what was the pirates strategy? *spoilers*

ok so in prologue pirates try and blow up the transport tcs aurora what were they hoping to accomplish with that? salvaging floating space scrap? getting a paycheck from the kilrathy? it would make more sense for them to disable the engines and board it than to bust the cargo pods and then destroy the resellable multi-million credit transport ship. or were they hoping they would drop the cargo at the sight of them and if they don't they vaporize them to build reputation so the next ship won't resist? I'm just curious what the in universe story is behind it i'm not complaining about the game