As it turned out, finding a pilot was rather easy. He spoke with Katalynn, and she was fine with sending her people out to remove some Shican. She also reminded him that all Asgardians were trained on the basic operation of all ship systems, which included flying.

Katalynn tapped one of the replacement bridge crew on the shoulder. "Skarin here has the most time flying, so take him."

Skarin beamed at the praise and stood. "I would be honored to fly the strike team to the Shican vessel. I only wish I could join them in removing the aliens from the universe."

"In due time," Katalynn replied. "Head down to the shuttle and get it prepped and ready."

The man nodded and rushed off before Alexander had a chance to weigh in. He trusted Katalynn's judgement, however, so he let it be. "How is everyone holding up in here?"

The bridge still had holes in it, so everyone was suited up, but it couldn't be comfortable.

"We are managing," she said through her suit radio, "but if you could prioritize sealing the holes, I would appreciate that."

"Working on it," he sighed. "Unfortunately, the Shican's plasma bolts make slapping a patch on more difficult than laser or projectile damage might have. The melted material has a tendency to bubble outward and cause uneven ridges, which have to be cut away before a patch can be sealed over the opening."

"Leave it to the Shican to find a more destructive method of combat," she said with a sour look.

"Did they do stuff like this back during the war?" Alexander asked.

"They didn't have plasma weapons as far as I know, but they used nuclear-tipped missiles, computer intrusion, kamikaze fighters, and general swarm tactics against a single vessel to overwhelm point defense. They quickly stopped using nukes as our ECM got better and we hardened our systems against their intrusion efforts, but those other methods never really stopped."

That helped explain why so many computer systems within the STO and even inside the Asgardian and pirate ships were hard-coded. It must have been a holdover from the war. Can't really hack those. It also explained the spike in processing that Grace's core had experienced during the short attack. The Shican must have been trying to break through the computer's defenses.

Thankfully, Grace and Valkyrie had the defensive program created by Lucas and Dr. Lund, which had been further enhanced by Alexander. It wasn't a foolproof solution, but it was quite robust, especially when backed up by the processing power of the computer onboard.

He would need to take a look at the logs when time permitted and see if he could improve the computer system's defenses further. Hardcoding his systems wasn't an option. It would reduce the overall effectiveness of his ships by a considerable margin if he had to implement something like that.

Alexander nodded his avatar. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."

***

"Alright, listen up!" Galloway shouted. "We have a job to do. Lagertha Char and Jarl Kane have tasked us with the job of clearing the alien wreckage of any survivors, but there are probably more Shican aboard than we have strike team members. So we need to do it smartly and in a way they won't expect. Stage three on the FE rifles is approved for this operation; try not to put a hole in the shuttle."

A few of the strike team chuckled at that, but the Asgardians all kept a serious face on. He could appreciate their professionalism, but he wished they were a bit more laid-back at times. Galloway had seen enough shit in his career that he knew a bit of humor helped with the nerves.

Then again, Galloway shouldn't be surprised. Out of anyone, the Asgardians had fought the Shican the longest; they knew just how dangerous the aliens could be. Learning that the Shican and Asgardians had fought a silent war while the STO remained safe was a kick in the gut and served to highlight why their relationships had remained strained for so long.

When Galloway thought back to basic training on Shican tactics, he recalled that there were plenty of accounts of the rotten little aliens boarding STO vessels after disabling them.

Those accounts said that the Shican preferred hand-to-hand combat. They were smaller, faster, and more agile than humans. They also excelled at zero-G maneuvering. The aliens used that to great advantage to close in on any survivors. It did lead to a lot of dead Shican, since they were single-minded in their pursuit, but the aliens didn't seem to care about the losses. That didn't mean the Shican didn't use ranged weapons; they had their own version of a flechette rifle, according to those old reports. The Shican didn't take prisoners either, so it was a fight to the death anytime they boarded a ship. Reader support at M*VLEM*PYR made this translation possible.

Galloway would be glad to repay the favor for all those they killed in the past.

"This op is going to be risky, so keep your eyes open. The Shican may be cybernetically enhanced, but we're going to cheat too, and use Jarl Kane's augment gear. That should be enough to negate any advantage the rotten little kitties have. Any questions?"

There were none. Galloway nodded, and the small group of fourteen boarded the shuttle and were soon on their way to the alien wreckage. The section of the ship was much larger than he first thought, and he realized it was going to take hours to ensure the wreckage was completely clear.

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He grunted before clicking the comm open. "Watch your ammo, we can't afford to run out."

A chorus of acknowledgments came back in response. It would be the last communication they had. Once they boarded the ship, comms would be locked down to prevent any enemy ECM from infecting their augment gear.

Going radio silent was less than ideal, since they couldn't sync their suit computers, but it beat getting hacked and disabled.

The light in the passenger area turned red, and the back ramp started to open. There was no docking port on the wreck, so it was a short hop through open space to get to the Shican vessel.

They could have used a magnetic grapple to cross, but they didn't want to alert any survivors of their presence until they struck.

One by one, the team crossed the ten-foot gap, landing on the neatly severed deck inside the open corridor. Galloway could easily see why the pilot had chosen that spot. There was a set of stairs leading both up and down, allowing the teams to split up and clear three floors at the same time.

Once everyone had cleared the shuttle, Galloway motioned to get their attention. Once he had it, he tapped on his helmet, pointed to his eyes, then to his rifle, before pointing to the others. It was a reminder to watch for friendlies when firing through walls.

They nodded, and he split the teams up. It was time to go hunting.

A quick pulse of his suit's sensors showed movement on the ship. When the second pulse went out, he noticed that the nearby aliens had stopped moving.

The third pulse showed at least three distinct targets heading in their direction. "So much for stealth," he muttered. The aliens had somehow sensed the seismic location attempts and were now rushing toward them from an adjacent hallway.

He didn't have to give the signal to his people. Three of them raised their rifles and fired a burst through the walls.

Galloway held off, tracking the blurry signatures as they raced toward them. One of the forms went down, but the other two made it to the intersection up ahead.

Instead of slowing to make the turn, the suited Shican flew across the corridor and bounded off the far wall, shooting toward his team like a missile. The short figure had a vicious-looking blade in its hand, but the FE rifles tore through him, ending his suicidal approach. His team stepped aside to let the body fly past them and out into space, avoiding the very sharp blade still clutched in the dead Shican's hand.

The third individual crashed against that same far wall, but didn't get up. A salvo of hypersonic darts had pushed its off button.

Galloway checked his ammo and winced. It had taken twenty-five rounds to take down three Shican, and he wasn't the only one firing.

The teams kept moving, encountering half a dozen suicidal Shican as they made their way deeper into the ship. That's when their luck ran out.

An armored Shican dropped from the ceiling, somehow managing to avoid the suit sensors. Unlike the others, this one had a weapon. It fired the laser as it fell, the beam punching through the team member's faceplate with little resistance. The man dropped, and the Shican was now within their formation.

The damn thing fought like a demon, managing to injure three more before the rest of the team restrained it long enough for Galloway to put the barrel of his rifle to its helmet. The hypersonic round ripped through the alien's skull, and it finally went limp.

"It just had to be fucking lasers," he said in disgust before checking on the injured. Luckily, nobody's suit had been torn open by the Shican's blade. The material Alexander had made them from was tough stuff, but the blunt damage from a cyborg was still enough to break bones.

He motioned for the three wounded to take the body of their fallen brother, as well as the Shican and the weapon, back toward the evac point. It was clear this Shican was different than the others. None of the other ones they encountered had armor; they simply had normal space suits. They also didn't have ranged weapons.

As they continued clearing the ship, he would occasionally feel the vibration as an FE rifle was fired by the other teams.

Another armored Shican almost got the drop on them, but someone noticed it hiding around a corner and fired a burst of rounds through the wall. Its body slumped into the corridor, and they stepped over it, checking down the junction for more before moving on. They could collect the body on the way back.

His suit beeped at him, letting him know he had thirty minutes of oxygen remaining. He pulled out one of the RASPs and stuck it to the port in his suit, gesturing for the rest of the team to do the same. They had three more of the life-saving devices each, so they needed to clear the ship and make their way back to the shuttle before those ran out.

Thankfully, they reached a dead end after encountering only ten more Shican. They were all of the normal variety and not the armored ones, so it wasn't much of a challenge. His suit was tracking a few more of the aliens, but those were on other levels, and they were moving too much to ensure a clean shot through the walls.

There were other floors, but it appeared that only five or six levels had surviving Shican on them, and those were all clustered toward the interior of the vessel.

He watched as the other teams closed in on those remaining signatures and dispatched them. Once he was sure there was no other movement, he tapped his helmet and flipped on his radio. After waiting a moment for the others to do the same, he spoke. "All clear. Let's move back to the evac site."

It took far less time to tromp back to the entry point than it did to hunt down the Shican, but they made it while only having to use one more RASP each. Two more human corpses greeted them when they arrived.

"What happened?" he asked the wounded.

A man with a large black mark on the side of his helmet spoke up. "I was part of the team that went to the floor above. We encountered a trio of the armored Shican. All of them had laser weapons and aimed for the faceplates." He gestured to the two dead Asgardians. "Those two were dead before we even knew we were being attacked. I only survived because I turned my head a moment before the attack started. We managed to take two of the Shican out before they closed the distance. The one who missed me seemed to take it personally and slammed me into the wall like a freight train. Those bastards might be small, but they are far heavier than they look. It managed to break two of my ribs just from the impact, but I managed to fight it off long enough for my team to finish it."

Once the rest of the teams returned, Galloway signaled the shuttle, and they loaded the dead members of the strike team aboard before dragging the corpses of the Shican along for Alexander to study.

Losing people was never good. Alexander's suits and new weapons gave them a distinct edge, but it wasn't as wide a gap as he would have liked against the cybernetically enhanced aliens. There were definitely some improvements he would like to see added to the suits. He could discuss those with Alex when there were less pressing issues.