He followed Chetaara into the lounge area, admiring her bare ass swaying in front of him.

The wide and comfortable room had a variety of entertainment, including the bar where Scarlett had mixed him a drink the night before. He found his robot Scarlett playing some sort of game where she pointed her fingers at tiny of spaceships that appeared in the air. Whenever she pointed at them, the spaceships popped like balloons.

As she swung to pop the ships, she yelled, "Yeah, that's right! High fucking score, baby!"

He watched her silver boobs jiggling and decided he liked the game, too.

When Byron walked in, she swept her hand to make the holograms disappear. "Oh, hey, Cap'n. A videogame inside a videogame. Freaky, right? How'd it go with Xana? I want all the dirty details."

He held up his hand. "Uh, no. I won't kiss and tell."

She came up to him with a pout and batted her eyelashes. "Aw, come on, please? Just tell me if the carpet matches the drapes."

He smirked. "Why don't you ask her yourself. Where is she, anyway?"

Scarlett shrugged. "Beats the fuck outta me. I haven't seen her since she went in your boudoir. And how were things with my future lover, Chetaara?"

Chetaara giggled and twisted one foot. "Very well."

Scarlett moved in to give her a quick kiss. "Don't forget you owe me some time, too, baby. But Captain, we got a signal from an incoming ship. It's a scout. From a pirate fleet."

They headed to the bridge as she said, "We're in pirate territory. This whole system is crawling with 'em, and you don't wanna mess with any of them."

When the bridge opened, he could see the distant light flickering against the planet below. When he tapped his targeting computer, it put an overlay over it as "Class 2 Scout."

Scarlett pointed. "So the way it works is, the pirates send out these fucking things, and if they find somebody, they call the rest of the fleet to gangbang our asses. I haven't picked up any communications, so it looks like it hasn't spotted us yet. We gotta keep it that way."

Words formed in the air in front of Byron that only he could see, an overlay from the game:

NEW MISSION: DESTROY PIRATE SCOUT

REWARD: 500 XP

Xana spoke up from her console, surprising Byron who hadn't seen her come in and sit down. "Um, I can jam the scout's signal but only for four minutes tops."

Chetaara nodded. "So we have that long to destroy it."

He pointed at her while sliding into the co-pilot's chair. "Let's do it."

As Xana tapped on her console, Byron punched the keys he had seen Scarlett press before. The weapons console lit up and joystick snapped out, putting him in command of the guns again. He felt a thrill knowing he had learned something about how to operate the ship. Maybe it wouldn't take long before he could fly it without Scarlett's help. He made a mental note to have her teach him soon.

For now, he focused on the crosshairs that traced over the scout ship ahead.

The scout's engines flared as the ship began to move away.

"Oh, shit," Scarlett murmured. "He must've picked up our weapons lock. He's running."

"Not for long." He guided the ship's crosshairs until they locked on and fired.

The Icarus' twin laser turrets flashed through space to pierce the area near the scout, but the tiny ship blazed out of reach. The scout spun and twisted while Byron continued to fire.

The lasers stopped firing. He looked down to see the laser turrets blinking red.

Scarlett shook her head. "There's a thirty second cooldown if it overheats."

The scout whirled and rushed towards the Icarus with its lasers stabbing the darkness. The Icarus shuddered as the gunfire hit its forward shields.

Scarlett looked up at the main display of the ship. "We're losing forward shields!"

The Icarus rocked through more impacts, even as Byron glared at the ship's laser console, waiting for it to turn green.

"Come on, come on," he whispered.

The scout whirled around to fire again.

The crosshair display turned green.

Byron fired, and his laser guns pumped into the scout ship.

The scout fired a few more shots before its health bar dropped and the ship exploded in a fireball.

The game's text overlaid on his vision.

MISSION COMPLETE

+500 XP

The Icarus erupted in a boom as sparks flew from the ceiling. Red lights flashed on the console.

Scarlett punched the ceiling. "Fuck! Good news, we killed the scout! Bad news, he fucked us before he left!"

Xana called out, "We lost the main cooling converter! Pumping too much coolant into the main shaft! The core's going into overload!"

She dashed out of the bridge.

With the scout ship gone, Byron felt like he could help more by following her.

He raced through the ship until he came to the engine room. He'd never seen it before, but it looked a lot like he would have imagined.

Huge glowing columns ran down the center of a hall with consoles and wires running along the walls. The columns moved up and down like pistons while a heavy rumble made it hard to hear anything else.

Xana held onto a cable sticking out of the wall, pulling as hard as she could, which didn't seem to be enough.

She had to yell to be heard over the roar of the engines. "We have to pull the coolant line, but the cable won't come free!"

He remembered his high strength stat. It might be good for something other than weapons. He grabbed hold of the cable. He pulled.

Veins swelled on the surface of his arms as the muscles worked. His elbows and shoulders felt like they would pop before the cable did.

Just when he thought he couldn't pull any more, the cable snapped loose. Sparks flew from the end as it hit the floor.

The reactor's whine lowered in pitch as it began to slow down.

Xana broke into a smile. "Okay, now I can route the coolant through the auxiliary lines."

Scarlett leaned into the engine room. "Translation, our asses won't blow up. Great job, Xana. I owe you a spanking. I also wanted to let Byron know we're gonna starve to death."