There was nothing remarkable about the pirate freighter. It was a boxy, ungainly ship, about the size of a pre-spaceflight cargo jet. It had clearly seen better days. As the tractor beam slowly pulled Mark toward the small hangar in the freighter's belly, he weighed his options. The tractor beam didn't appear to be very strong. He knew enough military science to recognize this by how slowly he was being pulled in. If he used his afterburners long enough he could probably escape, though doing so would damage the engines. The turret on the freighter's underside might pepper him a bit, too. However, Mark knew from experience that the crews of such freighters were usually amateurs; the more dangerous pirates usually flew larger, better-maintained freighters and sometimes even military-grade warships. In addition, during the flight his body had had time to adjust to the Devil Fruit he had eaten after he entered hyperspace. Mark decided to cut his engines and allow himself to be captured. Once he was aboard he would kick some pirate ass.
As his fighter entered the pirate ship's hangar, Mark looked around. The hangar could probably hold six fighters if it wasn't full of junk. There was one ship in the hanger, a heavy fighter with canard wings, covered with scorch marks. Mark was not familiar with the design and assumed it was a custom job. A few meters away from the scorched fighter was an area free of clutter. The tractor beam set Mark's fighter down on the empty spot and shut off. Immediately, three ragtag pirates, two men and a dark-haired woman, ran into the hangar, assault rifles in hand. They pointed their guns at the Marine fighter. "Come out with your hands up!" ordered the woman.
Mark assumed that the woman was the leader of the three pirates. She stood in front of her crewmates, and her clothes were in slightly better condition than theirs. She wore a gray jumpsuit, an engineer's tool belt around her waist, and a set of welding goggles on her brow. If Mark could beat her, he could take over the entire ship.
Mark opened the canopy of his fighter and climbed out from the cockpit onto one of the wings. He looked directly at the pirates, then jumped down to the floor and charged at them. He didn't even bother to draw his pistol. The three pirates opened fire, but their bullets merely bounced off Mark's body. Mark reached the closest of the crew members, a tall red-haired man in a tattered tracksuit. The other two pirates' eyes widened as a long metallic blade extended from Mark's arm and sliced the tracksuited man's rifle in half. Mark used the flat of his blade to hit the disarmed man in the head, knocking him to the side. "Shit! He's got a devil's fruit!" yelled the woman, "Fall back!"
Mark charged at the other crew member, an average-sized man with black hair and an oil-stained t-shirt. However, he was intercepted by the woman, who attacked him with a cutting torch. He scrambled to back away from the torch, which was slowly burning a hole in his torso, lost his balance and fell over. The woman attacked from above, trying to cut into his metal body again, but Mark rolled to the side, and the woman missed him. The dark haired man shot at Mark, but that only drew Mark's attention to the shooter. Mark charged at him, being pelted by bullets all the way, grabbed the man's rifle with one hand, and sent him flying with a single punch from the other. Mark then turned around and pointed his newly-acquired rifle at the woman, who was running towards him with the torch. She saw the gun and froze. "Put down the torch and take two steps back!" ordered Mark. The woman followed the orders. "Got a name?"
"Kate Wheeler."
"Are you the captain of this wreck?"
"Yes."
Mark lowered his gun. "Well, you're my first mate now." Kate looked skeptical. "You're a Marine. How the hell do I know you're not going to simply turn us in?"
"You're just going to have to trust me," replied Mark. Kate paused for a moment as if trying to think of a way she could still defeat Mark, but finally capitulated. "Fine, but if you turn on me or my friends I'll put a hole in your head with this torch."
"Fair enough," said Mark, "Now where's your medical supplies?"
Medicine had made quantum leaps since the previous pirate era. Broken bones could be repaired in minutes. Alien viruses could be quickly identified and cured. Lost limbs and eyes could be replaced by machinery, if not re-grown. Kate's torch had burned a hole in Mark's kidney, but a single syringe of medical fluid healed the wound. Another syringe could have removed the resulting scar, but there wasn't much of the fluid left and he wanted to save as much as possible for emergencies. Kate had no injuries, since Mark had simply dodged her and held her at gunpoint. The remaining two crew members, Axel, the tall man, and Cross, the man with the black hair, had a few broken bones each, so they needed more fluid than Mark did, but there was enough for everyone.
After the crew was healed, Kate took Mark on a tour of the freighter Long Shot. "This is where we all sleep," she explained as they walked through the cargo hold, "don't get excited, most of those crates are empty." "What was that fighter in the hangar?" asked Mark. "I built that myself," replied Kate,"I was going to salvage your fighter to get mine running again, but I didn't expect a devil's fruit user." The ship's two turrets, one on the belly and the other on the roof, were mismatched and of questionable structural integrity. The cockpit was as unimpressive as the rest of the ship. The pilot and co-pilot's seats were hard plastic and several of the instruments appeared to be broken; they were covered with blue tape. "As soon as we make some money, that's the first thing we're going to fix," said Mark. Kate nodded, "I hear you, captain, and now that you're here, we might actually be able to do it."
"How the hell do you travel through hyperspace with broken gauges?"
"We don't. We've been hanging around Last Chance for a week waiting for someone weak enough to rob."
After the tour, the crew met in the cargo hold to plan their first mission. "Got any other powers, Captain" asked Cross.
"Nothing you didn't see in the hangar," replied Mark, "My body seems to be made of steel now; bullets just bruise me. I can also extend blades from any part of my body."
"What's the fruit called?" asked Axel.
"I don't know," replied Mark, "But I'll probably find out when the Marines come looking for their stolen property."
"Can your power do anything else?" asked Cross, "Could you make your fists into hammers?"
"No," said Mark, "I can only do blades for some reason. So what do you guys do?"
"Me and Cross work the turrets," explained Axel, "Aside from that we're just bodyguards." Cross nodded, though he appeared to be biting back the urge to correct Axel's grammar.
Already knowing that Kate was the crew's mechanic, Mark moved on. "Alright guys," he announced, "I have no idea how crime works, so I want you to pick our first target." Kate smiled, "I have an idea." The crew of four spent the next few hours planning their attack.
Before they went to sleep, Cross asked, "Captain, what are we going to call our new crew?" "The Black Sheep Pirates," said Mark. Axel groaned in disappointment, "Why Sheep? We should be the Grand Master Planet-Eater Pirates!" As a former military officer, Mark was not used to being questioned by subordinates. However, he replied, "I'm the black sheep of a military family."
"I like it," said Kate. "What about you, Cross?"
"Same here," he replied, "I like the symbolism."
Axel scowled at him, "Fine, but don't tell me my idea wasn't badass."
"It sucked ass," replied Cross, and the two crewmen began shouting at each other. Mark sighed. There was a very good reason the Marines were not a democracy. If the crew could not follow orders when it counted, the Black Sheep would be captured like all of the pirates Mark had helped arrest as a marine. He decided to go to sleep. The following day he would know how much, or how little, discipline his crew had.
