A dry set of clothes later, the tour of the ship ended at Las'Tai's cabin where she settled in for the night. Eirik spends a little time going to say his goodbye's to Ulla and her new cargo handler, before watching them depart through the windows.

Feeling exhausted mentally but not physically tired, Eirik decided to go work up a sweat in the gym area before going to bed.

The following morning he called a meeting for his senior staff before breakfast. Once they were all seated he started the conversation.

"From this point onwards, there is no return. We are in it to win it or die trying. I wanna thank you all for staying beside me and I want you to extend that thanks to the entire crew. Out next course of action is resuming our previous assignment, completing it to protect our reputation in the mercenary business, From there we will go back to our pirating ways, but we will focus exclusively on the Kloxna empire. We will attack infrastructure key points, trade hubs, transport convoys, anything that disrupts their empire and fill our pockets to the brim. As we are technically fugitives from Terra due to my actions, we will have smuggler status if we are caught by the Kloxna, meaning fuck all in terms of help, BUT.. That also means I can greenlight any and all personal projects for funding from our private accounts." At the sight of the eager grins on the faces of his command staff, he quickly added "Just remember to run it by me, BEFORE you start anything but theory. I'm looking at you Knud!"

The Doctor looked as professional and distant as any doctor could as he said "you cannot stop progress Eirik"

"No, but I can damn well control it! and you will run things by me first. we do NOT need a situation like last time! took half my saving to clear your name.."

Knud lifted his hands in a surrendering gesture, which seemed to satisfy Eirik.

"David, any suggestions for stops after we finish our current task??"

"There are plenty of smuggler stations hidden in moons a few dozen lightyears from Kloxna Space. I suggest we go to those and seek out information about the Kloxna empire's holdings and finances. This will also give us a chance to load up on those less than legal toys you know the packs love so much, Captain." David said while looking over a Datapad in his hand and the star map hologram on the table.

Eirik nodded and asked, "Anyone got anything?"

Signe spoke up "I need to upgrade the generator if we are going back to a war rigging. I have what we need, but it will drain a lot of my supplies and it's a 2-day job. When do we do this?"

"During our assignment. It will take a while anyway. Those Raiding parties are too numerous and too coordinated to be random pirates. I'm betting we got a new crime lord in the making, so there will be no quarter given. anything that does not surrender immediately, dies. Forgive my cynicism but we need to get back into the routine of killing again. There is a species coming for our throats and they are hungry for blood."

Jesper spoke up, "What about Las'Tai?? Will she fight her own people??"

"She will not have to as long as you keep her posted on internal security where I placed her. Gods willing they will never be in a position to board us Should it happen, however, I will keep her in my vicinity since it was my insanity that brought her on board."

As no one else spoke up, he ended the meeting and sent them off to breakfast.

The next 2 days were mostly routine, except for Las'Tay's discovery of variation in human music. Kloxna's music was entirely focused around military marching hymns and their national anthem. This caused her to spend most of her time in the jacuzzi and sauna. She didn't get into why it was a big deal to her, but it made it easy for the crew to her get to know her in an informal setting.

Her beginning shift was as uninteresting as Internal ship security can be. Sit and wait for something that will not happen, to happen. She was introduced to several human card games and could not understand how the humans kept winning in poker, or, how they knew to fold when she had good cards. She still had fun, they only played for matchsticks that had been handed out.

On the 4th day, approaching the target planet group, Eirik ordered everyone to be on standby mode, ready to assume Battlestations at a moment's notice. Most of the crew thought it redundant, but late in the afternoon, the long-range scanner reported incomings ships.

Eirik's ship was a remodeled, large destroyer. A sturdy, fast ship with decent firepower, but nothing spectacular by itself. The readings of the incoming ship reported them being light cruiser size. a bit bigger than his own AND there were 2 of them. Eirik still felt confident though. Depending on the enemy approach, he would go for either a double boarding action or pummel them into dust, using one enemy to block shots from the other.

As they neared his position, he ordered the ship to hold position, but to keep the engines primed for quick action. The communications officer reported an incoming call that Eirik answered with audio-only. A Plyxii appeared on the screen. The 8-foot tall creature that resembled an overgrown badger on excessive amounts of steroids, seemed extremely pleased with itself as it stated, "You have entered in privately controlled space and will have to pay a toll for passing through."

"And if I refuse??" said Eirik, almost sounding bored.

"then you will be convinced to hand over everything you own before we kill you and everyone on board your ship" Came the reply from the Plyxii pirate.

"Well then, come get it, you overgrown pest of nature," Said Eirik before ending the call and pushing the button that made the alarms go off, signaling the crew to get ready for conflict.

he called out over the intercom system "The enemy pirates are Plyxii, stay out of melee range if they board."

Pressing a series of buttons on the console on the side of his command chair, the entire ship shook a little. He tried to imagine the reactions of the pirates as external armor plating was moving around, revealing more guns and shield emitters than any sane species would load unto a single ship. Despite being the size of a large destroyer, the "Void Wolf" possessed enough firepower to legally classify as a small capital ship.

The downside of all this firepower meant an absolutely ludicrous amount of energy was needed to power them for any extended periods of time and adding the shields into that equation meant that open combat, before the generator was upgraded, could not be drawn out

His ship, now bristling with weapons the same way a porcupine bristles with spikes, did not move during all of this, but the 2 Plyxii cruisers seemed to slow their advance as more and more weapons were revealed on the "Void Wolf"

Opening communications with the Plyxii again Eirik stated in a matter-of-fact voice "Listen up furball, the single reason I am out here is to get YOU. dead, alive, does not matter to me. What matters is the paycheck I'm getting for bringing you and your little crew of pirates in. so what is it gonna be?? casket or chains?"

Knowing full well that no Plyxii has ever responded well to threats of imprisonment or death, The deafening war cry from the creature on the other end of the call was not surprising. The same went for the way they moved to attack. a ship on each side of him, trying to bring him down with broadsides.

Opening the intercom he quickly barked "Packs, get ready for boarding actions. Split up into 2 groups, I will add the final member to the second group. No mercy and no quarter given"

His ship become a whirlwind of movement and preparation, random shouts and yells as crewmembers tried to communicate over each other.

Making his way down to the armory, Eirik felt a bit of spring in his steps. It has been too long since he had a chance to really let loose and blow off some steam. He welcomed this battle.