Once we clear the hangar I hand of control to Mari, and rotate my seat to face Lerissa.

“Alright Sarah. It’s time for us to have our talk. Or would you prefer Lerissa? Yes, I know. I also know you follow the path of the Shadow.” Oh, shit. She’s panicking. “Please, wait a moment before you freak out. The reason I know of your path is because of my path. I follow the path of the Spy, you see. Like I said the other day, there are many parallels to our situations. Now I am going to tell you a bit about myself, and then I would like you to decide whether or not to join my crew.”

I give her the quick and dirty version of my story, glossing over Mari’s existence, and a few boring parts. I don’t think her eyes can get any wider than this. Now to give her the final bit of proof that my story is true. Opening up my forms screen, I select my human male form. Oh nice, the changes to the form from before held. Confirm.

Oooh, nevermind I was wrong. Her eyes could get wider. “What the hell!? You really are… Wait. You’re that guy from the club the other night! Shit! I’ve been trying to find you since then, but you never came back! I had hoped to go a bit... ” She blushes and starts to mutter quietly to herself.

“Indeed, that was me.” I grin. “I would love to discuss that line of thought a bit further, but I’m afraid we will have to save it for another time. I need an answer from you,” I glance at the controls to check our current speed and heading. “and I need it in the next 25 minutes.”

Her face darkens. “I don’t… I mean, I can’t… I just… I don’t know. You said you wanted full honesty, but I… I can’t just…I mean, I’m...” I think I can guess where she's going.

"Lerissa, is it a problem? You being a Ferlo? I mean... I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter to me. In fact if anything, I feel you’re more trustworthy because of it. Remember, I know almost nothing about our galaxy’s history. Even less about my own. I don’t know what the Ferlo are, or what they did to make you fear talking about it, but I know that it doesn’t matter to me. If you can put your faith in me, I will put mine in you. I’m a Doppel, apparently hunted and hated by other races. How much worse could a Ferlo be?”

“You don’t get it! That’s the problem! You’re a Doppel, I’m a Ferlo! My people were created with the sole purpose of hunting yours! What happens to me when you do remember? Dammit Keiren! I just don’t… I can’t…. I can’t. I can’t be found. By anyone. Do you know what that’s like?” I stare at her for a few minutes, until her breathing calms down.

“Better than anyone else you may have ever met, I believe. Mari, I think now is a good time to introduce yourself.” Mari’s holographic body appears beside me. Uhh, Mari, did you get… shorter? Nevermind, Keiren, more important things to deal with now.

“Hello Lerissa. I’m Mari. Captain Crotchnugget here pulled me from that derelict navy ship he spoke of earlier. By the way, I see you’ve learned a new trick. I take it that’s the whole ‘form change’ thing you were trying to figure out before.”

“Mari, please, can we ease up on the insults?”

“Hmmph. Quiet you. Girl talk now. Lerissa, it, no, in that form I guess I should say he, is an idiot. But he seems to be mostly trustworthy. I was a COSN ship AI for over 300 years. You know how strict, and indoctrined they have everyone when it comes to AI's, yes? Yet here I am, free and unbound. Welcome aboard, by the way. I think you’d make a nice addition to my crew. Please say yes? It would be nice to have someone to talk with when I need to vent about the stupid things this buffoon does.”

“Love you too Mari.” That really hurt you know. Is that how she really feels? Wait, Lerissa is smiling now. Maybe… Maybe I am an idiot? It’s not my fault I don’t know anything though, is it?

“I said be quiet. You just sit there like the pretty little boy you are right now.” Uhhh… “Okay, Lerissa, I’d like to hear your decision. This meeting has each one of us worrying about their future. Well maybe not Captain Blinkard here. I don’t think he knows how. Will you join us? Can we trust you?” Lerissa, it’s not nice to point and laugh, you know.

A few minutes of Lerissa laughing at me pass. Loudly. “I’m in, I’m in. When's the next vent session? Oh, and do we have any ice cream on board? I could really use some after all this.”

“We do child, but that will have to wait. I’m guessing Captain Thick never informed you of our current situation? We have at least 4 pirate ships waiting to pounce on us once we leave the Vankh sphere of influence in 6 minutes 26 seconds. Can you operate the dorsal turret, or would you prefer to pilot?” Shit. I forgot about that amidst the barrage of denigration and insults.

“Reeeeeeally, Captain Limpwit? When were you planning on informing me of this? And just why are there pirates aiming for us?” Dammit, not you too Lerissa. I just want one person to be nice to me. Is that too much to ask? My shoulders droop in defeat.

“Well, I had intended to tell you as soon as you had made your choice. Either way. The only difference was if you had chosen to stay a passenger, I’d have ask you to secure yourself in your quarters. As for why, when I landed at Vankh, I was immediately carted off to jail, where the Station Chief decided he wanted to make me into one of his slaves. The security militia kept him of my back while I was there. Remember the escort when I came to meet you about the job? The syndicate boss I was meeting the night you and I danced left me a message with his brother-in-law, the Lodrian we met before launch. Part of what I couldn’t openly say to you earlier. Now, if you could man the turret and get those rail-guns primed, so we can get started with obliterating fools I would appreciate it.”

“Rail-guns? On a freighter? Shit, Mari, our brainless Captain really built you loaded for bear!” She said with a huge grin as she hopped out of the cockpit to go to the turret.

“You have no idea Lerissa. Captain Batshit, the stick is yours. I’ll handle weapons.” Yay! Show time. Maybe the insults can stop for a minute or two?

“Roger that Mari, what do our opponents appear to have for forces?”

“Imaging shows 3 Borgan class light fighters, 1 Tenvar class scout. One new likely bogey just appeared on scopes... wow, that’s old school. It’s a Mule class light freighter. I haven’t seen one of those flying in over a hundred years! Enemy power signatures show their shields aren’t active.”

“Nice. Target the Scout and the freighter with the ion cannons. Electron pulse, please. Gain an IFF lock on two of the Borgans. Leave one for Lerissa.” I flip on the shipwide comms. “Lerissa, If you’re ready, let’s teach these scumbags how to tango.”

“You got it Captain! We are prepped, primed, locked and ready to rock!”

“Mari, if you would be so kind as to drop the hammer now? Firing up the mains. Lerissa, Mari can provide your targeting solution, fire at will.” I accelerate at the maximum thrust the inertial safeties allow for the first time since upgrading the engines. And what a difference they make. As we accelerate from a few hundred meter per second to almost 0.002c in mere seconds, Mari fires on the scout and the freighter, frying their electronics before they could even try to raise their shields or fire their engines. I quickly switch to full retrograde thrusters, to slow us back down, and Mari fires her missile salvo. Mari, you probably could have held back a bit. 5 missiles for each fighter is a bit wasteful. I hear the whine of power flowing into the railguns. Another whine just as the missiles are closing in on their targets and then all 3 fighters disappear from the scanners almost simultaneously. And our sky is clear. Now for the cleanup. I position us in place to align with their outer doors, and match the drift vector.

Level Up

Level increased by 1

Attributes have been assigned.

New Ability available based on Path and Skills

I’ll check that new ability later. First things first, let’s go get the spoils.

“Alright Lerissa, come on down. Let’s get suited up and prep for EVA. There’s a couple spare Marine combat suits in the armory that have vectored thrust in them. Here, take this, I don’t have any other non-ballistics, so these should let us take down anyone on those ships that is still conscious. Also grab a sack to carry any loot in.” I pull one of my new stun guns out of my belt for her, and I swap my pistol out for one as well.

“Mari, keep watch. Anything comes, call us, then fire a warning shot. We’ll see you in a few.”

Lerissa and I step out the airlock and float over to the freighter. I force open the outer airlock door, and we head inside. Life support is down, so we’re going to be fighting in zero g.

“Ready Lerissa? Magboots active, I’ll breach. Cover me and shoot anything that moves.” We storm the cargo hold of the freighter. Two humans floating in the hold try to fire on us using normal kinetic guns. Daft bastards. With no power to life support, what did you think is going to happen? The men, sent spinning by the laws of physics, are easy prey. We drop them with a shot of our pistols, and start searching the ship for other opponents as well as items of value.

There’s a small lockbox in the corner of the hold, but I can’t open the lock. It seems to be the only item worth taking from the hold, I have no need for cages and barely useable EVA suits. I’ll store it in my belt. Which is now out of space. Shit. Glad I had Lerissa grab a couple empty sacks to bring along. We split up to search the cabins. I find a few SMGs, so I strap them to my belt and keep moving. I didn’t find anything else, but Lerissa has her sack filled with ingots of some sort.

“Where the heck did you find all that? Nevermind, let’s head back Lerissa. Next stop the scout. Mari, please move us into position once Lerissa and I are back on board.”

Back aboard the Deity, I unload my belt into our little armory. At which point I notice that the gift Holidra gave me is a repair drone, but it has way more arms than the ones I saw on the Adavaris. With my gear stowed, I meet back up with Lerissa and give her a hand moving the rest of the ingots she found. There’s probably 2 or 3 tonnes of whatever this is.

“We’re in position now, Captain Clunkknuckle. Scans show 5 active lifesigns. 2 at the airlock, 1 in the engine room, and 2 in the captain’s cabin that aren’t moving. I suggest taking out the 3 movers first.”

“You heard the lady, Lerissa. Same plan as before.”

“What so you blow the door, hope they’re too stupid to realize that shooting standard weapons in zero g without bracing is a bad idea, then we drop them? That’s not much of a plan, but I shouldn’t expect much more from you.”

“Ouch. No, Lerissa. Plan is: I breach the door. You cover me while I do. Then we take out the enemy, hopefully without a prolonged gunfight, using the airlock doorway for cover to start, moving forward to new cover when able. Once that is dealt with, we move down to the engine room, same idea. Then head to the cabin and deal with those two. Afterwards we loot the place and come back.”

“Like I said, captain. Not much of a plan.”

“Gee, thanks. Let’s go.”

Once we’re in the airlock, I look at Lerissa, and give her a nod. She nods back and I open the door with as much force as possible and slip back behind the edges. This group is a little more prepared for us. They are waiting, brandishing blades trying to pump themselves up. Unfortunately for them, we don’t need to enter melee range. I step out into the open, and they push off the walls at me. I hit them each with two shots with my Adjudicator (though it takes me 7 shots to do that). Not that I needed to, just because they are visibly related to that Darvali prick that runs Vankh.

Glancing back at Lerissa, I wave her forward. We head to the engine room. There is a Darvali woman in there beating on the console. I almost feel bad. I motion for Lerissa to stun her. I drag her body back to the main corridor and tie her up with the other two, while Lerissa heads for the Captains quarters to deal with the last two before we go looting.

“Fuck me! Captain… I… You need to come here.” That sounds ominous. Better move quick.

“What is it Lerissa? I… Shit.” There’s not much else I can say. We’re looking at two emaciated women. Naked, covered in scars, and chained to the bed. Looking at us in abject terror. “Lerissa, find them some clothes and bring them out. See if you can find some EVA suits on board to get them over to the Deity.” And I walk away. Not feeling bad about that Darvali from earlier anymore.

“Mari, we have a small issue. Two girls, likely kept as slaves by these pirates for quite a while. They aren’t in good condition. Thoughts?”

“Dammit Keiren! Is it always going to be like this with you? Uggghhh, I’m going to have to stay silent again, unless... Okay. Bring them on board. No changing your form for the rest of the flight. We’ll have them stay in the quarters for the most part, except for meals and other bodily requirements. Lerissa, you’re going to be in charge of them.”

“What? Why me?”

“Two reasons. One - you found them. Two - I’m stuck as a male for the trip, and judging from their condition, I don’t think they’ll be particularly pleased at having me around. Now, I’m going to get back to looting. You get them ready for the trip over to the Deity. If you need help, call.”

Making my way through the ship, I find little of value, until I find a hidden compartment just off the bridge. Inside are five small boxes. Each box contains vials of some kind of strange glowing liquid. I don’t know what it is, but it has to be valuable. There is also a stack of ID cards. Probably stolen from the people they captured and enslaved. Time to go back.

“Captain? I could use a hand here. I found a couple suits, and managed to get them to wear them, but they don’t have propulsion, and I can’t carry them both while moving.”

“Right. On my way now Lerissa.”

It took a bit of wrangling, but we got them moved over to the Proud Deity. The smaller one REALLY didn’t want to go for a space walk. I’m not sure if it was some kind of indoctrination, or if she'd been threatened or tortured by being forced out into space, or what. Lerissa helped them take off the EVA suits and guided them to the quarters. She tried to ask if they preferred their own rooms, or to stay together, but the two just huddled together shivering. So she put them together in one cabin. I got out of my armor, and went to the kitchenette to make a potato soup. Something soft and creamy that they could eat, but also had good flavour. Once Lerissa has situated our guests I'll have her take them some.

“Mari, pull us back to about 2 KM out, then set the ventral guns to positron pulse, and wipe those things from my sight. Then get ready to make the jump to Eileris. Once our guests are fed we will be on our way.”

Lerissa comes back out and sees me in the kitchenette. With that taken care of time to organize and inspect the spoils while Mari takes us into FTL.

Veratonna TK1 x 3

The TK1 is a selective fire weapon that uses a simple closed bolt, straight blowback method of operation. As such, it has no gas system and the internal components have been modified accordingly. Designed for use with 9.5mm pistol ammunition. 30 rounds per magazine

Osmium Ingot x 48

Pure Os - each ingot contains ~24.1 KG of Osmium

Iridium Ingot x 74

Pure Ir - each ingot contains ~23.8 KG of Iridium

Case of Condensed BrainSnag- 12 per x 5

Br3N4SNa6 or BrainSnag, is a recreational drug for Darvali, but is a deadly poison to other known sentients.

Causes Darvali that ingest it to experience a mild euphoric effect. Extended use or overdosing may cause ganglion cysts to form.

Illegal in COS controlled territories, but easily found at most Darvali controlled ports and planets.

BrainSnag and a bunch of pure ingots of rare metals. That could be worth something. The SMGs are nothing special, except that they are functional and use ammo I have handy. Now let’s open up that lockbox from the freighter.

Okay. So that wasn’t as easy as I expected. I couldn’t pick the lock, so I tried to force it. In the end, I burnt through the remaining charge in the battery of my Adjudicator just to melt the locks core. But I got in! It’s full of pebbles? What the heck is this?

Reset x212

Reset, when ingested leaves the subject in a highly suggestible hypnotic state. This effect lasts as long as the pellet remains in their digestive tract, which can be up to 3 months.

Instructions given during this period are very difficult to reverse.

This must be how the pirates create their slaves. Odd that it isn’t shown as illegal like the BrainSnag was. Maybe it has legitimate uses? We should try selling it to a medical facility.

“Captain SelfMolester to the bridge. We are ready for FTL.” Mari… Why do?

“I’m on my way.”