Thaum sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to the rubber ducky on the desk and explained, "ok, I don't know why it isn't working. See this part here. It is supposed to turn off the station's gravity. It looks right. And this part here it's supposed to change the ratio of nitrogen to oxygen the life support system maintains."

His eyes widened, "oh, that's it." he said before typing a few more lines and adding a bracket. He hit run, and again, nothing happened. "fuck" he said.

He left the chair, giving up. He needed more than the basics of his host's memories to hack the station, even if it was only a pirate station.

He briefly searched through the arms dealer's memories and found a hacker that would be on this station.

Thaum stepped over several dead bodies and left the room. The station was small, so only a few hallways later, he found the room.

Some people gave him odd looks but walking like you have a purpose stops most people from questioning your presence.

The door didn't open when he went to enter it. He pressed the intercom button. The door stayed shut. His patience was already less than zero after trying to hack the station. He shoved his fingers through metal doors and ripped them open, "good day, miss. I'm going to mind rape you and take your memories if you don't mind. Or even if you do mind."

The woman in the room jumped out of bed half naked with a laser pistol.

Thaum sighed, "none of that. I'm already tired of seeing those things." He gave a thought, and her hand flung to the side, sending the weapon away. Before she could scream, her body violently flew into the wall.

Thaum grabbed her head and ripped the computer knowledge from the woman's mind. Her body seized. She would be dead in minutes.

Someone poked their head in the door. He pointed to the damaged door that partially couldn't retract into the wall after his fingers went through it.

Thaum pointed, sending a plasma ball through his head. Thaum found quite a few spells that a regular weapon could imitate. And more importantly, he wasn't bothered trying so hard to cover up his magic.

He left the room and sensed the station. There were hundreds of people, and once they panicked would be even more annoying to kill.

Thaum wanted to speed up the process hence his attempt at hacking. Now that he had the appropriate knowledge, he shook his head. It would still take time.

'Fuck it.' he thought. He was going to hack the station manually. He focused for a moment, becoming intangible, then flew through the floors and found the reactor.

He knew very little about this high-tech power source, but screwing up is a very low-skill task.

There was a hardened case around it. Thaum turned it to sand. Several metal rods were moving into a glowing orb. He shoved them all in. When the glow dimmed, the universal sign for not exploding, he did the opposite. He removed all the rods completely.

The room became bathed in a blue glow. Thaum smiled. Nothing good ever glows blue.

His vision suddenly went white, then blue, then slowly black. He looked around, and the station floated around him in a twisted, mangled mess.

He shrugged, sent out a spell checking for any survivors, then teleported back to his ship's airlock.

He found Alice in the cockpit and said, "set course out of the kingdom."

Alice jumped a little and quickly said, "y-yes."

Thaum shrugged her behavior off. He could use his empathic powers, but fear is easy enough to diagnose. She could barely look at him after the arms dealer. Perhaps knowledge of magic was too much for her.

Elora entered the cockpit, stretching, "so what did I miss."

Thaum said, "I've taken the blueprints those arms dealers were using. Now we are leaving the Kingdom."

Alice turned her seat, "aren't those types of blueprints very illegal to have."

Thaum shrugged. Ellora raised a brow, "you have money. Why take extra risk." She saw a screen showing the destroyed base, the image morphing ever so slightly, a telltale sign the zoom was off calibration because it was having trouble keeping the station they were leaving in focus.

"Fuck, I thought you just stole the blueprints, not blew up the base. How did I sleep through a ship fight."

Alice replied, "you didn't sleep through a ship fight. He went over there. Now there is gone."

Elora whistled, "damn, I knew what they were doing, but that is brutal. I'm glad I didn't even think of messing with Mr ghost here." She found a seat and spun to face the others, "you didn't say why you wanted the blueprints."

Thaum said, "I didn't. But if you really must know there are two reasons. First, I want to study them for curiosities sake. Second, you don't make friends by giving them money to do what you want, but by giving them something they need at the right time. It's also far cheaper."

"Hmm," Elora hummed, "so where to."

Thaum brought a map up on screen and pointed, "The Voletti Confederation. It's chaotic there, so I shouldn't have a problem gaining a foothold. No ancient houses to annoy me with politics either."

Elora brightened, "my homeworld is there. Do you mind if we stop by? I want to buy a piece of land to finish my coming of age rite really early."

Thaum opened up a blueprint for a laser pistol on screen and said, "stop by. It sounds like you plan on sticking around."

Elora spun on her seat, "well, I have already finished my quest. I can settle down with a piece of my world. I even have enough money to take a decent chunk of it, so getting a husband is quite possible now. Before you ask, our race has a higher proportion of women.

But, I've been thinking. That isn't all I want out of life now that I am not struggling through it. I want to have meant something after I'm gone, to be put on the... well, the stone tablet of special people we have."

Thaum added, "You think I can get you engraved onto this rock."

Elora stopped her chair, facing him, "you are something. I don't know what. However, you are unmistakably... effective. I can't say I'll stick around forever, especially if what you are doing goes against my goals. But I can be useful, so how about it, partner."

Thaum scoffed, "partner, no. You can never match me. If you want to stick around, then you are a subordinate. You will follow the same rules as Alice." His tone shifted from conversational to commanding.

"First, I don't care what you ask of me, even if it is highly insulting. My response will be... reasonable. However, any attempt at manipulation in any form will be dealt with exceptionally harshly, the same way as betrayal.

Secondly, I don't keep invalids. So either be useful or become useful. Anything less is unacceptable.

Third, I don't use contracts or the like with my subordinates. You either want to be here under my command or fuck off. I want you to really think about this rule and what it means because I don't want to hear what someone did or did not sign up for mid-operation.

And lastly, the don't fuck with me rule. My patience is not a spring where you can test me and expect it to somehow reset. If you try to find the limit of what you can away with, you will one day suddenly find my patience abruptly nonexistent."

Ellora sat rigidly, her face frowning and slightly pale from the tone. She paused for a moment before restating his rules while counting off her fingers. "ok, one don't manipulate ask instead. Two, be useful or work towards being useful. Three, Do what is expected or fuck off more or less. Four, don't fuck with you. Well, in the trying your patience sense."

Thaum nodded, "good. Welcome to the team."

Ellora smiled faintly before asking, "so what does Alice do? Pretty sure anyone could do what she is currently doing."

Thaum returned to his work and said, "useful doesn't always mean exceptional. She mostly does busywork I find boring. Though I do plan to have her become a proficient hacker."

Ellora raised a brow, "doesn't that require some serious certification? I doubt she will learn a dozen years of computer science by tomorrow to hack anything worthwhile."

Thaum laughed, "perhaps she will."

Ellora shrugged, "well, she has been terrified of you since, and I quote, the arms dealer incident. So she'll probably jump ship the moment she can."

He could give Alice the hacker's memories now. They would be incentive to stay. He shrugged off the idea, rule 3, Thaum rarely played peacekeeper to get a subordinate to stick around, and he wasn't about to start for Alice.

She was helpful for mundane tasks such as piloting the ship. Driving never was a leader's task to Thaum. A general doesn't drive a wagon, although he admits that space combat is more entertaining than the navel kind.

Thaum mentally added pilot to the list of required personnel. A warning popped up on his screen, and the room went red, [captain ambush from empire forces three frigate class ships. ETA 2 minutes]

Alice burst into the room. Thaum told her to strap in as he switched to the pilot seat, "how did they get the drop on us."

The computer said, [they were drifting next to an asteroid on minimal power.]

When Alice was ready, he flipped the ship and put full power to the engines. Ellora grunted at the unexpected force that glued her to the seat.

The inertial dampeners struggled to keep up with the modified engine. Thaum watched the screen and saw the distances between their ships increase, "so they were waiting for us. Anyone got any ideas ho--"

The whole cockpit monitor flaired red. An image of a car-sized ship flying towards them showed up along with the words seeker mine incoming. Thaum has just enough time to throw the controls sideways.

The ship lurched into a neck-breaking roll. Everything violently shook. Thaum put power back into accelerating again. His vision was a pinprick and slowly widening. They would be fucked if he blacked out now.

"report." He quietly commanded.

[---- --- - - --- -- ----- - -]

"a visual one," he added, this time slightly louder. The room hissed, and he could finally hear the computer. [hull breach plugged. Starboard engines are not responding. Maneuvers will be difficult. Designation Alices room has been forcefully ejected into space. Activating repair nanobots. Crewmates unconscious, immediate medical room checkup suggested.]

Thaum said, "sure, I'll get right on that as soon as we finish this guided bomb tickle fight."

Thankfully they were gaining distance. But Thaum couldn't be sure there wouldn't be any more surprises. Thaum sent out several sensory spells, brute force inelegant spells that dumped a lot of mana and flooded your mind with too much useless information. He was going to have a headache later.

Nothing. He turned to the groaning Alice. She had regained consciousness. Thaum asked, "so any idea how they knew where we were going and from which direction."

Alice paused, then paled and stuttered incoherently. Thaum refocused on flying and said, "panic later, get Ellora to the medbay." She unstrapped and started trying to pick Ellora up. Thaum rolled his eyes and turned down gravity. Alice didn't even unintentionally voice surprise, so Thaum knew the level she thought she screwed up.