We crawled through the vents as I followed behind the guy.

He did not even need to consult a map and I quickly realised the vents were not just a straight path to their destinations but they do split into different branching paths.

It looks like it was done on purpose so that anyone who stumbles upon the secret passage would not be able to make use of them without problems.

We eventually came to a small room that was barely big enough to fit the three of us.

There was just a bed, a cupboard that was chock full of synthfood and several bottles of water.

That was pretty much it.

At least there was enough space to stand so I could finally take a good look at the other guy.

He's definitely quite old with his head of white hair and aged lines on his face. The fact that his clothes was a simple shirt, long pants and an old looking jacket only made him look more ancient.

"Nice place," I muttered politely.

"No need for the patronising comments, I know it's a shit place. It's meant to just be a temporary hiding spot in the first place."

"Uh huh… I'm assuming that you're really here because of the pirates that seemed to have taken over your station?"

"Seems like I got stuck with some genius, this must be my lucky day," The guy groaned sarcastically.

I want to punch this guy.

He turned back to me, "Yes, as you can see, the station was taken over by pirates so I'm stuck in this little hole until someone can go take them out."

"You haven't tried asking for help?" I asked.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, "Oh yeah, sure. Who do you want me to ask help from? The police? Coming to an illegal station filled with illegal goods?"

"I meant like… Mercs?"

"And leave a trail for the Guild to follow which in turn would reveal me to the police anyway? Yeah, good idea. Are you dumb?"

"Ok… So how were you expecting this pirate problem to be solved?"

"Obviously for you to solve them? Actually, I was expecting him to send his usual strike team so I don't know why you showed up. That would explain the tardiness."

Before I could say anything, Amber took a step forward and pressed the barrel of her gun at his crotch.

"Hey… If I didn't remember incorrectly… All Linc told us was to recover that package of his and that's it right? He never mentioned anything about keeping a certain station master in one piece?"

I understood what she was hinting at and smirked, "He did not. I wonder if this guy is actually a pirate himself… Maybe we should just interrogate him to make sure he is who he says he is?"

"Ohhh~ That's a great idea! And to make sure that he's telling the truth… We should also make sure that the interrogation is as painful as possible as well!!"

The guy's face paled, "Ah… Erm… I think… I think we got off on the wrong foot here… So how about we start over? I'm Selby, the station master of this station… Tha… Thank you for coming to my aid."

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Amber pulled back her gun slightly, "Hmmm… I guess he looks a little trustworthy, what do you think?"

I shrugged, deciding that there would be no point prolonging this than we have to so I stretched out my palm towards him.

"I'm Tera and this is Amber. We're from the Teran Mercenary Group hired by Linc to retrieve his package. Since the pirates are in the way, we would be taking care of them as well."

"That… That would be very helpful, thank you," The old man, Selby, thanked me.

Amber turned to him, "So what can you tell us about these pirates? Surely there's some things you can tell us after watching them for so long? How did they even come here?"

The old man thought for a moment, "From what I could hear… Their ship was attacked by some Mercs but they managed to escape from them, only to stumble upon this station by pure luck. They forced their way in and broke through my security so I had to lock down the place."

"What lousy security do you have?"

He looked quite offended by her until he remembered Amber was threatening him not that long ago.

He coughed, "Ahem… Unfortunately, they have power armour that my security was not able to deal with."

I grimaced, "How many pirates are there?"

"I think… Probably at least a dozen of them."

"Including the two that were at the reception area?"

He nodded.

I turned to Amber, "That means there's still probably at least ten more. You think we're good?"

Amber waved her hand at me, "Pfft, just ten guys with one of them having power armour? I'd say even if all ten of them had power armour, we'd still be fine!"

I think the reason why she's so confident is the fact that my shotgun would most likely punch through their power armour so we could still take them on.

I turned back to the old man, "Do you know where they are?"

"Ah… If I'm not wrong, they're still trying to break into the generator room. They believe I've locked myself in there and they know that I'm hoping for reinforcements of some sort to show up. So I would warn you that they might already be aware of your presence here. On the plus side… They don't know about the existence of these secret tunnels yet. You can make use of them to ambush them if you have to. I can give you a map of it."

I showed him my Codex that projected out a map of his station, "Not necessary. We have a map of your station already."

He stared at the map with a complicated face, "How did you get a hold of that?"

"Hacked into your station's network and downloaded a map from it."

"You managed… To hack into my station's network? Ah… I suppose that's why Mister Linc hired you girls then… In that case… When you get to the power generator room, you can also turn on the security turrets after you get the power back on. There are still a few surviving turrets in there if you need more firepower."

I nodded at him, "We'll keep that in mind. Let's go, Amber."

The old man twiddled his fingers together, "Right… Umm… Thanks again and… Err… Sorry about that… I've been cooped up here for a few days already so… Yeah… Sorry."

He seems sincere at least.

I waved at him to show that it was fine before crawling back into the secret passage, using the map to guide us towards the closest room.

Sure, we could just crawl all the way to the generator room right now but our main mission is to clear out all the pirates from the station right now.

If Selby is right, that means most of them should be gathered in front of the generator room so we should take out any stragglers that were separated from the main group first.

Hopefully the guy with the power armour might not even have put it on and left it somewhere in the station so that I could commandeer it.

Speaking of which… I also kind of want my own power armour… I wonder if I could get one too?

Reaching the exit that should lead us to one of the bedrooms, I very carefully pushed at the false panel to swing it outwards while I kept my pistol ready to shoot.

Thankfully, the room was empty even though the door was left open, most likely by the pirates since they had to pry them open to look for Selby.

Crawling out from the vent, I carefully checked that the room was indeed empty before moving towards the doorway.

Right as I was about to check if the corridor was clear, someone turned in and bumped directly into me, sending the both of us falling back into the room.

I looked up to realise that it was a pirate guy who looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

Then I felt pressure on my chest and I realised that his hands just so happened to land on my boobs and he was even squeezing them.

I tried to reach for my vibration knife but that was unnecessary as Amber suddenly appeared on top of him.

She then grabbed him by the head and twisted his head to the side with a loud crack, snapping his neck and killing him.

She then unceremoniously pulled the dead pirate off of me before tossing him to the side like she was throwing out the trash, her face one of absolute scorn as she glared at the dead pirate.

I guess she's being really overprotective of me huh?

Well, one down nine more to go I guess?