---

Cassian lounged in his command chair with bored impatience etched plainly across his features. One boot was hooked idly over the armrest, his fingers drumming a lazy, arrhythmic pattern against the gilded frame. Standing watch on the bridge of the Indomitus had sounded thrilling when the voyage began; the reality, he had learned, was far less inspiring. The bridge crew moved with disciplined efficiency, their routines seamless, practiced, and utterly dull.

His gaze drifted across the cavernous room, lingering on the glow of holographic displays and the steady, practiced motions of officers at their stations. Transit lighting bathed the bridge in a soft amber hue, muting the harsh lines of armored bulkheads and giving the warship an almost languid calm as it cut through the void. The large viewscreen might have been able to offer stunning views of interstellar space, but for now all that it showed was the empty darkness of the void.

“Lucia,” Cassian called at last, his patience wearing thin. “An update, if you please. When you mentioned a distress signal, I assumed it would be something that actually warranted my presence.”

The Prince’s aide glanced up from the console bank, where she had been conferring quietly with the ship’s communications officer. “We’re still verifying the signal’s authenticity, Your Highness,” she replied evenly, her eyes already back on the data streams. “It shouldn’t take much longer.”

“Receiving something,” the comms officer beside her said, frowning at his display. “It’s…distorted. Civilian format, I think.”

Cassian straightened a fraction. “Think?” he echoed, irritation creeping into his voice.

“It’s being jammed.” Lucia said, lips tightening as the decrypted fragments resolved. “Deliberately. The source matches Merchant Guild registries: a trade convoy out of Valeria.”

That earned Cassian’s full attention.

“Valeria?” Cassian leaned forward now, interest flickering to life. The sector’s breadbasket, politically fractious and economically vital.

“Capital-bound, I presume?”

Lucia hesitated, just briefly. “Almost certainly. If they’re delayed or destroyed, it won’t go unnoticed.”

Cassian’s smile widened.

Praxion, capital of the Procyon sector, was meant to be their first formal stop. There would be speeches, ceremonies, and the Governor’s carefully curated welcome. Necessary, perhaps. But unremarkable. A rescued convoy, on the other hand? That would make an impression.

“Well,” he said lightly, “it would be terribly rude of us to keep them waiting. Set a course. Inform the Lance that they should prepare for deployment.”

Lucia frowned, hesitating before executing the Prince’s instructions.

“Your Highness,” she said carefully, “I must advise caution. This jamming isn’t the work of an amateur. Whoever is doing this understands Merchant Guild protocols and Imperial response ranges. That suggests preparation, not opportunism.”

With a wave of his hand, Cassian brushed aside the officer’s concern. “Minor details. We are a Lance of the Imperium, are we not? It would be improper of us to be scared off at the slightest sign of danger.” He offered the woman a smile. “Make sure the pilots receive a full briefing before we arrive.”

Lucia’s frown deepened as fresh telemetry scrolled across her display. “If we burn hard, we’ll reach them in under an hour. That gives the Lancers minimal time to prepare.” She hesitated, then added quietly, “And it puts us on a very predictable approach vector.”

“An hour?” Cassian interrupted, already turning away. “That’s an eternity for professionals.”

---

The alert went out shipwide moments later, prompting the Indomitus to come alive with preparations.

“All Lance elements: begin immediate preparations for armored core deployment. All pilots, be ready for departure within the hour. More information to follow.”

Across the ship, armored bays thronged with activity. Gantries slid into place. Warning lights strobed from amber to red. The deep, steady thrum of the Indomitus engines shifted pitch, a subtle but unmistakable signal that the ship was committing itself to action.

Lucia scarcely noticed the change. She and her staff were already scrambling, cross-referencing fractured sensor returns and half-decrypted telemetry, trying to assemble something resembling a coherent picture. An hour was not much to work with, not for a live combat insertion, and certainly not with intelligence this thin.

She would have preferred to brief the Lance in person. To let the veterans ask questions, to give them time to argue, plan, and refine. Instead, reality pressed in on all sides. Several armored cores had already launched from their bays, pilots sealing themselves into cockpits while others rushed through final checks. The window for deliberation had closed almost as soon as it had opened.

With a quiet exhale, Lucia opened a secure channel to the Lance’s pilots and the commanders supporting the operation.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, voice steady despite the circumstances, “to reiterate: we have confirmed a civilian distress signal originating from a Merchant Guild convoy out of Valeria. Telemetry indicates multiple vessels, with hostile activity concentrated around the convoy flagship, the Guildcrest Venture.”

Data packets began to stream across cockpit displays: fractured sensor returns, distorted visual feeds, red-highlighted threat vectors.

“The distress signal is being actively jammed. That alone suggests a level of coordination beyond opportunistic piracy, so caution is advised. We are still working to identify the attackers, but preliminary analysis indicates a well-organized force with anti-ship capabilities. Their efforts appear to be focused on boarding and capturing the Venture, which is currently under siege.”

She paused deliberately, giving the pilots time to absorb the information. The shared battlespace map rotated slowly, available to any member of the Lance who wished to manipulate it. The stricken Guildcrest Venture was highlighted in gold, while the debris from the earlier fighting floated slowly around it. Stricken hulls and twisted pieces of twisted metal created a dense environment that surrounded and obscured the mission area.

“Onyx-9 will be leading a counter-boarding operation aboard the Venture, using the debris field in order to cover their advance. The primary objective for all Lancers is to escort them to their target, and then to provide support and protection from any counter-attacks. During the operation, Captain Ganishka will provide remote support from the Indomitus."

A final burst of data followed - ship schematics, approach vectors, and a steadily ticking countdown to contact.

“When ready, you are cleared to deploy and engage hostile forces on sight. Expect hostile armored cores and strike craft, with the possibility of a larger vessel serving as the raiding party’s base of operations.” Lucia concluded. “This will be a hot insertion. Good luck.”

Leader 89th LSC (Onyx-9)
The Indomitus

The armor of Imperial Lancer Support Companies was a polychromatic blend; capable of adopting countless of preprogrammed patterns and colors for the vast worlds of the Imperium. Today, Volger and his company wore the striped gray and black of space assault. Geometric stripes and mottled shapes of dark and slightly darker color’s that were designed to blend with the vacuum of space or the exterior hull of a ship.

So it was this color that the troopers of Onyx-9 rushed around their area of the ship. The embarked trooper area wasn’t as glamorous or spacious as the Lancer Bay. Same for their facilities and quarters. But it was no less busy and its equipment just as maintained.

Volger having already donned his armor sans helmet watched the preparations from a catwalk.

Most of the troopers were finishing their preparations; strapping into their assault frames. Exterior mounted exo-suits that hooked into hard points on their armor; zero-gee equipment, survival tanks and boosters already attached in preparation for the assault. Pouches stuffed with ammo, equipment and the much hated zero-gravity sustenance paste.

Some troopers however had no assault frames or even armor. They wore the standard vacuum proof undersuit and a small vest with a chest rigged pistol and knife. These troopers stepped towards what looked like miniature Lancer gantries; here nine foot tall giants awaited their pilots. The “stompers” were the middle gap between infantry and Lancer. Looking like a headless man with weapons affixed to his arms; the stomper’s pilot sat safely ensconced within the layers of armor that could shrug off small arms fire like a summer’s rain. Against Lancers and armor however, stompers died fast.

But within the confines of the Venture; they would be a nice force multiplier.

“Commander Volger. Platoons are standing by for embark.” Lieutenant Diaz reported. Her voice coming in over the command channel clear.

Volger gave a look over his troops one more time. The milling have stopped by now. Orderly ranks of men and woman now lined the embarkation bay. Mirrored visors hid expressions that were probably too young. Rifles held in assured grips as others lugged disassembled heavy weapons or breaching equipment.

Maybe someone else would have given a rousing speech. A final warning. Voters instead to let the silence linger.

Then he keyed the ear piece.

“Onyx-9, embark and prep for launch.”

Then the bay dissolved to ordered chaos as hundreds of pairs of boots stomped to their shuttles.

******

The troop commander’s seat on a MSV-36 Chariot assault shuttle was definitely a degree more padded than the standard trooper’s seat.

Volger found humor with the fact that such a small feature had been added. It was with a bemused smile that he toggled open the Lancer comm channel.

“Onyx-9 Actual to Lance; we are launched and standing by for escort.”

Mika sat in her smaller captain's chair a level lower from the Prince's, her lack of professionalism compared to the other people on the bridge being rather noticeable. Her uniform was ruffled and had the upper buttons undone, she had also sank in her chair while fishing some kind of nuts from one pocket and casually cracking them open to eat their content as a light snack before putting the broken shells on the pocket on the other side.

She looked as bored as the prince but also had an annoyed air to her as well as she listened to Prince Cassian, Lucia and other officers of the bridge talk. This was... not optimal. She had yet to get used to Imperial command protocols and even if she did, although Cassian sat in an admiral's chair, he was both more and less than that. If anything it felt like having a political commissar watching over her shoulder and Mika wasn't sure where her authority ended and where Cassian's began. After Lucia was done briefing the Prince however, Mika also decided to swivel her chair around and pitch in.

"Yeh, I'd say there's a 70, 80% chance it's a trap. The jamming's good, but if we had caught them with their pants down scanners would have detected... engine plumes and other stuff while they moved in to secure the prize. Pirates don't just retreat and regroup for a second strike. Well, maybe against a whole convoy, but not a a single grain ship. Plus who steals bulk foodstuff? You don't starve out a cow you intend to milk. 90% chance something's up."

She swiveled back around to look at the bridge as she cracked another nut. "Maintain cruise speed, once we enter main armament range slow down and turn 20 degrees starboard, lower elevation by 15 and plan an approach that leads is port of the Venture, lets leave time for the Lancers to enter the debris field and confirm there are no anti-ship mines waiting for us before cruising in. Maintain us at main battery range."

As she spoke, Mika kept her eye on one person with a seat close to the Prince's aide. Lieutenant Gale Crow, the ship's executive officer and the creme of the crop of his graduation at the naval academy. Without missing a beat, the XO turned around to look at her with a frown. "Captain, if we keep this distance we will not be able to effectively screen the lance!"

Mika rolled her eyes and seemed to sink lower on her seat before answering. "Lancers are big boys and they'll manage. We're not getting closer until we get confirmation that this ship hasn't been filled to the brim with explosives waiting to detonate as soon as we get too close. If I wanted to destroy the Indomitus that'd be the cheapest trick I'd try."

This answer did not seem to satisfy the XO who instead looked up to Cassian. "Your majesty, imperial doctrine dictates that-"

Mika immediately straightened herself and threw the nut she had in her hands at the XO's face as she looked at him furiously. "SHOVE IT UP YOUR FUCKING ASS! I'm the Captain and doctrine says follow the chain of command! If the boss has an objection he can very well make it himself!" Having said that, she turned her head a little to glance at Cassian to make sure 'the boss' didn't have any objection before facing back toward the bridge.

"Good. Relay my orders and get me Barbokis on the horn." The XO did as asked, relaying the navigation orders but then hesitated toward the end. Indeed the entire bridge began looking at each other in confusion. Mika rubbed her forehead as she understood the problem. "Please open communications with captain Aiden Barbokis of the auxiliary vessel Blackbeard." She said with a sigh, already tired of her life in the imperial navy. With her orders clearly relayed, the communication screen showing a large black man with an impressive beard smoking a cigar appeared shortly. Rather than the military discipline of the Indomitus, behind him through a haze of smoke a bunch of guys could be seen lounging around, drinking or taking a nap with their feet up on their console. They had imperial uniforms now of course, but they certainly didn't wear them according to regulations.

"Whatsup Boss?"

Mika munched on another nut before answering. "Tell the others to look alive, we have a stranded cargo and the big boss wants to look good for the sheep. I want you to stay back while we stroll in and give a show."

The man took a long draft of his cigar. "Rapid reinforcement?"

Mika shook her head negatively. "Pursuit. This brick should be able to handle some action, if we can help it I'd like our first encounter to say 'don't fuck with us' loud and clear."

Barbokis smiled and nodded. "No survivors. Aye aye boss."

Communications ended and silence fell on the bridge, only broken by the indistinct chatter of the bridge crew as some people eyed her and the prince. Mika was acutely aware of these looks but she ignored them. She knew this was her chance to prove that she wasn't just a country yokel from the edge of human space and actually deserved to sit in this chair. Her stance straightened as she moved her complete attention to what was happening around her.



The Baron was looking down at sheets of papers. His war memoirs, the little project he worked on when he had free time. As the old man held his pen in silence, his eyes closed and he slowly began to lean forward until suddenly, the alert began to blare out. "ALARM!" He yelled out as he immediately stood up fully alert and at attention, his chair being thrown on the ground behind him. Without a second to spare he rushed to put on his flight suit.

When his aide Corporal Zachary Lemane entered his room to help the old man prepare, he was practically pushed out of the way by the Baron who walked brisky toward the elevator with his cane in hand, forcing the corporal to run to catch him back before the doors closed.

"Status report!" The old man blared as he finished adjusting his collar. "Uhm, I-I don't know, the alert was just given, w-we don't have anything yet." The young corporal said with hesitation, wincing as he expected to be chewed out for his lack of information. Willy merely nodded without saying anything further however, he had asked Zack to report what he knew and he had done so, what more could he ask?

The doors opened on the hangars and people could be seen scrambling left and right. As he walked on the gantry, the Baron smacked the railing with his cane to signal his presence as he walked toward his mech. "What's taking everyone so long, did you all think your instructors drilled you every morning just for fun? I'll get on the radio and tell our Prince that his soldier needed five more minutes to get out of bed and get their thumbs out of their asses! Come on, move, move!"

He finally arrived at his Black Knight and stepped into the open cockpit as he had done thousands of times before. This time however for just a moment he felt himself lose his footing and stopped himself in the middle of his movement. Having seen what had just happened, his aide stepped into the cockpit as well and extended a hand to help him in. Wilhelm slapped his hand aside as he more carefully finished his movement and settled into his seat. "Our Prince does not pay you to stand around like a scarecrow Corporal Lemane, carefully look around as we prepare for the sortie, I'll quiz you once I'm back!" She said with some anger not at the corporal, but at his own failing body as he closed the hatch.

---------

The Baron managed to make it first to the assembly point for the Lancers and opened communication with the other members and the Prince. "Ironside ready! Your majesty, I request to take the vanguard as we approach the Venture!"

Wilhelm's eagerness was obvious but was this the best idea? The vanguard was the first mech in and thus the most likely to be ambushed, it honestly would make sense for someone with better reflexes and a better mech to take point, but the Baron still stared at the prince with hope and determination.

Titus/Hippo 7

Titus had been in a sound sleep and dreaming of home, when the familiar claxon-like call of the alarm filled his quarters. Though not an officer, Titus was a senior NCO and a Lancer of the Emperor's Tagmata and so rated his own quarters. Before he was fully awake, he had rolled up from his bunk and was already pulling on his uniform. His task completed, he spared a moment to check his appearance in the mirror. He adjusted the fit of his black uniform, checked his sidearm and ID badge and then proceeded out the armored door and down to the mech bays at a dead run.

He slowed as he reached the slatted catwalk above the bays and glanced down below. As he'd feared, his maintenance section were still clustered around the looming bulk of his Cataphract class mech. The Maintenance Sergeant in particular looked frustrated and utterly exhausted under his coating of grime and grease.

The left leg was still steadily dripping hydraulic fluid, the armor plating clustered around on the deck or still hanging from chain hoists alongside the eleven meter tall machine.

Still, despite her state of disrepair and after all these years, Titus still felt a certain awe as he gazed at the silent menace of the old mech. A feeling crawled up his spine, not unlike what a person felt when looking at the fossils of prehistoric monsters. Black and crimson banners hung fore and aft, like the surcoats of the horse riding warrior class from millennia ago. A crimson crest stood transverse over the sensor suite that made up her "head."

Her form wasn't elegant or streamlined some of the newer designs, it was the brutally functional and simple bulk of an apex predator. A metal demon crafted by man to rend and tear his foes.

Titus shook himself from his reverie and leaned over the railing and shouted down at the team's leader.

"What's your sitrep, Sergeant Morne?"

The Maintenance NCO glanced up at the Imperial Champion and shook his head wearily.

"The damn thing is fucked, Staff Sergeant. I've had artillery mechs that weren't as temperamental, it's still leaking like a sieve and the engine stalls every time I try to put it in reverse."

Titus nodded slowly, there was no way that the team could reverse those kinds of faults in a hour. Still, the mission came first and he highly doubted that whatever caused the alarm would be polite enough to wait for his mech to come back online.

"Can you reroute the APU from the right leg?" He said to Morne.

Morne paused, sucking air through his teeth. After a moment, he shrugged.

"I can but you won't have full speed and it'll have the turn radius of this ship if you try and go to your left."

Titus smiled grimly. "I'll be in zero or low g for a lot of it, I imagine, we're not close to any worlds right now and so that means ship to ship.

"Get it done, you have twenty minutes."

Morne laughed and gestured for his crew to resume their work.

"You heard the man, get the right leg APU rerouted and get the armor back in place." He roared.

Titus opened the gate at the end of the gantry and slowly lowered himself into the cockpit with a series of half-turns and a small twist of his upper body, before he could finally ensconce himself in his ejection seat. He pressed a plastic stud and the HUD flared into life, its dull green background lighting up the narrow confines of the cockpit.

Per what Morne had told him, the touchscreen flared with amber and red as caution and warnings scrolled past. Well, if a mech worked fine that was because something truly awful was about to happen. Or so they'd told him when he'd began his training.

Titus lifted his helmet with its integrated display from its armored case, beside his seat and checked the seal and his suit's life support systems were online. That done, he raised the toggle cover and flipped the power switch that ignited the mech's engine. The turbine started with a sound like a giant vacuum cleaner and then spun up into howling life.

"Engine online, main weapons online, suspension operable." His mech's computer reported in her soothing voice.

"Well thanks, old girl." He said, though he knew she couldn't truly hear him.

Titus checked the engine health panel and nodded shortly, at least the sealed oxygen mix tanks that kept the engine fed in vacuum were still working correctly. The Cataphract had been hurriedly produced in a many ways and it showed, especially with the engine. Instead of an atomic battery or a small reactor, the engine had been installed as a stop-gap design. One that was still waiting for its replacement, decades after the fact. The modifications to protect from and let it operate in space had been welded on under the carapace armor, as an afterthought.

Still, it was good enough for right and that would have to do.

Titus scrolled through his display, while he waited and carefully reviewed the data picket from Lucia. Already, he could feel the deep thrum of the ship's engines rise, even through the armored bulk of his mech. No doubt they were changing course and headed for intercept of what or who had attacked the good ship Venture.

His comms crackled as Morne's voice came through his helmet.

"That's as good she's gonna get."

Titus glanced down via an exterior camera and used his mech's waldos to raise the right hand in salute at Morne.

Morne waved up at the camera and grinned sourly. "Best of luck, boss."

The gantry rose out of the way with a whine of hydraulics and Titus engaged his systems. The Cataphract's armor was pitch black and it gleamed dully beneath the flashing light. The plating was scored and lined with dozens of old hits, the grim souvenirs from countless fights. Some from Titus' time and others from the men and who women had ridden the mech into battle before him.

There was a pause as Morne hurriedly stalked across the bay to grab a hoist control and carefully ease a gunmetal gray case down from the massive racks that served to house parts and weapons for the mech. The object within was kite-shaped, though the bottom was actually squared off instead coming to a point. Morne paused to lower his flash goggles and then keyed the switch. The coffin-shaped case slowly swung open and Titus' mech reached out to take up the massive shield that let the Cataphract serve its grim purpose on the battlefield.

With its crimson field over a black background and the three ravens around the ovoid boss in its center, it could have been an oversized recreation of a shield from days long since past.

But as Titus grasped it, the thing flared into coruscating life, the jagged blue runes hissed and crackled with unnatural life. But for all their brilliance, the shifting symbols never once cast a shadow or changed the ones that stretched throughout the bay.

Titus, his helmet's visor lowered, mirrored Morne's salute and stepped out on to the gangway that led to the dropships and airlocks. With his mech's right hand, he readied the brutal shape of the massive maul and breaching tool, that served as his primary melee weapon. Finally, he lowered the cockpit cover with a hiss of seals.

Now, his mech rose to her full height. Like some primordial horror from the flickering shadows and turned to the right with an agility that belied her bulk and maintenance issues. No longer a crouched and shambling thing, she stalked down the alloyed deck with a series of cascading rumbles.

As he drew to close the assembly point, he could the unmistakable shape of Baron Wilhelm's Black Knight. Titus quickly scanned the comms channels and checked for any relevant traffic before making a comms check. As he did so, he heard Onyx-9 report in and he smiled grimly. This bunch of murdering pirates was going to be in for an unpleasant shock indeed, if that was the team leading their counter-boarding efforts.

"This is Hippo 7, REDCON 1, standing by." Titus said.

Sharlin sat in the Phantom's cockpit listening to Lucia's briefing - silently, intently. A frown flickered across her brow at their orders. Too vague, too much left to discretion. She was well aware that Lancers made their own decisions in battle, didn't need to be micromanaged - but still, one could err too far in that direction. A little coordination might do a world of good.

She knew her own role, anyway. The Phantom wasn't built to charge into the fray. There were others who could do that job far better. Baron Wilhelm, for example - he'd be champing at the bit to prove himself still capable. Or Marcellus, who'd do whatever he was told. A useful tool. Even the Prince's pet, Dvalin, in her souped-up Leonard... if she could keep her thirst for glory in check.

Sharlin had studied their personnel files as assiduously as she would those of any foe. Imperial Intelligence kept highly comprehensive records of all Lancers, and particularly those who operated close to power. Prince Cassian, for all he might seek to avoid its responsibilities, was a nexus of power. One who must not be threatened, or coerced, or manipulated to the detriment of the Empire. Imperial Intelligence, of course, held itself scrupulously neutral in the power struggles around the Court and the Throne. Its final loyalty lay in the Empire itself, rather than anyone within its Byzantine hierarchy.

They were something of a motley assortment, as Lances are wont to be. Yet even so, their ACs were a force to be reckoned with - and if wielded wisely, more than enough to deal with what they faced here.

Sharlin held out a hand wordlessly, and her ever-efficient crew chief Gunpreet - a stocky, dusky-skinned native of the Kytherea system - placed her helmet in it.

"All systems green, mum," Gunpreet murmured. "Loadout?"

Sharlin pulled the helmet on, wrinkling her nose at the blast of pressurised oxygen as it sealed shut and mated with her flight suit's life support system. "All range direct fire," she replied. "Beam gun, gauss carbine, sabre." That would cover the three major range bands, albeit at the cost of indirect fire and anti-ship capability. But again, the Lance had others for such tasks.

"Aye aye, mum," came the reply, shockingly loud in Sharlin's ear now that they had switched to intercom. The senior non-com's fingers danced over a datapad. "Initiating loading now. Ready for launch in seven minutes thirty seconds... mark."

Sharlin nodded. The two of them had an understanding. Pleasantries were superfluous, the single mumbled honorific their only concession to propriety. They'd dispense with it too if that wouldn't set a bad example for the enlisted personnel. It still served a function - discipline, hierarchy - so it stayed.

Sharlin ran her fingers over the Phantom's controls, running through her preflight checklist as she toggled her comms over to all-Lance.

"Vande Tanne," she said curtly. "Phantom will echelon forward to maintain sensor coverage over the area of operations and designate targets for indirect fire."

"What in the flying circus is this mess of Cores...

The magnitude of the colossal trainwreck that Albert had volunteered for was, at this point, painfully clear to him. He had just finished inventorying the various Armored Cores that the Lancers had either brought with them, requisitioned, or otherwise gotten their hands on and was not terribly impressed. It was a cluster of dated designs, poorly maintained Cores, the kind of stuff you bring into a ghost operation and not frontline activities, patchworks of customization and worse. There had been some part of him that had, in no small part, hoped that having royalty, even as far down the totem as Prince Cassian, would have had a bit more in the resource and repair department than he had seen during his initial inspections. He was scrolling down his personal data pad, annotating the worst of the problem children as he went. This list included, in no particular order:

• Hippo 7 - An example of the Cataphract line of Cores, and a reminder that the lack of standardization in power plants continued to make Albert even more exhausted than he already was. A turbine provided the power the thing needed, but guzzled fuel twice as fast as sailors given an open bar on shore leave, meaning he had already added a constant fuel supply to his To Do list for logistics. This particular Lancer had his own maintenance crew, but the nightmare mess of hydraulics, articulation, and bulk pretty much ensured that there was not a chance any of them would ever get ahead on maintenance. Albert was not entirely convinced they were even going to keep up, meaning he was going to have to get involved at some point. Hell, the thing had arrived barely functional, last time he walked by they had stalled the turbine trying to reverse it into place. It currently sat at the top of his shit list at the moment, impressive given the other stand out Cores on his list.
• Phantom - Some bleeding edge electronic warfare Core straight out of an spy thriller's wet dream, meaning that parts would be hard to come by, likely confidential, and the thing just looked temperamental at first glance. Along side every other glance he had been able to get at the thing, given each time he had tried the red tape seemed to manifest like the wrath of an angry, bureaucratic god. He would have to talk to the Lancer themselves at some point if he was going to make Logistical support even feasible for the thing. It looked like a stiff breeze would blow the thing over, though he had a feeling that the breeze would be hard pressed to find it in the first place. Looked like a nightmare to deal with, but it was fairly low on his problem list right now, it was at least in good working order if the maintenance crew's efforts were anything to go by.
• Ironside - The closest thing anyone was running to a stock Core, near as Albert had been able to gather so far, and it was being piloted by quite possibly the oldest, crustiest, long in the tooth war hero to still be alive and kicking. Closer investigation during his rounds had basically confirmed that it was not so much a stock command mech, but what the stock command mech had been based on. Basically the most well known quality among the Lance, for better or worse, and parts would be in mercifully massive supply. Hell, he was fairly sure there was a contact of his that would be begging to offload parts for Ironside, just to move stock finally, so that should be a non issue. Replacing the smoke canisters with what looked like frag bombs was....a choice. He had seen some urban combat pilots favor that kind of thing to prevent getting swarmed by infantry, but on a command mech that should not be in the first line of combat? A concerning giveaway that Core might get a lot more repairs than he would suspect.
• Armatus - Someone had taken a perfectly good Leonard and monkeyed with it is what they did, any relief at seeing, at first glance, a stock Core had been quickly dashed. Stripped armor to make up for trying to overwork that otherwise acceptable stock engine being woefully overworked, still relatively stock meaning it would not have the shock factor of one of the bleeding edge frames, and barely capable of mounting....ANY weapons last he checked, and this was going to be a headache and a half to get to a proper state of being. The only munitions that stood out to him during his review of the Cores in the Lance was excessive amount of smart missiles. The pilot was probably making up for a taxed engine by using low power, high yield ordinance. Smart, but the sheer volume made him suspect they would chew through their missile allotment faster than they could replenish it. He had added munitions to his To Do list of logistics, mostly because of this Core in particular.

Albert muttered under his breath, putting the data pad down and leaning back in his chair, a flimsy thing he had swiped from an empty store room and moved to the main hanger for Armored Cores aboard the ship. He had a thermos of coffee with him, not even good coffee but that would be wasted on him, and a refill was currently being fetched by some unassigned junior mechanic who had thought following him around would get him experience. True to form, he was getting experience as a coffee monkey instead, Albert taking his glasses off long enough to clean them. His to-do list already included a truly involved list of parts, organized by contacts most to least willing to help, and the negotiations and concessions that would need to be made to get those deals to happen. The coffee monkey was approaching, freshly filled thermos in hand (he had two, just to keep the coffee monkey hard at work), when all hell broke loose. An alert, General Quarters, bringing all personnel to combat footing.

"Oh for fuck's sake."

Albert grumbled, pushing himself upright, downing the last of the thermos in his hand and snatching the fresh one from the coffee monkey. Who had, whether he knew it or not, been promoted. He was now messenger monkey, may his ascent in the ranks continue to be meteoric, Albert thought with a complete amount of sarcasm needed to go with it. As Albert gathered his things, thermos tucked into his tool box, he gave the messenger monkey marching orders. Albert did not have enough hands to run around gathering information or getting it organized properly, and he needed to basically be working with each maintenance team, or overworked tech, as appropriate.

"Start checking in with each Lancer's maintenance crew, get them to document NEW problems in a different list from the other pre-existing conditions. I don't care what the protocol is, I already have a running list of critical issues, but if something new happens, I need to add it to my To Do list. Off you fuck, kid."

Albert would take off towards the nearest bay, tools already in hand, because he knew damn well that, over the course of the next hour, he would be basically jumping from crisis to crisis. Whether it was assisting loading munitions, repairing issues that were not expected to become a problem this soon into their arrival in the system, patching problems that no one had even noticed, or worse besides, Albert's place in this sort of too little time to prepare scenario was basically damage control. Over the course of the hour, he was able to get the worst of the situations at least launch worthy, though as soon as he was done with that, he was starting to organize the next part of what may be necessary given how badly some of these frames were functioning right now. The comms chatter intensified as the launch time approached, and he began grabbing anyone not tasked to a specific crew and began forming his field repair and recovery team.

Something that no one ever wanted to consider was needing to go into the field, or in this case, into the void to reclaim and field repair damaged or inoperative Armored Cores, ideally after the fighting was over. Meaning that, in the midst of the chaos of Armored Cores and their support infantry launching, Albert was forming the grimly necessary salvage teams that would go in after the battle was over and begin patching Armored Cores that were disabled but, with a field patch, could make it back on their own, marking Frames that could not move even with repair for more intensive work, or in the worst cases, stripping them of anything valuable and rendering the rest inoperable. While the Lancers organized their plan of attack, Albert organized the inevitable cleanup operations that would follow, and if whatever god was listening was feeling merciful, it would not require improvising a tow system to bring them back to their respective bays. Again. At least it kept him busy, until he got roped into something ridiculous which, knowing his luck, would be inevitable.

"There's nothing we can do? You're sure?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Unless we scrounge up a Leonard-compatible engine somewhere in this sector, the Armatus can't be modified much further without losing critical combat capability in one area or another. As it is, we're treading water unless we can find one. And we both know how Rayleonard ACs are with proprietary tech.

"...Damn it." Aria slammed a fist down on her mechanic's desk in frustration, who looked on placidly, long since used to these outbursts.

"Ma'am, all due respect, scuttlebutt has it that you have connections with the Prince. He can't get us an engine or some such shipped out here?"

Aria fixed her tech with a withering glare at that, the latter wincing.

"I've used up enough quite a bit of capital with him as it is, even getting placed into this Lance. That, and I suspect he'd grow bored and tune out any explanation I give him. He hardly even listens to that aide of his, and unlike that harlot, I'm not sleeping with him." She wasn't entirely sure of the veracity of that statement, but based on rumor and extrapolating what Cassian used to be like compared to the manchild he was now, this particular pet theory of Aria's had a better than average chance to be true.

“All Lance elements: begin immediate preparations for armored core deployment. All pilots, be ready for departure within the hour. More information to follow.”

She'd already been in the hangar when the General Quarters alert came out, meaning that Aria was in the cockpit within moments of the klaxons sounding, going through preflight checks with her attached maintenance crew.

"Reactor and engine status?"

"Online, ma'am!" Came her team's head mechanic's reply over comlink, instantly harried into swiftness despite the fact that the two had just been discussing the AC's engine conundrum not half a minute ago.

"Armament?"

"Standard package, El-Tee: Rifle, beam saber, shield. SPAMRAAMs fully loaded. Skyeye suite operational."

"Good. Main systems, online. Moving to deployment zone!"

"Roger, ma'am. Kick some ass out there!"

With the Armatus fully booted up, Aria maneuvered the mech towards the ship's designated rally point, checking over the battlespace map Lucia had sent over in the meantime. With what little intel they had on this entire situation, she couldn't complain about the proposed plan by any means. Merely the lack of available information going into this battle. Aria despised playing escort, but it was a necessary part of the proposed tactical plan. She'd bite her lip and get the job done.

"Lieutenant Aria Dvalin, AC Armatus. All systems green, prepped for launch. Onyx-9 Actual, reading you five by five. See you on the other side."

Aria worked through the comms in order, monitoring who was gathering first. As expected, the Baron had beat her there. His request had her wincing, wondering how exactly best to word this. Ordinarily, Aria would have been far more aggressive in jockeying for the vanguard. But towards Wilhelm von Zollern? No self-respecting member of any Imperial armed force would have dared show such temerity, even in the face of what was likely a poor tactical decision. Thus, it fell to old, barely-remembered noble mannerisms to carry the day.

"Baron Wilhelm, with all due respect, the Black Knight's command-and-control suite is too integral to our overall coordination to risk in the van. Please, allow me to take your place, should the Prince will it."

It wasn't as if Aria didn't understand. Of course she did. Any pilot with a working pair and the will to fight would have done the same. And she didn't doubt the canny old veteran's skills, either. But it was exactly as she said: much as the ship's head mechanic did, Aria looked over the available readouts of the entire Lance's ACs. The Black Knight had the only functioning C2 suite available to the field team. Even if it was an old, mass-produced piece of tech, that alone rendered it invaluable to the Lance's overall coordination. Hopefully, both the Baron and the Prince would see her request for the tactical consideration it was, and not her jockeying for glory and recognition, no matter how true the latter was as well.

...Oh, who was she kidding? She wouldn't be surprised if Cassian decided to deny the Baron on some whim.

CO 89th LSC (Onyx-9)

The gentle thrum of the shuttle reverberated through his boots. A familial sensation as Volger checked the TacLink and found the Lance for the most part assembled.

Onyx-9 Actual to Lance. Proceeding to objective.

The shuttle’s accelerated in response. Assuming their own formation amidst whichever one the Lance threw up around the craft. Volger watched the embarked troopers of his shuttle; swaying in their restraints to the gentle motions. Harnesses and mag locks resisting the g-forces for the most part. A sea of emotionless visors locked-

A sudden jerk as the shuttles hastily decelerated. Volger’s contemplation apparently having carried him through the transit.

“Approaching debris field.” The pilot came over the internal comm. “Stand by EV.”

Volger’s shuttle was the last to arrive the rest of the unit having already begun to disperse. Blue dots bouncing among the sensor scattering wreckage of battle.

The loadmaster at the rear of the bay flipped a switch. The soft red glow of the bay switched to a harsher orange tint. The trooper’s stood; mag boots holding them to the deck.

The loadmaster, satisfied, dropped the rear ramp. Stars replaced the grey ramp as the latter whine opened silently in the vacuum. The orange glare turned to harsh green. The troopers moved in seeming tandem. Rows lifting away and jetting towards the opening; puffs of maneuvering harnesses and the occasional thruster pack as the platoon on the shuttle made their way to-

A light so bright his visor polarized in reflex. Alarms flared on his HUD even as the ship beneath him skewed. Casualty markers on the edge of his vision. His comm flaring to life on Onyx-9’s TacLink. Platoon leaders and Lt. Diaz flooding the channel in the frantic professionalism of troopers in contact.

”Contact!!!”

“Launcher’s down. Anyone see if Actual made it out?”

“Shooters in the debris field.”

“Second platoon clear that wreckage.”

Volger shook his head. The bay in front of him was a visage. A man sized hole was punched through the troop bay’s right side. The remains of four troopers drifted near the breach. Twice that number were in various states of distress. Bright yellow med sealant visible on their punctured armor from their med systems. A surviving medic floated between them.

Beyond, the bay door was still open. Past the dead loadmaster was the distant strobes of muzzle flashes and the thermal blooms of plasma and laser weapons. Volger jabbed his quick release; snatching a floating PDW from an unfeeling grip. His weapon lost in the blast.

His TacLink’s suddenly blared red as Diaz pushed an image from a helmet cam. His blood running cold even as his company fought though the ambush. A stomper disappeared in a spray of gas as the newest threat made their danger apparent.

Onyx-9 Actual to Lance. Hostiles have three mech’s in the debris field. I need them gone.

---

The XO stiffened, clearly unprepared for such language being hurled across the hallowed deck of an Imperial bridge. He opened his mouth to respond, then hesitated, his eyes following the Captain’s gaze toward the seated Prince.

Cassian Ardentis did not intervene. Reclined in his throne-like command chair, he merely watched the exchange with faint amusement, one brow curling upward as if the argument were little more than a diversion. After a moment, he offered the XO a lazy nod and waved a dismissive hand.

“The last I checked,” Cassian said mildly, “it is the Captain who commands the ship, Mr. Crow.”

Beyond the bridge’s armored viewports, the void erupted into violence.

Lances of laser fire and streaking kinetic rounds crossed the debris-choked expanse ahead as the merchant convoy’s shattered remains slowly tumbled through space. On the tactical displays, hard contacts flickered in and out of focus: ghosting, resolving, then vanishing again as sensor returns struggled against interference. Pirate mechs emerged from behind broken freighters and ruptured cargo haulers, their cores old, scarred, and brutally utilitarian. They were using the drifting wrecks as cover with a practiced ease.

Lucia leaned closer to her console, jaw set as she tried to impose order on the chaos. The debris field alone was degrading the Indomitus’ sensors; layered atop it was a dense web of electronic jamming that distorted rangefinding and target locks alike.


Sitting towards the rear of the bridge, Cassian seemed genuinely surprised as more of the eyes of the bridge turned to seek guidance from his throne.

“Oh, well of course the Baron should take the lead, given his wealth of experience.” A flash of what could have been chalked up to nerves vanished from the Prince’s face, as he put on a practiced, confident smile. “Lieutenant Dvalin, see if you can’t keep up with the Baron’s advance. Perhaps you might even learn a thing or two.”

Lucia winced. While the words were polished, she worried that Cassian’s inexperience would be more than apparent to the Lance’s experienced pilots. She also doubted that the Lieutenant would appreciate the tone.

Before the aide could step in to smooth over the Prince’s orders, Onyx-9’s channel erupted with activity. Pressing a finger to her ear, Lucia pushed aside her concerns about the Prince’s lackluster approach to personnel management and focused on the frantic sounds of combat.

“Onyx-9 has been engaged in an ambush. At least three hostile armored cores are active in the area.” Lucia paused, obviously listening to more updates coming to her station. The sensor readings finally started to stabilize as addition data started streaming in from the Phantom’s vantage point. “Make that five confirmed hostiles. They appear to be moving quickly to blunt the counter-boarding force before we have a chance to defend them.”

Reviewing the information streaming through her console, Lucia felt a brief sense of relief as she received confirmation that the Commander’s dropship had responded to hails. The pirates had clearly been aiming for some kind of a decapitation strike, attacking the middle of Onyx-9’s formation as they had.

“Onyx-9’s vanguard is approaching the Guildcrest Venture and taking sustained fire. All counter-boarding elements are advised to make haste to the vessel. Once you’re aboard, their cores can’t target you..”

Lucia shifted her attention outward again, scanning the wider battlespace. The pirates’ concentration around the Venture had allowed several surviving merchant ships to pull back, but not all had escaped unscathed.

“Captain Ganishka,” she said, opening a secure channel, “we’ve received a distress call from another convoy vessel: the Percheron. Their reactor was damaged during the initial raid and is at risk of going critical. Their damage control teams are attempting field repairs, but they’re requesting immediate assistance.”

She reviewed the diagnostic burst the freighter transmitted, brow furrowing as dense, nigh-indecipherable technical schematics filled her screen.

“Mr. Hartwig,” Lucia continued, immediately looping in the Lance’s chief engineer as she sent him a copy of the files, “We have a friendly vessel suffering from reactor trouble, I would appreciate your assessment of their situation. If intervention is feasible, we may be able to deploy limited engineering support - provided the Captain believes the Indomitus can maintain a safe posture while doing so.”

She glanced back toward the tactical display as fresh contacts bloomed amid the debris.

“Time is not on their side.”

The old man smiled with satisfaction a glee, maybe he'd still get a few more medals before he shuffled off this mortal coil!

"Such eagerness Lieutenant Dvalin! But do not worry, there will be glory enough for-"

Wilhelm was interrupted by a blip warning him of an energy discharge at a distance. Before he could react, the boarding shuttle was hit.

"All units, scatter and return fire!"

The baron placed his trust in the aim assistance of his mech and fired a green colored charged particle blast directly back at the source of the energy signature, not accurately enough to hit the enemy Core, but close enough to make it move instead of shooting. As his own Black Knight moved, it crashed into a large piece of debris a few seconds later. It almost looked like age had already gotten the better of him, but his idea soon became clear as the metal sheet was pushed and soon obstructed Onyx-9 from further incoming fire. He continued to push the debris so it started drifting toward the Venture.

"Damn it, my denture is rattling. Onyx-9, here's some cover! It won't block a plasma bolt, but it will hide your insertion a little. Godspeed!"

The Ironside pulled away from the debris, its shoulders caved in by the strength of the impact.

"Hippo 7, with me! We'll break through the center and keep the enemy distracted, Armatus and Phantom take the flanks and provide overwatch. For Prince Cassian! For the Empire! Forward!"

The command mech charged in without hesitation, flying toward the enemy quickly and turning in awkward angles, using the debris to break line of sight and charge out again in another direction. It was some impressive flying, maybe not in terms of speed or maneuvers due to the limitations of the aging Black Knight, but it never the less flew in a pattern showing expert knowledge in how the average mech pilot handled its machine as not a single shot seemed to come close to hit it.

This was all the more impressive because in the mech's cockpit, the old man piloting it was basically doing it blind, the high G maneuvers making him black out almost every moment as he clenched down on his denture and performed everything from muscle memories and with blind trust in the fading lights that was all he could see from his dashboard.



In her chair, Mika sighed and shook her head negatively. "This is amateurish." She declared. The XO gave her a glare that said a lot about his opinion of 'Mika' and 'professionalism', but after being chewed out by her and rebuked by the prince himself he didn't dare to speak up. The captain rolled her eyes and decided to elaborate, if anything for the benefit of Cassian whom she felt would do well to learn a thing or two about commanding.

"Don't get me wrong. These four are leagues above most of what the sector can throw at us, but this is embarrassing. Why wasn't the van decided earlier? Why does the old man have to distribute battle roles? This whole thing feels like it was thrown together last minute." That's probably because it kinda was. "Once we arrive at port we need to do some training exercises so everyone knows their job and the fucking transport shuttle isn't caught off position like this again." She declared.

"Welp, sure glad I didn't send my guys in there." She instead commented at the misfortune of Onyx-9. "Good news is that this means we can rule out the fire ship hypothesis, if these schmucks fired at the transport instead of our Cores it means they still have their guys inside the Venture. And also, since everyone just rushed in and the Phantom hasn't detected mines, the field is probably clear. Tighten the course and get us closer to the action."

"Captain, Phantom has a lock on the enemy Cores for out ship's weapons."

Mika laughed at the idea. "What, she thinks we're made of money? I'm not wasting good missiles on 3 miserable Cores. Railguns. Railguns and lasers are cheap enough though, fire mid-sized batteries AROUND the enemy formation though, at this distance we won't hit shit anyways so try to coral them together and prevent them from maneuvering, the Lance will take care of them."

Next on the menu, the Percheron. This question made her run her finger on her lips as she looked at the battle display and how to better approach the situation. "...I don't like this. Damaging the core like that if you want to take the ship is amateurish, and amateurs don't have Cores." She honestly wanted to leave the ship to its faith, but again she eyed the Prince. "...Tell Hartwig and his damage control team to prepare to launch a shuttle, we'll pass between the Venture and the Percheron and launch him while we can cover his approach, but tell him to haul ass, it will be a very short window."

The finger on Mika's lip lowered itself on her chin as she considered the last element that bothered her. "Now... these Cores had to have a carrier, so where is the mothership..." Looking at the battle display, she let her mind wonder, trusting in her instincts, or rather in the Drift as she closed her eyes and looked out for... something. Finally she squinted them open.

"Sharlin. Phantom, whatever, this is the captain, can you hear me? Can you take your sensors off the battlefield for a moment? I'd like you to scan around grid... Epsilon-Orange. Sending telemetry." She lazily said while signaling one of the officers on deck to do so. "Rest of you also keep scanning for anything out of the ordinary. If you find another cargo ship I want it pinged on my screen, leave nothing to chance."

Titus:

Titus' screen had flared green and then red with multiple warnings and target displays across his helmet's integrated HUD. Before they'd had time to discuss anything like a plan, their shuttle had been fired on and now the Baron was hurtling through the void to engage the enemy. Titus was no officer but he dearly wished at this moment for something like a staff or even an operations' section.

Still, he had his duty. So Titus checked the seals around his mech's engine and the oxygen mix tanks that kept the turbine fed in the vacuum of space. Not for the first time, he wished that the empire's procurement officials would get around to installing reactors in the Cataphract class. But if wishes were mechs, then all would men would be lances.

"Black Knight, Hippo 7 copies all, moving in at your three o'clock, middle." That said, Titus ignited the pulse jets built into his mech's lower body and went hurtled out into the darkness, carefully guided by stabilizing pulses from his core's maneuvering thrusters.

In the space there was no up or down but at least this way, the Baron would know where Titus was, relative to his own mech's position. Assuming the old man had heard his transmission, judging by his speed, the man had to be on the verge of blackout from the resulting amount of g-forces.

All across his display was a scene from hell, ships traded missiles and energy beams, silent explosions flared like the heart of the sun and clouds of debris spun through the void with deceptive slowness.

The Baron's aid looked to be all that could be done for Onyx-9 and so Titus grimly hefted his maul and raised his ancient void-magicked shield into place. The brightly glowing runes seemed to flare even brighter in the darkness of space. The Cataphract streaked through the dark and into the light of the distant sun and the flaring radiance of the duel between rival ships.

Titus adjusted his speed and angle just enough to lightly touch down on the outer hull of the beleaguered vessel. The mech's armored feet locked into place magnetically and Titus took a series of leaping steps towards the three enemy mechs. One mech with the white outline of a skull across its chassis turned and opened fire at almost point-blank range. Beams flared wide, harmlessly dispersing, missiles detonated short or skipped off into the darkness. The runes along Titus' black shield seemed to grow in size and brilliance.

Titus advanced, crouched behind his shield, teeth gritted against the storm of firepower that was raining down on him. At last, he closed the distance between his core and that of his tormentor. As his foe ignited his own jump jets and attempted to dodge the oncoming attack, Titus raised his dreadful maul and brought the massive weapon up and then around in a brutal arc.

CO 89th LSC (Onyx-9)

There was a saying about the best tactics being the ones you couldn’t predict. But Volger could say he had never encountered a mech slamming a piece of debris into the line of fire of enemy mechs. Especially when that mech used their own chassis to do it.

But it worked. The debris blocked the majority of Onyx-9 from the AC’s fire. Leaving their rapidly diminishing amount of shooters in the debris field their only defense. As the Lance engaged their “counterparts”; Onyx dealt with theirs.

The pirates in the debris field reflected their mechs. Rough, well used surplus that was great against the surplus or low grade security equipment civilians bought for peace of mind. Armor good for space debris punctures and hastily modified with scraps and aftermarket parts for combat.

There had been a good forty of them in the debris field for the ambush. With the mechs they had stood a chance against a company.

Now they dwindled rapidly. Puffs of air and shattering visors marked Onyx’s better optics. The company snipers clamped onto debris; their magnetically assisted rifles rated for anti material work. Overkill for their current targets.

A pirate gunner in a former cargo container never noticed the pair of rocket assisted grenades that decimated him and his drum fed weapon.

Six pirates tried to reorient as a pair of Onyx troopers scythed laser and 8mm fire respectively from above. The fire team that had suppressed the half dozen now moved forward. Vectoring in on a trio of pirates fleeing for the Venture.

The threat display was still muddled by debris and the battle but the path forward was for the most part clear. Volger watched red indicators of hostiles turn the dull orange of eliminated threats.

“Onyx—9 Actual to Onyx-9 Alpha. Clear the debris field. All other callsigns; proceed to Venture. Stand by to board.”

The excitement was palpable as the platoons turned to their respective tasks. In the distance Volger watched the dizzying background that was the AC’s fighting. Beams, blasts and even blades at work. Another stage for the same play Volger and Onyx-9 were playing.

’Just hope they can keep the ship mech free for the next twenty minutes at least.’

********

“Someone get me a stomper to the mess deck!!!!” Volger yelled into his comm. Ducking behind a pillar as an array of enemy fire struck the cover. Volger’s retaliation came from two of his troopers. The pair letting loose ripping bursts of 8mm fire from their own cover.

The two sides had roughly stalemated themselves in the former dining facility. Ironically, both parties having taken this route to flank another stalemate that had developed in the main access corridor that ran parallel to the engineering damage control station. Itself, not important but a node one could use to fast track their way to the critical location.

Volger had detailed Diaz to double back and find a way to the next level. Using their heavy equipment to punch though the deck above the pirates while Volger would flank to catch them from hopefully three directions.

Instead they had run into a force of pirates of equal number to his two squads. To make matters worse; these weren’t the same caliber as those outside. Their armor was current gen kit. The latest model of the independent and paramilitary types with credits to burn. And if the trio of wounded icons flashing in his helmet was any indication; they’re weapons and training were above their ill fated debris bound brethren.

Volger used a lull in the fire to drop low left. PDW tucked tight; HUD targeting reticule dragging up onto a visor peaking over a nearby table. The stubby weapon jerked in his gauntlets and the visor fell back. The faint spray of chipped visor mingled with pink accompanying the falling the pirate’s plasma repeater.

Volger allowed-

“Grenade!!!” The warning was verbal. Not in any comm-

The room shook as the explosive detonated in the small no man land the pair of sides had established through their crossfire. Volger felt the rattle though his armor and gave a curse. Another icon blinked rapidly; one wounded trooper.

The Onyx-9 retaliation came in the form of a trooper dumping seven rounds of underslung 25mm heat seeking munitions that could barely maneuver in the clustered space. The munitions lacking the power or flight time to kill the pirates through their cover or near misses given their armor as well.

What it did do was take apart the tables and knock the eight assorted pirates using them off their feet. Exposed and shell shocked; they died in the sudden resurgence of Onyx gunfire. Which picked up with the trio of figures that poured into the room.

Two were troopers with heavy armor inserts; cradling shotguns and lugging packs full of ammo that didn’t fit any weapon systems they wielded. The third figure was the nine foot tall armored stomper that bore the callsign “Prancer” stenciled on his chest.

A pair of 20mm cannons were in both of the suit’s weapon arm mounts and they swung into play with rapid fanfare.

As the screams of pirates drowned under cannon, shotgun and automatic fire; Volger toggled his comms. The distance thump of a deck charge accompanied a report from Diaz. The flank had been complete.

His other platoons were having an easier time on their way to the bridge. The remnants of the ship’s crew and security having hardpointed there. The pirates caught between the massed fire of the crew and the encroaching platoons of Onyx-9; the bridge area would be secured within the hour at the most. As for engineering…

”Onyx-9 Actual to Indomitus. Hostile pirates still aboard Venture. Bridge still secure at this time and under friendly control. Heavy resistance enroute to engineering. Unknown status of control. Be advised; hostiles within Venture displaying better equipment and training then exterior forces. Unknown if this extends to their AC’s as well. Out.

His report done Volger stood from his cover. The immediate gunfire having died out. A medic worked on the Onyx wounded. Troopers swept through the blown apart section of the mess hall. Following in the wake of the stomper and his ammo handlers.

A wounded pirate dragged himself on his two remaining limbs. His destination forever unknown as the stomper’s namesake became apparent. The stomper pilot gave a violent grinding of its foot before continuing on; bloody footprint marking its path.

Volger ignored the mess and stepped into the stream of troopers.

“Alright boys and girls. Let’s see how engineering is looking.”

Albert was currently in the midst of finalizing the organization of away parties for doing salvage and field repair work when he was directly addressed on the comms. He had been listening in, the escalating combat situation and approval of the fossil of a war hero being sent into the vanguard being met with muttered cursing and mental additions to his list for repairs once the fighting was done. Of course, ultimately, the Prince would just go with whoever volunteered first. Though that was not his primary concern, the ship's comms officer wanted him for something. Lucia, if he remembered right, and he glanced at his datapad as he processed the information being sent to him. One of the convoy ships, not under direct attack but suffering from battle damage all the same. Initial raid grazed them, reactor was going to go super critical by the looks of it, and they were asking for damage control assistance. From a warship. A warship that was actively engaging the same pirates that were still trying to loot one of their convoy mates. Wonderful.

"Report received, let's see.....why did they even try to bring it back online like that? They should have reserve power for this exact situation just in....no, no they don't. They already burned through their reserve power trying to run silent, probably after the attack to play dead, and cocked up the reactor startup when it was that or life support giving out. Looks like stuck control rods, no auxiliary power generation that is intact or salvageable in time, so I get to play stabilize the reactor without killing power completely. Worthless second rate reactor designs...."

Albert shouted for the nearest person, the messenger monkey from earlier (who was now promoted to equipment fetcher, truly his meteoric rise continued) to grab the spare reactor maintenance hard suits and be back here in five. The trip would take five, by his estimate, but he wanted to put the fear of failure into the lad, he had to get used to impossible demands. Like preventing a damaged reactor, with no backup power, from not only going super critical and turning into a dirty bomb, but taking the ship, and his damage control team, with it. Just another day on the job, he thought with full sarcasm, and about that point the good Captain, who at least knew how to mouth off which was bonus marks in his estimate, chimed in via the comms officer. Have a damage control party ready on a shuttle to launch over on a narrow pass between the Venture and Percehron, and move with a sense of purpose. Ah, good, he was going over after all.

"Give the Captain my heartfelt thanks. Already have eyes on a shuttle that no one thought to bolt down or put to use."

Albert was deadpan in his response, and he grabbed a mix of senior technicians (the ones he would trust with actual work while he did the hard parts), an engineer or two (he would send them to parlay and tell the panicking damage control center on the Percheron sweet nothings to keep them calm and not bother him), as well as his returning equipment fetcher (who had the audacity to ACTUALLY make the run, grab the spare suits, and be back in time, he would find a use for the stubborn soul yet). More importantly, this mix would still leave plenty of useful talent, and not so useful message runners, to handle damage control on board the Indomitus should something go truly sideways, or enact Core salvage and field repair. Or he would finish on Percheron in time to shuttle straight over into the fray for field repairs knowing his luck. By the time his window was approaching, the shuttle he had commandeered, along with his daring and....mostly voluntary damage control party were ready to launch. He even 'borrowed' a pilot who was too slow to avoid him catching up to them, and was not actively attached to any other immediate operation, who was competent enough to thread the needle. Lucky him.

"Hartwig here, damage control party all bundled up and ready to go on a field trip."

"...Yes, Your Highness. Heard and understood. Baron Wilhelm, good hunting." Aria could only give a professional response before she cut her end of the comlink, raising a fist to smash into the side of her cockpit. That goddamned idiot! For a moment before they launched, she allowed herself to indulge in the mental image of wringing Cassian's neck and shutting his smarmy mouth for just two seconds. The moments passed. She shook herself back into reality, leaning into her mech controls as Lucia gave final marching orders and the Lance began to deploy.

Five confirmed enemy AC readings closing in on their own boarders. Friendly ACs were outnumbered by one, then. She sucked in a breath, centering herself and steadying her nerves. More than doable. Considering their Lance's makeup, the Baron and Marcellus just had to live long enough for Aria and Tanne to hit the flanks and lock them in. Classic hammer and anvil. And judging by Baron Wilhelm's orders, he was already thinking along much the same lines. Old age hadn't dulled his wit, then. Only fueled his fire to dangerous levels.

"Ironside, Armatus. Orders confirmed. We'll be sure to keep up, over."

Now fully deployed in vacuum, thrusters hot, Aria maneuvered her Core as bid, taking up a flanking position as Ironside and Hippo made their charge. She raised the Armatus's rifle, bracing it against the shield the mech held in its other hand. Confirmation blares rang in the cockpit as she got an initial lock, the AC's targeting suite already automatically microadjusting the mech's aim as Aria pulled the trigger, firing in bursts at the AC furthest out in the side of the enemy's formation.

"Lance, Armatus: getting tone on multi-lock! Firing once I have a solution on all of them, glory to Sol!"

Sharlin held back a sigh. She took a deep breath before transmitting to the Indomitus, "Phantom. Roger scanning sector Epsilon-Orange. Redeploying."

She goosed the Phantom's throttle, feeding reaction mass into its thruster chambers. The Core responded gracefully, going into a languid turn that bore all the elegant precision of a mathematical solution. Sharlin hated waste, refused to use more thrust than absolutely necessary. It also kept the Phantom's signature to a minimum. All the thermal baffles and low-observability coatings in the Empire were worthless if you simply vented heat recklessly.

And the less you radiated, the better your own sensors worked, at least in passive mode. And if you were looking for something out there that might be able and willing to shoot back - possibly with much larger guns than you had - you wanted to be able to look without announcing that you were looking.

A twist of a dial activated a small servo arm that deployed a dedicated sensor control deck in front of Sharlin, swinging it out from a slot beneath her left armrest. It was a reassuringly physical thing, with knobs and buttons that could be operated with gloves on, under g-loading, by touch. Through long familiarity, and hours spent configuring the deck just so, Sharlin could tune every aspect of the Phantom's prodigious sensor suite without a glance away from the screens before her.

Sharlin was a spider in the centre of an exquisite web whose strands were streams of ions and eddies in magnetic fields. The Phantom's myriad sensors trickled data into its expert systems, which processed and abstracted it into useful information. Stripped of noise, they resolved into a picture that Sharlin's human brain could make sense of, and direct the Phantom's own computer mind - far larger, far quicker, but literal and limited - to identify among all the possibilities.

It took less time to do so than the other Cores of the Lance needed to get into action.

Sharlin toggled the laser comms on, and another thread of light connected the Phantom with the Indomitus. "Indomitus, this is Phantom. I think I've found what you're looking for...."

CO 89th LSC (Onyx-9)

There was a common misconception about ships. Most entertainment Volger had watched in the last decade tended to portray the inaccuracy. It was that Engineering was one giant room deep in the bowels of the ship. With everything vital to it’s functioning crammed into its own corner.

If such was the case Volger would have been done twenty four minutes ago and with significantly less effort.

The reality was that Engineering was a warren of armored compartments, tight spaces and fatal funnels that was often packed with delicate components or hazardous materials. The upside was that the pirates didn’t want to trigger a rogue jump or light off a tenth of a starship’s fuel supply with themselves still on the ship. The downside was that such considerations took off a fair chunk of the more lethal and effective toys Onyx-9 had brought aboard.

Volger took a knee as he orchestrated the chaos. Piggybacking helmet feeds and squad TacLinks to keep his assay up to date. Down the corridor, a team tossed a stun grenade though a half melted door; piling though in the aftermath of its detonation. The whine of lasers and chattering rifles following their entrance.

Volger ignored it and took shifted through links.

A stomper, cannon stowed, dug armored gauntlets into a door’s seam. Crumpling the metal like paper. A pirate, clad in the surplus garb of the debris shooter’s stood shaking. Hands raised to the air. A stubby sub gun smoking and forgotten on the floor. In the corner lay another pirate, a professional, riddled from head to toe. Troopers flooded into the room; shoving the pirate into a corner and slipping cuffs on.

Another link.

A squad of Onyx troopers battled over Heat Exchange Manifold #2. A trio of the professionals held the high ground in the form of a catwalk. A crew served railgun highlighted in angry red. Five of the surplus clad pirates ducked among the machinery. The link was a confusing array of symbols, noise and tracer fire. The camera owner leveled their IM-31 at the catwalk and triggered the underbarrel; the resulting explosion was bright and long lasting. The screams picked up in perfect audio quality as the thermite grenade burned through high grade armor. The catwalk buckling slightly under the now compromised structural integrity. The pirates below tried to fall back against the now surging teams of troopers.

Another link.

Two pirates were in the frame. A surplus and a professional. The former had discarded his weapon in the remains of a maintenance area. Hands raised amidst the dead bodies of three former comrades. Or at least they were raised before the professional had drawn their sidearm and shot the surrendering pirate though the back of his dome shaped helmet. The professional had tried to turn but the camera owner and her partner let loose disciplined bursts of 8mm. The pirate joining his “colleagues”.

Another link.

Five pirates lined against a wall. Dead. Blood spattered at head height. All clad in the surplus of the debris ambushers. Single gunshot wounds to the head. No weapons in their hands. Behind them a trio of professionals; twisted in death with shattered visors and broken chest plates. Two had rifles in dead grips; one still clutched a sidearm. Five pistol casings on the deck. The troopers responsible for the trio’s demise stepped up for a cautious coup de grâce.

’Someone doesn’t want prisoners.’

Volger checked the ship’s layout with the location trackers of his two platoons in engineering. Good progress and dwindling resistance pointed to Onyx’s part winding down. At least for the immediate future.

Not that the job was done.

Movement in the corner office eye had him turn a split millisecond before his HUD screamed at him. A maintenance hatch in the floor revealed an unshaven face, surplus armor and an old bullpup carbine. The man had been trying to hastily clamber out when Volger’s PDW had turned on him.

Two meters separated them. The pirate’s eyes were wide and his mouth beginning to form words.

All Volger noticed were the barrel wavering in his direction and an unfriendly uniform.

A sustained burst gave the pirate a good impression of being electrocuted. The body collapsing out of sight back into the hatch. A very feminine scream of shock accompanied the falling body.

Volger rose and crossed the short distance; PDW raised. A trooper mimicked him from the other side. The hatch yielded a very dead pirate and a very alive pirate stuck under the dead weight of the first. The second pirate was also clad in the off brown surplus armor but she had no visible weapon. Her efforts at the moment attempting to shove off a dead body that looked like it outweighed her by forty kilos in kit.

She paused her struggle however as the pair of Onyx-9 troopers loomed over her. Visible lasers of green centering on a forehead sheened in sweat above wide brown eyes.

Volger debated the trigger pull but thought better of it. Instead, he motioned at the hatch and the trooper that accompanied him.

“Pull her out and get them to the holding area. No accidents. And get some buzz bots into the rat spaces.” The trooper gave a nod and motioned to his team. A pair of additional troopers shrugging past Volger to pull the pirate out from under the corpse. The first trooper holding an unwavering muzzle on the pirate.

Volger, satisfied, left his troopers to it. He stepped back and spun on a heel. Queuing up his comms to the ship as he backtracked from the Engineering deck. Passing the debris and signs of the firefight. Pockmarked walls, shattered makeshift barricades and gore. Occasionally rows of bodies neatly arranged as Onyx-9 troopers shifted through secured sectors. Collecting the dead and wounded into some semblance of order.

”Onyx-9 Actual to Indomitus. Main areas of engineering under control. Securing secondary areas now. Appears two factions among-“

A loud detonation resonated through the deck. Volger stumbled and caught himself on the bulkhead. An alarm blared through the ship’s PA system.

Lt. Diaz helpfully clued him in on the general channel.

”Onyx-9 Delta here. Pirates in aft shuttle bay just blew up their shuttle. Look like they had a few scuttling charges on board. Don’t know extent of damage but I’m sealing off the bay.”

Volger gave a sigh and righted himself. Toggling the channel back to the Indomitus.

Onyx-9 Actual, will add ordinance sweeps to follow on actions. Request brig prepped for prisoner’s with transport to follow.

"Lance, Ironside. -ngh- Enemies are converging due to Indomitus fire curtain -heave- charge on the mark of Armatus missile fire... Mark!" The Baron said, his voice laborious under the strain of Gs and his own age. He continued his advance, aiming to soak as much fire as possible while his allies got into position. Finally, the enemy Cores were forced to land on the hull of the Venture where they knew the Indomitus would not shoot at them.

When finally Aria confirmed her lock on the enemy and they once again had to move to dodge the incoming missiles, Willy switched from defensive to offensive, stabilizing his particle rifle to blast at one of the enemy in the middle of its own evasive maneuver, testing its ability to multitask. It reacted promptly enough to dodge the first few shots of the Ironside, even letting out a counter volley that blasted through one of the Black Knight's shoulder pads, and then even narrowly managed to dodge the Armatus's missile! The Baron let out a whistle of admiration, right as he fired another shot straight into the Core's cockpit. This one, he didn't dodge.

"Ah-ha! Kill confirmed! Keep up the pressure!" As he said this however the alarm of a new contact entering the field blared and from the side of the Venture, another smaller space ship emerged. "New contact! Shrike-class frigate!" He quickly pushed the throttle to get out the way of incoming battery fire. "Hypo-7, I suggest you keep dancing with your partner so you don't catch the eye of the fat lady."



The battle proceeded steadily, the pirates inside the Venture had no chance and the Cores outside were being moved into a kill box, everything was going well... then why did Mika have this nagging feeling that something was amiss.

"Launch window for Hartwig's departure T-30 seconds."

The captain nodded as her eyes instead fixed the Phantom on the tactical map.

"Phantom completed her sweep, detecting two bogeys... one is a third freighter, the Mantua, second... cruiser, eagle-class!"

Ah, there it was. The sense of something being amiss suddenly became familiarity and Mika smiled.

"Haha, do not let this fool you gentlemen, this is no cargo ship! You can enter the name 'Torch' for that cruiser, while the Mantua is what passes for a pirate carrier around this sector! Full sensor sweeps on vectors that might have been launched by the Mantua, there are strike crafts on low impulse sneaking up on us, find them! Excellent work Phantom, beers on me tonight!"

Mika had a smug smile as she mentally patted herself on the back for having the intuition to find these little rats before they snuck up on her, but this only lasted for a moment before all of a sudden everything was flipped on its head.

"Hartwig departing, designating his shuttle as 'Savior-1'... Incoming frigate behind us! Shrike class, it was hiding behind the Venture!"

"Sensors confirm strike crafts within fire range, they picked up on our sweep and are accelerating!"

"Shrike is firing a volley of torpedoes on a long ark toward starboard, they aim to overwhelm us in conjunction with the strike crafts, they are also firing railguns and lasers at us!"

The ship shook under the hit of light caliber weapons from the Shrike but it was barely noticeable, the Indomitus was a behemoth compared to the tiny frigate.

"Return fire at the Shrike but do not fall for its provocation, keep course to block their line of sight from Hartwig's shuttle. Fire everything at the strike crafts, throw the kitchen sink at them if you have to but don't let them get close, focus all PD weapons on them before the torpedoes of the Shrike!"

The XO piped up again in confusion. "But captain the torpedoes-" Mika already knew what he was going to say, torpedoes had to be the greater danger, strike crafts usually only were a menace to capital ships in much greater number and carried lower yield weapons, at least this is what doctrine said. "-XO, I don't know how it is in quaint civilized space, but here in the frontier we strap R7's with nuclear mining blasting charges and pirates play chicken with battleships on the regular, sometimes they even win."

Mika sat at the edge of her seat. There wasn't any reason to panic yet and statistically no missile should go through with the warning time that Phantom gave them, but there was always the odd chance to have 10 misses in a row even with a 70% accuracy.

"Onyx-9, does this rust bucket have anything that can shoot at the Cores dancing on its hull? Ironside, Hypo and Armatus, try and keep the frigate distracted if you can. Phantom, we have incoming strike crafts with nuclear mining charges strapped to their missiles, try and take out as many as you can before they can fire."

---

The battle had evolved rapidly. With the Lance’s aggressive assault catching the pirates off-guard, and the Indomitus’ forces carving a path towards the stricken Guildcrest Venture. Titus and the Baron held the center like twin anvils, drawing the enemy cores’ full attention, while Aria’s disciplined suppressive fire ensured that none of the routed pirates escaped the meat-grinder forming between them. The opening they created was decisive. Onyx-9 surged through it, and the support company was now reclaiming the merchant vessel room by room.

As she scanned the reports streaming in from the infantry, Lucia was satisfied with the rapid progress that Volger and his men were making. Resistance was collapsing, and the pirates were either being driven back, or pinned down in hopeless firefights against a superior force. It wouldn’t be long until the Venture was once more firmly in Imperial hands. But her initial hopes of a swift conclusion to the battle were dashed by the data streaming in from the Phantom.

Lucia’s first reaction was surprise at just how much information Sharlin had managed to compress into such a narrow beam. The Phantom was already difficult for the Indomitus’ sensors to track under ideal conditions; maintaining such a minimal signature while conducting a comprehensive scan and transmitting it back bordered on audacious. It was the kind of quiet skill that would be lost on much of the bridge crew. Lucia appreciated it fully, and wished the results had been less troubling.

The bridge erupted as the new contacts populated the tactical display. There had been no expectation that the Indomitus herself would be threatened so soon, yet the crew moved with disciplined urgency: orders acknowledged, systems spun up, firing solutions queued. Missiles and torpedoes were already inbound, but Lucia found that training steadied her hands. The Lance was holding the line out there. She would do no less here.

She shared the updated battlespace with the Lance’s forward-deployed units, save for the Phantom itself. It received a brief pulse instead, simply notifying the onboard computer that information was available should it be requested, lest a blast of communication betray the reconnaissance-oriented core’s location.

“Captain, the Shrike and the strike craft appear to be covering a withdrawal across the theater.” Lucia eventually said, her eyes narrowing as she monitored the noisy data streaming across her display. “Attempting to intercept may place the Percheron, the Venture, or possibly Savior-1 at risk.”

Contacts moved in concert, ebbing and flowing as they responded to the Lance’s own actions and deployments. It rubbed her the wrong way: pirates weren’t typically this well coordinated, especially when a clean operation was violently interrupted. Strike craft running dark. A frigate lying in wait until the moment it mattered most. These all stunk of a cold professionalism that ragtag pirates didn’t usually display.

And then there was the determined effort to provide cover for the withdrawal from the Venture. No, it was more than that. The pirate’s leader, whoever they were, were willing to risk some of their most valuable assets - a whole frigate and a wing of strike craft - simply in an effort to delay and distract.

“Onyx-9 Actual to Indomitus. Main areas of engineering under control. Securing secondary areas now. Appears two factions among-”

The Colonel’s communication was briefly interrupted, but Lucia’s ears perked up at his update. Looking back over her display, she saw it too. While some of the pirates’ units were retreating in good order, others appeared to be panicking. There was a spike in hostile chatter between the units and cores that were panicking, but little in the way of communication between the well-ordered force and their less-professional brethren. More than that, now that she knew what to look for, Lucia saw the tell-tale indications of friendly fire occurring among the enemy.

What the hell?

“Phantom, are you able to intercept any of the hostiles’ communication without risking your Core?” Lucia transmitted the request to Sharlin. She knew that what she was asking for was a tall-order. At the very least, it would run the risk of exposing the Phantom to the enemy right when the rest of the Lance was too engaged to assist.

Speaking of the rest of the Lance, Lucia’s gaze flicked to the Baron’s telemetry, and her jaw tightened. Reactor output was spiking. Structural tolerances were slipping. Medical diagnostics painted a worrying picture of a man pushing both machine and body beyond reason. She could only hope the battle broke soon, before the Baron did.

---

It took Cassian a moment to steady himself after the report came in. Not one, but two real and immediate threats bearing down on the Indomitus. Torpedoes racing in from a frigate that had somehow gone undetected - a whole frigate, lurking unseen in the dark - and strike craft whose payloads could very well include throne-damned atomics.

He had assumed that the flagship placed him at a comfortable remove from the true danger of the engagement. Sitting on the bridge now, with threat vectors blooming across the tactical display, that assumption felt uncomfortably thin.

Cassian straightened, schooling his expression as his tutors had taught him. A Prince did not hesitate. A Prince did not betray uncertainty.

“Captain Ganishka,” he said, projecting calm he did not entirely feel, “remember that the Percheron and the Venture are our primary objectives.” How did his older siblings always make this appear oh-so-effortless? “The protection of Imperial citizens and their property must come first. There will be time enough to hunt these pirates down later. Justice has a long reach.”

And if focusing on defending the merchant fleet meant that the Indomitus didn’t have to risk itself pushing forward into more direct contact with a fleeing enemy, all the better.

Sharlin's reply was terse. "Wilco," she said, the single word cool and firm.

The Phantom slid through the vacuum, coasting on tiny puffs of cold reaction mass from its attitude thrusters. It was a wasteful way of consuming delta-vee, but lighting up thrusters meant lighting up your opponent's screens. Instead, Sharlin was running silent, accepting inefficiency in exchange for stealth. The game that she played was all about patience - working the angles, the positions, the probabilities. Everything was calculated, but all too much had to be left to chance.

This time, the odds broke in Sharlin's favour. She'd placed the Phantom between the enemy frigate and the Indomitus, deployed a scattering of remotes - small drones, little more than sensor packs with station-keeping thrusters, but enough to extend her sensor coverage and provide targeting solutions.

The little strike craft burned towards the Indomitus. There was no subtlety about their approach - throttles opened full, blazing straight towards their target, trusting to speed and numbers to get through. Given what they probably had to work with, it wasn't the worst strategy. It gave the least possible time to put up defences. Most ship captains, faced with such an aggressive attack, would turn and burn to open up the range and give themselves more time to shoot down the strike - delaying their pursuit.

But that reckoned without factors like the Phantom.

Now the scarlet Core unmasked, gauss carbine spitting iridium slugs as quickly as it could cycle. Sharlin had spent a few precious seconds setting up her shots in a planned firing pattern. Now the Phantom worked through that pattern quickly, methodically. It spun on its axis, the muzzle of the carbine describing a complex arc that sparked each time a projectile left it, every one directed at a pirate strike craft.

The beam gun was normally a better weapon at long range - its near-lightspeed pulse of charged particles meant less flight time to consider. But its capacitors took time to charge, making for a longer firing cycle. The carbine was less accurate against a maneouvering opponent, but it had a higher rate of fire.

Against targets that were flying straight and level though....

It took a half-dozen heartbeats before the first blossom of fire flared against the dark. By that time, Sharlin had already sent the command for her remotes to self-destruct, which they dutifully did. Their last act of service was to burn out spectacularly, acting as flares that hid the Phantom's signature as it returned to silent running.

Another strike craft exploded, and another. Sharlin allowed the expert systems to keep track, her attention on more urgent matters. If she'd missed any, they'd alert her. In the meantime, amidst everything else, she composed a message to Lucia aboard the Indomitus.

She hadn't actually specified earlier just which order she was complying with, after all.

Another thread of light, an encoded and compressed burst transmission. "Indomitus, this is Phantom. Comms intercept follows."

CO 89th LSC (Onyx-9)

Volger supposed his first mission with this command couldn’t have ended in a straightforward manner.

His tactical display populating a worrying amount of new symbology and hulls that were marked in that dull red color of hostile. Securing the Venture meant nothing of the pirates retained naval superiority.

A scream, distorted by a helmet’s voice modulator, echoed from a nearby vent. Faint buzzing and rattling accompanied the warbling cries of terror. Volger ignored the sound of the buzz bots at work as Captain Ganishka tried to task Onyx-9.

"Onyx-9, does this rust bucket have anything that can shoot at the Cores dancing on its hull? Ironside, Hypo and Armatus, try and keep the frigate distracted if you can. Phantom, we have incoming strike crafts with nuclear mining charges strapped to their missiles, try and take out as many as you can before they can fire."

The commander shrugged as he keyed to one of the platoons securing the bridge. The platoon leader helpfully already on the vital deck; consulting with the ship’s XO on potential crew holdouts when Volger’s query arrived.

The answer that came back was as he expected.

“Onyx-9 Actual to Indomitus. Negative on the guns. Pirates slagged them all in their way in. Frigate picked them-”

Volger paused as a bolt of inspiration struck him. The Shrike-class frigate nearby that moved abroad of the [i]Venture[/i; fearing nothing from what it thought was a few cores or a stricken merchant. A class of frigate that had been replaced mostly due to a few design flaws. One of which alone would be crippling but if exploited in tandem…..

“Onyx-9 Actual to Lance. I have a plan to deal with that frigate. Peel those cores off our hull and we will make you an opening. For the Empire!”

Volger didn’t much care for signing off like that. But he found that it was an effective way of ensuring someone didn’t try to pick the conversation back up.

He pulled up Lt. Diaz and the platoon leader for the troopers still clearing the debris field on the TacNet. The latter group now mainly hunkering down amidst the increasing expenditures of ordinance.

“Prep two squads of hull breacher’s. Pack them on frames and make sure they have a code breaker with them. Wait for the lance to make an opening.”

Down the hall a access hatch opened. A pirate, a professional in that drab blueish gray armor came out sans weapon. The man had just clambered out when the trio of buzz bots that had been tailing him in vents followed the pirate’s escape.

Buzz bots were expensive. Volger never quite understood how that trio of chrome machines cost as much as a stomper mech. But the rapidly vivisecting pirate in front of him was a testament to well spent imperial credits.

Or partial vivisection judging by the continuing scream of pain turning gurgle. The buzz bots, their programming satisfied, trundled back into the vents in search of more pirates. Their signature buzzing fading in their wake. Their victim, still alive, if one could call the mess of armor and flesh still living.

Volger paid the body no mind as he made his way to the starboard airlock to prep his part of the plan. Behind him a trooper took pity on the pirate.

“Bad way to go mate.” The trooper offered, half sympathetically, as he leveled a handgun at what he nominally identified as a head and pulled the trigger.