The corridors were anything but quiet.
Every few minutes, the heavy thud of boots echoed down the halls as another pirate—kicking, swearing, or limping—was dragged out and deposited in the ever-growing line of prisoners waiting to be interrogated.
After the main hostage crisis was resolved, Duke Leander took command with the calm authority that brokered no questions.
And it was then that these people remembered Duke Leander's reputation.
"Split them by quadrant and start clearing the rooms," he'd ordered, voice steady as steel. "No one leaves until this entire ship is clean."
And they listened.
Even now, Luca stood just behind him, watching in muted surprise as a brutally efficient full perimeter sweep was being carried out.
Jax, Kyle, and Xavier moved with clinical purpose, rounding up anyone that D-29 had tagged.
The pirates, of course, didn't know what had happened in the passenger lobby. They hadn't seen the earlier carnage or the corpses of their alleged mates.
