The pirate standing near the doors of elevator didn't stand a chance as the blade of John's machete cut through him like a hot knife through butter. The trained mercenary knew exactly where to strike to avoid the resistance caused by the more solid parts of the body, specifically bone. There was barely any time for his fellow boarders to react as John raised his handgun and emptied an entire clip at the hostiles. Still, standing out in the open without any cover was not a good idea, even with his skill. The helmeted mercenary quickly took cover inside the elevator as bullets ricocheted through the blood-stained transport.

"Eat shrapnel you bastards!" John shouted before tossing a grenade and scattering the targets. His gun having been reloaded before throwing the frag from earlier, he emptied yet another clip as the explosion took out all but one of the remaining pirates in the vicinity. The last pirate, with no weapon except for a large knife, rushed towards the John while screaming with rage. Having no time to reload or reach for his other gun, the mercenary raised his own blade and threw it, embedding it into the skull of the target. "And that'll be my Thirty-Fifth pirate kill today. You're making this too easy," he said as he retrieved his machete.

The sound of footsteps traveling down a nearby anchor told John that the fight was far from over though. "Oh yay, more of 'em. Maybe I can plug this thing up with a pile of all their soon-to-be corpses."

-=-=-

Jaydaar's ship crashing through the hull of the pirate's ship would not go unnoticed to the marauders, as five, heavily armed individuals rushed to the loud noise the lizard-like alien had caused. It would take a lot of skill to take them all out without triggering any further alarms, though an easier strategy might be to avoid confrontation in the first place and escape through the air ducts. The choice was up to him.

-=-=-

The 8 foot tall robot that the captain had ordered be brought onto the Babylon was quickly making its way from the cargo hold to the outer hull where the anchors would take it to its programmed target. The fleshy meat-sacks that were its owners did not stop the machine's advance as it crushed several of them on under its weight. The robot's head scraped against the ceiling as it went through the tube, creating small sparks, before emerging onto the Babylon's deck. "Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill," it repeated as the machine began to transform, revealing its hand to be a minigun as well as a rocket launcher on its shoulder, luckily empty of ammunition in the latter weapon.

Jay cursed under his breath and went for cover as the 5 pirates approached his ship, peeking out from behind his cover he saw two were looking around the general area and the remaining three were picking over his ship, with only his shield and pistol it would be difficult to take them on without bringing more so he instead crawled further around behind some more debris, crates, and hull fragments and came across an air duct vent, with one of the pirates nearby he carefully tried to pry the grate off only for it to make a loud creak as it did causing Jay to grimace and freeze, he heard the pirate's footsteps getting closer and hide behind another piece of cover as the pirate investigated the vent. When he was close enough Jay leapt out and snapped the pirate's neck and dragged the body out of sight before his friends noticed. Jay picked up the pirate's Rifle and slung it on his back, scavenged what ammo he could from the body and ducked down into the vent.

Valian couldn't help but laught hysterically at Cy's move. Taking out thirty damn ships at once. Now that's a fucking weapon. Then Jaydaar crashed into the pirate's ship. "Fuck!" He switched on his ship's radio. "Everyone, Jaydaar's been hit. He crashed into the pirate's mother-ship. It looked like his forward shields were working, so should still be alive. He'll probably need an evac, but anyone who tries to close in on that damn thing is probably going to get rushed by every ship they've got in the air. Cy, whatever the hell you just did, more of that would be really nice right about now." Valian altered his course. "I'll cut the rest of the anchors in the Babylon. When the boarders in there are cleaned up, another ship out here would help with that evac."

With so many pirates having been taken out by Cy's lightning storm, getting to the anchors wasn't too difficult. Valian took out another two pirate fighters on the way, and used his energy beams to cut another anchor. And then another. He was taking aim at the last when another pirate fighter came out of nowhere. Valian wheeled around to face it, only to find himself surprised. This one was visibly less shoddy than the others he'd been fighting. It looked like someone actually decently competent was behind it, instead of just another pirate. It dodged his fire with ease, and began circling to come at him again. Valian cut the final cable, barely dodging a shot from his new opponent. Looks like I'm in for a dogfight. Valian would be excited at the idea of a proper opponent, if Jaydaar weren't still in the lion's den. "I've cut the anchors on the Babylon, but one of these fuckers actually knows his shit. I think he's gonna have me tied down for a bit."

Eight watched the carnage unfold behind him on the view screen. It was not a pretty sight. On both ships bodies had piled up and in space a number of fighter crafts lay dead in space, their pilots exposed to the vacuum. Since the encounter had begun Eight had been running a recursive scan of the pirate ship. He had not recognized the configuration of it which bothered him but the outer design had to be completely unique. It was possible it was more standardized ship under all of that decoration.

Now amidst the carnage that scan was finally complete. Underneath the skull and cross bones it appeared the invading ship was a modified Thorium Class attack cruiser. The boarder anchors were from another type of vessel but according to Eight's scans the primary defenses of the main ship seemed undamaged and unaltered. That was very very dangerous. Eight frantically opened a comm link to the fighters outside the ship. "Attention, do not target the main ship with energy weapons." The Thorium vessels were designed at a time when the Xenovian system was at war. It was an antique by today's standards but the basic principles that it was founded on still applied to modern technologies. The Thorium Class ships personified the mantra 'a good defense makes the best offence'. The outer hull was designed with a type of composite plating that redirect and channel great amounts of energy. The Thorium ships had been designed to absorb energy weapons, then reverse their polarity before firing the same energy back at its attackers. It had gone out of style because the ship's capacitors could not maintain the energy they absorbed. The moment the enemy refused the fire on them the Thorium weapons became inoperable.

"Cy, the energy being. The main ship is capable of reversing the charge of attacks aimed at it. If you target it and are hit in return the energy could react violently to your unique physiology." Eight was no expert on alien anatomy but he simple physics dictated that positives and negatives cancelled each other out and when high yield plasma was concerned that reaction could be disastrous. Not only for Cy but for anything in the immediate vicinity.

With that done Eight checked the Bablyon IV once more. Johanna Hawkins and Krull were doing a decent job keeping the pirates at bay. That was until they sent in a mechaniod battle drone. Eight used the Bablyon's internal censers to identify it. According to his records it was a Type 40 CFR Combat Mech. It was designed for all terrain battle but where ever the pirates had stolen it from it was not designed to be used on a ship or in such cramped quarters. However that was the only bit of good news. The Type 40 was designed to be ruthless. It would tear the ship apart before it let any of its programmed targets escape elimination and Eight had to assume that the crew of the Babylon plus their Starfire escort where on that list.

Eight glanced down at his tool kit. A plan had started to form in his mind. One he knew he would regret the moment he set it into motion. Eight got a couple of spar parts from the Babylon's engineering crew before he put together a small device. It was about six inches long, cylindrical and about an inch across. It had a glowing light strip in the center. With this device and his tool kit in hand Eight left his post at engineering and went to join his comrades. Luckily he still had a route to them though it was not exactly straight forward. It required extensive use of the ship's maintenance tubes before Eight popped out in the corridor where Johanna Hawkins and Krull was waging war. The tubes on a disposable ship where not large, even for Eight it had been a tight squeeze. There was no way one of those burly pirates could fit in one.

Johanna Hawkins had set up the crates for cover just as Eight had instructed. The Type 40 had crushed most of the pirates in the corridor, now it was just the metal beast that Johanna Hawkins and Krull were facing off against. "I am here to help." Eight said as he settled behind a crate next to Johanna Hawkins. The T-40 was getting closer. Eight took in a deep breath preparing himself for what was about to happen. Then he took his small device in hand a threw it like a grenade aiming for the section between the robots legs. The magnetic clamps locked into place as the device touched the metal. The light on the device switched from red to blue and a wave of energy blew out of it. As the energy touched Eight he collapsed to the ground. He didn't cry out or scream but pain was wracking up and down his body. He lay on the floor shivering, a cold sweet breaking out over his back.

Luckily he was not the only one to have collapsed. On the other side of the crates the T-40 had shut down. The small device had been an improvised EMP bomb. It disabled electronic equipment which unfortunately also included Eight's own. His technological make up was so unique that he was still functioning if painfully however Eight needed to return to his regeneration chamber within the next hour or his condition would worsen considerably. The ship's electronics were safeguarded against EMPs. It had been a popular raiding practice to disable a ship's systems with EMP waves before taking it some fifty years previously. Now it was mandated that all ship's systems be properly shielded.

"Johanna Hawkins." Eight said, his voice labored but steady. "I have detonated an EMP. It disrupted the electrical signals the battle droid was operating on. However it has a redundancy system that will reboot it in six minutes and thirty eight seconds. Use the tools in my pack. You need to open up the maintenance cover on its back and disable its primary power stabilizers. I will walk you through it but you must hurry. If it comes back online it will detect tampering and initiate a self destruct sequence which will decompress this area of the ship.

Johanna nodded as Eight gave her instructions, they only had six minutes, so she didn't waste any time. She simply grabbed the pack and bolted for the T-40. The last thing they wanted was the robot to self destruct, it would mean their mission was a failure...and more importantly they'd be dead.

"Krull, watch my back!" She called out to the larger alien, she was sure more pirates would be on their way and she didn't need to get shot while she was trying to disable the T-40. That would have been a real bummer.

After some frantic searching she found the maintenance cover and opened it up. Then she opened up the pack, revealing all the tools inside. She had no idea what any of them did, much less what was what inside the machine. There was no way she could do this without Eight's help.

"Okay, I got the maintenance cover opened. Now what?"

Eight's impromptu Electromagnetic Pulse grenade did the trick as the large machine came to a sudden halt. Of course, its designers were prepared for such an attack as he slowly began its restart process. "<brzzt>-ill. Kil-<brzzt> Kill. Kill. K-<brzzt> it said as its glowing red eye began to flicker to life. It still sat, unable to move, as Johanna clung to its back, but that would most likely not last long as the right arm began to twitch.

-=-=-

...Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. "Fifty! You guys are pathetic! How'd you even get out of your mother's womb when your this weak?" John taunted the pirates. A sudden impact in the back though snapped him out of his blood rage. "Dammit, don't scratch the armor!" he shouted to the pirate who had shot him in the back. Man is there a lot of them. With a majority of the anchors on the Alamo still connected and no one to watch his back, John was quickly getting over-run. "If you all honestly believe that you can kill me, you've got another thing coming. I've survived way worse odds."

As the the bodies piled now at both ends of the tube-like anchor, the pirates were beginning to get desperate. Soon, one very idiotic individual decided that explosives would be the best way to deal with the seemingly invincible killer, and rushed forward with several grenade bandoliers wrapped around him. With all the bullets flying and ricocheting around the small space, it would come to no surprise to John if one stray projectile triggered one and blew everyone to bits, and so the mercenary did the only sane thing a person would do in such a situation... he ran straight toward the wall of people trying to kill him. "Excuse me, I don't really have time to give you my autograph," he shouted as he pushed the pirates out of his way. It wasn't long after escaping from the inside of the anchor that he heard an explosion and saw the anchor close off to avoid sucking out any unfortunate victims into the vacuum of space. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," he said as he looked around his unfamiliar surroundings.

The helmeted-mercenary rushed toward the nearest console he could find and began pressing every button he could see, hoping that maybe one of them would allow him to release the Alamo from the pirates' grasp. He got lucky. All of the anchors, with the exception to those few that were still left on the other side of the ship that connected to the Babylon, all disconnected and sent its occupants to meet the grim fate of being exposed to space's deadly elements. "I've disconnected the Alamo from the pirates' ship. I'm currently on-board their ship so I'm going to try and find Lizard-Breath," he said over Raptor Squad's comms.

Eight shivered, his breathing labored. He felt cold, much colder than he should have in this environment. He might have been going into shock or possibly the implants that regulated his body temperature had gone offline. He wouldn't know until he ran a complete diagnostic back on his ship. It took him a moment to realize that Johanna was speaking. It took him another moment before he could pull up an image of what the inside of the Type 40 looked like in his mind. "You are looking..." Eight's teeth chattered involuntarily and he sucked in a breath. "...for four metal tubes that feed directly from the electron intake manifold to the plasma converters."

Eight closed his eyes for a moment and almost lost consciousness. A single thought brought him back from the blackness, she is not an engineer, she does not know what you are referring too. Eight opened his eyes his now sluggish brain trying to conjure up a way in which to explain what must be done to someone without his insight into the technological. "Four cylinders on the panel, curved, an inch in length, silver. Each is between a between a red valve," meant to control the flow the the plasma the robot was powered by "and a green circuit breaker. In my tools you will find a long silver tool. It looks similar to a firearm without a trigger. It has three depressible circles on it and the tip glows orange. Apply fingers to each of the circles and run it across the a small perforation in the tubes to disengage the magnetic lock. Inside you will find circuits that control the power distribution system of the Type 40. You need to..." Eight pulled in another breath. He was not at optimal operating capacity. "You need to disable them by... by..." he blinked several times trying to concentrate. "by bypassing..."

Eight closed his eyes again falling asleep, the cold taking him. As he slept his brain continued to process data. The Type 40 was a battle droid outclassed and replaced by more modern variations. It was designed to be user friendly and as a result was susceptible to tampering and reprogramming. The redundancy system that activated in case of forced shutdown was relatively new at the time of the drone's creation. While an efficient design the T-40s most inherent flaw was that they could be relatively easily disabled from the inside should the enemy manage to disable it temporarily. As his brain continued to process it started to combing through less relevant files to ensure that all recorded data was complete and uncorrupted.

Johanna listened as carefully as she could to Eight's labored words, it was one of the few times she was thankful she had far better hearing than the average human. She found the four cylinders that Eight mentioned, then she frantically searched for the tool he described. She found one that did indeed have depressible circles on it and glowed orange, it had to be the one. She grabbed it and went back to the cover, she could heard the sounds of guns firing and pirates screaming as they battled with Krull nearby, but she couldn't afford to give it much though right now. She ran the tool across the small perforation in the tubes until the magnetic lock disengaged. So far so good.

She waited for Eight to finish his explanation. She turned towards where he was lying as his voice stuttered. "B-Bypass what? Bypass what!? Hey snap out it! Please! Or we're all gonna die here!" She felt her heart beating even faster than before, Eight was unconscious or worse, the Type 40 was going to explode, and she had no idea what to do next to disable it.

The purely primal and quite natural instinct in run and hide threatened to overwhelm Johanna's senses. It urged her to run and hide, before the machine exploded and ended her life. She forced that instinct down however, she wasn't going to run from this, not today.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do, but in a few minutes the Type 40 was going to come back online, and then explode. It was then she decided what she was going to do, it was all or nothing. Either it would work, or they would all die.

"Listen cyborg! If you don't wake up and tell me what to do right now I going to shoot it and hope for the best!" She grabbed her laser rifle and aimed at the circuits that were now exposed thanks to her tampering.

"Five...four....three...two..." She would fire when she reached zero.

Jay kept crawling through the vent until a grate gave under him and sent him careening to the floor. He landed on his side and frantically sat up with his pistol drawn to see that he was in a storage room full of crates and there weren't any pirates. He let himself fall back over and got up properly, rising to his feet he looked through the crates. they were all full of a bunch of random junk so he went to the door, tapping the panel to open it and peeking into the corridor "so far so good" he thought when he saw still no pirates.

He wandered the corridors for a bit with no real idea where on the ship he was. He eventually heard the sounds of the anchors unclasping, and from the direction it sounded like one ship had been released. He was about to head that way when he heard "what the fu-" and it was seconds before he turned around with his pistol drawn and shot the pirate twice, cutting off his sentence as his arm and head violently disappeared. a few bullets to Jay's shield revealed that some of the pirate's friends had noticed his demise and were now attacking him, he ran around the corner for cover and pulled out the rifle he'd picked up. he took a breath and stepped out from behind cover firing at the pirates as shots collided with his shield and ducking behind cover again. he sighed "oh my"

Gunshots echoed through the halls of the pirates' ship. John stayed hidden in a shadowy hallway as several armed men ran past. Probably headed towards those shots, and if I was a betting man, I'd say the target is our lost man. Another group of guards ran past, though this time the mercenary didn't let them pass. The closest one head his throat slit before the next two were stabbed with John's machete. "Watch where you're going next time, will ya'?" he said as stared at the bodies that lay at his feet. John then rushed through the halls for the ship, following the familiar sounds of battle.

"No need to fear, Killjoy is here!" the helmeted mercenary shouted as he rolled into the corridor that Jaydaar had found himself pinned in. With a few well-placed shots, the pirates in the immediate vicinity were taken out by the surprise appearance of John and the bipedal-lizard that was Jaydaar. "Alright, now that that's been dealt with, I say we go find the captain of this large band of imbeciles and get some good ol' fashion pay back. What do ya' say, Lizard-face?" John said as he holstered his handguns after checking his ammo count. He was going to need to restock on .45 caliber rounds after this was over.

Jay kept firing around the corner, cursing as the pirates got some reinforcements though shortly after he got some reinforcements of his own in the form of John, who suddenly appeared and brought down the remaining pirates. as combat faded with the pirates' deaths Jay stepped out of cover, checking the clip in his rifle, with the small amount he'd scavenged off the pirate he'd gotten the rifle from he'd almost run out already, luckily there was a whole squad of pirates strewn about the hall. gathering more ammo from some and putting another clip in the gun, sliding the bolt back, hissing out "let's get the blighter", and letting the bolt slide back and turning toward John with a grin.

John looked at their options of directions. His best guess was that the ship's captain would probably be on the aft-most part of the ship since that was where the bridge seemed to be. It was always good to affirm your assumptions though so, when he began to hear fast moving foot steps coming in their direction, John grabbed Jaydaar's weapon and ducked into the shadows and used his companion as bait. A pirate, wielding a strange sword, charged the lizard-like alien while screaming nonsensical statements that sounded more like raving gibberish than actual English. Once the lunatic had gotten close enough, the helmeted mercenary stuck his foot out and tripped the pirate before grabbing his wrist and moving it behind the pirate's back. In an instant, John had disarmed and pinned the pirate to the ground. Time for the interrogation. "Listen, we have an appointment with your captain and we'd appreciate it if you'd show us the way. We're a little new here and seemed to have lost out way," he asked in a strangely polite voice.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to rip off your limbs and barb-" The pirate didn't get to finish his threat before John shoved his face into the ground.

"I was trying to be nice, but now you've got me mad. Tell us what we want to know or I feed you to the big guy here. We've been keeping him in holding for the last week and we haven't fed him since we captured him. I'm sure he's famished. There's plenty of pirates here to ask so I'm giving the option of talking or becoming Bonecruncher's next meal," John bluffed, hoping that maybe Jaydaar would catch on and try to play the part. "What's it going to be?"

Alina steered the Black Comet towards the flashes of lights. She had been told which galaxy the Raptor Squad when she signed up in Quido. Unfortunately her ship didn't have FTL capabilities so it required a larger ship to transport over large distances, so she had boarded a ferry to transfer her and her ship to the Xenovia galaxy. Once reaching the outer fringes of the galaxy she had gotten a data file sending locations of the Raptor Squad’s base, The Alamo. Following it the directions given by her on board computer she was set to intercept them in a less than 24 hours when their coordinates started changing, showing their course entering the atmosphere of a planet. Unsure what to do Alina had a quick discussion with herself. “If I go to the planet i might just become a hindrance, but if I carry on to the rendezvous point they might not make it in time. You know what, i’ll stay here and see what they do. Yeah thats a good plan.”

Powering down the thrusters she stopped and waited. getting up she went to her new favourite room in the ship. The armoury. Going over her equipment she made sure everything was loaded and clean. Bored she headed back to the control room, grabbing a MRE from the trunk of food in the main room. Sitting in the cockpit she started eating, grimacing at the taste of the food. “Since the dawn of time people have been eating MRE and they still taste rubbish. Why?” A beeping sound would alert her that the coordinates of the Alamo was moving again. Following the dot on the screen she saw that they were heading away slowly, much slower than when the approached the planet. Unsure whether to wait some more she looked at the spoon in her hand. Finishing off her MRE she wiped the plastic spoon clean before getting up and floating at the entrance of the cockpit. spinning the spoon forward Alina watched to see the handle hit against the glass. “Looks like i’m going to follow it then. Yay for me.” grabbing the spoon she moved to the trash compactor and put the spoon and the MRE packet inside the chute before returning to the cockpit. Once inside she fired up the engines and began to steer the ship to face the direction of the Alamo. Moving forward Alina watched for any signs of the Alamo.

The large ship slowly appeared, both on her screen and insight at similar times. Unsure whether friendly r foe she turned on the ship's cloaking function and slowed down. The readout said that the alamo was ahead but the large cruiser couldn't be the Alamo. It didn't fit the description she saw in the data file. Watching the large ship move around the asteroid she manouvered her ship so she could get around the top of the large ship without being noticed. It was only now did she notice the large transport vessel and the smaller, but still larger than her ship, Alamo beside it. Watching as the large cruiser, which she now realised was unregistered meaning it was either a pirate or a mercenary ship, sent anchors out towards the two other ship she chose the former of the two options. Unsure whether she should join in the fight she waited, watching as the pirate ships were destroyed. Seeing one ship being hounded by a pirate she spoke quietly to herself, “you know what, i think i might help.”

Setting off she activated the crafts battle mode. The armaments outside twitched from side to side making sure there were no failures. All systems clear she moved to into the fray taking out a pirate cruiser before turning off the cloaking on her ship. Worried that she might be attacked by the Alamo she consulted the data package to find out its frequency. “Erm hello, my name is Cosmos aboard the Black Comet. I am on your side and am a friendly. Please do not attack. I repeat, I am a friendly, do not attack. Thank you. Out.” Moving into the fray now she chased a pirate fighter before blasting the back of it with a plasma blast. Watching as debris floated into space Alina stopped, and reversed the thrusters of her ship and backed towards the transporter. Hovering over it like a dragonfly, she took control of all weaponry and sent rounds into the airlocks of the anchors. Plasma bolts were shot towards any fighters that came near her, even a missile toward a rather nasty Volgron fighter coming towards her.

No sooner than when Jaydaar finished reloading his assault rifle that it was wrenched from his grip by John, who then disappeared into the shadows before Jay could even glance back up. when the sword-wielding pirate came charging down the hall he fall into a low stance ready to counter, but had to keep himself from bursting out in laughter when the pirate was, almost-comically, tripped by John's extended foot. he was still recovering from the holding in his laughing fit when John started interrogating the pirate, but when he realized that john was bluffing him as a bloodthirsty man-eater to intimidate the pirate he immediately started playing along, baring his fangs and flexing his clawed fingers while standing over the pirate looking down at him with a predatory grin. though in the back of Jay's mind he was thinking 'is Bonecruncher really the best name he could come up with?'

The pirate in John's grip was squirming with fear at Jaydaar's theatrics. The helmeted mercenary actually had to keep himself from laughing at the poor fool.

I'll talk! I'll talk! Just keep that thing away from me!" he shouted.

Good. I don't like sitting in one place for too long if I'm stuck in enemy territory. "Smart decision. Now how to do we get to the bridge from here?"

"Go down this hallway until you reach a fork. Once there, make a right and then a left. Continue that way until you get to the elevators. It'll be the top floor. When you get out, there'll be only one way to go," the terrified pirate said.

"Now was that so hard?" John said before knocking the pirate out with the butt of his own sword. The mercenary stood up and handed Jaydaar back the gun he was using as well as the sword that the previous wielder now no longer needed. "Here you go, big guy," he said, not even thinking about apologizing for using his comrade as bait or how he felt being left out of the loop of the plan. "We shouldn't meet too much resistance on our way there. I suggest throwing in a stun grenade before breaching and clearin-" The sound of an unfamiliar voice on Raptor Squad's radio channel interrupted John. "Took Starfire enough time to get their asses in gear. Welcome to the team, noobie. Now help our flyboys take out those fighters, will ya'?"

Jay took back his rifle as well as the sword, he admired the latter for a moment before slipping it into his belt sash. he nodded at John suggestion to use a stun grenade, but as he didn't have one he looked among the pirates to see if they happened to have one while John was on the comm's with someone. He had no luck in finding a grenade and turned back to Mason as he finished on the comms with "Took Starfire enough time to get their asses in gear. Welcome to the team, noobie. Now help our flyboys take out those fighters, will ya?" Jay looked at him with a curious expression "did we get support?" He hadn't had the chance to fix his comm unit and was cut off from the Squad's comms.

John nodded to his reptilian companion. "Sure did. Now let's get going to the bridge," he replied before drawing both of his pistols and slowly traversing the hallways, prepared for any more surprise encounters.

Following the interrogated pirate's instructions, it didn't take long before the two reached their destination. "Alright, I'll throw my stun grenade in there and as soon as it goes off, you put that rifle of yours on full-auto and turn everyone in there to Swiss Cheese. I'll mop up the survivors. Ready? Go."

-=-=-

The ship's captain gripped the armrests of his chair in frustration. All contact had been lost with the boarding party on the mercenaries' ship. The Combat Mech was on its knees. Their expensive fighters were quickly becoming floating scrap. And, to top it all of, reports said that some of the mercenaries were now somewhere aboard his own ship. This whole operation was a complete disaster. "Send out every last fighter we have. Keep us connected to that last ship. We lose it, and we lose all of our ore," he shouted to his crew. Several of them frantically ran, console to console to give out their leader's orders. "And someone find those trespassers!" He heard a voice call out, "We're right here!" before a blinding light suddenly burst in front of him.

-=-=-

The hanger bays of the cruiser opened once again as another swarm of fighters entered the fray. These ships were meant for much larger prey though. While slow, their hulls were much better protected than the previous ships. Their weapons were also much more of a threat. Instead of firing several shots at once, these would fire a single shot at its target that would completely obliterate any normal fighter of the same class. It would be a hard fight.

"...one..." Johanna held her breath as she fired. The machine made an awful noise that made Johanna cringe as sparks flew everywhere. Before she could even process the idea of jumping off the T-40 there was a bright flash of light as the panel itself exploded in front of her. Johanna let out a cry as the force of the thankfully much smaller than expected explosion sent her flying backwards off the robot. She hit the ground a moment later with a sickening thud, her vision went dark...but only for a few seconds. She then felt pain, lots of pain, mainly in her right arm, and there was a horrible pounding in her head. She blinked her eyes as her blurred vision caught glimpse of the T-40. Other than the destroyed panel the machine appeared to be relatively intact. Only time would tell if the self-destruct was disabled.

Johanna tried to move, but the intense pain and dizziness that followed made her give up on that venture. She was having difficulty thinking straight, but it didn't take a genius to realise she probably had a concussion, and more than likely some broken bones. There was only one thing she could do, try to stay awake. If she fell asleep, she might not wake up again.

Her eyes widened slightly as she realised how stupid she was being, she had a comm in her helmet, why hadn't she called for help yet? With her arm that wasn't in pain she reached up to her helmet and turned on her communications.

"This is...this is Hawkins...I'm down...the...the cyborg is out too...help..."

"Good" Jay muttered as he made to follow John through the halls and corridors to the captain. He fiddled with his comm unit, trying to get it working again but had no luck. He put it away as they came up to the room that the pirate captain was in, nodding and getting on one side of the door before Mason threw his grenade in. He kept his eyes facing away until it exploded to keep from being blinded by it. once the sound of the grenade rang out he went through the door and raised his gun, opening fire on the closest stunned pirates, switching targets when one went down until he had to reload. he got most of them but the captain and some pirates at the back of the room were still alive.

The few pirates that Jaydaar wasn't able to get, John was able to finish off with his two handguns. Or so he thought. Usually, a bullet between the eyes would kill its target, no matter its species. The captain though, being more machine than man, was able to duck behind cover with the only damage being a dent in his metal forehead.

A laser rifle in hand, the captain rose up from a chest high console and began taking pot shots at the two mercenaries. John turned to Jaydaar as they hid behind the wall and said, "Don't worry, I'll get him." Holstering both handguns, the helmeted mercenary ran through the door and threw his machete at the cyborg captain. The blade knocked the gun out of its target's hands and John immediately punched the man across the jaw, specifically in the part of him that was still fleshy and human.

The captain, now knocked to the ground, began to rise but was met by the barrel of one of John's guns. "Do you realize just how much my day has been ruined by you and your friends? I can handle all the new dents and scratches you put in my armor. I can handle having to buy who knows how much credits-worth of ammo. What I can't let you get away with, is how you made me lose track of my kill count. That's completely unforgivable. Say goodb-" The crackling of the radio interrupted him though as Johanna's voice came on. "Well, it seems today is your lucky day."

-=-=-

As the pirates began to surround the mercenaries inside the Babylon, a familiar voice rang out from behind them. ”Nobody move or metalhead gets it.” John held the pirates’ captain in an armlock with a gun pointed at his head. ”I’m calling a trade. You give me my team back and I’ll give you your leader back. Seem fair?”

The pirates all began talking amongst themselves before finally agreeing to the deal, to the relief of the indisposed captain.

Turning his comms, John gave orders to everyone still outside in their fighters. ”Everyone outside, disengage and land your ships in the Alamo. A ceasefire’s been called so I want you to follow the Babylon so we can finally drop off all this ore.” The helmeted mercenary released the captain then and threw him back toward his ship.

"I better not see that helmet ever again, or else next time you won't be so lucky," the captain said with a scowl as he walked back inside his ship.

"Oh, don't worry. Something tells me that that'll never happen," John responded ominously.

-=-=-

Eventually, the pirates disengaged their anchors and the three ships all flew off wherever their destination led them. The helmeted mercenary sat in the Babylon's mess hall watching a timer count down on his helmet. "Boom, he said as it finally reached zero. Why is it that pirates never seem to think to have guards posted in front of the engine's core? Ah well, my only regret is that I never got to see that hunk of junk turn into scrap myself. Guess I'll have to leave it all to my imagination. Rising from his seat, he made his way to the comms room of the Babylon to make a long-distance call to Starfire HQ. "We're a few minutes from landing. I thought I'd ask if we've got any assignments already lined up on Tharvis."

The silhouette-like hologram looked as if it was typing in something before finally responding, "Negative, Tharvis is a considered a neutral zone in the Xenovia Civil War. No contracts have been made with Starfire.

"Fine, I guess we'll just wait for further orders then," he responded. As soon as the hologram disappeared though, he added, "Not." John looked through a list of all the people he knew that would possibly hire a rag tag group of mercenaries like themselves. After a few calls, he chose the two highest paying jobs and sent it to all of his companions: