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Feo sat in her chair on the bridge, her brow furrowed deeply while she thought. As much as she would like to be mourning the loss of one of her best bridge officers, she didn't have the luxury of time any more. With the failed assault on the Gladius, it was likely that Sabre were starting to get desperate. They had to know that they had likely called for backup, and after the massacre, it was doubtful that they would try another ground assault. Which really only left one alternative: they were gunna fire upon the Gladius from orbit.

She glanced around the deserted bridge; everyone was either working on repairs or otherwise occupied. Feo sighed and stood up, before making her way down to Engineering. Unlike the bridge, it was abuzz with activity. With the news that rescue was on the way, the crew had been reinvigorated like almost nothing else. And with the successful defence of the ship, spirits were high. Feo scanned through the throng of people and spotted Sam sitting at a terminal with Raalic next to him. The pair were talking animatedly, discussing, well, she wasn't sure from this distance. She smiled to herself and walked over, managing to catch the last snippet of their conversation before they turned to face her.

“-hull made ah Trilite. It's incredibly strong stuff, yeh know, an' versatile ter boot! Oh, hey Cap'n," Raalic said, nodding at her, while Sam swivelled around to face her.

“God, this is like a dream come true!" he exclaimed, visibly excited, “I haven't been this mentally challenged in a long, long time! This ship is a feat of technological genius! Raalic has been going over some of the basics with me, but I can't wait to dive deeper!"

Feo chuckled softly, “I'm sorry to interrupt the study session, then, but I need to talk with you quickly,"

Raalic cocked his head to one side, “But surely yeh didn't have ter make the trip down here for that?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

Feo glanced from side to side, before sitting next to them, “I didn't wanna call it over the comm system, I don't want to cause a panic…" she said, before dropping her voice to barely a whisper, “What's the status of the shields?

Raalic shook his head, “Still down, ahm afraid, the emitters took some pretty severe damage when we crashed, an' I'm not sure how long it'll take ter repair 'em."

Feo sighed, “Raalic, I want you to pull everyone you need to get those emitters fixed as soon as possible. It might just be a hunch, but I've got a feeling that Sabre won't be averse to nuking us from orbit…"

Raalic nodded and leapt to his feet, “Right away, Cap'n," he replied, saluting quickly, before dashing off, leaving Sam and Feo together again. As she watched the diminutive Serani start to bark orders out to his engineers, she heard Sam stifle a yawn next to her.

She glanced over at him, “Tired, are we?" she asked, a hint of bemusement in her voice.

Sam shrugged, “Well, to be honest, I don't even know how long I've been up now," he replied, “I carried you almost two kilometres, and let me tell you, you're far heavier than you look!"

Feo shot him a scathing glance, but he continued nonetheless, “Then we were attacked by those soldiers, but being knocked unconscious doesn't mean I was sleeping!" he objected in reply to her soft chuckle, “Then we've been on the go ever since! I mean, sure, you may have had the chance to rest, but I haven't!"

Feo smirked softly, “Fine, fine, you've made your point…" she acquiesced, “The problem is, well, our ship was at full crew compliment when we left. We have lost a few people in the interim though… I'm reluctant to give you Sari's old bunk; it still feels a little too visceral now, and a lot of the crew would disagree with it. But the FO's cabin is vacant; he was killed long enough ago that we've had time to pack away his personal effects…"

Feo's expression fell, “We've lost good people on this foolhardy mission… But I trust my superiors; they wouldn't have sent us out here if it wasn't for a good reason… Anyway, they're on the Command deck, take a right from the elevator and it'll be right in front of you. I'll take you there, I need to finish my charge cycle anyway.

In scant moments, the pair of them were standing by the bridge on the Command Deck, with Sam leaning tiredly on the wall of the corridor. Feo smiled a little and helped him to his new room. The door opened with a soft hiss, revealing the spacious interior, a pretty much mirror copy of her room across from him. The only major difference was the bed in this room was far more what he likened a bed to, than what Feo had. With a grateful moan, he slumped onto the soft covers, still wearing his armoured vest.

Feo smirked softly as she stood by the wall by the entryway, “Sleep well, Sam," she whispered, but he was already fast asleep. She watched him for a minute, before turning and returning to her room. As she walked through the door to her dim space, she sighed softly and took off her jacket and shirt, dumping them over the chair by her desk, before retreating to her small bed. But unlike last time, when Sam had been with her, she curled up with her back to the wall, with her tail curled around her legs. As before, the cables slithered across the floor and plugged into her back, and she reached beside her bed to grab the data cable for her neck.

As it clicked into place, she let her head drop back to the bed and closed her eyes. She had no idea what the next 24 hours were gunna hold, but she and her crew would face it together…

A tawny Serani was pacing back and forth on the bridge of his cruiser, high in orbit above the blue marble of a planet beneath them. He strode to the wall, to the window, and looked down upon the glowing green continents, before turning back to the other officers on the bridge, “Try hailing them again," he instructed, worry visible on his terse face. The snow-white Ilfemyoo he was talking to nodded and tapped a few commands onto his console, “Still no response from the strike team, Commander," he said, glancing back at him, “Maybe we should let Commandant Eloash know…"

The canine rounded on him with a snarl, “I'm perfectly capable of making command decisions, Ensign!" he growled, before taking a breath and composing himself, “Now, how long until we're in tightbeam range?"

“A few minutes, sir," came the reply, “We're passing its horizon now,"

Tense seconds turned to minutes as the Ilfemyoo worked his station, before he spoke again, “Sir, I've got something… It's an emergency beacon from a mech!"

The Serani sighed and leaned back against his chair, “Are you able to recover anything from its data banks?"

There was a slight pause before the rabbit responded, “Yes sir. We've got access to its black box. Beginning playback,"

The viewscreen in front of them flickered slightly as it started playing the recording. There were twenty soldiers ahead of the mech, marching quickly, while the faintly glimmering lights of the objective ship glowed ahead.

Then came a voice over the comm system, “Hostile target in sight, all stop! Send word to the Commander that we're in range,"

Another voice, “Sir, we've lost communication. We may be out of tightbeam range at the moment,"

The first voice, “Copy that, we'll have to begin regardless. All hands, prepare for rocket fire!"

A scattering of affirmation from the soldiers rang out as they acquired the target.

“Fire!"

A rushing sound, like wind, was heard as ten rockets fired towards the ship. But before they impacted, they were intercepted by lancing beams of light, eliciting a curse from the soldier leading the squad.

“Hold fire! Their point defences are active, we're just wasting ordinance. Form up and move out again!"

Within seconds, the company was moving again, swiftly now. They had almost entirely crossed the distance between them and the ship before the soldier in the lead crumpled suddenly to the ground. A split moment later, a booming crack rang out across the forest, startling birds and soldier alike.

“Sniper!" someone yelled as they scattered to cover, while the view panned to the tree the shot came from. On a branch, high in a tree, crouched a figure wreathed in shadow and unable to be seen clearly. The loud whine of the mech's guns spinning up filled the air, before lead replaced it, absolutely shredding the tree.

“Contact, contact!" came a soldier's cry as the mech pivoted again, this time towards the defences the crew of this ship had put up. The pilot kept firing the whole time, catching one or two of them in the wave of supressing fire.

“Alert! Alert! Hostile intrusion detected!" came the voice of the mech's control systems.

“What? Clarify!" the pilot ordered, stopping firing for a moment. He saw one of the defenders dash out from cover and squeezed his triggers, but nothing happened.

“A-a-alert! In-intrusion! Sys-sys-systems fail-l-l-l-ling," came the halting reply as the mech ground to a halt.

Before the pilot could do anything, the mech suddenly turned around and jammed its gun against the other mech's power core.

“What the hell!" the pilot yelled, desperately trying to regain control of his mech, but to no avail. The loud whirring of the gun spinning up pulled his attention, before it unloaded into the other mech, crippling it in a matter of moments. The soldier inside the mech was panicking almost as much as the soldiers outside at that point, trying desperately to bring his behemoth back under his control.

The mech started chasing after the routed soldiers, and had taken several steps before the pilot realised he had control again! The swung the mech back around, still obviously shaken, before being startled by a small figure leaping onto its torso. It was indeed quite diminutive, and looked like nothing the commander had seen before. The vulpine figure growled and yipped as they jabbed their rifle against the canopy, before suddenly, the screen exploded to hash.

The commander gulped a little and collapsed into his chair, before turning to his communications officer, “C-contact the Commandant immediately. This is way out of my league…"

Minutes later, the visage of Commandant Eloash was glaring at him, “Commander Dana, I hope you have something positive to report," he said in his hissing, almost threatening voice.

Dana shuddered a little, “We-we found their ship, it's on a planet inhabited by a pre-FTL population. We sent in a company, alongside two mechs… All wiped out…"

Eloash's eyes narrowed dangerously, “What happened?" he demanded, sounding like he was on the verge of yelling.

Dana gulped a little, “We're still trying to figure that out, sir. We're sending you all our data. One of the assailants is a species I've never seen before, and spoke in a language that our translators don't recognise. I have a strong suspicion that they are the AI we're after…"

Eloash hissed in displeasure while he looked over the recording. But as it finished on his end, even he seemed visibly shaken, “Commander… What you are looking at is a ghost; it appears to be an Aeteri. And if what you said is true, it's possible that an AI may have gotten its hands on ancient Aeterian tech and turned it against you…"

Dana spoke up, “I thought the Aeteri were wiped out at the beginning of the Great War?" he asked, but Eloash quietened him with a wave of his scaly hand.

“Don't speak to anyone of this, and delete this footage. I will petition the Council for clearance to fire upon the planet from orbit, we CANNOT allow this to spread! We don't have ships in the area anymore, so it looks like you're going to have to deal with this. Do not mess this up…"