Page 45 of Salvaged By the Alien Pirate

“You’re certain?” His voice carries centuries of carefully contained hope, though the words end in a barely suppressed grimace.

“Yes.” The single syllable feels like jumping into the void without a tether, terrifying and liberating all at once. “But wedo this right. Not rushed, not desperate.” My fingers find his, twining together despite how his fever burns against my skin. “We finish this mission, stop whatever the Eclipse is planning, then...”

“Then you’re mine,” he growls, the possessive note in his voice sending electricity through my neural interface. “No more running, little hacker.”

“No more running,” I agree, though my heart pounds against my ribs. “Now let’s end this quickly. I intend to collect on that...booty.”

Cirdox’s laugh rumbles deep in his chest. “Humans and their pirate words. Though I must admit, the thought is...intriguing.” He presses a gentle kiss to my temple, his arms tightening around me briefly in a protective squeeze that makes my implants misfire spectacularly. His expression sobers as another wave of fever makes his markings pulse brighter. “But first, we have a mission to complete. Lives depend on us exposing whatever the Eclipse is doing here.”

The STI Luminore Research Facility lies before us, a fortress of gleaming metal piercing Orion’s perpetual twilight. Each level bristles with automated defenses, but it’s the deliberate gaps in their data streams that set off warning bells. Someone’s created blind spots in their security—the kind only a hacker would recognize. The kind meant to hide something.

“This is wrong,” I mutter, my implants highlighting anomalous patterns in the facility’s defense grid. “The security protocols are too...familiar.” Fear claws at my throat as recognition hits. “These are my techniques. My algorithms, twisted and inverted.”

“Kira.” Cirdox doesn’t phrase it as a question.

“She’s using everything against me.” My fingers dance across the interface, probing for weaknesses I know are there because Ihelped design similar systems. “Creating holes that look random but are actually—”

“A trap,” he finishes, wings mantling protectively despite how the movement makes him stagger. Fresh beads of sweat roll down his temple, his markings flaring bright enough to cast crimson shadows.

I catch his arm as he sways, steadying him even as my implants scream warnings about his deteriorating condition. “We should abort. Your fever’s climbing too fast. If we wait much longer to complete the bond—”

“No.” His voice carries steel despite the tremor in his wings. “The Eclipse is weaponizing luminore, turning an energy resource into a tool of oppression. We stop this now, or countless lives pay the price.” His burning gaze finds mine. “Some things are worth dying for, little hacker.”

“You’re not dying,” I snap, fear making my voice sharp. “Not today. Not ever. We get in, get the data, get out. Then we complete this bond before it kills us both.”

The facility towers above us like a monument to scientific hubris, its gleaming spires piercing Orion’s perpetual twilight. Each level bristles with automated defenses, but it’s the deliberate gaps in their security that set off warning bells in my upgrades. This is no ordinary research complex—it’s the heart of STI’s luminore development program, where they perfect the medical applications that keep millions alive across the outer colonies. Or at least, that’s what it was before the Eclipse sank their claws into it.

The facility’s defenses fall with suspicious ease, each security protocol falling away like a carefully staged performance. My enhanced systems recognize the underlying architecture—fragments of code I helped write years ago, now twisted into something both familiar and wrong. Kira’s signature is all over it, breadcrumbs leading us deeper into whatever trap she’s laid.But we have to know what the Eclipse is doing with their stolen luminore, even if it means walking straight into her web.

The stakes couldn’t be higher—if the Eclipse has truly found a way to manipulate luminore’s healing properties, they’ll control who lives and who dies across entire systems. Already, reports filter in from the outer colonies of mysterious shortages, of settlements going dark when they can’t meet the Eclipse’s increasingly predatory terms. This facility holds the answers we need to expose their operation. The question is whether we’ll survive long enough to use them.

The Void Reaver shudders as Grig guides us into the facility’s auxiliary docking port, his pale blue fingers dancing across the controls with characteristic precision. Through the viewport, I watch auxiliary clamps engage with a hiss, securing us against the station’s artificial gravity.

“Maintain full cloak,” Cirdox orders, his wings shifting restlessly as he studies the tactical display. “If anything larger than a maintenance drone approaches, disengage and retreat to the fallback coordinates.”

Zara’s fur bristles slightly as she checks weapon systems. “And leave you both trapped inside?”

“Better than losing the ship,” he growls, though fever makes his voice rougher than usual. “The Brotherhood can’t afford to lose another vessel to the Eclipse. Especially not the Reaver.”

“Understood, Captain.” Grig’s large eyes blink with careful deliberation. “But please remember—ships can be replaced. Crews cannot.”

The research labs sprawl across an entire level, their sterile surfaces reflecting harsh overhead lighting. My implants automatically begin scanning equipment, analyzing data streams, searching for anything out of place. But it’s the data analysis from my implants that catches the first sign of wrongness—molecular patterns in the luminoresamples showing deliberate manipulation, synthetic compounds introduced with surgical precision. The quantum resonance readings are all wrong, shifted just enough to create dependency in organic tissue without triggering standard toxicity alerts.

“They’re not just stealing it,” I breathe, my enhanced eyes widening as I process the data streaming through my neural interface.

“What do you mean?” Cirdox moves closer, his wings mantling protectively despite the fever weakening him.

“They’re weaponizing it,” I explain, gesturing to the molecular analysis displayed before us. “Look at these energy signatures—they’re altering its fundamental quantum properties, introducing synthetic resonance patterns that make their modified luminore incompatible with standard medical equipment. The more a colony’s infrastructure adapts to their tainted supply, the more dependent they become on Eclipse-controlled power sources. And only the Eclipse would control the modified crystals.”

Cirdox studies the holographic displays through fever-bright eyes. “Controlling who has access to power. Who lives and dies in the outer systems.”

“Exactly.” My fingers fly across the interface, downloading everything I can find. “They’re turning an energy resource into a weapon of mass control. Once colonies start using their modified version—”

The anomalies in the security protocols nag at me as I dig deeper into the facility’s systems. Something about the encryption patterns feels hauntingly familiar—like looking at old code I wrote years ago, twisted and inverted into something darker. My implants highlight subtle irregularities that make my skin crawl.

Behind me, Cirdox prowls the perimeter of the control room, his wings shifting restlessly as he monitors the security feeds.The bond-sickness burns bright in his tribal markings, but he refuses to let it slow him down. Every few minutes his path brings him closer, his fever-hot presence both comforting and distracting as he checks the doors and vents with predatory thoroughness.

“These encryption patterns,” I mutter, fingers flying across the interface. “They’re...wrong. Like someone took standard STI protocols and corrupted them deliberately.” A shiver runs down my spine as my implants analyze the code structure. “Someone who knew exactly how I would try to break them.”

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