Reid was leading a flanking maneuver on some pirates assaulting a group of the crew "fortified" behind a bunch of upturned tables in the dining area when the captain's call came through. "Reid! We've got incoming on the bridge! We need backup, now!"

Reid wasn't the type to ignore commands, but he couldn't just leave these guys hanging. "Kinda busy here, captain. Can you hold them for a couple of minutes?"

The captain sounded a lot more worried than he usually did. "We can try, but you'll be in a whole world of trouble if they take the bridge and shut off life support!"

That would mean only the people in battle suits would survive, and the pirates had a lot more of those than the crew did. Reid cursed. "Alright, I'll be there in just a minute!"

Turning to Flanders, he instructed, "Take Jones and Mike and assault them from the side as we planned. I'll take the other two and reinforce the bridge!"

Flander's face was inscrutable inside the suit, but his concern was evident in his voice. "Is splitting the squad wise, sir?"

Reid could understand. "No, it's not. But we've got too many fights going on in too many places. We'll just have to make do. Remember, fight smart, fight dirty, fight safe. You can't collect a bounty if you die claiming the kill!"

Flanders saluted Reid, and they split up. For the first time in a long time, Reid debated whether this job was worth the headache. It had been a while since things had gone this badly. Usually, if pirates got anyone aboard the ship, it was via a shuttle into their lone docking bay. It was relatively easy for Reid's squad to lock them down while hidden gun emplacements made short work of the pirates, battle suits or not. But this nightmare scenario was quickly teaching him he'd gotten overconfident and lax in his training. Now he was just hoping they lived long enough to learn from this shitshow.

The thundering of heavy footfalls around the next corner told Reid that a group of pirates was about to assault their position. Reid shouted, "Guns ready!" His old drill instructor would tear him a new one for referring to their rifles as "guns," but sometimes, in a firefight, an extra syllable just took too long.

Two pirates in battle suits rounded the corner, but one was already falling face-first. Ried and the two others with him made short work of the other, and then he noticed the one that had fallen had an actual axe buried in his back. A moment later, the strange alien named Erik, of all things, rounded the corner. "Awww, damn it! You took them out! Now I'm two behind Vanessa!"

Before Reid could say anything, the vitexrā herself appeared. "Not true, my lady. Only one of the pirates has been shot; the other was taken down by yourself, placing you only one behind me with a total of fourteen confirmed kills."

Reid quickly did some math. "Are you saying that the two of you took out five squads of pirates in battle suits?"

Erik grinned and spoke in that thick accent of his. "Well, not quite. You finished this group off!" The alien accentuated what he was saying by pulling the axe out of the dead pirate. He now had an axe in each hand and two more attached to quick-release holsters on his back.

Reid knew he should be moving, but he had to ask. "With Axes?"

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Erik's smile widened, showing far more teeth than should be possible to fit in one mouth. "Aye! Trained with them back when I was a cage fighter, don't feel right in a fight without em! But these here are upgraded from the simple steel axes I used back then. When activated, they got a plasma-heated edge that'll cut through even battle suits with relative ease!"

Reid was familiar with plasma-heated edged weapons. Some pirates carried them from time to time, but it still took a lot of power to force those through a battle suit's armor, so they only worked with the augmented strength a suit offered. Evidently, the rumors of the alien's raw strength had not been exaggerated.

Realizing that these two were doing more than even his squad, Reid made a decision. "Listen, the bridge is under assault. Think you two can handle it if I go back and reinforce my squad?"

Erik's grin turned more predatory, somehow. "If pirates are there, I'll happily lend a hand cleaning them up! Sides, there's a kid up there I promised to keep an eye out for if things ever got bloody!"

Reid nodded and turned back the way he'd come, hoping his absence hadn't cost his squad too much. Also, if the two aliens managed to survive, he'd have to put them in for a bonus share.

-

The minutes it took the laser cutters to sever the last bolts holding the hatch in place seemed to pass like an eternity, leaving Alen wondering if he should have left a will before going off into space. Except, who would he have left anything to? His parents? Maybe, if anyone could find them. He hadn't formed any other attachments, which was kind of sad to think about.

Alen shook his head. It was too late now. Having severed through the last bolt, everyone tensed. Things were silent for a moment, but then the door fell inward, and the hulking form of a pirate in assault armor filled the door.

Instantly, the bridge crew started unloading into the pirate, but rounds that would have easily pierced through the lighter battle suits only slowed down the much larger and thicker armored pirate, who wasted no time returning fire.

Instantly, one of the crew was shredded as a flechette round hit him, a favorite among pirates who want to do more damage to organic tissue while avoiding structural damage to the ship. There was a series of loud explosions as the pirate turned in place, firing round after round at the bridge crew, who were doing their best to return fire with as much ordinance as possible, racing to stop the assault suit before it could finish its grim butchery of the crew.

Alen couldn't help it. He knew his little sidearm was nothing more than a toy to the fight raging around him. All he could do was duck behind whatever cover he could find and hope.

A surprising amount of shouting was going on, especially when most of it seemed to be coming from voices augmented by battle suits. The first mate must have arrived with reinforcements!

Alen spared a glance over the console he was hiding behind, only to see the hulking form of the pirate in assault armor fall forward into the room, ridden from behind by Erik, of all people, with what looked like two axes buried into the back armor of the suit. He was hooting and hollering, putting on a show. "Did you see that? I got the big one! Do I get bonus points for that?"

Walking into view behind him was a much calmer Vanessa, wielding a rifle that looked a couple of sizes too big for her, probably taken from some pirates on the way. "No, because the suit was already heavily damaged, and he was distracted. However, that still puts you one up on me. Congratulations, my lady, you're in the lead for the first time." That was when one of the battle suits in the doorway behind the two of them started suddenly jerking a gun up toward Erik, but before he could get a proper shot lined up, Vanessa quickly and coldly gunned him down, seemingly without looking. "And now we're tied again. I hope you enjoyed your brief moment of supremacy, my lady."

Erik shook his head mournfully. "I swear you let him live just long enough to get a jab in at me!"

Then, turning and looking at what was left of the bridge, Erik's grin fell a couple of notches. "Ah, sorry we're a bit late. We didn't realize the bridge was under attack until Officer Reid told us, or we would have been here sooner..."

The captain got shakily to his feet. "Well, you still got here in time to keep them from taking the bridge. That's not nothing." Then, looking at the assault armor with two axes in its back, he added, "Not nothing at all..."