Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Max turned to the Station boss, who was quickly becoming enraged by the situation, and then to Annabelle, who was way too excited to try out her nonexistent sword-fighting skills on the Klem.

"If you can have someone guard the little one, we can breach the cargo hold on this ship and see what the situation is inside. It's in full lockdown, so even if they handled it inside, they can't get out or communicate with this side." Max suggested.

They were not alright on the other side, there were no sentient beings conscious or even dreaming on that entire ship, but Max was hoping to get the Valkia to unlock the doors so that they could deal with the Klem and look for signs of where they came from.

"This ship came from one of our trading outposts. They're not one of mine, but an independent merchant, so I don't know where all they have been, but I need to find out if they put other facilities at risk." The Valkia insisted.

"Then we're on the same page. Once we clear the first hold, the rest of the staff can start looking for clues in here while we check the ship's computer and search the rest of the vessel for any survivors or remaining documents."

"In that case, everyone take your positions. We are opening the doors in three, two, one."

The doors swung open with a hiss of flowing air as the station vented a bit of atmosphere into the lower-pressure cargo hold before its shields came up to stop the flow.

The opening doors brought a flurry of activity, and Max followed Nico through the breach with the Valkia right behind them. They cleared the door an instant before a pair of Klem Warriors were on them, meeting Nico's sword and a blast from Max's Disruptor Pistol before they could even react.

The first shots were followed up by a spread pattern of low-intensity shots to clear the small Klem on the floor without damaging the hardened cargo containers in the hold. The green blood of the Klem joined the red and black blood of the station staff and ship's crew that was sprayed all over the cargo hold, but no more targets came to join them.

The crew was about to move in behind them, but the doors suddenly slid shut, and Nico gave the Station Boss a wink.

"We will keep them out there for a moment. I think there are things on this ship that shouldn't be seen by outsiders. According to the logs, the last person to enter the bay was unrecorded and personally welcomed by the Captain of this vessel, whose transponder is currently on the bridge." She explained.

"It should also have a shipment for my market. I'm not sure which crates it is in, but it was never unloaded before the incident. You are right. We should clear this ship without any prying eyes getting in the way." The Boss replied, then spread his glossy black wings wide so he could lift into the air and get a good look around the bay from above.

"There is a breached door on the left, behind the cargo crates. It has been pushed toward the cargo bay. That should be the point of entry for the infestation, but the rest of the bay looks clear." He announced.

"My sensors agree. There are still Klem on the ship, but not in this room." Nico agreed and hopped up on the cargo crates to get a look for herself.

"I think I have found your goodies. Were you looking to import a large amount of narcotics? My scans show nearly a thousand tonnes of it in these crates. If my readings are right, it is in pill form, sorted by bulk bags, ten thousand to a package." Nico chuckled.

"Don't judge me. It's a prohibited medicine, the best painkiller that we have ever come across, and it's dirt cheap since there are no patent fees to pay on a black market drug." The Valkia replied with a smirk.

"Good answer. We wouldn't care either way, but drugs aren't the sort of product that might be related to a Klem infestation. If it had been genetic sequencing or other biological alteration products, there would be a chance that whoever brought them was trying to do something with the Klem. I guess we will have to keep looking for their origins and why they were on board." Max clarified.

He moved quickly through the destroyed door and out of the cargo hold with Nico covering his back and the Valkia coming up right behind him. The other side was a narrow hallway, painted in the bland green that all militaries and government institutions seemed to prefer for their walls, but the alloy walls had been deeply gouged, and there was a trail of Klem blood on the floor.

The cargo hold wasn't the first point in their battle, it was the last, but judging by the bodies, nobody had told the crew that was unloading the ship about what was going on.

The ones that they had found on the other side of the door hadn't even had time to retreat the few steps to safety before everything went wrong, so they must have realized that they were under attack when the Klem breached the security door.

"Do we have a layout of this maze?" Max asked Nico as he moved forward, following the trail of green blood back to its source.

"Right here. You can pull it up on your holographic display or the HUD in your helmet now."

That was much better. There wasn't much to this section. It was just a group of cargo holds and a few corridors. The main crew quarters were at the front of the ship, and the blood trail wasn't leading in that direction.

Max followed it to another cargo bay, where a hole was torn in the wall right at the corner of the bay.

"Do we risk the door, or do we follow the hole ripped in the wall?" Max asked, wanting to make sure that everyone was on the same page since their thoughts were so focused on making sure they weren't ambushed.

"The security in the bays is all offline, so we're going in blind, but I say we use the hole in the wall. If they were guarding it, they would have already noticed us, and I don't recall a time when the Klem were patient hunters." Nico decided.

"I will defer to your experience." The Valkia agreed.

"Alright, I will lead and peel left, Nico. You take a right. Archibald, hold the exit and don't let anything escape into the vessel."

Nobody ever called the Boss by his name, so it had taken Max a while to gather it from the Station Boss's thoughts, and the man seemed shocked to hear it spoken out loud.

"He reads minds. It's a handy skill, even if it does startle people now and then." Nico explained.

"It's rare that I hear it myself. Usually, everyone just calls me Boss. You know how it is, no real names in our line of work." He chuckled.

"Don't worry. I won't let it slip in public. Are we ready? Go."