The refueling took another day and there were no more surprises.
After they finished gathering fuel they set course to the system with the hideout.
They jumped in and immediately their target lock warnings came to life.
The automated defenses activated immediately after they were detected.
However they transmitted the codes provided by now dead pirates and the defense system powered down.
Not that it could do anything to them as there were only four energy cannons and a missile launcher.
So if they wanted they could easily destroy it but why bother when you have a way to bypass it.
Steuner stayed with the ships and both humans went into the small outpost using their shuttles.
They were both in armor and armed to the teeth.
Aside from their energy rifles they brought sidearms and their cold weapons just in case.
The pirates inside were not suspecting an assault from anyone and trusted their defense systems to warn them of any threat.
That turned out to be their downfall.
The first one was taken out by Simon's arrow and went down not even realizing he died when it hit the back of his head and exited through his face.
This bow was stronger and especially designed for his power armor.
The next pirate lost his head,literally when Mikael took him by surprise and used his battle axe.
That should be all of them but there was another one that they found when he called for his comrades.
This one ended up with an armored fist crushing his skull against a bulkhead.
All three of them were from the same species.
They were humanoid and very similar to humans except that their skin was dark gray and they had some sort of tentacles instead of the fingers.
After eliminating all the threats the humans searched the pirate base and found many things of value and the most valuable of all were two matter converters which they immediately transported into their shuttles.
Eventually they found the captured slaves and it turned out that they were the crews and passengers of the ships they found a bit later in a hangar bay.
There were around seventy of them from different races but when they finally understood that they were rescued they were very grateful,some even offered gifts to the humans for their help.
Humans of course accepted the gifts and also when asked about who they were they introduced themselves as humans from the Sol system.
Some of the aliens promised to talk to their governments to send envoys to earth and some merchants wanted to broker a trade deals but Simon explained to them that it would take some time before earth had the facilities for all of this and asked them to come in around two or three years if they wanted to and then they would be welcome to trade to their heart's content.
After answering some more questions the aliens boarded their ships and left.
Simon and Mikael on the other hand helped themselves to the pirates' ammunition and whatever materials or technology they found.
Thanks to this little detour now they had some missiles for their launchers and they even found some space mines.
The ammunition and materials got distributed equally amongst them.
After clearing up the pirates hideout they downloaded their database and had some target practice before they left.
Thankfully the missiles were standard federation munitions so they were compatible with their launchers and the same went for the mines.
However since they didn't want to waste them they used energy weapons to destroy the hideout.
-This little detour was with the time,we have mot tech and also got ourselves some ammunition.
Simon was happy that they took this detour.
-We also found some friends and now we really have to get back to earth and convince everyone to start preparing for their arrival in around two years.
Mikael said.
-Actually i think that this will help us,as whether they want to or not the world leaders will soon have diplomats and traders from other planets coming to negotiate pacts and trade agreements.
Simon said ,just now realizing that he really forced the hands of all the leaders of the world.
Now they had to work it out and they also were forced to work with him if they didn't want to look like fools in the future.
This was not just diplomacy between countries,this was diplomacy on the galactic scale and if something went wrong then the results could be catastrophic.
-I recommend building more ships and fast.
Steuner said.
-In the end if you are strong enough then nobody will try to challenge you.
He shared his thoughts.
-You are right but we need more than just a fleet.
We need a space station and a shipyard not to mention that it would be a great thing to get ourselves a colony or two.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves,first let's get to earth and then we can figure out the rest.
Simon said.
The other two agreed and they got back on course.
While in FTL they discussed their plans and the necessary changes to it after they invited aliens to visit earth.
-With this development we really need to build a space station if for nothing else then to have a place to greet the diplomats and merchants.
Mikael said.
-We have blueprints of several stations in the database and also we have schematics for a space dock which are easier to build than shipyards.
Simon shared his findings.
Also the matter converters we found will be very useful especially if we can make more of them and bigger.
He added.
-If nothing else ,they will be more useful in creating more complicated parts and also i think that we can use them to end the world hunger issue.
Mikael shared his idea.
How will we do that?
-Well they can produce protein bars from almost any organic materials and with the organic waste on our planet we should be able to produce billions of bars daily.
If we have enough converters.
Also we can solve the trash problem by converting trash into materials.
Simon was stunned at this revelation,he never thought about it in this way.
-This idea might actually work and if we can do that and introduce the reactors as a clean energy source and add drones to clean up all the trash in the oceans and on land then we will have no problems with the environmentalists.
The longer they talked the more problems seemed solvable on the planet