Chapter 46

Narval star system, outer system.

Aboard the Q-Wayfarer.

"Sarge? What do we do?" Asked one of his marines, and Hector shook his head as he looked around the bridge they had just entered.

He tried to ignore the partially dissolved bones and puddles of goo that had once been the crew members manning the stations, and pointed at the astronavigation console.

"Tear that out, and get the data core. As for the rest of us..." He smiled, his face projected to the heads up display or implants of all of his marines. "We do what marines do best. We fuck shit up. Once we have the core rip anything and everything that has power. Just don't touch the central bridge computing network, they'll probably have it booby trapped to hell and back if they put a nuke in it."

"Sir yes sir!" Chorused his marines, before descending upon the room like hungry pirhanas. Hector nodded in satisfaction, and left to the sound of maintenance panels being ripped open and unsheathing vibroblades.

He looked out in the hallway, and activated his communication link to Turral, his ship's chief engineer.

"Turry, status on your people?"

"5 minutes out. Some of them didn't exactly process the...remains of the crew very well." Hector winced. He didn't expect them to, honestly. Even he was slightly disturbed knowing what they'd unleashed, and it was hardly the first time he'd used that kind of weapon. "They're still forging on though. Do you have anything for me?"

"Not really. Ordered my guys to leave the central network alone, and just pull the nav core." All astronavigation computers had a hardwired backup datacore, linked directly to the console. It enabled a ship to jump to hyperspace even if the entire ship's computer network failed. The core also stored the navigation data of the ship, to allow emergency jumps to a previously visited location. It wasn't exactly safe -the data wasn't up to date like pinging a hyperspace beacon or scanning the area yourself- but it had saved countless ships in a pinch, and was such a core part of ship design even the Infinite Systems Federation Navy used them. "We're trying to pull as many power conduits as possible, slow down the bomb charging up."

"That's good, it should buy us a bit more time." Turral sighed over the link. "At least its location is our advantage. They couldn't keep the bomb armed and its capacitors charged without risking frying the entire bridge's computer network. And the fact that we obliterated the reactor and every major capacitor bank on the ship is helping a lot. Still...power levels are rising."

"Right. Well, we'll do our best."

"I'm not expecting anything less." Said Turral, before cutting the link.

Hector sighed, before perking up as he heard a shout of triumph.

"We got it! Nav core secured!" Said one of his marines over the squad network.

"Excellent! Now get back to the Seeker with it!"

"Sir yes sir!" Yelled out the marine, before coming out sprinting of the bridge, missing Hector by a few centimeters, and then running down the hallway with a speed that would have made 21st century Earth athletes green with envy. Even heavy assault power armor could move fast when its wearer needed to.

Hector shook his head, before hearing the scream of vibroblades meeting metal as his men began tearing into the bridge's power conduits. The lights immediately cut out, and alarms began blaring as they started ripping the entire power grid to shreds. Hector looked again at the hallway, before extending his own vibroblade from his suit's gauntlet, and moving back into the bridge to help his men.

*****

"Seria was right, they are taking potshots at us." Said Elteria, almost dreamily as the AI tried to stay ahead of the deadly beams of energy, giving both ships random nudges.

"Are they getting close?"

"No. Even when going fully active on the stations aiming anything at this distance is damned near impossible without a lot of time and something to lock onto. With our ewar online, they can't see shit." The AI shrugged. "But they have a dozen of the things, and firing them doesn't cost them much, so they're doing it anyway."

"Well, some civilians might ask some questions about the battlestations in solar orbit."

"They won't. Too far from the main planets for their sensors to see shit. They might question why the solar array isn't beaming them power anymore, but I'd be extremely surprised if the government doesn't have a plan for that as well."

"Fair enough." Sarah sighed. "The bomb?"

"Still charging. Not sure when it'll be fully charged, but not yet." The AI blinked. "And our dear marines are helping a lot. Damn, I'm glad we didn't need anything else from their bridge. They're ripping it to shreds. Kind of terrifying."

Sarah opened her mouth, then decided that mentioning their marines had been trained to rip apart rooms like that to isolate and capture an enemy AI probably wasn't very tactful.

Especially as the schematics they'd been trained on had been Elteria's own computer core room.

"It is. Any news on the cargo team?"

Elteria tilted her head.

"Yep. They've made it to some sort of terminal. They-"

"Captain. This is corporal Larry." Interrupted Sarah's implants as her communication channel to the marines came to life.

"Larry. Found anything interesting?"

"We got a hold of their cargo manifest ma'am. Not sure if it's up to date, but I think it is. They had a local copy in the cargo bay." He chuckled. "Guess even fanatics can follow standard merchant procedures. In any case, it wasn't that well encrypted, and we broke through it fairly easily. They probably expected the ship to blow up before anyone could get it. I'm currently searching through their secure cargo, the kind that is off the books, and well..."

"Ah! I assume it is divinium?"

"Well...there's the problem. It's not." An image appeared in a corner of Alexandra's vision, and she expanded it with a flick of mind. She didn't like processing data or images through her implants, it wasn't a pleasant experience, and holograms were easier to manipulate anyway, at least for her own convenience.

It took her a solid second to process what the manifest Larry was broadcasting to her.

"What.The.Fuck?!?"

*****

"Hector, this is Sarah. Change of plans."

The sergeant froze, and nodded at one of his marines as he stepped back from the power junction he had been busy destroying, letting them work on it.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Did you get Larry's report?"

"No ma'am. He didn't send me any to begin with."

Sarah wordlessly flicked over the file, and Hector just swallowed as he saw the cargo.

"They can't be serious. Where...How?"

"I don't know. But they have them. And that means we need to get our hands on them as well. Once you're done with the bomb, get me that damned container onboard."

"Yes ma'am!"

He looked at the manifest one last time, before shaking himself, and turning back towards his team. He had a job to do.

*****

"Where did they even get those?" Said Elteria as she looked at the manifest.

Sarah shook her head.

"Who the fuck knows?"

"I mean...Gods, even the Dominion struggle making these!" The AI simply shook her head. "This is insane!"

"We knew they had some very high tech on their side. A few High Verge fabricators could churn these out. They wouldn't like the resource costs, but they could do it." Sarah looked at the manifest, and shook her head. "But I agree. This is insane."

Staring back at her was a simple line, announcing the content of a single, standardized containers. A container of phase arrays, which were a key components in hyperdrives, and their fabrication was one of the greatest barrier in miniaturizing hyperdrives or making them able to take larger ships into hyperspace.

Phase arrays that, at least according to the manifest, were meant for battlecruisers.

*****

Hector extricated himself from the maintenance hatch as the engineers entered the room.

"We'll take it from here sergeant." Said Cindy as she contemplated the ruined bridge, before grinning behind her space suit's visor. "Not that you seemed to have needed much help. The bomb has pretty much stopped charging up already. We'll disarm it. But its probably better if your boys get out of the way."

"Right." Hector gestured at his men. "Come on, to the cargo bay!"

His squad nodded as they extricated themselves from the various maintenance accesses they had forced their way through, and left at a run, only a single marine remaining behind, guarding the door, just in case.

*****

"Turral, status on the bomb?" Asked Sarah over her implants.

"We've got it handled." Said the engineer, before cursing loudly. "Whoever wired this is a professional however. Without the marines' little tear down..."

"Right. Just tell me when it's disarmed."

"Yes ma'am."

Sarah mentally clicked to Hector's channel.

"Sergeant?"

"Larry's got the container moving towards the cargo door. Their secure storage was good, but...well, we have fusion torches. At least they had some grav generators on the container, but maneuvering it is a bitch. We'll be there in a minute to help."

"Excellent." Sarah looked up at her AI's avatar. "Elteria, get a cargo door open, and some handling bots out in the dark."

"Already on it. I'll be ready to receive when they get it out."

"Excellent." Sarah looked around the bridge, and sighed. "Well, nothing to do but wait then."

"Welcome to space combat."

Sarah chuckled.

"Indeed..."

*****

"I've got the container. My drones are securing it as we speak."

"Excellent." Sarah leaned back into her seat, doing her best to hide her stress. The five minutes since Hector had started maneuvering the container out of the Q-wayfarer's partially wrecked cargo bay had been nerve wracking. The fact that whoever was controlling the solar defence platforms had clearly realized that randomly spraying wasn't working, and had began actually taking their time to aim and fire, hadn't helped. The laser shots still were missing by a wide margin...but that margin was getting smaller and smaller every passing minute, fast. Random bursts of acceleration or not there was only so much dodging they could make while virtually tied down to that huge wreck of a vessel. "Alright then." She activated her implants, her chief engineer instantly picking up, her face appearing in a corner of the captain's vision. "Turral? Is the bomb disarmed yet?"

"Negative." The chief engineer sounded rather frustrated. "We finished pulling most of the energy connections, but...these guys were paranoid. This is going to take a while, at least if we want to do it the proper way."

Sarah thought for a second, before shaking her head, knowing the chief engineer would see her face on her HUD.

"Then don't bother. Get back here, we got what we came for." She paused. "Actually...if you reconnected some of those energy conduits, could you enable the bomb to detonate, but still pull everyone out of there safely?"

Turral blinked.

"Easily, why?"

Sarah smiled.

"They'll be a lot less worried if they think their bridge blew up...and we ran away because it was about to blow. Besides, they've been kind enough to provide us with a way to erase any compromising evidence like security recordings left behind." Sarah closed her eyes as she briefly sent a short explanation of the situation to Hector, and ordered him and his marines back to the Seeker, before looking once again 'at' Turral. "Do it."

"Aye aye ma'am!"

The communication channel closed, and Sarah looked at Elteria.

"As soon as the engineers are back on board, get us away from this wreck, and out of this system. Maximum stealth, unless one of these bastards-" She gestured at the display showing the frigates and corvettes charging at them. "-manage to track us and generate an intercept."

"Aye aye ma'am! Fortunately they may have a lot of sensor platforms, but they're not very good. They won't be able to track us through active sensors, not at this range."

Sarah nodded. Their worst fears, that the TRF had somehow acquired a Near Verge sensor platform, appeared to have been unfounded. However the TRF didn't seem to lack Low Verge tech. They appeared to have seeded their asteroid belt with at least a dozen full sized sensor platforms, and probably many smaller satellites and passive sensor clusters. It wasn't enough to pin down the Seeker, but even a Mid Verge stealth ship would have had serious problems sneaking in that system.

"Hopefully. Still, keep dodging regardless. I don't want to find out the hard way if they somehow can see us."

Elteria nodded grimly.

"Fair enough." The AI blinked. "The engineers are on their way over now. Hector's marines are already inside, except the one accompanying the engies."

"Excellent."

Sarah waited patiently for the handful of minutes it took for the engineers to make their way back, before relaxing as she felt the ship shake as it disengaged from the damaged, almost completely destroyed by that point, freighter.

"Alright, Elteria, take us out to the hyperspace limit. Normensk? Get us a course to a deep space point, let's say...12 astras from here."

"Aye aye ma'am. Middle of nowhere, 12 astras."

Sarah chuckled as her ship leapt into space, and then vanished as Elteria went to maximum stealth. She could see the moment the TRF lost them, as the frigates and corvettes began slowing down their acceleration, and consolidating into proper combat formations, probably fearing some kind of attack.

Then the freighter vanished in a flash of energy as the nuclear charge finally powered up, all the remaining evidence reduced to a cloud of cooling plasma.

"And Connie?" The communications officer perked up. "Find me the most secure galanet link you can. I'm going to need to talk to our good friend admiral Soliensky once we've started working on that datacore."

"Right away ma'am!"