Tamed By the Alien Pirate by Celia Kyle Page 0,32

we do decide to mount a rescue mission, we need to be smart about it. Can’t go just blasting in the front door.”

“Indeed. They’ve probably increased the presence of Star Crushers after Zander and I escaped their wrath.” Kintar glances over at Fiona. “Perhaps our resident systems expert could hack into the K’Patel city server and find the floor plans for the Starcorp building. They would have been filed with city hall before construction even began.”

Varia nods in assent.

“Time to work your magic, Fi.”

“I’m on it.”

Her fingers dance over the keys as I pace anxiously back and forth across the bridge. Everyone gives me a wide berth, perhaps reasoning what I’m going through even though only Kintar has been directly informed.

At length she grins and puts up a holodisplay.

“Got it.” A blue grid-work image of the Starcorp building appears above the holoemitter. She zooms the 3D image in and focuses on the rear of the structure. “This looks promising. K’Patel made the Star Corporation build the infrastructure needed to filter their industrial waste water, which then feeds into the city sewer system…”

She zooms in the image a bit more and points at the holodisplay.

“…right here. It says the sluice gate is more than twenty feet wide. More than enough room to sneak a force inside.”

Solair nods, and I can see the heavy burden he bears lurking in his golden-eyed gaze.

“I see it, Fiona.” Solair turns to face the rest of us, his lips drawn into a tight, solemn line. “We’re privateers, merchant men, not warriors—with the exception of our former Hael Hound and Alliance officer, of course.”

“Not to mention me.” Varia squeezes his shoulder.

“I could never forget.” Solair flashes her a grin before he returns to a more solemn expression. “It’s going to be dangerous, but like Kintar said, we don’t leave our own behind. If Project Blue Dawn and the Earth First movement want a war… well, hell, let’s give them one, but on our terms.”

The team is picked by volunteerism. Kintar is in, as well as Solair and Varia themselves. Swipt wants to go but Solair commands him to remain on the ship in case we have to beat a hasty retreat following the rescue op. Fiona pipes up and says she wants to go along; she may have better luck getting into the Azure Dreams server than Thrase or I ever could.

This prompts Montier to insist on going as well, since his jalshagar will be at risk. Of course, I’m going, and I make sure we all get geared up to the nines.

I manage to clear out the weak force pistol as well and get it operational. Unfortunately, its crystal refraction matrix takes days to manufacture, and we don’t have the time to make one for each of our party. But I make sure no one goes unarmed.

Kintar gets his hands on my prized Menacer assault rifle, a nasty energy weapon with an ammo drum allowing for nearly one hundred thousand shots. Solair and Varia get standard issue Raptor rifles, not nearly as powerful but with variable firing settings to make them more versatile. Montier supplies his own weapon, a belt-fed automatic shotgun with shells thicker than our human crew mate’s forearms. Just the sound of it being fired has prompted enemies to surrender, so they say.

Fiona is equipped with a lightweight beam rifle with a built in AI targeting system since she’s hardly a soldier. And as for me…

In addition to my weak force pistol, I also sling a Raptor over my shoulder, a slug thrower spread shotgun across my lower back, seven high-intensity plasma grenades on a bandoleer, and a smaller version of an Odex power blade thrust into each boot. I’m trying to figure out where to stow an additional semi-automatic slug thrower pistol when Kintar glares at me.

“Don’t you have enough yet?”

I look down at myself, and then sigh.

“No. But it’ll have to do.”

Dawn is approaching by the time we pile into our golden-skinned shuttle and make for the coast, where we will enter the flood sluice and fly as far as we can into the bowels of the sewer system before we have to continue on foot. Montier takes the helm, and the rest of us sit in the back, checking weapons charges and trying not to dwell on the fact that we might all be killed.

We’re still badly outnumbered, but I feel a lot better properly equipped. Those Kreetu bastards trifled with the wrong weapons officer.

Once we abandon the shuttle, the