Chapter 15

Sepia star system, outer system.

Approaching SLF satellite.

"Alright, we're closing in on the satellite. No status change." Said Elteria as the AI gestured at the hologram in the middle of the bridge. The satellite looked....unimpressive. Just a few antennas and receivers sticking out of a ball of rock a few meters wide.

Sarah nodded. She hadn't expected any honestly. A few hours ago the satellite had gone cold, seemingly out of nowhere, and while there could be passive systems that could have woken it up, they were....notably unreliable. There was a reason mines were rarely used in space warfare, especially missile pods on autonomous control with only passive sensors to guide them, and no centralized, more intelligent firing platform. They were as prone as shooting comets and blowing their presence as they were to actually shoot a ship -and there was no guarantee it wouldn't fire at a civilian freighter. They were approaching it at full stealth anyway, so anything short of an active sensor sweep wouldn't detect them. Well, for what counted as stealth for them, which was actually fairly substantial, for this galaxy's standards anyway.

"Excellent. Tell Hector he's clear to begin operations when he's ready."

"You know we haven't fully slowed down to zero relative velocity right?"

"Have you met Hector?"

"Fair enough." The AI sighed. "Should I power up our shields? Point defence?"

Sarah shook her head, knowing the AI would see it even if the holographic avatar wasn't looking at her.

"No. As long as we are on minimum power, we're practically invisible. The second we power our shield we'll ping on every damned dimensional scanner in the system."

Elteria nodded. Normally trying stealthy approaches with warships was an exercise in madness. Any active shield or weapon system was a big old beacon of energy begging to be shot, so the only way to actually sneak up on someone was to have all your defensive and offensive systems fully powered down. At least they used a dimensional interference drive, which unlike the less advanced grav drive most of the people in this galaxy used, was practically undetectable as long as it didn't go to combat acceleration. Well, as long as your enemies weren't using Near Verge dimensional scanners, at which point they could see you if you got too close.

"Aye aye captain. It just...makes my shoulder itch."

"I'd be worried if it didn't honestly." Sarah chuckled as an alert appeared on her implants, before they had slowed down to zero relative velocity with the satellite. "And the marines are away."

She pointedly ignored the muttered 'damned ground pounding adrenaline junkies' that her AI let out, and sat back in her seat. 'Hurry up and wait' indeed....

*****

Turral looked like she hadn't slept for 3 day, and Sarah made a quick note to have Elteria check up on the chief engineer, and contact her if it got out of hand.

"So, chief?" Asked Sarah as she stepped fully into the engineering workshop.

"Well, I've extracted the database for Elteria to go over. The satellite was...shut down. Like, all the way. The only thing left online was a small receiver and a solar panel with a capacitor to jump start the reactivation sequence and power said receiver. Not that it mattered, the thing didn't even have sensors. It's just a com relay."

"That's....good." It meant that the SLF didn't just have Near Verge tech everywhere. She'd seen the Directorate Navy's stealth relay satellites, and every one of them had sensors, anti missile lasers and a pocket nuke for self destruct. But then again those were...well, never declassified. Unlike the communicators that the SLF had used, these kind of satellites were just fired into a star or had their self destruct charge activated when they were decommissioned. "I assume it's going to take a while to decrypt?"

"Not long actually." Said Elteria as her hologram appeared. "It's not Near Verge. Not even close actually. I think this thing was actually Dominion built."

Sarah's eyebrow rose.

"Well, that's a nice surprise. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Got some specs on the main transmitter array. Definitely couldn't have reached the galactic network on it's own." Said Turral as she patted what looked like a brick with a black dish stuck onto it. "Laser communications and tight beam transmissions, but they're not big enough to be truly long range."

Sarah nodded. A lot of people assumed that because light was instantaneous in most of the dimensions claimed by humanity nowadays communications were extremely easy. After all, point a laser at the other side of the galaxy, and bam, instant transmission right? No need for tachyon transmitters and all the other FTL crap some of the other dimensions had to worry about.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. Signals degraded, badly, over any kind of interstellar distances, and laser communicators, while theoretically longer ranged, were also extremely dependent on the level of precision of it's transmitter. A single fraction of a degree off target could result in missing the receiving station by entire old terran light days after all. And that wasn't even counting the sheer quantity of background noise from other transmissions and the stars themselves. As such most of the stations that tied together the Thaumor galaxy into a single, unified data network, the galactic network or 'galanet', were gigantic monsters covered in dishes the size of cruisers and transmitters so powerful you could technically use them as capital ship grade weapons. Most of those stations were close to stars, to be powered by an array of mirrors and solar power collector stations, due to their ridiculous energy requirements. There were smaller relay stations, but those were notoriously unreliable except at very short ranges. Which Sepia had, connecting them to the next system, who itself was actually connected to another, all the way up to the regional hub, and the government had kept closely monitored specifically for coded messages from the SLF.

"Alright. What's your guess on the range of this thing?"

"16 astras, maybe? I wouldn't use it past 8, but if you were willing to lose a lot of data packets you could stretch it to 16, I think."

Sarah winced. That was...pretty bad indeed, especially for a specialized interstellar communication system. Eternal Seeker could reliably send messages up to 30 astras with little to no error, and stretch that to 60 if they were willing to have to repeat the message a bunch to make sure it got through. And it was a gunship, not a courier ship, so they didn't have that much volume or resources to waste on the coms.

"Well, that's a relief at least. They might have other relay satellites, but we'll take care of that after we take out their HQ. Speaking of which, how's my armor?"

Turral suddenly perked up, and slammed on the table the tablet she'd been inspecting.

"Ah, yes, your armor. Let's talk about that." The chief engineer stalked to the other side of the workshop, with Sarah and Elteria in tow. Turral stopped, then made a vague gesture at the cylinder she was standing in front of, and the power armor storage pod opened. "Alright, where to begin? Well, first things first, it's fucked."

That made Sarah pause.

"How....How fucked?" She asked, swallowing. This armor...She'd had it since she'd graduated from the academy.

Sensing her captain's distress, Turral's tone became a bit less angry. A bit.

"Completely. The main armor systems are fine, but the hypervelocity round took out most of the fusion reactor's control systems. It managed to safely shut down, but....well, safely doesn't mean without damage. The reactor core is fucked. And I can't fabricate another one."

Sarah nodded, her face set in stone. Their onboard fabricator had a large database, and could do a lot, but....it was made to help with maintenance operations and small, onboard repairs. It was never meant to replace a shipyard or a good old factory.

"The capacitors?"

"They're fine, but you can't run the armor on them. The shield alone would drain them in a few seconds. The armor...a minute, perhaps. I'm sorry captain, but the marine's suits use a different model as well, so even if we transplanted their reactor cores we couldn't get yours back online, I don't have the adapters, nor the schematics for them."

Sarah nodded, then sighed.

"Just....put it in my room, cold storage."

"Right ma'am. I'll get on that." Turral sighed. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, but...this is beyond my capabilities to fix."

"It's alright, I'm not blaming you. It just....will take me a bit to process." She didn't use the armor often, but it had always been there, available if she needed it. "I'll be in my quarters."

*****

Sarah looked up from her desk as Elteria pinged her, and sent back her permission.

"Captain." Said the AI as her avatar appeared in front of Sarah's desk. "I finished the decryption process. The com logs had some pretty advanced software that managed to dump them, but I did get the directional transmission logs. I've just run it through a simulation. There were only two transmission sites from Sepia, one was the logistics hub..."

"And the second has to be their headquarters. How long until we're back on Sepia?"

"One hour, 15 minutes, 36 seconds until we reenter our orbital slot ma'am. I assume we don't want that?"

"We might. Get me a channel to the governor."

"Aye aye captain! I should have it in 5 minutes."

*****

It actually took less than 30 seconds for Elteria to get the governor on the line -proof that they'd significantly moved up the woman's priority list. That or all the flunkies that usually served as a barrier of entry were dead-, and it took a handful of minutes to bring the politician up to date.

"We don't have scans of the area just yet, but given what we encountered at their logistics hub...We're expecting heavy resistance."

"Are you sure? Everything points towards the SLF going underground."

"Yes, and that takes time. And coordination. Which means that their HQ will probably be the last place to shutdown...and the only one with enough information to at least track their various cells before they vanish." Although she doubted they'd find much in terms of data. The SLF had proven exceptionally paranoid about data security if nothing else. "Besides, if any of their leaders are left, they'd be overseeing the shutdown before going to ground themselves."

"Fair enough captain. What is your plan?"

Sarah smiled, and she saw the governor almost visibly flinch. Politician or not, her best wolfish smile had made admirals waver.

"At this point, I'm done being subtle. With the crimes the SLF has committed, and the weapons they have used, I believe a full scale lightning assault is our best chance and perfectly justifiable." In this case, a 'lightning assault' meant going in and shooting absolutely everybody they encountered. These operations relied on speed and thoroughness, and thus prisoners were...unlikely. But at this point the governor's government didn't need to drag some terrorists in front of a tribunal to look effective, and popular opposition to what was effectively an extermination strike was unlikely. "Unfortunately, my own men cannot carry out that strike. Our suits of power armor have taken significant damage and strain during our operations, and are still under maintenance. Since time is of the essence, I believe we would be best served if your military forces carry out the attack while we provide air support."

The governor slowly nodded, then faster and faster. She was probably cynical enough to realize that a victory where her planet's soldiers were the only boots on the ground instead of just cleaning up after Sarah's marines would go down very well for her voters, and leave a nice, shiny mark in the history books.

"That would indeed seem the optimum solution. I will call my minister of defense, but I doubt there will be any objections. My people will call you back to coordinate things."

"Of course governor."

*****

"Colonel Elran, I see you've gone up in rank." Said Sarah as she accepted the call, Elran's hologram appearing above her desk.

"Thank you ma'am." Said the ex-special forces commander. Clearly he wasn't used to his new rank yet, as he was still wearing his old battle armor...and preparing to lead the assault. Colonels were usually desk jobs after all, not frontline combat assignments. That's what the deliciously vague rank of 'commander' was for after all. "I'm glad to see you're back up to full strength."

Sarah nodded. She'd managed to get a small discussion in with the man who'd ended up in charge of the last line of defence for Sepia's governor while she was heading out to capture the satellite, precisely to open some communication channels in preparation to taking out the SLF's HQ.

After all, he was quite possibly the only special forces officer left on the planet...and possibly one of the last high ranking officers for that matter, given the fact that the planet's military leaders had been attending the governor's party and hadn't made it out. There were some left of course, but none had the sort of adulation and aura the man that had held the line against the greatest enemy their world had ever faced. She figured he'd end up leading the damned system's military within the year, and probably be dragged up to minister of defence within the decade.

"Thank you colonel. Now, I believe you've been informed of the recent events?"

"Yes ma'am." The colonel straightened up. "I've been told you found the SLF's headquarters, and required our assistance in taking them."

"Indeed. My marines are unfortunately not fully combat capable right now, and I hesitate to engage them into pitched battle without some more down time to fix their armor. Unfortunately, time is of the essence, and we cannot afford that luxury."

The colonel nodded.

"We indeed cannot. Most of my troops are getting to maximum readiness and preparing their transports for immediate departure." He smiled. "The advantage of being seen as a complete hard ass who somehow single handedly held the line against the entire SLF, or so the rumor goes, is that when I order a full scale exercise no one argues. I have 16 shuttles each carrying an infantry platoon of special forces, almost a battalion in total. Some of them were pulled out of leave, and some even came back from retirement, but I have them. Then, well, the army has put itself under my command for the duration of the emergency. I have 3 airborne batallions ready to move immediately, and a single grav cavalry regiment. If we can wait for 6 hours, I can triple that."

Sarah shook her head, almost laughing.

"Colonel, that is more than enough. We took out the SLF's main fighting force, I don't expect them to be able to deal with, what, the better part of half a division? We'll be fine with that. Here are the coordinates. My ship will conduct some orbital reconnaissance and carry out a preliminary bombardment before we engage our troops."

"Of course." The colonel visibly hesitated. "How....how heavy should we expect the bombardment to be?"

"It heavily depends on what kind of defenses the SLF has dug in around their stronghold, but...probably extremely heavy." If nothing else, she was perfectly ready to use actual nukes if it came down to it, and the governor had been perfectly clear that she didn't care how much of a dent they put into the planet for that operation, as long as she didn't just vaporize the entire base from orbit.

After all, her customs cutters' missiles were perfectly capable of doing that if necessary.

"Very well. My men will be ready to move out within the hour."

"Excellent, here are the coordinates." Sarah pressed a button on her holographic keyboard gave the colonel a second to process the newly added map marker.

"That's...very ballsy of them, if you'll pardon the expression."

Sarah chuckled. Turns out the SLF had installed their headquarters on the most heavily inhabited continent, although for a world as sparsely populated as Sepia it just meant there was slightly less unknown wilderness surrounding the cities and industrial sites.

"It is, but sometimes hiding implies staying as close as possible to your enemies. I'll be in touch with our scan results shortly colonel. Today, we put an end to the SLF for good."