"I'm going to go put my party clothes on, Captain," Agent Carson said. "Go ahead and grab 'em."

* * *

Captain Ross stood off to the side of the armored airlock door when Agent Carson overrode the locks and forced his way onto the lifeboat. The Agent, dressed in black armor and carrying a short-barreled carbine loaded with shipboard rounds, stormed into the tiny craft. There was screaming and three shots before the amplified voice of Carson could be heard telling everyone to be silent. After the sounds of further struggling, the first of the prisoners were hauled out in restraints.

"What the hell, Agent?!" Ross fumed.

"They snuck a couple of their security personnel over with them, armed to the teeth," Carson said. "I actually knew the one guy. Almost felt bad shooting him."

The Agent made three more trips to bring the bound ESA officers out one at a time before closing the airlock and releasing the mechanical locks.

"Steger, we're detached from the lifeboat, move us away," Ross said into the intercom.

"Yes, sir."

"What is the meaning of this?" a man who was obviously Admiral Xiao demanded. "We lost contact with the—"

"Shut up," Carson said as he held up a tile and took pictures of each of the prisoners. The device ran them all through facial recognition until a match popped up. "And who are you supposed to be?"

"Commander Agata Elin." The Kuài Jiàn's intelligence officer stared back at Carson with a flat, almost bored expression.

"Sure you are," Carson said before turning to Ross. "Send a message to Central Operations that we have one of the Alpha-One targets in custody. She needs to be taken to a holding cell and sedated for the trip back to New Sierra."

"Understood," Ross said, motioning two of his security specialists forward to take the woman to the ship's small detention area.

"Guys…double up those restraints, and be very careful around her," Carson warned.

Elin just turned to look at the Agent and smiled, chilling Ross's blood. She may have been a captive on his ship, but she had the bearing and intensity of a predator. The guards took the Agent at his word and slapped on a second set of wrist restraints and gave her another thorough search before leading her out of the airlock antechamber.

"She that dangerous?" Ross asked.

"And then some," Carson said, turning to Xiao. "You probably have no idea who she really is, do you?"

"She was my chief intelligence officer," Xiao said. "She was already aboard the ship when I arrived."

"Eh, I don't care." Carson waved the admiral off. "Captain, you can do what you want with these officers…I have what I came for."

"What about my ships and crews?" Admiral Xiao demanded forcefully, seeming to remember he represented the entire Alliance. Agent Carson froze, turning glaring at Xiao with an intensity that made everyone step back.

"You mean the ships and crews you came with to destroy Federation outposts and kill Federation citizens if they happened to be in the way?" he asked in a low growl.