The daemons vessel fires something at me from around 100k km away. Had I had an actual void weapon that would be well within mid-range but as it was it out-ranged my heavy las cannon by almost 5x. The acceleration probably exceeded a short burn torpedo, but I didn’t have stats on that available to me. Suffice it to say, I’d have time for one shot using the las cannon as point defense, but it was small, so I’d be at a disadvantage. Before it gets into range, I dial down the strength on the heavy las cannon to a quarter and fire two krak missiles off hoping they might work as decoys if I detonate them before or while the other missile passes. They are much slower though and not hunter-killer missiles so I doubt it will be an effective tactic.

The missile gets into range and seems to target my left side, perhaps the engine. I fire, and the shot goes wide. Just not made to fire at targets like that. It gets near enough for one of the krak missiles to detonate right before slamming into my voidshield. I feel the tremor course through the ship and the Vibrant panics a little. One more of those and the voidshield would be near useless if not overloaded. And if the Vibrant is right, if we didn’t have the voidshield the torpedo would blast right through any armor it hit, just like a melta weapon. I ignored any kt yield predictions the Vibrant was doing and looked to my weapons.

The krak missile idea was a bust and unless I make a perfect shot the las cannon isn’t hitting. I flare the engines, put the las cannon back out of the “point defense” power-level and take the Vibrant to the full acceleration of a little over 8g’s. Then I remember to lower the blast shielding on the windows and the heavy plates lower into place.

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“Captain that thing ate the proton torpedo like nothing I’ve ever seen.” One of the pirates on targeting said. They all had seen the opaque shield come into existence when the torpedo hit. “For sure, that’s not a regular deflector shield boss.”

“Will our weapons get through it?”

“Probably but on any other ship that doesn’t have military shields that blast would have gone through. I’m not sure how it’ll hold up to the other two or our laser cannons.”

“Boss, its accelerating to, what I think, is its combat speed.” One of the helm pirates said with barely contained mirth. He put the speed on the bridge hud so everyone could see it. 8.46g’s acceleration had everyone incredulous. “Uh, they’ve also just deployed some sort of blast shielding on their bridge. I guess the torpedo had an effect. And I don’t think the laser is going to be an issue. Comp is telling me it might be dangerous on a speeder, but our ray shield will be fine.”

“Alright, let’s take if forward. Full accel.”

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Watching the daemon’s ship hit 100’s of g’s of acceleration and keep climbing I prayed. Clearly it was using it’s tainted power to push its vessel far beyond its capabilities. This did not say anything good for my chances of survival.

We got into my range first, I was happy to see. But they juked and I shot clear passed them. They started shooting at me a moment later. The gunner’s bloodthirst must be immense because he started shooting as they juke, and a flurry of red projectiles pass by my ship. Their vessel skims 12k km above me, clearly looking to get behind me, but they’re slowing down to make the turn, now doing only 10x the g’s my ship is capable of.

I make another attack while rolling to keep them within view of my dorsal weaponry. I miss again and am beginning to doubt my abilities as a gunner. Surely the Machine God hasn’t forsaken me. Their dive takes them within 8k km, and I see that whatever burst weapon that fired first isn’t the only one I must contend with. 5 ventral weapons light up. Most go wide but one of them hits. Their guns are noticeably more potent than most of the anti-air fire Vibrant has had to contend with in the past and I feel its anxiety echo through me. Its measurements tell me that the vessel could be scrap within 2 volleys once the void shield is done. Which was sitting at around 40.8 percent the Vibrant was telling me. The daemons vessel was around 4k km from us now and was turning sharply to get under me, but they’d have to get within 100 for the krak missiles to even have a chance at hitting.

I continue rolling and fire again, this time scoring a hit. Some of it seems to splash off of some sort of barrier but I can tell I’ve scored it. It continues under my weapons horizon and this time an identical number of dorsal weapons open up on me. Half of the angry red bolts hit home and the Vibrant informs me we have 4 percent left and the voidshield is about to fail. I do a quick calculation with the vibrant on where to dip our roll to get the enemy to continue their dive to within the 100km I’m shooting for. I push the engines to their limit moving like that and the ship trembles. The daemonic vessel comes in close. I think they want to cripple me and board. I fire both missile tubes and the las cannon at the last moment before they try and dip below range again. Cursing as only a single missile strikes home, they close and are facing directly at my starboard engine. They fire, only 3 this time as they don’t have the angle direct on for more of their firepower. What they make up with that with is another of those baleful torpedoes. One of the attacks outright missed, the other two take out my shield and score the armor. The torpedo hits and The Vibrant feels like it flips end over end. The grav plating holding just enough so that the servitors and I aren’t tossed around the room before the reactor’s safe shutdown hits the rest of the ship. Battery giving me just enough to know we aren’t dead, but we are without thrust until the remaining engine comes back online with the reactor.

As the servitors with me regain their footing I rub the bruised side of my face. The Vibrant’s weak, half-asleep spirit nudges me. Something is going on. The ship is being affected by some sort of gravitic anomaly. Our rotation slows and stops fairly rapidly. I grab all the servitors, down 3 in the engine room, and rush to the engine room while keeping an eye on things with the auspex sensors. The stubby starboard wing is still there, but where the engine should be is empty space and scrap. Where it should be leads directly into the engine room and seeing it doesn’t spark joy. I can see the body of one of the down servitors but the other 2 are straight up missing. Damage from spalling and shrapnel is present everywhere. I grab the box of modified grenades. I can see through the auspex that the daemon’s is settling to our ventral port side out of view of the turrets. The missiles could reach but the single one that hit hadn’t gotten through whatever barriers they had.

I hand out 7 of the grenades and keep 3 for myself. I hope I don’t need to use the servitors as suicide bombers, but I’m ready for the possibility. All of the 5 spike and shield servitors have 1 grenade, and the tower shield wielders have 2 amongst them. I split them amongst the groups. Two of the tower shield servitors with 3 of the others are behind the reactor housing which completely shields them from view of the opening. I have the rest part-way up the spiral staircase, also out of view but its possible one of them could be seen. The staircase is solid, meant to defend the ship in case of boarders when it sets down its Imperial Guard load, but its not impermeable.

Now all I have to do is wait to see if my thought about them trying to gain access to the ship via the new entrance is correct.

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The atmosphere aboard the Dusty Crow was filled with a vicious excitement that these pirates only felt when something had gotten personal. The captain had 9 of the other pirates suit up in the lightly armored spacesuits they had. The suits all had an expensive military weave added in that sealed any holes created with a bacta laced foam that would help clot bleeding and stop any pressure loss. They had all agreed after an incident, they refused to even think about it anymore, to shell out the credits for the upgrade.

The Captain quickly organized the group with their weaponry, mostly blaster pistols and vibroswords on the side, and verified what the sensors were seeing when they lowered the airlock hatch. There was a cavernous hole where the torpedo had entered the massive engine and a mild blue glow coming from further in the ship. The sensors told him it seemed to enter a larger hold of some sort, but they didn’t have the space or energy capacity on the ship for a lifesign detector, so they were unsure about the crew complement on the ship. The pilot had suggested, as he suited up, that it was probably a bulk lifter of some sort and there might only be a few people on board.

“Alright, you guys know the drill. This isn’t your normal smash and grab. We are taking this ship,” He had to pause a moment for the crew’s blood thirsty agreement, “And then we’re gonna sell it to the Hutts for millions!” The cheer was explosive. “Get the magnetic grapnel secured and a line on that ship. Aim for the giant hole in its ass!”

A minute later the pirates are climbing into the slagged engine. Thermal sensors on the ship show its cooled enough to be walked through and they see, 30ft down, where the explosion blew into the engine room.

“Alright, groups of three. Shout if you see movement.”

The group slowly crept into the immense engine room. There was a mezzanine above them that seemed empty of threats. It connected via a narrow bridge to a spiral staircase off center on their side of the room. It was lit dimly by the blue coils of an immense structure in the middle of the room that seemed to cut it in half. The dim glow barely lit its side of the engine room, and they could all see the devastation from the torpedo. There was one corpse is the middle of it all, badly mangled.

The first group of three were heading around their side of the engine room, to the left of the spiral staircase. The second were heading to see what was on the other side of the reactor, the right of the staircase and near the wall the reactor created. Fairly narrow compared to the rest of the room but easy to get around even two abreast.

The Captain’s helmet light tracked up to the mezzanine as he ignored the groups chatter about the ship. The three ahead of him left the area under the mezzanine and he thought he saw something move through the grate at the top of the stairs.

“Eyes up,” was a far as he got before a bundle struck the ground in front of that middle three. One of them reacted fast enough to look at up but his blaster wasn’t even up before the pack detonated. The grav plate under the explosion was rent in twain, the men nearby were not much better. The captain himself received some of the shrapnel from the explosion. On the right hand they had been partly protected going around the right of the stairs to the airlock and lockers, the group going left stumbled, having been closer to the explosion, looking back or above like the captain said.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“THERE!” one of the pirates yelled before firing at the top where the stairs meet the ceiling. Before any further callouts are made shielded forms come around the side of the reactor at a jog, slamming into the distracted pirates. One goes down, the others are merely on the back foot.

“YOU THREE,” he indicated the men on the left, “UP THE STAIR, NOW!” The Captain yelled, trying to take command of the situation. He looked at the men hit by the explosion, two of them were giblets, one had been far enough away to not get hit by the entirety of the concussion but the captain could see the unnatural bends and some wounds even the expanding bacta couldn’t keep closed.

He continued moving, picking up as he charged the tower shields. Getting off a shot he hits one of the deformed creatures on the back line as the other two standing either swipe with their vibroblades or shoot. He hits the same one the captain was aiming at but behind the shields its hard to tell how much damage was done. Slamming into the shield upset the creatures balance and it falls to a knee. Finally getting a good look at the things behind. Thick metal and helmet protect it from the void but the Captain pauses, sure he is seeing some exposed skin further down.

Then it is coming at him. It skirts around his right past the downed shield barer. It has a smaller shield for guarding its head and torso and a wicked spike in its other hand. Surprised at the curling narcoticized flesh around hand augmetics he almost didn’t get his sword up in time to attempt to parry. The next thing that horrified him was the unnatural strength of the thing. Pushing past his guard to score a small gouge in his armor. Thankfully not passing through.

He hears yelling over the coms about more on the stairs as he swings the sword around, cutting into the things torso and as it dips its shield in a too late block he fires, straight into the helmet. The thing slumps and twitches its arm as if its still trying to jab at him.

After the surprise of shielded melee combatants, the pirates on his side organized quickly. The fallen one getting up and only a few injuries taken as they downed another of the spike bearers and the shielded one, he had tripped. Only two left on this side he is about to tell them to clean up and go to help the others before the combead in his ear shrieks loud enough to tear his ear drum and begins melting. He is vaguely aware of the other three having another bomb dropped on them as they are forced out of the stairs.

Looking up he see that the others must have had the same inferno go off in their heads. He wobbles and falls to his knees, unable to take his helmet off to remove the fire from his ear. The shield barer crushes the helmet and head of one of his pirates and the spike goes clear through into another’s head. The one with the spike looks for another to finish off and turns to him. The shield barer fighting to crush the throat of a weakly struggling pirate as the one with the spike walks up to him. He is almost thankful as the spike goes through his eye, ending his suffering.

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Meanwhile the two pirates left on board:

“Look all I’m saying is, that shield? The metal in system? When we sell it to the Hutts we’re all gonna be millionaires!”

“Yeah, I guess.” The younger pirate said, a little bolstered by his ally’s confidence. “But this is a huge ship. What if the hold is full of assassin bots?” Neither of them noticed the away-teams’ combead symbols go blank. And they only chided the astromech droid to keep plotting the course to Nal-Hutta when it began beeping at them in binary.

“Huh, why did the airlock just cycle?”

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Two more of my servitors had been killed in the brief and intense fight. Much less than I expected to lose. I thank the Omnissiah that I was able to affect their xeno tech at the end there. There had been a faint sliver of communication flying through the noosphere every time one of them spoke. It had been encrypted but it wasn’t their foul tongue I was trying to decode, but the poorly protected sources of the signal. Surprisingly it seemed binary was universal. I had thought to overload them and had not expected the effect I received. Immediately they had almost universally fallen to their knees and were simple for the servitors to finish the combat. I rushed down. There was still a ship attached to mine.

Getting to the ground I check, all 10 of the invaders are on the ground. But some have shaped helmets to accommodate for an extra-large cranium. Or horns. I check the nearest one.

Same red skin. Slightly darkened due to suffocation. The shield servitor had crushed this one’s throat. The body hadn’t gone away as my mentor had mentioned of defeated demons. Were these merely mutated xenos? I checked the other two and found the captain. Missing an eye and leaking brains I recognized him even so. Dropping the head, I contemplated. What were these, really? Extensive testing would be needed. I picked up his weapon. There was a connection port, but no way was I checking its programming with a mechandrite. I tested it, firing into the broken engine complex. Everything seemed to work so I had the servitors follow. The spikes exchanged for the enemies’ weapons, and I sincerely hoped this wasn’t a terrible idea. I let a single tower shield toting servitor keep it and the rest outfitted with either working guns or a spike. Some seemed to have broken in the anti-tank explosives wake.

We went into the engine area engaging magnetic boots and the ship was still attached. I worked quickly to get the servitors connected to begin climbing over. I decided to stay back and watch through the servitors’ mechanical eyes.

Getting to the lowered ramp into the ship the servitors began disconnecting and walking further into the airlock. Once all were on board, I guided one through the process and the ramp closed. Opening to the interior.

It was, clean. For the lack of a better word. They clearly kept their gear in this work room. A few of their space suits still held by overhead arms and a clear shop for gear maintenance. I was beginning to doubt my initial assumption. The servitors continued further, and we noticed an old man cringing behind the equipment rack. We nearly shot but he seemed harmless. And human. I had one of the spike servitors watch him and the rest moved in. The first couple doors were a nearly empty equipment room of some type, and another partially filled with everything you’d need to keep a ship like this clean and some spare parts.

The next after a closed door was a lift and stairs up. Followed by another door. I had the door checked before everyone started up the stairs. It was a cargo room, mostly empty with a large crate of goods. We could check it later.

On the first landing up, there was another further up, the door opened as the servitors were starting to look around. There was a tall, lanky, blue xeno with large eyes. His eyes widened comically as he went to his gun. The first servitor, the one with the shield, was faster. Slamming the edge into the xeno he stumbled, and the servitor stomped over and brought the shield down. Crunching into the xeno’s head. He seemed to like that maneuver. I decided to send them further on where the xeno came from. First the doors on either side were bedrooms, then bathrooms. And when we entered the last room, into the large cockpit, we heard the tail-end of a one-sided conversation.

“Hey boss, can you hear me? BOSS!?” He turned as he heard us enter, “Oh hey guys I was just…” before he noticed who we were, and I was sending the spike servitors forward. It was quick and bloody, they got to him, and he got his gun out injuring one of them before the rapid stabbings took effect. This last, maybe last, pirate was the last thing between us and probably annihilation by those unholy powerful weapons their ship carried. I left one servitor there and sent the others through the ship to open every door. We found two more non-combatants. Another human and another near human with strange growths covered in skin on his head. I considered finishing him before any live interrogation could take place, just in case, but he seemed to have a good rapport with the other two. So I kept them together in the large cargo room to prevent too much panic. I left 3 servitors watching them and stationed the rest through the ship. I checked on the pirates on my ship. All dead, some utterly pasted. I gathered all the swords, seven working and three scrap, and the guns. Five of them working and five more scrap. Then lined them up by the hole in the wall. Before going to the reactor and checking for damage.

Once I was done with that and making sure all fuel and plasma lines heading to the destroyed engines were shut, I went through the Rite of ignition.

++ The soul of the Machine God surrounds thee ++

++The power of the Machine God invests thee++

++The hate of the Machine God drives thee++

++The Machine God endows thee with life++

++LIVE++

I go through the mantra while preforming the steps to reinvigorate a plasma reactor. It comes online and I feel the Vibrant curiously query me about the battle once all the systems are online. I provide the memory from my implants and the Vibrant seems to be in agreement. We might have gotten slaughtered in the void combat, but we have done well.

The few in the other cargo hold are beginning to get restless. I head over to the other ship. First, disconnecting the magnetic line and pulling it with me to the other ship. As I do that, I get a confirmation from the Vibrant that we are in a stable orbit. I’d thank the daemon/ish enemy captain, but he only did that to prevent us from getting away from his via a fiery death. The servitors open the airlock for me, and I get on. The ship looks fascinating in person. Relatively clean but clearly well used the workshop has many of the holy implements a Tech-Priest needs and more than a few I don’t recognize. I skip going to the cargo hold for now and go up to the cockpit. There what I had thought of as part of the ensemble turned a metallic head towards him. There seemed to be a red crystalline eye present in it and I got nervous we hadn’t removed all the threats. Then it spoke to me in binary.

It was like hearing a dialect of a language you’ve heard enough to know by heart but its just alien enough to you to not understand what its saying. I immediately send a query via the MIU and while I had its attention beforehand, now I felt its scrutiny. It babbles again and I send a refining query. It goes back and forth until we each have a shared vocabulary.

++ What is your purpose ++ I asked.

++ Derive hyperspace routes for the ship to follow ++ The thing said. Possessing what felt surprisingly similar to a machine sprite, just one that had full control of a stationary object, and less of the ship it manned. I would have to do much in the way of analyzing this. And its definition of “hyperspace”.

++ Tell me about the former leader of this ship. The one I saw on the communication ++

++ Herald Dahl. Captain of the Dusty Crow. Devaronian. Associated with the Black Sun Pirates ++

++ Tell me about Devaronians ++

++ Humanoid, near-human, strongly matrilineal race. Males tend to be opportunistic and inquisitive. The captain sent a portion of all of his take amongst the pirates home ++

Huh. That had not been what I expected of that thing. ++ What do you mean near-human, humanoid ++

++ Near-Human implies enough genetic similarity for interbreeding ++

Another surprise. I guess they are abhuman mutants. I supposed I should have expected things to be such even a galaxy apart.

++ Before we continue on this line of questioning, what of the ones in the cargo hold? ++

++ Slaves bought in Hutt space. ++ Interesting. That could be useful, and they weren’t part of the pirates.

++ Do any of them speak Binary? ++

++ The mechanic, Twi’Lek. ++ I’m tempted to ask what Twi’Lek are but it’s obvious, there is only one abhuman in the hold.

++ I will return ++ Moving back through the compartments I return to, and enter, that cargo hold. The reaction of the 3 prisoner slaves is immediate and I can sense fear but the one who we found in the initial room seems more relaxed, or resigned, than the others. I look to, what I think, is the Twi’Lek.

++ Know I do not speak your language, this is the only means of communication I posses ++ I enunciate clearly and slowly, eschewing some of the fancier trappings of the language all tech priests learn to communicate around in the sentences they speak. ++ You are all slaves? ++ This question gets me a hesitant, and possibly fearful, nod. ­++ Good, then you three are allowed to return to your duties. Know those aboard the ship will be watched and possession of a weapon is not allowed. If you find any within the pirates bounties, or other valuables, return them to this room so I may account for them. I will call for you soon as I will endeavor to learn “Galactic Basic” so we may better communicate.” I assign a servitor to watch each of them, but to stay out of any small rooms with them. Best they know, at least, a watcher is nearby.

Once assured I will be listened to, I return to the cockpit. I have much to learn about this vessel and the new galaxy I find myself in. But first, sleep. The pilots chair looked comfier than my own on the Vibrant. I set two servitors to watch the door here and the rest randomly throughout the ship. My hazy mind drifted off in a wonderfully cushioned seat.