Chapter 53: Something Used to Settle a Debt

Get yourselves ready! We set sail this afternoon! Take that ship, and the galaxy will be ours! Just imagine! A 40,000-meter-long pirate vessel! Hahahahaha!!" Cuken continued, "Round up every single outsider! Once we capture that colossal starship, they will be our slaves! To hell with the Muuns! I am not afraid!"

From behind him charged a horde of heavily armed, ferocious, filthy, and ragged pirates. They dragged and shoved all the outsiders, including Cunt, binding them tightly and packing them like sardines into the cramped cargo hold.

Inside the tavern, the pirates swept all the wine bottles, playing cards, and clutter off the tables, then hauled out crates of firearms and ammunition from the armory to stack upon them.

The atmosphere instantly turned into a frenzy of fanaticism.

Only Taya was left singing there all alone, terrified to the core yet not daring to stop for even a second.

Cunt was crammed into the very back of the cargo hold, yet his mind remained exceptionally calm. He effortlessly slipped out of his restraints and quietly retrieved his communicator.

With so many people around, making a public broadcast was out of the question. Therefore, he began to tap rhythmically against the mouthpiece.

...

On the surface of the planet Tatooine, in Mos Eisley, at Truda's spaceship berth.

Yuri Orlov and Vitaly Orlov fled in a panic, finally managing to return to their spaceship. However, what greeted them was a completely deserted vessel, devoid of a single soul.

"Where is everyone? Where the hell is Cunt?" Yuri searched everywhere, even looking under the beds, yet he still found no one. "Damn it! If he doesn't come back, those pursuers are going to track us down sooner or later! We need to get out of here right now!"

"The problem is none of us know how to fly this ship, so how do we run? And we can't just abandon Cunt and the others, can we?" Vitaly said, shaking his head.

"Damn it! It's over, we're done for... we're completely finished..." Yuri slumped onto the bed, grabbing his hair in despair. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he said to Vitaly, "Vitaly, go check what kind of junk those Bosa scum gave us as collateral."

"You're still worried about collateral at a time like this?"

"Stop talking nonsense! If even this is gone, what the hell was the point of us risking our lives this time?"

"Alright, I'll take a look... but my Galactic Basic isn't that great, I can't be sure what this spells out... T, O, R, P, E, T, O... P, O, R, T, O, N... What does this mean?" Vitaly squinted to decipher the letters.

"What? Proton Torpedo!" Yuri suddenly sprang up, grabbed Vitaly by the shoulders, and laughed out loud. "Holy shit! Holy shit!! Vitaly! We're rich! Hahahahaha!"

"What? What are you talking about?" Vitaly looked completely bewildered.

"Proton torpedoes! These are two proton torpedoes! Hahahahaha!!" Yuri burst into wild laughter.

"How do you even know what these are?"

"Duh! Of course I have to do some basic research on the weapons in this galaxy before I can sell my own goods!" Yuri said with excitement. "Two proton torpedoes! Worth at least 15,000 credits! We've made it! We've really struck it rich this time! I can sell these two items for 10,000 credits each! Do you understand, Vitaly? We've hit the jackpot on this trip!"

"Wait, no! Unless you go through military channels, no one can get their hands on heavy ordnance like this. I could easily price them at 30,000 credits each! Hahaha..." Yuri was completely immersed in sheer ecstasy.

"But the problem right now is how the hell are we supposed to escape?" Vitaly paced anxiously back and forth across the cabin floor.

"Send another transmission to that damned Cunt!! Damn... wait, when did the connection go through?" Yuri suddenly realized that the communication channel with Cunt was already open, though no holographic projection had appeared.

He hurried over, pressed the call button, and roared, "Cunt, you worthless piece of dog shit! I'm about to get myself killed while you're still out messing around! Where the hell are you right now?!"

Inside the cargo hold of the Iron Fang-class Hammerhead cruiser, Cunt hurriedly clamped his hand over the mouthpiece to prevent Yuri's screaming from being overheard. He cast a guilty glance around, noticing that many of the captured people were whispering among themselves, and fortunately, no one was paying attention to him.

"Yuri, you murderous idiot! One of these days I should let you experience what a bantha looks like, and then stuff you straight down its excretion vent!" Cunt muttered curses to himself while continuing to tap rhythmically on the microphone.

"I'm going to—" Yuri was about to continue shouting when he heard the rhythmic tapping sound. He instantly grew alert, realizing something was amiss.

"Vitaly, come over here and listen to this sound," Yuri called his younger brother over.

Vitaly listened for a moment and shook his head, saying, "How am I supposed to know what that is?"

"It's Morse code, and it's not arranged in English letters; it's structured using Hanyu Pinyin," the T-850 standing guard nearby suddenly stated.

"You understand this stuff?"

"My database contains all known language types and includes the Morse code decoding table. This is not a particularly sophisticated cipher," the T-850 said. "The message currently being transmitted is: 'After hearing the signal, please tap the microphone five times.'"

"If it's not a very sophisticated cipher, isn't he just asking to get killed by sending it?" Yuri cursed.

"No! Perhaps it actually works!" Vitaly suddenly figured it out. "In this galaxy, there is no English, no Hanyu Pinyin, and definitely no such thing as Morse code! So even if they intercept and crack the Morse code, they still won't know what we are saying! No one can magically interpret a language from an entirely different universe, right? And he's using Pinyin instead of English! That makes it even better!"

Yuri caught on as well. "That's right! English is an alphabetic script, which is relatively intuitive. But Chinese characters are logographic symbols! Without a reference point, people in this galaxy will never be able to crack it! Even if the communication is intercepted, it doesn't matter at all."

"Do I need to reply?" the T-850 asked.

"Reply!" Yuri commanded. "I don't know Chinese and I don't know Morse code, but Cunt definitely has something important to tell us."

Things seemed to be taking a turn, and he finally calmed down a fraction.

The T-850 picked up a pen and paper, then tapped the communicator's microphone five times. Soon, more tapping sounds came from the other end. The T-850 rapidly scribbled on the paper, reading aloud as it wrote: "I am trapped inside Cuken's cruiser, and Cuken is setting out this afternoon to attack the mothership."

"What? He actually got captured?! Then what do we do? Grow wings and fly up there to rescue him?" Yuri cried out in shock.

"Yuri, no matter what you're thinking right now, we have to hurry! I see people searching everywhere outside!" Vitaly shouted, clutching a pair of binoculars.