Chapter 398: Strategic Coordination Annex Seven 2

Then another message appeared.

Human claimant recognized.

Command reconstruction incomplete.

Local access granted at restricted emergency level.

Strategic core remains sealed.

That was better than Aurelian had expected.

It meant the station was at least willing to recognize him as someone with limited authority, even if the deeper systems still refused to fully open.

"Do we have docking access?" he asked.

Veylora checked the station response before answering.

"Three outer docks just activated."

"Any weapons coming online?"

Selvarin answered from her cruiser.

"Still nothing."

Aurelian didn’t relax.

Just because nothing had fired yet didn’t mean the station was safe. The place had been sitting here for centuries, half awake and full of systems nobody fully understood.

"Passive scan first."

Lysara sent the scout cutter forward.

The small ship moved carefully toward one of the newly opened docking arms while Selvarin and Veylora kept their cruisers farther back with the support vessels.

For the first few moments, everything looked normal. The dock remained open, the station sent no warning, and none of the large weapon systems showed any signs of activation.

Then the cutter picked up movement.

Not outside the station.

Inside the docking structure.

Dozens of small signals suddenly appeared behind the walls.

"Machines," Lysara said.

Aurelian turned toward Eirenne’s projection.

"Type?"

"Unknown."

The cutter stopped moving closer.

That probably saved it.

A second later, part of the docking structure opened, but not the berth itself. A section of wall beside it split apart and dozens of old Vhaloric defense frames pushed into open space.

They were much smaller than proper warships, closer to heavy combat drones, but there were hundreds.

None carried active identification.

The first group immediately turned toward the scout cutter.

"Withdraw," Lysara ordered.

The cutter reversed at full power.

The defense frames followed without hesitation.

Selvarin moved her cruiser forward and placed herself between the cutter and the incoming machines.

"Warning transmission sent," she reported. "No response."

Aurelian saw weapon readings begin to rise across the front group.

"Fire."

Selvarin opened fire immediately.

Her forward weapons tore into the leading defense frames, destroying several before they could properly spread out.

Veylora joined a moment later, and the space around Annex Seven filled with weapons fire as the first line of machines broke apart.

They were old.

That didn’t make them weak.

Several survived direct hits and kept coming, while others split away from the main group and tried to approach from the sides instead of flying straight into the cruisers’ strongest weapons.

Lysara recognized what they were doing almost immediately.

"Directorate perimeter drones," she said. "Strategic version."

Aurelian looked at the tactical display.

"How dangerous?"

"Very dangerous to the scout cutter. Against the cruisers, manageable."

The expedition slowly pulled farther away from the station while continuing to fire. The old machines followed for a short distance, then stopped almost at the same time when they reached a clear invisible boundary around Annex Seven.

Every surviving frame turned back.

Rhoswen sounded disappointed.

"They’re leashed."

"It appears so," Eirenne said.

Lysara kept studying the station.

"The local access was real. The docking invitation was real too."

Astra understood what she meant.

"But the defense system doesn’t recognize the reconstructed authority."

"Not fully," Lysara said.

That changed the situation.

They could probably force their way through one of the outer docks, but there was no reason to do something that stupid when they still didn’t understand the station.

Aurelian looked at the rough map the scout cutter had built during its short approach. Most of the defense frames were concentrated around the functioning docks.

One damaged section along the central spine had far fewer signals.

"Can you enter through the broken ring section?" he asked.

Lysara enlarged that part of the station.

"Maybe. It isn’t a real dock, but there are several open tears in the hull."

"Don’t risk the cruisers. Send remote units first."

Lysara agreed.

Several drones launched from her ship and moved toward the damaged section from different angles.

This time, the perimeter defenses didn’t react.

Whatever rules controlled them apparently didn’t count that section as part of the protected docking zone.

One drone entered through a large tear in the hull.

Its feed became unstable almost immediately.

The inside of Annex Seven was dark.

Old metal corridors stretched through collapsed walls, hanging cables, broken pipes, and machinery torn apart long before the expedition arrived.

Veylora studied the damage carefully.

"This was a battle."

"Inside the station?" Selvarin asked.

"Looks like it."

The drone moved deeper.

More wreckage appeared.

Vhaloric security frames lay broken across one passage, some cut cleanly apart while others had melted into the walls around them.

Lysara became quieter as she watched.

"Something fought its way through here."

Aurelian looked at the damage.

"Recently?"

"No. Centuries ago."

The drone continued another few hundred meters.

Then the feed disappeared.

No warning.

No visible attack.

The connection simply went dark.

A second drone entered through another opening.

It lasted less than two minutes.

The third one finally found the reason.

Something moved through the darkness.

Large.

Fast.

The drone barely managed to turn its camera before the shape reached it.

The final image showed part of a mechanical body built from several mismatched sections.

It looked Vhaloric.

Mostly.

Its outer frame had been repaired so many times that some parts no longer matched the original body.

One arm ended in a large cutting tool, while the other carried something that looked like an old industrial projector converted into a weapon.

Its head had no face.

Only a line of red sensors.

Then the feed disappeared.

Rhoswen smiled.

"There it is."

Aurelian looked at her.

"What?"

"The thing making this interesting."

Lysara was already going over the final image.

"That isn’t a normal defense frame."

Veylora answered before Eirenne could.

"Strategic maintenance construct."

Lysara looked toward her.

"You’re sure?"

"Prototype design. The Thornwake development records mentioned them. They were meant to repair command stations during active battles."

Aurelian looked at the heavy cutting arm.

"That one seems to have changed jobs."

"Quite a lot," Veylora said.

Eirenne cleaned up the final image and enlarged several parts.

"Heavy armor. Independent power source. The repairs across the body suggest it has been operating alone for a very long time."

"One machine?"

"No way to know."

That was the real problem.

Annex Seven was enormous, and even their improved sensors couldn’t see very far inside because the station’s shielding and internal systems blocked most deeper scans.

Aurelian thought for a moment.

"We don’t send people inside yet."

Rhoswen sighed.

Nobody paid attention.

Lysara nodded.

"I can clear the outer damaged section with drones and support frames."

"Slowly."

"Yes."

"Don’t chase anything farther than you can support from the cruisers."

Selvarin moved closer to the damaged hull without crossing the range that triggered the perimeter defenses.

Her cruiser began launching combat drones and repair units fitted with weapons.

Veylora did the same.

This time, they didn’t send a few small groups.

More than a hundred unmanned units entered the damaged section together.

The first maintenance construct appeared almost immediately.

It rushed out from behind a collapsed wall and destroyed two drones before the rest opened fire.

Weapon flashes filled the corridor, but the machine kept moving even after taking several direct hits.

Then a heavy shot struck one support frame on its leg.

The construct fell.

It tried to stand again.

Three more drones fired into its central body until the power core finally failed.

"One down," Selvarin said.

More signals appeared.

Five at first.

Then nine.

Veylora stared at the movement display.

"They were waiting."

The machines came through several passages at once.

Some carried proper weapons, while others had cutting tools, repair arms, and industrial equipment that had clearly been turned into weapons after centuries of isolation.

The drones immediately pulled back toward the hull opening.

The machines followed.

That was exactly what Lysara wanted.

When the first group reached the open section, her cruiser fired through the damaged hull.

One heavy laser crossed the corridor and destroyed three constructs at once.

Selvarin followed with a narrower strike.

The surviving machines scattered immediately.

They weren’t mindless.

They understood the danger and tried to retreat deeper into the station.

Lysara didn’t chase them.

"Hold the opening."

The combat drones formed a defensive line inside the wrecked section.

For almost ten minutes, nothing else attacked.

Then Eirenne noticed another change.

"The station is moving power again."

Aurelian looked toward Annex Seven.

"Where?"

"Deep central section."

Lysara’s sensors picked it up a second later.

More internal systems were starting to wake.

Not because of the drones.

The process had already started before that.

The reconstructed authority signal had triggered something deeper in the station, something that had been sleeping for a very long time.

Veylora suddenly looked toward her tactical display.

"Large contacts."

Aurelian turned toward her.

"How many?"

She didn’t answer immediately.

The first signal appeared on the shared map.

Then another.

And another.

They weren’t inside the station.

They were attached to the far side, hidden beneath armored maintenance covers that had looked like part of the damaged hull.

The covers began opening.

Large mechanical bodies unfolded from the station.

Each one was almost the size of a destroyer.

Six appeared first.

Then four more.

Then another group farther along the station.

Selvarin’s voice hardened.

"Twenty-one confirmed."

Lysara watched them detach one after another.

Unlike the smaller perimeter machines, these didn’t stop near the station.

They turned directly toward the expedition.

Their power readings rose.

Rhoswen’s expression became much more serious.

Astra looked at Aurelian.

"Still an exploration mission?"

Aurelian watched the twenty-one ancient machines spread around Annex Seven.

"No."

He opened a direct channel to Lysara.

"Pull your drones out. Move the support vessels behind the cruisers and prepare to withdraw if necessary."

Lysara nodded once.

"Understood."

The first ancient machine accelerated toward them.

Then all twenty others followed.

Whatever Strategic Coordination Annex Seven had been waiting for, it had finally decided that the fleet outside was part of the problem.