Side Quests for Harem and Power 4: Killing Smart (Patreon)

“{What are you going to do?}” Cortana asked me through the earbud. 

I hummed quietly while the other first class goers around me began to panic. Some were trembling in their seats while others were crying. 

Which was … a reasonable reaction. After all, pirates that struck human traffic tended to sell everyone to slavery. 

I didn’t expect to run into pirates this soon… and this certainly would put me off schedule. 

I also didn’t have any intention of becoming a slave. That was not my life.

“Probably it’s not a good idea to start killing any boarders,” I mumbled to myself. “The pirates could just blow up the ship.”

“{Geez, that’s a nice way to start thinking about how to win against pirates.}”

“...Once we get onboard, can you disable their cameras, lock down their doors, and give me time to fight my way out of it?”

“{Yes, but you better do it quickly once you’re onboard. The pirates are known to ‘clip’ their new assets as soon as they could. I also can’t take control over the pirate ship if I am not on that ship.}” 

I grimaced. ‘Clipping’ was the Citadel Council space’s slang for being tagged or chained with explosive or electrocuting anklets, collars, or cuffs. This prevented the new slaves from trying their hand at mutiny while in transit, which was when the pirates were ironically at their most vulnerable; bored pirates always tried “new” and “fun” things with slaves during transit that inevitably resulted in one or two slaves getting free.

I had no intention of even reaching that phase.

I clicked a few buttons on the omni-tool and then punched in the last app in my list of favorite omni-tool apps.

The omni-blade. 

It didn’t pop out immediately, no, because I was adjusting its setting. I changed the setting from manual to automatic, where if I clenched my thumb underneath my fingers in a fist, it would pop out.

Then I rolled my sleeve over the omni-tool and waited.

Less than a minute after I finished that, the door at the back of the first-class seating slid open, and Batarian pirates came in with snarls and grins.

They began to speak in their native language, but I couldn’t hear any translation because if they saw that I had an omni-tool, they would take it away at gunpoint. Omni-tool was a really good tool to lose right now.

One of the pirates barked out an order, and the other pirates grumbled as they got into position.

“Alright, you unlucky maggots!” the lead pirate shouted. “You’re the piss poor sons of bitches and bitches that we, the Black Moon Crew, will be taking home today!” 

Cries of pleas and denials followed, and the batarian leader shot an elderly woman just to prove a point without even trying to calm them down with words. He stepped aside and barked out an order. “MOVE IT!” he shouted, and the other two batarians that came with him pointed their guns at them.

Slowly, people began to leave their seats and move while I stared at the old woman who’d just been killed, probably because she was too old to be of value, and the old man crying by the corpse’s side. 

I swallowed, drawing in a deep breath as I moved, too, turning my back on the elderly man. If I acted now, then it would jeopardize the everyone onboard, because if this defenseless ship proved to be too bothersome, then they would just take whomever they could (aka everyone they had already moved onto their ship) and blow the ship up. I couldn’t have that. 

I followed the group outside… and I ignored the second bark of gunfire before the batarians joined the trail at the back. I let out a steady stream of breath to gain control over my raging emotions. My jaws clenched so hard that it hurt, and my hands threatened to clench into fists.

Unfortunately for my temper, the batarians were right behind me and they jabbed their guns at my back just because. I stumbled forward but didn’t look over my shoulder. I doubted that I could hold my glare back, and glaring at cruel sadists would only earn me a beating before I could enact my plan.

We approached the airlock at the starboard of the passenger shuttle. The airlock was already set up, and there were other people, almost all of them humans, were being herded through. 

And then we were through. The batarians, feeling safe since they were now on their ship, began to joke and laugh among themselves, lowering their guns and not paying attention to the “cargo.”

Finally, Cortana spoke to me as quietly as she could through my earbud. “{I have their entire system under my control. Just give me the signal.}”

‘Good.’

Immediately, I leapt into action. I whirled around with my fist clenched. The omni-blade sprung to life, and in one fell swoop, I took the heads off the three batarians. 

Almost as quickly, the entire ship went into lockdown, doors leading to the highest concentration of pirates closing. The airlock behind us opened again. 

“Get back to the ship!” I shouted. “Where’s the captain!?” 

For a second, everyone stared at me in shock before they were rushing pass me.

“HERE!” one of the more finely dressed people, a woman, shouted from among the crowd. 

“Get the ship out of here while I deal with these pests!” 

“Got it! Thank you, savior!”

I grunted before moving deeper into the ship.

Cortana may have locked them out of their own controls, and probably venting air where there were pirates by themselves, but this ship was going to be an issue regardless if I let them be. The moment I got off of the ship, Cortana would lose control over this ship, which would allow the pirates to chase after my passenger shuttle again - and there would be no next time.

“Cortana, can you disable this ship in its entirety before we get off?” 

“{Sorry, Steven. There’s nothing right now that I can use to disable the ship. There are also a lot of pirates that have their own suits and helmet so even if I vent the ship of air…}”

“They’ll still chase after us. Great,” I mumble before readying myself. “Gotta finish what I started, huh?”

“{They started it by attacking the shuttle you were on.}”

“Semantics, Cortana. Semantics,” I replied with a chuckle before steeling myself. I picked up one of the guns, changed the omni-tool’s setting from blade to shield, and then moved deeper into the pirate ship. “But we can argue that after we’re done with pest control.”

-VB-

They attacked the wrong ship.

“{He’s in the B corridor! Send some fuc-!}” TETETETETETE-c-crack. 

Static.

They were told that this was supposed to be an easy picking! 

“{The fuck?! How the fuck is he here?! He’s at cargo bay E! SHOOT HIM IDI-gurk…!}” Crash.

Static. 

Hysterical laughter like that human animal called hyena echoed in the background of the still active radio. “{Oh, Cortana. This is just brilliant!}” a far away voice cackled as it faded away, walking away from the radio.

What kind of a madman were the humans transporting?! Wasn’t their target just a regular passenger shuttle barely capable of carrying mass effect drives!?

“S-Sir.”

Captain Amuntak turned to look at his lieutenant. 

“T-There’s no more lifesigns active outside of the bridge. S-Sir.”

They were locked out from all of the electronic systems onboard. There was no escape. No way out.

And then the lights went out.

Step step step.

Marines who had served under him for a decade began to pray desperately by his side.

Hiss. That was the door opening.

“OPEN FIRE!” he roared, and twenty-odd guns spewed gunfire.

His ears rang and his eyes burned from the blue, white, and yellow gunfire from his subordinates’ guns.

For a whole ten seconds, they fired and fired and fired.

And then they stopped.

“...I-Is it dead?”

“I will fucking kill that bureaucrat if I find out that we were fighting a Spectre.” A Spectre could have been the thing that solo’ed their entire crew. 

Tin-ting-ting, drrrrrr.

Dark as it may have been in the bridge, but all of them had working ears, and all of them recognized the sound of their own grenade bouncing and then rolling.

“GRENADE!” 

Too late.

BOOM.

The captain flew, striking the front console and then collapsing onto the floor. He moaned as he tried toget up.

Tin-ting-ting, drrrrr....

He sobbed in pain and regret as a second grenade came to a stop less than a meter from him.

BOOM!

-VB-

I stepped lightly into the room, keeping myself alert and looking through the night vision goggles I found during one of my exterminations through the pirate ship’s compartments. 

The bridge was now a charred mess from the two consecutive grenade explosions I’d subjected it to. The bridge crew were similarly charred and smoking. I mean, why burst in here with a shield against twenty enemies when I could just dim the lights, let them waste their breaths and trigger fingers while I just toss two grenades in there?

Oh, one was still moving. 

I didn’t even think much about what I did next, not when I still had the fresh memory of that old woman getting shot and the sound of her husband joining her in death.

When that one remaining bridge officer stood up, I turned my newly acquisitioned pistol and one-tapped the bastard in the head. The batarian soldiers slumped onto the floor and didn’t get up.

“Anymore pirates, Cortana?”

“{Negative. Restoring power to the ship’s systems.}”

The lights came back on, and I came upon the sight of what I’d wrought. Batarian blood, red as a human blood, pooled around my latest kill while the rest of the crew here looked like charred meat. 

I grimaced before moving on, touching what I knew to be the comms button and hailed the passenger shuttle that was still connected to the pirate ship.

“This is Captain Hailey Matthers-.”

“All of the pirates have been subdued. You’re safe.” 

But just like the Fire Nation got its ass kicked, so too did the Pirate Nation.