Side Chapter Hood 6: Preparation

In the Neilox System, the mass force of Dominous Hood was preparing for the eventual attack on their headquarters.

The base was on high alert, but the prisoners mining had no clue about the changes.

The upper echelons were discussing plans while the lower ranks were being sorted into stations, ready for what was to be war.

Evacuating could be considered the best option, since they shouldn’t need to have a headquarters—that was, if they didn’t have something hidden within the planets’ surfaces.

Across the planets, speaking over their communications, the major leaders of Dominous Hood were discussing the final

“How has the development of our major project gone?”

The leader of Project Lim spoke first, “Project Lim has now gone on indefinite pause, and all resources have been brought back to deal with this threat. Outside of that, we were reaching our goals and had eliminated many potentially hostile targets, but we weren’t able to destroy the assault fleet’s major vessels, as the team was compromised and captured, but they contained nothing that could be taken.”

“Good, we don’t want another leak.” The leak that caused the location of their base to be discovered was deeply unfortunate, but something they had been preparing for one day. Still, obviously, just because they were aware of the eventual scenario didn’t mean anyone was happy with the reveal.

What made it even worse was that the person who was captured failed to ensure they wouldn’t become liable for the unauthorised action, which even resulted in the loss of life of someone from the seer division.

“Do you have any words on what befell the captured one?”

“No, and we still don’t know what method of extraction was utilised, but the only scrap we were able to collect was that it was done under Nina Clarword's jurisdiction.”

That name caused some silence among the crowd. She previously was on Project Lim’s watchlist, but since her artefact was considered more important than her life, that was prioritised, as people like her were extremely difficult to kill; however, not finishing her off before appeared to be a mistake.

“Okay, how about Project Arm?”

The head of that division said, “It is going smoothly, and all armaments are ready for combat. Research has been halted for what is deemed to be incomplete by the attack, but a few streams are still working, as we believe at least something can be developed by the deadline.”

“How about the cross work with the head commander?”

“That has gone well. From our recent collaboration, we were able to reverse engineer some of our newest dungeon artefacts and create a new batch of lesser items. There has also been my progress, and new artefacts with connections to the unknowns have been found, many ready to be utilised already, as some of my combatants have already linked with them. There are a few waiting to be linked, and we have spoken to the Project Lim’s lead to find adequate people for the positions.”

“Good.” The head of the meeting nodded. “What about Project Evo?”

The head of Arm spoke again, “The head is currently still in his laboratory working on it. The devices acquired from the auction have been a great boon to our goal as always, but he is trying rapidly to make progress while under pressure.”

“If only that bastard hadn’t been hidden for so long.” Another head complained. The research they had made from acquiring Craftalot’s items in the past had always granted them great advancement in their research, but quickly, the man disappeared from the face of the universe.

The attack on Jelannax station had been considered a success. They hadn’t lost too many personnel; most of the force were simply pirates that wanted a big pay day. Space pirates had been expanding greatly over the past twenty years, and it was beginning to reach the point where they were treading on each other's toes.

So the attack was an opportunity for many different pirates to get a massive payday without harming each other’s profits. Some played to use the money to leave the field, while others were ready to expand. Dominous Hood had a hand in helping the space pirate plague expand over the years, so they already had communications with the key individuals. There were people who said no to the plan, but they were easily convinced.

Still, Dominous Hood’s definition of success might’ve stretched the term until it became very loose.

They acquired some artefacts and machinery created by Craftalot, but not much and certainly less than they originally planned. Still, their prophecy division had already informed them they were on a time limit, so action had to be taken.

“There has been an issue with the seer division.” One of the executives announced, “Every recent attempt to scry the attack has been met with nothing.”

“When did this start?”

“About the fleet first gathered.”

“I see… If they have Craftalot on their side, perhaps he managed to create an artefact to block our scrying attempts. If so, such a device wouldn’t be cheap to run.”

The meeting ended after the heads of the divisions had spoken for a while longer about the defence plan. They all knew this wasn’t going to be the last time they spoke to each other before the deadline approached.

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Not all lower recruits were taken by the waves of panic and urgency; some were just willing to ride this chaos until the fighting started.

From the hallway leading towards the room he was currently sitting in, Zeye saw his old teammate.

“Hello, Zeye,” Thomas waved with a smile from the end of the hallway.

“Good to see you, Thomas.” Zeye nodded. It had been a while.

“Thanks!” Thomas fully walked into the room.

It had been a long time since they had seen each other, longer still since they last worked together.

They were once teammates and were about as close as ‘friends’ as you could get in this organisation. They worked on many missions together under their former leader, Zen, one of which was an attack on a company space vessel that had managed to acquire some powerful artefacts. Arrows that had been weapons for many of Dominous Hood's assassination attempts, wiping out many high-level professional hunters.

“Your robot girlfriend is not around?” Zeye asked with mild curiosity. Ever since Thomas had her built, she had been by his side.

“Eh… She is being repaired… You got slightly melted away…”

“Oh? Oh… The station attack, I understand. I’ve been off the network for a while. So I couldn’t help you with that.”

“Honestly, I might've needed it. I nearly died.”

Zeye’s eyebrow raised, “You?” That sounded nearly ridiculous. Thomas was a crazy lunatic, but a powerful lunatic. When he said his robot got destroyed, Zeye assumed that it was because he had done something stupid. “How did that happen?”

“I got on the wrong side of a really hot girl, this time literally hot, as in, ouch, those fires burned so hot.” Thomas shook his hands in a funny gesture.

“...One of the times, a little bit of seriousness would be appreciated.”

“Then let me state it clearly. I survived by a combination of luck and the payment of a few lucky bets I have made.”

“...Were they neutralised?”

“I fucking well hope so. Stabbed the

arrow right into her stomach.” He remembered her voice near the end, where it was no longer distorted by the helmet but certainly still distorted by the flames, pain, and mana. “Then she still had enough energy to chase me down and enough to blow up an entire massive space warship from a different era.”

“She was the one who did that from the report?” Zeye had come to an understanding of who Thomas was speaking about. He had read a report that covered the Jellannax station attack. The report Zeye read was one that only covered basic information but mentioned the individual responsible for the sudden destruction of the warship was killed, and they named the individual as Target Solarious.

“Yep. Heard she was reported dead since, well, an arrow in the stomach, plus that last attack would’ve destroyed any chances she had.” Thomas rolled his eyes. They hadn’t found a body, considering that if she did die, it was likely that it had evaporated–that was the outcome that Thomas didn’t exactly agree with.

“Is it possible for anyone to actually perform an attack that large?”

“At the time, based on the mana readings, she seemed to have used a powerful mana storage artefact to fuel the attack. Still insane that she managed to channel it, but that alone still should’ve killed her.”

Thomas gave further recounts of that day, from which Zeye had to deduce what was credible and what was Thomas adding some extra flair to the story.

Eventually, a third member joined the club.

“There he is, the manager!” Thomas cheered.

“Good to see you too…” Zen nodded; facing Thomas in person for the first time in ages was always an experience.

“You can use his name… Hello, Zen.”

Zen returned the greetings, and Thomas said once they were done, “Both your names start with ‘z’, easier to use different names.”

Zeye said, “You didn’t have this problem when we worked together.”

He shrugged, “Newly developed.”

Zeye and Zen ignored Thomas.

Zeye asked, “So, how is it looking?”

“The operation?” Zen's eyes narrowed. “Well, it will be the first time we are using all our resources, which has gotten some people excited.”

Thomas cheered, “Going out of the shadows and allowing the war machine to reveal itself. How I have waited for this day.”

Zen said, “Shut up, you psycho, just focus on getting your robot repaired.”

“Kelet will be in working order by the end of the week.”

“Good, but look, the situation is as expected. You will be given your orders when the time is right, so be prepared.”

“Understood, Sir.” They both formally saluted, then had a casual chat about dinner.