To be expected, when it involved a lot of hard work and only the possibility of a larger than usual payout.
The rest of his crew would bring specialized scanning gear and tools and go over the Fleetfoot from top to bottom, searching for hidden compartments and cataloguing anything of value. Then they'd haul it all over to the Last Stand and, as a final step, strip the ship of its most valuable systems and components.
That last, yanking all the worthwhile electronics and materials, was the bare minimum profit they could expect to make from this. On top of that they'd get any cargo, the value of which ranged from barely worth shipping to another system to being an unbelievable jackpot.
Not that they'd had many of the latter over the years, and far too many of the former.
Beyond stripping the ship and lifting the cargo, they'd probably be able to scrape together a modest pile of currency chits: the Fleetfoot's operations budget in the ship's safe, and whatever the crew was carrying with them. And most likely they could also shake down the Deeks for the info to raid their private savings accounts and, if they were lucky, the account of whatever company or institution the Fleetfoot ran under.
You could never tell, until you got in there and started looting the target. For now, though, Aiden left the fun to his people and went to talk to the enemy crew.
Ali met him just outside the Fleetfoot's, galley, looking relieved to see him still safe even though there'd been only the remotest possibility of danger to him. She followed him as he swept into the room, taking a position beside the doorway in case of trouble.
The Deek crew, the standard complement of five for any light freighter, were lying on their stomachs in a line in front of the table, bound hand and foot and sweating in their Deconstructionist Movement standard issue uniforms, which had Deek insignia stitched all over them. Made it a lot easier to despise the clearly terrified handful of men and women.
When Aiden strode forward to stand in front of his prisoners, a middle-aged, slightly thickset man at the center of the line struggled to his knees, glaring up at him. Aiden smiled back; he loved this part. “I'm here to formally accept your surrender, sir.”
While he'd been talking, the other captain had been eyeing the medals pinned to Aiden's basic issue ship's uniform, same as those worn by most spacers who weren't Deeks the universe over. The uniform, of course, not the medals: those were the ones he'd earned for exemplary service fighting for the Preservationists during the war.
It was stupid, to take such pains to conceal his identity in so many ways, and then wear those medals while boarding a Deek ship. But some stubborn part of him wouldn't allow him to go into combat, or potential combat, without them.
Call it superstition, or undying loyalty to a cause he still hadn't given up on, or whatever, he just couldn't do it.
Unfortunately, Deeks tended to recognize them without fail. “You have my surrender, but you won't have my cooperation!” the Fleetfoot's captain snarled. “I won't betray the Movement by helping some filthy Stag.”
Aiden held back a condescending smile. Enemies in war tended to think of derogatory nicknames for each other, especially when their official names were mouthfuls like “Deconstructionist” and “Preservationist”. Deek was straightforward enough, but “Stag” came from the Movement's perception of anyone who disagreed with them as wanting society to stagnate.
Ironically, while the Deeks seemed to hate the nickname their enemies had pinned on them and avoided using it, most Preservationists seemed perfectly happy with being called Stag. In fact, they practically wore the name as a badge of honor; a stag was a noble beast, after all.
And it was hard to be insulted about being accused of being stagnant, when Deeks seemed determined to fling human society into full-scale regression into one of its darkest periods.
Aiden let the other captain's defiant words hang uncomfortably in the air for half a minute or so, while the bound prisoners shifted uncomfortably in their bonds. “Your name, sir?” he finally asked. When the man simply glared in response, he smiled. “Very well, how about I tell you. You're Captain Igniel Jorosh, world of birth Gerrin 1. You served in the Movement's Third Fleet during the war and afterwards was hired on to captain this trading vessel. You never received any particular distinction in service, which should surprise no one given how easily I was able to incapacitate your ship.”
Jorosh's glare intensified. “Is there a point to this, pirate?”
He stared down at the man in contempt. “We knew all this before you ever jumped into this system. We knew you were coming here, where you'd open your rift, what route you would take to approach the spaceport. We, in fact, know everything we need to about you.”
He crouched, bringing his face closer to that of the Fleetfoot's captain. “Which is why your defiance is useless, since we don't need your cooperation.” After pausing a beat he continued grimly. “But you might want to be cooperative for your own sake, to improve the situation you find yourselves in.”
To his credit, the man simply sneered. “All bluffs. You think I wouldn't recognize a notorious Stag pirate wearing full honors and pin a name on you, Captain Thorne?” He snorted. “Word is, you don't kill enemies who surrender.”
Aiden's smile tightened. “Really? Because I thought the word is that that's one of the main reasons I'm wanted across the known universe. The Implacable? That actually happened, you know.”
The Deek paled slightly, and uneasy murmurs spread among his crew. Which was good, because Aiden was, in fact, bluffing; aside from that instance with the Implacable and a few other rare and justifiable exceptions, the man was right that he avoided killing enemies who surrendered.
He wasn't a Deconstructionist, after all.
Jorosh deflated after a few moments, hanging his head. “What sort
