I groaned, feeling myself wake up from my sleep to find myself looking up at the familiar ceiling of my bedroom in my ship.

Looking to the side, I found Amber snuggled up to me, both of us completely naked after our session last night.

Seems like just being apart from me for a few days made her really needy. Then again… I did feel a little lonely during those few days so I understood how she felt.

I tried to extract myself from her but she was hugging me tightly like her life depended on it.

I poked her on the cheek, “Amber… It’s morning. Time to wake up.”

“Nnngghh… Five more minutes…”

“Come on, we’re joining Samson in hunting pirates today aren’t we? We’ll be diving into the nebulae.”

“Mnnn… Do we have to? I’d rather be diving my face in between your legs…”

I rolled my eyes, “If you can say something like that it means you’re already awake. Come on. I’ll make you some breakfast, ok?”

She tightened her grip on me for a few seconds before finally letting go, “Fiiiiiine. I wouldn’t have minded just staying in bed with you for the rest of the day though.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s true~”

“Yes, yes, now what do you want to eat? I’ll make you--”

Before I could finish my words, my Codex started beeping noisily, signifying someone was trying to call me.

I looked down at my naked self and quickly threw on a shirt before answering the call, the screen changing to show Samson’s face.

Judging by his background, he seems to be in his ship at the moment.

I was just about to greet him a good morning when he spoke up in a rather panicked voice, “Oh shit! Thank God you actually answered, Tera! I’m kind of in a bit of trouble here! If you could--”

An explosion shook through his side of the screen and a warning alarm blared through his speakers.

“Warning! Shield integrity at fifty percent!”

“Ah, fuck! Yeah, I got ambushed by some guys! I’ll send you my coordinates so if you could come here or send someone to help me, that would be greatly appreciated!”

“Should I… Call the Guild for help? Or maybe even the military?”

Another explosion rocked through his screen, “Shield integrity at forty five percent!”

He cursed, “Fuck! Anything to get these bastards off my back! There’s an entire fleet of them! I think they were waiting for some big target that was supposed to fly through here and they don’t want me bringing news back about their hiding place! If I--”

More warnings started ringing out from his side of the screen, cutting him off.

“Missile lock! Recommend evasive manoeuvres!”

“Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck! Send help, please!”

The feed was then cut off as he hung up, leaving me staring at the blank screen.

I looked at Amber who was giving me an awkward look.

“I guess… We should go help him?” I asked.

“Just the two of us?”

“Unless we can ask other Mercs for help? Maurice and Clandice maybe? We still have their contacts right?”

“Yeah, but I highly doubt any Merc would be sane enough to rush out and attack a pirate fleet without proper compensation or backup.”

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“That means that leaves just the two of us huh?”

She leaned on an arm, “But do we really need to rescue him though? It’s not like he’s someone close to us? He’s just a fellow Merc that happened to take the same job as us.”

“Well… If you put it that way, that’s true…”

She continued, “Besides, if it was us that got into trouble, he has no obligation to come and help us either.”

“But… Pirates… We get money from killing them though?”

“But is the risk worth it? We don’t even know their numbers.”

“True… How about we send the information Samson gave us to the Mercenary Guild and the authorities while we make our way there as well? If it’s too much for us to handle by ourselves, we just cover his escape before escaping ourselves?”

“Hmm… That’s a crazy plan, Tera… And you know I always like it when you come up with crazy plans~ Promise to make us something nice when we come back?”

“Of course.”

She leapt to her feet and started dressing herself, “Alright then! Meet you outside!”

It only took us two minutes before we were boosting our way towards the coordinates that Samson gave us. Before we headed out, we had already sent a message to the Mercenary Guild about the news that Samson gave us, although Amber told me not to send it to the authorities.

If the Mercenary Guild wanted to tell the military stationed here, they would do it instead of us.

I’m guessing she wants to limit our involvement with the military to be as little as possible.

At our current speed, we should reach the place in another two minutes. Even though it might seem like a short time, a lot of things can happen in a fight within four minutes.

As we neared the place he had sent us, we saw lasers and blasters being fired in the distance. That was a good sign because it meant Samson was still alive.

The bad news was the massive fleet that was chasing after him from behind that seemed to look like a swarm of locusts flying over a field.

We disengaged our travel drives and started powering up our weapons and shields, wondering just how we were going to deal with a force this size.

On the map, the entire area was filled with red dots and I estimated that there were at least a hundred ships at the very least.

I’m more surprised that Samson managed to survive for this long against a force of this size.

I then realised while it looked like he was concentrating on running away, he was also using his own turrets to take accurate shots at the ships chasing him, making sure that they could not get too close to finish him off.

Unfortunately, that also meant that he was stuck since they kept chasing him from behind. The fact that he had not engaged his travel drives must mean one of the pirates must be disabling it.

I immediately connected to his ship using my comms, the screen blinking to life to show a haggard looking Samson in his pilot seat.

“My god, I didn’t actually think you would show up! We can’t beat them! We just need to run!” He cried out.

“We’ll cover you, get ready to engage your travel drives!” I told him.

“There’s a support ship at the back that is disabling it! You need to get rid of him first!”

I searched for the ship in question and found it easily enough since it was the only support ship in the entire group. It wasn’t even that hard to find the ship since it wasn’t even trying to hide, probably thinking it was safe behind the other pirates.

Well… That pilot’s gonna learn that isn’t the case here.

“Amber!” I called her through our comms.

She grinned at me, “You’re really a crazy one Tera! Let’s go!”

Amber engaged her boosters at the same time as I did, rushing towards the fleet of pirates that were still chasing after Samson.

Our goal was to get me in range of the support ship so that I could shoot it down while Amber would protect me from any other pirate that tried to get close to me.

A few of the pirates noticed us and swerved away from the main fleet to engage us. They probably thought we weren’t a threat since only five A Class and two B Class ships were sent to bar our way.

“Hahaha! You got to send more than that!!” Amber laughed, engaging her thrusters to maximum and shooting her ship forward in a blast of speed.

The pirates were completely unprepared by Amber’s speed and definitely never thought we would actually choose to engage them despite being outnumbered more than three to one.

I watched as Amber’s ship flew past the group of pirates and two A Class ships immediately blew up from her ballistic cannons.

They tried to turn to engage her but my own guns had just begun firing, my rail gun and photon laser instantly taking down one of the B Class ships in less than a second.

By that time, Amber had already turned around and blew up another of the fighters, leaving only three of them left.

She spun her ship around as they started firing at her, using her thrusters to weave through the hail of lasers and blasters through the last two A Class ships and leaving them as wrecks.

The last pirate tried to run back to the main fleet, only for my photon laser to blast a hole through its hull and disabling it.

With the route clear, we turned our ships and was just about to engage the support ship when I received a warning about a high energy signature approaching nearby.

When I looked up, a giant ship had just appeared, lumbering out of the nebulae.

…

Why the fuck do the pirates have a goddamn D Class Battlecruiser on their side?!!