I thought that they would lead us back to the battleship but they brought me to some kind of forward base that they had set up and we were directed to a large screen at the side.
I’m guessing that they would be using that to call the Captain who should still be on the battleship.
Sure enough, the screen lit up and an image of the Captain appeared, prompting the two soldiers who led us there to salute him.
“Captain! The pirate lord has been captured!”
The Captain nodded before his gaze shifted to Amber and I, “I take it that you are the ones who managed to capture the bastard?”
I nodded, “He was hiding out in the armoury so we busted in and dragged him out of there.”
“Must have been quite a fight then… I will make sure to properly compensate you and the family of any team mates that you have lost in the fight.”
Eh? Lost team mates?
Amber answered for me, “We’re a two person team.”
Not only the Captain was surprised by my words but even the soldiers around us were surprised too.
The soldier who recognised me during the briefing frowned, “Wait… I remember you had another guy beside you back then. Was he not with you?”
“Ah… He’s just another Merc that we are working with on another job. He’s not actually part of our team,” I explained.
Also, I did ask if Samson was going to join the boarding back then but he declined, saying that he wasn’t particularly adept at close quarters combat.
The Captain was looking at us with an inscrutable expression and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking about until he took a deep breath.
“Is that so? I must say you must be very capable Mercs to be able to take down all these pirates not only in a dogfight in space but also clear them out in close quarters. Although…”
The Captain then looked to the side and a window appeared on the screen that showed my Mercenary Guild status. A split second later, Amber’s Guild status also appeared and I noticed that Amber tensed up slightly but relaxed just as quickly for some reason.
His brows furrowed slightly, “How is a capable Merc like you only at Copper Rank level two? I see your companion is at least Gold Rank so I can understand her skills.”
“Oh, that’s because I only joined the Mercenary Guild like… A few weeks ago? But I have been hunting pirates on my own for a while.”
His face lit up, “You’re ex-military then?”
I shook my head, “Oh no, no. I was just a freelancer you could say.”
“I see… In that case, I will be sure to let the guild know about your contributions to this operation. You have been quite an invaluable asset in contributing to the success and I doubt we would have been able to wipe their entire fleet out had it not been for your plan. Just to ask, might you be interested in signing up with the UTSN?”
I grimaced, “Sorry, but I never really saw myself as a military guy.”
He raised an eyebrow but nodded, “That is a shame. Very well. We shall take it from here. Take the pirate to the brig and prepare him for interrogation.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The screen that switched off and the soldier moved to secure the pirate lord but I raised my hand to stop them.
“Wait a minute, could I ask him some questions first?”
The two soldiers gave me a questioning look but nodded nevertheless.
I went to the pirate and slapped him conscious, seeing that he had fainted some time during our transport of him.
“Hey, wake up. Tell us where you store your treasures.”
He blinked a few times before he managed to comprehend what I just asked him.
“Fuck you, you bitch! Do you think I’ll actually tell you after what you did to me?! You can go fuck yourself!”
I was going to start threatening him when Amber stepped forward and smashed her elbow into his face, knocking him down onto the ground.
I then watched as she picked him up by the scruff of his neck before smashing his face onto the ground once, twice and three times before lifting him up again.
“Talk,” She demanded.
The pirate lord sputtered, “Ugh… Fu… Fuck… Yo--”
She punched him in the gut and let him fall onto the ground before she stomped her foot on his stomach, pressing her heel down on him.
“Talk.”
“Blugh… Sto… Stop…”
Amber pressed her weight further on his stomach.
“Talk.”
“Cap… Captain’s quarters… False wall… Behind the bed…” He gasped out through the pain.
Amber released him and he curled up into a ball while retching painfully.
The two soldiers were now giving her a wide berth as Amber came up to me with a face full of smiles and wrapping her arm around mine.
“Alright~ Time to go get more loot, Tera~”
Right… I never thought that she could be this cold blooded… That’s pretty hot.
I waved to the soldiers and left the checkpoint before consulting the map that I had downloaded from the terminal, using it to lead us to the room in question.
Along the way, we found several other pirates but all of them were either dead or had surrendered and were being apprehended by the soldiers.
I’m guessing that the captain’s quarters was located in the part of the ship that had already been secured by the soldiers so we didn’t need to keep our guard up.
When we reached the room however, we found a group of four Mercs already there ransacking the place. First thing I noticed that all of these guys looked like your average middle aged men that have drinking problems as evident from their pot bellies.
They immediately went on alert when they saw us enter the room, two of them placing their hands on their weapons while one of them stood in the way to block us from going further.
“Hey, hey. We got here first. Go find your loot somewhere else.”
I peeked at the loot they had gathered and found that there were a few Credit Chips, some bottles of alcohol and some kind of rifle that they had placed in a pile in the middle of the room.
The man in front of us immediately stepped to the side to block my sight of the loot, “I said scram, are you deaf?”
Amber stepped forward and I quickly placed my hand in front of her to prevent her from beating the guy in front of us.
“It’s ok. We can just look at the other rooms to see if there’s anything else worthwhile.”
He eyed the hover cart I was pushing and sneered, “That’s right. Fucking loot goblins already took so much stuff and you still want more. Get lost.”
Hey! I’ll have you know that I am not a loot goblin! I have at least a standard for the loot I pick up so I don’t pick up anything I see, ok?!
Amber looked like she was about to deck the guy and I quickly escorted her away from there.
“Why are we letting them have it?” Amber asked after we left the room.
“Huh? We’re not though? They don’t seem to have found the false wall yet so we can just go loot the rooms around here first and go back once they leave. More loot for us too and they could help us keep any other Mercs out of there as well.”
“Ohhh~ You’re a genius, Tera!”
I chuckled, “Oh hardly. I’m pretty sure that--”
A shout from behind interrupted me.
“Hey! Get out of here, we got here first!”
I turned back to see another four Mercs were standing at the doorway and the same guy from earlier was blocking said doorway with his body.
The new group were wearing masks on their faces and hooded cloaks so none of their features could be seen.
Amber let out a groan when she saw them, “Ugh… The Reapers are here…”
“The reapers?” I asked.
“Yeah… A rather infamous Mercenary Company… Those guys are bad news.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
The moment those words left her lips, the leader of the hooded group suddenly took out a knife and stabbed the pot bellied man in the neck before stepping back, letting his body drop on the floor.
The two members beside him then stepped forward with their pistols drawn and the left guy shot twice while the right guy shot once.
Then there was silence.
My eyes widened at the sight, “Wait… Did they just…”
“Yep,” Amber answered, intentionally popping her lips pronouncing the ‘p’.
The last member of the group turned to look at us and I thought they would also start shooting at us, only to completely ignore us to enter the room.
Did that really just happen? Is this normal around here?!