En-route to Annamar at best speed.
The Art of Battle had stopped by the mountain complex Kuryi had been using as a headquarters for the past year and rotated out some personnel, in particular he had brought Miria and her beast scouts on board thinking that the assault he had intel about would be a good test of their skills on the battlefeild rather than the few staged hunts and fugitive tracking jobs they had been assigned so far. the stop had been short enough that only a few hours had been lost compared to a trip straight from Arami to Annamar and now The Art of Battle was ploughing through hyperspace like the proverbial blaster bolt.
That was until the hyperspace 'tunnel' collapsed back into the usual stars of sublight speeds while the helm console sounded an alert and started spitting out warnings of an unexpected gravity well in their flight path. "What the hell is that noise?" Kuryi asked as he strode onto the bridge a minute or so later, having noticed the unexpected drop from hyperspace from his quarters.
"Proximity alarm sir." one of the crew manning the sensors announced, "We were pulled out of hyperspace by a rogue asteroid in the lane and there are now two interceptor IV frigates on approach."
"Pirates most likely. Bring all weapons online and target the approaching vessels, hold your fire however." Kuryi ordered as he walked up to the large holo-emitter in the decking of the bridge. "Tactical view." He ordered and the holo-emitter came to life and showed the two vessels, The Art of Battle and the asteroid. The vessels appeared to have been modified with large claws designed to grip and cut into the hull of their prey in order to deliver boarding parties without the need of assault craft. A rather crude if simple concept. "Open a channel to those ships." Kuryi ordered next as the holo-emitter switched to communication mode.
"Channel open sir."
Kuryi stood straight and put on his best sabbacc face as he started to speak. "Approaching vessels, This is Kuryi Gabriel Saros of the Saros Outfit. I see no Syndicate affiliated marking on your hulls so I'm going to assume you're independent and thus no one would be terribly upset if they never saw you again. Stand down at once or I shall have no hard feelings about disintegrating those junk heaps you call ships." Kuryi paused to await a response for a few moments before a crewman spoke up to say they two vessels were not changing course or slowing. "Very well." Kuryi said as he watched the ships out the bridge windows. "Give each of them a warning volley across their bows from the mass drivers, Close enough to shave the shields." Kuryi waited as the mass drivers cycled and fired their shots.
The two ships maintained comm silence as they continued to approach The Art of Battle. Kuryi shook his head as his warning shot appeared to be ignored, “The hard way it is then.” He said to himself before addressing the bridge crew. “Power up the engines and get us past those two vessels, on the other side come about and target their engines. At that point all gun crews are weapons free until their engines are disabled then cease fire.” The bridge crew leaped into action relaying the orders to the various sections of the ship to make the orders manifest.
A few moments later The Art of Battle accelerated hard and passed between the two approaching ships who seemed stunned enough by the manoeuvre to do little more than have their gun batteries fire off some scattered reaction shots which were soaked up by the shields easily. The Art of battle came about faster than one might expect for a ship its size and once it had a deadly stream of Ion and turbolaser fire streaked towards both of the pirate vessels engines. The barrage overwhelmed the ships meagre defences in short order and one was left entirely without engines and sensors picked up a radiation leak spreading through the engineering decks of the engine-less vessel. The Art of battle then returned to a defensive posture and Kuryi smirked in appreciation of his crews efforts.
“They're wanting to talk now it seems.” The crewman on comms said with a short laugh.
“By all means, put them through.” Kuryi replied as he turned back to the holo-imager and smoothed his face to a practised stillness. The holo-image of a human man no older than twenty five flickered into being before Kuryi
“Mr Saros, I...” The man started saying before Kuryi held up a hand to cut him off.
“You have pulled my vessel out of hyperspace with intent to raid her and likely kill me and my crew to take the vessel as your prize.” Kuryi said clearly and in a level tone. The pirate seemed at a loss for words as he gapped at Kuryi. “Only once you discovered your two vessels are no match for mine did you agree to speak, something you may have noticed I tried at the outset. My question to you now is this; How do you plan to repay me for wasting my time?”
The pirate was still struggling for words and stammered out a half response that sounded halfway between and excuse and an apology before Kuryi cut him off again by addressing the gunnery officers. “Target their reactor cores, we don't have time to waste here.”
“Wait!” The pirate said urgently as he finally understood Kuryi's intentions. “We can transfer seven hundred and thirty thousand credits to you immediately.”
Kuryi made a show of considering the offer, it wasn't like The Art of Battle has suffered any damage that needed credits to repair, all they had really lost was time, how damaging that would prove to be remained to be seen of course. These pirates on the other hand would not be preying on anyone else for a while, as it was they may need to abandon the second vessel entirely. Kuryi was not entirely unsympathtic of course, he had conducted a few tours or piracy in his time though he had focused mainly on smuggling for his own criminal empire. “Very well,” He said after a near a minute of silence. “Transfer the credits and I will leave you to tend to your wounds.”
The pirate made good on his word and the credits soon filled Kuryi's accounts. Upon confirmation Kuryi turned back to the holo-imager once more. “Pray we do not meet again, I may not be in such a forgiving mood next time.” he said before cutting the transmission and turning to the helm officers. “Resume course for Annamar, best speed.” The officers affirmed the order and Kuryi left the bridge to relax a little in his sanctum. Trusting that there would be no more problems before they arrived at Five Points.