Su Xi was startled and was about to go out to see what was happening when the previously bright interior of the starship suddenly flashed with red light, accompanied by a piercing alarm ringing in her ears.
She quickly pulled open the door and saw that Captain Lyu and the others had all come out as well.
“What’s going on?” Jamie asked with a hint of panic.
“Not sure, but it’s definitely not good,” Lv Weiguo replied, his face full of vigilance. He turned to address the group, “Everyone, stay together. Let’s figure out the situation first.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the starship shook violently again, as if struck hard by something. The group staggered, nearly falling to the floor, but fortunately, Captain Lyu, with his excellent physical strength, grabbed them one by one to steady them.
“Good heavens! Look outside—what is that?” Aunt Wang suddenly exclaimed, pointing out the window in alarm.
They turned to look and saw that the previously pitch-black expanse of space outside the window had suddenly been invaded by an unfamiliar warship. Although the warship was smaller than the starship they were on, its equipment was clearly more advanced. From both sides of the warship, several white beams of light shot out, splitting and intertwining to form a massive net that tightly ensnared their starship. The cannons at the top glowed with an eerie blue light, firing one blast after another. The earlier shaking had been caused by those energy cannons.
“Ah! It’s space pirates! Space pirates are here… We’re done for!” Passengers from other rooms gradually emerged, having clearly witnessed the scene as well, and began screaming in terror.
Space pirates?
Su Xi was taken aback. Could it be that they were… being hijacked?
To encounter a hijacking on their first interstellar voyage—what kind of luck was that?
As the starship shook more and more violently, the scene grew even more chaotic. Passengers were screaming and crying for help everywhere, and the crowd instinctively surged toward the stern of the ship, farther from the space pirates. Su Xi and the others were swept along by the flow of people. If not for the tall and sturdy Captain Lyu doing his best to hold them together, they would have been separated by the crowd long ago.
“We’re being hijacked,” Lv Weiguo stated with certainty.
“Then wh-what do we do?” Gu Mingjie’s face turned pale, his glasses knocked off, clearly terrified as well.
“Don’t panic. The Star Alliance won’t ignore a hijacking on this scale,” Lv Weiguo instinctively reassured the group, though he wasn’t entirely confident himself—after all, this wasn’t on Earth. “We just need to hold out until rescue arrives. Whatever happens, don’t act recklessly. Protect the female comrades.”
Gu Mingjie’s face grew even paler. Meanwhile, Aunt Wang, like a protective mother hen, pulled the youngest among them, Su Xi and Niuniu, behind her, shielding them with her plump body.
Before long, a deafening roar echoed through the starship, accompanied by the sound of something shattering. The starship’s protective shield had been breached—the space pirates were about to board. In less than a moment, rapid footsteps could be heard from ahead, and there were quite a few of them.
The next moment, dozens of figures armed with various weapons appeared ahead. Their attire was diverse, but each exuded a bandit-like aura. Seeing the crowd huddled together, the leader coldly scanned them and, without a word, raised his weapon and fired a shot at the empty space beside them.
The previously solid wall instantly dissolved into a large hole, and a pungent odor spread through the air. The crowd was terrified, with some screaming outright as they collectively retreated backward, only to find there was nowhere left to go.
Su Xi was also shocked. If such a weapon hit a person, probably not even a skeleton would remain.
The space pirates clearly weren’t hijacking a starship for the first time. After intimidating everyone, they directly pointed at the crowd and said, “If you don’t want to die, line up and gather in the front lounge.”
The crowd was already too terrified to move, with several people at the front collapsing on the ground. The space pirates fired another shot, and only then did everyone tremble as they were escorted by the pirates toward the front lounge.
The Blue Star group was also afraid. They knew space was dangerous, but they hadn’t expected to encounter it so soon. Captain Lyu signaled with his eyes for them not to resist for now, to assess the situation first, and they followed the crowd forward.
Upon reaching the entrance to the front lounge, they realized that everyone on the starship had been gathered there, slowly advancing in two separate lines to the left and right, with someone ahead checking something.
“Get in line and behave! Open your Intellect-Brain honestly!” The space pirate escorting them pointed toward the front of the lines.
The group had no choice but to join the lines separately. Su Xi stood in the right line. At the front, a person holding a transparent tablet device was scanning everyone’s Intellect-Brain data one by one.
“Oh! Someone from the Central Star.” The space pirate immediately beamed with joy, pushing the person in front of him toward a companion on the right. “Take good care of them—this is a fat sheep.”
After saying that, he scanned the next person, but his expression instantly darkened. “Barren Governance Star? Tch! A poor wretch from the fringe stars. Take them away for disposal!” He then shoved the person toward another companion.
Realizing what was happening, the person paled and hurriedly pleaded, “No! Please, I have money, really…”
But the space pirate didn’t listen, directly pushing them into another room.
Su Xi instantly understood what was happening. These space pirates were screening for kidnapping targets—keeping those with money and disposing of those without. But Blue Star had just joined the Star Alliance and hadn’t even seen what the Star Alliance’s common currency looked like, so they had no kidnapping value.
For a moment, the six of them turned pale. Even Captain Lyu couldn’t help but clench his fist, instinctively about to pull Su Xi, who was ahead in line, behind him. But the line had already reached them.
“You! Come here!” The space pirate directly pointed at Su Xi, signaling her to extend her Intellect-Brain.
Su Xi gritted her teeth. As she reached out her hand, she wondered whether to summon that sphere and fight it out with them. After all, a Divine Ability should be somewhat useful, right?
The space pirate raised the device and scanned her Intellect-Brain. Su Xi clenched her fist, waiting for the other to say “dispose of them.” But after a long while, she heard nothing. Puzzled, she looked up and found the space pirate in front of her frozen in place as if petrified, eyes wide open, the hand holding the device trembling even more violently, as though he had seen something unbelievable.
Huh? What’s going on? Did he have a seizure?
The nearby space pirate also noticed his companion’s odd behavior and nudged him. “What are you spacing out for? Keep going!”
The other seemed to snap back to reality, trembling as he shouted loudly, “B-b-b-boss… b-b-b-boss…” His hands shook even more violently, as if he had Parkinson’s.
“What are you shouting for!” The leader at the front turned around. “What? Did you see a ghost?”
As he spoke, he casually snatched the device from the other’s hand and glanced at it.
“Blue Star? What kind of unheard-of garbage planet…” he muttered while complaining, his gaze shifting to the identity column. “Identity: student, heading to the Star River… Aca… Academy of… Academy of Divinity…”
Clang!
His hand trembled, and the device fell directly to the ground, his whole body shaking along with it.
Su Xi was left utterly bewildered.
What was going on? Did she carry some kind of Parkinson’s pathogen?
“Boss, should we continue?” Seeing the two of them frozen, another clueless pirate couldn’t help but ask.
“Continue my ass!” The lead pirate seemed to snap back to reality. “Run!” With that, he turned and sprinted wildly toward the exit. Who the hell said this starship was full of ordinary first-class citizens?
The other pirates: “…”
“Boss, wait for me!” Only the pirate who had just scanned her scrambled after him, stumbling and crawling. “She’s from the Academy of Divinity! Run!”
The other pirates finally understood something, their faces instantly turning pale. Without another thought, they swarmed toward the exit, and in an instant, the hundreds of them had vanished without a trace.
Within minutes, the warship outside vanished from sight with a whoosh, fleeing so swiftly it was almost unbelievable. Before leaving, they even took the time to repair the hole they had blasted in the starship.
Su Xi: “…”
The group of five: “…”
The passengers: “…”
What the hell?