Hi,

After you end the chapter I would like to ask you for your opinion about level of my english. I want to ask like before if it is getting better or not. It's really important for me as I don't know even if I should rewrite first book or let it as it is.

Please tell me your thoughts about it and if you have any question about anything just write.

Thanks,

Anarin

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I turned sideways as soon as I entered the room and I heard as everyone used short bursts of fire to take down the mercenaries. Even with siren, they weren’t prepared for immediate attack and we mowed through them before they could pull up their defense. From our group only one man took hit into the shoulder, but armor sealed the wound and he would be fine for an hour or so. We didn’t have time to look at it and gave him time his wound deserves.

We stormed the prison and we found there only three mercenaries who immediately surrendered. We bound them and I went to the console. I looked through the option until I found prisoner list. I went through it and my eyebrows raised at the number of prisoners. There were added fifty prisoners recently.

I called Liray to me. He looked over my shoulder and whistled. “Is it what I think it is?” I said to him.

“Don’t know what else it could be.” Said Liray.

With couple of pushes into the display I release all the prisoners. I walked before the containment cells and waited. Slowly one by one former crewmates of this ship walked out of the cells. They looked warily at us and some looked around themselves for potential weapons. I had to do something before they start attacking me and my men.

“My name is Leon Stonewall. I’m here to rescue you and protect you until our other forces managed to capture this ship. I would like every single one of you who can’t fight return to cells and stay there for now. Everyone else I would like you to help us with barricading this prison. I’m sure there will be retaliation form mercenaries and I want to be ready for them. If someone is injured, tell my soldiers and they will do what they can. That’s all for now.” I said.

At first they looked confused at me, but slowly smiles started to creep on their faces and some of them started to cry. Some of them went to last cell and help man in his forties come forward. He was beaten badly, but there was still spark in his eyes.

“My name is Captain John Merick. I thank you for rescuing my crew. Now tell me what can we do to help you.” He said.

So this was Leya’s friend. I didn’t want him to distract for now so telling him about Leya would have to wait. “I want some of the men to strip guards of their armors and put them on. Others will help us with barricading the door. Lastly I want injured and everyone without armor to move back.”

The men looked at John for confirmation and when he nodded they helped him into the back and then about twenty healthiest reported to me. I sent ten of them to pick armor from dead guards and rest I sent with Helia to work on barricades. I sent Borsky with three other men to help injured people and with everything in preparation I went talk to John.

He was leaning against the wall and I could see even his small walk towards me exhausted him. Two men next to him positioned defensively which told me a lot about him. They respected him and they were willing to defend him even from someone in power armor. As he saw me he placed his hands on his protectors and they relaxed.

“You have some Quality crew on your hands.” I said to him as I sat opposite him.

He looked around with tired smile. “Best in universe.” He said and focused me. “Can you tell me where are we and why did you attack this ship?”

“We’re on planet Shatar which is occupied by mercenaries. They use this ship as thread against one of two spaceports on this planet. At first they wanted to buy it, but it was prevented so they attacked us. Our only chance was to take this ship down.” I said.

“How many of you are there?” he asked.

“Around fifty.” I said.

He shook his head. “It won’t be enough. They have Kriegs locked in one cargo bay. They have around two hundred of them. That’s why they could take this ship even with all the crew.”

I frowned. That complicated our plans. We didn’t have enough people to kill that many Kriegs. They were just big lizard with sharp teeth and claws. They weren’t exactly easy to train. Best you could do was point them at the enemy, they will do anything to kill it.

I was thinking about what to do when the whole ship shook from large explosion somewhere.

● ● ●

“Sir we have a problem.” Said one of the crewmembers to Captain.

Everyone on the bridge paused and listened to the crewmember. They knew someone landed on the ship and attacked some of their crewmates, but they thought it was dealt with already.

“What happened this time?” asked Captain.

“I can’t seem to rise engineering and prison. Last messages were talking about approaching enemies.” Said the same man.

The Captain calmly looked at the console and with couple of commands opened door in one of the cargo bay. “It’s being dealt with.” He said without emotion and everyone on the bridge tensed. They knew what the Captain did.

“Sir we ….” Started saying man behind the sensor’s console, but he was interrupted as the whole ship shrugged. The man was completely white and he was staring at the console.

“Tell me what happened!” said to him Captain.

“Something breached the outer plating on our ship.” He said.

“That’s bad.” Said Captain showed himself the damage report. When he saw it he blanched. The breach was in cargo bay 4. That was the cargo bay. He looked at the man who started his report. “How many of them survived?”

“Fifty managed to escape into the ship, but others were jettisoned into the void. They are dead.” Said the man.

Captain looked at the reading with anger. “Man prepare for command thirty-four.” Said the Captain and started quickly type on the console.

● ● ●

It wasn’t hard to get to the ship. I floated towards it with all systems shut down. Once I neared, I blew myself a hole into the outer plating. I was horrified when a lot of life forms jettisoned from the hole. I thought I killed some of my friends, but Eleanor told me who they were. She told me little something about them and what their presence meant.

After the explanation I had different question. “El do you think that were all of them?” I asked.

“I’ll scan the ship and find out.” She said and I waited for her response. Even though I didn’t like killing someone like this. I wouldn’t want them to attack my friends at the same time. “I’m reading some movement on the edge of the scanners. I can’t get too good reading through all the metal, but I think some of them survived.” Said Eleanor.

“That’s not good.” I said and unstrapped myself from the pilot seat. On my way to cargo bay, I picked my weapons. “El switch Paladin to hover mode and use maximum security. I don’t want anyone entering it.” I said and jumped down from the ship.

I used thrusters to move myself towards the door inside the ship. I had to pry first door open and almost flew away went the corridor behind them decompressed. I was lucky I managed to dodge couple of items that were sucked out. I closed them behind me and in no longer than two or three minutes the ship managed to restore atmosphere in the corridor.

El try to connect to others. I want to know where they are and if they have problems. I sent to Eleanor.

Already working on it, but so far nothing. I’ll tell you as soon as I found something. She sent me back.

I started running towards the engineering or in direction where it should be. It didn’t take me long to hear first sounds of fighting. I run towards it expecting my friends fighting with creatures Eleanor called Kriegs. Instead I found mercenaries fighting for their lives against these creatures. They were in big room with a lot of tables. I would guess it was some sort of mess hall. There were about ten of the creatures and only four living mercenaries. They managed to hid behind couple of big tables and repel the attacks of Kriegs for now, but I could see it was only question of time before they will be overrun and killed. I contemplated about letting them die, but in the end I didn’t have it in me to look at someone struggling to survive and do nothing.

I pulled the nanosword, I made from the shoulder holster and moved into the room. Three of the Kriegs saw me immediately and with loud shriek run at me. I felt the world slow down as the Eleanor connected to my senses. All my senses were enhanced and I heard breathing of every creature in the room. I smelled the Kriegs stink. Now that they were closing on me, I could inspect them for the first time.

They looked like big lizard walking on two legs. Besides the scales I now saw that they were covered in really short fur. They had black claws on their hands and really sharp teeth in their extended muzzle. They had really freaky black eyes without any other color in them. They didn’t have any hair or visible ears, just this short fur covering whole body.

I didn’t wait for them to come to me and instead, with push from the thrusters, I jump at them. They were evidently accustomed to someone running from them and not jumping towards them. They jump sideways from me, but not before I managed to cut throat of one of them. I landed on the ground and duck low to dodge the swipe from one of them and used the blade to block punch from the other. I let myself push back with the blow and elbowed second Krieg into the face. With added strength from my armor I heard crunch and his face caved in. The last one tried to shriek something at the others, but one swipe from my sword took his head from him.

Still, others heard him and turned to me. They had to see they were at the disadvantage, but they still attacked me. I pulled the Fist and sent three shots into them before they came upon me. The mercenaries didn’t stand there doing nothing and they too fired at the Kriegs running at me. When they came to me I sidestepped the last one standing and ended his life with fist into side of his head.

I quickly whirled around and pointed the Fist at the mercenaries. They froze and waited for what I would do. “Drop your weapons and move towards me.” I said.

They looked at one another and then at me. “There are more of them.” He said and pointed at the dead Kriegs. “If you plan to bind us and leave here, we rather take our chances with taking down you.”

I sighed. They were right, I couldn’t let them here helpless. “Ok, I’ll let you go, but I would advise you to surrender as soon as we take over the ship and clean it form the Kriegs. You wouldn’t want to find out hard way what it takes to take me down.”

They gulped, but all of them nodded at the end. I walked out of the room facing them and once I was outside I run towards the place I thought the engineering should be. On my way I found small groups of dead mercenaries with couple of dead Kriegs, but that was all.

Leya I think I managed to connect to Lany and Strike’s team. I heard Eleanor in my head.

Than connect me to them. I said

Almost immediately I heard Lany’s voice. “I’m almost in. I just need another five minutes to get it all done.” She said and someone has to answer her, because she replied in a while. “I know, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

“Lany where are you?” I asked.

There was surprised gasp on the other side. “Leya? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you? I’m on my way to what I think is engineering room. Did you managed to get inside?” I asked.

“We’re inside, but there is something attacking our makeshift barricade. I’m not sure how long we can last. Strike is doing what she can, but there is just too many of them.” She said and I heard fear in her voice. I cursed silently. I shouldn’t have sent her here.

“I’m sending you our location and map of the ship.” She said and I knew immediately where I should go. “Please come as soon as you ….” She said silently and the connection was cut. Someone is jamming all the com traffic on the ship. I heard Eleanor.

First we’ll take care of these Kriegs attacking my crew and then we’ll see this Captain. I sent to her angrily.

As I said arrow appeared before me. Just follow the arrow and I’ll take you to them with shortest route available. I can’t wait to get our hands on this Captain. Sent Eleanor bloodthirstily.

I smiled and run where she pointed me. In about five minutes, I was before last corner before the engineering room and I could hear sounds of battle from the inside. With new speed boost I rounded the corner and almost run into the Krieg standing in the corridor before the engineering room.

There around ten of them. The one I run into reacted first and his swipe was deflected by my shield, but I was thrown back from the force of the blow. I rolled with it and came up on my legs. I pulled Punch and Pat and started to fire into them as I was slowly retreating around the corner. They followed me, but I managed to take three of them before they were near enough to use the sword. I discarded the pistols and drew it in wide arc over my head which ended in the head of first Krieg. I kicked him into others, but they dodged sideways and continued on. The corridor was wide enough that swinging the sword wasn’t problem.

I used thrusters to jump over the first three Kriegs and landed sword-first on the fourth one. I rammed the sword hard enough to feel it hit the ground. I had to let go of it as the one behind him swiped at me. I pulled my hands back and in no time I was on him. In my slow perception it took him down quickly, but I already felt the blow into my back from the other three. The shield still held, but it was in critical level.

I used the blow to jump on the last Krieg before me and I kneed him in the face. As I came over him, I rolled on the ground and came prepared for others. I still had the Fist so I drew it as I was going up and fired as I was rotating to last three Kriegs. I managed to take two and last one rammed me. The shield went down and I felt him biting into my shoulder. I felt his teeth punch through the armor and into my arm, but Eleanor had to block the pain, because I didn’t feel anything.

I struggled with it for a while before I managed to roll myself on the top and end his life with well-placed punch. I stood up and gathered my weapons. My left arm was useless until the nanobots repair it so after quick thinking I sheeted everything and used sword.

I ran forward and into the room which should be the engineering room. There I found end of the battle between couple of humans and Kriegs. With me joining the fray it didn’t take long and we killed every Krieg.

I saw that almost everyone was hurt little. El can you do something? Transfer the nanobots or something like that. I asked.

Sorry, but no. Your nanobots can’t survive outside of your body. She said sadly.

First thing I did was find Lany and Strike. Lany I found working furiously on console and Strike was just before her buried under the dead Krieg. I tossed the Krieg aside and looked her over. There were some scratches, but nothing life threatening. She was lucky it seems.

I helped as much as I could with others, but I wasn’t doctor. I used Pat to seal some wounds, but I couldn’t do more. They needed transport to the infirmary and fast.

“It’s ok. We’ll survive until the ship is ours. Then we can get to the infirmary.” Said one of the wounded man.

“Don’t worry, we’ll think something up. I don’t plan to let you stay here long.” I said in confident tone I didn’t feel.

I looked up the at the schematics of this ship and let Eleanor point out the infirmary to me. It wasn’t too far from my position, but it would be risk to take them there. I couldn’t spare them additional guards, because I needed to protect the engineering room.

Eleanor can you get inside the ship’s system? I need to know where the enemies are. I sent to her.

I don’t know. I tried, but there is already another AI. He’s pretty strong and I wasn’t able to do much. Maybe I could do more with hard port. Another thing is if I should. He was treated same as the others from the crew and probably even worse. They use him against his will.

Is it possible to free him? I asked.

Not without captain’s codes. Only he will be able to free him. I’m little surprised that John didn’t freed him already. From what little information I could get my hands on, I found that he was the Captain. I thought he understand your decision and approved. Said Eleanor hurt by his decision.

I can’t tell you why he didn’t free him, but I don’t think it was only his decision. It’s possible they forbid him to do it. As you remember, he is soldier and they listen to the orders. Don’t throw him away just yet. We’ll have a chance to ask him and then convince him to free him. I sent to her. I didn’t want her to condemn John for something he did, because of the orders. I knew he would try to reason with his superiors, but if he couldn’t convince them we would try to do what is best for everybody.

“Leya can come here? I think we have a small problem here.” I heard Lany. I sighed. Like I don’t have already enough on my plate.

I walked up to her and looked at the console. There was conversation with someone between the captain of this ship and someone calling himself admiral Poulin of Human’s alliance vessel Ares. The mercenary captain on this ship goaded him into attacking him. What the problem was, was that it happened only about ten minutes ago. Looks like, if he couldn’t get hold of this ship, he wanted to destroy it. I looked up and wished the problems would go away and finally something goes according to the plan. When nothing happened, I looked down. Let’s stop this bastard, was my last idea on my mind before I walked towards the console.

We’ll get him! I heard Eleanor.