Daniel ran into the training room. "You guys won't believe it! I actually got Michael's starfighter out of there!"
Stephanie and Catherine stop what they were doing and Michael looked up from his tablet. "You did? How?"
"Well I use the capital ship as a.. And I a.. What in the world is that!" Daniel said pointing at the weapon the David Kel android was holding.
It had more or less a typical grip and stock but the barrel came out a little ways then grew to the size of a circle large enough for Daniel to put his head into, making it look like more of an old-fashioned Tommy gun magazine than an actual barrel.
A dimensional door to the bridge opened up and Steven walked through into the training room. "That is Catherine's ideal and completely impossible without the insane equations she just finished."
"Cool." Daniel said as he turned to Catherine. "So what is it?"
"Well the biggest problem with the continuums in Steven's dimensional doors is as you well know they are extremely unstable and that's because it's built on technology and mathematics he doesn't even understand. I've been slowly dissecting the formula and I found a flaw in the math, I fixed it and now they're a little more stable."
"Oh sweet, so now we can send more energy to the Starfighters? And use the medallion shields for the androids?"
Steven took a deep breath through his teeth. "Not exactly. The dimensional doors with the new equation for some reason only works if the size of the door is anywhere from 2 to 12 inches in circumference. As you know the conduit to the starfighters is 32 inches and sadly it doesn't quite make it stable enough to use the medallion shields with the androids yet."
"Oh not so sweet."
Catherine hugged Daniel's arm. "Haha, not yet anyway. However it did enable us to make that." She nodded towards the weapon David Kel was holding."
"Yes, what is it?"
"A handheld starfighter sized beam cannon." Michael answered.
"Handy beam. For short." Stephanie added.
Steven rolled his eyes at Stephanie's horrible name as Daniel shouted, "No way! That's awesome!"
Daniel reached out and try to take the weapon from David Kel's hands but his grip on it was too hard. Daniel shook his arm loose from Catherine and tried to use both arms to pull the gun away from David Kel but David Kel's grip tightened and his eyes popped open as he gave Daniel a giant smile.
Daniel spun his head to see Stephanie with a hat on. "Hey! Let me look at it!"
"No! You're not touching this. Your too destructive and were not going to use this as a weapon."
"We're not?"
Steven shook his head. "No we're not, there are too many people on the capital ship and waiving this thing around could easily kill hundreds."
"Then what's the use of it?"
Catherine answered this time. "The president will be inside a shielded two foot thick molecular metal safe box. This will enable us to cut him out of it."
"Oh, I see."
Alf's lion hologram appeared. "Production complete bringing the request objects to the training room now."
The dimensional door Steven had come through flickered off then came back on this time connecting to the mobile stations factory. Two droids walked through. One of them was carrying six or seven small metal disc and the other had an assortment of metal rings.
Catherine took the largest of the metal rings from the droid and began to install it in the handheld starfighter class beam cannon.
Steven took one of the small metal disc hooked his hand into the grip on the back of it and pushed one of the buttons on it. The small palm-sized metal disc expanded until was about 3 feet in diameter and a shield sprung to life around it. Steven held it out in front of him.
"Ah, a handheld personal shield. That'll be useful." Michael said.
"Yes, I got the ideal when I watched Daniel use that wall as a shield. Though you have to remember to hold it out and away from you at least half an arms length at all times otherwise it's dimensional door or your androids dimensional door will collapse."
"Easy enough to remember." Stephanie said as she had David Kel reach out and grab a shield.
David Kel was now holding the Handy beam with only one hand and Daniel seized the opportunity grabbing it with both hands trying to pull it away from him.
Stephanie quickly tighten David Kel's grip and Daniel failed to pull it away.
"Oh come on I just want to look at it!"
"No, we don't have time." David Kel answered as he swung the shield to his back and picked up one of the small 3 inch in diameter rings from the other droid. "And these?"
Catherine picked up a handful of them, walked over to the wall and grabbed a multi-hooked belt. She began to attach the rings to it as she said, "Concussion grenades of sorts. You throw one and the instant it touches something it opens a dimensional door to space. The door will stay open for ten seconds and should suck anyone off their feet. The pressure loss will also likely trick the ship into locking down its bulkheads. If used correctly they should enable you to basically sidestep any fight up to a point at least."
"Ah cool."
Michael grabbed a grenade belt and began to hook rings on it as well. "Yes, Me and Catherine came up with this ideal the other day."
The giant lion's head turned to Steven. "The deployed units have dragged the gate to the designated area. Deploying large dimensional door now."
"Good." Steven grabbed one of the hats and put it on his head. "I've got Harold Mike you get David Kel and Stephanie you get Zephyr."
Michael nodded and he attached the grenadier belt around David Kel's waist.
Harold came to life and picked up a shield as Zephyr hooked the other grenade belt that Catherine had loaded around her waist.
Alf stared intently at the dimensional door. It flickered briefly as it switched and opened to a dark maintenance room on the Alitien's capital.
Harold picked up a shield and the three androids started to walk towards it.
"Hey what about me and Catherine?" Daniel interjected.
Steven opened his eyes. "I want to get through this with as much stealth as possible something you're not capable of so you're not participating in this op. As for Catherine we need her tactical ability so she's going to be using my hacks to guide us through."
With that Steven closed his eyes and Harold led David Kel and Zephyr through the door.
The dimensional door closed.
Catherine walked up to it and put her hand on it. It flickered back to life this time connecting to the bridge. She kissed Daniel on the forehead. "Sorry honey." Then ran through the dimensional door to the commander seat.
**
"Can you hear me?" Catherine's voice asked in the androids ears.
"Yes we can hear you fine." Harold answered back.
"Okay first switch to infrared and tell me what you see."
Harold blinked his eyes switching them to infrared. He moved his head as he looked around for a bit then said, "There's a lot of heat sources but I think I can make at which ones are humans."
"Good, I was hoping you'd say that. There's hundreds of cameras and it's kind of hard to comprehend what's what so tell me if I'm about to guide you into place with someone standing in it."
"Will do."
"Okay the area you are now in has two doors you guys need to climb up and take the top left one."
Harold David Kel and Zephyr made their way up a small maintenance latter and to the door Catherine had indicated. It led to a tool room of some sort.
"Okay now the door in front of you leads to a long-hallway on my mark I'm going to put a loop on all of its cameras and you need to run to private residence 489."
"Whoa, wait the capital has private residence inside it?" Zephyr asked.
Harold reached out and put his hand over her mouth. "Not so loud, and yes it's like a giant super luxury colony. The more official perimeters of it are towards the center."
"I thought this was more like a giant warship." Michael argued.
"It's supposed to be but well.. You know government."
"Ah."
Catherine's voice whispered, "Are you guys ready?"
"Wait, what if someone comes in the hallway while we were making a run for." Zephyr asked.
"I'm watching all the doors and from what I can tell there only seems to be like three people in the section of the ship. I'd say most of them have been evacuated towards the safer areas of the middle or off the ship completely."
"Good to know." Harold said. "Were ready."
"Okay... There. The loop is in place go."
David Kel pushed open the door and they began to run down the hall.
"211.. 237.. 273.." Harold silently read the giant ornamental numbers above each resident.
"Wait, looks like someone is coming out of 345."
"What do we do?"
"Tell your clothes to change into casual wear and Stephanie walk in front, hand your shield and grenade belt to Harold. Than you two try to hide your equipment behind her."
"I don't know how to change my clothes." Michael said anxiously.
Steven turned Harold to David Kel as his clothes changed into a black suit. "Look at what I have on now visualize it in your mind then command your clothes to change."
David Kel's clothes finished changing just as a door 100 feet down opened and a young man wearing a fancy silver suit stepped out.
He looked back towards them and seeing Zephyr said, "Ah I thought I was the only one that hadn't evacuated."
"So was I. Why haven't you evacuated?" Zephyr answered back cheerfully.
"Haha I'm not one to be scared by such random scare tactics."
"Scare tactics?"
The man took a relaxed posed by his door as he waited for them to walk closer. "Yes indeed. This ship is impenetrable it take two fleets to get to us. As I see it that trick with the stealth ships of theirs accomplished exactly what they wanted, getting everyone to gather in the middle freaking out."
"Really?"
"Yeah and I know exactly what they're going to do next."
Zephyr stopped walking a few feet in front of him and flashed him a beautiful smile. "Oh?"
The man smiled back flirtatiously. "They will have someone on the inside stage a bomb or some such. And all those morons will freak out and run for their private escape pods. At which point one of the new hired frigates will break formation and scooped them up taking them right into their hands."
"Interesting theory. Though I doubt they would get away with it."
"Well we'll see. In the meantime though how about joining me for a cup of coffee."
Michael accidentally made David Kel glare at the man.
The man put up his hands "whoa easy there bud..." The man's eyes noticed the strange weapon David Kel was holding."
Zephyr stepped directly in front of him cutting off his view. "Don't mind my body guard I just want to be prepared if something does happen. And I do think I'll take you up on that offer."
The man beamed and Zephyr started to walk forward again. But as the man went to close his door and fall in beside her she reached out and brought her fist down hard on his head.
The hapless man crumpled to the floor unconscious.
"His door, get it before it closes."
Michael understood and quickly pushed the door all the way open before it closed.
Zephyr dragged the men back into the room then quickly scanned the area. Seeing the liquor cabinet she ran over and grabbed a bottle and put a little bit on the man's shirt and into his mouth then set it down beside his hand.
"Good thinking with any luck he won't have a clue to exactly what happened." Harold said as they quickly exited the room and ran down the hallway.
"I'm counting on that."
They shortly reached 489 but it was locked.
"Give me a second, Alf had, had it open a few minutes ago but it must've autolock while you dealt with that man."
"Unlocked." Alf's voice informed them all a second later.
Harold quickly opened the door and they stepped in to a majestic foyer.
Zephyr looked around and coughed, "This is a mansion! On the capital ship no less."
Harold walked into another room "I don't even want to think about what something like this would cost." Steven said bitterly.
"Let's not think about it. Where to next Catherine?"
"This residence has a private shuttle system to the outer area of the Center ship. There is an access point in the room next to where Harold is right now."
"Yep found it." Harold answered as he climbed into a small gilded mag shuttle.
The others quickly joined him and he activated it.
They were sucked along and soon the private tube join to the much larger public one. Another mag capsule came in behind and Zephyr could see people in it.
"That's not going to be a problem is it?"
"No there routed to another port. And you're shuttle is registered as private so there's no cameras inside it other than the residents own cameras."
"Good."
After a bit their shuttle began to slow down. "Okay coming at a rather public area that's currently empty but I doubt that it'll be that way for long so you need to get to a room that's three doors down into the right as fast as possible."
The shuttle came to a stop and the door slid back. They jumped up and dashed down the hall. "There that door."
David Kel opened it and they all quickly stepped inside. From the looks of it, it was some type of elaborate waiting chamber.
There was about a minute of silence as they waited for Catherine to tell them what the next.
Finally Harold said, "Something wrong?"
"Sort of. From here on out the floor you are on is completely crowded and most of them look like governmental security. I don't see a way to get you through.. them... Do me a favor user x-rays to see what's beneath you would you?"
"Sure." Harold blinked his eye switching to x-ray vision then blinked again switching to infrared trying to figure out what he was seeing beneath him. "That's weird. What do you guys make it?"
Zephyr shrugged. "I don't know it's weird."
"I think it's a giant freezer of some sort." David Kel said.
"A freezer you say? ..... Ah found it. It is a freezer. It's part of the capital ship's food court. Give me a sec."
"Alright from the looks of it I can get you a good bit closer to where the president should be at if you can get down in there. But you need to do it quietly there is a large group of people coming down the way you are just in."
"I guess jamming my fist down through the floor is out of the question then?" Zephyr asked.
"Definitely. How about we use this?" Michael said tapping the Handy beam.
"Yeah that will work but it set at too high a power right now, give me a sec."
Steven opened his eyes and looked around the training Hall until he saw Daniel sitting by the wall playing a 2-D space Sim on a tablet. "I thought you swore off games."
"I did! But I'm bored. Y'all just left me out of this one! Besides it's not really a game I'm trying to use it to make an animated replica of my awesome space battle so I can put it up on the net."
"Whatever. I need you to run down to the factory and turn the power on the beam cannon down to 1%. It's mounted in the lower end of the factory on the far side of the wall. You'll know it when you see it because it has a special contraption around it to make sure it doesn't go off inside the ship."
"That's a long ways from here. Why don't you go do it?"
"Because I'm in the middle of a combat situation!"
"I'll take over that for you and you go change the power percentage. I don't know where the dang thing is at, you do."
"It's easy you'll know it as soon as you see it."
Michael opened his eyes. "Please Daniel go do it."
"Aaa. Fine." Daniel sat down the tablet and stood up.
"Wait, on second thought. Use one of the hats and take a droid down instead. That way I can adjust it easy enough if I need to again."
"Yeah, whatever. Give me a sec." Daniel put on one of the hats. A droid sprung to life and ran out of the room.
In a bit Daniel said, "Okay it's there."
"Thank you."
Daniel nodded to Michael, took off his hat and sat back down with his tablet.
Michael switched his attention to the droid Daniel had positioned and turned the power on the beam cannon down to 1% then adjusted the focused on it.
Bringing his attention back to David Kel he took his shield off his back and handed to Zephyr. Walked over and moved a sitting couch. Gripped the Handy beam with both hands and pulled the trigger. A small concentrated beam shot out and he carefully cut out a hole big enough for them to jump down through.
The three of them jumped down through hole, onto one of the racks in the freezer then David Kel reached up and move the couch back in place over top of the hole.
"Okay this place is rather large but basically you want to keep moving to Stephanie's current left."
"All right." David Kel answered as he began to climb down the rack.
"It's a good thing were light." Otherwise this whole shelving system would come tumbling down because of our weight.
They reached the floor and began to make their way through the maze of stacked stored food.
"No go back go to left of that rack." Catherine corrected them
After Catherine had corrected them three or four more times Stephanie angrily said, "Why is this place such a maze and why in the world do these things have such good feeling's I'm freezing!"
"Rub your arms with your hands. It helps some though I'm not sure why. And be careful not to do it too hard and rip your skin off." Steven offered
Zephyr began to rub her arms. "Ah, that does work some but I'm still freezing!"
"How much father do we have to go in here?" David Kel asked.
"I was going to take you all the way to the kitchen from here but it might be better for you to cut a hole in the wall to the gardens. Though to be honest with you if I knew how to hack and control the robotic cane system in there I could get you through it a lot quicker."
"Naw it's better for you not to touch it. We want to make as little disturbance as possible." David Kel said.
"That's easy for you to say." Zephyr complained her teeth actually starting to chatter. "I'm about to take my hat off and give it to Daniel."
"I was thinking the same thing. After this I think I'm going to look into putting on some type of feedback limiter."
"Alright I'll get you out... Turned to your right, follow the rack until you can turn right again and you should be in an aisle that'll let you go straight to the wall now."
All three of them turned followed the rack then practically ran down the aisle until they came to the wall.
David Kel quickly brought up the Handy beam and began to cut a hole through the wall.
"Cut at a tilted angle so you can jam it back in from the other side." Harold said.
David Kel nodded and soon there was a hole big enough for them to crawl through which all three of them quickly did.
They found themselves in a massive hydroponic garden.
"Wow talk about one extreme from the next. It's got to be at least 85° in here!" Zephyr exclaimed.
Michael picked up the heavy metal chunk he had cut out and shoved it into the hole they had just come through. "Well at least the extreme humidity in here shouldn't affect us."
"From there you should be able to follow the freezer wall until you get into the kitchen."
Harold scanned the area with x-ray then again with infrared. "There's no one currently in here so let's make a dash for it."
They sprinted down the narrow path along the wall without incident.
David Kel pushed his back against the kitchen wall and scanned the kitchen area. Just like the garden and the freezer it was a massive area but strangely there was no one in it. "How come the kitchen is completely empty? You'd think that a ship like this would always be serving food no matter what time of day it was."
"Yes something about this seems off." Zephyr added.
Alf's voice came through the channel. "Actually as Catherine has been guiding you I've been going through the capital systems and apparently right now they have all staff under arrest and their being retained. 'Under suspicion of collaborating with the lionhearted.'"
Stephanie opened her eyes and she whistled. "Wow talk about extremes."
Michael opened his own eyes. "Well when someone threatens the highest official of the government such extremes probably should be expected." Michael looked out towards the middle of the training room and spoke to no one in specific. "Will they be okay there?"
Alf's hologram appeared. "Yes I believe so. In fact I believe it's the safest place for them seeing that each and every single one of them will have an excellent alibi when we do take off with their president."
"Good point." Michael closed his eyes and David Kel said, "All right let's go."
Catherine quickly and efficiently led them through the kitchen. They were about to where they were going to cut through the wall when they rounded a corner to see the backside of a man.
All three of them quickly jumped back around the corner and Steven quietly hissed. "I thought you said there was no one here."
"There wasn't and there shouldn't be. He did not appear on any cameras until a second ago."
"Who's there?" The man shouted.
"He came out of one of the ovens." Alf's voice informed them.
"I know there's someone there, if you don't show yourself right now I'm going to call for the guards and they are freaked out. I'd hate to see what they do to someone that was sneaking around right now."
"Came out of an oven?" Harold whispered.
Zephyr put her finger to her lips and mouthed the words "I'll take care of this."
Stephanie opened one of her eyes. "Alf get face recognition on this guy I want to know his name right away."
Zephyr walked around the corner. "It's just me."
The man stared at her. "Who are you?!"
Zephyr's face displayed a rather convincing hurt look. "What do you mean who am I? It's me! You can't tell me you forgot about me!"
The man looked at her completely dumbfounded.
Alf's hologram displayed the man's name 'Artemis James Zagermon'. Stephanie nodded and closed her eye.
Zephyr took a step forward. "Artie."
"I ah.. I"
The look on Zephyr's face change from one of hurt to one of anger. "Artemis James Zagermon you had better not have forgotten about me!"
Now the poor man became really flustered. "No.. No. I di.. I didn't forget about you. It's just that well. You're not supposed to be in here."
Zephyr advanced on the poor man with her fist raised. "You did forget about me!"
The man put both of his hands up and began to back away. "No no no I didn't."
Zephyr took two more giant steps and pop the guy in the head. He crumpled to the floor unconscious.
Daniel who had been watching via hologram screen stood up and said, "Now that was just cruel."
Harold peaked around the corner and looked at the poor man. "Brutal."
David Kel came around the corner shaking his head disapprovingly.
Stephanie was smiling ear from ear as she opened her eyes and shouted through the dimensional door to Catherine, "Leave the camera recording on that one. If someone finds him unconscious they will look over the camera record and think he was just poped by an angry ex-girlfriend."
"Wait." Michael interjected. "That doesn't sound like a good ideal."
Steven took off the hat and scratched his head. "Well what else are we going to do with him? Thrown him back in the oven?"
"Yes."
Stephanie put her hands on her hips and furled her eyebrows at Michael. "And if someone comes along and turns it on before he wakes up?"
"O I didn't think of that."
Stephanie rolled her eyes as she said, "Catherine."
"Already on it I'll play it over the live system in a sec so if any security officers are watching they will see it. But I need Zephyr to stomp off then after a little bit Harold and David Kel can join you in the room I mentioned earlier."
Stephanie nodded and closed her eyes.
Zephyr puffed up her chest stepped over the guy and stomped out of the room and down the hall.
Harold and David Kel waited for thirty seconds to let Catherine finished the fake dub of the cameras then quickly made their way through the rest of the kitchen and used the handy beam to cut a hole into the next room where Zephyr was waiting.
"Good am glad you guys made it. The walkway is full of people and a guard almost pulled me aside but I made it look like I knew what I was doing when I came in here so he left me alone."
"Then we need to get out here as fast as possible. Catherine where to next?"
Catherine tried to answer but she was laughing too hard.
Stephanie opened her eyes and shouted, "What's so funny?"
"There... hahaha They are..Haahhaa"
Michael opened his eyes. "Catherine?"
"Sorry sorry." She took a deep breath. "Two security guys in the camera room saw the doctored clip I let play of you punching out that poor man and they are watching it over and over again. One of them is laughing so hard his coffee came out his nose and spill all over himself."
"That does sound funny." Steven said as he opened his eyes as well. "But unless we want to have to fight through security we need to get moving right now!"
"Okay give me a sec." Catherine answered back.
There was a minute of silence then a small frustrated sound from Catherine played across the androids hearing.
"What's wrong?" Zephyr asked.
"There's tons of security from this point on in, a few rooms down the controls for the cameras changes to another security room and somehow they keep shutting me out."
"They what?" Harold demanded.
Alf voice played across their hearing. "Sir it appears that they're trying to use our hack to hack my system."
Steven ripped off his hat and threw it to Daniel. "Here you take over I have to deal with this now!"
Daniel happily snatched the hat and plopped it on as Steven ran through the dimensional door to the bridge.
After a few seconds Daniel said, "So what now?"
"Give me a minute! I have to deal with this!"
The little bit of glee that had been left in Catherine drained away. "O NO!"
Steven spun towards her. "What's wrong now?"
"Another security guard walked in and seen them watching the clip and well somehow he instantly recognize Zephyr. He's already contacting security, and there is likely to be an entire military force headed to that area of the ship any second now."