force and let them deal with the situation? At least ask for assistance?” Kip suggested.
“No way!” Peppita insisted. “They would only get in the way. Trust me, I have a plan.”
“A plan? Tell us already!” Flinton demanded.
“That might be a problem. It is a perfect plan, but it will only work if none of you know the details. You have to trust me on this one. Kip! Work on a way to use the intercom to simulate a distress call. We need to send it only to this Captain Wook, but make it appear as if it was on all frequencies.”
Kip nodded.
“Flinton!” Peppita continued to give orders. “I need you to make the following modifications to the engine and our hull plating.” She gave him a crude drawing she just scribbled.
“Well, I can do that, but I fail to see what that should accomplish.”
“Do it already!”
“On my way!” Flinton said and headed to the engine room immediately.
“And if we want to survive you have to help as well, Grongl,” Peppita explained. “You need to dress up as a scientist!”
“But I already am a scientist!” Grongl said.
“No, I mean a real scientist. With lab coat and glasses and everything.”
“That’s not how we look like!”
“Whatever. Just trust me! You can use our matter printer to make some costumes for each of us. We are doing this with or without your help, but it might increase our chances if you chip in.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll do it.”
“I think I’m ready,” Kip said. “I decreased the stability of the intercom and limited the amount of-”
“Good!” Peppita interrupted him. “Don’t waste my time on boring details. If I talk, will the pirates hear me and think it’s a distress call?”
“Most likely.”
“Very well, then start recording.”
Kip pushed a button on his terminal and Peppita began her speech.
“This is Professor Peppita from the research ship Blasting… I mean Pondering Beetle. Help! We are in distress. Big distress, really. Just for your information we are also unarmed and very very helpless. All the research gold in our cargo bay is slowing us down and all the research data is filling up our data core to a point where we can no longer maneuver. Please come to our aid!”
“This is what you want to send?” Kip asked, baffled. “I understand that you try to lure the pirates to us, which is in itself reckless enough, but on top of that your message makes no sense at all. Research gold weighing us down? Research data? Have you any idea how science works?”
“Absolutely not! But neither have the pirates. And if I were a pirate and heard this distress call then nothing could stop me from capturing this ship.”
“I guess you have a talent for thinking like them,” Kip admitted. “And when they find us? What then?”
“Don’t worry about it. I told you I have a plan. Trust me, it will all work out perfectly.”
“It took a while, but all the modifications are finished,” Flinton said in a proud voice as he entered the bridge after a few hours of work.
“Perfect,” Peppita praised him. “The pirates should be here any minute now. Quick, get into your costume!”
Flinton was highly shocked. “Who should be where? Get in my what? What’s going on here?”
“Don’t worry, it’s all part of the plan,” Peppita ensured him. “Just do as you are told. Put on the lab coat and the glasses your grandson prepared for you and act more like a scientist. Once the pirates are here I will trigger my secret trap and bam! Mission accomplished.”
“That’s too risky!” Flinton shouted. “In all the time I know you none of your plans really worked. No way I am risking my life for this. We have to find another way, one where we are not the bait!”
“I guess there is no time for that now,” Kip said. “A large battle ship is approaching our position. It will be here in a couple of minutes.”
“On screen!” Peppita ordered.
“I guess we might run into a similar problem as before. Distance and everything, you remember, captain?”
“Well, put it on the screen as soon as they are within visual range then. And remember to act like distressed scientists!”
Flinton spend the next minutes trying to squeeze into a lab coat that was obviously too small for him, before Kip announced that the enemy ship is within visual range.
“Forward cam! On screen!” Peppita shouted.
Kip pressed a button on the terminal, but the main screen only showed some distant stars, no sign of a ship.
“What is this?” Peppita asked. “Do they have some sort of cloaking device? Why can’t we see them?”
“I don’t understand,” Kip admitted. “They should be close enough to be visible... Ah, now I see the problem! They are approaching us from a really awkward angle. Thinking about it, in three dimensions it would be highly unlikely that they are in the same plane as we are. The chances that they approach us from our front side are really tiny.”
“Kip!” Peppita ordered. “Rotate the ship so that it looks nice. You know, our bow facing their bow in the same rotational plane.”
“Is this really the most important thing right now? Shouldn’t we rather focus on-”
“That was an order!”
“Yes captain, rotating the ship so that it looks nice.” A red button began to flash on Kip’s terminal. “Captain, they are hailing us. Should I open an intercom channel?”
“Of course. Put it on the main screen.”
The image of a Hironian pirate flickered to life. His skin was rough and dark red, both signs of old age for Hironi. And the fact that he lived up to that age also proved that he was incredibly strong and ruthless. A big scar ran down the right side of his face, his eye on that side was hidden behind a metal plate that was attached to his skull with crude bolts. The pirate laughed and addressed his first officer first. “See? I told you it was not a trap. Those are real scientist alright. They even have coats and glasses and everything. Jackpot! I can’t wait to see this research gold, whatever that is.” Then he turned to talk to Peppita. “Sorry to break it to you, but we are not here to save you! I am captain Wook and you are now my prisoners. Your ship and everything on it belongs to me. We scanned you and know that you have no weapon systems whatsoever. Prepare to be boarded.” The screen went black again.
Kip was visibly terrified. “What now?”
Peppita kept looking at her terminal. “Wait for it,” she said calmly. A single pearl of sweat slowly rolled down her forehead. “Let them come a little closer… closer… closer… Now!” With much more than the necessary force, Peppita punched a button on her terminal. It was the button that opened the intercom again. With a triumphant grin on her face Peppita made an announcement to the other captain: “We surrender unconditionally!”
When Flinton regained consciousness, all four of them were in a small, dark cargo bay. The first thing he did was slap Peppita in order to wake her up, the second thing was to slap her in order to vent his frustration. “I told you it would never work! What was the plan anyway?”
“My plan worked perfectly, just that you know,” Peppita said with a smug smile on her face. “My plan was to get captured and infiltrate the pirates. And as you can clearly see we are now inside the enemy ship.”
“But all the modifications I made! Why?”
“Well, I knew that you would oppose my plan. So the reason for those modifications was twofold. First of all they kept you busy. And secondly they gave you the impression that I had some elaborate, complicated plan in mind. I found out that people only trust in my plans, if they think they are more elaborate than they can grasp.”
“That was stupid, even for you. But I guess it is too late to turn back now. We have to go with your plan. So, what’s next?”
“What do you mean? We achieved our goal. We found the pirates and our passenger is now reunited with his colleagues. At least they are on the same ship. Probably.”
“But what is our exit strategy? How do we escape?”
“Don’t worry, we'll just improvise.”
“Improvise!?”
“You said yourself that my plans never work. Escaping is too important to risk making a plan.”
“I can’t believe I trusted you. I should have known better. In all the years…”
Kip came to before the argument could escalate further. “What happened?”
“Apparently our captain got us captured,” Flinton explained. “On purpose!”
“This is no time to assign blame,” Peppita said. “We have to focus our efforts on escaping. Flinton! Wake up you grandfather, maybe he can contribute something.”
“You mean my cousin?”
“Cousin, whatever.”
“What happened? Where are we?” Grongl asked after his cousin slapped him. “The last thing I remember is a pirate’s fist accelerating towards my skull. No idea what happened next. Did I win?”
“The situation is the following,” Peppita explained. “Thanks to my brilliant plan we have successfully infiltrated the enemy ship. The next step will be to de-infiltrate it together with the prisoners. First we need to gather information. We should continue to pose as scientists, sooner or later there will be a chance to escape.”
“Pose as scientists!?” Flinton cried. “We do not pose as scientist. All we did is put on lab coats and glasses. Who in the world would fall for this?”
“Shut up, Flinton!” Peppita ordered. “I hear someone. Act scientist-like!”
A big door on one side of the cargo bay opened slowly, what remained was a transparent force field. Two Hironi were