The group of pirates that were about to board the ship of Deschamps were taken aback, not expecting our little inquisition party here. I’d be surprised if they did; however, i was sure that our new pirate friend wouldn’t let us down with the threat of death planted on his back.

The assault squad is conformed by ten people, almost a third of our total crew, but we have the best of them here, including Novak, Santángel and Dzhabrailov, along with six other soldiers and myself, all kitted out for combat.

“Stand down! Stellar Union army speaking!” We rush from the Sleipnir, and while aiming our rifles at them, Santángel roars at them with a deep commanding voice.

They stand frozen for a bit and then a couple of them don’t think clearly and let the panic rush to their heads, and try to unholster their handguns, which causes Dzhabrailov and another one of our people to shoot at them. A single shot each, but that is enough, as both pirates get a blazing hole in their heads by the railgun rifles of our team. Those two are our marksmen, and the only ones with railgun equipment on them, as it’s damn hard to learn to use one of those without perforating a kilometer forward; the rest of us have standard laser and plasma weaponry.

As both brazen pirates drop dead, the rest of them succumb to the panic, some try to flee, some try to retaliate. The latter ones, get absolutely destroyed by our coordinated fire in a mere second. Without wearing any defensive armor or devices, a human body is too damn fragile.

“Aim at the legs, thin beams” I order, and our front gunners, mainly Novak, other three people and me, adjust the beam size on the guns and shoot at the fleeing pirates legs. It takes a bit longer than their colleagues, but we get them all in no time. The thin beams are enough to perforate muscle and bone, but as they are not that wide, the wound gets cauterized almost immediately, reducing the bleeding by a lot.

I signal at the Sleipnir, and another ten people come out. These are also geared up, but with a lighter setup, as they are our backup forces. This team is commanded by Lai, which she does quite efficiently I must say; a damn shame also. Whatever; this team is to secure the docking bay and create a perimeter quickly while we scout the ship for the Valdari hostages. We have a couple of marksmen, five front gunners, one heavy weapons, a medic and a techrunner. The techrunner, a slim guy named Luca, is the main actor of this operation, as we’ll need him to locate our targets without having to search for a week in here. We just have to get him to a control panel.

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“Let’s move according to plan, team bravo-one, secure hostiles and prep a perimeter, if Deschamps does something suspicious, zero him… alpha-one, on me” I say on our private comms channel and start to move out. We can see the pathway this guys on the ground came out from, so we’ll start there.

We move fast, as there’s limited time to pull this out without engaging in a pitched battle. As we pass through a big metal door on the end of the pathway, the sound of an alarm goes off. They noticed us.

Well, we expected as much, as we just opened fire on the docking bay, at least we got this far. The door behind us immediately closes, probably with the intention of locking us out of the station, but as we are already inside, it’s no use for them.

I glance at Luca, who is busy tapping on his wrist. I see nothing there, but i see him moving his head nonstop, and tapping like playing a piano, so i guess he’s looking at something. Speaking of which, Hallie, can’t i just plug you in this ship and be done with it?

[I have hacking capabilities installed so it’s possible to proceed, but i suggest to allow human techrunner Giorgio Luca continue]

Why is that?

[His profile in the documentation from the Stellar Union’s files collated with current analysis indicate an 87% probability of Giorgio Luca performing hacking-related tasks at a faster rate that which i’m currently able]

So this guy is better than you? At tech stuff? Wow… My impression of this scrawny boy just went up by several notches. As if he notices my thoughts, he looks at me and nods. For a moment there I doubt if he’s approving of what I thought but I snap back to reality, as he’s telling me he’s done.

“Where to?” I ask.

“Front, front, right, left, front, front, right, front, left, right, front, front… that’s where the control panel we need is” He answers with seriousness, offset by his juvenile tone of voice.

I stare at him in silence. I turn around, and see that the layout of the inside of this ship is somewhat like a maze, and his instructions start making much more sense. Although, I already forgot what came after the first left…

Hallie?

[Message recorded. Do you want me to repeat?]

Hell no, just show me some pointers, will you?