Arya was adjusting integrity field output when she heard Sandra's voice crackling in over the short range comms, talking to... a passerby? She turned her focus to the sensor readout console, and sure enough a new contact had been detected approaching - and fast. She turned a dial, focusing the active scanner dish in on the target; with the array damaged, it wasnt until the vessel was in near spitting distance that the feedback was received. It was an AI scout drone, alien in design, though she couldn't immediately discern what group it belonged to. If it was the Collective, which they'd encountered more recently, it had to be dealt with before it could report their presence back to the swarm, or they were done for.
She flipped comms, "Sandra, Cyrus, that's a scout drone, we need to take it out before it scans us and reports back, or we're going to be overwhelmed here! Don't give it a chance, open fire!"
Stumbling as she rushed across the room to the remote turret control terminals, she set the two functional turrets on the ship to target the vessel in point defense mode. The wreckage of the Bastet shook and shuddered as the guns began firing at the inbound drone. Only a dozen or so shots rang out before the guns hummed and shut down, they'd drained the last of the reserves from their capacitors. "Crap..." Arya cursed under her breath. Without diverting power from the structural integrity generators there was nothing more she could do, "...Guess it's up to those two."
As Arya's voice came to life over the comms, Sandra found herself confused and suddenly somewhat panicked.
"Wait, what? Hold on -- Wha'dya mean by scout drone? Y'mean like, owned by the Core'r somethin'? Hey-- I'm not here'ta shoot nobody unless they--" But before Sandra could finish, a flash outside had her maneuvering her Wrecker clear. "Whoah whoah, hey now, simmer down! Seriously? Do all'a ya'll shoot firs' an' ask questions second?!"
Sandra checked her radar's HUD for a status on the supposed 'scout drone.' "Sheesh, no small wonder why I don' come'ta the Omicrons often. Ya'll are too trigger happy without explainin' ahead'a time what needs keepin' an eye out fer!"
As the noise of the Bastet's twin cannons died down, Arya heard Sandra's hesitation over the radio. She rushed back to the communications console, "Sandra, it's not a human ship, it's an alien drone! Shoot the damn thing already!"
Cyrus had chimed in the lack of weaponry aboard his repair ship, it was up to Sandra alone. If the drone got away, they'd have a swarm on their hands."
"What?! Oh-- Uh, all right!" Sandra was wondering if she would regret this decision later, but she'd have time for that later. Strapping in and ordering the engines to full-thrust, Sandra flicked on her targeting computer and hailed the drone-scout-thing. "Sorry fer this, but uh, yeah. No hard feelin's if ya'll come back at me later!" With that, a quad-barrage of yellow bolts shot forth and hailed towards the scout drone! The mixture of Standard and Gatling Style Solaris Cannons would certainly give the little thing a hard time. Arming the Cruise Disruptor Array, Sandra set her jaw and poured on the pressure.
"This's the last time I get mixed up in edge've-the-galaxy salvagin' fer a while, I reckon! Dern it, I hate shootin' an' tootin' without knowin' what I'm doin'!"
Hostility. Bolts of fire rained about the drone, evasive subroutines activated to avoid incoming fire. The wreckage firing was unexpected, two turrets still functional - noted. Functional salvage was valuable. Just as quickly, firing ceased, power expended, the wreckage was no longer deemed a threat. Hesitation from the smaller vessels, the mender had no weaponry, no longer a threat. The wrecker began to attack, outcome expected though delayed.
The drone skirted along the far side of the derelict, using it as cover from the incoming gunship's fire. It attempted to engage cruise, a disruptor collapsed the engine field. Auxiliary thrusters were engaged, scans complete, must report to The Ravine.
As quickly as it had arrived, the drone scout disappeared back into the cloud, outrunning its attackers.
Some of the Bunhouse's shots rang off the far end of the Bastet's hull as the AI drone used it for cover, luckily not enough to cause any additional damage. Before they could do anything to stop it, the drone had completed scans and fled the scene. "Damnit..." Arya cursed under her breath.
She opened comms to Sandra and Cyrus, "Well, we're screwed. It wont be long before a swarm shows up to take this ship, we've seen it happen before, the Collective is relentless. Sandra, I'm authorizing your payment through Legacy Command, please see what you can do about paying Eva and Kera Thorn for me. I'll throw in extra for this spacesuit, wont be getting it back to you."
She paused, thinking for a moment, "Cyrus, finish up what you can, but I need you to get out of the cloud and make a call to the Order and Legacy for combat support, get whatever htey can here, and have someone bring some power cells so we can spin up this jump drive. Maybe we can get out of here before the Collective arrives, but we have to move fast."
Arya set to work jury-rigging the jump drive, salvaging wires and cables from other parts of the engineering bay to create an interface for standard power cells. Without the reactor core, they'd have to get creative about supplying enough power for a hyperspace breach to be opened.
With shots having rang out, and the message sent, Auger was hastily finishing up a bulkhead as he prepped the Anu's cruise engines.
"Acknowledged, Captain. I'll rally what support I can. Godspeed.." he said, finishing up the bulkhead and powering up the Anu's drive. Soon enough, the repair vessel was beginning to speed away towards the Epsilon anomaly, radio beams pouring out towards Legacy and Overwatch command, sending for anything they could scramble.
"Ngh-- Shoot, that thing is fast!" Sandra tried to give chase for about 10 klicks, but quickly realized that the drone had too much of a lead on her. Shaking her head, the Houstonite turned her Wrecker back towards the hull of the Bastet. Who the hell expects someone who don't know no better'ta react 'ta somethin' that fast? she thought in frustration.
After a moment of silence and taking a moment to breathe, Sandra spoke out in the local comms. "Sure would'a been nice'ta know about those things ahead of time.." "I honestly weren't too worried about the money, but I am gonna need some creds' fer the Thorn siblin's. Be nice'ta have somethin' fer the suit, though - Those older ones ain't easy'ta find these days."
Giving it some thought, Sandra decided there was one more thing she could do. "Lemme see about bringin'ya those power cells, Cap'. I'm pretty sure they'll have some on Tarancon, an' as long as I'm semi-careful, I shouldn' have'ta worry about bringin' more curious folks'ta this mess. If we're talkin' drone swarms, I'm prob'ly not gonna stick'round fer that. Ya've proven 'ta be a decent sort so far, but I don' go riskin' my life fer folks on the firs' date." She spoke the last part of the sentence laughingly - despite the situation - to denote the jesting intent behind it.
"I'll be back in a flash, then I've got to skeedattle. Sorry fer the mess, but I reckon that'll get'cha in the future 'ta double-check on things like this ahead've time. I guess it is what it is now, though!" With that, Sandra took off for Tarancon to pick up those jump-drive power cells.
Arya worked in eerie silence for the next few hours, interrupted only briefly by Sandra's return with a load of standard power cells. She had gone about stringing them together with scrap wiring, connecting them all in parallel and, in a shower of sparks, securing them to the jump drive's initiator coils. "Hope this works, I'd rather not end up sucked into a black hole today..."
There was more to do before the jump could be initiated. The jump drive had power, now, but the navicomputer was damaged, she would have to salvage parts from the other terminals in the engineering bay to get it running, and that would mean losing access to other systems.
Occasionally the dead silence would be broken by a smaller asteroid fragment pinging off the hull, always making Arya jump out of her skin thinking it was hostile fire from an alien swarm. The sporadic instances of terror were doing nothing beneficial for her concentration, and often made her lose her train of thought, impeding repairs.
Much to her relief, the scanner chirped at the arrival of reinforcements; the Hatshepsut, a Resheph-Class Destroyer, and a full squadron of four fighters were inbound at high speed. "Glad to see you guys, I'm working on finalizing repairs here, but we may have a collective swarm moving in"
Anders, the captain of the Hatshepsut, responded, "Roger. All ships, stay alert." The Resheph and its fighter escort moved into defensive positions around the Bastet, providing full coverage. While Arya feverishly worked to get everything in order for the jump, she continued to explain the situation over open comms, "A scout interrupted our salvage op, it got away, no doubt to report our location. Currently, hull integrity is minimal, weapons are all offline, we used up what we had to try and get that scout... I need you to buy me as much time as you can."
One of the escort fighters returned comms, "Solid copy, Bastet actual."
A short while later, as Arya finally plugged the last microchip into the navcom to get it functional, scanners beeped another warning. She rushed over to the console and went over the data; it was distorted, especially at max range, but she could make out five contacts heading their way, none of them transmitting a human IFF - this had to be the drone swarm coming in hot. She got back on communications, "Scanner Contact, five unknown ships closing in, 12k out" Almost simultaneously, Anders said the same, the Hatshepsut's sensors were far more advanced, undamaged, and more reliable altogether, "Reading multiple inbound contacts from the north."
Arya moved at double-time, rushing to boot up the navcom and get this wreckage out of harm's way, "Working as fast as I can down here, this ship is a mess, form a defensive line and keep them at bay!"
With that, the Order combat group took up formation and moved out towards the rapidly-approaching threat.
![[Image: Tenacity.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Tenacity.gif)
