Within minutes, Villa Radusa was in flames. The pirate ship had been met with a small security force of perhaps twenty armed Titans. None of them were prepared for the storm that erupted out from the Skullia-One. The town’s security now laid dead on the space port, brutally gunned down as dozens upon dozens of pirates erupted from the ship.

The crew set upon the nearby city like a plague, taking anything of value that wasn’t bolted down and setting everything else ablaze. The Skullia-One currently held a crew of over a hundred, and their ranks were still growing. With nearly every port they docked, there were more Titans fed up with the Zenith debt system, and willing to go rogue and try living life a different way, even if that way was often violent and dangerous. The Titans were desperate and willing to do almost anything for passage aboard the pirate ship and its growing infamy.

This left the vengeful crew that Sabre Khan ruled over a barely containable riot, ready to erupt constantly. And to the sociopath that was the captain of this crew, it worked out just fine. He stood amongst the chaos, bloodied sword in one hand, aiming his Etcher pistol and firing at another resident of the city with the other.

“Sir, we may have hit the jackpot.” One of the captain’s first mates yelled over.

Sabre turned to respond. He recognized the voice as that of first mate Crazy Tooth. Whatever the large Hyena Canid’s name or personality was before coming aboard the Skullia-One was no matter, for the Titan now completely embodied the role of a pirate through and through. Sabre did not attempt to call out above the ruckus going on all about him, he instead calmly walked over. His first mate was standing in the street in front of a small house that was now overcome with roaring flames.

“This one offered something in exchange for his life.” Crazy Tooth stood over a small herbivore Titan with a wide, toothy grin, the very one that his nickname had come from.

Sabre extended his sword and hooked it underneath the small Rabbid’s throat. It would not have been out of character for the violent Titan pirate captain to have ended his life then and there, just for the sake of it, but for some reason, he decided to hear the other Titan out.

“Make it good.” Sabre growled in his low rasp.

The Rabbid looked up at the red wolf’s rusty red fur and black eyepatch covering one eye and instantly grew terrified as he recognized the captain from the stories that were spreading rapidly through the galaxy.

“I…I…I know the location of Zenith’s last super soldier facility.”

Sabre paused but brought the other male’s head up slightly with the edge of his blade. He had certainly heard rumors of Zenith Corp’s classified program that allegedly made Titans into nearly unstoppable killing machines, able to reflect bullets with their skin. He did not become the captain of the most infamous crew of pirates in the system by being gullible however.

“Why should I believe you? Titans will say anything to save their own lives.”

“I’m telling the truth! Please don’t kill me. I was a programmer at the facility.” The Rabbid did not look like a criminal, but looks could sometimes be deceiving. When the pirate lord did not draw the bloodied blade across his throat or stab him through with it, he decided to continue his plea. “The program on Titan was discontinued after an escape by several of the inmates. The orders came from the CEO himself, I was part of a team that oversaw a new facility, but once the place was up and operational, we were to all be killed. I sought refuge with the Barksdale family, who smuggled me here.”

Sabre studied the small defenseless Titan for a long moment, one in which the terrified male knew his very life was being decided. Sabre nodded to his first mate.

“Bring him aboard. Tell the others to contain this looting soon. Get enough materials for repairs and let’s get off this planet before the crimelords organize a response to this.”

Sabre took one last look at the chaos, slaughter and plunder happening all around. He seemed to drink it in like a taste tester might do for a fine wine. He reveled in the scene for another few moments before turning back towards the ship. What had started as a mindless looting expedition might have just turned into something on a whole different level of opportunity. Sabre Khan was much more ambitious than a typical pirate after all. A cruel smile played across the sharp-tooth maw of the pirate’s face as he began imagining what he could do with the power of the fabled super soldiers of Zenith Corp, even more so with an entire crew of them.

* * * *

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Rocco awoke and looked around the dimmed crew quarters room in which the brothers had shared. Ricky was asleep in the bunk above him, Rocky was probably up in the pilot seat. They had been traveling under the ocean waves for some time now, how long exactly was hard to measure effectively, for there was no light in these depths coming in from the few view ports in the ship’s hull design. If it were not for the ship’s artificial track lighting coming in from the large work station outside the door, it would be hard not to imagine that they had somehow wandered into some Limbo of eternal twilight.

Though their own homeland of Gunrock never saw much in the ways of extreme seasonal temperatures, he had found that he did not do well during the long winter months they had traveled in Gothamir. He became irritable and lethargic and peering out the small view port and the blackness of the benighted depths beyond, he instantly began growing anxious to resurface soon.

Rocco swung his legs off the bunk, which was probably too small for him anyway and stood to his feet. Upon exiting the room, he was somewhat surprised to see Rocky and the cyborg lounging comfortably in the center research station.

“Yo! Who’s driving the bloody ship?”

Rocky did not look up from the video he was watching, not in real time through a holo-image, but on the inside of his Net-comm monocle.

“It’s on autopilot. I have the coordinates set.”

“Autopilot? You mean nobody’s up there?”

“First of all, you don’t drive a spaceship. You pilot or fly a spaceship.” Rocky smirked. “Second, uh, yeah, the AI has it handled, wanker.”

Rocco wasn’t exactly thrilled to know that the machine was driving itself. It was a little disconcerting to see the other two Titans in the room resting so easily while a machine was in charge. The smaller cyborg Titan perhaps read this concern on Rocco and spoke up from the couch he was seated upon.

“I’m plugged into the shipboard AI. I have a full diagnostic running across my HUD. I can also patch into the exterior cameras, but there’s not a lot to see out there, even if I turn on the little floodlights.”

“So you’re controlling the ship?” Somehow that made Rocco feel a bit better than to think the ship was just in charge of itself.

“I’m controlling the AI. I can tell it to make changes, but I think he’s the only one here that knows how to manually pilot a ship.” Bingo pointed a thumb at Rocky on the couch next to him.

“Let me guess.” Rocco looked down at his brother disapprovingly. “You’re watching Raposa again.”

Rocky still did not bother looking up, though it would have matter little where he was looking since it was being projected inside of his monocle, he simply held a single thumb up to the air.

“I had the AI generate a new movie for me. I pitted Raposa against a cult of pro-wrestlers and female vampire Foxen. I still prefer the studio vids, but it’s pretty good so far at least.”

Rocco shook his head and looked away. The middle brother has enjoyed a strange fascination with the fictional masked swashbuckler known as Raposa ever since their youth. He figured he didn’t have much room to disapprove, although he had little patience for hiding away in fantasy worlds, he was certainly quite a fan of Swartzfang and Bonellone, two of the biggest action vid stars in history.

Much like those heroes that the actors portrayed in their vids, Rocco had a tendency towards action and quite often found himself getting into some trouble or another whenever a task or goal was not immediate.

“I hate being locked away in this tiny ship. I just realized…” Rocco began with a helpless shrug. “I’m not sure what to do with myself. How long before we reach land?”

“Soon.” Came an immediate response by the cyborg Wolverine. “We’re about two hours and eleven minutes away from the Rook Coast.”

“I never got your story. You just kinda showed up.” Rocco sized up the Wolverine suspiciously.

“He tried to kill me.” Rocky responded. “But I ended up winning him over with my charm.”

“I still might. That option isn’t off the table.” Bingo returned with the same half-hearted tone that his brother spoke about this odd rivalry.

“And why are we keeping a killer cyborg maniac on the ship with us?” Rocco responded. “I mean, just besides being part machine, aren’t your kind, Wolverines, dangerous blood mad fiends anyway?”

Rocky froze up at his stupid brother’s taunting words. He was used to a certain level of teasing banter between his brothers over the years but was not sure how the wolverine would take it. And he did not wish to be trapped in such an enclosed space if he chose to take it badly.

“That’s racist.” The cyborg replied rather impassively, surprising both Procyon brothers.

“It’s only racist if it’s not true!” Rocco chortled. “The only time I ever seen a Wolverine come out of the north was when I watched the last fighting championship from Warsong. Ravenous little beasties.”

“He needs our help finding a doctor to fix him. He’s broken.” Rocky chuckled.

“Maintenance.” Bingo corrected. “I need maintenance, I’m not exactly broken. My neuroprocessor uplink is malfunctioning. While we’re at it my targeting systems probably need a readjustment. The targeting malfunction is survivable, if my uplink fails, it’s not so survivable.”

Rocco thought briefly about how funny it was that the little Titan was broken like some rusty old machine. He had to fight himself not to laugh out loud at the thought, but at this time, he would prefer not to have to go toe to toe directly with another cyborg unless it was directly needed.

“It’s not too late to add you to the list. I saw the recordings. It was you that killed my friend, the other two just helped.”

“I killed your friend?” Rocco asked, confused at the statement.

“That repossessor agent in that dive bar. Bingo here’s a repossessor too. They were friends.” Rocky chimed in.

Rocco’s eyes lit up, remembering the event in question. It was a titanic fight. And any fight that he ended up on the winning side of was one to be proud of for sure.

“I made a deal with him. If you can help me get fixed, I won’t try to get revenge and smash all your heads in.”

“Ah. How generous.” Rocco frowned.

“How close are we now?” Came the sleepy voice of Ricky now walking into the room.

“About two hours.” Rocky replied.

“Good. Where’s the replicator? Let’s make some breakfast and get ready to depart.”