The attack

About two hours ago prior to the attack

In the depths of an abandoned asteroid belt mine a shabby space ship could be seen silently floating in the midst of all the broken rocks. It was an absolute Frankistein of a ship as it was composed of a mishmash of ship parts most probably scavenged from a junkyard or a ship graveyard.

It's appearance was er ... unsightly to say the least and terrible if being honest , however under the unsightly amalgamation of ship spare parts the Floating Lily was a pure beast , boasting two seperate Hermes class SEM drives powered by a quad system Techronix engine setup the Floating Lily was an out and out beast if a spaceship .

Measuring about two hundred and fifty feet from the bow to the aft the Floating Lily was armed to the teeth with two heavy duty armor piercing Gaussian cannons serving as the ships main guns , these were augmented by more than a dozen ,mini rapid fire laser cannons which were the starship's secondary armaments .

Collectively they added an extra layer of ferocity to this already fearsome beast of a ship.

In the whole of human controlled space there was only one group of people who preferred such unusual ship configurations ;

Space pirates !

While some called them the evolution of the highway robbers found on Earth more than three hundred years ago,others termed them as galactic thieves who were always on the lookout for unsuspecting ships to prey on , regardless of what ever way you addressed them one thing common to them was their thieving nature just like the pirates back on pre twentieth century Earth.

They were the scum of all of humanity as they lacked any sense of propriety given that they were fine with making deals with alien forces !

Apart from the alien invaders , they could be said to be the second largest scourge ravaging human controlled space.

The floating Lily just as the name suggested was the pirate ship of the Floating Lily buccaneers. They were one of the biggest and most feared pirate groups operating in the Red giant star quadrant which comprised of both Earth and the Dawn star academy star system along with some twenty something -ish other star systems. Though there were other pirate groups whose strength rivalled or even exceeded that of the Floating Lily pirates , their notoriety lied in that they mostly left no one alive in their raids , those they left were mostly sold as slaves to alien buyers which was a fate far worse than death .

Even though there was a very handsome bounty on their heads , it remained unclaimed till this very day as they had survived countless raids from the CEA 's pirate exterminating forces till even the authorities got exasperated .Not that they weren't competent but the Floating Lily buccaneers were just like rats ;alway hiding away at the sound of the slightest of disturbances .

It was said that their survival till now could be attributed to the excellent capabilities of their captain whose identity was shrouded in a mysterious fog . The only thing known about him was the name his crew called him Captain Flapjack.

Currently in the star bridge of the Floating Lily a hulking mass of a man could be seen sitting on the captain's seat while studying an holographic projection of a star map . With a height of more than two and a half meters and an extremely ripped physique one would definitely mistake him for a human shaped titan .

This Homo titan was precisely the elusive Captain Flapjack of the Floating Lily pirates group .

Contrary to the popular belief that most intelligent people were not that blessed on the physique department , Captain Flapjack was definitely an exception as he possessed both the brawn and the brains which he skillfully used time and time again to lead the Floating Lily buccaneers on successful raids .

Right now he was planning another raid which if everything went according to his plans was already a done deal.

The target this time ? A merchant ship called the Happy Movers which unfortunately was the ship Dongfan Yue was aboard.

" Humph , if everything goes according to my predictions , that merchant ship should be exiting subspace travel in the next ten minutes , hope the whole crew is ready , Grandall? "

" Aye,aye , skipper all the men are ready and fully prepared for battle ."

" That's pretty much what you said during the last raid only for me to discover that more than half of my men , yourself included were high on moonshine . I HOPE THIS IS NOT A REPEAT ?"

With smoke literally pouring fron his nose Captain Flapjack squeezed the last few words from the gaps in his teeth .

"Ye .. ye.. yes Captain I can assure you that this is not a repeat of last time's blunder . "

" I sure hope so ,else I don't mind going through the trouble of getting a new first mate ."

" Yes Captain!"

" Alright prepare the big boys to attack , they are almost out of the subspace ."

" Ok skipper ."

Right after saying this there was a slight distortion in the fabric of space and in the next moment a space shuttle with the words Happy Movers written on its starboard exited from subspace travel.

Immediately they exited Captain Flapjack gave the order to fire .

" Let em rip boys ."

Since they already knew the coordinates of the Happy Movers point of entry into normal space their main cannons were already trained there , thus the Happy Movers was not even given a chance detect anything before the armour piercing Gaussian rounds tore into into the hull of the ship . Immediately a huge hole which extended well into the ship was blown out .

At this this point the crew of the Happy Movers knew that they were under attack by space pirates therefore the prepared for a serious battle .

Seeing that the shot hit home the Floating Lily wasted no time in closing the distance seperating them from their prize . With their prize in sight the the pirates of the Floating Lily were already hyped up and raring to go , the only thing holding them back was Flapjack's order which he soon gave .

" Board and attack as you please."

The next moment ,all hell broke loose .