The Almighty Ring

“Who do you think you are? You think I’m going to contact someone just because you asked me to? I’m the captain of the space police force! Know your place! Officers, seize this ship,” said the captain proudly, ordering his officers to arrest Jiang Fei.

“Before you regret doing this, I suggest you give that number a call, you’ll thank me later,” said Jiang Fei, before he nonchalantly left the bridge.

“Arrogant scum of society! Just because his family is rich, that doesn’t mean he will be useful to society! I’ll arrest your sorry arse and let you rot in jail for a couple of weeks! Let that teach you a lesson!” roared the captain.

“Captain, what should we do now?” asked another officer.

“Seize the ship like I asked you to. I want to see just how strong his background is! Hmph! He thinks he can walk over my head!” said the captain conceitedly.

He unfolded the communicator and contacted the person on the other side. As the captain pressed the communicator to his ears, the other officers exchanged worried looks.

Checking the entire ship was an impossible task, but seizing it would be easy as they were already on the bridge. Push a few buttons, flip a few switches, and the ship would be theirs to control.

Just as one of the officers was about to take a seat on the captain’s chair, the communicator established a link and a second later, the captain’s face turned as pale as a sheet of paper.

“I-I-I am the patrol captain of the Trade Federation Space Police. I have seized an unregistered ship that belongs to a person named Jiang Fei. He gave me this contact to solve…”

“Ack… I see…”

“I see…”

The captain repeated the same answer whilst rapidly nodding his head.

“Yes! I understand!”

“YES! THANK YOU!”

“As you command!”

…

The call ended and the captain dropped to his knees. He slowly crawled to the nearest wall and banged his head on it.

“Captain? What’s going on with you?” asked the second-in-command.

The captain was panicking and the others were about to join him.

The captain muttered nonsense and could not seem to articulate a proper sentence, “That… he… I… GAH!”

When the communicator established a link, the person on the other side had greeted the captain as such, “Hello. This is the Trade Federation Intergalactic Fleet Command Center. This is General Lockseed’s personal secretary speaking, what can I do for you today?”

The simple greeting had rendered the captain stupefied, both figuratively and literally. He was nothing but a low-ranking officer of a patrol team, his position on Hyur was comparable to a small district patrol officer on Earth! Not even a cop with a gun and badge! The other officers under him would not even qualify to wear a uniform.

And him, a lowly captain of a patrol team, had called the Federation’s military leader because he made a mistake. A stupid mistake caused by his own greed. He could not even try to pass it off as a miss-dialled call, as the person who handed him the communicator knew how the captain had wronged him!

It was too late for regret now. He should have done his job properly, instead of trying to pull nasty tricks on innocent passersby. But then again, he had pulled off the same trick many times without ever getting caught before!

But alas, how could he know Jiang Fei’s real background? Argh… to think that just for a few coins, he had dug himself a grave so deep that not even a black hole could match it.

He had no idea what to do now. All he could do was wrap his hands around his legs and stare, stupefied, at his other officers.

“Captain, what should we do?”

“Captain! Please tell us!”

“Captain!”

…

One by one, the officers cried out, begging for their captain to give them an order.

He finally spoke, or rather, muttered, “Re-Re-Retreat…”

After that, like in a dream, he felt detached from his body as he walked out of the bridge of Braveheart and returned to his own patrol ship. Once he was back in his seat, he quickly gave the order to release control of Braveheart. His entire team then returned to the ground station on Hyur.

“Captain? What happened back there?”

“Captain, are you alright?”

One of the smarter officers guessed the outcome, “Did you talk to the person over the coms? Who was it? What did you find out?”

“Don’t burden yourself with the knowledge I know. Go back, find a new job, leave this planet if you can. No, leave this planet as soon as possible,” muttered the captain.

After the incident, he requested for a long non-paid leave from his superior. Before he left his office that night, he left a letter of resignation on his desk. He returned to his family and bought the next cruiser ticket away from Hyur.

Jiang Fei was oblivious to this matter entirely, about how he managed to get a patrol team captain to quit his job and leave the planet itself. That being said, even if he knew, he would not give two f*cks about it.

Ever since he was inflicted with the black matter, he did not possess empathy as he did before. Public servants of such repute did not deserve any attention.

…

“Captain, the patrol ships are gone and the ship’s control has been surrendered back to us,” said 0541 after the police team left.

In reality, the ship’s control had never once left 0541’s hands. No matter what they did, they could never have full control of Braveheart.

Jiang Fei huffed. “I know.”

As if the invaders from Gamma Dimension had not been troubling enough for him… to think that this small matter would actually get on his nerves.

“Captain, we have just received a transmission,” reported 0541.

“Put it on the screen,” said Jiang Fei.

Judging by the looks of it, the message should be the closing report from the police. Lockseed must have sorted things out for him. Unbeknownst to Jiang Fei, Lockseed had no part in this matter.

His secretary alone was enough to scare the living crap out of the patrol captain! If Lockseed had personally picked up the call, the captain might have actually died on the spot from heart failure.

“Greetings, sir Jiang Fei. I am Thomas, Hyur’s Administrative Chief Executive Officer. General Lockseed has just informed me about the predicament you faced not too long ago.

“I take responsibility for the actions of those public servants and offer my sincerest apologies. Please understand that they were just doing as they were told. I hope that you will not seek any repercussions for the aforementioned incident,” said Thomas in an apologetic tone.

Even though Lockseed’s name did somehow affect the outcome, Thomas took all responsibility for the incident, instead of pushing the blame on those officers.

“I understand. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to them,” said Jiang Fei.

Unless they had actually touched his girls, he could not be bothered by such menial problems. To be honest, if those officers had done their jobs right and were not trying to extort Jiang Fei, he would have been cooperative.

Thomas bowed before he thanked Jiang Fei, “Thank you very much, sir Jiang Fei.”

“By the way, I need to stop on Hyur to resupply. Could you please arrange for a hangar bay I can land in?” requested Jiang Fei.

Since Thomas, the CEO of the Administration of Hyur was already on the line, and Lockseed’s name was mentioned earlier, Jiang Fei thought that he should ride the wind and take advantage of the situation!

“Everything is already arranged for you, sir. A port has already been opened up for you. Please wait for guidance control to escort you to your private hangar,” said Thomas.

He did mention something about a special hangar bay opened for the purpose to accommodate Jiang Fei’s ship, but Jiang Fei could not care less about it. Although Thomas made it sound grand, it was never his intention to kiss Jiang Fei’s butt.

Braveheart was simply too enormous when compared to any other cruiser on Hyur. No combat-oriented cruiser would be that big as it would greatly affect its mobility. Braveheart was only built so big because it was never a battlecruiser in the first place, but a vessel to transport civilians.