EG 3 Ch 25 (Patreon)

I grinned, listening to Melgara's explanation. "If I were there, I could kiss you," I told her with a grin.

"I would highly advise against potentially upsetting the other women on the ship." Melgara sounded startled.

"Fair," I said, not too concerned. I wasn't actually going to kiss Melgara. "It just means thank you."

"Perhaps it's my profession, but I rarely see the swapping of bodily fluids as the positive you seem to think it is." She replied.

"Just accept my thank you. And don't worry, we'll take care of the ship. If they contact you, I'll be happy to get Violet or Tiri on the line for some Kikai faces." I told her.

"That would be much appreciated. They were very confused why I was taking the call, but they ultimately seem very interested in topping their stores back up. So get someone down there." Melgara told me.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sending Lily. She'll take care of the battleship." I grinned. If we could take it without damaging it too much, we might even be able to sell it on Sage Shores. I could only imagine what sort of damage could be done to Kikai leadership if one of their own battleships fell into the hands of their opponents.

This was exactly the type of opportunity we could use to fight back against an opponent as large as the Unity.

As soon as Melgara finished, I tapped my comms. "Lily, I need you at the nutripaste tanks. The battleship is coming to refill theirs. I think that gives you a lovely point of entry. And if you can, try to keep the battleship in one piece, but not at the risk of yourself."

"Does that mean we have more time?" Tiri asked.

"Not really," I said quickly, before she got the wrong idea. "They're coming in to refill the nutripaste, but we need to be ready to get out of here. Given that we've already told them there's a dangerous communicable disease aboard, we probably shouldn't linger in case that message has already gone back out to other ships in the area."

I rushed down the station toward the nutripaste store. "Lily, I'm coming to join you," I announced, not only to her, but to the rest of my crew aboard the ship.

"Are you certain? There's no need for you to be here, Captain." Lily stated, continuing her quest to keep me safe.

"On the contrary. I think if an emergency arises, it's best that we are together." I offered, knowing that statement might entice her.

There was a subtle pause before the response came. "You are indeed correct, Captain. Please, with all due haste, make your way here."

I held back a chuckle. "I will be there shortly."

"I'm going to help the others finish loading," Violet announced.

"And someone's going to get me?" Aikari asked hopefully.

There was a long pause as nobody jumped in to take on that responsibility.

"Lily and I will head that way once we’re done.” I told her. Aikari was thankfully decently useful, all said and done.

"Oh, phew, I thought you were going to abandon me." The AI let out a breath of relief.

"I wouldn't dream of it," I reassured her. "But now that we are talking about secondary objectives, how many neutron cores do you actually need to operate?" I asked.

The AI hesitated. "I'm uncertain what the exact limits might be, Captain. For non-manual rerouting, we have to keep the central two cores active. But perhaps the secondaries on the top and bottom floor could be destroyed." She stated the last like it physically pained her to admit.

"Perfect," I said, a massive grin spreading across my face. "Maybe use one of your sprites to lead Pip to those cores. And it might be best to disconnect from them before he starts munching, too."

The AI let out a whine. "Can do."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I was so powerful. I had the whole station in my grasp. Now we're going to let a little baby leviton eat my power." She sounded genuinely dismayed.

"If it's any consolation, you were never going to get to keep it." I told her.

"But maybe I was going to be able to use it to shred a ship. That would be pretty satisfying." The AI appeared to me as a little sprite and began batting her lashes at me. "Docking complete. nutripaste delivery commencing."

As I rounded the corner, I spotted Lily standing by the tanks, her hands pressed against them and her eyes closed with a contented hum.

"Pip reached the first core," Aikari reported. "Also, he's eating through the decks, so there's definitely going to be some evidence when someone finally gets here."

"I guess that's one way to do it," I said with a chuckle. The place was going to look like swiss cheese by the time the little leviton was done.

Lily was concentrating over near the nutripaste tank. There wasn't much to see as she went to work.

"Can you give me a feed of what Pip is doing?" I asked, and a hologram popped up next to me. It was somewhat distorted; Pip's black hole seemed to be affecting the cameras. Still he met a wall and just opened his mouth, making a cone shaped hole through the wall and then lazily swam through like he was proud of his destruction.

"And you are wiping everything as we finish here?" I asked the AI, wanting to make sure that was in her plan. 

"I may not be built for infiltration, but even I watched a spy movie or two. It is always best to wipe the hard drives." The sprite on my shoulder answered with an eyeroll.

I watched as Pip's black hole of a mouth shredded the neutron core's protective exterior and ripped apart the inside as if it were made of paper and not incredibly dense material. The contact between the black hole and the inside of the nuclear reactor seemed to explode. And the explosion was sucked into the black hole like everything else. Pip's fins began to glow brightly as the little leviton consumed more and more of the neutron core.

"I find this highly disturbing," the AI protested, though I was watching with awe.

I mean, Pip having a black hole in his mouth was pretty freaking awesome, if I was honest. Using the black hole to eat the reactor that powered space stations, even cooler.

"Why, what's wrong?" I asked the complaining AI.

"It would be like you watching someone eat a human heart. Without that reactor, the station that I am currently functioning as the brain of will cease to function." The AI's little chibi form began waving its hands exaggeratedly. "It's disturbing, to say the least."

"Problem," Melgara cut through on the communicator.

"What can we do?" I asked. We were wrapping up and I hoped there wasn’t another ship in bound.

"They've detected Lily's intrusion," Melgara said. "I'm communicating with the ‘ground team’ to see if they can double-check if there's a problem. But given that they believe there is a virus loose on the station, they put several additional layers of sensors and filters in the pump to ensure, honestly quite intelligently, that they didn't end up contaminating their stores. Now they've detected Lily."

I rubbed my forehead. "All right. We go with plan B."

"What's plan B?" Melgara asked.

"We just have the station unload a payload straight into the battleship," I said, only for Aikari to appear beside me.

"There might be a small problem with that, Captain." She pinched her fingers together.

I glanced at her with a frown. "And what would be that small issue?"

"Pip is currently eating neutron cores that we would need to power all of the laser batteries." She told me.

I cursed under my breath. "How much can you bring online? Even if only for a few salvos."

There was a dry chuckle from the AI. "Maybe twenty percent," she hazarded.

I stared at her in disbelief. "He only ate one of the four cores. How did we lose eighty percent?"

"Because that core was largely doing auxiliary tasks, like powering the station's weapons." She told me.

I ran a hand down my face. We’d gotten cocky and were frankly trying to do too many things at the same time. "All right. Well, we can solve this too. Twenty percent should be enough. Their shields are down." I thought through everything we could get out of the battleship and grimaced. "Target the bridge," I said to Aikari.

Lily frowned at me from where she was still trying to punch through the battleship's new layer of protection on the nutripaste line.

"Take out their command. Paralyze their decisions for just a minute. And Lily, you're just going to dive straight in. Take everything you can offline. If you can stop their engines, that would be perfect." I told her. So much for selling an intact battleship. My dreams of swimming in feds died like that.

"And then?" Lily asked.

"Then we do our best to commandeer a damaged battleship and send it to Sage Shores." I answered. A battleship hull was still worth a pretty penny, just not nearly the value of a fully functioning one.

There was a silent pause from both Aikari's little floating chibi and Lily.

"That is, if I may say so, ice fucking cold, Captain," Aikari said after a moment. "But also, I approve." 

"Don't make me dwell on it, and do it." I ordered. It was not easy being in charge and having to make these calls. But I would protect my crew. Part of that meant getting every advantage we could scrape up.

"Aye, Captain," she said sharply.

“Don’t give them time to react.” I said.

A little screen came up as the station’s turrets swiveled. The Battleships claxons were audible from here even as they tried to fire up their point defense to take out some of the turrets.

It wasn’t enough. A station was too big of a problem for a battleship, especially this close. Normally against a station a fleet would linger out at range and bombard or siege and starve it out. But this close, it was over as soon as it began.

Aikari began a full broadside from the station right into the nose of the battleship. It exploded, cratering a good chunk of the front and leaving the rest of the ship intact. Lily's concentration redoubled, and Aikari did a sudden overlay of the battleship with life signs. I watched as one after another they began to wink out, no doubt Lily's work.

"Brilliant idea, Captain," Melgara said sarcastically. "Now, if it might be pertinent to ask at this juncture, how do you intend to get this battleship anywhere we can sell it? Or do we just leave it here for someone to discover?"

I looked at the AI projection next to me. "Any ideas?" I asked.

"Maybe you could tow it into hyperspace and then just, you know," she made a pushing gesture.

"Would it work?" I asked.

The AI shrugged. "I don't know. I think it's been done before." She sounded so incredibly confident, but somehow I failed to pick up on any of it myself.

"Great. Well then, if that's the best idea we have. Everyone, we need to wrap up and get out of here ASAP. So get Pip snacking. And the rest of you, get off this station now." I told them.

Aikari cleared her throat next to me.

"Yes?" I said with a lifted brow.

"Well," she suddenly hesitated.

"You can tell me whatever it is on the way to get your core and some of those processing servers that I promised you." I told her, already anticipating where this conversation was going.

The little AI chibi started fist-pumping next to me. "I knew you weren't going to abandon me," she said excitedly.

***

Megumi stepped off her ship into the abandoned station while a veritable armada swarmed around it. She had a biohazard mask over her mouth, even with her divine abilities. There was simply too much mystery surrounding the station. The report that had hit the inquisitors said the station was suspicious with a docked ship claiming that a Ketra Z outbreak had occurred.

As her heels clicked and her tails swished behind her, she turned to the investigators that had arrived before her. That was on purpose so that she could arrive once they had managed to answer most of the questions she’d ask. "Give me the rundown."

"The station is still fully operable, minus a few aspects," the investigator said, moving as she talked.

"And what exactly does that mean? Is there any sign of conflict around the station?" She asked.

"There's enough debris to suggest there may have been a small, contained conflict. Judging by the alloy composition of what we found, a roughly fifteen-year-old hull was damaged just outside the station. Though, it was not enough damage to give us a clear picture of what happened. Certainly not enough if the station or the ship were truly putting up a fight. The station, beyond several minor wear-and-tear issues, seems to be in good condition."

Megumi looked over the tablet offered to her. "So the station wasn't even fired upon. Then why the hesitation on saying it's in working order?" She handed the tablet back.

"You're going to have to see it to believe it yourself. We have several forensic analysts going over the damage. We're hoping to understand what could have caused it, but the neutron cores are mostly gone."

"The core is either gone or it's not." She frowned.

"Yeah, well, it looks like something took a bite out of it." He told her.

She swiped on the tablet to reveal several images, and Megumi could only stare.

Something had taken a bite out of a neutron core.

"Do we have any idea what could do that? A suicidal dragon?" she asked. Even as a divine, playing with neutron cores was not something she would risk. By definition, a generator capable of powering ships and space stations could go very, very wrong. Megumi wasn't sure she could survive a catastrophic failure from a neutron core.

"I don't know what to tell you, Inquisitor. I only have the facts before me." They answered.

"The facts are all we should need," Megumi agreed. "If we gather enough of them, we will piece together a whole, regardless of how confusing it is. Survivors?"

"Nothing," the investigator said.

"I'm so sad no one survived. We shall bury their bodies. It'll be good for morale." She instructed.

"Sorry. When I said nothing, I meant nothing, Inquisitor. There are no bodies on the station."

This was getting more perplexing by the moment. There should be something left.

"So we have a station that has gone completely dark, with no bodies, and just the debris of a very small scuffle on the exterior. Does the hull age match any of the ships we'd expect to dock here?" She asked.

"One." The investigator flashed a battleship across her tablet. "The Karn should have been here about five or six days ago."

"Attempts to reach it?" Megumi asked, and the investigator shook her head.

"All have failed." She reported.

"If we can find the battleship, then we can find answers," Megumi reasoned.

"I agree," the investigator said. "The problem is finding the battleship. We've tried to ping the transponder, but there's been nothing."

The nine-tailed divine's appendages splayed out behind her. "Then we have a very serious problem on our hands, don't we? A missing battleship is not a mistake. It is a problem for the whole system." She made sure to impress the gravity of the situation on the investigator.

"Of course, but at present we have no leads." She told her.

"That is where you're wrong," Megumi said, pacing the hallway. "We have something that's taken a bite out of a neutron core. The number of things that can do that has to be woefully small. I want the forensic team to come up with several plausible scenarios by the end of the day, and then we'll hunt those down to see if we can't come up with a reasonable lead on what might have been here. And then we need to check on several universities. There has to be someone out there who can at least give us a lead on what the hell in deep space would eat neutron cores. And if we're there, then perhaps we can add in asking about something that would wipe out all traces of life on a station. With that, we will be able to narrow down our theories.”

"Well, when it comes to all traces of life, there actually are several similar instances," the investigator said, pulling up on her tablet a report not from a Kikai but from Imperial space. "There was an investigation that we became aware of but have not participated in. It happened in Federation space involving a baronial fleet called the VDF."

The Inquisitor stared at the screen. "Did we come by this information in a," she hesitated, "convenient enough manner?"

"We can make up several plausible reasons. Or perhaps we could reach out with the issue of our own and see if they connect the two." The investigator offered.

"Do it. There's something dangerous in our sector, and the worst situation we could be in is not understanding what it is we are up against. Now, onto the other matter." The Inquisitor turned.

"We still have not located where the picture was taken, and all attempts to reach out to whoever sent it have failed. Like they are no longer there." He answered.

"Cold feet?" Megumi asked with a lifted brow.

"I am uncertain. Sending such a message shows that they were determined to cut a deal. I am not sure why they would have backed out."

Megumi hummed and looked into the distance. "I have the faint feeling that we're stepping into deeper waters." The Inquisitor grinned. "String up one of our old friends that we've kept alive. It seems we have several questions that might need their venerable wisdom," Megumi said with sadistic glee.

The investigator noted it down on her tablet coldly, with a nod. "At once." She bowed and left the station.

Megumi walked down to one of the neutron cores, where a whole team of specialists had flooded the room, though they were busy scratching their heads. They left Megumi alone.

It really did look like someone had taken very clean, round bites, and all that was left were scraps of the neutron core's shielding. The actual interior was completely gone. She touched one of the fragments remaining with a shake of her head.

"I don't know what you are, but you've caught my attention." She spoke aloud.

She took the fragment as a souvenir and sashayed out, everyone still busy looking it over. Not a single soul had lifted their head to notice her, and they wouldn't unless she willed it. Because there's no better way to investigate than being invisible to everyone who might run from you.