Opportunity arrived in the form of a sleek black ship, so unlike typical Thalatte design that if it weren't for the ironclad IFF signal being broadcast over a secure line, Trahho Station would have opened fire the moment they picked the incoming vessel up on their sensors.
Which would have ended up damaging the station itself, as the sensors didn't get a ping off the ship until it was close enough that, if destroyed, it would have taken out part of the docking bay in the resultant explosion.
And though the Thalatte military prided itself on secrecy in regards to their development of new technologies they intended to utilize in their goal of galactic conquest, scuttlebutt soon had everyone on the station aware of just what this ship was, as well as who commanded it.
Commandant Aparik Du Auaoy Pha was renowned for their strategy both on and off the battlefield. Like all Thalatte officers, they came from a military family whose service stretched back generations. But unlike many of their peers, Comdt. Aparik had actual had the leadership skills necessary to climb through the ranks on their own merits, rather than relying on their family name to ascend that particular ladder. When a battle needed to be won, Comdt. Aparik would be the one to see it through.
Thalatte battle tactics generally consisted of shock and awe assaults. A large force sent in large numbers to rain down large destruction. "Subtlety" was not a word anyone would use to describe their operations. But there were those within the Thalatte military who took the art of warfare seriously, and learned from those who successfully stood against them. Without the sheer weight of numbers that the Thalatte could rely on when deploying troops, the assorted worlds that they sought to conquer had to resort to fighting smarter, not harder. Hit and run guerrilla warfare was how these races achieved their victories, and so some in the R&D side of the Thalatte military decided to see how that would work for them.
And so a ship was built, entirely against every design tenet of the Thalatte military. Small enough to carry a strike force and their gear, black to blend in visually with the void of space instead of the ostentatious colouring of the rest of the Thalatte fleet, a sleek silhouette meant to go unnoticed instead of a bulky superstructure meant for intimidation as much as defence, and a suite of stealth systems to get it into and out of enemy territory. Smaller than a normal Thalatte destroyer, it bore the engines of a much heavier class of ship, allowing it greater speed and more manoeuvrability than anything else comparable in the fleet. And, unlike other ships of its size, it had its own dedicated subspace engine, meaning it didn't have to rely on either the subspace gates that may or may not be in a system, or ride the wake of jump-capable ships in order to make the jump themselves.
The rumour going around the station was that the Commandant was there to test the ship's capabilities on the front lines, but from where she was working in the engineering room she was assigned to, Chief Khari was learning that this wasn't the whole of it.
Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Ahy Taceu Assa Amaamyn, was leading Comdt. Aparik through the area, pointing out the work being done on several SH-3N Mobile Armour Units, the backbone of most Thalatte armoured units. But as was the case with anyone who came into this particular engineering room, Comdt. Aparik's eye was drawn to the massive Odazaen at the back of the room.
"Well I say, that's a formidable bit of tech, now isn't it?" Comdt. Aparik said appreciatively as they neared the machine in question. Khari fought her every instinct to swivel her ears around to get a better listen, instead keeping them trained on the parts she was repairing. They didn't need to know she was listening in.
"One of the units we snatched out from Meleten lands," Lt. Ahy said proudly, "No doubt it'll be gangbusters on the field of battle." Expeditions into Meleten space with the sole purpose of acquiring Hyttan tech were common enough that it would be easy for the Commandant to believe that this Odazaen was from a more recent expedition, and that it hadn't been sitting idle for more than two GS cycles.
A lie of omission that would immediately come back to bite the Lieutenant, as Comdt. Aparik clapped them on the shoulder, saying, "I should hope so! I'm to assemble a strike team for a test run into Lacertus space, the best mech pilots that can be assembled in such short order. I'd been hoping to get an Odazaen or two, but they're currently deployed too far away to get here by the time my mission starts. Lucky me that you've got one fresh! I'll need it on my ship by week's end."
Lt. Ahy agreed to have it delivered, as they had no other choice, and the pair moved on with the rest of the tour, Comdt. Aparik making other demands for the equipment they'd be needing before they headed out.
The repairs that Khari was working on were simple, mindless things that she could do with her eyes closed, which allowed her the chance to begin brainstorming ways to get both her and the Lieutenant exactly what they wanted.
Hours later, as her shift was coming to its end, she just so happened to pass by Lt. Ahy, who was staring up at the Odazaen that refused to move.
"Should we get the next shift to prepare this thing for deployment?" She asked nonchalantly, a reasonable question one would expect from a member of their staff.
Lt. Ahy made a distressed clicking in the back of their throat, their claws tapping nervously where they were gripping at the tool harness they wore. "It'll be a right mess if we don't, as the Commandant isn't the type to take disobedience lightly. But it'll be a right mess if we do, as the damn thing is as likely to respond to them as it has been to us."
This was exactly the opening Khari had been searching for. Tamping back the excitement flaring through her, she casually said, "We haven't tried Lt. Urt's idea of forcibly energizing the Odazaen with a pilot in the command chair, as it was deemed to dangerous to the pilot themselves."
Lt. Ahy grumbled again before replying, "And we won't try it now. I'll not be risking thalatte lives on that wild idea!"
Like those created by any of the modern races, Thalatte mechs, while powerful, were far from invulnerable. While not indestructible, Odazaen were far more likely to survive an encounter with the enemy, and so only thalatte were permitted to pilot them. Alien lives were far less important than the welfare of their own people, a fact they did nothing to hide. So it was that Khari knew she had Lt. Ahy exactly where she wanted them when she said, "There is an armoured unit on furlough here while they wait for their mechs to be repaired. We could test out Lt. Urt's plan on them."
Not even bothering to turn around and speak to her directly, Lt. Ahy's fidgeting abruptly stopped, and they stood up straighter. "I say, I've just had a real banger of an idea! I need to go confer with Lt. Urt!"
Khari saluted smartly as her commanding officer marched jauntily away, clearly intending on claiming her idea as their own. But she was fine with that.
If it got her what she wanted, she didn't care who took credit for her work.
When she came in for her shift the next morning, Khari learned that things had gone exactly as expected.
Lieutenants Ahy and Urt had summoned the pilots of the furloughed mech unit, intending to have them go through the dangerous procedure of trying to start up the unresponsive Odazaen while it was in the middle of being supercharged.
As Khari had expected, Killzar had volunteered herself to go first, rather than risk the lives of anyone else in her unit.
And exactly as Khari had known, the moment Killzar was sat in the control chair, the Odazaen had come to life around her.
The mood in the engineering room was a mix of elation and disgruntlement. The command staff were thrilled that the stubborn machine was finally in working order, but none too happy that it wasn't their own who was able to control the thing. Apparently they'd tried to swap out for a thalatte pilot once Killzar had gotten it to work, but as it had with anyone who wasn't the deupazing, the Odazaen refused to run for anyone who wasn't her. A more permanent solution to this indignity wouldn't be something those on Trahho Station would be able to rectify, as both Killzar and the Odazaen had already been transferred to Comdt. Aparik's command. It seemed that, along with their military prowess, they were more appreciative of the capabilities of the aliens under Thalatte control. After reading through Killzar's military record, especially impressed with her efforts in saving the TNF Egni several years ago, the Commandant was thrilled to take the Corporal on as the tip of the spear for the unit they were assembling.
The exploits of the Egni also brought vel-Ahllan to the Commandant's attention, and so when the Egni came in to dock that very night, the Sergeant found herself transferred to the new stealth vessel preparing for its first mission. This was a turn of events that Khari hadn't foreseen, and while the compulsion from the Odazaen to find its pilot had been insistent, the one that filled her now was impossible to ignore.
She could see it as sharp and clear as her lived reality - her path to freedom was through that experimental ship.
Through both the Longan Units and the monitoring devices built into the entirety of every Thalatte construction, the movements of alien captives were keenly watched. But as with every system, there were dark spots, loop holes, and other little exploits that allowed for crumbs of secrecy here and there. Using every trick she had at her disposal, she made sure that Marinos and her own names crossed the desk of Comdt. Aparik. For whatever mission they were being sent on, they'd made it clear that they wanted the best, and slaves though they both may be, Marinos and herself were at the tops of their field.
Still, it was with no small amount of relief that Chief Khari accepted her transfer order to the Commandant's command a few days later.
What little personal effect she had were packed up and waiting for departure when her final shift on Trahho Station came to an end. She couldn't even pretend that she would miss the place, not even bothering with a parting glance at the barracks that had been her home for the past handful of years.
The lift she chose to take to the hangar where the Commandant's ship lay waiting was an inconvenient walk away from the barracks, but when the doors to the transport opened with Doctor Marinos already waiting inside, footlocker in hand, any annoyance she had about her roundabout route faded away. Marinos offered nothing more than a polite nod, but the way her dark eyes lit up when they saw the footlocker Khari was carrying spoke volumes.
And if they had to press close together in order to make room for the other passengers who got on the transport? Well, who could fault them for being conscientious commuters. Not separating until they had to get off at their destination, despite there being no one else on the lift for more than a few stops, that was obviously out of preemptive politeness for any potential passengers, nothing more.
After stowing her effects away in the crew quarters on the ship - somehow smaller than the cramped barracks back on Trahho Station - the crew of this new vessel had been assembled in the ship's cargo hold. Like most ships in the galaxy, not just those of Thalatte make, the cargo hold was far larger than what should have fit within anything so small as the stealth ship she was now assigned to. As Khari looked around, she knew that there was room enough in this space for the black ship to dock in here with room to spare. And that was including the 19 SH-3N Mobile Armour Units lining the sides of the room, as well as the larger than average Odazaen.
A feat of subspace physics and engineering, the cargo hold was a piece of folded space kept anchored to the ship itself. Accessible only through dematerialization initiated by the ship it was anchored to, these types of cargo holds were a necessity when space on a ship was in such short supply.
Sadly, they also made for tempting prizes for pirates and the like. Damage a ship in just the right spot, and you would break the complicated mechanisms that kept the folded space of a cargo hold anchored to a ship, and while the resultant unfolding would generally not cause any harm to the cargo held within, it would more often than not completely obliterate the ship it had burst forth from. Khari just hoped that, given the unfamiliarity of this ship on the interstellar scene, no enemy they encountered would guess that they had such a cargo hold, let alone know the right spots to hit to break it out of them.
This morbid line of thinking was pushed to the side when Comdt. Aparik stepped out before the gathered crew, a handful of thalatte officers at their back.
"Welcome, you lucky lot, to the Pelekys!" They gestured out around them, to the ship the cargo hold lay snugly inside, "We'll be off shortly to Lacertus space, to run this vessel through her paces. Bit of a skeleton crew at the moment, but this is a trial run, and we'll know more about our needs once we get underway. Now then, on to the debrief."
For this, Khari allowed herself to tune out. She'd been under Thalatte control long enough to know the rhythm of how these things went: aggrandizing Thalatte achievements, demonizing whatever aliens they were being sent off to tangle with, talk of honour and glory and things that, to someone in captivity, didn't matter in the slightest. Swift victory and superiority and on and on and on, until finally they were dismissed in order to actually go and do their jobs.
One other thing about these folded cargo holds was that they couldn't have all the monitoring devices ubiquitous with Thalatte tech, something about signals and interference that affected how the hold was anchored to the ship. So it was that, partway through Comdt. Aparik's impassioned speech about Thalatte might, Malakh received a ping requesting open communication with another Longan Unit. Such communication would be impossible, dangerously so on a place as highly monitored as Trahho Station, but in here was an entirely different story.
She'd been expecting to hear Marinos' calming voice being projected over the line, but instead she was met with Killzar's cool accusation of, "Your hand was on the piece for this move, wasn't it?"