"Tch... There’s a lot of them huh?" The Pirate Lord spat, kicking a few of the disabled androids away.

"And there’s even more of them that ran away..." I pointed out.

He grunted at me, "Hmph... Guess we’ll have to keep an eye out for more of them."

"Still... Isn’t it weird though?"

"What is weird?"

"First those androids charged at us without any concern of self preservation and then suddenly they all fell back without warning like they didn’t want to die anymore. Is that weird?"

Ries nodded beside me, "It is weird... If they are operating based on their programming that is. I think we can safely say that someone is controlling them and most likely ordered them to retreat, which would explain how those androids knew to sneak above us."

Guess the other group of pirates must have found a way to hack them and got these androids to work for them instead.

Coupled with the fact that all these androids were pretty much broken and in disrepair, they must not have a mechanic that could fix these androids up.

Whatever the case was, this was not going to stop us from advancing of course.

The Pirate Lord had the same idea and barked at the other pirates, "Check your ammo and prepare to advance. We might face even more of them so try not to use all your ammo too quickly."

We continued down the corridor, letting the pirates lead the way while we watched the rear.

You would think they placed us in the rear as a way to protect us but I’m pretty sure they wanted to be in front so that they could claim any treasures they came across before we could.

The pirates made sure to check the corner first before turning around it, stepping over the androids we had disabled from the fire fight earlier.

I almost thought that one of them might suddenly come back to life and attack us while we were stepping over those androids.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen and the androids on the ground remained on the ground.

Still, I kept my eye on them just in case and I wasn’t shy about stepping on top of them with my Power Armour to crush the ones that were in my path to be doubly sure they were not coming back at all.

The corridor continued on in a straight line until it reached a junction several metres ahead of us.

Curiously, there was still evidence of a fight around here but there were no corpses belonging to either human or android past that corner.

Almost like... They only bothered to clean up this place and just stopped right around this corner for some reason...

We approached the junction and the reason why they cleared this area became clear when several androids dropped down from the ceiling behind us and even more of them showed up along each path leading away from the intersection.

Tch... So they wanted to trap us here to attack us from four different directions...

"Fire! Fire!" The Pirate Lord ordered, the machine guns on his arms already spewing out a hail of bullets at the androids charging towards us from the front.

The girls and I turned to deal with the androids at the back and I was just about to start shooting when a crack sound came from above me.

I reacted on instinct and shifted my aim upwards, right as an android dropped out of the ceiling to fall towards me.

Seriously? They’re doing the exact same trick again?

The shotguns in my arm blew the android apart, the mangled frame of the robot flying back up to crash into the ceiling from the force of the blow.

That wasn’t the only one however as even more of them dropped down from the ceiling to try and ambush us from above.

I did my best to shoot them all down but a few of them still managed to get past and landed in the midst of our formation.

Two of them turned to me and I reached out to grab their heads, using the strength of the Power Armour to crush them in my hands.

Thankfully, that was enough to disable them as their bodies slumped to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.

I had no time to celebrate that victory however as the other androids that had managed to land within our midst started attacking us.

One of the pirates had been too focused on the androids coming from the corridor that he hadn’t realised an android had landed behind him.

The android took advantage of that and thrust his hand through the neck of the pirate, piercing through the armour and flesh like they were made of paper.

Shit...

I swung my fist in an arc, knocking the android’s head off his shoulders in a single blow and disabling it.

Unfortunately, the pirate was already beyond saving as his corpse fell forward to land on the ground with a thud.

Damn... There’s our first casualty...

A few more androids tried to attack the other pirates but I reached them before they could, my fists knocking them flying before they could touch anyone else.

Once again, right after their trap was dealt with, all the remaining androids suddenly turned tail and ran away instead of staying and fighting.

"My lord..." Matsumoto muttered, drawing the Pirate Lord’s attention to the dead pirate on the ground.

He snorted, "Nelson, huh... Unfortunate for him, but we have to move on. Leave him here for now, we’ll come back for him once we clear the place."

"Which way do we go though?" I asked, looking at the three paths that look exactly the same.

We looked around for some kind of clue on where each path led until Mara turned to me.

"Captain? Are there no maps in the files we got from the research station? There might be some kind of floor plan for this facility."

I doubt there was one but I went ahead to check anyway...

Let’s see... Bring up the folder and do a search on the word map... Hmmm... Nope, no results.

I turned back to the girls and shook my head.

The Pirate Lord then pointed forward, "Whatever! We’ll just head straight ahead! If the designer of this base isn’t a complete idiot, the way deeper inside the base should be there, right?"

I don’t really know what made him think that way but I guess it’s not like I have a better idea of where to go anyway.

"One thing though," I called out. "How are we going to deal with the androids? Because it looks like there’s an endless number of them and they’re just going to keep ambushing us as we move through the facility."

"What’s the problem? Just shoot them when they appear. Problem solved."

I gestured at the dead pirate on the ground, "In case you haven’t realised, we already lost one guy. Are you sure there’s enough of us to push forward if they attack us again?"

"What? You want me to call even more people here? I thought you don’t trust pirates."

"Of course I don’t. I’m hoping there’s more of you to use as meat shields in case more of these guys show up."

"Hahaha! Are you sure you’re not the pirate here? For you to even say that to our faces, you really have guts!"

"So are you going to call more people or not?"

The Pirate Lord turned to his right hand man, "Matsumoto?"

He immediately raised his personal terminal and tapped on it, most likely to attempt to call the others waiting outside.

His lips slowly turned into a frown as he tapped on his personal terminal a few more times and even raised it into the air like he was trying to... Wait... Don’t tell me...

The bearded man turned back to his boss, "My lord... I can’t contact them..."

"What? What do you mean you can’t contact them?"

"The call isn’t connecting..."

"Is there a signal jammer or something?"

"No... I am able to access the GalaNet from here so there should be no problems with the connection... It just seems like I’m blocked from trying to call the ones outside at all."

The Pirate Lord turned to the others, "What about you guys?"

A few of the other pirates also tried but it seems like the results were the same.

I tried on my own Codex as well but I could call the girls just fine and... Err... Who else can I call?

Oh right.

I tried to call Tyle just to see if the call would connect and it seems like I don’t have a problem calling people outside of the facility as well.

Just as I was about to suggest we turn back to return to the entrance to get more people, the corridor we had come from suddenly exploded and the entire path went up in flames.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the fire seemed to be rapidly spreading towards us even as we watched it burn.

Fuck.