After a few seconds, the sensor logs and error reports from the ship began to flow in, giving a full picture of the situation, and Nico cursed, then laughed.
"I still don't know where we are, but I know what happened." She informed the rest of the room.
The researchers all turned to look at her, and Nico gave them a frustrated grimace.
"We're in the layer that the portals opened from. Antimatter cannot exist on this layer, and either our torpedo or our ship set off a chain reaction that opened a massive portal and dragged us through.
That portal is now closed, and it looks like there is little possibility that the locals will be opening it in the near future. The sensors are showing massive destruction in the area, and there appears to be a freshly levelled city about fifty kilometres from our location.
First up, none of our Warp Crystal drives will function here, so we need to renovate our Super Heavy Mecha asap. The ship's primary power is offline, but this ship is fitted with a Dyson Sphere backup power generator, so we do have limited shields and some mobility until we can get everything back online."
The crew sprung into action, and Nico started forwarding files to them.
"Replace the Super Heavy Units power plants with these units. They will be a bit slow to replicate, because of the materials, but the power output will be comparable enough to bring them up to combat effectiveness. Then start working on the ship. We have shields, but not even as much of a shield as the two custom Mecha have, and that's not acceptable.
I will work on a power relay station to bring us up to somewhat functional while you work on getting the Mecha ready to go.
Who wants to volunteer to keep an eye on the Golden Legion?" She asked.
Max patted her on the head and smiled.
"I will watch the Golden Legion, and if they approach, I will go out and deal with them, accompanied by whatever Mecha we have online." He assured her.
"Perfect. Everything but the Super Heavy units are online, since they're the only ones in our team that used a Warp Crystal primary drive. The Corvette Class racks are piloted and good to go on a moment's notice, and the ship still has enough power to deploy them without issues.
We can also move around at suborbital speeds, but we won't be able to withstand much incoming fire, so try to keep them from getting close enough to shoot at us."
"Don't worry, I'll be right on top of it if anything threatens the ship. I don't want to go outside and draw attention yet, as the enemy likely thinks that our ship is disabled at the moment, and they are still recovering from the blast that closed the Portal.
The real issue is determining where the Greater Energy Being is. If it is in here somewhere, we could have issues. If it transferred to the other side and left us stuck here, it will be a much larger issue."
From what Max recalled of the Golden Legion and its Legionaries, they were not patient, and if they thought that Max had been the one that had destroyed their city, they would be on the attack within minutes, leaving the recovery and rescue work to the other survivors while the military went on the attack.
So, the longer that they could remain undetected, the more of their equipment that they could get back online before the inevitable fight began.
But while he waited, he could learn quite a bit about this world with the powerful sensors of a Cutter Class ship, and the ability to borrow Nico's Innate Talent to hack the local computers.
Or so he had assumed until he began to try and found that there were no operational electronic devices anywhere within the communications range of the ship.
The transmitter seemed to be working just fine, and there was no indication that he was being jammed, but there was simply nothing there to find.
That shouldn't be right, unless they had some new technology that he couldn't detect. There was also a slim chance that they had been using a central power and communications system, or the explosion had taken everything out at once. An EMP effect on this side of the portal might have disabled everything that they had for electronics, and they might be running around electronically blind.
For any advanced species, that was a nightmare. But for an advanced species military, it was a killing blow that could nearly send them back to the Stone Age.
There was no good way to block a powerful EMP, so what the humans did was accommodate for it and create circuitry that could rapidly recover without lasting damage if it was hit. Standard procedure for energy weapons was to have them funnel the energy into their capacitors, so an EMP that caused the Mecha to reboot would actually charge the main guns and allow them to be combat ready as fast as possible once they were back online.
It had relegated the tactic to the equivalent of sand in their eyes, just a momentary distraction that could be used as a sneak attack, and most human forces didn't even bother anymore.
The digital search didn't pan out, but as Max searched through the minds of the creatures in the area, he managed to find what he was looking for. The Greater Energy Being was still here, and heavily wounded by the blast. The thoughts were feminine, and it seemed like this being was an assistant to the god of the Golden Legion, which had sided with the faction intending to wipe out the mortals and start over.
She had gone into hiding, allowing her corporeal body to disperse into the surface beneath them, while she healed from her injuries.
But that fragmentation meant that there would be countless lesser Energy Beings spread out all over the planet. They should be on the side of the Golden Legion, but in the shock that followed the damage to their former host, they would be disoriented and somewhat ineffective.
The thought was concerning the Greater Energy Being in her hiding spot, as she didn't understand what had happened, or why everything around the portal had suddenly exploded.
All that was left was to get their Mecha online, and they could go deal with the Golden Legion and start working on either a way home or a way to deal with the Greater Energy Being, who was now seriously reconsidering the orders they had been given.
But what being wouldn't be? They hadn't even seen the enemy yet, and their General was nearly killed, their city was levelled, and an unknown number of their troops were lost before they ever saw combat. It was a tragedy, and the God that had taken a liking to the species would definitely understand the effort to avoid having the entire population here eliminated for no gain.
At least, that was what was going through the Greater Energy Being's mind at that moment.
Perhaps the situation that Max was in wasn't as dire as he had feared. If the leader of the Golden Legion force chose to take them away, he would be left here in peace to repair their Cutter and return to their home layer.
