"I certainly do have boarding vessels. Quite a few of them, in fact. We only lack interstellar capabilities due to the embargo and repeated attacks. If your Cutters can deploy their light Mecha to establish a breach head, we can be there in five minutes." Lord Joseph announced.
He had already called all of the defenders aboard the station to arms, and they could be aboard the shuttles used for hostile boarding maneuvers in under a minute.
They weren't advanced, but they didn't have to be. Their only purpose was to ram an enemy ship, then use a circular laser array to cut a hole in the hull that would let their occupants board the enemy vessel. They were just as disposable as Landers, and it was assumed that there would be losses every time they were deployed, so they weren't fancy vessels in any way.
That said, Klux still lacked the facilities to efficiently replace them or had lacked them up until a few hours ago when the Materials Printers arrived, with the ability to build an entire boarding shuttle in under a day.
[Fourth and Fifth Battalions, you are up. Get us a bay door open on that Cruiser and prepare a path for the landing parties from Klux.] Max ordered.
They could easily destroy the vessel with their firepower, but it was disabled and unlikely to get the power back online anytime soon, so it was much more beneficial to simply take the entire ship away from the Holy Truth force.
The Battalions spread out through space while the Inferno Pattern Crusaders flew forward with their thruster packs. They used their Disintegrators to blast out the outer doors of a dozen human-sized airlocks, which the boarding vessels would latch onto, saving them the time of cutting through the hull, and then one of the Super Heavy Mecha removed its Ion Bombard Arrays to allow it to use its powerful hands to open a main bay door.
A single blast from the defensive Lasers was enough to cut handholds in the door, and the twenty-meter-tall Mecha forced the doors wide, revealing an empty hangar where the defensive Mecha should have been stored.
Colonel Klinger had been expecting heavy defensive fire the moment that he forced the door open, but instead, he found that they didn't even have the usual Company of Light Mecha that every Cruiser should be carrying.
[All forces be aware, no Mecha were found in the hangars. They might have already been deployed throughout the vessel.] The Colonel informed his forces, then ordered the Line Mecha and Corvettes forward to attack.
They were the only ones that could possibly move through the hallways of a warship, and even that was a challenge for the older patterns. The new ones were more slender and agile, able to pass through the bulkhead doors that were designed to slow attacking Mecha that wanted to use routes other than the main halls, which were larger to allow cargo to be transported throughout the vessel.
[Breaching Crews are deploying now. Estimated casualties, under twenty percent.] The Klux space station's intercom announced happily, causing all of the Reavers to give the Lord and his retinue a disturbed look.
"What? That's actually pretty good for a breaching crew. A lot of the time, we lose over half of them before they even make it to the vessel."
He defended his military's calculations with a firm voice, but he had entirely missed the fact that the Reavers were disturbed by the fact that he still expected to lose a fifth of his troops, despite the enemy not having power aboard their ship, and a friendly Mecha force being present to reinforce them.
Even Kepler Generals didn't view infantry as that expendable.
The forcefully opened airlock doors were pulled closed again after the Light Mecha were aboard the Cruiser, limiting the atmospheric loss so that the infantry supporting them wasn't killed by the change in pressure. Then the interior airlock doors between the empty hangar and the ship were opened, revealing a dark and cavernous main hall that ran the length of the ship.
Normally, they would have expected to meet a large infantry defense force at this point, along with the defense Mecha, but instead, they held their fire, illuminating the length of the vessel with their spotlights.
[Sir, we have no hostile contact. The defense force is not in place.] The leader of the Light Mecha squad announced with a hint of confusion.
Their primary job is to take and hold the half dozen main corridors on the Cruiser. If they don't find anyone, what did they even come here for?
[Search for traps and proceed. They might not have been expecting the hostile response.] Colonel Klinger ordered.
Max was reviewing the scans of the vessel, which showed plenty of life forms aboard, but no energy activity. The Cruiser certainly had defenders, but for some reason, it had not sent them out. There was some hope that they would surrender without a fight, but that seemed a bit unrealistic to Max.
Nobody ever surrendered without a fight.
"Nico, send drones and see what you can find through the ports," Max ordered, wondering if the power outage was so severe that the ship had been unable to get orders relayed to the defense teams.
If that were the case, they would realize that something was seriously wrong, other than the power outage, in a few minutes and would follow their training to organize and defend the vessel.
"On it, Boss." Nico agreed, and Max saw the video feeds of a pair of drones joining the data that was coming in from the Mecha.
This new watch was amazing. Even without his helmet on, the holographic display could make dozens of screens, showing him all the information that he needed and even emulating the screen layout inside his cockpit for ease of use.
"Did I say to make these watches standard issue yet? If I didn't, do it as soon as you can produce them." Max whispered to Nico as he watched the drones begin searching through windows for signs of activity.
"Found it. I know why they're not responding." Nico gloated, then sent a video feed to Max's display.
It was the bridge of the Cruiser, where a dozen people were just beginning to regain consciousness while floating in the dark.
"The power surge knocked out the gravity before the shields broke and stopped the ship. I can see the blood stains on the window where someone's face hit it. I don't think they have taken many casualties, but they haven't given any orders to the defenders." Nico informed him, then relayed the report to the Klux breaching teams, who were using magnetic boots in place of fancy technology to keep their feet on the ground.
"We understand. Special Forces are on their way to secure the bridge now, and we are prepared for counterattacks." The breaching team's leader reported.
[All Main Hallways are secure. Preparing for enemy engagement.] The Light Mecha teams reported seconds later, having set up their full defensive coverage grid.
There were still secondary ladders, but the main stairwells and the empty elevator tubes were all in the main hallways, giving them basic control of movement on the ship on all levels. It was only a matter of time before the Holy Truth crew realized that they had lost the vessel.
