Arkonis ground his teeth in annoyance from inside his powered armor suit. He had seen one of the shuttles go down as his shuttle was nding on the far side of the facility. The crash was likely due to pilot inpetence. He was certain all the people aboard were dead. And if the pilot had somehow survived, he would have shot the man anyway. Their deaths were insequential, there were always new raiders on Haven willing and able to join a crew. Hell, he could even pick up more raiders oher pirate outposts scattered around the outside of STO space. But a shuttle… A shuttle cost him money. And no matter what his crews might like to think, everything they used beloo him.

  He made a mental o repce the leader of that crew. His third in and preferred to py captain instead of raiding and never got his hands dirty unless he had to or was ordered to. Arkonis preferred to let his people do as they pleased, it kept them happier most of the time, but it seemed he had been too le. Perhaps he o take a more hands-on approach like his brother. His life would be so much easier if all of his crews were led by thick-headed idiots like his sed-in-and, Zade. Zade might be a loose on and a threat to his role as leader, but that’s what made him su effective pirate. And idiots were much easier to trol.

  The shuttle touched down and his people raced toward the door to force it open. Unlike Zade, who he could already hear firing into the facility, Arkonis preferred an approach that damaged as little as possible. He could make money from even ued things like door trollers, so why damage them if he didn’t o?

  By the time he strode into the building, his people had already dealt with the few guards at this entrance. He had picked this side specifically because it showed the fewest signs of activity. They would have quite the trek to get to where the a and likely the best loot was, but he didn’t care. He got a cut of everything anyway and he only had oher goal here.

  “Send out the seekers, I want to know where our quarry is.”

  The man he addressed nodded and dumped out a sack of orb drohen he began tossing them into the air after activating the little devices. Someone dragged over a crate the defenders had been using to hide behind and Arkonis took a seat on it while his people monitored the drone feeds. He wasn’t about to go searg this p foot, it would be like looking for credits in an asteroid belt.

  The building shook and everyourned as dusty air blew past them. It wasn’t a strong breeze, but this pce shouldn’t have any breezes. Arkonis knew a shockwave when he saw it.

  “What the hell was that?” he demao know.

  “I don’t know, boss.”

  Arkonis turo the man and he flinched. “Find out!”

  These local idiots shouldn’t have any active ons systems after his EMP. But if they got one of the external railguns w, their liftoff could be in danger.

  “We maute the point in,” the tech said.

  Arkonis focused on the proje that moved to the front of the holo dispy. It showed a se of age. Aire team of pirates; dead inside a room filled with expensive-looking manufacturing maes. And if he wasn’t mistaken, the charred armor lying on the ground – covered in gore – beloo his sed in and, Zade.

  The drone zipped to the back of the workshop where a cobbled-together railgun sat near a set of exposed wires from the local prid.

  “Pack it up, we’re leaving,” he stated as he began to stand.

  Before anyone could reply, there was a loud crack followed by a much stronger shockwave. This time it inated from outside the facility

  He rushed out the door and looked up in the sky, just in time to see one of the ships h in orbit burst apart as something smmed into it. It was one of the smaller pirate ships, but still.

  Arkonis pressed the radio button on his suit. “Move the fug ships out of orbit! They have a railgun online!”

  There was no respoo his and, but the ships started getting smaller quickly. The idiots should have been paying attention this eime, then they would have seen the gun activating. The ships weren’t fast enough. The massive ground-based on fired again, sending the hypersonic round tearing through yet another vessel.

  Arkonis screamed in inarticute rage and stormed bato the facility. He couldn’t order the ships in orbit to fire down on the surface, those idiots were just as likely to kill him as they were to hit their target.

  “Fihe gods damned trol room. NOW!”

  ***

  When Alexander finally heard the orbital railgun fire, he let out a quiet sigh of relief. The attack wasn’t over by any means, but the one w gun would limit the pirates’ options.

  He roag anunfight. It was clear by the growing sounds of ons firing bad forth.

  When he rounded a er, he spotted a group of twenty locals behind a makeshift barricade. They had somehow gotten their hands on some of the pirates' guns and were using them to keep anroup of pirates pinned down at the far side of the hallway at an interse. What he wasn’t expeg to see was Eva Wu leading the defense.

  The woman must have heard him ing because she ducked away from the battle and leveled the gun she was holding on him. “Alexander!” she excimed. “Why are you out here? You should be with your daughter.”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m just doing my part,” she stated casually.

  “I see that,” he gnced down at the gun she was holding.

  She smirked. “This isn’t my first tussle with pirates.” She gnced over at his cart, “And maybe not yours either.”

  “They attacked my workshop, I got lucky. Do any of your people need guns or ammo?”

  She whistled, the sound cut through the noise of battle and three people dashed toward them in a crouch as the return fire subsided for a bit.

  “What’s up, Eva?” one of the men asked.

  “Distribute the ons to anyone who needs one. And top off with any ammo that’s patible.”

  One of the guys attempted to lift the uncher, but it was way too heavy. Alexander walked over and easily picked it up, earning some whistles of approval from the gathered people.

  “How many rounds you got for that thing?” Eva asked.

  “I’m holy not sure. I kinda just stuffed everything on the cart and hurried over to the closest fight.”

  They quickly ted out ten rounds.

  “If you don’t mind, could you clear out the far end of this hallway with them? I fear some of the pirates are trying to fnk us, but if we leave this spot, they will simply rush the barricade.”

  “Gdly,” Alexander said, walking over to the barricade without a worry.

  Eva tried to stop him, but he watched her pause as the pirates started firing on him. Their bullets seemed to stop in mid-air until he passed, and then they fell to the ground, all their momentum lost. He aimed the rge grenade uncher down the hall and fired three times.

  The pirates either didn’t realize what was going on or were too stupid to seek cover. But the hallway went eerily silent after Alexander’s exge.

  “What was that?” Eva finally said, running up to him.

  He shrugged. “Just a feature I learned about retly.”

  The woman looked like she wao know more, but she simply nodded. “Uh-huh. Thanks for the help. Now we start pushing the pirates back. Maybe we even link up with more security teams.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, like you said, I should be looking for my daughter.”

  “Good luck, and stay safe, Alexander.”

  “You too, Eva.”

  ***

  “Sir, we found something!” one of the techs excimed.

  “If it’s not the ons trol room, it better be damn good!”

  “…It’s the little girl. The one you said we could use as leverage.”

  Finally, some good news. That damn railgun had been firing every twenty seds and he was unsure of the status of his fleet because these damn walls were disrupting radio unications. “Where?”

  The maed a map with a glowing path. “Two of you guard this door. The rest, with me.”

  If he couldn’t find that trol room, a hostage would be an acceptable alternative.

  His people raced through the winding halls of this massive plex, avoiding or ambushing defenders when they could. But the resistance was starting to increase as they made their way deeper inside. Instead of running into teams of defenders with only pulse rifles, they started running into scattered groups of locals with sged pirate ons. He khey were pirate ons because the vast majority of them had kill tally marks on them.

  Arkonis was so angry that this raid was going sideways that he crushed one of the ons in his augmented grip.

  “We’re almost there. Pick up the pace!”

  The girl iion and a slightly older boy with her were running for all they were worth since spotting the drorailing them. But they were children. They couldn’t outrun adults forever.

  His raiders came around a er and he spotted his quarry just turning down the hallway. He smiled wickedly and raced after them, not b to wait for his people who were far slower than he was in his augmented armor.

  He rouhe er and slowed to a stop. The kids were running toward aarget he had been looking for. The robot.

  Cursing, he rushed forward. A useless cargo robot was no match for his state-of-the-art armor. He doubted eveO military had armor as advanced as his. Hell, he khey didn’t. WheO turned dowrageously expensive tract for this armor, the pany that made it, turo the private sector for sales. Plenty of corporate bigwigs wahe best of the best, so they actually made more mohat way. It was easy to get them to sell a pair of the suits to him. More specifically, his shell pany. It retty clear the pany he had purchased the armor from had not doheir due diligend looked into his pany’s records. His pany’s records wouldn’t have passed even minor scrutiny. Or maybe they did and simply didn’t care, most STO panies only cared about mohey didn’t care where it came from.

  He almost ughed when the robot told the children to keep running. The thing raised the grenade u had taken off of his sed in and at him and pulled the trigger. When the on failed to fire, Arkonis ughed. “Best armor and EW suite money buy. Don’t worry though. I’ll make sure your adopted daughter remains alive and mostly unharmed. You just o turn yourself over to me.”

  Arkonis didn’t know or care if his words had gotten through to the man behind the mae. His EW module had probably fried the dumb thing's eleics already, but he would know that his daughter had been captured. That would be enough.

  He went to skirt around the i robot when a hand shot out, ing around his bicep. Arkonis was jerked to a halt so fast it felt like his arm had almost been ripped out of its socket.

  “Wha- What?” he asked as the robot lifted him into the air with little effort.

  “What did you say about my daughter?”

  Arkonis didn’t have time to respond as the robot smashed him against the floor like a child throwing a temper tantrum with a stuffed animal. He groaned as the armor started spitting out damage notifications in the hud.

  “Nobody will y a finger on my daughter… ever!”

  Arkonis pulled his pistol out and fired it point-bnk into the robot's torso. He wasn’t sure why it was still active but the armor-pierg rounds should be enough to damage the robot so he could free himself. Then he could finish it off. The bullets ricocheted off whatever material the exterior of the robot was made of, only leaving small chips on the surface.

  Before he could fire again, The robot crushed his hand around the gun and swung him into the wall with a reverberating boom. The impact gel absorbed some of the damage, but he coughed, and blood speckled the inside of his armored facepte. If he didn’t free himself or disable this damn robot, he wasn’t going to st long.

  Then the sweet sound of gunfire erupted. He smiled despite the pain. His people had arrived.

  ***

  Alexander held the armored man, his rage over the man’s threat not yet quelled. But he wasn’t blinded by it like he had been when Yulia was injured aboard Petrov Station. He kept one eye on the fleeing pair of children. When he saw the pirates rounding the er and raising their ons, he stepped into the hallway to bloy possible bullets from hitting the kids.

  The pirate hung loosely in his hand, but even he was saved from the bullets as Alexander’s defense field stopped them. It was good to know that it wasn’t uable. The three small dark spots in his vision proved that.

  When the kids finally turned another er, Alexander focused on what was to e . He wound his arm as fast as he could and threw the armored form at the pirates before he rushed forward. What happened was not a fight.

  He stood there, surrounded by dead bodies. The pirates hadn’t even sted a full mier he crashed into them. The armored one had taken the most effort to kill, but he had been knocked senseless after Alexander hurled him like a baseball into the pirates. Even then, it took effort to ehe man ihe armor was dead, but the crushed helmet was enough proof for him.

  Alexander was still angry despite the threat being eliminated. He was angry they had dared to try and harm Yulia, angry that they had forced him to kill. They o die, he khat. That didn’t bother him. The fact that the universe seemed to be spiring to ge him into something he didn’t want to be was issed him off.

  All he ever wao do was find out how he ended up in this body and have a pleasant life. Then the corporations got involved, stealing his iion and f him to reevaluate his goals. Alexander hadn’t even had much time to do that when meraries attacked him and injured Yulia all to get their greedy little hands on a feons. So he had to reevaluate again. But the universe wasn’t doh him yet. The Petrov Station cil decided to stick its o his business.

  He should be more angry about all of that, but each setbaly pushed him to greater heights. If it was only him on the receiving end of this bad karma, he probably wouldn’t be nearly as upset. But they had inteo harm his daughter. That was uable.

  It was clear by the man’s words that they were here specifically for him. This put to rest any doubts he had that there was a traitor on Eden’s End.

  Alexander could still hear the orbital railgun firing, which meant the attack wasn’t over yet. He decided to catch up to Yulia and Markus and find a safe spot for them while the rest of the facility was cleared.