Once the clearance was given, Nico led a five-interceptor wing down to the surface. If the spies wanted to run once they caught sight of the attack vessels, she didn't want to risk that they would be more maneuverable than she was and get away before she could do anything.
With the extra four interceptors, they could make a proper containment pattern, and their weapons would have a much easier time getting a solid hit.
The Alliance had incredible vessels for their government forces, but the ones that most of the population used were not nearly as impressive, being made to a budget and often with outdated technology, thanks to millennia of peace giving them no reason to update defensive technologies beyond what was needed to handle in-flight threats like space debris.
That's the standard that Nico was hoping that this particular ship, which was shadowing their Terraforming drones, was on.
It didn't change course when they entered the atmosphere, and it didn't respond when they formed up around it, so Nico assumed that they must be quite confident in their cloaking technologies.
"Unknown vessel, you have failed to report to immigration after entering the atmosphere of an inhabited planet. Please disengage your stealth technology and follow us to the city for processing." She demanded, setting her radio to broadcast on a wide range of frequencies, both Human and Alliance.
There was no response, and the ship didn't seem to be responding in any way, not sending out any signals that they could detect, so she tried again.
"Unknown vessel, we have reason to believe that you are engaged in industrial espionage. Disengage your cloaking field now, or we will be forced to treat you as a hostile corporate force."
That seemed to get their attention, and the ship began to drift away from the terraforming drone.
[Hold your Position, I want to see what they do.] Nico ordered her wing as the ship gently glided through the air.
It stopped near another Terraforming Drone and took up the same position, following it around.
"Switching Drones to observe is not a form of compliance. Unknown vessel, lower your cloaking field, or we will take hostile action. This is your last warning." Nico reported.
She ordered her wing to surround the ship again, and this time they got a response, a strong power surge from the hidden vessel that compromised their cloaking field enough that even the most rudimentary of sensors could detect it.
But for the moment, Nico held off. If they were going to make a run for it, she could learn more about the ship's capabilities before they captured it.
It wasn't planning to run, though, and half a second later, a barrage of Lasers blasted out at the Interceptors, and the ship began standard pattern evasive maneuvers.
Unfortunately for them, they were from the most basic of Alliance training manuals, and Nico had long since memorized them. The Interceptors launched a return volley of Disruptor fire, and the ship went crashing to the surface, leaving a deep furrow in the freshly terraformed grassland.
"Hostile Force, surrender now, or you will be summarily eliminated," Nico announced, both over the radio and over the loudspeaker.
There was no response from inside the vessel, so she approached in her Interceptor, then exited the ship, wearing a Tech Adept Harness, and using the gravity control to gently lower herself to the ground before disabling the electronic locks and pulling the hatch open to reveal the interior of the ship.
[Nico to Planetary Command. The crash appears to have been more severe than anticipated. No survivors detected.] She reported as she looked a the mess inside the ship.
By her best guess, the ship didn't have military-grade shields, or they couldn't keep them up with their cloaking field because the Disruptors seemed to have passed right through to the crew of the ship while leaving the hull intact.
That meant the next order of business was twofold. First, find a water hose and clean this place up a bit. Second, start searching their computer records and see what they were up to. Most Alliance vessels would have known to simply comply, and then they could scan the terraforming drones while gathering much less interest.
The patents were a matter of public record to Alliance citizens, but the exact construction method was not, which was the reason that everyone had assumed that they were competitors to begin with.
[Terminus Trading Company Interceptors. This is Constable Dookath of the Alliance law enforcement division. We are incoming with a police contingent to examine the origins of the intruding ship.] The smooth voice of a Valkia informed them over the radio.
[You are welcome to it, Constable. We are quite interested in the origin of this vessel since it's like nothing that we have on record, and there are no surviving crew members to tell us where they might have come from.] Nico replied while she downloaded the entire ship's computer into her Interceptor's storage space to peruse later at her leisure.
She did know a few things already, though. This was not an Alliance vessel, or at least it was not built with any Alliance patent information or a system of origin recorded in its logs.
The crew roster did show Alliance members, though, mostly from the Giant species, though the captain of the ship seemed to be a Volga, who was not an Alliance member, so the ship might be one of theirs.
[Sweet All Mother, what did you do to it? You didn't need to do whatever that was.] The Constable could be heard retching over the voice-activated communicator as he entered the ship.
[Our apologies Constable. It seems that our disruptor technology is incompatible with the shields on that vessel. When used against our own Mecha or ships, that would have only disabled the shields and possibly the drive systems to disable the ship.] She explained.
It wasn't quite a lie. Their own equipment was hardened against attacks by the Disruptor technology. But if they had used it against basically anything else, it would have ended exactly like this. She had even optimized the weapons to do their best to bypass Alliance standard shields.
[We will keep it in mind. Beginning crew identification and cleanup procedures, and then your border patrol may take the ship into quarantine to begin the discovery process on the data they had collected to determine if any crimes other than immigration violations had been committed before this tragic accident.] The Constable informed her with a grim tone.
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