what was happening now, was in no way ok, it's not like the Sun Federation or the Specter family would care if any unrelated group was attacked, after all, they had their hands full by maintaining the stability of their territory and their vassal civilizations, to be bored enough to police others, especially after they figuratively tried to bite the hand that feeds them
but Daniel was still a child, and right now, even if nobody died yet, since he chose to cause an overload and the people working in that area had all the time to evacuate, he still caused a major economic loss
to make it short, even if he wasn't a bloodthirsty monster or a cold-blooded killer, Daniel definitely wasn't a good, peace-loving person, and as it was seen in the past, he didn't really think much if those he identified as bad people died
at the moment Daniel was lucky that the family hadn't yet realized that something was going on in the background, after all, it wasn't the first time that he started to get lost in his own thoughts and went through a myriad of expressions, especially in this period working on batteries
in any case, the battle between Daniel that was commanding itchy, and the Teddorians that were led by captain Pert had yet to come to an end, they still had an entire fleet protecting their home planet
as much as stealing a fighter was very easy as Itchy just had to jump inside and infect the main computer, the same couldn't be said of bigger ships that had a numerous crew
Daniel's only advantage was that he had the information itchy stole, thanks to it he already knew more or less what kind of weapon these ships had, the good news was that none of them could completely destroy itchy, the nanites were made of a really powerful and durable material that had yet to be identified and their high-fifth-stage weapons couldn't destroy it directly
the bad news was that itchy had no propulsion in zero gravity, if he ended up floating in space it would most likely be game over as the Teddorians could simply push him toward the sun and let gravity do the rest
but at the same time, something didn't seem right, in the past Gregosh bragged that they could build sixth-stage ships easily, so where were they? what was really going on between the Curombian civilization and the Science Liberation Brigade? everything seemed to point out that they were one and the same but Daniel was really confused since the best ships in their fleet were clearly high-fifth-stage, not even peak-fifth-stage
the Itchy fighter was still using his short burst speed and high maneuverability to continue running and dodging when it took a hit on his left side and lost half of his thrust, with few options, itchy divide itself into two and shoot himself with the two torpedoes he had left
he aimed directly at another vital system of the now defenseless space station, so like before the fighters went to take the hit, after all, they couldn't risk it, but surprise surprise there was no explosion and now there were two itchy fighters
this time itchy didn't dodge, his objective was in fact "possessing" the fighters, as he entered the main computer he simply ejected the pilots and turned around
here is when Daniel realized that he should have just taken a bunch of fighters from the start, when he had the chance back in the hangar, instead of taking only one but it was too late now the space station was in full look down, and the fighters were now firmly clamped down to the station after what he pulled before, at this point he could only steal those that were trying to stop him
after what just happened the Teddorians weren't going to make it easy, even if they still failed to identify Itchy it didn't take a genius to understand what this strange lifeform's new objective was
because of this Captain Pert ordered the fighter pilot that seemed so willing to sacrifice themselves to save the space station to stop being heroes and avoid the torpedoes
of course, Daniel's response was to shoot a real torpedo at the empty hangar from which he stole the first fighter, forcing the Teddorian pilots to take the hits for the station again
after lamenting about his youth and inexperience, Daniel ordered the fighters to go in separate directions and continued to use a mix of explosive and transport torpedoes to possess more fighters, scooping up along the way those nanites who were avoided and failed to infect the fighters, that would once again load themself on a torpedo and shoot, in less than ten minutes many fighters were captured and itchy was spreading itself thin
but in any case, Itchy didn't have the chance to continue, Captain Pert still had some experience as he ordered, some ships from the fleet moved to temporarily form a shield to protect the space station, and at that point, he recalled the fighters to make sure the enemy couldn't steal any more than what he already had
so despite what it seemed, Daniel wasn't at an advantage, the bigger ships had energy shields if he shoot nanites at one of them they wouldn't make it past the shield and would end up as floaties
there was only one way to infect the big ones, and it was to destroy the shields before entering, but what would he do if the captain of the ship would activate self-destruction, the only chance for Daniel to win was for itchy to enter the planet Tendor's gravity, at that point victory was assured the nanite could even free fall down and regroup later
the problem was passing through the fleet blockade with some flimsy fighters that had no shield and lousy weaponry, while the Teddorian fleet had access to high-fifth-stage cannons
of course, there was still a chance the fighter had a slower maximum speed but was small and easily maneuverable, if a big ship tried short burst acceleration they would probably end up ramming the ship next to them
so Daniel's new strategy was for the fighters to move in formation, when the big ship would shoot with the cannon, it would take a while to charge and aim, at that point, if necessary he could sacrifice a fighter and shoot the nanites that were controlling it with a torpedo to another itchy fighter, at the end he didn't need the lousy fighters the objective was for most of itchy to enter the planet gravity
and so he started moving toward the planet, making sure that he was always between two of the ships, in this way they either ram into each other or shoot each other, after destroying a fighter the cannon shoot would keep moving forward
like this Daniel managed to slowly move forward, he had to take a very serpentine route, but as he stayed between the ships, their powerful weapons were rendered less effective, as they had to make sure we're they were shooting
but it was still not going very well, apart from the powerful cannons what was really giving trouble to the fighter were the low fourth-stage anti-fighter batteries, as they were made specifically to deal with smaller weaker enemies, their unrelenting shooting that couldn't really make much damage to the shield of the big ships was really making Daniel sweat
once again Daniel lamented about his youth and inexperience, he was so close, but one after the other the itchy fighters were being destroyed by these weak weapons that he wasn't even thinking about while worried about the cannons
if he had time he could use these lousy fighter materials to construct something better, but an itchy construction ability was severely slower compared to the main body, as the number of nanites was the biggest factor, but that is when Daniel remembered something important
at this point he was too close even if he wanted to quit he couldn't, so Daniel decided to stay at the weakest point, right in the middle of the two ships, where they still couldn't shoot the cannon
as he was winning Captain Pert was happily barking orders, this was the first time in a long time that they received such a severe loss from an enemy, and he couldn't wait to capture it, and found out who sent it, he could already smell the "glorious" scent of military merits, as he saw his enemy cornered
but that's where his dreams were crushed, the higher-ups ordered him to destroy the creature and absolutely not attempt capture, they saw this creature move through the external walls of the space station, which were made of one of the sturdiest materials they knew, how could they risk to start it all over again when they were so close to win
as such, a ship moved between the two and charged the cannon, as he saw this Daniel ordered the last two of the last three fighters to shoot the nanites at the fighter closer to the upper left corner, and ordered him to move between a specific set of ships that was in that direction
why was that? of course, this cannon was shooting away from the planet, but on the other hand that other cannon was shooting toward the planet, and as the fighter moved to the other "weak point" the Teddorians didn't lose the chance to open fire
all Daniel had to do at that point was to let itchy shape himself into a hollow bullet riding the cannon energy all the way to the planet's gravity, which would inevitably pull itchy to the planet's surface
as itchy was riding a dragon made of white energy straight to his objective, what he saw in front of him was nothing, a small bullet shoot by a powerful weapon in a zero-gravity environment, at this moment he could even pierce through an energy shield with that kind of velocity even if a ship was fast enough to move in his way
just as Daniel expected the push was enough to reach the planet's gravity and itchy started to fall down to the surface
as Itchy made a small crater on the surface many went to investigate, but at that moment itchy had long burrowed down into the earth waiting for his chance to steal information, sadly, differently from the flimsy security of the personal device and fighters that controlled the people who had physical access giving them more lax cyber security, the civilian and government systems were layers upon layers of security, making it nearly impossible for the current Daniel to access them undetected
because of this, itchy borrowed even deeper and started to wait for Daniel to activate him again in the future, like all of his explorer brothers