Chapter Three: Ship to Ship
Hei Yui moved off the bridge deciding to find himself somewhere to stay. It wasn't a big ship, it was only meant to hold a handful of crew members and all of them would normally be the size of a Salarian, it was not Krogan friendly. He went down a level to with the medical bay, cargo and armory thinking that the cargo bay would be best. On his way past the armory he stopped and looked in wondering what was in it. As it turned out there was nothing right then, and Yui was surprised at how big it was. In fact, he thought with a grin, it was just right. Scarlet was the first to find him, she paused when she saw him setting up a bed in the armory. He looked at her and without pause declared, "This is my room. You guys can use that corner," he waved to the corner closest to the entrance, "for your equipment. The rest is mine, and I'll kill anyone that touches anything in it." Scarlet shrugged in answer, "Ok. Whatever." Yui nodded, "Good. I think we're going to get along just fine. So what's first, we got some where to start looking for this guy?" Scarlet cocked her head to the side, "Got any suggestions? You are the expert." Yui thought for a moment, "Weeell I've been on break for the last month or so, so we're going to need to find someone who can give me the latest news….. We can't go to my usual ports, not in this ship. Would be too suspicious. So how bout we go chase down an distress beacon or two and see if we can't find ourselves a pirate to interrogate." Scarlet nodded, "The Council thought so too and has been forwarding us distress signals already. I just wanted to see if you agreed. I'm setting a course for the most recent one now then." Yui nodded and followed her up to the bridge where they settled into their selected stations. Yui picked the missile launchers as his station, them being the largest guns the ship supported. He settled in before producing the beers he had brought with him and began drinking. Scooge moved to one of two Guardian laser stations while Sheldon had taken the ECM chair being the only one that actually knew how they worked. Scarlet took over the other Guardian laser station while Gogzurah piloted.
They all settled in with the only sound being Yui slurping loudly at his beers with his chair turned about as he studied their newest team member. Technically she was their boss but as far as Yui was concerned this was only a temporary arrangement till he asserted himself properly. Near as he could tell she was nothing but kid, couldn't be more than three hundred, and he wasn't going to have someone half his age giving him orders. He decided to it was about time to find out more about her, what could this girl have done to earn herself a specter position? "So Red you're new to this Specter thing aint ya? What'd you do to get it?" She turned and looked at him, "Saved some people. I found an emergency center whose C-Sec agents were being slaughtered and decided to help out." He frowned at that, "That doesn't sound like it would be that note worthy. Hell we did that… so what did you do that was different." She shrugged at that, "Dunno but it was up in the embassies so that probably had something to do with it. That and there was a lot of them. A good forty or fifty. I ambushed them and there was still a couple C-Sec agents there so I don't see what the big deal was. My old commando unit could have gotten it done it faster if they had been here. That and about half way through the fight they seemed to have lost something, like they weren't fighting as hard or maybe as well as they had a few seconds ago. Almost like they just lost some of their skill or something." Yui nodded, "Yea that was us. We took out a two or three primes and their guards, and after that we heard from C-Sec that it did somethin to the Geth, I don't know what it's all about you have to ask some egg head. Like Squishy over there, he seems smart enough for it." Sheldon ignored both of them as Yui and Scarlet watched him for a few seconds before shrugging, if he didn't want to hop into the conversation they weren't going to force him. "Anyway if you wanna see what I killed I got the heads back in the armory. Which just so everyone else knows is my room. None of you fuckers are allowed in unless you damn well knock first." The others didn't say anything. Yui emptied his beer and set the empty on his console before switching to a full one.
After a few hours of silence punctuated only by Yui switching beers and Scooge getting up from time to time to refill a coffee cup he seemed to have glued to his hand they finally reached the area where the distress beacons had been showing up. They drifted through the system silently for a few days, making small talk, swapping a few war stories, or in Yui's case stories of a few of his more interesting jobs. They noted that he seemed to think more about his time with an Asari pirate band more than anything else, he had been the second in command and enforcer for their leader Natalya. When a new beacon lit up the in the system most of the team was glad for it, Yui seemed to become more and more restless as things went on and none of them wanted to see what happened when a Krogan went stir crazy. They jumped into the system activating their stealth systems and started scanning to find the ship. They found two ships, one of them a small frigate that was docked with a freighter and clearly the pirate vessel. As they began their approach the frigate pulled away from the freighter and moved to intercept them, which Gogzurah frowned at, "Sheldon aren't the stealth systems active?" Sheldon grunted, "Looks like they managed to spot us anyway." Yui grinned while turning from the pile of beer cans he had spent the last few days gluing together, "That's fine with me, I prefer a straight fight anyway." He powered up his weapons and started searching for the target while Gogzurah started taking evasive maneuvers. All in all the fight didn't take long, Yui's missile managed to punch through the shields and hit something important to take out the ships power, the Guardian lasers finished it off while his weapons reloaded.
They moved to where the other ship had docked and took over the air lock they had used. The team moved up to their air lock and Yui took the lead position. "Right there's no way they don't know we're coming. Not after we took out their ship, so prepare for an ambush." The others rolled their eyes, "We have done this kinda stuff before you know. We know what we're doing." Sheldon pointed out. Yui shrugged, "Hey you all look like kids to me. Gotta make sure you know what's what." There was a hiss as the air locks began cycling and Yui lifted his helmet and locked it into place. He didn't want to be caught off guard if they had vented the atmosphere to clear out the crew. The doors parted and small arms fire slammed into Yui's chest as he moved forward. His shields didn't last long, it seemed that it was modded to take them out, but between his armor and tough hide most of the bullets didn't do much damage. Scarlet ducked behind Yui and used him as a shield to get closer before tossing a singularity past him and over the pirates behind the blockade. All except two of them was lifted out of cover, those two went down fast to Gogzurah and Sheldon. Scooge fired into the singularity taking out another before Scarlet detonated it slamming the remaining pirates into the walls. Yui chuckled when he saw that the force had cracked open their armor and pulverized the men inside, "Looks like Batarian salsa for dinner tonight." The others gave him a queasy look as they moved past. Yui stopped suddenly and turned to Gogzurah, "Hey Turian, you should stay with the ship. Don't wanna come back and find out these damn pirates stole our ship while we were out." Gogzurah yawned in answer, "Alright whatever." He moved back into the ship and locked the doors after him.
The rest of the team moved into the ships cargo bay. A glance around told them that there wasn't much to the ship, the crew quarters were up front and the only other section was engineering. Yui glanced at the boxes thoughtfully, what they were hauling? He shrugged, they could check to see if it was worth selling later, "Right lets start with engineering. Don't want them to booby trap the engines or somethin while we're busy." The team nodded in agreement with him and they moved down the ship. No one bothered them in rout and Yui managed to find a shipping manifest next to a dead crew member on the way. He glowered, not only was it all food rations it was the cheap kind. They moved up the door and Yui took position in front of the door again. He nodded to Sheldon who popped open the door while Scarlet took up her position behind Yui again. The doors opened and Yui moved into the room surprised that he wasn't being shot at already. A group of troops were standing on the far side of the room looking surprised at their appearance. They clearly had expected that the ambush at the entrance would be enough to stop the team. Yui spotted an engineer in glowing armor standing with a pair of assistants doing something with a control panel, he decided to leave the rest of the team to deal with the combat team while he took care of the engineer and charged across the room to them. Scarlet tossed a singularity above the other pirate group lifting up three of them. Scooge picked off another while Sheldon shut and locked the door behind them to stop re-enforcements. Scarlet lifted another trooper up with her biotics and threw him across the room into the engineer staggering him as Yui finished closing the distance and killed the first assistant. Scooge picked off two of the floating troopers while Sheldon finished off the third and Scarlet hurled the last trooper into a wall. Their fight was over before it began, and Yui punched the last assistant knocking him out and he grabbed the pirate by his shoulders before he hit the ground. The engineer lifted him shotgun and put a shot into Yui making his shields flash before Yui slammed the last assistant into him. The others stared as Yui beat the engineer to death with his own subordinate before dropping the bloody mess that was left him to the ground.
He turned back and moved to the rest of the group growling, "Sheldon go see what these guys were up to. I don't want this piece of shit blowing up on us when we're not looking." Sheldon just glowered at him before he moved over and checked the systems. "The ships fine. He was going to set it up to blow but we got to him before he could do much more then get in the system." Yui nodded, "Then lets get going. We still gotta clear the cockpit." They moved back to the door and it opened into a hail of gun fire. The team ducked to the sides, Yui who took the brunt of the fire dove to the side as the shots shredded his shields and a few of the armor piercing rounds punched holes in his armor. He ignored the blood seeping down his armor and pulled out a pair of hand grenades and called to Scarlet, "I'm going to toss a pair of grenades into them. After the second goes off I want you to use your biotics to throw me in there." He didn't wait to see if she agreed and tossed the first grenade in. After it went off sending the pirates ducking he spun around the corner and threw the other, this time into the group itself as they came up. The grenade dazed them and Scooge picked off a pair of the pirates. Blue fire engulfed Scarlets arms as she lifted Yui and hurled him into the ambush party, his flight took him into three of the pirates, killing them out right with just his massive weight and he came up scrambling, as Scooge took out the last of them. Yui grinned and laughed, "Would you look at me, I'm a freakin rocket." He moved off towards the cockpit laughing. They met no more resistance till they got to the front where they found themselves facing a locked door. Yui grunted, "Think you can get that open Squishy?" Sheldon scoffed, "In seconds." and moved to start working on the door. Suddenly the intercom system activated, "I wouldn't do that if I were you….." Sheldon paused until Yui motioned for him to keep going before activating his Omni-tool using the intercom system, "Yeaa but I got more guts than you apparently. Aint that easy to scare me." Laughter floated back, "Don't say I didn't warn you."
Sheldon grinned as he got the door open and then began to panic a little and hurriedly shut the door before it opened any further. "Shaped charge. They didn't have time for more than a wire trigger, but we can't open the door from this side." Laughter came back over the intercom, "Told you. You're dealing with the great Sark Baralk!" He paused and Yui looked amused, "Never heard of you. You another Batarian? Cause if you are that would explain it all, you Batarians are a dime a dozen." Silence answered him for a few seconds, "I am the most powerful pirate you'll ever meet. Who are you to think you're so important?" Yui grinned at that, "Names Hei Yui. If you aint heard of me don't worry, it just means you're small time." Sark laughed at that, "If you haven't heard of me it's because I leave no survivors small fry." Yui just shook his head bemused. He cut off the audio, "He's just buying time for something. Squishy I want you to head down to engineering, get things set to cut the life support. In fact just cut all power." Yui activated his com to the ship, "Hey Turian. Get your ass out and meet up with Squishy on his way down to engineering, I want you to give him some cover while he works. I don't think there's anyone left alive down that way but can't be too careful." He shut off his com as Sheldon nodded and moved out. "Right the rest of you, I'm going to keep him talking, the rest of you get ready if they try to make a break for it. Oh and get your helmets on, breathings going to get hard in here sooner rather than later." Yui switched back to the intercoms, "So small fry what's your exit plan? I hope you weren't planning on using that shitty ship that you came in on, I already blew it up." Sark scoffed, "Like I care. I'll just use yours once I kill you." Yui grunted, "Like you could. You don't have the quad kid, better than you're two bit ass has tried." The team took cover half way down the hall to the cockpit as Yui kept talking to Sark. "We'll see. We'll see." Yui grimaced, the guy sounded like something out of a human vid. Whatever. He sat back and waited silently, and it wasn't long before the lights went out and the air stopped moving as life support turned off. Yui hefted his shotgun, any moment now…
The doors opened revealing three men, the one in the middle holding a grenade launcher, who Yui assumed was Sark. Sark lifted his launcher and let fly with it, grenades began going off along the hall way, one exploding at Yui's feet. Yui stumbled back from it with blood splattering off him. Scarlet threw a singularity over them lifting all three in the air and held them there. "Damn it, I wasn't expecting grenades, we got to move out of the hallway now!" Scarlet gritted her teeth, "I can't move and hold them there at the same time." Yui just scowled and grabbed her, slinging her over his should like a sack so she could keep an eye on what she was doing, when his coms activated and Sheldons voice came over it, "Guys I just a remote signal from the ship, we got company coming." Yui scowl deepened, "Damn it, right everyone we're getting the hell outta here NOW! Back to the ship move move!" Scarlet finally couldn't hold them any longer and let the three men fall, Scooge took pot shots that sent the pirates scrambling for cover and Yui tossed a grenade back make them think twice about following. The door to the cockpit shut and locked in answer, apparently they decided that it was easier to let the re-enforcement deal with them. They ran back to the ship where Gogzurah and Sheldon were already getting the ship set to move out. Yui threw himself into his gun station and activated it. "What are we looking at?" Sheldons fingers danced across the console as he brought up the info, "Looks like a cruiser and a couple of frigates. Nothing too big, but we're a stealth ship. We can't take them in a slugging match." Yui frowned, "Fine but if we're leaving, lets leave them with something to remember us by." He turned his gun on the cockpit of the freighter and fired, blowing it away. He watched as a lifeless body floated out of where the hallway used to be along side a figure that triggered a distress signal in his armor along with some basic boosters to move him towards the ships. Yui glowered at the enhanced video feed before turning to Gogzurah, "Turian, hit him." Gogzurah blinked, "What?" Yui growled, "With the ship. Hit him with the ship, and then lets get the hell out of here." The Turian shrugged and gunned the engines aiming for the tiny figure that had cleared the wreckage, rammed it, and kept going. Sheldon engaged the stealth drives and Gogzurah sent them into evasive maneuvers as an added precaution until they reached the edge of the system and jumped into FTL. As they entered FTL Yui cracked open a beer and sat back with a sigh, "Well that was a waste of fucking time" and drank.