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Chapter 1 - Arcadia

Captain Dana Cortez was sitting on the left seat of the flight cabin. To her side was her pilot Rorlthar, a yarifug with the personality of a friendly uncle that usually drinks a little too much in family reunions, and always has an exaggerated tale to tell. A friendly guy, if a little irresponsible, but an excellent pilot nevertheless.


Dana was the captain of Arcadia. It was a light Vespucci-class exploration frigate from the Circinus Legion, one of the many interstellar legions from the Galactic Confederal Republic (though by now it was more an empire than an actual confederacy). The frigate served in the Legio Circinus, also known as the the "Explorers Legion". Aboard were also the weapon systems specialist, N25, also known as "Nov", the medical specialist Jeanette, the electronics specialist Jamal, and the engineering specialist Len'Nar. They had been traversing metaspace for a little over 15 hours, and without a direct connection to the quantumnet, they had no communication with the rest of the Legion. Every now and then quantum and gravitational perturbations would make the frigate bump a little, as when a sea craft traverses choppy sea at high speeds. There was nothing to worry about, as they were using a well known and map-marked civil hyperway, so most of the trip had been smooth and uneventful.



Rorlthar was Arcadia's pilot. A friendly yarifug and an excellent pilot. He was a noble caste yarifug who joined the Legion to flee from justice back on his home planet, Job (read "Hob"), after crashing a racing craft against a museum.



"Ten minutes, boss." Rorlthar said.

"Ten minutes, copy." Replied the captain.


She repeated the instruction again, this time through the ship's intercom. Her voice rumbled through the frigate's cold, grey (yet clean) hallways. It was an old vessel, at least a decade old, but this was no excuse to not keep it clean. Even irregular legions like Circinus had some standards.


Dana put the mic close to her mouth again.


"Oh and Jamal," she said, trying to contain her laughter "Remember not to set your magboots to max..."


Dana and Rorlthar smirked at each other, while she unbuckled and stood up from her seat. The last time that they were in battle, Jamal accidentally turned his magboots on max level, and when the ship lost the gravity generator, he ended up with two broken ankles after a sharp evasive maneuver. Broken ankles was so common among inexperienced legionnaires that it was practically a joke.


"Ready, Rorlthar?"

"As ready as cognitively possible, boss."

"A'right then, I'll go put my armor on."


Dana got on her way to her room quickly, the only vestige of privacy in the whole ship, besides the bathrooms. Even though it was an officer's room, it left a lot to be desired. It wasn't too different from the rest of the ship, but it had a certain homelike feeling to it. It had a big bed, TV, and a bathtub with a shower head(this wasn't standard though, Arcadia was a former VIP transport ship), though it was a little too small for a human her size. A part of her room was also her office, because frigates were not really big ships at all, hence everything was a little more "compressed" to suit available space. Separating her desk from the rest of her room was a glass pane, the kind that turns opaque by pressing a button, to prevent peepers and give it some sense of division.


She quickly undressed, folding her legionnaire officer uniform and storing it as carefully as possible. She took her combat armor. It was a medium officer's armor, designed specially for her, as she was the first nova human in Circinus, and novi were not exactly average-sized. Being the first generation uniform, it wasn't all that comfortable, but it got the job done just right.


Even though stuff like this made here resent her condition as nova every now and then, it was precisely this what allowed her to pass the officers course so easily. Physical tests for officer's candidate school were hard, and very few average human women were able to overcome them. Minimum requirements were the same for all members of the same species, hence average women would mostly fail. But not at all for a nova.


Novus humans (nova used for females), were an "experimental generation", quite controversial by the way, designed by growth engineers to create the "perfect human". They were far from achieving their quite aggressive objective, but novus were definitely a leap in the right direction. While an average female human would measure a little over 1,70 meters, an average nova like Dana could easily get to 1,90. And it was even more drastic on men, some of them achieving 2 meters with no physical complications.


To achieve this, the government selected newborn kids from volunteering parents to conduct a series of tests to determine their genetic traits, looking for specific "favorable" ones. If the kid then had enough of these desired traits, then their parents could become part of the program, which basically subsidized their kid's entire education, in exchange for submitting them to their strict methods until reaching adulthood. Many criticized this as being a eugenics program, which the government didn't really try to deny.


Novus (or novi, a seldom used plural form) received better education, would only eat special nutritious food, engage in physical development activities from an early age. They would "cultivate" mind and body (and the government also took the chance to instill patriotic sentiments on them) throughout their development into adulthood. This gave them a huge advantage over average humans, and naturally this caused great controversy in modern republican society, as a novus would raze their competition easily. They were the best of their class in college, would take all olympic medals, and were natural leaders. As a consequence, instead of admiration they would occasionally experience rejection from their "average" peers.



Dana Cortez was 26 years old. She had server in Legio Circinus for almost a year. She was a nova from planet Terra, and with a height of 1,89 meters, she was considered an average nova.



"Two minutes, boss" her pilot said through the intercom.


Dana finished adjusting her combat armor and went back to the flight cabin. She put her forearm close to her mouth, where her arm computer was.


"Everyone to position, we are about to enter hostile space".


A sweat drop crawled down her forehead. She had done this process multiple times before, so many times her crew had gone from "spoils worth of an irregular legion" to "operationally efficient" in the almost 12 months they had been operating in Circinus. Still, she would feel a little nervous every time she had to jump into hostile space directly.


She dropped back on her seat, while buckling up her pilot made one of his usual tension-breaking comments.


"Boss, I completely forgot what the plan is".


Dana laughed nervously. These (not particularly funny) jokes would at least release a little bit of tension before a battle.


"You know, flight casual." She replied with a smile.

"Aye, boss" blurted the alien.


Dana bent forward instinctively as they approached the "T-minus zero" mark.


"Alright everybody, we are ten seconds away from entering the combat zone, we will deploy shields immediately after, so don't do anything stupid"

"You heard her Jamal!" exclaimed a grave voice through the intercom, "Don't fuck up again!"


That was N25 "Nov". He and Jamal would usually argue a lot, but despite that they worked fine as a team. Jamal was the immature and inexperienced teenager, who ended up here a victim of the circumstances. N25 was the unwilling master with an attitude, a veteran of a hundred battles. Neither would admit it out loud, but in a certain way they had developed an emotional link, albeit one based on sarcasm and insults.


The frigate started decelerating quickly, they were finally coming out of metaspace.


"Blinds up!" exclaimed the captain, while pressing a button.


The metallic reinforced blinds that covered the windshield during metaspace jumps retracted. The frigate had come out and was floating in the middle of the peaceful, cold void. But that peace was an illusion, for if the jump had been successful (and it most certainly was), they were inside a combat zone, and as soon as the enemy realized they were there, the dark sky would light with fire; there was no time to lose.


"There!" she said, pointing at a greyish rock floating peacefully, faintly lit by the red-giant it orbited.


Rorlthar assented, he had probably seen it even before his captain, as his species photoreceptors allowed him to see a broader light spectrum than a human.


A voice came in through radio. "Gunslinger, gunslinger..." it said.

"Blondie, blondie." Dana replied. She pushed a lever and a dim blue bubble inflated around the spaceship. Shortly after, other voices replied the same thing; it was the designated countersign for the operation. It meant that the frigate had come out of metaspace, deployed successfully, and was ready to move forward. It was extremely important during stealth operations, as this eliminated the need for more explicit communication, which in turn reduced the chance of radio detection.


This naturally didn't always work, the system was not perfect and it simply reduced the chances of detection, it didn't eliminate it completely. Indeed, 20 seconds later, the greyish rock suddenly lit up with color, shooting all its guns into the general direction of the frigate. It resembled fireworks in a way; orange, green and red rays scanned the dark sky looking for a hit. white smoke plumes raised from torpedo tubes and white comets flied at high speeds towards the Legion's ships. The operations group had been detected by the enemy, and they were certainly not happy about them showing uninvited.


"Contact!" shouted someone through radio.


Immediately after, the front of Arcadia lit with a bright-blue neon glow. Rorlthar pulled the yoke and hit the thruster handle forward. The dim buzz coming from the engines turned into an angry growl.


"Fucking shit!" shouted Dana.


Because of the speed of the enemy shot they had probably been hit by an overload ray, designed to inject energy into the shield in an attempt to overload it's overflow capacitors. While counterintuitive, one of the many ways to "break" a bubble shield, was by putting in more energy into it than it could contain, causing an overload in the generator. The blue glow was the shield reacting to the impact.


The sudden acceleration pushed them towards their seats.

"Just a scare, boss" stated the pilot, "It's all good, all good."

"Len'Nar!" exclaimed Dana, "Generator status!"

"Heated up, commander!" replied the engineer "A little bit outside green but nothing too bad, careful with energy rays..."


The captain muttered something angrily while she pressed a few buttons. A holographic sphere appeared between her and Rorlthar. A big red dot blinked in the middle, and a little far from them a bunch of green dots.


"Eight it, Rorlthar" commanded the Captain.

"Aye boss, eight maneuver!" he responded.


Rorlthar started drawing a horizontal 8 with the frigate's nose. A basic maneuver used when approaching a hostile target. The ship kept it's momentum and direction, but the nose moved around pointing at multiple directions, ready to hit the boosters in case a shot was detected, allowing it to quickly change it's vector. It confused targeting systems, both manual or AI-assisted, as the gun operator wasn't sure when or if the target would suddenly change directions. Worked awesome at long distances.


Even though captains received extensive training as pilots, it was nowhere as intensive as that of a pilot legionnaire. Dana would rather have her pilot do it himself, as he not only had the training, but the natural ability. Dana preferred to command, which was her job anyways, and it allowed her to fire the frontal heavy laser cannon.


"Temperature nominal again" stated Len'Nar, the engineer, through the intercomm.

"Good, shields to max" replied her.


She pushed a small lever forward, the dim blue color of the shield intensified.

A strong, severe voice flooded the radio. "Begin envelope maneuver" it commanded. "You already know what to do!"


The structure ahead was the objective of the Gunslinger task force. It was a starbase embedded inside an asteroid, a common design due to how fast, easy, and cheap it was to build on them. At the present time, it was a pirate station with a VIP held captive, though according to intelligence it was a junker base before. The prisoner was inside waiting for ransom, but the Legion did not enjoy negotiating with pirates, and even less the Special Operations Unit, which was in charge of the rescue operation. The two primary objectives were to take over the station and to extract the VIP along with any other prisoner.


A little tweeter speaker beeped twice, followed by a feminine computerized voice.

"Telemetry completed" it said.


Dana placed her thumb and index fingers together over the red dot. Then, she spread them quickly and the red dot expanded into a big sphere. The holographic red ball rendered into a 3D shape of the station.



Known as Rustyard, the objective was a former Junker base, but the pirates had taken it by force. Now it was the the objective of the Legion and SOU.



There were around two dozen green dots in the holographic sphere. These belonged to the Circinus and Orion legions. A bigger green dot was the light cruiser Ransacker, the task force command ship, and it was commanded by the reiktarian officer Karak Mardak Melan Trat, a.k.a "Mardak".


The dots steadily spread out while they closed in to the objective. It reminded Dana of a blossoming flower. A flower made of titanium and graphene, and with weapons attached to it's petals. Each of those little dots was a ship, and each had a specific job. Arcadia's mission was boarding the station from an external maintenance tunnel, previously identified by the SOU agent operating from the inside. This would take them behind enemy lines, as close as possible from the prison cells section while the breaching and assault teams performed a standard boarding action. This was extremely important step, as pirates had the tendency to use prisoners to their advantage whenever they felt cornered. They would use them as living shields, or would threaten with execution if the boarding went forward. In some cases, they would instead try to evacuate them along with the high ranking pirates through a back door. If such thing happened, it was of utmost importance to, at the very least, have the VIP secured by then.


"Distance" asked Dana.

"Six hundred kilometers" replied her pilot.

"Speed."

"Twelve Ks per second."

"Alright, at the three-hundred mark we'll fire a full salvo."

Dana realized she had around half a minute to reach the 300 K mark.


So far the combat was going well. Not many shots were being fired at Arcadia, since the ship wasn't doing anything that would catch the attention of the pirates who were focused on the ones that fired. Every 5-7 seconds a few plasma bolts would cross the space towards them, but Rorlthar would just fire the main engines and evade them. As they closed in however, the situation would become increasingly critical, because the young pilot would have less time to react.


Modern combat wasn't easy, it required complete coordination between crewmembers, and excellent reflexes from the pilot. Their main protection was the bubble shield, capable of absorbing most energy-based shots, and bouncing off most missiles and torpedoes. But once the bubble was "broken", even heavy ships were in trouble.


The main issue with the bubble shield, was that it worked both ways. It prevented enemy fire from hitting the ship, but it also stopped the ship's turrets from firing at their enemies. Doing so with the shield up would just hit the ship's shield. In order to fire without busting it's own shield, the ship had to deactivate it manually, leaving the vessel temporary exposed to enemy fire. Not coordinating correctly the deactivation and reactivation of the bubble was extremely dangerous. For instance, firing a Var'Lor torpedo with the shields up would mean a small nuclear explosion a few feet away from the ship.


Dana pressed a button on the console to her left. A screen in front of her lighted up, with a crosshair on it. She increased the zoom by rolling a wheel next to the console.


"That new telescope has an excellent resolution, aye boss?"

"I can almost see pirates looking out the windows", responded the Captain jokingly.

"Three K mark in five seconds, boss."


The 300 K mark was when things started to heat up. The fastest energy based weapons (except for lasers), could reach speeds of up to 100 kilometers per second. At 600 k the pilot had plenty of time to prepare and react, but at 300 he had half that time, and as they got closer, the time would decrease. Even so it wasn't all too critical, not yet. Plasma weaponry was more potent and within range, but they were slow, and thus effective evasion was still achievable. Even more so for a yarifug pilot, these guys had excellent reflexes. The maneuvering window was still "wide".


"Nov, Jamal, ready" commanded Dana through intercoms.


As soon as the range finder stated 300, Dana lowered the shields while Rorlthar stabilized the approach vector, which meant that the ship would stay as still ass possible.


She shouted "Fire!", and the space around her lit up green.


A series of booms and rumbles saturated the frigate's atmosphere, which was until now relatively calm. It was a cacophony of electric buzzing sounds, hammer-like booms and sharp "pews". it sounded like a sort of metallic dragon, awakening from slumber right into the fight. The heavy frontal laser cannon was particularly strong. Located right below the flight cabin, it made a loud electric roaring sound and shook the cabin. It had the interesting effect of making whoever fired it oddly energized. Dana couldn't see the beam though, as laser weaponry was invisible to most species, and even then only detectable by whoever was located in front. Not very good news being able to see it, as it meant that you were probably the target, and by the time you would have reacted, it was already too late, as a cloud of vaporized meat is not a very effective combatant.


"Cease fire!" Dana shouted again.

"Shields up!" added Rorlthar.


The beast went back to sleep. Half a second later an orange streak impacted the bubble shield but it was easily absorbed. Rorlthar went back to his 8 maneuver.


"Fuck!" whined the girl.

Her pilot turned and comforted her, "It's ok boss" he said.


Dana missed the shot, by just a meter or so, but a miss nonetheless. On the screen with the crosshair she could see where it hit. The laser itself was invisible, but not it's effects on whatever it hit. A crooked "S" glowed red next to a turret mount right on the surface of the space rock, still fully operational.


"Shit!" she grumbled again, punching the armrest of her seat.


Both Jamal and Nov confirmed impact on their targets. So that was at least good news.


"Two hundred, boss".

"Roger, begin reverse-thrust deceleration at one-hundred".

Rorlthar assented with his head and a serene "aye".

"Next salvo in eight seconds!" she shouted over intercoms, still angry.

"Good to go, captain!" Len'Nar shouted back.


As they closed in to the 100 K mark, the frigate began moving more erratically. Rorlthar alternated between all the variants of a horizontal 8 shape he could imagine. He would do crooked ones, wide ones, quick ones, reverse direction, a "celtic knot", and alternating with random speed boosts or reverse-thrusts. Anything that would make it hard for the enemy to target effectively. Every now the space around them was lit with enemy fire flying in all directions, trying to catch as many legionnaire ships as possible. That was a rookie mistake on the part of the pirates, or a desperate move, that instead of concentrating fire on one target they would attempt to hit as many as they could, hoping that by chance they would catch one with their guard down.


The military frequency went hot again. Captains throwing information around, cursing or requesting support, while the Commodore Mardak barked instructions back. One of the 3 frigates from the breaching team, Constantinople, was one of the unlucky ones that had lost their generator due to an overflow, leaving them drifting away from the battle site. Her captain would not shut up about how long it was taking for the mechanics support team to reach them. One of the assault transports from Orion, also from the breaching team was reporting a small fire on board. This was the usual chaos upon reaching the 100 K mark, and it would get even more chaotic as they closed in.


The 100 K mark flew by the range finder screen, and along with it another volley from Arcadia. This time she took a few potshots right at her hull after it fired, and a few more at it's shield. The frigate began firing it's reverse thrusters, rapidly lowering her speed.


"Aha!" shouted the captain "Right in your fucking faces, son's of bitches!" She was really hyped this time.


An explosion showed up on the laser targeting screen. This time Dana had impacted the turret's mount directly, leaving a huge gaping breach on it. The turret didn't break off, but it was surely out of combat.


Dana pressed another button. A small screen popped upwards in the front. It was the ship's telescope, ancient technology perfected with metamaterials to provide it's users with a high resolution image in multiple light spectrums. With the help of gyroscopic stabilization, Dana could lock the telescope on the enemy base. The station was around 5 kilometers long, with a wide ring protruding from it. Those were the hangar docking ports. Carefully she scanned the surface, looking for that little entrance she was supposed to use.


"Right there!" she said. zooming into a small hatch, in a dark recondite space, leading right from the station onto the asteroid surface.


The pilot grumbled while he frantically maneuvered. They were a little over 50 K, and maneuvering was much harder. On top of being so close to enemy turrets that refused to explode, he had to decelerate, which made his maneuvers slower and easier to predict.


"Rorlthar?"

"I know woman, the anchor point!" he growled "Fucking driving here!"


They were no longer moving at kilometer-per-second speeds, they would not be able to approach safely that way, even less landing on the asteroid. This meant that while the breachers were still fighting the defensive systems, Rorlthar would have to evade away.



The modern "Vespucci" class explorer frigate was one of the mos widely used models in the Republic. It saw use by the military, civilians and private organizations alike. They were capable of both interstellar and intraplanetary flight, and it's modular grappler arms meant it could be easily modified for a wide array of functions. For this reason it was known as the "packhorse" of the Republic. The most recent military version was the Eriksson class, but the Circinus Legion didn't have the budget to acquire many of those.



Rorlthar made a screw maneuver, partially evading an overloader ray, which was promptly swarmed by plasma shots from other frigates. These were the most dangerous defensive systems, as they could pop a bubble shield in seconds if the operator was good (but this one wasn't), hence it was common that as soon as they were detected or their position relayed, it would become a priority target. They were used "strategically" for this reason, but also because they swallowed energy from the base's generator.


"Arcadia to Ransacker" spoke Dana through the military channel.

"Ransacker here, go ahead" said voice on the other end that sounded like a prepubescent girl, a voidian most definitely was handling the comms.

"We are approaching the designated boarding point."

"Proceed on current vector... Standby, incoming instructions."

"Proceeding and standing by."


The commodore took over. "Arcadia, Mardak here", he said with his usual strong, growling voice. "Cortez, proceed with the approach as planned. Athens and Vladivostok are approaching easy, so cease fire so you don't call any attention. Canberra is dealing with the shield without problems and should be out anytime soon".


"Roger Commodore, proceeding with boarding."

"Canberra here" interrupted a voice. "Er... 'Without problems' is not exactly the correct wording..."


A strong older voice with a heavy russian acccent interrupted the conversation. "Vladivostok to Arcadia, this Canberra pussies are not done with the shield, don't rush it".


The station had taken multiple hits, but it's shields were still up apparently. Asteroid stations had the benefit that they could place weapon systems outside the shield, so some of the weapons that had been taken out were probably outside of it, and they also had thicker armor which meant they could afford to keep shields down for longer periods of time, hence they were not sure that the shield was busted until they had an actual confirmation from Canberra. These were not good news, as Arcadia was a few minutes away from the station. If they didn't pass through when the shields were down, they would just bounce away from it, which meant almost certain obliteration, or at the very least huge stress on the frigate's shield and its hull. Canberra had been modified to have a pair of huge main engines that allowed her to achieve ridiculous speeds, and thus it was her crew's mission to trespass when the shields were down and board the primary shield control bunker. They were already grappled to the asteroid, but the boarding operation was going slow.


Dana made a gesture with her head, rorlthar knew exactly what to do. As soon as he got permission from her, he turned the ship around, facing away from the asteroid.


"Hit it!" ordered Dana.


The yarifug pushed the throttle, firing the main engines and decelerating the frigate quickly. He then turned around again, right on time to get hit by a heavy plasma shot, right on their face. The space in front of them lit neon green from the shot, mixed with the cobalt blue from the shield. The emergency thrust inversion would gain them time. They were now moving at a little under 300km/h. The base was some 2 minutes away.


"Hey!" shouted the engineer Len'Nar through the intercoms.

"Don't start Len'Nar!" shouted Dana back, "And keep the fucking shield on!"


The frigate was very close to the station now, around 10 kilometers. Dana could see details on it's surface. She could also see a military frigate strongly gappled to the asteroid like a tick. It was painted blue with white racing stripes, and abnormally big engines.


The Commodore took the radio again "Arcadia see if you can give us visual of the bunker assault" he said.


"Roger that."


Dana ordered Rorlthar to keep moving forward, not in a straight line but in an "Lazy 8", so as to make a little time without having to stop entirely and become sitting ducks. She pointed the optical telescope at the bunker and locked it's gyro systems.


They could see the shield bunker, located as an annex structure next to the main station structure, most likely communicated through an internal tunnel. As a security measure, shield bunkers were not usually located in the main command room. Both the command room and the shield bunker were valuable targets, so placing them both in one place was a sure way to have boarding parties swarming it, so as to kill to birds with one stone. Instead base engineers would place it away in a heavily armored bunker, usually with dedicated defense systems. That would be the case here, if it wasn't because this base was stolen from junkers, and thus the pirates had not gained full control of it due to several systems being locked down. Or so had the SOU agent working inside reported. This allowed the Legion to use a smaller, more mobile task force, take down their shields and board, instead of having to mass up a force strong enough to pound their shields until they were broken.


"Canberra here, shields are down and bunker secured, but we need reinforcements."


Ransacker fired two high speed shots at a random spot on the station, they passed through undisturbed and hit the station, confirming the shields were down.


"Go!" shouted Dana.


Rorlthar hit the throttle, and approached as fast as he could. He positioned the frigate as close from the maintenance hatch as possible.


"Firing anchors!" shouted the Captain again. She was getting increasingly anxious.


The frigate fired 4 chained harpoons from its belly, grappling onto the asteroid like claws. Made of carbon nanotubes and magnetically accelerated, this chained-shot system was an efficient, if a little crude, method of boarding. Designed by miners to haul meteors around, they were also used by assault ships throughout republican space. One of them broke away a piece of space rock and was came loose, but the other 3 were firmly grabbed to the surface, good enough. Dana pressed a button and the ancho wheels began to turn, rolling the chains back and drawing the frigate to the surface.


Dana ordered the crew to prepare for evacuation. Meanwhile she could hear things were already heating up in the hangars through the radio comms. Phase 1 one had been completed and most defense systems were taken out, and with that the grounds were set for the breaching team.


As soon as the shields had been taken out, the pirates realized they would not be able to stop the boarding party. They had pulled down the command post armored blinds, and the people at the hangar command post were doing the same. A black and orange frigate, in a desperate attempt to stop one of the hangar armored blast-doors from closing entirely, pulled inside at high speed and was pushed between it and the wall, preventing it from closing. This was Vladivostok, and his Captain was Bogdan Zaytsev, one of the most experienced (and probably insane) officers in the Gunslinger task force.


The smaller assault transports, each loaded with 12 breachers from Orion could enter the hangar through the small space held in place by Vladivostok, but Athens being larger was unable to do so. Instead it had to stop outside, fire the anchors and do a quick combat spacewalk into the hangar. Constantinople would eventually do the same, but it was still rushing into the scene 200 kilometers away.


Firing their point defense turrets, Orion's assault transports entered in an ordered line one by one. Phase one of the main operation was complete, second phase of the breaching phase about to rage on as the Orion legionnaires descended from their transports. The assault team waited outside, approaching slowly from 300 Ks away.


The boarding plan consisted of 4 phases: Neutralizing and breaching, securing the breach, assaulting the station to achieve main mission objectives, and finally clearing and control take-over. Phase 1 was almost over and consisted of the breaching and special teams (Constantinople and Arcadia) approaching the asteroid base, and neutralizing the main external defense systems. Constantinople would move first to break the shield, then the breaching teams and Arcadia would move in to board simultaneously. The breaching team would board through the hangar, unless something prevented them from using that route (in which case they would have to breach the hull somewhere else). Meanwhile Arcadia would board through a maintenance hatch that would take her team close to the prison cell.


"Everybody to the boarding bay" shouter Dana through the ship's intercomms while unbuckling from her seat. "Full power to shields" she ordered to her pilot.


Rorlthar pressed a few buttons while he acknowledged the instructions "aye, all to shields". He then frantically unbuckled and ran after his Captain as fast as his 24 lower tentacles allowed him to.


Dana smiled as she saw her crew already waiting by the docking airlock, for once, they had followed the steps proactively. N25 "Nov" carried a light machine gun and a shotgun. Jamal Jeanette carried only gauss carbines. On their backs however, they carried large a load of additional equipment. Jamal carried a small white robot shaped as spider, while Jeanette carried a large medical backpack. Len'Nar carried a plasma carbine and an engineering backpack, which included all the equipment necessary to either hack or blow their way into the base. Nov gave his captain a plasma combat rifle and a gauss submachine gun. Rorlthar, being the slowest but also the strongest, was the "pack mule", dragging a large wheelie bag full of extra ammo, explosives, weapons, tools, and any other additional equipment that others couldn't carry, and a light plasma rifle for defense. In larger crews and in regular legions, a designated combat team would be deployed, but in Circinus almost all crews were small, hence everybody fought if necessary.


"Alright" she said looking outside through the small circular window, and took a deep breath. "Activate life support".


N25 opened the first airlock. They all got inside a small room, where they barely fit inside, and put on their helmets. A green light on their armor's right shoulder confirmed the oxygen tanks were working correctly. After a quick nod from Dana, the man pressed another button. The first internal airlock closed, and a yellow light turned on. After a minute or so, the yellow light turned red, and a muffled bang followed by smal green indicator light confirmed that the room was almost completely empty of air. Nov pressed a button next to the second airlock, and with a hiss the door opened.


"Ugh!" exclaimed Jamal in disgust, "Soot!"


the asteroid was covered in thick sticky black layer of carbon, hydrocarbons and regolith. A feature of many asteroids, fine particles collected over their millions of years of existence, building up undisturbed for eons, until now. The gravity of the rock was so low that the only thing keeping them stuck it was this sticky matter.


Dana pressed a button on her left arm. "Arcadia here, extraction team in position ready to begin boarding".

"Proceed" responded the childish voice from before. "And please hurry, you are a few minutes behind".


Dana activated her compressed air boosters and propelled herself towards the hatch. Her crew followed closely.


"Shields down" she ordered.


The pilot lowered the shields to allow them through. She looked to one side and could see a flash of light reflecting on a piece of rock every now and then, though she couldn't hear a thing besides the hisses and bleeps from her helmet electronics. She knew those flashes were either explosions coming from the hangars or turret that were still active.


The relative peace of her spacewalk was suddenly interrupted by a dreadful sight. Dana gasped when as she saw it.


"Spiderbots!" roared N25 through the crew's radio channel.

"Open fire!" cried Dana.


Outside a small hole a legion of small mechanical spider-like creatures poured outside, sent to defend the station from outside.

The crew approached slowly towards the hatch while the mass of spiderbots piled over it.


"Arcadia here, we made hostile contact with spiderbots!" shouted Dana.


The fire stopped the crew's advance, as the guns they carried kicked back, propelling them towards their ship.


"Copy that Arcadia, we are sending support to overwatch".


Spiderbots were an autonomous defense system that worked attacking anything that was not a part of the station, or that didn't carry a radio emitter in the correct frequency. without this signal, spiderbots assumed the object was an invader. They were usually small, around 15 centimeters diameter (though there were heavier, larger models) They were not precisely powerful nor had ranged weapons. Instead they relied in numbers, a hive-mind, and very sharp claws that could cut or puncture armor in pieces. In large numbers (which was usually how they were encountered) they could quickly overwhelm their objective. To make things worse, even though they had simple brains, each one worked as a nerve cell, together they made a very effective "thinking" mass. They could solver problems in a way similar to ants back on Terra.


Dana's team had stopped halfway, now beginning to propel back as more shots were fired. Pieces of spiderbots flew away everytime a shot landed on them, but they were just too many. As soon as the spiderbots realized their enemy wasn't closing in, they started assembling a tower, steadily approaching the invading crew.


"Here they come, fuck..." muttered Dana, wondering where the hell was the support team. "Target the fucking spire!".


More shots were fired, until the team bumped into something. It was the frigate's shields. Dana could order her pilot to lower them so they could pass through, but then the spiderbots would just pile around the shield. She pressed on the attack, making as much time as she could.


A huge green shiny ball of plasma the size of a bus flew in front of them, blasting into the spire's base and sending most of the spiderbots flying in every direction. Many flew towards the legionnaires, but the shock stunned most of them. Dana could see the main spire spinning frantically as it drifted away into infinity.


"You are welcome" said a troubled-sounding man through the radio, as a light-grey flaming frigate passed some 40 meters over their heads, leaving a thick smoke trail behind.


"Go!" shouted Dana. She kicked her boosters and the crew followed suit. As they approached the hatch she could see the frigate rocking in every direction, trying to stabilize it's flight. It flew straight into a geological formation, a protruding bit of asteroid. The impact caused it to abruptly turn starboard, and crashed on the asteroid's surface.


"Gyros were fucked" commented the pilot as they reached the hatch.


Jeanette looked at Dana concerned but the captain shook his head.


"No" she replied. "They are doing their job so we can do ours."


Dana signaled towards the hatch with her head. Jamal and Len'Nar opened the bag and pulled out a laptop sized device. Dana meanwhile reported the incident back to the Ransacker, a rescue team was already on their way. Arcadia had an important mission, they could not deviate from it right now. The stunned spiderbots regained control, and ran away from the hatch. A seemingly inspiring sight, but Dana knew better. They were not retreating, they were regrouping.


Jamal opened a panel and turned on penlight. Meanwhile Len'Nar opened the device. While they checked data from the electronics board Dana ordered to fire at the spiderbots, who had began piling again to launch a second attack.


"Hold it!" complained Jamal "The cables are on the way!"

"There's no fucking tiemp!" replied the lirican engineer while he welded some cables to the electronic board.

"I need to read the serial number you fucking frog!"


Through slaps an insults, the couple managed to plug the device correctly to the board. Jamal read some numbers while Len'Nar entered them on the computer. After a minute the device's screen blinked. A messaged popped up.


Delphi_AI remote connection... Established_


"Good day, engineer Len'Nar!" exclaimed a feminine (a little squeaky) computer voice.

"Hello Delphi, begin electronic intervention."

"Err... I'm not sure I want to do that, not with that attitude."

"Fucking do it!" shouted Dana.

"I'm joking!" whined the AI outraged. "I'm already on ten percent geez..."


Of course they would not be able to just hack into the system in a timely manner, not without the assistance of an electronic warfare AI. Delphi was a combat AI hosted at the Ransacker, which allowed assault teams to attack enemy electronic systems. All it required was identifying the electronic board and plugging the device correctly, and the AI would do the rest. Doing it manually was possible, but took way longer. Blowing the hatch with explosives was much faster, but they risked blowing their cover as well.


"Oh, no you didn't bitch..." complained Delphi again.

"What's going on?" asked Len'Nar.

"Nothing honey, it's just that the station has it's own AI and it's trying to lock me out of the system. But it's fine, it's a very old one, no chance against a military AI".

"Alright hurry up, spiderbots closing in".

"Don't you tell me to hurry up you! I already think several orders of magnitude faster than all of you together... There you go!"


A green light next to hatch turned on. Dana punched it and the crew got in as fast as they could. Len'Nar ripped the cables from the control board.


"Inside!" she barked, spiderbots sprinting at full speed.


The crew got in and quickly Jamal an Len'Nar pulled a pair of plasma torches from the engineering bag and began to weld the hatch. The spiderbots could try to force-open it, but they would never breach it, as their programming prevented them from damaging the station they were protecting.


"Thanks Delphi" said Jamal.

"You are welcome boy, if the bitch gives you trouble ping me."


Dana hit a button on the wall, and a blue light turned on. She could hear a hiss coming out of some nozzles on the corners. The press of another button activated the gravitational plates. She was curious about the AI on board. "What's up with that AI, Delphi?"


"I'm not sure, but she is very confused".

"What do yo mean?"

"It seems she is a junker AI, not a pirate one. When they attacked the station she attempted to defend it, but the pirates rigged the generator with explosives and told her that if she tried to get rid of them they would blow the whole place up. She misses her owner and doesn't know what happened to her people, and doesn't know what to do".

"Why did she attack us?".

"She thinks we are pirates too. I told her we are military but she is not so sure and refuses to take orders from anyone but her owner".

"Well ain't that great?".


Modern AIs were so complex that they would usually behaved unexpectedly, and the more advanced and complex they were, the more "organic" they behaved. They would develop a personality, experience emotions and even form bonds (some AIs even developed preferences for specific people). Though many argued that all this was simply simulated by the AI from observing organic interaction, some more philosophical points of view argued that this was the inevitable effect of a quantum consciousness. This spawned a dozen of fields of study, from AI engineering which was related to the practical interaction with AIs (and their periodical calibration and resetting to prevent them from developing individuality) to quantum psychology, which studied the quantum AI brain. Another unexpected effect of modern AIs, was the "Synthetic Life Movement", a philosophical and political movement which abode for the rights of AIs to be recognized as free-thinking individuals. Legally speaking however, AI's were just computers.


The room filled with air, and Dana pressed the button next to the internal hatch and ordered her crew inside.


"Arcadia here, we're in."

"Copy that Arcadia, breaching team has secured the beachhead and the assault team is beginning approach".

"Did you get the news about the onboard AI"

"Yes, Delphi is dumping the logs and we are analyzing possible countermeasures, thanks".


Phase 1 was over and mostly good news all-around. External defenses were probably out of the game by now, and the assault team was about to board. The enemy was seemingly unaware of Dana's team. Now phase 2 would begin. They would either extract the VIP along with the prisoners back to Arcadia, or establish safe area inside the station that would server as a forward base while they waited for reinforcements. Sounded good, excepto for the fact that in order to do so, Dana had to contact SOU and work along the infiltrator who had sent intelligence back to the Legion. Dana wasn't particularly fond of SOU, and she had very valid reasons not to.

1. Oktober 2018 21:54 0 Bericht Einbetten Follow einer Story
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Fortsetzung folgt… Neues Kapitel Jeden Samstag.

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