Raider captain Madar grinned. "Well. Their space station is taken. What next?"
"All reconnaissance indicates they have no other defenses, sir," his second in command Lira said. She had a perpetual scowl, but seemed happy enough for her moods.
Madar looked back out the main display, an external camera looking ahead. The donut-shaped human space station hovered there, its weapons and comms arrays knocked out as his boarding parties plundered the interior for valuables. He turned to look at his pirate frigate's bridge. It was a cramped space, poorly maintained, but proud. The crew were a variety of races, from all walks of life. On the scanners above the main display, he could see the human merchant ships trying to regroup on the edge of the system, harassed by the lead raider's two corvette escorts.
His eyes flicked to the star map of their general position. It was a distant system, a new arrival to the human sphere of influence. It had a habitable planet, with an entire ocean of liquid water. It was valuable, but at the end of a long supply chain. They couldn't even get a cruiser out here regularly. All they had was the typical space station that signaled the start of a settled star system, and a single city on the inhabited planet. The raider bared his teeth. "Perfect. The stupid apes don't have any defenses!"
"That's what I just said," Lira grunted.
Madar stood up, "Check that out, crew!" He said, pointing at the viewscreen. "We raid this planet, and we're rich! These apes, they're new to the scene. But we're not just gonna get a few astronauts," He wiggled his finger, "No, no, we're gonna be the first to hit one of their habitable worlds!"
"So what makes this one so special?" someone called out.
Madar scowled. He could just make out Hac'ler, his third mate. Lira turned and watched her boss move through the bridge of the cramped spacecraft. Madar's vestigial wings flapped angrily. Lira raised her voice, "The humans are primitive, but they do have a potent fleet even taking that into account. This isn't some bronze age planet. We can't hit their big settlements. Every system they colonize, they immediately put down a trading outpost. Every system they own, regardless of whether its a yellow, red, or blue star, they put down an outpost. It's upgraded according to their needs," She jerked two of her four thumbs back at the screen, "That one is designed to be upgraded to something bigger for the colony."
"Which means there's some valuable fabricators aboard!" Madar shouted in Hac'ler's face. He smacked the smaller being and whirled about, "If we get biological samples, slaves, and their technology, we'll be able to double the size of our fleet!"
"Why not just hit a mining outpost?"
Another smack. "Because, ragweed! That would just get us a few astronauts!" Madar grabbed the heckler and pointed at the screen, "Variety is the name of the game! We get a ship or two, we get their station, and we get their colony gear! Do you know how much that stuff goes for?"
Hac'ler struggled to escape his grip, "A lot, I guess."
"Yes, you idiot! These are apes! You know what that means?"
"What?"
"They're afraid of water, dumbass!" Madar released him. "We took their station! We know their military won't be back soon! And that planet is mostly water! So..."
"So... you think they're defenseless?"
"They are defenseless!" Madar screamed, and shoved him back, "Apes don't hide things underwater. They don't put weapons down there. They have that entire ocean, and they aren't using it like we did for undersea colonies! They're stupid and *defenseless! Get this through your skull! What are you, an idiot?"
"It's not my fault you shot the last third mate! I have to get up to speed!"
"Keep talking like that, and I might do it," Lira snarled, "Come on!"
"Alright, alright..." Hac'ler shook his head. He picked up a comm set, "All boarding parties stand ready. Raiding mission ready. Let's burn down a city, y'all."
"Excellent! Let's do this! Launch all pods!" The captain shouted, pointing forward.
"Skipper!" a young pirate shouted.
"Shut up, I need to do my victory dance!" Madar barked.
"Skip! We've detected launches from their spaceport! Atmospheric craft!"
Madar paused. He looked at the scanner operator like he'd grown a fourth arm, "...and?"
"I... skip, shouldn't we be concerned?"
"What for? They're atmospheric." Madar went back to his victory dance.
The pods launched uneventfully. Lira coordinated the corvettes against some of the merchantmen. Apparently one was armed. The scanner operator watched nervously as their drop pods headed for the planet. Soon they would land, and strip the natives of their wealth. The operator flexed one hand, and wringed the other two nervously. She had nothing against these humans, she just had to eat.
Then, something lit up. "Hey..."
"What is it?" Lira snapped, walking over.
"There's no planetary defense batteries, right, ma'am?"
Lira scoffed, "They haven't even had time to set up a proper laser propulsion array here. They're using a nuclear light bulb rocket."
"Then..." the sensor operator's eyes widened, "Energy spike!"
Madar stopped dancing. "Huh?"
The ship shuddered, and suddenly, the bridge filled with intense heat. "We're being lit up by a laser array!" The operator screamed.
"Impossible! From where?!"
"From the water!" The operator howled.
"Someone shut that idiot up and find me someone who can read scopes properly!" Madar roared.
"Get us out of the line of fire!" Lira barked.
The ship was hit by another energy blast, this time locked in tight. The heat fried their sensors, took out weapon array optics. In seconds it was blind and deaf.
All except the scope operator's external camera. The sensor operator suddenly screamed, "Brace, brace, brace for impact!"
Five massive projectiles struck the ship in that moment. The pirate ship was crippled.
Far, far below, a swarm of old, creaky F-15PX fighters killed their engines and went into a dive. They were pure atmospheric fighters little changed in appearance from their 20th century counterparts. As they descended, they switched their engines back on, and recovered from their supersonic zoom climbs. One of the pilots, an older woman by the callsign Matchstick, smirked up at the sky, then back at her control. The air-launched kinetic kill missiles they'd carried had altered their fuel range, the weight loss gave them a few extra kilometers.
As they descended, the clouds gave way to ocean. Matchstick looked down at the ocean. She could see a pair of large disks, like a magnifying glass, floating in the ocean. She keyed her mic, "Nautilus, this is Matchstick. Thanks for the help. Couldn't have done it without you."
A long, slender pencil shape rose up in the water to periscope depth. A Waldo reached out underwater to retrieve the two high energy laser focusing lenses. They were reattached to the amidships focusing storage rack. "No problem, Matchstick," Nautilus transmitted, "You know our motto, 'We set em up, you knocked em down'. The UN Naval Patrol is at your service."
The pilot banked away, as the Verne-class Exoplanet Deployment Submarine descended again to the depths of the ocean, taking with it the massive microwave laser array it had in store. It had a lot of studying to do after all! For the ocean was its realm. At thirty feet below its level, the reign of spacers ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.
It was also a hell of a lot cheaper to buy a few old fighters and one submarine than it was to build entire starships to defend a planet. After all, humans love to play in the water.