The cloak hiding Jean's ship rippled as it disengaged. Like a tablecloth pulled away at the end of a meal, it flowed like water as visibility returned. Before the target ship had time to react to their presence, a well-placed shot from one of the gunner nests slammed into their communication array, effectively removing their ability to call for help. In response, the transport ship slammed their engines into overdrive. If calling for help wasn’t an option, outrunning their pursuers was the next best move they could make.
Sadly for them, Jean had expected this reaction and was ready for it. With a few keystrokes on his console, he redirected the primary target to the sub-light engines and the secondary to the lone gunner's nest on the ship’s belly. After disabling the engines, their target's only option for escape would be to burn gravitrum, if they had it, and hope the pirates couldn't follow. Based on intelligence gathered from the Scalador, who converted to their side each time the pirates captured a ship, the likelihood of them having any amount of the incredibly rare substance was incredibly low. Their government was becoming so desperate for supplies, they were actively searching ships before they left the shipyard to recover anything they could.
Jean’s three-dimensional map updated to show a series of impacts to the transport ship’s engines, disabling their ability to move and stranding them in the blackness of space. In a last-ditch effort to save themselves, the small cannon on their belly swung and fired two shots into their pursuer’s hull before turning to slag under a barrage of fire. A burst of gas ignited under the assault, but once the flash of fire dissipated, twisted metal was all the remained in the nest.
Jean, with his fingers dancing across the interface, spun the display to verify that no other surprises would arise while they were focused on docking. With nothing remaining to pose a threat, the Pirate King swiped away the interface and sat back in his chair, rolling as he offered a string of orders.
“Rodney, bring us in for docking procedures.”
“Aye, sir.”
A part of him baulked at what he was doing here, his moral compass spinning aimlessly as his emotions warred with themselves. He was well aware that—given the chance—the Scaladorian government would crush his rebellion and force any remaining humans back into slavery with even more guardianship. The unique circumstances that allowed him to take over the planetoid, Narax, would never come again and they would live out their lives, working to survive a single day at a time. However, a significant part of him screamed that it was hypocritical to enslave your slavers, that doing so opened the potential for a cycle of violence that would never end.
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Either through luck or misfortune, the reality of the situation was that circumstance often decided morality. In a world that made sense—the one he tried for years to create—punishing a poor man for crimes committed to feed or cloth his family would never occur. Sadly, capitalism vilified that man, calling him a criminal for the sin of hunger. In such an instance, an observer with even the slightest hint of compassion would—at the very least—choose to look the other way and pretend they saw nothing, determined to follow a moral compass of their own making rather than one dictated by the highest bidder.
Morality—in the case of Humanity versus the Scalador—couldn't be defined with a simple "us and them" argument. Instead, it boiled down to the question of freedom and slavery. After months of time with Mik’t and the other converted Scalador, Jean had determined this alien society lacked a profound understanding of freedom while still desiring it with every fiber of their being. It didn’t matter that humans were their liberators, only that in being freed, they were free to make their own decisions about their lives.
The Pirate King made his way to the airlock, arming himself with a pair of pistols. He would never try to fire two at once, but keeping a second in his back pocket for an emergency would allow him to draw on the fly and continue fighting, should it come to that. Outside the door, a group of pirates in converted Scaladorian armor waited for his command, weapons held tightly, while they waited for the signal.
“Well then, what are you waiting on me for?” He asked, pulling a pipe from the inside of his jacket and sticking it between his teeth.
A soldier punched a button on the wall, opening a door that would allow them to gain access to the other ship. Jean’s ship sent a signal through the docking tunnel, spoofing the signature of a Scaladorian vessel and forcing the target ship to open its doors. After the pirates were gone—vanished into the target ship on a mission to capture the target crew—Jean strolled through the tunnel and took his first step onto the other vessel.
