Fan fiction about Skif... Space. Distant future. The main character finds himself in an almost hopeless situation when his space fighter, during an attack by pirates, is damaged and completely immobilized. After the battle, the winners will certainly begin to collect any damaged equipment, and the damaged instrumentation, along with itself, in this case will end up in the hands of pirates. This prospect frankly did not please him. The guy knew very well how pirates treated prisoners. In the best case scenario, he would be “ceded out” to some small corporation as an employee with a lifetime contract, or, most likely, sold as a slave on one of the neo-barbarian worlds in neutral space. In the worst case, the next captive will simply be tortured during the regular savage entertainment of the pirates. Time was running out, he did not have even a ghostly chance of salvation. Help came suddenly, and was it really “help”?