"What the-"
"This shouldn't have been possible." said Tachibana. "Federation electronics have a thousand layers of fail-safe systems."
"Maybe it is this time all one thousand of them are bypassed at the same time." I said. "Not probable, but not impossible either."
"Then, the question gets even harder..." he frowned. "How?"
"We can't do much without power, right?" I said. "Let's work on restoring power right now."
"I assume life support is still online?" he asked.
"Yes." I said. "...hence the calm atmosphere. Life support has it's own battery and energy generator, separate from the main line."
"Hm..." he said. "We need to locate the problem first, so we can ensure the power outage won't happen again."
"It is not likely for us to find the problem without restoring power first, though." I said.
"Right..."
The lights suddenly turned on. Machinery started working again, and the ambient noise came back.
"I turned the power back on." Mei announced through the speakers. "What are you guys doing down th- Wait a minute."
"Mei?"
"I can see-"
The power went out again, only a few seconds after it was restored.
"I am going to the bridge." I said. "Do whatever it takes to restore stable power to the ship."
"Yes, sir, we are on it." said Tachibana. I got out and rushed into the bridge. Mei was sitting inside alone, sweating. Her legs were shaking.
"Mei!"
"It was a trap!" she screamed. "They didn't cut the chase, they are coming. In the short time the power came back on, I saw them on the sensors! The swarm turned around again!"
It was too much of a shock for me to react immediately.
"O-o-okay, I will... Oh, I know, damn it!"
I got out of the bridge and ran (more accurately flew, since artificial gravity did not work) back to the room where we were keeping the data banks.
"Decouple the data banks! Decouple! Quick!" I yelled.
The crew did so, but with a lot of confusion. The energy converter and distributor systems started working again. For the second time, power was restored.
"Good call." Tachibana said, with his usual calm attitude. "But how did you figure out they were the problem?"
"I knew these death cans were smarter than what we were lead to believe." I said. "This is a trap. They wouldn't leave anything behind which would put them at a disadvantage. They knew we, or someone else, would search the debris fields. They knew all along. The data banks were tampere-"
"With respect..." interrupted Tachibana. "Although I agree this is a good theory, it is still a theory. What facts do we have?"
"Either way..." I said. "The buggers are returning."
Tachibana and I returned to the bridge. The rest of the crew went to various other decks.
"Mei, distance." I said.
"38 kilometers, approach speed positive 120 meters per second right now."
"Distance to closest mothership?"
"470 kilometers, approach speed negative 1 kilometers per second."
"Ideas?"
"None." said Mei.
"Nothing yet." said Tachibana.
"Just keep running the engines at full power." I ordered Mei.
"Already doing so." she said.
"Perhaps we could scare them away if we turned around for a fight." Tachibana suggested.
"No, never." I said. "Firstly, they are not animals, they are machines. And secondly, we saw those swarms bring down entire military fleets, Lodos isn't much of a challenge for them. We need something more... clever."
"How can we outsmart these machines?" Mei asked.
"Wait." I said. "What is the maximum acceleration rate of our shuttle?"
"Should be 4.7G, if it is a standart Republic Navy shuttle." said Tachibana.
"Almost twice the rating of Lodos, but just a bit below those of the enemy drones..." I said. "I have an idea."
"I am curious." said Mei.
"We will load the shuttle with explosives and deploy it."
"They will just ignore it." said Tachibana.
"Not if the shuttle targets their mothership." I said.
"The mothership probably has it's own perfect defenses." Tachibana argued. "They won't bother."
"I don't think they would be willing to take that risk." I said. "Besides, if we don't try to play a trick, it means we are dead already. We don't have much to lose."
"Okay..." said Tachibana. "I hate it, but I agree with the plan. However, I see a great problem."
"Which is?"
"When the shuttle is returning to Lodos, the swarm will just follow it and target us again." he said.
"The shuttle won't return." I said.
"We will sacrifice a shuttle and a pilot?" Tachibana asked.
"Not exactly sacrifice." I said. "I was planning for the shuttle to fly by the enemy ship and head to somewhere else afterwards. Shuttles have a decent amount of Delta-V, you know."
"I don't think the pilot will make it out alive." he said. "The swarm will eventually catch up and destroy the shuttle."
"If the shuttle puts enough distance between itself and the mothership before the swarm catches up, I think they will just leave the shuttle alone." I said.
"This is not what they are doing to us right now." Mei said.
"We are not accelerating good enough, that's why." I said.
"So, we are running out of time." Tachibana warned us. "I will fly the shuttle."
"No." I said. "I know how appealing suicide missions look to you, but I am-"
"I said I will fly, Mr. President." he said and got out. I couldn't bring myself to stop him this time.
"Have a nice flight."
For the duration the shuttle was preparing for it's flight, Mei launched a few flak missiles towards the swarm chasing us to gain some time. All but just two drones managed to evade the fragment streams, over and over again.
"I am opening the hangar bay." Mei said eventually. "Good luck, Tachibana."
"You too." Tachibana said. The shuttle left the hangar bay, bumping into the hangar bay door on it's way. It then turned around and started accelerating to fly past the drone swarm. The drones ignored the shuttle at first, but after around half a minute, they cut the chase and turned around to intercept Tachibana. But, by then, Tachibana had gained a lot of distance and speed relative to the swarm already.
"They are on your tail now." said Mei. "Godspeed."
"Yes, Admiral." he said.
"And don't forget to watch for the mothership's own defenses." I added.
"Of course, Mr. President."
Mei and I were now holding our breath, watching Tachibana on our 3D maps.