Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Nico and Annabelle were waiting with the station staff when Max arrived, and Nico started right in on what they already knew.

"The station scanners don't detect Klem inside at the moment. It looks like they are on a vessel outside the station, but there is some sort of interference that is keeping them from detecting them.

I think it's some sort of containment field that was supposed to hide them entirely, but either they hatched and damaged it, or the field is of substandard quality. Unfortunately, it's good enough quality that we can't tell if it's a ship that already docked or one of the dozens that have recently come up from the planet beneath us."

The Valkia winced at that suggestion. If the Klem presence came from the surface, they had bigger issues than just cleansing them from the station.

The crew chief turned to the boss and handed over a data tablet. "This is everything that we know about the ships which are here and the ones that are in the system waiting to dock."

Just as Nico had done, Max used her skill to quickly scan all the data and check for anomalies before referencing them against the data that they had already collected. It was a tedious process, but Nico was on it as well, so between them, they might find something of note.

There was a moment of silence as everyone went through the data that they had available, and the crew members adjusted the sensors, trying to get a clearer picture of where the signal was coming from.

"Is the station locked down right now? If someone docks or leaves, it could completely change the search and spread the Klem to an unknown destination." Max asked.

"Yes, we have flagged the dock procedures for a one-hour hold. It's under a maintenance cover story, so we have a bit of leeway while the systems are supposedly inspected and repaired, but not much more than that."

"That should be enough. Our shuttle doesn't have the same powerful sensors that our larger ships do, but since it's of a completely different design, there is a chance that it will find the way around a barrier designed to block your Alliance standard sensor systems." Max informed the station boss.

Nico was already on it, running through every scan that she could, and within a minute, she had a lead.

"I think we have it. Inside the Cargo hold of the ship docked at bay thirty-seven. That's where the blocking signal is originating, and once it's down, we should be able to pinpoint the Klem presence."

The Crew Chief cursed and then tapped frantically at his wrist device, followed by frowning.

"Our teams were unloading that bay. They're not answering the comms right now." He informed the group.

"Oooh, does that mean Field Trip?" Annabelle asked eagerly.

"I think it does. Stay close to Nico, just in case something happens. If it gets dangerous, we will have someone bring you back to the shuttle." Max informed her.

The little Innu gave a fist pump and then pulled a large energy blade from the Flat Space device on her suit. "Nico got this for me. Don't worry. I can take care of myself."

All of the adults chuckled at her certainty. She didn't actually know much about the Klem other than what was in the homework that she had been assigned, and she hadn't watched an actual fight against them, so she had no idea what sort of horrors she was up against.

But in her mind, with the augmentic armour on, she was every bit as good as a Magical Girl from her favourite morning cartoons, so she should definitely be able to chop up the bad guys with her sword.

The whole group ran toward the bay while Max carried Annabelle in his arms. Her anti-gravity system could keep up with a running speed, but she was too easily distracted and kept going off course, so he had opted to simply grab her and bring her along instead of letting her veer off into various shops when she saw something shiny.

"You need to work on your focus to work the gravity control with a straight Neural Link. It follows your attention and intentions, so when you focus on new things, it turns you around." he reminded her as they ran down the hallway.

"Oh, right. I was wondering what was going on. It was like divine providence wanted me to have those things. I was just suddenly headed for them as if it was meant to be."

[Nico, make a note. Tell her mother to limit her credit dispersal. We have a major impulse shopper on our hands.]

Nico burst into laughter at Max's message but didn't bother to fill in the confused crewmen on what was so amusing. She just kept running until they got close to the designated location and found a large amount of blood in the hallway and a severely injured crewman lying next to the control panel for the locked doors to the docked ship.

"Did anything get off the ship?" The boss asked urgently.

"No, sir. We fought it back, but there are three others heavily injured in the hall unless they made it to the medical bay." He replied.

The Crew Chief gave him a shot from the first aid kit he was carrying and then waved a medical device over him that sent out an energy field that started to knit the surface flesh back together, slowing the bleeding.

It was top-tier Alliance healing technology, and the guard should survive, though he would need augmentics since he had already lost limbs. The Alliance could regrow them for him, but a prosthetic was more cost-efficient and quicker to implement, so it was the choice of employer hospitals.

Two of the team members who were with the Crew Chief ran around the corner, where the blood trails led, and came back an instant later, shaking their heads. The crewmen had bled out before they could make it to the first aid kit in the hallway.