Star Support

Preface

Now this here is the first of my works that can be considered kind-of sort-of published. I use such clear and confident language because while the story was indeed published, it was merely as part of a free anthology, so that doesn't really count. Though I've been told that as far as free anthologies go, this one managed to climb to the very top of the rankings around the time of its release even despite an abundance of typos.

The story itself splits its attention between a spaceship under siege by some nefarious individuals and a remote tech support specialist trying to assist the lone operative stuck on that ship.

So, without further ado, I present to you Star Support, complete with a few extra layers of polish:

Jenny Hartgrave did her best to ignore the board-approved cheerful tune as she rode the elevator back to the sixty-fifth floor. Her lunch break was the only thing keeping her from going mad, and she wasn't about to ruin the tail end of it by succumbing to corporate spirit and humming along.

She worked at a help desk for the Gol-Tec corporation and if she was lucky, the precious moments of peace and quiet she savored during lunch would get her through four more hours of answering inane questions and helping clueless idiots not fly their top-of-the-line spaceships into neighboring suns.

The elevator produced a single high-pitched beep and came to a stop. In the time it took for the massive chromed doors to slide open, Jenny straightened her modest skirt, fixed the collar on her white shirt, put on a friendly smile, and as her final move, wiped a spot of mustard from the corner of her mouth.

She made her way through a brightly-lit floor partitioned by grey shoulder-high walls, doing her best to filter out the background chatter and the harsh buzzing of active hyperspace comms.

A few turns and polite nods later, Jenny planted herself in a sparsely-decorated cubicle and put on a headset. Her workstation's screen was already blinking with a call waiting.

Resting her chin on the palm of her hand, Jenny accepted the call and chanted her opening stock line, "Gol-Tec tech support. My name is Jenny. How may I help you on this fine day?"

It was too impractical to send video through hyperspace, so all Jenny got in return was an earful of static and a man's voice. The static was more pleasant than the voice.

"Let me stop you right there, Jenny," said the man on the other end of the call, losing a syllable here and there to the dark void of hyperspace. "You can call me Mike. I have a glass of scotch in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other, a dead Ronch dripping green all over the carpet to my right, and a view screen to my left where I can see a pirate cruiser attached to my ship with a boarding tube. So do me a favor. Drop the script and, for once in your adult life, try to think for yourself."

The call was coming from a ZT-450 freighter a good deal into the Ronch territory. The reptilian race was often at odds with the human Union of Sol, but strained diplomatic relations and several recent border skirmishes weren't enough to stop the more entrepreneurial among the Ronches from purchasing Gol-Tec's mass-produced ships at more agreeable prices than anything their own empire had on offer.

"You don't sound like a Ronch, Mike," Jenny said, now alert and tapping her long-nailed fingers on the desk.

"That's cause I'm not one," Mike said and followed that up with a couple of stifled coughs. "I'm just hitching a ride," he continued. "And now that we've cleared that up, let's focus on what you can do for me, Jenny."

"And what's that, Mike?"

"You have this ship's schematics in front of you," Mike said. Jenny couldn't tell if he was slurring his words or if the usual packet loss was to blame. "If you don't, get them up there. Take a look at the rec room and tell me how to reboot the air circulation system."

This wasn't one of the usual, "how do I turn the autopilot on?" or "why is the hyperspace drive not engaging?" questions. Then again, there was nothing usual about this whole situation.

For a moment, Jenny thought about dumping this call onto someone who wasn't her. She even looked up from her cubicle, her eyes darting around the floor for a sight of Ms. Richards, her supervisor, who was busy berating one of the operators for spending too much time with a single customer.

Firmly back in her chair, Jenny touched a few buttons and said, "Your best bet is to get to the mainframe on the lower deck and flip the analog switch there, Mike. Do you need directions?"

"Yeah, that's going to be a hard no from me, Jenny. I need to reboot the system from inside the rec room," Mike said after a pause.

"There are no safe ways to reboot air circulation from your current position," Jenny insisted.

Once again, Jenny heard Mike strangle a cough in his chest. "Well, unless your manual there has any bright ideas on how to disappear half a dozen angry pirates parked on the other side of the door, you better start giving me unsafe options, Jenny."

"Six Ronches?" The cold-blooded aliens were on average stronger and faster than a human. They had their hardened scales, hook-like claws, and razor-sharp teeth. Stuck on Earth, Jenny only ever saw them in various official broadcasts and movies. She had trouble imagining one angry Ronch, let alone six of them.

"Ronches?" Mike interrupted Jenny's thoughts. "No, they're mostly humans from what I can tell."

Jenny looked at her screen. "But you're on the Ronch side of the border."

"Exactly. That's why the pirates are human. Why would they attack their fellow man when it's not technically illegal for them to raid the Ronch space?" Before Jenny could say something, Mike added, "But let's discuss intergalactic law some other time. Right now you should be thinking about my breathable air problem."

"Give me a sec, Mike." Any other operator would have transferred Mike's call over to someone with a fatter paycheck a thousand times already. Not Jenny. This was the first exciting thing to happen to her in the four years she worked the Gol-Tec help desk and she wasn't about to let it go to waste. Saving a man from suffocating light years away from home was a nice bonus. "There should be a panel by the rec room door. Go there, Mike," Jenny said after bringing up the ship's blueprint.

Jenny heard several light steps, then Mike's voice. "The little square thing on the left side?"

"That's right."

"Ah," Mike hummed. "We may have a bit of a problem, Jenny."

"You're not giving me a lot to work with here, Mike," Jenny raised her voice. She caught herself mid-sentence, and after making sure Ms. Richards didn't notice her outburst, she whispered, "Why can't you use the panel?"

"So here I was, taking it easy in the rec room, chatting with my Ronch pilot when something big hits our ship and sends the two of us flying out of our chairs. The pilot got up first and tried going to the bridge to see what was going on. The poor bastard barely opened the door when he ate a spiked club to the head from our pirate guests. He was dead before he hit the floor, and the only way I wasn't joining him was if I got that door shut, fast."

"You smashed the door panel," Jenny finished Mike's train of thought. The more Mike described his current situation, the more amazed Jenny was by his ability to stay calm under such pressure.

"Right. By the looks of it, they want to capture the ship intact, so they're not blowing the door and are trying something a bit more crafty instead. Which leads us back to my oxygen situation."

After double-checking with the blueprint she had on her screen, Jenny said, "There should be an auxiliary panel behind the viewscreen. You'll need to unbolt it from the wall somehow."

Mike replied with a series of grunts and something that could have very easily been the sound of wires getting torn from a wall. "Got it, what now?" he then asked.

"It's an emergency panel," Jenny started.

"This is kind of an emergency. Just tell me what to do," Mike cut Jenny's explanation short.

The sounds of Mike gasping for air kicked Jenny into gear and helped her guide him through the step-by-step process that initiated a ship-wide emergency system reset.

After roughly half a minute, Jenny heard Mike inhale, greedy for oxygen. Then, she heard him whisper a simple, almost unintelligible, "Thanks," followed by a louder and more confused, "Why is the door beeping?"

"You triggered a full reset, Mike."

"Full reset?"

Before Jenny could tell him that this was exactly what she was trying to warn him about and that an emergency reset rebooted all of the ship's systems and not just any particular one, the reset got to the ship's comms, disconnecting the call and leaving Jenny to drown in heart-rending silence.

***

On the one hand, Mike Riley was able to inhale something that resembled breathable air for the first time in what felt like ages. On the other, his dimly lit rec room was about to get way more crowded.

Mike still had the knife he grabbed from the bar counter, and he was still holding onto his half-full glass of scotch. And that would have to do to weather the initial storm.

When the doors slid open with their signature whoosh and the pirates got a chance to pour inside and form a defensive concave around the only way in or out, one of them cleared his throat and spit on the floor.

He then said, "Get over here, man. Do everyone a favor and at least die with dignity, you Ronch-collaborating son of a bitch." He had the voice of someone who hasn't let go of a smoke ever since he left his baby crib. When Mike didn't respond, the pirate added, "Come on, I can see your shoulders behind the bar."

Lacking in good options, Mike stood up and chucked his glass at the nearest pirate. The glass connected with a burly guy's forehead and sent him back a few steps. It then shattered into a million pieces on the floor, spilled scotch mixing with the dead pilot's green blood.

"Any chance you want to talk this over?" Mike asked.

The pirates responded with a series of menacing grumbles.

Mike shrugged, adjusted his wider than average shoulders that so rudely gave him away mere moments ago, and hopped onto the counter. This gave the pirates, armed with all sorts of sharp and heavy objects, a pause. They hesitated just long enough for the lights to go out.

Mike didn't get to hear Jenny's explanation of a full reset, but he was able to put two and two together. He waited until the lights kicked back in and pushed himself forward from the counter right as the reset got to the ship's artificial gravity.

Propelled by his leap, Mike floated up to the ceiling where he grabbed onto one of the ventilation pipes.

The pirates, who weren't prepared for gravity to give up on them, started to float aimlessly all over the rec room. With nothing better to do, they, in no uncertain terms, expressed to Mike how this turn of events made them feel and what they thought about a human sharing a ship with a Ronch.

A sour grin forced its way onto Mike's face. A certain branch of the Union government that didn't exist on any official documents was silently backing the privateer program. Mike knew this because his direct boss was the one to come up with it. The big idea there was to tie up a part of the Ronch fleet and weaken their border defenses.

Mike didn't like this idea back when it was first unveiled, and he sure didn't like it now that it backfired in his face. At the same time, he found it amusing that both he and the pirates were likely getting their paychecks signed by the same people.

This thought reminded Mike of a guy he once worked with. The two of them were paired up for a mission on a malfunctioning space station where Mike provided recon support and sipped fruity drinks through a straw, while the other agent, who went simply by Bud, kicked some serious weightless ass.

Mike didn't have Bud's training. The best he could do in zero-g was float with some semblance of purpose. This was exactly what he proceeded to do after he picked one pirate with a particularly nasty vocabulary.

When the ship was attacked, Mike was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a pair of baggy cargo pants. None of that could be considered proper attire when falling into a puddle of somewhat acidic blood generously peppered with broken glass.

"What the," the pirate yelped when Mike grabbed his collar. He wasn't able to finish the sentence. The ship's gravity generators turned back on, sending everyone in the rec room back to the designated floor.

Mike used the pirate's initial shock to overpower and use him as one big angry cushion.

The pirate was in a bad place after hitting the hard and hazardous metal floor, but Mike wasn't done with him just yet. In one swift motion, he stuck the knife into the pirate's neck and jumped back on his feet.

The knife wasn't a tempered weapon but a shoddy kitchen tool, and when Mike got up, he was left with just the handle. The thin blade remained with the gurgling pirate.

Mike grabbed the pirate's weapon instead. A polished branch with three rusty spikes sticking out of its bashing end. Spacefaring scoundrels like these had a reputation for having a few screws loose, and justifiably so, but even they usually weren't suicidal enough to bring weapons that go boom onto a spaceship. This evened Mike's odds a bit against the five remaining pirates.

The first of them barely got up when Mike's improvised club cracked a few of his ribs. He tried to swing his metal pipe at Mike anyway, but it got easily deflected by the club. In a single short hop, Mike closed the distance between the two of them, and then a solid left hook to the side of the pirate's dome threw him to the floor.

Some hidden, subconscious part of Mike's brain was tracking the remaining pirates. It rang a loud alarm and forced Mike to turn around just in time to notice a barrel of a bulky shotgun pointed at him.

If Mike had to guess, he would bet that the gun was loaded with bean bag rounds. Not lethal as a general rule, getting hit with one in his situation would mean certain death just as well as a serving of buckshot. He somehow doubted that the pirates would let him catch his breath before dismembering him with extreme prejudice.

Mike grabbed onto the counter, vaulted over it, and ducked. The shot came soon after. A bean bag hit the wall, and before it got a chance to slide to the floor, Mike was already up, fending off a raging pirate charging him with a sharp-looking saber.

By the time Mike turned to him, the pirate was mid-swing, aiming for Mike's head. Mike leaned back, swinging his club at the same time. The pirate missed his target but still left Mike with a deep gash underlining his collarbone. Mike caught the pirate on the hip and was about to finish the bugger off when a metal chain wrapped around his raised club.

Another pirate was standing on his opposite side with a heavy chain wrapped around his fist, and now Mike's club too.

With the saber-wielding pirate coming to his senses and the one with the shotgun trying to aim his second shot right between his two associates, this wasn't the time for finesse.

The pirates, tough as they were, subsisted mostly on booze and an occasional greasy fast food meal. Mike had his training, regular exercise, and a diet approved by Union's top physicians. He dug his heels in, shifted his grip on the club, and swung it towards the nearest wall with the pirate still attached to the other end of the chain.

This profanity-spewing projectile connected with the wall right where the viewscreen used to be before Mike smashed it. Hitting his head on the ship's bulkhead shut the pirate up, but his chain was still attached to the club. Mike had to let it go, which freed him to pounce on the injured saber wielder.

A block, a few quick punches, and another pirate was silenced, having lent Mike his razor-sharp blade.

Not even catching his breath, Mike jumped from behind the counter and threw the saber at the pirate with the shotgun. After a spin or two, the curved sword pierced the pirate's gut and sent him to the floor right beside the Ronch pilot's body.

The fresh saber cut wasn't too deep but it hurt just the same, gradually painting Mike's shirt crimson. With gritted teeth and a hand pressed to his upper chest, Mike went to grab the saber. There were only five pirate bodies in the rec room. The final one must have run off to call for reinforcements and when they arrived, Mike wanted to be ready.

As he was walking past the open door, Mike half-heard, half-sensed someone moving in the corridor outside. He tensed his muscles and exhaled. The sixth pirate moved into Mike's field of view right as the last bits of air were leaving his lungs.

The sixth pirate was holding onto a gun that looked like an old-world revolver with an oversized cylinder. A sonic blaster. This bad boy discharged targeted waves of sound strong enough to liquefy your internal organs without harming the ship's bulkheads when a shot missed.

Mike didn't expect the pirates to have this sort of hardware, but he didn't stop to think about it either. Mere moments ago, the pirate saw his buddies go down one by one, and that sort of thing makes sure you don't hesitate to shoot when you get the chance.

With a single, lightning-fast flick of his wrist, Mike turned the blaster around in the pirate's hand and even helped him pull the trigger.

A low thomp rang through the air and sent the pirate flying.

After retrieving the blaster, Mike went back and grabbed the saber as well. Having made sure he'll be leaving no witnesses in the rec room, he descended to the lower deck.

His whole reason for being on this freighter was there. He needed to know the pirates hadn't gotten their hands on it yet.

A set of military-grade surveillance equipment intended for a listening post deep into the Ronch territory was hidden among a routine shipment of consumer electronics. A lot of scaly palms had to be greased for this trip to happen, and a very select circle of people had knowledge of it happening. If anyone outside that circle learned about this operation, an international incident of epic proportions would be unavoidable.

Mike was prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep this thing from going public. And to do that, he first had to make sure the equipment was still on the freighter.

Saber in one hand, blaster in the other, Mike was keeping a low profile and sticking to the shadows all the way to the cargo bay filled with boxes of civilian comms and holo-projectors. Inside, a single pirate was rummaging through the boxes with his back turned to Mike.

Shooting a guy in the back, even if that guy was a pirate, didn't sit quite right with Mike.

"Hey there," he called out.

When the pirate turned around, Mike pulled the trigger and thomped the poor sod into a cozy stack of boxes.

From where he was standing, Mike could see that the vault at the back of the bay was still secure, but he moved in anyway.

A few steps in, Mike's danger sense started screaming just like it did back in the rec room. The next thing he saw was a barrel of a pirate's shotgun aimed at his chest.

Maybe it was his wound, or maybe he was too exhausted by then, but this time Mike's reaction was a fraction of a second too slow. He discharged his blaster, but not before the pirate got a point-blank shot off as well.

Struggling to breathe, with a cracked rib and the mother of all bruises spreading across his chest, Mike checked the vault, then crouched by the dead pirate who had just ambushed him. He picked up the pirate's comm and mumbled into it, "Security droids on board. Taking heavy fire. Too many of them."

***

Disconnected from Mike, Jenny sat in silence for a bit, then she took off her headset, got up, and went straight for Ms. Richards.

The floor supervisor was too busy chewing out the new guy for messing up the stock greeting line to notice Jenny's approach, so she had to touch Ms. Richards' shoulder to get her attention.

This resulted in the new guy sighing with relief and Ms. Richards redirecting her ire towards Jenny.

"What is it, Jenny?" she asked, leaning slightly forward.

"I just had this call," Jenny started.

Ms. Richards didn't let her finish. "Congratulations. You had a call. You want a commendation?"

"No, it's just that the call was unusual."

"And? You're trained to deal with the unusual. It's literally in the job description. Or do you plan to run to me every time something out of the ordinary happens?"

Just listening to Ms. Richards talk, watching her lips drowned in purple lipstick move, was giving Jenny a tick in her left eye. None of the customers, no matter how minute their problem was, irritated her as much as this middle-aged middle manager with an ego problem.

Making an effort not to lose her cool, Jenny described Mike's call.

When she was done, Ms. Richards made a sucking noise with her tongue pressed to her teeth. "Let me get this straight, Miss Hartgrave. You answered a call, provided the required support, and successfully closed the ticket. Why are you wasting my time then? I'm sure you have plenty of other calls waiting."

"Do you even understand what I'm telling you, Ms. Richards? There's a man out there, in space, attacked by pirates right as we speak. You don't think we should maybe do something about it?"

Ms. Richards made a face at the same kid she was berating just moments ago, and the froggy whelp had the nerve to respond in kind. "And what do you propose we do, Miss Hartgrave?" the supervisor asked. "You said it yourself, this is happening within Ronch borders. Our fleet has no jurisdiction there. So unless you have the Ronch emergency number written down somewhere, go back to your desk and do your job."

It took every ounce of Jenny's self-control not to throw something in Ms. Richards' face and storm out.

On her way back to her cubicle, she heard Ms. Richards say, "And don't forget to smile. I'll be watching."

Biting her tongue, Jenny slid into her chair and put on her headset. She answered a call or two just going through the motions, with half of her screen showing her the status of Mike's freighter. She could see that the ship's comms were back up, but she couldn't find it in her to initiate a call.

There were corporate instructions that prohibited that sort of thing, but moreover, she just didn't know, couldn't know, who would answer if she did call. Most of her thoughts revolved around a single idea. The idea that she was responsible for what happened to Mike after the doors opened.

She was in a middle of a call, explaining to some old man how one could lower the ambient light intensity on a Gol-Tec ship when she pressed the disconnect button, switched over to Mike's tab, and dialed his comm.

The next thing she knew, she had Mike screaming in her ear, "Jenny! And I was just about to call you."

"Are you okay, Mike?" she asked.

"Sure, never better." Saying this, Mike sounded just a touch too enthusiastic for it to be true. But at least he was alive.

"What about the pirates? Are they still there?"

"Yeah, they're not going anywhere."

"Are you safe?" Jenny didn't want to ask Mike directly about what happened when the rec room was breached.

Mike must have caught this. "I'm on the bridge now. No pirates here just yet. They must have detected two life signs on board and sent only a modest boarding party. Those guys won't be bothering anyone anymore. As for the rest, I made them think there were killer droids here, so now they're not as eager to storm the freighter."

Jenny didn't even try to pretend she got all that. She just knew that she didn't get Mike killed, and that was enough for now. "I'm happy to hear it, Mike," she said. "And are there actually droids?"

"Of course not. But that's not why I'm calling." Mike stumbled on that one for a bit. "I mean not why you're calling me. I have a question."

"What is it, Mike?"

"How do I trigger the self-destruct sequence without the proper codes?"

"Mike. Think about what you're saying."

"It's a simple question, Jenny. Well, not that simple, really, because I've been trying to figure this thing out on my own, and no dice. I know it's possible. There's always a back door. I just need you to guide me through the actions."

"I can't help you kill yourself."

"If I don't do it, they will. At least this way, I'm taking them with."

"And you're sure there's no other way?"

"After our last encounter? Nope. Besides, my little droid trick must have spooked them something fierce. They've actually trained their ship's lasers on me. My combat screen is showing me a couple of green beams primed to fire at any moment. If I know my pirates, right about now they're discussing if they should cut their losses and make me into a navigational hazard from a safe distance."

Listening to Mike, Jenny could almost see his point and was about ready to help him. But then one little detail caught her attention. "Is it a Ronch ship?" she asked.

"You know how pirates are, Jenny. Always modding their ships and decorating them with trophies. It's hard to tell. But I think it's human. Why?"

"Two paired lasers on each side. Kind of looks like a cigar, right?"

"That's the one."

Jenny's fingers became a blur, tapping her workstation's keys with alacrity she didn't know she was capable of. Before long, she had a new file up on her screen.

"Here's the thing, Mike. Gol-Tec is the only human company that uses green lasers on its ships. The one that's boarding you right now is a TX-series cruiser. The only one currently in your area."

"And what does this do for me, Jenny?" Mike said with a glimmer of confused hope in his voice.

"All TX models have a bug in their system. It allows you to overload the ship's engine from any access port. The higher-ups knew about the bug, but the actions to replicate it were so convoluted that a factory recall was deemed unfeasible," Jenny said with the biggest smile on her face. "You up for a field trip, Mike, or do you still want the self-destruct workaround?"

"Jenny, darling, if I don't die from blood loss and don't get my head caved in on this field trip of yours, remind me to buy you a drink when I'm back home."

***

Mike left the bridge with the comm wrapped around his ear, holding onto his new favorite saber and blaster combo. Mike's shirt now acted as a bandage for his saber cut, which put the nasty bean bag bruise swelling across his ribs on prominent display.

"So, what do I do?" he asked Jenny over the comm.

"You need to get over to their ship, connect your comm device to an access port and get into their system. I'll guide you from there. It's a complicated process," Jenny replied.

Now that he had a more clear short-term goal, Mike headed for the part of the freighter connected to the pirate cruiser. He had no idea what roadblocks the pirates would have waiting for him there, but between that and blowing himself up, Mike just wasn't that big of a pyromaniac.

With the boarding tube in sight, Mike touched the comm. "You there, Jenny?" he whispered.

"Yup."

"Is there any chance we could do your thing from here?"

"No, not really. Why? Is there a problem?"

"You could say that."

Peeking from behind a corner Mike was staring at the only obvious obstacle to his success, but in the realm of obstacles, it was a nasty one. Bigger and heavier than Mike, smarter than he looked, and covered in a natural rock-like exoskeleton, a living, breathing Borian was guarding the boarding tube.

To make matters worse, this particular specimen was wearing a ballistic harness that produced a low-frequency force field, making the Borian impervious to projectile weapons. The field wasn't specifically designed to stop sonic blasts, but it would dissipate a good bunch before giving out anyway.

A concentrated barrage would overload the harness in no time, but as was usually the case with unconventional weaponry, Mike's blaster went through batteries like they were late-night snacks. After all the shooting it did earlier, it had only two thomps left.

Mike looked at the blaster and took a step towards the Borian. When he was noticed, he slowly threw the blaster on the floor by one of the walls.

"Any chance you're letting me through?" Mike asked.

"Nope," the Borian grumbled.

"Who's there, Mike?" Jenny asked in his ear.

"Just a little pebble. Nothing to worry about. You focus on that trick of yours and let me deal with things here."

"Great," the Borian said with a nod. "First everyone gets all worked up about an army of killer droids wiping out our vanguard and now there's a crazy guy talking to himself. Just my luck."

"You know, we don't have to do this," Mike said.

The Borian shrugged. "A job's a job."

"You can still quit." If they stayed out of trouble, Borians could live for centuries. Seeing one risk all that time for a few ill-gained credits was highly unusual.

"Nope." The Borian wasn't budging.

"Your loss."

Mike sprung into action and lunged toward the Borian. Just short of reaching the rocky guard, he made it look like he was about to dive forward and try squeezing past him. The Borian bought it, but at the last moment, Mike changed his trajectory and slashed at the Borian while simultaneously hopping backwards.

Unfazed by the slash, the Borian bellowed, "You'll have to do better than that, mate," and rushed towards Mike.

As this was happening, Mike heard Jenny talking to someone. "I'm with a customer, Ms. Richards. I'll get back to you shortly."

The Borian was getting closer, and all of a sudden, the well-crafted saber in Mike's hand felt awfully inadequate.

"I know exactly what you're doing, Miss Hartgrave," Mike heard a new shrill voice in his comm.

He bent his knees and jumped at the charging Borian.

The length of the saber's blade connected with the Borian's harness when the guard tackled Mike and threw him to the floor. For a while, Mike knew only pain and darkness. Through it, he could hear two voices argue.

"Disconnect the call."

"I just need five minutes."

"Do as you are told or you're fired."

"Then fire me. In five minutes."

"I'm calling security, Miss Hartgrave."

This bickering tethered Mike to reality and allowed him to open his eyes. The first thing he saw was the Borian's craggy face. Not wasting any time, the Borian went straight for Mike's throat.

"Jenny," Mike said, wrestling with the Borian. "Do me a favor. Punch your boss in the neck." He could barely speak with the Borian squeezing the life out of him.

"What?" both Jenny and the Borian said at the same time, which briefly gave Mike the upper hand.

"I know her type." Mike freed his right arm from the Borian's grip. "She'll back down." He grabbed the Borian's harness. "Trust me." He pulled with whatever strength he had left in him.

He kept pulling right until he heard a crack and then the sound of a force field powering down. Before the Borian figured out what was going on, Mike grabbed the blaster from the floor, pressed it to the Borian's head, and pulled the trigger twice.

Struggling to crawl from under the massive creature, Mike heard a soft thud and then a yelp from the comm. He couldn't feel a single bone in his body, but that simple noise put a smile on his face regardless.

Unarmed and barely standing, Mike was catching his breath with his back pressed to a bulkhead when he heard Jenny's voice. "Change of plans," she said. "I now have an admin card and can overload the engine from my end. But we need to move fast."

"Fast may be a bit tricky, Jenny."

"That's your problem. Security is on the way, so we don't have much time. When I'm done here, you need to not be anywhere near that pirate tub." The commanding sound of Jenny's voice forced Mike to get into the boarding tube. "Just make a run for it, Mike. And don't die. If things go as they did during the tests, their systems will go out slightly before the explosion. And I mean slightly. As soon as you're free from their clamps, jump to hyperspace."

"Sure thing, boss," Mike said with a smirk Jenny could hear all the way on the other side of the galaxy. "See you on the other side."

***

Mike went quiet after that. Jenny wiped a streak of sweat going down her cheek. Behind her, Ms. Richards was still sitting on the floor, blinking in disbelief at one of her employees actually socking it to her and taking her access card.

With Ms. Richards' codes, Jenny had full access to the pirate cruiser's mainframe. She started entering the elaborate series of commands required to overload the engines.

She was about halfway done when a couple of security guards arrived. It didn't take long for them to assess the situation and start moving toward Jenny.

Not willing to give up when she was so close, Jenny got up from her chair and pushed it at the guards, hunching over her workstation's keyboard.

The guards didn't expect that. Usually, these office types folded as soon as they saw someone in a uniform coming after them. This bought Jenny some time.

Her next move was kicking at the guards as she tried to complete the input sequence.

One of the guards took the brunt of her assault while the other grabbed her waist and started dragging her away. This was where biting and scratching came in, until finally, Jenny let go and stopped struggling.

As she was carried away, she watched her screen indicate an engine failure on the cruiser.

***

Jenny didn't hear back from Mike. She was removed from Gol-Tec's employee roster and thrown out on the street. She was told to expect a call from a lawyer. By that point, this was the least of her worries.

With unkempt hair, bruised arms, and a missing shirt button, Jenny was sitting at a public transport stop a few blocks down the street from the office.

She didn't know if Mike moved away from the pirate ship in time to escape the blast. And she didn't know how she was going to buy food from now on. So she just crossed her legs, kicked back, and waited for the transport, humming the stupid Gol-Tec elevator tune to herself.

After about an hour and several transports Jenny completely ignored lost in her own head, a black motor vehicle pulled over to the stop. Jenny wondered if perhaps this was the lawyer she was supposed to be expecting.

The door opened and a man in a simple black suit stepped outside.

"Miss Hartgrave?" the man asked, looking at Jenny.

"Yes?"

"How would you like a job?"

"What kind of job?" Jenny sat up and made an attempt to fix her hair.

"The one where you work for your government and don't ask too many questions."

When thinking back to her interaction with Mike, Jenny figured there were only two options. One, that he worked for the government. And two, that he didn't. The man in the suit positively screamed option number one.

"Is Mike okay?" Jenny asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say. But you seem to be pretty sharp. You can figure that one out for yourself."

The only way a man who dressed like this would know about her humble existence was if a certain someone hitching a ride on a Ronch freighter got a message out to his people. And to do that, that certain someone had to be alive.

"So, about that job," Jenny said.

The man nodded for her to get into the vehicle. She did. The man followed and closed the door. Another man just like him was waiting inside.

"We're looking for a competent operations officer and we hear good things about you, Miss Hartgrave," said the second suit.

"And what does an operations officer do?" Jenny asked.

"Nothing you're not equipped to handle."

"Then how can I say no?"

"Excellent," the first suit said with a nod. "You'll start your training first thing in the morning. We'll take care of all the paperwork with your previous employers. Would you like to grab something from the office while we're still here?"

Jenny looked at the suits, then thought back to her barren cubicle. Struggling to hide a smile, she said, "No need. Let's go, boys."

THE END