Expecting trouble out in the open, you quickly gather up armor and weapons while Ted extracts a necrotic comms device and hooks it up manually to his own comms so that any incoming calls can be heard and responded to audibly rather than through vibration. As soon as you have everything in hand, you rush to the Sunrise Maiden with Xix in tow. Once you're inside, you settle down to take a short rest.
A few minutes into the rest, the recovered Corpse Fleets comms device buzzes slightly. You hear, in crackling Eoxian "Squad El Seven, you have not reported in at the expected time. Status Update." The voice sounds irritated.
Unfortunately, Arc's imitation sounds an awful lot like his normal speaking voice, and soon after he speaks, the Eoxian on the other side crackles a dry response "And I'm very pleased with the Corpse Fleet's health benefits." There's a moment of silence before you hear "Your remaining moments are numbered breathers, enjoy them while you can." The line cuts out and you find the comms device loses functionality as it is remotely deactivated.
You lift off from the ancient landing pad and rise up through the Moon's atmosphere. You rise up above the thin clouds and the dark background of stars becomes visible. However, there aren't just stars out around the Gate system.
What you had taken as a bright violet spot in the sky reveals itself to be something very different. The Gate is already open. The dimension beyond is an iridescent violet ripple and protruding from the opening is the Stellar Degenerator. Over a dozen miles long, the superweapon is an enormous conical vessel with a series of ridges running along its circumference in a continuous spiral. Though it appears to have been carved from a single titanic block of stone, various antennae, capital weapons, and control structures jut from its exterior. A dish-like device—an energy collector—protrudes from the vessel’s tip. Its engines appear to be dormant, but the Stellar Degenerator nevertheless emanates a powerful energy signature.
However, you can scarcely begin to appreciate the massive superweapon thanks to the absolute chaos currently in progress all around it. The Corpse Fleet armada has arrived in ernest, with hundreds of their characteristic bony ships engaged in pitched battle with the united ships of the Pact Worlds that have arrived to contest the weapon. Laser fire, missile barrages, and massive capital weapons lance across the void of space. Some of the terrible weapons are absorbed or deflected by shielding or dodged by more nimble ships, but many more land direct hits - turning starships to debris and slag in moments.
Even from your brief inspection, one fact is obvious: the Pact Fleet is losing, and losing badly. For now they are keeping the Corpse Fleet armada busy. Keeping them from reaching the Stellar Degenerator to claim it. But it seems their fight right now is doing nothing more than desperately buying time...
The largest problem for the Pact Fleet is the Corpse Fleet Flagship, a supercolossal ultranought at least six miles long that bristles with capital weapons and worse. Swarms of Corpse Fleet fighters surround it and intercept any incoming projectiles, and the few that get past are simply absorbed by the flagship's shields.
Meanwhile, the Stellar Degenerator itself is no slouch. Whenever a Pact Worlds or Corpse Fleet ship gets too close to the ancient weapon, its own automated defenses act to vaporize the intruder. These defenses all but ensure that the victor of this fight is the only one who will be able to claim the superweapon. No sneaking off with the weapon is going to happen.
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With the clash currently in progress, no ships have an immediate opportunity to turn to attack you. However, it is obvious that the Sunrise Maiden is utterly outclassed and outgunned by even a middle-of-the-line Corpse Fleet vessel. It's only a matter of time before you're spotted as a potential target.
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Jellico's fingers fly over the Maiden's controls, as he works to stay mostly out of the way of the battle. He speaks into the comm system, "We're not going to be able to avoid the battle forever. Are we going for the Stellar Degenerator itself, or something else? The battle's too big for us to take it on ourselves but we're small enough to possibly slip around something's defenses if we want."
It takes several minutes after you send your message before you get a response from Chiskisk.
A rather beleaguered Chiskisk appears on your comms screen "The APL! Hah! Good that you're all still alive! We thought maybe the Corpse Fleet had already got you." They speak out loud, their rasping voice unsteady. "As you can see, we're on the back foot. Luckily, Ambassador Nor came with us and was able to convince several of the Corpse Fleet ships to defect to our side, otherwise we'd already be-" His words are drowned out as the ship he's on shakes wildly from an explosion. "You don't happen to have a way to destroy the Stellar Degenerator already? If not, our scanners say the weapon's awfully well protected. In the mean time, our biggest issue is that flagship. It's all we can do to keep it busy."
"If you can think of a way to deal with the flagship, it'd keep us flying and maybe turn the tide of the battle!" Chiskisk is thrown out of frame as another explosion rocks his ship.
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Arcalinte's brow furrows, but then his eyes widen.
"What if there was a way to deal with both? If we could somehow force it to crash into the Stellar Degenerator? It's big enough that it might take some time for the weapon's defenses to kill it before it could deal some significant structural damage to it!"
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"We'd have to get it to move within range of the Degenerator's auto-defensives. I'm sure they've seen the same things we have. They won't get too close if they can help it. I suppose we could try to get them to chase us, but their weapons have such range that they wouldn't have to move to blow us into space dust."
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"So we prevent them from helping it: we board them in the confusion, get to their bridge and take out any command there, and then set the vessel on a collision course. Your piloting skills are some of the best I've seen, right up there with Sydney's, but on the whole we've always been more effective as a boarding party or ground team than we've ever been in ship-to-ship combat."
A couple of minutes later due to the long distance communication, Chiskisk's reply comes in "A wonderful idea Arcalinte! But attempting to get close to the Corpse Fleet flagship will be a perilous endeavor! Your ship is not so small as to entirely evade notice, and since it isn't a Corpse Fleet model, it'll be obvious on both scans and visuals. If you try that run, well, unless you've got active stealth, it would be a one in a million shot." Chiskisk waves at someone off camera and then is thrown off their feet once more as an explosion strikes "Hah! Well, I know you'll work out a clever plan."
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Jellico thinks for a moment.
"I might be able to do some creative flying. If we time it just right, we might be able to create a diversion, an explosion or something, and then act like a derelict ship that was disabled. I could use our maneuvering thrusters to guide us just enough to get us close to the big guy."
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Arcalinte thinks.
"Chiskisk, you said Ambassador Nor was with you, and he'd been able to sway some of the enemy to our side...he...he wouldn't happen to have access to a Corpse Fleet IFF, would he? Spectre's idea is a good one, but if we had access to actual Corpse Fleet signals, their deception would be even more convincing. We could just fly right in and dock in their own hangar!"
A few minutes later you hear back. "Not sure, not sure! The Corpse Fleet knows that he has been working against them. If they're smart they've cut him off." Chiskisk sends you the comms data needed to access the encrypted link to Ambassador Nor's craft.
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You get in contact with Ambassador Nor, relaying your question about whether he has any special codes to get into the Corpse Fleet flagship. In return you just get an audio link of a very relaxed sounding Nor "A pleasure as always to hear from you. I am afraid I do not have any codes with which to fool the sensors the Empire of Bones and her attendant craft are equipped with. Indeed, these codes are kept exceptionally secret. However... should you gain access to the craft, I suggest you meet with one of my operatives. She has been embedded for quite some time and likely will have some useful information or tools for you." He transmits data for a specialized scanning frequency. "My operative carries a short range beacon that you will be able to detect on this frequency once you are within a few hundred feet of her. Find her and speak with her, if you are able."
Speaking coldly and unemotionally, he adds "Now, may you bring victory for the Pact Worlds."
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Jellico raises his eyebrows at Ted's suggestion. "Although I don't officially condone lying, that might be our best option. Perhaps our people could even pretend to attack us to drive home the ruse? Even if the Corpse Feat only believes us for a moment, it might be enough to make a rather hasty entry into their loading bay."
Since you're at the edge of this massive battle, you're far too far away from the Corpse Fleet flagship to get a clean scan of any of its surface details. If you're able to get up closer however, you should be able to spot a docking hangar to enter. For a craft that size, it likely has dozens of hangars that would accept and release fighters and support craft. A scan to find one of them would be easy once you're close.
Ted turns the Sunrise Maiden's scanners to a survey of the battle in search of disabled ships. Many unfortunate ships have been reduced to little more than debris, making them a poor target for your desired infiltration mission. Several are clearly entirely derelict. Ted spots a few likely targets closer to the middle of the battlefield, making them hard to access. But thanks to his excellent control of the sensors, he also locates a promising target:
A mid-size Corpse Fleet destroyer, currently tumbling slowly through the void away from the fight. It looks like their main thrusters are badly damaged, but not entirely destroyed, and from some of the energy signatures they're giving off, most of their weapons have been wrecked. They seem to be in the process of trying to stabilize in order to limp back into the fight. The destroyer is not too far away from the Sunrise Maiden - you should be able to catch them if you're quick about it.
Skirting the edges of the battle, Ted expertly pilots the Sunrise Maiden on the perfect trajectory and speed to match the ungainly spins of the disabled destroyer. He aligns the Maiden's starboard airlock with the destroyer's hangar bay. It'll take a short spacewalk to cross the intervening distance.
All apertures on the Corpse Fleet destroyer are closed, so you'll need some spectacular hacking skills to get the hangar bay open (You must be capable of remote hacking as the systems are on the inside), or very good engineering skills to somehow override it from the outside.
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"Can you set an auto-pilot to come to us when needed? We will need a ride off that huge destroyer after we direct it into the Stellar Degenerator."
Isu exits out the airlock and uses his jetpack to maneuver to the Corpse fleet ship. He waits outside their outer doors for Ted and Spec to hack it open.