I lead the way inside the corridors of the pirate carrier, following the arrows pointing the way that our techrunner Luca just told us. Thank god only I can see the arrows, as they are shown by Hallie, because I'd look ridiculous as the team leader.

It doesn’t take long for us to encounter the first group of hostiles. As we are advancing with a hastened step, we run into a group of armed pirates that seems to be going towards the docking bay, responding to the alarm siren that’s going on incessantly. Sadly for them, this time we don’t have the leisure to incapacitate them as we did with the fleeing pirates from before: It’s a war crime to kill an unarmed foe running away from battle, or at least it used to be.

As soon as they enter our sights, we unleash a barrage of laser and plasma upon them. They take the first shots, as these ones came prepared for battle and are equipped with shield devices, but even those are not enough to contain a full-on firing squad shooting directly at you. The pirates go down without a fight, but the noise we just made has most likely alerted the whole station that we got out of the docking bay, and will send backup. Nothing unexpected though.

We advance without more encounters through the maze-like corridors until we are just a turn away from our objective, but as with last time, we run again into a group of armed pirates, but these guys seem ready, expecting us to appear. They immediately open fire and we are forced to take cover behind the walls. Some of us get hit but not enough to deplete anyones shields, yet. The ones hit just need to be extra careful while their shields fill up again, as they recharge over time. That alone would have made a difference back in my day, when if your shield was down, it stayed down.

As we are being suppressed behind the wall, we are forced to decide fast how to engage, as this corridor is a crossroads and we could get flanked anytime, and the point the pirates are defending is actually a blind street, with us being on its only way in or out.

“Santángel!” I shout. He looks at me and nods, getting on his knees and just behind the corner of the wall. On his hand, a small ball of steel that looks quite dull.

“Fire in the hole!” He shouts, and we all step back several steps.

We decided beforehand what to do in a situation similar to this, as i was trained by my commanding officer in the Charon to always go over every possibility we could imagine before a fight; ‘always be prepared to be surprised’ he said ‘but always try your best not to be’. I carry on those words to the best of my ability.

Santángel took a peek through the corner and throwed the ball into the corridor with the strength of a gorilla, not without taking a couple of hits to his shields. As soon as he got back, he threw himself into the ground and in a fetal position. A loud boom resonated soon after.

That little ball was a nasty gift, Santángel told me. As our heavy weapons guy, he was also our designated grenadier, and it seemed like the guy loved the stuff. We went on for several minutes of how destructive the Acantha model 03 was. The ball had a million small metal needles inside, and when detonated, it created a vacuum inside that pushed the needles with a great amount of pressure. Those needles then pierced through anything in a five meter area. High-tech shields could ignore those needles, but the less technologically advanced ones struggled with the sheer amount of them, and with how small they were.

The thing with that, was that they pierced flesh and bone, and then got stuck inside the organs and bones. One needle, you could perhaps ignore, but when more than a thousand penetrate your organs, your body functions go wild. The lucky ones got their brains pierced and either died instantly or got their sensory receptors fucked up so they just died without feeling anything, the unlucky ones, well…

We heard the suppressing fire stop, and started hearing screams instead. We then readied ourselves and rushed in, only to find at least a dozen bodies on the floor, convulsing, and three pirates running around like crazy. One of them ran directly to the wall, and stopped moving. The other two were scratching at their faces while screaming. I aimed my gun at their heads and ended their misery, and without ceremony continued moving, We needed to get to the room they were protecting.

The door was half already, as they were probably taking cover inside. When we went in, we saw a couple bodies more, and one pirate with his hands on the air. He was a tanned man in his forties, with a stubble and short hair. I considered killing him, but I saw the puddle on the base of the chair he was sitting in, and considered that a guy that pissed himself wouldn’t pose a problem to us. I have no problems killing pirates but cold blood killings always left a bad taste.

“You. Point at the computer connected to the mainframe” I told him, not even exerting Eyes of Dominion because I feared that if I did the guy would just faint.

He looked at me in terror, but managed to raise a trembling hand to point at a computer at the center of the room. There were several of those, probably this room was some sort of commanding station to this section of the ship. I glanced over to Luca, and he was already walking towards it, plugging a cable that somehow came from this finger to a slot on the computer and then stood still.

I guess… that’s how it works?

He took about a minute, and then looked at me “They are two floors above on a holding cell, all on the same location”.

“You’ve got a route for us?” I ask.

“Yes ma'am, I'm also connected to their comms frequency so i can hear them now”.

“Nice job kid, lead the way… everyone, cover Luca as he’ll be our eyes and ears from now on, target is two floors above us, and these bastards “ I say as i point at the pissed pirate between us “Had the courtesy of leaving all the targets on the same room”.

I then use the butt of my rifle to knock out the pirate, who then drops to the floor, and head out of the room. The rest of the team follow me, and we organize ourselves around Luca, as he points out our way forward.