The ship shook violently, knocking the datapad out of my hand, and causing Nesti to roll out of his cot. He hit the floor already cursing, and I joined him as soon as the shuddering dissipated enough to stand firmly on my feet.

“A little warning would have been nice!” I yelled towards the cockpit, still unsettled by the attack. Rada leaned her head to the side, but didn’t look back to reply.

“This thing doesn’t have long-range scanners, I still can’t even see them!”

I could see her working aggressively at the console, but couldn’t tell what she was doing.

“Cease fire!” she yelled desperately into the open comm channel. “This is a civilian freighter, we are unarmed!”

Nesti had made it back to his feet, and we made eye contact across the small cabin, both unsure of what was going to happen next. I can only assume that, like me, he really didn’t feel comfortable without armor and a weapon, especially on a ship. We waited in silence.

Vos’go came scrambling up the access ladder, eyes wide, but said nothing. He placed himself in a corner and sat motionless, hands and feet flat on the ground, like he was planning to try and hold onto it if more shots were fired.

We all held our positions and remained quiet, while Rada continued to broadcast the message of our non-resistance. It was the only thing we could do, given the fragile state of the freighter and our specific desire to be captured. But I’ve experienced few moments as tense as those, the sense of helplessness, of being totally at the mercy of a slaver cartel. I was overwhelmed with regret, with resentment for myself for taking the job. But no more shots came after that first volley.

“They’re… they’re in range now,” Rada said, shaken, but finally breaking the silence. “No designation. Looks like a Kalj corvette hull. Old model.”

The Kalj corporation was notorious for producing cheap, low-quality, easily maintained warships that somehow always found their way directly into the hands of rebels, pirates, and cartels. It was obvious that the transactions were happening, but the politicians never could figure out a way to stop it. It didn’t level the field, because Kalj ships were still inferior in most respects, but it meant real strength existed outside of the feds.

A Kalj-made corvette meant a relatively large resource pool, because their design was especially large for a ship of its class, and small raiding groups could never afford to sink all their resources into something of that size. So it had to be the ones we were looking for, the ones who had taken Kai. That thought made me remember the photo of him, which I quickly ripped off the wall and shoved into one of the smaller drawers. It wasn’t likely that they would remember his face, but there was no reason to take the risk.

The freighter shook again, but not as wildly. The distinct scraping of metal on metal made the cause immediately clear. They were attaching towing hooks, making sure we wouldn’t try to get away. It wasn’t strictly necessary, we wouldn’t have stood any chance of escaping had we tried. But some attempted to flee the cartels anyway, and scattering their target ship all over the system was a real waste of their time. They still usually did it anyway, just to send the message, but the towing hooks made it easier to avoid that outcome.

Rada joined us in the cabin, since there was no reason left for remaining in the cockpit. She was surprisingly calm, all things considered, perhaps even less nervous than the rest of us. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I had learned by then that the anxiousness, that little twinge of fear, was a useful tool, a thing to hold onto. There are always stories of truly fearless hunters, but they aren’t admirable for it. Fear makes you reassess your situation, but pure courage makes you arrogant and prone to mistakes.

“Here,” Nesti said, as he tossed me the datapad that had I had been using before it slid across the floor. “Keep it on you. If they find something when they search you, they’ll be less likely to search again.”

“Don’t activate comms on their ship,” Vos’go interjected. He had finally released his grip on the floor, and seemed calmer overall. “Could interfere with systems and reveal us.”

I checked that the clear plastic comm device was securely in my ear, because I couldn’t afford to have it knocked out if one of the slavers decided to be particularly rough about moving us off the ship. That same logic had made me put the pyrotechnic putty Vos’go had given me under my right armpit. It was a spot I could retrieve it from quickly, and I hoped my shoulder would absorb enough of any impact I might take to prevent it from igniting. I really didn’t want to end the job with a melted hole in my rib cage.

The ship shook hard again, but we managed to keep our feet. It felt as though something had impacted the back wall of the cabin, which was confirmed a few moments later by a horrible screeching sound. We all turned to look at the wall it was coming from, where hundreds of small metal hooks had pierced through the hull in a large circle. Inside that ring of teeth, another orange-red ring was forming as the metal melted under the heat of equally as many hull-cutters.

I had heard about these sorts of boarding vessels, but had never seen one with my own eyes. They function much like a lamprey, hooking onto their prey and cutting out a nice clean chunk. The boarding vessels could create a tight enough seal to prevent the atmosphere from escaping, and then deposit their payload of armed soldiers directly into their target ship. They were extremely effective for this sort of piracy, but had never caught on with major militaries because the vessels themselves were defenseless and only really useful if the enemy ship was already disabled.

The circular chunk of hull that had been cut away finally crashed to the floor, and we got the first view of our foe as they moved into the freighter, plasma rifles raised, wailing aggressively at each of us. They were Okva, the hulking, red-furred planetary neighbors of the Kval, six of them in total. Their faces are vaguely feline, but much flatter, and without whiskers surrounding their large mouths.

Naturally I couldn’t understand what they were actually saying. Their voice boxes are developed differently, and everything just sounds like a high-pitched growl, and I couldn’t have articulated a reply either way. But the context made it clear enough what they wanted us to do.

We raised our hands above our heads, an instinctive gesture of surrender that probably didn’t cleanly translate. The cabin was tense as the slavers, each as tall as Nesti, swept around the room, prepared to gun us down at a moment’s notice if we gave them any reason to think that resistance was still an option in our minds. I won’t lie, in those moments with a plasma rifle in my face, the urge to fight back was still there. We never could have won, of course, and it would have ruined our entire plan. But there was something about the indignity of the situation that gave rise to the urge anyway.

Finally they began barking things to each other, pointing at Nesti, and three of them circled around him. I locked eyes with him for a moment, and he seemed almost serenely calm, like he was prepared for whatever fate awaited him. Fortunately they merely pulled his arms down and fastened restraints about his wrists. They pushed him and wailed loudly again, pointing in the direction of the boarding vessel.

As he began to walk, suddenly they were grabbing my hands as well, slapping on similar restraints that rubbed hard against the bones in my arm. I waited patiently for a similar shove before I started moving. It made me angrier, but I didn’t have a choice; if I started moving too early, they might think I was fighting back and that would be the end.

I followed behind Nesti through the makeshift procession of Okva guards, their rifles at the ready. The smell they exuded was nauseating, probably some defense mechanism or an oil that helped maintain their fur. Whatever the purpose, it was extremely unpleasant, and as I advanced into the lamprey-ship behind my companion, it became clear that I was going to be dealing with a lot more of it in this cramped space.

There was more wailing coming from the cabin still, and I listened intently, expecting to hear the loud discharge of a rifle at any moment. Luckily, none came, because things would have gone south in a hurry had we lost any of our team that early on. I took a seat in the back of the cramped compartment across from Nesti, our knees nearly meeting in the middle. Our captors probably couldn’t have understood us, but we still said nothing. There was always the chance they would interpret our conversation as a sufficient threat.

Rada was pushed in behind me, and Vos’go followed shortly after, each taking whatever spot in the back of the vessel they could find. There were only a small handful of seats, each melded into the hull of the ship itself, and designed purely for functionality over comfort. The ship-parasite was outfitted as minimally as I think I’ve ever seen a ship be, possessing only those features which were strictly necessary. Looking around, I couldn’t even really conceive of how they were going to get enough reversed propulsion to get us back to their corvette.

Not all of the Okva joined us on the boarding craft, some staying behind to strip the drive core and check the rest of the ship for valuables. I assume, at any rate, I never attempted to ask them. Eventually the ones who had filed in behind us took their own seats near the front of the ship. This was followed by a loud hiss as the front of the craft created a new seal between us and the freighter, maintaining the atmosphere of both. It wouldn’t hold if the ship began moving again, certainly not through a jump, but it was enough to let the rest of their crew finish the job. Moments later, the boarding craft released its grip on our wounded hauler and slowly accelerated us back towards their capital ship.

From the small porthole on that side of the ship, I watched the freighter as we gradually moved away. For some reason, seeing it floating there helplessly, speared with towing hooks, was what finally made it clear to me just what a mistake I was making by even being there. I felt supremely foolish in that moment, more so than I have ever since or likely will again. That I understood the risk before I took the job meant nothing to me then, provided no comfort or justification. I believed with absolute certainty that I was going to die out there, on the edge of the galaxy, in the service of the stupidest contract I had ever accepted. My greed had overwhelmed my common sense, I felt, and I had fallen right back into the problem of having to rely on others instead of myself. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the little flashes of color on the inside of my eyelids.

They were still shut when the boarding vessel shuddered to a stop inside the hangar bay of the corvette. When I opened them, I was met by a deep red-brown glow that flooded everything as the boarding vessels main door slid apart again. Ravak, the homeworld of the Okva and Kval, orbits a red dwarf, and the Okva in particular are very irritable when not in the presence of a similar glow. Despite the sickening feeling the color gave me when cast over the faces of my companions, I was happy enough with it. I couldn’t be sure we’d survive if the slavers got any more irritated.

There was more high-pitched wailing as they stepped off of the craft and onto the corvette, and one of them yanked aggressively at my arm, his claws almost scraping the explosive putty in the process. I hurried out of the ship, nearly tripping as I exited, not wanting to risk a worse outcome if the escape tool was discovered. The others followed behind, and our captors circled around us to prevent any attempt at escape. It didn’t make sense to me, since there was nowhere we possibly could have escaped to.

The hangar bay was tiny, only barely large enough in both width and height to fit the single boarding vessel. Given the round hatch in the ceiling directly above us, I suspected it wasn’t even originally a hangar bay, but rather a refitted garbage ejection room. There was no maintenance equipment of any kind, not even a diagnostic console, which meant that any repairs to the boarding vessel must be done at their actual base.

This put an upper limit on the resources the slavers likely had available; even a small cruiser would have had a hangar bay and thus have been more useful for this kind of ambush. The corvette we had just boarded was probably their biggest ship. It also meant they would have to have a way to dock the corvette on the planet itself, because the lamprey-ship didn’t have the loadout it would need to survive atmospheric re-entry on the vast majority of worlds. The only alternative would be an orbital station, which is far too expensive. I wasn’t sure if the information would matter, but I held onto it anyway. You can never be sure which details will be useful on a complicated job.

The Okva shoved me once again, this time in the direction of the door out of the hangar bay and deeper into the ship. We advanced in a procession down the empty corridor in silence. Had the slavers been human, perhaps they’d have noticed how odd it was that no one in our group was visibly upset or trying to bargain for their life. But these unspoken subtleties are likely as much a mystery to them as their various wails or rustles of fur are to us.

We were marched into a larger room, and greeted by a single Kval dressed in something that resembled an old uniform. He said something to our escorts in that same sort of high-pitched note, and then turned to us. It was apparent that his purpose there was to be able to translate between the primarily human captives and the Okva. He motioned aggressively at us, waving about his handheld scanner in the process.

“Raise your hands!”

We each lifted our shackled wrists above our heads and held the position. He advanced towards me first, swiping over my head with the beeping device. I held my breath as it passed over my head, hoping it would not detect the comm device in my ear. Luckily it did not, and he began moving it down. Just as I finally exhaled, it started beeping loudly.

One of the Okva reached out and grabbed me, and began aggressively pulling at my right leg. I should tell you, this is not a comfortable thing, given their size and sharp claws. It was exacerbated by the fact that I had no idea what it was they had detected. It seemed likely that the clumsy creature might slash clean through my leg when I finally remembered the datapad I had kept for precisely this reason.

“My pocket, it’s in my pocket!”

The Kval yelled something at the hairy cretin, who then gradually pulled out the datapad from the leg pocket I had put it in. He crushed it effortlessly in his hand and tossed the remnant aside, then shoved me forward, past the teal-skinned overseer. I had made it past the search, at least, although it didn’t provide much comfort. Still, as tough as the rest of the job looked to be, at least it could be done. Had the slavers found the hidden tools, we’d be left with no real chance of escaping. And that was if they didn’t lacerate us on the spot.

A different Okva pushed me again towards the other side of the room, not waiting for the others to be checked. I didn’t look back at them, even knowing that I likely wouldn’t see them again until our plan was already underway. There wasn’t any point, and I’d only earn another shove for my trouble.

It was a short lift ride down to the holding area, basically a converted set of bunks that had old, mismatched locking doors placed over sections to create makeshift cells. The smell was unbearable immediately, and it was all I could do to not vomit as I passed through. I could guess the source; no doubt not all of the captives had survived the process. Finally, the guard pulled open one of the metal doors, scraping against its own gearing as it moved, and shoved me inside of it. I nearly lost my balance and wound up stopping my momentum against the far wall. By the time I turned around, the door had already rolled shut. I could hear the lock engage on the other side.

It was dark inside, but enough light crept in that I could make out a hard, rectangular shape protruding from the wall. It had likely been a soldier’s bunk in the initial design, but was stripped of all comforts now. Still, it was better than the ground, so I sat on it, leaned against the wall, and tried to relax. Despite how bad it was, this was all still part of the plan. Somehow, that just made it worse. I listened for a while to the sounds of the others being taken to their cells, but after that passed, there was only silence in the dark. Finally, I laid down on the hard slab and tried to sleep.