Chapter 49: Chapter 48 – Changing Times

When the Veil exited the Astropath, it immediately launched the Xanthe and activated its stealth systems. It didn't take long for them to pick up on four ships coming at them. They were three corvettes led by a destroyer.

"They saw me," Sylen said in her head, and her voice was casual and unafraid as she flew forward with her Suit.

"You need to play a little bit of cat and mouse with them," Omega answered through a mental link he established with Xanthe. No matter if it was his or Sylen's thoughts, they could communicate instantly.

"What is a cat? And a mouse?" She asked, baffled by it.

"..." Omega didn't know how to answer, and he was just about to say something when Sylen laugh followed suit.

"I'm just joking; I know what you meant!"

"Tsk! You are awfully relaxed!" He clicked his tongue.

"Because I have you at my back! And I have trust in Xanthe!" She answered.

"I already calculated the enemies' trajectories. It is going to be easy to evade them." Xanthe interjected right on cue, "They are big and easy targets. Shouldn't we take them out?"

"Not yet. We don't want them to turtle up behind the station." Omega shook his head, watching the Veil's bridge display, sitting beside Parthen.

What everyone was seeing was a small, little white dwarf in the distance, spinning at an incredible speed, while around it, the ruins of remaining planets orbited it loosely. The surviving planets were all broken up into millions of pieces. It was hard to tell if it was done by nature or by the Wuulfharns, but one thing was sure. They built an enormous mining station in the middle of the asteroid field. The rest of the fleet was still floating around it and inside its stronger-than-average shields, protecting them from the flying rocks and debris.

"For now, get on their nerves." Omega transmitted his thoughts to her. "Enrage them enough, so the rest comes out too."

"Hey… I think I already know how!" Sylen giggled, genuinely feeling like she found her new favorite thing in piloting Xanthe. Even if it was dangerous.

When she got closer to the ships, she had already predicted their attempts to fire on her or try to disable her machine with EMP strikes. Melded with the Xanthe, she easily avoided being caught and ran circles around them. Arming her new weapon, she took aim and took a few shots at the closest corvette. Its shields withstood the first few blue laser-like impacts, but after the fourth, it suddenly flickered and turned off.

"Chance!" Sylen thought, and before she could hear Omega's voice, she had already moved in. The Xanthe flicked her right hand, extending the vibroblade outwards while rushing in. She was doing what Omega did with the Gynkwhon's ships previously. The only difference was that this time it left behind a glowing, long scar on a ship made of metal, painted crimson and not from biological matter.

"Sylen!"

"I'm fine, relax! You sound like Pa!" She said as she was already far away, leaving behind an immobilized corvette with a flickering and cut-apart engine bay. Its shields returned online quickly afterward, but now it was 'limping,' turning away, leaving a thick, gray smoke behind itself.

"Next time, I will bring him along then!" Omega grumbled as it was agreed upon; she would not try anything dangerous.

"Yeah, yeah! Anyway, it worked!" She chuckled, and she was right.

This one maneuver was a slap to their face. Most other ships were coming online and flying out from the station's protective energy field. Only two remained behind. The cruiser and the other destroyer.

"Still…" Omega mumbled, but he also had a smile on his face. "Keep to the plan; empty your weapon's magazine while doing so. Make them think you thought you could hurt them. After that, start heading to the rendezvous point."

"They are going to have a surprise waiting for them~."

She was not wrong. While she was leading them away, the Veil sent the signal to Admiral Jankho. He was waiting at the other end of an Astropath with an overwhelming force containing fifty warships. The fleet ranged from corvettes, destroyers, and battlecruisers, led by his own battleship, the Hammer. It was similar to the Veil, only 30% bigger and without stealth capabilities. Instead, it was housed with a top-mounted railgun. It was the size of one of the corvettes waiting in line next to it, and it was designed to do one thing; Blast through any stationary defenses.

"We got the message! Initiate our new signal!" the Admiral said, sitting in the Hammer's captain's chair as the engines came to life and they headed forward.

"Sent!" His communication officer acknowledged as an Astropath opened up before them.

It would be a lie if any of them would say they were not afraid. Everyone, even Admiral Jankho's heart, was throbbing in their throats as they headed into the Astropath… by reverse. This road should lead outside the system where Slyen was playing tag with the Wuulfharn ships. It should not be possible to go into it and survive from this side. Yet when the leading figure of the army was the first to drive his ship into it, the others had no chance but to obey and follow. Some thought this was pure suicide, but orders were orders.

"That old jello…." Jankho smacked his lips as they effortlessly entered the Astropath and traveled forward without being torn apart. He was just as amazed as everyone else as the fleet followed his lead, writing history for the Neo-Hegemony. What Jankho did not know, the way to traverse Astropaths in both ways was not really coming from Keshnar. But nobody had to know that. "This will change everything." He laughed, looking at his crew. "This is only going to be the first of many victories!"

He was fired up, feeling like a teenager once again. The knowledge to open up Astropaths from any end was a bigger trump card than the Suits of Areses would be. When first hearing about it, he already ordered that the know-how should only be available to warship captains. From now on, every warship had a strict order; If captured, they had to self-destruct. This secret must be brought to the grave and not into enemy hands. Of course, there was one exception that not even Jankho knew about. And that exception was now traveling alongside another Astropath, bringing along Miyon, Keshnar, and Mirian.

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"The operation should already be on its way," Mirian said, sitting at the co-pilot's seat next to Miyon.

"Please, don't remind me of that." He sighed. "I stepped away to let Sylen be her own woman now… but that does not mean I am not sick of worrying! Just… don't remind me, okay?"

"Instead, remind me why I am here?" Keshnar asked, frustrated, sounding like a sulking kid sitting behind them.

"Because we are going somewhere hidden!" Mirian answered, looking back at him.

"And? I'm not a treasure hunter. I don't care! There are still a lot of things to do back home! You find the treasure, bring it to me, and I analyze it. That is how things should go!"

"Look! I get it that you want to play with your new toys!" Mirian rolled her eyes. "Even I don't know where we are going! So we need someone with us who can analyze things expertly! Omega simply gave me coordinates to follow along! He said, if his memories are correct, they should help us greatly!"

"Haahh… Sure." Keshnar shrugged. "Your lucky charm has worked so far." He added, unable to refute her, as since meeting with that strange man, wondrous things were popping up left and right.

"He only told me that where we are going has a high probability of having treasures from the Hegemony's time," Miyon added.

"Like?" Keshnar trembled, suddenly excited, and he changed his tone instantly.

"That we don't know." He shrugged in response.

"We will see soon enough. We are arriving!" Mirian said as the Dawn warned them to get ready to exit the Astropath. When they dropped out, what welcomed them was a thick, orange cloud glowing in the darkness of space.

"Shields are holding," Miyon said, looking at the report of the Dawn. Luckily, she was an AI and could adapt way more quickly than any ordinary ship would be capable of. "It seems like a protoplanetary disk." He added, reading her analysis and scrolling through the monitors. "This is still just a young, barely formed star. We have just landed in its hot soup!"

"Without the shield, we would be cooked in an hour or so," Keshnar added, reading the same reports. "Huh. Well, I get why we are here."

"You do?" Mirian asked, looking back as she was honestly clueless.

"The interference inside is substantial. Coming here would block most scanners, if not all. A perfect place to hide something!" He answered, now even more excited.

"Well… Omega did say broadcast a signal when arriving." Miyon said, giving the go to Dawn, who already had it uploaded to her systems. When it went out a few seconds later, they received a reply. "Ah…" All three of them gasped simultaneously as it was a reply in the Hegemony's military encryption. The same kind they had to crack when they discovered Mors Caminus.

Their surprise did not end there, as, amidst the glowing dust, they soon realized that something massive was swimming there. At first, it was obscured from them, but as they got close to the transmitted coordinates, they could finally see it. A huge, snowflake-shaped station was floating there, withstanding the hot temperatures of the interstellar soup.

"Incredible…" Keshnar said, wanting to get there as fast as possible. "The damn thing still has its shields on! And it is transmitting approach vectors and clearance codes!"

"They knew how to build it to last…." Mirian added, also fired up, ready to dock and step onto the ancient station.

"Oh boy… I just hope we won't find ghosts!" Miyon sighed, but still driving close, ready to connect with it.

"Don't be superstitious!" Keshnar slapped his shoulders with his tentacles. "We found gold here! Same as we did with our previous working station in Kaltazar's years! Hahaha!"

"There are stories where the gold is cursed…." Miyon murmured, hidden under his beard.

"But the one who sent us here wouldn't curse us~" Mirian replied, easing his worries with a laugh as she watched the station getting bigger and bigger on the screen.

At the other part of the Galaxy, Admiral Jankho's fleet had just exited the Astropath. They completely caught the Wuulfharn forces off-guard. Emerging from an Astropath that was an exit point, they almost didn't even register them. They thought it was a malfunction in their sensors because of the Xanthe's potshots at them. What they were facing next was the primary weapon of the emerging Hammer, made for breaking through defenses… and theirs were already failing. As soon as the battleship emerged, Sylen took a sharp turn, leaving the feet that were chasing her in the dust.

"Shred these bastards apart!" Jankho smiled, giving out his order.

When their main gun powered up, letting lose a shuttle-sized object close to the speed of light, it tore apart not just two of the corvettes but also the destroyer behind them. It went through them like nothing, blowing them into hundreds of pieces. The resulting explosions caused the remaining two ships to temporarily go offline and lose their core systems. It was a death sentence. The appearing Veil, disabling its stealth systems, took aim, and while recovering the Xanthe, it blew them to pieces.

"Turn towards the approaching enemy!" Said Parthen and Jankho at the same time as the two battleships took the lead. Behind them, dozens of others started to appear from the still-open Astropath, following the two spearheads. "Time to show these bastards what it feels like to be on the receiving end!"

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