“Representative Chalto, I presume?” a reed-thin myraan with brilliant red and orange coloring along its face, head, and hands asked in a soft, almost watery voice when Chalto’s diplomatic comm activated.
Chalto didn’t know enough about the semi-amphibious myraans to discern whether the individual he was speaking with was male or female, or even if it had reached the stage of its lifecycle where that distinction even mattered.
“Yes,” Chalto replied with a slight bow. “Are you the judicator?”
“I am. You may call me Ghrroaqq,” the judicator croaked, “or Judicator, as I am aware that many species have trouble properly pronouncing myraan names without an air sack.”
“Very well, Judicator,” Chalto replied, not even bothering to try to recreate the individual’s name.
The judicator chuffed in what Chalto assumed was amusement.
“We are jamming communications outside of your comm signal to prevent either the station AI or the ship’s AI from infiltrating our ship’s systems, but your device isn’t secure, so our conversation must be brief. Are the individuals in question still aboard the station?”
“I believe so, Judicator, but my captain has received an alert that someone has accessed my vessel. It’s docked in the damaged hangar.”
The judicator nodded and communicated to someone off-screen for a moment. “I have asked the task force leader to park one of the battleships in front of the hangar. That should prevent any escape attempts, but he would like to know what happened.”
“You brought multiple battleships?” Chalto asked, momentarily stunned by the fact that the judicator’s words indicated that more than one battleship was in the task force. Even the fleets on the outer fringe, which defended against any possible hostile aliens, rarely had more than one battleship at a time. He didn’t think an outdated station and a broken planetary conditioning vessel warranted such a response, but apparently, someone did.
“Yes, representative. The AIs aboard planetary conditioning vessels are much too dangerous to take lightly.”
Chalto deferred to the Judicator’s judgement in this matter. Then he relayed the rest of what had transpired after he arrived.
The man’s face took on a concerned look. “A t’uk security ship attacked you?”
“Yes, Judicator. They were after Adjunct Xing’che. I don’t know why, but I assume it has to do with why she is here.”
“You haven’t questioned her?”
“I was not given the opportunity. When the attack occurred, she was off the ship. Then Captain Jacob told me that she had been arrested for killing her aide. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I didn’t push the point since we had to abandon ship and seek shelter aboard the station.”
“Had he threatened you or your people at all?” Ghrroaqq asked in concern.
“Not exactly, Judicator, but he did confiscate my ship. I assumed it was payback for the lockout I initiated, but after the alert my captain received, I think it may have just been cover to steal the ship.”
“I’ll sort that all out soon enough. What of the adjunct?” Ghrroaqq asked.
“I honestly don’t know. Without hearing her side of things, I can’t give my opinion.”
“I see. Gather your people and any defenses you have. I’m sending a rapid response force to secure your people and the targets.”
Chalto paled at that, knowing that if things went wrong, he and his people would be in danger. Thankfully, his dark skin hid his emotions. “I will do as you ask.”
“My ship is approaching the hangar. We can speak more once my team and I are on board.”
***
“Alright, don’t panic,” Jacob told himself. He might still be able to slip the others out if they hurried. He sent commands to the drones to cut through the broken strut instead of trying to disassemble it. Katherine and Barry wouldn’t be able to land properly with it missing, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. He just had to hope they practiced their landings before reaching Earth.
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He contacted Katherine and Barry to let them know what was happening, but neither responded to the comm request.
“Really?” he yelled.
He didn’t know what the hell they could be doing that was so important that they ignored his call, but he didn’t have time to look into the issue. He cursed again and sent both of them a message.
“If you haven’t realized by now, the judicator has arrived! I suggest you finish what you’re doing and start transferring yourselves to the storage aboard the ship immediately.”
With the warning sent, he jumped into the drone in the command center. “AI, show the ships on the display.”
Jacob could have done it himself through the console he was standing in front of, or by pulling in the correct video feed, but the AI was just faster.
One of the security feeds pulsed green, but the size of the display didn’t change. “Focus on that window.”
The feed grew until it took up a third of the wall, giving him a much better view of the ships outside the station. Nine of the vessels were what Jacob would describe as function over form. Each bristled with actual weapon turrets, sensors of all sorts, and shields that were powerful enough to distort the vessel’s shape slightly.
Jacob had never seen shields that could do that. Even the shields on Representative Chalto’s vessel were invisible.
Eight of the vessels were moving toward the construction dock, their weapons already primed and ready to destroy Melody’s hull if it so much as moved. The size disparity between the warships and Melody was stark. He could probably line up three of the larger combat vessels end to end, and they wouldn’t have even equaled the planetary conditioning vessel’s width, let alone the length.
A lone vessel, smaller and less armed than the others, approached another set of hangar doors, but they remained closed.
Jacob hadn’t been able to remove the diplomatic override, and he couldn’t afford to shut the AI down with hostile ships approaching, but he had found a way to override their control. In fact, the idea had come from Franky’s escape, as much as that pained Jacob to admit.
Going around and putting a maintenance override on every hangar door had taken a bit of effort, but he had just assigned the maintenance drones to the task. It’s what they were built for after all.
Jacob watched as one of the larger ships moved off by itself.
“What’s that last vessel doing?” he muttered to himself.
As he watched longer, it became clear that the vessel was moving to block the damaged hangar.
Jacob deflated at seeing that. Even if the representative’s ship was freed from the hangar, there was no way it could clear the station to activate its phase coils before the warship destroyed it. That plan had been a gamble from the start, but he thought it had a good chance of succeeding. It almost had.
The Astryx had just moved too fast. He couldn’t even blame Representative Chalto for bringing this mess to his doorstep; the man was only doing what he thought was right. That didn’t mean Jacob had to like the outcome or that he was ready to give up yet.
The station was locked down, corridors were blocked off, and contingencies were in place. How far into those contingencies they went depended on how determined the Astryx forces were.
Jacob spotted something leaving one of the ships and rapidly approaching one of the hangar doors. It impacted the door and stuck there like a tick. He moved the camera over to inspect it more closely. The semi-spherical object had eight short legs on it that stuck to the hangar and pulled the flat face of the object against the surface.
Seeing that made his back tingle, and he quickly located the cameras for that hangar. Sure enough, a laser was cutting a hole through the thick material.
It wasn’t a good sign that they didn’t even attempt to communicate with him. After seeing the scale of their force, Jacob tried to contact them and negotiate the representative’s return, but any attempt he made was met with interference. Melody might have been able to cut through it, but he certainly couldn’t. And asking the station AI would be tantamount to opening it up for exploitation. Speaking of.
“AI, I need you to run a full diagnostic on yourself.” The AI wouldn’t be more of a hindrance than a help if the boarding members had the same diplomatic access as Chalto, so it was time for it to take a nap again.
“Captain, is that wise? It appears that we have hostile boarders.”
“The fact that you think they are hostile is why I need you to run a self-diagnostic again.”
Without arguing further, the AI fell silent.
With that out of the way, Jacob ordered some drones he had stationed nearby to intercept whatever was coming through that boarding pod. Four more slammed into the hangar door, joining the first in carving neat circular holes. He needed to see what he was dealing with.
By the time he rolled into the hangar with one of the drones, the first boarding pod had almost completed its cut. A plug of metal was ejected from the hangar door, and something large sprang from the hole. The drone crashed against the deck, its legs absorbing the impact as the four weapons along the upper sphere that made up its body swiveled and fired. Jacob managed to see the slight flicker of a shield around the drone a moment before he felt a searing pain and was thrown back into his apartment.
With a groan, he scrambled to his feet and checked the security feed. The quadrupedal drone had easily dispatched all of the maintenance drones, including his, which had the upper half completely melted off by the thing’s weapons.
Three more drones quickly joined that one. Once they had secured the hangar, the soldiers who had been waiting inside the pods finally made an appearance.
Well, now he knew the Astryx’s combat drones were equipped with energy cannons and shields. The loss of the maintenance drones would slow down repairs later, but now that he knew they were equipped with shields, he knew which plans would work and which wouldn’t.