“Here are the facts, as they presently stand,” Kochi said through his flight helmet, his voice rough with age and hardship, “Life Support had a catastrophic systems failure, the engineers are still trying to pinpoint the exact cause, though initial reports are that several filters had exceeded their capacity and overheated to the point of immolation.
Apparently, the new filters we seized from Praxis Mundi were only enough to meet three quarters of our needs. The immolation started a chain reaction and both failsafe modules were destroyed before they could engage and prevent an atmo breach. When the backup system activated it blew out immediately, causing a second atmo breach. Emergency response specialists are sweeping the commune to help the survivors, and engineers have patched the breaches. So far casualty reports are minimal.”
“Sabotage could explain so many things going wrong at once,” suggested Gage when Kochi paused to let the facts sink in.
“It is more likely that we just had a run of bad luck,” Lelani Ursa disagreed, shaking her head and gesturing to the small chamber around them. “Every bit of tech in this commune is stolen or scavenged. Fiat Lux is held together with parts from a hundred different companies, thousands of makes and models, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.”
“I will not rule out sabotage, Mister Gage, nor will I accept that we are powerless against the particulars of our technological ecosystem, Miss Ursa. That is for the investigators to determine. In the meantime, we must respond,” spoke the captain as he rotated his chair and brought up several screens at the front of the chamber, each depicting various star charts of their sector and those adjacent. “Fiat Lux is now living on borrowed time. All remaining breathable reserves are being used to maintain the commune’s atmosphere, however, that will not last.”
Sokol recognized the familiar schematics of Andromeda Station when Kochi brought it up on the screen. Suddenly the feelings he’d experienced prior to the assault on Marcross flooded Sokol for the second time that day. Kochi sat in silence for a moment, allowing the sight of the station to haunt the screen as the lead swarmer, deck chief, and mech pilot looked on.
“The reality of our situation, whether the culprit is a saboteur or failing tech, is that Fiat Lux is going to suffocate without swift and decisive action,” stated Kochi as he brought up more information about Andromeda Station, displaying the registered systems in place and general traffic trends. “No amount of ship salvage will yield a system as potent as we need, just more reserve breathable that will only temporary stave off the inevitable. Andromeda Station is our answer.”
Silence filled the room with a sort of pressure, each of the leaders considering the image of the station. It was two sectors away, just inside the outermost border of Aegis controlled space. Fiat Lux had survived so long not just because it had a warship, but because, like any good pirate outfit, the ravagers went for targets that had a proper ratio of risk and reward.
Praxis Mundi would never report the attack on PM2258 because it was a dark site, and while they might increase their use of merc patrols and harden their other dark sites in necrospace, there was little threat of reprisal. The same could be said for the various ships that now drifted in the debris field that surrounded Fiat Lux, each one a long hauler, smuggler, pirate, or unlucky Red List vessel that wandered too far from the shipping lanes and into necrospace. To penetrate corporate space and assault an accredited station would never have been something considered by the ravagers were the situation not so desperate. For all their community’s bluster about the false idols of currency, none were so headstrong as to think that they could stand against the greater corporate civilization.
“We have lived successfully on the fringes of corporate power for a long time,” said Kochi as he watched the reactions on the faces of his leaders, his permanent life aboard the ship not impeding his captain’s sense of the crew. “The prey we take is logged as acceptable losses on the balance sheets of the Anointed Actuaries, our piracy part of the cost of doing business out here in the black.”
“Hitting Andromeda Station will change everything,” insisted Lelani Ursa, crossing her arms and taking a deep breath before continuing. “It might be a border station, but it’ll be populated by accredited citizens of many corporations.”
“The capitalists will not allow this to go unanswered,” said Gage while he looked at the schematics, clearly forming a swarmer breaching plan even as he spoke. “They’ll harden their picket lines, maybe start sending long haulers in convoys, put cor-sec frigates on deep patrol duty. Long-term survival will become more difficult, and forgive me, Captain, but the Fatalis will not always be with us.”
“Nothing to forgive, Mister Gage, the facts stand as they are. We need their life support to keep the commune alive in short order. Whatever consequences result later from our bid for life now, will have to be contended with as they come,” responded Kochi as he toggled the screens to highlight the location and specs of the stations primary life support system. “This information is outdated, as records for border stations such as this are somewhat unreliable, especially considering what little of the corporate network we can access. With that in mind, you will all be expected to formulate alternative tactics once we make contact.”
“We will need to double the deck staff to get this done swiftly, Captain,” said Lelani Ursa, her cold demeanor matching the frozen mood in the room as she turned to Sokol. “And I’ll need two mech pilots to operate the loaders. I’ll rig the loaders for hard duty, give them an output boost, too. They’re cores will meltdown quickly, so we’ll lose them in the action but they’ll be able to get the system into our hold before they go.”
“Do I have it right that you just warned me I might lose two pilots to unpredictable, and yet, certain core failures?” asked Sokol, his tone reproachful, “If it’s a suicide op, just say it.”
“We have to get the prime life support module and the filter tower onto the Fatalis in the middle of a raid, possibly in zero-G conditions. If that doesn’t happen, Fiat Lux is done,” snapped Lelani Ursa, not accustomed to dissent, even from the combat operators. “You can place the fate of our community in the hands of a couple of my deck jockeys or veteran mech pilots.”
“Point taken, Chief,” Sokol said quickly as he held his hands up. “Gregory and Angron are used to the bigger models, you’ll have your pilots.”
“I can see several good breaching points, Captain,” pointed out Gage, his attention having never wavered from the schematics, his demeanor unfazed by the pending doom they were about to unleash upon Andromeda. “If we launch at near point-blank range, the storm barges can break the hull without an overt risk to the target materials.”
“Proximity will not be an issue,” Kochi assured Gage as he turned his pilot’s throne with but a mental command, the pilot’s body not moving a muscle. “My time is growing short, as you say, though according to available information my performance has only degraded by ten percent since my last official review, before the collapse mutiny. Fatalis will see it done.”
“In that case, once we breach, I see at least four choke points that we’ll need to control.” Gage turned to Lelani Ursa. “How long we can give you to make the acquisition depends on the alacrity and ferocity of the station’s defenders. Port Authority will have a full cadre of cor-sec troopers ready to respond, and there’s no telling how many armed civilians might step up.”