Chapter 32: Incursion
[Zero hour: At the ambush location]
The four regents' flagships stand by in the area using their cloaks. Waiting for the snow leopard to locate the well-known flagship in the enemy territory.
"Ilya, have you found the enemy flagship position yet?"
Svidana asked away while all of them remain in communication to await the boarding operation. The snow leopard stays silent on the other side of the com.
"It would be much easier if we ask Naiki for the full live galaxy vision from the space observatory."
Lenora suggested. Layla just shakes her head; she did not want to ask for it since it is intensive and requires hundreds of people to find something in a sector, Naiki and Vexis are an exception since they can gasp it like no other Cybran can. After a short silence including the other regents, she answers.
"I have finally found it; the flagship is far inside their capital world after engaging Layla's fleets for minor repairs and resupply. It is odd that they don't repair it in the dockyard but in the open from other repair ships."
"Must be needed to deploy hastily to counter us. Is it badly damaged?"
Layla says it while taking another shot of coffee. Ilya just displayed the live image from the micro probe to them while scanning the ship's interior for primary targets, several small support crafts are resupplying some unknown materials into the ship.
"I got the precise coordinates of the ship, handing it over to Lena."
Layla gives a wide smug after hearing her plan is in motion. Lena nods and ordered the prototype weapon to begin preparation. They used it in the marked coordinates, it surprises the other regents to see an electromagnetic net suddenly appear in the view of the enemy flagship and engulfed it whole. The warship disappeared and was pulled into the forced warp directly at their location.
"It works!" Lenora celebrated shortly after the successful weapon test.
"Time to move in and make things personal."
Layla materializes her light armor from her bracelet and goes directly to her commando squads. The other regents do the same while letting their Admirals take the helm for boarding. Starting the initiative, Layla's flagship goes full speed with the support of two battleships following ICS Quantum, Ilya's flagship warps directly near the enemy warship stern, ramming it on full speed to disable their shields and cause internal crew damage against the enemy ship. Still dumbstruck by the ambush and trying to recover, they manually controlled the close-quarter turrets to fend them off. Lena and Svidana's flagships arrive at their port and starboard side while activating the warp drive jammer and shield at full strength, making escape difficult for their target warship. Layla's flagship shortly arrives on top of the vessel while the two battleships blocks at the front. The regents' reserve fleets guarded the perimeter, not allowing the ship to escape or someone to interfere.
They launched the gateway lance directly at their targeted areas using the boarding turrets; piercing the ship's weakened shield in one go.
The bridge, engine room, weapons control & command room, and launching bays are pierced by the boarding lance. It shocked the ship's crew that they managed to pierce the heavily armored battle carrier. Cybran commandos warp into the bridge of the ship using the lance and mercilessly shoot down anyone that resists. Seeing their casualties, a high-ranking officer quickly raises his hand to comply.
"Stand down all of you!" A shout from him makes the bridge crew halt their resistance.
"Engine room and reactor secured!"
Report of Ilya's 2nd squad comes through to the com of Layla's squad. They rounded up the bridge crew with Layla finally appears and quickly disable the ship's electronics systems.
"Seems like you ran out of luck, even tried to self-destruct this warship."
Layla directly says to the high-ranking officer with a stern look on her face. He sighed and calmly sits down at his crew without saying a word while Layla's unit remains on high alert.
In the launching bays; Lenora and her squads are fighting to secure it. The space is large enough that makes it easy for the crew to fend them off including several internal auto-turrets. She is the only regent that did not have an elite task force, yet. Lena makes a hand gesture to her squads to spread out during the skirmish.
Boldly, Lena slides into the view of the enemy with a rapid-firing arm cannon that materializes on her left hand with her shield activated and fires away at them. In retaliation, they shoot a dismounted fighter cannon directly at her. The Sakhalin red fox is pushed back by the impact, she quickly returns the favor by unlinking her generated plasma energy for her arm cannon and using it as homing projectiles that are directly aimed at the front row of enemies. Her squads flanked the remnants and eliminated them while the mechanic and engineers that are taking cover nearby surrenders. Some of them are holding weapons but are frightened by the cybran soldiers' jet-black appearance.
"My lady, what should we do with the captives?"
One of Lenora's soldiers says in tone. Lenora stands off guard and turned to answer his question. One of the captured soldiers takes the opportunity and choked her from behind with a gun at her head.
"Don't fucking move or I'll put a bullet in her head!"
Yelled the frantic soldier. His grip on the gun is shaking as Lenora nods to her soldiers. The soldier tightens his grip on her neck as he looks over at his crewmates.
"Release my friends." He demanded but the cybrans stayed quiet. Two of the cybrans soldiers aim at his head from a hidden position behind him. "Release them now!"
He shouts as no one complies. A sudden ice crystal projectile pierced his forehead as the blood splattered on Lena. It was from Ilya as she enters their view.
"You bastards!"
A few of them resisted after seeing the death of their friend. Ilya freezes the blood in their veins as they cough out blood and suffers from an agonizing death.
"Any funny ideas and the rest of you will end up like your friends here..."
Ilya begins to growl as she gives that threat. She breathes out her cold breath while giving them a killing glare with her cyan irises. Her ice-cold aura begins to flow out of her body, staring them down intensely. Four of her elite soldiers fully clad in white arrive and throw isolation barriers at the captured crew. They guarded it with some of Lena's soldiers while the two of them moves to the bridge.
"Are you injured?" Ilya asked while catching a glimpse of her blood-stained face.
Lenora touches her face and sees what Ilya mentioned. Her finger is stained by the blood from her face. It was not hers as she felt no pain.
"No." she shortly answers.
As they walked, Lenora notices the frozen gaping wound on Ilya's right thigh and a straight slice upwards at her right back. She walked it off like it does not affect her. Svidana joined at the upper floor as she splits up with her squads. Her expression differs from the normal warming smile she likes to give.
"Svi, done at your end?" The ice-cold regent questions her without turning her way.
"Yes, they give a good struggle. We need to clean and sanitize the ship before handing it over to the Emperor."
Svidana answers while dematerializing her lance. The three go to the bridge while their squads sweep the rest of the area. In a matter of minutes, they moved into each area and put out anyone that decided to resist but spare the ones who complies. Layla takes the chance to analyze the schematic of the ship while a few of her commandos remain on alert. Ilya enters first followed by Lenora and Svidana. The high-ranking officer suddenly laughed and gets the attention of the four of them.
"Hahaha, so the one the leaders that beat us are majorly anthros, on top of that they are all females?"
He pauses while catching a good look at them.
"How the world has changed. Even our ruler is also a female."
He then lifts his head to meet the eye of Layla who just glares back at him. With a sigh, Ilya gets up after sitting on a nearby chair. With a cold glint in her eye, she sends a cold wave directly at them. Unaffected, Layla's commandos stand firm as the captured crew received the cold. The officer gives a slight smile while eyeing the four of them.
"But, do you think you have won?"
He questions them before all of the captured crew in the sight of the regents begin to laugh too. A light emanates from what they see as a crystal necklace from each of the crew.
"I will have my revenge for what you have done here…"
With vengeful eyes, he disappeared first in the blink of an eye. The commandos from Layla's unit fires concentrated shots from their kinetic burst rifle at all of them but it was too late as they all disappeared.
"Emergency teleportation devices!?" The surprised Lenora says it aloud while healing Ilya.
Layla is the one that gets the most shock as she cannot predict what has occurred with her powers.
"Teleportation crystals from their necklaces." The keen eyes of Svidana stated to them.
All of the squads under the regents reported the same, all of the crew members of the warship have disappeared until one of Ilya's squads reported something to them via com.
"Regent Ilya, there is a sealed facility in the midship. Seems to look like a facility of some sort; Awaiting further orders."
Layla recovered her composure and looked at Ilya who only nods. The Sakhalin fox and Valkyrie wait for Ilya's response.
"Wait there, I and the other regents are coming down."
Ilya gives her command as she huffed a cold air and Layla gives the green light to the flagships to tow the prized vessel back to their controlled sector. The rest of Layla's 1st fleet warped into the sector to escort them back as the clean-up and temporary crew for the ship await their next directive.
[At the unknown facility in the warship]
"It's locked…" Ilya says her piece while looking at the bulletproof ballistic twin door.
Svidana tries to pry it open with force but the results are the same. Even the commandos of Layla use multiple methods such as a cutting torch, ignition explosives, and corrosive liquids to no avail. Layla sees the small optical cameras at the entrance of the facility after observing the nearby circuits. She pulls out a life signature scanner and pointed it at the facility. Out of surprise, there is still a person in it.
"I know you are in there, open up!" Tired of the game, Layla yelled and stare intentionally at one of the cameras.
The sound of static can be heard before she was answered. This put Layla and Ilya's squads on alert with their weapons covering the entrance and exit of the facility.
"What makes you think I will open up this door and let you in?" A voice from the speakers nearby answers her call.
"All of your friends left the ship and you are the only one that did not escape," Lena answers the question.
"Why are you the one that left on this ship while the others already escape?" she continues.
Lena is answered with silence. The door suddenly opens up, and Ilya prepares to use her powers while the cybran soldiers changed their attention to it. A man comes out with a humanoid android. His hand slowly raises and walks toward them.
"Because I am a prisoner of this ship that I created." He answers it. The android at his side beeps as a sign to support him.
All of them remain speechless of what he just said, Layla takes a moment to process it while trying out her powers on what will happen next. Svidana looks at him from afar; he did not have the same crystal necklace as the others. She nods at Layla who gives the orders to her unit to ease up. Ilya does the same with Lenora taking a peek at what is inside. They decided to enter the facility without the cybran soldiers while the clean-up is under process. Even if it was a trap, the four regents are ready to face it.
"So, prisoner; you have a name?" Ilya in a rude tone says to him.
"Fazan, that is my name."
He answers while leading them. In the facility that is dimmed of light, the regents see multiple unfinished weapons in its anchor. Layla is interested in seeing the massive mech and goes up front to catch a good look at it. Fazan follows her with his android.
"Fazan," Svidana says the name to catch his attention.
"Yes?"
"Tell me why are you being the hostage of this vessel?"
Fazan takes a moment to answer it. His android changes the lighting of the facility to make the others have a clear view of what he is developing and researching.
"I am an inventor and researcher of some technologies for the Favian industries."
He pauses while asking his android to complete the command chart for some of the techs he invented.
"Probably since I am the last person to make key breakthroughs on our nation, they decided to lock me up like precious jewelry or something."
Lenora sits down at a nearby chair while hearing his words. She only watches some of the curious technologies and gadgetries; afraid to touch them without knowing what it is.
"So that is the reason why I am here for the rest of 10 years, my fluffy and human acquaintances, without knowing what happened to my home planet."
"10 years in here and you invented all this stuff?" Layla asked in amazement.
He simply nods while rummaging for the parts he seeks in a container.
"Who is your allegiance to?" Fazan ask blindly since he did not know who captured the flagship.
All of the regents looked at each other, Ilya sighed that they are not known even after the empire have controlled majorly parts of the galaxy. The three looked at Layla to answer, she jolted a little with a 'why me' face in her expression. Fazan looks to her for answers.
"Well, we are the Imperial Cybran Empire. The one that holds most of this galaxy." Layla begins her answer a part of it.
"Wha-" A frightened face of disbelief comes after his sentence. Fazan takes a close look at their insignia. The striking red triangle marks all of the cybran citizens.
"Our allegiance is for our Emperor and Empress, the four you currently see right now are his regents," Ilya adds the salt into the shocked Fazan.
Fazan immediately bows at them to apologize for being too casual. Layla just shrugs while Lenora smiles at him. They continued to talk while they swap information about his nation. A sudden vibration marks the ship docked at the nearby mobile spaceport that the cybran established on the frontline. This suddenly puts Fazan on edge since the regents did not say a word on what to do with him. Layla sees her bracelet for a brief second that is notified of their arrival.
"Hey Fazan," Layla speaks directly at him.
"Y-yes?" He nervously says it while gulping.
"Do you like to join the Imperial Cybran Empire? We will welcome you with open arms." Svidana says it, cutting off Layla's words while she pouts at the back.
He steps back a little, overthinking that they will treat him the same as his former country has done to him. Svidana awaits a response from him as he thinks. One of the cybran elite soldiers of Ilya arrives to note her something.
"What makes you think that I will join your empire willingly? I don't want the same thing to happen to me twice." He quipped in response while his android stands by his side.
"You deserve much more than this, don't you want to live on a peaceful planet and a big facility to do your research? And don't you want to meet other brilliant-minded persons to share your thoughts with them?" Lenora reasoned with him.
She shows the lush green of her capital planet and a few scenes of the Cybrans, former Estcallians, Altorans, and Draconians living in peace as a multispecies empire. The cutting-edge technology of the empire with its massive fleets roams the space in a coordinated formation. This baffles Fazan. He slowly thinks of accepting their offer.
"What's the catch?" He asked.
Ilya sighed while showing no interest whatsoever as he takes a long time to decide and plays with an ice crystal she materializes.
"Help us with some of our technology developments, the Cybran Corp that is the main R&D for our empire is stretched out too much on other tech research." Layla gives the answer he needed.
"Okay, I accept. Plus, four to five meals per day."
Ilya dropped her crystal out of focus from hearing his requirements. She snickers at the back.
"Food is free in our empire; including some tools, basic defense weapons to fight invaders, clothing, entertainment, and housing." Ilya finally says something after remaining quiet for a long time.
"Awesome!" Under excitement, he utters the word.
"As long as you don't break any law that each regent has set…" She adds it.
His excitement dies a bit.
"Now, out of the four regents; who are you willing to serve under? The Emperor and Empress is a different question. They have their inner circle; we are in that circle." Svidana asks a serious question to him.
He takes a look at them, the cool-looking human, the cold harsh snow leopard, the high-spirited red fox, and the tender gold-furred Sakhalin fox. Lifting his hand slowly, he pointed at Lenora. Her ears move a little as the decision is made.
"Good, that is settled," Layla concluded. "Exactly as planned using my foresight abilities." She says in her thoughts with a slight smile.
All of them properly introduced themselves to Fazan on who they are. He takes a moment to process it all and apologizes if he is rude to them. Later he followed Lenora back to her flagship with all of his inventions transferred to a storage area in the flagship via teleportation. All of the regent's armadas continued their operations while the flagships returned to the core world after a short respite with the captured ship in tow.
The prized vessel and another great researcher have successfully absorbed into the Cybran empire as they continued their counter-invasion deep into the enemy territory. This time they are alert and not full of haste, carefully executing their plans little by little.