“Fucking pirates,” Ray mutters in English, the curse echoing within his helmet. Mist forms in his visor before the anti-fogging system clears it up. His suit status readouts march along his HUD in his peripheral vision. First time on the job, six rotations into this hauling gig, and we got ambushed by highway bandits of the wild west of space. Should’ve just been an office or government worker like my mom wanted. He groans.
Ray observes the pirates wandering on the ship on his tablet. Two of them are guarding five hostages in the ship’s common room. Luckily, the rest of the crew retreated into the citadel, a purpose-built safe room that doubles as an escape pod. Two pirates explore the corridors while one raids the fridge, chugging a canned drink. Oh, come on, not my sodas. A Gihrux, more commonly known as a “Space Goblin,” reveals his squat, green humanoid face through his open visor as he downs the last of the can’s contents. The last three pirates are busy pillaging the cargo hold, looting a crate of industrial electronics likely bound for a manufacturing plant on some space station. Nine total intruders on the ship and one pirate cutter grappled to the port airlock.
A feminine voice asks in the Universal Galactic Tongue. “What’s our move?” Right beside Ray is his co-worker, Amelix — or Lix, as he calls her. The insignia of the Sentinel Guard Corporation stands boldly on the shoulder of her uniform as she leans in to view the tablet as well. Under the short black-and-white fur, her face is locked in an expression of disciplined concentration. Her v-shaped button nose flares anxiously and her felinoid ears twitch on alert for danger as her emerald slitted eyes dance across the internal camera feeds. “Should we split up? I could take out the pirates one by one while you handle the hostages.” Lix’s slim, dextrous tail, encased in a flexible sleeve of the pressure suit, flicks and curls furiously behind her as the Kherkad runs the numbers in her head.
Ray shakes his head and clears his throat to speak in Galactic Tongue. “No, too risky.” His chocolate brown eyes lock onto the feed of the common room and his very human face scrunches into a look of determined severity, pulling his fuzzy triangular ears slightly forward from their perch atop his ginger-haired head. As a Vaicil-Human crossbreed, the third known case of hybridization in the century since the discovery of humans by the Galactic Diplomatic Chamber, his human-standard pressure has been altered to account for his fluffy reddish-orange tail, adding a pressurized sheath that all tailed space faring species have. “Saving the captured crew first is the priority, before we kick these pirates off our ship or until the navy saves our asses. They’re most likely aware that we sent a distress signal, so they’ll leave when they steal the shit they wanted before the marines bust them.”
He swipes down on the tablet, expanding the status bar to show an ETA of seventeen minutes until the nearest navy vessel arrives. “Here’s what we’ll do, instead.” Ray then swipes to another tab that reveals the ship's 3D schematics and remote system controls, and manipulates the model to study it and form the next set of actions. “Okay, the plan will be...” He points to the center of the ship, which is the security room they’re currently in. “We’ll remotely override each bulkhead door of the sections where the pirates are, keeping them isolated. Then we can beeline towards the hostages and set them free. Once we do that, we head to the citadel. What do you think?“
Lix nods. “Sounds good.”
“Alright.” Ray nods. He swipes his wristband on the security locker’s scanner, showing a satisfying green UNLOCKED text. He takes a bullpup assault rifle, spare magazines, and a few other pieces of equipment. With a pull from the charging handle, he chambers a polymer-cased full metal jacket round, then shoulders it to check the hologram reticule before slinging it over his torso. Next, he grabs his pistol from his thigh holster and checks the chamber, satisfied to find a bottlenecked polymer-cartridge that’s designed to penetrate soft body armor, or spacesuits in this case.
“As usual, kinetics. You sure you’re not fully human?” Lix rolls her eyes as she reaches for a plasma rifle and grabs only a single spare power-pack magazine once she loads it. She then checks her laser pistol and finds it ready. Sweeping her jet-black hair behind her ears, she dons her helmet and secures the seal, then pings her comms to make certain they’re functioning. “Ready when you are.”
The two glance at each other before nodding. Ray deactivates the door lock and slips out stealthily. Both of them take a side of the door with weapons drawn, covering each other's back. Ray takes point, following the path shown on his HUD, highlighting the safest route to the hostages, bypassing any pirates along their way. When they arrive at the common room, they hear frustrated voices past the door.
“Did one of you fuckers lock the door! I’ll start blowing holes in your heads if you don’t speak up!” The pirate levels his shotgun at one hostage, an unfortunate target of his ire.
A young dog-eared man, an Essa, shields his face with his palms, wrists bound by a plastic tie. “No, sir! Someone must have done this remotely! We didn’t do it!” He gets kicked in the chest in return, stumbling into his other crewmates.
“Fucking useless!” The raging pirate kicks a chair, making it skid and then tumble across the room.
His partner just sighs. “Quit it. You’re wasting oxygen. Let’s just wait until the others unlock it. They got the tools.” The side of his mouth rises when the door slides open, as he expected. “See? What did I—” An object suddenly bounces in the room. “Huh?”
The pirate pair instinctively stare at the object until a blinding flash and deafening detonation rocks the room. They both yelp, as did the bound crewmembers nearby. Ray and Lix peek into the room with rifles raised. Two supersonic cracks boom inside the room, followed by the clatter of spent casings hitting the deck. Struck in the chest, the pirate who kicked the Essa collapses onto the floor, unmoving. With a single thunderous roar, a blue streak of plasma nails the other pirate in the head, blasting his face off and revealing his charred skull.
Ray and Lix tactically check the corner as they enter the room. After clearing the area, Ray keeps watch at the door while Lix checks on the hostages. “Are any of you injured?”
“I-Is that you, Amelix?” one of them asks, still recovering from the stun grenade.
“Yeah, it’s me.” She cuts off the crew's restraints with a knife. “Again, is anybody injured?”
“Aside from—” One woman tries to stand, but starts leaning to her side until someone catches her shoulder. She shakes her head, waiting for the splotches in her vision to recede, her sense of balance to normalize, and the ringing in her ears to end. “Thank you. Aside from being fucked over by a flashbang, we’re good.”
Lix hisses, scrunching her face up. “My bad.”
“Let’s go, then,” Ray says, glancing at the crowd and the late pirate lying on the floor, blood trickling down his suit from the two gunshot wounds, now closed by its self-sealing fiber. My first kill. He shakes his head, keeping his rifle aimed down the hallway while standing beside the doorway.
Lix gathers the crew, following Ray as he moves out. She keeps rear watch while Ray again takes point, keeping the five in the middle with pilfered guns from the outlaws, just in case. Every bulkhead door they pass, they lock behind them. Ray switches his rifle’s position to his left shoulder, peeking into the right hallway of a T-intersection. An impact strikes the left side of his chest, shoving him into the floor, and thankfully back into cover. He grunts, gritting his teeth and gasping for air as his lungs try to recover from the shock.
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“Oh, fuck! Ray!” A hail of bullets strikes and ricochets from the wall and floors. The Essa drags Ray further away from the incoming gunfire before leaning him on the wall. Lix runs up to the front and sticks her plasma rifle around the corner, firing blindly at the shooter. The two crewmembers who nabbed the pirates’ guns also start shooting, forcing the enemy to take cover before returning fire. “Is he alright!” she shouts between bursts of plasma.
The three unarmed crew are already checking Ray, but he waves them off as a grunt rumbles from his throat. “I’m fine!” He pats the place where he got hit, finding flecks of ceramic on his hand. “The armor plate caught it.” As a security contractor, he has licensed access to military grade armored suits, comparable to that of the armed forces of each respective interstellar state. Ray gets on his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain. A beeping notification pops at Ray and Lix’s HUD, notifying them that an unauthorized command is trying to unlock the bulkhead door behind them. Ray grabs a cylindrical object from his belt, squeezes the metal spoon, and pulls the pin. “Smoke,” he says while standing behind Lix. She nods before he throws it into the hallway. The spoon flings off the grenade when it leaves his hand. A fizzling sound followed by a thick white smoke obscures the hall.
With a deep inhale, Ray sprints to the other side, with Lix firing bolts of plasma simultaneously. Safely on the other side, he fires through the smoke, noticing two muzzle flashes in return. He grabs the tablet magnetically attached on his belt, checking the cameras to find two pirates leaning out of a doorway. One is standing while the other is crouching underneath his buddy. “Two contacts at a doorway on the left,” he radios.
With focused fire at the doorway, the two are covering the five crew running past the intersection to Ray’s side. Lix is the last one to cross. Ray ejects the empty mag and inserts a new one in the magazine well, pressing the bolt release to slam a fresh round home before taking rear security. He watches the previous bulkhead door opening to reveal a group of pirates before another blocks them. Ray lets out a breath of relief. Thank Mother Earth we got lucky.
The group navigates through the various hallways before taking a stair down and finally reaching the citadel. Lix shoves her thumb on the intercom button, panting. “This is security agent Amelix Catlow! Open the mantrap, please!” A tense moment passes, but no one answers. She tries again. “We have five other crew members and S.A. Raymond Wildheart with me! Please open!” Silence. “We got shot on our way trying to reach here, so let us fucking in, damn it!”
A crackling click comes out of the speaker. “Cool your blood,” a grizzled man answers, his words ending with a slight hiss. “It’s taking a bit of time to disengage the manual lock.”
After a loud metallic clunk, the door swings inward, revealing a face with a scaly narrow snout and large carnivorous teeth peeking out of its upper lip. Its body, a rippling specimen of musculature, towers over them, crowned with a captain’s hat. A pistol, or more aptly, an impractically large hand cannon for any but a Crugra, is in his hand. No matter how many times I see the captain, I can’t help but think of a crocodile and a human body builder slapped together in an editing software. Ray, remembering the training drilled into him, snaps a salute, with Lix raising her own. “Sorry about that, Captain Trag,” Ray says.
Trag returns the salute. “No apologies needed. Enter.” He steps aside, ushering them in. The light, but durable alloy door slams shut, locking securely behind them. A breath of relief escapes them when both Ray and Lix plop their behinds in a chair, leaning against the backrests after unlatching their helmets. The safe room is slightly cramped with all fourteen crew packed in the limited space. Suddenly, the nearby console beeps, catching everyone's attention as a notification flashes on its monitor of an incoming encrypted transmission — it’s the navy.
Took them long enough. Ray smiles.
Cheers erupt, reverberating in a noisy form of elation and relief until the captain quiets everyone. He taps accept on the monitor, and a middle-aged human strapped to a seat appears on the screen in his dark blue and black camouflage uniform as various crews in the background are working at their stations. “This is Commander Liao Jianhong of the UFES Siren. We will begin the counter piracy and rescue operation. Do you have any information you can pass along?”
“Hello, I’m Captain Trag of the MS Solar Lady. I must state my gratitude for your timely arrival, and I will defer to my security officers to explain our situation.”
For a croc, he’s quite eloquent. The captain gestures to both Ray and Lix, so Lix elbows Ray. He rolls his eyes at his coworker before stepping in front of the monitor. “There were originally nine pirates who entered the ship, but we killed two of them. All fourteen of us crew are secured in the citadel, and there are no serious injuries.” Ray shows his tablet to Trag, which is met with a nod. “I’m giving you access to the ship’s surveillance and door control systems.”
“Thank you. Sit tight, the marines are on the way. Out.” The transmission winks out.
With the transmission finished, Ray watches the camera feed to find the pirates running back toward the airlock they came in. Only for an external camera of the ship to display the pirate ship detaching itself, leaving the not-so-merry-anymore band of pirates behind. A plume of blue plasma erupts out of its main thruster, accelerating it away from the Solar Lady, but the navy destroyer actuates its fore-mounted rail gun to track the ship and a silent arc of electricity flashes at the end of its barrel. A 40mm diameter dart punches through the aft of the pirate ship and the engine sputters out, setting it adrift on its last course. This camera feed, displayed on the large monitor of the console, is met with hollering cheers and expletives from the crew.
Seconds later, a hangar bay on the destroyer slides open, discharging a dropship which flies out to the starboard airlock of the Solar Lady, opposite from where the pirate ship was previously docked. As soon as the clamps secure themselves in the dock and the pressure equalizes between the two craft, the airlock snaps open and a platoon of marines surges in the corridor, tactically advancing towards the group of pirates holding out at the port dock. Fully encased in armored plating from head to toe and assisted by a powered exoskeleton, the marines effortlessly carry kilograms of equipment at the pace of a quite aggressive evening stroll. But one hulking beast follows the soldiers, hefting a rotary gun linked to an ammo container on its back with armor plating typically found on armored vehicles. A Heavy Assault Tactical Exosuit, aka HATE.
“Oh whiskers.” Lix watches the tablet in Ray’s hand. “Someone’s gonna need more mop heads after this mess."
Ray smirks. “While you can use the mops, I’ll be using the cleaning drones instead, whiskers.” He grits his teeth and hisses when two fingers tugs at his ear. “Ow!”
“Fuck you, you slouch.” Lix releases her pinch before Ray rubs his abused ears until the PA system crackles on.
“Pirates, this is the United Federation of Earth Navy.” Captain Liao broadcasts on the speakers. “Lay down your weapons and surrender with your hands up. If you do not comply, we will use lethal force. This is your first warning. You have sixty seconds to comply.” The pirates tilt their heads up at the speaker before they look at each other, probably discussing as their mouths move and gestures fly back-and-forth, but the conversation is inaudible through the camera.
A minute passes, and one marine knocks his fist on the shoulder plates of the kneeling heavy exosuit. The exosuit stomps into the hallway, swinging the five barrels at the pirates gathered near the airlock. They scramble into cover before a storm of bullets gouges out the wall, floor, and any surface facing the spinning guns as hydraulics anchor the exosuit to the floor against the recoil until it stops three seconds later. Smoke from burnt propellant wafts from the barrels on updrafts of excess heat. “This will be your final warning.” The captain broadcasts again. “Surrender now and throw your weapons into the center of the hallway. You have sixty seconds to comply.”
A tense silence settles in the ship. The marines and pirates shift their grips on their weapons as the seconds tick by, when something skids on the floor. The HATE unit tenses at the object, but eases when he notices the familiar contours of a firearm, and more quickly follows suit. Next to enter the hallway are the pirates, hands poised above their heads as they slowly step out of cover. Marines rush the surrendering pirates from two directions, even from the hallway they use as cover before slapping restraints on their wrists. All the pirates are accounted for.
“Guess the ship doesn’t need extra mops at all.” Ray shuts off his tablet. “But it sure needs some duct tape. An entire box of duct tape.”
“What is duct tape?” asks Lix, head tilted to the side. “A roll of inflatable tubing?”
“Right, you wouldn’t know.” He turns on his tablet again and types ‘duct tape’ into the search bar.