The 8AD was barely even a ship at this point; and while it was in roughly the right shape, any close examination would reveal that some of that metal wasn't supposed to be outer hull; but rather the floor or wall of a compartment inside a starship. It had been burned to remove the teal paintjob and reduce it to a dull metal sheen, and the textured pattern to improve grip on a floor lost in the process; but it still looked obviously wrong to Jason, especially the seams where what was once a wall and a floor had been merged together; the wall so much smoother, cleaner, especially since it had never had the teal color of the outside.

This thing... was a crate holding an engine and guns. There weren't enough fuel lines to run for each of the thrusters to their new, further-apart positions, so Ascension had made a dozen small, improvised fuel tanks. Jason was beginning to have his doubts about this... but then, his instincts weren't screaming at him to stop. Was that because this would work... or because he would figure out a way out even if it failed? Impossible to know.

He stood on the outside of the skeleton that held all the parts that made 8AD a warship, looking at the open, empty space made by turning every single flat surface in the ship into a hull plate.. shaking his head slowly. "Admittedly, this was my idea. But good lord, Ascension. You made this thing live up to its name. What's the plan after we kill the cruiser?"

He slowly stepped along the spine, magnetic boots gripping the hull as he headed towards the airlock; which smoothly slid open just as he arrived.

~There are seven other warships in-system. Any that are close to the station, or even better, docked to it, can be taken out with an initial missile burst. You will need to deal with the others; the outer hull jettisoned, and engaging in a battle in which should the enemy penetrate the vessel's shields, you will be destroyed immediately. I have tuned the shields for 73% greater capacity, but for any other pilot it would be an unacceptable risk.~

He noded as the door slid shut behind him. The bridge was just a few meters away; as were the tiny crew quarters where the undoubtedly confused prisoners remained trapped. "How long will we have before backup arrives?"

~Days, minimum. The nearest system with backup is two light-years away. Anything faster than 300 times lightspeed would result in catastrophic results for Republic fleets. They'll receive the distress call within minutes, but even if they launch immediately, arrive in two to three days. I must warn you; we cannot save this species. When that three days is over, overwhelming force will arrive. At best, we can injure and rob the republic, and perhaps rescue a few individuals.~

He opened the familiar bridge space, and settled down, strapping in. "Well then. I guess we'll save a few individuals, and injure and rob the republic. How many pale ones and drones do you have?"

~Forty-two total, eight of them full combat drones; they take substantially more time and resources to produce than pale one controllers. One thousand, One hundred and seventy three Controllers, with more being produced constantly. The most recent models are optimized to penetrate and secure their light powered armor units. ~

"Well then. Step one. Secure the orbitals."

***

As they entered the system, slowly dialing down the warp until space was something approaching normal, they got a better view of Swarm System 10973. Six civilian craft in the system; what looked like a yacht for some wealthy civilian, a single mining tug leaving the station; likely grabbing raw materials from the system itself; and four freighters like the one the 8AD was pretending to be; all, aside from the mining tug, docked at the single station.

There were also over a dozen military starships; a single heavy cruiser, docked at the station... and fifteen smaller, corvette-sized craft moving over the planet itself; either in-atmosphere, or in a low orbit. Jason studied the display. "This... Interesting. It's good that the cruiser isn't moving, but why so much activity from these smaller ones?"

None of Ascension's units were actually on the tiny bridge; all of them were still busy at work, converting probes into drop pods or otherwise getting ready for the coming battle. His helmet relayed the response.

~Routine sweeps. Most of the population is being held in a series of hive-like structures, sorted by their age, around the central starport; but tiny bands of survivors are hiding in the ruins of their civilization. There are always at least a few of these assault transports moving around, scanning for appropriately sized life-signs. Four of them are currently aboard the cruiser, while the rest are on-duty. It has been months since they last discovered survivors; this is a caretaker operation over an already dying, pacified world~

Jason nodded; tapping a few buttons. A fake ship ID; just a series of numbers, as, aside from the yacht in the system, named 'Solar bath', none of the ships here had names; and an intent to purchase swarm-silk and meat.

The response was a simple acceptance; and a notice of local docking fees; a few credits per hour; and of the current rates of sale, and quantities available. He stared at the numbers for a moment. They were measuring in tons the amount of flesh and silk they had harvested from living, thinking creatures. Down there on the planet below were hundreds of thousands of children, doomed never to become adults; but instead to serve as a temporary exotic food substance.

"...How many guards are in the facilities down below? And natives?"

~Each hive contains over twenty thousand of the Swarm, according to Republic records, and has two hundred and sixteen guards on each shift. The children are docile, and so long as they are caught while still in their chrysalis stage, the adults are harmless. In an emergency, each hive thus has over six hundred guards to call on; and unless the emergency is across multiple hives, they can call on them from all sixty-seven hives. There are thousands of Republic soldiers on the surface. Short of orbital bombardment, any operation there outside of simply acquiring a limited number of locals and amount of resources is impossible with current resources.~

Jason bit his lip as he stared at the display. The natives had no naval firepower, so of course the Republic pulled away most of it's fleet to help deal with situations that needed it. He could take advantage of that, once the cruiser was dead... but only a limited advantage.

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"...Where are the cocoons of the adults? And... what's left behind in the others when an emergency is called in one?"

An image showed a layout of one of the hives; layers of quarters, central feeding chambers, all rising with, at the top, a 'processing' facility label. ~Once a child enters the chrysalis stage, they are relocated to processing facilities located at the top of each hive, below the landing pads, and sedated to ensure the stage never completes. Their body, as-yet not fully formed, is prevented from reaching this stage as they first strip the protective silk layer, then slaughter and process the body within.~

He grimaced. "And in emergencies?"

~If an emergency is called in one hive, guards are called in from other hives, as many as needed. The hive will have a skeleton crew; several dozen guards; and be locked down, all occupants trapped in whichever chamber they were in when the lockdown started, whether that be for a meal, or sleeping. Even should the doors be opened, and the lockdown lifted, the children are not truly capable of harming a Republic soldier; the only thing they might do is, if driven out in a panic, crush a few of them beneath a mass of their corpses.~

Jason looked over the system. The hives, the starships, the station. Maybe there was a solution that would let him save more of the locals. If not, he'd need to settle for whatever caused the most damage to the Republic.

***

Captain Choork was known as a cowardly commander by Republic standards. He preferred being behind the front lines, on safe, secure positions; and if they happened to be potentially lucrative, all the better. The 10973 system promised to be both; the remaining survivors were completely harmless, not even a threat to a child, and carefully harvesting them over the coming decades would produce billions of credits of valuable materials; that someone who carefully preserved would be able to save for later and sell at a massive mark-up later.

As he ran his hands along the arm-rests of the console, he considered the possibility of retiring when his time in this post ended; it would be fairly early, by Republic retirement standards, with still over two hundred years to live by most projections, but by the time he'd burned through his savings living on a resort world, all of the silk he'd been saving from the locals would have increased in value dramatically; and he should have a nice, cozy retirement.

Another freighter had just arrived, and was in the process of docking; oddly enough, they were parking facing the station, rather than side against it; he looked at it with amusement. The forward airlock on those things was tiny, just meant for people; the two massive cargo bay doors on the sides were normally what got hooked up, to allow full-sized cargo containers to be loaded.. Either their captain was an idiot, or.... he wasn't here to load cargo.

He looked at the display for a moment, blinking. The cargo bay door facing his ship was opening. Why would that..

The cruiser shook. The lights flickered, and his primary display dulled down to minimum brightness as the main lights went off, with a 'Emergency Power' display in dull orange. The calm on the bridge shattered, the crew immediately started to look through their displays; calls running through the ship. His sensor officer glanced up. "Sir! That last freighter! It's... Good god!"

The sensors showed the freighter having opened up like a clam; with a series of weapons mounted on a turret mount moving away from the cruiser... even as the tell-tale flicker pulsed out. "Brace for impact! Who the hell would..." Dozens of beautiful ribbons of white light suddenly sparked free of the exposed weapon pods; and as the barely-visible flicker spread out, they started to connect; to the station itself, to nearby freighters, to the assault shuttles still in orbit.. and to his cruiser.

The ship shook again; that weapon clearly wasn't built to hurt cruiser-sized enemies, but at point blank range, with no shields...

The display suddenly shifted. Something was being launched from the fake freighter; a series of small objects slamming into the cruiser, and into the station. He could feel one striking close; and turned. The airlock! The bridge had an armored airlock, and an escape pod attached... and something had just torn that airlock off, and was even now... "Arm yourselves! all troops, prepare to be boarded! Weapons, if we still have anything that works, fire on that.."

A strange metal object suddenly scurried into view; a small box running forward on tentacles, it leapt forward; latching onto one of his crew. Blood could be seen dripping down, and the man started screaming in agony; as the captain grabbed his own side-arm, raising the laser-pistol, staring at the man... and firing a quick shot, striking the next one to enter.

As the crippled machine slowly crawled forward, the captain looked down at it in confusion; then let out his own shriek of pain; as the first man to be struck raised his weapon, and started firing into the captain's torso. First, it became incredibly difficult to breathe, as if a titanic weight was pressed against him... and as he fell to the ground, the world started to go black... as the damaged machine crawled onto his unconscious form.

***

The red-tinted armor of a Republic heavy assault soldier stood in the hallway outside of the armory, amidst a mass of blood, dismembered limbs, and broken armor and machinery.

Basim stared at his security team's corpses in a mix of horror and anger; lifting up and crushing one of the squirming robots that had latched onto his troops, taking control of them and turning them against him. He'd been coming here to grab a few heavy weapons; he didn't habitually carry an anti-armor weapon while on the ship, as he himself could crush most armored enemies... but when he'd first encountered a slim grey-armored machine that had unerringly struck him dead-center with twelve laser blasts in less than a second, burning through his heavy armor to the flesh beneath; and then melted his helmet off with the thirteenth and fourteenth even as he tore the robot apart...

He knew this was more serious. One of those robots could kill anyone but a heavy trooper instantly; and even most heavies would have fallen by the third shot to the torso, or the first to the head. Destroying the machines didn't save his friends; it simply led to them falling unconscious, their armor filling with red-purple blood from obvious massive internal injuries.

He took a deep breath, and tapped his comms. "This is Trooper Basim. I've secured the armory, but am currently alone. If you can get here, get here now; I need every armed soldier I can get."

He heard a sudden shriek of escaping air; there were no airlocks close to the armory, by design. But... someone had just made a hole with some heavy ordinance straight to vacuum in a connecting hallway. He grimaced, stepping back into the armory; tossing his damaged helmet to the floor and grabbing a replacement, only momentarily revealing the vivid red-orange humanoid face beneath the mask, with its two rows of yellow eyes; there was no time to replace the chest armor. He settled a molecular disrupter rifle in one hand, an anti-armor plasma peeler in the other; and watched the hallway, waiting.

After a moment, he heard a voice; a clearly organic one, which was followed up by a translation from the helmet systems. "Hello there! Name's Eyeball. I could just shoot you through the wall and kill you right now; I can see exactly where you are, and even that your currently standing on the left leg of one of your fallen buddies. I'm not normally one to play around, but you seem like a survivor, and I haven't had a good workout in... well, since I got here. If you put down your guns, I'll leave mine be, and we can settle this up close and personal."

Basim blinked. Whatever it was that had made that hole could obviously clear this hallway as well. If whoever this was was dumb enough to come within arm's reach, who was he to say no? He settled the two guns on either side; in close reach, just in case. "Well enough... Eyeball. I'm Republic Assault Trooper Basim. I haven't lost a fight since I left home and joined the marines... and I'm not about to now. So come. Show me how a pirate dies."