The surgeon had worked for six hours on the young Itani fighter pilot that had been almost killed by the explosion that destroyed his ship just outside the main roid field of Jallik.
The small mining vessel had been no match for the Orne type Hive Guardians that assaulted him from all sides, and eventually one of the heavy gauss shots hit the cockpit. Now, if it had been a human pilot that had attacked him, he would have stopped and allowed the pod to jump clear to the nearest station. The Hive Guardians had no such qualms and kept on following and shooting at the pod until they hit it and made it tumble uncontrollably. At that point a collector bot flew in close and started to disassemble the pod with heavy duty laser cutting equipment. The laser cut straight through the pilot at the shoulder and neatly removed his left side all the way down to the groin. The pilot passed out and would have died if by some quirk his jump module hadn't activated and send his smashed pod to Miracle Outpost. It looked like they were going to save him and be able to restore him to health but it had been a near miss.
The surgeon put the controls to the autobot down and removed his osmotic mask.
"Right, that is it people. Good work all around. Let's wrap it up and call it a day."
A clapping sounded behind the crew and the surgeon. They turned and saw the small green man holding a cryocanister and the tall person beside him with mechanical arms cradling a shotgun.
"Bravo, I am relieved to see that your skills are not only bragging among the Itani."
"What, who are you? You are not allowed in here."
The surgeon started to move towards the emergency alarm but was stopped by something that was thrown at him.
"Doesn't matter who we are. I am here with a proposition for you. And you would do well to accept."
The surgeon looked down at the cred stick that had dropped to the floor and up at yoda.
"You can't buy our services. We are free Itani citizens."
"Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. I have the remains of one of my buddies inside this here container, and he needs a new body bad. And you are going to fix it."
The surgeon was intrigued enough to walk over and get the cryocontainer. He scanned the ID and checked his computer system. He turned to yoda.
"No way. This is one of the most notorious pirates that ever betrayed Itan. I am not going to do it, no matter what."
"Well, I guess we'll start slaughtering your staff then. Let's take the pretty young nurse over there first. Look, if you please?"
Look... No hands turned his shotgun towards the paralysed blonde nurse that merely looked at the surgeon in panic, her arms folded across her chest.
"All right all right damn you. But for that we need a new clone body, and we can't make that in less than two weeks."
"Bullshit. Nice try doc, but I am in the possession of secret documents that state that a new experimental technique has been developed, by yourself, to make the clone bodies in less than an hour. Otherwise we can take one of the nurses, I am sure Retractile would love to have a woman's body."
The surgeon, seeing that he had been defeated on all areas, conceded and started working on the remains of Retractile. At least he would be learning something new today that he might be able to use on loyal Itani pilots. Meanwhile, unseen by the surgeon yoda allowed a smirk to cross his face, these weak civilians were almost too easy to work on.
###
The Serco trader regretted swinging through Latos B-6 s soon as he saw the hail from the attacking pilot.
"You die now scum"
He tried to boost his behemoth to the maximum speed possible but it was all in vain. The pirate ship fired a flare at the cargo vessel that impacted directly on the SSCU transmitter and followed with several shots from the mega positron blaster that was slung under the pursuit ship like a poorly designed add-on. The cargo vessel was torn apart wherever the positrons hit the ship, ending with the main power coupler. The whole incident had taken less than thirty seconds, and within the next minute the debris would have left no trace at all except a radio signal moving at the speed of light outwards from the last known position of the ship. In five days it would have reached the station at Epsilon Hold, crackled and distorted by the ion storms that were frequent around the roid fields.
"Any ship, this is SCS Juno's Flower location Latos B-6 wormhole sector. Am under attack from KAOS pilot William Cutting. Sending pods towards wormhole for orbit. May Lady Serco have mercy on us."
