"Village chief, everyone! I want my loved ones to stop living in fear of death. I want my children to live happy, carefree lives..."
Spartacus was no great speaker, but those words moved every Ryan Race warrior.
The Locke Conglomerate's oppressive enslavement and greedy demands had long filled them with resentment. They were not afraid to die fighting among the stars, as long as they could see hope!
And a band of pirates had brought them that hope.
With Spartacus, one of their own, speaking on the pirates' behalf, and the obvious disparity in firepower, everyone in the village cooperated, boarding the landing craft with their families in tow.
Finally, Nie Yun burned the entire village to the ground, making it look like a pirate raid.
It was not just Village No. 67. Pirates elsewhere on Ryan Star had also begun "burning, killing, and pillaging" across the planet.
Whether plundering property or people, they surrounded the villages one by one, intimidated them with force, then packed everything up and took it away.
The Ryan Race certainly deserved to be called a warrior people. They received a Spartan upbringing from childhood, and under the pressures of their harsh environment, even women and half-grown children possessed considerable fighting ability.
But this was no age of swords and spears. Severely lacking modern weapons, the Ryan Race offered only scattered resistance before bands of vicious-looking pirates herded them onto ships.
The population raids continued for five full days, with landing craft shuttling back and forth across Ryan Star. Only when the ships Nie Yun had brought could hold no more did he finally lead his fleet away, with some regret.
In the end, nearly a hundred villages had been emptied, and close to a hundred thousand members of the Ryan Race had been abducted.