As ANDI saw Rebecca running towards the door he began to follow her out of the room. "Halt, I am not authorized to use force, so all I can say is halt! If you refuse to comply I will continue to say halt!"


    Once Rebecca stepped foot onto the enemy ship, she took the right path with the intent of heading toward an area that she thought wouldn''t be as heavily guarded. Having seen the dead bodies down the left corridor she assumed the rest of the crew had gone down that corridor, and the enemy wouldn''t be expecting anyone to go in the opposite direction.


    ANDI stood at the edge of the airlock to the Appalachia, which was still connected to the UFS Baron, and tried to determine what his next move should be.


    "Error. I have been commanded to protect the prisoner, but I have also been commanded to keep her on the ship. Operation failure. Prisoner has escaped. This unit is incapable of both protecting prisoners and preventing prisoners from leaving the ship at this moment. Awaiting orders for next assignment. Will wait in standby mode, and protect the Appalachia from intruders until further instructions have been received from a ranking officer."


    At that moment Hendricks, who was eating popcorn, entered the cockpit and noticed that Rebecca was gone. Hendricks found ANDI standing in the air lock. "Hey ANDI, what''s going on? What happened to the kid?"


    ANDI noticed that Hendricks was their asking him questions, but didn''t respond due to the captain telling him to ignore Hendricks earlier.


    "ANDI? Is something wrong buddy." Hendricks waved his hand in front of ANDI''s face, but didn''t get any response.


    ***


    The rest of the crew had just reached the common area/living quarters of the UFS Baron, and were figuring out what their next move should be when Hendricks suddenly contacted Captain Starforged on the com.


    "Owl this is Scarecrow. Do you copy."


    "I hear you Scarecrow. You have an update for me?" Captain Starforged asked expecting Scarecrow was just calling to let him know there was another patrol heading in their direction.


    "Well, the girl escaped, and ANDI is broken. He isn''t replying to anything I say, and the girl somehow got out of her handcuffs, and I think she''s on the pirate ship."


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Captain Starforged wiped his hand on his face, and felt tense from all of the chaos that was going on around him. Before he responded to Hendricks, he had Rodriguez and Morgan start setting up a barricade in the common area while he walked into the next room.


    The room he had come from looked like a mess hall. There were doors on each side of the room that were located directly across from one another, and were lined up with the center of the room.


    The room Captain Starforged stepped into was the kitchen. Just like the rest of the ships neither this room, nor the dining area it was connected to were very well lit, and had an island countertop in the middle.


    Captain Starforged made his way around the island and found a kelafi pirate passed on the floor while holding a bottle of alcohol. “Got drunk and passed out. Real shame it has to end this way for you.”


    He shot the unconscious pirate in the stomach and checked the kitchen for anybody who might be potentially hiding. Once he was done, Captain Starforged responded to Hendricks. He recalled how he had told ANDI to ignore Hendricks earlier, so the first thing he did was tell ANDI he could listen to him again.


    "Oh, and both of you." Captain Starforged said before cutting off the communications. "Make sure you guys’ lockdown the ship. We can''t worry about the girl right now. We''re in a tight spot, so we''ll check on her once we get ourselves out of this mess."


    "Copy that boss,” Hendricks replied. "I''ll close and lock the doors, and let you know if any patrols start heading your direction.”


    As Hendricks said that a group of a dozen Kelafi pirates passed by the airlock leading into the Appalachia and went down the corridor that Captain Starforged and the others went down. One of them noticed that the door to the Appalachia was open, and called over a few of the others in the group to head in that direction.


    About half a dozen kelafi pirates charged Hendricks and ANDI, so ANDI sprang into action. ANDI had a laser implanted into its right arm, so when it saw enemies approaching that arm transformed into what looked like a single thin barrel and opened fire on them.


    Pew! It took out two of them before the group scattered and took cover on each side of the door on the UFS Baron''s side of the hall connecting the two ships. One tried to go back into the corridor so he could get an angle on ANDI, but ANDI shot the pirate while they attempted to change positions.


    While ANDI was busy holding them off Hendricks closed the Appalachia''s airlock door. Afterwards he contacted Captain Starforged to inform him that he had at least half a dozen pirates heading his direction.


    “Blackbird, Harpy we’ve got company coming our way.” Captain Starforged was about to return to the mess hall when he suddenly heard coughing coming from the kelafi pirate that he had shot earlier.


    The kelafi slowly lifting his head, and open his eye while trying to catch his breathe.


    Seeing that he was still alive, Captain Starforged pointed his gun at the pirate, and saw an opportunity to get some information before they got swarmed by enemies. “The faster you start talking, the sooner your suffering ends.”