Ravens of Eternity

317 A Question of Dominion, Pt As the Gerveaux and Tyreia fleets fought each other tooth and nail, a small fleet slipped through the far left flank unseen and undetected. Not just because there was a massive fight occurring a dozen kilometers away, but because their ship’s signatures were so low that they were practically invisible to every other sensor in the area.

The Accursed Bootlegger and Maetel’s Lament both crept forward as they maneuvered around the array’s many orbital stations and facilities. They were both being escorted by Xylo’s stealth fighter wing, along with six fighter-sized drones.

The drones were somewhat reminiscent of Raijin’s cottonball drones and were bird-like in design. But that was as far as the similarities went. Instead of fat and round bumbling little devices, these resembled sleek and angular hawks. They certainly seemed far deadlier than their much smaller and cuter counterparts.

All fourteen of the ships slunk through the orbital array as silently as they could with as much thruster power as they dared. And despite how close they were to the defensive turrets and patrol drones, they were left unmolested.

In fact, they barely came on the automated defenses’ targeting lists – there was a much larger fleet that the array’s defensive systems were locked on to. Still, they kept their signals and emissions to an absolute minimum. It was imperative that their presence remained unnoticed.

If even a single one of the emplacements noticed them, they would have been torn apart by the subsequent barrage from all sides.

Their nerves were at an all-time high as they crept through the sprawling array and headed towards the massive station in the center of the vast array.

The station itself was composed of multiple structures, where the main core was cylindrical in nature, but had multiple clusters of structures directly attached to it. There were also many arms that stretched out in various directions, which terminated in a number of other structures.

They were containers or habitation pods or supply depots. There were also photonic receptors, hangar bays, and hydroponic stations. The whole thing was completely self-sufficient, and was practically a nation onto itself.

.....

It was certainly larger and more populated than the Corvus Republic itself, and it was ‘merely’ an orbital base.

As they neared, their sensors immediately alerted them to the ships that were patrolling the station itself. It was relatively small – merely a frigate being escorted by a squadron of 12 fighters. But they were far more armed and armored than their own.

Lucifer reviewed their loadouts on hir TacMap, and grimaced lightly at what ze saw.

“How curious,” ze said. “Their modules are reporting as having been developed in the Tyreia shipyards, but are clearly Federation in design.”

Freya walked up next to hir, and viewed the readouts for herself. She would have been filled with disbelief, but she felt this was something the Federation would do.

“Makes sense to me,” she said. “They’d be devious enough to invest in terrorists to harass the Hegemony. Maybe it’s in response to the Hegemony investing in pirates to harass the Federation.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Lucifer replied. “Lending support to a bunch of seperatist extremists sounds like their style.”

“I suppose that’s something we’ll need to keep an eye on from here on out, too. More people like these Tyreian terrorists, I mean.”

“What, see who the Federation’s putting their credits behind? Follow the money, and all that?”

“Exactly. So we know who to hit, and how hard.”

“And we may as well help ourselves to their ledger while we’re there. Would be a waste if we didn’t.”

The two of them gave each other sly grins in acknowledgement. Then Freya turned away and opened up comms with her strike team on a datapad. Five of her operatives flashed on her screen.

“Team,” she said. “We’re swapping loadouts. We’re gonna need our Brutal Kits for this one.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they replied in unison before they winked off.

Freya then turned back towards Lucifer, and put her hand on hir shoulder.

“I’m gonna go prep,” she said. “Keep us out of trouble, alright?”

“Look who you’re talking to,” Lucifer replied with a smirk.

Freya laughed lightly, nodded, then headed out to the deployment bay. At the same time, Lucifer turned back towards the floor-to-ceiling TacMap and plotted an attack run against the station’s patrolling squadron.

“Raijin, Xylo,” ze said. “We’ve got bogeys at 86, 22, 75. Sending attack data now.”

“Just send the word and we’ll get rid of ’em,” Xylo replied.

“At your convenience.”

Xylo’s fighters and the Hawk drones sped forward at nearly the same time, however the drones accelerated far faster than the fighters. Without any biological pilots to account for, they could easily go as fast as their structure could handle the g-forces.

And so they shot forward with incredible speed. As they did so, their wings folded inward, and small circular holes opened up on their heads.

They flew just behind the frigate, fanned out and around to its flanks, then fired needle-thin plasma-charged bolts into it. And before they could be spotted by the escort fighters, they peeled off and sped back towards Maetel’s Lament.

While they did so, the needle bolts worked their magic. They were thin enough to easily punch through their armor and down into their structure. Most were actually millimeters away from puncturing through to a number of critical systems – operations, navigation, targeting, and so on.

There, the bolt casings dissolved as an internal payload of nanites ate through the titanium superalloy structure. They ate their way through ravenously, and converted the raw materials into more than enough nanites to invade the module or system right beside them.

They swarmed the circuits and spread all throughout the frigate’s energy channels, where the nanites made contact with every single system available.

Then, they activated at the same time and completely took over all control of the ship. With full control, Raijin simply shut everything down – weapons, communications, sensors, everything. Even the interior lights.

The frigate’s crew was left completely bewildered when their own ship shut down all around them. Then, they went into emergency overdrive.

Because the attack was so clean, the escort fighters were completely oblivious to what was happening right next to them. It was only when the frigate failed to adjust course to continue their circuit, that they realized something was wrong.

But it was far too late.

Xylo’s team had already slipped their way behind the escort fighters, and opened fire on them. Inky black beams with deep orange coronas shot from out of their integrated nose weapon.

The Graviton Rays hit six of the escort fighters in an instant, but instead of tearing them apart, compressed and warped them around the point of impact. The ships crumpled in on themselves helplessly.

It was like watching a popcorn kernel popping, but in reverse, and only part way.

What was happening to the fighters also affected the pilots. They too were warped and squeezed and crushed along with the fighter surrounding them.

When the other six escort fighters realized that their wing had been eviscerated in half, they immediately went into evasive action. They didn’t even bother to figure out what had happened, and instead boosted off in different directions to mitigate more damage.

But when they swung around to counter-attack, found there wasn’t anything they could do. Their sensors practically saw nothing in the space around them, and using the live feed to target was a practical impossibility.

They could only gawk in surprise and helplessness as Xylo’s wing lined up their next shots and annihilated the rest of the escort squadron with ease.

Then her wing flew back and rejoined the two corvettes, who had continued on their path towards the main station. Now that they were completely unrestricted with their approach, they flew straight towards a service hangar at the far end of one of the station’s arms.

One of Raijin’s hawk drones sped forward and shot one of its viral bolts into the hangar bay’s shielded security panels. Then, it perched up on top of the hangar itself, and kept watch over the entrance.

By the time the corvettes got to it, Raijin had already taken over the hangar’s circuits and opened it up for their use. All the ships flew in and settled themselves on landing pads all around, then they closed up the hangar behind them.

The Accursed Bootlegger’s ramp lowered even as it touched down on its landing pad. A dozen operatives walked down clad in power armor while wielding a number of vicious weapons. Interestingly, the power armor most of them wore was designed by Primal Machinations, the standout weapons manufacturer in House Gerveaux.

Of course, Freya was in her Ra’ventrii armor. There was no way she would use any other power armor.

And despite it being older by a couple of years, it was still technologically superior to the others. More than that, her loadout was completely different from the rest. As always, she preferred to wield her own handcannon and Ra’ventrii blade.

In contrast, the rest of her team was equipped with devastating Flechette Rifles. Kali and her entire team were equipped with two-handed resonance hammers, though they had sidearms strapped to their thighs.

It was clear that both teams were ready to do a monumental amount of damage.

Azrael and two of her MedTechs came down right behind them, and brandished their Medguns. The three of them walked among the operatives, opened up their armor’s medical access port, and injected them with Azrael’s most potent combat stim to date.

“You’ll have higher pain tolerance and kinetic resistance,” Azrael began. “Also, you’ll receive even higher levels of stamina regeneration and mental concentration. And I added in regenerative nanites on top of it all. You know, for when things get real hectic.”

Each of them were filled with boundless energy as her stim coursed through their bodies. They immediately felt lighter and faster. More importantly, their vision seemed to tighten, and their minds felt sharper than ever.

“It should last you all at least a couple of hours,” Azrael continued. “If it runs out and you need another boost, you can use my standard combat stim that we placed in your IFAKs. Not as strong, but good enough.”

“No worries,” Freya replied. “Two hours is more than enough time.”

Lucifer came walking down just as Azrael finished buffing up the two teams.. Ze went up to Freya and nudged her slightly.

“You’re about to do some serious bloodletting,” ze said. “You sure you’re up for that? I mean, you’re always on my ass about being less lethal.”

“Well, maybe it’s time I ease up on said ass,” Freya replied with a smirk. “Besides, if these terrorists really are funded by the Feds, then they’ll deserve it.”

She patted her handcannon to punctuate her resolve, to which Lucifer shot her a playful grin.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” ze said.

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