Lauren had saved me again. If it weren’t for her, the Imperial soldier would have been able to kill me without many issues after the last of my strength was gone. Which wouldn’t have taken much longer. It’s true that I saved her in turn, but that was more luck than anything else. The entire experience had still had me reeling as Lauren was prepared to launch an attack out of the armory. She’d tasked me to stay behind and defend the wounded. And even though I really didn’t want to leave her side, it was probably the best decision one could have made. I’d be more of a liability than an asset in the state I was in. At least I could still point a gun in a general direction and pull the trigger.

When the lights went down and the grenades went out, Lauren and the other marines left us behind as a veritable hail of bullets flew down the different corridors. Heavy fighting ensued. But even though the fighting was ferocious, it didn’t really last long at all. Just three minutes later, the halls went quiet.

Another five minutes later, my earpiece started buzzing.

“Luna, are you there?” Lauren contacted me.

“I am.” I replied.

“Is everyone okay there? None went past us?”

“We’ve not seen anyone here.” I replied once more. Private Walter on my right looked relieved as well.

“Good, we are coming back now.”

“What about the enemy?” I asked.

“Either dead or completely routed. Ellie says there’s only two enemy survivors, and they scurried off back to their own ship. We were a bit too slow to catch them.”

“And on our side?”

“Some minor injuries, but nothing bad. The assault went perfectly as planned. We’ll discuss our next plans when we get back.”

Ellie turned the lights on our floor back on, and a couple of minutes later our triumphant marines appeared from the hallways. All looking pretty happy with what they had accomplished, quite rightfully so.

Lauren took off her helmet and smiled widely as she approached. “Good, that’s a big step taken already.” When she got a bit closer, I could see a big blackened graze on her armor’s waist.

“What’s that?” I pointed at it.

“A close encounter with one of the enemy guns.” She awkwardly chuckled. “It’s fine though, I managed to dodge out of the way.”

“That was so cool.” One of the other marines said. “You should’ve seen her, XO.”

“I told you to stay safe, didn’t I?” I almost yelled at her.

“Hey, it’s fine, isn’t it? I didn’t get hit.” Lauren looked apologetic.

“Urgh.” I rubbed my cheek heavily with my right hand. “Sorry… it’s just… I can’t really lose you right now.”

The other marines looked a bit awkwardly and then turned around while Lauren kept looking at me. From her face, I could tell that she was starting to feel bad.

“Look, Luna, it was a hectic situation. I really didn’t want to make you worry… it’s just that…”

“Yeah… I know.” I conceded. “You had to take risks but I’m sure you only did so because you thought it was the best option.”

“Mhmm.” Lauren nodded and put her hand on the area between my shoulder and my neck. “If everything goes fine, this was the most risky part of the day. The rest should be somewhat more easy-going.”

Something in the back of my head told me that was probably not a smart thing to say, but that may be because I’m starting to pick up human superstitions… I did quite like her reassuring touch, though.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Lauren then went back to planning the rest of the day. With the help of Ellie we got a detailed overview of the situation on the ship and we could now plan on retaking the rest of the ship. Because Ellie spread the news throughout the other crew members, we also got some more reinforcements over the next couple of hours. One of the marines that joined us was Gunny, the Commander was incredibly happy to see him.

“You old bastard, where the hell have you been?” She shook Gunny’s hand with a big smile on her face, which was returned by his.

“I was in the bathroom when the ship was attacked. Since they breached so close to me, I just hid there till the danger was over.”

“So you are telling me you didn’t get a single enemy kill?”

“I might have snuck out to get a couple of stragglers but it was too dangerous for me to overreach without my gear.”

“Alright, I’ll take you at your word.” Lauren smiled and nodded towards one of the exoskeleton suits. “Get strapped in, we are going to take back our ship.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Gunny grinned and headed towards the exoskeleton. “The only thing I want to know is how the hell did the enemy get close to us… and how they didn’t get shut out by our bulkheads… so that makes two things , actually.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that because of everything that happened… but since we’ve got some time now… Ellie?” Lauren directed her voice towards our AI.

“As for our bulkheads. Ever since the enemy ship has been docked with us, I’ve been engaged in electronic warfare with their systems, I’ve managed to safeguard most of our systems. However, I didn’t manage to safeguard the bulkhead systems in time. Some are operational, but not in areas that could be useful.”

“And as for how the ship got so close to us without noticing?”

“I’m not sure, Commander.” Ellie replied. “My current hypothesis is that the enemy was using some kind of cloaking device that completely or largely removed their electronic and visual signature.”

“Cloaking, that’s not very fair. The cowards.” Gunny sneered.

As far as I know, the Empire didn’t have access to cloaking technology, so this could be very bad news if they managed to get their hands on it.

“Alright…” Lauren tapped her finger against the wall where the holographic map projection was. “I’d have liked it if you had told me before about the entire electronic warfare deal.” her voice sounded a little bit frustrated.

“My apologies, Commander.” Ellie answered. “But there wasn’t anything you could’ve done about it, so I didn’t want to burden you with any more stress in the situation you were already in.”

“I appreciate the concern, Ellie, I do. But next time someone is attacking you, I’d like to be informed.”

“Noted, Commander.”

“What’s the plan now?” Gunny asked, stepping his exoskeleton out of the hooks that kept it upright for storage.

Lauren tapped the red dots on the map. “Obviously the overarching plan is to get all these enemies off my ship, however, I do have a couple side-objectives I would like to accomplish.”

“Those being?” A Sergeant who was listening along stepped forward.

“First of all, I would like to capture one of the enemy soldiers if possible. We are dealing with an unknown enemy, so gathering information on them should be a high priority. That being said, if that proves too difficult, just killing them off is not a big deal.”

“How intact do they need to be?” Gunny asked while mounting his machine gun.

“Alive is good enough. If they are missing limbs, I couldn’t give a damn to be honest.”

While that wasn’t a very ‘humane’ stance to take, it was probably the best option for them to capture one of these Imperial soldiers. From the stories I heard and the histories I have read, these soldiers were incredibly devoted and wouldn’t allow themselves to get captured that easily, preferring death to capture.

“Any other objectives, Commander?” The Sergeant asked.

“I do but I’m not sure how exactly we will go about accomplishing it.” Lauren looked at the points of the ship that had been breached. “I’d very much like to gather information about the cloaking device that they have on the vehicle but that obviously comes with multiple issues. The layout of the enemy ship, where the fuck we need to find that information and enemy numbers that are still on board.”

“We can’t just go around nabbin’ random pieces of technology.” Gunny commented. “Most of us wouldn’t know what the difference is between an explosive device or a computer.”

I think I technically could help with this… but disclosing this at this point in time would bring a lot of suspicion onto me. But on the other hand, it is vital information we are talking about.

“Luna, is something wrong?” Lauren asked. “Are you holding up?”

Shit, I guess I must’ve made a weird face while I was thinking. “Uh… Is there a way I could help with that?”

“With boarding the enemy ship?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know, could you?”

“I think our two bright minds could come in handy, Commander Davis.” I recognized the voice.

“Oh, Grayson…” Lauren looked away from the map and at Grayson who was making his way through the growing group of marines. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy to see you.” Although she didn’t sound entirely convincing, I do think Lauren was telling the truth.

“Same goes for you.” He replied. “As for your objective, I think the XO and I could be of help with looking for xenotechnology.”

Lauren looked at me, the hesitance was written on her face. But I gave her a nod in return.

She sighed. “I’ll… keep it in consideration… But first, let’s start clearing the ship.”