"Alert! Alert! Directed energy discharge detected. Alert! Alert! Directed energy discharge detected." The words blared from the ship's speakers. The alert jolted the sleeping Frank awake in his seat. He reached for his helmet, hesitated a moment while he took in the situation, then settled back down, leaving it on the console. His hands began dancing across the console.

"Eden, full power to shields! Begin active scans!" Frank damn near shouted the commands at the computer. He glanced at the incoming scan data and quickly looked over his systems. Initial scans showed a ship nearly four times his size just beyond a stone's throw astern. He also noticed there was minimal damage to his shield. 'Must have been a warning shot.' he thought to himself. "Eden, hail that ship, standard xeno-comms package!"

"Primate, what in the five moons is going on?!" Zedoris shouted as she ran onto the bridge.

"We've been attacked." Frank continued poring over the incoming data. He heard the chirp of his comms unit signifying a completed connection.

"Unidentified vessel, this is Frank Barnet, commander of the Occasional Epiphany, registration Charlie Echo Victor dash three eight two five eight." Frank's thumb began to drift up to the button that would allow him to bring the heat and demanded. "State your intentions!"

"chsssssshhhhhhickssssss....er down all systems, and prepare to be boarded." A strange warbling voice came over comms.

"Unidentified vessel, restate intentions." Frank already had an idea. He only heard a command like this once before. 'You gotta be kidding me...' He muted the transmitter to prevent the other side of the connection from hearing what he was about to ask and called over his shoulder. "Zedoris, what do you know about pirates in this area, quickly?!"

"Oh no, I hope it's not..." A hint of panic could be heard in Zedoris' voice.

"I am Squambles! You have someone I want, now power down your systems and prepare to be boarded." The warbling voice came through the speakers.

"Frank, that is the Selachi that attacked us!" The panic was even more evident. Hearing the 'big, bad' Zedoris seemingly afraid, he knew this might be pretty bad.

"Zedoris, get back to the living area and get everyone into a room, it'll be safer!" As soon as he spoke, he heard the footsteps retreating rearward, then the sound of the door sealing. He remembered the evidence of energy weapons fire he saw on the vessel in his cargo bay, and he hoped that it was all he had. He double-checked his jump timer and saw there was still a bit of time left before he could jump out of the system. He unmuted the comms and was about to speak as he was interrupted.

"You are trying my patience! Last warning, power down your systems and prepare to be boarded." The warbling voice came through the speakers once again.

"Be advised, this is my ship and anything in it is under my care. If hostilities continue, I will be forced to defend myself fro..." Frank was unable to finish as another shot forced his shields to flare. He checked the shield indicators showing a not-insignificant decrease. "Alrighty then, it's go time." He cut the comms. 'This isn't a Thursday War now...' He fired up his thrusters and deployed his hardpoints.

Frank pulsed his main thruster to give him so forward momentum before rolling the ship back to bring his weapons to bear. His mind went back to his training as he began mumbling an old mantra, 'Energy for shields, kinetics for hulls, keep moving, stay unexpected. Energy for shields...'

The enemy vessel began to follow Frank, blasting him with its energy emitters. They seemed similar to pulse lasers, just an odd shade of purple than he was used to. If they were anything like the ones he was familiar with, they can keep going for a while, and can easily whittle down his shields over time. Frank throttled forward again to slow himself down then accelerate, bow first toward the other vessel. He sent a salvo from his plasma accelerators only to roll away from the front of the vessel at the last moment. He kept the momentum and began another flip.

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He glanced over at the energy readings. He saw a reduction in the energy field strength of the vessel. If it was comparable to a human ship, he would have knocked a good percentage of its shields off in that run. But the reading looked like an almost twenty-five percent reduction in field strength. He wasn't sure how similar the shields were, or if this Squambles could have more tricks up its sleeves. He sent another salvo of both plasma accelerators and let loose a short burst from his multi cannons as a test into its weakened shields. A few of the shells must have made it through as a few tiny streams of vapor sprang up from the hull.

Frank saw Sqaumble's ship was turning slower than a transport shuttle. He pulsed his main thruster again and made his approach. As he approached its, belly, maybe, it was hard to make heads or tails of the ship's form, maybe it was even an intentional building design. Since he wasn't taking fire, he kept firing his maneuvering thrusters to keep on that side while firing accelerators and cannons while it attempted to rotate to get him in its crosshairs. Before the shields failed completely, an energy surge in the enemy vessel was picked up, and it was massive. Frank backed off as fast as he could as he watched the vessel just vanish.

Frank performed an active systems scan. Not picking up anything on scanners, he took a deep breath thinking it must have jumped. He looked over his shield emitter status and saw minimal damage as the shield was slowly returning back to its full strength. He tapped a key on his console, "All clear, I say again, all clear." He chuckled slightly to himself as the adrenaline was being processed out of his system before sighing and retracting his hardpoints. 'Easier than a Thursday War it seems...' He checked the jump timer, saw the count was finished, and made ready for the next jump, not wanting to stick around any longer in the event it would come back.

After a couple of moments, he heard the door behind him open and the shuffling of feet. "Didn't get him but I think he ran, disappeared from the sensors. No clue where to, but I'm not sticking around to find out." Frank said over his shoulder as he punched it to the next system.

"What happened? Why did he run away? More importantly, how is your ship?" Ozakos was the first to speak up.

"I don't think he was expecting a fight. And that ship, well, he was slow enough for me to keep from his line of fire and keep the heat on. As for my ship, a bit of a reduction in shield strength, but it'll recharge." Frank stated.

"Wait, you mean you fought directly with him to the point he ran, and there's nothing wrong with your ship?" Zedoris asked incredulously.

"Wait..." Frank leaned forward so he could look around the seat at them. "What do you mean? I can understand an unarmed ship might have an issue with him, but, why are you surprised? You knew my ship was armed." He was pretty confused.

"Frank, the weapons on Squambles craft can tear through most shields easily and melt the composite plating on most craft at full power. What you're saying is unheard of." Ozakos broke the short silence.

Frank dropped back into his seat. This was a bit strange, even for him. There's just no way that ship was a real threat. It also made him consider that maybe they just weren't well versed in space combat though they have been out for so long. Could it be they mainly focused on developing their drives instead of weapons? Maybe they were right, maybe humans DID fight far too much. But that was that, and this was this. He still had a job to do after all.

"I'm not sure about any of that. To be brutally honest here, given how you're presenting the situation, I'm a bit confused myself." Frank sighed out. "Anyway, the danger has passed and we're a few more jumps from arriving at Morxik's Landing. Let's hope there are no more surprises in store for us."

"Very well, I'll go inform Lelith of the current situation." Ozakos turned and left as Zedoris came forward and hopped up into the second seat.

"Be honest with me, how'd you do it, really? That was a pretty short fight" Zedoris said with a look Frank caught in the reflection of the bridge glass.

"Wouldn't say easy, just familiar. Here..." He tapped through some commands on his side console. "Eyes ahead." He sent what was essentially low-resolution video and sensor data to the holo-emitter that was in front of the copilot's seat and let it play out.

"How is your ship this maneuverable? I barely felt a thing." Zedoris asked after she finished watching.

"Good inertial dampeners, I guess." Frank shrugged slightly.

"I know you said this used to be a warship, but I didn't think it still was," Zedoris stated.

"Well, I may have kept the weapons. Pirates are a bit of a pain in the ass for us as well, and since I fly alone..." Frank let the word drift off.

Zedoris sat there in quiet thought for a while. Frank took the time to run diagnostics on his systems. Other than that same coolant line warning, every system looked no worse for wear, except for his drive. It was still in working condition, but he knew it would definitely be in need of servicing after this run unless he got it replaced. That hope was still on his mind.

"How do you think we were found?" Zedoris finally asked.

"Hmm..." Frank thought for a moment while scratching his beard stubble. "I can only think of one way. Once I completed the docking request data package, I ran a couple of tests in order to make sure the signal was properly transmitted and ran it through your vessel's comm system. I can only think there must have been more signal leakage than I expected, but that was about nine or ten jumps ago."

"That must have been it," Zedoris stated. "But why was there such a long wait?"

"If it was me, I'd attempt to run passive scans to figure out if the ship I was tracking was a threat. My guess is since mine is the only ship like this out here, a good look would be a must." Frank answered. "Since shields were at low power and weapons were retracted and inactive, they must have guessed I was unarmed. I would wonder why I didn't pick up anything, but, then again, this jury-rigged scanner might have missed it."

"Jury-rigged?" Zedoris asked back with a questioning look.

"Sorry, another human idiom. It means, uhh, assembled roughly, umm, not properly prepared nor fitted." Frank tried explaining.

"You humans certainly have a lot of idiots." She shot a smirking look his way

"Idioms." He spoke clearer, enunciating each syllable. "Then again, we DO have plenty of those too..." He chuckled lightly.