Eli and Gami rushed to the bridge. When they arrived, they saw the last of the wildcat ships enter the hangar of Dancing Phantom.

  “Now’s our chance,” Gami proclaimed, “We follow them in and plant a few satchel charges on critical systems. Let’s add a pirate ship to our tally!”

  “Are we really in any kind of shape to board that thing?” Tarl wondered.

  “Maybe he’s right,” Eli admitted, “We got pretty tore up and we could just wait for the Erarat to cause enough damage to the ship. All we need is for them to be distracted enough that we can slip away.”

  “There are no guarantees that they’ll make it that far. They might be repelled before they even make it past the hangar.”

  “In that case, we’d die right alongside them.”

  “Fine, then we won’t go to the hangar. We’ll find another way in.”

  One of the Tarls spoke, “We’re being hailed by them.”

  A being appeared on one of the monitors. It had green skin and was covered with spikes. Its large eyes had the look of oily water in a puddle. Eli could somehow see grogginess in those alien eyes.

  “Dancing Phantom to Cavalier. This is Captain Bukhara. I haven’t been able to get in contact with any of my people, so I’m going to assume that you came out on top.”

  “This is Captain Cisneros. I’ve got your first mate in one of my holding cells. Let’s talk about letting us out of this mess.”

  “I’ve got something better in mind. Twenty thousand sterling if you help me deal with these wildcats. Once they’ve been dealt with, you can land and hand over Rotek.”

  “Agreed, Cavalier out,” Eli ended the transmission.

  “Please don’t tell me that you actually trust him,” Gami said.

  “Not for a moment. But it gets us into the ship, and he might just keep his word.”

  “Why would he?”

  “So that others would be willing to work with him. Unless either of you has a better plan, I say that we head in there and light them up.”

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  Tarl didn’t need to hear anything else. He hit the thrusters and headed into Dancing Phantom’s hangar. It looked like it had been expanded. A flight of stairs led from the landing deck to another platform, which sat atop a pair of tanks. Horizontal racks had been placed on the ceiling, rerouted pipes and cables haphazardly running around them.

  Erarat had flooded into the chamber. They had sat their ships down on the deck and were pushing out from them in all directions. The crew was fighting back, shooting at them from any position that provided them cover and a line of fire. The corpses of several score of Erarat lay on the floor, but the pirates had also taken many casualties. The crew was starting to lose ground.

  Cavalier’s turrets opened up, blasting the fleshy things off of the ceiling and hitting those that were fighting on the landing deck from above. Tarl used the main guns on the Erarat’s ships. Their shield charges ran out and they exploded, scattering flaming debris across the hangar. The surviving enemies took cover from the onslaught.

  Eli used one of the control stations to highlight a landing spot on the targeting computer, “Sit her down there. Gami, are you up for another fight?”

  “Always.”

  ***

  The pair left the ship firing. Gami fired her SMG in three round bursts. Black blood flowed out of nasty wounds left by hollow point rounds.

  Eli carried a heavy pulse rifle. Few of his targets were shielded. All of them exploded into mangled hunks of weird organs and black fluid. The long, fleshy limbs went still.

  Some of the Erarat fired back, marking themselves for death. One jumped high, becoming a living skeet target. Several charged, moving rapidly with their powerful legs. Eli and Gami calmly gunned them down.

  An enraged sound came from a maintenance pit. The pair looked over the railing and saw an enemy. They recognized the triangular eye clusters. It was Hexul, the leader of the wildcat miners. He was commanding his troops from the safety of the trench.

  Without a word, Gami dove over the edge, blade at the ready. One of its clawed hands lashed out. Gami parried the attack, slashed one of its eye clusters. It hopped back and tried to shoot her. She darted forward and took that hand. It jumped out of the pit. The bounty hunter followed.

  Hexul let out distorted chuckle-like sounds as it extended the claws on one of its feet and tried to spear her. She dodged the attack and hacked the limb off. The Erarat leader toppled over. She delivered the final blow.

  The surviving Erarat surrendered. Their weapons were taken, and they were herded into cages. Wounded pirates were treated.

  The crew scrambled to put out the fires. Smoke lingered around the top of the bay, the jet-black smoke of artificial things.

  The damage was extensive. The pirates had taken many casualties. It would be a miracle if they could recover.

  An Askari woman with sapphire skin approached them. She looked very pleased with herself.

  Her voice was the same as the one that Eli heard on the pirate’s com earlier, “Good day, it really is such a good day! I’m afraid that during all of that chaos Captain Bukhara was killed. I’m in charge now.”

  “No,” Eli said, “I’m in charge.”

  The Askari woman looked very surprised when he put the barrel of his gun against her forehead and squeezed the trigger.