Shouting "First Strike Wins" Never Ends Well (4)

"Ooh."

"Looks like this will be over soon."

Unlike Pierre's fleet, which had been charging forward at full speed, Icarus's fleet had been fighting a fighting retreat in reverse. The moment Pierre's forces finally caught up and combat broke out in earnest, both Pierre and Maya were already savoring the sweet reward this battle would bring them — a heavy cruiser.

And when Pierre's fleet's bombardment at last sank the escort ships protecting the Overseer, punching a hole clean through the formation, Pierre shot up from his seat, ready to order his fleet to launch assault pods.

But in that very moment, when Pierre's heart was overflowing with hope—

"Huh? W-wait, what is this alarm?!"

"Commander, a massive pirate fleet has appeared from the ten o'clock position ahead… numbers uncountable!"

"What? Why the hell are pirates showing up here?!"

"I don't know! But the pirate fleet is currently attacking us— AAAAGH!!!"

BOOM! Crackle-crackle-crackle…

"…What the hell?"

Caught completely off guard by the sudden appearance of a massive pirate fleet, Pierre's forces found themselves double-enveloped and annihilated in the blink of an eye.

Naturally, no one could keep a clear head after getting hit with that kind of absurd misfortune.

"What the FUCK is this shit!!!!"

Our dear Pierre's hastily patched-together mental fortitude crumbled on the spot. He collapsed into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his seat and howled.

And right as Pierre's skull was cracking open in real time—

"And then, the pirates appeared."

"…Uh, yeah?"

"Aww, come on, you didn't even pick up the bit."

I felt a twinge of sadness that Jessica refused to play along with my joke. Separately, though, I couldn't help but whoop with triumph as the scheme to exploit Leonard — who, thanks to Marianne stationing him here as a bodyguard, refused to take orders from me — played out exactly as planned.

"Still, it's a relief everything went according to your plan, Commander. Especially since Leonard actually moved."

"Of course he did. Leonard and I got off on the wrong foot at first, sure… but the moment he received a direct order from Marianne, I knew he'd follow it no matter what."

The method itself wasn't complicated.

Leonard was stationed here under Marianne's orders to defend me and the base. That meant unless the base itself came under threat, there was nothing I could do to command him directly — no matter what I tried.

The man himself had even told me to my face that he'd never stomach taking orders from me instead of Marianne. That said it all.

But I had no intention of just leaving Leonard and his fleet sitting around unused.

So I'd started the battle a fair distance from the base, then deliberately played the part of being overwhelmed by superior numbers, slowly luring the enemy closer and closer to the base itself.

And by doing so—

The enemy, without even realizing it, had drawn the aggro of none other than the Pirate Empress's personal guard fleet.

The moment they entered the range of the base defense batteries, Leonard and his fleet registered it as a "threat to the base" and automatically sortied. They charged straight at the nearest enemy player's fleet and proceeded to put on an absolute slaughter.

Of course, just as I'd guessed earlier, the opposing player was no pushover. The ships that got sunk were all standard mass-producible vessels. The ultra-high-grade gacha ships, on the other hand, formed a breakthrough formation, punched through the still-incomplete pirate encirclement, and made a clean getaway.

Still, escape or not — he'd lost the numerical bulk of his main force entirely.

The opposing player read the situation for what it was and surrendered promptly.

I rather liked that about him — skilled enough to put up a real fight, yet not the type to drag things out in an ugly mess. He assessed the tide quickly and folded clean. Unlike last time, I didn't even bother blocking his mail. I hit Y on the spot and claimed the reward.

Of course, sweet as the payout was, I still couldn't help casting a longing glance at the gacha ships he'd managed to spirit away.

"Man, I really wanted that Balthazar-class light cruiser."

"Commander, there's a saying — too much is as bad as too little."

"Tsk… yeah, fair enough."

Jessica was right. Push any harder for more, and the other side might flip completely and go all-out trying to take down the Overseer with zero mercy. If that happened, not only the Overseer but Griyanaar and Pashtura aboard it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could get wiped out too.

I nodded at her words and decided to content myself with the reward I'd already gotten.

Having lost the vast majority of his fleet in an instant and barely managed to scrape his precious rare ships back home, Pierre was seething.

"I got baited. That third-ranked bastard never built a fleet of his own from the start — he built a mercenary dispatch office first!"

"Is that so?"

"Yeah! I should've known something was off when his fleet was so understrength!"

He was furiously ranting at the Icarus who had supposedly "tricked" him — all while operating under a completely wrong assumption.

Of course, if the actual Icarus had heard any of this, he would have stared in pure disbelief and demanded to know who the hell was writing this fanfiction about him. Unfortunately, the real Icarus was nowhere near this conversation.

So Pierre kept right on starring in his own delusional drama, venting his rage at Icarus without pause…

"By the way, Commander — some of the ships made it back via emergency warp, but even adding everything that returned together… what's left is only about ten percent of what we had."

"…We got butchered that badly?"

They'd already been outnumbered by a staggering margin. Then Icarus's fleet — the one that had been under attack — had turned around and counterattacked, putting them in a double envelopment. And on top of all that, Pierre had forced reckless maneuvers trying to save at least the rare ships. The result was catastrophic damage to his fleet.

"And that's looking at it as generously as possible… a lot of the remaining ships are in such terrible shape that dismantling them for resources would honestly be the better option."

"What kind of ratio are we talking?"

"At minimum, about thirty percent of what's left… you'd have to assume."

"Haaaah… damn it."

Every time Pierre closed his eyes, he saw the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠phantom of his ships exploding one after another just moments ago. He rubbed his temples over and over, trying to figure out how to salvage this mess.

But that fretting didn't last long.

"Commander, if we just sit here like this… won't that Icarus commander's fleet come attack us?"

"…Ah. Right!"

Just as his adjutant Maya pointed out — if he stayed idle, that insane third-ranked player might very well decide to finish the job and drag a fleet over to crush him right now.

"Mail, mail… no, wait — status window!"

Pierre immediately pulled up his status window and opened the special interface tracking the state of war with Icarus.

"Nnnghhh… YES."

He declared surrender on the spot.

"Maya, sorry, but can you look over the mail I'm writing?"

"Yes, Commander. I'll help with anything I can."

Whether Icarus accepted the surrender or not didn't matter to him. Alongside the formal apology via mail, Pierre preemptively sent over an extra 10,000 minerals.

Combined with the surrender payout listed in the declaration, that meant a full 60,000 minerals vanishing in one go — a genuine catastrophe. But—

"Still better than having the entire base leveled and starting from scratch, right?"

"You're absolutely right, Commander."

Trusting the survival instinct that only grew sharper by the day, Pierre set aside any foolish pride. He cleanly offered up the resources and started planning for the future.

And at the same time, he quietly resolved to leave the Earth Federation soon and join the Beast faction.

Romance was all well and good — but you had to stay alive first, didn't you?

Besides, he'd realized something: later on, he could just "legally requisition" those oversized ships anyway.

"Mm. I like this guy already."