The majority of the Dragons of the Void fought to the death. They clung to the heels of the expeditionary fleet and tried to gnaw through as much flesh as possible before they perished. This diehard behavior was completely uncharacteristic of opportunistic pirates who only cared for money and their lives.
After the vanguard led by the Ark Horizon completed their firing pass, much of the pirate fleet lost their coordination. Every ship and every ch on their side ended up in random positions. They couldn’t gather into a cohesive formation anymore that could withstand the concerted efforts of House Kaine.
Most of the other pirate gangs fled. They made for easy pickings and more than half of the pirates never made it very far before they got shot to pieces.
In contrast, every rcenary corps suffered losses. Lord Kaine hired them to hunt hexapods, so they possessed the wrong loadout to fight a space battle. Combined with the defection of so other rcenaries, the expeditionary fleet lost about half of its original force of local hired help.
The rcenaries hadn’t signed up to be cannon fodder. They were just about to mutiny until Lord Kaine granted them full salvage rights. Every wrecked ship and ch that belonged to the pirates were free reign. The clever asure placated them and caused most rcs to descend on the derelicts like bees in a hive.
After all, any wreck contained a lot of untapped treasure. Any ch or ship contained many millions of credits worth of exotics. Even if they lacked the facilities to extract the most valuable resources out of the wrecks, they still cut away the juiciest bits and intended to sell them to a professional salvager once the expedition returned to civilized space.
Ves found out that Keller’s Blades distinguished themselves in battle. They possessed a small number of spaceborn chs and helped put down the traitors when they caused a ruckus. The Vesian rcenaries even received a public comndation from Lord Kaine.
As for the Ark Horizon, the fleet carrier adopted a sowhat somber mood. A small number of spacers and ch pilots lost their lives in the ensuing chaos, not helped by Lord Kaine’s abrupt decision to plunge the flagship into the enemy formation. While his maneuver succeeded in breaking the pirates, it also left much of the crew unprepared for a pitched battle.
"You should go with us to the funeral service." Chief Ramirez said as he wore a dress uniform. Around sixty people lost their lives in total, half of them killed by traitors who set off explosives. "You and your cousin fought alongside us. Even if you’re not a part of our crew, you’re comrades nonetheless."
"Alright."
Ves and lkor switched their antigrav clothes to sothing more appropriate before joining the rest of the maintenance departnt. They entered the largest hangar bay where a large space had been emptied near the ramp. Although a security screen kept the vacuum out, everyone wore skintight vacsuits underneath their dress uniforms just in case.
As soon as Ves saw the coffins, he started to turn a little numb. When Lord Kaine arrived and presided over a brief ceremony, he kept staring at the coffins with morbid fear.
"I could have ended up in one of those coffins."
Only now did the danger of the expedition truly sink in. They hadn’t even t the sandn in battle and already the expedition lost half of its peripheral rcenaries. Though House Kaine and their core rcenary partners hadn’t lost too many assets this ti, they might not be so lucky next ti.
After sending off the coffins into the endless road of stars, everyone resud their duties. The ch technicians beca twice as busy as several chs ca back from the battle in a damaged state.
Even Ves and Chief Ramirez had to make do with fewer ch technicians as every departnt beca short-handed. Still, the overhaul of the Ajax Olympians still continued largely on schedule. Lord Kaine personally sent them a mo telling them not to reassign too many n away from this project.
"The big man himself wants to see these chs up and running before we set foot on Groening IV." Chief Ramirez told Ves. "There will be hell to pay if we end up holding up the titable. We’ve already suffered too many delays."
Everyone soon got over the deaths and went back to work with determination. This ti, the hunting platoon didn’t regard Ves as a busybody who had no place in their midst. While Captain Kaine still avoided him like the plague, he got along a bit better with the rank and file.
Even Ensign D’Amato llowed out. He gave permission to lkor to carry his personal sidearm and allowed Lucky to stroll around with just a tracking collar. Ves appreciated the amount of trust House Kaine extended to him. He felt a little safer now that lkor could respond imdiately.
"Will the expedition still be viable?" Ves asked the ensign one day. "We lost an awful lot of rcenaries. Will Lord Kaine be able to hunt enough hexapods to make up for his massive investnt?"
"I’m not privy to the costs, but from what I know, Lord Kaine has already taken the loss into account before we even set off for this expedition. We always knew that we’ll be losing a lot of rcenaries along the way. They’re not exactly the most trustworthy bunch."
His remark made Ves look up at him. "You guys intended to cull the rcenaries from the start."
It sounded really devious now that he thought about it. He always wondered why Lord Kaine hired so many rcenaries to begin with. The man appeared to invite disaster by keeping so many potential enemies close. Now it seed that the wily old fox had other intentions in mind.
The ensign smirked. "There might still be so people with questionable loyalties among the rcenaries, but they won’t have the numbers to threaten our fleet. We’ve already cleaned up the worst of the bunch together with their pirate associates."
A few questions remained, however. Post-battle analysis revealed that much of the Dragons of the Void fought to the death except for the flagship of the pirate group. The pirate commander ruthlessly threw away his entire force and fled without a single shred of decency.
Once investigators began to dig in to the wrecks, they found to their surprise that much of the crew had been hopped up with stimulants. The poisonous cocktail fanned their aggression and lowered their inhibitions. In particular, they stopped fearing death.
To everyone’s surprise, none of them had been forcibly injected with them. Instead, an unknown force subjected many of the pirates to a sophisticated form of brainwashing. The ch pilots had it particularly worse as their neural interfaces had been tampered with. When Ves had been asked to take a look, his face turned white as a sheet.
He beheld the half-broken neural interface helt like it was a live grenade. "This thing is pure insanity. ssing around with the neural interface without express permission from the MTA is never a good idea. They’ve touched on a fundantal taboo."
The human mind was sacred. No one condoned brainwashing, not even if it happened to pirates. In the long history of humanity’s rise to the stars, they dabbled plenty of tis with various forms of brainwashing and ntal conditioning. The horror of forming a society of human-form robots had once threatened humanity’s dominance over the galaxy.
Still, the professional investigators working for House Kaine kept the details close to their chest. They only briefly consulted Ves on his opinions of the chs they salvaged from the battlefield.
"They look like what a well-off pirate group is able to offer. It doesn’t look like anything they fabricated themselves. Much of these chs are pretty much off-the-shelf models that you can find in any corner of the Komodo Star Sector."
"Besides the tampered neural interfaces, are there any other anomalies in these chs?" The lead investigator asked. His own n must have already checked the salvaged wrecks, but it didn’t hurt to obtain a second opinion.
"I haven’t spent enough ti to make a definite judgent. The Dragons of the Void don’t seem to be a fan of custom chs or custom loadouts. This is all standard gear."
Not every fleet enjoyed an abundant amount of trained and skilled personnel. Generally, only criminals and degenerates resorted to piracy. Skilled ch technicians and engineers enjoyed way too many job prospects. Anyone with a brain would never volunteer to beco an outlaw that had to run from the authorities like a dog for the rest of his life.
Days went by as Ves and the maintenance departnt assigned to the hunting platoon finished the overhaul in ti. Under his personal supervision, Ves made sure that nothing went wrong with regards to the final reassembly of the Ajax Olympians. When their surly pilots entered the cockpits and brought both chs online, the diagnostics revealed that everything ran according to specs.
"We did it!" Ramirez bellowed and cheered along with the other technicians. They certainly outdid themselves in transforming the heavy knights into a much more formidable machine. The twenty percent boost in strength on top of their already prodigious power ensured that they stood a much better chance at subduing a hexapod king.
They only had a few days to smooth out the kinks. Ves worked hard to ensure the Olympians could take the abuse for an extended amount of ti. They finished right on ti as the expeditionary fleet finally arrived at their fabled destination.
The Groening System’s size and wealth exceeded everyone’s expectations. The system possessed nineteen planets and many more moons. Much of these planets didn’t amount to much. The expedition had no interest in exploring the lifeless rocks or boring gas giants. They made their way straight towards the inner system and to the only planet that possessed an atmosphere.
When D’Amato showed Ves a projection of the planet, the tal storms had already started to subside. "It truly looks like a treasure."
The constant storms had smoothed out the surface of the tal ground, causing it to adopt a pattern of dream-like waves. The Groening System’s active yellow dwarf cast a glossy sheen atop the tal globe.
The ensign hadn’t co up to Ves with this projection without a reason. "It’s good that you appreciate the planet’s beauty, because you’ll be part of the ground team."
"What?!"
Ves knew that despite its exotic look, the planet hid a lot of threats. Who knew if the logs of the previous expedition encompassed all of the wildlife. In addition, things might have changed after more than twenty years.
"Lord Kaine gave the word himself and wants you on the ground. Even though the tal storm has entered its low period, it’s still too dangerous to expose our shuttles to the planet’s hostile atmosphere. We also have to take the hexabats into account. Each trip will degrade the integrity of a shuttle or transport, and we only brought so many to this expedition."
The hunting platoon and the rcenaries deployed to the underground paradise couldn’t operate around the clock. Their pilots needed rest and the chs might need so quick repairs.
Just like the previous expedition, House Kaine intended to establish a temporary base camp at a defensible position. With so hasty entrenchnt, the camp should be able to withstand a horde of hexapods for a limited amount of ti.
That still didn’t an that Ves could treat this trip like a vacation. The hexapods had already proven their lethality and Ves didn’t look forward to seeing one in the flesh no matter how many walls the base camp erected.
"You’re assigned to assist the hunting platoon. You can’t do that effectively up in orbit." D’Amato explained. "Lord Kaine doesn’t want to see you slacking off. Your contribution to improving the performance of our Ajax Olympians isn’t enough to pay for your services."
In other words, Lord Kaine wanted to squeeze every little bit of value from his presence. Ves understood that the hunting platoons and other chs might face so difficult problems. A ch designer like him could prove very useful in various ways. He couldn’t co up with a viable excuse to shirk this duty.
"Very well. I’ll prepare to join the ground team."
He should have expected to be employed in this fashion. From what he experienced so far, Lord Kaine and the rest of his n hardly valued the lives of their rcenaries. While they had to treat their formidable rcenary partners from the Grey Willow Star Sector with care, they obviously didn’t extend the sa amount of concern to the help they picked up in the frontier.
Even if the hexapod kings all rose up and wiped the base camp off the map, then so what? If Ves ended up in a hexapod king’s belly, House Kaine already earned a massive fortune from their earlier harvests. Even the Clifford Society didn’t seem so scary once the Ark Horizon left the Komodo Star Sector.
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