Aboard Kiara Legion light cruiser The Lawbringer, a platoon of around fifty pirates gathered in front of the gate. They all wore different types of power armor and carried various weapons. They were among the wealthier pirates in the system, but that didn't mean they could really afford to have a standardized system of armor. That being said, all the armor suits were painted in the same color of white and red, forming a basic facade of discipline and unity among these men.
Unfortunately, that facade would quickly be broken if anyone could hear what was going on in their comms.
"You know the drill! Get your weapons ready! As soon as the docking is complete, get in there as soon as possible. And watch for any wrong moves from the crew! We don't want to be trapped on an enemy ship!" The leader of the squad gave out a set of instructions to his men, but the replies he got were far from ideal.
"You worry too much, boss! When has that ever happened before?"
"Yeah sir! We've got a light cruiser! If they try anything, they'll never be able to escape before we blow them to pieces!"
"Relax. It's just gonna be a piece of cake! If anything I hope they fight back! I haven't had a chance to shoot anyone for way too long!"
Kevon frowned at the wave of scattered replies that came from the platoon of men standing in front of him next to the closed gate. As the officer of these men, he expected a level of respect. Then again, he was no longer a naval officer back in a real navy. That hadn't been the case for over twenty years.
Things have changed a lot over the two decades. His fellow crew members and armsmen have gone from professional soldiers to rag-tagged thugs who had little respect for authority due to attrition and desertion. The ship he was stationed in, a light cruiser ironically named the Lawbringer from the old days, went from a state-of-the-art warship to a worn-out pirate cruiser that was functioning at half of its peak efficiency at best. More importantly, he was no longer fighting for the defense of his country. Now, he and the fleet he was in were fighting for their own profits.
Were there regrets sometimes? Of course, but this was how this galaxy worked. They have sworn their oath to a prince, and that prince lost the political game and was executed for being a traitor to his empire. Their options, as members of the prince's personal fleet, were exile or execution, and they chose exile.
The man checked his trusted Zelta-12 breacher shotgun again before carefully waiting for the gate to open. He could hear his men joking around casually in the platoon channel. They didn't think anything was going to go wrong here, and to be honest neither did he.
This was a civilian ship that was in the wrong place at the wrong time for some reason. If the civilian ship tried anything, the Lawbringer could simply break away the connection and then open fire. The Lawbringer was no longer as impressive as it was back in the day, but it could still deal with a civilian vessel easily. Only a fool would try anything in a position like that.
"Clank!"
With a loud noise, the gate in front of the platoon of pirates snapped open. Just as the first pirate took a step toward the bridge connecting the two starships, his eyes suddenly widened in sheer horror. His mouth opened to form a warning, but that warning died with him.
Right before Kevon's eyes, a blade composed of blue and white light sliced across the man's body, cutting both the man and his armor in half in almost an instant.
Before the pirates in the corridor could react, five figures rushed out of the bridge and leaped into the crowd of confused pirates. Flashes of blue cut through armor and flesh alike, felling man after man with a level of speed too fast for human beings to react to. Within two seconds, a dozen were on the ground, dead before they could do anything. Their severed limbs and bodies rained down on the floor.
As the leader of the platoon, Kevon was standing behind his men and was the furthest away from the gate. This gave him a few seconds to recover from the initial shock and set his eyes on the assailants, and when he saw them, his mind went blank once again.
He had expected ambushes and traps, to a degree. Mercenaries. Corporate security forces. Government marines. Logically he didn't think anyone would devote any resources to a plan as stupid as this one, but he knew it was possible.
What he didn't expect to see was five aliens wielding…what were they? Laser swords?
Kevon had no doubt these five figures were aliens. Despite being humanoid, they looked nothing like human beings. Their grey skin. Their long fingers. Their mouthless faces and the bright lights in their eyes. Even the braid-like structures behind their skulls that danced in the air as they moved. But that only brought more questions. Where did these aliens come from? Why the hell were they coming after a pirate light cruiser? Just…why?
"Open fire! Open…"
After the initial seconds that ended with almost a quarter of the platoon being slaughtered, the other pirates finally recovered enough from the shock. They didn't know what was happening here or why, but they did know they had to take out these aliens if they wanted to live.
One of the pirates let out a warcry and raised his rifle, but one of the aliens was too fast. In the blink of an eye, before the pirate could react, a flash of blue parted his arms from the rest of his body. Another cut, a fraction of a second later, removed his head before he could even scream from the pain.
The other pirates desperately returned fire. In a sense, they were decent soldiers and breachers. Within the tight corridors of starships, they could easily decimate several times their number of untrained crew members and even stand up decently well to professional marines. But these aliens were unlike anything they had faced before. Their blades made the power armor on the pirates nothing more than clumsy and useless baggage. Once the distance disappeared, they easily dodged and weaved among the pirate ranks, cutting down man after man as if they were mere animals. When the pirates began spraying ammo in the general direction of the aliens, most of the bullets missed or gunned down their own comrades.
Even when a handful of bullets were about to strike the aliens, the pirates found their hopes quickly dashed when a thin layer of blue shield materialized out of nowhere and blocked the bullets.
If the pirates could surrender, they would. This wasn't a fight. It was a massacre. Their guns couldn't even scratch the aliens while the aliens could kill them with a single slash of their blades! How were they supposed to fight this? A number of them even contemplated joining forces with the aliens. If that meant helping the aliens against mankind, then so be it.
But the blades of the aliens were swift and merciless. Unbeknownst to the pirates, Athena had no intention of taking a large number of prisoners. The White Tigress and Viktor's enforcers only saw her Terran troops, and a human force, even if it had some advanced weapons, was normal. If these pirates who saw the Protoss were allowed to live and join Athena's ranks, they could potentially connect Athena's faction with the Protoss before she was ready. Even Viktor's crew had no idea they were carrying Protoss zealots aboard their vessel.
In other words, most of the crew on this light cruiser were to be executed in the end and turned into Athena's resources. Only a few officers and maybe the captain would be infested or simply taken prisoner and interrogated.
She would feel bad about this if it wasn't for the fact that these people were pirates, and brutal ones at that. How many people have they tortured and slaughtered because they refused to surrender? How many have they blackmailed and extorted? They had used their strength to bully and kill those weaker than them, and now it was only fair that those stronger than them do the same thing to them.
As his men screamed and died, Kevon, thanks to his advantageous position at the back, had a few seconds to work with. These seconds allowed him to turn and run behind one of the blast doors. With a few clicks on a control panel, he shut the blast door and temporarily blocked out the sight of his men being butchered.
Then, trembling, he reached up and switched to the comms channel with his superior, Captain Hector.
"Kevon! What is your status…"
"Send reinforcements to my position now! Break away from that ship and blast it to pieces!" Kevon screamed into his comms, his hands still shaking in fear. Despite the sealed door, he could hear the sound of carnage coming from the other end of the door. The screams. The pleas for mercy. The sound of armored bodies hitting the floor. "Look at the goddam cameras! There…there are aliens on this ship!"
"What? What are you talking about!"
"Aliens! Aliens with laser swords or whatever the fuck that is!" Kevon cried out. "You're supposed to have people looking at the cameras in the fucking corridor in case of a counterattack!"
Captain Hector was briefly silent on the other end. As he was likely checking the cameras, Kevon did his best to calm his nerves. Usually, when a ship docked with a neutral or hostile ship and a passage was formed, there should be officers keeping an eye on the sky bridge using the built-in cameras in the corridors. At any sign of trouble, they could disengage the connection and prevent too many enemies from boarding their ship.
That being said, Kevon also knew this precaution was often scoffed at by even professional naval officers, much less pirates. There was a platoon of troops here, and the idea was that any surprise counterattack through the passageway would be marching into a firing squad and end in a slaughter for the attackers. Plus, the two ships could break apart in minutes at most and way before anyone could break through the platoon. No one would be stupid enough to try something like that.
Of course, no one expected five aliens with damn laser swords and personal shields to be doing the surprise counterattacking. The enemy commander, whether they were human or not, must have known that as well! And now they have lost control over the corridor! The enemies could deploy even more troops onto their ship! He…he needed to run! Now! But…but where? If the entire ship was taken, where could they go?
The next second, his eyes landed on a spot on the blast door. There, sticking out of the surface of the alloy, was a blue blade.
Kevon wanted to run, but for a second his legs refused to obey. All he could do was watch as the half-meter-thick reinforced blast door, designed to fend off fires, explosions, and hostile intruders alike, was cut open by the blue blade as if it was a piece of paper.
Finally, with a single push from the other end, a large chunk of the blast door fell on the ground, revealing to Kevon the sight of the horrifying aliens and, behind them, a pile of corpses that used to be his platoon. The men chosen to be the vanguard were some of the best fighters on the ship, and they were slaughtered in seconds.
"Wait!" At the last moment, Kevon didn't reach for his trusted Zelta-12. Instead, he raised his hands and hoped that, as an officer, he would have more value to these aliens alive. "My name is Kevon Brandt! I am the master-at-arms on this ship! I have value to you!"
One of the aliens glanced at Kevon, its eyes radiating blue light. Just as Kevon closed his eyes and was ready to accept his fate, the five aliens walked past him and turned their attention to the other blast door, which had just opened and revealed a squad of armsmen. They had expected to still have some time to set up their firepower with the help of the blast door, only to arrive in the corridor and realize the enemies were already there and waiting for them.
Kevon turned away, his face pale, as the familiar sound of screams and guns once again echoed through the halls. He recognized some of those men himself, but he kept his mouth shut. If he thought he had any influence over these aliens just because they spared him now, then he was an idiot.
As he turned away, however, Kevon was a little surprised to see a number of figures he never expected to find behind the five aliens. He had expected other types of aliens. He had even expected mechanical constructs or xenomorphs. What he didn't expect to see was squads of troops in blue power armor. Granted, he couldn't really tell if it was humans in the suits, but the armor and the rifles were much more similar to human inventions than the personal shields and laser swords.
One of the figures stood by him and guarded him as the others advanced down the corridor behind the five aliens.
These aliens and humans were working together! Kevon doubted his men could even handle the five aliens, or even just one of them. Add these additional reinforcements into the mix…the ship was as good as lost! Their only chance was to blast the so-called civilian ship into pieces the moment they noticed that ship! Now it was all too late! Given the time it took the aliens to cut through the thick layer of blast door, how long would it take for them to get to the bridge?
This ship still had plenty of armsmen, but could they delay the aliens until the light cruiser could heat up its Callisto Engine and jump away? Unless there was a miracle, that would never happen.
That was when the comms buzzed to life, but this time it was a bridge officer Kevon was familiar with instead of the captain himself.
"Kevon! We are sending reinforcements your way! Wait…what? Oh lord…"
Before Kevon could say anything, the officer's tone changed as he must have heard what happened to the first squad of reinforcements. Almost immediately the comms went silent.
Why doesn't anyone know to look at the damn camera before talking to me? There are cameras built into the corridors for a reason! Damn amateurs! Kevon closed his eyes and sat down next to the wall. This ship was fucked. All he could hope for now was to find a way to save himself. As for Captain Hector and the others…all he had to offer to them were thoughts and prayers, not that they were worth much in front of the shields and swords of the aliens.