“Give me a bit more light.” I asked, as I grumbled, my fingers not quite able to figure out what I was dealing with.

“Yes yes! Liiiiight!” The Crabbit cried out and then turned on its little flashlight. That let me see what had happened. The cords got tangled, and it had dragged a connection out of socket.

I started pulling the section apart, and reordering it. This hadn’t been something I’d done. This whole section needed a bit of cord management, but it’d be fine for now once I reattached this line.

Getting all the lasers installed was a long task, even once they were fitted in place. Each of them needed a power line, and a computer uplink. I could have done a wireless connection, but…

Well wireless connections could be disrupted.

It wasn’t really easy, and from other ships I’d seen almost all of them had just used wireless connections, but I guess my old Earth sensibilities were coming into play. I never liked wireless devices, they just weren’t as reliable.

“You alright in there?” A gruff voice called out from above me, and I very purposefully went rigid so I wouldn’t bash my forehead into the panels above me.

“I’m alright. Just fixing a wiring issue.” I called out. Dang it. My legs were sticking out of the floor panel, and I was on my back underneath it, of course it would look weird.

I finished reconnecting the cord and looked at my Crabbit on my stomach.

“Lighten me up, so I can get out of here?”

“Yes yes! Graaaavity!” She cheered and I felt myself go weightless. I pushed out with my finger tips and soon I was floating feet up out of the floor crawl space, and then when I was clear, I snagged my fingers around the edge and spun myself around so I was on my feet on the floor.

Then gravity returned.

“Hammond? Need something?”

The man was wearing more casual clothes than I had seen from him before. His heavy jacket and pants, which I’m pretty sure were armored, were gone, leaving him in a much more comfortable looking long sleeve shirt and slacks.

He shook his head. “Just walking the ship. Getting a feel for her.”

“Ah I understand.” I reached over to the floor panel that had been removed and settled it back into place making the hallway once more safe to walk. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Hmm. Need a hand?” He offered, but…

Well, I had accepted with the lasers, but when I had gone back into the room after finishing the outer paneling…

“I’m good, thank you. This is just how I keep busy.” I added which wasn’t entirely a lie. I guess it was good to know that my newest crewmate could help with emergency repairs, but I wouldn’t put him anywhere near anything too important.

I think his repair ability was about on par with someone who hadn’t taken their scrapper exam back on UNK-L.

“Hmm.” He agreed, but didn’t actually head off, and I had a sudden realization that… Well he might be crew, but I hadn’t actually given him any work since he had joined.

That was weird. Like super weird.

Usually when you joined as crew for a ship you were put to work. Whether repair, maintenance, cleaning, or some form of support.

But I just didn’t really need anything. The Crabbits handled most of the tedious tasks, like cleaning…

“Actually Hammond. I do have something I need to ask, walk with me while I finish this?

I asked, and he nodded instantly.

I headed back to the laser battery room. They were now mostly installed, but I was checking everything and Tactical was running simulations for their accuracy. She was doing okay so far.

“Tell me everything you know about these two pirate ships? Common tactics? What size ships are they in? Anything like that?” I asked, as I settled in and started connecting up one of the lasers to the power line I had just fixed.

It took a while for Hammond to respond, but he breathed out in an exhale and finally spoke.

“I don’t know a lot directly. Two ships, one an old freighter of some sort. The other’s something bigger. Don’t know exactly. Tactic is simple enough. The freighter fakes damage and starts running a distress beacon.”

“Wouldn’t that get them caught by system defense?”

“Not if the damage is real… But otherwise I don’t know what trick they're using.”

“I see.” It made sense. Chasing ships was a hard. If a ship was in subspace you weren’t going to get them.

Instead you had to bring them into real space, or better yet, disable their engines. A ship that couldn’t move, couldn’t get into subspace.

“I know they have a good Electronic Warfare Specialist.” I looked up at that.

“That’s dangerous, anything you know about him?”

“Her. She’s the Bounty. Need her alive.” He explained tersely, more gruff than I had expected from him.

“Alright? That’s not an easy thing to ask for. Taking a ship without severe damage depends more on how quickly they surrender.”

“They won’t. Pirates like that don’t surrender. They know what’s waiting for them.” He said, and I frowned as I stared at the rear of the laser wires and connections flowing out of it.

I took a breath and my hands moved practically without thought. Slowly reattaching the complex arrangement of power and control lines.

Once I was done I turned to look at Hammond.

“Then how exactly is this going to work?” I asked him, honestly curious.

“The two ships… The bounty is on the freighter.” He added after a moment of gruff silence.

“So we only need to capture the freighter, that’ll already be mimicking damage, and destroy the other ship?”

He nodded. “I’ll have more details when we land. Got a contact on a world that’s been keeping an eye out.”

“Right. You mentioned that.” I said as I moved on to the next laser. “How does the bounty thing work anyways? I don’t think I’ve ever met a bounty hunter.”

He went quiet but eventually just shrugged. “I hunt people down, sometimes dead, sometimes alive. Get paid when I confirm whichever way it matters.”

“And this one you need the target alive?”

“Definitely, preferably unharmed.” He added almost unthinking.

“Who is she? Some nobles daughter or something? This EW specialist pirate?”

“No one important” He said instantly, but hesitated. “You need anything else Captain?”

“Oh… No, I’m good. Just finishing this up.” I confirmed and he walked out of the room.

So, a girl taken by pirates, and working as their EW specialist? Not good, but it was a job, and I didn’t like pirates to start with…

I was going to hunt pirates.

I’d made the choice already. So there was no point in getting anxious about it. Right?

Reaching out I grabbed another power cable and started hooking the next laser up. More weapons would be perfect.

—--

There were a lot of adjustments needed with adding someone new to the Phantom Star.

For one, I was used to just walking around my ship and only the Crabbits being there. Every time I stepped into a room and Hammond was there it felt like a jolt of surprise.

Then of course the fact he was a massive guy, and the first time I’d entered the mess room, to see him drinking out of a bottle and a small glass and I realized he was drinking alcohol. Or the fact he sang in the shower.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

At least it was down in the hold, and I could get away from the off key, and off color lyrics by heading away from it.

But that was just part of the process of being on a ship.

The burst of real space appearing through my bridge window was a welcome change once more.

Like a storm clearing and suddenly you see open sky and land.

“Transition to real space complete.” I said, mostly for myself, and the Crabbit gave little cheers

“Oooh! This is annoying!”

“Aaaaah!”

“Relax!” I called out, as the Crabbit got frustrated.

The sight outside the window showed stars, and space, but also beautiful shifting colors, as gas clouds so massive they could hide entire worlds flowed around the system.

This was one of those systems where space stations were more popular than planets. Only two planets in the system were livable, but most of the population lived in space, because these gas clouds were massive resources, so harvesting them was the main output of the sector.

It also explained how the pirates got away with things.

Sensors didn’t like the nebula, and received constant weird responses, or just nothing as they couldn't scan through the filled space.

Just in case, I checked comms and added a bit of power to the system, just to see if anyone out there was sending out a distress signal.

Nothing. Just normal chatter.

“Let Hammond know we are on our way to the planet.” I told the crabbit, as I touched the controllers and started accelerating.

This entire system was… Weird. The massive nebula made travel a bit strange, as you couldn’t easily go straight towards some locations. It was a maze of paths through the gas that had been formed from travel, or on purpose as the gas was harvested. I was going to have to go around a massive chunk of the nebula to get to the planet thanks to my current location.

As I accelerated though I was tagged with a comm message. I accepted the automated message after checking it over quickly. “Huh.” I couldn’t help but say as the comm message had the list of paths through the nebula.

Suddenly my sensor net had data for how to get around through the system.

Adjusting my course, instead of going all the way around, I had a path through the nebula that would save me a good chunk of time.

It was actually kind of exciting. The Phantom soared through space, her nose pointed towards the shifting colored nebula. And as we got closer and closer there it was, a massive breach in the cloud a tunnel that was puckered inwards and I wasn’t alone. I slowed down a tad, as I entered the gaping hole, aiming towards one of the smaller paths shooting off.

I ended up right behind another ship, a small in system work freighter from the sensor return, as I came up behind it, but didn’t push my way forward to try and cut him off.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the way the little ship seemed to jerk around a bit at my appearance behind it, but I simply slipped into the tunnel that was almost too small for the Phantom behind it, and started moving through the nebula superhighway.

And then together we traveled through the twisting turning tunnel.

“Mind if I come up?” Hammond suddenly shouted from below, and because I was such in the groove I didn’t even have time to think about my anxiety of someone else on the bridge.

“Sure!” I shouted, practically laughing, as I continued through the tunnel, enjoying the feeling of the Phantom juking and diving through the path. I could see that the little freighter ahead of me was pushing their engines to try and create some distance from me, but even with the Phantoms larger size, she was much faster than an in system worker bug.

It was probably a little mean, but it was kinda like racing, and I wasn’t about to lose!

Then the tunnel ended, opening up not out of the Nebula, but into it.

A massive chunk of the Nebula had been farmed away, and inside was two stations, both of them gas harvesters. Their long ‘tail’ pushed into the nebula, and as the station slowly traveled around the massive cave, it left an indent in the gas behind it.

But I wasn’t here for these stations, instead I split off from the little freighter, and accelerated hard leaving the poor thing in our dust as we headed for another tunnel. That would lead us to the other side of the nebula and the planet we were aiming for.

“What a place.” Hammond said from my side, and I didn’t even jump! Instead I smiled and nodded

“It is. Amazing really. When we’re done with the pirates, I kinda want to go through more of these tunnels and see where they lead. This place is amazing… Like a cave system in space.”

“Heh. Caves are scarier than this. This gunk you could just aim out and push through it, you’d be blind, but it won’t stop you.”

“Unless you run into a chunk of rock or something.” I offered and he nodded.

“True.” He went silent just taking in the sights of the nebula around us as I continued flying.

This was it. The entire reason the Phantom Star was so important for me.

I was… I was the first human from my century to get to experience this. Space travel. Seeing the marvels of all the far and distant galaxy…

It was perfect.

“Mind slowing down a bit?” Hammond asked from beside me and I didn’t take my eyes off the view. I couldn’t if I wanted to stay in the tunnel, but I still felt the tension in the older man.

“We aren’t really going that fast. It just feels that way because of the way these tunnels formed. You don’t usually see things moving past a ship like this, as most things are millions of miles away.”

“Yeah… Mind slowing down?” He asked, and I couldn’t help bark out a laugh, as I cut back on the speed, and the tunnel within the gas slowed down rapidly, as I cut the speed to a much more casual cruise.

“Sure.” I offered, it didn’t bother me, even if going fast was more fun. It was still a beautiful view.

I leaned back and just casually made the course corrections, feeling the thrum of my girls engines shifting alignment to spiral us through the gas tunnel.

I glanced over and Hammond looked calm staring out just like I was.

It was still strange to have someone else on board, someone I barely knew. Someone so much older than I was.

But… I nodded as I returned to flying, this was just part of being a ship captain. It would all work out. If he ended up getting annoying, then we wouldn’t work together, and I’d find someone else.

It might take a while but…

Finding my crew… I smiled. Yeah, starship captains had to have a crew.

Suddenly a turn in the tunnel and we were out, at least mostly, a massive gap in the nebula revealed the sun, in the large almost…

I’m pretty sure it was artificial. A massive gap in the nebula that let a planet see the sun. Huh, that must have taken a long time to set up.

“That’s the planet.” I said and he nodded.

“Here. I have the coordinates. It’s a small town. Gotta talk to the bartender there… Can you set us down outside the city? So no one can see the ship?”

I blinked and looked up at him. “Sure I can, but… That would be a long way away.”

“We take a lifter…” He said and then went quiet as he looked at me.

“I don’t have any ground vehicles.” I responded to his obvious question.

“Well shit.” He hissed, out a grumpy sigh.

Shit was right… I had planned on getting some kind of vehicle eventually, but I didn’t have one yet.

“We can’t just land in the town?”

“Not with this thing… The town is where some of the pirates go to drink and spend some of their creds.” He explained, and I felt my eyes narrow.

So… I can’t just point the Thermal Lance and wipe it off the face of the planet? I shook off that dark thought. No, don’t be evil. Okay…

“This planet. It’s a dirt ball right?” I asked, able to tell most of that just from looking at it. Barely any satellites, or space activity.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s not just the one town right?”

“No, it’s got cities. We’re aiming for a small town. Private.”

“Then we land in a city first.” I decided, and he looked surprised.

“You’re gonna buy a vehicle?”

“Seems like it. Unless you fancy a ten mile walk into and out of town.” I asked him, because that would be the minimum I would have be from the town to even hope to remain hidden. The Phantom Star was a bit of a big bitch. She wasn’t stealthy in atmosphere.

“That won’t be cheap.” He said, after a while. “Planet like this, a crawler's gonna be pricey.”

“Do you have a better idea? I don’t suppose there would be a taxi from the city to the town?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then we buy a vehicle.” I decided firmly. It would hurt my wallet, but that’s what all the cred was in there for to start with, besides, if we managed to take out two pirate ships that was going to be a nice chunk of creds anyways.

Decision made, I poked my Tab, I’d need to make some calls for landing if I was going to a city.

—--

Landing at what I could only describe as some sort of massive slum was a bit of a surprise.

The entire planet looked brown upon entry, and the smoke, and mess of human habitation had stretched out.

But more shocking was how bad it all looked.

From the bridge on landing I could look out and just see endless brown buildings made out of whatever material they could find, stretched out into the distance, and masses of people wandering through the streets.

“You good?” Hammond called up to me, as I was still staring out the bridge with a sense of serious regret.

I didn’t want to walk out there. It was like Starks Point, but worse.

That had just been a small frontier town. This was like a boom town, hundreds of thousands potentially living in squalor.

“Coming!” I finally found my voice and called out.

The shield Crabbit idea was still… Not functional, I had my gun, and I had a big guy with bigger guns…

I was going to have to make some armor or something. Maybe a power armor? Or just a walker? A massive Crabbit I could hide in as it moved around?

No, that was just a tank, and I couldn’t deal with normal people from inside a mechanized war machine…

Or could I?

I took a breath, in and out and then headed for the ladder down. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

“Hmm. Shouldn’t be too hard.” Hammond commented, as he adjusted the large coat he had over his shoulders. That did very little to hide the gun he had on his hip.

I was at least comforted by his presence. Hopefully if anyone felt a desire to point a gun at me, they’d think twice with the massive giant beside me.

We headed down the ladder, and I grabbed a Crabbit and threw it over my shoulder where it clamped on and snuggled in.

“Hmm? You taking one of those?”

“Yep! They’re useful even if they aren’t mobile in atmosphere.”

He shrugged, and we both headed to the ramp which was still up, and I pushed a button on the Tab controls, the moment the seal broke, noise washed over us, slowly opening up the view to the chaos outside.

We were on a landing pad, but it was butted right up against a street. A busy street where people were walking by or driving vehicles pulling cargo.

It was shocking that people would be positioned so close to landing pads.

I mean, most ships wouldn’t just blast engine exhaust into crowds, but… I looked down the road, to the other ships that were parked and it made me anxious to have to walk past them.

One crazy pilot, and I’d be chewing engine exhaust.

“Hey hey! You want some supplies! Best dealer on the planet!” A voice called out right next to me, and I jerked. A man was there, reaching out to grab my arm, with a crooked grin.

But then Hammonds hand grabbed the man's arm and stopped him cold.

“Beat it.” He demanded in a gravel growl that had the guy skittering back without hesitation.

“Jeez.” I grabbed my chest as my heart was beating like crazy. “Did he have to appear out of nowhere?”

“This your first time on a world like this?” Hammond suddenly asked, and I looked over and felt my face heat up. I nodded.

“Not like this at least.”

“Alright. Just stay close, and close up the ship. Don’t want anyone sneaking in.”

I nodded at his orders, and I felt a bit embarrassed that I wasn’t the one confidently doing what needed to be done. I pushed the button on my Tab and the hold doors closed behind us.

“C’mon. Let’s go get some information, then a dealer.” He offered and waited a moment for me to follow before setting off into the crowd.

The swarm of people was almost suffocating, but Hammonds massive bulk pushed through and I followed in his wake.

My hands glanced over my blaster, and I followed as best I could in the press.

Finally he stopped and turned, and I pushed through his wake as we entered a building that only took me a moment to recognize.

Ah, of course it’s a bar.

I took a breath, filled up my lungs and stepped into the gloom. I could do this.