I immediately braced myself as the interdiction hit our ship, forcing us out of our travel speed and back into the ship's normal speed.

I immediately allocated power to the rest of my ship's systems while I took over the controls, prompting Amber to rush out of the cockpit to head for her own ship.

As Amber was leaving the cockpit, Lea came through the door at the same time, both of them swapping places as Lea took her seat at the turret controls.

Bimic looked a little concerned as he strapped himself in, "They… They're not some corporation ships, are they?"

I shifted my gaze to the map just as six red dots appeared on it, indicating the location of hostile ships.

My scanner showed that the ships have been identified to be of pirate origins and two of them were even piloted by pirates that had a bounty on them.

"Seems like just a bunch of pirates," I told him.

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

Ironic that meeting pirates were much preferred to being hunted by the corp that he had just stolen from.

I received the notification that Amber's ship had detached from mine and I readied myself for a fight as the pirates made a beeline towards us.

"I have them in range, Captain." Lea reported.

"Target the ones with the bounties first, wait for my signal to fire."

"Understood."

I turned my ship around to face them and the pirates quickly dispersed, two of them flying straight towards us while the other four tried to flank us from the top, bottom, left and right.

A notification for an incoming call came from my console and I quickly answered it, thinking that it was Amber.

Instead, a man I did not recognise appeared on the screen and he started sneering at me the moment the call connected.

"Hey there! That's a nice ship you have there! If you don't want to die, give it up and we'll even escort you back to Denibi Station in one piece!"

I smiled at him, "Mmhmm~ And you have a nice bounty on you as well~ You and that friend of yours add up to two hundred thousand Credits huh? We'll be cashing in on that~"

"So you're a Merc huh? You think we're afraid of you just because of that?"

"How good are your shields?"

"Huh?"

"I'm asking how good are the shields on your ship?"

"Why do you even--"

"Fire."

Lea obeyed and fired my ship's railgun at the same time I fired my photon laser at the lead ship that the guy with the highest bounty was piloting, which happened to be the guy who was calling me right now.

The photon laser was stopped by the ship's shields but defending against it drained all of its energy and caused it to shatter, leaving it completely defenceless against the railgun that followed soon after.

The kinetic projectile pierced straight through the ship's cockpit and I got treated to the sight of the leader being blown up through the video call as his ship was destroyed.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Amber took that as the signal and sped her ship away from me to engage the one below us, her ship moving so fast that the pirate she was targeting did not even have time to manoeuvre his ship away before she was already on top of him.

With two shots from her ballistic cannons at close range, the shield and the ship was shredded to pieces before the pirate was engulfed in a ball of flame while Amber flew past it.

The other pirates converged on me, two of them firing their weapons while the others focused on getting closer.

"Hold on tight!" I warned, pushing my controls to execute a roll to avoid the shots and firing back at them.

I engaged my thrusters, feeling the G forces push me back in my seat as my ship accelerated towards the pirates, weaving through even more lasers that had been aiming at where I had been moments ago.

I repositioned my ship right under the second ship that had the bounty as well, the pirate clearly surprised at being outmanoeuvred like that.

"Lea!!" I called out.

She needed no other command as she fired the railgun on top of my ship, blasting a hole through the bottom of the ship and rendering it scrap.

My shields flared to life as two ships turned to start shooting their energy blasters at me while the last one turned away to engage Amber instead.

I pushed down on the control sticks again, accelerating my ship forward and turning it around to bring my guns to bear on the pirates.

Pulling on the trigger, the space between us was lit up by a hail of energy projectiles from my chain guns, shredding through one of the pirate fighters before it could avoid it.

The second one managed to use his comrade as a shield to buy time for himself to dive below my ship, aiming to attack me from my blind spot.

I didn't need to worry about that since I noticed a different coloured dot on my map heading towards the only remaining red dot on the map.

Just as the pirate got ready to fire, his shields and hull were shredded apart by kinetic projectiles fired from Amber's cannons.

She then did a celebratory roll as her ship flew past the exploding wreckage, spinning back around to fly back to my ship.

I let out the breath that I didn't even know I had been holding and relaxed in my seat.

Right as I was about to give Amber a call to ask her to return, another warning came from my console about high energy signatures approaching us.

I expected it to be more pirates but the map showed three blue dots instead of red, indicating that they were not recognised as hostiles.

The scanners also indicated that the three ships belonged to Mercenaries so these guys must have noticed the fight here and came to investigate.

Amber hovered her ship just below mine as we turned to face the newcomers.

The Mercs stopped a short distance away, as though surveying the carnage in front of them before I received a call request.

This time, the call also brought in Amber while a man that had a bull's head appeared on the screen.

At first I thought it was an alien but I realised that he was simply another human that had modded himself to have the head of a bull instead.

The bull guy nodded in greeting, "Hey, what happened here?"

"Seriously?" I blurted out before I could even stop myself. "Can't you tell just by looking?"

"Well…. There's these two pirates that we have been tracking for the past few days to get the bounties on their heads. We were waiting for them to let their guards down when they suddenly sped away from us. We thought we were spotted so we hid ourselves and when we picked up their trail again, we found this place. Did you kill them?"

"If the two pirates you were looking for had a combined bounty of two hundred thousand Credits and it was a pirate group of six ships, then yes."

"Fuck!" The bull head guy swore. "We wasted all those days tracking them for nothing! Hey, you don't think you can transfer the kill credit to us, could you?"

Transfering the kill credit eh? That's basically him asking if we could let him claim the bounties on this group of pirates by transferring the records of the kills to him instead.

I frowned, "We risked our lives to fight back against these pirates and you're asking if it's alright to just let you take the credit for them?"

"Not for free, of course. We are willing to pay half of the bounty on their heads for this."

Amber cut in right then, "Ahahahaha! Half?! For doing what? Stalking them at a distance? Ahahahaha! Please, I know your type! You weren't waiting to ambush them once they let their guards down! You were stalking them and waiting for them to attack someone before you swoop in and take them out while they're distracted or sustained some damage! You just didn't manage to appear in time for this one because you thought the two of us would be easily taken out by them instead!"

Oh wow… I did not think that they were even planning that. I actually thought that he was really tracking them the entire time and felt a little bad about stealing the credit from him.

Heck, I was even prepared to just give them a part of the credit but definitely not half. Like maybe ten percent?

But after Amber said that, judging by how the bull head guy seemed to rustle up at her words, I assume she hit the nail right on the head.

The Merc didn't even bother saying anything and merely shut off the connection before turning his ship around and flying off with his buddies.

Huh… And here I was prepared to shoot them down too…

There's really shameless people out here, huh?

Oh well, time to loot the wreckages~