It doesn’t take long before our esteemed guide takes us to a small carrier ship hiding on the dark side of the moon of one of the gas giants in the system. Quite a fitting place for a pirate base of operations. The carrier is about twenty times the size of the Sleipnir, but even so it’s quite small for the carriers I saw before I boarded the transport ship with Lai and Novak; there were some real monsters in there.

Our crew has been using all this time to get ready, donning their assault gear and double checking the weaponry. We on the flight deck have done so as well, with the help of a team of small autonomous robot drones. I saw a couple of them during these few days but now I see a whole dozen of them, buzzing from one place to the other. They brought us the armored suits, which consist in a alloy padded jumpsuit, along with some small devices akin to badges that generate a type of force field that deflects incoming projectile fire, but according to Santángel, it’s not very reliable so it’s best not to get overconfident.

Now that we are here, the best would be to just blast them with all of our firepower, so that we don’t give them a chance to retaliate, but, there’s the thing with the hostages. General Hyrvin didn’t want to mention that this was a hostage situation, but i’m damn sure i’ll get in some kind of political problems if i just forget about the Valdari; also, something tells me that this wasn’t in line with the Corporation orders, as i understand they want field data from me engaging in combat, but getting tangled in with politicians doesn’t match with that goal. Perhaps i’ll get my hands on something to blackmail that big coward… Hallie, please take note of that, and remember me next time we speak to him.

[Acknowledged]

Now, to the matter at hand. We are reaching the carrier, which looks way more decent than the scavenger ship guiding us, I guess they have to look the part if they have operations as deeply rooted as the reports say.

I signal Mbassi and the comms channel opens.

“So, as we agreed Mr. Deschamps” I say to our recent acquaintance.

“...” I know he can hear me as i can hear his irregular breathing. There’s the sound of static as he opens up another comms channel on his end “Kraken’s Bladder here, we’ve got a ship for requisition, requesting landing permission” We can hear him speak, following the plan we set up in advance with precision. People get really capable when they have a gun pointed at their backs; also, I'm a bit surprised on how well disciplined these guys are with docking access, but then I recall the annoying screaming of the other pirate and I remember that they are still scum in the end.

“Nice work, continue like that and I might recommend you to chief latrine cleaner to the Union” I jab at him “Remember, once we are inside, you and your crew are to come to us if you want to continue living, is that clear?”

“Yes, yes it is clear” He answers with a gloomy voice.

The plan is for them to present the Sleipnir as loot for them to allow docking of both ships, then we’ll mobilize to take control of the docking bay, and a small group will mobilize to find the Valdaris, then we return to the ship, take off, and detonate a missile cluster that we cleverly attached to the ship of our dear Deschamps during our trip. It was a suggestion of Dzhabrailov, we launched half a dozen special issue torpedoes that contain a software that allows them to stick to a surface magnetically and be detonated by remote command. The chain reaction of the explosion should be enough to take out the carrier from the inside, and even if it’s not, at least i’ll allow us to finish it off and any remaining ship with the Sleipnir. Deschamps confirmed the presence of Valdari inside, so we know for sure that we are on the right track.

“Docking request granted Kraken’s Bladder... damn, nice haul Donnie!” The voice on the other side of Deschamps’ comms resounds “Where’s García tho?”

“...Wanted to chase another ship that looked loaded, I came to deliver this one” Deschamps improvised this time, as we hadn’t agreed to a script.

“Oh that’s so like García… go to landing pad thirty three and thirty four, Kraken’s Heart out, welcome back”

Kraken’s Heart, so that’s the name of this carrier. At least these guys have better naming sense than the ones naming the basic Technomancy skills.

As we get closer, we can now see the docking bay and a couple of glowing landing pads with the numbers thirty three and thirty four. On the ship, we turn off any system that might give away that we are still autonomous, and submit to the carrier’s computer and docking officer. They park the Sleipnir without much care, making it tumble a bit before getting set up in the pad correctly. The ship of our associate lands without any of these issues, and after a couple of minutes, there’s a group of at least twenty dudes walking towards Deschamps’ ship, but one one has come out of that ship yet as they are waiting for us to make a move.

And we’ll happily oblige. With our assault forces ready to board, the hatch opens and a squad of my people rushes out, guns blazing, to seize this area. And of course, I'm right besides them. Let’s see how these guys compare to the pirates of my time.