It took me a few minutes to realize that this was not one of my recurring nightmares, Harvest station, the one orbiting over, Pragia was under attack.

“This is Command. Comms make immediate contact with Harvest station. Commander Forrick have our fighters join in the fight with our Pragian allies, Talis you and the rest of the envoys are ordered to retreat from the hangar bay to your quarters and hunker down until this blows over. Everyone else prepares for battle stations!” At my command, the crew sprung back into action.

A minute later our call to Harvest station got through. On the bridge screen came the live feed from Harvest station, explosions, and chaos reigned in the background as a worried-looking man with various insignias on his military uniform greeted us through the screen. “Greetings Rafarians I am station commander William, as you can see we are currently under attack and are in dire need of assistance, can you help us?”

“Greetings Commander William, this is Captain Jason from the Rafarian trade convoy. Our fighters are already scrambling to join the fight. Do you have any idea who they are?” William’s former worried face morphed into a scowl. “Pirates, they came out of nowhere an hour ago, they’ve been attacking us ever since and were winning, at least until you showed up. They currently outmatch our defense force three to one. I’m sending all the data we have on them over to you now, including our own friendly ID tags so that we can better coordinate.” I gave an appreciative nod back. “Good, we will send our Fighter IDs as well.” I added Military Commander Forrick into the conversation. ”Forrick how long till our fighters join the fight!” Forrick gave a quick salute. “Sir we have two fighter squadrons leaving the hangar bay as we speak! We are bringing in more as fast as we can.”

I looked out of the bridge view. The blackness of the void could not hide the small streaks of light left by each side's fighter engines as the Pragians and the pirates fought against one another in a desperate struggle to stay alive. Each new light in the void became a new signal that another life had been extinguished.

Something feels familiarly wrong about this. I thought as I looked at the carnage out there.

“Captain!” said Amanda. I had never seen the woman so angry before. “Our engineers had a look at the data Commander William sent over. These designs are the same as the ones used by the pirates that attacked our station!” I could feel my teeth grind against each other and the immediate need to strangle something with my hands. Now it’s personal.

I made some preparations before I ordered comms to begin a mass broadcast to everyone in our nearby vicinity.“ This is Jason El Rafar from the Indomitable. Nearly two months ago you pirate bastards butchered hundreds of my kin, whilst leaving them in the void. If you have any gods I would pray to them, for we will not show you mercy.” As I ended the broadcast I heard various shouts of anger and calls for murder come through all the fighter and ship station frequencies at the revelation of our hated foe. I looked over to Amanda. “It's ready captain,” she said curtly with ice-covered words and fires of vengeance in her eyes. I replied in kind with one word.

“FIRE.”

A second later the indomitable colored the void with a brief flash of blinding blue light. As it vanished, so did all the light from the pirate’s carrier. Harvest station sent various boarding ships towards the vessel while a squad of six Rafarian gunships surrounded them to provide cover against pirate bomber and fighter squadrons. We also launched a second assault squad made up of Rafarian boarding vessels and gunships toward the carrier to ensure that one way or another we’d get some hostages.

And then we can find out what the hell they are doing out here.

The pirate fighters were still disorientated from the Indomitable EMP cannon’s attack. Now the tables were turned as it was three of ours against one of theirs. But I still had one card to play, as I connected my newly upgraded mechanical arm to the command console. Henry had modified it so that it could be integrated with other machinery while also boosting the A.V. network range and power.

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“Activate [Tactical Overview]”

At my command all the data coming from our allied forces was routed through me and the ship, the A.V. chip quickly sorted it and in less than a few seconds our battle map was getting constant real-time updates on the positions of our allies and enemies. With this data, I and the bridge staff helped coordinate our fighters, which allowed them to push our advantages even further. From the few times we could hear their comms they looked to be in complete disarray, as they thought they cornered our fighters multiple times, only for them to end up surrounded and killed.

While our fighters were making short work of the pirates our two boarding teams were swiftly approaching the enemy carrier. The Rafarian boarding team was a bit behind the Pragian team, who had just begun entering the carrier’s hangar bay. As the boarding team shared their camera feed with us, we could see the front ship tanking an incoming missile, whilst being peppered with machine gun fire. Right now the boarding team was a sitting duck, luckily I had prepared for such an occasion after the last time I tried to board. From the bridge, I began activating [Remote Control], and a second later our new drones stopped clinging to the underbelly of the boarding ships. Hundreds of small drones the size of a hand began rushing over towards various enemy emplacements. At first, the enemy was only firing haphazardly at the drones, as they seemed to only be a minor annoyance. They changed their mind as they saw their comrades explode. With the help of our newly made suicide drones, the Pragian boarding team got their opening. The drones had first been put on our gunships, and when they got close during the escort of the boarding vessels they jumped ship. Now it would only be a matter of minutes before the Rafarian boarding team arrived to support them.

I turned to Commander William. “Unless they got a specialist to handle their EMP damage I’d say we still have a few minutes left before their systems come back online. Unless they got more surprises I think we got them.” William let out a sigh of relief. “We’re in agreement there, though I’ll relax when we have found out what they are doing all the way out here, there seems to be more going on than we thought. Zerrik Gar is an ambitious man, but he is not without his own enemy what makes him so bold to send these attacks now?”

A thought occurred to me. “William, do you happen to know how long it takes to travel from here to Zerrik Gar’s territory?” William looked a bit worried. “Are you planning to attack him directly?” I shook my head. “Mm well to answer your question, I’d say around five months?” Replied William.

“After the last pirate attack on our station, we were wondering how the pirates made it all the way here without alerting anyone in the outer colonies. We might not be the most up-to-date on the findings out there, but multiple carrier ships like this don’t exactly go unnoticed.” William scratched his chin. “So they must have a base somewhere to hide and rearm.” I nodded.

Warning claxons went off signaling a nearby FTL jump signature.

I looked at William with a raised eyebrow. “Are you expecting anyone else besides us?” He steeled his face. “No.” A second later the new arrivals made themselves known, as a pirate battlecruiser entered into the fray only a few kilometers away from the Indomitable. “I am the pirate lord Furek Tar. Your continued defiance has been noted, prepare to die.”

I gave a worried glance towards Amanda. “How long till the EMP cannon is recharged?” She stood there in fear. “Amanda!” she stood there shell shocked. Dammit, I’ll get it myself! I directed the A.V. system toward finding the status of the EMP cannon, and a few seconds later I got my answer.

[EMP CANNON CHARGE STATUS 75%]

Looking back at the tactical map, I found our sensors picking up multiple fast-approaching vessels, however, they looked weird. More like flying tubes than ships, I shared the data with William. “Those are boarding vessels!” With William’s recognition of the boarding tubes, I scrambled to predict their flight paths. They were three-fourths of the way here when I finished my calculations, as they quickly tore across the void. “This is Command to Engineering, Logistics, and Recreation, prepare for combat! Boarders are on the way!”

I looked over towards Belleran. “We’re prepped and ready sir, we already secured the entryways.” Good one less thing to worry about.

When they got close enough our turrets showered them with lead. Multiple boarding tubes were pierced and quickly imploded, leaking their former inhabitants out like a crushed can of bloodied soup. However, more than half made it past the turrets.

I looked back at the EMP status.

[EMP CANNON CHARGE STATUS 80%]

Gunfire and violence came over the comms as multiple stations onboard the Indomitable were now engaged in close-quarters combat. “Angle the ship towards the battlecruiser! I want to be ready to fire the EMP cannon when it’s finished charging.”

Whilst my command rang out across the bridge I refocused my attention on one of our own anti-boarding tools, as I brought the damned online.