We asked Sot'Quan to be point of reference for some rendez-vous operations between the ships of our fleet. When you have to maneuver in open space having a fixed point to relate to always makes things easier. The Sot'Quan wasn't fixed, but it was massive enough to do the trick.

When we placed most of the fleet near the wounded area of the colony ship, noone had nothing to complain about. We put the Queen Charlotte in the center of the formation and then we started exchanging crates with two of the Teculpa ships, a long boring work, capable to fill a wide area of space with confusion.

During the show, three men went down on the Sot'Quan, EVO-suits and jet-packs. When I approved the plan I didn't know that captain Valtair was going to do the hack by herself, but she came out saying she was the best hacker on the Queen Charlotte. Nothing about her career suggested that, but she said it was just talent, plus few courses about incursion as a cadet.

This time I could just sit down and wait. Yutan was responsible of the fake operation between Teculpa ships while I watch over Valtair from the bridge. I was quite alone because Cassandra was assigned as support and she had to keep headphones on, to help catching signals.

For the first hour we could only see Valtair and the two companions going down on the Sot'Quan, slowly and keeping themselves under the shadow of the ships. When they were near the hull of the colony ship, Indira announced she found a good point to connect and correct her descending trail. I held my breath until the magnetic boots reached the surface of the vessel. After that I experienced a long, terrible moment of silence and then the voice of her.

"You were right"

"Right about what?" I asked.

"This place is full of... ghosts"

"As every battlefield"

"They weren't soldiers. They were... victims"

I thought it was time to share something about my feelings, but Indira suddenly cut the conversation. "We are connected, I'll start breaking the external firewall"

"I see hacking progress from here" said Cassandra.

"It's tender as I expected... but I would need some time"

I checked a moment on Yutan. All the Teculpas appeared very busy to me. "For now, there's no need to rush"

"The crypted stream of communication is still on" Cassandra stated.

Captain Valtair started breathing hard in the mic. "I found a peripheral listening station with updated decrypting protocols. I think I can reach it from here"

"Be careful, I don't want the Rafkin to find you... I don't know what I could say to them..."

She wasn't listening. She stopped talking to me at all. Considering what I heard through the intercom I deduced she was talking to Rafkin computer system itself, getting angry with it and getting angry with the gods that allow it to exist. It was quite a waste of oxygen, but at least she came back with results. "You should start hearing something in 3... 2... 1... now"

Cassandra pushed her headphones against her ears to hear better. "There's something... Teculpa language..."

We let Cassandra listen for a while, then she looked at me, a bit shocked "These are... military reports, sir. Standard communications from a Teculpa fleet, coming from the solar system we were heading to"

At last I demonstrated Rafkins where lying "Can you understand something?"

Cassandra concentrated more. "They're.. the Taus... and they're doing something like... a siege. They're asking for help, but Rafkins are denying it"

Valtair came back online in that moment. "I hope you listened enough because... I fear our time is running out. There's something wrong here... I disconnect."

The intercom stopped transmitting and I came back to the videos, focusing on the little figures of the crew of the Queen Charlotte igniting their jetpacks to come back.

"Do you think is that enough?" asked in the meantime Cassandra, worried "I recorded something more that I will check out but I think I caught the general meaning"

"Have you idea how many ships of Tau are there?"

"The word I think they used was legion"

"A legion... a Teculpa's legion is like... eight cohorts"

"So what?"

"Considering we have half a cohort with us, this means that the Tau outnumber us 16 to 1"