Aquarius EZ Galaxy.

After the human civilization left here, the stealth strategy was canceled, and the spaceships gathered here finally turned on the communication channels, turned on the lights, and various equipment. I don't know how long I have been in the dark, but the "slaves" who have been tortured and driven crazy, including Evans, finally see the light again. The temperature maintenance system also began to work, and the cabin was finally not so cold, but under the warm air, the smell of all kinds of excrement and waste in the cabin was even greater, almost to the point of stunning.

Three more companions died, and they ...... After all, I couldn't wait for the moment when the light came.

But it soon became clear to Evans that dying in the dark was not a blessing. The dead do not feel pain, but those who are still alive are still suffering under torture.

Like the rest of the surviving slaves, Evans began to be forced to do the hardest, most tiring, and most dangerous jobs under the threat of guns and horrific torture instruments. It was the slaves who repaired the ship's exterior armor, the Evans did it to transport supplies between the ships in the dilapidated airship that seemed to be about to fall apart, and it was the Evans who repaired the ship's core components in the cold or heat - a job that only robots could do, but now it was up to the slaves.

There are not only high temperatures or severe cold, but also all kinds of pathogenic and deadly rays and radiation. As a result, many people's skin festered, their eyes became blind, and their bones died...... But this work has to be continued. Because if you do it, you will be able to survive without dying immediately, and if you dare to refuse to work, you will be brutally tortured to death immediately, and then your body will be thrown into space. Evans had seen this happen several times in that time.

All this pain and suffering, Evans gritted his teeth and persevered. Every time Evans felt that he was about to lose his support, Evans would think of his wife or children, and Evans would tell himself that he must persevere, and he must return to human civilization......

Compared to the life of the slaves, the life of the robbers was much better. They had good wine, good food, and beautiful young women who had been taken from nowhere for their amusement. Of course, there are also bandits, but even the lowest-ranking robbers are much better off than slaves.

After staying here for a long time, and being interested in gathering information, Evans also knew a little bit about the robbers.

They were originally interstellar pirates, and when the robot crisis came, they returned to human civilization through various means and fled with human civilization.

However, there is order in human civilization, everyone's behavior must be constrained by law or morality, and the material distribution system is implemented within the civilization, even if the pirates have accumulated huge wealth in the past, they have no way to live a drunken life here as before. So, under the organization of several pirate leaders, the pirates planned for half a year, and finally successfully carried out the escape plan, returned to their old jobs, and became pirates again.

This information made Evans's heart feel a little lighter. Since you are a pirate, you must rob something. There are no things or merchant ships to loot in this starry sky, and the only ones that can be targeted for robbery are human civilization. In other words, pirates are dependent on human civilization. It was clear, then, that they would quietly follow the fugitive fleet and not go too far. This also means that there is still a chance to return to human civilization.

Things went just as Evans had predicted, and after the human civilization fugitive fleet had distanced itself from the pirate fleet enough and the pirate fleet had been repaired, the pirates finally set off. They quietly followed the fugitive fleet about a dozen broad days, maintaining the same course as the fugitive fleet.

Evans has been looking forward to the battle between the pirate fleet and the military warship, because in that case, it means that the matter of the pirate fleet has been detected by human civilization, so with the power of human civilization, it will only be a matter of time before this pirate fleet is destroyed, and he can return to human civilization. But unexpectedly, the pirate fleet always follows from a distance, carefully concealing itself. They didn't even loot anymore - the other day there was a ship that happened to pass near the pirate quarters, I don't know if it was a research ship or some kind of spaceship, and it was obviously loaded with all kinds of supplies, but the pirates watched the ship pass by them, and did nothing but try to hide themselves from detection.

Evans' doubts were dispelled one day. Perhaps because of his dedication to his work and his willingness to resist, Evans gained a certain level of trust from the pirates, so Evans was assigned to do other easier tasks.

So Evans saw a lot of plants blooming with evil and strange flowers in a large spaceship. Is that...... Poppy. Not only poppy, but Evans gradually learned that among the rest of the ships there were complete drug factories, munitions factories, and all kinds of manufacturing workshops that I don't know what they were.

As long as it is illegal and profitable, there are all in the pirate fleet. Every few days, a pirate spaceship disguised as a merchant ship or a transport ship will depart from here, loaded with drugs, arms and other things, and return to human civilization with the cooperation of those spies who are still hidden in human civilization, these things will be sold through various black channels, and then exchanged for food, energy, precision equipment and other things that pirates urgently need and then transported to the pirate fleet, and every time those merchant ships return, they will bring back more than hundreds, as little as dozens of people.

At one point, Evans saw that they even brought back several scrapped military combat ships. Of course, the combat ships were also repaired and turned into the property of the pirates.

Evans knew that even within human civilization, pirates wielded enormous influence. I don't know how many high-ranking officials or military figures have been corrupted and co-opted by the pirates, otherwise the pirates' movements would not have been so smooth. Together, these people have formed a huge network of interests, and they are like tumors in the human body, unscrupulously absorbing the nutrients of the body.

In this case, of course, the pirates don't need to rob anymore, it's too untechnical, not only has a low rate of return, but also a high risk - in other words, what kind of robbery has a rate of return that can compare to the current business model?

But the pirates weren't without their troubles. The absence of a threat to human civilization does not mean that there is no threat to the rest of the world. This business model of pirates is very profitable and low-risk, which is undoubtedly a good way to go, and because it is an easy road to follow, it is definitely not only this group of pirates who can think of this.

In fact, a second group of pirates soon appeared, and they were even stronger than they had been when they first escaped. So the two groups of pirates inevitably clashed, and the specific reason for the conflict Evans did not know, but it was nothing more than those reasons for competing for markets, competing for resources, and expanding their own territory.

It wasn't until the conflict broke out that Evans realized the reason why the pirates had taken so much risk that they even dared to expand their strength by scrapping their ships. Expand your capabilities...... Not to confront the military, but to confront their own kind, to confront the rest of the pirates. Even when the pirates had just escaped, the pirate leader had already thought about what would happen now, and was well prepared for it. From this point of view, the pirate leader was indeed not an ordinary person.

The final result of the conflict was unbeknownst to Evans, who only knew that his pirate group had more than a dozen more spaceships, and more than a hundred more cold corpses in space.

It's not far from the fugitive fleets of human civilization. Logically speaking, the detection system of the fugitive fleet will definitely be able to detect this conflict. But for some reason, human civilization remained indifferent, did not react to the conflict that took place around them, and the long-awaited military spaceship did not arrive.

When he saw that the volume of the ship's ship was at least half that of the last time, Evans understood. Evans knew that most of the extra things went into the pockets of one or a few big people, and when the pockets were full, things naturally came down.

There is always no shortage of careerists in a civilization, so pirates are like leeks, cutting stubble after stubble. New pirate forces were constantly escaping from the fugitive fleet, and gradually the pirates were so numerous that Evans's pirate group had no time to swallow them up.

In the dark starry sky, it is as chaotic as the Warring States period, and pirates are merging, dying, growing, and expanding...... One pirate group after another disappears, one pirate group after another, and one pirate group grows...... By now, Evans, who had grown into the middle of the group and had access to some confidential events, had lost count of how many pirate forces existed in this starry sky.

But no matter how the situation changes, Evans is always the most powerful of the pirates.

Countless pirate forces are like moths parasitic on the big tree of human civilization, constantly absorbing nutrients and never ending. And all this ugliness is hidden by the dark starry sky, and it is still quiet, at least ...... It looks like this. (To be continued.) )