Chapter Text
THIS IS SPACE STATION JENEDA IN SECTOR 3551 STAR SYSTEM XCASIS BROADCASTING DISTRESS LEVEL ALPHA. SEND SUPPORT IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS SPACE STATION-
Captain Hadley turned down the comms system as they neared the XCASIS system, which consisted of a couple barren planets orbiting a red giant. She could see it through the cockpit now, a blood orange glow spanning from edge to edge, rendered safe to look at by the ship’s autolight adjuster. One dark circle, the shadow of a transiting planet, appeared empty as the void of space in the right hand corner.
Around this planet should be orbiting the distressed space station, but no life signs were detected as of yet. She frowned, and motioned to her sytems officer.
“Deep scan the planet. Are there any systems online?”
Officer Yurch, a humanoid alien with slimy, patterned skin and fitted with a translator unit, pressed a few buttons on their monitor. After a few seconds, they responded, "None. Systems, none."
Hadley glanced down at the briefing they’d been given before setting off. Jeneda was a relatively large space station for such a distant sector. Science, Research and Development, Sector Hub, with defenses set up on the planet they were orbiting; it all seemed like a relatively peaceful, well-defended station… and yet, there were no life signs. Was it a breach? A fire? Those usually happened to smaller stations, but it could be a possibility.
They approached, slowly, carefully.
“Captain,” Officer Jant spoke up from behind her. “We’re getting a visual.”
“Put it up on the screen.”
The huge star disappeared, to be replaced by a zoomed in image of the planet. Right on the edge she could see the station emerging from behind it, which resembled a silhouetted wheel with spokes. More worryingly, she could see little dots and larger, irregular shapes clouding around it.
Debris, lots of it. This was no accident, and she could see it dawn on her crewmembers' faces as well. Something that could take down a station this size was more than a match for them.
Hadley minimized the image. “No life forms detected. Prepare to jump back to United Life space and inform them-“
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Captain!” Yurch rasped. “Something targeting us!”
“Attempt evasive maneuvers. Officer Jant, find out what’s targeting us. Keep preparing the jump!”
“Aye eye, Captain!”
The hum of the engines turned into a deep roar as they prepared to dodge whatever was coming their way. Hadley gripped her seat, and took deep breaths. Everything would be fine, but she needed to keep a cool head.
“Located! It’s a sphere, coming towards us at 16.45 kilometers per second! Speeding up, sensors locked to us. I can’t tell what it is, the sun’s too bright.”
Hadley sucked in a breath. That was fast. “Keep charging the jump.”
“Captain!”
“What is it?”
Yurch made a nervous gargling sound. “Ship jump behind us!”
Hadley’s monitor started going crazy, beeping and screeching and flashing red.
“Ship charging weapons!”
“There are pirate markings on that ship, Captain!”
This was a planned ambush, Hadley realised. These were probably the same pirates who took down that station.
“They refuse communications!”
“What do we do, Captain?”
“Quiet!” Hadley snapped, and she slammed her hand down on the screeching monitor. It went silent, and she could think. “Send a distress signal back to base. Warn them about the ship. Aim weapons at-“
“Incoming!”
Hadley looked towards the sun, and now she could see the sphere coming towards them. It was rapidly growing bigger as it hurtled through space, a big black object that matched and then surpassed the size of the planet – Hadley felt a rush of cold fear as she realized it might be heading straight for the cockpit, but it flew right past her and-
BANG. The ship jolted wildly, and- everything went black. A second later, the emergency lights switched on, bathing the room in a deep, ominous red.
“All power down, Captain! Distress signal did not send! Jump powering down.” Jant’s voice trembled a little as she added, “Oxygen system offline.”
“That must have been an EMP.” Hadley’s hands tightened into fists. “Stay calm. There’s an emergency radio in the top compartment; use that to broadcast a white flag signal at the pirates.”
Jant’s eyes were wide and shining, but she obeyed, standing up and pulling on a handle just above her. A large radio came down like a desk in front of her seat, and she began to talk quietly into it. Yurch stood still and silent as death, their face unreadable in the dark red light.
Hadley breathed in. Did the air smell a little stale? No, no, it would take longer than that for the oxygen to reach dangerous levels. Ten minutes? At least ten minutes.
They had time. She was just psyching herself out. Stay calm.
She breathed out. For her crew, stay calm.
A strange electronic whirr came from inside her ship, the sound of a teleporter. Her crew noticed it too; Yurch drew a blaster from inside their uniform, and aimed it at the two closed doors. Hadley drew her own, and Jant followed suit.
There came a knocking at the right hand door, rhythmic but not to the tune of any song Hadley knew. Then, a strangely cheery voice, “Hey there, United Losers! Any of you with blasters? You’d better put them down before I blow your heads off!”
Hadley grimaced. “Lower weapons.”
Jant holstered hers immediately, but Yurch… their arm twitched as if they considered doing the same, but then they jerked it up and fired. It briefly illuminated the room in blinding white light before burning a hole through the door. There came a yell from behind, and Hadley blinked; a hit! They could still have a chance here.
But then the pirate returned fire, and blaster shots rained into the room. Yurch dropped their blaster and fell to the floor with a thump, smoke coming up from their head. The monitor behind them was peppered with glowing holes.
Jant screeched. “Yurch!”
“Tut, tut, tut.” Despite the hit, the voice still sounded very upbeat. “Hey, are you two gonna follow in your friend’s footsteps, or are you gonna put those blasters down? I’ll give you guys a tip; if I were in your shoes, I’d go with number two!”
Hadley tried not to look at Yurch’s body. “We surrender. We request only our lives.”
“Oh, don’t sound so down about it.” The pirate imitated Hadley’s voice as they put a hand on either side of the doors and started to push. “Oh, we surrender. We only want to live, duh, duh.’ Lighten up, will you? This whole ship is so dark and gloomy, I think you’d like it on mine! We painted a rainbow on the walls!”
Hadley exchanged glances with Jant.
“Ugh- got it!” The pirate forced the door open; in the dim red light, they appeared as a tall, bulky, faceless figure. Hadley watched as they dusted off their hands, and began rifling through their pockets. “Hang on, let me get a little light in here… Proper entrance, very important… aha!”
They switched on a flashlight and lit their face from below. The first thing Hadley saw was her smile; it was a little too wide for her face, and her front tooth was missing. Long brown hair came down past her shoulders, and her eyes were still very much in shadow.
That mouth opened, and in a very low, dramatic voice, the pirate said, “Hello, United Loser people. It would appear that you’ve stumbled into my clutches, the clutches, of the Dread, Pirate, Mizar! Dun dun duuuun! Hahaha… that was good, yeah?”
Hadley glanced at Yurch’s corpse. They leaking a clear substance, their species’ equivalent to human blood. Yurch was dead, and they were killed by… she didn’t even know what to make of this pirate.
“No? No takers? Yeesh, you UL-lers are a terrible audience.” Mizar turned off the flashlight and leaned into her headset. “Yeah, I got two wet blankets here in the cockpit, beam us back. Ugh, this air’s starting to smell really stale. It’s making me loopy; loopier than I already am, at least! Haha, zing!"