Interstellar Age



The next two weeks on board the corvette were nothing special. Although Heavy maintained a distance from Erich, Erich himself mostly stayed within his quarters or the bridge, where he checked how the ship was functioning. While in quantum, there was not much for Erich to actually do as the pilot, and thus he primarily just fucked around on the Grid. 

This specific corvette was only meant to be manned by a maximum of six people, despite belonging to the smallest class of warships operated by the GSE. It was specifically designed with special operations in mind. Especially those who operated alone while deep behind enemy lines. Because of this, the warship, which was roughly one hundred and fifty-five meters in length, had ample crew space for the men who operated it, including their own personal rooms and bathrooms. 

Because of this, Erich rarely had to interact with his crew, who were now far less friendly to him than they were before. After close to a month of travelling across the galaxy, Erich's ship arrived at the borders of Alfheim Space, near the disputed zone. 

When this happened, Erich took control of the bridge, and began to amplify the stealth technology employed within the corvette with his cyber kinesis. He even allowed Tia to have access to the starship, so she could aid him in this endeavor. 

"Tia, sacrifice 25% of energy dedicated to the shields, and reroute it to the stealth field generator. If we come across a Svartalfheim Patrol, their advanced sensors will easily detect this starship, so at the very least I want our cross section to appear like we're nothing more than a freighter!" 

Tia was currently dressed in military fatigues, as she saluted her Master, and confirmed that she was fulfilling his orders.

"Yes, Sir!"

The naval cosplay was definitely cute, at least from Erich's perspective, and he could not help but smile at the sight of it. As for Erich's team, they regrouped with him on the bridge, and took their individual stations. Now that they were about to enter enemy territory, they all needed to be at the ready for the first sign of combat. 

Ghost was slightly anxious. After all, they would have to elude the patrols of several patrols from a Galactic power, let alone those of their so called "allies' Right now, the Svartalfheim Federation was on high alert, and was preparing for a war with their Light Elven cousins. Needless to say, the disputed systems were currently under strict surveillance. 

Of course, Erich's piloting skills and his foresight were a great way to avoid detection. Thus, he quickly made a quantum jump past the established border of the Alfheim Dominion, and into the disputed territory. 

Immediately upon jumping out of quantum, Erich realized just how unlucky he and his team were. Because they jumped right in front of a Svartalfheim Patrol. Luckily for them, the shape of the ship was concealed as a large freighter, and the signature of the ship was reduced. 

However, it was odd that a freighter would appear in this contested zone so suddenly, and thus, Tia immediately warned Erich, when the Svartalfheim Frigate began to scan their corvette. 

"Master, the enemy is scanning us! What are your orders?"

Erich immediately took control of his console and began to counter-effect the scan by increasing the power to the stealth generator. 

"Sacrifice an additional 25% of power to the engines and use it to boost our stealth generator. We may not be invisible, but if we can fool them into believing that we are a bunch of merchants, then they may not fire upon us!" 

Tia did exactly this, and thus she and Erich worked together to combat the Svartalfheim Frigate from properly scanning their corvette. The next few seconds were one of intense anxiety for Erich and the crew as they waited for the Svartalfheim Patrol to respond. Finally, after several seconds of fear inducing silence, Tia spoke once more. 

"Master, they are hailing us. What should we do?" 

In that moment, Erich took control of the situation and gave Tia the orders which would help him and his team survive. 

"Tell them that our holo communicator is down, and because of that, we can only communicate with voice! If they buy that bullshit, we might just be able to bluff our way out of this."

Tia instantly relayed the message, to which she was happy to announce that the Dark Elves bought the lie, and thus she established a line of voice communication between the Germanic Corvette, and the Svartalfheim Patrol. Immediately a voice appeared, which was translated via the universal translator built into Erich and his crew's NeuroLink. 

"Unidentified vessel, you have entered restricted space. Identify yourselves immediately, or you will be fired upon!" 

Erich silently communicated with Tia with his mind, before responding to the threat. 

"Tia, keep the quantum drive on standby. If they open fire on us, we need to jump immediately!" 

After silently saying this with his mind, Erich opened the voice channel to speak with the Svartalfheim Patrol. Obviously, he could not speak in his native tongue, so he chose to speak in the Elvish language, which was universally spoken across Alfheim, and Svartalfheim space. 

"Don't shoot! We are just a small merchant crew who are fleeing from some pirates which intercepted us in the previous system that we were in. I apologize for entering restricted space, but we were in a hurry and picked the nearest system to jump from. We will be on our way immediately if you allow us to depart." 

This was a reasonable enough excuse, and since the Svartalfheim sensors had failed to pick up any weapons systems with their scanners that were military grade. They ultimately decided to let Erich and his crew jump. 

"Very well. Be on your way. But if I detect you in this system again, I will not be so forgiving..."

Upon hearing this, Erich thanked the Svartalfheim officer, before jumping away. After all, although this was disputed space, it was not the system that Erich and his team were supposed to infiltrate. Thus, they simply continued on their way towards their destination, as if nothing had happened. 

Once they were safely in quantum once more, Ghost approached Erich, and reprimanded him for taking control of the situation, without going through the proper chain of command. 

"What the hell were you thinking? Taking command like that, without even discussing it with me! This is clearly an act of insubordination!"

Erich had long sensed, had enough of Ghost's pissy attitude, and immediately glared at the man before roasting him for failing to act as a leader. 

"Maybe if you stepped up and took command of the situation we were in, I would have followed your orders. But since none of you have cyberkensis, and time was of the essence, I did what I had to do in order to escape from a potentially fatal situation. You should be on your knees thanking me for saving your ass, rather than accusing me of a severe crime!" 

Upon witnessing the growing hostility between Erich and Ghost, JT stepped forward to defuse the situation. 

"Alright, that's enough, you two. Ghost, you know as well as I do that Silber just saved our hides. So how about you show him a bit of respect, rather than threaten him with an explosive collar around his neck?"

JT took accusations of insubordination very seriously, considering the fact that he was currently serving a life sentence because of it. The way his team had been acting towards Erich since he got back from a long absence was simply unacceptable in his mind. And now that Erich had once more proven himself a valued asset of the team, he could honestly not believe Ghost and the others were treating him this way. 

Ghost, on the other hand, was furious that JT would take the side of a race traitor, and was quick to speak against this, causing Heavy and Echo to step forward and choose their sides. 

"You're defending this degenerate! He has no respect for the chain of command! He acts as if he is now a one man firing team! I am in command here, and I will have order in my unit!" 

Heavy stood by Ghost's side. He was obviously still sore towards Erich, especially after the brutal assault he had suffered at the man's hand. However, what shocked both he and Ghost was the fact that the usually silent Echo stood by Erich and JT's side. Where, for the first time since he had joined the unit, he spoke his thoughts aloud. 

"JT is right. Erich's actions were completely justified. If not for him, our stealth generator would have failed to deflect the advanced sensors of the Svartalfheim Frigate, and it would have immediately been discovered that we are a hostile warship. 

You are overstepping your bounds as the commanding officer by threatening to court martial him for insubordination. I understand your disgust towards his sexual preferences, but that is no reason for you, or Heavy to treat him as anything other than a valued asset to our team. I will be reporting you both to our superiors for gross misconduct when we return to Imperial Space."

The entire bridge was stunned by Echo's words. Never before had the man spoken a word, and Ghost had known him for decades. For him to suddenly do so on Erich's behalf, spoke volumes about the situation. Thus, Ghost and Heavy had no choice but to back down.