They were in orbit around the natives' star.
Sleeth's new personal team had done an admirable job outfitting the expedition with their gadgets and taping together an excellent experimental hull with the latest in battle analysers, cannons and launch tubes. During the preparations they had all moved to one of the “abandoned” wharves, despite them being a public secret. Security was top-notch and they could easily be mistaken for yet another one of the many “black” research projects.
Hidden in plain sight.
Sleeth had also taken along some of that excellent security. No point in leaving behind the risk for accidental leaks. The researchers had monitored the comments on the hunting streams. It seemed that word of the reality of those streams had gone out, though the consensus seemed to be that they were mise-en-scènes. Sleeth had made sure to have those rumours reinforced before they left.
The star was fairly unremarkable. The admiral he had grabbed along still had not lost his air of disapproval, though Sleeth suspected his Ursian bellows were more out of habit by now. The admiral had always performed his job perfectly before and he seemed genuinely interested by now.
“What are the locals like?”
One of the gang answered, “Barely space faring. They seem to be using radio waves for much of their communications.”
“Messy radio waves.”
“Omnidirectional.”
“Wasteful,” Sleeth commented.
“Tell them, not us,” answered the admiral.
“I'd better not.” Sleeth examined the image of the home world. “In all our experience with newly contacted species,” he rotated it to study the social map, “Contact has yet to find one that doesn't get touchy at comments on how they're running things.”
“There.” Another one from the mob pointed at the continent. “The latest streams seem to originate from there.”
“How do you know?” A curious admiral.
“Day-night patterns, local architecture, comparing them to those messy broadcasts of theirs.”
“Doesn't really matter.” Sleeth ordered, “Find the relay station they're likely to be using.”
Aye's answered it from different directions. That gang had taken a fancy to some of the sailors' language, though they skipped most of the formalities.
It took a while, but they found it, and something else.
“A fleet, are you sure?”
“Eleven ships, yes. We have visual confirmation.”
“What!” The admiral exclaimed, “Are you crazy?”
“Don't worry.” The Meercian winked, “We put a bit of special sauce in the drone's stealth systems.” “Almost bumped into them, they did,” chuckled another, “Luckily the AI wasn't taking a nap at the time.” A third one added, “They're frigates.”
The admiral looked suitably impressed, but his expression changed. “It seems,” he looked very disappointed, “that we're going to need reinforcements if we want to catch them.”
“Are we?” Sleeth disagreed.
The admirals eyes widened at that.
“Any markings?” The question was directed to the research gang. The answer was prompt. “Only the streamers' branding.”
An incredulous “You can see those?” from the admiral was answered with, “Mentioned almost bumping into them, didn't I?”
“Didn't think you meant it literally.” Good Ursian, that admiral. He took the Meercians' non-military lack of discipline in stride.
Which still left the problem of dealing with that little fleet. “Admiral, you forget what sort of beings we're dealing with here, hence ...”
The admiral started a scary grin at that.
“... you are authorised to include lethal force in the options for dealing with them.”
A very scary grin. The Meercians all stopped chattering and retreated a step.
The admiral turned to Sleeth. “So it's time to take out the experimentals. You said you great faith in overkill?”
This resulted in a bridge full of excited Meercians. It was not often that they got to directly experience the results of their work. The chattering increased as they found that they could not deny a certain nervousness, now that their own lives depended on their marvels working properly.
“Launch.”
They all felt the recoil from the launches. “Move us in.” Not much else to do, after all. “If the drones could bump into those ships,” again that feeling of almost taking a jump backwards, “without them noticing, let's test how close we can get.” Some more recoil. “Prepare for boarding, Sergeant,” at one of the screens. Another smooth interruption of the ship's acceleration. “Though I suspect,” and another, “that the preparation may be,” and another, “superfluous.” He got answering grins all around as those launches kept their pace.
The Triumvirate could, as of yet, not mass produce those specially stealthed torpedoes. When they could, they would shift the power balance in their corner of the galaxy for a while. A short while, Sleeth suspected as he studied that cloud moving on the display. The competition likely had something equally nasty in the works to balance things out.
Preparing for boarding was, indeed, superfluous for those ships.
The base itself surrendered immediately. When it was secured the research mob joined Sleeth to get a good look inside. They chattered quietly as they examined the cabins. Each held an unconscious being.
“Report.”
“We've been monitoring these beings' mind activity.”
“And?”
“The minds in there are not native to those bodies.”
“Explain.”
“The minds are all from the same species. These bodies are not.”
“You mean?”
“They have swapped minds with the locals for their sick games.”
The admiral asked, “How is that possible?”
“We haven't got a clue.”
He looked horrified. “Can't you swap them back?”
“Nope.”
Sleeth interjected, “They're not likely to thank us if we did.” He looked cheerful. One from the gang agreed, “As far as the natives are concerned, these are all criminals of the worst kind.”
Much better to leave them as is.
“Take them all.” Sleeth looked around. “They'll have to build new lives.”
As for the minds swapped down to the planet ... who cared?