Everyone moved to cover except, Rex and Bethany. Rex because he wanted a mother fucker to try him, and Bethany because she was ready to create her own cover, with magic.

  The shield spell she'd been working up silently sprang to life while the headless killitoot captain fell to the deck with thud. No one dared fire the next shot, because whoever shot first, was getting shot back, and they all knew it.

  To everyone that wasn't a sassy talking skull or a newborn dragonling, the mood was tense.

  The skull was busy looking for the the most irreverent song in the codpiece's 'discography' for when the shit hit the fan again. And the dragonlings... had noticed a large hunk of meat, with some very interesting pieces of jewelry on it. The pirate's chain amulet was covered in slave command stones. All that vile jewelry could easily be removed now that there wasn't a pesky head in the way.

  I know, horrible, but they're infant dragons; what do you want from them? Manners? They like shinies, and meat; even if it was nasty, gristly, killitoot pirate meat. Brup-targ was about the same quality as F-Meat, and if we're being honest, only a little bit hairier.

  They dashed away from Yorna after their next meal. Yorna followed, and Sheena picked up Bethany and moved her too. The little wizard still struggled to maintain shield spells and walk at the same time, especially in the middle of such an exciting and stressful day.

  Despite her Mobility Issue, her shield spells were quite strong. They'd stop bullets, blaster shots, crossbow bolts, anything going relatively fast. On the other had, you could step right inside the bubble so long as you aren't trying to do so at a dead sprint.

  Lucas and Rex knew this game well, as did the Nuphidri. Everyone collapsed inside the bubble of Bethany's shield. The other shoe dropping normally meant a running chase with these pirate assholes, Bethany carried over Rex's shoulder, or like a princess, but this time... this time felt different.

  There was no where to run, and no where to hide. No escape.

  "Your Captain's dead!" Sheena said. "And..." She was planning to keep talking but she glanced down and noticed... the dragonlings were eating Brup-targ and his slave gems.

  "...And?" One of the pirates hiding in cover just outside the door said.

  "And you're next if you come in here," the Nuphidri added.

  The pirates started murmuring.

  "Uhh... should they be eating those, or him?" Sheena whispered to her team in the Bethany powered shield.

  "Those look like slave gems." Bob said, the disappointment evident in his voice. "Lemme guess, whoever holds the gem can cause the slave extreme pain with a little magic and ill-intent."

  "Exactly." Lucas confirmed, "It's not gonna kill the slaves if they eat the gems will it?"

  Lucas was answered by a shout from some where deeper in the ship and the sounds of blaster fire somewhere in the distance.

  Some pirate crewman down lower in the ship opened comms, "Squeeze da gem's cap'n the slaves is revoltin'. Their damn collars're fallin off!" The sound of blaster fire and then "aahhggg!"

  The dragonlings continued to eat the pirate's chain like spaghetti, disenchanting the gems as they crunched into them. They liked magically enchanted, stuff more than meat, even if that magically enchanted stuff was cursed slavery gems. Poor babies, only getting cursed meat and cursed gems. Someone should really get them a nice sheep and a wand.

  "Holy shit..." Sheena was struggling to accept the evidence of her eyes and ears, but she was not one to deny the truth of her own senses. She was the first enfleshed being to understand the whole of it.

  But Bob - fleshless - vocalized it much better, "Do you idiots really not know how to decurse things either? Don't tell me, slaves just die if you de-collar them in this time?"

  Sheena nodded sheepishly.

  "Oh for fuck's sake! Scratch the kazoo music. Am I going to have to teach you troglodytes to make fire too?" Bob continued to ramble, let down further by every realization, "Of all the complex magic to survive... I mean I get shields, but slavery artifacts? What the hell man..."

  One of the pirates that had been in cover was shot in the back, but his armor absorbed the blaster shot. He turned to shoot back, but in so doing exposed part of his back to Lucas and Rex. They both stuck the barrels of their weapons out of the shield and fired multiple shots. His armor couldn't absorb that much blaster fire all at once and down he went. Also, one of the blaster shots found the gap between his armor and helmet and severed his spinal cord a couple vertebra below the base of his skull.

  Bob started playing 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor' from the codpiece, at a nice low background volume.

  The dragonlings finished eating the slave gems. Every last one aboard the ship was free now, and soon, all their former masters would be dead. They had ready access to weapons and now that they weren't collared, they could do whatever they wanted with them. The pilots returning in their fighters, found themselves gunned down the second they stepped out of their cockpits, and the bomber... blew up for some reason. Probably sabotage from someone onboard that was suddenly free. Good for them.

  "Ohh, pirate command code cylinder." The Nuphidri said, looting the dead pirate captain while the Dragonlings started in on the meat of his torso. She looked to grab his right hand, but found it quite missing. "Anyone know where the captain's right hand went? I need his finger and this here code cylinder to take control of the ship."

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  Yorna spotted it, the hand had rolled away a bit. It was still gripping the elecro-sword handle, a meter outside the protective shield bubble. She went for it.

  Unfortunately, there were still pirates trying to cover the bubble, so when she stepped out, she was shot immediately. Fortunately, it was just in the leg, and the blaster shot went clean through, leaving a sizzling hole in Yorna's thigh. Could have been worse.

  Yorna went down, and the pirate that shot her got blasted for his trouble, both from behind, and by Rex and Lucas. Schmuck, leaving cover.

  The dragon scion howled in pain. One hand grabbed the severed hand, with the sword still in it, and the other her gaping leg-hole. Sheena and the Nuphidri dragged her by the heels back inside the shield bubble. And Sheena got to work with her medical exosuit parts.

  "Thank you." Yorna manged, before she cut loose with howling, "FUUUUUUuuuuuuck!"

  While Sheena stitched her up, the Nuphidri did the computer trickery to fully steal the ship, at least as far as the ship's computer was concerned. "Overwriting command codes now. Lucas, Rex, get the doors."

  The boys laid down suppressing fire through both doors while the Nuphidri crouched down and dashed to the tactical station, where she once again, closed the bridge door. "How is Yorna?"

  "She'll live. Sooner we get her in the tank the better, leg's probably walkable, but not runnable." Sheena reported.

  "Fuuuuck." Yorna said. "I like this word. We didn't have quite the same thing in my first tongue. 'jutech' doesn't feel as good to say."

  "That's great, Yorna." Patching up a clean blaster shot like this didn't take all that much. Some disinfectant spray, a little liquid skin, and a couple seconds with the dermal regeneration device. She could get muscles and any missing bone chunks back later, in the tank. Hopefully blood still got down there to her feet. "Stay on the ground until someone help's you up. I need to go fly the ship."

  The open comm line to below erupted in cheers. A voice came over to open console, "Brup-targ you son of a bitch, if you're still alive we're coming to get you!"

  "He's dead!" Rex shouted. "I killed him already."

  Lucas stepped over to the comm console, and leaned across the stunned free man, "You free men down there still have bad guys up here just outside the bridge. We uhh... freed you, but we're trapped, come kill the last few of these asshole pirates and we'll give you the ship." He closed the mic on the bridge, "Right?"

  "We will now..." Sheena shook her head as she kicked the corpse out of the pilot's seat. "WE could have afforded A-Meat for a year selling this ship, even in this condition, and had enough to outfit the Chrysaora with a plasma cannon and the power plant upgrade to fire it more than once an hour."

  "Ah, shit. Sorry gang."

  "TOO NICE LUCAS!" Bethany dropped her shield spell, "It's okay to be a little selfish, sometimes. Fuck... I could almost taste the A-Meat."

  The first guy Sheena stunned was starting to be able to speak. The rest of his body would take another few minutes, but what good is stunning people if you can't talk to them at least.

  "There should be S-Meat in the captain's quarter's, and some alcohol. Most of the pirate crew ate D-rations, us slaves were on H-paste from the slurry nozzle."

  "H-Paste?" Bethany shivered in her exosuit robes. "It goes down to H?"

  "Technically, low grade livestock-slug feed, ma'am." The man said. "But this ship ain't hauled slug in centuries."

  "Is she... atmosphere worthy?" Sheena asked, punching in the command sequence on the console to take the ship down nearish to where she thought the Chrysaora was. He finger hovered over the button, waiting.

  "She should be, long as we take it slow. She's not as agile as your ship," The man said. "She's a big boat, slow in the turns, only fast in straights in space. The Frexard's a bit sluggish, hah, ha ha! Sluggish."

  "We have inbound contacts," The Nuphidri reported, "Looks like three more pirate ships coming. A Destroyer and two more, smaller contacts. Also there are seven Federation naval vessels inbound. Six minutes to pirates, thirty-three to navy."

  "Let's say Brup-targ had actually blown us up with that bomb?" Sheena asked, flying the ship a little too fast into the atmosphere. "He'd surely come down to loot our auto revivification tank, if nothing else, right?"

  "He'd strip your ship down to the bolts, ma'am. Well, he'd make us do it. Probably collect the dragon bones on the surface too."

  There was sounds of blaster fire from outside the bridge, and blaster fire hitting the bridge doors. They'd been reinforced to sustain such assaults since the change in ownership from the slug haulers.

  "Anyone who touches Flux's body dies by my hand." Yorna said, from the floor. This attracted both Flix and Flox back to her. "Ugh... fine maybe not. He'd want me to focus on the future."

  They trilled happy noises and rubbed their bloody little faces on her green dress and in her already red but not blood red hair. Savage little beasties.

  "I suspect the navy will win the day." The Nuphidri said. "If the pirates stay to fight that is."

  "Let's hope the pirates see them when they drop out of warp, and decide to boogie." Another man, laying stunned on the floor said.

  As they careened out of orbit the Nuphidri remote decloaked their ship, and forwarded corrections to Sheena. She'd been coming in on the wrong side of the whole ley adjusting structure.

  Sheena barely brought the much larger ship to heel without throwing her own vessel with the grav wash. Trees were smashed. Inquisitive fauna terrorized. The Frexard was maintaining a hover in the air near the Chrysaora.

  The crew was ready to gather their new wounded new member and her pet dragons, the skull they'd found, and maybe a little loot the captain's quarters before they skedaddled.

  Bethany found herself on 'be a cane for Yorna' duty. She couldn't carry much anyhow.

  They had somehow managed to all keep their packs through all the chaos, and ruckus. Rex stuffed as much high quality rations as he could fit into his pack. and carried as much booze in his arms as he could manage.

  Lucas likewise looted the place, but he was focused on jewels, gems, and any other stuff that might possibly be used as a focus for a slavery enchantment. Any that already were, well that was dragon feed. Any that weren't... there's perfectly legitimate, paying customers for such gems and jewels, regular enchanting uses them too.

  Sheena took some gems to lighten Lucas' load, but also grabbed a few weapons. Yorna was going to need a non magical weapon and Brup-Targ had several. Blasters, electro-swords, whips, axes. Several slug shooters. No, not the livestock ones, I mean guns. Regular, old fashion ballistic weapons. She took a bit of this and some of that. whatever she could fit or had an easily attached holster.

  The Nuphidri kept an eye on the scanners and allowed herself to be loaded with whatever whoever loaded her with. She got a jewel sandwich with pistol side, in a savory meat and mushroom gravy thrown in her pack, and that was just what she noticed. "We have thirty seconds until company, it is time to go," She declared. "Captains Order's."

  Everyone stopped looting, and they left. There was a lower airlock that they assembled in for a quick slow falling spell from Bethany, before they leapt the hundred meter drop. It doesn't really matter how far you fall if there's wind resistance and your gravity coefficient is low enough.

  "Nicely cast Bethany." Yorna said as they jumped together. "The wind to position the landing is a nice touch."

  "Thanks Yorna."

  They all drifted lazily toward the planet, landing right next to their ship.

  "The pirates are dropping out of warp in high orbit now.

  "Alright, saviors, we'll buy you time to get back aboard and get out of here, but once you're gone, we're gone. Good luck, and Godspeed!"