Chapter 13

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Chapter 13: A Gunshot Rang Out on Emerald…

"Ding~" The doorbell chimed, the rusted iron gate was gently pushed open, revealing a small figure who completely ignored the guns and knives aimed at them inside. They placed a bag of something on the central round table. "Freshly grilled fish, anyone?"

"Bean, can you use the normal passage next time?" The young woman sitting on a fur chair covered her face, looking helpless.

"Hehe~" The girl giggled twice, "Come on, what information have you gathered?"

"Uh~ The vendors near the Imperial military camp have been driven away. Also, the old man responsible for delivering goods to the camp said he only made one delivery this month, and it was only half the usual amount."

"So, the news about the Imperial fleet being relocated is true, right?" The woman tapped her armrest, thinking. "What about the butcher?"

"I’m not sure about that," the girl shook her head. "That guy usually doesn’t show himself much in public, but if the fleet is moving, he should follow."

"Big sister?"

"Hmm, let me think…" The woman furrowed her brow. Could this be a trap set on purpose? Ever since Blackbeard II was arrested by the Empire and sentenced to death, the resistance forces have been running out of manpower, and the Empire’s supporters have been trying to eliminate those who are still fighting against their rule.

"Forget it, continue with the original plan!"

All preparations were done, there was no turning back now. "Tiger skin, switch tasks with Beans. You lead the people from the Grease Alley into the Empire’s camp through the sewer, then set up the timed explosive devices according to our plan." The young man sitting in the corner made a gesture of understanding, then concealed his face back into a large scarf.

"Bean, you and Blue Eyes work together to eliminate the people on the lookout tower immediately after the fire starts." The girl holding a slightly old rifle against the wall nodded without hesitation, then the woman looked at her deputy. "Baldy, you are the best shot, take care of that fat cat officer, don’t let him regroup his troops." The woman assigned tasks one by one.

"Finally, Kulo, you and the people from the repair shop only have fifteen minutes to complete all the work."

"No problem," the girl dressed like an ordinary mechanic smiled, her flaxen ears twitched. "Sister Cui, what about you? Where are you going?"

"Me? I’ll lead a feint attack on Doge’s Palace, to lure away some of the Empire’s soldiers if possible." The two sharp blades spun rapidly in her palms, emitting a faint halo.

Lin Mingsha, the Goddess of Fate, was the largest trading city on the planet Nico before it was conquered by the Empire. Due to the lack of a unified government among the Nico people, there were hundreds of small and large countries constantly fighting each other. The city, located by the sea, was also the largest city-state on the planet Nico, with a population of around 200,000 to 300,000 residents. It had the most skilled craftsmen and the beginnings of an industrial sector.

Perhaps one day in the future, it would have sparked an industrial revolution and become an advanced civilization. However, all of this was destroyed by the arrival of the Empire’s expedition fleet. Facing machine guns and train cannons, the outdated army that relied on traditional methods of warfare was no match. Despite the technicians on Craftsman Street putting in all their efforts, they only faced one failure after another.

After conquering it, the Empire used this city as a colonial fortress. The city walls were widened and strengthened, corner towers were built to house artillery, and the original palace gardens were transformed into a temporary shipyard to quickly support and protect the Governor’s Palace nearby. However, as time passed, the once heavily guarded military camp gradually became lax.

"Hey, how much longer until our shift changes?" A soldier of the Empire scratched his large belly. "It’ll be a while," replied his companion. There were only a few fixed clocks inside the camp, aside from the silver pocket watch that the major inherited as a family heirloom. Judging the time was mostly reliant on the sky and their internal clocks.

"Hmm, did you hear that noise?" A soldier of the Empire turned to look towards a dark corner. "That’s the kitchen, probably just some greedy person sneaking food," he chuckled. Even if there was an enemy attack, they should be heading to the arsenal, what’s the point of sneaking to the kitchen?

"Well, the kitchen is where they keep the tools for fire," said the young boy with half of his face covered by a white scarf, as he shook the jar in his hand. "Let’s spread out and find the jars with the red marks."

The day before, taking advantage of the supplies situation, they had mixed some oil with food oil in jars, along with two bags of poor-quality bran flour marked with grass leaves. Beneath the flour were packages of gunpowder that were individually sealed.

The cook was part of the resistance army, more of a sympathizer really. Although he wouldn’t dare to poison the food, helping to create a diversion, strategically using the unmarked ingredients, and providing some assistance was deemed acceptable. They poured oil on the firewood used as fuel, sealed the kerosene jar with a hole drilled in it with melting wax, and placed it inside the firewood. After setting up the ignition device, the workers from the grease factory quickly maneuvered along the walls to less important and less defended areas.

After setting everything up, they quietly exited the camp through the kitchen’s drainage pipe. Before leaving, the small boy stuck a lit torch into a pile of trash not far from the camp’s outer wall. "The plan of Tiger Skin is completed, everything went smoothly." A taller woman with her hair tied into twin tails lowered her binoculars. "It’s our turn now. Is everyone ready? Let’s go!"

As a group of construction workers, is there any problem when they show up at the construction site of the lighthouse that is only half-built? Of course not!

And is there any problem when they push a cart full of tools and shovels passing through the main street from the port towards the slums to the west? Of course, not! This is very normal, right?

So, when a sudden explosion from a distant military camp, followed by flames soaring into the sky, these seemingly scared guys pulling the cart in a panic running towards the Doge’s palace at the end of the street, the patrolling policemen on the street were caught off guard for a moment and hadn’t reacted yet. Just as they were about to tell these guys running to the wrong place to go away, a sharp blade stabbed into the back of one of them, shattering his heart.

Then, those who seemed to be ordinary workers coming off their night shifts one by one pulled out rifles from the tool cart. Although they were very old-fashioned imperial rifles, and even quite a few were hunting rifles and ancient matchlock guns, the startled guards of Doge’s palace were temporarily suppressed. On the other side, a major who had just been woken up from a dream and was putting out a fire, upon hearing the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of Doge’s palace, immediately blew his whistle in frustration, "Everyone gather, leave two teams to put out the fire, the rest go support the governor!"

"Those commoners!" The governor’s fur bristled with anger. He had thought that these lowly people had submitted to the empire’s whip and gold coins, but it turned out they had something big planned. Setting fire to the military camp, distracting the stationed troops, and then launching a full attack on Doge’s palace. Hmm, they did quite well, but it was futile. "When Major Peter arrives, I will flay these commoners, hang their skins on the city gates!"

"You think we’re going to raid the camp while they’re distracted, but we’re going to attack Doge’s palace. And when we attack Doge’s palace…" A young girl with jade-green eyes raised her rifle towards a guard nervously operating a searchlight and machine gun on the tower. "Bang!" The sound of the gunshot was drowned out by the gunfire from Doge’s palace a couple of streets away and the slightly chaotic noise in the camp, as the bullet easily pierced his skull, causing him to fall silently.

The agile little Bean swiftly flipped into the military camp from the shadows, climbed up the tower, dragged the guard who had slumped against the railing to the side, wore his helmet, hid behind the searchlight, and after a pause of about a minute, the light beam began to roam again. The guard on the other tower, who was initially suspicious, shook his head. That idiot must have been daydreaming. He let go of the rope to the alarm bell he was holding in his right hand.

The searchlight beam accurately and perfectly avoided the procession running towards the small patrol ship moored in the port through the dark area. Due to the fire, the on-duty sailors also ran down from the ship to help extinguish the fire. However, the captain still had some sense, and retained some crew members on the ship, ready to start a fire and attack quickly if necessary.

The Imperial patrol ship was a standard small airship, with a crew of about 40-60 people, usually around 15 people on duty. However, today, due to the chaos in the military camp, there were only 7 people left on guard on the ship. One on the bridge, two guarding the deck, one in the engine room, and the remaining 3 were a complete gun crew, chatting away in the gun room.

Kulo led her familiar group of people around possible hidden watchers and ran into the parking lot. These people she brought were all from the repair shop and were used to coming here. They would get some "prematurely scrapped" parts from the heads of those empire repair shops. This kind of thing is hard to completely stop among the front-line forces of the empire, especially in these small fleet areas.

So, when they unexpectedly encountered a soldier in a "secret" passage they usually used for smuggling parts, who might have been running to inform the ship’s crew, the soldier just looked with surprise at these "acquaintances," then got hit in the eye by a sharp steel rod, which pierced through the back of the soldier’s head with a loud "bang!" The sailor lying on the ship’s side fell down with a thud, and dark figures quickly climbed up the ship’s side and dove in through the never-closed portholes.

In order to prevent a ship full of unlucky people from dying due to air leakage in space, once these portholes are closed, it is impossible to pry them open from the outside. The design of double-layered glass with metal mesh is also difficult to break easily. Luckily, this curious idiot didn’t succeed, otherwise the resistance army would have had to spend a lot of effort to infiltrate the ship.

While normally the warships have their windows open on the ground to let out the damp and murky air from inside the ship, allowing the compartments to dry out. Otherwise, being in such a sealed and humid environment for a long time would easily lead to the growth of mold, affecting the lifespan of the ship and causing excessive air consumption, reducing the range. Therefore, usually when they are on the ground for maintenance, the portholes and all compartment doors are open.

But clearly, this was not a normal time. So, the captain immediately ordered the doors to be closed, but still there were some who thought it didn’t matter and secretly opened the windows to breathe fresh air. In a state of no alertness, the guards inside the ship were quickly eliminated, and Kulo’s group took over this small empire patrol ship, and began to activate its steam boiler, turning the built-in turret towards Doge’s palace.

"Bang!" Blue Eyes decisively knocked down another guard on a high tower, picked up a rifle and ran towards the tower, while others also noticed the anomaly in the parking area. Some soldiers dropped their tools and ran towards the dock, and the searchlights on the tower timely shone over, as if coordinated during emergency training, but then a burst of machine gun fire with a dense rain of bullets came from behind, suppressing the two whole squads of people on the camp’s path to the dock.

"Boom!" Two 80mm caliber guns on the side of the patrol ship sounded loudly, the repairmen controlling them had not received any artillery training, but that didn’t stop them from randomly bombarding the largest and tallest buildings of Doge’s palace, instantly confusing the guards who were fiercely battling with the frontline resistance army near Doge’s palace gate.

"……" Major Pitrel stared blankly ahead, less than 10 meters remained, just around the bend. If it weren’t for the annoyance of those damned troublemakers on the road, his speed could have been faster. But with the cannon fire coming from behind, that familiar sound made him immediately realize he had fallen into a trap.

In normal circumstances, let alone a patrol ship, even if they were given a few more, the main fleet stationed near the satellite could easily crush this bunch of riffraff, but the Eighth Fleet had been completely redeployed to carry out a secret mission, a piece of information that shouldn’t have been leaked, but…

How did these rebels find out about this? And how did they manage to gather such detailed information and make plans? The most important thing now is what to do next. It wouldn’t be a big deal for a patrol ship under normal circumstances, but at this moment, blowing all of ourselves up in the street wouldn’t be a problem!

"Hmm, it seems like your intelligence is quite accurate," the leader of the resistance army said, looking at the sturdy short person covered in a cloak. "Sniff sniff~ Of course, our intelligence has always been accurate!"

This is their livelihood, there couldn’t possibly be any mistakes. And if even the skilled hands have been assured, what could go wrong? "Rewards… rewards~ sniff sniff~"

"The Empire’s military food warehouse is yours now. Apart from weapons and ammunition, you can choose any other spoils first."

"Sniff sniff~ Hey, hey good~ fluffy-tailed creature, let’s, let’s work together happily!"