.

“That was Tu’Cath’s ship,” Khikall pointed out as he avoided most of the last ship's broadside.

Our shields were barely holding and that was only thanks to some bleed over from my new weapon going into the mana heart. While that might seem like a good thing to have, I would have to fix it. It’s what caused the system to overload in the first place. We only got lucky that it didn’t crack the entire crystal. So now I could only fire the weapon when our reserves were low.

Not an ideal situation to have but I was glad we learned about it now instead of when we were up against more ships. Not that fighting four ships and a score of other smaller vessels was easy, but it was within expectations.

The last ship fought to the bitter end, sending as many fighters as they could to try and board our ship. With nothing to stop me from targeting them though, only a quarter of the pirates managed to touch down on the deck. I didn’t bother sending Barcos up there to deal with them, instead, I just activated the electrical defense, then had Khikall flip the ship, dumping any survivors into the ocean below.

Seeing how effective the new main weapon was, I decided we were going to take this pirate port. It may take some time but I think it was doable.

Less than a minute later the final enemy ship succumbed to a withering barrage from the Retributions weapons. The main cannon was offline again due to my activation of the defensive systems, causing it to discharge prematurely. I probably should have tested it more thoroughly but still, I wasn’t swapping it back out, it was a game-changer, even if it did have some faults.

With the ships defeated, the remaining pirates on the island could only watch in impotent rage as we recovered the flags, killed off any surviving pirates in the wreckage, and looted anything that hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Some weren’t content to watch this happen and teleported or flew down to try and kill us. I don’t know what they expected, but the ones that teleported or had weird transport abilities found themselves falling through the sky and into the ocean below. The flyers fared a bit better but Khikall was having a field day picking them off with the mana lasers.

Only a few of the more intelligent ones managed to get aboard. Barcos hung back while Em’ah and I dealt with them. While they may have been smarter than the rest, they weren’t exactly the A-team as far as pirates go. I didn’t even have to use any skills to deal with the few that made it.

Some of the pirates that stayed on the island were trying to fire the cannons at us. While they could reach, we were on the far end of their range. So accuracy was not very high and the few that made it usually exploded before reaching us or impacted the shield with little to no damage.

The retribution didn’t come out of the fight unharmed. One barrage had broken through the shields at one point and the armor had taken a beating in that area. This along with the damage sustained in our attempt to flee from the shipyard meant some serious downtime for repairs. It's another reason why I decided I wanted this island. What better place than a fully stocked pirate island to perform repairs at. Of course, I would have to evict the current tenants but that wasn’t much of a concern.

We finished looting the dead and went back inside the ship to start the next portion of my plan.