Read Scourge: Book Two of the Starcrown Chronicles Page 23

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  From the corner of my eye I saw Tom slap a hand to his earphone just before he spun toward me.

  “Message from Mr. Mayweather, Sir!” The entire bridge crew stopped whatever they were doing and focused on him. “They’ve secured the pirate ship and have its captain in custody.”

  Whoops and cheers went up across the bridge.

  “Have them bring the captain directly to the infirmary. Then tell Morgana her teams can board that ship and start rounding up the rest of the crew. I want those pirates locked down as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Tom said and swiveled back to his console.

  “You’ve got the conn,” I said to Chris as I sprang to my feet. “Let me know if the sweeper teams come across anything interesting. I’ll be down in the infirmary.”

  “Excuse me, Sir,” Tom said. He swiveled back toward me with a smirk on his face. “I’m picking up a faint transmission on the emergency band. It’s that pirate we blasted out of the airlock earlier. He says he’s tossed away his weapon and is asking, very politely I might add, if we could please pick him up.”

  I looked at Bobby who had started laughing out loud.

  “Feel like going for a little ride?” I asked.

  “I think I can spare a couple of minutes,” he said when he got himself under control a moment later.

  “Take Mark with you and don’t let him on this ship until he strips off his armor.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bobby said. He locked down the helm, waited for Mark to secure his station, then the pair of them headed toward the skiff bay.

  I turned in the opposite direction and started toward the main stairwell. Capturing these pirates was our first big break. I had a lot of things I wanted to ask their captain. He could either cooperate or be forced to answer, but easy or hard I was going to get the answers to a number of questions. Although I realized that it was a childish impulse, I found myself hoping that the pirate captain would give me a reason to conduct the interrogation the hard way.