““Colonel!”” Jenkins along with the rest of his squad shout out in fear. They just watched a man get launched by an explosion easily killing him and burying him in rubble.

“Sergeant, we got to get him!” Jenkins screams looking towards his squad leader.

Firing at the men running out of the “beached” breaching pod, “We can’t do anything for him right now, he is right in front of the enemy. Fall back to the bridge!” Being overwhelmed from multiple angles, he knew it would be wise to hold up at the bridge entrance and wait for reinforcements from below deck.

Retreating in a controlled pattern of one team moving while the other provides cover fire, they make it into the bridge and activate the lock.

“Sergeant, I was informed the Colonel was with you. Where is he?” The Commander had his hands full with the various status updates of the space battle and countering breach attempts from enemy craft to know what transpired just below his feet. One battlecruiser can definitely overpower the 13 enemy corvettes, but the constant barrage of landing craft has put his crew in disarray. They have only destroyed half of the corvettes, but have had no major systems breaches yet.

“We lost him, Sir. Enemy breaching pod practically landed right on top of him. We didn’t have a chance to grab him before he swallowed by the hostiles aboard the pod.”

“I see.” Commander Glenn was immediately in a foul mood. How was he going to explain this to the Admiralty Board? They’ll be pissed he’s sure. While he is lost in thought another corvette is destroyed and it’s explosion is a temporary sun in the vast emptiness of space before being claimed by the void.

Glenn could hear Sergeant Sterling sending an update to Lt. Wilson in hopes of quick reinforcements and rescue. To say he was unhappy was an understatement, he just lost his CO in an hour after getting him.

What did these pirates hope to accomplish from this attack? Although they could breach into his ship, the Marathon was easily destroying the less equipped ships. Even if they did raid the store rooms for anything, they would have no ships to return to. Whichever pirate commander this was made a huge error on sizing up the Marathon.

“Lt. Shawkwa, maneuver us behind that cluster of corvette debris. That’ll halt them sending more pods in fear of crashing before they can get to us.”

“Yes, Sir,” was her answer as the ships engines roar to life.

While the Commander took control of the space battle, Lt. Wilson and his company were doing sweeps through the decks of the ship. After leaving a competent leader in the hanger with two squads of Marines, he led his company through multiple combat engagements.

After finishing the final sweep of the 4th deck he and his Marines made their way to the stairwells to climb to the next floor cautiously. No word has reached the Lieutenant from the squad stationed on the next floor and could only be presumed dead.

His caution is rewarded when the enemy fire doesn’t kill any of his men and only pins them inside the stair case.

“Spread out so in case of grenades! Get two Marines stacked on the stairs entrance!” Wilson orders over his headset. “2nd Platoon, this is O W, heads up. Enemy contact upon 3rd deck most likely aiming to hit you when you come through the stairwell entrance.”

‘Noted, O W.’ A voice of one of 2nd Platoon staff sergeants.

Now back to the task at hand. “Private get over here!”

“Aye, Sir!” A private runs over quickly while Wilson motions him to turn around. Rummaging through the Private’s battle pack on the back of his suit he finds what he’s looking for. A small cylindrical tube with a small metal ring at the top and a thin spoon.

Handing the flashbang to the sergeant ahead of him, “Get this up to the Marines ahead and prepare for a coordinated breach.”

He wished he was facing these pirates on land. At least then he could use and EMP grenade and just kill them when the suits went offline trapping the men inside unable to move.

“With pleasure, Sir.” A hint of a smile on the man’s face.

Radioing 2nd Platoon again, “5 mikes we are using a flash assisted breach. Prepare yours and radio signal when you’re ready.”

‘Roger, Sir.’

Using this time to prepare his men, “Everyone check weapons and ammo. We are going hot in 5 mikes. Be prepared for a hard fight as we have to go through the chow hall and various crew chambers.” A small murmur as his orders were passed and carried out, while a five minute countdown appeared on everyone’s HUD.

A double click on the headset signaled that 2nd had their flashbang and men ready for the assault. Wilson synced his helmet with the staff sergeant so they can coordinate their breach precisely the same time.

Moods were getting tense as the countdown rolled in the corner of their HUDs. Wilson maneuvered to the top of the stairs telling the two breach-men to turn off their helmets. The complied and he led them with his fingers. Five. Four. Three. Two. Pointing to the LCpl with the primed grenade, the man tossed it through the stair entrance and everyone moves to cover their eyes.

Though the pirates helmets auto-dimmed in the case of bright lights, the flashbang could also temporary overload the visors leaving them too dark for them to see in the dim corridors. Taking that chance the Marines piled into the passageway through the enemies spray and pray. Mainly from the two heavy machineguns that were positioned for maximum suppression.

The pirates had erected multiple barriers to use as cover and would prove to be a challenge to overcome. Using their armor to take the brunt of the hits, the Marines highlighted the blinded hostiles and quickly executed them.

The pirates who were lucky enough not to be blinded quickly returned fire whilst staying in cover. They were denied the satisfaction of their enemies’ death throes by the Marines’ armor and deployable shields.

One Marine was unlucky enough to have multiple headshots land on his helmet, shattering his faceplate and killing him instantly.

At this point it was a hellish battle of attrition between the two groups of adversaries. The Marines had superior weapon capabilities but the enemy were keeping them suppressed with machinegun fire forcing them to remain in cover.

None of the Marines dared using grenades for fear of damaging the ship. Forcing them to use Whac-A-Mole tactics and take pot shots whenever they could. Half an hour of this twisted game of Hope-You-Don’t-Get-Shot-In-The-Face resulted in a total of 2 Marines KIA with all hostiles eliminated.

Radioing 2nd Platoon, Lt. Wilson found out they had a similar set up at the other staircase and was successfully breached with casualties as well. Two Marines took a bullet in the small gaps in their armor but it was not life threatening, and a quick visit from the medic had both men combat ready.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Lucky bastards.

While Wilson was leading his Marines below his feet, Commander Glenn was in an ever increasing foul mood. The reason was the pirates outside the bridge entrance having found the Comm-box. Through various annoying threats and promises, the bridge crew had sat in silence refusing to play their game.

True the pirates had them outnumbered and trapped on the bridge, but the sheer number of members of his crew was an ocean to a puddle. Even if he died today, the pirates will too. Though his agitation was about to increase ten-fold.

“Hello there trapped people. My name is Captain Sh'Ajid Ryante of this here fine crew.” Glenn sighed deeply. Well at least he didn’t say ‘Argh!’ with an accent.

Captain Sh'Ajid Ryante was extremely proud of his men. After ambushing a Coalition ship, his men attacked with experience precision. Dividing his ships to flank the ship on two sides and launching countless breach pods overwhelmed the Marathon despite it’s advantage in size and firepower.

30 minutes after the initial attack, Sh’Ajid got on one of the “breachers” with a squad of his pirates and had it aimed for the enemy bridge. On the way AA fire forced his pod to crash into the next best thing. The floor directly below their intended target.

““Colonel!”” With his soldiers pouring out of the pod, Sh’Ajid could hear the cries of enemy combatants while he waited. He may be a pirate but he was no fool. He needed to live to lead his band of cutthroats and bask in the treasure he was promised.

Entering the ship he found a mangled corpse of a U.S.C. Marine. Must have been this ‘Colonel’ he heard about. Missing one leg, his left arm is holding on by mere tendons, and half his face is shaved off from hitting a wall. From the look of the body, he must have been nearby when the breach pod collided with the Marathon. Sh’Ajid was about to leave when he saw a peculiar little black box that was playing at a low volume.

“Music?” He thought out loud to himself as he picked it up and held it to his ear. Music with lyrics too! ‘I could sell this box for a good price.’ He thought to himself as he pocketed the still playing box. He takes one last look at the ‘Colonel’ and silently thanks him for an even better bounty.

10 minutes later he was behind a group of pirates trying to override the bridges lockdown. The allure of the music box was too much and he fished it back out of his pocket. Once he got it out he noticed that it was playing at a little higher volume than before. Curious he sat down and started studying the box.

Fumbling with it for 5 minutes, he learned more about it. How to change songs with the arrows on the display, and how make it louder with the buttons on the side or the slide bar. There were so many songs here and stopped shuffling when he heard loud cheers and laughter. ‘Crowds and torches fill the air’ the song started.

He looked up from his distraction and found his men making a commotion while the music kept playing.

For so long

Behind these civilized eyes

He stood up and walked over to get a better look and smiled when he heard them making threats to the bridge crew through the ships comm-box. One of his lieutenants saw him and offered the receiver to him.

Revenge

Revenge

Revenge

Revenge

Clearing his throat he activated the receiver, “Hello there trapped people. My name is Captain Sh'Ajid Ryante of this here fine crew.” His crew were smiling and laughing at his attempt at imitating pirates of old. “All you have to do is give us what we want.” “Open these doors and let us kill you, no one else on your crew need die.”

Utan Z'Tani was bored out of his mind. Just guarding the stairwells to the 2nd deck proved disappointing when the only Marine he has seen so far was the dead guy when they boarded this boat. He heard about the firefights on the 3rd deck but the crew on the floor below were holding the Marines at bay.

Having exhausted topics to talk about with the other three pirates they sat in silence watching the entrance. Just sitting here when he could be fighting and killing was beginning to make him anxious and bloodthirsty.

“For so long my demons.”

??? And maybe a little crazy because now he is hearing things.

“It's countdown for me.”

Or maybe not. He starts looking around to see were that voice was coming from.

“You hear that?” He asks a pirate named Vraiusi, who just shakes his head and shrugs.

“With blindfolds you held us.”

“See? There it is again.” He says pointing towards a hatch behind them.

“Yeah I heard it that time.” Says another pirate named Nucta. He was starting to get agitated and was looking around erratically.

*Thump* A hard crash of something falling onto the floor was heard from another hatch located behind the pirates.

“What was that?” Nucta cries, a hint of fear was beginning to show on his face. He was always a coward and Utan wondered how he even survived so long.

“How should we know? We’ve been here with you asshole.” Vraiusi voices his discomfort.

“Who cares just have Zantai watch the stairway while we go check it out.” Utan states while turning to look at their fourth man. “Where is he?”

“What?” Vraiusi quickly looks behind him and spots Zantai’s gun laying on the ground. “Zantai, you little ass! Get out here before I find and shoot you!”

“Maybe that was him in there trying to scare us.” Nucta utters while pointing to the door the noise came from.

“Alright, me and Vraiusi are going in to find him and drag him out. We’ll give him a beating for doing this stupid shit.” Utan looks to Nucta and with a childish voice. “And fo scawing you Nucta.”

“Fuck off.”

Laughing the two pirates enter the room that Zantai is in. The room was dark and they were forced to use their suit’s lights to see. It looked to be a small storage room of sorts and hand isles filled with boxes. A quick search found a couple boxes filled with tools and parts on the ground.

“The dumbass must have tripped and knocked it over.” Vraiusi voices his opinion.

Utan notices a small dot of red. Bending over and dipping his finger, he brings it up to his visor, “Maybe.”

“Till I found the best revenge.” A whisper that seemed to tickle the back of Utan’s ears.