Location: Outer rings of Salimus station, some shithole
Time: Late, though could be early
12 days after the raid on New Caledonia
The small band huddled over the ghostly light of a holo-table, poring over schematics.
Spike pushed off and drifted away from the table in frustration. With a huff he turned back towards the group.
"Forget it. Artemis is a super-carrier. You know what that means? It means it could swallow every single one of us and our ships and still be hungry! And there ain't no getting out!"
Zephyr wasn't so sure. She brought up another angle on the readout they had managed to barter for of a ship that was supposedly the same model as Artemis. She said, mostly to herself, thinking aloud and trying to keep the mood from spiraling too far into despair, "So if this is the config, they'd likely be keeping 'em here and here. And the ships'd be in the hangar, locked behind multiple layers of pass-walls."
Radian slurped from a zero-g safe bottle as he idly stretched out his free-floating legs. "Well, the pass-walls might be no problem. The codes-"
Apogee spit, "Those 'codes' we got our hands on could be no good, or they could only unlock some of the layers."
Spike had drifted back closer to the table, his frustration pushed aside. "But we don't need all the walls to go down. And besides, if we get in and out quick enough. The big heavy duty ones won't be on."
A plan was finally coming together, but they had no intel on the enemy ships stationed in the hangar, either number or disposition. It was a big risk. But this was what it was all about. All for one, one for all. If they lost that, what had it all been for?
There was always the last resort. None there had mentioned it, but they all knew about the big toroid elephant in the room. Sitting in that hangar was one of the gates: Those mysterious wonderful dangerous things that had gotten them this far, although with a high price; A price high enough that many in the group weren't willing to pay it again. And that was for gates with an at least somewhat known endpoint. Artemis's little keepsake would be completely detuned from the odd network they had made use of so far. No one could know where it lead. Some had theories, but Zephyr left that kind of nonsense to Doctor Cal.
Best keep that to a last resort. All she knew was their people and their ships were locked in the belly of the beast, and it was time to make like Jonah.
