*Timeskip*
'Thoughts'
"Speech"
[Telepathy]
—————
I woke up the next morning after a satisfying meal and quickly took a shower before heading into the kitchen and ordering more ingredients to make some breakfast. I decided on something fairly simple, so I made bacon cheddar biscuits with some scrambled eggs on the side.
I pulled the biscuits out of the oven and set them off to the side to cool while I began making the eggs. Just before I finished, I heard footsteps quickly approaching as I turned and saw something that almost made me lose control. Selene came in where it nothing but a sports bra and booty shorts, leaving very little to the imagination, including her nipples.
I turned away from her not in embarrassment, but to control myself, "Selene. If you don't get dressed, breakfast won't be the only thing being eaten this morning." I said with a strained voice as I tried to focus on plating each of our portions. I didn't get a verbal response, but I heard footsteps rapidly retreating from me. I sighed as I turned around and saw she was gone, thus I plated some of the biscuits and poured us some juice I bought as well.
Not long after, she returned in roughly the same clothes but she had a sweater on, which was at least hiding her midriff and nipples. I looked at her red face as she sat down next to me and began to eat in silence. I sighed and ate along with her, happy with the meal I made.
"Sigh, that was good." Selene sighed in contentment next to me as she leaned back in her chair, her previous shyness forgotten.
I hummed in agreement, "Yeah, we should get going, I'm kinda looking forward to hunting some pirates."
She just nodded in agreement and we headed to the cockpit and took our seats. As soon as I sat down, I instinctually knew what every control in the ship was, and how to fly it perfectly. I quickly flew us out of the hanger and pulled up a map of the star system. I also pulled up a copy of the job that we took on the terminal to my left. The job details showed the locations of the reported bandit attacks, which were mostly in the nearby asteroid belt, in between where the mining colony was and the station.
Normally, this kind of a thing wouldn't be a problem, as mining colonies are usually guarded by the army. This case in particular is special because the attacks are infrequent and small enough that the army doesn't want to waste resources and ships on it, but they also can't be ignored, thus they made a job request to the mercenary guild. With our destination mapped out, I sped the ship in the direction of the asteroid belt.
The flight didn't take very long to get there, we had the best ship available when this was a game. It is comparable to a fleet flagship in firepower and shields, but it has the speed of a scouting corvette. In other words, the ship is a cheat. I heard that the Voluna created a device with the help of the dwarves that allowed them to amplify their psionic powers through their ship and could even use it to crush ships with their psionic power alone, but I'm not sure if this is true or not. If it is, I will definitely have to make a future investment and make my ship even more of a cheat.
I brought us to a stop before we made it into the asteroid belt and looked over at Selene. "Get ready, I don't plan on waiting for the pirates to make the first move."
She nodded and brought the shields and weapons online and prepped them. I turned our thrusters to full and skillfully maneuvered us through the asteroids searching for pirates. Most pirates are pretty easy to identify, as the low end pirates tend to use civilian class ships or cargo ships which are modified with weaponry. The higher end pirates almost all belong to a warband, and warbands like their motifs, which makes them easy to identify.
"Captain, I'm picking up four signatures on our scanners, one is damaged." Selene spoke up and she sent the location to my terminal.
"Got it." I replied as I sped in the direction of the four ships. In a matter of seconds, we rounded an asteroid and saw a transport ship that was fleeing from two civilian class ships that had disabling cannons on it as well as some basic flak cannons. Disabling cannons are designed specifically to send an electromagnetic pulse through the ship to damage the electronics and shut off the thrusters.
Flying over the fleeing transport ship, I quickly grabbed the controls for the flak cannons situated on our ship and aimed them at the two pirate ships. Without a thought I fired, quickly tearing the flimsy shields and armor of the civilian class ships, destroying them in the process.
Soon after, a transmission came in. Selene accepted it and patched them through, which revealed a middle aged man with a weathered appearance. "The help is much appreciated. My name is Darius Richards, I'm the captain of this ship as well as the foreman at the Axis mining colony." The other person said as soon as they saw us.
"Captain Andrew, and it's no problem, we're here to hunt down the pirates anyways." I replied and his eyes lit up in relief.
"I take it you're mercenaries then?" He said with some hope.
"Yes we are, by the way was there another ship with you?" I asked since I noticed the fourth ship still hadn't moved yet.
"Ahh yes, it's another transport ship, however they were hit with the pirates disabling cannon and they aren't able to move. Though we should be able to tow them out now that we aren't being pursued." He replied gratefully.
"Alright, I'll leave that to you then, any idea how many more pirates are hiding around?" I inquired.
"We've seen around twenty in total, but they never show up in more than groups of three." He answered.
"Alright, well, we should clear those out, best of luck." I said.
"Thank you once again, Captain Andrew." He replied as he cut the transmission. After that, we continued to scour the asteroid belt and found thirteen pirate ships in total. We decided to call it a day and we could always come back tomorrow to look for more. Arriving back at the station as Selene ran up to me and grabbed my hands, "I'm hungry!" She said with a sparkle in her eye.
I sighed, "I never knew you were sigh a glutton. Come on…" I grabbed her hand as we walked into the kitchen where I made us dinner and relaxed together on the couch and watched a movie.