The damage my shuttle has taken was significant and not at all how I had hoped this, in hindsight not so well after all, planned out plan, would have worked. I got to work right after I had tied up my captive and had been trying to get my shuttle to run for a little under two hours now but the diagnostics kept spitting out new errors every time I thought I fixed one. Due to the fact that it kept getting colder and colder in my shuttle, as the heating got struck by a stray, I had to get this thing to run quick or call for someone to pick me up, which would open a whole nother can of spaceworms when they realized how reckless I acted again.

I already patched up the water tanks and finished swiping all the spilled water out of the shuttle, so the floor was slowly, very slowly, drying up.

The next step was to close up the hatch, that the pirates had wrecked when they made their entrance, as to avoid getting sucked into endless space when the shuttle would pick up speed. I haphazardly tore the lid off of one of the crates in the back of my shuttle, skeptically eyeing it from top to bottom until I decided it would simply have to do and screwed metal pieces that I cut off of the shredded water tanks on both sides as reinforcement. Now came the time to test if my construction would hold. I dragged the makeshift door to the hatch and, with my laser cutter, started clearing off the sharp ragged edge of the forced-open door. As soon as that was done, I tried heaving the new door into the space but it got blocked off by something.

Cursing to myself I lifted it back out of the space and spotted one of the grappling ray connectors of the hostile pirate ship, that were still wedged into the side of my shuttle, the ship itself was still connected by them and thus, didn't drift off too far when it got hit by Wisps ship.

This could work.

I looked for anything I could use to pull the ship closer, but the only rope I had was still attached to the pirate and my shuttle's plank wouldn't reach that far. The only other idea that came to my mind was to limit-test my gauntlet. There was a pole next to the hatch on the enemy ship that was used as a grip when people would embark on it, if I could manage to wrap the whip around it, I could try and hook it in myself.

Hopefully, the claws weren't jammed. I drew back my arm and, during a powerful swing, the claws broke apart and the whip extended out into space, missing the intended target by a lot.

„I'm sure we'll be able to leave in no time with that targeting skill set of yours.", the bar guy chimed in from the corner he was sitting in, still dripping with water.

„If I wanted your sass I'd ask for it.", I grunted as I threw my arm out again. This time it got closer to the pole but still missed it by quite a bit. Grumbling to myself I tried to retract the whip but the gauntlet didn't respond at all, leaving me with a limp arm and five-meter wire hanging loosely off of it into space. I cried out in frustration as I walked back towards the middle of my shuttle, wrapping the whip up with my one still working arm.

„Need another hand?", the pirate joked but quickly shut up and averted his eyes sideways at the many boxes as my seething glare slowly shifted towards him.

I started flicking the switch responsible for allowing the claws to break apart, and thus let the whip extend, back and forth, shoved a screwdriver into the indented motherboard, and even checked for loose wires, but nothing got it working again. Frustrated, I smacked it with a rock that fell out of a crate and suddenly the whip pulled back and reformed my claws, making me stumble trying to avoid getting hit by the end of the whip snapping back into place.

With the gauntlet, and my arm, working again, I stepped on the plank and tried for the pole again, where, after one violent throw of my arm the whip wrapped around the pole leaving me with a burst of success running through my body that ended with the gauntlet shutting off again, leaving only annoyance.

I pressed the limp arm plus gauntlet tightly against my body with my working arm, to keep the gauntlet from slipping as I started walking backward, struggling while trying to pull the enemy shuttle closer.

Just as I was getting close to the end of the room, having resorted to sitting on the floor, pushing myself backward with my legs, a tremble went through the room as the two shuttles collided.

"There.", I said out of breath, got up, and jumped onto the pirate ship where I started prying the wire of the whip off of the pole.

It came loose easily and I stepped into their navigation space, realizing what a mess this ship was. There were crunched-up papers and wrappers scattered everywhere, bits of leftover food stuck to the counters and modules.

I peeled a piece of plastic off the steering wheel, a sticky string connecting the wheel to the paper.

My plan was to find something to wrap around both ships and, ultimately, tow my broken shuttle back to the station.

I started pushing the mess on the floor aside with my foot and, as I found nothing, I started to dig through their compartments, yet I again, came up empty-handed, which left me in the same situation as before. I would have to use my whip. Grimacing I pulled my gauntlet off, hissing as all the bruises and cuts left by the crushed metal that was cutting into my skin came into view. This was gonna take a little while to heal.

As soon as I had both ships, more or less, securely connected I jumped into the driver's seat of the grimy pirate shuttle, and with great hesitation and dread, I took hold of the steering wheel, slowly starting the journey back to the station.

We arrived after several hours of careful navigating and mental breakdowns during which I obsessively tried to rub the germs on my hand onto any other surface that wasn't myself or my clothes. I had never felt this disgusting before as I disembarked the parked shuttle, which led me to hold my one functioning arm out as far from the rest of my body as it would go and speed-walked straight into my shower.

The hot water running down my body felt like bliss as I rubbed my skin raw until, finally, I felt clean again.

Then, I remembered the pirate that was hopefully still on my shuttle.

I lifted my arm and sent a missive straight to the boss requesting backup so they could lead the pirate straight into one of our holding cells, where he would get questioned as well. This wasn't any of my concern right now which is why instead of towards the cells I went directly to our fix-it guy to get my beloved shuttle back on track.

As always I found him at work. This guy never took a break.

I slowly let myself down the little incline down the docking ramps, onto his mechanic platform that he was able to connect to any ship and maneuver whenever he wanted, which made it easy for him to reach hull damages or other malfunctions our ships took.

The thing wobbled a little as I landed, but I was stable enough on my feet to ignore it as I sneaked a peak at the huge hole gaping in the side of the defense ship that he was currently working on.

I whistled in awe, „Pirates?"

„Yup. They get more unhinged by the day. The Starfall took a big hit this time. Thankfully no injuries to the crew. What leads you here Quinn?", he grunted as he pushed a metal pole back into its place, before he turned to look at me. His face was smudged with dirt and oil.

„Pirates."

He responded by raising an eyebrow in interest, „Elaborate."

„I captured one for interrogation and things went awry."

„You weren't scheduled for a mission."

I laughed uncomfortably, „It was a... self-motivated effort."

Bastian sighed as he took off his gloves, throwing them over his shoulder.

„Let's take a look then."

The expression on his face, when he saw the dripping inside of my shuttle, was nothing compared to when he, not a second later, spotted the fried main control panel.

„So how long is that gonna take." I asked. The murderous expression I got for an answer wasn't worth the knowledge but he did put his gloves back on.

„If you didn't have the Whisper in your pocket, me, and everyone else on this damn station would've voted you off the team already.", he hissed as he swung his wrench around in my face.

„Tomorrow then?" I smiled innocently, ducking as I barely dodged the tool flying past where my head was before.

I leaped off my shuttle laughing, jogging towards Mr. Whisper's office as I twisted the odd screwdriver, that I found in Bastians' back pocket in my fingers. It seemed to light up in different colors when I applied pressure in different places. How curious!