As I made my way to the other ship, I joined the tactical channel that all the people that were in the boarding action were part of. This was actually something I would still be unable to do normally but Ishi’s team had some tech that was phishing updated to me. Similar to what I received from the turrets. So I had the coms because we were close enough to each other and I had a tactical overlay in my hud.

There were dots in various colors: Red for RD people, green for our people, grey for dead people, blue for disabled people. There might have been more but these were the only ones I saw.

I made it into the ship and directly saw what the first three blue dots were about. There were three goons from RD sitting propped up against the corridor wall. The face plates of their vac suites smashed in, hands and feet tied with what looked like zip ties or some futuristic variant thereof. Because their faceplates had been shattered, most of them sported bleeding scrapes over their faces. One of them moaned in pain because it looked like he had lost an eye.

I had to give the Drak credit. He was not the most sociable or conversationally savvy member of our crew. But damn if he could not engage with extreme prejudice when the situation called for it.

“Take cover!”

“The corridor to the left.”

“Fire in the hole!”

These were the bits of information I got from the channel. I also saw a group of four red dots change to three grey and one blue dot.

“Ygglog, Ralgau, where are you at?” I asked.

“Upper deck, I mark a path. 20 meters to the bridge.” Ralgau’s reply was short and clipped. I also heard gunfire as he was speaking.

As promised, a path got marked on my hud and I started making my way to them. I needed to climb two decks up from where I entered into the enemy cruiser and then make my way all the way to the front of the ship. Shouldn’t take me long.

I found the ladder to climb up to the next deck. No problem. I climbed up and had just stuck my head through the hatch when a glob of plasma hit the rung I had just let go of and missed my head but just a few inches. Too fucking close.

I let go of the ladder and dropped to the floor. It was only like a meter and a half so no big deal.

“I have one guy pinning down the hatch between the boarding deck and one up!” I shouted into the channel. My adrenaline in overdrive.

“Captain, we are pinned outside engineering and can’t provide assistance.” the mercs responded.

“We are near the bridge but they are holed up in it and at least six people are firing on us.” Ralgau shouted over the pop and whine of his plasma rifle.

I switched com channels.

“Ishi, any chance for reinforcements?”

“Not trained boarders and I hate to throw anybody else into the line of fire.”

Good man! I wished that all of my previous superiors would have thought like that. “No worries, we’ll sort it out.” I responded and then switched back to the tactical channel to stay informed what was going on.

The thing is when you are crossing between two floor levels on a ladder, it is the most exposed you can possibly be. And there was fuck all I could do about it. Actually… not entirely true. I looked at the hatch… about a meter squared. That could work. The biggest problem was that I had not seen the shooter. Which meant that he could be in one of three directions. Left, Right and behind me when I came up the ladder. I excluded below because that is where I was just now and I also discarded the idea of above because I was actually stupidly standing under the opening of the hatch without considering that possibility. And if he would have been up there, I would be dead. Or at least I would have been shot at.

So now I needed two things. A distraction and cover. The distraction would hopefully give me enough time to figure out where the shooter was and the cover… well, you get that one, no?

So to put my plan into action I made my way back to the first and only guys I had seen on the cruiser so far. Then I grabbed one-eye and slung him over my shoulder. No big deal! You see, gravity was only about half of earth grav. So while it was nice enough to keep your feet on the ground, it also made everything a lot lighter. Including pirates you decide to drag around.

I dropped him off underneath the hatch. Then I looked around and it didn’t take me long to see a tool box sitting next to an opened wall panel. Looks like we had interrupted some good old fashioned maintenance. The lack of dots in my vicinity told me that my comrades had not found anybody near this box and nothing was marked on the hud. The lack of vomit told me that the guy that did the maintenance was either immune to jump sickness, had had his helmet closed or that there simply was nobody.

I rifled through the box and found what I was looking for. A tool that was about the size of a fist or a little bigger, black and made from some kind of plastic or metal. Heavy enough. I had no idea what it was for but it might do the trick.

Back at the ladder, I slung the arms of the barely conscious pirate around my neck. That was the reason I picked one-eye. He looked like he barely held on, so that played in my favor. Otherwise I would not have any pirate put their arms around me.

With my “pirate cape” in place, I stepped on the ladder and made my way until just short of the hatch. Then, while holding on with one hand, I took the tool which I had shoved into the belt the pirate was wearing and turned off my mic.

“Fire in the hole!” I yelled and tossed the tool into the corridor I suspected the guy was hiding in. I heard the clatter of the tool while pulling myself up the ladder. A quick shuffle of feet from the direction I was expecting and then my living cape jerked twice and went even limper than before. I guess it was no longer a living cape.

But when I twisted my head I saw where the fire was coming from. Contrary to popular belief it was not a guy but a woman who held a plasma pistol and was half hidden in a doorway. I turned my back to her and jumped into the side corridor as quickly as I could. Stupid? Sure. Because I had no clue if she was the only one or I would get perforated from the direction I was running in. But since there was nobody and I got to cover, we can change the classification from stupid and call it a calculated risk.

I peeked around the corner to check where she was at right now. As luck would have it, she leaned out of cover at this moment to fire. But since I didn’t follow all the good advice I had gotten in training I didn’t lead with my weapon and thus was in no shape to take advantage.

So instead I twitched back into cover. Then I wrapped my left arm under my pirate covers armpits and around his chest, stood up and took a step forward, pushing him in the line of fire. My right was extended in shooting position over his shoulder as I moved us both around the corner. Immediately the dead body jerked and I hoped that she wouldn’t get lucky enough to nail me in the arm. But now I had a bead on her and I squeezed the trigger.

The first shot went wide and hit the wall to her right. The second one as well. But then she must have realized that I had better cover and tried ducking around the door frame again and that’s when I finally hit. Not a solid hit but I managed to graze her with a shot across her back as she turned which pulled her out of the half cover and I put another one right into her side just above her hip.

I smelled the burning flesh and heard her scream and to be honest, I was a bit nauseous. I do prefer to find non-violent solutions but I gritted my teeth, dropped the dead guy I was still holding up and then stepped closer, my gun trained on her. She had slumped against the doorway in a crouch, holding her side.

“Drop the gun!” I commanded.

She didn’t react. I repeated the command. Then I heard the clatter of what I think was the gun. However, when I stepped closer she suddenly twisted. And not in the ‘I want to see my attacker’ kind of way but in the ‘Take this asshole’ way. My reflexes took over and a breath later she lay sprawled out on the deck with two new holes in the center of her torso.

Small Arms skill increased.

Current Skill Level: 7 / 100

Fuck. One way of concluding the situation. I made sure to walk over and pick up her plasma pistol, which I stuck into the holster on my hip. Then I had a very quick look around but the noises over the com told me that I needed to hurry up to get to the bridge.

As I climbed up the ladder to the uppermost deck I decided to contact the RD guy.

“Hey Smarmy. How are things? You might be aware that we have neutralized most of your crew. An assault team is knocking on the door to engineering and I am on my way to reinforce the group to the bridge. I would prefer to finish this without further casualties.”

“The only casualty that matters will be you! We have people standing by on Belt Station. As soon as you come out of the CLON capsule we make sure that you will be gone for good.”

Any kind of salesman-like charm was gone from his voice. Also all the annoying attempts at humor or sounding superior. I think we had seriously rattled him.

I had made it up to the bridge deck and was now closing in on Ralgau and Ygglog who had taken cover behind the edges of the walls in an intersection about 10 meters from the door to the bridge which was closed.

For the next part of the communication I needed Irene.

Malcolm: Hey, would you please take over “negotiations”? I can’t link into their network without plugging in.

Irene: On it.

Before contacting the ‘pirate boss’ Irene made sure that everybody was at least a listening part of the conversation.

“Hello mister Sarsim and crew. My name is Irene Adler and I have been tasked with providing you some more pertinent information to your situation. First and foremost, your current situation. Number one: We are no longer in the Belt System. Instead we are now in a numbered system with the designation RZ197685. For anybody unfamiliar with this system, it is roughly 1 light years from our previous location…”

“That is not possible! We did not gate out of the system!” no-longer-smarmy interrupted Irene aggressively.

“Shush, you need to listen, not argue. Have your navigator confirm it! Moving on. For anybody that does not understand what that means…” she paused for effect. “Usually numbered systems are not connected to the CLON network. Which means anybody that is being killed during hostilities is unlikely to come back. Which of course applies to us as much as you.

“Which also brings me to my second point. Currently your ship is being boarded and cleared of all hostile forces by two teams. One of them is a boarding team from the Stardust Mercenary Group and Complaints Department. The other is a group of highly trained private individuals that are part of our crew.

“All of this information put together, we are willing to conduct the rest of the boarding action without any more people losing their lives. Have your navigator confirm the location and then make your decision. Our demands are simple: Surrender your captive, lay down your arms and you will be given fair treatment and transport to a close by system with civil amenities. You have five minutes to decide.”

Wow, she was badass.

Two warring emotions were going on for me. Number one was that I had not considered the whole ‘out of CLON range’ situation. I was not sure if Irene was just making this up to scare people or not but for now I assumed that she wasn’t bluffing. She had more experience with these things than me. Plus Nirazera was with her. And considering that, I felt a little nauseous about having permed the girl in the hallway earlier.

The other feeling was nerves and pertained to the same topic. I had no desire for people on our side to die. In the end they were either here for the ship or the money. Not some bigger purpose or grander scheme. It wasn’t about justice or doing the right thing or any of that. It was capitalism pure and simple. And while I knew that this had always been a big driver for people, I wasn’t sure if that warranted demanding they potentially get killed.

Irene: Stop it!

Malcolm: huh?

Irene: I know you. You are just having second thoughts about the whole boarding operation. Probably agonizing over the fact that this has no greater purpose than securing Nyx.

Malcolm: How?

Irene: Really? I know you! Listen, think about Nyx and what would happen to her. Think about rescuing Brelic since this actually got you to make the boarding decision. Think about who the people on the other side are - pirates, racketeers, criminals. Now ovary up and stop whining.

Nirazera: For what it is worth, I agree. I appreciate that you want to solve things without violence but this is a violent universe. And while I don’t think might makes right, defending our ship and our people is right.

Malcolm: I hear you.

Ygglogg: We will be strong and stand with you and Nyx. For the mission!

Nyx: I believe you are doing the right thing Captain and you have my full support. I appreciate you fighting for me. And the mission, as the tool-child-creation stated, comes first.

Malcolm: Nyx, how the hell did you get into the corp chat?

Nirazera: That should be impossible…

Nyx: A girl has to have her secrets captain.