Megumi watched Erisa as she paced nervously. At this very moment, she was also managing a boarding operation, keeping track of ongoing repairs, compiling ancient technologies, decoding Erali computer code, keeping a sensor lock on the supposedly surrendered Neku cruiser, and plotting her next few moves on the board so to speak.

These Neku ships would provide valuable intel, and she planned to beam anything militarily useful to the Erali. With her abilities, she could easily get a good deal of info on Neku plans, and the Erali could use that to their advantage. However that only lasts as long as she is in the area, and even if she finds the third party she expects, there is still the matter of them altering the balance of power. In the long term, that meant she would need to level the playing field between powers in this quadrant.

A fact that played into why she was compiling data. Megumi realized the current situation was an exception in her overriding directives. For the first time in her life, her directive against sharing technology with primitive cultures was not valid. Not that she planned to share it directly. All she really wanted to do was set them on the path. It would be up to them to take the data she gave them and produce viable technologies with them. Naturally, she was going to give them a push, one that was down paths they had already started. Which made it more likely that they would develop something useful. The Erali were already using particle weapons, for example, logically the next step for them would be phased particle weapons. The Solean Phase Lance was an excellent example of that type of weapon. Phase Lances were obsolete to be sure, but they were excellent weapons in their time. They fired a highly focused beam of phased particles that could penetrate weaker shields through brute force and would shear through most forms of armor. In fact the phase lance excelled at cutting through armor and was one of the few weapons of its day able to penetrate Neutronium-based armors. 

The Erali were technologically a few decades away from developing their own equivalent to the ancient Phase Lance. A fact that played into Megumi wanting to give them some info to nudge them into that direction. If she did it right, they could have their own version in about five years, perhaps faster. Adding a weapon like it to their arsenal would do much to even the playing field between the Erali, and the Neku. Although they would still need a torpedo to complement the new beam weapons. She had several options to nudge their development in for that. Their primitive fusion warheads were alright, but there were a few ways to improve them. She could, however, get them to move down a different route though. Photon torpedoes would be a reasonable step up, or she could start them on compressed plasma warheads. The last one being something they might eventually develop given that they were at war with the Neku who used plasma weapons. Photon torpedoes would be cheaper though, and could support all sorts of useful modifications such as shield penetrators. There were a few primitive shield penetration methods she knew of, that were within reach of current Erali technology. It would take little nudge to get them to develop torpedoes that could bypass the primitive shields used by the Neku.

There were other areas the Erali could use some improvement in as well. Propulsion was not one of them, but some of the same concepts she was going to share with them. The ones intended to nudge them in certain directions could also be employed with propulsion. Something she had no doubt the Erali would realize. They already had a fair grasp on sublight propulsion. Their reliance on jump drives may have had something to do with that, but the fact remained that their sublight engines were superior to Neku equivalents. An advantage she would like to see them maintain, but she didn’t want them to become overwhelming in that regard, merely competitive. Still she had to share the concepts that would be useful in improving that advantage, because they also played a major role in the creation of more powerful energy shields.

Her time for future planning was finally interrupted, by an expected move on the part of the Neku. As she downloaded the data she planned to give to the Erali onto a small crystal chip, she focused on the vessel finally making its move.

They had not bothered to raise their shields again, but they were charging their forward cannons. The majority of their power shunted to the engines, as they made what they clearly hoped was an unexpected and sudden dash for the nearest Erali ship. A cruiser to be specific. 

Megumi started a clock, and when it hit thirty seconds, she sent her first and only planned warning. As expected, it went ignored, and when the clock hit one minute thirty seconds, she activated a tractor beam.

The beam ensnared the Neku cruiser, just as she fired her forward cannons. An ionized plasma beam struck the port shields of the Erali cruiser. The beam was a sustained beam, but it barely lasted two seconds before it cut out, the Neku vessel having suddenly lost all power. Her tractor beam proved to be far more effective at disabling a vessel than the Neku plasma weapon. Although it was good for primitives, in those two seconds it had drained the port shields of the Erali cruiser nearly sixty-eight percent.

The cruiser now disabled, she assigned a few squadrons of drones for the boarding operation. Her tractor beam was designed to drain power from any vessel she had ensnared, but only when in mode two operation. In mode one, it projected a Structural integrity field into the ensnared ship. The reason for this difference was the intended purpose, in mode one, it was mainly intended for the towing and recovery of damaged warships, the SIF component of the beam was there to ensure the ships didn’t break apart from towing stresses.

Naturally when she had saved that half of an Erali cruiser, earlier she had used mode one. For the Neku cruiser here, she was using mode two. A mode intended to disable enemy vessels, so that they could be boarded. Once locked on, the beam would rapidly drain power from systems, starting with the shields. For most ships, the shields would give the targeted ship a few crucial seconds to escape the beam before they failed, longer if the shields were continuously being remodulated to prevent the beam from getting a proper lock. Escaping could be done one of two ways, the first was to get out of range, and the second was to disable the tractor beam. The first was the easier option naturally, and not all that hard. Tractor beams had a fairly short effective range, all of her weapons had longer effective ranges than the tractor beam emitters.

None of that really mattered for the Neku. Their primitive systems were highly susceptible to the energy-draining effect of her tractor beam, their shields likely would not have bought them more than a second if they were up. As it was, Megumi had to weaken her tractor beam to prevent it from shutting down their life support systems. The cruiser’s power systems had already been brought to minimal levels, and the barely functioning computers were routing it all to critical systems, such as life support. Most primary systems had already been allowed to shut down, such as the weapons, and the SIF generators. Even the shields which had been in a hot standby mode had shut down completely. Very different from the ships that she was used to. Those ships had been hardened against the energy-draining effect of Solean tractor beams. With shields that could resist, and hardware that was far more resistant to it as well. Not completely, but enough that they had a chance. They could fight back or try to run. The Neku could not do either.

It seemed the nervous Erali had noticed, and in surprise, she asked, “What happened to that Neku cruiser? Why did she suddenly go dark?”

Megumi chose to answer that personally, “I disabled her. At this range, I can simply shut down any ship which is that primitive. If it wasn’t so primitive it would not be so easy.”

While the Erali cruiser was scanning its newly disabled attacker, Erisa asked, “Disabled? Shut down? What do you mean by that?”

“I won’t tell you how it is done, but simply put my tractor beam is leeching the energy from her systems. The crew won’t be affected, but anything that requires power will. To a certain degree that is. Her reactors will still produce energy, but now they have to work harder just to maintain minimal power levels. It also has the bonus of effectively disarming the crew as even hand weapons and personnel shields would be affected, but it won’t matter for my drones. They can adjust their shields to protect themselves, not indefinitely, but long enough.”

“Drones?”

Neku Captain POV:

She surveyed her dark bridge in silence, trying not to voice any of the worries or fears she felt. All the while waiting for that report on what the hell happened. Everything had been going perfectly; they had even managed to get in easy range of an Erali cruiser, but just as they opened fire, everything went wrong.

She had no idea what happened, but when the ionized plasma guns fired, the lights started to flicker. An instant after that, they died, and a mere instant after that the consoles followed. Now, here she was sitting in a dark bridge with no idea what was going on, even the emergency lights were dead. At first, she thought the power systems must have failed, but one of the crew managed to confirm that the vents were still working. Blowing fresh air into the bridge. That relieved one worry, but it left her with others. The fact no one seemed to be firing on them was a bit of a relief, but that only meant the Erali intended to board the ship.

There was a slight clattering sound behind her, and someone cursed. This was followed by the sounds of fumbling, and then clicking sounds. Followed by even more cursing, unfortunately she had caught every word, and her mood plummeted further. The clattering was because someone had finally managed to find their way to the emergency kits, and pulled out some hand lights. The problem? All of them were apparently dead, all of them. One dead light? that happens, two ? okay not unheard of, but all of them? Something was up.

With a bit of worry, she pulled the side arm off her hip, and pointed it at the ceiling. She hesitated a moment, and then pulled the trigger. She was rewarded with only the sound of a depressing trigger. There was no flash of light, no plasma discharge, nothing but the almost quiet sound of the trigger. Now that was a problem, she had charged her pistol before the battle. Like she always does. She had a sinking suspicion that they had been caught in some kind of dampening field.

She barely had time to even consider what that meant or even warn her crew that their weapons were useless before she heard the sound of a hatch swinging open. Just as the room brightened up. In front of her, on the right side of the bridge she watched as a glowing blue sphere with a number of thin tendrils spread around it like an alien skirt, floated into the room. Several of her crew drew their weapons, but she dropped hers. It was useless, anyway.

The young captain didn’t know what that sphere was, but she had no doubt it was a threat. Her training took over, and she shouted. While at the same time, she got out of her chair. Just as the alien sphere fired some kind of energy pulse. It hit a young technician who was half buried under a console. The captain didn’t stop long enough to see the result, as she was already diving behind her chair, instinctively taking cover. At the same moment, she was considering her options.

Options that were admittedly rather sparse. Her weapon was useless, and discarded. She could hear that alien thing shooting her crew, and cover on the bridge was limited. Although the consoles were for the most part positioned to give the bridge crew an advantage against anyone trying to shoot their way in through the two doorways. Not that it mattered, their weapons were nothing more than paperweights thanks to that dampening field. The captain decided that it would be foolish to risk hand-to-hand combat with that thing as well. By process of elimination, she only had one option, to run and hide. She could not stay here.

Thankfully there was a hidden crawlway hatch less than a meter from her position, but she would have to break cover to reach it. It was a risk, but she would have to take it. A quick check from out of cover revealed it seemed to be firing on someone on the other side of the bridge. Figuring it was clear, she made a run for it, but she never made it. She barely made it half a meter before something hit her. The world spun, and swirled for a moment, her nerves cried out, and then she was greeted with blackness.

POV Neku Security chief: N.I.S Blade of Xenthu:

She studied the screen. By now there had been quite a few sightings and detected movements of the alien drones. Several maintenance teams and crewmen had also gone missing in those parts of the ship. There was no doubt in her mind that the missing had encountered the drones. A couple security teams had also engaged a couple of isolated drones with disappointing results.

The precursor shields proved to be quite resilient. Everything they threw at the drones proved ineffective. plasma beams, plasma grenades, ion disruptors, and ATCP rockets all failed to penetrate that shielding. Worse, the drones proved able to bypass any security measure they put in effect. Erect a forcefield? They simply go right through it. Lock the doors? They bypass the controls and open the door manually. Weld, the door shut? They use their appendages to break the weld, and then open the door.

The only thing they hadn’t tried yet was dropping a bulkhead in their path, but she had a feeling it would only slow them down. However, with all these advantages, the drones had not yet overrun all their security positions. For some reason, they were not penetrating their defenses. The majority seemed to be doing something. Something she was now reviewing in the recon video her scout team had brought back, although not without cost.

Of the twelve young crewmen, she had sent in eight of them had been caught by the drones. Playing in front of her, she was watching what happened to one of them, a young woman. The young woman had been shot with some kind of weapon, but it did not seem to have killed her. She was very much still breathing, so it must have been a stun device. On the screen, the drone slowly approached her slumped body. Several tendrils shot out and wrapped around her limbs. 

The young woman was quickly repositioned so she was lying comfortably on her belly. The first group retracted, in the same instant that a new tendril shot out. This one seemed to puncture her lower back. It stayed there for only a few moments and was then summarily retracted. The drone then slowly floated away, leaving her there. 

Which allowed for the scouts to move in, and collect her. She had seen that unfortunate earlier. The only one the scouts had brought back after being caught by the drones. The young woman was currently across the hall, lying in one of the ship’s med bays. Still unconscious from the alien stun weapon.

The chief rewound the video, to an earlier point. What played now, was something she had already seen, but wanted to see again. Dozens of drones congregated in cargo bay seventeen. They were shifting cargo around, and doing something with alien equipment. In fact they seemed to be building something, but she had never seen the like. The chief had no idea what they were building, but she had no doubt it was bad news. Problem was, a single drone had proven too much for them to take down. How were they going to stop, several dozen from building something?

The only thing she could think of, was to use a rocket. It might be able to damage whatever that alien equipment was. That assumed the drones didn’t intercept it or do something else. A plan that further assumed that the drones had not already finished the alien assembly they were constructing. Given that in the few minutes the scouts were filming they made quite a bit of progress. There was a good chance that they were indeed done by now. A part of her hoped they weren’t. The longer they stayed in those sections, the more time she had to make a plan. Her eyes wandered to the other screen which displayed only a countdown. She was hoping for the time to think up something better than the captain’s plan at least. Anything would be better than the captain’s plan.

Suddenly she heard gunfire and shouting out in the corridor. The chief sighed, apparently, it was a shallow hope, one not meant to be. She picked up her rifle. Even knowing it was useless, she was going to go out and fight. Perhaps, she might buy a little time for someone else to do something. Almost absently she locked down her console, and then made to leave the room to help the guards.

Before she could leave the room, there was a clatter. She looked towards the source, to see a grate on the ground. Her eyes wandered up, and there emerging from the vent was a single drone. She fired at it, and its shields flared. She unleashed a few more shots in the brief moment it was leaving the vent for little effect. The drone ignored her, choosing instead to approach the console bank. She was confused but kept firing at it anyway. Not that her weapon seemed to be having any effect. A single tendril shot from the drone, and into the console bank.

Mere seconds later, she heard a computerized voice announce “Auto-destruct sequence aborted. Control Lockout initiated. All command codes have been voided.”

She was in shock, she could not believe what she had just heard. Somehow in mere seconds the drone had overridden the lockouts on her console, accessed the mainframe, decrypted their command codes, canceled the self-destruct, initiated a ship-wide control lockout, and voided their command codes. Making it even more impressive it had done this while under fire. The drone turned towards her slowly. At the same moment, a second voice played over the speakers, also computerized but different. “All specimens report to Cargo bay Seventeen for processing. Resistance is pointless and ill-advised,”

The chief never had time to process that. A single energy bolt struck her in the chest, and her world went dark. By the time she woke up, she was already processed, and in an alien cell. She was not the only one in that cell, either.