Minh-Chu relayed the message he received from Jake and waited for Oz to review it in the cockpit of his Ramiel fighter. He'd loaded his ship down with as much firepower as he could muster without unbalancing the thrusters. His rate of acceleration and manoeuvrability were effected just enough for him to have to make a few adjustments early on in the flight.
'All right, I reviewed it. I'm surprised they can jam their comms with them standing outside the station though.' Oz told him from the bridge.
'I don't know how it works, my comms jam up when I come within fifty meters of the hull. It's like they're using the frame of the station to transmit a low powered jamming signal. Speaking of the station, my squad will move on and take out those big cannons. If we come around so we're skimming along the station's hull there's no way they'll fire at us. There's too much risk of them hitting their own assets.'
'Hold off on that. I'm going to try to hold off these people diplomatically. Maybe there's something I can do to get us out of this.'
'Gooood luuuuck,' Minh sang back. 'From the scans our spotter outside the barrier took it looks like they came here expecting trouble.'
'And we took care of the raiders for them.'
'There's that. I'll be out here, ready to go if you need me,' Minh said as he took his fighter into a tight roll and looked down at the nearest cannon mount. It was over fifty three hundred kilometres away, slowly rotating back and forth.
Terry Ozark McPatrick stood in front of the command seating as the image of the Caran Enterprises control Ship Ellis Commander appeared. At first he thought it was the intentionally squared graphical representation of an artificial intelligence, then he realized that the Captain's image was rendered roughly to obscure his or her identity. Oz found that insulting, but set his irritation aside. 'I'm Commander McPatrick of the Free Ship Triton. We've come to the assistance of Ossimi station and rescued a number of slave crews.'
'I'm the Admiral of this emergency response fleet, you may call me by my rank. We have come to re-assert our claim on this Caran Enterprise interest and require that you leave this space immediately.'
'We're retrieving a number of our people and will require at least half an hour to complete operations.'
'Please state your vessel's business here again?'
'We responded to a distress call, freed a large slave crew and restored power to a large section of Ossimi station after defeating a number of raiders inside. We're just picking up some of our people and-' Oz was interrupted as the holographic figure disappeared. He looked behind him to Jason and shrugged.
'They dropped the transmission. I can tell that the relay line they're using to speak through the energy barrier is still active but they're not speaking to us.'
Oz motioned for Jason to move up to the command seats as he sat down. 'Do a check on the crew profiles, see if anyone has dealt with Caran Enterprises before.'
'I already did, we don't have anyone aboard who's run into them.'
'Fantastic.'
'Oops, tall, blurry and mysterious is back.'
'Put him through,' Oz said, standing up again.
The vague image of the Admiral reappeared. 'The Station Keeper, Foreperson Amanda Dimitri has informed me that you have failed to meet her reasonable demands and your people have cost her the lives of several workers. It's also come to my attention that there is a Galactic Warrant out for this vessel and her crew. Specifically one Captain Jacob Valance, also known as Jonas Valent. I'm instructing you to power down all but essential systems and prepare to be boarded. All compartments are to be opened for scanning, any weapons you have will be secured in arms lockers, your crew will stand at stations for inspections and all senior officers will meet the inspection team at the airlock when they arrive with the command codes for all vessels. Any show of resistance will be met with brute force.'
'Please, give me a moment to begin making arrangements,' Oz said as he cut the channel with a tap on his comm unit.
The Admiral's holographic image disappeared.
'Ronin,' Oz addressed.
'Here and waiting. How is diplomacy going?'
'If it looks like any of those turrets are about to take a shot at the Clever Dream, then take them out. Cover them while they pick up our people.'
'That well, huh? I'm on it.'
'Flight Operations, launch the Clever Dream. Tell the commanding officer to deliver this message to Captain Valance; 'We're out of time.''
'Yes sir. They're ready and will be off the deck in twenty seconds,' Replied Chief Angelo Vercelli from where he stood at the central podium below.
Oz turned his attention to the tertiary main holographic display on the bridge. It was the control Ship Ellis exterior scan. The vessel was six and a half kilometres long with four main columns that extended upward from a large misshapen base. At a glance he could tell it was built to be a massive, combat ready mobile space station in its own right. The Triton seemed huge, but compared to the Ellis she was completely outclassed.
What was worse were the five battle cruisers that accompanied her. Their sleek hulls curved around short central structures that contained at least one fighter bay and what appeared to be a considerable arsenal. The thrusters set above the main protective hull segments were disproportionately large, suggesting that the ships were made as much for interception as they were for combat at various ranges. The Triton could take on two of the roughly four hundred meter long ships, but Oz knew five were just too many. His thoughts shifted to the botanical gallery and the families who lived there. The orphans of Pandem came to mind and he shook it off.
He caught Ashley's dark brown eyes looking at him. She was picking up on his anxiety. Oz flashed a quick grin and nodded to himself. 'Time to leave,' he muttered as he took the central command chair. 'I'm sure Ayan and Jake have things under control on their end.'
Chapter 17
Ayan was just hitching back into her combat engineer's tool backpack when the main doors leading further into the station creaked and groaned. The raiders had failed to cut through the thick armoured doors, but they'd managed to leave behind a great deal of damage.
'Someone's trying to come through from the other side,' one of the squad members with them commented.
'Your grasp of the obvious is astounding,' Alaka replied as he started to charge his beam cannon. 'Take cover.'
Ayan and the squad scrambled to get behind the heavier crates, taking cover in pairs. She finished securing the last clip of her backpack and took her rifle from Victor. 'Thank you.'
'Sticking with white?' he asked, gesturing at the colour of her armour.
She looked at the mixed coloured crates and the pocked metal floor. There were whole swathes where the floor's coating had been blasted away, leaving the metal bare. 'It's better than black for camouflage right now. Besides, it was always my favourite colour.'
'I thought white was a non-colour.'
'Nope, white is a colour, black isn't a colour.'
'I thought black was the presence of all colours.'
'No, you're thinking of painting. If you combine all your paints except for white you sometimes end up with black. In the real world white is the brightest colour, black is the absence of light.'
'Well, that changes everything,' Victor smirked.
