Jack and his group first found a place where they could gather information about Knowhere.
The information wasn't much different from what Jack had already gathered on Xandar, but he now had a better idea of the smaller gangs and organizations operating around Knowhere and how things worked here. As Jack already knew, the mining area was completely controlled by the Tivan Group, making them the biggest power in Knowhere, while the other areas were controlled by various gangs and pirate groups, like the KKT pirates who had attacked them earlier.
After selling the spaceship they had captured from the pirates, Jack had saved enough money to start setting up the Plumbers properly. They purchased a suitable property and began turning it into their temporary headquarters.
From the information they gathered, Jack also learned that there was a place a short distance away from Knowhere where bounty hunters operated. They mainly hunted outlaws who came to Knowhere, making it a good place to collect the bounties on the pirates they had captured.
"Zeyara, take a group and collect the bounties. Once you get the money, use some of it to buy whatever supplies we need. And if you run into any trouble, contact me immediately through your communicator."
"Understood, Captain," Zeyara replied.
Jack decided to let Zeyara take a group of Plumbers there to collect the bounties while he stayed behind to oversee the new headquarters. There was still a lot of work to do, and Jack also wanted to gather more information about the bounty system and see if the Plumbers could eventually start hunting wanted criminals themselves.
With that, Zeyara left Knowhere with a group of Plumbers.
Meanwhile, somewhere inside one of the buildings in Knowhere, a blue-skinned alien suddenly rushed inside.
"Boss! Boss! I found it! I found out about the missing Team A !" he shouted, drawing the attention of the other aliens in the room. Most of them looked like the kind of people nobody wanted to mess with.
"Our spies at the docks found out that Team A's spaceship was sold by an organization calling themselves the Plumbers," the blue-skinned pirate explained.
The leader frowned.
"Team A was defeated?" He had assumed they had run into some powerful civilization or another major faction. He never expected them to be taken down by some unknown organization.
"And these Plumbers actually sold our ship here in Knowhere?" he asked, his expression slowly becoming darker. "They know this is our territory, and they still had the nerve to sell our ship right under our noses?"
"Exactly, boss."
"Unforgivable. How dare they?" the leader said furiously.
"Revenge!"
"Revenge!"
The other pirates immediately joined in, shouting for revenge.
"Have you found anything about their background?" the leader asked. He didn't immediately order an attack. First, he wanted to know exactly who they were dealing with.
But even after using their connections, they couldn't find any information about an organization called the Plumbers. There were no records, no history, and no known connections to any major faction.
It almost seemed like the name itself was fake.
"Boss, they must be some guys from a remote planet. They're probably not big shots," one of the pirates suggested.
Hearing that, the leader felt that it was probably true. He had seen plenty of small organizations like this before—groups that came to Knowhere hoping to make a name for themselves.
Then he received another report. Some of the Plumbers had rented a smaller spaceship and left the docks. One of their spies had also spotted Team A being transported with them.
The leader's eyes widened.
"Are those guys trying to take Team A to the bounty station?"
The thought immediately made him furious.
"Attack them."
He didn't want to openly attack the Plumbers who had stayed inside Knowhere. Doing that would attract too much attention and could bring other powerful groups into the situation. But the Plumbers who had left Knowhere were a different matter.
"Send everyone we have. Don't let them escape, and rescue Team A."
The pirates quickly prepared for the ambush. They were confident that the unknown Plumbers wouldn't be able to escape once the KKT group surrounded them.
Since the bounty station was only a short distance away, Zeyara didn't take their main spaceship. Instead, she rented a smaller one to transport Team A and the other captured pirates. She had no reason to believe that the KKT would discover what they were doing so quickly.
But she was wrong.
A few minutes later, several pirate ships suddenly appeared around them.
"Captain, we're being surrounded by multiple pirate ships," the Plumber piloting the ship warned.
Zeyara looked through the window at the approaching vessels.
"They're KKT," one of the Plumbers said after recognizing their markings.
Zeyara immediately understood why they had attacked them. She hadn't expected the KKT to realize so quickly that their people had been defeated by the Plumbers and track her down. That was her mistake. She hadn't considered that the pirates might have spies watching the docks.
They weren't here because of the Plumbers themselves. They had come to rescue Team A and the other captured pirates.
"Weapons ready," Zeyara ordered.
The rented spaceship opened fire, and the KKT pirates immediately returned fire. BOOM! The ship shook violently as several blasts struck its hull. Unlike the Plumber ship Jack had upgraded, this rented vessel didn't have powerful weapons or strong defenses. It could fight back, but it couldn't compete with the KKT fleet.
The pirates quickly took advantage of that. One ship disabled their engines while several others surrounded them from every direction.
"Captain, we're completely surrounded!" the pilot shouted.
The KKT ships moved closer, preparing to board them.
"They're trying to board us!" another Plumber shouted.
Zeyara's expression remained calm.
"All Plumbers, prepare for close combat."
The Plumbers immediately drew their weapons and took defensive positions around the ship. They knew exactly what was coming.
The first boarding pod slammed into the side of the ship.
BOOM!
The door was torn open, and armed pirates rushed inside.
"Kill them!"
More boarding pods struck the ship from the other side, and even more pirates poured inside. The KKT pirates showed no mercy. They weren't trying to capture the Plumbers peacefully. Anyone who stood in their way was attacked without hesitation.
But the Plumbers were trained for situations like this. The first pirate charged forward and swung his weapon at one of them, but the Plumber blocked the attack with his arm guard before striking him in the chest. Another pirate attacked from behind, but another Plumber immediately intercepted him.
The Plumbers moved as a team, covering each other's blind spots and using the narrow corridors of the ship to their advantage. Their training quickly became obvious. They weren't fighting like random civilians who had learned how to use weapons. They fought like trained soldiers.
Zeyara entered the battle herself. A large alien pirate rushed toward her with a heavy weapon, but she easily dodged his attack and struck him across the face. Before he could recover, she grabbed his weapon and drove it into his chest. The pirate collapsed.
Another pirate came from her side. Zeyara turned and shot him without hesitation.
BANG!
He fell to the floor.
She didn't give them a second chance. The KKT pirates had come to kill them, and Zeyara had no intention of showing mercy to anyone who attacked her people.
Soon, the pirates began losing control of the ship.
"They're stronger than we expected!" one of them shouted.
"Don't let them reach Team A!" another pirate yelled.
The KKT leader heard the commotion through his communicator and became increasingly furious.
"I'll deal with them myself!"
He boarded the ship with several of his strongest men and quickly made his way toward the room where Team A was being held. He had no idea that the Plumbers had already moved them to another secured section of the ship.
Before he could get any further, Zeyara stepped into the corridor and blocked his path.
The leader stared at her.
"You!"
Zeyara silently raised her weapon.
"Move aside."
"No."
The leader attacked first. He was stronger and more experienced than the other pirates, but Zeyara was faster. She dodged his first attack, blocked the second, and countered with a powerful strike that knocked him against the wall.
He tried to get back up, but Zeyara didn't give him the chance. She rushed forward and drove her weapon straight into his chest.
The leader's eyes widened as he looked at her in disbelief.
Zeyara pulled her weapon back and let him fall to the floor.
The KKT leader was dead.
Seeing their leader fall, the remaining pirates began to panic, but Zeyara didn't order anyone to spare them.
"Finish them."
The Plumbers continued fighting. The pirates who surrendered were restrained, but those who continued attacking were taken down without mercy. Within minutes, the boarding parties had been completely defeated.
Zeyara looked toward the remaining KKT ships flying around them.
"Pilot."
"Yes, Captain?"
"Can we still use the weapons?"
The pilot quickly checked the controls.
"Some of them are still working."
Zeyara nodded.
"Then finish them."
The Plumbers immediately took control of the remaining weapons. The disabled KKT ships had nowhere to run. One after another, the remaining pirate ships were destroyed in a series of explosions.
Zeyara calmly watched the final explosion through the window.
The attack was over.
"Collect anything useful from the wreckage. And record their ship registrations."
"Understood."
The Plumbers began collecting whatever useful parts they could recover and secured all the pirates they had captured, including the ones they had already captured before the attack. Despite the chaos, none of the prisoners managed to escape.
With enough evidence to prove that the KKT pirates had attacked them and that they had defeated the attacking group, Zeyara continued toward the bounty station with the captured pirates and the loot they had recovered.
This time, she wasn't going there to collect the bounty on just a few pirates. She was going to collect the bounties on everyone they had captured.
For the first time, the name Plumbers appeared on the bounty network. It wasn't anything major yet, just a small organization that had appeared out of nowhere and somehow managed to defeat one of the more notorious pirate groups operating around Knowhere. But that small appearance was enough to make people start paying attention.
Jack didn't know all the details until Zeyara returned and told him what had happened.
"You defeated the KKT fleet that attacked you?" Jack asked, looking at her in surprise.
"Yes."
Jack stared at her for a moment before shaking his head with a small smile.
"Well... I can't exactly complain. You got the bounty, and none of our people were hurt."
He wasn't naïve enough to think the Plumbers could survive in a universe filled with bloodshed without ever having to make difficult choices. Jack didn't want his members to become killers, but he also knew he couldn't expect everyone to handle every situation exactly the way he would.
Still, sometimes he wondered if he could keep his own hands clean forever. He had seen enough examples of people who started with good intentions before slowly becoming antiheroes or something worse.
But since he had chosen to become a hero, Jack didn't want to give up on that path, even in a universe this brutal.
"Are you angry at her for killing all those pirates?" Gwen asked, noticing Jack was lost in thought.
Jack looked at her before shaking his head.
"No. You did a good job, Zeyara. You did a good job leading the team for your first mission."
With the KKT pirates defeated, the Plumbers also gained a small amount of reputation. Anyone who had been planning to test this new organization would now think twice after hearing what had happened.
The Plumbers weren't just another group that had arrived in Knowhere. They were clearly capable of defending themselves.
A/N: The Patreon version is already updated with 20 advanced chapters. If you'd like to read ahead of the public release schedule, you can join here: