"Clean. Both of you." You snap the computer shut and the tension in the room evaporates amid sighs of relief.

Karoff lets out a whoop. "Oh thank God. I was too pretty to die!" He stands and makes for the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting the hell out of this plague room."

Hinsman lingers a moment, pausing at the foot of Matti's bed. You've draped a sheet over her and will take the body and bedding to be incinerated once he leaves. "Well we got lucky I guess. The one to pick her up when she was bleeding was the only one who couldn't get infected. And somehow I didn't catch anything treating her, or afterwards being near her almost constantly. She got damn unlucky though. And here I am the complete bastard while she was the sweet girl with her life ahead of her. I still can't believe it turned out this way." With a shake of his head he exits the room, not looking at you.

You know Hinsman understands as well as anyone possibly could that you were just doing what you had to, but you suspect it'll be awhile before he can bring himself to ever actually like you again.

And then the moment arrives. An alert from the computer indicates something just emerged from underspace. Ahead of you the walk of the two men turns into a mad sprint down the hall. The three of you gather in the command center and Karoff quickly locates the ship.

"No affiliation and armed to the teeth. Yep, we got a pirate."

Hinsman drains his faux coffee and sets the cup aside. "Just one? Shouldn't be too hard to handle."

"Yeah, there's...dammit! You jinxed us. Now there's two, three...eight on approach. And they're hard to track."

"Sensors didn't pick them up?" you ask.

"The first ship was a carrier. It's how you disguise the size of your force if for instance, you think someone may have an alert set for anyone exiting underspace."

You wait until they're closer.

Patience is everything out here. You all lapse into a tense silence as you watch the sweeping scans. The ships are visible on the sensors for only a fraction of a second at a time. They move erratically as they approach in a way that would be difficult to target, then seem to gain confidence and split into two groups, angling to sweep by each side of the station.

You'd installed a few shortcuts on your console and wristcomm last night, preparing for the possibility you'd be working alone, and as they come into range you now tap a key. The lights in the command center dim briefly as outside the station the massive shield generators hum to life. The turrets ready themselves and immediately begin spitting fire. To one of the groups the attack is devastating, leaving two of the ships smoldering wreckage and disabling a third. The four on the other side of the station take minor damage and one loses shields and has to retreat back towards the carrier.

Karoff hasn't been idle either, and once he saw you go into action he sent a barrage of missiles toward the carrier itself, which make contact a couple of moments later. They don't pierce the shields, but apparently are enough of a bother that the big ship begins to move off further out of range, meaning it can't provide backup to the rest of the pirates, even the unshielded one limping towards it.

"Nice work, everyone. And I guess I'll take janitor duty," Hinsman says, firing another pair of torpedoes. One blows the disabled ship to shrapnel and another zips across the distance to take out the shield-less one.

The remaining three pull out of range. They continue to make slow circles around the station for a bit, launching a few torpedoes of their own, two exploding harmlessly against the shield of the central complex and the third doing some damage to one of the unshielded arms, but missing the turret. When Karoff manages to strike a glancing blow off of one of them with his return fire they seem to think better of lingering and retreat to the carrier. It jumps to underspace, and after a few seconds it's clear they're not trying any risky tricks with jumping closer to the station, while your sensor sweeps continue to not report them emerging anywhere else in the system.

Battles in space tend to be that way. Hours of tense preparation and waiting, decided by a few seconds of actual weapon's exchange. If one of the pirate ships had managed to get in close enough to line up a shot before you activated the shields, this all could've gone very differently.

"As soon as we can get this data to the Order, there's gonna be a hell of a hunt going on for the ones who got away," Hinsman says later, while compiling the battle report and the information on the infection aboard the station. "Hope no one was planning a vacation."

"Eh, scouring a bunch of backwater planets for terrorists won't be that bad," Karoff replies with a shrug. "I just don't envy whoever's gonna be searching and sanitizing every centimeter of this station. So sorry about that, Zee."

You can tell he's joking for once, and just shake your head. "Nope, not me. Never been gladder they gave me a gun instead of a mop."